Pragmatism - A truly American philosophy

Philosophy can be more than wishy-washy flim-flam. It can be practical. The United States is normally not considered the birthplace of philosophical ideas, but leave it to America to come up with one of the most productive philosophical schools ever created.
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references:
Menand, Louis. Pragmatism: A Reader. New York: Random House Publishing, 1997. amzn.to/2LwjnQU
Cobley, Paul and Litza Jansz. Introducing Semiotics: A Graphic Guide. Malta: Gutenberg Press, 1997. amzn.to/2uCNaOr
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Wiki:
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that began in the United States around 1870.[1] Charles Sanders Peirce, generally considered to be its founder, later described it in his pragmatic maxim:
Consider the practical effects of the objects of your conception. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object.[2]
Pragmatism considers thought an instrument or tool for prediction, problem solving and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality.[3] Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics-such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science-are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes. The philosophy of pragmatism “emphasizes the practical application of ideas by acting on them to actually test them in human experiences”.[4] Pragmatism focuses on a “changing universe rather than an unchanging one as the Idealists, Realists and Thomists had claimed”.[4]
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Hashtags: #history #pragmatism #philosophy #CSPeirce #WilliamJames #JohnDewey #neopragmatism

[@RocketPropelledMexican]

The sad part is that pragmatism is no longer practiced in the US anymore It's one of the reasons why the federal political dynamics are so shit

[@lightningbolt4419]

Pragmatism is unsustainable, once things start getting bad everyone will abandon it.

[@adrianvalverde1636]

@@lightningbolt4419 give an example

[@NoovGuyMC]

@@lightningbolt4419 I mean Singapore is just that

[@thomaswaithe6833]

Why do people resist pragmatism? As it's been said, "Magical thinking will persist so long as the truth is terrifying".

[@dwnkaomwn3953]

Because folks want to stay in their tight little bubbles and don't want them to burst. They would have to face reality then and that's not what they want.

[@aclark903]

@@dwnkaomwn3953 #Behaviorism was a disaster. He probably should have said more about how messed up it was.

[@tompatterson1548]

Because you’re being boring.

[@lightningbolt4419]

Because people are insane, accept that and you can accomplish a lot

[@olderchat_3056]

Sociobiologists can answer this question

[@ozymandias2178]

I love pragmatism. In a sea of uncertainty, arbitrary interpretation, and a history of just unhelpful philosophy, pragmatism stands out as one of the greats to me. Any youtubers who dedicate some of their time to this legacy gets my sub. Cheers.

[@Opposite271]

I think Western Philosophy may undergo a Deflationary Evolution. With two phases in the past, one in the present and one in the future. -At first we have Religious Philosophy which focuses on a world beyond the material world, this world is usually seen as more perfect and persistent then the material world. -After the supernatural is rejected it turns into Naturalistic Realism which focuses on the natural/material world. -After Metaphysics is rejected it turns into Empirical Pragmatism which focuses only on predictive power and utility. -Then after all forms of judgment are rejected it turns into Pyrrhonian Skepticism which dispenses judgment on everything. -The reason for this is that if a inflationary and a deflationary Idea are evaluated against each other, then the deflationary Idea usually wins because it requires less unjustified assumptions. -The deflationary must just say, that as long as it can not be proven, it is just a baseless speculation and it would be therefore more rational to dispense judgment. -As such the burden of Proof is always on the Inflationary and as such it breaks down under it’s own weight. The Deflationary on the other hand is perceived as more grounded and less dogmatic.

[@n4rf645]

Pragmatism's definition of truth is whatever you believe in. I don't get how it does away with arbitrary interpretation at all.

[@FirefoxisredExplorerisblueGoog]

"So the current truth is merely who holds the best argument that fits the current evidence available". Yeh, I like this guy. That's the kind of rationale that science is build on nowadays. As accurate as can be, yet capable of improvement.

[@rabidcentrist1045]

Inquiry, specifically scientific inquiry, is central to pragmatism. Read Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, if you're curious. REPLY

[@OddityDK]

Except in science, the argument (Theory) needs to have predictive power, merely being the best current argument isn’t enough. If an argument can’t be demonstrated to be true (predictive) it is discarded, even if it leaves us with none at all. Seems very un-pragmatic to me.

[@BigHenFor]

Scientific inquiry is itself a model, a position taken. It's the best one we've got at the moment so it's unsurprising that any ideology would seek to establish its imprimatur but practicality is an end, but not a means in itself. Sometimes the greatest progress is made by leaps of the imagination that only become reality in time. It all depends upon the context. So, sometimes we need pragmatism but it can become a barrier and limitation. It's a tool, and should only be used where it has proved its usefulness.

[@MegaBanne]

I would take it even a further step and develop on the pragmatist theory. There is no one truth. Each and every conceivable idea has its own level of "truthfulness" based on supporting evidence, disproving evidence, assumptiveness and predictability. All possible explanations should be taken in to consideration and evaluated and each alone be evaluated by their truthfulness. All new ideas start as a controversy facing the so called "current truth". By accepting a current truth and continuing to weed out controversies leads to a field of science that doesn't evolve. It is exactly as you said it: "That's the kind of rationale that science is build on nowadays". It is also the biggest problem with methodology of today's scientists. Scientists talks about how embarrassing it is when science isn't settled and looks for single hypotheses that we can call the truth. Science is never settled and should never strive towards being so. No idea should ever be evaluated by what other ideas say. The face that idea A is less competent than idea B does not discredit. Debates is not a tool of science. There should never be a controversy in science because alternative ideas should never be controversial. The problem we are poking at is belief. Belief is not an objective stance. A belief is a more or less obsessive stance related to the acceptance of an idea/view as the truth. A belief is a commitment to an idea and science is not about commitments. To understand and to believe is two different things. Humans believe in things as a part of our social nature. We share beliefs as a part of social interactions. Scientists tend to have a hard time adapting to alternative ideas. Because by questioning your own beliefs you also question a key part of what foundates your social security at your working place. Remember that scientists are also just humans. They are just very good at making it look as if they aren't full of flaws like every other human being.

[@jamesrountree3991]

Argue that with a post-modernist

[@gunterke]

Why does pragmatism gets overlooked? Well, I think it doesn't. I'm a European philosophy master and I came across the three major pragmatists (Pierce, James and Dewey) in my sudies. Every time they were mentioned, they were absolutely held in high regard. Our university also granted an honorary title to the late Richard Rorty who was a very friendly scholar, eager to talk with us students. We had a course on one of his books and it certainly wasn't the worst class I ever took.

[@MariusRiley]

: It does get popularly overlooked. It's unfashionable. It's also, well, American, which for several decades now makes it particularly unfashionable in popular culture and in politics. Pragmatism isn't seen as just by more than a few people. I've heard/read it called the philosophical and policy equivalent of "Shut up, and calculate", which to many even in the physics community is unpopular/unfashionable because as TCH said in the video, people want to Know The Deep Truth (The Deep Meaning) rather than understand what works and why and to go from there. -- That's my take on the question.

[@joeblowgoes]

I dislike how popular stoicism is over pragmatism.

[@gunterke]

@@ryandavies6243 seems grammar is also worthless? Enjoy your money!

[@Roy-mk9zl]

​@@joeblowgoes why?

[@CJusticeHappen21]

My boss, a German fellow, enjoys explaining his "personal philosophical discoverys" to me. And I sit there, listen, and pretend that he isn't describing pragmatism word for word.

[@0ld_Scratch]

well maybe sometimes you haven't heard about something and "discover" it by yourself only to afterwards learn that it already existed.

[@RadicalShiba1917]

Truthfully, if he's recreating pragmatism unknowingly, that's impressive in its own right.

[@GamesForTheWlN]

Almost every single philosophical stance can be labelled with an "ism" I don't see why you would pretend that he isn't describing one of them and I have no idea what you want to say besides tooting your own horn.

[@branedeadsbrigade5745]

@@RadicalShiba1917 there are large fragments of it in our cultural milieu. He's working with preconstructed intellectual tools, but it's still praiseworrhy

[@leviticus2001]

Well, good on him if he's able to reverse engineer a revolutionary system of thought.

[@A_Box]

I came looking for copper and found gold. This is an understatement for someone to whom conventional schools of thought have never been appealing.

[@branedeadsbrigade5745]

Read the Metaphysical Club

[@leviticus2001]

Ditto Ditto Ditto Ditto Ditto Ditto Ditto!

[@sayloltothetroll6806]

And pragmatism isn't a conventional school of thought?

[@JMM33RanMA]

I've always insisted that I am a Deweyan. In the late 60's and early seventies, I was studying to be a teacher at one of the oldest teacher training institutions in MA, Bridgewater State College. John Dewey and Horace Mann were the main focus of the education curriculum, including EdPsych. The slogan is still with me, "what is best is what works best."

[@jcastibl]

but, how does one define "works best"? seems a bit circular, no? thank you!

[@jcrass2361]

Thanks for doing these videos. I've been ignoring my countries achievements in philosophy and history for to long, you vids have sent me to look more into even my home state of Texas' history. Keep it up, sir!

[@jimgleaves]

I recently had a chance to use pragmatism when discussing with a friend whether our universe is a simulation. It went something like: Him: We might be in a simulation! It's incredible! It's so mind blowing! Me: That's an interesting idea. If we were in a simulation how would that impact our decisions? Him: Huh? It would change everything! It calls into question our whole reality! Me: But I don't think I would do anything differently. Especially since I can't know for sure. Even if we DID know does it really have an practical implications? At all? Him: But reality! The universe! It might not be real! Me: I think it would still be real in a different way that it is hard to describe. Is there a single real thing you would do differently tomorrow if you knew this was a simulation? Him: You don't seem to understand that everything would be different. Me: A difference that makes no difference IS no difference. It's just fun and freaky, like saying everything could be a dream in the mind of God. In fact, the statements "we are a simulation inside of a computer we can't understand" and "we are a dream in the mind of God" seem to be almost exactly the same thing. And the feeling that they matter is just an illusion with no practical implications. At least none that I can think of. It's a model with no evidence to support it, and no implications. Why spend any time trying to figure it out? Him: (silence).

[@jeremytaylorfrancisgleaves3854]

You killed my father!

[@CynicalHistorian]

Precisely. Without practical consequences, the truth of such a theory cannot be determined under pragmatism. It also renders the conception of simulation, originally termed the "brain in a vat" hypothesis, as a rather silly discussion. I remember having a number of similar conversations in philosophy classes, where another student always tried to derail a discussion about the definition of culture and its consequences or the meaning of truth claims by asking, "But what if the Matrix?" It was always annoying and useless. I actually thought about making an episode about that, but couldn't bring myself to devote an entire script debunking such a silly idea

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

Questions like these are not about practical differences. They're about how much reality may or may not correspond to our conception of it. That's what your friend was thinking about - how reality may be quite different to how we think of it. He wasn't concerned with whether it would make any difference to how we act. And his silence didn't necessarily mean he didn't have an answer or that he realised he'd been looking at it wrong, it could be him thinking he can't see a way to get it through to you because you've adopted a specifically pragmatistic approach to questions like this.

[@coolvids841]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but this seems to be edging toward what you hear a lot of talking heads refer to when funding things like super colliders and the like: what are the practical ramifications? None? Then get out of here with your nonsense. Intellectual purity isn’t something to be shied away from. Why go see if there is Higgs Boson when the immediate result wouldn’t impact our daily lives? Because the impact might not be immediate, but that is no guarantee that it won’t be impactful in any significant way. All it takes is someone with enough curiosity and ingenuity to use that pure knowledge in some applicable way. Again, I might be going too far down the rabbit hole in thought here, but this dialogue just made me think of this.

[@MrNimbus420]

This is simply not true, you have not experienced advita yet.

[@PaulVanderKlay]

This was very helpful. Thank you.

[@TheDavid2222]

Thank God somebody did a Pragmatism video!! I really appreciate that you did this!

[@Mikearice1]

Pragmatism made Intellectual History in college actually feel like the most valuable thing I learned in school....stuff like- Truth is what you can get the most mileage out of. No idea is sacred or above question on its own, so you can throw out any idea if it makes sense, but beliefs are all tied together and affect each other, so you can't throw them all out at once. (When you do that is basically equivalent to a crisis of faith.) The soundness of your belief basically comes down to how sound your other beliefs are that support it. How well does it all fit together? At a point, accepting a new idea requires a lot more than just accepting one new belief.

[@jelongva]

Thanks for reminding me of one of my more enjoyable philosophy courses from nearly 50 years ago.

[@daiduongdaviddinh140]

Thank you man, so opened minding, really appreciate it!

[@hollin220]

Great video. I noticed War is a Racket on the bookshelf. I wish that book was read in civics or early High School American history class

[@TheGonzoArt]

Thank you for your time, this vid was very helpful!

[@samculp9468]

dude you just blew my mind!!!! great video!!

[@dronekiller799]

I feel like this is one of the few videos which understands how I think about politics. Most people around me are completely left-wing or completely right-wing or libertarians. They don't or can't, think for themselves. This includes university students and faculty profs unfortunately

[@mpoemp4703]

Wow thank you

[@imnotnotgameiacmaniac5327]

well yes but thats also because they have different values, a left-winger and right-winger can completely agree on the facts but still come to different conclusions cus they value different things

[@languageandmana9255]

Thank you for explaining it simply! I needed a simple and beautiful explanation like yours🙏🙏✨

[@viviresbrillar]

Excellent job. Really appreciate.

[@mohamedaliali2941]

The explanation was amazing and I benefited from it in my university report on the pioneers of modern philosophy. Thank you very much and good day🖤🖤

[@logosvideos9436]

Your videos are really good dude. You deserve a larger audience! I don't know whether you have already invested in promoting the channel, but if you did - keep doing it. The people will come. :)

[@baabaa9000]

wishy-washy flim-flam is the best series of not-words I have ever seen.

[@TylerWitucki]

This is about the fourth time I watched this video over the years, even though I really don't care for pragmatism. Thx!

[@williamfarrell1016]

It makes me think of the "New Atheists" of the 2000's and their general reticence towards admitting a stance to be relative. Pragmatism responds to a world full of variables and new discoveries, but allows that the answer to a question could change with new information. I accuse us as a people of being under the general impression that all of information is known, and we as a people are only in disagreement about what it all means.

[@rabidcentrist1045]

thanks for the video and the discussion and comments it generated.

[@IsaiahINRI]

This is tough cause on one hand i value efficiency and usally when it comes to my political views i am almost entirely pragmatic, only caring about what works and less about what seems nice. But at the same time outside of politics i like to question everything for the sake of questioning it, knowing its useless but doing it anyway. Like i think we should learn as much as we can regardless of whether itll help us to know this or not. So i value efficiency but also value knowledge no matter how useless.

[@skeletonkeysproductionskp]

Very interesting video, I'd never heard of it as a philosophy before, hopefully this inspires my own channel and worldview!

[@peepi2274]

Incredibly helpful. Thank you!

[@fuzzydunlop7928]

God damn I love your theory videos. To think, I thought your channel was all movie reviews. >.

[@jpjeon3143]

Though I am a big fan of this channel, I unfortunately think this video is missing the main thrust of Peirce's brilliant contribution to epistemology and philosophy of science/mathematics. As prime example, your paraphrasing of Peirce's dictum "Absolute truth is what people would rationally conclude if they were given infinite time to inquire and argue" to "unlimited practical inquiry" in other areas of your video does a disservice to and is a mischaracterization of Peirce's fallibilist conception of Truth: sure it might exist, but humans are too fallible to attain Absolute Knowledge thereof; mere reference to the reality -- a la the correspondence theory -- is likewise untenable insofar as there is always a intermediate term (i.e. in Peirce's own terms, representamen) in the process of representation. What Peirce was primarily attempting to articulate was that (1) there is always-already a profoundly logical causlity between all things, present, past, and future, but there is never just one, singular causal pathway in a deterministic way; (2) there is therefore always-already a level of contingency in all things in that the reality-for-us as is today could always have been radically otherwise; and (3) practicality is, modus ponens, the best means by which to attain a 'workable truth' of our times, not that it is ontologically Absolute in the timeless, everlasting sense. Put altogether, Peirce's works can in a way be interpreted as deeply Hegelian. What he was NOT trying to say was that timeless Absolute Truth need strictly rest only on the laurels of pragmatic considerations, nor was he positing that timeless Absolute Truth is whatever is the best argument available at the time -- not only is this, as a matter of course, contradictory by definition (which I hope was simply a result of your lack of time, rather than of oversight), but it is also inferrable from a careful, coherent systematization of his premises. What is more, as you yourself noted in the description box of this present video, the entire thrust of the Pragmatist stance rests on an ethical belief that 'workable truths' are vital to "changing the universe [in stark contrast to the ideas of] an unchallenging one [of] the Realists, Idealists, and Thomists." To do so would require us to do away with a mischaracterization of Peirce's invaluable insights as what we might term the scientist pragmatism of today -- as you openly admit in the end -- but in not specifying this fallibilist aspect, the video doesn't seem to do full justice to Peirce's works and its deep indebtedness to all other philosophical traditions that -- though unfortunately misguided, some might rightly claim -- simply attempted to produce formal theories of the Absolute Truth. Still, thanks for bringing into public consciousness the incredible yet oft-unrecognized works of Peirce. He is a staple among my references for my current dissertation in epistemology.

[@tangroro]

5:47 turns out I have been a believer of pragmatism all my life without knowing

[@jurryaany]

Neat, a pronunciation of Nietzsche I haven't heard before!

[@sixsicsixgod]

im picking up what your putting down

[@hemanthnair1290]

Bit of a quibble, but Peirce's name was actually pronounced 'Pers'.

[@lukajung9051]

My professor was very adamant about the pronunciation and related it to Peirce's scandalous neglect in modern philosophy.

[@branedeadsbrigade5745]

Like the lady's handbag :)

[@emmanueloluga9770]

@@lukajung9051 Pierce is only neglected more so for his relation to Hegel.

[@lukajung9051]

@@emmanueloluga9770 If that were really a problem then why is Hegel still widely read, respected. Along with Kant, they both have the greatest influence in our time and not many people are ashamed of it. It can be said CSP is largely neglected because he is simply American and didnt have much of a publishing career.

[@emmanueloluga9770]

@@lukajung9051 hahaha, I understand your angle, but its more nuanced than that. Yes, unfortunately in the academic world, publications matter. Pierce however has enough literary work that makes that point inconsequential. Richard Rorty, Herbamas, and their contemporaries have proven that. Hegel didn't start getting a serious reconsideration until 2-3 decades ago. Until then he was just distorted and judged mainly based on the Phenomenology. In fact Williams and Dewey already made sure the 19th and 20th century engage substantially with some of the elements of Pierce's thoughts. Just like Hegel, many distorted versions of Pierce's though are being heralded as posited by the thinkers themesleves. Anyway, I do believe there will be more nuanced reengagement with Pierce's works in the coming years since J. Beinstein has done a lot to show the underpinnings of pragmatism in many of the 20th century prominent thoughts

[@-8l-924]

thanks for making this video man

[@krishnanukala6369]

Nicely explained!

[@YountFilm]

Great video. There’s one spot where I detect slight over-reductionism. Where you talk about: “there’s no aspect or attribute to objects other than how they affect us”-you then say, “Thus, Pragmatism is not concerned with deeper meanings, but practicality.” I might argue that this actually *is* the deeper meaning. That only struck me because it rings as a precursor to Heidegger. His idea of “thinking,” “regard,” “interest,” as the essence of being in objects to a perceiver-a thing is a “thing” in relation to the ways in which it’s important to you. This sounds a lot like Peirce’s definition of objects. And yet I don’t think anyone considers Heidegger to have been a Pragmatist; his thing was ontology and phenomenology-“what ‘is’?” vs. “what works?” This just makes me wonder whether Pragmatism has its bad rap because of the reductionistic way people interpret it-not your fault by any means; it’s just the zeitgeist. Otherwise, this overview made me realize how much I don’t know about Pragmatism as a philosophy, other than the above common prejudices.

[@tim2269]

Loving your instruction.Please use a more eye friendly color for the screen quotes.

[@SquidPartyGames]

The reason Peirce is ignored is because he wasn't a professional, his writings are diffuse and his ideas changeed throughout his life, and his ideas are very technical.

[@jeremytaylorfrancisgleaves3854]

Pragmatism, as outlined in this video, seems inconclusive. What happens when we ask "Are the core tenets of pragmatism, namely asking if something is useful, useful?" It seems like we need something underneath pragmatism to hold it up.

[@CynicalHistorian]

That isn't exactly a challenge to the theory. It's usefulness is proven by its usage. Remember, even science is fairly pragmatic in its most adherent methodology. So much of pragmatism is justified as useful. This line of reasoning can be applied to all theories of truth, but almost all such challenges can be defeated similarly

[@samanthachurch]

Not really. Because the answer to the question you pose is yes.

[@StuartMirsky]

You ought to have mentioned the later Wittgenstein whose pragmatic turn stood Anglo analytic philosophy and locical positivism on their respective heads. In a sense the rise to prominence of Wittgenstein's later ideas (pragmatics through language) opened the door to respectability and influence in modern Anglo-American philosophy again.

[@CynicalHistorian]

I was taught that Wittgenstein kind of stood as the nadir of correspondence theory. He was on pretty much the same hunt as Bertrand Russel, whom I think should get the credit for reestablishing analytic philosophy in the UK. They were both correspondence theory folks, so they were almost in opposition to pragmatism - hence why they would outright plagiarize CS Pierce and William James without given them the proper scholarly credit due.

[@StuartMirsky]

The Cynical Historian: Wittgenstein famously had two periods and two different approaches to philosophy. In his Tracatus period he was roughly on the same page as his mentor, Russell, but after leaving and then returning to philosophy at Cambridge in 1929 he began a journey away from Russellian ideal language theory (based on logical analysis of language) and embraced an approach hinging on ordinary language. He came to reject Russell's search for an ideal language in which all ambiguities could be boiled away in favor of an exploration of everyday, non-philosophical language in which we all speak. It was in this period, while writing the book which would be published after his death as Philosophical Investigations, that he first formulated his notion that the meanings of words are generally a function of what we do with them, their use. This is a pragmatic approach to meaning. He also rejected philosophical theorizing in favor of philosophy as a practice. It's fairly well known that he was influenced in this period by his colleague Frank Ramsay who was an avid reader of Peirce. Wittgenstein, himself, though never well read in the literature of philosophy, acknowedged having read James' The Variety of Religious Experience. Russell, of course had been a great critic and sometimes antagonist of James before his death. It is generally acknowledged that Wittgenstein's later ideas were very much in the Pragmatic vein. Robert Brandom of the Pittsburgh school (under the influence of Wilfrid Sellars, himself something of a mid-twentieth century pragmatist) makes this point in much of his own work.

[@CynicalHistorian]

I've never thought of his linguistic turn as a form of pragmatism, but I can see the interpretation. His _philosophical investigations_ could be described as a work of semiotics. Interesting.

[@StuartMirsky]

The Cynical Historian: To be honest neither had I. I always saw Wittgenstein in a quite different light than the American Pragmatists and, frankly, I didn't think their ideas all that sophisticated. I now think I was very wrong and that the Pragmatists' ideas of knowledge and truth are very important. It was through studying the work of the later Wittgenstein that I came to see it.

[@cease8037]

good stuff man thanks

[@tn9711]

It gets overlooked because it does not try to find an absolute truth. Which is what, collectively, the majority of intellectuals are looking for.

[@Nerobyrne]

Which is why, collectively, I think intellectuals are idiots. But then I would say that, being a working class pragmatist. Although I should point out that physicists are actually doing a really good job finding absolute truth, and they are going about it by developing theories which are then testet and rejected if they turn out to be false. That sounds pretty pragmatic to me.

[@crimfan]

A lot of recent physics has been criticized for going into territory that doesn't appear to be experimentally testable. Even if it is, what are the practical applications of knowledge of, say, cosmology and the early Big Bang? Or even the Big Bang?

[@BigHenFor]

Scientists and engineers are intellectuals too. Sending a man to the moon was arguably highly unpragmatic, despite all the scientific work it employed, and the technological advances we gained from pursuing the goal. It was an expression of the soft power of the imagination, and belief.

[@yansakuya1]

BigHenFor, sending a man to the moon is not 'highly unpragmatic,' and can only be viewed as such for someone saying it without the context. As it is definitely practical to send someone to the moon in order if one try to beat another in race to show who is the better space faring nation after the USSR got to space before the USA did. It would be impractical to go to the moon just for the sake of going to the moon to find out what is on the moon.

[@allenjohnson4938]

crimfan it might solve answers about our own physical/biological makeup, solve a lot of conflict over "Creation"(think if we had found out what we have in the last 50 years 500 years ago), Find a way to build a consensus on medical practices and ecological classification. Just saying ending the curiosity is a large part focusing your attention. In sum of those ex. I think prioritization will only yield "ok" results when we need Bo Jackson level dynamic solutions

[@amirfecher]

I know it is 4 years ago But 1 thing about Marks Distribution of wealth is totally practical.

[@silvanavanssilva7650]

thanks for helping I have project about it

[@pricilialynne5650]

I love you. You’re funny at the end!!

[@InfinityHS]

Very interesting.

[@MateoKupstysChica]

The issue with pragmatism is, that it focuses on what works best, but "best", is a relative value and to try to define it, brings you again in a debate of what "should" be, and this brings you to moral and to ethics and again we are out of pragmatism. At some point, we humans have to take a desicion, based on an arbitrary / contructed premise, act upon it, and make ourselves responsible for the consequences.

[@luddity]

Real world decisions are based on what methods advance our particular goals.

[@AntonyUpward]

I didn't think pragmatism ever claimed there was one "best", one "should be" or "ought". I thought I understood pragmatists almost take for granted the idea that what is best must be relative since practical utility is experienced based on personal history and circumstance. But perhaps I misunderstand.

[@dreamwithinadreamfilms]

I think you’re missing probably the most important part of pragmatism, pragmatic experience. That’s the problem with a lot of mainstream political thought, people are always arguing over who’s the most disenfranchised or oppressed, but in reality we all have our own pragmatic experiences of oppression; and while that gives us the responsibility to empathize with the pragmatic experiences of others, it does not require us to prioritize their experiences over our own. I believe there’s too much idealism in political activism, and too little pragmatism and value of individual experience.

[@plantae420]

I think people have three different mindsets: -The realist mindset: Wants to believe in what correspond to reality. -The pragmatist mindset: Wants to believe in what is useful to archive a certain goal. -The emotionalist mindset: Wants to believe in what feels good. Most people have normally a combination of these three mindsets but it seems like that emotionalism dominates current political debate.

[@postmodernshaman5929]

Pragmatism isn't concerned with objective facts but facts that lead to the objective.

[@SquidPartyGames]

Peirce is pronounced "purse".

[@JMM33RanMA]

@Metamorphesis Heah in coastal New England it sounds moah like pee-ahs.

[@mankytoes]

I mean it isn't clear how to pronounce his name from reading it, but I'll never understand how Americans got "knee-chi". It's hard to accept he knows enough about someone who is often seen amongst the greatest philosophers of all time to dismiss him, if he has done so little research he's never heard anyone say his name.

[@JMM33RanMA]

@mankytoes Why do Brits pronounce everything "incorrectly" [i.e. differently from Americans]? Why are loan words from other languages almost always pronounced according to the phonetic canons of the speaker's language? These are actually interesting questions. Considering how many loan words have been incorporated into English it would be necessary to be a native speaker of numerous languages to pronounce all of them "correctly," n'cest pas?

[@mankytoes]

I mean that argument applies sometimes, but this someone's name, a proper noun. You pronounce it how they pronounce it, simple. Hence we say "Angle-a" Merkel, not "Ange-ela" Merkel.

[@JMM33RanMA]

The man's name is obviously of Slavic or Hungarian origin, but he was German; so did he pronounce his name in the original language or was it Germanized? How is a reader to know? Even if a pronunciation key is included, IPA isn't known to everyone, and there are at least three different systems in use in America alone. Then for Chinese, there were two different systems for transliteration even before the Beijing government introduced Pinyin. This is a great topic for discussion, I believe we got onto it in phonology class.

[@sugmaligma6344]

Mans was ahead of his time 🙌

[@MentalDeviant]

that backround makes it hard to read your red words.

[@robertoalexandre4250]

Infinite is something not given to humanity: so, let´s look at Pierce´s argument: "Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief, which concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the confession of its inaccuracy and one-sidedness, and this confession is an essential ingredient of truth. (Peirce 1901, see Collected Papers (CP) 5.565)." I would translate this, thus: "A glimpse of truth might be expressed (albeit alway partially) by our many and contradictory statements - past, present and future (abstract or otherwise) - within the limits of our language, towards which endless investigation (scientific, philosphical, literary or otherwise) would bring a general consensus: that because those statements are essentially inaccurate, one-sided, and incomplete, nevertheless reveal that we we feel, understand and perceive a fundamental mystery underlying every aspect of reality. In the meantime, let us act on the best of all our current knowledge." Is that it? Or am I in La-la land?

[@mariobarrientos2226]

Here 2021 learning about pragmatism for my class. ;)

[@sgnMark]

Seriously, pragmatic thinking disrupts the entire polarized foundation of political polarization in our modern era, allows for grounded scientific inquiry,, and even the underlining, and unfortunately refutation, of Kant's logic behind ethics (he basically uses a loophole in the definition of "lie" to justify his theory, which was actually, pragmatism).

[@Disthron]

Watching your video again, it seems the definition of pragmatism mixes up the scientific definition of theoretical with the colloquial definition. Theories are proven and have predictive power, that's part of how they become theories.

[@rabidcentrist1045]

Inquiry, specifically scientific inquiry, is central to pragmatism. Read Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, if you're curious.

[@dukek3524]

And then they are cast aside when better (more useful) theories come along.

[@imnotnotgameiacmaniac5327]

how do pragmatists answer the value question? how do you determine what is pragmatic? you still need un-objectiv values to deside what us good or bad and what goals are worth pragmatically pursuing no?

[@skydude7682]

This line of thought would lead us to believe that gods exist in some way, due to their use in unifying a society behind one singular set of ideas (very useful) but as these becomes more and more dangerous, their use( and thereby their existence) comes into question. because in A world where there is planet wide communication and so much social mixing that is occuring, something like organized religion can be very limiting in the mixing of different cultures and creeds, causing its use and therefore its truth to change. I like this school of thought because it attempts to examine reality within the perspective of the human condition and not from that of A purely logical observer.

[@WoodlandSocialist]

What about Ann Rynds work? From what I remember hearing is pretty prevalent in America

[@vbhacker]

Can someone please explain this to me with simple examples?

[@bgiv2010]

"That which is true is that which attempts to bring observation and abstraction in line with reality with an emphasis on caveats and assumptions." Is that about right?

[@liammcooper]

Semiotics mostly influenced continental philosophy. Peirce writing in English, and Saussure in French hindered the spread of his ideas.

[@keaco73]

Peirce is a true prophet!! His prophecy was actually useful 👍

[@AntonyUpward]

+The Critical Historian - great video; very helpful! I don't think this is mentioned anywhere in these comments yet... From personal experience, the place where today pragmatism as a working philosophy is very much acknowledged academically, and put to practical use, is in the epistemologies of: -- design (conceiving useful 'things'), -- design science (conceiving useful novel 'things' by rigorous application of known truths and explicit normative goals), and most recently, -- systemic-design science (which adds the idea that utility must be explicitly considered within the context of containing systems, and not only judged in relation to the thing in of itself and its direct application). In my field, organization design, it is not uncommon to find Pierce, James, Dewy, and dare I say Buckminster Fuller mentioned by leading "pracademics" Churchman, Ackoff, Emery, Trist, Buchanan, and more. And also to see "design science" and "systemic-design science" appear in titles of masters and PhDs. I'm curious for your thoughts and for any references you've have that connect pragmatist philosophy to design. Many thanks

[@tartanhandbag]

isn't this all reminiscent of Karl Popper's work which came later? was he direclty influenced?

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

'Truth is the best argument.' Sounds like a law court.

[@xXoommaarrXx]

Bro you’re goated

[@owend8956]

purse, great video

[@hansvetter8653]

Well ... as an european ... I agree with most of what you said ... but surprisingly you forgot to mention Karl Popper ... who was a great admirer of C.S. Pierce. For my taste Pierce what kind of the pre-thinker of the concept of falsification. So in a way pragmatism is the (practical) answer to the scientific tautology of "knowledge", which knowingly cannot be more than pure speculation(s). "Knowledge" is just a great illusion (as Daniel J. Boorstin once expressed). But ... still ... mankind managed to built computers, airplanes & rockets enabling moon travel ...

[@InnerDness]

I think Neoplatonism might contend for the most consequent philosophy, because of it's impact on early Christian theology. Things like iconoclasm, the persecution of monophysites and even the East West Schism were heavily influenced by the somewhat hot-blooded nature of theological debate, much of which was spurred on, if not started, by Neoplatonic philosophers.

[@zooblestyx]

OK, but how do you /really/ feel about CS Peirce?

[@wannabehistorian371]

Wait, but what was the impact of this philosophy?

[@murillo35]

What do you think about Forrest Gump?

[@KawaiiGonJinn]

@7:59 Who's James Andouille?

[@H_Hold]

For me its the ability to consider all relevant information and having full schemes of accurate parameters to vette and check said information for validity and relevance. This method should be balanced by a moral framework valuing the truth and human life/ethics otherwise we will drive the pragmatic freight train into ourselves if we give a large amount of power to a government that goes (or professes) to enact decisions without doing all of this.

[@imnotnotgameiacmaniac5327]

isnt that empiricism?

[@JM-wm6he]

Pragmatism seems to have highly influenced Thomas Kuhn's structure of scientific revolutions. Am I right in assuming this? He basically says the same thing. Paradigms are the working order of the best knowledge available to scientists at any given time.

[@CynicalHistorian]

I think the biggest influence for Kuhn's paradigmatic model is Hegel's dialectic. In terms of theories of truth, pragmatism does seem to be the best model for the actual function of science, but that is beyond what Kuhn was stating.

[@JM-wm6he]

Thank you for your reply. Yes, I can see that Kuhn's 'scientific revolutions' are more dialectic. But what he calls 'normal science' seems more akin to pragmatism in that scientists operate under the best available knowledge, the synthesis of revolution, until it no longer makes sense and new explanations are needed. Would you agree?

[@CynicalHistorian]

I'd definitely agree. That's the basic idea that science uses the pragmatic theory of truth, rather than correspondence theory, but you'll find that most scientists who are versed in this esoteric philosophy will say science is more in line with correspondence theory (I obviously dispute that). But basically Kuhn wasn't concerned with the workings of truth in science, more with how that truth comes to compete with other truths. So you could say he was espousing both correspondence (or positivist) and pragmatic theories of truth.

[@JM-wm6he]

Ok. Thanks for your insight. Esoteric, yeah, I had a course in methodology this semester and Kuhn was on the reading list, as well as some reading on American pragmatism by Patrick Baert. No connection was made between the two then though so that's why I was curious.

[@indydude3367]

Great book about this topic called The Metaphysical Club. It won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2002.

[@DarkKnightOmega]

Perhaps people connect pragmatism and winning the argument to negative consequences as well. Like we can win the argument because we’re bigger, but really blinded by self interest, but can’t see it. And trying to get to what reality actually is should take precedence, in my opinion at least. But I’ll have to look and see what others say about it. See if it’s verifiable, or no wait, if it’s practical for me to believe it I will.

[@dewinmoonl]

It's overlooked because it's obvious to everyone now

[@reedarnold7905]

Why is "Truth who has the best argument" a great definition of truth, and how does one determine the best argument without appealing to the argument's 'truth.'

[@sernold9527]

I think people have forgotten about pragmatism or simply are unattracted to it, because of relativists shifts and the fact that it sounds like as long as the outcome is good and practical, regarldess how immoral the thing required do achieve it must be done, a pragmatic would follow it. Basically, unfortunately, pragmatism has an unappealing appearance in its very simple presentation that is tough for people.

[@Veprem]

"The best argument is the truth" What if I'm right but am terrible at arguing?

[@anwang6]

Are you familiar with instrumentalism? It's the sequel to pragmatism ;) I'm not sure I agree pragmatism has gone dark since world war II. At least as far as the philosophy of science is concerned, tons of theories (instrumentalism, constructivism, reductionism, etc) either build or play off of it in some form or another. I enjoy your videos, and I'd be very interested to see more on philosophy (especially philosophy of science, that being my passion).

[@CynicalHistorian]

Instrumentalism was a creation of Dewey's, and Popper (the other major theoritician of the movement) presented his ideas in the mid-1930s. Much like Behaviorism and Functionalism, instrumentalism continued in various forms, but with a more positivist direction after WWII. Positivism kind of currupted pragmatism from within, and even neopragmatists have trouble separating their theoretical usage between the two, hence why Rorty jumps all over the place in metaphysics of language. So it didn't completely die, but was very much no longer itself

[@maurgi17]

Pragmatism is right in line with dialectical materialism

[@LinusE]

Speaking of American philosophies, what are your, or anyone's, thoughts on Transcendentalism? Isn't that American? I'm asking because I am legit curious

[@CynicalHistorian]

I mentioned transcendentalism in this video as a prior American philosophy, yes. I covered it more in depth in my Unitarianism video, if you'd like to dig into it

[@LinusE]

@@CynicalHistorian Great, thanks a ton! Love your content!

[@dandavis8300]

OK, but isn't it based on Francis Bacon's "The New Organon"?

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

4:15 This sounds like Bayesian reasoning to me.

[@awddfg]

*_Pragmatism, when you criticize other countries for their human rights but will never criticize saudi Arabia because they are important._*

[@guapelea]

You nailed it, dude

[@charlesthehandsomeandbrave2956]

well we need oil boi :)

[@awddfg]

@@charlesthehandsomeandbrave2956 *_Is that why you blamed Iraq for 9/11 even though the hijackers were saudi? The only good thing saudi Arabia did was ban churches._*

[@warwickaldermanchannel2340]

I can explain why Pragmatism mostly gets overlooked.

[@jorenbosmans8065]

So now do one about Fallibilism. It how they call Popper's idea .

[@TheWolfgangGrimmer]

I'm entirely in favor of the type of thinking which Pragmatism advocates, but at the same time I feel like saying that such an approach and philosophies focused more on personal development (and group development for that matter) are always mutually exclusive is jumping the gun.

[@tomjoad1060]

thanks, actually a good video on pragmatism. Better than talk with Prof. Morgenbesser. I think "pragmatism" is not overlooked, it is taught at American universitites.

[@FH-cm1dj]

Philosophy: wishy washy flim flam.

[@realtruthseeker521]

My friend I admire your accumulation of knowledge and desire for it. I can listen to you all day and probably will, challenging where I may have a question. I would like to ask you this. Do you think there is a purposeful and desperate attempt to come up with an alternative to the idea of a supernatural intelligence of deity, and therefore we have such ideas as Darwinian evolution and other philosophies such as possibly pragmatism itself? Would appreciate your thoughts if you have time. Thank You for this video and your thoughts and presentation.

[@CynicalHistorian]

I don't think most philosophers attempt to have an alternative to a deity, no. Heck most pragmatists were Christians. Plus evolution isn't philosophy, that's biology

[@realtruthseeker521]

@@CynicalHistorian I am speaking of Darwinian evolution which is a philosophy of origins and not evolution within a kind aka micro evolution. Micro evolution I understand to be a biology. Darwinian thought is more on origin hence the title origins of the species. So, there is also Big Bang theory which I may ignorantly mix since they both seem to me to be the same category and same discussion. Both believing in things actually against science. Law of Biogenesis says life can only come from other life. But both draw on the idea that slime was struck by lighting and a billion years late man crawls out the ocean. I wouldn’t consider that biology but I understand what your saying I think you didn’t understand. But no worries I just wanted to hear your thoughts on it. Thank you.

[@sthamansinha243]

@@realtruthseeker521That's not what evolution is at all. I always find it hilarious when people like you who probably haven't picked up a science book since high school try to ack like you know things. Educate yourself or stay in your lane.

[@realtruthseeker521]

@@sthamansinha243 Let us take a simple logical reasoning test. What is likelier? Nothing created everything from nothing. Or Something created everything from nothing. What is more logical? 🤔

[@sthamansinha243]

@@realtruthseeker521 Nobody is saying nothing created everything. Like I said educate yourself or shut up

[@crimfan]

"I. Kant"? :P I find much admirable in pragmatism, but there are certainly some highly relevant objections. It's very hard to decide what's practical in the moment you're working. The problem is actually illustrated by your logic gates example. There was nothing much practical at the point about logic gates because it would take another 50 years of development to make it realizable. There are some other examples of Peirce's creations that were way ahead of their time as well. For instance, Peirce devised the first latent class model which are one of the bases for recommendation engines that push out different videos online (yes that's a little meta), do voice recognition, and so on. Actually working the math in reasonable time didn't become barely practical until the 1970s, though it is ubiquitous now. Many developments in pure mathematics often prove to be incredibly fruitful but not until many years, indeed sometimes decades or even centuries after they were devised. The other problem I have with the "infinite time" definition is when one considers studying a "science of the artificial." Many systems exist in a very bounded state of time or depend fundamentally on local conditions but nevertheless the tools of science are highly useful for studying them. For instance, going all meta again, one could use scientific tools to study behavior on KZbin, and certainly KZbin does, but KZbin doesn't seem to have the same kind of existence as, say, universal gravitation. I don't know that I see how the "infinite time" definition is helpful in the latter case. Part of why you don't hear much about pragmatism, though, is how thoroughly it took over, to the point it became part of the background. Peirce in particular did so much work it's challenging to find an area of science he didn't touch in some way.

[@rabidcentrist1045]

"It's very hard to decide what's practical in the moment you're working." You are confusing what is objectively practical and what is practical for the situation to the best of one's knowledge. Scientific inquiry has more failures than successes, but each failure adds to the knowledge base. And many "mistakes" lead to revolutionary discoveries.

[@crimfan]

Scientific discovery certainly depends on error, undoubtedly, but I don't think I'm confusing anything. The reason I picked mathematics was because it's one of the areas that most directly challenges the utility of pragmatism's concepts. Good mathematical theories are judged on whether their proofs are correct but also on their elegance. Neither aspect really fits under the rubric of pragmatism, at least without really stretching pragmatism so much it becomes meaningless. (It is important to understand that "theory" in math doesn't mean the same thing as it does in science.) Gauss' development of Gaussian elimination and the theory of errors (in the same paper!) in 1808 is a great example. Gauss was trying to solve a practical problem in astronomy and surveying. (Other people were working on it too and published similar results at roughly the same time, but Gauss' was more complete.) To solve it, he greatly generalized results that existed in mathematics before. The theory of errors saw immediate applicability and rapidly spread throughout science, becoming a mainstay of astronomy and surveying immediately and moving to physics and chemistry within one generation and biology and psychology within two. Now it is ubiquitous anywhere statistical analysis is done. Gaussian elimination, which is the fundamental method by which linear systems of equations are solved (if they can be) was impractical for all but relatively small problems until the advent of the electronic computer in the 1950s, and many of the "how to make it work for real" aspects weren't really solved until the 1970s, nearly two centuries after Gauss showed that the algorithm was correct. However, of the two results, Gaussian elimination is unquestionably the more elegant and has the tighter, more logical proof. The proof is so good it is often taught in algebra to high school students. Gauss' "proof" of the Central Limit Theorem isn't much of a proof---it's quite clear his logic was ad hoc and he was working backwards to get something that was tractable and little else. A mathematically sound justification wasn't shown until the 1920s by J. W. Lindeberg, over a century later, and even then the proof is far from what I'd call elegant. It amounts to a trick that provides little insight into what's happening. I'm sure that Gauss, dubbed the Prince of Mathematics, recognized this but simply couldn't come up with a better justification for what he knew was correct. Math is filled with similar examples: Euler invented graph theory in the 1700s to solve the Konigsberg bridge problem, essentially a brain teaser; it wasn't shown to be practically important until two centuries later. You can't understand computer or transportation networks without it. Complex numbers filled a logical hole in the theory of equations in the 17th Century but were so bothersome and unappealing they were referred to as being "imaginary." In the 19th Century they proved to be essential tools for understanding electromagnetism and in the 20th for understanding quantum mechanics. Now we use them whenever we do image analysis or signals processing. Hamilton's quaternions, proposed in the 1840s, seemed even more useless, but are essential for real time computer graphics. Recreational mathematics and mathematical challenges themselves were crucial to the development of mathematics, but it's hard to say that there's a really solid practical problem being solved by one mathematician figuring out hot to take better cubics than another.

[@Uniquelyyours1]

His name was pronounced, Purse.

[@robertoalexandre4250]

Enjoyed this soundbite: it´s very much to the point (can´t cover a whole spectrum of thought in 10 minutes). Pragmatism was already invented even before it was conceived in theoretical terms. Indeed, it seems to be the philosophy of the everyday man or woman (probably all over the world) in their struggle in life (much more than any deeper metaphysics or questioning about "why things are, rather than why they´re not" (no wonder Herr Heidegger hated it). Yet, if we look closer, we see that it encompasses an ethical proposition: one may achieve good results for some time, and then....it´s all over because the basis was faulty. The "Golden Rule" would be considered the most pragmatical ethical argument, because it´s results are ongoing, constant, despite the fact that good people may be screwed by bad people. As a whole, Pragmatism would take into account the greatest good of the individual as well as those others in his/her community and consider that a benchmark. But, is Pragmatism really overrating human nature? It seems to posit (as in the case of Emerson or James), an ideal individual in an ideal community. It cannot account for collectives (as for these, only Marxism and Nazism and Totalitarianism can account for...and look how well they do). A basic problem in philosophy is to consider the individual in relation to his/her community or society. Most societies throughout history have preferred monarchys, dictatorships and theocracracies (and these are long-standing); democracy seems to be something rare, and relegated to a few individuals. The bigger a society gets, the worst its pragmatism becomes.