Round 3: Tossup 12

A thinker from this school of thought who discussed normal and abnormal discourses in his conversational approach to knowledge described “private” writers as ironists. A thinker from this school included “tenacity” and “authority” as the first of his four methods of fixing our beliefs. The author of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, (*) Richard Rorty, was a leading figure of this school’s “neo” branch. The example of a squirrel going around a tree appears in a book from this school which asserts (10[1])that what is true is what proves itself useful in experience. For 10 points, what American school of philosophy’s members included C. S. Peirce (“purse”) and William (10[1])James? ■END■ (0[2])

ANSWER: pragmatism [accept neo-pragmatism; or Pragmatic school; accept Pragmatism: A New Name For Some Old Ways of Thinking]
<Philosophy, Aveek Sarkar> | VAULT II Packet 03
= Average correct buzzpoint

Back to tossups

Buzzes


Summary

TournamentEditionMatchHeardConv. %Power %Neg %Avg. Buzz
VAULT II at Georgia Tech2026-01-246100%17%0%60.83
Triangle Cup2026-03-13367%0%33%59.50
VAULT II at Eden Prairie HS2026-03-133100%0%33%85.00
VAULT II at McGill2026-03-13450%25%25%71.50
VAULT II at UCSB2026-03-13580%20%20%75.75
VAULT II Northern UK2026-04-24367%0%0%94.00
VAULT II Southern UK2026-04-24425%0%75%109.00
VAULT II at Harvard2026-04-304100%0%0%65.50
VAULT II at MINT2026-06-19540%0%0%108.50
VAULT II Stanford Online2026-07-178100%63%13%54.75