Pragmatism and idealism

by William Caldwell

If the limits of our space and our subject permitted of the attempt, we might easily continue the study of the pragmatist element in American scholarship from the point of view of the whole general economy of a university as a social institution, and from that of the benefit that has accrued to the modern world from the many successful attempts at the organization of knowledge from an international point of view, that have come into being under American initiative.[307]

Lastly it is surely impossible to exaggerate the value to philosophy of the so-called “democratic,”[308] open-minded attitude of Pragmatism that is seen in its unprejudiced recognition of such things as the ordinary facts of life, the struggle that constitutes the life of the average man, the fragmentary and partial[309] character of most of our knowledge, and so on. All this contrasts in the most favourable way with the scholastic and the Procrustean attitude to facts that has so long characterized philosophical rationalism from Leibniz and Wolff to the Kantians and to the Neo-Kantians and the Neo-Hegelians of our own time. Thanks partly to this direct and democratic attitude of mind on the part of the pragmatists and humanists, and thanks too to the entire psychological and sociological movement of modern times, the points of view of the different leading thinkers of different countries are beginning to receive their fitting recognition in the general economy of human thought to be compared with each other, and with still other possible points of view.

No one, it seems to me, can read the books of James without feeling that philosophy can again, as the universal science indeed, “begin anywhere” in a far less restricted sense than that in which Hegel interpreted this ingenious saying of his in respect of the freedom of human thinking.[310]

As for the inevitable drawbacks and limitations of the very Americanism which we have been endeavouring to discover in Pragmatism, it cannot, to begin with, be entirely without an element of risk to philosophy, and to the real welfare of a country, that the highest kind of insight should be brought too ruthlessly into competition with the various specialized studies, and the various utilitarian[311] pursuits of modern times, and with popular tendencies generally. The public, for many reasons, should not be too readily encouraged to think of philosophy as merely “a” study like other studies and pursuits, to be baited with the idea of its utility and its profitable consequences. Philosophy, on the contrary, is the universal study that gives to all other studies and pursuits their relative place and value. If left too much to be a mere matter of choice on the part of the young and the unthinking, it will soon find itself in the neglected position of the wisdom that utters her voice at the street corners. It must be secured an integral, and even a necessary place in the world of instruction—a condition that is still the case, it is to be remembered, in Catholic[312] as distinguished from many so-called “liberal” and “Protestant” seats of learning.

It is possible indeed, as we have already suggested, that the recognition of an aristocratic or a Catholic element in learning would, in some respects, be of more true use in the schools of America than a mere pragmatist philosophy of life and education. And it is therefore not to be wondered at that Americans themselves should already have expressed something of a distrust for a philosophy and an educational policy that are too akin to the practical commercialism of the hour.[313]

Then again, despite the large element of truth that there is in the idea of philosophy “discovering” (rather than itself “being”) the true “dynamic” or “motive-awakening” view of the system of things in which we live, philosophy itself was never intended to bear the entire weight and strain that are put upon it by the pragmatists. In their enthusiasm they would make out of it, as we have seen, a religion (and a new one at that!) and a social philosophy, as well as the theory of knowledge and the “approach” to reality that we are accustomed to look for in a system of philosophy.

It is only in periods of transition and reconstruction, like the present age, when men have become acutely sensible of the limitations of traditional views of things, that they are inclined in their disappointment to look to scientific and professional thinkers for creeds that shall take the place of what they seem for the moment to be losing. It is in such times chiefly that philosophy flourishes, and that it is apt to acquire an undue importance by being called upon to do things that of itself it cannot do. Among the latter impossibilities is to be placed, for example, the idea of its being able to offer (almost in any sense) a substitute for the direct experience[314] of the common life, or for the realities of our affections and our emotions, or for the ideals engendered by the common life.

Owing partly to the limitations of the Intellectualism that has hitherto characterized so much of the culture and the educational policy of the last century there are still everywhere scores of people under the illusion that the truth of life will be revealed to them in the theory of some book, in the new views or the new gospel of some emancipated and original thinker. In this vain hope of theirs they are obviously forgetful of even the pragmatist truth that all theories are but a kind of transformation, or abstract expression, of the experiences of real life and of real living. And part of the trouble with the pragmatists is that they themselves have unwittingly ministered to this mistaken attitude of mind by creating the impression that their theory of taking the kingdom of Heaven by storm, by the violence of their postulations and of their plea for a “working view” of things, is indeed the new gospel of which men have long been in search. The race, however, is not always to the swift and the eager, nor the kingdom to those who are loudest in their cryings of “Lord, Lord.” And as a friend of mine aptly applied it as against all practicalism and Pragmatism, “there remaineth a rest to the people of God.”[315] The ordinary man, it should be borne in mind, does not in a certain sense really need philosophy. Its audience is with the few, and it is to do it but scant service to think of making it attractive to the many by the obliteration of most of its distinctive characteristics and difficulties, and by the failure to point out its inherent limitations. It is not by any means, as we have been indicating, a substitute either for life, or for positive religion. Nor can it ever have much of a message, even for the few, if they imagine themselves, on account of their wisdom, to be elevated above the needs of the ordinary discipline of life.

Then again, there is surely an element of considerable danger in the American-like depreciation of doctrine and theory which we have noticed in two or three different connexions on the part of Pragmatism. In the busy, necessitous life of the United States this depreciation[316] is sometimes said to be visible in the great sacrifice of life[317] and energy that is continually taking place there owing to an unduly literal acceptance on the part of every one of the idea that each individual has a sort of divine right to seek and to interpret his experience for himself. In Pragmatism it might be said to be illustrated in the comparative weakness in the essentials of logic and ethics to which we have already referred, in the matter of a sound theory of first principles. And also in its failure to take any really critical recognition[318] of the question of its theoretical and practical affiliations to tendencies new and old, many or most of which have long ago been estimated at their true worth and value. Then there is its comparatively superficial interpretation[319] of what is known in the thought of the day as “Darwinism” and “Evolutionism” and the endless belief of the unthinking in “progress,” and its failure to see that its very Americanism[320] and its very popularity are things that are deserving of the most careful study and criticism. What have the pragmatists left in their hands of their theory, if its mere “methodology” and its “efficiency-philosophy” and its would-be enthusiasm were eliminated from it?

Like Americanism in general (which began, of course, as a revolutionary and a “liberationist” policy), Pragmatism is inclined in some ways to make too much of peoples’ rights and interests, and too little of their duties and privileges and of their real needs and their fundamental, human instincts. It is in the understanding alone of these latter things that true wisdom and true satisfaction[321] are to be found. And like the American demand for pleasure and for a good time generally, Pragmatism is in many respects too much a mere philosophy of “postulations” and “demands,” too much a mere formulation of the eager and impetuous demands of the emancipated man and woman of the time—-as forgetful as they of many of the deeper[322] facts of life and of the economy of our human civilization. In demanding that the “consequences” of all pursuits (even those of study and philosophy) shall be “satisfying,” and that philosophy shall satisfy our active nature, it forgets the sense of disillusionment that comes to all rash and mistaken effort. It certainly does not follow that a man is going to get certain things from the world and from philosophy merely because he demands them any more than does the discovery and the possession of happiness follow from the “right”[323] of the individual to seek it in his own best way. Nor is it even true that man is called upon to “act” to anything like the extent contemplated by an unduly enthusiastic Americanism and an unduly enthusiastic Pragmatism. The writer is glad to be able to append in this connexion a quotation taken by an American critic of Pragmatism from Forberg in his criticism of the action-philosophy of Fichte: “Action, action, is the vocation of man! Strictly speaking, this principle is false. Man is not called upon to act, but to act justly. If he cannot act without acting unjustly he had better remain inactive.”