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Fri Jan 9 08:30:12 CST 2015

 Interestingly, and no doubt quite objection-promptingly, here's what a
modern-day pragmatist, the late Richard Rorty, thought of W James and T
Pynchon, among others:

[Neal Stephenson’s] *Snow Crash* capitalizes on the widespread belief that
giant corporations, and a shadowy behind-the-scenes government acting as an
agent for the corporations, now make all the important decisions. This
belief finds expression in popular thrillers like Richard Condon's *Manchurian
Candidate* and *Winter Kills*, as well as in more ambitious works like
Thomas Pynchon’s *Vineland* and Norman Mailer’s *Harlot’s Ghost*. The view
that the visible government is just a false front is a plausible
extrapolation from the fact that we are living in a Second Gilded Age: even
Mark Twain might have been startled by the shamelessness with which our
politicians now sell themselves.

Novels like Stephenson’s, Condon’s, and Pynchon’s are novels not of social
protest but rather of rueful acquiescence in the end of American hopes. […]
William James thought that [Henry] Adams' diagnosis of the First Gilded Age
as a symptom of irreversible moral and political decline was merely
perverse. James’s pragmatist theory of truth was in part a reaction against
the sort of detached spectatorship which Adams affected. For James, disgust
with American hypocrisy and self-deception was pointless unless accompanied
by an effort to give America reason to be proud of itself in the future.

>From Richard Rorty: *Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in
Twentieth-Century America*. Harvard University Press 1998. P. 5-9.

Heikki

On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 1:09 AM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
wrote:

> James' school of psychology was actually "Functionalist," pragmatic as
> that sounds, and centered its focus on adaptive functionality. He borrowed
> heavily from Darwin and ever-left-out James Mark Baldwin--in fact, Baldwin
> once said he gave his theories such awkward names so that James would be
> less tempted to steal them. Baldwin's developmentalism wound up heavily
> influencing Piaget, who studied briefly under him in France. Baldwin went
> from being a rising star in psychology in the US to a life of ostracism
> when he got caught having a dalliance with a client. Unethical as we know
> that is, Freud, Jung, and others of the era had pronounced dalliances--but
> they were not Americans, after all. So Baldwin eventually went to France
> where he was able to pick up the teaching gig, at least, for a while. In
> the end, he died in obscurity, having had a noteworthy if unmentioned
> influence on early psych theory. James fell out of fashion in psych pretty
> quickly after his death, and Functionalism is a mostly forgotten school.
>
> As regards history of philosophy books, Durant's History of Philosophy was
> quite entertaining and enlightening as a foundational text. I read it when
> I was reading instead of going to college as a young lad. He also liked to
> write philosophy, so some of that naturally wound up in his work. He seemed
> especially intrigued with G. Santayana, who also might bear some fruit in
> re: pragmatism, though he was not an American. He is as frequently
> misquoted as is Twain.
>
> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 10:49 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Well, yes it was a history but I thought it easily had enough
>> philosophy to qualify.
>>
>> There are TONS of pure philosophy texts if that is what was/is wanted.
>> Even popular books, paperbacks from the past even, that have 'the ideas".
>>
>> Pierce revolutionized Logic, yes on Semiotics before Saussere and Eco
>> and others.
>> Pierce STARTED, virtually created Pragmatism, which he called
>> Pragmaticism. he did not like the word Pragmatism. James
>> credited him with starting it.
>> The word 'success' is the misleading word, imho. Our use creates THE
>> MEANING ITSELF. It purposely refuted all Philosophy-only-in-the-head
>> thinking....Platonic, Scholastic, almost anything starting with a
>> 'ideal' abstract definition.
>>
>> I would argue the American strain of "philosophy" has little truck
>> with pure 'logical analysis", yet it is still Philosophy.
>> And, as you say, Very American.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 1:05 PM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Yup -  I did read the Menand book  - great book!  But it's not a
>> philosophy book - it's a history book which tries to explain some outline
>> Pragmatism and the men who developed that kind of thinking.  A friend of
>> mine who has studied  philosophy all his life was very upset that the book
>> spent more time on the development of the ideas than on the actual ideas
>> themselves.  He  said it was a piss-poor philosophy book.  I told him it
>> was not meant to be a philosophy book - it is a history book and it won the
>> Pulitzer in History in 2002.  (Had to look that one up!)
>> >
>> > Yes,  Peirce,  James, Dewey and probably Oliver Wendall Holmes all used
>> Pragmatism to develop their own thinking.   James was pretty good in his
>> psychology text as well as in "Varieties of Religious Experience"  (yes,  I
>> read that but so long, long ago.) Pierce used Pragmatism in logic and
>> semiotics.  Dewey's fields were Education and social reform.  Holmes used
>> them in making his decisions from the Supreme Court (and in his writings
>> about that).
>> >
>> > I suppose much of this depends on a definition of  "philosophy."  These
>> guys were like actual practitioners (not theoreticians) of philosophy.
>> Philosphers generally use logic alone - these guys used practical results
>> in the real world as well.
>> > "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 in (second down):
>> >         * PHILOSOPHY
>> > an approach that assesses the truth of meaning of theories or beliefs
>> in terms of the success of their practical application.
>> > (top of the Google search)
>> >
>> > Old joke:
>> > American thinking - Yes, that looks good in theory,  but does it work
>> on practice?
>> > French thinking - Yes,  that all fine and well in practice, but does it
>> fit with theory?
>> >
>> > Bek
>> > with no conclusions - Americans are NOT terribly philosophically minded
>> - interested in reading that Cornel West book - The Evasion of Philosophy
>> - it's here and on my wish list but I have too many books to read now!
>>  (Aaaaaaarrrrrggggg!!!!)
>> >
>> https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=EDkdjUUVLCIC&utm_source=na_Med&utm_medium=hasem&utm_content=100914&utm_campaign=BooksActAd&pcampaignid=MKT-EG-na-us-all-Med-hasem-bk-BooksActAd-100914-1&gclid=CMCCg9L9hMMCFSmx7Aod4RUAdg&gclsrc=ds
>> >
>> > Bekah
>> >
>> >> On Jan 8, 2015, at 9:25 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Ah, up my alley this time (as he rounds the corner off Main street and
>> >> 2nd Ave), Becky....Louis Menand, pretty terrif New Yorker guy and
>> >> ex-scholar and still writer of books, who tried real hard to fully
>> >> like Against the Day, wrote the book you want. THE METAPHYSICAL CLUB.
>> >> (He has also put together Pragmatism readers and other book
>> >> extensions).
>> >>
>> >> And I have read that book. A--And I know some patchwork philosophy.
>> >> And REAL philosophy was done. C.S. Pierce, who has gone around the
>> >> Plist a few times, is a still neglected Genius and Fountainhead.
>> >> James, who got more popular---the sad story of Pierce being shut out
>> >> of academic positions, so that he could not make a living, is very
>> >> sad. That Head of Harvard to whom Henry Adams sent--or maybe even
>> >> dedicated his Education, would, when called badmouth him...so, he
>> >> wouldn't get hired...James, a nice and good guy too, DID finally get
>> >> Pierce work at Johns Hopkins for awhile...and James and Dewey did do
>> >> good work...and, needless to say, pragmatism is a LOT MORE/OTHER THAN
>> >> WHAT WORKS...as the US has narrowed it to....
>> >>
>> >> See Pierce on Chance and wonder if TRP had it in mind for them Chums.
>> >>
>> >> I'll risk narrowing but Pierce and Others could be said to have
>> >> created the anti-Platonic, anti-Scholastic active methodology that it
>> >> is our use---of language and so much more---that determines its/our
>> >> meanings...
>> >>
>> >> There is a direct connection from another youthful
>> >> mathematician/philosopher who died way young, Paul Ramsey, to
>> >> Wittgenstein leading him to become, in his second book, the later
>> >> Wittgenstein (in his ideas), a pragmatist plus plus maybe.
>> >>
>> >> Anyway
>> >>
>> >> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 11:30 AM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>> Yep - that's why I typed it thusly - "(the method-"philosophy")" .
>> The real "Pragmatist" thinkers were more like practitioners of philosophy
>> than actual philosophers - for the most part they established methods but
>> not results although I'd submit that their eventual individual goals
>> included results.  The whole movement was a side-result of the Civil War.
>>  It might be interesting to look into the origins of Pragmatist thinking
>> *other than* the Civil War  - not necessarily written works,  but evidence
>> derived from the "American" experience including frontier life, the
>> Revolutionary War, development of the Constitution and other documents,
>> etc.  It came from somewhere - and it is SO American.
>> >>>
>> >>> Bek
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>> On Jan 8, 2015, at 8:13 AM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>> http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/0541.htm
>> >>>>
>> >>>> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 10:00 AM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>>>> I think "Pragmatism" (the method- "philosophy") likely bears on
>> almost any (not all)  reading of Americana.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Bekah
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>> On Jan 8, 2015, at 7:05 AM, Ian Livingston <
>> igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> Just reading about Wm James last evening. It turns out "inner
>> life" is a term he used meaningfully. The olde American functionalist /
>> pragmatist approach certainly bears on any reading of Pynchon, whether as
>> source or butt of the satire.
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 6:22 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> >>>>>> From: MarkKohut (via Twitter) <notify at twitter.com>
>> >>>>>> Date: Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:21 AM
>> >>>>>> Subject: MarkKohut (@MarkKohut) shared a conversation with you!
>> >>>>>> To: MarkKohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>>
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