{"id":1758,"date":"2023-03-27T12:21:29","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T16:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/?p=1758"},"modified":"2023-03-27T12:21:33","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T16:21:33","slug":"what-pragmatism-is-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/2023\/03\/27\/what-pragmatism-is-today\/","title":{"rendered":"What pragmatism is today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Every time I teach pragmatism, I reread some of the canonical sources and rethink what “pragmatism” means. Several years ago<\/a>, I suggested that the term might just be a mistake\u2014 that there is too much difference between the so-called pragmatists, making the word more confusing than helpful. Some<\/a> years<\/a> later<\/a>, I softened this view. Now I find myself thinking that there are a few core commitments which can be definitive of pragmatism<\/em>.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

These two core commitments are shared by genre-defining pragmatists Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey as well as by many other philosophers that one might call pragmatists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First:<\/strong> Pragmatists reject the knowing\/doing dichotomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This typically leads to something like the pragmatic maxim<\/em>.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Here’s how Peirce formulated it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This turns the commitment into a tool for dissolving philosophical disputes. Some disputes, despite their appearance of depth, turn out to be merely verbal. Where there is no possible practical difference, there is no difference but stamping and shouting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This makes pragmatism forward-looking, which distinguishes it from mere empiricism. Rather than looking for the origins of ideas in past experience, as earlier empiricists had done, pragmatists look toward the consequences of ideas in future experience.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can\u2014 but need not\u2014 motivate the rejection of the fact\/value dichotomy. That further move is explicit in Dewey and, much later, Putnam. It is implicit in James.<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> It is absent perhaps from Peirce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second:<\/strong> Pragmatists insist that real enquiry must be driven by genuine indeterminate situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are committed to some version of the belief-doubt model<\/em> of enquiry, according to which we necessarily start out with some stock of old beliefs until disruptive experience leads us to reconsider some of them.<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> We can’t call everything into question at once. Answers are partial, local, and not final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So pragmatism requires anti-foundationalism and fallibilism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Relatedly:<\/strong> Historical pragmatists were naturalistic, in the sense that they were trying to make sense of the world as revealed to us by science. In particular, they were concerned with making sense of humans in light of Darwinian evolution\u2014 reconciling us as thinkers with us as creatures. This is arguably a third defining commitment, but in any case is a motive for both of the commitments I’ve outlined above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every time I teach pragmatism, I reread some of the canonical sources and rethink what “pragmatism” means. Several years ago, I suggested that the term might just be a mistake\u2014 that there is too much difference between the so-called pragmatists, making the word more confusing than helpful. Some years later, I softened this view. Now … Continue reading “What pragmatism is today”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[23,13],"class_list":["post-1758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy","tag-pragmatism","tag-teaching"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7PjAo-sm","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1759,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758\/revisions\/1759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}