For my Final Presentation, I will be talking about Chapter 5: Truth and Consequences of Sick Souls, Healthy Minds.
William James did not have a pragmatic view in his philosophy until later in his life. He believed that in order to be a pragmatist you need to explore life, experience it. The pragmatic method nowadays can be considered the scientific method or empirical testing. James compared it to a hallway with a hundred different doors all unlocked, all leading anywhere. James’s Pragmatic theory of Truth was his way of trying to find the middle ground between the tough-minded and the tender-minded. That there was value to both sides. He believed that a person's attitude or temperament affected how they approach ideas and truth. His theory suggested that truth is attributed to our ideas. There are many facts out there for us to find but truth is the story of those facts. James said, "Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its own verifying itself, its verification. Its validity is the process of its valid- action" Kaag talks about how truth can be a matter of representation. He says that ideas come in the form of abstractions or signs. Such as a song that reflects the rhythm of life or a painting eliciting fleeting feelings. These can be true depending on how they work in the world. James said successful ideas can come true. Not just by one individual's idea or situation but by a multitude of people's ideas. An idea can become successful if an idea moves forward over time by tests conducted by many people. We test our ideas against our experience. Society can deem what is normal and what is taboo based on our experiences. He said there are two kinds of truths. Complete truths can be achieved in the long run, but anyone hardly ever reaches it. So, we go through life with little truths. They can guide us through our daily lives sort of successfully. James said, “We have to live through today by the truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it false hood.” He said we must take accountability for the consequences of our ideas. We must be faithful to the realities that shape our ideas but if we ignore these realities or disregarded ideas, we are not following the pragmatic method. We must seek out our sensational termini (end point) with others. We must look at other people's consequences and see if the two end points reach the same ideas. Experience is a common ground, so our ideas need to be checked to see if the idea is real or has meaning. Consequences was the final verdict in Somone's truths. In his book Pragmatism, he explained that the consequences were yet to be decided. Truths were verified by the practical consequences. We all know that he was not a fan of determinism. James said that we use free will to grow and experience the world around us. He said we use it to live out our truths to endure the human condition.
I wanted to get into a little about his time as teacher at Harvard. James taught Philosophy at Harvard and brought his pragmatic theory to the classroom. He encouraged his students to think about the difficult questions of life. He taught his students that philosophy still had life and death significance by broaching the controversial topics of truth, death, God, freedom, evil and suffering. He wanted his students to come together and share their ideas. To create their truths. He basically wrote a how to be a decent teacher guide. He wanted other teachers to help expand the minds of their students. Break out of the societal norms. Experience living instead of muting it. We cannot say we are truly living if we are to stay in a mold society formed for us. Breaking the societal norms that other people or ourselves put on us can be a hard change but James believed that our lives can be invigorating. Like we learned in chapter four about consciousness, once we experience something, we cannot go back to the way it was. It can be good to break out of your bubble. Taking control of your own life and living your truths is the responsible thing to do as long as you take accountability.
Discussion Questions
-Do you believe that in order for your idea to be true and useful it has to have practical consequences?
-Do you believe philosophy is experimental?
This is my draft, forgot to put at the top.
ReplyDelete"William James did not have a pragmatic view in his philosophy until later in his life." Well, I'd say it was already implicit in his earliest thought but didn't become explicit until he encountered Renouvier. He was more a stoic prior to that, later a stoic pragmatist.
ReplyDelete"...he was not a fan of determinism." Personally he was not, but as a pragmatist he was willing to grant that it "works" for some.
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