4 Holmes and Legal Pragmatism

Abstract

Oliver Wendell Holmes is the great oracle of American legal thought, but as with other oracles his message is subject to much dispute. The new philosophical interpretation of pragmatism stresses certain ways in which it departs from and undermines orthodox scientific empiricism, particularly in its focus on human inquiry as a culturally situated form of activity. Holmes was a member of the first generation of American lawyers to be much influenced by the utilitarian positivism of the analytical jurists. The differences between pragmatist and positivist theories of knowledge are, the background against which one can show that Holmes took legal thought beyond analytical positivism, in a distinctively pragmatist direction. Pragmatism was not only a theory; it was also an important movement, originating with Charles Sanders Peirce, later led by William James, and then by John Dewey. Holmes criticized the pragmatists not only for softness toward religion, but also for philistinism.Keywords: Charles Sanders Peirce; Holmes; John Dewey; legal pragmatism; William James

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 41 citations exist upstream.