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1. Welcome to Philosophy

Introduction 6

  • Pragmatism:
    • Father of Pragmatism: Charles Peirce (1839-1914).
    • Pragmatism insists that any theory which can prove itself truer than its competing theories is nearer the truth.
  • Positivism:
    • Father of Positivism: Auguste Comte (1798-1857).
    • Positivism is closer to “Are you positive about that?” than it is to “think positive!” It is the view that the avenue to authentic knowledge is via testing and proving it;
    • It is the same as the scientific method.
  • Realism:
    • Father of Realism: Thucydides (460-395 BCE).
    • Realism, in the simplest and most general terms, is the view that all phenomena and entities have an objective reality.
    • That is, a reality completely independent of our understanding of it/them.

Pragmatism

Definition 1

  • An ideology or proposition is true if it works satisfactorily, that the meaning of a proposition is to be found in the practical consequences of accepting it, and that unpractical ideas are to be rejected.
  • Pragmatism originated in the United States during the latter quarter of the nineteenth century.
  • Big names:
    • Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914): Father of Pragmatism. Mathematician, logician, and philosopher.
    • William James (1842-1910): First to use the term “pragmatism”. Psychologist and philosopher.
    • John Dewey (1859-1952): Most influential pragmatist. Father of instrumentalism.
    • Richard Rorty (1931-2007): Neo-pragmatist.

Some Pragmatist Themes and Theses 1

  • A Method and A Maxim: No sense can be made of the idea that there are facts that can not be known in principle.
  • Anti-Cartesianism: The mind is not a separate substance from the body.
  • The Kantian Inheritance: Pragmatism is a form of empiricism.
  • Against the Spectator Theory of Knowledge: Knowledge is not a matter of representing the world as it is, but of coping with it.
  • Beyond The Correspondence Theory of Truth: Truth is not a matter of correspondence between a belief and a fact, but of the belief’s successful performance in inquiry.

What Is Pragmatism? 2

  • The truth or meaning of an idea or a proposition lies in its observable practical consequences rather than in any metaphysical attributes.
  • Can be summarized by: “whatever works, is likely true”.
  • As what works can change, so can the truth, thus, truth is relative, and no one has the absolute truth.
  • Philosophical concepts should be judged according to their practical uses and successes, not on the basis of abstractions.

Positivism 3

  • Our common good must surely include and embrace three things:
    • The growth of intelligence and the realization of scientific knowledge;
    • The growth of our capacity to appreciate and create the beautiful;
    • The growth of our capacity to perform those more directly social duties which we generally distinguish as practical.

Auguste Comte 5

  • Auguste Comte (1798-1857) was the first to use the term “positivism”:
  • Three fundamental elements of society:
    • The state of intellectual knowledge;
    • The political government of the state generated by the first;
    • The artistic, philosophical, and economic civilization that is generated by the first two.
  • His views are the opposite of Marx’s, who believed that the economic system was the most important element of society which generates the political regime which in turn generates the intellectual knowledge.
  • Marx sees the need for a revolutionary change in the material distribution of the means of production. While Comte sees the need for a change in the intellectual distribution of knowledge.
  • Comte’s Law of Three Stages (every civilization goes through these stages, one after the other):
    • Theological Stage:
      • The human mind seeks the essential nature of things and the primary causes of all phenomena.
      • Knowledge: Will of invisible beings. A world full of spirits and gods. Magical religion.
      • Politics: Theocratic, Authoritarian, Militaristic.
    • Metaphysical Stage:
      • The human mind seeks the abstract and general causes of all phenomena.
      • Knowledge: Abstract concepts, natures, philosophical inquiry seeking causes in beings.
      • Politics: Legalistic, Ecclesiastical, Hierarchical.
    • Positive Stage:
      • The human mind seeks the relations between phenomena and the laws that govern them.
      • KnowledgeL Observation, Experimentation, Scientific method, and asking how and why.
      • Politics: Technological, Industrial, Scientific.
  • The United Christian theology held together the social order of the Middle Ages (first state: Theological).
  • In 19th-century France, the transition was made from the second to the third stage; but there was no united intellectual basis of knowledge to hold society together.
  • Comte’s two effects of the new positive philosophy:
    • It will make possible a new science of sociology based on social facts that will make social engineering possible.
    • It will provide a principle of unity to unite all of the sciences under the banner of positivism in order to stabilize the social order.

Realism 4

  • Neorealism is a parody of science.
  • It relies on a process akin to natural selection to shape the behavior of units in a world where successful strategies are not necessarily passed on to successive leaders and where the culling of less successful units rarely occurs.
  • It refers to the reality of any material objects exist independently of the human mind.
  • What one perceives is real, and it is out there existing in concrete reality.
  • It is the opposite of idealism which thinks that everything is an abstract concept produced by the mind.

References

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  1. PRAGMATISM: DEFINITION AND PHILOSOPHERS.” Philosophy and Philosophers, https://iep.utm.edu/pragmati/. ↩↩

  2. Cline, Austin. (2017, October 5). What Is Pragmatism? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-pragmatism-250583 ↩

  3. Mellone, S.H. (1897). Some of the Leading Ideas of Comte’s Positivism. International Journal of Ethics, 8(1), 73-86. Available via your JSTOR access on the UoPeople Homepage and: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2375350.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ad91b1a5ae987d106b92b482e0b272303 Read the entire passage from 73 – 86. Consider the author’s position on Comte’s Positivism regarding Man’s obligation to his community. This will be a Discussion topic this week and you may see some of these assertions in quizzes or tests. ↩

  4. Lebow, R. N. (June 9, 2008). The Ancient Greeks and Modern Realism: Ethics, Persuasion, and Power. In Bell, D. (Ed.), Political Thought and International Relations (26-40). Verlag: Oxford University Press. https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/1832273/mod_book/chapter/489981/Political_Thought_and_International_Relations_Vari..._----_%282._The_Ancient_Greeks_and_Modern_Realism_Ethics_Persuasion_and_Power%29.pdf ↩

  5. Anadale, C. (2017). Comte’s Law of Three Stages [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqv4Q5e8-R4 ↩

  6. UoPeople (2024). PHIL 1402: Introduction to Philosophy. University of the People. Unit 1: Welcome to Philosophy. Learning Guide. ↩