Pragmatism is one of the most successful idioms in philosophy | Aeon Essays 11/20/19, 941 AM Pragmatism endures Pragmatism was not eclipsed after Dewey: it has been a constant and dominant force in philosophy for nearly 100 years 18 November, 2019 At the dawn of the 20th century, there emerged in the United States a distinctive philosophical movement known as pragmatism. Although the term is often used today to denote the blunt desire to get results, the founders of pragmatism – Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), William James (1842- 1910), John Dewey (1859-1952), Chauncey Wright (1830-75) and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr (1841-1935) – were subtle thinkers. Each made significant contributions in areas ranging from logic, epistemology, philosophy of language, legal philosophy, philosophy of science, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of religion and political philosophy. Despite their differences, they were animated by a common interpretation of philosophical empiricism that emphasises the role of action in our thinking, from the habitual and mundane to the experimental and creative. The core of pragmatism is Peirceʼs ‘pragmatic maximʼ, which proposes to analyse the meaning of our concepts by looking to how they guide action. It is fitting that one of the earliest books about the development of pragmatism should be titled Meaning and Action (1968). In that work, the American philosopher H S Thayer presented a view of pragmatismʼs founding that has become standard: Pragmatism is a method of philosophising often identified as a theory of meaning first stated by Charles Peirce in the 1870s; revived primarily as a https://aeon.co/essays/pragmatism-is-one-of-the-most-successful-idioms-in-philosophy Page 1 of 13 Pragmatism is one of the most successful idioms in philosophy | Aeon Essays 11/20/19, 941 AM theory of truth in 1898 by William James; and further developed, expanded, and disseminated by John Dewey. There are two tightly related ideas at play here. First, there is the view that Peirce and James formulated versions of pragmatism that are partial precursors to the systematic pragmatism of Dewey. Second, there is the notion that the story of pragmatismʼs founding is the story of philosophical differences withering away, unifying in Deweyʼs philosophy. This developmental view of the history of pragmatism is wrong. Sign up to our newsletter Updates on everything new at Aeon. One neednʼt scour pragmatismʼs initiating documents in order to identify points of substantive disagreement among Peirce, James and Dewey. Pragmatism was founded amid a well-known dispute between Peirce and James over its central idea, the ‘pragmatic maximʼ. Peirce proposed the pragmatic maxim as a tool for dispensing with metaphysical nonsense; for him, pragmatism was strictly a ‘method of ascertaining the meanings of hard words and abstract conceptsʼ. The core of this method is the idea that we must look to the upshot of our concepts in order to understand them. To get a sense of how the pragmatic maxim operates, consider one of Peirceʼs own applications: the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. This is the view that in the Mass, bread and wine are metaphysically transformed into the body and blood of Christ, despite there being no change at all in their sensible properties. In what, Peirce asks, could this transformation consist? His answer is that the very idea of something being blood but in every conceivable way being empirically indistinguishable from wine is nonsense, ‘senseless jargonʼ. By insisting that words and statements be analysed according to ‘what is https://aeon.co/essays/pragmatism-is-one-of-the-most-successful-idioms-in-philosophy Page 2 of 13 Pragmatism is one of the most successful idioms in philosophy | Aeon Essays 11/20/19, 941 AM tangible and conceivably practicalʼ, Peirce aspired to ‘dismiss make-believesʼ from philosophy, and thereby set upon the path of proper enquiry. James was dissatisfied with Peirceʼs formulation of the maxim. Instead, he proposed a broader rendition according to which the point of pragmatism is not to dispel metaphysical nonsense, as Peirce had alleged, but rather to settle metaphysical disputes. James proposed that one should include among the practical effects of a statement the psychological impacts of believing it. Whereas Peirce argued that the pragmatic maxim exposes the meaninglessness of the doctrine of transubstantiation, James thought that pragmatism afforded a decisive case in favour of it. The idea that one can ‘feed upon the very substance of divinityʼ has ‘tremendous effectʼ and thus is the ‘only pragmatic applicationʼ of the idea of a substance. For James, the pragmatic maxim serves to resolve rather than dissolve longstanding philosophical debates. This difference regarding the pragmatic maxim underlies a monumental dispute between Peirce and James over truth. Peirce argued that a belief is true if it would be ‘indefeasibleʼ; or perfectly satisfactory; or would not be improved upon; or would never lead to disappointment; or would forever meet the challenges of reasons, argument and evidence. James meanwhile set out his view on truth and objectivity thus: Any idea upon which we can ride … any idea that will carry us prosperously from any one part of our experience to any other part, linking things satisfactorily, working securely, simplifying, saving labour, is … true instrumentally. ‘Satisfactorily,ʼ for James, ‘means more satisfactorily to ourselves, and individuals will emphasise their points of satisfaction differently. To a certain degree, therefore, everything here is plastic.ʼ Peirce did not think that truth was https://aeon.co/essays/pragmatism-is-one-of-the-most-successful-idioms-in-philosophy Page 3 of 13 Pragmatism is one of the most successful idioms in philosophy | Aeon Essays 11/20/19, 941 AM plastic. He told James: ‘I thought your Will to Believe was a very exaggerated utterance, such as injures a serious man very much.ʼ He scorned what he took to be Jamesʼs view: ‘Oh, I could not believe so-and-so, because I should be wretched if I did.ʼ Dewey contended that the traditional philosophical problems should be simply abandoned as ‘chaffʼ When Dewey is brought into the picture, the story of pragmatism is shown to be anything but straightforwardly developmental, where one philosopherʼs thought naturally leads to the next oneʼs. According to Dewey, pragmatism was neither in the business of dismissing nonsense nor of settling metaphysical disputes. He sought a way of doing philosophy that was unhindered by the traditional puzzles and problematics. He resisted the Peircean strategy of proposing a test of meaning and, instead, socialised philosophy, arguing that the traditional philosophical problems naturally arose out of the social and intellectual conditions of a pre-Darwinian age. Dewey contended that, since these conditions no longer obtain, the traditional philosophical problems should be simply abandoned as ‘chaffʼ, replaced by new difficulties arising from Darwinian science. In Deweyʼs view, Darwinism shows that the world contains no fixed essences or immutable natures. This realisation sets the problem of revising our philosophical and moral ideas so that they are better suited to serve as tools for directing change. According to Dewey, the leading philosophical problem for a post-Darwin epoch is that of keeping our values in step with our technological power, so that they might guide society towards greater freedom. In this respect, Dewey breaks decisively with James: his pragmatism is not aimed at resolving disputes, but rather at showing that nonpragmatic philosophical programmes are nonviable. Here, Dewey might at first seem https://aeon.co/essays/pragmatism-is-one-of-the-most-successful-idioms-in-philosophy Page 4 of 13 Pragmatism is one of the most successful idioms in philosophy | Aeon Essays 11/20/19, 941 AM allied with Peirce, but Deweyʼs stance towards the philosophical tradition is more extreme. To be sure, Peirceʼs maxim would have it that many traditional metaphysical statements are nonsense; however, it also leaves a great number of philosophical debates standing. For example, Peirce thought that the dispute between nominalism and realism (does reality consist only of concrete particulars or is generality real as well?) was a real and important philosophical dispute. He proposed his maxim as a way to ensure that such legitimate philosophical debates could proceed profitably. Metaphysics, ‘in its present conditionʼ, is a ‘puny, rickety, and scrofulous scienceʼ, but it need not remain so. The pragmatic maxim will sweep ‘all metaphysical rubbish out of oneʼs house. Each abstraction is either pronounced gibberish or is provided with a plain, practical definition.ʼ Dewey, by contrast, aimed his criticisms not at specific statements, but at entire philosophical programmes. He dismissed Cartesianism, Kantianism, Humeanism, Platonism, Aristotelianism and nearly every other philosophical school as instantiations of the common defect of employing some or other archaic dualism. Again, Deweyʼs charge is that all such approaches are obsolete: not meaningless, but unfit and useless tendencies to be gotten over. Whereas Peirce saw pragmatism as a rule for conducting philosophical enquiry, Dewey saw pragmatism as a philosophical programme for restructuring philosophy and society. These philosophical differences were well recognised by the classical pragmatists themselves. The work of James and those he influenced led Peirce in 1905 to officially renounce the term pragmatism; he