post 3

Insofar as my attempts to relate the section "What Pragmatism Is" by Charles Sanders Peirce, I would like to begin in much the same manner as the author, by illustrating the difference between truth and falsity, and belief and doubt through inquiring of my classmates as to their beliefs and whether they are "true." This is an important step as it is a faux-starting point of any act through the pragmatists' eyes. Belief, being that which moves us to act, need not be rooted in truth or falsity -- though through the continuous experimentation of pragmatism it will find that it lines up with general truths.

Following this I believe it would be interesting to ask if anyone could relate the "butterfly effect" to the pragmatists' conception of experimentation. The key here is that pragmatists do not view experimentation as a static event defining a past act; they view experimentation as a constant flow of cause and effect, much like a butterfly's wings flapping on one side of the globe may cause a series of events that could result in a hurricane on the other side.

The final important aspect of pragmatism, as related by Peirce would be to show how in this consistent experimentation any "truth" is attained by the pragmatists. The only way I see fit to make this point is by understanding that pragmatists purport on "objectively general"
nouns, like the example of the soldier on page 113. It is impossible to experience these objectively general nouns because, "this noun is not an existent thing: it is a type, or form, to which objects, both those that are externally existent and those which are imagined, may conform, but which none of them can exactly be" (113). The only truth gained by the pragmatist is, real in that it has these characteristics whether they are believed or not, and is a fact that "action of a certain description will have a certain kind of result; and experimental results are the only results that can affect human conduct" (112). The pragmatists allow for an explanation of alternate results through what a human believes and how much weight he or she may give it, which would be a result of experimentation, which brings us full circle. Beliefs move us to act, our beliefs are influenced by what we experience, those experiences are all a part of the ongoing experiment.