William James "What Pragmatism Means"

William James “What Pragmatism Means”

In “What Pragmatism Means”, William James expresses pragmatism as a method in which to make sense of facts, data, metaphysics and everyday experiences. A central question to James’s philosophy is, what is truth? While most philosophers preach an absolute truth, James sees the truth as “whatever works, whatever has the most cash value” (Furman 214). It’s basically whatever is the most logical, depending on the end goal.

In order to reach this truth we must turn to the pragmatic method, which according to James , “is primarily a method of settling metaphysical disputes that otherwise might be interminable” (Furman 214).  An example that James gives us in order to further understand the pragmatic method in metaphysics, is the story of the squirrel. In the story there is a dispute about whether a man on one side of the tree has gone around the squirrel on the other side. By using the pragmatic method, James shows how each argument can be explained in practical terms and that, “ [They] are both right and both wrong according as you conceive the verb ‘to go round’ in one practical fashion or the other” (214). James also brings up a point about disputes, that some of them aren't worth disputing, “ if no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing, and the dispute is idle” (214).

Our class had mixed views during our discussion of James. Many liked how simple and easy it was, while others had difficulty removing morals from decisions. A topic that struck a chord during discussion was drones. They are practical for the US because they minimize the amounts of US citizen deaths and the amount of civilian deaths but these data points didn’t stop people from expressing that from a moral standpoint, drones are a bad thing. They still kill innocent people and have negative impacts on the people who sit in buildings and kill people on the other side of the world, like a video game. In discussion, the biggest issue with pragmatism was how it required you to remove emotion from decision.

For me, in the beginning I liked his views, I liked the whole ‘it doesn’t matter’ attitude, it’s a very American view. But once we started discussing emotions and morals my views on pragmatism changed. It seems like a very selfish philosophy, especially if you look at it from the point of the US and drones. We use drones because it benefits us, but it’s still detrimental to other societies, but since it works for us, we continue. Pragmatism seems more like an easy way out, rather than actually hashing out issues and that mindset turns me off from this philosophy.

Below is a link to Huffington Post Article containing a video of John Stewart critiquing drones strikes; indirectly critiquing the pragmatic method

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/20/jon-stewart-obama-drones_n_4825472.html