Abstract: The development of pragmatism is the most important achievement in the history of American philosophy. M. Gail Hamner here examines the European roots of the movement in a search for what makes pragmatism uniquely American. She argues that the inextricably American character of the pragmatism of such figures as Charles Sanders Peirce and William James lies in its often-understated affirmation of America as a uniquely religious country with a God-given mission, and as populated by God-fearing citizens. By looking at European and British thinkers whom the pragmatists read, Hamner examines how pragmatism's notions of self, nation, and morality were formed in reaction to the work of these thinkers. She finds that the pervasive religiosity of nineteenth-century American public language underlies Peirce's and James's resistance to aspects of the philosophy and science of their non-American colleagues. This religiosity, Hamner shows, is linked strongly to the continuing rhetorical power of American Puritanism. Claims made for and about Puritanism were advanced throughout the nineteenth century as rallying cries for specific political, social, and individual changes. It was in this religiously and politically charged environment that Peirce and James received and reinterpreted non-American voices. Hamner traces the development of pragmatism by analyzing the concepts of consciousness, causality, will, and belief in two German thinkers (Hermann von Helmholtz and Wilhelm Wundt) and two Scottish thinkers (William Hamilton and Alexander Bain), and by examining how their ideas were appropriated by Peirce and James. The book is arranged in three main parts: Evolution of German psychology; Evolution of Scottish psychology; and Pragmatic reception of European psychology.

Keywords: Alexander Bain, American pragmatism, American Puritanism, belief, causality, consciousness, Europe, Germany, William Hamilton, Hermann von Helmholtz, history, William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, philosophy, pragmatism, psychology, Puritanism, religion, religiosity, Scotland, U.S.A, will, Wilhelm Wundt