A NEOPRAGMATIST PERSPECTIVE ON RELIGION AND SCIENCE

Pragmatists, most notably John Dewey and Richard Rorty, propose overco ming the modern split between science and values with a new image of o urselves as language users. In this new self-understanding, both our s cientific and evaluative vocabularies are integral parts of self-relia nt human problem solving and coping with the larger natural environmen t. Our language is not the medium of any higher power from which it de rives. its legitimacy. On this view, the principal matter at issue bet ween pragmatists and realists so far as interaction between religion a nd science is concerned is the moral one of human self-reliance.