Abstract

Pragmatists have maintained, at least since William James and John Dewey, that philosophy should be relevant to life. Yet pragmatists themselves have often been stuck in debating matters whose practical relevance is limited, including the question who has a right to be called “a pragmatist”. John Lachs, for decades an original voice in American philosophy, has repeatedly argued that philosophy ought to be reconnected with life, and in his new book he forcefully continues this line of argument. The volume seems to be somewhat hastily woven together out of originally separate writings not always closely related to each other, and the lack of an index is a handicap in any scholarly monograph, but even with these..