[MD] What Pragmatism Is

[Christoffer Ivarsson]

Good Post. Thank You for that. It's always Good to try to straighten things 
out so that we know what we are talking about.

Chris

> From: Matt Kundert

> The meaning of pragmatism as a tradition of philosophical thinking has 
> been contested by those on the outside, and also intermurally by those 
> within it.
>
> I think the time has come for both sides, critics and purveyors, to move 
> beyond the idea that "pragmatism" means "practicality."  There are many 
> linguistic landmines having to do with common usage, common sense, 
> original usage, philosophical usage, etc.  The classical pragmatists, 
> Peirce, James, Dewey, amongst others (Schiller, Mead, etc.), surely had 
> their reasons for using various rhetorical framings.  But the core of 
> pragmatism as it has been worked out through the years has nothing (and 
> everything) to do with "practicality."
>
> The parenthetical is there to remind people that the classical rhetoric 
> isn't completely worn out.  The insight they had was that things only 
> became true or false in practice.
>
> Pragmatism is the thesis that theory, thinking, metaphysics, philosophy, 
> academics, poetry, math, education, school, business, baseball, 
> _everything_--everything is useful if it has a use.  Tautological, yes, 
> but notice the shift in focus: truth is what works, but _what is it 
> working --for--_?  _What_ is its use?
>
> Everything is relative to a purpose.  Theory and philosophy have uses. 
> They are true, they are worth keeping, if we can figure out to what 
> purpose that they are useful for.  Pragmatism is antithetical to Kant and 
> Plato and essentialism because they deny, not the thing-in-itself, but the 
> _thing-for-itself_.  As Pirsig taught us, everything _is_ value and value 
> is always relative to something _valuing it_.  (Pirsig's redescription of 
> causation: B _values_ precondition A.)
>
> Pragmatism doesn't destroy philosophy, nor does it let the Nazi's win. 
> Pragmatism is the core of Socrates' message, it cuts out the bullcrap 
> created over the last 2500 years and gets back to the reason Socrates 
> started up his cross-examinations in the first place: know thyself; the 
> unexamined life is not worth living.  At the core of pragmatism is the 
> call to examine the purposes to which we perform various activities.  Know 
> why you are doing them.  If it serves no purpose, cut it out.  If it does, 
> could anything serve it better?  Is the purpose it serves a good one? 
> Might there be better purposes?
>
> Pragmatism is a return to philosophy as it should be done.  Pragmatism 
> returns us to the practice of life, to the experience of life.  There are 
> many purposes that aren't "practical," not at least to the common usage of 
> the term.  But pragmatism isn't about being practical, it is about knowing 
> why we do things.  It is about asking, "Okay, it works.  But for whom?"
>
> Matt