Pragmatic Genuine Philosophy
Pragmatism is a philosophy that emphasizes the experience and context. It may not have a clear ethical framework or fundamental principles. This can lead to an absence of idealistic ambitions and transformative change.
Unlike deflationary theories of truth the pragmatic theories of truth do not deny the idea that statements relate to states of affairs. They simply elucidate the roles that truth plays in practical tasks.
Definition
The word pragmatic is used to describe things or people that are practical, rational and sensible. It is often contrasted with idealistic which is an notion that is based upon high principles or ideals. A person who is pragmatic considers the real world situations and circumstances when making decisions, and is focused on what can realistically be accomplished, rather than trying to achieve the best possible outcome.
Pragmatism, a brand new philosophical movement, focuses on the importance that practical implications determine what is true, meaning or value. It is a third option to the dominant analytic and continental tradition of philosophy. Founded by Charles Sanders Peirce and William James with Josiah Royce as its founding fathers, pragmatism developed into two distinct streams that tended towards relativism, the other towards the idea of realism.
The nature of truth is a major issue in pragmatism. While many pragmatists agree truth is a key concept, they disagree about what it means and how it is used in the real world. One approach, heavily influenced by Peirce & James, concentrates on how people resolve questions and make assertions and gives precedence to speech-acts and justifying projects that language-users use in determining if something is true. Another method that is inspired by Rorty and his followers, focuses on the more mundane aspects of truth, namely its ability to generalize, commend, and caution--and is less concerned with a complete theory of truth.
The main flaw of this neo-pragmatic method of determining truth is that it stray with relativism, as the notion of "truth" has such a long and rich tradition that it seems unlikely that it can be reduced to the common purposes that pragmatists give it. Second, pragmatism appears to reject the existence of truth in its metaphysical sense. This is evident in the fact that pragmatists such as Brandom who owe a lot to Peirce and James, are largely in silence about metaphysics, while Dewey has only made one reference to truth in his many writings.
Purpose
Pragmatism aims to provide an alternative to the continental and analytic philosophical traditions. Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and their Harvard colleague Josiah Royce (1860-1916) were the first to introduce it's first generation. These pragmatists from the classical period focused on the theory of inquiry as well as the nature of truth. Their influence was felt by many influential American thinkers including John Dewey (1859-1952), who applied their theories to education and other dimensions of social improvement, as well as Jane Addams (1860-1935) who established social work.
In recent years, a new generation of philosophers has given pragmatism a wider platform to discuss. A lot of these neopragmatists are not traditional pragmatists, but they believe that they belong to the same tradition. Robert Brandom is their main persona. His work is centered on the philosophy and semantics of language, but also draws inspiration from the philosophy of Peirce, James, and others.
One of the major distinctions between the classic pragmatics and the neo-pragmatists lies in their understanding of what it means 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, on the other hand, concentrate on the concept of 'ideal warranted assertibility' which says that an idea is true if a claim about it can be justified in a particular way to a specific audience.
There are however some problems with this view. It is often criticized for being used to support illogical and ridiculous ideas. A simple example is the gremlin idea: It is a genuinely useful concept that works in the real world, but it is completely unsubstantiated and likely to be absurd. This is not an insurmountable problem however, it does point out one of pragmatism's main flaws: it can be used to justify almost anything, and this is the case for many ridiculous ideas.
Significance
When making decisions, pragmatic means taking into account the world as it is and its circumstances. It could be a reference to the 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 he delivered at the University of California, Berkeley. James scrupulously swore that the term was coined by his friend and mentor Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) however the pragmatist perspective soon gained a reputation all its own.
The pragmatists opposed the sharp dichotomies in analytic philosophy like mind and body, thoughts and experience, and synthesthetic and analytic. They also rebuffed the idea of truth as something that is fixed or objective, instead describing it as a continuously evolving, socially-determined concept.
Classical pragmatics primarily focused on theorizing inquiry, meaning and the nature of truth, but James put these concepts to work in examining 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.
In recent years, Neopragmatists have tried to put pragmatism within a wider Western philosophical context. They have analyzed the affinities between Peirce’s views and the ideas of Kant and other idealists of the 19th century, and the emerging science of evolution 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 that includes the concept of meaning, language, and the nature of knowledge.
However, More suggestions has continued to develop and the a posteriori epistemology that it developed is still considered a significant departure from more traditional methods. The pragmatic theory has been criticized for a long time, but in recent years it has been receiving more attention. Some of them include the notion that pragmatism is ineffective when applied to moral issues and that its claim to "what works" is nothing more than relativism that has an unpolished appearance.
Methods
Peirce's epistemological strategy included a practical explanation. He viewed it as a way of undermining spurious metaphysical ideas such as the Catholic understanding of transubstantiation, Cartesian certainty-seeking strategies in epistemology and Kant's concept of a 'thing in itself' (Simson 2010).
For a lot of modern pragmatists the Pragmatic Maxim is all that one can reasonably expect from a theory of truth. In this sense, they tend to avoid deflationist claims of truth that require verification in order to be deemed valid. They advocate a different approach they refer to as "pragmatic explanation". This involves explaining the way the concept is used in practice and identifying conditions that must be met in order to be able to recognize it as valid.
This method is often criticized as a form relativism. But it is less extreme than the deflationist alternatives and is thus a useful method of overcoming some of the problems with relativism theories of truth.
As a result of this, a lot of liberatory philosophical initiatives, such as those associated to feminism, eco-philosophy, Native American philosophy, and Latin American philosophy, look for inspiration in the pragmatist tradition. Quine is one example. He is an analytical philosopher who has taken on pragmatism in a way that Dewey could not.
Although pragmatism has a long history, it is important to recognize that there are fundamental flaws with the philosophy. Particularly, philosophy of pragmatism is not an objective test of truth, and it is not applicable to moral questions.
Quine, Wilfrid Solars and other pragmatists have also criticised the philosophy. Richard Rorty and Robert Brandom are among philosophers who have brought it from obscureness. These philosophers, while not being classical pragmatists themselves, owe much to the philosophy and work of Peirce James and Wittgenstein. These works of philosophers are well worth reading by anyone interested in this philosophy movement.