Pragmatism and metaphysics

Pragmatism and metaphysics suffer from a bad reputation, but both are still alive and even flourishing. This may be partly due to their mutual reinforcement. Most (classical and recent) pragmatists fight against metaphysics, but they also have various “metaphysical” agendas. Provided pragmatism and metaphysics are in keeping with logic, semantics and inquiry, along scientific and realistic lines, there is a genuine pragmatist way to deal with metaphysics, so as to explain why and how metaphysical knowledge is possible. In its turn, metaphysics, so conceived, enriches the pragmatist aim the founders may have had in mind when, around the 1870s, they chose, “half-ironically, half-defiantly”, the name “Metaphysical Club” for what was to become the birthplace of pragmatism.