Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking

William James's Pragmatism

In 1906 and 1907, William James delivered a series of eight lectures at the Lowell Institute, Boston, and at Columbia University, New York City which he published as "Pragmatism: A New Way for Some Old Ways of Thinking". This short book, which James further described as "popular" lectures on philosophy constituted James's fullest statement of his thought up to that time. It remains a provocative, valuable, and important work, a classic of American thought.

I want to mention some important considerations in James's overall approach in this book. First, I was struck, in reading "Pragmatism", by the importance James attaches to the philosophical quest. He begins his opening lecture, "The Present Dilemma in Philosophy" with the observation that an individual's philosophy is the most important thing about that person because it gives his or her sense of "what life honestly and deeply means." James makes high and traditional claims for the importance of philosophical investigation -- claims which not been followed by a number of subsequent professional philosophers.

Second, James wrote his book for a lay audience of educated individuals whom he called "amateur philosophers". People in this class, for James, were not technically trained academic philosophers but rather were those who had a sense of both the claims of religion and spirituality and the claims of empirical science. These amateurs, James continued, wanted, in our modern terminology to "have it all"; and they were inclined to overlook conflicts or inconsistencies between types of beliefs that they wished simultaneously to hold. Many of James philosophical successors did not follow James in writing for amateurs. They wrote instead for other philosophers.

Third, James saw his role as a philosopher in mediating between the claims of Darwinian and physical science and religion. In a memorable phrase, he divided philosophers and philosophical tendencies into two broad types: "tender-minded" and "tough minded". The tender-minded thinkers of his day, the focus of much criticism in "Pragmatism" were the absolute idealists, American and British successors to Hegel. The tough-minded thinkers were empiricists, wedded to factual investigation and to materialism. Tough minded thinkers wanted nothing to do with metaphysical or religious abstractions. James conceived of pragmatism as a way to accept what was valuable in both tender-minded and tough-minded thinkers.

Thus, in the body of his lectures, James developed pragmatism as a method and a theory of truth. Pragmatism is an instrumental philosophy which holds, James states at one point, that "ideas (which themselves are but parts of our experience) become true just in so far as they help us to get into satisfactory relation with other parts of our experience." (Note the reference to "ideas" in this definition which may tie James unduly to some previous methods of thinking that he would otherwise reject.) Philosophy is not a subject for intellectualist abstractions but rather a tool to help people understand themselves and their needs in specific situations, consistently with their needs in other situations. Pragmatism, for James, is a forward-looking philosophy which tests ideas by their consequences, both in matters of science and in matters of religious belief. Thus, for James pragmatism is a philosophy which mediates between science and religion. Unlike some of his fellow pragmatists, the religious life was important to James.

James applies his basic approach to pragmatism to address traditional philosophical questions, including the nature of substance, personal identity and free-will. His discussions are still worth reading. For me, the strongest section of the book was the Lecture IV in which James contrasts philosophical monism and pluralism. This chapter helped me to both to understand and to question the fascination that claims to the unity of the world or of experience have exerted and continue to exert on many thinkers. This chapter is an excellent exposition of philosophical pluralism -- the view that there are many things and that they may only be imperfectly and incompletely connected. The lectures on "Pragmatism and Common Sense" and on "Pragmatism and Humanism" are contemporary and important in that they suggest the absence of fixed categories and the legitimacy of alternative means of describing experience for different purposes.

James writes so beautifully that he sometimes lacks the technical precision that might make his ideas clearer. He frequently uses loose metaphors that, while intruiging, serve to obfuscate rather than clarify his position. This is particularly the case in lecture VI, "Pragmatism's Conception of Truth" in which James expounds upon his claim that the truth of an idea is the use we can make of it. As James himself points out, his position was subject to a great deal of criticism, much of which may be misdirected. But James does not entirely help himself in expounding his position on this difficult question.

In the final chapter of his work, James explains his philosophical stance as a meliorist -- one who looks towards the future and tries to work to make his life and the world a better place. He finds that, for him, some form of religious theism is essential for this endeavor. While rejecting transcendental idealism and the absolute, James accepts the existence of a God, if not the all-powerful, all-knowing, unitary God of traditional Jewish-Christian theology. The method of knowing an idea by its use and consequence finds a place, for James, in both matters of the spirit and matters of science. Thus, James claims that pragmatic thought is able to honor both the claims of spirit and the claims of science. James modified his pragmatism in subsequent works and ultimately may have adopted a position closer to the idealism he criticizes in "Pragmatism".

With many modifications and qualifications, much of James's strategy for mediating between science and religion remains important and has been developed by subsequent thinkers. He articulated an important mission for philosophy and made it a subject and a quest which could continue to inspire and to help people with their lives. James is a challenging thinker that deserves to be read. He still has a great deal to teach.

Robin Friedman