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PRAGMATISM and ITS IMPLICATIONS: Pragmatism Is A PRAGMATISM AND ITS IMPLICATIONS: Pragmatism is a philosophy that has had its chief development in the United States, and it bears many of the characteristics of life on the American continent.. It is connected chiefly with the names of William James (1842-1910) and John Dewey. It has appeared under various names, the most prominent being pragmatism, instrumentalism, and experimentalism. While it has had its main development in America, similar ideas have been set forth in England by Arthur Balfour and by F. C. S. Schiller, and in Germany by Hans Vaihingen. WHAT PRAGMATISM IS Pragmatism is an attitude, a method, and a philosophy which places emphasis upon the practical and the useful or upon that which has satisfactory consequences. The term pragmatism comes from a Greek word pragma, meaning "a thing done," a fact, that which is practical or matter-of-fact. Pragmatism uses the practical consequences of ideas and beliefs as a standard for determining their value and truth. William James defined pragmatism as "the attitude of looking away from first things, principles, 'categories,' supposed necessities; and of looking towards last things, fruits, consequences, facts." Pragmatism places greater emphasis upon method and attitude than upon a system of philosophical doctrine. It is the method of experimental inquiry carried into all realms of human experience. Pragmatism is the modern scientific method taken as the basis of a philosophy. Its affinity is with the biological and social sciences, however, rather than with the mathematical and physical sciences. The pragmatists are critical of the systems of philosophy as set forth in the past. They say that philosophy in the past has made the mistake of looking for ultimates, absolutes, eternal essences, substances, fixed principles, and metaphysical "block systems." The pragmatists would put the emphasis upon empirical science and the changing world and its problems. They would subordinate the intellectual to the practical and stress the world as it is today. For John Dewey the word experience is central. Experience is the all-inclusive reality outside of which there is and can be nothing. Experience includes both the natural and the human or social totality in which life finds itself. THE ORIGIN OF PRAGMATISM As a school of philosophy, pragmatism is a comparative newcomer, although William James called it "a new name for old ways of thinking." Similar attitudes and ideas can be found in a number of earlier thinkers. The word pragmatic is used by Immanuel Kant to apply to rules and standards based on experience as distinct from those he thought were above or beyond experience. He appealed to our moral nature and interests, or to the will, to establish certain beliefs (freedom, God, and immortality) . For example, while we cannot prove the necessity of freedom by reason alone, Kant says that it is a demand of the moral life. We cannot deny the sense of "ought," and it is impossible to escape it at times except by satisfying it. But if nature controlled man completely, it would be ridiculous to ask him to rule nature and to choose between alternatives. Freedom is a demand of the moral law, the sense of duty, or of conscience. Kant's principle of the "primacy of practical reason" was to some extent an anticipation of pragmatism. Charles S. Peirce ( 1839-1914), sometimes called the founder of pragmatism, was influenced by Kant and gave serious consideration to the way in which problems of metaphysics can be solved if one gives attention to the practical consequences of ideas. Peirce was a logician interested mainly in the methods of the laboratory sciences. He called his approach "pragmaticism." The meaning of ideas, he said, is best discovered by putting them to an experimental test and observing the results. An idea is a plan of action. Peirce did not expound his ideas in systematic form, but he did influence William James. WILLIAM JAMES (1842-1910) Any complete discussion of the men who influenced William James would take us back to Lange, Mach, Pearson, and Renouvier, as well as to Charles Peirce. The rapid development of pragmatism was due largely to the fertile soil which it found in America and to the brilliant exposition made by William James. In his book Pragmatism, James contrasts the tender- minded rationalist or intellectualist, who usually has an idealistic and optimistic outlook, with the tough-minded empiricist, the lover of facts, who is often a materialist and a pessimist. To both of these James says: "I offer the oddly-named thing pragmatism as a philosophy that can satisfy both kinds of demands. It can remain religious like the rationalisms, but at the same time, like the empiricisms, it can preserve the richest intimacy with facts. RADICAL EMPIRICISM For James, as we have seen, pragmatism is an attitude of looking toward results and facts instead of toward first principles and categories. It is an acceptance of the experience and facts of everyday life as fundamental. Reality is just what it is experienced as being. It is flux or change. Experience is fragmentary, Pragmatists find things partly joined and partly disjoined and accept them as such. Consequently they insist that reality is pluralistic rather than monistic or dualistic. There is the given, the data of the senses, which is brought in as stimulus from the region beyond us. Added to this is the interpretative element which the conscious being supplies. The on-going creative whole of experience, which includes both "the given" and the "interpretative element," is the one category and the one reality we know. Knowledge is founded on sense perception or on experience, which is the continuous, flowing stream of consciousness. Consciousness displays interest, desire, and attention. It is volitional as well as sensory, and the will rather than the intellect is determinative. The will determines how and what we shall think; thus thinking is secondary to willing. Our consciousness select and rejects among the possibilities. What is selected and emphasized is made vital and real. Thus the world is largely of our own making. As with our sensory perception, so with our ideas. Those which interest us and engage our attention tend to exclude others and to dominate the scene. The ideas that satisfy our desires and dominate our attention tend to express themselves in our actions. The selection is made on the basis of what brings the greatest satisfaction to us. This form of empiricism, which ceases to look beyond experience for supposed necessities and metaphysical entities and which stresses the present stream of consciousness, is known as radical empiricism. TRUTH AS THAT WHICH "WORKS" William James and other pragmatists make a distinct break with the traditional conception of truth. In the past truth had meant some fixed or static relation. James asks, "What concrete difference will it make in life?" An idea becomes true or is made true by events. A thing is true if it works or if it has satisfactory consequences. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating." "By their fruits ye shall know them." Truth is relative; it grows. The true is "the expedient in the way of our thinking," just as the right is "the expedient in the way of our behaving." Ideas, doctrines, and theories become instruments to aid us in meeting life situations. They are not answers to riddles. A theory is a manmade affair to suit some human purpose. The only satisfactory standard of the truth of theories is that they lead to results that are beneficial. Workability, satisfactions, consequences, and results are the key words in this pragmatic conception of truth. FREEDOM AND MELIORISM Morality, like truth, is not fixed but grows out of present life situations. The source and authority for beliefs and conduct are to be found in human experience. The good is that which makes for a more satisfactory life. The evil is that which tends to destroy life. As against the determinists, James was a strong defender of moral freedom and indeterminism. Determinism, he thought, is an intellectualistic falsification of experience. As against both the optimists and the pessimists, he supported the doctrine of meliorism — that the world is neither completely evil nor completely good but is capable of improvement. Men who believe that the world can be made better and who act on that belief are likely to live in a better world than they would have lived in otherwise. Human effort to improve the world is worthwhile and the trend of biological and social evolution is in that direction. THE WILL TO BELIEVE William James was a man of positive religious interests and he gave considerable attention to religion. The doctrines of pluralism and meliorism, as well as his doctrine of the will to believe, all played a part in his views of religion and of God. Let us consider first his doctrine of the Will to Believe. Men often face crucial situations in life where they must choose and act. In many of these situations they do not have all the evidence available, and they may not be able to find it. Consequently, they must act without adequate evidence. This is where their will to believe may enter and create new truth or new value simply through the will to believe. Life is more than logic and more than theory. Life's values are empirical and are found in experience as men test them. The belief tends to create the fact. This will to believe in turn leads to discovery and to conviction or belief. Again, according to James, in many experiences of life man has contact with a "More." He feels about him something akin to his higher nature, something sympathetic.
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