James Gibson was not exactly helpful about explaining where he was coming from. He was puzzlingly, sometimes shockingly, unwilling to explain his sources, such as Harvey Carr's “ground theory” and (perhaps) Grindley in relation to optic flow. Harry Heft makes a strong case in his book, Ecological Psychology in Context , for placing Gibson in the tradition of radical realism. In this chapter, however, I want to argue that Gibson can also be regarded as a reluctant pragmatist. (William James was a pioneer of both traditions.) The attraction for me in taking Gibson for a pragmatist is that it emphasizes the primacy of action rather than perception, and hence takes us beyond the commitment of much of Western philosophy to a paralytic's approach to epistemology (or even the very categories of epistemology vs. ontology). I conclude by cheekily suggesting that Harry Heft and I agree (I think!) on one thing: Gibson was not really a realist.
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