BEACON UNIVERSITY
PROPONENTS AND PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM
SUBMITTED TO
DR. IAN A. H. BOND
INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY PHI 301
BY
TYRONE STEELE
HOLIDAY, FLORIDA
JULY 26, 2006
PROPONENTS AND HISTORY OF PRAGMATISM
Charles Sanders Peirce, who coined the term Pragmatism, originally developed it as a theory of meaning of scientific concepts affecting the intellect.[1] His father was a professor of astronomy and mathematics at Harvard.[2] He sought only scientific means of understanding the paradigm of intellect. He was fascinated with logic and reasoning. According to Harvard University, Peirce had nearly 1650 unpublished manuscripts, totaling 80,000 pages.[3] This makes him one of the most prolific philosophers of our time, if not the most prolific, albeit unknown.
The term Pragmatism became widely misappropriated and misused for varying philosophical theories, most of which Peirce disapproved. So he changed the name to Pragmaticism, in reference strictly to his theory alone.[4] He chose as grammatically incorrect a name possible in order to keep it from being “hijacked” again.[5]
In order to understand Peirce’s Pragmaticism one must first understand how he viewed “thought” and “truth.”
Very little in Peirce's thought can be understood in its proper light without understanding that he thinks all thoughts are signs, and thus, according to his theory of thought, no thought is understandable outside the context of a sign relation.[6]
Truth, according to William James, is “agreement with reality … in the sense that it is whatever we ultimately find believable or consistent.”[7] Although James, who popularized Pragmatism, was at odds with Peirce, they seemed to agree on this definition of truth.
PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM
The main thesis of Pragmatism is to “try to interpret each idea or concept by tracing its practical consequences in life.”[8] Pragmatism asks the question “What practical difference does it make to me if this idea is true or false? If no practical difference can be traced, then the alternatives mean the same thing and the dispute over them is worthless.”[9]
The purpose of pragmatism is to bypass guesswork, abstract thought and ideas that are lacking concreteness and instead to utilize observation, empirical facts, objective consequences and constructive viability for the individual as an instrument to understanding truth for the individual. It is not concerned with the universals and does
not attempt to give ultimate answers. It is inherently a means to an end – that means being an instrument to discovery, not as an end itself.
The problem remains, however, in how to determine what “effect” is, regarding its definition. If “effect” is only regarded in three-dimensional terms, as in later versions of Pragmatism, very little beyond the five senses can be labeled “practical.” Without these definitions, truth is strictly what works on an observably concrete basis. But the concrete is what later versions of Pragmatism concerns. It is not concerned with anything beyond the five senses, excluding even emotional responses as important or relevant. Peirce’s Pragmaticism, however, allows for the pondering the metaphysical, where Pragmatism does not allow for postulating anything beyond the physically viable.
There are three basic principles of Pragmatism: 1) Personal experience is a by-product of behavior; 2) learning is mediated by the emotional effects of behaving, thus knowledge is an outgrowth of experience; 3) An idea is true if it leads to desirable and effective consequences.
Essentially, an idea is only an idea until it is put to the three-dimensional test, until it is proven to be a valid idea. It is not suffice to simply call an idea “true” until it can be proven effective in some way. Up to that point an idea is simply an idea without validation, therefore untrue. In other words, to Peirce, and for his Pragmaticism (not necessarily Pragmatism), “the significance of an idea resides in the nature of its consequences” and “the function of thought is to be found in the production of habits of action.”[10] If something “affects” us spiritually, it can qualify as “practical” under Pragmaticism, but not Pragmatism.
[1] A.R. Lacey, A Dictionary of Philosophy, Third Revised Edition (New York: Barnes and Nobles, 1996), 171.
[2] Wikipedia. “Charles Sanders Peirce” Encyclopedia online (accessed 07/26/2006), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce; internet.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Wikipedia. “Pragmaticism” Encyclopedia online (accessed 07/26/2006), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmaticism; internet.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] A.R. Lacey, A Dictionary of Philosophy, Third Revised Edition (New York: Barnes and Nobles, 1996), 266.
[8] Dr. Ronald E. Cottle, Introduction to Philosophy, A Christian Perspective, (Georgia: Christian Life, 1998), 90.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid., 95.