4.1 A Personal Pragmatic Stance
Pragmatism is a philosophical stance, which emphasises the need for good and useful explanations that ‘help us make our way in the world’ above the satisfaction of purely theoretical discourse derived from conjectures. However modern neo-pragmatism it is most certainly not a position that is “more or less overtly anti-intellectual in tendency“. Indeed there are a diverse range of pragmatist views which I will neither attempt to historicise nor describe. Instead, anything written here is merely a personal view.
Neo-pragmatism is concerned with the nature of human belief and the reasons why we accept particular ideas rather than abstract explanations of Epistemic Truth. The pragmatic stance prioritises enquiries about the world and certain aspects of abstract discourse that can be formed after inquiry and lived experience. For some people, pragmatism just might be a particular way of enjoying philosophy and making conceptualisation feel more worthwhile.
For me, and also for Richard Rorty, pragmatism (or more precisely neo-pragmatism) should not be seen as an explanatory theory of truth although, it was framed as such in the past by the classical American pragmatist William James. Rorty says in an audio recording “I think it is unfortunate that Pragmatism became thought of as a theory or definition of truth. (It) would have been better if the pragmatists had said ‘we can tell you about justification but we can’t tell you about truth.” In other words the reasons why one believes particular ideas are of primary interest to the neo-pragmatist. I prefer the approach of John Dewey who, in later life, stressed the importance of what explanations we decide to accept and assert after enquiry instead of idealised truth. I also endorse Dewey’s emphasis on inquiry above abstract contemplation and the link between an instrumental philosophy, the way we live, and our political, social and aesthetic aspirations and stances.
My personal naturalistic neo-pragmatism is a meta-philosophical stance about what we believe as individuals, and the ideas that become widely disseminated in identifiable communities. It is important to realise that I am distinguishing an idealised and epistemic conception of truth from the beliefs that a person or identifiable community might accept and assert after reflecting on some form of inquiry. Nevertheless truth is an indispensable concept, even if only used conversationally and as the name of an entailed outcome in deductive logic.
Some philosophers, such as Albert Atkin, see the methodological attempts of the pragmatist as being “truth directed” (podcast reference below). Ruth Anna Putnam in expressing the same idea in relation to science writes, “Truth is not warranted assertibility, but we might say that it is the limit toward which assertions tend as they are increasingly more fully warranted by scientific investigation.” In other words we hope that our empirically based explanations at least move in the direction of the epistemic idealisation of truth rather than its logical opposite. However, the instrumental utility of our explanations is far more important than their closeness of approach to an abstract ideal.
Despite having no pretensions to finding an idealised ‘Truth’ in complex matters the pragmatist is not content with useless nonsense. Instead of relying on conjecture alone, the pragmatist prefers careful and reflective observation, and insists that action within the world is required along with good reasoning to produce helpful ideas. Conversationally, our more abstract ideas might be labelled as ‘true’ from an ironic or rhetorical perspective. However these same truth claims need to be assessed sceptically.
Despite not claiming to achieve an idealised truth in contingent or theoretical matters, the form of naturalistic neo-pragmatism I adopt is not a philosophy of accepting epistemic second best or being duped by outlandish claims. In fact, the very ardent pragmatist is only prepared to accept views when a supposedly rational community might reach at the limit of exhaustive enquiry and contemplation. For them willy-nilly assertions of truth are not to be trusted. At the same time we must accept that we and our communities are not ideally rational, indeed far from it. Furthermore, enquiry in ordinary living, as exemplified by journalism, can be quite superficial, unless deeply motivated. So we need to be circumspect in our appreciation of enquiry and the results it can produce.
The criteria of enquiry and eventual acceptance should not be seen in a disembodied sense since they are both the result of the value systems held by individual enquirers and those who are influential within the relevant communities. Think about the practices, motivations and inquisitorial values of those who championed the particularly notorious witch hunts and trials of Scotland. We therefore need to accept that it is possible to perpetuate intolerance and cruelty in the name of enquiry, rationality and truth. These historical situations point to the fact that we operate a sense of values about what kind of enquiries we think it worthwhile to undertake and what claims we feel we can make after enquiry.
My personal epistemic value system, involves being sceptical where appropriate and fallibilistic most of the time. Fallibilism is the idea that human enquirers are prone to error and thus can only adopt ideas that seem fitting at the time of utterance. To me, its seems almost self-evident that new beliefs should be adopted or exiting ideas revised when there are good reasons to think differently. Nevertheless, I am also willing to use word ‘truth’ performatively to convey my sincerity and degree of personal certainty, and for the purposes of showing agreement, without any claim about having reached a definitive and unalterable truth. My presumption is that most people do the same most of the time even if they are philosophical, political, moral or religious zealots. Other people might call me a realist because I accept there is world outside of my head and there is a very limited and dim and underdetermined correspondence between our descriptive terms and objects in the world. Personally I see the concept of realism as largely irrelevant.
For the pragmatist of my ilk, to be internally consistent, I need to assert that this stance about belief is neither true nor false. It is merely helpful or unhelpful, useful or useless, predictive or lacking prediction, robustly comprehensive in scope or lacking sufficiently wide application, strong or weak, or somewhere between those extremes. When applied to the scientific enquiry, the ardent pragmatist insists that explanations must give rise to testable predictions in the form of experiments or future observations. This is a very onerous criterion that goes well beyond merely accepting philosophical conjectures.
My personal stance is informed by what I have observed, have read, have conjectured, how I and others have practiced science, and how I and others have lived. In other words, there is a personal context to my pragmatic outlook, as there is for any other pragmatist. Since we all lead our lives as if we are pragmatic relativists or contextualists in matters of belief, I accept that situation, despite the howls of opprobrium that analytical philosophers often apply to relativism. Relativism about belief brings us down to earth and teaches that the grand narratives of analytical philosophy are only fit for our particular time within human cultural development.
Pragmatism is primarily concerned with how our understanding of the world is shaped by observation and our communal actions or enquiries. Pragmatism is a philosophical stance that requires action in the world such as scientific investigation, for example. The actions of the pragmatist are exemplified by the skilled doctor who takes clinical research studies on groups of people, and applies them with some degree of art and personal experience to the unique individual that requires treatment. (Indeed a case can be made that medical research is incomplete without ‘pragmatic trials‘, which reflect “variations between patients that occur in real clinical practice and aims to inform choices between treatments”. ) The same doctor might also adopt a meta-ethical pragmatism, when she considers the instrumental effects of treatment (i.e. action) on both the individual patient and others like her.
In addition, pragmatism also provides a scholarly basis for philosophical frameworks in diverse areas such as ethics, education, organisational research, and law.
Recommended Videos
References
What Pragmatism Means to Me: Ten Principles by Richard Shusterman Revue française d’études américaines 2010/2 (n° 124), pages 59-65
[Written from the perspective of a Deweyian pragmatist. An excellent introduction to modern epistemic pragmatism, which I endorse.]
The Pragmatism Reader: From Peirce through the Present
Edited by Robert B. Talisse and Scott F. Aikin
Publishers Description
The Pragmatic Turn Richard J Bernstien ISBN-13 : 978-0745649085
Publisher’s description
The Cambridge Companion to DEWEY ed. by Molly Cochran isbn-13: 978-0-521-69746-0
Publishers Description
The Pragmatist Theory of Truth, Susan Haack The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Vol. 27, No. 3 (Sep., 1976), pp. 231-249 (19 pages)
Pragmatism, Old and New, Susan Haack Contemporary Pragmatism
Vol. 1, No. 1 (June 2004), 3-41
[A helpful and concise view of classical pragmatism from the point of view of a devotee of CS Peirce. But the paper has absolutely nothing useful to say about contemporary possibilities. She despises Rorty.]
Pragmatism A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking By William James (available free at Project Gutenberg, and at Authorama)
Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth, William James The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods , Mar. 14, 1907,
Vol. 4, No. 6 (Mar. 14, 1907), pp. 141-155
Version 3.4
Steve Campbell
Glasgow, Scotland
2022