post 4

Rachael Dziechciarz

A) One area of the text where I think that James clearly states a key pragmatist concern is in his lecture "What Pragmatism Means" on page 194. In the second column he states, "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 reations we must prepare." I think that this is a key pragmatist concern because the statement is explaining that all things that we experience and study are for a reason, and this reason effects how we feel about everything. It goes back to the child touching the flame in the Dewey video we saw, to be clear about the flame the girl had to experience it, learn what to expect from it, and then use that to react to it in the present as well as in the future. Pragmatists are all about what use we get out of things, and at the risk of misinterpreting Peirce I do think that it follows that pragmatists are very practical. I mean that they are practical in the sense that everything has a purpose, but also never feel like you fully understand that purpose. The quote above shows a pragmatist concern because we must conceive possible effects of an object, even if we feel we know what will occur. This also makes me think of the boiling point of water example that we have talked about: even though the boiling point of water has been 100 degrees Celsius in the past, it is still important to think that this could possibly change in the future.

B) Why is it better to always question everything, and never be allowed to rest on any assumptions or "true" theories?

C) I think that the conception of truth that pragmatism proposes is a philosophically adequate notion. As we have said in class, it is simply a merger of empiricist and rational ideas. Furthermore, it makes sense to rely more heavily on the empiricist side, because after all that is what we have right in front of us, which cannot often be disputed. But, it is still important to understand (using experience and senses) why there are certain "unchanging truths" in this world. I think that pragmatism offers a sensible medium between the two schools of thought, and as James wrote, it is merely a method by which to make sense of everything in the world, from science to philosophy. Rarely have science and philosophy ever been allowed to even coexist in the same sentence, let alone be studied in the same way. But, at least for me, it makes sense to try and figure out an outline that can be used to help understand everything. It think other philosophers would have to enjoy this pragmatic way of studying things, since it is simple enough to be almost intuitive. I think someone like Socrates would appreciate the way pragmatists always question "truths" and things we "know." The only philosophers that I can think of that would probably have a problem with pragmatism are the rationalists, who would dismiss the pragmatic aspect of relying so much on experience. A specific strength of pragmatism is it's ability to explain anything, in terms of how humans get use out of it. One weakness is that it seems like it might be too general- is there something the pragmatists can't explain? If you can explain everything, have you proven anything?