Pragmatism - A truly American philosophy

[@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.

[@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.

[@Adrianv1981]

@@lightningbolt4419 give an example

[@NoovGuyMC]

@@lightningbolt4419 I mean Singapore is just that

[@Moodboard39]

Huh ​@@NoovGuyMC

[@NoovGuyMC]

@@Moodboard39 i mean sg prsctice pragmatism and still doing well

[@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?

[@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.

[@jamesrountree3991]

Argue that with a post-modernist

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

That was the worst statement in the whole video. Quality of arguments has nothing to do with truth even from a pragmatistic perspective, which I don't share anyway. Argument is mental, theoretical, logical: it's not practical. Being able to come up with better arguments than competing positions is good for debates but not for establishing practicality. Instead (obviously) applicability in practice is the test for that. :)

[@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.

[@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!

[@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!

[@tangroro]

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

[@Moodboard39]

Lol

[@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.

[@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.

[@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

[@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

[@PaulVanderKlay]

This was very helpful. Thank you.

[@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

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@jelongva]

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

[@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.

[@baabaa9000]

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

[@danielwallace1759]

I wouldn't really call Marxism necessarily useless at the time given it's influence not just on philosophy but on both economics and history, whether you agree or disagree with it personally.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@tim2269]

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

[@Free-JackWolff]

that backround makes it hard to read your red words.

[@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.

[@languageandmana9255]

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

[@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. :)

[@postmodernshaman5929]

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

[@amirfecher]

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

[@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?

[@722890]

I mean I get it that you're trying to present and defend the philosophic principles and all, but when you name-dropped Karl Marx you just absolutely butchered everything he wrote about. Marx literraly wrote, on his Thesis on Feuerbach, "Philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it", which falls much more in line with your exposition of Pragmatism than the way you described.

[@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).

[@WoodlandSocialist]

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

[@daiduongdaviddinh140]

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

[@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.

[@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.'

[@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.

[@TylerWitucki]

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

[@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?

[@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.

[@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._*

[@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

[@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.

[@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 ...

[@KawaiiGonJinn]

@7:59 Who's James Andouille?

[@Veprem]

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

[@TheWayoftheSith]

The ideas need to be convincing or compelling.

[@skeletonkeysproductionskp]

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

[@dandavis8300]

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

[@valmeysien9680]

I wonder how exactly any type of "result focused" philosophy can sustain itself without the backing of a definition of what a "good result" is, and that can only, in the end, be defined through an a priori assumption. The moment that assumption is put under scrutiny we are going back to the theoritical framework that Peirce rejected.

[@CynicalHistorian]

didn't watch the video, did you?

[@valmeysien9680]

@@CynicalHistorian I did. What did I miss ?

[@CynicalHistorian]

how absolute truth is derived, or even what a "good result" is

[@valmeysien9680]

@@CynicalHistorian I had to rewatch the video but no I did not miss anything : I just don't get how Peirce's definition of truth answers my objection ; and you don't mention at any point what a "good result" is since you don't talk about pragmatism's impact on ethics (you mention it, but you don't elaborate). Unless we define pragmatism as purely a conception of truth, which is fine ok. But I could make an analoguous objection to that considering I cannot imagine any sentence of word making sense without at least one a priori assumption being assumed by both the talker and the listener. Let's say you are in front of two guys in a restaurant. The first one has an empty plate, the other has a potato in his plate. The first one tells you he has a potato in his plate because it would make sense considering he is in a restaurant. The second one tells you the same thing and just points out to his plate for evidence. If Peirce's definition of truth is the concordance of the ideal with the evidence, you would say the second one has the best argument. But in order for you to say that you would still need to know what a potato is. Someone without the pre-construct notion of what a potato is would not be able to distinguish the best argument here. And that notion is not constructed pragmatically. So yes I still wonder how exactly any type of result focused ethics or, in that case, evidence focused epistemology can sustain itself without the backing of assumptions that are built a priori. This does not mean that these philosophies ought to be rejected, my point is just to say they don't work alone : they can't stand on their own, they need some metaphysics or some rationalist type of system for them to exist in the first place. One can be a pragmatist, up to a point.

[@valmeysien9680]

@Pragmaticist Any claim that one makes has to be predicated on at least one a priori assumption. You cannot utter a sentence that is comprehensible if there isn't a convention between you and the listener about the definition of these words. And at the base of that convention is an a priori assumption that one can make only with the use of rationalist philosophy. Rationalism can stands on its own because it accepts that. It does not stop being rationalist by accepting the fact that one must accept the necessity of a priori assumption. And it can build theorem while staying completely rationalist, while not taking into account any form of experience. Evidence based epistemology, whether you call it empiricism or whatever, HAS to make SOME a priori assumption to function. Thus it dos not stants on its own. It stops being empiricist in the making of these a priori assumption, by definition. Evidence based philosophy have to use some degree of rationalist thinking. Rationalist don't need to do use evidence. I don't believe one should choose one over the other. The way I see it is simply that rationalist comes first to build the concepts, and evidence based epistomology comes second to test these. My point is simply that one could stop at this first step and still make sense, but cannot start at the second step without using, or accepting, concepts, words, that are necessarily pre-built.

[@vbhacker]

Can someone please explain this to me with simple examples?

[@samculp9468]

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

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

4:15 This sounds like Bayesian reasoning to me.

[@jurryaany]

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

[@liammcooper]

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

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

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

[@indydude3367]

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

[@chrishorner7679]

Avoiding national pride, can one weigh up the strengths and weaknesses of this philosophy?

[@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!

[@wannabehistorian371]

Wait, but what was the impact of this philosophy?

[@kodywht]

The problem with pragmatism is what fits the "best argument". You can technically have the best argument even full of logical fallacies. Thats why it gets forgotten. It opens the door for you to no longer think before you act. You apply pragmatism to the wrong scenario, and you can have horrid results.

[@viviresbrillar]

Excellent job. Really appreciate.

[@FH-cm1dj]

Philosophy: wishy washy flim flam.

[@pytwd888]

Shouldn't the pragmatists use a different word for truth? Seems like a bigger issue between competing philosophies is the objective of each. One attempting to consciously 'know" or comprehend what the universe and reality is in essence (which seems confusing anyway because its all filtered through human minds), and the Pragmatism defining truth as the most knowable facts derived from out limited capabilities, all bearing on useful to us ? Should 'truth' in that case be called something else, like "most useful theory" ? Is practicality universal? Wouldn't this give way to relative truths? Something that works for one person, not useful to another....surely this happens. So they are saying truths are indeed universally practical and if they aren't then they are not true?

[@aaronyandell2929]

The appeal to pragmatism seems to be the idea that if the idea or information is useful, than that in and of itself makes it true. Surely you may see the problem with this.

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

I'm afraid they don't see it Aaron.

[@SerpMolot]

This seems quite counter-productive. Basically, if you already like the position you're in, you're not going to try to find out any new things, because, well, that's a waste of energy as it COULD lead to "unnecessary" (for pragmatics) failure.

[@rabidcentrist1045]

Actually pragmatists are some of the most socially and politically engaged, because the emphasis was getting to work and making things happen, rather than sitting around musing. Inquiry, specifically scientific inquiry, is central to pragmatism. Read Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, if you're curious. Read up on it before you judge by a quick and dirty explanation. :)

[@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.

[@warwickaldermanchannel2340]

I can explain why Pragmatism mostly gets overlooked.

[@Moodboard39]

In politics fhey focus on label ideology...not fixing issues

[@chrishorner7679]

Do you have any criticisms of pragmatism? Many philosophers do.

[@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?

[@Matt_Kole]

Liberalism is probably the most important single school of philosophical thought

[@diegomoreno9557]

Whats the relation of pragmatism and historical materialismo, they both seem Concerned with practice

[@CynicalHistorian]

I'd argue historical materials has absolutely nothing to do with practice whatsoever

[@draw4everyone]

Read Dewey's "public and its problems." Dewey calls material/physical stuff the basis of social action, to which ideas must catch up. Very similar to dialectics! (No class conflict, though - not at all).

[@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.

[@maurgi17]

Pragmatism is right in line with dialectical materialism

[@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

[@zooblestyx]

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

[@noheroespublishing1907]

At bottom, Nihilism, life's functionality, Pragmatism, human social structuring, Marxism.

[@Veronica-zz7bp]

Is that how you perceive the world around you? I got kinda confused. In the bottom, Nihilism and its absence of superior meaning. Through life, Pragmatism and its efficient results through practicality. Then with society and it's structures, the class conflict and inevitable drive of people and history towards communism via Marxism. That it? Correct me I'm wrong xD

[@noheroespublishing1907]

@@Veronica-zz7bp Basically yes, I just see life as, at bottom, meaningless, I seek to get through it through pragmatically navigating it and avoiding as much needless misery and pain as possible, and I view Marxism and it's sociological perspective/understanding as one of the more accurate tools to do so. To me, I just view these things like I view the theory of gravity or evolution, they just are, and I have to put up with them; like it or not.

[@Veronica-zz7bp]

@@noheroespublishing1907 Thank you for explaining! I see the world in a very similar way, though in my particular case I switch Nihilism for Cynicism.

[@Rand0mFact]

I didn't understand what Pavlov's experiment has to do with anything? Pragmatism, came to America as there wasn't any history to keep the structure of society in America, while in Europe the nationalism and secularism were spread in the air, after a long time of wars back and forth between religious governments and secular governments.

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

Philosophy is an essentially theoretical subject. Some of its fields can have practical uses - e.g. applied ethics - and political philosophy can be the basis for political movements and practice. Logic is used in computing and argument, etc. However the essence of philosophical questions is not practical, and is not meant to be. Pragmatist theory of truth, like coherentist theory, is wrong because it redefines the word 'truth' and associates it with something else that is not truth but is related to it and which may be a relatively good guide to it. Correspondence theory of truth encapsulates what the pre-theoretic notion of truth is aiming at. According to an everyday sense of truth a statement can be true or false without being provable or even testable; and the sense of the 'reality' that truth connects thinking and language to is independent of human capacities. An idea's working in practice is simply a good guide to truth - the idea is a damn sight more likely to be 'true', or approaching the truth, than an idea that doesn't work in practice! But the truth does not consist in the practicality of the idea, but its correspondence with an independent reality. The correspondence may not be visible, and hence appreciable in practice; or practical results may be misleading as to what the truth is. In the same way a network of truths will 'cohere' but that doesn't mean a cohering set of ideas about reality are therefore true. Coherence of a statement with existing ideas already deemed to be true is a relatively good guide to truth, but it's not truth, shouldn't be confused with it and sometimes will be misleading.

[@Nobilitism]

That's the exact issue that pragmatists were concerned about. Most philosophy that cant be applied to human experience isn't that useful for human beings. If it can't be used to solve a problem or answer a question, what do you do with it exactly?

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

@@Nobilitism It's not supposed to be useful. You're not supposed to do anything with it. These very terms you're using imply a pragmatist set of values - they don't support or justify such values, they just assume them. This just shows that you can't think outside the pragmatist box, rather than that you have killer questions non-pragmatists can't answer, and I suspect the same is true of the video maker.

[@Nobilitism]

@@MatthewMcVeagh if you don't see value in applying philosophical ideas to human experience as opposed to endlessly arguing metaphysics, then I don't know what to tell you. Let's just agree to disagree because because there is no point in discussing further.

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

@@Nobilitism LOL who said I don't see value in applying philosophical ideas to human experience? :D You read that in. I just don't assume the only basis for value in philosophical ideas is practicality. That's one value, and it's absolutely relevant in context. But it's not the only value, and there's more than one context. By contrast pragmatists such as yourself seem unable to see any value besides practicality. This is not a failure in the rest of us.

[@Nobilitism]

@@MatthewMcVeagh youve made an assumption. Just because I value practicality doesnt mean it's the end all be all. You've labeled me a pragmatist without actually verifying that.

[@Uniquelyyours1]

His name was pronounced, Purse.

[@KhanBhai-rj3ny]

Someone told, Morality can't win over pragmatism. Please someone explain me this

[@paulminh3525]

Cold War! First, USA need scientist from former Third Reich country who possess scientific acumen in creating missile that bring USA to the Moon. You should read Operation Paperclip of how USA take many Third Reich scientist after WW2 to improve their technology against Soviet Union despite their dirty past. In addition, there are hacker who is caught of hacking documents from civilians and government. After he is caught for his crimes, the government give him an opportunity to be computer consultant that specializes in hacking that infiltrated other companies to test their anti hacking capabilities. The action of a person is immoral, however the knowledges and skill outweigh their crime so they hire him to work for them. You gain powerful allies that benefit you. That is pragmatism behavior in nutshell. Pragmatism doesn’t try to change people belief. It use them that benefit both parties, rather than try to berate other beliefs try to make yourself feel better. If the person who harbors those beliefs is productive and efficient in works environment, those with pragmatic mindset will let it slide, rather than confront the issues. Hitler also employ pragmatism despite his racial beliefs in order to enhance his soldier army numerical and fighting capabilities against Soviet Union in WW2.

[@jonmitchell7032]

Ok I don't agree with this argument entirely on pragmatism. For one other than the difference between practice and theory what is the difference between the pragmatic and logical method. I don't think that the truth should be attributed to the best argument. Just because someone has the best argument does not mean that it is by definition the truth. Now I will concede that what is true today can be proven false tomorrow by advancement in understanding and expansion of knowledge on any topic. This would give some credit to asking what is really true then. Obviously this can go many ways but in the end it does come down to what is undeniable fact in reality. Philosophically you can still says then ultimately there is no undeniable truth as we can never see what the future holds so then truth would be held as what we know to be undeniable fact as of the moment. I believe that people need to look at things from all sides of the spectrum to be able to get to what is known now as the truth. I love the videos for critical thinking and of course I am a fan of William James

[@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.

[@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.

[@someoneinoffensive]

I would argue the reason it was overlooked because it was considered the unenlightened common sense - you see it in writings throughout history; Khyam to Spinosa. I can see why emphasising it makes it seem revolutionary but it's more a return to a natural impulse. I think this is why it's overlooked in Europe - it's almost an antiphilosophy

[@CynicalHistorian]

who's Khyam?

[@someoneinoffensive]

@@CynicalHistorian Omar Khyam and the rubiyat - though tbf a lot of what is ascribed to him was done posthumously as he was calling out the religious order a millenia ago and other people wanted to do it but... not with that consequence. Absolutely love your content btw man - am binging like mad having only discovered you a week ago (through Mr Beats). Really nice style and thorough research

[@simlucien]

Wait, truth is whoever has the best argument? That’s basically rhetorical might makes right. Unless it’s truth is whatever has the best argument anywhere. Otherwise, this would more or less justify the logic of if an adult debates a 5th grader and wins using utter nonsense that a child obviously couldn’t hope to defeat, that logic is now valid. But if it’s the later, then we accept as the actual answer (right now) what the best answer anyone has come up with thus far.

[@dewinmoonl]

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

[@Resident_Kriegsman]

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?

[@fuzzydunlop7928]

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

[@DNA912]

I think the greatest use of pragmatism for atheists is to apply it to religion. When I realized how using a pragmatic approach to religion, it suddenly became so much more and it was very liberating. So for example, if someone has the belief that if they don't do good deeds (whatever they might be), I little troll will crawl out from under the bed and break their knee. This sounds purely absurd and dumb. But if this results in the person being nicer, more productive, and maybe even happier. Where's the problem?

[@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.

[@IPlayWithFire135]

You could argue this is pretty incompatible with the Popperian narrative of science we are uncritically sold as the way science 'is' and must be, when in reality falsification does not happen in the way Popper demands and real scientific practice is closer to what pragmatists (and Kuhn and Lakatos) described.

[@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

[@scottarmitage8554]

I see no reason to comment, especially now that I am 3 yrs. late to this party. Thumbs up