William James, Lecture II: What Pragmatism Means
Week two! Here, James introduces the pragmatic method, and it is on this that I want to focus. It seems to me that there is a difference between the two general formulations of the “pragmatic method”, and an important one. One formulation goes:
“The pragmatic method in such cases is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences. What difference would it practically make to anyone if this notion rather than that notion were true? If no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing, and all dispute is idle. Whenever a dispute is serious, we ought to be able to show some practical difference that must follow from one side or the other's being right.”
This is the first part of James’ formulation. The other (as is often echoed by neo-pragmatists such as Rorty) is as follows:
“'What would be better for us to believe'! This sounds very like a definition of truth. It comes very near to saying 'what we OUGHT to believe': and in THAT definition none of you would find any oddity. Ought we ever not to believe what it is BETTER FOR US to believe?”
This addition to pragmatism is, in my opinion, more problematic than the first, because it seems to introduce the highly subjective notion of “usefulness”... which appears to be a straightforwardly question-begging concept. Better for whom? For what purposes? Is truth to be simply the conclusion of a hypothetical syllogism…
P Agent X wants Y
P If X wants Y, she must believe Z
C Therefore, Z is true?
How might X convince another person who does not share the want/need for Y, or especially another person who does not want Y, that Z is true? This formulation of is extremely problematic, because it severely weakens the notion of “truth”, making it (somewhat ironically) far less useful. Truth is used, principally, as a way of settling disputes. Two people disagree, and one is occasionally able to demonstrate that his beliefs/propositions possess that elusive but extremely potent property of “truth”. The disagreement is resolved. If we relativize “truth” to the wants/needs/projects of agents, it loses this potency.
We might see the second formulation as an expansion of the first: “We get to truth by determining the practical difference between options, AND the correct one is the one that is the most useful.” But let us not confuse the two: the latter is a much stronger statement, and much more difficult to justify.
To clarify, I think I understand the general relevance of James’ “squirrel” example. He claims that it is a paradigm case of the application of the pragmatic method (which, as we have seen, is to examine what practical consequence each option has). But we must note: the squirrel-dispute is not resolved, it is dissolved. Both sides are right, depending on what is meant by the phrase “going round”. This may be an admirable trick, but someone may still ask: what is the correct way to use the phrase “going round”? James would seem to be suggesting that there isn’t one, that the question itself is nonsensical. Thus, we see how the method dissolves old philosophical problems. Does free will exist? Well, if “free will” is to denote a general experience of freedom in action, then yes. If it it is to mean total freedom from any deterministic influences whatsoever, then no. There is no “final answer” for James, only a question of meanings and consequences.
I wish to note one final parallel here, and it is with the later Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose solution to the free-will problem is almost identical. He famously concentrated on “use”, declaring that many old philosophical problems would dissolve if we just concentrated on how we use words, rather than treating them as “standing for” definite eternal objects. Here, Wittgenstein is clearly influenced by James.
“The pragmatic method in such cases is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences. What difference would it practically make to anyone if this notion rather than that notion were true? If no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing, and all dispute is idle. Whenever a dispute is serious, we ought to be able to show some practical difference that must follow from one side or the other's being right.”
This is the first part of James’ formulation. The other (as is often echoed by neo-pragmatists such as Rorty) is as follows:
“'What would be better for us to believe'! This sounds very like a definition of truth. It comes very near to saying 'what we OUGHT to believe': and in THAT definition none of you would find any oddity. Ought we ever not to believe what it is BETTER FOR US to believe?”
This addition to pragmatism is, in my opinion, more problematic than the first, because it seems to introduce the highly subjective notion of “usefulness”... which appears to be a straightforwardly question-begging concept. Better for whom? For what purposes? Is truth to be simply the conclusion of a hypothetical syllogism…
P Agent X wants Y
P If X wants Y, she must believe Z
C Therefore, Z is true?
How might X convince another person who does not share the want/need for Y, or especially another person who does not want Y, that Z is true? This formulation of is extremely problematic, because it severely weakens the notion of “truth”, making it (somewhat ironically) far less useful. Truth is used, principally, as a way of settling disputes. Two people disagree, and one is occasionally able to demonstrate that his beliefs/propositions possess that elusive but extremely potent property of “truth”. The disagreement is resolved. If we relativize “truth” to the wants/needs/projects of agents, it loses this potency.
We might see the second formulation as an expansion of the first: “We get to truth by determining the practical difference between options, AND the correct one is the one that is the most useful.” But let us not confuse the two: the latter is a much stronger statement, and much more difficult to justify.
To clarify, I think I understand the general relevance of James’ “squirrel” example. He claims that it is a paradigm case of the application of the pragmatic method (which, as we have seen, is to examine what practical consequence each option has). But we must note: the squirrel-dispute is not resolved, it is dissolved. Both sides are right, depending on what is meant by the phrase “going round”. This may be an admirable trick, but someone may still ask: what is the correct way to use the phrase “going round”? James would seem to be suggesting that there isn’t one, that the question itself is nonsensical. Thus, we see how the method dissolves old philosophical problems. Does free will exist? Well, if “free will” is to denote a general experience of freedom in action, then yes. If it it is to mean total freedom from any deterministic influences whatsoever, then no. There is no “final answer” for James, only a question of meanings and consequences.
I wish to note one final parallel here, and it is with the later Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose solution to the free-will problem is almost identical. He famously concentrated on “use”, declaring that many old philosophical problems would dissolve if we just concentrated on how we use words, rather than treating them as “standing for” definite eternal objects. Here, Wittgenstein is clearly influenced by James.