Pragmatism: Peirce and James

From Geography

Pragmatism

Pragmatism started in the late nineteenth century, and was renewed in the sixties of the last century. This movement can be seen as an awnser on the big questions that were asked around the main philosphy. Instead of only looking to the constitution of life, this movement is seeking to get an insight on philosophical activity in the practicalities of daily life. Trough this kind of perspective, scientists were negotiating the thorny and almost irresolvabl questions of philosophy by both looking at the fundaments and the applications of daily life. According to pragmatism an idea can be seen as true or correct, if its tested on it’s validity Rorty claimed that scientists have to approach the reality by seeing it like an ongoing conversation between all of us, instead of the idea that knowledge consist of unobtainable accurate representation of reality.True knowlegde can be found within interaction of ‘normal’people as well, instead of the few great philosophers.

Peirce

Charles Sanders Peirce (September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was one of the founding fathers of pragmatism. He was a philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist. Peirce took over the term ‘pragmatic’ from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. In Kant’s work pragmatic is used to make a distinction between practical laws based on empirical principles caused by motives of happiness on the one hand and on the other practical laws based on pure rational principles. Pragmatism according to Peirce is a method (he uses logic) to clear up many concepts (How to our ideas clear, 1878). He said: when the meaning of ideas and concepts are tested by thought experiments the meaning will be exposed. Such thought experiments examine what the relation is between ideas and the truth.

James

William James (January 11, 1842 - August 26, 1910) was a American philosopher and psychologist. Like Peirce he was a prominent philosopher using the pragmatic method. One of his important works is ‘Pragmatism’. In that book he writes about the actual dilemma of determinism. This dilemma means the big clash in the history of philosophy. In this clash there are two camps. One side the tough-minded and the other side the tender-minded. Last group embraces a rationalistic point of view (principles). First group has an empirical point of view (facts). These two visions want to dispute each other. In the end there is no absolute ’winner’. Williams introduces his pragmatic method. The pragmatic method is aiming to scrutinize these discussions and to trace the practical consequences. When there is no practical difference between the consequenc is every discussion about absolute truth senseless.