On the Limits of the Term "Pragmatism"

Cheryl Misak argues that the link between belief and action is a pragmatist hallmark, and so extends the reach of the term 'pragmatist' to a surprisingly wide and varied group of philosophers. In this essay, I first show that this hallmark extends the term 'pragmatist' to William Kingdon Clifford and his case for evidentialism. This, I argue, is a salutary extension. One difficulty with the version of the pragmatist criterion of belief Misak posits is that it is ambiguous between content and sincerity interpretations, and I argue that the content view must be in place for the pragmatist theory of belief to be properly related to the pragmatist theory of truth.