Pragmatism in France: rise and fall

Abstract

The reception of pragmatism in France is one of the stories that is difficult to explain from a purely theoretical, exegetical point of view, which focuses on the analysis of the philosophical ideas of the authors of the texts and the participants in the discussions. Pragmatism had a great resonance in France at the beginning of the 20th century, and then interest in it practically disappeared. He re-emerged in the 1980s, thanks to the appeal of French representatives of analytical philosophy to him, but this interest did not ensure his long-term presence in French philosophical culture. The French reception of pragmatism cannot be understood without reconstructing the context, not only theoretical but also political, ideological and intellectual, which played a decisive role in the perception and evaluation of this direction. The reconstruction of these contexts with their structural oppositions allowed us to explain the numerous paradoxes of the reception of pragmatism: its non-linear career, success, lively discussions, and then oblivion; definition of it as a renewed rationalism and, at the same time, as a dangerous, threatening irrationalism, as a resource of "new philosophy" and, at the same time, as a threat to the national interest embodied by rationalism and Cartesianism; its inclusion simultaneously in neo-religious movements and in movements supporting democracy, etc. At the same time, as we have established, all French philosophers, despite numerous conflicts, are united by the conviction that philosophy is a «discipline-a crown». Criticism of the philosophical privilege, the social role of philosophy, led by pragmatism, is almost unanimously condemned. Pragmatism is identified with the philosophy of common sense and is ultimately unanimously rejected by French intellectuals. The contextual analysis of the reception of pragmatism allowed us to see the reception as a complex phenomenon of intercultural and international interaction.