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Experience and Critique.

Placing Pragmatism in Modern Philosophy

1. Intro
Pragmatism is a well-known philosophical approach, and the label
'pragmatism' is attached to a wide variety of positions, ranging from
Richard Rorty's linguistic pragmatism to Quine's post-empiricist philosophy. ((Bernstein; Pihlstrhm)) Some authors, such as Robert Brandom, do even take authors as diverse as Wittgenstein and Heidegger
to be all fellow pragmatists. The main point of pragmatism, according
to this broad understanding, is a rejection of the idea that there is a
metaphysical point of view from which we could reflect on the world.
Instead, we have to explain, as Cheryl Misak puts it, "our practices
and concepts, including our epistemic norms and standards, using
those very practices, concepts, norms, and standards." (Misak 2013:
252) Pragmatism, in short, stands for a practice-oriented, anti-foundationalist and anti-cartesian style of thinking.
This wide understanding actually says more about pragmatism's
place in modernity than about pragmatism itself. Anyone even faintly
acquainted with modern philosophy will recognize that this description does not only apply to pragmatism proper. It is rather a pragmatist
revision of a common modern theme, which can be traced back to
Kant: Human reason is determined and bound by nothing but itself.
I will argue that we can find a much more specific contribution of
pragmatism to this modern theme, one which differentiates it more
reliably from other approaches. This specific difference has to be
sought in pragmatism's insistence on the irreducibly immediate dimension of experience. Concepts like Peirce's "secondness" or Dewey's distinctions between 'direct' and 'indirect' experiences ((Hildebrandt 34)) point towards a deep appreciation of the fact that the human being is not only a rational animal, but also an experiencing animal. This appreciation is characteristic for all three classical pragma-

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tists, that is, for James, Peirce and Dewey alike. But it tends to be
lost when we extend the concept of pragmatism too far.
The aim of this paper is to introduce you to that distinctively pragmatist understanding of experience drawing on the works of Peirce, Dewey and to a much lesser degree in James, and to emphasize the
specific role it plays within the broader discourse of modern philosophy. The classical pragmatist conception of experience actually constitutes a clear-sighted and productive answer to one of the central
problems of modern philosophy namely, the problem of critique.
The modern idea that reason is essentially critical reason has sufferend again and again from two extreme deformations. Philosophers
of all stripes tend to either glorify criticism and modern rationality,
mostly in combination with a glorification of modern science an example of this can be found in the philosophy of Bertrand Russell. Or
in retreating from this philosophical extremism, they tend to show the
limits of modernity and its vision of rational self-control an example
for this approach could be Jacques Derrida. The classical pragmatist's treatment of experience, I want to show, allows us to steer between these two equally unproductive extremes and the false opposition between modernism and post-modernism.

2. Modernity's Understanding of Reason

I will begin, first, by introducing into what I take "modernity" to be. Let
me put forward a short definition of modernity, which may lead us in
our further discussion. According to this definition, modernity is constitutively tied to the idea of criticism and critical thinking. In short:
Modern reason is critical reason.
Of course, it would be preposterous to claim that there had been no
criticism before the rise of modernity. In a sense, criticism marks the
advent of philosophy and philosophical reflection from its beginnings.
Think of Socrates, who considered it his duty to stir up the Athenian
ruling class and who taught that an unexamined life is a life not worth

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living. But there's something distinctive in the modern understanding

of criticism. This characteristic can be illustrated by tracing the different uses of the word "modern". Being modern is, to put it paradoxically, not an invention of modernity. People have described themselves as being "modern" as early as in the 5th century, and repeated
that verdict in the 12th century as well as in the 17th century. (H-J
Jauss) In these periods, the word 'modern' was used to distinguish
one's own epoch from that of the ancients. It was a polemical notion,
expressing the sentiment that the literary and philosophical forms of
classical antiquity were outdated. Those who called themselves 'modern' did not want to restrict themselves any longer to an imitation of
the classics. They found it necessary to invent new, and better, literary and philosophical forms.
In its most general use, then, the word 'modern' just expresses the
need to distinguish one's own historical period from that which preceeded it, mostly implying the superiority of one's own time. Still today, the word is used in this sense when we talk, for example, about
the need to 'modernize' an institution or an idea, or when we refer to
a 'modern' design or a 'modern' way of life. But the self-understanding of modernity which I am referring to goes further. From the
French Revolution on, the term 'modernity' expresses more than the
conviction that one's own times are, in this or that aspect, superior.
To this conviction, it adds the idea that from now on, times will always be changing. What is genuinely modern is the idea that there
are no natural or traditional ties which could prevent history from happening. The modern consciousness does not only reject antiquity. It
rejects the very idea that there is a preconcieved order to which human beings must necessarily conform, be it natural or historical. There are, of course, ideals and ulitmate goals to be reached, such as
truth, justice or material wealth. But the final realisation of this goal is
deferred to on an unknown future, since all forms of knowledge, as
well as the ideals of political and social organisations, are considered
to be made, and thus subject to permanent change. Following Robert

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Pippin, modernism, as the term has been used since the 18th century, can be described as
"a beginning not bounded or conditioned by tradition or religiuos authority, finally free and independent, and so fully
self-conscious about its own possibility." (Pippin 1991: 47)
Understood this way, modernity is an ambivalent historical self-description. On the one hand, it signifies the hope and the possibility of
progress. As an unconditional beginning, it becomes possible to dislodge the burdens of history, such as metaphysical misconceptions
and other forms of idolatry. It seems possible now to give human life
its most adequate form, to free it from misery, unnecessary hardship
and intolerable afflictions. We all know the battle cry of all modern revolutions: History is in our own hands, because all of our problems as
well as their solutions are man-made and thus subject to change.
From this perspective, modernity marks the possibility of beginning a
self-determined life, free and independent. But this progress comes
at a cost. The very same rupture which allows for the new beginning
also implies a problematic distance between the human agent and
the world it is acting on. This shift can be best be brought out in contrasting the modern understanding of reason with ancient and premodern conceptions. For Plato and the majority of the premodern tradition, the power of reason was explained by reference to its objective
relation to being itself. (cf. Taylor, Sources 124) Reason was thought
to participate in the final, eternal and ever-lasting structures of being.
In contrast, the modern conception believes that all understanding is
constitutively tied to a set of theories, conceptions and conditions
which do not necessarily belong to the eternal fabric of being. In modern philosophical jargon, these conditions are usually called the
subjective conditions of knowledge and understanding. In modern times, every grasp of the objective world always remains a subjective
grasp, irreducably tied to man-made projects and man-made projections.

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We can now better see in which way criticism is tied to modernity. If

you liberate human reason from the dictate to contemplate a preconcieved order, the resulting capacity is criticism. For modern thinking, reason is essentially defined by its critical capacity. If you accept the modern idea that there is no natural order commanding
ones thought, as it were, from outside, then you are left with nothing
but the idea of critique. Modern human reason becomes reflexively
concerned with itself, since nature or being cannot act anymore as a
final arbiter. Thus, the real power of reason manifests itself exclusively in its critical capacity to review, to rework and finally to transform its
own opinions. Modern philosophy is more interested in the method of
reasons than in specific results of thinking.
Looking at the history of modern philosophy, this idea turns out to be
quite powerful. It allows for the modern conception of autonomy,
which governs modern moral, political and epistemological philosophy to this day. The ideal of autonomy expresses the conviction that
critique is, in the end, a positive attribute: Critique is made possible
by the power of reason to control itself and to give itself an uncondi tional law, liberated from the demands of tradition, religion, irrationality and the like. This approach has been taken by the progressive
side of modernity, for example by Kant and German Idealism, and it
is also influencing Pragmatism.
But, by the very same token, criticism also seems to suffer from the
disconcerting detachment from the world that we have just diagnosed
for the modern consciousness in general. The praise of autonomy
quickly slides into skepticism and nihilism, since modern reason, understood as a permanent critical capacity, leaves no room for a final
resolution of conflicts or truth claims. There is no absolute certainty:
Everything is in the flux, and every belief can turn out to be a mistake. While one sides takes this to be a sign of a healthy pluralism
which allows reason to grow and improve, the skeptics prefer to see
the modern situation as a problem for which the modern, autono-

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mous understanding of reason offers no solution. To them, autonomy

and continuous criticism look like an impotent, self-referential game
which has lost its touch with reality.

3. Science and Experience

But the picture of modernity that I have drawn up to now is not yet
complete. In fact, there is a popular answer to the question how the
reflecting mind, taken as an autonomous and essentially critical
power, keeps in touch with the world. The typical modern answer is:
critical reason reaches the world through experience. It is experience
which is supposed to bridge the gap between mind and world. This is
how the historian Martin Jay, reflecting on the modern history of experience, captures this role assigned to experience:
The nascent modern subject, withdrawn from a no longer
meaningful cosmos, came to rely on the fragile reed of experience, however defined, as the only bridge from interior
to exterior reality. (Jay, 264)
This description of experience as a "fragile reed" bridging subject and
object does indeed capture an important point. Experience, in a sense, seems to be the only connection between the thinking subject
and the world it reflects upon. This helps to explain the modern preoccupation with epistemological questions. If experience establishes
our only contact with the world, it is well to inquire into the ways of
experience. We should ask ourselves, as Kant did in his Critique of
pure reason: What can we know by these means? What kind of
knowledge and certainty can we extract from experience, and how
are we to reach that knowledge? And is there, finally, anything we
can ever hope to know?
It is important to note that such an inquiry into the limits and possibilities of experience is based on an overall affirmative and positive evaluation of the natural sciences. For Kant, the empirically oriented
sciences have shown how effective human thinking can be. They
seem to provide a paradigm case of modern rational autonomy: The

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natural sciences had been able to break with long-held prejudices

and reach new grounds, because they relied on experience, and not
on dogmatism or traditional assumptions. This is at least what Kant
assumed. And he draw the consequence that philosophy should follow science's lead: The human self-reflection has to accept the unconditional tie beetween experience and the critical mind, which is
exactly Kants critical path of philosophical inquiry.
One of the reasons Kant plays such an important part for modern
philosophy is that he is trying to draw the consequenes of a popular
understanding of science which is still valid today. According to this
understanding, scientific progress has been made possible by confronting the critical power of reason with the unbiased results of empirical investigations. Due to its empirical orientation, modern science
could establish such a wide-ranging and historically unparalleled understanding of nature. Experience supplies thinking with the material
it can work on and allows it to form new assumptions as well as to
test them. As long as we keep in touch with experience, we can claim
to be both critical and progressive.
Today, one is quick in pointing out that this popular image of science
is overly idealistic. The history and sociology of science has shown
that scientists are not a better species. They are as dogmatic as the
rest of us, taken in by clouds of ideology and prejudices, and the
scientific method does not in itself grant the scientist any magical critical power. But it is still possible to argue that as a whole, science
does progress, even if its concrete practice has little to do with this
simplistic idealisation. And we should also not forget that these corrections of the popular image mostly argue in the name of a better,
more realistic assessment of the scientific practices. They claim to
show that reality forces us to adjust our simplistic understanding of
the workings of science which is just another reiteration of modern
critical thinking.

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The real challenge, it seems to me, is conceptual. We have to understand how experience can possibly contribute to the critical power of
reason. The most dominant answers to this question can be roughly
divided in two camps. The first view is what I will call the intellectualist approach. Intellectualism is motivated by the demand that experience has to be intelligible in order to fullfill its critical role. This dimension of experience has been constantly defended by authors like
Kant or, more recently, Sellars and McDowell. They emphasize that
experience only affects reason in a certain form, for example in the
linguistic form, or according to the categories of the understanding. In
this Kantian tradition, experience is only rationally assessible if it assumes the right form the form, that is, of a possible content for further reflection. For the intellectualist, experience has to assume a
certain form in order to be rationally relevant at all.
There are good reasons for the intellectualist thesis. Its main motivation is to defend the modern understanding of rationality as an essentially autonomous activity. If we claim that experience somehow contributes to the critical mind, it cannot be fully alien to its fundamental
operations. That is: It has to conform to the forms of human reasoning. Without this requirement, we would not be able to further reflect
upon experience. And if the human mind cannot critically reflect upon
its experiences, that is, if it cannot correct or affirm them, it can hardly be called autonomous. The references to experience would give
us, as John McDowell puts it, "mere exculpations" (1994: 24) as opposed to real justifications. The formalisation of experience is supposed to safeguard the critical power of the mind. According to the intellectualist view, then, we can only be critical because experience takes a certain shape.
The problem with the intellectualist approach is that it enforces the
modern estrangement of mind and world. Even John McDowell, who
actively tries to avoid that consequence, arrives at the conclusion
that every rationally relevant experience already has a conceptual

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form. But if experience has to assume a certain form in order to be

rationally accountable, we are marginalizing those experiences which
do not, or not yet, assume such a rational form. To put it differently: In
the intellectualist tradition, experience is only discussed from the subjective point of view. This reduction of experience has given rise to a
counter-current to epistemological intellectualism, which I will call
anti-intellectualism.
The anti-intellectualists try to defend a different understanding of experience. Such an alternative to Kant had been first fully articulated
by Hegel. For him, experience is much more than a possible content
for judgments. It is also discussed as a force which actively shapes
our forms of reasoning, as it were, from the outside. Experience is
seen as that which challenges the subject and its principles, confronting it with something which is not fully rationally understood. And undergoing an experience does not only result in a new set of opinions,
but rather in a transformation of the very forms of ones own understanding.
Hegel calls this transformative dimension of experience the 'negativitiy' of the mind, and for him, the modern mind is essentially characterised by negativity. The philosophical investigation of that dimension
of negativity is not restricted to Hegel, nor does it have to assume the
Hegelian form. Authors like Heidegger, Bataille or Foucault had also
been experimenting with the idea that there is, in experience, something which cannot be reduced to the form of the subject.
Taken literally, this idea seems to be at its core paradoxical, since
how can we understand experience without attaching it to the experiencing subject? ((Jay, 265)) But the anti-intellectualists have a point
here. Their paradoxical insistence on the immediacy of experience
and its destabilizing force spells out the consequences of the modern
idea of reason. If experience is our only bridge between the subjective and the objective, it cannot be exclusively subjective. It is only by
belonging to the objective side that we can hope to be subjectively

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informed by experience. So this objective side has somehow to be included in a full account of human experience. And yet, this objective
dimension is difficult to grasp. Since it is out of reach for the subject,
it is mostly descibed in negative terms: Experience, in the anti-intellectualist form, is something elusive, irritiatingly vague, inarticulate,
preconceptual. It is described as something overwhelming, destabilizing, subversive, sublime, or simply as something irrefutably 'given',
as it is claimed in the empiricist tradition.
The point in distinguishing these two approaches is systematic. The
recurrent insistence on either the immediacy of experience or its formal mediation points to a systematic ambiguity inherent in the modern notion of critique itself. The idea of an experience without a subject is actually as paradoxical as the conception of an absolute rational autonomy which can put any claim in jeopardy. The opposition
between intellectualism and anti-intellectualism manifests a systematic instability in the modern self-understanding of reason itself.

4. Pragmatism's Experimental Account of

Experience
In the light of the preceeding discussion, Clasical Pragmatism can
now be firmly placed within the anti-intellectualist tradition. It tries to
develop a wider approach to experience and rationality that is driven
by one central idea: Instead of setting anti-intellectualism over and
against the intellectualistic understanding of experience, both should
be integrated in an extended understanding of science and rationality. From that broader perspective, intellectualism's mistake is not that
it requires experience to be subjectively intelligible. Its mistake is rather that it does not place this requirement within a wider setting, one
which allows to assess how these forms of intelligibility change and
emerge. The opposition between intellectualist and anti-intellectualist
philosophy should not be seen as two antagonistic approaches to reason, but rather as the articulation of a productive tension fueling modern rationality.

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The key to this approach is to leave behind the Kantian reduction of

experience. Experience, in pragmatist terms, is not something which
gives us "access" to the world, nor is it something that simply "cons trains" our thinking or "confronts" us with the purely unintelligible.
Rather, experience is treated as something which develops, and thus
includes both activity and passivity, intelligibility and negativity. It is
reconstructed as a circular movement, in which the experiencing subject and the experienced object are bound together in inquiry.
Critics have often expressed reservations against this broad concept
of experience, especially as it has been developed by Dewey. ((Rorty
1984)) It seems to be so wide and comprehensive that it loses any
distinctive explanatory power. But note that for Pragmatism, this comprehensive understanding is actually an attempt to rectify the central
mistake of intellectualism. As long as we restrict experience to its
subjective forms, the critical power of the modern mind is not only li mited, but actually dogmatic: If we exclude feelings, emotions and
vague understanding of the realm of rationality, most of the problems
which occupy our lives are roled out of reason proper. Accordingly,
pragmatism tries to present a philosophical account which allows to
extend critical rationality to also include the side of negativity. From a
pragmatistic point of view, critical reasoning within the limits of intellectualism is a misunderstanding of reason's real form and power,
and actually constitutes a misunderstanding of modernity.
The overall structure of this conception of experience is reminiscent
of the Hegelian approach. That's no surprise: Both Peirce and Dewey
had had their share of German Idealism, and there is a lot of interesting research currently sorting out the similaraties and differences
between these two philosophical approaches. One distinctive difference, though, is readily identified. Hegel insisted that the dialectical
movement between subject and object finally leads to an overall progress of the spirit, whereas Pragmatism takes care not to blur the ori -

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ginal tension between both sides. Their understanding of experience

is less ambitious and more mundane than Hegel's.
Classical Pragmatism takes the scientific experiment to be the paradigm of experience. This is a very consistent response to the modern
problem of how to define critique. The modern praise of critique, one
could argue, has been born roughly at the same time as the widespread institutionalisation of the scientific experiment. Correspondingly, any account of critique has to regard the scientific experiment as
its model. And this is how the experiment can be described in pragmatistic perspective: An experiment is a spatially and temporally
bound rational practice, in which both the active and the passive dimensions of experience develop and influence each other. Thinking
and logic form constitutive parts of this experimental practice, as well
as material instruments, diagrams and signs. And although the experimental inquiry is a firmly situated and temporally limited practice, it
is also oriented and guided by overarching principles which direct the
conduct of inquiry in a more general and abstract way.
One can see how far this understanding diverges from the common,
mostly positivistic conception, which reduces the experimental practice to the simple activity of putting a given proposition to a test. This
temporal and, if you like, dialectical structure is of utmost importance
for a proper understanding of inquiry. Taken as a temporal practice,
the experiment is supposed to be the answer to the modern division
of experience. The experiment always includes both sides of experience: It can only proceed with the support of means which are fully
understood, such as propositions, meanings and instruments. But it
uses these clear and transparent means in order to improve on a
non-transparent and undetermined understanding. This is the overall
significance of the pragmatist thesis that the origin of the experiment
is, as you well know, the state of doubt. Doubt is the initial incentive
for experimentation, and, as Christopher Hookway stresses, its continuous point of reference for the measurement of success. I quote:

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"Doubt is not necessary only as a stimulus to real inquiry;

it has a continuing role in monitoring the inquiry, in taking
responsibility for how successful it is." (Hookway 2003:
253)
Looking back at our previous discussion, we can see that doubt is an
exemplar of the experience of 'negativity'. The conversion of doubt
into articulate knowledge, then, is an example of the successful
transformation of this negative experience into new forms of understanding. It is a feeling, something inchoate and inarticulate, which is
then integrated into a rational form. The experiment, understood this
way, gives us a paradigm case where this adaption succeeds. I take
this to be the central insight of classical pragmatism, which is shared
by all three classical authors regardless of the differences they have
in regards of other subjects.
Let me now highlight two central aspects of this experimental understanding of experience and rationality: the passivity of the subject,
and the material dimension of the process of inquiry. The passive dimension is already implied in the regulative function of doubt. Doubt
is an existential state in which the doubting subject is entangled, and
from which it needs to liberate itself. This overpowering of the subject
is vividly shown in the rather strong vocabulary that is used by Peirce
to describe this dimension of inquiry. His description reads as follows:
The irritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state of
belief. I shall term this struggle inquiry, though it must be
admitted that this is sometimes not a very apt designation.
(EP I, 114)
Peirce's description likens the experiment to a physical conflict.
Doubt causes a countermovement in which belief is to be regained,
and this countermovement is called a struggle. The Peircian inquirer
is, as it were, overwhelmed by the situation and struggles to regain
orientation.
This emphasis of the passive dimension of inquiry is probably the reason that pragmatism has early gained a reputation to be a disrepu-

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table kind of philosophy that reduces knowledge and rationality to

mere reactive powers: We encounter problems, somehow deal with
it, and then go on. How do you integrate the human quest for truth
and understanding in that passive model? The answer is: By pointing
out that the human knowledge and its motiviating ideas, such as critique and critical understanding, are an accomplishment, a cultural
product which should not be taken for granted. Pragmatism is claiming to get hold of negativity without giving away the idea that progressive knowledge is possible. Knowledge is possible not because
there is some transcendentally secured 'access' to the world, but rather because knowledge and values have to be produced and secured by the right kind of practices. Accordingly, Peirce describes experimental work along these lines as something to be pursued with "dull
patience" (EP, 111), requiring that something is actually done by "manipulating real things instead of words and fancies." (EP I, 111)
The second point I want to highlight is the material dimension of in quiry. It can be situated on two levels. On a basic level, former experiences and inquiries leave their traces in the individual bodies, giving
them orientation in the form of habits and capacities. But pragmatism's 'material turn', as one could call it, goes further. For pragmatism, the process of experience is always made possible by material
elements that are usually not considered to be part of the human
mind. This can be illustrated by two exemplary quotes. Peirce, for example, famously claims that "man can think only by means of words
or other external symbols" (EP I, 54). Thinking just ain't in the head,
or at least not exclusively. This is what Dewey writes, among other
things, about thinking:
"Inquiry proceeds by reflection, by thinking, but not, most
decidedly, by thinking as conceived in the old tradition, as
something cooped up within 'mind'. For experimental inquiry or thinking signifies directed activity, doing something which varies the conditions under which objects are
observed and directly had and by instituting new arrangements among them" (QC, 99)

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Taken together, the material and passive dimension highlight that

knowledge, for pragmatism, is always is the result of a joint cooperation of mind and world. Thinking is an embodied practice which cannot be reduced the subjective conduct alone.
Note that these two dimensions are supposed to add up to a description of rationality which is agreeing with the modern conception of critique and the autonomy of reason. The embodied nature of knowledge is not taken to be an obstacle to this understanding. In forming our
second nature, it is rather considered to be a necessary condition of
the very possibility of knowledge. Only by embodying sense and
meaning in habits and signs, knowledge can be both had and improved. And only by embedding thought and explicit thinking in the overarching sphere of experience, can it actually hope to be somehow
about the world to which it refers. Or this, at least, seems to the main
idea.

5. Outro
Looking back at the overall argument so far, we can now summarize
Pragmatism's contribution to modernity. It is twofold. For one thing,
Pragmatism develops a critical understanding of the one-sided intellectualist approach to experience and rationality. It is important to see
that this criticism of other philosophical approaches has to be understood as an attempt to further the modern understanding. From pragmatism's perspective, the modern understanding of rational autonomy and criticism is actually a misunderstanding. It is a misunderstanding wedded to modern subjectivism, which treats the mind as something that is always internal to the acting subject.
Subjectivism has recieved quite some criticism in the 20th century,
ranging from Heidegger's fundamental ontology to the philosophy of
language. Some of these criticism, such as Heidegger's, tend to dismiss the modern dimension of the problem and try to articulate a position which is supposed to overcome modernity. Others, like the
analytic philosophy of language, are burdened with a too intellectuali-

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stic understanding of rationality and an often uncritical attitude towards science. Pragmatism seems to offer a viable alternative here.
It does not call for a critique of rational autonomy, but for its reconstruction. We should understand modern critical thinking as an historical achievement, constitutively bound by certain institution and certain practices. This achievement, from pragmatism's perspective, has
quite some value and thus needs to be defended. But such a defen se should not be seen as giving a logical foundation to something already pre-existing.
This brings me to the second important result of the preceeding discussion. One main problem of modern philosophy is that most defenses of the modern values tend to take modernity for granted. This position is no longer applicable today. The very notion of modernity is
actually a misnomer. It implies a universal historic event, something
that captures, as it were, the whole planet. But in the 21.st century,
history can no longer be reduced to the local history of Europe and
its former colonies. In the same vein, it seems implausible today to
think that there is just one way to do science. Modern science is split
among many disciplines with very different, and often incompatible,
frameworks of investigation, and even the approaches within one
scholarly discipline can diverge to a massive degree. There is no
such thing as the modern science, and every attempt to use it as a
paradigm for rational thought is doomed to fail.
So paradoxically, the pragmatist analysis of the experiment allows it
to take distance from the narrative of modernity and its glorification of
science. All these modern values about which I have talked, in particular autononomy and criticism, should not be taken as permanent
truths, but rather as guiding principles. These principles have grown
in the course of modern history, and they have proven to be of some
value. But neither their content, nor their value is permanent. This implies that we have to put modernity into perspective. We have to ask:

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Why should one be modern at all? What's the point of being critical?
And why must criticism assume this form rather than another?
Pragmatism can help to see that these questions can very well be
well asked from within modernity. Our emotional attachments to these ideas, concepts and historical self-descriptions are actually an important part of our rationality; as are our doubts. Thus it is necessary
not only to be critical, but to be self-critical. The challenge is to understand where we currently stand, right here and now, at this historical
juncture. We have to ask: What is our own present? What sense can
we attach to it? And what has to be done in order to live up to that
self-understanding? Asking these questions, it seems to me, constitutes the very essence of modern thinking.