Pragmaticism
Pragmaticism
Pragmatism in Peirce’s sense. The name adopted in 1905 by Charles S. Peirce (1893-1914) for the doctrine of pragmatism (q.v.) which had been enunciated by him in 1878. Peirce’s definition was as follows”In order to ascertain the meaning of an intellectual conception one should consider what practical consequences might conceivably result by necessity from the truth of that conception, and the sum of these consequences will constitute the entire meaning of the conception”. According to Peirce, W. James had interpreted pragmatism to mean “that the end of man is action”, whereas Peirce intended his doctrine as “a theory of logical analysis, or true definition,” and held that “its merits are greatest in its application to the highest metaphysical conceptions”. “If one can define accurately all the conceivable experimental phenomena which the affirmation or denial of a concept could imply, one will have therein a complete definition of the concept, and there is absolutely nothing more in it”. Peirce hoped that the suffix, -icism, might mark his more strictly defined acception of the doctrine of pragmatism, and thus help to distinguish it from the extremes to which it had been pushed by the efforts of James, Schiller, Papini, and others. — J.K.F.