the founding figures of pragmatism, begin their projects with a deep desire to produce a vital difference in reflection and practice. The difference they seek in philosophy is an opening for a better life, a new world, a guiding principle of action refined by intelligence and human desire. A redirection of communal and spiritual orientation allures their sight, fueled by an optimism that finding a reflective platform connecting the present form oflife to a fuller self-consciousness is possible.

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... Their philosophical criticism frames a new kind of discernment of the human soul for the purpose of redirecting and transforming habits and desires. My aim in this introduction is to suggest a way of taking fuller account of the difference pragmatists have made in the broad terms of understanding transformation in human life. This difference, I think, returns some of the vitality of religious ideas and questions to pragmatism. What could have a more profound and permanent effect on our society than a vital difference in our religious selfunderstanding and expectations? FROM CRITICISM TO CONSTRUCTION The constructive character of these classical American philosophers is often hard to discern because of their rigorous focus on criticism. Peirce, James, and Dewey challenge the core beliefs of their society and their intellectual contemporaries, separating them from their fellow citizens and from the tradition of Western philosophy. John Dewey makes a conscious move away from European philosophy by condemning all efforts to construct a positive philosophical program based on foundational methods or claims such as those ofSpinoza and Descartes. Dewey argues that philosophy is only the criticism of criticisms. Peirce also insists that XXVl