I have read about pragmatism my whole adult life, from James and Dewey to Rorty and others here, I still don’t get it. How as a philosophy is it different than the Appeal To Consequences fallacy of critical thinking? Is it possible that pragmatism isn’t really a philosophy per se, but more of a science or a language pact? It just doesn’t jibe with what I’ve always loved about philosophy, which I define as the one discipline where thought is completely unrestricted, so long as u are willing to attempt to explain the reasons behind your thoughts. Can anyone see my meat headed problem with pragmatism and help the fly out of the dogmatic slumber bottle or sumptin?
Now that I think about it the concept of “pragmatism” seems to be coupled very closely with the will to power. Pragmatic people will always ask what the pragmatic value is of any given philosophy, course of action, etc. One can try to answer in detail, but saying that it is because of their wtp is perhaps always enough.
The fact that the two words are almost synonymous will also save the person the trouble of bringing such an obscure concept as twtp into any given conversation where the person wishes to explain the more underlining reason for various actions they make and words they use. All they need say is they do it because it is pragmatic. Then only if asked how it is pragmatic will they need to bring up the WTP.
My question would be is the WTP itself pragmatic?
Or put more transparently: is pragmatism itself pragmatic. I don’t think a better answer exists than “it can be, depending on what is valued in the transaction.”
If pragmatists always ask what a philosophy’s value is, and values are subjectively variable, then where is the bedrock truth in pragmatism?
My difficulty is in understanding how pragmatism has value as a way of contemplating truth apart from how truth merely serves humans. Usefulness to humans and truth do not always coincide.
The “truth of usefulness” may occupy a higher rung than the “usefulness of truth.” In terms of priority, strategy for survival.
But I don’t see how the concept of usefulness has any place in the realm of contemplating truth qua factual state of affairs in the universe. It’s one thing to claim the impossibility of knowing truth outside of utility, and another thing to claim no such truth exists.
It seems obvious that some humans (perhaps the more depraved ones like us) feel there is some existential use for “useless” truths that are perhaps true but not useful, not in any other sense aside from its use as a true object (concrete or abstract) to be contemplated.
I think Spinoza said contemplating the meaning of life is a form of prayer. Do pragmatists contemplate the meaning of life? Or just the usefulness? Is there a difference?
I think the appeal to consequences fallacy is only a fallacy if you have a different conception of ‘truth’ than a pragmatic one. You might think, “yo, that’s circular!”. Yes, but that’s the case with all theories of truth—that they are always true by their own lights. Or at least if a theory of truth is false according to itself, you might not want to buy into that one. What I like about pragmatism, is that it would recognize that if a different theory of truth worked better, then that would be a better theory of truth, for that context. But that’s still pragmatism, at a meta level. Pragmatism is like a person who knows he always does things better than others, but is extremely modest about it and willing let others have a go. I don’t think its as out of place in science or other subjects as it might seem. We consider hypotheses true, or the ontological commitments that they make true, when they work to explain/predict… not when their ontological commitments really Really exist.
Put that way it sounds like the word pragmatic and evidence-based are interchangeable.
My previous understanding was that pragmatism was more grounded in the realm of “usefulness” than in the realm of “predict/explain”
A belief can certainly be useful without predicting/explaining, and a prediction/explanation can indeed lack utility. What confuses me is precisely the coupling of these two concepts in pragmatism, the idea that a thing is in fact cap t True only when it is useful.
I’m not denying the usefulness of usefulness, but merely its dominion over truth.
Can you think of an example of a prediction that doesn’t work (i.e., that lacks utility) but you still consider ‘true’? Or an example of an explanation that doesnt work (i.e., doesn’t explain) but you still consider true? Maybe I’m misunderstanding…
I don’t think a pragmatist is going to make absolute claims about Truth to hold till the end of time—that’s a bit too bold to be pragmatic. I don’t think Rorty or James did. It might be a point about psychology (that we consider ‘true’ what works), or a point about language (that we ascribe ‘truth’ to what works), or a normative claim (about what we should consider ‘true’), or a descriptive claim (what we actually consider ‘true’, when you cut through the bullshit). I don’t know really—something along these lines, rather than metaphysical nature of the universe.
Maybe the fallacy of maintaining such notions as usefullness of usefullness as a qualifier for truths, is that it presents the reductions without a ground, as the concepts of behavioral and sensory propositions suffer. The sense of an absolutely qualified Truth is always there shadowing the discernible, functional proposition. This shadow world can't simply be ignored or pushed into a myterious architypical world, not for Good, that is.
The myth will break out in times of absolute/limited constriction/entropy. In this world, the predicting and the used forms may seem to de-differentiate in a seeming duplicity of use. The sense ripped from it’s paradigmn object will loose ground, and the sense of reduction, or even more likely a reduction of it’s sense, may result in the coupling of prediction with utility.
De differentiation exhibits the embodiment of predictable truths with qualified functionally indescernible Truths.
What is it’s value as the limit of it’s prediction/analysis, in fact of Philosophy it’s self? That question again, is inherent in the optimal function of it’s predictive ability/analysis. Not exclusively in it’s use or function.
I’m a little hesitant to answer because I’m perceiving some equivocation fallacy when you interchange “doesn’t work” with “lacks utility.”
When I say lacks utility I’m not commenting on whether a belief “works out” or is otherwise repeatable, demonstrable, etc.
To me, the concept of utility (which I’m perhaps stupidly equivocating with the common meaning of “usefulness”) is not tied to the concept of something working out logically or empirically.
One example of this might be the concept of Poseidon as a personal, anthropomorphic god who controls the sea. it doesnt take much imagination to come up with how this belief might have indeed been useful, again “useful” in common terms, and how other beliefs can be useful that are also not testable or logical.
It may also be true that certain scientific observations may flesh out in experimentation but don’t yield any “use” at present, this is more true for advanced theoretical math equations that seem to have no application whatsoever.
Not to set off a debate about how much scientific data is eventually and dramatically useful. The point is it often is, but it isn’t a defining requirent of the data. We can have data that is true but not useful. If u tell me the precise position of a particle at the opposite end of the universe, I can’t see how that in itself is useful. I can see how astrophysics is useful in kind of a blanket way, but not every single fact contained in a useful discipline is itself useful, while still remaining a fact.
I do see pragmatism more as how you describe in your last paragraph, kind of an anything but metaphysical truth claims. I guess when it comes to examining and exploring metaphysical truth, pragmatism isn’t all that useful, and pragmatists would say the same of explorers of metaphysical truth, that it’s not a useful enterprise, doesn’t yield useful knowlddge. But they’d be wrong. It’s useful for its emotional currency at the very least.
I guess it depends. If a drowning sailor can be saved by foresaking belief in Poseidon and instead turning to nautical science, so be it. But if no science left can save the drowning men, a hearty background in Poseidon will sweeten the salty descent. If that’s not useful, what is?
I think they’re synonymous, aren’t they?
That just is the common meaning of useful, isn’t it?
Just curious: how was that belief itself useful? But I guess yea, if you believe in god and that really does work for you, then you are justified in thinking that belief true. I just doubt that it actually does, even if you think it does.
I think you can justify whatever other theory of truth works better for theoretical math, for theoretical math, if it works better for theoretical math----that’s still pragmatism, I think.
My responses are a bit half-assed.
An example for discussion is classical Newtonian mechanics. They’re not true in the strictest philosophical sense of the word; if we could measure, say, a car crash accurately enough, the equations simply don’t check out, as they don’t account for relative velocities. But they’re good enough to be used to design every car, bridge, building, aeroplane, oil rig, storm wall… pretty much any load-bearing feat of engineering you or I have ever seen has been designed and verified using them.
They have great utility, far more so than the equations that do take into account non-Newtonian effects - they have utility because of their woolly simplicity. They’re valid. Given the immense lengths philosophers go to to sow the slightest possibilty of a hint of doubt into anything claimed to be true, though, they fall short of the mark. We treat them as true because they’re good enough.
I have to say, in my daily work as an engineer I don’t hold them as “good enough” or “acceptable substitutes” - they’re just the equations to use, and if you don’t use them where they’re needed you have no business in engineering. I treat them as true, live my life as if they are; but if asked whether they are true, well, that’s different. Knowing and doing, truth and utility, aren’t necessarily identical.
For a fan of ordinary language philosophy, who said what you said about philosophy’s proud pedigree of chasing after phantoms of its own devise and reifications…you have surprised me sir. What do you think truth is if it is not just what you think it is in everyday ordinary usage?
That’s a very fair question 
I’m talking about its everyday (for me, at least) usage in the example, of course. At its simplest, it’s nothing special - a property that is ascribed to statements that describe what is the case. NM makes assumptions about the world that are not the case; given that, I find it counterintuitive to call the model “true”.
I don’t know whether a hardline pragmatist would say that Newtonian mechanics is true up to the points that relativistic or quantum mechanics take over and become true due to their utility, or whether relativistic/QM are true because they have broader application (but not universal application, being mutually incompatible nor greater utility than Newtonian mechanics for our scale of living). In fact, I don’t even know if there is a pragmatic definition - the differences between the pragmatists I’ve any familiarity with (James, Peirce and Rorty) seem at least as great as the similarities. But that’s not really a problem pragmatically, I suppose. And as another proviso, that RM and QM are incompatible guides me to take an instrumentalist approach to the whole matter.
That there can be a difference between living as if something were the case and it being the case is not necessarily foolish, contradictory or even unusual. People the world over raise other people’s children as though they were their own, even though they would not swear under oath that the child in question is actually their son or daughter, by the exact terms required of a legal case. Daily, though, they weigh the child in their considerations as though it were their own child. Many, maybe most people live as if they’re not going to die, but accept when challenged directly that they will of course do so. So it is with Newton’s laws; a step-truth, maybe.
This is exactly what I’m saying. Does pragmatism say the opposite? If it does (and many readings suggest it does, at least sometimes) then I don’t understand/agree with pragmatism.
And to VonRivers
I don’t see it. Utility versus “works.” If something works it can be operated. If something is useful it can be operated to advantageous ends. In this sense, a pragmatist would argue that if a truth claim can’t be applied to a useful end, it is not true. A truth claim can work (think theoretical math-turbation) but not be used or useful. Like a rusty crank-driven eggbeater floating thru the cold vacuum of space, somewhere in the deepest crevices of the Formax galaxy. It is not useful, especially not to the astronomers of the egg-like pacifist species populating the nearby planets, but the eggbeater works. It’s not useful, per se. But thay it is. The philosophers in the egg-like community will be interested in the egg beater and the scientists and pragmatists will acknowledge it’s a metallic object but deny any musings that it’s designed to beat eggs. It can’t be for that, they will argue, after all “why would anyone want to beat eggs? The idea is absurd. And what’s an egg anyway?”
I’d just like to say that a person can start at pragmatism then change its meaning later into a ‘better’ one. Post-pragmatists. It’s not impossible to change meanings. Who wants to conform to the original definitions of words? Almost everything is flawed. Even the absolute universal things can be wrong. It’s up to us to build better meanings when ever we can.
I’ll believe that. It seems that pragmatism is slippery at best. The most I can get by way of definition is some vague sense that a group of people are, in varying degrees, impatient with the more “out there” aspects of philosophy. And along with this, some foggy underlying principle that if it doesn’t help us or make a difference in some way, it’s not worth discussing and probably not even real or sensical.
This last part bothers me for a few reasons. One, it aims to prevent or discredit the sheer act of thinking freely about things. It would probably say that DesCartes thoughts in the oven are stupid, or that Kant’s awakening from dogmatic slumber wasn’t really an awakening but a different, deeper slumber.
More importantly, I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of throwing out powerful metaphysical or rationalist ideas and conclusions just because they don’t seem ready for prime-time, ready for the factory, ready to ship and use, plug and play. I think a lot of the ideas that sit outside the auspices of the hazy Pragmatist umbrella or bag of tricks, are themselves a trove of possibilities.
Here’s what I mean: so if you think about astrophysics, you get the feeling we don’t care much anymore about space. Not like we did when we went to the moon. We just don’t see why it matters what’s happening a zillion miles away. So it becomes more a tool for fascination, a reminder of how small we are and how amazing the cosmos is. Astrophysics then, for now at least, functions to simply broaden our view. In the process, yes, we are rendered smaller, more insignificant in a way, but at least we see what we REALLY are…which might also have positive political or spiritual ramifications. But for now, we can’t really use the data we’re collecting from zillions of lightyears away in any appreciable, useful way. So we see less and less funding, because it’s not “useful.”
So it is with phenomenology, metaphysical ideas, rationalism. Ideas that remind us that we are not really as HERE as we might have thought. We are still HERE but in a different way. This can make us feel small, or make us feel wonder. It depends who you read. I for one read Spinoza and feel like I’m merely one isolated eye of God trying valiantly and desperately to observe its broader self, a bubble of exploration. Any isolation I feel is because there is only one god and that god is the universe and one can be a lonely number, and I am he as you are he, etc. But I can also buck up and say look it, my job is to gather and observe, to appreciate, to exalt in myself expressed by what I’m observing around me, then I’m going to damn well try. This is a useful tool for me. I would have arrived at the feelings of isolation either way, but philosophers are the ones who make sense of those feelings. Simply telling me they are stupid and useless and therefore not worth discussing, well, that sounds like something a shallow, jerky know-it-all type person would say. It sounds very militant and republican (qua rationality gone horribly wrong), not sure why. In any case, it doesn’t help me one bit. It seems cowardly. It seems like the justified arrogance of science bleeding over and infecting philosophy, where it is not welcome.
!!!
The preoccupation and concern about the way thoughts and notions limit whatever they try to tell you about anything bring about a realization that the actions of thought are imperfect and thought is restricted to its perpetuation, its continuity, and its permanence. Thought cannot conceive of the possibility of a movement without a beginning and without this point where it is going to arrive someday or sometime. That is the fascist nature of thought and to think that there is a solution somewhere to be found that will place you in a complete understanding that thought is the problem will only keep the dilemma there. Thought is not the instrument to use to understand that it is the culprit because there is no problem actually there. When it is clear that there is nothing you can do to understand that thought cannot be utilized to free itself from itself then it slows down and falls back.
Can you think of an example of something that works that isn’t useful (or vice versa)? Yea, I know, you mentioned Poseidon… and I didn’t buy it. Anyways, if I have a thing that is never advantageous to me, I’m not likely to think it’s working at all. You mentioned theoretical math, or theoretical physics. In subjects like that, there are internal goals/purposes, like solving the equation in theoretical math, or balancing the sides—or whatever it is they do. And the test of the truth of some mathmatical law or principle is whether it works (or is useful) for the purposes internal to theoretical math (i.e., solving the equation). To make your claim about the non-usefulness of theoretical math, I think you are chirping from the sidelines and your focus is meta-theoretical math. You want to know about new products or cures, and how the mathmatical principle is hidden in that technology—otherwise it’s not advantageous to anyone. But to a theoretical mathmatician, I think they are going to find a mathmatical law works if and only if it is advantageous to the goals of theoretical mathmaticians (like solving equations)… even if those aren’t the goals of shoppers. But yea, theoretical math is true for you, even if it’s not useful to you currently----so what gives? But I think respecting math has worked for you, been useful to you, and so the theoretical mathmaticians have bought themselves some time… some breathing room. You cut them some slack and recognize the truth of theoretical math, because of the recent products you’ve had. Honestly though, if some mathmatician spend their life studying some equation, and it produced nothing, I’d be tempted to say that equation is false. Alittle more modest than a claim about math in general, but still… it’s bold.
Maybe this is your beef: For a pragmatist, true is a value-judgement. You have goals, and you have criteria for what count as those goals being satisfied----those are both value-laden normative phenomena, and they are the basis of ‘truth’. Maybe you think that’s a problem because in the background you think values are subjective and the truth isn’t. But values are not subjective. They are grounded in the kind of creature that you are, and which you have no choice about. And hence neither is the truth.
Western medicine works for somethings. It works. It’s true. Stirring a cauldron and cackling wickedly in the dark of night does not work for somethings. It doesn’t work. It’s false. This is the nature of rea… goodnight.
Usefulness depends on what a person wants. A person may want a wide variety of things.
To some people, certain knowledge is irrelavent, like knowing how often all dogs sneeze on earth each day.
There’s a difference between irrelavent and untrue, also.
I think gamer is talkin about how people don’t give a crap about some types of things.
Something might be supremely important but nobody naturally wants it or cares about it.
Is that pragmatic? I think some of the people would say yes.
That’s a problem, though.
I think we might need to define works and useful. Useful in simplest terms means it is full of use. You can use it.
Maybe this thought experiment excerpted from the private letters of Lord Berkeley will elucidate the confusion.
Berkeley writes:
“I beseech you to consider Joe. He frequently uses a twenty-dollar whore whom he calls, for our purposes, Audrey the Eskimo. The fact that Joe uses her doesn’t in any way make her USEFUL. This is evidenced by the fact that everyone in her tribe has said on more than one occasion: “Audrey, make yourself useful.” One concludes that Joe’s indeed, and I quote, ‘using the pink right off of her.’ I sheepishly concur that one can indeed spy the pink dissipating into the frosty aether, splotches of it freckling on the white ice of the igloo around the igloos arch-shaped entry door. Consequently, none of this USING of Audrey is making Audrey USEFUL. The men of the camp agree, ‘Audrey ain’t useful, she’s just usable.’ From this we can extract, usable, not useful, usable, or if u then not U, or if p dissipates into aether, than not U, if you prefer. When pressed to define what would count as USEFUL, Joe explains: ‘If AUDREY could clean the igloo, that would make her USEFUL. Oh, she’s workable alright, but she don’t work. Never has.’ And if this is offensive to women, just know that Audrey is actually a man in this thought experiment. Yours, G.B.”
One begins to see the irritation Pragmatists have with Berkeley and others.
I’m more interested though in the beef you proposed. (That definitely came out wrong.)
You might be on to something with that. Pragmatists do indeed seem to change the definition of truth, not merely the criteria for establishing truth as I currently define the term truth.
I can see how theo math works and is useful to its own goals, but I think goals can be anything you want and therefore anything can be useful. Witches brew can be a useful placebo even to a pragmatist, but witches brew can also be useful as a cultural glue or psychological coping mechanism – the Poseidon argument that you didn’t buy.
Are you a philosophical pragmatist, and in what sense? I thought you liked Kant.