From these citations, and from the descriptive remarks of the
preceding two paragraphs, we may perhaps be enabled to infer that our
Anglo-American Pragmatism has progressed from the stage of (1) a mere
method of discussing truth and thinking in relation to the problem
of philosophy as a whole, (2) that of a more or less definite and
detailed criticism of the rationalism that overlooks the practical,
or purposive, character of most of our knowledge, to that of (3) a
humanistic or “voluntaristic” or “personalistic” philosophy, with
its many different associations and affiliations.[32] One of the
last developments, for example, of this pragmatist humanism is Dr.
Schiller’s association of philosophy with the metaphysics of evolution,
with the attempt to find the goal of the world-process and of human
history in a changeless society of perfected individuals.
We shall immediately see, however, that this summary description of the
growth of Pragmatism has to be supplemented by a recognition of (1)
some of the different phases Pragmatism has assumed on the continent of
Europe, (2) the different phases that may be detected in the reception
or criticism accorded to it in different countries, and (3) some of the
results of the pragmatist movement upon contemporary philosophy. All
these things have to do with the making of the complex thing that we
think of as Pragmatism and the pragmatist movement.
A NOTE ON THE MEANING OF “PRAGMATISM”
(1) “The opinion that metaphysics is to be largely cleared up by
the application of the following maxim for obtaining clearness of
apprehension: ‘Consider what effects that might conceivably have
practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have.
Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of
the object’” (Baldwin’s _Philosophical Dictionary_, vol. ii. p. 321).
[We can see from this citation that the application of its formulæ
about “consequences” to metaphysics, or philosophy generally, must be
considered as a part, or aspect, of the pragmatist philosophy.]
(2) “The doctrine that the whole meaning of a conception expresses
itself in practical consequences; consequences either in the shape of
conduct to be recommended, or in that of experiences to be expected,
if the conception be true; which consequences would be different, if
it were untrue, and must be different from the consequences by which
the meaning of other conceptions is in turn expressed. If a second
conception should not appear to have other consequence, then it
must be really only the first conception under a different name. In
methodology, it is certain that to trace and compare their respective
consequences is an admirable way of establishing the different meanings
of different conceptions” (_ibid._, from Professor James).
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