Pragmatism and Closure

Discussion to be added

Margolis‘ (2010) recounts the triumph of Dewey‘s pragmatism and constructivism as a synthesis of analytic and continental philosophy, and, in doing so, incidentally provides philosophical foundations for PCP. Kelly‘s achievement of extracting the essence of Dewey‘s notion that human psychology is characterized by our anticipation of the future, ruthlessly excising all associated notions, such as learning, motivation and affect, as deriving from this, and formulating this as a rigorous theoretical psychology and a powerful applied psychology, is a significant contribution

Kelly operationalized Dewey‘s ideas to provide the foundations for his own clinical psychology but, in doing so, he also provided a comprehensive rigorous model of pragmatic constructivism that others are only now beginning to rediscover.

by Brian R. Gaines University of Victoria gaines@uvic.ca

Refs: Margolis, J. (2010). Pragmatism's Advantage: American and European Philosophy at the End of the Twentieth Century. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.