In his first Pragmatism lecture William James pointed out that most of us mix and match our philosophical beliefs and tendencies in ways that challenge the call for consistency. He gives us two broad types of thinker, tough and tender-minded, enumerates their respective traits, and then notices how often we cherry-pick our preferences in ways that don't quite hang together with logical transparency.
| THE TENDER-MINDED | THE TOUGH-MINDED |
| Rationalistic (going by 'principles'), Intellectualistic, Idealistic, Optimistic, Religious, Free-willist, Monistic, Dogmatical. | Empiricist (going by 'facts'), Sensationalistic, Materialistic, Pessimistic, Irreligious, Fatalistic, Pluralistic, Sceptical. |
"Most of us have a hankering for the good things on both sides of the line. Facts are good, of course -give us lots of facts. Principles are good - give us plenty of principles. The world is indubitably one if you look at it in one way, but as indubitably is it many, if you look at it in another. It is both one and many -let us adopt a sort of pluralistic monism. Everything of course is necessarily determined, and yet of course our wills are free: a sort of free-will determinism is the true philosophy. The evil of the parts is undeniable; but the whole can't be evil: so practical pessimism may be combined with metaphysical optimism. And so forth -your ordinary philosophic layman never being a radical, never straightening out his system, but living vaguely in one plausible compartment of it or another to suit the temptations of successive hours." The Present Dilemma in PhilosophyWe talked about this, sort of, in Environmental Ethics yesterday. Cherry-picking (or box-shuffling, by Ed's preferred mix-and-match metaphor) among approaches and methods is perhaps unduly flattered and dignified by the designation "pragmatic pluralism." Mr. Spock likely would not be impressed, nor would those of my colleagues whose Excluded Middle attitude is typically, with respect to a given problem and proposed solution in philosophy: "I'm right, you're wrong." And, they sometimes add, $%*# you.
Well $%*# them, is my "Rocky Mountain tough" riposte. It's a big and often-unpredicted (maybe in principle unpredictable) galaxy, there just are times when it makes more sense to take a utilitarian tack, others deontological, others Aristotelian etc. How do you like them cherries?
But our philosophic culture is intransigently "dualistic," deep in its bones, allowing only for "true or false, winner and loser." (59) At the same time "we [humans] are intuitive, emotional and heavily influenced by others and our environment." (68)... so, can we be consistently rational? We can only try, and hope to get better at it. By my reckoning, as a pragmatic pluralist, that means getting better at discerning when to cross a line and take a different tack. To the critics, this strategy will never be rational and this logic will never parse. But that's alright. As James also said, “Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.” (Will to Believe)
And so I forgive the anti-pragmatists their errors.
Many in our tradition continue to invoke supernaturalism as an ultimate non-explaining explainer, but "the human mind works without supernatural assistance" (HWT 70). Logic is definitely one of secular reason's indispensable tools, but logic alone wouldn't motivate us to think for ourselves. Curiosity and a feeling for the wonder of discovery must be there too, as Spock's half-submerged human half had to keep reminding him.
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