Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking — John Shaqi
Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of ThinkingJames, William
Philosophy
Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking
James, William
Pragmatism
You see by this what I meant when I called pragmatism a mediator and
reconciler and said, borrowing the word from Papini, that he unstiffens
our theories. She has in fact no prejudices whatever, no obstructive
dogmas, no rigid canons of what shall count as proof. She is completely
genial. She will entertain any hypothesis, she will consider any
evidence. It follows that in the religious field she is at a great
advantage both over positivistic empiricism, with its anti-theological
bias, and over religious rationalism, with its exclusive interest in
the remote, the noble, the simple, and the abstract in the way of
conception.
In short, she widens the field of search for God. Rationalism sticks
to logic and the empyrean. Empiricism sticks to the external senses.
Pragmatism is willing to take anything, to follow either logic or the
senses, and to count the humblest and most personal experiences. She
will count mystical experiences if they have practical consequences.
She will take a God who lives in the very dirt of private fact-if that
should seem a likely place to find him.
Her only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading
us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the collectivity
of experience's demands, nothing being omitted. If theological ideas
should do this, if the notion of God, in particular, should prove to do
it, how could pragmatism possibly deny God's existence? She could see
no meaning in treating as 'not true' a notion that was pragmatically so
successful. What other kind of truth could there be, for her, than all
this agreement with concrete reality?
In my last lecture I shall return again to the relations of pragmatism
with religion. But you see already how democratic she is. Her manners
are as various and flexible, her resources as rich and endless, and her
conclusions as friendly as those of mother nature.
Lecture III
Some Metaphysical Problems Pragmatically Considered
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