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The 19th century American pragmatists are, in my opinion, the most consequential philosophical school ever. James, Holmes, Peirce, and others did remarkable work. They fully embraced the natural philosophy, which would come to be called science, in a way that many of their former peers didn't.
Yes, we can but try, and ( only ) in trying find it so. For better or for worse.
Fascinating man and pragmatic scholar, James.
Empirical and stoic
> In “The Gospel of Relaxation,” James applies psychological insights to everyday concerns. Limit introspection: don’t become a prisoner of morbid feelings. To feel brave, act brave. To become cheerful, smile and laugh.
Today known as "fake it till you make it"
Or my personal version: "Action creates motivation, not the other way around"
To reduce anger, don't vent.
"The Metaphysical Club" is a great book about this subject and these folks.
I completely agree, this is one of the greatest books on the subject. I highly recommend checking out its Goodreads page [1] for reviews and more context.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5519635-the-metaphysical...
It's strange how the standard American History classes pretty much ignore the late 19th century. It was a time of real intellectual flourishing in America. With the notable exception of Benjamin Franklin, it's when American scientists really became globally relevant rather than smart folks who more or less just stayed kept up with European advances. Peano cited Peirce as his inspiration for the logical notation we now use today. And Gibbs[1] was one of the fathers of modern thermodynamics.
While writing this comment I learned that Gibbs shared Peirce's interest in graphical notations. They're interesting to me, because in a lot of ways they feel clunkier than traditional mathematical formulae, but when they work, boy do they ever work well. Feynman diagrams are maybe the most well known example.
I'm pretty sure there are millions waiting to be made with a good AI powered diagrammatic IDE.
There are two major kind of truth at last.
- You drop an apple. 1+1 =2; e^ix -1=0 … - You drive left or right side. You speak English, chinese …
Both are reality but of different kind.
Yes can go to space or do modular maths.
You can drive on the left when everyone drive on the right. Or one day someone decide better switch as this colonial.
But these two or more have different nature.
**
You are moral right to do so is beyond truth, fact, … dictate.
It is likely subjective and anti human nature.
It does not based on external rule or what others impose on us. You have to decide.
But then you cannot just let yourselves go, … you do not need to be Catholic or Christian to know human can do 7 sins. Just “let it goes” is where dark queen bring cold to the world. Human is only partially normal.
**
Buddhism … last 3 years struggle with Tibetan kind and still not sure my Tracher insist the world does not exist. Always think the world exist, but not as you think and one should not be attached to it.
**
Always in mix state you are not pure whatever religion or philosophy you subscribe to - either incomplete or inconsistent, always act with and in uncertainty withlong term consequences unknown, values and keep on changing perspective both yourselves, your group and humanity as a whole …
that is human condition … and we all die.
I've always enjoyed the idea of "pragmatic truth". I'm probably misquoting a bit, but generally take it to mean "truth is what's most useful to your long term goals."
I'm sceptical of that definition of truth funnily enough for the reason that James (and you) endorse it:
"Pragmatism had another benefit. It allowed for God.[...]If religion increased happiness, encouraged ethical behavior, and offered eternal life, why not gamble?"
To me that's an almost canonical example of what's wrong with this notion of truth. I can accept that people have faith in God, even for unexplainable reasons on intuition, or don't, but the truth about God can't depend on whether that belief has value to me. If that's the case, God might very well cease to exist based on my mood. And that is so solipsistic it's arguably the exact opposite of a truthful worldview. If there's one thing in the world that can't be contingent on my expectation, it's by definition God.
And that's arguably what's wrong with pragmatic truth on all issues, it's just less obvious.
I mean, there are some insights and useful advice here, but did he really think the following?:
> "Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events."
Aside from the obvious self-contradiction here, counterexamples are infinite.
> If, for an individual, faith leads to peace and security, banishes loneliness, increases endurance, and improves behavior, it can be said to be true for that individual.
It can be said to be useful for that person, but not true. Perhaps I'm missing something? -- I'm aware I'm only reading a summary.
> Our emotions, our temperaments, and our current states of mind do affect our ideas.
They can, if you let them. (At least up to a point: hopefully they won't lead you to think that 2+2=5.) It doesn't follow that our ideas are determined by these factors. Nor does it remove the distinction between a good and a bad idea (a good idea being one which agrees with reality, ie one that is true).
> In a world of chance and incomplete information, James insisted that truth was elusive but action mandatory.
Complete truth is elusive, and action is indeed mandatory, but a degree of truth is attainable, and an action is only good insofar as it's informed thereby.
Traditional philosophy says you need to find the truth and then modify your desires in accordance therewith. Here he seems to be saying the opposite. Again, I'm aware I'm just reading a TLDR, and I don't deny that there is useful practical advice here.
I don't think James would deny that there are many cases where our simple black and white view of truth as something existing in the world independently of what we think of it is perfectly adequate, however, pragmatism is intended to deal with the more difficult cases, those cases in which philosophers find themselves at loggerheads about the nature of truth. When the question seems impossible to resolve, James's advice is to try and think in terms of what the practical consequences of a belief would be.
Thanks. I don't think this resolves the problem though, since whether or not the practical consequences of a belief are considered desirable will depend on one's philosophy, ie what one considers to be true.
ISTM that perception of reality -- what one considers to be true -- will always determine belief about goodness/desirability. James, if I understand correctly, seems to get it in reverse: let your desire determine 'your' truth, ie your perception of reality.
I'm not sure it requires philosophical agreement in all particulars in order to agree on practical consequences, e.g. an empiricist and a rationalist may disagree on epistemology but agree on the consequences of going outside on a rainy day without an umbrella.
Agree with the example, but philosophical disagreement will undoubtedly come on some matters, like almost anything that's debated in politics today. Example: on private vs government healthcare. What is the good that we are seeking? What is the value of the various tradeoffs that we inevitably have to make in choosing one system over another? These are philosophical questions. Only then can we answer the practical question of how we attain that good.
Or for private life, should I devote myself to getting as much money as I can, or sleeping with as many people as possible, or are there other good things I should pursue? These are philosophical; the answer will depend on our view of reality and of ourselves. Again, only then can you get to the practical question of how we attain said good.
In all these cases, and in the umbrella one, whether the consequences of belief X are good or bad will depend on one's view of said consequences. In the umbrella example, everyone happens to agree on the desirability of getting wet, but it doesn't help us in cases where we don't agree.
I agree that pragmatism probably isn't much help in resolving these kinds of ethical and political questions. It might be helpful in terms of focusing the discussion when arguments get excessively metaphysical or abstract, but if people disagree on the practical ends that should be sought or the best means of attaining them, then I don't think pragmatism can settle that.
Good Article, Excerpts;
James claimed that the best educated mind has the largest stock of ideas and concepts “ready to meet the largest possible variety of the emergencies of life.”
Pragmatism was a method for making decisions, testing beliefs, settling arguments. In a world of chance and incomplete information, James insisted that truth was elusive but action mandatory. The answer: Make a decision and see if it works. Try a belief and see if your life improves. Don’t depend on logic and reason alone, add in experience and results. Shun ideology and abstraction. Take a chance. “Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events.”
Of course, some philosophers were skeptical of pragmatism. Truth becomes whatever is useful, whatever has cash value. Bertrand Russell was terrified that pragmatism would dethrone the ideal of objective truth, calling it “a form of the subjective madness which is characteristic of most modern philosophy.” Pragmatism to these skeptics encourages relativism and subjectivity and leads to irrationalism.
Pragmatism is the enemy of certainty, simplification, and fanaticism. It champions skepticism, experimentation, and tolerance.
If, for an individual, faith leads to peace and security, banishes loneliness, increases endurance, and improves behavior, it can be said to be true for that individual. In all areas of life, we are acting on insufficient evidence. If religion increased happiness, encouraged ethical behavior, and offered eternal life, why not gamble?
“How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all time the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.”
Pragmatism is central tenet of Buddhism. Has been thus since Gothama. Do not "believe"; learn, try, experience and then understand. About 2000 years before Americans.
But maybe I'm biased or ignorant. Happy to be enlightened (pun intended).
My impression is that Buddhism has a focus on "inner life" rather than the material world. So their pragmatism would naturally be employed on spiritual attainment, rather than science. After all, large factions within Buddhism believe that the reality around us, is mere illusion.
> After all, large factions within Buddhism believe that the reality around us, is mere illusion.
There is a lot more complexity and nuance to this then your comment may lead one to believe. Here is wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_in_Buddhism
> There is a lot more complexity and nuance to this then your comment may lead one to believe
There's nothing in your link that contradicts my assertion. On top of which, you haven't offered an alternate explanation as to why Buddhism has produced so much more deep contemplation, than practical technology. If it is truly equal to the pragmatism that was elucidated in the article, the technological revolution would have been much further along 2000 years ago.
> There's nothing in your link that contradicts my assertion.
I was pointing to your assertion that "large factions within Buddhism believe that the reality around us, is mere illusion" is not quite right. The wikipedia page is really good in elaborating the nuances.
The phrase "Reality is mere Illusion" is the worst translated from Sanskrit/Pali into English. In the original texts "Illusion" does not mean "it does not exist" but that "it does not exist independent of a more fundamental substratum". The common analogy given is that of waves in a ocean of water. The waves are dependent on the water for their manifestation and come and go. The other point is that we only "Perceive Reality" and not as it truly is. All together we get a picture of Reality which is very simplistically called a "Illusion".
>you haven't offered an alternate explanation as to why Buddhism has produced so much more deep contemplation, than practical technology. If it is truly equal to the pragmatism that was elucidated in the article, the technological revolution would have been much further along 2000 years ago.
This is easily explained. If by various internal practices we can modulate our understanding of "Reality" (a subjective viewpoint) then the motivation to explain the "workings" of the Universe independent of us becomes no longer important. That is the reason Hindu philosophies (Buddhism/Jainism/Sikhism are all derivatives) focus exclusively on the "Mind" and understanding "our true nature".
In a sense it's kind of tautological: if someone genuinely experiences something, if "reality" is the only existent realm or category they have knowledge of (as opposed to Maya for example), then it basically has to "be" reality.
Also relevant:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
Another good analogy would be how people used to talk about the physical world before science arrived on the scene: crude approximations, that "everyone knows".
You have to be careful here.
Hindu/Buddhist Philosophy is mainly experiential and explicitly says "the true self" (Purusha/Atman etc.) cannot be described in words. It can only be experienced by "dissolving" ("Laya" in Sanskrit) your self-identity (aka Ahamkara) as something different from the "whole" (Brahman etc). Different schools come at this from different angles thus complicating the matter even further.
> .. by various internal practices we can modulate our understanding of "Reality"
You just restated my explanation in more flowery language.
That's only part of it. My main point was that simplistic phrases like "Reality is mere Illusion" are wrong.
I suppose it depends on which branch of Buddhism people are talking about. There are obviously some which practice extreme idealism, but almost all branches believe that reality (as we commonly define it) DOES exist, but merely that it's a changing reality, rather than a truth that remains forever true, thus unchanging.
> There's nothing in your link that contradicts my assertion.
The illusion (as opposed to mere illusion) in action.
It's a huge part of the 12 step programs too. Or at least had a huge influence.
You may not be ignorant - there may be an analogy there. But the post does come off as a bit tone-deaf.
> Pragmatism is central tenet of Buddhism. Has been thus since Gothama. Do not "believe"; learn, try, experience and then understand.
Uh? AFAIK buddhism is full of "belief" such as reincarnation, karma etc.
What facts of nature helped you understand that it is wrong to murder someone based on their skin colour or religion?
Karma (cause & effect) is an observable fact of nature that can be observed that may make one think twice about murder, at least depending on the nationality of who it is being murdered (this is a reference to the cultural acceptability of (sometimes lust for) murdering our geopolitical arrivals).
> Karma (cause & effect) is an observable fact of nature that can be observed
Cite?
I like the pragmatic nature of pragmatism (pun intended!) but this is the best critique against it. By its nature, it is descriptive and not normative, so it could be argued that it in fact, is not a philosophy at all, but instead "proto-science" or perhaps science for the common man.
I don’t get that feeling from reading James himself. He offers a VERY good philosophical and logical basis for the golden rule, and one that clearly points toward an ever-expanding “inclusion” of other beings to be taken care of/treated with respect.
Far more sound and defensible than any other moral system I’ve encountered.
TLDR of that basis: minds depend first and foremost on categorization and distinction. They must have a built-in way to discriminate types of things and they must have a preference for treating like things alike. As a conscious person develops, they understand other people to be like themselves and therefore ought to have a preference for treating others like themselves.
That’s not to say this imperative can’t be overridden by other concerns, but those other concerns all seem quite obviously more superficial than this extremely fundamental one of “how do I even discern this thing from that thing.”
Pair this with some of the work on “what is stuff” that the Buddhists made a ton of progress on, and you have a logically sound moral system that should compel you to treat everything (and certainly all living things) with respect (using “respect” as a catch-all for “the range of behaviors you’d expect from following the golden rule”)
>they must have a preference for treating like things alike
Suppose I recognize a type of thing, "dollars". I spend some of my dollars to buy food. Given this "preference for treating like things alike", does that mean I now have to spend all my dollars to buy food?
>As a conscious person develops, they understand other people to be like themselves and therefore ought to have a preference for treating others like themselves.
I imagine an egoist/solipsist could respond by saying "well, I put myself in a special category, a category with just one object in it".
- - -
In my view, the is/ought boundary is fairly inescapable here.
Imagine a hypothetical intelligent species that's predatory, 100% carnivorous, and solitary. Like a coyote, but with the reasoning and philosophy ability of a human. It lacks mirror neurons, and it kills daily or weekly for its very survival.
Can you think of an argument that would actually work to persuade a coyote philosopher that it should adopt a vegan diet? I can't.
IMO, human compassion is downstream of us being a social species. Once you have compassion for at least one fellow human, you can at least argue that restricting that compassion to just a subset of humans, or just a single species, seems rather arbitrary.
But bootstrapping compassion from an egoist perspective, and convincing a sentient coyote philosopher to go vegan, seems a bit harder. I imagine from the coyote philosopher's perspective, "suffering is bad when it happens to you, and you're not special, therefore suffering is also bad when it happens to other beings" would seem like a rather trippy and counter-intuitive argument.
- - -
An interesting question on the boundary between is and ought: "Are shrimp capable of suffering?" (See HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42172705 ) People generally treat it as a factual question that can be resolved through ordinary scientific discourse, but it's also a key values question -- if shrimp can suffer, that ought to change our values re: the importance of humane treatment. And there's a chance we'll never know the 'fact of the matter' regarding whether shrimp can suffer. I'm not sure an experiment can, in principle, provide a definitive answer.
Same line of argument goes for advanced AI models. If AI passes the Turing test, can one argue that it's morally irrelevant merely because it runs on silicon substrate? Seems dubious. (If I gradually replace the neurons in your brain with transistors, do you gradually become morally irrelevant?)
So if we're going to regard advanced AI as non-sentient, what's the key differentiator supposed to be? Is there actually any way to definitively answer this question, even in principle?