The pragmatism indicates an originally American school, whose founder is Charles Sanders Peirce. The two other great figures of traditional pragmatism (fine 19th century-beginning 20th century) are William James and John Dewey.

General presentation

Pragmatism is more one philosophic attitude that a unit of dogmas. “Pragmatism”, comes from the Greek pragmata , action, which attests concern of being close to the concrete one, of the private individual, action and opposed to the abstract and vague ideas of intellectualism. It radically acts in fact of a thought empirist: the concept of effect practical is closely related to the question of knowing which effects of a theory are expected in the experiment.

The maxim pragmatist consists in wondering, to solve a philosophical controversy: which difference that would make in practice if such option rather than such other were true? If that does not make any difference in practice, it is that the controversy is vain. Indeed, any theory, so subtle is it, is characterized by the fact that its adoption generates differences in practice.

This current is born with Charles Sanders Peirce in the article " How to make our ideas clear", then is taken again and popularized by William James in the collection Pragmatism .

At James, the most famous application of the method pragmatist relates to the problem of the Vérité. That consists in saying that absolutely objective truth does not exist because one cannot separate an idea from his human conditions of production. The truth is necessarily selected according to subjective interests. For as much, one cannot reduce truth to useful, like supported it the detractors of pragmatism because this theory of the truth preserves on the one hand an idea of agreement with reality (" accord" defined like checking and not like correspondence term in the long term). In addition, which blocks the passage of the esthetic preferences or subjective morals with the decree of truth it is the internal idea of coherence with the whole of the already adopted truths.

At John Dewey, the pragmatic attitude will be presented like the opposite of the theory spectatoriale of knowledge. To know is not " voir" , as it is for example the case in the Cartesian tradition (Descartes compared the ideas with kinds of tables), but to act. That resulted in relativizing the concept of truth, which was blow the principal sign of recognition of the membership of pragmatism. For this reason, pragmatism was often caricatured.

At John Dewey, pragmatism is connected more and more with a social philosophy, even with a practice of political research. Philosophy, suggests it for example in Reconstruction in philosophy , must reproduce in the socio-policy field what modern science achieves in the technological field.

The pragmatism of Richard Rorty

The pragmatism, which was essential on the United States like the current dominating before the Second world war, underwent a long eclipse because of the domination of the analytical style, but knows a revival, in particular through the work of Richard Rorty (born in 1931).

Rorty, resulting from the analytical, but extremely original current and strongly criticized for its sights on the end of philosophy and for its alleged relativism, is regarded mainly as a disciple of Dewey, but also finds its inspiration at great names of the " philosophy continentale" , like Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault or Derrida.

Pragmatism in France

Pragmatism was the object of debates in France, for example at Emile Durkheim, extremely critical in its connection, and at Henri Bergson, of which the article on " the Pragmatism of William James" (in the Thought and driving it ) there sees a way of thinking close to its own doctrines of science like characteristic of the Homo faber.

The epistemological constructivism, by a Jean Piaget or a Jean-Louis Moigne, is inspired clearly by pragmatism.

On the whole, pragmatism seems a very sulfurous philosophy, because of its deep questioning of largely unconscious Habitus which was essential with philosophy during very many centuries.

She questions in particular the significance even philosophical activity, as well as her role in the culture in general.

For Pierre Lemieux, it is necessary to be wary of the proclaimed pragmatism, which often hides the ideology, and quotes Mussolini: “Fascism is pragmatic: it does not have a priori nor of remote goals. ”

Notes and references of the article

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