Pragmatic Genuine Philosophy
Pragmatism places emphasis on experience and context. It may not have an enlightened ethical framework or foundational principles. This can lead to the loss of idealistic goals and transformative change.
In contrast to deflationary theories pragmatic theories do not reject the notion that statements are correlated to actual states of affairs. click the following post clarify the roles that truth plays in our daily endeavors.
Definition
The term "pragmatic" is used to describe people or things that are practical, rational and sensible. It is often contrasted with idealistic which refers to a person or notion that is based upon ideals or principles of high quality. A pragmatic person looks at the real-world conditions and circumstances when making decisions, focusing on what is realistically accomplished rather than trying to achieve the best theoretical course of action.
Pragmatism is an emerging philosophical movement that emphasizes the importance of practical implications in determining the value, truth or value. It is a third option to the dominant analytic and continental traditions of philosophy. Founded by Charles Sanders Peirce and William James with Josiah Royce as its founders, pragmatism evolved into two streams of thought that tended towards relativism and the second toward realism.
One of the major issues in pragmatism is the nature of truth. Many pragmatists recognize that truth is a valuable concept, but disagree on how to define it or how it is applied in practice. One method, influenced by Peirce and James, focuses on the ways in which people deal with problems and make assertions and prioritizes the speech-act and justification processes of language-users in determining whether truth is a fact. Another approach that is that is influenced by Rorty and his followers, concentrates on the relatively mundane functions of truth--how it is used to generalize, commend and warn--and is not concerned with a full-fledged theory of truth.
The first flaw with this neo-pragmatic view of truth is that it stray with relativism, since the concept of "truth" is a concept with such a long and rich tradition that it seems unlikely that it can be reduced to the mundane uses to which pragmatists assign it. Second, pragmatism appears to reject the existence of truth in its metaphysical form. This is reflected by the fact that pragmatists such as Brandom, who owes much to Peirce & James and are mostly in silence about metaphysics, while Dewey has made only one mention of truth in his numerous writings.
Purpose
Pragmatism aims to provide an alternative to the continental and analytic traditions of philosophy. Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and their Harvard colleague Josiah Royce (1860-1916) were the first to initiate its first generation. These classical pragmatists focused on the concept of meaning and inquiry, and the nature of truth. Their influence was felt by several influential American thinkers, including John Dewey (1859-1952), who applied the theories to education and other dimensions of social development, and Jane Addams (1860-1935) who established social work.
More recently a new generation of philosophers have given pragmatism a wider platform to discuss. A lot of these neopragmatists are not classical pragmatists however they believe that they belong to the same tradition. Robert Brandom is their main figure. His work is centered on the philosophy and semantics of language, but draws from the philosophy of Peirce, James, and others.
Neopragmatists have a distinct understanding of what it takes for an idea to be true. The classical pragmatists focused on a concept called 'truth-functionality,' which states that an idea is genuinely true if it is useful in practice. Neo-pragmatists insist on the notion of 'ideal warranted assertion, which states that an idea is genuinely true if a claim made about it is justified in a certain way to a particular audience.
There are, however, a few problems with this view. It is often accused of being used to support illogical and ridiculous theories. The gremlin hypothesis is a good example of this: It's an idea that is effective in practice but is unsubstantiated and likely absurd. This isn't a major issue, but it reveals one of the biggest weaknesses of pragmatism: it can be used as a reason for just about everything.
Significance
When making decisions, pragmatic means considering the real world and its circumstances. It can be used to refer to a philosophical position that emphasizes practical consequences in the determination of truth, meaning, or value. William James (1842-1910) first used the term "pragmatism" to describe this perspective in a speech at the University of California, Berkeley. James swore he coined the term with his mentor and friend Charles Sanders Peirce, but the pragmatist perspective soon gained its own fame.
The pragmatists rejected the sharp dichotomies of analytic philosophy like mind and body, thought and experience, as well as analytic and synthesthetic. They also rejected the idea that truth was something fixed or objective, and instead treated it like a constantly-evolving, socially determined concept.
James used these themes to investigate truth in religion. John Dewey (1859-1952) was a major influence on the second generation of pragmatists who applied the approach to politics, education and other aspects of social improvement.
The neo-pragmatists of recent years have made an effort to place pragmatism within an overall Western philosophical context, by tracing the affinities of Peirce's theories with Kant and other 19th century idealists and the new science of evolutionary theory. They also have sought to understand the role of truth in a traditional epistemology that is a posteriori and to formulate a pragmatic metaphilosophy which includes the concept of meaning, language and the nature of knowledge.
Despite this the pragmatism that it has developed continues to evolve and the a posteriori method that it developed remains a significant departure from traditional approaches. Its defenders have been forced to confront a variety of objections that are just as old as the theory itself, but have received greater exposure in recent years. This includes the notion that pragmatism is a flop when it comes to moral issues and its assertion that "what is effective" is nothing more than relativism, albeit with a less-polished appearance.
Methods
Peirce's epistemological approach included a practical explanation. He viewed it as a method of destroying false metaphysical notions such as the Catholic understanding of transubstantiation, Cartesian certainty-seeking strategies in epistemology and Kant's notion of a 'thing in itself' (Simson 2010).
The Pragmatic Maxim, according to many modern pragmatists, is the best one can hope for from a theory about truth. They tend to avoid false theories of truth that require verification to be valid. They advocate a different approach they call "pragmatic explanation". This is the process of explaining how a concept is used in practice and identifying the conditions that must be met to accept the concept as true.
This method is often criticized for being a form relativism. But it's less extreme than the deflationist alternatives and thus is a great way to get around some of the issues associated with relativism theories of truth.
As a result of this, a number of liberatory philosophical projects like those that are linked to eco-philosophy and feminism, Native American philosophy, and Latin American philosophy, look for guidance from the pragmatist tradition. Quine is one example. He is an analytical philosopher who has taken on the pragmatist tradition in a way Dewey could not.
It is important to recognize that pragmatism, though rich in historical context, has its shortcomings. Particularly, the pragmatic approach does not provide a meaningful test of truth, and it fails when applied to moral questions.
Quine, Wilfrid Solars and other pragmatists have also criticized the philosophy. Yet it has been reclaimed from the ashes by a broad variety of philosophers, including Richard Rorty, Cornel West and Robert Brandom. These philosophers, despite not classical pragmatists, owe much to the philosophy and work of Peirce James and Wittgenstein. Their works are worth reading for anyone interested in this philosophy movement.