What if the only valid way to measure truth is by what it actually does in the real world? This deep dive explores pragmatism, the uniquely American philosophical tradition born in 1870s Cambridge, Massachusetts, when Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey gathered in the ironically named Metaphysical Club. We unpack Peirce's pragmatic maxim, his rejection of Descartes' feigned doubt, and William James's famously controversial claim that truth has cash value.

From there we follow the movement into ethics and society, including James's will to believe, Dewey's insistence that education is life, and Jane Addams putting pragmatist ideas to work at Hull House in Chicago. We look at the sharp critiques from Arthur Lovejoy, Bertrand Russell, and Richard Hofstadter, the post-war eclipse under logical positivism, and the neopragmatis ...