"Burke examines the philosophies of William James and Charles S. Peirce to determine how certain maxims of pragmatism originated. He contrasts pragmatism as a certain set of beliefs or actions with pragmatism as simply a methodology. He unravels the complex history of this philosophical tradition and discusses contemporary conceptions of pragmatism found in current U.S. political discourse and explains what this quintessentially American philosophy...

"In his diaries, the American philosopher and psychologist William James, for whom the personal and the philosophical were never far apart, recounted how in his late twenties he was confronted with existential despair regarding the issue of free will: do humans have the capacity to act freely and meaningfully? James famously decided that his "first act of free will is to believe in free will," and declared that, "if you can change your mind, you can...