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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Pragmatism

Pragmatism

James, William

Paperback

Philosophy

ISBN10: 1495365425
ISBN13: 9781495365423
Publisher: Createspace
Published: Jan 29 2014
Pages: 108
Weight: 0.34
Height: 0.22 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
William James explains the pragmatic method and its consequences, advocating its usefulness in understanding what we take to be true belief. Pragmatism holds that to have a belief is to have certain rules for action. Any and every notion has its own set of practical consequences. The meaning of a thought is said to be whatever course of action necessarily follow from it. In metaphysical disputes between false and true notions, the dispute must be settled by considering the practical consequences of the two notions. Any two notions that can be shown to have identical practical consequences are shown to be identical notions. Writes James, Whenever a dispute is serious, we ought to be able to show some practical difference that must follow from one side or the other's being right. To have a clear and complete conception of an object is equivalent to considering the practical, empirical effects and properties of the object, and the conduct it will produce. James credits Charles Pierce for introducing this way of thinking about belief. James writes that it was Peirce's notion that To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only consider what conceivable effects of a practical kind the object may involve- what sensations we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must prepare, and that further, to develop a thought's meaning, we need only determine what conduct it is fitted to produce: that conduct is for us its sole significance.

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