What Pragmatism Was

Sorts out the rather muddled variety of ways the idea of pragmatism is used in academe and in public life and looks back at what pragmatism was to help establish some parameters for understanding what it has become and how it can be more effective.

~Nathan Houser, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis

An insightful reading of the similarities and differences between pragmatism as it was developed by William James and pragmatism as C. S. Peirce developed it. Identifying these two strands of pragmatism provides Burke with an analytical tool for placing pragmatism in relation to the work of Carnap, Quine, and more recent neo-pragmatists and for offering a clarification of what it means to be a pragmatist in the present world.

~Scott Pratt, University of Oregon

What Pragmatism Was makes an important contribution to our understanding of pragmatism. Burke's prose is lucid and precise, and his scholarship is first rate. His book is to be strongly recommended to those interested in pragmatism and its history. It would also be useful as secondary reading for undergraduate and graduate classes in Pragmatism.

~Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

Highly recommended.

~Choice

[This] is . . . a work from which all pragmatists can and, I would add most certainly should, learn.

~Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society