William James And American Pragmatism

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Rebroadcast — Thursday, December 29, 2011 at 11:00 AM

Originally aired on Monday, January 3, 2011 at 11:00 AM EDT

William James And American Pragmatism

The whole idea of pragmatism was named and framed in America.

It’s the idea that ideas, beliefs, and philosophies should be judged by their results. If it works – really works – it’s good.

But this is not the pragmatism of “deals in the dark.” It means honestly lifting humanity and pushing forward.

And the great champion of pragmatism was the philosopher William James. He was maybe the most free-ranging thinker in American history. And he settled on this: what works.

In our time of high-ideology, we can use a dose of that. We look at American pragmatism, and William James.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Robert Richardson, American historian and biographer. He has edited a just-published collection of essays called “The Heart of William James.” His other books include “William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism” and “Emerson: The Mind on Fire.”

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst.

Here’s an excerpt from Richardson’s “The Heart of William James,” courtesy of Harvard University Press. It’s James’s essay “Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results.” Richardson gives an overview first:

“Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results” is, despite the flat-footed title, the “first blast of the trumpet of action against the abominable absolutists.” It is the opening announcement, given as a talk at Berkeley, California, in 1899, of what would be elaborated on in James’s Pragmatism in 1907. The philosophy of pragmatism, which James insisted on laying on the doorstep of his good friend and associate Charles S. Peirce, was for James a philosophy of action. He believed that the meaning of thought is “the production of belief,” and that “beliefs… are really rules for action.” He argues that we can evaluate actions better by their results than by their initial intentions or by their origins. “To develope a thought’s meaning,” he wrote, “we need only determine what conduct it is fitted to produce: that conduct is for us its sole significance.” James’s argument is “fruits not roots.” He goes on: “to attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only consider what effects of a conceivably practical kind the object may involve—what sensations we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must prepare.” He wanted to avoid verbal quibbles. “There can be no difference which doesn’t make a difference.”

Most of the Berkeley talk is, perhaps surprisingly, devoted to examining what pragmatism means for religion. If we examine “the meaning of conceptions by asking what difference they make for life,” then what difference does it make whether this world was made by God or by evolution? If we love creation, should we not be as grateful to the one possible cause as to the other? Here, as in so many places, William James’s way of looking at things is just as challenging now as it was a hundred years ago.

“Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results”

By William James

An occasion like the present would seem to call for an absolutely untechnical discourse. I ought to speak of something connected with life rather than with logic. I ought to give a message with a practical outcome and an emotional musical accompaniment, so to speak, fitted to interest men as men, and yet also not altogether to disappoint philosophers—since philosophers, let them be as queer as they will, still are men in the secret recesses of their hearts, even here at Berkeley. I ought, I say, to produce something simple enough to catch and inspire the rest of you, and yet with just enough of ingenuity and oddity about it to keep the members of the Philosophical Union from yawning and letting their attention wander away.

I confess that I have something of this kind in my mind, a perfectly ideal discourse for the present occasion. Were I to set it down on paper, I verily believe it would be regarded by everyone as the final word of philosophy. It would bring theory down to a single point, at which every human being’s practical life would begin. It would solve all the antinomies and contradictions, it would let loose all the right impulses and emotions; and everyone, on hearing it, would say, “Why, that is the truth!—that is what I have been believing, that is what I have really been living on all this time, but I never could find the words for it before. All that eludes, all that flickers and twinkles, all that invites and vanishes even whilst inviting, is here made a solidity and a possession. Here is the end of unsatisfactoriness, here the beginning of unimpeded clearness, joy, and power.” Yes, my friends, I have such a discourse within me! But, do not judge me harshly, I cannot produce it on the present occasion. I humbly apologize; I have come across the continent to this wondrous Pacific Coast—to this Eden, not of the mythical antiquity, but of the solid future of mankind—I ought to give you something worthy of your hospitality, and not altogether unworthy of your great destiny, to help cement our rugged East and your wondrous West together in a spiritual bond,—and yet, and yet, and yet, I simply cannot. I have tried to articulate it, but it will not come. Philosophers are after all like poets. They are path-finders. What everyone can feel, what everyone can know in the bone and marrow of him, they sometimes can find words for and express. The words and thoughts of the philosophers are not exactly the words and thoughts of the poets—worse luck. But both alike have the same function. They are, if I may use a simile, so many spots, or blazes,—blazes made by the axe of the human intellect on the trees of the otherwise trackless forest of human experience. They give you somewhere to go from. They give you a direction and a place to reach. They do not give you the integral forest with all its sunlit glories and its moonlit witcheries and wonders. Ferny dells, and mossy waterfalls, and secret magic nooks escape you, owned only by the wild things to whom the region is a home. Happy they without the need of blazes! But to us the blazes give a sort of ownership. We can now use the forest, wend across it with companions, and enjoy its quality. It is no longer a place merely to get lost in and never return. The poet’s words and the philosopher’s phrases thus are helps of the most genuine sort, giving to all of us hereafter the freedom of the trails they made. Though they create nothing, yet for this marking and fixing function of theirs we bless their names and keep them on our lips, even whilst the thin and spotty and half-casual character of their operations is most evident.

No one like the path-finder himself feels the immensity of the forest, or knows the accidentality of his own trails. Columbus, dreaming of the ancient East, is stopped by poor pristine simple America, and gets no farther on that day; and the poets and philosophers themselves know as no one else knows that what their formulas express leaves unexpressed almost everything that they organically divine and feel. So I feel that there is a center in truth’s forest where I have never been: to track it out and get there is the secret spring of all my poor life’s philosophic efforts; at moments I almost strike into the final valley, there is a gleam of the end, a sense of certainty, but always there comes still another ridge, so my blazes merely circle towards the true direction; and although now, if ever, would be the fit occasion, yet I cannot take you to the wondrous hidden spot to-day. To-morrow it must be, or to-morrow, or to-morrow; and pretty surely death will overtake me ere the promise is fulfilled.

Of such postponed achievements do the lives of all philosophers consist. Truth’s fulness is elusive; ever not quite, not quite! So we fall back on the preliminary blazes—a few formulas, a few technical conceptions, a few verbal pointers—which at least define the initial direction of the trail. And that, to my sorrow, is all that I can do here at Berkeley to-day. Inconclusive I must be, and merely suggestive, though I will try to be as little technical as I can.

I will seek to define with you merely what seems to be the most likely direction in which to start upon the trail of truth. Years ago this direction was given to me by an American philosopher whose home is in the East, and whose published works, few as they are and scattered in periodicals, are no fit expression of his powers. I refer to Mr. Charles S. Peirce, with whose very existence as a philosopher I dare say many of you are unacquainted. He is one of the most original of contemporary thinkers; and the principle of practicalism—or pragmatism, as he called it, when I first heard him enunciate it at Cambridge in the early ’70’s—is the clue or compass by following which I find myself more and more confirmed in believing we may keep our feet upon the proper trail.

Peirce’s principle, as we may call it, may be expressed in a variety of ways, all of them very simple. In the Popular Science Monthly for January, 1878, he introduces it as follows: The soul and meaning of thought, he says, can never be made to direct itself towards anything but the production of belief, belief being the demicadence which closes a musical phrase in the symphony of our intellectual life. Thought in movement has thus for its only possible motive the attainment of thought at rest. But when our thought about an object has found its rest in belief, then our action on the subject can firmly and safely begin. Beliefs, in short, are really rules for action; and the whole function of thinking is but one step in the production of habits of action. If there were any part of a thought that made no difference in the thought’s practical consequences, then that part would be no proper element of the thought’s significance. Thus the same thought may be clad in different words; but if the different words suggest no different conduct, they are mere outer accretions, and have no part in the thought’s meaning. If, however, they determine conduct differently, they are essential elements of the significance. “Please open the door,” and, “Veuillez ouvrir la porte,” in French, mean just the same thing; but “D—n you, open the door,” although in English, means something very different. Thus to develope a thought’s meaning we need only determine what conduct it is fitted to produce: that conduct is for us its sole significance. And the tangible fact at the root of all our thought-distinctions, however subtle, is that there is no one of them so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference of practice. To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only consider what effects of a conceivably practical kind the object may involve—what sensations we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must prepare. Our conception of these effects, then, is for us the whole of our conception of the object, so far as that conception has positive significance at all.

This is the principle of Peirce, the principle of pragmatism. I think myself that it should be expressed more broadly than Mr. Peirce expresses it. The ultimate test for us of what a truth means is indeed the conduct it dictates or inspires. But it inspires that conduct because it first foretells some particular turn to our experience which shall call for just that conduct from us. And I should prefer for our purposes this evening to express Peirce’s principle by saying that the effective meaning of any philosophic proposition can always be brought down to some particular consequence, in our future practical experience, whether active or passive; the point lying rather in the fact that the experience must be particular, than in the fact that it must be active.

To take in the importance of this principle, one must get accustomed to applying it to concrete cases. Such use as I am able to make of it convinces me that to be mindful of it in philosophical disputations tends wonderfully to smooth out misunderstandings and to bring in peace. If it did nothing else, then, it would yield a sovereignly valuable rule of method for discussion. So I shall devote the rest of this precious hour with you to its elucidation, because I sincerely think that if you once grasp it, it will shut your steps out from many an old false opening, and head you in the true direction for the trail.

One of its first consequences is this: Suppose there are two different philosophical definitions, or propositions, or maxims, or what not, which seem to contradict each other, and about which men dispute. If, by supposing the truth of the one, you can foresee no conceivable practical consequence to anybody at any time or place, which is different from what you would foresee if you supposed the truth of the other, why then the difference between the two propositions is no difference,—it is only a specious and verbal difference, unworthy of further contention. Both formulas mean radically the same thing, although they may say it in such different words. It is astonishing to see how many philosophical disputes collapse into insignificance the moment you subject them to this simple test. There can be no difference which doesn’t Make a difference—no difference in abstract truth which does not express itself in a difference of concrete fact, and of conduct consequent upon the fact, imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere, and somewhen. It is true that a certain shrinkage of values often seems to occur in our general formulas when we measure their meaning in this prosaic and practical way. They diminish. But the vastness that is merely based on vagueness is a false appearance of importance, and not a vastness worth retaining. The x’s, y’s, and z’s always do shrivel, as I have heard a learned friend say, whenever at the end of your algebraic computation they change into so many plain a’s, b’s, and c’s:—but the whole function of algebra is, after all, to get them into that more definite shape; and the whole function of philosophy ought to be to find out what definite difference it will make to you and me, at definite instants of our life, if this world-formula or that world-formula be the one which is true.

Electronically reproduced by permission of the publisher from THE HEART OF WILLIAM JAMES, edited by Robert Richardson, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Copyright © 2010. The essay “Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results” reprinted by permission of the publisher from THE WORKS OF WILLIAM JAMES – PRAGMATISM, Frederick Burkhardt, General Editor, Fredson Bowers, Textual Editor, Ignas K. Skrupskelis, Associate Editor, pp. 257–270, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1975 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Rebroadcast date(s)

Thursday, December 29, 2011 at 11:00 AM

Al Dorman

Tom, welcome back and what a topic!

What would James have to say about America’s post-war descent into foreign policy depravity? And how to change it?
PW in TX

I hope you’ll bring James Kloppenberg’s “Reading Obama” into the discussion.
Brett

I’m probably more familiar with the works of his brother, Henry, but I’ve always found William James’ views on epistemology valuable. I hope the discussion gets around to “radical empiricism” and “epistemological realism.”
Dan Berman

Hi Tom,
Great topic
I am currently reading “Variety of Religious Experience” by Wm. James. I read on Wikipedia that his parents were part of a mystical church group. What about that? Would his parents have been in a similar group of folks along with Huidini’s wife?
What was his parent’s influence on his religious beliefs?
Thanks,
Dan
Ken Salzman

From Lansing, MI

The identification of “what works” in society requires that there is a reasonably accurate portrayal to the public of “what is”. With the declaration that corporate entities have free speech rights and can therefore contribute unlimited amounts of money into campaigns, there is a sense that the rejected arguments of Michael Powell at the FCC will be renewed, and free speech will be the rationale for removing all regulations on media control and monopoly of the information stream. In the 1980′s another great mind, Richard Fineman, warned against the danger of “mind control”, by which he meant the filtering of information such that the public could not know what was truly going on. At this point, pragmatism becomes useless. If you do not know “what is”, you cannot determine “what works”.

Case in point: “Tax cuts promote jobs and the economy.” Asserted incessantly, but with no factual basis. Where can we be shown a period of tax cutting that did what was claimed? Certainly NOT 2001-2010.
Bryan

So far, guests are talking about pragmatism as if Marx didn’t write before James against idealisms. Can these speakers distinguish pragmatism from materialism?
Craig

I would like to hear about James’ relationship with Charles Peirce (pronounce Purse) and what James added to Peirce’s philosophy.
Will

Please ask your guest to comment on reconciling the philosophy of pragmatism with the question raised by Ursula K. Le Guin in her brilliant “…Omelas.” Specifically, please address the serious downsides of this way of approaching the world. While I do believe we must in fact be pragmatic, but please take account of the really dark history of the human species.
http://www.lilianabead.com Liliana Glenn

Could you please comment on the connection between social construction of reality and pragmatism?
Thanks
Lisa, Newton MA

Could Prof. Richardson clarify the relation for James of truth as “what works” and morality as “what is good,” or even as Richardson has repeated,”good for all of us.”

Many people object to pragmatism bec it seems to bring a crass type of consequentialist morality.

There are many propositions or ideologies that work and have “cash value” for individuals and groups, and as such are “true” to the realities of those groups: it is ok to rape women in war; it is good to promote the economic welfare of “our” class. That has cash value.

Doesn’t moral judgment require standards that go beyond what works pragmatically in the sense of correspondence between propositions and realities?

I like James but find this part of James’s thought fuzzy and wanting further explication.
L Armond

I first heard the term ‘anecdotal’ used disparagingly during the Reagan administration. What was needed, was their brand of research, and razzle dazzle, complete with tax write off and full time employment for dissemblers. No longer was it allowed to ‘be on point’ to report from what you had seen.’ Allowed postponement and allowing special interests to build a new place to be on the ‘vig.’
As for American medicine, it went down the drain then. Give me a Russian neurologists, with all the anecdotes, A Russian empiricist who developed the methods for studying open chanel flow from the rivers, and developing empirical equations. Give me anything but what we’ve got.
Alex Flynn

I hope you will touch on the differences between James’s idea of pragmatism and John Stuart Mill’s ideas on utilitarianism. What are the distinctions? Did James draw on Mill?

Also, James’s ideas on pragmatism seme very much like the basic tenets of Buddhism. Was he affected by “the Oversoul” discussions of Emerson and other “transcendentalists”? We possess all the individual power we need to change our attitudes on life and our response to individual and collective suffering and the betterment of humankind. The existence of a “God” need not be proven–what “works” is what lessens suffering. The ultimate agent is our consciousness and rationality, and as we expand our capacity to express compassion and accept our limitations, our lives and the world improves.
Terry

Happy New Year Tom, and Guests,
Pragmatic, isn’t that the opposite of ‘Doing the same thing the same way and expecting different results’? (one definition of insanity)
Obviously, each person’s pragmatism leads to what works for them.
Tax Breaks for the Rich, works for them, but I CHALLENGE them to prove that they have created jobs that equal or exceed 60% of their Tax Breaks over the entire last ten years!
Thanks for the show. Terry
Tom – Vermont

Hi Tom, please ask where is science in all of this and the scientific method which goes back ultimately to Francis Bacon
Charles Bernsen

As a scholar of religion, I have been greatly influenced by William James and those who followed him. I am thinking specifically of J.Z. Smith (also of the U of C)and his article “Map is not Territory,” which warns us that there will always be incongruencies between explanations of religion (our maps) and the reality of religion (territory). It is a warning against ideologues of all stripes — academic, political or economic. Our ideas about how the world — and particularly human society — works are not perfect.
Katherine Vroman

Is this the same Professor Richardson from Boston University? If so, I still remember his Humanities survey course from about 10 years ago… he gave me great marks on my papers!
Ellen Dibble, Northampton, MA

Weren’t the Jameses in the age of Transcendentalism, and sort of reprocessing religion into a more modern format? I hear about William James as a precedent to Alcoholics Anonymous, believing in transformation, and wondering what the James who wrote more about “Varieties of Religion” (a title, something like that, Henry James, psychology/religion in one book) would have thought about that.
Without the extent of born-again evangelical religious revivalism that was permeating the age (to listen to my grandparents’ hymn-singing, I deduce that), how can we judge William James’s approach to pragmatism?
Ana Troncoso

Good morning – I’ve been listening with interest, but would caution your guest on asserting that AA has been the most successfull alcohol treatment program ever. This has been strongly challenged by any number of studies. The much more sophisticated – and (in my opinion, successful) – approach posited by cognitive behavioral therapies are increasingly widespread and having a significant impact on the recovery community. I’d recommend the SMART Recovery website for those who are interested (http://www.SMARTRecovery.org).

My specific concern with your guest’s comment is that it carelessly, and lazily, propagates a singularly harmful myth: that AA is the best thing out there. In fact there are many, varied, secular – and yes, intensely pragmatic, approaches. Thank you.
http://challenginglachesis.blogspot.com Dave Eger

I don’t understand how there could even be a question about pragmatism, unless you really prefer living in a fairy tail because you are convinced there will be a happy ending. How can the ending be happy for everyone unless the path you took to get there was realistic. I’ve been browsing John Stuart Mill lately, and it seems like to me from your descriptions that he and William James would have gotten along well with their views of truth and utilitarianism.
Adrian from Rhode Island

Tom, Pragmatism means acting without reference to principles. How can we live without understanding our world in timeless principles like Existence Exists? Was it not Aristotle who observed A is A? I wish you would have at least one guest who could expose the deathly destructiveness of Pragmatism as expressed in the following quote from “For the New Intellectual.” http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/pragmatism.html

“[The Pragmatists] declared that philosophy must be *practical* and that practicality consists of dispensing with all absolute principles and standards—that there is no such thing as objective reality or permanent truth—that *truth is that which works,* and its validity can be judged only by its consequences—that no facts can be known with certainty in advance, and anything may be tried by rule-of-thumb—that reality is not firm, but fluid and “indeterminate,” that there is no such thing as a distinction between an external world and a consciousness (between the perceived and the perceiver), there is only an undifferentiated package-deal labeled “experience,” and whatever one wishes to be true, is true, whatever one wishes to exist, *does* exist, provided it works or makes one feel better.
A later school of more Kantian Pragmatists amended this philosophy as follows. If there is no such thing as an objective reality, men’s metaphysical choice is whether the selfish, dictatorial whims of an individual or the democratic whims of a collective are to shape that plastic goo which the ignorant call “reality,” therefore this school decided that *objectivity consists of collective subjectivism*—that knowledge is to be gained by means of public polls among special elites of “competent investigators” who can “predict and control” reality—that whatever people wish to be true, *is* true, whatever people wish to exist, *does* exist, and anyone who holds any firm convictions of his own is an arbitrary, mystic dogmatist, since reality is indeterminate and people determine its actual nature. ”

Listening to this post-Kantian, this postmodern meaningless prattle of your guests, Robert Richardson and Jack Beatty, only confirms the truth of Ayn Rand’s assessment of pragmatism. Tom, you ask whether America should be pragmatic again. Don’t you understand that that is what we are very much now? That in every aspect of life we act without reference to principles? Should I not expect something a little better from you?
Marc J Scott

It would seem that, in the world of government, statesmen are pragmatists and politicions are ideologues.
Ellen Dibble, Northampton, MA

In an age when truth and dogma were so important, then James’s quandaries merit scrutiny. To me, this sort of philosophy liberates me from seeing truth as an issue. If truth is three-dimensional and varies from person to person, I can take that. Maybe it was Einstein saying tolerating ambiguity is a mark of intelligence helps.
Linda Arena

It is difficult to have lasting change on a personal, practical level without being willing to step back and look at what is true for yourself as an individual. Lasting change is based in shifts of base beliefs. Self-awareness comes into play, but I find that self-judgement often gets in the way before people get to self-awareness. Strong, self-aware people who take practical actions based on their beliefs today, make for a strong society.
Tom – Vermont

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, said you must have subjective experience of the world verified by the scientific method.
Maharishi’s 3 aspects to verification to make it valid (paraphrasing):–
— Subjective experience, references to authorities in the field, and objective verification through science and logic.

James had maybe one of these?
http://Brookline,MA Dan McLaughlin

Hi.

Interesting to think about James and the link to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the idea that changing the way you think about how you feel can change the way you feel (if I have it at all right).

Interesting that he prioritizes action, and yet at the same time deeply values the way we represent our actions to ourselves, so that it is not one at the expense of the other. I would be interested to see if he had any kind of relationship with Henri Bergson or other early phenomenologists.

Thanks for this topic.
David Ward

“The greatest good for the greatest number”? This brings up the classic problem of Utilitarianism, itself an unworkable “ideal”…Who judges what is “good” & what if you are part of an unpopular minority? What if what is the “greatest good” is to “decrease the surplus population”?
Joel Potter

If public policy is to be determined in the pragmatic fashion–according to what works–is there not the problem of competing accounts of what it means for something to work? I think the gridlock in the political arena is due to fundamental disagreements about what is good. How could pragmatism resolve this?
Linda Arena, Westborough, MA

One more thing… If someone is truely self-aware, then they are faced with the prospect of changing what you don’t like for the better. That can be hard, and people tend to avoid the difficult when possible. Fact is easier to deal with.
Steve L

I heard a show/discussion on NPR that talked about research that demonstrated that previously held beliefs are maintained, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Any contradictory evidence are used by the “believer” as a demonstration that, not only are their beliefs true, but that there are those who conspire against those beliefs.

This suggests that any change in beliefs are truly rare if not impossible, at least as a result of logical argument.

This is especially true in an environment where one’s beliefs can easily supported by tuning in to the right channel.

Introspection is a lost art.

Steve in Nashville
Ana Troncoso

It’s the idea that ideas, beliefs, and philosophies should be judged by their results. If it works – really works – it’s good.

So: Efficacy is the proof in the pudding:
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html

And any number of other papers. Have hard copies of more complete scholarly research.

Listen to WBUR, 90.9 FM, online.
http://youtube.com/flyhaf Matt

Ayn Rand’s (?) quote can’t “expose” pragmatism by taking such a straw man caricature to be representative of it. Objectivists (are they still called that?) are uncomfortable with any argument that questions ideologies that cannot be tied to concrete testable results–guess why?

The collective nature of James’ coherence view of truth keeps it from dissolving into radical subjectivism. For James, truth is a property of statements, made by people. For a statement to be true (to me) it must 1) “work” and 2) “cohere” with my other beliefs.

With this in mind, I cannot believe 1) that gravity does not apply to me and therefore I may leave this building from the 6th floor (or to be scrupulously accurate, I may believe it but *not for very long*), or 2) that I both own, and do not own, a dalmatian. The first does not “work”, the second does not “cohere”.

Idealogues like Randians (or Marxists) have a religious faith in their “true” vision of the world, and therefore no amount of failed prediction can shift them. Neither world view is pragmatic. Hence *of course* objectivists would like to “expose” pragmatism.

But the generalization quoted won’t cut that pot of mustard.
Brett

I tend toward cringing a little bit when I hear the phrase “what works” as batted around today on the show. I deal with a lot of the concepts touched on today in my own field of psychology. In professional settings, staff usually faction off into different camps, and whichever approach a particular faction wants to believe “works,” usually based in some kind of ideology in conjunction with whatever makes patients more manageable to staff, usually wins out, especially if that saves money and requires less labor and training. I hear the phrase “what works” all the time.

Half a century ago, chemical, mechanical, physical restraints and seclusion seemed to keep recalcitrant patients more docile, easier to manage. Then, about the time I got into the field around thirty five years ago, behavioral and cognitive behavioral therapies began to take root. Patients seemed harder to handle, requiring more skills and knowledge of staff and prompting staff to take sides on which strategy “works.”

If “works” can be defined better in the more holistic and long-term sense then I am ready to listen.

If someone who is violent, say, and has been medicated by a staff thinking he/she has a magic bullet (what “works”) is this “better”? In terms of helping the patient come to terms with his/her illness and to get him/her to come to some form of self-realization/self-actualization, does medicating them to the point of docile torpor get at those necessary ingredients to wellness all by itself?

Budgetary concerns also play a role: it’s easier and more cost-effective to teach staff medication administration than to teach staff to be well versed in behavioral and cognitive behavioral techniques. Those techniques don’t quite get the desired magic bullet effect proponents of, may I say, “overmedication” want. To rely on an array of therapies seems to work best; and, as subjective as everything is, valiant, reasonable, workable attempts can be made to objectify something and make it measurable, which often means discarding belief as a baseline…

Getting back to James, he, from what I understand, was advocating for a reality borne out of looking at something more holistically and comprehensively to determine its value (what “works”).

Pragmatism is a very subjective term. I hope I can keep that in mind every day; I think I do a pretty good job of it. I consider myself more of a patient advocate than most of my colleagues (maybe that’s because of my previous job as a county case manager, or maybe that’s why I decided to get into the field in the first place). I am not in my business to keep its funding streams happy as much as I am in my business to help people come to terms with their illnesses, albeit I am in a semi-retired state from that world. I keep close the idea of “least restrictive, least intrusive.”

I am also a musician, music teacher and run a landscape company. Many of my friends also in the same businesses take the easy route (seemingly what “works”), e.g., play (musician) commercially viable music to maximize gigging; give (music) students only what pleases them and makes their parents happy to keep business booming; use whatever (landscaping) approaches are necessary to keep customers coming (lawn care, pesticide/fertilizer use, etc.). I don’t go that route; I believe those approaches ultimately don’t work and are not good in the long term.
http://youtube.com/flyhaf Matt

I think that “what works” is an example, Brett, of what one of the guests referred to (possibly in a quote?) as James’ “unfortunate felicity with language.”

It need not *necessarily* be equated with satisficing (good enough), although I agree it is a bit cringe-worthy. If one remembers that James is popularizing a philosophy not of his own invention, it becomes a bit easier to dismiss, but to put it in context, the kinds of ideas that interested James were beliefs, beliefs are those ideas upon which people are willing to act, and it is our *actions* that have consequences, intended or otherwise. If I *believe* that the best way to greet Harley riders is to run up and scratch their bikes with my keys, and I put that belief into “practice”, which shares an etymological root with ‘pragmatic’, I will soon find out whether that potential truth about the world–which, incidentally, can only be assessed in a communal context–”works”, and hence, is true.

I agree, however, Jimi Hendrix didn’t play “just good enough to get gigs”. But then, truth in art and “what works” in art are separate topics. Aren’t they?
The Sober Alcoholic

This was a GREAT show! I’m a grateful member of AA and often hear from old timers that “AA is based on the bible.” But when I look at the bible…. that statement doesn’t make sense. Today I heard about William James, and how his writings influenced Bill W.

I just ordered “William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism” written by your guest. I am hopeful that more will be revealed!

Thank you very much for a FANTASTIC show today!!!
Ron (Providence RI)

As for religion, the father of William and Henry James was a Swedenborgian.

Even apart from their immense legacies, the story of the James famiy is a fascinating one. I’d strongly encourage anyone interested to go searching. Their years in Newport RI are particularly interesting (there are several buildings extant in Newport which figure into the boys upbringing).

One interesting aspect is William’s desire to study art; the artists William Morris Hunt and John LaFarge figure into young William’s story.

And there is a charming image of the James boys and the Civil War hospital in Melville (Portsmouth) RI, where soldiers were sent to recuperate on the shores of Narragansett Bay. As young teenagers, William and Henry would sail their little skiff up to Melville to visit with the wounded soldiers.

As history, as biography, as background, the James family is almost endlessly fascinating (and variously understood or misunderstood by those who wrote about them). We see William Sr. preaching in Trinity Church in Newport, the boys on Kay Street and in their home on Thames Street (now a funeral home), visiting with Oliver Wendell Holmes in Boston, Henry as a young volunteer fireman in Newport who was injured while fighting a fire, the very interesting character of their sister Alice, the family’s very important move to Cambridge MA. It would make a great “Masterpiece Theater” series.

Thanks, Tom, for taking up the topic of William James. We’ll hope for an encore.
Ben

Nice idea. One big problem. The world is so complicated with multiple causes with varying degrees of effects and consequences (intended and unintended). You can make your data so broad as to be inconclusive, or you can it so narrow as to be meaningless.

Sociologist and Economist can’t predict very far into the future with any accuracy, and even the people doing postmortems on economic history can’t seem to agree on what caused what. The problem is that large scale social policy experiments are not repeatable and modern human history is too short to provide a good data set on Policy vs Effect. Once we’ve been around for a few more millennia, we’ll have a reasonable data set to start making inferences on effective policy.

Then we can start being truly Pragmatic.
Brett

Thanks, Matt, for the comment…and the link!!!

I do think James was thinking big (my “holistic and comprehensive”) and that gets diminished in the “what works” refrain. When testing potential truths one has to be really honest with oneself, and with the process, about outcomes; if they “work” there’d better be some kind of consistent data to support them, and those data have to be set up without skewing their collection with outcomes in mind (so as not to only capture information that fits one’s beliefs).

Anyway, I’d rather talk music Great voice!

I’ve been working with a resonator guitar on and off for three years, not so much as a solo instrument but for flavor as accompaniment.
Brett

Ben, I was ready to go elsewhere and realized there was one comment left to read. Great comment! That’s about all I have time for just now
Potter

Tom promised were going to discuss Obama vis a vis pragmatism- we did not– or maybe I missed it. I have an idea that Obama’s way is not the pragmatism of William James despite Kloppenberg’s thesis.
D. Joseph

I know this is off topic. I believe Robert Richardson made the claim that AA is the most successful program for treating alcoholism. Although this is widely believed to be true, it is not supported by evidence. Most research suggests that AA’s success rate is 5%. It’s great for the few people it does help, but overall not very effective and no better than the recovery rate of alcoholics who receive no treatment.
Ellen Dibble, Northampton, MA

As to what “works” pragmatically for art, it seems to me that’s the “Side A” argument. When 45-rpm records were put out by popular artists (like Elvis Presley), the song on side B was one that would not sell by itself. The “good” songs were always on separately purchasable items. If people are going to a gig to hear a band play certain signature songs or pieces, then that “works,” but the growth and development of the artist probably depends on his or her getting exposure for new things that are not (yet) big draws. Not canon. Some forms of art/some artists may have nonstop “hits.” I’m thinking of the Norman Rockwell museum near me, where apparently everything he did “worked.” No, I haven’t been there. I’m just sayin’.
About the Jameses’ lives, I would like more of that and less of the mental contortions they put themselves through. I read a lot of both in college, and thought (a) religious “truth” and other philosophical and behavioral rigidities of their era “played” their brains like twin guitars. They had the wits for it, and the family for it, and the “connections.” I would want to say, “Get over it; come join me in the late 20th century where we have better things to worry about than the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.”
I believe I heard a reviewer on NPR saying that one of them (William?) was bisexual, and that “colored” this or that in his perceptions, and why am I not at all surprised.
Being “different” in that way at that time seemed to turn plenty of people into artists and philosophers (Oscar Wilde, notably), as if the usual platitudes did not fit together for them at all, and so such individuals had to toss out the platitudes, all the “given truth,” and question everything. This disruption in cultural perspective was surely much more disruptive than anything about their sexual orientation, but I think the two aspects are often intertwined. (
It might be said that religion’s given truths circa 1895 was often counterproductive, ruining lives more than healing them, frightening people into ostracism (doing it or being subjected to it) and so forth. At the time, people weren’t so likely to write a psychological treatise, based on broad government-funded scientific study samples, upon The Value of Condemning People to Hell (for instance). So they wrote about the value of pragmatism itself, or this one did.
Ishmael

James was not a psychologist although, as with Freud, his contributions to the field of psycholgy are inestimable.
Many psychologists probably wish he had been.
http://osopher.wordpress.com/ Phil Oliver

Thanks for this show! It was a pleasure to meet Mr. Richardson in James’s Chocorua, NH last August on the occasion of the centenary of WJ’s death. Americans don’t know their own philosophical heritage, in the way that the French know Descartes & Sartre & Montaigne, and the Greeks Plato & Aristotle, and the Germans Hegel & Nietzsche… this is a small but important step towards rectifying that. More, please! (Maybe Dewey next?)
Victoria

Hey Tom: for “Helots”, see Meet John Doe, Walter Brennan’s famous and awesome run-down of the word, and of American culture’s entrapments -
definitely NOT peasants!

Happy New Year!
Judi Holdeman

What caught my attention, while listenting to the program on William James and American Pragmatism, was mention of a reality that belonged to and could be utilized by each of us; that the understanding of reality did not belong soley to scientists, etc. There is book, Science of Mind by Ernest Holmes, which tells of a system wherein we can learn about the reality of who we are and how to (actually, how we presently do) use this reality to consciously create the lives we want (and the lives we have already created unconsciously because we are always creating our lives out of this reality). Ernest Holmes was a student of Emerson and his philosophy is incredible. Happy New Year from Judi in Oregon.
http://www.greatvisioncare.com John Abbondanza

Tom, Great show!! I am sorry I missed it live! I did’t know much about James’ philosophy of pragmatism (until your program), but I know a lot about his psychology. His textbook “Principles of Psycology” is widely quoted today in neuroscientific journals and books. As a behavioral optometrist specializing in vision and learning, I have found his name referenced in many, many current publications. That is amazing for a textbook written over 100 yrs ago! So much so that I bought a copy and am working my through the 1600 pages. Very interesting reading.

To respond to Dan M. above, James’ psychology of emotion is not so much what you think changes how you feel, but rather your body responds to its environment and that response is felt, which then is interpreted as emotion. So the racing heartbeat and sweating palms after seeing the lion in the jungle come first, then you experience the feeling of fear. If you want a more updated view of emotion very much in line with James’ (and an easier read!), see Joseph LeDoux’s “The Emotional Brain” or Antonio Damasio’s “Descartes’ Error” or “Looking for Spinoza”.

And don’t get me started on how entrenched views are so difficult to change in spite of evidence to the contrary (RE Steve from Nashville’s comment). Maybe the ‘noble savage’ isn’t so noble after all.

Your loyal listener, John Abbondanza
Potter, Boylston, Ma

Jack Beatty, whose comments I usually appreciate went, at the end of this show, went on about what Obama said after the tax compromise- about needing to govern all of the people in their best interests. This could not be a defense of Obama vis a vis pragmatism as defined on the show. Obama was more about capitulation for political expediency as is the Obama reversal now of the provision in the health care bill for end of life planning out of fear that it will be cast as an indication of “death panels”. Very disappointing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/health/policy/05health.html?src=me&ref=health
Martin Billups

I agree with Mr James. I think if any expierence you have in life that changes your life is indeed real. There are some people that have lived their entire life as criminals. These same people could go to church one day and be called by God to begin preaching the word of God. Some may say he is faking but you can’t despute the fact this person is no longer stealing and hanging out with other criminals. There are also people who worship the sun, to them the sun is God. They pray daily to the sun and leave gifts for the sun in order to get blesssings. There actions are as real as any other actions.

Martin Billups
Emjones

Good show!

Just a note: The Big Book of AA was written while holding the Varieties of Religious Experience in one hand. Its influence on this book and the resulting organization was profound.
adrian

America’s contribution to the field of philosophy was pragmatism. The essence of pragmatism is to act without reference to principles. This show and Jack Beatty’s enthusiasm are good examples of pragmatism in action; and so is the chaotic and deplorable state of our nation.

�
Philosopher Leonard Peikoff in his book “The Ominous Parallels” wrote about pragmatism: “In the whirling Heraclitean flux which is the pragmatist’s universe, there are no absolutes. There are no facts, no fixed laws of logic, no certainty, no objectivity.

There are no facts, only provisional “hypotheses” which for the moment facilitate human action. There are no fixed laws of logic, only mutable “conventions,” without any basis in reality. (Aristotle’s logic, Dewey remarks, worked so well for earlier cultures that it is now overdue for a replacement.) There is no certainty—the very quest for it, says Dewey, is a fundamental aberration, a “perversion.” There is no objectivity—the object is created by the thought and action of the subject.”�
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For the curious I recommend you study some of the articles at:
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/pragmatism.html
http://www.facebook.com/people/Paul-Nevins/100000745772058 Paul Nevins

“Pragmatism, interestingly enough America’s greatest contribution to philosophic tradition …feeds itself on the Lockean settlement on the Lockean settlement. it is only when you take your ethics for granted that all problems emerge as problems of technique.” – Louis Hartz, “The Liberal Tradition In America.”
Isn’t the emphasis upon personal experience – that Locke insisted was the basis of knowledge – inherently subjective, relativistic and potentially anti-intellectual since it denies the efficacy of received wisdom, books, etc?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Paul-Nevins/100000745772058 Paul Nevins

If, as James argued, there is no objective truth, then there can be no such thing as the public good only an aggregation of competing social atoms.
Eric

Thanks for repeating this show! I will be listening to the repeat tonight too. The listener questions are fantastic. this show is A thought provoking dose of philosophy and a topic worth revisiting. I will have to follow-up on these ideas because I really don’t have a choice. we are discussing the kind of essential intellectual struggle that is really a part of everyday life. (whether or not we choose to deal with it)
Do I like James? I don’t know yet, but the conversation got to me, so I will have to find out.
Thanks.
http://whilewestillhavetime.blogspot.com/ John Hamilton

Great conversation, though it did showTom Ashbrook’s interviewing style in stark relief. He asked great questions, but in an elevated manner, hyping up the intensity, which the guest calmed back down. This is an interesting linguistic approach, hystericizing ordinary interaction. If he were to interview already hyper personages in “American” life, like Robin Williams or Glenn Beck, it could be something like “Dueling Banjos.” But for an ordinary conversation it’s a bit unbalanced.

I think I know why this is. In an hour-long interview, with something like 45 minutes to actually be on air, it can be an easy habit to fall into to let fear of not gettin enough in, so everything is an emergency, something to be frantic about. I suggest learning to meditate.
Randy Schenkat

Thanks
for the show on Wm James – I was thinking about some of the sense
of subjectivism in the show echoed in Paul Nevins’ comment here

“Isn’t
the emphasis upon personal experience – that Locke insisted was the
basis of knowledge – inherently subjective, relativistic and
potentially anti-intellectual since it denies the efficacy of
received wisdom, books, etc?”

I
think a little know area of psychology -is the area of college
student and adult cognitive development. I got turned on to this
area as a junior faculty member in a small Catholic College back in
late 70s from an article that you can see at my website..
http://www.winonaworks.com
http://www.winonaworks.com/web_documents/Perry-HigherEd.pdf.

This
work that started at Harvard from the insights of William Perry of
the Harvard Bureau of Study Counsel offers much explanation why
perhaps we don’t have the cognitive foundation to actualize the
dreams of pragmatism of James or Dewey. I think this work of
Perry’s is an interesting lens to view the current political
polarization– if one assumes that higher education is not in a much
better state than the article in pdf alludes to. There are some
people that would make excellent guests. Lee Knefelkamp mentioned
in pdf , I believe is still on faculty of Columbia. Mike Basseches
is at Suffolk University and until recently worked at Havard Bureau
of Study Counsel. Bob Kegan of Harvard also cut his teeth at
Harvard Bureau of Study Counsel. The failure of higher education
to focus on development has tremendous implications. I worked for
20 years in quality field.- TQM, Lean.. processes such at
PDSA(Plan Do, Study , Act cycle) and Kaizen events depend on people
using a pragmatic, data rich process – I think that mostly fail as
people haven’t developed beyond subjectivism. I tried to allude to
that in an early article at web site
http://www.winonaworks.com/web_documents/ItStandstoReasonCST.pdf

Page
47 in regard to teachers failing to think by using scientific method
.

I
think this would make an interesting show.. please contact
me if you’d like more background than I’ve briefly conveyed here.
Anonymous

Thanksfor the show on Wm James – I was thinking about some of the senseof subjectivism in the show echoed in Paul Nevins’ comment here“Isn’tthe emphasis upon personal experience – that Locke insisted was thebasis of knowledge – inherently subjective, relativistic andpotentially anti-intellectual since it denies the efficacy ofreceived wisdom, books, etc?”Ithink a little know area of psychology -is the area of collegestudent and adult cognitive development. I got turned on to thisarea as a junior faculty member in a small Catholic College back inlate 70s from an article that you can see at my website..www.winonaworks.com http://www.winonaworks.com/web….Thiswork that started at Harvard from the insights of William Perry ofthe Harvard Bureau of Study Counsel offers much explanation whyperhaps we don’t have the cognitive foundation to actualize thedreams of pragmatism of James or Dewey. I think this work ofPerry’s is an interesting lens to view the current politicalpolarization– if one assumes that higher education is not in a muchbetter state than the article in pdf alludes to. There are somepeople that would make excellent guests. Lee Knefelkamp mentionedin pdf , I believe is still on faculty of Columbia. Mike Bassechesis at Suffolk University and until recently worked at Havard Bureauof Study Counsel. Bob Kegan of Harvard also cut his teeth atHarvard Bureau of Study Counsel. The failure of higher educationto focus on development has tremendous implications. I worked for20 years in quality field.- TQM, Lean.. processes such atPDSA(Plan Do, Study , Act cycle) and Kaizen events depend on peopleusing a pragmatic, data rich process – I think that mostly fail aspeople haven’t developed beyond subjectivism. I tried to allude tothat in an early article at web sitehttp://www.winonaworks.com/web…Page47 in regard to teachers failing to think by using scientific method.Ithink this would make an interesting show.. please contactme if you’d like more background than I’ve briefly conveyed here.