Radical Instrumentalism

First, let me make a mea culpa. I am being fast and loose with the concept of instrumentalism. Postmodernists as a group push the limit of that concept. Instrumentalism is a philosophical doctrine within empiricism that judges a theory by its explanatory power. It is only a step from that to the radical instrumentalism that Dewey himself decried of an epistemology that states that we do not 'know' reality, only our perception of it.

Throw in modified Kantian 'hardwired' concepts, once again fast and loose, and you have my position in which I am borrowing a term from a rigorous empiricist and expanding and modifying it to 'explain' phenomena. Would Dewey object? Absolutely. He drew the line at such epistemological exercise. It is only with Kuhn that the boundary of pragmatism is extended beyond empiricism into the mechanics of mind and the limits of the possible.

Would Dewey understand? Absolutely. As we move to the convergence of Information Theory there is no question that pragmatism has been altered out of all recognition by an organic evolution of truth. He would be dismayed at the lack of a general purpose which he equated with meaning but he would accept individual purpose as meaningful which is the art of postmodernism.

Do good and be well.