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"Pragmatisms (plural) Part I: classical pragmatism and some implications for empirical inquiry".

Article Excerpt
The institutional economics originating in America with Thorstein Veblen generally claims pragmatism as its philosophical basis, especially the classical pragmatism (1) of Dewey and Peirce. However, pragmatism is said to undercut the search for truth in the philosophy of science. Pragmatism is taken as synonymous with shifting, expedient morality. Pragmatism is seen as underwriting the futility of choosing among competing theories on the basis of empirical evidence. (On underdetermination, see Laudan and Leplin 1991 and Newton-Smith 2001b.) Pragmatism is seen as the concern with the immediate utilitarian benefits of knowledge, accompanied by an indifference to theoretical issues (Worrall 2001).

Especially for American Institutional Economics, the obvious question is whether the "pragmatism" claimed by institutional economists is the same as the "pragmatism" that undercuts truth, undermines the role of empirical evidence and dismisses the importance of theory. The short answer is that these pragmatisms are not the same thing at all.

I would argue that the philosophical tradition following Charles S. Peirce and John Dewey (and continuing in contemporary classical pragmatism) provides the most constructive philosophical complement to inquiry in the social sciences--or the natural sciences, for that matter. (2) This belief motivates the following discussion. I do not expect all readers to share this belief. However, I do hope to overcome to some small degree, the gross distortions that accompany notions of pragmatism.

The Association for Evolutionary Economics includes those who follow other research traditions but who share various notions of an evolutionary process as an important component of the analysis rather than as an afterthought or a trivial departure from comparative statics. (3) Classical pragmatism is the first post-Darwinian philosophy--and arguably the only thoroughly post-Darwinian philosophy; thus classical pragmatism could possibly be some value to those using various evolutionary approaches to economics. Others in the readership include those who see no need to understand pragmatism. This latter group is often the most dismissive.

For those who claim pragmatic philosophy as their philosophical guidance, the objective of the following discussion is to flesh out some of the details of the philosophy and make some indications about how this relates to practice. For those who dismiss or criticize pragmatism, the objective is to present classical pragmatism in a reasonably coherent and inclusive form. The "pragmatism" typically criticized is a vague and distorted mish-mash concocted from elements of various views. The hope for this latter group is that their future appraisals of pragmatism are based upon an actual position rather than straw man versions.

Pragmatism is used in various, vague, confusing and contradictory ways. In general, the other pragmatisms--those other than classical pragmatism--do not promote constructive inquiry. Thus, the constructive form of pragmatism needs to be distinguished from various other perspectives, all also called pragmatism. The underlying purpose of promoting more effective empirical inquiry requires that aspects of classical pragmatism be explicated in some detail. (4) This explication and drawing of distinctions necessitates an involved discussion and thus absorbs the bulk of the essay.

Aside from the relevance of philosophical perspective for effective inquiry, complex and contentious philosophical issues arise in the development of an alternative to orthodox economics. Currently, the institutional economics originating in America and from Veblen (which is hardly monolithic), the so-called new institutional economics, critical realism (Lawson 1997), neo-Schumpeterian evolutionary economics, perspectives incorporating recent continental philosophy, perspectives incorporating theories of literary criticism and postmodernism and various radical perspectives are involved in this development. Often, epistemological and ontological issues are at the center of the discussions. Classical pragmatism is waiting around the corner, anticipating the directions toward which mainstream philosophy seems to be struggling. More importantly, classical pragmatism usually offers a new alternative, allowing the debate to get past contending views that seem intractably opposed.

The following discussion is premised on two appraisals. First, scientific progress in social sciences and economics has been minimal and painfully slow. (5) Often research programs become degenerative and previous constructive accomplishments are vulgarized, distorted, discarded or trivialized. In the social sciences (and in contrast to natural sciences), rivalries between contending theoretical perspectives seem seldom ever resolved. Second, social science disciplines and the rival schools of thought within them frequently use philosophy of science (and metascientific studies more generally) as obstructive or destructive devices for methodological dogmatism and ideological attacks.

Classical pragmatism is an antidote for both problems.

Introduction: Pragmatism and Pragmatisms

The discussion in the following section tries to present classical pragmatism in a nutshell. The reader should be alert to the use of "pragmatism" to label philosophical views that are not based on classical pragmatism. In fact, these other pragmatisms are often contradicted by the writings of Peirce and Dewey. Additionally, "pragmatism" is used in everyday discourse with various meanings. These differing philosophical and everyday usages are conflated in various ways and erroneously attributed to classical pragmatism. These other positions could be roughly broken down into "vulgar pragmatism" and "neopragmatism." Vulgar pragmatism is typically a position ascribed to someone else by someone who has little or no direct acquaintance with classical pragmatism. Vulgar pragmatism conflates ordinary usages--some pejorative, some complimentary--with an asserted philosophical pragmatism. (6) The philosophy of science has been a center of vulgar pragmatism in which various views explicitly rejected by Dewey, Peirce and contemporary classical pragmatists are attributed to unnamed "pragmatists."

In the following discussion, "classical pragmatism" identifies the philosophy of Peirce and Dewey (and its elaborations, extensions and critiques by contemporary scholars working within this tradition) and distinguishes it from other positions also labeled as "pragmatism." (7)

The unique idioms used by Dewey and Peirce are in part responsible for the confused, nebulous and antagonistic meanings of "pragmatism." Dewey uses familiar words--for example, experience, quality and situation--in ways specific to his philosophical approach, while Peirce invents specialized terms using Greek roots. (8) It is easy for those trained in older traditions of philosophy, failing to comprehend the genuine novelty of classical pragmatism, to attempt to interpret this idiom in a manner entirely foreign to the authors' intent. The term "pragmatism" has been used so promiscuously that the relationship--or lack of any relationship--among various positions characterized as pragmatism cannot be ignored.

The first part of the discussion below sketches the salient features of classical pragmatism. The planned second part deals with some recent formulations of pragmatisms and compares and contrasts these with classical pragmatism.

A Sketch of Classical Pragmatism

Classical pragmatism is relatively quite new. The thought of Peirce and Dewey evolves over their careers. Despite some disagreements, the three great figures share a radically novel view of what philosophy should be and what it could do. The differences among Charles S. Peirce, William James and John Dewey and the coining of a new idiom (especially by Peirce and Dewey) and James's pluralism lend themselves to varying interpretations of "pragmatism." Some of these various interpretations are completely at odds with classical pragmatism.

Moreover, the genuine novelty of the approach to philosophy in classical pragmatism defies definition in terms of traditional philosophical oppositions. This results in misleading attempts to characterize classical pragmatism as the "opposite" of the speaker's preferred position. The evolution and unfolding of the thought of the classical pragmatists, unfamiliarity with the unique idiom, the sheer volume of writing by Peirce and Dewey, their sometimes difficult writing styles and the disarray of Peirce's vast unpublished work all contribute to shallow and erroneous accounts of what the classical pragmatists meant. At the worst, a selective perusal of this literature allows "gotcha" quotations that grossly mischaracterize classical pragmatism. Thus, I attempt the difficult task of putting classical pragmatism "in a nutshell."

Pragmatism, as much as anything, was a response to the implications of Darwin's theories. (9) Classical pragmatism certainly did not arise ex nihilo. Peirce read widely and deeply in philosophy, especially Kant and scholastic philosophy. Dewey began his career in philosophy as a neo-Hegelian. However, the most profound influence on both was not from philosophy but from science; especially, but not exclusively, Darwin's theory on the evolution of species. (10)

Historically, pragmatism arose in the aftermath of the American Civil War, a war as destructive of absolutist certitude as it was of life, property and previous institutions. (11)

Philosophical Implications of Darwin and Scientific Developments. The philosophically relevant implications of evolution and other advances in nineteenth century science include the following:

(1) Each different species of living organism once was thought to be an immutable natural kind. The mutability of objects of knowledge in evolutionary theory suggested to classical pragmatists the mutability of knowledge in general. The previous philosophical agenda of seeking eternal, universal knowledge is thus brought into question (Kilpinen 2003).

(2) According to evolutionary theory, humans are merely another natural organism among millions of others, evolved from earlier natural organisms. This suggests that the behavior and characteristics of the human species should not be treated in a metaphysically or epistemologically separate realm, in some realm accessible only through extra- or supra-natural means.

(3) Adaptation of species to their environments does not result in ergonomically optimal design. Rather, evolving organisms cobble together mechanisms for ingestion of nutrients, locomotion, reproduction, camouflage, defense against enemies, and so on, from inherited genetic materials (Vogel 1988; Gould 1977; 1980; 1985). If the process of accumulating scientific knowledge is analogous to evolution, the process is never completed or perfected.

(4) For most of a century, evidence from geology had been undermining theological doctrines based on the relative young age of the earth, thus undermining dogmatism generally (Gould 1977; R. Laudan 1987). In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the development of natural sciences, especially in physics, astronomy and chemistry, was rapid, impressive and largely cumulative. Peirce was an outstanding working scientist who was impressed by the effectiveness of controlled experiments in promoting this scientific growth.

(5) Dewey began his intellectual career as a psychologist. In his "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology," considered very important in the contemporaneous psychology, Dewey rejects the folk psychology underlying Locke's epistemology and metaphysics (Dewey 1896). The moral of Dewey's critique of mechanistic psychology is that perception and behavior are contextually dependent.

Thus for Dewey, "data" are never "given," but rather "taken." What are taken as data depend in part on the purpose of the inquiry. Thus, there is no one-to-one correspondence between a given sense datum and a mental image or construct. In modern terminology, Dewey's critique of the reflex arc means that scientific (or everyday) observation is mediated by limited sense organs, (12) habits, intellectual constructs, perspectives and purposes of observation. Note that this amounts to an explicit rejection of the behaviorist psychology associated with J.B. Watson (1914) and B.F. Skinner (1938). (13)

Peirce asserts that "abductive inference shades into perceptual judgment without any sharp line of demarcation between them" (CP 5.181). (14) The abductive inference to which Peirce refers emphasizes that what are taken to be perceptions depend on an interpretative system. Part of this system of interpretation may require reflective reason--abductive inference. Modern neurophysiology corroborates the prescient insights of Peirce and Dewey (Lakoff and Johnson 1999). The human retina is not engaged in passive photography of incoming sense data but is more nearly analogous to a computer algorithm selecting templates to shape transmissions from sensory organs into mental images. These sensory organs themselves are highly selective in excluding the bulk of possible "sense data" from the enormous quantity and complexity of events occurring in the organism's environment.

(Implications for practice. The conception of experience in traditional empiricism as consisting of discrete sense data that are passively received into the mind cannot be...