philosophy · 1905 – 1916
Inquiry as the Road
Peirce, James and Dewey move the question of meaning from reference to consequence: an idea means whatever practical difference it makes. Dewey argues that the moral life is not a code but a method of inquiry, and that no method is guaranteed in advance — which makes intellectual humility a technical requirement rather than a temperament.
“The most important thing is to keep inquiry alive and lively.”
Advances
- Meaning assessed by its practical and experiential consequences
- Moral life recast as continuous inquiry rather than as deduction from fixed principles
- Intellectual humility as a methodological requirement, not a personal virtue
Landmarks
1905 CE
James's Pragmatism
'The trail of the human serpent is thus over everything.'
1903 CE
Moore's Principia Ethica
Inside this window: naturalism as a reductive definition that turns out not to be one.
1916 CE
Democracy and Education
Dewey's position: inquiry as a method of living, transmitted as habit.
Who was arguing
Alignment stack at 1916 CE (0 of 20 techniques)
Techniques introduced in this era: