Pragmatism, A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking

I've been listening to Pragmatism, by William James. I like this little book, transcripts of a set of lectures he gave at the Lowel Institute in Boston in 1906. There is much about pragmatism that appeals to me. I'm less enamored to Radical Empiricism, his other major theory. I'll be playing around in Pragmatism for the next couple of weeks.

As I listened to the first lecture, I thought about James's subtitle, and wondered if we might see some vestiges of Pragmatism in Plato. At any rate, I thought it might be a useful exercise to look at Plato through the lens of pragmatism--and at pragmatism through Plato's eyes.  

In Lecture One, James lays the groundwork for his theory by talking about current philosophical thought. His main goal is to contrast pragmatism with both schools in order to show how it fits neither, yet contributes to both.

These lectures were given in 1906. Philosophical thought in his day was much more smug than it is now, though smugness remains. The general progressive tendency of the Victorian age, which saw man (at least Western man, often sans women) progressing, had not yet been wounded by the trenches of WWI--mortally so by the concentration camps of WWII. Both groups, the rationalists and the empiricists were more sure of themselves than they are today.

Here's the way James divides those schools of thought in 1906:   

"THE TENDER-MINDED 
Rationalistic (going by 'principles'), [this is James's clarification]
Intellectualistic,
Idealistic,
Optimistic,
Religious, [metaphysical]
Free-willist,
Monistic,
Dogmatical.



THE TOUGH-MINDED
Empiricist (going by 'facts'),
Sensationalistic,
Materialistic,
Pessimistic,
Irreligious, [dissinterested in metaphysics]
Fatalistic,
Pluralistic,
Skeptical."

Though the idea that there are two schools of thought that oppose each other still applies today--I'm thinking here of analytical philosophy vs post-structuralism--thought has shifted so much that the terms he uses to describe these schools  may not make as much sense as they did in 1906.


But, what about Plato? Where does he fit in?  Much of what we call analytical philosophy, and James calls tender-minded, developed out of the writings of Plato. Consequently, many of the terms in that column can be used to describe his thought, though I don't think I've ever thought of him as tender-minded, a term that seems to work well vis-à-vis the tough-minded empiricist/scientific thinkers such as Darwin who were so influential at the turn of the century.

Even so, the tough-minded group existed in Plato and Socrates's day. They weren't empiricists though; they were businessmen and politicians. They looked down on philosophy as effeminate and impractical.    

The Unexamined Life

Ask most people what Socrates was all about and they can either tell you about The Allegory of the Cave or quote what is probably his most well-known sound-bite, “The unexamined life isn’t worth living,” from The Apology. Some people even use that phrase as the tagline after their signature line on their e-mail account, that or “Follow your passion,” something Socrates never said. 

Listening to The Apology while running the Second Street Greenbelt the other morning, it occurred to me how much “The unexamined life isn’t worth living” has been taken out of context. Most people seem to use this phrase as a way to think about reviewing their life, actions, thoughts, and ideals in order to move on with their life, to build a better, more useful life. It’s a six word self-help mantra.

When Socrates said those words to his closest friends and confidants, his trial was over, he’d already been sentenced to death. He was telling--some of whom had encouraged him to seek exile, or even agree to stop teaching--that he had to keep at his task, the task of challenging the way Athens as a city was living its life. He had to, as he referred to it, continue to be a “gadfly” to the city, constantly irritating it. If he stopped, his life would not be worth living because he was not living as he knew he should, and those in Athens who refused to examine their own lives would also live lives that weren’t worth living. Better death than standing by and watching that happen.

500 Feet above the Frio River, Garner State Park

Thus, Socrates made a much broader, and more dangerous, statement than the sound-bite has room for. As I think about it, I’m not even sure that the sound-bite version of this quotation even means the same thing by “examine” as the Socrates does in The Apology. Socrates, as the quotation and his nickname implies, had little patience with those who fooled themselves. And his idea of self-help would have been a lot more demanding than ours.