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When William James and Charles Pierce coined the term "pragmatism" 150 years ago, they meant something more than mere "practicality. " James and Pierce were making a point about the nature of "truth. " Truth, they argued, isn't some transcendent thing that exists beyond human experience. Truth is found right here on earth. If belief in an idea leads to positive results, then the idea is true; if belief in an idea leads to negative results, then it is false. Charles Pierce (1839 - 1914 was perhaps the most seminal figure in American Pragmatism.
Trained as a scientist, this Boston native wanted to apply the powerful scientific method to philosophical problems. Peirce emphasized the need for ongoing cooperative inquiry; according to his Pragmatic Maxim, meaning is established by direct interaction with the sensible effects of whatever we " re studying. For Pierce, pragmatic effects are sensory, experiential, future-oriented, and publicly perceptible. William James credited Charles Pierce with founding pragmatism.
Unlike some later pragmatists such as William James and John Dewey, Pierce conceived of pragmatism primarily as a method for the clarification of ideas, which involved applying the methods of science to philosophical issues. Pragmatism has been regarded as a distinctively American philosophy. Pierce is also considered to be the father of modern semiotics, the science of signs. Moreover, his often pioneering work is relevant to many disciplines, such as astronomy, metrology, geodesy, mathematics, logic, philosophy, the theory and history of science, linguistics, econometrics, and psychology. His work and his views on these subjects have become the subject of renewed interest and lavish praise.
This revival is inspired not only by Pearce's intelligent anticipations of recent scientific developments but also, and especially, by his effective demonstration of how philosophy can be applied responsibly to human problems. Bertrand Russell opined, "Beyond doubt... he was one of the most original minds of the later nineteenth century, and certainly the greatest American thinker ever. "N Karl Popper viewed him as "one of the greatest philosophers of all times. "N In some ways, Pierce was a systematic philosopher in the traditional sense of the word. But his work also deals with modern problems of science, truth, and knowledge, starting from his own valuable personal experience as a logician and experimental researcher who labored within an international community of scientists and thinkers. Peirce made relevant contributions to deductive logic, but he was primarily interested in the logic of science and specifically in what he called abduction (as opposed to deduction and induction). Abduction is the process whereby a hypothesis is generated, so that surprising facts may be explained. "There is a more familiar name for it than abduction, " Peirce wrote, "for it is neither more nor less than guessing. "N Indeed, Peirce considered abduction to be at the heart not only of scientific research but of all ordinary human activities as well.
His pragmatism may be understood as a method of sorting out conceptual confusions by relating the meaning of concepts to practical consequences. Emphatically, this theory bears no resemblance to the vulgar notion of pragmatism, which connotes such things as the ruthless search for profit or political convenience. William James (1842 - 1910) was troubled by the precarious place of humans in the new scientific world: he defended a philosophy that affirms a meaningful role for humans. James shifted from Pearce's emphasis on logic to an emphasis on moral and psychological matters, insisting that truth is more individual, short-term, and personal than Peirce had allowed. According to James, we do not live like scientists, and our lives are full of beliefs that may fail to meet the strict requirements of reasoned inquiry.
This question brings me to the most important and intriguing part of this lecture, namely, James's notions of truth and value. For James, as an empiricist, is determined to rescue our understanding of religion from dogmatic systems asserting logical truths about religion, and yet at the same time he is clearly ready to proclaim that some forms of experience are worth a lot more than others. This question James faces squarely in the final lectures of the series, starting with the section on "The Values of Saintliness" (278). Any discussion of this topic immediately involves the name of the philosophical system most closely associated with James -- Pragmatism, which he is widely credited with launching in August 1898 in lecture at the University of California at Berkeley (although the origin of Pragmatism is a matter of dispute). For James, Pragmatism is not primarily a philosophical method.
It is, by contrast, a system of judging whether our ideas and beliefs are true and valuable. As a psychologist James believes that what he calls Pragmatism is indeed the way almost everyone really does think, so the term is as much descriptive as anything else. In brief the main elements of the theory are as follows: Human beings lead purposeful individual lives. We make decisions for ourselves on the basis of who we are, driven by the unique make up of our experiences, our desires, our unconscious motives, our culture, and our particular circumstances.
James is no determinist -- we do have the freedom to make decisions and moral choices. But his view of human beings is firmly rooted in biology -- our decisions and choices arise out of the organic natures we possess, and these are radically individual. The life that confronts us is, in James's famous phrase a "buzzing, blooming confusion. " When we seek what is the right thing to do we bring to bear all the equipment of our individual minds in a "pragmatic" search, looking for what is going to succeed in these particular circumstances. We do not consult some ideal blueprint or some universal rule (like, say, the categorical imperative) -- instead we focus on the consequences of various actions. And we test our decisions, not in accordance with any rational formula, but on the basis of their success for us. If particular ideas work for us, then they are true and we will bring them to bear on further experiences. "Beliefs, in short, " James claims, "are rules for action; and the whole function of thinking is but one step in the production of active habits. " (369) Furthermore, only a belief in God, James maintains, can give us sufficient justification for our natural desires for a morally strenuous life marked by concern for others.
James clearly values this form of life more than others, and he believes that human beings will devote themselves to the heroic, the charitable, and the morally demanding if religious ideas are available to them. Whether this is true or not is open to debate, but no one can deny, I think, that religion can be and has been inspiring to individuals in their conduct towards others. Thus, those who miss the point by accusing James of encouraging hedonism -- if it feels all right to me then it must be true -- miss the point. Without religious ideas (whatever their origin) we will lack any proper justification for a morally strenuous life, and we will even fail to understand those for whom the morally strenuous life is more important than commodious living. Without religious ideas, therefore, the quality of human life for James will suffer enormously. References Barzun, Jacques.
A Stroll With William James (New York: Harper and Row, 1983) James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Mentor, 1958) Sucking, Ellen Kappa. The Pragmatic Philosophy of William James (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982)
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