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Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that views language and thought as for prediction, problem solving, and action, rather than describing, representing, or mirroring reality. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics—such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science—are best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes.
Pragmatism began in the United States in the 1870s. Its origins are often attributed to philosophers Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey. In 1878, Peirce described it in his pragmatic maxim: "Consider the practical effects of the objects of your conception. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object."Peirce, C.S. (1878), "", Popular Science Monthly, v. 12, 286–302. Reprinted often, including Collected Papers v. 5, paragraphs 388–410 and Essential Peirce v. 1, 124–141. See end of §II for the pragmatic maxim. See third and fourth paragraphs in §IV for the discoverability of truth and the real by sufficient investigation.
The word pragmatic has existed in English since the 1500s, borrowed from French and derived from Greek via Latin. The Greek word pragma, meaning business, deed or act, is a noun derived from the verb prassein, to do. The first use in print of the name pragmatism was in 1898 by James, who credited Peirce with Neologism during the early 1870s.James, William (1898), "Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results", delivered before the Philosophical Union of the University of California at Berkeley, August 26, 1898, and first printed in the University Chronicle 1, September 1898, pp. 287–310. Internet Archive Eprint. On p. 290: James credited Peirce again in 1906 lectures published in 1907 as , see Lecture 2, fourth paragraph. James regarded Peirce's "Illustrations of the Logic of Science" series—including "" (1877), and especially "" (1878)—as the foundation of pragmatism.In addition to James's lectures and publications on pragmatist ideas ( Will to Believe 1897, etc.) wherein he credited Peirce, James also arranged for two paid series of lectures by Peirce, including the 1903 Harvard lectures on pragmatism. See pp. 261–264, 290–2, & 324 in Brent, Joseph (1998), Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life, 2nd edition. Peirce in turn wrote in 1906Peirce, C.S., "The Founding of Pragmatism", manuscript written 1906, published in The Hound & Horn: A Harvard Miscellany v. II, n. 3, April–June 1929, pp. 282–285, see 283–284, reprinted 1934 as "Historical Affinities and Genesis" in Collected Papers v. 5, paragraphs 11–13, see 12. that Nicholas St. John Green had been instrumental by emphasizing the importance of applying Alexander Bain's definition of belief, which was "that upon which a man is prepared to act". Peirce wrote that "from this definition, pragmatism is scarce more than a corollary; so that I am disposed to think of him as the grandfather of pragmatism". John Shook has said, "Chauncey Wright also deserves considerable credit, for as both Peirce and James recall, it was Wright who demanded a phenomenalist and Fallibilism empiricism as an alternative to rationalistic speculation."
Peirce developed the idea that inquiry depends on real doubt, not mere verbal or hyperbolic doubt,Peirce, C.S. (1877), , Popular Science Monthly, v. 12, pp. 1–15. Reprited often, including Collected Papers v. 5, paragraphs 358–387 and Essential Peirce v. 1, pp. 109–123). and said that, in order to understand a conception in a fruitful way, "Consider the practical effects of the objects of your conception. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object", which he later called the pragmatic maxim. It equates any conception of an object to the general extent of the conceivable implications for informed practice of that object's effects. This is the heart of his pragmatism as a method of experimentational mental reflection arriving at conceptions in terms of conceivable confirmatory and disconfirmatory circumstances—a method hospitable to the generation of explanatory hypotheses, and conducive to the employment and improvement of verification. Typical of Peirce is his concern with inference to explanatory hypotheses as outside the usual foundational alternative between deductivist rationalism and inductivist empiricism, although he was a mathematical logician and a founder of statistics.
Peirce lectured and further wrote on pragmatism to make clear his own interpretation. While framing a conception's meaning in terms of conceivable tests, Peirce emphasized that, since a conception is general, its meaning, its intellectual purport, equates to its acceptance's implications for general practice, rather than to any definite set of real effects (or test results); a conception's clarified meaning points toward its conceivable verifications, but the outcomes are not meanings, but individual upshots. Peirce in 1905 coined the new name pragmaticism "for the precise purpose of expressing the original definition", Reprinted in Collected Papers v. 5, paragraphs 411–437, see 414. saying that "all went happily" with James's and F. C. S. Schiller's variant uses of the old name "pragmatism" and that he nonetheless coined the new name because of the old name's growing use in "literary journals, where it gets abused". Yet in a 1906 manuscript, he cited as causes his differences with James and SchillerManuscript "A Sketch of Logical Critics", Essential Peirce v. 2, pp. 451–462, see pp. 457–458. Peirce wrote: and, in a 1908 publication,Peirce, C. S. (1908). "", Hibbert Journal 7, reprinted in Collected Papers v. 6, paragraphs 452–85, and in Essential Peirce v. 2, 434–450, and elsewhere. After discussing James, Peirce stated (Section V, fourth paragraph) as the specific occasion of his coinage "pragmaticism", journalist, pragmatist, and literary author Giovanni Papini's declaration of pragmatism's indefinability: see, for example, Papini's "What Is Pragmatism Like", published in translation in October 1907 in Popular Science Monthly v. 71, pp. 351–358. his differences with James as well as literary author Giovanni Papini. Peirce regarded his own views that truth is immutable and infinity is real, as being opposed by the other pragmatists, but he remained allied with them about the falsity of necessitarianism and about the reality of generals and habits understood in terms of potential concrete effects even if unactualized.
Pragmatism enjoyed renewed attention after Willard Van Orman Quine and Wilfrid Sellars used a revised pragmatism to criticize logical positivism in the 1960s. Inspired by the work of Quine and Sellars, a brand of pragmatism known sometimes as neopragmatism gained influence through Richard Rorty, the most influential of the late 20th century pragmatists along with Hilary Putnam and Robert Brandom. Contemporary pragmatism may be broadly divided into a strict analytic tradition and a "neo-classical" pragmatism (such as Susan Haack) that adheres to the work of Peirce, James, and Dewey.
David L. Hildebrand summarized the problem: "Perceptual inattention to the specific functions comprising inquiry led realists and idealists alike to formulate accounts of knowledge that project the products of extensive abstraction back onto experience."
In 1868, Reprinted in Collected Peirce v. 5, paragraphs 213–263, Writings v. 2, pp. 193–211, Essential Peirce v. 2, pp. 11–27, and elsewhere. C.S. Peirce argued that there is no power of intuition in the sense of a cognition unconditioned by inference, and no power of introspection, intuitive or otherwise, and that awareness of an internal world is by hypothetical inference from external facts. Introspection and intuition were staple philosophical tools at least since Descartes. He argued that there is no absolutely first cognition in a cognitive process; such a process has its beginning but can always be analyzed into finer cognitive stages. That which we call introspection does not give privileged access to knowledge about the mind—the self is a concept that is derived from our interaction with the external world and not the other way around.De Waal 2005, pp. 7–10 At the same time he held persistently that pragmatism and epistemology in general could not be derived from principles of psychology understood as a special science: what we do think is too different from what we should think; in his "Illustrations of the Logic of Science" series, Peirce formulated both pragmatism and principles of statistics as aspects of scientific method in general.Peirce held that (philosophical) logic is a normative field, that pragmatism is a method developed in it, and that philosophy, though not deductive or so general as mathematics, still concerns positive phenomena in general, including phenomena of matter and mind, without depending on special experiences or experiments such as those of optics and experimental psychology, in both of which Peirce was active. See quotes under " Philosophy" at the Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms. Peirce also harshly criticized the Cartesian approach of starting from hyperbolic doubts rather than from the combination of established beliefs and genuine doubts. See the opening of his 1868 "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities", Journal of Speculative Philosophy v. 2, n. 3, pp. 140–157. Reprinted Collected Papers v. 5, paragraphs 264–317, Writings v. 2, pp. 211–242, and Essential Peirce v. 1, pp. 28–55. Eprint. This is an important point of disagreement with most other pragmatists, who advocate a more thorough naturalism and psychologism.
Richard Rorty expanded on these and other arguments in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature in which he criticized attempts by many philosophers of science to carve out a space for epistemology that is entirely unrelated to—and sometimes thought of as superior to—the empirical sciences. W.V. Quine, who was instrumental in bringing naturalized epistemology back into favor with his essay "Epistemology Naturalized", also criticized "traditional" epistemology and its "Cartesian dream" of absolute certainty. The dream, he argued, was impossible in practice as well as misguided in theory, because it separates epistemology from scientific inquiry.
Many of James' best-turned phrases—"truth's cash value"James 1907, p. 200 and "the true is only the expedient in our way of thinking" James 1907, p. 222—were taken out of context and caricatured in contemporary literature as representing the view where any idea with practical utility is true. William James wrote:
In reality, James asserts, the theory is a great deal more subtle.See Dewey 1910 for a "FAQ."
The role of belief in representing reality is widely debated in pragmatism. Is a belief valid when it represents reality? "Copying is one (and only one) genuine mode of knowing".James 1907, p. 91 Are beliefs dispositions which qualify as true or false depending on how helpful they prove in inquiry and in action? Is it only in the struggle of intelligent organisms with the surrounding environment that beliefs acquire meaning? Does a belief only become true when it succeeds in this struggle? In James's pragmatism nothing practical or useful is held to be Logical truth nor is anything which helps to survive merely in the short term. For example, to believe my cheating spouse is faithful may help me feel better now, but it is certainly not useful from a more long-term perspective because it doesn't accord with the facts (and is therefore not true).
One of C. I. Lewis' main arguments in Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (1929) was that science does not merely provide a copy of reality but must work with conceptual systems and that those are chosen for pragmatic reasons, that is, because they aid inquiry. Lewis' own development of multiple is a case in point. Lewis is sometimes called a proponent of conceptual pragmatism because of this.Sandra B. Rosenthal, C.I. Lewis in Focus: The Pulse of Pragmatism, Indiana University Press, 2007, p. 28.
Another development is the cooperation of logical positivism and pragmatism in the works of Charles W. Morris and Rudolf Carnap. The influence of pragmatism on these writers is mostly limited to the incorporation of the pragmatic maxim into their epistemology. Pragmatists with a broader conception of the movement do not often refer to them.
W. V. Quine's paper "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", published in 1951, is one of the most celebrated papers of 20th-century philosophy in the analytic tradition. The paper is an attack on two central tenets of the logical positivists' philosophy. One is the distinction between analytic statements (tautologies and contradictions) whose truth (or falsehood) is a function of the meanings of the words in the statement ('all bachelors are unmarried'), and synthetic statements, whose truth (or falsehood) is a function of (contingent) states of affairs. The other is reductionism, the theory that each meaningful statement gets its meaning from some logical construction of terms which refers exclusively to immediate experience. Quine's argument brings to mind Peirce's insistence that axioms are not a priori truths but synthetic statements.
Whereas Schiller dismissed the possibility of formal logic, most pragmatists are critical rather of its pretension to ultimate validity and see logic as one logical tool among others—or perhaps, considering the multitude of formal logics, one set of tools among others. This is the view of C. I. Lewis. C. S. Peirce developed multiple methods for doing formal logic.
Stephen Toulmin's The Uses of Argument inspired scholars in informal logic and rhetoric studies (although it is an epistemological work).
William James gives an interesting example of this philosophical shortcoming:
F. C. S. Schiller's first book Riddles of the Sphinx was published before he became aware of the growing pragmatist movement taking place in America. In it, Schiller argues for a middle ground between materialism and absolute metaphysics. These opposites are comparable to what William James called tough-minded empiricism and tender-minded rationalism. Schiller contends on the one hand that mechanistic naturalism cannot make sense of the "higher" aspects of our world. These include free will, consciousness, purpose, universals and some would add God. On the other hand, abstract metaphysics cannot make sense of the "lower" aspects of our world (e.g. the imperfect, change, physicality). While Schiller is vague about the exact sort of middle ground he is trying to establish, he suggests that metaphysics is a tool that can aid inquiry, but that it is valuable only insofar as it does help in explanation.
In the second half of the 20th century, Stephen Toulmin argued that the need to distinguish between reality and appearance only arises within an explanatory scheme and therefore that there is no point in asking what "ultimate reality" consists of. More recently, a similar idea has been suggested by the postanalytic philosopher Daniel Dennett, who argues that anyone who wants to understand the world has to acknowledge both the "syntactical" aspects of reality (i.e., whizzing atoms) and its emergent or "semantic" properties (i.e., meaning and value).
Radical empiricism gives answers to questions about the limits of science, the nature of meaning and value and the workability of reductionism. These questions feature prominently in current debates about the relationship between religion and science, where it is often assumed—most pragmatists would disagree—that science degrades everything that is meaningful into "merely" materialism.
Pragmatists disagree over whether philosophers ought to adopt a quietist or a naturalist stance toward the mind-body problem. The former, including Rorty, want to do away with the problem because they believe it's a pseudo-problem, whereas the latter believe that it is a meaningful empirical question.
William James' contribution to ethics, as laid out in his essay The Will to Believe has often been misunderstood as a plea for relativism or irrationality. On its own terms it argues that ethics always involves a certain degree of trust or faith and that we cannot always wait for adequate proof when making moral decisions.
Of the classical pragmatists, John Dewey wrote most extensively about morality and democracy.Edel 1993 In his classic article "Three Independent Factors in Morals",Dewey 1930 he tried to integrate three basic philosophical perspectives on morality: the right, the virtuous and the good. He held that while all three provide meaningful ways to think about moral questions, the possibility of conflict among the three elements cannot always be easily solved.Anderson, SEP
Dewey also criticized the dichotomy between means and ends which he saw as responsible for the degradation of our everyday working lives and education, both conceived as merely a means to an end. He stressed the need for meaningful labor and a conception of education that viewed it not as a preparation for life but as life itself.Dewey 2004 1910 ch. 7; Dewey 1997 1938, p. 47
Dewey was opposed to other ethical philosophies of his time, notably the emotivism of Alfred Ayer. Dewey envisioned the possibility of ethics as an experimental discipline, and thought values could best be characterized not as feelings or imperatives, but as hypotheses about what actions will lead to satisfactory results or what he termed consummatory experience. An additional implication of this view is that ethics is a fallible undertaking because human beings are frequently unable to know what would satisfy them.
During the late 1900s and first decade of 2000, pragmatism was embraced by many in the field of bioethics led by the philosophers John Lachs and his student Glenn McGee, whose 1997 book The Perfect Baby: A Pragmatic Approach to Genetic Engineering (see designer baby) garnered praise from within classical American philosophy and criticism from bioethics for its development of a theory of pragmatic bioethics and its rejection of the principalism theory then in vogue in medical ethics. An anthology published by the MIT Press titled Pragmatic Bioethics included the responses of philosophers to that debate, including Micah Hester, Griffin Trotter and others many of whom developed their own theories based on the work of Dewey, Peirce, Royce and others. Lachs developed several applications of pragmatism to bioethics independent of but extending from the work of Dewey and James.
A recent pragmatist contribution to meta-ethics is Todd Lekan's Making Morality.Lekan 2003 Lekan argues that morality is a fallible but rational practice and that it has traditionally been misconceived as based on theory or principles. Instead, he argues, theory and rules arise as tools to make practice more intelligent.
From a general point of view, for William James, something is true only insofar as it works. Thus, the statement, for example, that prayer is heard may work on a psychological level but (a) may not help to bring about the things you pray for (b) may be better explained by referring to its soothing effect than by claiming prayers are heard. As such, pragmatism is not antithetical to religion but it is not an apologetic for faith either. James' metaphysical position however, leaves open the possibility that the ontological claims of religions may be true. As he observed in the end of the Varieties, his position does not amount to a denial of the existence of transcendent realities. Quite the contrary, he argued for the legitimate epistemic right to believe in such realities, since such beliefs do make a difference in an individual's life and refer to claims that cannot be verified or falsified either on intellectual or common sensorial grounds.
Joseph Margolis in Historied Thought, Constructed World (California, 1995) makes a distinction between "existence" and "reality". He suggests using the term "exists" only for those things which adequately exhibit Peirce's Secondness: things which offer brute physical resistance to our movements. In this way, such things which affect us, like numbers, may be said to be "real", although they do not "exist". Margolis suggests that God, in such a linguistic usage, might very well be "real", causing believers to act in such and such a way, but might not "exist".
Important analytic pragmatists include early Richard Rorty (who was the first to develop neopragmatist philosophy in his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Hilary Putnam, W. V. O. Quine, and Donald Davidson. Brazilian social thinker Roberto Unger advocates for a radical pragmatism, one that "de-naturalizes" society and culture, and thus insists that we can "transform the character of our relation to social and cultural worlds we inhabit rather than just to change, little by little, the content of the arrangements and beliefs that comprise them". Late Rorty and Jürgen Habermas are closer to Continental thought.
Neopragmatist thinkers who are more loyal to classical pragmatism include Sidney Hook and Susan Haack (known for the theory of foundherentism). Many pragmatist ideas (especially those of Peirce) find a natural expression in the decision-theoretic reconstruction of epistemology pursued in the work of Isaac Levi. Nicholas Rescher advocated his version of methodological pragmatism, based on construing pragmatic efficacy not as a replacement for truths but as a means to its evidentiation.Nicholas Rescher, "Methodological Pragmatism", Journal of Philosophy 76(6):338–342 (1979). Rescher was also a proponent of pragmatic idealism.
Not all pragmatists are easily characterized. With the advent of postanalytic philosophy and the diversification of Anglo-American philosophy, many philosophers were influenced by pragmatist thought without necessarily publicly committing themselves to that philosophical school. Daniel Dennett, a student of Quine's, falls into this category, as does Stephen Toulmin, who arrived at his philosophical position via Wittgenstein, whom he calls "a pragmatist of a sophisticated kind".foreword for Dewey 1929 in the 1988 edition, p. xiii Another example is Mark Johnson whose embodied philosophyLakoff and Johnson 1999 shares its psychologism, direct realism and anti-cartesianism with pragmatism. Conceptual pragmatism is a theory of knowledge originating with the work of the philosopher and logician Clarence Irving Lewis. The epistemology of conceptual pragmatism was first formulated in the 1929 book Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge.
French pragmatism is attended with theorists such as Michel Callon, Bruno Latour, Michel Crozier, Luc Boltanski, and Laurent Thévenot. It often is seen as opposed to structural problems connected to the French critical theory of Pierre Bourdieu. French pragmatism has more recently made inroads into American sociology and anthropology as well.
Philosophers John R. Shook and Tibor Solymosi said that "each new generation rediscovers and reinvents its own versions of pragmatism by applying the best available practical and scientific methods to philosophical problems of contemporary concern".
Ordinary language philosophy is closer to pragmatism than other philosophy of language because of its nominalism character (although Peirce's pragmatism is not nominalist) and because it takes the broader functioning of language in an environment as its focus instead of investigating abstract relations between language and world.
Pragmatism has ties to process philosophy. Much of the classical pragmatists' work developed in dialogue with process philosophers such as Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead, who aren't usually considered pragmatists because they differ so much on other points.Douglas Browning et al. 1998; Rescher, SEP Nonetheless, philosopher Donovan Irven argues there's a strong connection between Henri Bergson, pragmatist William James, and the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre regarding their theories of truth.
Behaviorism and functionalism in psychology and sociology also have ties to pragmatism, which is not surprising considering that James and Dewey were both scholars of psychology and that Mead became a sociologist.
Pragmatism emphasizes the connection between thought and action. Applied fields like public administration,Patricia M. Shields. 2008. "Rediscovering the Taproot: Is Classical Pragmatism the Route to Renew Public Administration?" Public Administration Review 68(2), 205–221 political science,Ansell, Christopher. 2011. Pragmatist Democracy: Evolutionary Learning as Public Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press leadership studies,Weber, Eric Thomas. 2013. Democracy and Leadership: On Pragmatism and Virtue. New York: Lexington Books. international relations,Ralston, Shane (Ed). 2013. Philosophical Pragmatism and International Relations: Essays for a Bold New World. New York: Lexington. conflict resolution,Caspary, William. 2000. Dewey on Democracy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. and research methodologyShields, Patricia and Rangarjan, N. 2013. A Playbook for Research Methods: Integrating Conceptual Frameworks and Project Management. [7]. Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press. Shields relies primarily on Dewey's logic of Inquiry. have incorporated the tenets of pragmatism in their field. Often this connection is made using Dewey and Addams's expansive notion of democracy.
Increasing attention is being given to pragmatist epistemology in other branches of the social sciences, which have struggled with divisive debates over the status of social scientific knowledge.Baert, P. (2004). "Pragmatism as a philosophy of the social sciences." European Journal of Social Theory, 7(3), 355–369.
Enthusiasts suggest that pragmatism offers an approach that is both pluralist and practical.
Which pragmatism (classical pragmatism or neo-pragmatism) makes the most sense in public administration has been the source of debate. The debate began when Patricia M. Shields introduced Dewey's notion of the Community of Inquiry.Shields, Patricia 2003. The community of Inquiry: Classical Pragmatism and Public Administration." Administration & Society 35(5): 510–538. abstract Hugh Miller objected to one element of the community of inquiry (problematic situation, scientific attitude, participatory democracy): scientific attitude.Miller, Hugh. 2004. "Why Old Pragmatism Needs an Upgrade. Administration & Society 36(2), 234–249. A debate that included responses from a practitioner,Stolcis, Gregory 2004. "A view from the Trenches: Comment on Miller's 'Why Old Pragmatism needs and upgrade" Administration & Society 36(3):326–369 an economist,Webb, James "Comment on Hugh T. Miller's 'Why old Pragmatism needs and upgrade'. Administration & Society 36(4), 479–495. a planner,Hoch C. 2006. "What Can Rorty teach an old pragmatist doing public administration or planning? Administration & Society. 38(3):389–398. abstract other public administration scholars,Evans, Karen. 2005. "Upgrade or a different animal altogether?: Why Old Pragmatism Better Informs Public Management and New Pragmatism Misses the Point." Administration & Society 37(2), 248–255.Snider, Keith. 2005. Rortyan Pragmatism: 'Where's the beef' for public administration." Administration & Society 37(2), 243–247. and noted philosophersHildebrand, David. 2005. "Pragmatism, Neopragmatism and public administration." Administration & Society 37(3): 360–374. abstractHickman, Larry 2004. "On Hugh T. Miller on 'Why old pragmatism needs an upgrade." Administration & Society 36(4):496–499. followed. MillerMiller, Hugh 2005. "Residues of foundationalism in Classical Pragmatism." Administration & Society. 37(3):345–359. and ShieldsPatricia M. Shields. 2004. "Classical Pragmatism: Engaging practitioner experience." Administration & Society, 36(3):351–361Patricia M. Shields. 2005. "Classical Pragmatism does not need an upgrade: Lessons for Public Administration." Administration & Society. 37(4):504–518. abstract also responded.
In addition, applied scholarship of public administration that assesses charter schools,Perez, Shivaun, "Assessing Service Learning Using Pragmatic Principles of Education: A Texas Charter School Case Study" (2000). Applied Research Projects. Texas State University Paper 76. http://ecommons.txstate.edu/arp/76 contracting out or outsourcing,Alexander, Jason Fields, "Contracting Through the Lens of Classical Pragmatism: An Exploration of Local Government Contracting" (2009). Applied Research Projects. Texas State University. Paper 288. http://ecommons.txstate.edu/arp/288 financial management,Bartle, John R. and Shields, Patricia M., "Applying Pragmatism to Public Budgeting and Financial Management" (2008). Faculty Publications-Political Science. Paper 48. http://ecommons.txstate.edu/polsfacp/48 performance measurement,Wilson, Timothy L., "Pragmatism and Performance Measurement: An Exploration of Practices in Texas State Government" (2001). Applied Research Projects. Texas State University. Paper 71. http://ecommons.txstate.edu/arp/71 urban quality of life initiatives,Howard-Watkins, Demetria C., "The Austin, Texas African-American Quality of Life Initiative as a Community of inquiry: An Exploratory Study" (2006). Applied Research Projects. Texas State University. Paper 115. http://ecommons.txstate.edu/arp/115 and urban planningJohnson, Timothy Lee, "The Downtown Austin Planning Process as a Community of inquiry: An Exploratory Study" (2008). Applied Research Projects. Paper 276. http://ecommons.txstate.edu/arp/276. in part draws on the ideas of classical pragmatism in the development of the conceptual framework and focus of analysis.Patricia M. Shields and Hassan Tajalli (2006), "Intermediate Theory: The Missing Link in Successful Student Scholarship," Journal of Public Affairs Education
The health sector's administrators' use of pragmatism has been criticized as incomplete in its pragmatism, however, according to the classical pragmatists, knowledge is always shaped by human interests. The administrator's focus on "outcomes" simply advances their own interest, and this focus on outcomes often undermines their citizen's interests, which often are more concerned with process. On the other hand, David Brendel argues that pragmatism's ability to bridge dualisms, focus on practical problems, include multiple perspectives, incorporate participation from interested parties (patient, family, health team), and provisional nature makes it well suited to address problems in this area.Brendel, David. 2006. Healing Psychiatry: Bridging the Science/Humanism Divide. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Feminist philosophers point to Jane Addams as a founder of classical pragmatism. Mary Parker Follett was also an important feminist pragmatist concerned with organizational operation during the early decades of the 20th century.
The Franciscan friar Celestine Bittle presented multiple criticisms of pragmatism in his 1936 book Reality and the Mind: Epistemology. He argued that, in William James's pragmatism, truth is entirely subjective and is not the widely accepted definition of truth, which is correspondence to reality. For Bittle, defining truth as what is useful is a "perversion of language". With truth reduced essentially to what is good, it is no longer an object of the intellect. Therefore, the problem of knowledge posed by the intellect is not solved, but rather renamed. Renaming truth as a product of the will cannot help it solve the problems of the intellect, according to Bittle. Bittle cited what he saw as contradictions in pragmatism, such as using objective facts to prove that truth does not emerge from objective fact; this reveals that pragmatists do recognize truth as objective fact, and not, as they claim, what is useful. Bittle argued there are also some statements that cannot be judged on human welfare at all. Such statements (for example the assertion that "a car is passing") are matters of "truth and error" and do not affect human welfare.
British philosopher Bertrand Russell devoted a chapter each to James and Dewey in his 1945 book A History of Western Philosophy; Russell pointed out areas in which he agreed with them but also ridiculed James's views on truth and Dewey's views on inquiry. Hilary Putnam later argued that Russell "presented a mere caricature" of James's views and a "misreading of James", while Tom Burke argued at length that Russell presented "a skewed characterization of Dewey's point of view". Elsewhere, in Russell's book The Analysis of Mind, Russell praised James's radical empiricism, to which Russell's own account of neutral monism was indebted. Dewey, in The Bertrand Russell Case, defended Russell against an attempt to remove Russell from his chair at the College of the City of New York in 1940.
Neopragmatism as represented by Richard Rorty has been criticized as relativistic both by other neopragmatists such as Susan HaackHaack 1997 and by many analytic philosophers.Dennett 1998 Rorty's early analytic work, however, differs notably from his later work which some, including Rorty, consider to be closer to literary criticism than to philosophy, and which attracts the brunt of criticism from his detractors.
Protopragmatists or related thinkers
Other
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There are several peer-reviewed journals dedicated to pragmatism, for example
Effects on social sciences
In the early 20th century, Symbolic interactionism, a major perspective within sociological social psychology, was derived from pragmatism, especially the work of George Herbert Mead and Charles Cooley, as well as that of Peirce and William James.Stryker, S. (1980). Symbolic Interactionism: A Social Structural Version.. Benjamin/Cummings Publishing.Nungesser, Frithjof. 2021. "Pragmatism and Interaction." In: Routledge International Handbook of Interactionism, edited by Dirk Vom Lehn, Natalia Ruiz-Junco, and Will Gibson. London; New York: Routledge: 25–36.
Effects on public administration
The classical pragmatism of John Dewey, William James, and Charles Sanders Peirce has influenced research in the field of public administration. Scholars claim classical pragmatism had a profound influence on the origin of the field of public administration.Patricia M. Shields. 2008. Rediscovering the Taproot: Is Classical Pragmatism the Route to Renew Public Administration? Public Administration Review 68(2), 205–221Hildebrand, David L. 2008. Public Administration as Pragmatic, Democratic and Objective. Public Administration Review. 68(2), 222–229 At the most basic level, public administrators are responsible for making programs "work" in a pluralistic, problems-oriented environment. Public administrators are also responsible for the day-to-day work with citizens. Dewey's participatory democracy can be applied in this environment. Dewey and James' notion of theory as a tool, helps administrators craft theories to resolve policy and administrative problems. Further, the birth of American public administration coincides closely with the period of greatest influence of the classical pragmatists.
/ref>Patricia M. Shields (1998). "Pragmatism as a Philosophy of Science: A Tool for Public Administration," Research in Public Administration. Volume 4: 195–225. ( Online.)Patricia M. Shields and Nandhini Rangarajan (2013). A Playbook for Research Methods: Integrating Conceptual Frameworks and Project Management. Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press.
Effects on feminism
Since the mid 1990s, feminist philosophers have re-discovered classical pragmatism as a source of feminist theories. Works by Seigfried,Seigfried, C.H. (2001). Feminist interpretations of John Dewey. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press; Seigfried, C.H. (1996). Pragmatism and feminism: Reweaving the social fabric. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; Seigfried, C. H. (1992). Where are all the pragmatists feminists? Hypatia, 6, 8–21. Duran,Duran, J. (2001). A holistically Deweyan feminism. Metaphilosophy, 32, 279–292. Duran, J. (1993). The intersection of pragmatism and feminism. Hypatia, 8 Keith,Keith, H. (1999). Feminism and pragmatism: George Herbert Mead's ethics of care. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 35, 328–344. and WhippsWhipps, J.D. (2004). Jane Addams social thought as a model for a pragmatist-feminist communitarianism. Hypatia, 19, 118–113. explore the historic and philosophic links between feminism and pragmatism. The connection between pragmatism and feminism took so long to be rediscovered because pragmatism itself was eclipsed by logical positivism during the middle decades of the twentieth century. As a result, it was lost from feminist discourse. Feminists now consider pragmatism's greatest strength to be the very features that led to its decline. These are "persistent and early criticisms of positivist interpretations of scientific methodology; disclosure of value dimension of factual claims"; viewing aesthetics as informing everyday experience; subordinating logical analysis to political, cultural, and social issues; linking the dominant discourses with domination; "realigning theory with praxis; and resisting the turn to epistemology and instead emphasizing concrete experience".Seigfried, C.H. (1996). Pragmatism and Feminism: Reweaving the Social Fabric. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. p. 21
(2025). 9780199535231, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199535231 In addition, the ideas of Dewey, Mead, and James are consistent with many feminist tenets. Jane Addams, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead developed their philosophies as all three became friends, influenced each other, and were engaged in the Hull House experience and women's rights causes.
Criticisms
In the 1908 essay "The Thirteen Pragmatisms", Arthur Oncken Lovejoy argued that there's significant ambiguity in the notion of the effects of the truth of a proposition and those of belief in a proposition in order to highlight that many pragmatists had failed to recognize that distinction. And: He identified 13 different philosophical positions that were each labeled pragmatism.
List of pragmatists
Classical (1850–1950)
1839–1914 was the founder of American pragmatism (later called by Peirce pragmaticism). He wrote on a wide range of topics, from mathematical logic and semiotics to psychology. 1842–1910 influential psychologist and theorist of religion as well as philosopher. First to be widely associated with the term "pragmatism" due to Peirce's lifelong unpopularity. 1859–1952 prominent philosopher of education, referred to his brand of pragmatism as instrumentalism. 1860–1935 social Reform, pacifist, her settlement activism deeply inspired James and especially Dewey, who often included her writings on reading lists for his students. 1841–1935 U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice. 1864–1937 one of the most important pragmatists of his time, Schiller is largely forgotten today. 1863–1931 philosopher and sociological social psychologist. 1855–1916 colleague of James at Harvard who employed pragmatism in an idealist metaphysical framework, he was particularly interested in the philosophy of religion and community; his work is often associated with neo-Hegelianism. 1863–1952 although he eschewed the label "pragmatism" and called it a "heresy", several critics argue that he applied pragmatist methodologies to naturalism, especially in his early masterwork, The Life of Reason. 1868–1963 student of James at Harvard who applied pragmatist principles to his sociological work, especially in The Philadelphia Negro and Atlanta University Studies. 1881–1956 Italian essayist, mostly known because James occasionally mentioned him. 1863–1909 Italian analytic and pragmatist philosopher. 1891–1962 Chinese intellectual and reformer, student and translator of Dewey's and advocate of pragmatism in China. 1892–1971 American philosopher and theologian, inserted pragmatism into his theory of Christian realism.
Analytic, neo- and other (1950–present)
1932–2022 Author of Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis, The New Constellation: The Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity/Postmodernity, The Pragmatic Turn F. Thomas Burke 1950– Author of What Pragmatism Was (2013), Dewey's New Logic (1994). His work interprets contemporary philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophical logic through the lens of classical American pragmatism. 1937– Philosopher of Science who proposed the Natural Ontological Attitude to the debate of scientific realism. 1938– Literary and Legal Studies pragmatist. Criticizes Rorty's and Posner's legal theories as "almost pragmatism"In: Stanley Fish, There's No Such Thing as Free Speech, Oxford University Press, 1994. and authored the afterword in the collection The Revival of Pragmatism.Ed. Morris Dickstein, Duke University Press, 1998 1950– A student of Rorty, has developed a complex analytic version of pragmatism in works such as Making It Explicit, Between Saying and Doing, and Perspectives on Pragmatism. 1883–1964 a leading authority on symbolic logic and on the philosophic concepts of knowledge and value. 1924–2021 still proudly defends the original Pragmatists and sees his recent work on Cultural Realism as extending and deepening their insights, especially the contribution of Peirce and Dewey, in the context of a rapprochement with Continental philosophy. 1926–2016 in many ways the opposite of Rorty and thinks classical pragmatism was too permissive a theory. 1931–2007 famous author of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. 1908–2000 pragmatist philosopher, concerned with language, logic, and philosophy of mathematics. 1961– Applied Rorty's neopragmatism to media studies and developed a new branch that he called media philosophy. Together with authors such as Juergen Habermas, Hans Joas, Sami Pihlstroem, Mats Bergmann, Michael Esfeld, and Helmut Pape, he belongs to a group of European pragmatists who make use of Peirce, James, Dewey, Rorty, Brandom, Putnam, and other representatives of American pragmatism in continental philosophy. 1949– philosopher of art. 1969– Defends a pragmatist form of contextualism against semantic varieties of contextualism in his Knowledge and Practical Interest. 1970– defends an epistemological conception of democratic politics that is explicitly opposed to John Dewey and yet rooted in a conception of social epistemology that derives from the pragmatism of Charles Peirce. His work in argumentation theory and informal logic also demonstrates pragmatist leanings. 1922–2009 student of Wittgenstein, known especially for his The Uses of Argument. 1947– in The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound, advocates for a "radical pragmatism", one that "de-naturalizes" society and culture, and thus insists that we can "transform the character of our relation to social and cultural worlds we inhabit rather than just to change, little by little, the content of the arrangements and beliefs that comprise them." 1902–1989 a prominent New York intellectual and philosopher, a student of Dewey at Columbia. 1930–2018 seeks to apply pragmatist thinking in a decision-theoretic perspective. 1945– teaches at the University of Miami, sometimes called the intellectual granddaughter of C.S. Peirce, known chiefly for foundherentism. 1928–2024 advocates a methodological pragmatism that sees functional efficacy as evidentiating validity.
In the extended sense
1953– thinker on race, politics, and religion; operates under the sign of "prophetic pragmatism". 1912–1989 broad thinker, attacked mainstream variants of foundationalism in the analytic tradition. 1903–1930 author of the philosophical work Universals. 1922–2017 author of "Charles S. Peirce: From Pragmatism to Pragmaticism (1981)" 1886–1918 author of the 1917 pragmatist anti-war essay "Twilight of Idols" 1916–1962 author of Sociology and Pragmatism: The Higher Learning in America and was a commentator on Dewey. 1929– author of "What Is Universal Pragmatics?"
See also
Notes
Sources
Further reading
Surveys
Note that this is an introductory list: some important works are left out and some less monumental works that are excellent introductions are included.
External links
General sources
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