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Pragmatism and Existential Philosophy Pragmatism and Existential Philosophy Hans Lipps Translation by Jason Hills Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy - Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française, Vol XVIII, No 1 (2008-2010) pp. 106-118. Vol XVIII, No 1 (2008-2010) ISSN 1936-6280 (print) ISSN 2155-1162 (online) DOI 10.5195/jffp.2010.174 http://www.jffp.org This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is co-sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy | Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française Vol XVIII, No 1 (2008-2010) | jffp.org | DOI 10.5195/jffp.2010.174 Hans Lipps | 107 Pragmatism and Existential Philosophy Hans Lipps Translation by Jason Hills1 I Existential philosophy determines the current situation of philosophy in Germany; it consummates the most complete separation with prior philosophy. Despite the diversity of its systems and points of view of previous philosophies, we recognize today the homogeneity of its aims and the persistence of its problems. It was guided by a tendency taken a priori as natural that no longer suffices for the tendencies and aspirations that, in the thought of our time, urgently desire to surface. The fact that it is made up entirely of doctrines and systems appears to render it problematic. Perhaps no previous era “knew” those systems as well as ours, but the very fact that this philosophy can be transformed into pure and simple knowledge renders it suspect. We have learned not to trust what can be shown within the limits of reason, what can be contained within it, and what can be placed at the disposal of everyone and under the general shape of philosophy,2 without requiring any exertion or existential risk [risque d’existence].3 We recognize today the non-obligatory character of these systems and doctrines. The influence of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard is symptomatic of the current situation.4 Both were taken as outsiders in their days, because their thought differed so much from others. Here there are more doctrines and positions than one could ever prove or whose raison d’être could be discussed. It is an entirely new general attitude. It is not a thought content with solutions for freeing itself, as it were, from itself. Both Nietzsche and Kierkegaard attacked the “systems” in which everything seemed to them to be oversimplified and reduced to the trivial. They show how those systems move us away from the gravity of the problem that surfaced in the self, the reality of existence. The uncertain, tense, indefinite, fragmentary character of our temporal existence stands in contradiction with the totalizing nature that informs those doctrines. Both discovered how “inhuman” it is to begin Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy | Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française Vol XVIII, No 1 (2008-2010) | jffp.org | DOI 10.5195/jffp.2010.174 108 | Pragmatism and Existential Philosophy from a “pure” subject of knowledge. For Nietzsche the will to create a system reveals a lack of honesty. Here the question of knowing what philosophy “is” is posed anew. It frees itself from its union with science that goes back to Descartes. Knowledge, for Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, is “interpretation.” It is an understanding that enlightens, a discovery that reveals those very depths of our existence which are originally hidden. Existential philosophy is not a doctrine; it can only be learned through experience. For, this new movement of thought opens the space through which reflection must travel, all the while knowing that it will not have a basis. We would only like to determine the direction of the path of this thought. Kierkegaard said, “The philosopher of the system, as a man, resembles someone who builds a castle, yet who lives in the shed beside it. This fantastic being does not live in what he thinks, yet the thought of a man must be the house in which he lives.” One can easily notice a certain affinity between the motifs of such a thought and those of pragmatism. When pragmatism, without allowing itself to be influenced by any point of view, undertakes an analysis of the practice of knowledge, what does it find there, if not the insignificance and the platitudes of such disputes as those of scholastic philosophy? Pragmatism, also, combats a philosophy that, in ignorance of its originary character, wanted to establish itself as science, but as a supreme science, as a science that has never been up to date and that has always remained behind; whereas positive science, within the limits in which it makes sense, arrived at some results. Pragmatism combats systematic philosophy in the same manner. In this combat, it neither discusses nor explains itself to the adversary to determine to what extent a point of view is right. Both [pragmatism and existential philosophy] separate themselves clearly from the beginning from their adversary, and without allowing the least discussion with them. The comparison between the two directions is all the more convincing since neither of them underwent the influence of the other. We will make a comparison between these two philosophies, so that in treating one, we will tackle the other; this will allow us to show the difference that appears in their overall structure, between these ways of philosophizing, by taking as the common denominator the progression of the ideas of each towards the notion of truth. Let us say it one more time: pragmatism and existential philosophy look to regain a connection to reality. Pragmatism resorts to practical experience that it contrasts with the outrageousness of the traditional conception of truth; existential philosophy, in its desire for intellectual honesty, makes its appeal to the earnestness of the individual. We will thus try to specify the domain of pragmatism and of existential philosophy. This domain is revealed by a specific spiritual attitude in each case. This spiritual attitude is either bound to certain requirements that pragmatism posits as Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy | Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française Vol XVIII, No 1 (1008-2010) | jffp.org | DOI 10.5195/jffp.2010.174 Hans Lipps | 109 being equivalent to the truth, or, in connection to existential philosophy, to the specific inquiry of the “real”5 truth that it proposes. II Criticism is however too easy a task for pragmatism. One must try hard to penetrate the great intentions of James and Dewey to recognize the nearness of pragmatism to the works of the young Nietzsche, for example, who speaks in his second “Untimely Meditation” of the “lazy in the garden of knowledge.” Dewey denounces the “prejudice that wants that what is6 exists only as being known by the mind in some manner,” as if the structure of what is4 could consist only in the concept. Our primordial connection with things is not, for Dewey, knowledge. It is rather transaction [commerce] with things that is first given. One has them and experiences them, for example, in manipulating them, in wanting them, and in objecting to them as objects. They show themselves to me through their resistance. I notice the weather outside as it exerts an influence on my mood. We have experience of things solely through their continuity with practice. I do not need knowledge about a number written as a decimal; I must solely “know” of it, have at my disposal a know-how on the subject, possess the manner to write it, etc., in order to know how to count with it. But, knowledge in the proper sense of the word would signify that one retains something insofar as one understands or imagines it. Here a “lasting” possession was considered true. At first we act in connection with things, and we are right or not insofar as we know of them; error is a mistake. The way that I experience a thing is reflected in the manner and direction of my transaction with it. What is4 does not first have a structure conceived by the mind, as the object of knowledge that is always “represented” in whatever manner. Does not the word “comprehend” indicate the direction of “prehending,” taking in hand, that is to say, understanding a thing to the point of knowing how to handle it? We never experience things in some isolated fashion as “objects,” but always in the context of situations. The closest reality had always been subtracted. But, in this case, what does “knowledge” mean? One speaks of the “object” of knowledge. The thing to be known appears in the form of an encounter; it is thus an object only in a “temporary” way. Knowledge has an “episodic” character (Dewey). Knowledge always responds to a question: one examines, one watches up close, one contemplates intensively. The driving force of this heightened activity is always the difficulty in which one finds oneself that is due to the interruption of “knowing”: one no longer knows how to handle things. Knowledge depends upon the reconstruction of this. Knowing is thus always surrounded by a horizon that is not on the same plane as knowledge, but that holds the knowing subject, leading one farther and guiding secretly. It is not by chance that one desires to know. There is no “pure,” disinterested knowledge. One expects something from it, notably to be able to use things again. Each thing known relates to a Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy | Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française Vol XVIII, No 1 (2008-2010) | jffp.org | DOI 10.5195/jffp.2010.174 110 | Pragmatism and Existential Philosophy particular natural situation.
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