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Practically Speaking

How pragmatic were the pragmatists?

By Kim Phillips-Fein

p>The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America By Louis Menand Farrar, Straus and Giroux 546 pages, $27 Several years ago, Richard Rorty gave a speech on the origins of the American labor movement. It was, he said, “a blood-drenched history of violent struggle.” Winning the smallest reforms—the eight-hour day, the five-day week—required near-revolutionary commitment from workers who had to… return to article

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