Thought provokig stuff, given the slightly negative "win at all costs" connotation that the term pragmatism has picked up in recent years.

You should listen to the program.

I do think it important to point out that pragmatism is not solely lacking in any one political party, affiliation, or mindset. People have the unique ability to be swayed by emotional argument regardless of what the argument is trying to prove. I've long believed that a good mix of pragmatism and situational ethics makes for the best approach to any problem. Problem is, 'Whatever Works Best' is a shitty bumper sticker / t-shirt.

First time I agree with you Joe. Good point!

Enjoyed that quite a bit, thanks.

I found this discussion of pragmatism to be rather complex and interesting, and they spoke so quickly that it was difficult to keep up. Is truth an absolute or is truth just that which works? Good question and there seems to be some divide between the European way of thinking and the American way of thinking about pragmatism, with pragmatists not caring about absolute truth, but rather being more concerned with being pragmatic, and saying something like, if my truth works, then that is good enough for me; I don't need to bother with worrying about whether or not it is an absolute truth. The point that caught my attention was the analogy of truth to protons and neutrons. I am not sure if I got this right and hopefully Scientist and some of you articulate thinkers out there can help me out. If we treat the world as if protons and neutrons actually exist, it is a useful way of looking at the world. It has been my understanding that atoms do not actually exist in the traditional concrete way that we inherently view the world, but rather they are a concept used by scientists, and the concept works and has proved fruitful in determining the outcome of scientific experiments. Do I have this right? I have read many physics books, with Isaac Asimov's being the easiest to understand as a lay person, and the more I read about all of this, the more confused I get! Anyway, they then present other philosophers who argue that although the pragmatist view of the world might lead us to conclude that the world is flat, this would not be the most useful way of looking at the world; therefore, the pragamatist would have to conclude otherwise. This led me to wonder about the idea that we inherently view the world as flat, and how did the great thinkers of yore rationalize the sight of the ship gradually coming into view from the distance. Who was the first person to figure out that this phenomenon must be the result of the Earth being round? And is this type of thinking pragmatic?

They seemed to be making the point that pragmatism was anti intellectual, in that the actual independent truth is ignored by pragmatists, who saw the truth as whatever works best.

btw, aren't there any Sunday links? Norm, are you feeling ok?

William James would have loved the Buddha. Early Buddhism has many similarities to Pragmatism. William James himself noted this in his work, The Varieties of Human Experience: "I am ignorant of Buddhism and speak under correction ... but as I apprehend the Buddhistic doctrine of Karma, I agree in principle with that."

Good stuff Norm. Thanks for posting.

Jo Ann, I'm no scientist, but from the information that I've encountered atoms do exist in a physical sense. Microscopes have even taken pictures of certain ones! As far as I know, proving the existence of electrons and smaller particles, like quarks and mesons, is more difficult because we can only see there effects and not their physical self. I know for the electron that the reason for this is because you can only measure it's speed or it's position separately, not at the same time. What would you use to measure them?

Anyway, I hope this was helpful and if anyone would like to correct me of any mistakes I would appreciate it :)

No Scientist, what you said makes more sense than what I said. It is not the atoms which are not concrete, but rather the way that they behave which is explained by the smaller "particles". Is there not some ambiguity as to whether or not an electron is a particle? Particles have mass and electromagnetic energy has no mass. Yet, electrons do behave like particles. If I remember correctly, what you are describing is the uncertainty principle, which fits right into this discussion of pragmatism. The way that electrons behave does not make any intuitive sense. This is all way over my head, but it is fascinating to contemplate and try to understand. I am obviously no scientist either, and hopefully Scientist herself will come along and clarify this for us!

Joann,

First read this

A pragmatist doesn't discount 'scientific knowledge' he just says that it doesn't matter if it's true in some ultimate sense. We can't know in an 'ultimate sense' since our view comes from inside the fish bowl so to speak. It's true if it works in the sense of science would mean for example if the ideas physicists claim as fact work for instance we can build a nuclear reactor and it provides electricity, then their ideas are true in the sense that they work and further questions, namely that it is 'true' a 'fact' are not useful, and in fact meaningless.

No sunday links, am I sick? No, just busy. The blog is a hobby not a job. My posting of links basically mirrors how much time I have for my own perusal of the interent. When I run across interesting items, interesting to me that is, I grab the urls and post them as links. If I don't have time, you don't get them here. I've discovered in the the almost four years I've maintained the blog that there are others who enjoy what I enjoy and that is what I post. I'm not trying attract an audience, just sharing what I find interesting with like-minded folk.

From First Read This: "Many conflate pragmatism with an undisciplined relativism, a feel good anything goes attitude. They couldn't be more wrong." That is exactly what I had thought! Thanks for clearing this up for me.

And thank you for taking out the time to share these links and allow all of the interesting blogs. I really enjoy the open and liberal format and how you do not police what people say and just allow us to either make intelligent comments or complete fools of ourselves, lol.. Like Cowboy, I have learned a lot from this site.