Pragmatism as a communication-theoretical tradition

an assessment of Craig's proposal

Mats Bergman

in: Pragmatism and the social sciences 2, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 4 (1), 2012.

Abstract

Of recent attempts to appropriate pragmatism for communication studies, Robert Craig’s inclusion of a pragmatist “tradition” in his influential “metamodel” of communication theoriesconstitutes one of the most prominent proposals to date. In this model, pragmatism is principally understood by contrast to other alternatives, such as phenomenology, semiotics, and rhetoric. As a communication-theoretical tradition in Craig’s sense, the pragmatist approach is expected to provide distinctive articulations of the nature of communication and communication problems, expressed in a particular vocabulary. Useful as such a partitioning may be for analytical and dialogical purposes, the delimitation of pragmatism that emerges from Craig’s efforts is in many respects problematic. After a summary of the background assumptions and disciplinary aims of Craig’s project, this article identifies three serious weaknesses in his account: its neglect of relevant intra-tradition distinctions and debates, its straightforward association of pragmatism with a strongly constitutive approach to communication, and its tendency to disconnect pragmatism from other communication-theoretical positions in ways that are not conducive to his objectives. This discussion highlights the contrast between Craig’s constructionist instrumentalism and the habit-realism of the classical pragmatisms of Peirce and Dewey.

Cited authors

Dewey John

Peirce Charles Sanders

Craig Robert