Abstract
Classical American pragmatism claimed to ground truth in practical consequences and community inquiry, yet failed to interrogate how geographic and class positions shaped what constituted legitimate knowledge production. This paper argues that epistemology and ontology are fundamentally place-based, though dominant academic traditions obscure their own situatedness while rendering alternative knowledge systems invisible through claims to universality. Through comparative textual analysis of classical pragmatist philosophy and regional philosophical traditions, this study demonstrates how distinct environments generate epistemologically rigorous yet fundamentally different ways of knowing. A close reading of classical pragmatism reveals how its institutional contexts enabled particular theoretical developments while necessarily obscuring insights emerging from alternative material conditions. Their epistemological frameworks presuppose institutional infrastructure, temporal orientations, and contemplative distance from immediate material survival characteristic of privileged academic positions. Conversely, Montana pragmatism—forged through cyclical economic volatility, environmental constraint, sparse population densities, and embodied physical labor—produces distinct epistemological principles: adaptive capacity over optimization, embodied and tacit intelligence, vernacular empiricism prioritizing local validation, pragmatic communitarianism synthesizing individual competence with community interdependence, and stewardship ethics grounded in long-term socio-ecological interdependence. This analysis transcends simple rural-urban comparisons to demonstrate that theoretical frameworks themselves reflect particular geographic, economic, and social positions. The implications extend to global contexts, where dominant social science methodologies universalize knowledge produced in elite institutional settings while marginalizing epistemologies emerging from rural communities, the Global South, Indigenous knowledge systems, and post-industrial regions. Addressing contemporary complex challenges requires recognizing epistemological pluralism and developing methodological capacity for translation across situated ways of knowing.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Pragmatism, Epistemology, Place-based knowledge, Social science methodology, Rural philosophy, Epistemic
