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    Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking
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    Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking
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    Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking
    Ebook198 pages4 hours

    Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking

    By William James

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The word pragmatism is used everywhere today, from business to sports to politics. Although the word hadn't yet entered everyday language when William James published "Pragmatism" in 1907, the philosopher believed its doctrine had virtually become common sense in twentieth-century America. For James, pragmatism was a specific philosophical alternative to essentialism and foundationalism and argued that ideas are meaningful only insofar as they have practical consequences in concrete human experience; however today pragmatism has come to denote merely a general willingness to compromise principles, even to the point of selfishness or irresponsibility. Written in an engaging and accessible style, "Pragmatism" is a valuable corrective to modern uses of the word, since the voice that speaks in its pages embodies precisely the opposite values from the pejorative semes the word has acquired.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStart Classics
    Release dateNov 1, 2013
    ISBN9781627936842
    Unavailable
    Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking

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    Reviews for Pragmatism

    3.5/5

    69 ratings3 reviews

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    • 2/5
      bought 2/21/2014. Is from lectures delivered at Harvard--long sentences, hard to get the point.
    • 3/5
      James is too happy for my tastes.
    • 3/5
      It's easy to see how this would be so readily adopted by Dewey and other reformers, since Truth is really just a conveyance to an end. I'm not quite as critical as that might seem. James is convincing in his argument that the other philosophers rely too much on abstraction and logic, when much of that rationality becomes too unwieldy for use.