... Is an apposite label with which to head up a collection of seven papers which, between them, refer to and constitute, practically every significant statement there is on the engagement between geography and pragmatism. This is a very unusual opening line. It is all the more strange given that pragmatism is one of the major philosophical achievements of the Anglo-American world where, for more than a century, it has inspired some of the most enduring social, political, economic and aesthetic debates. Yet, despite the relevance of pragmatism to many aspects of human and environmental geography, particularly in the wake of a 'non-representational' turn across the discipline, this style of working has received little attention from geographers. The same could - though to a lesser extent -be said about its impact in other fields. The early forms of pragmatism were linked too closely with emerging American liberalism, and set too easily in opposition to the Continental (European) philosophies, including Marxism, that formed the radical edge of sociological inquiry for much of the 20th century. For this, and other reasons, pragmatism was marginalised even in philosophy, sociology and psychology for many years.
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