Was Plato's Socrates a Pragmatist?

In the second chapter of Pragmatism, James says that Socrates employs the pragmatic method, though not systematically. As a result, I’m back to listing to the Socratic Dialogues in order to test that hypothesis. I’ll get back to James later. Before deciding how pragmatic Plato’s Socrates might be, it might be worthwhile to define the pragmatic method. Here’s James’s description:

“Now, without pledging ourselves in any way to adopt this hypothesis, let us dally with it for a while to see to what consequences it might lead if it were true” (302).

It’s easy enough to see why Bertram Russell, that loquacious and ferocious defender of rationalism, might have been nonplussed at this notion. It sounds suspiciously like a cross between relativism, with its freedom to believe whatever one wishes, and utilitarianism, with its tendency to set aside every consideration but tangible, material results. I’d simply argue that this assessment takes this phrase out of context. It would take longer to parse out the differences between pragmatism and its cousins, relativism and utilitarianism, than I want to take in a blog. As I go through Plato’s writing, some of those differences may come to the fore. Instead, I’d like to look at Peirce’s definition from “How to Make Our Ideas Clear.” 

"Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearing we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our concept of the object" (218)

Peirce’s definition may not be as clear as we’d wish. Keep in mind that his goal was making ideas clear, not communicating them clearly. I find this particular statement more accessible if I reformat it, thus:

  "Consider what effects

                  that might conceivably have practical bearing

                            we conceive the object

                        of our conception to have.

                  Then, our conception of these effects is

         the whole of our concept of the object" (218)

This arrangement forces on us the realization that Peirce’s version of pragmatism, which may be different from James’s, is about how we conceive the world, what we believe to be true, for Peirce, verifiably true. It differs from rationalism by being based on where our beliefs lead than where they come from. It is still, at least as I read it, about the veracity of our concepts/beliefs. We are not left to conclude, as some conclude after reading James (though I think misreading James), that we are free to believe whatever we wish.

This phrase from Peirce is the one I’ll use to take a look at Plato’s Socrates in order to test whether, and to what extent, he was a pragmatist. First up for examination will be The Apology.