We explain what pragmatism is in philosophy, its characteristics and representatives. Also, what does it mean to be pragmatic.
What is pragmatism?
Pragmatism is a North American philosophical current that emerged from the ideas of Charles S. Peirce at the end of the 19th century.
Peirce is known for being the author of the pragmatic maxim, which is a premise from which pragmatism works. The pragmatic maxim holds that “to conceive an object is to conceive its practical consequences”.
Peirce's intention was to think of a method and not a current, which is why there are as many pragmatisms as there are pragmatic methods used.
Representatives of pragmatism are Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914), William James (1842-1910), John Dewey (1859-1952) and Ferdinand SC Schiller (1864-1937).
Pragmatism was very well received in the United States during the last years of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Although it had its origin in the ideas of Peirce, pragmatism contains, as a current, great diversity. From this diversity arises the constant need to clarify what pragmatism is being talked about when it is mentioned.
The term “pragmatism” comes from the Greek pragmawhich means “action” or “fact.” However, when he thought about pragmatism, Peirce had the German Kantian concept in mind pragmaticwhich is related to the empirical, and differs from praktischwhich aims to make action an end in itself. Compared to practicality, pragmatism emphasizes the necessary relationship between behavior and rational thought.
What does it mean to be pragmatic? Currently, the terms “pragmatic” and “pragmatism” are used to indicate that a person or a philosophy focuses more attention on obtaining results than on the details of the procedure itself. A person who focuses on solving problems, and not how they solve them, is a pragmatic person.
See also: Philosophical knowledge
Characteristics of pragmatism
There is no single way to define pragmatism as there are many pragmatist approaches. However, there are some common traits.
The following characteristics can be observed in pragmatism:
- It was born at the end of the 19th century and was the philosophical trend in the United States during the first part of the 20th century.
- He argued that the criteria for accepting ideas are their usefulness, practicality and good functioning.
- He maintained the idea that meaning should be sought in its practical consequences.
- He postulated that the function of thought is to guide action and that truth must be examined by the practical consequences of belief.
The pragmatist method is summarized in Peirce's formulation of 1878, in his work How to make our ideas clear:“Consider what effects, which could conceivably have practical repercussions, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then our conception of those effects is the totality of our conception of the object.”
From this formulation the first three definitions of pragmatism emerge:
- An idea of something is the idea of its sensible effects.
- The meaning of a conception is determined by the practical consequences of that conception.
- The understanding of that meaning, that is, the understanding of a concept, occurs through its practical effects.
History of pragmatism
The creation of pragmatism is attributed to Charles Pierce (1839-1914), American logician and scientist.
Between 1871 and 1872, Peirce led, along with other Harvard intellectuals, different meetings of the Cambridge Metaphysical Club. They included William James, Joseph Warner, Nicholas St. John Green, Chauncey Wright and Oliver W. Holmes Jr.
Peirce's group worked from the idea of beliefby Alexander Bain. This author stated that belief was “that from which a man is willing to act.”
However, The first pragmatic texts emerged from the publication of six articles by Peirce of 1878, all under the title Science logic illustrations. Although the term “pragmatism” is not mentioned in them, they describe the idea of pragmatism itself.
In 1907 William James published the book Pragmatism and explained the Greek and German origins of the term.
The main influences of the early pragmatists were:
- The British Empiricism of John Stuart Mill, Alexander Bain and John Venn especially Bain's notion of experience as “rule or habit of action.”
- German philosophy of the time especially, the regulative ideas of Immanuel Kant (according to this author, the ideas that guide understanding), as well as the Hegelian conception of development (based on experience) and the work of romantic idealists around reason as reason practice.
In addition to philosophical influences, different historical circumstances of the North American 19th century contributed to the emergence of pragmatism: the rise of the scientific method, the theory of evolution, the ideals of democratic America and the strength of philosophical empiricism are some of them.
Representatives of pragmatism
The main representatives of pragmatism were:
- Charles Pierce (1839-1914). He was a philosopher, scientist and logician of the late 19th century, who shares with Ferdinand de Saussure the title of “father of semiotics”.
- William James (1842-1910). He was an American philosopher and psychologist, who created his own doctrine of thought that he called “radical empiricism” and was the founder of the psychology of religion.
- John Dewey (1859-1952). He was a psychologist, pedagogue and philosopher. It is associated with American progressive pedagogy. He wrote about art, logic, democracy and ethics. He always promoted the unification between theory and practice, thought and action.
References
- Morris, C. W. (1970). The pragmatic movement in American philosophy.
- James, W. (2020). “Pragmatism”. In Pragmatism (pp. 53-75). Routledge.
- Peirce, C.S., Cohen, M.R., & Dewey, J. (2017). “How to Make Our Ideas Clear.” In Chance, love, and logic (pp. 32-60). Routledge.
