Philosophy of pragmatism: from epistemological to liberal theories

Abstract

The article examines the connection between the epistemological theories of pragmatist philosophers and their liberal projects. The American philosophy of pragmatism was devalued on Ukrainian territory throughout almost the entire 20th century. This influential intellectual tradition was considered hostile to Soviet ideologues even in the theoretical sections of philosophy, in the field of understanding human knowledge, needless to say about the political philosophy of pragmatists. Considering this circumstance, an important task of the Ukrainian humanitarian community today is the holistic presentation of the philosophy of pragmatism in the national discourse and the development of those efforts that have been made in the last decades of independence. Using conceptual and comparative analysis, this study highlights the peculiarities of epistemological and political theories of such representatives of pragmatism as John Dewey and Richard Rorty. These two American philosophers not only proposed two versions of pragmatic epistemology, but also developed corresponding liberal theories. It is shown that for Dewey, naturalistic epistemology led to the criticism of traditional liberalism with its legitimation of inequality, as well as to the reconstruction of liberalism, rethinking the role of the individual, the community and the state in the process of social change. In contrast, Rorty, who interpreted pragmatism in the spirit of postmodernism and was interested in the destruction of traditional concepts, carried out a re-description of liberalism, the purpose of which was to refuse to attribute other goals to this ideology, except for the protection of individual freedom and privacy. In this way, American philosophers formed two original lines of pragmatic liberalism, which became part of the wider ideological discussions of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.