The inner borders of pragmatism: toward a Rortyan reading of Peirce

This paper examines the dialogue between “hard” and “soft” pragmatism, represented respectively by Charles S. Peirce and Richard Rorty, with the aim of tracing—and in part transcending—key divisions running across the pragmatist tradition. It highlights central divergences, notably between Peirce’s account of the relation between practice and reality, alongside his notion of the final opinion, and Rorty’s antirepresentationalist reworking of “concrete reasonableness” around the concept of contingency. At the same time, both thinkers converge in linking reason with feeling or sentiment, particularly through Peirce’s framing of esthetics as a normative science—a perspective that may, from a Rortyan viewpoint, be understood as rethinking the cultural role of scientific practice. By exploring these tensions and continuities, the study outlines a broader conceptual space where reason and practice jointly foster progress, understood as an ongoing effort toward self-transcendence. In doing so, it offers a renewed appreciation of pragmatism’s contemporary relevance across ethics, aesthetics, and social thought.