The pragmatism

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The pragmatism. A new name for old ways of thinking (engl. Original title: . Pragmatism A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking ) is a series of lectures of the American philosopher and psychologist William James , which was published as a book and one of the standard texts of the philosophical flow of pragmatism is.

background

Pragmatism emerged mainly in America towards the end of the 19th century. In addition to FCS Schiller and later John Dewey and George Herbert Mead , Charles Sanders Peirce , who is often referred to as the “inventor of pragmatism” and was close friends with James , was one of the most important earlier representatives . The term “pragmatism” was first used by James in a lecture in 1898, but he explicitly attributes it to Peirce. James, who actually mainly dealt with psychology, was always interested in pragmatic philosophy in the course of his scientific career and also used its method in his philosophical lectures such as The Will to Believe . In December 1906 and January 1907 James gave eight lectures at Columbia University in New York in which he presented his own formulation of pragmatism and applied it as a method to a number of philosophical subjects. In April 1907, James had the text of this lecture series published as a book unprocessed, and in the same year the text was translated into German by Wilhelm Jerusalem . In response to the sometimes angry criticism of the concept of truth used by James in particular , he published a collection of letters and other texts in 1909 under the title The Meaning of Truth. A Sequel to Pragmatism in which he defended his conception of truth.

content

In the first of the eight lectures, James describes the “current dilemma of philosophy”, which can be resolved with the help of the pragmatic method. He describes this method in the second lecture, and there he begins with an explanation of the pragmatic concept of truth. In the other six lectures he applies this method to a specific problem area in philosophy, one of which is the question of what truth is.

The pragmatic method

According to James, the different positions in many philosophical issues can be traced back to the different temperaments of the protagonists involved. On the one hand, the tender-minded are usually rationalists and tend to a. to an idealistic , optimistic and religious worldview, while the tough-minded ("tough-minded") usually empiricists with a materialistic , pessimistic and non-religious worldview. The vast majority of people, especially those who only deal with philosophy as “amateurs”, want to take a position between these two extreme poles, according to James. So want z. B. many people agree a scientific worldview with their religiosity. Such positions, however, easily lead to internal contradictions, since naturalism and theism , for example, are difficult to combine. However, pragmatism should enable elements of both temperaments to be compatible.

After James has described this initial situation in the first lecture, he begins to present pragmatism as a philosophical method in the following lecture. As an example of the application of this method, James cites a disambiguation : If a dispute about the truth or falsehood of a sentence depends on how the words in it are to be understood, then this dispute can be resolved by righting all parties in a particular sense gives. In such a case, the parties may have had different thoughts on the same sentence, which would then also have to be distinguished. In general, philosophical terms must be measured by their cash value: the practical difference that results from them is decisive. These practical differences can be explained using examples in which something different follows from a concept (or from a theory) than from the alternative. If such practical differences cannot be proven, then the corresponding term (and the associated theory) is meaningless. As an example, James names Leibniz's concept of justice, according to which there is only apparently injustice in the world, but in reality God's particularly harsh punishments lead to more cosmic harmony. This theory does not make any practical difference for us, as we cannot put ourselves into a perspective that allows us to recognize the cosmic harmony and to admire its (supposed) beauty. Therefore it is meaningless and unsuitable as an argument for a theodicy .

The pragmatic concept of truth

According to James, the term “pragmatism” is used not only as a method but also as a word for a certain concept of truth. This concept of truth says that something is always true in so far as it helps us to put our experiences together in a satisfactory way. This concept of truth is instrumental, it evaluates opinions according to their usefulness. If we add new opinions that do not match the set of our previous opinions, we firstly question the new opinion or, secondly, try to shift the system of our previous opinions as little as possible and at the same time incorporate the new opinion into it. This theory of truth is therefore not an absolute correspondence theory of truth, but defines what we should (according to our current knowledge) consider to be true .

In the sixth lecture, James explains the pragmatic concept of truth in more detail. The basic idea of ​​this concept of truth goes back to the pragmatic method: We should always ask ourselves what practical difference a certain opinion makes for us, assuming it is true. This results in a characterization of the true statements:

"True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot. "

Accordingly, something only ever becomes true through us and is not ipso facto . On the other hand, there is an agreement between reality and truth, namely insofar as reality guides us in a certain direction, so that true statements have a certain relation to reality.

Various philosophical problems

In addition to the question of the concept of truth, James deals with five other philosophical controversial issues for one lecture each in the rest of his lecture series. The first of these is the question of the metaphysical state of the world, on which he expresses himself in the third lecture. James initially criticizes the naturalistic position, according to which there is no fundamentally good world order. He objects to this that in such a position the fulfillment of our hopes and the meaningfulness of our efforts no longer appear realistic. In this respect, he tends towards the opposite position, spiritualism . James does not want to give a judgment on the question of determinism or indeterminism, especially because he objects that with free will , the possibility of morality is also at stake here. Firstly, our system of praise and blame functions independently of this question and, secondly, free will should be understood as a doctrine of the possibility of salvation (through right action).

The fourth lecture deals with the question of the unity or multiplicity of the world. Intuitive arguments both for and against the unity of the world can be presented here. According to James, the solution lies in a distinction according to the respects in which the world should be regarded as a unit. So it is probably true that the world can be considered a unified object of discourse and can also be understood as a continuum. On the other hand, it is most likely wrong to describe the network of causal lines of action as a unit. James' approach in this lecture is a good example of the method of disambiguation he recommended.

In the fifth lecture, James deals with the common sense philosophy . According to this position, we can best evaluate the world through our intuitive judgments, with which we reconcile our experiences and previous opinions through common sense . James recognizes this way of thinking, but would also like to see ways of thinking recognized: scientific thinking, for example about functionalities and dependencies, and theoretical-critical thinking. A form of thinking cannot comprehend the world in its entirety. James calls this thesis noetic pluralism.

After the sixth lecture serves to concretise the pragmatic concept of truth, James asks in the seventh lecture to what extent our conception of reality depends more on us than on a “real” reality. James admits here that there is a humanistic principle: “You can't weed out the human contribution.” On the other hand, for rationalism, the world is an eternal, finished structure, while for pragmatism, reality is still developing the truth depends on our wealth of experience.

James devotes the last lecture to the philosophy of religion , with particular interest in the question of the nature of possible salvation. He finds the monistic idea that the world as a whole will be redeemed or not at all problematic. Closer to him is an interpretation according to which a gradual salvation can take place, which depends in detail on the actions of each person and thus brings as a practical consequence a motivation to act ethically. Such a redemption also seems to be possible to him, whereby he is aiming at a practical possibility that means something like "realized in the beginning".

literature

Primary text

  • William James, The Pragmatism. A new name for some old ways of thinking, translated by Wilhelm Jerusalem, 2nd edition, Meiner, Hamburg 1994,
  • William James, Pragmatism. a new name for some old ways of thinking. Longmans, Green & Co., London / New York 1907.
  • William James, Pragmatism and The Meaning of Truth (with an introduction by AJ Ayer ), Harvard University Press 1975

Secondary literature

  • Richard M. Gale, The Philosophy of William James, Cambridge 2005.
  • Klaus Oehler (ed.), Classics Explaining: Pragmatism, Berlin 2000.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ z. B. in: Klaus Oehler: Introduction. In: ders (Ed.): Classics Explaining: Pragmatism. P. 6.
  2. ^ Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results . P. 290
  3. ↑ See William James: Pragmatism. A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. Harvard 1975, p. 5 (Preface)
  4. ↑ See James 1975, p. 13 (1st lecture).
  5. ↑ See James 1975, p. 15 (1st lecture).
  6. ↑ See James 1975, p. 26 f. (2nd lecture).
  7. ↑ See James 1975, pp. 30 f. (2nd lecture).
  8. ↑ See James 1975, p. 20 (1st lecture).
  9. ↑ See James 1975, p. 34 (2nd lecture).
  10. ↑ See James 1975, pp. 34–36 (2nd lecture).
  11. ↑ See James 1975, p. 38 (2nd lecture).
  12. ↑ James 1975, p. 97 (6th lecture).
  13. ↑ Cf. James 1975, p. 102 (6th lecture)
  14. ↑ See James 1975, p. 54 (3rd lecture).
  15. ↑ See James 1975, p. 61 (3rd lecture).
  16. ↑ See James 1975, pp. 66f. (4th lecture).
  17. ↑ See James 1975, p. 81 (5th lecture).
  18. ↑ James 1975, p. 122 (7th lecture).
  19. ↑ See James 1975, p. 125 (7th lecture).
  20. ↑ See James 1975, p. 136 (8th lecture).