Pragmatism Returns to Princeton: Appiah’s New Book

Below is a working rough draft of a review essay I am writing on Appiah’s new Experiments in Ethics (Harvard UP, 2008). As my title here suggests, I discern more than just a shade of pragmatism in Appiah’s ‘experimental philosophy’. I’ve thought for awhile now that Appiah was headed toward a kind of pragmatism, for instance in his The Ethics of Identity (Princeton UP, 2005). The point though is not to show that James, Dewey, and Rorty ‘got there first’ but rather to show how the pragmatists can help the experimentalists achieve the sort of interdisciplinary philosophical practice they seem to be aiming for. The piece is a little long (3000 words) so you may just want to skim it.