Abstract

While still by no means a mainstream approach to philosophy, pragmatism has become an important point of departure for philosophers and scientists working in various fields in the Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden –, spurring active collaboration. This contemporary pragmatist renaissance is underwritten by a history of various strains of influence and receptions of pragmatist ideas. I will begin by pointing out a little noted fact: that two figures central to the development of early pragmatism – F. C. S. Schiller and John Elof Boodin – were born in what was then the Nordic region. Secondly, I will consider the Nordic reception of pragmatism. This reception, as we will see, closely follows the main lines of the European discussion of pragmatism: an initial interest in pragmatist views – especially William James’s pragmatism – during the first decades of the 20th century was eclipsed by the rising logical positivism in the 1930s, and pragmatist ideas were read through a positivist lense. Only beginning in the 1970s a serious reconsideration of pragmatist ideas started to take place, spurred by a novel interest in both historical and contemporary philosophers and scientists who have called themselves pragmatists.