1 Diverging Paths? Conceptual Pragmatism and Logical Positivism Peter Olen, Lake Sumter State College I. Introduction Recent literature 1 on C. I. Lewis’s place in the history of American philosophy tends towards reconciling the differences between conceptual pragmatism and logical positivism 2 (most commonly located in Rudolf Carnap’s and Moritz Schlick’s writings). The interpretative strategy is to read Lewis as situated amongst philosophers committed to a conception of philosophy that eschews “traditional” philosophical issues in favor of a more empiricist and scientifically-informed orientation. Although disagreement between pragmatists and logical positivists is mentioned, the focus is largely on agreement and continuity. Where disagreements are discussed, they are treated as second-order, internal disputes over issues that do not represent competing conceptions of philosophy. One finds Cheryl Misak, for example, claiming that Lewis should be seen as “a bridge between classical pragmatism and logical empiricism” (Misak 2013, pp. 176-7) despite strong disagreements over fundamental issues. There is certainly support for this reading. The 1931 article that introduced logical positivism to North American audiences listed Lewis as one amongst a small group of American philosophers who exhibited “related tendencies” to those of the logical positivists (Blumberg and Feigl 1931). Even some of Lewis’s recollections of logical positivism seem fairly congenial with this narrative: “it is quite true that in the early documents of the neopositvists – particularly in Carnap’s Der logische Aufbau der Welt, but also in the writings of Schlick and Reichenbach – I found an empiricism and an analytic method which were congenial to my own persuasions” (Lewis 1968, p. 664). Yet, Lewis’s recollections of logical positivism quickly sour when issues surrounding meaning and meta-philosophy arise (with Lewis 1 For example, see Murphey 2005 and Misak 2013. 2 “Logical positivism” and “logical empiricism” are used interchangeably throughout this paper (mainly because various primary sources oscillate between the preferred terms). Outside of citations, I use “logical positivism” because it is the term preferred by Lewis.