Its intellectual significance waned in the s and thereafter. In this Article, I shall attempt to survey and then evaluate selected aspects of that varied and provocative body of scholarship. In Part I, I will discuss, in greater detail, the fundamental principles espoused by pragmatic thinkers, including leading philosophical pragmatists, environmental pragmatists, and jurisprudential pragmatic scholars.
Part II will include a discussion of relatively recent efforts to apply pragmatic analysis to environmental decisionmaking and the articulation of public policy. In that Part, I will focus on the writings of two neo-pragmatic scholars, Keith Hirokawa and Daniel Farber, whose works provide thoughtful, helpful illustrations of efforts to approach environmental laws and policies in pragmatic ways.
Finally, in Part III, I shall assay the benefits and shortcomings of pragmatic analysis as both a tool for environmental policymaking and an aid to environmental proponents as they advocate needed improvements in environmental laws.
As it has evolved, pragmatism has taken many forms and attracted a highly diverse set of supporters. In this section, I shall summarize, in brief form, the salient precepts of three distinct and significant types of pragmatic thought: philosophical pragmatism, environmental pragmatism, and legal pragmatism. Although, as we shall see, the precise dimensions of each of these partially overlapping schools of thought are controversial, this summary will focus on those core values and principles to which pragmatic thinkers seem most likely to subscribe.
Philosophical pragmatism, as initially articulated by William James and other early twentieth century academics, is, in one sense, an attitude or method of thought. It has no dogmas, and no doctrines save for its method. Innumerable chambers open out of it. In a fourth a system of idealistic metaphysics is being excogitated; in a fifth the impossibility of metaphysics is being shown. But they all own the corridor, and all must pass through it if they want a practicable way of getting into or out of their respective rooms.
How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? False ideas are those that we can not. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that, therefore, is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known as. John Dewey, another highly influential pragmatist, expressed his theory of truth in like fashion. Another closely related common feature of philosophical pragmatism is its firm rejection of rigid canons and dogmatic beliefs.
She has, in fact, no prejudices whatever, no obstructive dogmas, no rigid canons of what shall count as proof. She is completely genial. She will entertain any hypothesis, she will consider any evidence. In keeping with this doctrinal flexibility, philosophical pragmatism puts considerable emphasis upon indeterminacy and the limitations of human understanding. There is [also] the idea supported by contemporary physics that indeterminacy and chance are real features of the world.
Change, development and novelty are everywhere the rule. Pragmatism maintains that no set of ethical concepts can be the absolute foundation for evaluating the rightness of our actions.
Pragmatic ideas regarding ethics are further manifested in the area of social and political thought. Finally, in its social outlook and elsewhere, philosophical pragmatism places an especially high value on experimentation. Environmental pragmatism is a relatively new direction in modern philosophy. The most comprehensive collection of essays by environmental pragmatists may be found in Environmental Pragmatism , edited by Andrew Light and Eric Katz.
Like Parker, Sandra B. Rosenthal and Rogene A. Buckholz also emphasize the organic unity of the individual embedded in his or her environment. Another leading environmental pragmatist, Bryan G. Norton, also advocates a pluralistic approach. Of comparable importance was George Herbert Mead, whose contribution to the social sciences has been noted. What pragmatists teach us about truth , he tells us, is that there is nothing very systematic or constructive to be said about it.
In particular, the concept does not capture any metaphysical relation between our beliefs and utterances, on the one hand, and reality on the other. But, beyond talking about the rather trivial formal properties of the concept, there is nothing more to be said. This principle holds that we can only adopt something as an aim when we are able to recognize that it has been achieved.
And since we are fallible, we are never in a position to prove that one of our beliefs is actually true—all we can recognize is that it meets standards of acceptance that are endorsed, for the time being, in our community Rorty a: chapter one; ; Hookway This consequentialist reading of pragmatist ideas is also reflected in his account of how we can criticize and revise our view of the world.
We do not test these vocabularies by seeing whether they enable us to discover truths or by showing that they can be read off the nature of reality. Instead, we evaluate them by seeing how they enable us to achieve our current goals, formulate better and more satisfying goals, and generally become better at being human Rorty Hilary Putnam has at times denied that he is a pragmatist because he does not think that a pragmatist account of truth can be sustained.
Indeed, he shows little sympathy for the pragmatic maxim. However, he has written extensively on James, Peirce, and Dewey—often in collaboration with Ruth Anna Putnam—and has provided insightful accounts of what is distinctive about pragmatism, and what can be learned from it See Putnam a.
With the turn of the twenty first century, he made ambitious claims for the prospects of a pragmatist epistemology. The rich understanding of experience and science offered by pragmatists may show us how to find an objective basis for the evaluation and criticism of institutions and practices. He is particularly struck by the suggestion that pragmatist epistemology, by emphasizing the communal character of inquiry and the need to take account of the experiences and contributions of other inquirers, provides a basis for a defence of democratic values — Another symptom of a pragmatist revival is found in the work of Robert Brandom.
His views owe more to philosophers such as Wilfrid Sellars and Quine, his teacher Richard Rorty, and historical readings in thinkers such as Kant and Hegel. As noted above, his concerns are mostly with semantics and the philosophy of language. The connection to pragmatism is that his approach to language is focused upon what we do with our practices of making assertions and challenging or evaluating the assertions of others.
He drew on his dual training in philosophy and psychology for his famous book The Varieties of Religious Experience : a unique compendium of testimonies concerning matters such as prayer, worship and mystical experience.
Bishop ; Aikin Peirce himself evolved from an early positivistic disdain for religious questions to producing his own theistic arguments in later life.
The piece is structured into three argumentative layers: i The Humble Argument an invitation to a phenomenological experiment which is enfolded by, ii The Neglected Argument an original version of the Ontological Argument which is enfolded by, iii The Scientific Argument a prophecy of the fullness of future scientific inquiry. Dewey turned his hand to religious questions in his book A Common Faith.
Such conditions might equally be found in a forest or art gallery as a church or temple. In ethics it can seem natural to interpret this as recommending that normative notions be reduced to practical utility. Thus James embraced utilitarian ethics as one of the branches of pragmatism James Peirce, however, took a different view. But around he began to warm towards ethical theorising, as he developed a philosophical architectonic which placed ethics directly prior to logic, since ethics studies what is good in action, and logic studies what is good in thought, which is a species of action.
Massecar ; Atkins Locke taught that the distinctive feeling-qualities that values give rise to in us are our ultimate guide in studying them, although function has an important secondary role to play. He held the resulting axiology to be pluralist, as well as culturally relativist. Dewey also sought to steer ethics between the traditional poles of an objectivism derived from some kind of human-transcendent authority, and a subjectivism derived from individual preference.
He believed that both views err in granting the moral agent an identity prior to interactions with others. For Dewey, we are more frail beings than this, embedded in a sociality that runs much deeper, and the purpose of moral theory is ultimately to provide constructive methods for addressing human problems of a particular kind: those in which we find ourselves unable to choose between equally valuable ends, with a dearth of salient habits with which to cross the breach.
Progress can be made by recognising the inherent uncertainty of moral problems and the complexities of moral experience Hildebrand 73 , and being willing to inquire anew in every moral context, drawing in data from a variety of scientific disciplines, in order to lay down new intelligent habits. A notable recent attempt to develop a pragmatist metaethics drawing on classical pragmatism is Heney , which forms part of the so-called New Pragmatism.
When around Peirce defined ethics as a normative science directly prior to logic, he also defined aesthetics as a normative science directly prior to ethics since aesthetics studies goodness in and of itself, which may then be used to understand good action. Recent further development of this framework includes Kaag ; Gava James did not make sustained contributions to aesthetics, but Dewey did, particularly in his book Art as Experience.
Consequently the most important question in this area of philosophy is not how to define necessary and sufficient conditions for Art, but how to enable ordinary people to enjoy more of it, so that their lives might be more meaningful.
True art alternates between doing and undergoing. The giant figure in philosophy of education is of course Dewey, who pioneered and established it as a separate sphere of study when he first assumed the chair in Philosophy at University of Chicago in Many of his suggestions derive from his vision of democracy as not merely a system of voting but the idea that every societal institution might be designed to foster maximum flourishing in every citizen.
Viewed from this angle, traditional modes of schooling whereby teachers deliver an approved often employer-sanctioned set of facts for children to memorise count as despotic.
The teacher begins by facilitating contact with some phenomenon which proves genuinely puzzling to the students, then guides them through a cycle of inquiry which if all goes well resolves the problematic situation to the satisfaction of all present.
This cycle of inquiry includes as stages: articulating the problem and questions which might need to be answered in its resolution, gathering data, suggesting hypotheses which might potentially resolve the problem, and testing or otherwise evaluating those hypotheses. In that regard, Dewey claimed that his writings on education summed up his entire philosophical position Hildebrand For Dewey, all philosophy was philosophy of education.
As well as identifying some of the primary texts of pragmatism and listing works referred to in the article, the bibliography also contains some books which can be studied to supplement the current article. For both Peirce and Dewey, references are given to collections of their writings.
The Meaning of Pragmatism: James 2. The Pragmatic Maxim: Peirce 3. Pragmatist Theories of Truth 3. Pragmatist Epistemology 4. Further pragmatists 5. To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only consider what conceivable effects of a practical kind the object may involve—what sensations we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must prepare.
The resultant metaphysical problem now is this: Does the man go round the squirrel or not? Then, our conception of those effects is the whole of our conception of the object. EP1: This offers a distinctive method for becoming clear about the meaning of concepts and the hypotheses which contain them.
EP2: Pragmatist Theories of Truth Peirce and James differed in how they applied their respective pragmatisms to clarifying the concept of truth. His pragmatic clarification of truth is expressed as follows: The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real.
That is the way I would explain reality. We can best summarize his view through his own words: The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good, too, for definite assignable reasons. Pragmatist Epistemology The pragmatists saw their epistemology as providing a return to common sense and experience and thus as rejecting a flawed philosophical heritage which had distorted the work of earlier thinkers.
The ultimate test of certainty lies in individual consciousness. After it is reached, the question of certainty becomes an idle one, because there is no one left who doubts it. We individually cannot reasonably hope to attain the ultimate philosophy which we pursue; we can only seek it, therefore, for the community of philosophers. Its reasoning should not form a chain which is no stronger than its weakest link, but a cable whose fibres may be ever so slender, provided they are sufficiently numerous and intimately connected.
EP1: 29 Where the Cartesian holds that unless we begin from premises of which we can be absolutely certain we may never reach the truth, the pragmatist emphasises that, when we do go wrong, further discussion and investigation can identify and eliminate errors, which is our best hope for escaping their damaging effects.
He wrote: Like its congeners life and history, [experience] includes what men do and suffer, what they strive for, love, believe and endure, and also how men act and are acted upon, the ways in which they do and suffer, desire and enjoy, see, believe, imagine, in short, processes of experiencing LW Bibliography As well as identifying some of the primary texts of pragmatism and listing works referred to in the article, the bibliography also contains some books which can be studied to supplement the current article.
Primary Texts of the Classical Pragmatists For both Peirce and Dewey, references are given to collections of their writings. Dewey, J. The Essential Dewey two volumes edited by Hickman, L. They take the form ED n : m —to page m of volume n ———, — Peirce, C. Writings of Charles S.
So far 8 volumes have been released, covering the time-period up to , Bloomington: Indiana University Press. New Elements of Mathematics ed. Eisele, C. Collected Papers, vol. Hartshorne, C. Burks, A.. Cambridge, Mass. Goodman, R. Pragmatism , London: Routledge. London: Routledge. Haack, S. Menand, L. Pragmatism , New York: Random House. Stuhr, J. Talisse, R. Thayer, H. Pragmatism: The Classic Writings , Hackett. Aikin, S. Alexander, T. Apel, K.
Beck ed. Atkins, R. Bacon, M. Pragmatism , Oxford: Polity Press. Baldwin, T. Bellucci, F. Bernstein, R. Bishop, J. Boler, J.
Boncompagni, A. Brandom, R. Rorty and his Critics , Oxford: Blackwell. Clifford, W. Clifford, Lectures and Essays , London: Macmillan, , — Cook, G.
Cooke, E. Du Bois, W. Festenstein, M. Please subscribe to sign in to comment. You should receive instructions for resetting your password. When you have reset your password, you can Sign In. Please choose a screen name. This name will appear beside any comments you post.
Your screen name should follow the standards set out in our community standards. Screen Name Selection. Only letters, numbers, periods and hyphens are allowed in screen names. Please enter your email address so we can send you a link to reset your password. Your Comments. Sign In Sign Out. We reserve the right to remove any content at any time from this Community, including without limitation if it violates the Community Standards. We ask that you report content that you in good faith believe violates the above rules by clicking the Flag link next to the offending comment or by filling out this form.
New comments are only accepted for 3 days from the date of publication. Subscriber Only. The Fell by Sarah Moss: something snaps in lockdown. Putting the Rabbit in the Hat by Brian Cox: ticking the boxes.
Music Quiz. The Books Podcast. Culture Videos. Sign up. Women writers Putting Irish women writers back in the picture.
0コメント