Author(s): Darrell Falconburg

Presentation: oral

Historians of the Catholic response to modernity have paid little attention to the challenge that pragmatism posed to the Progressive era Church. Therefore, this paper will focus on the Catholic opposition to the “pragmatic attitude” that appealed to American intellectuals during the Progressive Era. Catholics believed that modern philosophy was separating man not only from universal truth but even from God himself. Modern thought, they understood, was tending ever more towards secularization, man-centered morality, Darwinism, empiricism, freedom from religious dogmas, and the rejection of moral absolutes. Pragmatism, possibly the most widely influential philosophy in the United States, was also seen, as were most other modern philosophies, as antithetical to the universal teachings of the Church. It is for these reasons -- both the prominence of pragmatism and the implications which stemmed from it -- that Catholic intellectuals opposed the pragmatist philosophy with such vigor. In this essay, I will demonstrate 1) why Catholic intellectuals were so hostile to William James’ pragmatism; 2) how Catholics responded to pragmatism, focusing mainly on the Neo-Scholastic revival in the United States; and 3) the impact pragmatism had on the Progressive era Church.

The College of Idaho     2112 Cleveland Blvd Caldwell, ID  8360     USA 208-459-5011    800-2C-IDAHO