CONCISE DEFINITION OF PRAGMATISM AS A PHILOSOPHICAL BRANCH
Pragmatism is essentially the belief, or doctrine, that knowledge accumulated by humans should be utilized to act on things. An idea can be deemed particularly to contain truth if one is able to practically apply it and produce some effect from it.
In pragmatism, the idea is that intelligence is not assessed based on a person’s ability to know how to find something, but how to act on what is found. William James was an advocate for the theory that an idea is only considered true when it can be proven, but is it possible for him to argue that an idea is only true due to being already true to begin with? It is also understandable to argue that an idea can only be true if it has some sort of utility or usefulness, which essentially leads to the conclusion that any idea, concept or theory if born out of practice, which means that the abstract conceptualizations of systems are derived from concrete conditions, which contain their type of development cycles and direct the scope of their validity. This style of thinking can be found historically as it pertains to dialectical materialism, as well as in the case of the psychology of knowledge by Piaget and in the case of psychoanalysis, where the yearning to find out the truth will usually lead to interest in another order, as in the case of the mechanism of sublimation.
INTERPRETATIONS AND PHILOSOPHERS OF PRAGMATISM
Pragmatism derives it’s name from Greek pragmatic business and is said to mean two things – the first being something along the lines of “sticking to reality” and the second being “to bind the meaning, cognition and action”. Pragmatism was founded in the 19th century as a school of philosophy by those who were not entirely in agreement with metaphysics school of Hegel that was part of mainstream philosophical teachings at the time, as well as the dichotomy of theory and practice according to Kant and Aristotle. Pragmatism and it’s founding and development can be attributed to the philosophers Pierce, James, Dewey and Mead, who worked on this branch of philosophy from the 1850’s to the 1950’s, as well as their “new pragmatist” counterparts, who further developed the field, from the 1950’s to 2000’s, them being Rorty, Putnam, Quine and Goodman.
The philosophy of pragmatism that was developed in America has been criticized by those practitioners of the branch in Europe, including Russell and Popper, which have accused the American school of pragmatism to be a sort of “philosophy for engineers” due to the nagging and exorbitant focus on practice. Despite this schism in thinking, pragmatism itself is meant to be a philosophy as opposed to a unifying set of philosophies, which would be the case in terms of the diversity of alternatives when it comes to this philosophy, including the connection between truth and meaning, cognition and action, science, morality and art. Thanks to Dewey, pragmatism as a philosophy has evolved in such a way that it is a fruitful contribution to the philosophy of technology in addition to all these other things.
Pragmatism considers itself a methodology in which any philosophical idea can be made clear in such a way that it appears to be practically plausible, as according to Pierce, as well as to circumvent the possibility of confusion by pointing out the practical effects that our ideas are capable of achieving. The essential premise behind Pierce’s pragmatism is “Look what the practical effects that you think can be produced by the object of your design: the design of all these effects is the whole conception of your object.” As such, for James, there is no way to discern the practical effects between two dissimilar concepts, such as water and H2O, if these concepts are designed to refer to the same end result. Despite this, there are many variations of pragmatism developed by it’s practitioners, most importantly when it comes to the concept of truth. Pierce thought that truth should be perceived as a state of belief in which an absolute and perfect amount of information is available for a community of researchers to sufficiently finish an investigation, and yet for James truth is not indicative as being as a sort of property that objects possess, but rather, pertaining to the properties ideas possess and ultimately to the ability to verify a criteria in which this idea has utility for an individual or the community as a whole, and when it comes to Dewey’s pragmatism, the truth is meant to be a sort of “guarantee of assertibility” in which the virility of the truth itself is judged based upon the ability to develop a sufficiently acceptable justification regarding an assertion or affirmation.
One of the critics of pragmatism from the European school that enjoys dismantling this philosophy, Russell, heavily deliberated on the crucial conception of truth, where in his reasoning, truth was closer to a tool used for predicting things as opposed to creating a carbon copy of reality, deemed the crucial conception of truth as being logically nonsensical and had the potential to create a political disaster. Through this, he ascertains that pragmatism is useful as a philosophy for engineers, and is dependent to evolve if theories of men of action and men of faith were to intertwine. Popper’s idea of pragmatism involved the belief that it will lead to a confusion between science and technology, attempting to convert scientific theories into something calculable, something computational. More recent pragmatists such as Rorty responded by saying that there is no rational method of research in existence, whether it be through the Discourse of Method by Descartes, or the Logic of Scientific Discovery by Popper, since the “true and the good” being discovered is impossible through any “method” that is either scientific or philosophical, but can only be figured out in a community of human beings reliant on the contingency that it satisfies some end and that investigation of what is perceived to be true or good by this community being the means. Putnam’s pragmatism, on the other hand, which falls more under the category of neo-pragmatism rather than in the classical sense, suggests that if the truth can be reached, the minimum threshold should be that we insist our claims possess some level of rational acceptability using a variety of applicable justifications.
DEWEY’S TAKE ON PRAGMATISM
Where Dewey differs from the other pragmatists, Pierce being a logician and James being a psychologist, in that he has gone over all of the areas in one way or another through his evolving of pragmatism, including everything from logic to politics. Dewey’s logic can be construed as being a sort of “theory of inquiry”, where investigations can be done by all living beings, and particularly men as animals. All living things have increasingly found their commonality, but in case of something that sets them apart, they will attempt to restore this commonality via their investigative efforts, in order to rationalize and therefore balance things that seemed to have strayed far off the beaten path. This way a situation that was initially discovered can be re-examined and a new conclusion formulated thanks to the investigation, and therefore avoiding the pitfalls with making an initial conclusion that’s erroneous and that conclusion becoming the norm about that particular situation.
The ethics Dewey imprints into his philosophy creates conflict in that ethics based on rule and duty are incompatible with teleology that is working towards some goal and ultimately to achieve happiness. He also insinuates that attempting something yields potential for a person to reflect on it, it is not just a sort of impulse or habit to attempt something as we are accustomed to in our very being to test unfamiliar waters, where the judging of something’s value is meant to give substance to that thing, such as in the process of unifying some activity, or in the relationship between means and consequences, as well as the utilization of actions for the analysis of consequences that we deem have value. As Dewey is concerned, methods of reasoning applicable to fixed and concrete styles of investigation are insufficient, since the end results are also the origin points of consequences that warrant the necessity in evaluating their value.
And ultimately, Dewey’s policy in regards to pragmatism was against the theory of liberalism when it came to the idea of negative liberty, or the absence of constraints, but supported it when it came to positive freedom, or the ability to be one’s own individual separate from others. The freedom that individualisam brings to a human being in a highly organized, modern society requires of that individual to be part of the collective whole, to participate and contribute what he can, as well as to consult and interact with others, which includes the premeditated intelligence control of political institutions. Dewey also considered democracy a type of political system in which the interests of the people are supposed to be protected by a ruling class whose composition is that of experts in various fields. The approach when it comes to democracy is enacting a social investigation where issues can be discovered and assessed via debate and the resolving of disputes.
Dewey, as one of the founding fathers of pragmatism, has also been credited with his vast contribution in relations to the philosophy of technology. He is also credited specifically with evolving the history of the philosophy of technology as a field, and identifying three types of objectification used in pragmatic thinking. Using one examples would be that of Aboriginal peoples, where no scientific exploration happens between them and their environment, so the objectification tends to occur at a marginal rate. As it pertains to the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle, the experimentation done by them was rather abstract, and objectification is aimed at eternal information as opposed to concrete, making objectification in itself an impossibility. Since we are in the modern age, having access to tools that allows us to swiftly and efficiently experiment and interact with our environment after making scientific observations, allows not only for objectification to be possible but also can be achieved in terms of maximization of utility to optimum levels. Therefore, the application of technical methods in scientific exploration includes things like handling and reduction, pointing towards the idea that once reduced, as reduced water is H2O, the effects of an object can be manipulated to apply in a greater variety of uses.
Dewey also defends a wider range of definitions for what falls under the concept of technology, combining both art as well as science in his doctrine. He is in defiance of the theory of the hierarchy of knowledge and the idea that theoria or knowledge is the highest ranking, followed by praxis or action being second, and the third being poiesis or production. Dewey goes even a bit further when he denies the disconnect between theory and practice, which he considers to only be different phases of the same survey, considering the theory to be the best act and the practice being the idea made to work. Dewey also takes a stance on science being a sort of productive technique that involves trials and tests, which encompasses abstract mathematics as well. He also denies there is a disconnect between fine arts and arts and crafts, which to him is a result of the difference between means and ends. Technology is something that man creates, twice his capability in terms of technical and social adaptation, that is derived from scientific pursuits and is meant to improve a man’s life by giving him what he needs. Despite this, Dewey realized there was a rift between two cultures, one being the influence of science on organized societies due to how it helped a society develop technologically. This is why he envisioned a counter to this threat in the form of checks and balances, something he referred to as “moral technology”.
As time went on, the technology took on a more encompassing definition, often bearing resemblance to the method of investigation being used. Alas, Dewey felt that just because men do certain things doesn’t exactly mean they are adapting to their environment, and therefore all human activity cannot be regarded as being technology in and of itself.
And lastly, philosophy, or more like, the philosophies of pragmatism, mirrors of the American soul, are displayed as a major trend and noted in Western philosophical circles, and are also considered a sizable contribution to the contemporary philosophy of technology. Thanks to pragmatism, there is a solid philosophical foundation in America, that is distinct from that in Europe where the reliance on Aristotelian philosophies and doctrines gave rise to most branches thereafter. Pragmatism is one of the branches of philosophy that has resulted in an undeniably major contribution to the field of philosophy as a whole, which gave rise to methodology that can be used to adapt theory into practice, which has been a huge turn off for some representatives of the European philosophical tradition as they have insisted pragmatism to be a philosophy of engineers. The reason why pragmatism tends to be rejected by contemporary European philosophers is it’s emphasis on engineering design, or the effects of the action, while sacrificing a more traditional design epistemic, such as that of cognitive causes. Pragmatism has paved the path for a variety of techno-centrism that is founded upon the general notion of utility, which contrasts the aesthetically pleasing ideal of beauty and freedom which European philosophers tend to cling to. As a matter of fact, the beauty of pragmatism is it’s persistent loyalty to applying the principles of instrumentalism and experimentalism, where Dewey can be considered the sole philosopher to have truly developed a philosophy of technology that is unparalleled as far as philosophies of technology go.