Pragmatism

From Geography

Pragmatism began in the late nineteenth- century as a philosophical movement. Through the beginning of the twentieth century pragmatism was further developed in the works of, among others, William James.

There was an accent on the philosophical action in the practice of everyday life. The concept of truth didn’t emphasize the practical consequences of hypothesis, but more the knowledge behind the action. Knowledge can’t be found in the objective truth, because the process of knowledge takes place in people’s minds. There is no access to it. In science it is therefore difficult to test a hypothesis. We can use the knowledge, but is has to be pragmatically tested.

The first followers of the ideas of pragmatism try to look for the ‘accurate representation of reality’ by using knowledge. Rorty, an American philosopher, was suggesting that pragmatism examines the use of ‘knowledge’, which can be described as an ongoing conversation between all of us, in our daily life (Cloke, Philo & Sadler, 1991, p.86). So, not only people who have the knowledge (like students) are important for understanding the reality, but everybody takes part.

In 1981, Frazier was the first who used the term pragmatism in geography. The question was: ‘How should geographers research humanistic theory about ‘action roles’ in a pragmatically way?’ (Cloke, Philo & Sadler, 1991, p.86). He found out that human interests, desires, prejudices and group values vary across space. The action roles are influenced by these characters.

Geography matters, in a very practical way!

References:

Cloke, P., Philo, C. and Sadler, D. (1991) Approaching Human Geography. Chapman, London.

Hookway, C (2008). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, Stanford.

Published by Christine Hutting and Milou Pollemans