Customer Reviews

Pragmatism (Works of William James)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One is surprised to read in the first two reviews that James's pragmatism is a justification for relativism, nihilism, and even despotic tyranny. This evaluation comes from interpreting James in terms of utilitarianism, rather than understanding what he means by practical consequences. One will hear James claim in _Pragmatism_ that, "I am accustomed to put questions to my classes in this way: In what respects would the world be different if this alternative or that were true? If I can find nothing that would become different, then the alternative has no sense." The pragmatic maxim does not invite us to accept the most expedient point of view for the purpose of utility, but instead invites us to return to the world and experience in evaluating the nature of concepts. Thus, to adopt an example from Peirce, an application of the pragmatic maxim to a concept such as "salt" would lead us to look at the practical consequences of this concept for real world experience such as its hardness, seasoning capabilities, chemical nature, ability to combine with other elements, etc.. In other words, pragmatism, as James agrees, is also an empiricism. Given this, an application of the pragmatic maxim to the political concepts of democracy and fascism would indeed lead us to discern vast differences between the two doctrines and to ultimately reject the former by virtue of its practical consequences. In final analysis, _Pragmatism_ is a curative of philosophical abstractions which would ask us to turn away from empty first principles to see what difference those principles actually make in our actions and lives. Such an approach to philosophy would surely have the effect of clearing away much useless debate and of broadening our appreciation of difference and inquiry. As James says later in the book, "There can be no difference anywhere that doesn't make a difference elsewhere-- no difference in abstract truth that doesn't express itself in a difference in concrete fact and conduct consequent upon that fact, imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere and somewhen. The whole function of philosophy ought to be to find out what definite difference it will make to you and me, at definite instants of our life, if this world-formula or that world-formula be the true one." Such a philosophy is truly timely in our increasingly multicultural age. The operative principle of pragmatism is not utilitarianism which can often be cold, cruel and heartless, but rather verification that demands of us that we return to experience to determine the difference that a conceptual difference makes. This book is an absolute must read for anyone interested in overcoming the abstractness of empty transcendental philosophies and who wish to see philosophy in its throbbing relavance for the life of action, ethics, and politics. In this respect, James stands shoulder to shoulder with the uncompromising and liberating philosophies of figures like Spinoza, Nietzsche, Bergson, Dewey, and Peirce.

The superlatives trip off my tongue when I think about this book. In it Harvard psychologist and philosopher Willaim James propounds the substance (not much) and import (massive!) of his philosophical method: pragmatism. He got this method from his lifelong friend Charles Sanders Peirce and it boils down, quite simply, to doing nothing which doesn't make a difference in terms of outcomes; what works is what matters. Not that this simplicity boils over into simplisticness. James is an astute operator and is aware of what criticism shall come his way. Thus, in this series of lectures he addresses all the realist, essentialist and foundationalist philosophers with their abstract, universal and idealistic arguments and demonstrates that it is the pragmatist who takes our obligations seriously. The pragmatist is guided by the experience of the senses and the working body of truth each person carries with them and these are no small trifles. The pragmatist is not one who is free to make anything up (contrast the external realist who can say anything and claim what they like since its beyond verification / falsification).

So read this classic piece of American philosophical writing and be entertained, educated and edified all in one go. It has changed my approach to life.

PoSTmodERnFoOL

I rate this work 5 stars because of its immense influence on today's common ways of thinking and its importance in understanding the rise of science and capitalism in America.

James challenges philosophers of all ilks to give us a net value to their systems; that is, how do they affect human life or make the world we know better or worse for us? James insists that no philosophy finally matters unless it impacts life in concrete terms. To lock down his philosophy he fashions a new model of truth, stating that whatever is beneficial is true.

There are huge problems here, e.g., the rise of the subjective. James doesn't specify to whom truth should be beneficial (humanity in general? Subjective selves?), so his theory leads to strange quandaries. It would be "true" for a sound-minded criminal on trial to plead insanity, and it would also be "true" for the prosecutor to charge guilt and sanity. Obviously, confusing "useful" and "true" is a category obfuscation. As well, morality would suffer on this view. If lying is useful then regarding lies as truths is fully permissible by James's line of thought.

Nevertheless, the book is important to read because so much of today's world is run in terms of the useful rather than the ideal or intrinsically good. That is why art is marginalized, morality compromised, and capital generating systems glorified. We need James's Pragmatism to understand ourselves today.

In his 1909 book Pragmatism, William James attempts to reconcile the grim eschatology of empiricism with the noble incentives of religion. James sets the stage by defining empiricists as "tough-minded" realists, deducing truth solely from material experience, and rationalists as "tender-minded" religious types, virtuous but prone to dogmatic thinking and an unverifiable belief in oneness. His answer to what he calls this "present dilemma of philosohy" is pragmatism, a bridging doctrine that seeks to value a "scientific loyatly to facts, and willingness to take account of them,...but also the old confidence in human values and the resultant spontaineity, whether of the relifious or of the romantic type." James posits that in order for truth to be truth, it must have "cash-value." He states, "The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good, too, for definite, assignable reasons." Simply put, James feels strongly that there must be a verifiable correlation between what we believe and what we experience. A righteous starting point.
Pragmatism is a stimulating read, and with his background in psychology, James delves profoundly into the rationalizations of human thinking. Despite its bold statements, the book has a kindly tone, and the author's earnest attempts to convince are without academic snideness or scorn. But as perceptive as Pragmatism is at times, James inevitably comes off as just an empiricist with a heart, as sort of a materialist's "compassionate conservative." Robert Frost biographer Jay Parini says that James was "trying to have his cake and eat it too" and inconsistencies do arise. Although abhorring a priori reasoning, James writes in the last chapter, "In the end it is our faith and not our logic that decides such questions, and I deny the right of any pretended logic to veto my own faith."
As for reconciling empiricism with religion, James does so by what would be called in twenty-first century business-speak as "moving the goal posts." He refuses to consider salvation and truth as absolute or universal, but believes them to be melioristic, ever shifting and contingent of the efforts of men. James regards truth as more of a plastic process than a promise, and the belief in God as useful--if it has value. As straight forward and pragmatic as James aims to be, there seems to lie beneath his arguments the unsettling thought that religion is a self-duping but necessary enterprise--that religious faith is true only to the degree that it gives us moral support in a harsh empirical world. In the final analysis William James can't seem to shake the fervor of his age that empirical science would supply all the answers concerning truth and man.

In the book Pragmatism William James offers one of his finest works; articulate, clear and funny. (See for example his analysis of monism and pluralism). One often wonders if writers who fail to speak plainly have anything to say. Happily James is the clearest of them all. It is especially amusing to see him poke fun at philosophers who take their cherished positions far too seriously.

It would be a mistake to misconstrue this work as the basis of a philsophy for living or even a pragmatic school of thought per se. Rather (as stated in the text) it offers a fresh analysis of major problems, including determinism, monism, pluralism, and reductionism. Full of wit and refreshing humor, this is a first-rate, brilliantly written guide to timeless issues in philosophy.

"The word 'pragmatism' is used everywhere today, from business to sports to politics. Although the word hadn't yet entered everyday language when William James published Pragmatism in 1907, the philosopher believed its doctrine had virtually become common sense in twentieth-century America. For James, pragmatism was a specific philosophical alternative to essentialism and foundationalism and argued that ideas are meaningful only insofar as they have practical consequences in concrete human experience; however today pragmatism has come to denote merely a general willingness to compromise principles, even to the point of selfishness or irresponsibility. Written in an engaging and accessible style, Pragmatism is a valuable corrective to modern uses of the word, since the voice that speaks in its pages embodies precisely the opposite values from the pejorative senses the word has acquired."

What follows is an example of the greatness of this book:

From Introduction by Bruce Kuklick to William James' Pragmatism.

James went on to apply the pragmatic method to the epistemological problem of truth. He would seek the meaning of 'true' by examining how the idea functioned in our lives. A belief was true, he said, if in the long run it worked for all of us, and guided us expeditiously through our semihospitable world. James was anxious to uncover what true beliefs amounted to in human life, what their "Cash Value" was, what consequences they led to. A belief was not a mental entity which somehow mysteriously corresponded to an external reality if the belief were true. Beliefs were ways of acting with reference to a precarious environment, and to say they were true was to say they guided us satisfactorily in this environment. In this sense the pragmatic theory of truth applied Darwinian ideas in philosophy; it made survival the test of intellectual as well as biological fitness. If what was true was what worked, then scientific truths were just those beliefs found to be workable. And we could investigate religion's claim to truth in the same manner. The enduring quality of religious beliefs throughout recorded history and in all cultures gave indirect support for the view that such beliefs worked. James also argued directly that such beliefs were satisfying; they enabled us to lead fuller, richer lives and were more viable than their alternatives. Religious beliefs were expedient in human existence, just as scientific beliefs were.

Depending on who you ask, american philosophy is an oxymoron. But the pragmatic schools of James, Pierce, and Dewey are truly a challenging and significant to philosophy as a whole.

James has a very peculiar way of viewing experience, for a philosopher, and a sort of colossal respect for truth that rivals Kant's. This book approaches in a very systematic way the problems that we have dealing with truth and its inherent elusiveness. Both Empiricist and Rationalist philosophical attitudes run aground when dealing with reality; certain aspects of both are better at dealing with particular facets of experince. That is, some of the "work" better than other in certain situations. (As James notes, Hegel or Kant have done little to advance any scientific knowledge-- but a wholly empirical philosophy can give offer us no end to strive towards that we will find humanly compelling) James makes the middle road between the two, and offers the philosphically radical suggestion that the closest to any "Truth" as a big T we are going to get is going to be through our examination of how particular notions of truth produce for us better explanations of experience. In fact (as James later elaborates) the best philosophy we can find is one that will be able to unstiffen the mind an be able to deal with various different truths. Plural.

If you can't see from this outlook, James's notion of philosophy is profoundly democratic. His philosophy is one of the best attempts I've ever encountered to form some sort of coherent system that accomodates mutually exclusive forms of truth. And such a system, also, is American Democracy.

The reviewers below fall into an error on this account by saying James apologizes for scoundrels. He does not; in fact, he was thoroughly anti-imperialist and in case we havn't noticed Nazism and Stalinism are systems built on Monistic systems of Truth. Look it up. Read the book, it's a classic, maybe the classic, of American Philosophy. A fitting testament to james' enduring genius

In 1906 and 1907, William James delivered a series of eight lectures at the Lowell Institute, Boston, and at Columbia University, New York City which he published as "Pragmatism: A New Way for Some Old Ways of Thinking". This short book, which James further described as "popular" lectures on philosophy constituted James's fullest statement of his thought up to that time. It remains a provocative, valuable, and important work, a classic of American thought.

I want to mention some important considerations in James's overall approach in this book. First, I was struck, in reading "Pragmatism", by the importance James attaches to the philosophical quest. He begins his opening lecture, "The Present Dilemma in Philosophy" with the observation that an individual's philosophy is the most important thing about that person because it gives his or her sense of "what life honestly and deeply means." James makes high and traditional claims for the importance of philosophical investigation -- claims which not been followed by a number of subsequent professional philosophers.

Second, James wrote his book for a lay audience of educated individuals whom he called "amateur philosophers". People in this class, for James, were not technically trained academic philosophers but rather were those who had a sense of both the claims of religion and spirituality and the claims of empirical science. These amateurs, James continued, wanted, in our modern terminology to "have it all"; and they were inclined to overlook conflicts or inconsistencies between types of beliefs that they wished simultaneously to hold. Many of James philosophical successors did not follow James in writing for amateurs. They wrote instead for other philosophers.

Third, James saw his role as a philosopher in mediating between the claims of Darwinian and physical science and religion. In a memorable phrase, he divided philosophers and philosophical tendencies into two broad types: "tender-minded" and "tough minded". The tender-minded thinkers of his day, the focus of much criticism in "Pragmatism" were the absolute idealists, American and British successors to Hegel. The tough-minded thinkers were empiricists, wedded to factual investigation and to materialism. Tough minded thinkers wanted nothing to do with metaphysical or religious abstractions. James conceived of pragmatism as a way to accept what was valuable in both tender-minded and tough-minded thinkers.

Thus, in the body of his lectures, James developed pragmatism as a method and a theory of truth. Pragmatism is an instrumental philosophy which holds, James states at one point, that "ideas (which themselves are but parts of our experience) become true just in so far as they help us to get into satisfactory relation with other parts of our experience." (Note the reference to "ideas" in this definition which may tie James unduly to some previous methods of thinking that he would otherwise reject.) Philosophy is not a subject for intellectualist abstractions but rather a tool to help people understand themselves and their needs in specific situations, consistently with their needs in other situations. Pragmatism, for James, is a forward-looking philosophy which tests ideas by their consequences, both in matters of science and in matters of religious belief. Thus, for James pragmatism is a philosophy which mediates between science and religion. Unlike some of his fellow pragmatists, the religious life was important to James.

James applies his basic approach to pragmatism to address traditional philosophical questions, including the nature of substance, personal identity and free-will. His discussions are still worth reading. For me, the strongest section of the book was the Lecture IV in which James contrasts philosophical monism and pluralism. This chapter helped me to both to understand and to question the fascination that claims to the unity of the world or of experience have exerted and continue to exert on many thinkers. This chapter is an excellent exposition of philosophical pluralism -- the view that there are many things and that they may only be imperfectly and incompletely connected. The lectures on "Pragmatism and Common Sense" and on "Pragmatism and Humanism" are contemporary and important in that they suggest the absence of fixed categories and the legitimacy of alternative means of describing experience for different purposes.

James writes so beautifully that he sometimes lacks the technical precision that might make his ideas clearer. He frequently uses loose metaphors that, while intruiging, serve to obfuscate rather than clarify his position. This is particularly the case in lecture VI, "Pragmatism's Conception of Truth" in which James expounds upon his claim that the truth of an idea is the use we can make of it. As James himself points out, his position was subject to a great deal of criticism, much of which may be misdirected. But James does not entirely help himself in expounding his position on this difficult question.

In the final chapter of his work, James explains his philosophical stance as a meliorist -- one who looks towards the future and tries to work to make his life and the world a better place. He finds that, for him, some form of religious theism is essential for this endeavor. While rejecting transcendental idealism and the absolute, James accepts the existence of a God, if not the all-powerful, all-knowing, unitary God of traditional Jewish-Christian theology. The method of knowing an idea by its use and consequence finds a place, for James, in both matters of the spirit and matters of science. Thus, James claims that pragmatic thought is able to honor both the claims of spirit and the claims of science. James modified his pragmatism in subsequent works and ultimately may have adopted a position closer to the idealism he criticizes in "Pragmatism".

With many modifications and qualifications, much of James's strategy for mediating between science and religion remains important and has been developed by subsequent thinkers. He articulated an important mission for philosophy and made it a subject and a quest which could continue to inspire and to help people with their lives. James is a challenging thinker that deserves to be read. He still has a great deal to teach.

Robin Friedman

It has been said that Pragmatism is the only philosophical school America has given the world. James is its great popularizer along perhaps with Dewey. Pragmatism in James is a ' theory of truth' which cancels common - sense correspondance theory of truth, and says that truth is the ' cash - value' of a proposition. The results of an idea or proposition in the marketplace are according to James ' its truth'. This sounds odd and in fact is certainly not what we ordinarily mean when we speak about the truth. It does make a certain sense however in trying to order the decisions of our life, and may help us in judging those beliefs we wish to hold on to.
My own sense is that this theory is pretty thin stuff, and the greater James is in the psychology of the ' Varieties of Religious Experience'
Again it seems to me that Pragmatism adds a certain element to the conception of Truth we should have, but it misses out on other crucial dimensions. There after all are truths which are painful, and truths which we do not want to know, and truths which it does not help us to know, and truths which we must grudgingly admit, and truths which do not promise to help us at all but may hurt us very much.