1/25/22, 7:00 PM An Introduction to Classic American Pragmatism | Issue 43 | Philosophy Now

An Introduction to Classic American

Pragmatism
Raymond Pfeiffer, who edited this issue, takes a look at the scope of the
Pragmatic tradition.
If pragmatism has meant different things to different people, which it has, then our current issue
should ruffle few
feathers. Purists may, of course react differently. But how could one be both a pragmatist
and a purist?

In everyday speech, ‘pragmatism’ expresses a penchant for the practical. But as a philosophical
movement, its roots
run deeper. Its originator, the brilliant Charles Peirce, was a rebellious thinker
who, in the second half of the
nineteenth century, was gripped by both the natural sciences and the need
to ponder great philosophical questions.
The lead essay by Cornelis de Waal shows how scientific pursuits
shaped Peirce’s philosophy. Pragmatism was
originally the thesis that the meaning of an idea
can be found by attention to its practical consequences. Such an idea
is no mere penchant for the
practical: Rather, it is a direct and specific theory of meaning with implications beyond the
laboratory
and the library.

As David Boersema points out in his essay on Peirce and Sartre, Peirce eschewed the possibility of
some innate
intuition of a priori knowledge. Although not a positivist, he thought natural science
would approach the truth.
Pragmatism was one way he applied logic and the methodology of science to philosophy.
His theory of knowledge
was fallibilist, breaking with much of the philosophical tradition and
maintaining that some beliefs are true, some not,
but that no knowledge is infallible, and that there
is no certainty. Yet Perice wasn’t a skeptic – he didn’t go so far as to
argue that
we should suspend belief on all matters. He thought it worthwhile to pursue metaphysical (but still
uncertain)
knowledge by trying to identify and state the most general categories of all phenomena.

The second great pragmatist was William James, who seized upon Peirce’s pragmatic principle
to understand the
religious life. James argued that it could be entirely reasonable to live a religious
life even though one did not know
with any certainty about the truth of religion. If the choice is real,
important and unavoidable, one’s full decision and
commitment to live a fully and deeply religious
life can be as rational, coherent and defensible as any decision we
make in the presence of uncertainty.
And all real human decisions are made in the presence of extensive uncertainty.
James maintained that
the practical needs of humans in this world might justify beliefs and practices that cannot
otherwise
be proven true. The faith of our fathers and mothers might be reasonable not because it is true, but
because it is practical.

Kevin Decker points out that the third great pragmatist, John Dewey, was struck by the implications
of the pragmatic
maxim for human thought and history in a broad sense. A fallibilist like Peirce and
James, Dewey viewed the old
philosophical search for real, final, truths as a threat rather than a virtue.
It is the search for knowledge that emerges
from the junk heap of human thought and misguided prophets.
Whatever promotes thinking, dialogue and rational
inquiry should be encouraged, and whatever stifles
it avoided. Dewey identified certain philosophical distinctions,
called dualisms, as obstacles to improved
understanding. In the end, both human experience and nature, for Dewey,
lack sharp breaks, distinctions
or dichotomies. Destructive dualisms include supposed sharp ontological and
epistemological divisions
between mind and body, between knowledge and inquiry, between logic and reality, and
between government
and society. Since Dewey, other philosophers such as W.V.O. Quine have harnessed the tools
of linguistic
analysis to level devastating attacks on distinctions between analytic and synthetic sentences, a
priori and
a posteriori knowledge, facts and theories. As Nikolas Gkogkas shows, Nelson
Goodman continued the pragmatic
juggernaut by attacking in analytic detail the distinction between art
and science.

The influence of American pragmatism has been broad, and its interrelationships with other philosophies
rich.
Boersema’s essay reveals some suggestive and possibly historic relationships between the
approaches and
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1/25/22, 7:00 PM An Introduction to Classic American Pragmatism | Issue 43 | Philosophy Now

conclusions of Peirce and Jean-Paul Sartre. Both started their inquiries from similar
points and came to similar
conclusions about the nature of the human self.

Richard Rorty, one of the most influential recent American pragmatists, was interviewed by Giancarlo
Marchetti. Rorty
offers us reflections on James and Dewey and further thoughts on some more contemporary
movements such as
deconstructionism, forms of relativism, and anti-foundationalism. Rorty’s controversial
political writings are briefly
summarized by Carol Nicholson in her article about pragmatic patriotism.

Where Kevin Decker explains how Dewey sought to extend democracy to all areas of life and promote
a dialogue that
builds on openness of vision to promote justice, Nicholson addresses a philosophical
problem of patriotism. Given
Rorty’s recognition that a sense of patriotism can inspire the best
in a people, how can it do so in the USA today?
What can Americans draw from their rich and varied past
that can, intellectually, bring moral leadership? Nicholson
argues that Rorty’s choices, Dewey
and Whitman, are not suitable. Yet, Decker’s essay offers possible grounds for
defending Dewey
from Nicholson’s charges.

So what then best characterizes American pragmatism? Consider six characteristics. 1) Questions of
the meaning of
language are best resolved by studying the practical consequences of the ideas and statements
in question. 2) The
extent to which an idea fulfills important human goals clarifies the idea and also
provides important evidence for and
against the likelihood of its truth. 3) There is no real need for
and little to be gained from pursuit of a First Philosophy
in Descartes’ sense, or of a foundation
of our knowledge, or of the foundation of reality, or of the foundation of all
value, or of some set
of basic truths that will answer the great philosophical questions. 4) Sharp, fixed distinctions of
thought
and reality are not reflected in nature, where one thing fades off into the next, one flows into another
and the
complexity of our thought is clarified only by theories that give tentative illumination to reality.
5) Enlightenment by
some form of a priori knowledge is illusory. Even the definitions of our
terms may be changed later, as inquiry
proceeds. 6) Whatever promotes reasoned dialogue, inquiry and
further understanding is good, and what stifles it is
bad.

Can one be a strict pragmatist? It seems unlikely if one is to steer clear of dualisms, recognize
the tentative nature of
concepts and theories and avoid commitment to a supposed First Philosophy. Pragmatism
does not merely reach out
in all directions to all forms of thought: it is self-conscious and self-reflective
and self-critical. That is, it is prone to
examine its own ideas as tentative. We may one day need to
reformulate parts of some of our thinking about
ourselves. And finally, no parts of our thinking are
immune to the weight of evidence that might come in future
experience.

© PROF. RAYMOND S. PFEIFFER 2003

Raymond Pfeiffer is Professor of Philosophy at Delta College, Michigan, and a US Editor of Philosophy
Now. He
would like to thank Cornelis de Waal for all the invaluable help that he gave early in the
development of this issue.

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