Abstract

This chapter examines Putnam's views on Pragmatism and points out that, according to this philosopher, metaphysical pluralism, i. e. antiessentialism, is not only the distinguishing feature of this philosophical trend, but also a feature that makes impossible to reconcile Pragmatism with what Putnam calls the Absolute Conception of Reality, a view he attributes to Bernard Williams. After calling the reader's attention towards how far is Putnam from adopting the Peirce Principle, which Dewey thought it to resume Pragmatism's main substance, it is argued that this principle naturally fits in with two ingredients of the Absolute Conception, namely the transcendence requirement and the convergence requirement. Finally, the chapter claims that there are two different interpretations of the Peirce Principle, i.e.a verificationist reading and a non-verificationist one, and holds that the transcendence and convergence requirements were already present in Dewey's work on education