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1 Introducing Philosophy Pragmatist Style 1 INTRODUCING PHILOSOPHY PRAGMATIST STYLE: AN ESSAY by Paul T. Durbin Emeritus Professor Philosophy Department and Center for Energy and Environmental Policy University of Delaware (c) 2007 TOPICAL OUTLINE Part One: Science versus Metaphysics, with Pragmatism as Middle Ground Introduction to Part 1: Why Western Philosophy Begins with the Pre-Socratics; or from Mythical Unity to Proto-Scientific Pluralism Section One: Metaphysics from Parmenides to Plato, Aristotle, and Skepticism 1. Parmenides 2. Plato on Ideas 3. Aristotle's "Moderate Realist" Reinterpretation of Plato's Ideas 4. Greek Skepticism Section Two: Science Forerunners among the Greeks: the Pythagorean Roots of Empedocles' Pluralism; Euclidian Geometry and Archimedes; Plato, Aristotle, and the Atomists 1. Empedocles 2. Euclid, Archimedes, and Aristarchus 3. Nature in Plato, Aristotle, and the Atomists a. Plato b. Aristotle's Four Causes and Natural Explanations 2 c. The Ancient Atomists Section Three: Ethics from Socrates to Plato to Aristotle and the Stoics 1. Greek Paideia 2. Socrates 3. Plato 4. Aristotle 5. The Stoics Section Four: Practice, the Missing Ingredient: Greek Drama; Politics and the Sophists Reconsidered; plus the "Mechanical" Arts and Crafts 1. Greek Drama 2. The Sophists Reconsidered: Greek Politics 3. "Mechanical" Arts and Crafts Part Two: Radicalisms in Philosophy and How Pragmatism Differs Introduction to Part 2: What Does Radicalism in Philosophy Mean? Four Answers Plus Pragmatism Section One: Descartes and Epistemological Radicalism Section Two: Empiricist Radicalism: Bacon, Hume, and Mill Section Three: Transcendental Radicalism: Kant and Hegel Section Four: Political Radicalism: Marx Section Five: Enter American Pragmatism: Peirce, James, and Dewey 1. Peirce 2. James 3. Dewey Part Three: Analytical Pragmatism a. Joseph Margolis's Reinventing Pragmatism b. Larry Hickman on Analytical Applied Philosophy Part Four: Activist Philosophy: Why It Is Not a Misnomer Introduction: How Philosophers Typically Find Their Career Path, and How the Pragmatic Way Differs I originally wrote this introduction as an appendix, and I placed it there out of deference to the reticence to talk about such matters in introductions to philosophy. But for a pragmatist in the tradition of George Mead and John Dewey, it should come at the beginning. What I claim here is that the typical path to a philosophy career tends to mask all debts that the individual owes to others who have helped him or her along the way -- it is made to appear that the individual has accomplished everything by himself or herself, usually with only the recognition of one principal mentor -- whereas pragmatists insist on the fact that all intellectual advances are made within supportive groups, all the way back to fam- ilies of origin. In the process, I argue that philosophy departments (I'm thinking mostly 3 about departments in universities in the USA) would do a better educational job if they de-emphasized a record of outstanding individual achievement in favor of broader stand- ards of achievement. This is, obviously, an argument in favor of greater inclusiveness, but I make it here in the name of pragmatic activism, of likely benefits for society in general. Bertrand Russell is rare among philosophers in having written an autobiography. And among the many philosophers I have known in a long career and in many different types of departments, I know of only one -- David Norton, long-time colleague in the Philos- ophy Department at the University of Delaware, now deceased -- who regularly invoked his past in his classes and in his writings. For most of the philosophers I have known well, it's as though they had no past, certainly no past beyond the work they did in grad- uate school with a particular mentor; even there, the past is typically reduced to the in- tellectual problem on which they worked together, with themselves as manifesting some sort of disagreement or separation that marked their originality as they started out on their academic career. For an American Pragmatist in the tradition of Dewey and of Mead even more so, that would appear to be odd, even indefensible. This is because, in that tradition, a person's philosophy is never uniquely his or hers; it is usually only a small step forward in an evo- lutionary history that stretches all the way back to the beginnings of human thought -- and beyond that, to non-human communication, back to the very beginnings of evolution. Even at the point where most philosophers begin, if they dwell on the matter at all -- that is, with their graduate school work with a particular (usually identified as a partic- ularly gifted) mentor -- Mead would emphasize the intellectual culture of the mentor, his or her mentors and the school of thought represented by them, where individual creativity or originality shows up against a background that the group takes for granted. The origi- nality of the budding young philosopher (as is true, in a different sense, of budding young scientists; see Robert Merton's "On the Shoulders of Giants") is recognized not only by the mentor but by others sharing that school of thought -- including its disagreements with other schools of thought. Randall Collins shows in his "sociology of philosophies" -- he says it is the essence thereof -- that the same dynamic is operative in a wide variety of cultures, so-called Eastern as well as Western, from their origins up to the beginning of the twentieth century (the point at which he thinks he must stop for lack of adequate evidence for more recent philosophical schools). And all such schools of thought involve outstanding symbolic practitioners who are thought to have achieved the goals, and the rewards, of that particular approach, or to have vanquished opponents in a definitive way. Actually, in my experience, few philosophers are willing to reflect to any great extent even on their experiences in graduate school. They just want to go on about their work, like the scientists whom many of them emulate, solving their particular set of problems and advancing their particular careers. Since this is so, and displaying my own reticence about doing an intellectual autobio- graphy of my own philosophical development, what I will do here is talk about the typi- 4 cal development of the average philosopher -- as I have come to know philosophers in- dividually -- or the average student who takes up a philosophy major (in the USA) or a philosophy "career" (carrera in the Spanish version of a university specialization, which I also know reasonably well). Most philosophers I have known have been academic oddballs -- we used to call them "nerds," but each era has its own similar expression to describe the stereotype -- from a very early age. They stood out from the crowd, for instance in high school, not for ath- letic success or success with girls, but for their ability to do well in school, to get high grades, even to win intellectual awards. I have never done a survey in the years I have thought about this, but my hunch is that a very high percentage of academics who end up as philosophers were valedictorians when they graduated from high school. Some have been known almost all their lives, among their peers, as "professor" (that was one of my personal nicknames), or "egghead," or something similar. It's almost as if they have been destined or fated to be philosophers -- or mathematicians, or theoretical physicists or something similar. And the same thing shows up in their university careers. Along with future scientists and engineers, philosophers seem to choose their major or their career very early on; they gravitate to particular kinds of professors, sometimes taking classes with a particular pro- fessor as often as the rules of the university allow. I am stereotyping, I know, but the reader should bear with me. Making fun of my friends and colleagues is not my goal. I want to look at the path the typical philosophy major (to the extent there is such) takes, as he or she goes on to graduate school, but also at the path that led to the stereotypical behavior from the earliest school years to high school and university and graduate work in philosophy. I begin at the beginning. Most philosophers I have known -- there are some excep- tions, of course -- have been praised within their families for their braininess. They were praised, early on, for reading well and much. Some, though I really have to stretch to say this (given the lack of hard evidence I have), seem to have thought of books as their best friends; at least many say that books have been their friends all their lives. They have also excelled at test taking, a skill that is increasingly praised these days in public schools but that has always been praised in private schools. I suspect that they have also, from their earliest years, been favorites of their teachers, especially of par- ticular teachers who are known for fostering academic excellence. There are some studies of this phenomenon, though the focus is the academically gifted in general (not those who end up as philosophy professors), and the studies demonstrate at least anec- dotally a high percentage who have had special teachers somewhere in their school years who have influenced them either to choose their academic career path or to do well in it. In talking with colleagues in philosophy departments -- not focusing on particular philosophers' backgrounds but drawing inferences from what they say about their grad school work -- I have found that an overwhelming percentage of them continued these patterns, with their strong reinforcers, right into graduate school. They were now praised 5 to an even higher degree for their braininess, for their ability to please particular profes- sors and be admitted into their study groups or to go immediately into work that will lead to a choice of thesis topic.
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