Heidi Schave: Pragmatism
In 1897,[1] historian Charles Pierce and James Dewey first introduced to the intellectual community a new discipline of American philosophy known as pragmatism. This new philosophical school explored “theories of truth” to help place humanity in historical context. Pragmatists deduce philosophical revelations from history using practical scientific reasoning in their methodology. Hence, any problem can be solved and “truths” revealed through experimentation and personal experience. The principles of pragmatism are deeply rooted in the traditions of liberalism, which is indigenous to America’s political democratic origins. However, the dawn of the modern age altered the course of democratic ideologies by introducing a new political power obtained through technological advancement. This rise of industrialization placed certain limitations on philosophical thought. Pragmatism shares a heritage with early democratic traditions, but it is a forced perspective used to assimilate philosophy into the modern age. Pragmatism was spawned from a liberal tradition, but its ultimate function is to provide the world of philosophy the necessary tools required in order to incorporate the changes brought about by modernization.
Historian Morris Dickstein discusses the relationship between democracy and pragmatism in The Revival of Pragmatism: New Essays on Social Thought, Law, and Culture. Dickstein credits pragmatism as being indigenous to America, because similar to democracy, the role of the individual is crucial in order for Piece’s principles to succeed. For a pragmatist thinker to interpret the world through experience, he or she must have access to certain liberties that are found in democracy. Dickstein explains this correlation: “Democracy presupposes that the conditions of life can be freely willed and chosen, either by means of participation or by representation.”[2] The original political doctrines of America are limited to the principles of the late 18th century. Although American democracy continued to develop along with society, American philosophical beliefs remained unaltered. America supports its laws and traditions by using a process of logic. Similarly, science is also based on this process. Much like pragmatism, an individual’s free will can gain perspective of events by using deductive reasoning. However, the introduction of the modern age alters these original doctrines because the early logical thinkers could not comprehend the influence that science and modern technology would have on the world. Pragmatism provides the means necessary to except this change because it joins together the logic of science and liberalism.
Although, pragmatism is rooted in America’s liberal heritage, its ultimate purpose is to analogize the modern world. One of the criticisms of pragmatic thinking is that the process of war is viewed optimistically. In theory, one can use logic and experience to learn from atrocities and then gain enlightenment. After the horrors of the first and second World Wars, many Americans were left feeling disillusioned and displaced by modernization. The American Progressive party supported pragmatism because it validated America’s lust for foreign dominance. Dickstein comments on this process as he discusses the criticisms of Randolf Bourne, “Dewey’s pragmatic justification for America’s entry into World War I, which shocked many of his followers, showed up his concern with technique and efficiency at the expense of consistent values, and reveled the limits of Dewey’s instrumentalism.”[3] Pragmatism does help explain most of humanity’s endeavors, but if fails to identify the injustices produced by war. By using science as its guide, it becomes blind to human suffering. Other philosophers admit the human spirit is fragile and this idea needs to be recognized by pragmatists. Pragmatism uses science as a means of ignoring the existential struggle of the human psyche.
In The Modern Temper, Joseph Wood Krutch argues that the human spirit cannot survive in the modern world because science displaces humanity by introducing certain “truths” that question the existence of God.[4] This theory weakens the platform of pragmatism, because it fails to support pragmatic optisinm about modernization. In the changing social and political world of democracy in the early 20th century, pragmatism helps preserve American liberalism by presenting a philosophical model that inflates the American spirit during a period of extreme vulnerability. America’s entrance into World War I was based on the pragmatic process rather than the prior philosophical schools because it rationalized democracy’s marriage to modernization. Dickstein comments on this phenomenon, “The War discredited the kind of enlightened planning with which pragmatism had become identified. The reaction against progressivism after 1920 also became a reaction against pragmatism among conservatives who celebrated America’s exceptionalism and achievements as well as among radicals who castigated its abuses and inequalities.[5] Pragmatism’s real function in the political arena becomes cloaked under the illusion of its democratic roots. It is based on a liberal legacy, but this tradition becomes mutated as it grows along with science.
The pragmatic movement is strictly an American phenomenon because it requires liberalism to function. Democracy is a new concept indigenous to a new country, while pragmatism is a new philosophy created by American thinkers. The age of modernization introduced a new existential crisis, which devastated the human spirit. In order to cope with the changing world, a new philosophical approach was required. The school of pragmatism did not renounce science and technology, but instead assimilated it into its doctrines. Pragmatism was based on a pre-existing liberal ideology which allowed modernization to be rationally explained, because the political atmosphere of the early 20th century was in constant turmoil. By thinking in a pragmatic fashion, philosophers could gain better insight into the future. Despite this, pragmatism is not without limitations. Pragmatism became the most practical approach to preserve human optimism by ignoring the fragility of the human spirit. It bases its heritage on democratic ideologies, but these principles, although capable of evolution, were not written in a time of advanced technology. The true function of pragmatism is to help the world of philosophy muddle through the changes brought about by modernization in an “optimistic” democratic fashion.
[1] Morris Dickstein, ed., The Revival Of Pragmatism: New Essays on Social Thought, Law, and Culture (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), 1.
[2] Ibid., 207
[3] Ibid., 8
[4] Joseph Wood Krutch, The Modern Temper, (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1929), xi.
[5] Ibid., 9
