Pragmatism and idealism

by William Caldwell

The fact, of course—and I shall immediately refer to it—that Pragmatism has been hailed in France as a salutary doctrine, not merely by Liberals and Evangelicals, but by devout Catholics and Anti-modernists, is perhaps enough to give us some pause in the matter of its application in the sphere of theoretical and practical religion. It is useful, it would seem, sometimes to “liberate” the spirit of man, and useful, too, at other times to connect the strivings of the individual with the more or less organized experiences of past ages.

Turning, then, to France, it is, judging from the claims of the pragmatists, and from some of the literature bearing upon this entire subject,[43] fairly evident that there has been a kind of association or relationship between Pragmatism and the following tendencies in recent French philosophy: (1) the “freedom” and “indeterminism” philosophy of Renouvier[44] and other members of the Neo-Critical school, and of Boutroux and Bergson, who, “although differing from each other in many important respects,” all “belong to the same movement of thought, the reaction against Hegelianism and the cult of science which has dominated France since the decline of the metaphysics of the school of Cousin”;[45] (2) the philosophy of science and scientific hypotheses represented by writers like Poincaré,[46] Brunschvicg, Le Roy,[47] Milhaud, Abel Rey,[48] and others; (3) the religious philosophy and the fideism of the followers of the spiritualistic metaphysic of Bergson, many of whom go further than he does, and “make every effort to bring him to the confessional faith”;[49] and (4) the French philosophy of to-day that definitely bears the name of Pragmatism, that of M. Blondel,[50] who in 1893 wrote a suggestive work entitled L’Action, and who claims to have coined the word Pragmatism, after much careful consideration and discrimination, as early as 1888—many years before the California pamphlet of James.

The first of these points of correspondence or relationship we can pass over with the remark that we shall have a good deal to say about the advantage enjoyed by Pragmatism over Rationalism in the treatment of “freedom” and the “volitional” side of human nature, and also about the general pragmatist reaction against Rationalism.

And as for the philosophy of science, it has been shown that our English-speaking pragmatists cannot exactly pride themselves in the somewhat indiscriminate manner of James and Schiller upon the supposed support for their “hypothetical” conception of science and philosophy to be found in the work of their French associates upon the logic of science. “The men of great learning who were named as sponsors of this new philosophy have more and more testified what reservations they make, and how greatly their conclusions differ from those which are currently attributed to them.”[51] Both Brunschvicg and Poincaré, in fact, take the greatest pains in their books to dissociate themselves from anything like the appearance of an acceptance of the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge, from the signs of any lack of faith in the idea that science, as far as it goes, gives us a true revelation of the nature of reality.

Then in regard to (3) the French pragmatist philosophy or religion we have only to read the reports and the quotations of M. Lalande to see in this philosophy the operation of an uncritical dogmatism or a blind “fideism” to which very few other philosophers, either in France or in any other country, would care to subscribe. “La Revue de Philosophie, which is directed by ecclesiastics, recently extolled pragmatism as a means of proving orthodox beliefs.” ... “This system solves a great many difficulties in philosophy; it explains the necessity of principles marvellously.” ... “The existence of God, Providence and Immortality are demonstrated by their happy effects upon our terrestrial life.” ... “If we can consider the matter carefully, it will be seen that the Good is the useful; for not to be good in anything is synonymous with being bad, and everywhere the true is the useful. It is in this assertion that Pragmatism consists.”[52]

And as to the fourth tendency, there is, at its outset, according to M. Lalande, a more rational or ethical basis for the fideism of M. Blondel’s book upon action, which starts off with a criticism of philosophic dilettantism quite analogous with that which Mr. Peirce follows in How to Make Our Ideas Clear. But M. Blondel “does not continue in the same manner, and his conclusion is very different. Rejecting all philosophical formalism, he puts his trust in moral experience, and consults it directly. He thinks that moral experience shows that action is not wholly self-contained, but that it presupposes a reality which transcends the world in which we participate.”[53]

Finally, maintains M. Blondel, “we are unable, as Pascal already said, either to live, or to understand ourselves, by ourselves alone. So that, unless we mutilate our nature by renouncing all earnestness of life, we are necessarily led to recognize in ourselves the presence of God. Our problem, therefore, can only be solved by an act of absolute faith in a positive religion [Catholicism in his case]. This completes the series of acts of faith, without which no action, not even our daily acts, could be accomplished, and without which we should fall into absolute barrenness, both practical and intellectual.”[54]

Now again these words about our being unable to understand ourselves “by ourselves alone” contain an element of truth which we may associate with the pragmatist tendency to believe in a socialized (as distinguished from an individualistic) interpretation[55] of our common moral life, to believe, that is to say, in a society of persons as the truth (or the reality) of the universe, rather than in an interpretation of the universe as the thinking experience of a single absolute intelligence. This, however, is also a point which we are obliged to defer[56] until we take up the general subject of the relations between Pragmatism and Rationalism. The other words of the paragraph, in respect of our absolute need of faith in some positive religion, are, of course, expressive again of the uncritical fideism to which reference has already been made. As an offset or alternative to the “free” religion of Papini and James and to the experimental or practical religion of different Protestant bodies, it is enough of itself to give us pause in estimating the real drift[57] of Pragmatism in regard to religious faith and the philosophy of religion.[58]

We shall meantime take leave of French Pragmatism[59] with the reflection that it is thus obviously as complex and as confusing and confused a thing as is the Pragmatism of other countries. It is now almost a generation since we began to hear of a renascence of spiritualism[60] and idealism in France in connexion not merely with the work of philosophers like Renouvier and Lachelier and Fouillée[61] and Boutroux, but with men of letters like De Vogué, Lavisse, Faguet, Desjardins[62] and the rest, and some of the French Pragmatism of to-day is but one of the more specialized phases of the broader movement.

And as for the special question of the influence of James and his philosophy upon Bergson, and of that of the possible return influence of Bergson upon James,[63] the evidence produced by Lalande from Bergson himself is certainly all to the effect that both men have worked very largely independently of each other, although perfectly cognisant now and then of each other’s publications. Both men, along with their followers (and this is all that needs interest us), have obviously been under the influence of ideas that have long been in the air about the need of a philosophy that is “more truly empirical”[64] than the traditional philosophy, and more truly inclined to “discover what is involved in our actions in the ultimate recess, when, unconsciously and in spite of ourselves, we support existence and cling to it whether we completely understand it or not.”[65]