Pragmatism asks its usual question. “Grant an idea or belief to be true,” it says, “what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone’s actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth’s cash-value in experiential terms?”
–Pragmatism (1907)
Given the no idea is completely valueless, meaning every conceivable idea has a unique and distinct use. How can there be an idea that is unpragmatic? Indeed, if all ideas are pragmatic, what use is of the value system of pragmaticism? Doesn’t that make pragmaticism the first unpragmatic idea?
Okay, well, you might clarify first if by pragmatic you mean something good for another’s sake (use?) or if it is itself the good you are seeking.
Second, in Ethics, for example, you might differ doing good for it’s social effects, or doing good for it’s own sake (reference, Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics, final part of opus), which Aristotle calls the kalos k’agathos = which is he who both looks and is good.
Am I clarifying or changing the meanings of pragmatism and use in your question?
pragmaticism as far as I know is not concerned with ethics. An idea is pragmatic if it has empirical effect on someone’s life. I mean, “you are what you eat” has obvious pragmatic effect. The idea is meaningful pragmatically because people who know it, knows they are what they eat, they are persuaded by the idea and they react by eat better food. For someone who does not know the idea, s/he may not be bothered to eat better food, because s/he does not know that “you are what you eat”.
prag·ma·tism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (prgm-tzm)
n.
1 Philosophy. A movement consisting of varying but associated theories, originally developed by Charles S. Peirce and William James and distinguished by the doctrine that the meaning of an idea or a proposition lies in its observable practical consequences.
2 A practical, matter-of-fact way of approaching or assessing situations or of solving problems.
3 A way of approaching situations or solving problems that emphasizes practical applications and consequences.
4 (philosophy) the doctrine that practical consequences are the criteria of knowledge and meaning and value 2: the attribute of accepting the facts of life and favoring practicality and literal truth [syn: realism]
the consequence of actions is always an ethical question… (ethics is a set of principles of right conduct…)
but in reply to your question as you asked it, some pragmatisms are better than others…
The pragmatic value of an idea depends on the context. To me, most of epistemology has no pragmatic value. Hume’s would top my list. To Hume, however, it served the very pragmatic purpose of justifying his atheism. This is a common enough circumstance. Most epistemology, I believe, serves a morality. Then the question becomes one of the pragmatic value of the morality.
if some ideas are more pragmatic, and others are less pragmatic. is there an idea that is unpragmatic? If yes, then no need to argue. If no, then it implies every idea has some pragmatic use. Therefore, the assertion that “the meaning of an idea or a proposition lies in its observable practical consequences” has no practical consequence because all ideas have observable practical consequences, that makes pragmaticism unpragmatic.
pragmaticism is in itself an idea. Actually, the should redefine pragmaticism and say “the meaning and value of an idea lies in how much money you can generate out of it.”
maybe it’s just a matter of emphasis, degree, scale, reflection.
the idea that we should be reflective of the fact that the only value of an idea is in how it can be applied to life. actually, i inadvertently made a categorical difference (as opposed to ‘emphasis’) by putting value and practicality in direct proportion. i think. unless we say that in an ultimate sense, meaning is practicality. although we’d have to allow practicality for purposes purely in the ongoings in the head; epistemic refinement. it makes sense, kinda, that meaning would require practicality, because one would think that the source/origin of cognition (or understanding) and meaning is in practicality. although that leaves in question whether meaning can take a runaway course where some particular nugget of meaning can be completely divorced from practicality (in essence and not merely because its practicality is impotent in practice). sorry, i said practicality in practice. i guess that makes sense.
anyway, re the emphasis thread, i was thinking of a similar problem today. or was it yesterday. anyway, i looked up thelema. the basic tenets seemed vacuous to me, because they’re what we can’t /help/ but live out whether we’re aware of it or not. (i guess this would be the second non-pragmatic idea) except that i suppose paying attention to their truths in tokenized form could help one free themselves of tangled bonds they place themselves in, by their choice to believe in what culture tells them are the rules of conduct. so it’s about attention, and also maybe in both cases it’s about annihilating convoluted problems more than it is about using the truth itself as if it’s a novel idea. (in the case of pragmatism, what’s getting annihilated is the convolution of runaway meanings and meaning systems that are too indirectly and impractically related to practice. for example, it may be useful in some way to know how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but it’s probably not worth the time and you may not have the capacity to apply it well)
