Morton White's philosophy of culture: Holistic pragmatism and interdisciplinary inquiry

In: Human affairs: HA ; postdisciplinary humanities & social sciences quarterly, Band 21, Heft 2, S. 140-156

Abstract

This paper explicates and defends Morton White's holistic pragmatism, the view that descriptive and normative statements form a "seamless web" which must be tested as a "unified whole". This position, originally formulated as a methodological and epistemic principle, can be extended into a more general philosophy of culture, as White himself has shown in his book, A Philosophy of Culture (2002). On the basis of holistic pragmatism, the paper also offers a pragmatist conception of metaphilosophy and defends the need for interdisciplinary inquiry.