what philosophe invented pagmatism?
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Pragmatism (what philosopher invented pragmatism?)
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. 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.
Pragmatism began in the United States in the 1870s. Its origins are often attributed to the philosophers Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. In 1878, Peirce 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.”
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce was a brilliant philosopher, mathematician and scientist. His polymathic work should be better known
early life
Charles S Peirce was the son of Benjamin Peirce and Sarah Hunt Mills, the daughter of Senator Elijah Hunt Mills. We note that this surname is pronounced “Purse”. Charles was the second of his parents five children. His older brother was James Mills Peirce who became a mathematician in the Mathematics Department at Harvard, and then from 1890 to 1895 served as Dean of the Graduate School at Harvard and, after that, as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Charles’ two younger brothers also enjoyed successful careers, Benjamin Mills Peirce as a mining engineer and Herbert Henry Davis Peirce as a diplomat.
History of pragmatism
Antecedents in modern philosophy
Pragmatism was a part of a general revolt against the overly intellectual, somewhat fastidious, and closed systems of idealism in 19th-century philosophy. These boldly speculative philosophers had expanded the subjective experience of the mind until it became a metaphysical principle of cosmic explanation.
For the idealist, all of reality was one fabric, woven from parts that cohered by virtue of the internal relations that they bore to one another, and this reality was often interpreted in abstract and fixed intellectual categories.
The theory of evolution, then still new, seemed to the pragmatists, on the other hand, to call for a new, nonidealist interpretation of nature, life, and reason—one that challenged the long-established conceptions of fixed species.
The new emphasis was on the particular variations and struggles of life in adapting to the environment.
Philosophically, the fact of growth and the development of techniques for instituting changes favourable to life became the significant factors rather than the idealist’s ambitious rationalistic account of human goals and of the universe in general. Important developments in natural science and logic also encouraged a critical attitude toward earlier systems.
two main influences on the early formation of pragmatism
There were two main influences on the early formation of pragmatism. One was the tradition of British empiricism in the work of John Stuart Mill, Alexander Bain, and John Venn, which stressed the role of experience in the genesis of knowledge—and particularly their analyses of belief as being intimately tied in with action and, indeed, as definable in terms of one’s disposition and motive to act.
The work of the 18th-century empirical idealist George Berkeley, which presented a theory of the practical and inferential nature of knowledge and of sensations as signs (and thus predictive) of future experience, led Peirce to refer to him as “the introducer of pragmatism.” The other major influence came from modern German philosophy: from Kant’s analysis of the purposive character of belief and of the roles of will and desire in forming belief and his doctrine of “regulative ideas,” such as God or the soul, which guide the understanding in achieving systematic completeness and unity of knowledge; from Romantic idealists, for whom all reason is “practical” in expanding and enriching human experience; and from Hegel’s historical and social conception of changing and developing subject matters.
In sum, Peirce was profoundly impressed by Kant and by the Scottish philosophy of common sense; James by British empiricism and by the voluntarisms (stressing the role of choice or will) of the genetic epistemologist James Ward and the relativistic French personalist Charles-Bernard Renouvier; and Dewey by Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s version of Kant’s active conception of mind and by neo-Kantian and Hegelian idealism.
Finally, to these influences must be added that of American social experience in the 19th century: the rapid expansion of industry and trade and a popular optimism, with its roots in Puritan theology, holding that hard work and virtue are bound to be rewarded. Both the precariousness of frontier life, however, and the rapidly expanding economy weakened the prevailing Calvinistic belief in a predestined future and encouraged the emergence of inventiveness, a sense of living still in the “New World experiment,” and adoption of the ideal of “making good.”
The classical pragmatists
Peirce
The pragmatic philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce was part of a more general theory of thought and of signs. Thought, or “inquiry,” results from doubt, a state in which habitual actions are blocked or confused and from which organic irritation and irresolution result. Resolution and unobstructed conduct, on the other hand, are products of belief, which is a form of stability and satisfaction.
It is the function of scientific thought to produce true beliefs. In a prolonged effort to embed this analysis of doubt and inquiry within a more comprehensive theory of signs in which communication, thought, knowledge, and intelligent conduct could be fully understood, Peirce achieved a wealth of original insights.
A sign, for Peirce, is a way by which something (a thought, word, or object) refers the interpreter to something else (the interpretant), which, in turn, is itself another sign.
Peirce’s pragmatism is thus a method for translating certain kinds of signs into clearer signs in order to surmount linguistic or conceptual confusion.
Getting at the interpretant involves determining the “effects,” or consequences, of the signs or ideas in question.
Peirce’s pragmatism is therefore primarily a theory of meaning that emerged from his first-hand reflections on his own scientific work, in which the experimentalist understands a proposition as meaning that, if a prescribed experiment is performed, a stated experience will result. The method has two different uses.
First, it is a way of showing that when disputes permit no resolution, the difficulties are due to misuses of language, to subtle conceptual confusions. Such questions as whether the physical world is an illusion, whether the individual’s senses always mislead him, or whether his actions are fated are not “real” problems.
pragmatism in education
In education, pragmatism is an approach to learning and teaching that focuses on keeping things practical. Its key theorist is John Dewey. It has four principles: Unity, Interest, Experience, and Integration. Pragmatic teachers use active project-based learning strategies in the classroom and focus on topics relevant to students’ lives.
- Key Points To Remember
1.Pragmatism is about doing practical things that get results
2.Pragmatism in education involves practical lessons that have value to the lives of learners
3.Key pragmatist theorists include John Dewey and Charles S. Pierce
4.A pragmatic classroom involves project-based learning, play-based learning, experimentation, and experiential learning
5.The opposite of pragmatic education would be what we call ‘idealist education’. Idealist educators teach abstract ideas that aren’t useful in real life. If you only like to learn things that are relevant to your life, you might be a pragmatist.
Origins
The origins of the term pragmatism are the Greek phrases “practice” and “action”.
The 4 Principles Of Pragmatism In Education
According to Sharma, Devi and Kumari (2018), there are four principles of pragmatism for teachers to know about:
1. Principle Of Utility
Everything that students learn should have ‘utility’. This means that everything should be useful to the student. A student doesn’t care for learning abstract theoretical ideas that they will never apply to their lives outside of school. Instead, a student want to learn things that are relevant to their lives. By making things relevant and useful, students will be more engaged and eager to learn.
2. Principle Of Interest
Curriculum content should also include the students’ interests. Dewey (a key pragmatist theorist) argues that students have four interests: conversation, investigation, construction and creative expression.
Therefore, teachers should focus on creating lessons that involve talking with one another, investigating things through experimentation, making things, and being creative.
3. Principle Of Experience
Pragmatists value experience over all else. Students can learn abstract things all day, but unless they experience those things, they may never truly learn. Teachers should therefore create a lot of project-based, experimental and experiential lessons that help children ‘learn by doing’.
4. Principle Of Integration
Curriculum content is not separate. Mathematics, science and creative arts are not three different lessons. Instead, the pragmatic teacher links the curriculum content together through a process we call ‘integration’. The teacher will show students how concepts from different subjects are related to each other and encourage a holistic understanding of the topics they are learning.
According to pragmatism the theory and practice of education is based on two main principles, viz:
(i) Education should have a social function, and
(ii) Education should provide real-life experience to the child.
