William James

a.) William James, one of the fathers of the philosophical sect pragmatism, describes the  movement as one that “represents familiar attitude in philosophy, the empiricist attitude, but it represents it both in a more radical and in a less objectionable form than has ever been assumed.” Pragmatists have dissected former theories of thought in order to find a method that finds the fundamental truth about things that matter. James argues that the “whole function of philosophy ought to be to find out what definite difference it will make to you and me, at definite instants of our life, if this world-formula or that world-formula be the true one.” In order to determine the important truths and puzzles, we, as philosophers, should turn away from fixed principles and “absolutes” and toward concretes and facts. He argues that new opinions will never be able to evolve into new facts if we let our previous and ancient opinions blind us. We have to be able to escape from these old opinions – otherwise we’ll just be cohering the new with the old and therefore, not bringing anything new to the philosophical or scientific table.

 

b.) The problem that I see in pragmatism is the total disregard for old principles. James argues that we must “look away from first things, principles, ‘categories’, supposed necessities; and of looking towards last things, fruits, consequences, facts”. My question is what background will we have in determining new things with out any previous context or influence? It doesn’t seem possible to build truths completely independent of our former beliefs…

 

c.) I do believe that certain aspects of pragmatism are an adequate method to philosophy. I think that it is important when asking questions to ask: “who cares? Will this make a difference in my world beliefs?” and it seems pragmatism asks these initial questions. Furthermore, I think that it combines adequate portions of empiricism and rationalism; it argues that truth is objective and free of applied human emotion. I agree with this fact, but argue that it is hard to ever observe or philosophize without your emotions making a print upon the data.