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Pragmatism and Prophecy: H. G. Wells and the Metaphysics of Socialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2017

DUNCAN BELL
DUNCAN BELL*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
*
Duncan Bell is a Reader in Political Thought and International Relations, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3BU (dsab2@cam.ac.uk).
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Abstract

Read throughout the world, H. G. Wells was one of the most famous political thinkers of the early twentieth century. During the first half of the 1900s, he elaborated a bold and idiosyncratic cosmopolitan socialist vision. In this article, I offer a new reading of Wells's political thought. I argue that he developed a distinctive pragmatist philosophical orientation, which he synthesized with his commitments to Darwinian evolutionary theory. His pragmatism had four main components: a nominalist metaphysics; a verificationist theory of truth; a Jamesian “will to believe”; and a conception of philosophy as an intellectual exercise dedicated to improving practice. His political thought was shaped by this philosophical orientation. Wells, I contend, was the most high-profile pragmatist political thinker of the opening decades of the twentieth century. Acknowledging this necessitates a re-evaluation of both Wells and the history of pragmatism.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 112 , Issue 2 , May 2018 , pp. 409 - 422
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2017 

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Footnotes

I'd like to thank the following for their valuable comments on the paper: Michael Bacon, Ori Beck, Sarah Cole, Hannah Dawson, Sarah Fine, Michael Frazer, Joel Isaac, Simon James, Alex Livingston, Patrick Parrinder, and Quentin Skinner, as well as the APSR referees and Editor. The paper benefited from presentations at the University of East Anglia and the Institute for Historical Research. Invaluable financial support was provided by the Leverhulme Trust. All the usual disclaimers apply.

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