Pragmaticism is a branch of philosophy which emerged out of the USA in the 1800s concerned with practical approaches to philosophy. Simply put, our understanding of the world cannot be separated from our experience of it. As the USA was being developed there was naturally a thirst for practical ways of examining and acting in the world, results were a priority.
The philosophy developed a wide variety of ideas, with Pierce (Hookway, 1997) proposing that philosophic concepts should be tested by the scientific method, and James (1975) observing that overly applying the scientific method reduced the crucial contributions of intuition and imagination to the role of bystander. For James (ibid, 1981) our sense of what was relevant and the role it played in our lives was as important as knowledge created through the scientific method. It was not always possible or desirable to appraise every decision scientifically.
Dewey (1999) saw value in both approaches and embraced a position which was offered by both Pierce and James, that the evaluation of consequences was essential to practice. The examination of consequences would allow us to navigate the paradoxes of situations where our senses find something pleasurable, but the pursuit of that pleasure is ultimately counter productive (Dewey, 1999). By example, think of eating only chocolate for every meal.
For Dewey (1999) we need rigorous principles to guide us, and our imagination and intuition to modify these principles as they engage with unique and changing contexts. To paraphrase Dewey, the truth, is what works in the situation you find yourself in.
The implication for everyday life is that when we sense that something is positive, we may not evaluate fully it’s consequences. Before it was so named, the pragmatic philosophers were well aware of the confirmation bias, the use of reason to confirm rather than critically explore our preferences. We can draw from pragmaticism by evaluating the consequences of decisions before we have executed them.
When we prefer a course of action, we are very focused on how this is making us feel. We should pay serious attention to this feeling, and without it we lose a spontaneous connection to reality (James, 1981, McGilchrist, 2019). However, too often we can get caught in our own feelings and fail to connect with the perspective of the people who our decision may affect and the environment they operate within. We need to imagine the perspective of the other and the constraints they are under, and this use of imagination will begin to allow us to explore the consequences of our decisions.
For example, if we are writing an email to express our intentions, we may be focused on getting our point across, but not focused enough on how the reader of our email will make sense of our perspective. By thinking about the other person’s perspective, we can re examine our words and see potential misunderstandings, clashes of values and priorities, and imagine the consequences. This will allow us to adapt our point to connect with the other person, not simply impose our perspective on them. This approach is pragmatic as our focus moves from simply getting our point across to getting our point across effectively.
Reading
Hookway, C.J., (1997) “Logical Principles and Philosophical Attitudes: Peirce’s Response to James’s Pragmatism” in R.A. Putnam (ed.),
James, W (1975). Pragmatism: A New Name for some Old Ways of Thinking, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
James, W., (1981). The Principles of Psychology, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dewey, J., (1999). The Essential Dewey (two volumes edited by Hickman, L. and Alexander, T.), Bloomington: Indiana University Press
McGilchrist, I. (2019) The Master and his Emissary. The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. Yale University Press; Expanded Edition.
