PHILOSOPHY OF AMERICAN PRAGMATISM GABRIEL GHERASIM

COURSE Benedek Szidonia

Observations: Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice to theory Practice is observed, then theory is extracted from practice and reapplied to practice Circular method Instrumentalism, radical empiricism, verificationism, conceptual relativity, fallibilism Revised pragmatism was used to criticize logical positivism Neopragmatism Neo-classical pragmatism Pragma: deed, act, to pass over, to achieve, to practice The Metaphysical Club, began in America Unique American philosophy Inquiry depends on doubt

PHILOSOPHY OF AMERICAN PRAGMATISM GABRIEL GHERASIM

COURSE Benedek Szidonia

COURSE I 26th February

General characteristics of classical American philosophy

What are those conceptual trends and ideatic interests of American philosophers? When speaking about classical American philosophy, we have in mind the American philosophical tradition at the end of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century. The pragmatic movement in philosophy properly started in 1877 with a text written by Charles Peirce entitled How to make our ideas clear?. Characteristics of classical American philosophy before the birth of pragmatism: 1. The damnation of Renee Descartes (Renatus Carthesius in Latin, died in 164) the American philosophy started by denouncing his philosophy. He was considered the first modern philosopher. All the basic premises of Cartesian philosophy were rejected. The first thesis of his rejected was the thesis of the separation between faculties of knowledge. According to Descartes, for instance the activity of our sensibility (a faculty of knowledge) is completely separate/distinct form the activity of reason or of our intellect. In modern philosophy there are 3 main faculties of knowledge; sensibility, imagination and intellect/reason, through which we can know something. Sensibility works through our senses, the imagination works through representations and reason works through concepts/ideas/thoughts. This distinction between faculties was rejected. American philosophers considered that we can have no genuine knowledge according to this division. In other words, we can have no genuine knowledge about an object by separating our sensibility towards it from the intellect. There are no distinctions between these. Another thesis rejected was his distinction between body and mind. American philosophers considered that the body and the mind are organically connected and cannot be separated. Descartes said that experiencing a physical contact is a part of how our body works and has nothing to do with our mind. (pain for example) Our mind simply operates on our sensation. Descartes didnt genuinely think body was separated from the mind. To have the consciousness of humans allows experiencing the pain and understanding it in the same time with our brains. Americans thought that experiencing the pain and understanding it is one and the same act which happen simultaneously. They considered that this separation is artificial, with no validity in practice, only theoretical. 2. The naturalization of the spirit: in classical tradition, the glorious There are two main worlds, what Plato called the sensiblr eotld, the world of teresttal action, the world. American philosophers discarded these distinctions. Metaphysics separation between the spiritual worlds and the world of experience stood at the basis of metaphysics. Americans rejected all this tradition in metaphysics/ the metaphysical tradition. They considered it to be highly speculative, fiction. American philosophers considered that for a better understanding of what is spiritual, it is necessary to naturalize values and ideas to put them to work. What is spiritual should be manifested in nature, manifesting experience. These ideas have no value when approached abstractly theoretically. Their essential meaning is exactly their role in experience. There is no form without content so they rejected the existence of the spiritual world SEPARATELY from the natural world.

PHILOSOPHY OF AMERICAN PRAGMATISM GABRIEL GHERASIM

COURSE Benedek Szidonia

3. The mentalization of nature: European philosophy (Hegel, Plato, Aristotle, Plotin, Augustine, St. Thomas, Descartes, Kant) considered that nature is of a minor value for the mind. Nature is nothing else than the domain of our experiences. In other words, it has a poor rational significance (or spiritual significance). That is what for instance the transcendentalists contested (R.W. Emerson). Emerson considered that nature is essentially spiritual. Its role for our life is not minor as European philosophers considered, but our experiences are the very condition for a better understanding of ourselves. This was commonly the opinion of classical American philosophers. Nature has a spiritual value and is not simply the domain of our experience. This means the mentalization of nature considering nature from a spiritual standpoint. 4. The focus on processes instead of substances: in European tradition our existence, God, truth, the good, beauty all of these are substances (something existing in and by itself). For instance (in Plato) a beautiful woman is the instantiation in reality of the abstract substance of beauty which lives independently in our soul thus our souls have the capacity of recognizing something beautiful when seeing it, because beauty is implanted in our soul. Our soul is co-generated with the forms of truth, beauty or good. Thats why substances exist by themselves. American philosophers considered that operating or using substances is irrelevant/of no use for our experience. They questioned the meaning of the Platonic idea that forms are imprinted in our souls. Instead of using substances, whats relevant is to see how for instance the idea of truth works in experience how is it possible for something to become true. They contested the idea that there are essential and eternal truths. Instead they considered that what is true is a process it BECOMES true. They insisted on the process of something becoming true. 5. The substitution of yesterday with tomorrow: in European tradition what was meaningful was related to accomplishments of the past. European philosophers considered that to know something is equivalent with knowing the past of that something. American philosophers didnt deny the role of the past, but they put an accent on the role of the future. Namely, something is meaningful only if it is relevant for future experiences. 6. Thought is not a substance, but something revealing a certain goal/something oriented towards results: in European tradition, thought was important because it was the only way of understanding what happened through concepts/ideas. Americans rejected the idea that theories and concepts alone are sufficient for explaining the true meaning of our experience. They considered that the most important role of our thought is that of changing the world not that of understanding it of transforming reality. 7. The importance of language: in European tradition, the meaning of our statements was established in terms of a correspondence between our ideas and facts, so that language was of a minor importance it didnt really matter how you said it or what language you say it in. whats important is the accuracy of our ideas in confrontation with facts. American philosophers considered that language is central in experience, because they considered ideas to be abstract, they thought that there was no way of verifying the presupposed correspondence between ideas and facts so that language became contextual/essential in the way in which understand and communicate experiences or facts. 8. Science is no more a singular and contemplative accomplishment but a cooperative one : science was no longer conceived as a purely singular activity but a cooperative one. Example: Newton

PHILOSOPHY OF AMERICAN PRAGMATISM GABRIEL GHERASIM

COURSE Benedek Szidonia

constructed his world according to his own rationality, following certain laws and axioms. His mechanics was a result of his solitary thinking upon what are the laws governing nature and our experience. According to Americans, the progress of science and technology in late modernity makes it impossible for a solitary mind to conceive and to explain the entire experience. Thats why science is or should be conceived as a cooperative investigation - a collaboration of scholars, researchers. The simplistic mechanicism of the world according to Newton was no longer sufficient to explain the realities of our contemporary world. Thus science is not the product of a single mind nor the prerogative, it cannot explain the mysteries of the world. 9. The primacy of method: our knowledge was founded, according to the European tradition, upon speculative theories/sets of concepts constructed by the mind. According to Americans, in the absence of a specified methodology of research there is no possibility of achieving theoretical results. So method is not only desirable, but also necessary. Their question was: how do you achieve your results? Thats why they insisted on the role of experiments, testing our theoretical assumptions according to a transparent methodology. 10. Science can no longer be separated from society: science is not abstract, no longer independent of the world. The meanings of our scientific results should be tested in order to get to their validation. Science is no longer speculative, but applicative. Thats why probably the most developed sciences and most popular ones are applied sciences. Namely, sciences that prove their results in experience. 11. The substitution of the individual with the community: in the European tradition the center of our universe was the individual. Men and women were conceived generically under the label; they didnt speak about distinct human habitudes, they spoke instead of how generically the human mind works. Americans, starting in the 2nd half of the 19th century, started to abandon the idea of the central importance of the individual and to stress upon the importance of communities of individuals. Because they didnt think that the human potentialities are the same. They are different from a culture to another, from a period of time to another, etc. It is better to think about individuals as parts of communities. The concept of the individual by itself cannot tell something relevant about the world we live in. so individuals should not be conceived isolated but living in communities. This assumption had a decisive role in the development of philosophy, behavioral sciences, etc.