MDDM World-as-text

[Terrance]

So, Pynchon's texts endorse  pluralism
(Philosophy-- The belief that no single explanatory system or view of
reality can account for all the phenomena of life). Pluralism,
philosophically speaking, is as American as apple pie. 


At least three critics have argued that Pynchon is influenced by
American Pragmatism and Pluralism. Somehow, considering his age, his
education, this makes more sense to me than saying he read a bunch of
postmodern literary theory. 




I argue that the "classical" pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce,
William James, and John Dewey, is a way of thinking embedded in a much
broader tradition whose origins are found in Native American philosophy,
in particular in the philosophical perspective of the Algonquian and
Iroquoian peoples of the north and northeast. To demonstrate this point,
I trace the central ideas of pragmatism from their origin in Native
American philosophy, through their influence along the shifting borders
between Native and European America, through their influence on the
Black nationalist and feminist movements of the 19th century, to their
emergence in the work of the classical pragmatists. While no other
history of American philosophy develops the connections I present, there
is nevertheless substantial evidence that the central commitments of
pragmatism emerged first in Native American philosophy and then again
and again along the borders within North America where cultural
differences were contested and their coexistence sought. 

http://www.uoregon.edu/~uophil/faculty/spratt/native.html



http://dept.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/whitman-per-santayana.html