Good Post. Thank You for that. It's always Good to try to straighten things out so that we know what we are talking about.
Chris > From: Matt Kundert > The meaning of pragmatism as a tradition of philosophical thinking has > been contested by those on the outside, and also intermurally by those > within it. > > I think the time has come for both sides, critics and purveyors, to move > beyond the idea that "pragmatism" means "practicality." There are many > linguistic landmines having to do with common usage, common sense, > original usage, philosophical usage, etc. The classical pragmatists, > Peirce, James, Dewey, amongst others (Schiller, Mead, etc.), surely had > their reasons for using various rhetorical framings. But the core of > pragmatism as it has been worked out through the years has nothing (and > everything) to do with "practicality." > > The parenthetical is there to remind people that the classical rhetoric > isn't completely worn out. The insight they had was that things only > became true or false in practice. > > Pragmatism is the thesis that theory, thinking, metaphysics, philosophy, > academics, poetry, math, education, school, business, baseball, > _everything_--everything is useful if it has a use. Tautological, yes, > but notice the shift in focus: truth is what works, but _what is it > working --for--_? _What_ is its use? > > Everything is relative to a purpose. Theory and philosophy have uses. > They are true, they are worth keeping, if we can figure out to what > purpose that they are useful for. Pragmatism is antithetical to Kant and > Plato and essentialism because they deny, not the thing-in-itself, but the > _thing-for-itself_. As Pirsig taught us, everything _is_ value and value > is always relative to something _valuing it_. (Pirsig's redescription of > causation: B _values_ precondition A.) > > Pragmatism doesn't destroy philosophy, nor does it let the Nazi's win. > Pragmatism is the core of Socrates' message, it cuts out the bullcrap > created over the last 2500 years and gets back to the reason Socrates > started up his cross-examinations in the first place: know thyself; the > unexamined life is not worth living. At the core of pragmatism is the > call to examine the purposes to which we perform various activities. Know > why you are doing them. If it serves no purpose, cut it out. If it does, > could anything serve it better? Is the purpose it serves a good one? > Might there be better purposes? > > Pragmatism is a return to philosophy as it should be done. Pragmatism > returns us to the practice of life, to the experience of life. There are > many purposes that aren't "practical," not at least to the common usage of > the term. But pragmatism isn't about being practical, it is about knowing > why we do things. It is about asking, "Okay, it works. But for whom?" > > Matt Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
