This paper provides a straightforward argument that demonstrates the irreconcilability of pragmatism and transcendentalism, by way of Darwin’s failure to account for the emergence of the human self or person and the existential and historied import of the human invention and mastery of language. On the Darwinian issue, I examine the implications of Darwin’s having neglected the most important phase of the evolution of Homo sapiens – the invention and mastery of natural language, which account for the self-transformation of the human primate into a self or person (with the acquisition of competences that appear nowhere else in the animal world); and which signify a novel transformation of the evolutionary process itself – the hybrid entwining of biological and cultural forces in the formation of the self. It’s a consequence of the invention of language that accounts for the historied nature of the human form of life. I treat history and historicity as existential constraints on the human form of cognition, which introduces an ineliminable but benign form of skepticism, which I show to be incompatible with Husserl’s transcendentalism and his attempt to accommodate historicity. I take pragmatism to be committed to an existential treatment of history and historicity, in the context of reviewing George Herbert Mead’s analysis of history and historical time. The two arguments converge on the incompatibility of pragmatism and transcendentalism.

本文提供了一个直接的论证，通过达尔文未能解释人类自身或人的出现以及人类发明和语言的存在和历史意义，证明了实用主义和先验主义的不可调和。关于达尔文问题，我考察了达尔文忽视智人进化的最重要阶段的意义。–自然语言的发明和掌握，这说明了人类灵长类动物自我转化为一个人或一个人的能力（获得了在动物世界中其他任何地方都无法获得的能力）；它标志着进化过程本身的新转变–生物和文化力量在自我形成中的混合纠缠。语言发明的结果是人类生活形式的历史性质。我将历史和历史性视为对人类认知形式的生存限制，这引入了一种无法消除但良性的怀疑主义形式，我证明这与胡塞尔的先验主义及其为适应历史性所做的尝试是不相容的。我认为实用主义致力于对历史和历史性的存在性对待，在回顾乔治·赫伯特·米德（George Herbert Mead）对历史和历史时间的分析的背景下。这两个论点在实用主义和先验主义的不相容性上趋于一致。