Pragmatism
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Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics—such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science—are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes. Pragmatism began in the United States in the 1870s. Its origins are often attributed to the philosophers Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. In 1878, Peirce described it in his pragmatic maxim: "Consider the practical effects of the objects of your conception. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object."Peirce, C.S. (1878), " How to Make Our Ideas Clear", ''Popular Science Monthly'', v. 12, 286–302. Reprinted often, including ''Collected Papers'' v. 5, paragraphs 388–410 an ...
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Charles Sanders Peirce Bibliography
This Charles Sanders Peirce bibliography consolidates numerous references to the writings of Charles Sanders Peirce, including letters, manuscripts, publications, and . For an extensive chronological list of Peirce's works (titled in English), see the (Chronological Overview) on the (Writings) page for Charles Sanders Peirce. Abbreviations Click on abbreviation in order to jump down this page to the relevant edition information. Click on the abbreviation appearing with that edition information in order to return here. Main editions (posthumous) Other Primary literature Bibliographies and microfilms Other bibliographies of primary literature * Burks, Arthur W. (1958). "Bibliography of the Works of Charles Sanders Peirce." CP 8:260–321. * Cohen, Morris R. (1916). "Charles S. Peirce and a Tentative Bibliography of His Published Writings." ''The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods'' 13(26):726–37. *Fisch, Max H. (1964). "A First Supplement ...
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Pragmaticism
"Pragmaticism" is a term used by Charles Sanders Peirce for his pragmatic philosophy starting in 1905, in order to distance himself and it from pragmatism, the original name, which had been used in a manner he did not approve of in the "literary journals". Peirce in 1905 announced his coinage "pragmaticism", saying that it was "ugly enough to be safe from kidnappers" (''Collected Papers'' (CP) 5.414). Today, outside of philosophy, "pragmatism" is often taken to refer to a compromise of aims or principles, even a ruthless search for mercenary advantage. Peirce gave other or more specific reasons for the distinction in a surviving draft letter that year and in later writings. Peirce's pragmatism, that is, pragmaticism, differed in Peirce's view from other pragmatisms by its commitments to the spirit of strict logic, the immutability of truth, the reality of infinity, and the difference between (1) actively willing to control thought, to doubt, to weigh reasons, and (2) willing not to ...
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William James
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the late 19th century, one of the most influential philosophers of the United States, and the "Father of American psychology". Along with Charles Sanders Peirce, James established the philosophical school known as pragmatism, and is also cited as one of the founders of functional psychology. A ''Review of General Psychology'' analysis, published in 2002, ranked James as the 14th most eminent psychologist of the 20th century. A survey published in ''American Psychologist'' in 1991 ranked James's reputation in second place, after Wilhelm Wundt, who is widely regarded as the founder of experimental psychology.
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Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for thirty years, Peirce made major contributions to logic, a subject that, for him, encompassed much of what is now called epistemology and the philosophy of science. He saw logic as the formal branch of semiotics, of which he is a founder, which foreshadowed the debate among logical positivists and proponents of philosophy of language that dominated 20th-century Western philosophy. Additionally, he defined the concept of abductive reasoning, as well as rigorously formulated mathematical induction and deductive reasoning. As early as 1886, he saw that logic gate, logical operations could be carried out by electrical switching circuits. The same idea was used decades later to produce digital computers. See Also In 1934, the philosopher Paul W ...
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Pragmatic Maxim
{{C. S. Peirce articles, abbreviations=no The pragmatic maxim, also known as the maxim of pragmatism or the maxim of pragmaticism, is a maxim of logic formulated by Charles Sanders Peirce. Serving as a normative recommendation or a regulative principle in the normative science of logic, its function is to guide the conduct of thought toward the achievement of its purpose, advising on an optimal way of "attaining clearness of apprehension". Here is its original 1878 statement in EnglishThe article containing it was originally written in French a"Comment rendre nos idées claires"in 1877 for ''Revue Philosophique'', which published it in its Volume VII in January 1879. There the maxim appeared op. 48as "Considérer quels sont les effets pratiques que nous pensons pouvoir être produits par l'objet de notre conception. La conception de tous ces effets est la conception complète de l'objet.". Curiously, the ''Revue Philosophique'' version omits the article's last one and a half paragra ...
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George Herbert Mead
George Herbert Mead (February 27, 1863 – April 26, 1931) was an American philosopher, Sociology, sociologist, and psychologist, primarily affiliated with the University of Chicago, where he was one of several distinguished pragmatism, pragmatists. He is regarded as one of the founders of symbolic interactionism and of what has come to be referred to as the Chicago school (sociology), Chicago sociological tradition. Biography George Herbert Mead was born February 27, 1863, in South Hadley, Massachusetts. He was raised in a Protestantism, Protestant, middle-class family comprising his father, Hiram Mead, his mother, Elizabeth Storrs Mead (née Billings), and his sister Alice. His father was a former Congregationalist pastor from a lineage of farmers and clergymen and who later held the chair in Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral Theology at Oberlin College's theological seminary. Elizabeth taught for two years at Oberlin College and subsequently, from 1890 to 1900, serving as preside ...
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John Dewey
John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century. The overriding theme of Dewey's works was his profound belief in democracy, be it in politics, education, or communication and journalism. As Dewey himself stated in 1888, while still at the University of Michigan, "Democracy and the one, ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonymous." Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society—to be major topics needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. He asserted that complete democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by communication among citizens, experts and politici ...
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Empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricism emphasizes the central role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions. However, empiricists may argue that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences. Historically, empiricism was associated with the "blank slate" concept (''tabula rasa''), according to which the human mind is "blank" at birth and develops its thoughts only through experience. Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on ''a priori'' reasoning, intuition, or r ...
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Giovanni Papini
Giovanni Papini (9 January 18818 July 1956) was an Italian journalist, essayist, novelist, short story writer, poet, literary critic, and Italian philosophy, philosopher. A controversial literary figure of the early and mid-twentieth century, he was the earliest and most enthusiastic representative and promoter of Italian pragmatism. Papini was admired for his writing style and engaged in heated polemics. Involved with avant-garde movements such as futurism and Decadent movement, post-decadentism, he moved from one political and philosophical position to another, always dissatisfied and uneasy: he converted from anti-clericalism and atheism to Catholic Church, Catholicism, and went from convinced Interventionism (politics), interventionism – before 1915 – to an aversion to war. In the 1930s, after moving from individualism to conservatism, he finally became a fascism, fascist, while maintaining an aversion to Nazism. As one of the founders of the Journalism, journals ...
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The Metaphysical Club
The Metaphysical Club was a name attributed by the philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, in an unpublished paper over thirty years after its foundation, to a conversational philosophical club that Peirce, the future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., the philosopher and psychologist William James, amongst others, formed in January 1872 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and dissolved in December 1872. Other members of the club included Chauncey Wright, John Fiske, Francis Ellingwood Abbot, Nicholas St. John Green, and Joseph Bangs Warner. Within the philosophical discussions of the original club, pragmatism is said by Peirce to have been born. The name of the 1872 club was chosen "half-ironically, half-defiantly," according to Peirce, as the group rejected the radical foundationalist European metaphysics in favor of a moderate foundationalism, pursued critical thinking of a pragmatic and positivist nature. However there is in fact no record of a club of this name in t ...
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Chauncey Wright
Chauncey Wright (September 10, 1830 – September 12, 1875) was an American philosopher and mathematician, who was an influential early defender of Darwinism and an important influence on American pragmatists such as Charles Sanders Peirce and William James. Biography Wright was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, the son of a merchant and a pillar of the local Unitarian church. With financial help from a benefactor, Wright attended Harvard, where his reading of Ralph Waldo Emerson led him to abandon his youthful Unitarianism. In 1852 he graduated from Harvard and became a computer to the ''Nautical Almanac''. In college, he was mainly interested in science and mathematics. In the 1850s, however, he began reading philosophers such as Francis Bacon, John Stuart Mill, and William Hamilton, and he became a frequent contributor to the ''North American Review'' and the ''Nation'', becoming a well-known defender of Darwinism and a critic of the English philosopher and social theorist H ...
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Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine (; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century". From 1930 until his death 70 years later, Quine was continually affiliated with Harvard University in one way or another, first as a student, then as a professor. He filled the Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard from 1956 to 1978. Quine was a teacher of logic and set theory. Quine was famous for his position that first order logic is the only kind worthy of the name, and developed his own system of mathematics and set theory, known as New Foundations. In philosophy of mathematics, he and his Harvard colleague Hilary Putnam developed the Quine–Putnam indispensability argument, an argument for the reality of mathematical entities.Colyvan, Mark"Indispensability Arguments in the Philosophy of Mathematics" The Stanford Encyclopedi ...
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