American Pragmatism and 20th-Century Political Theory

Introduction to American Pragmatism

Pragmatism, as a general maxim, endeavors to trace the truth of a theory in its practical consequences. Early twentieth-century pragmatism, pioneered by William James, and expanded by C.I. Lewis and John Dewey, applied this perspective to truth in general. Neo- or analytical pragmatism, which appeared late in the century, reverted to the traditional pragmatism of Peirce and extended the theory to science, epistemology, logic, and arithmetic.

James's system of pragmatism largely developed from an obscure paper by Peirce ("How to Make Our Ideas Clear") published in the late nineteenth century. James popularized these ideas and developed them into a philosophy he called pragmatism.

Pragmatism was an attempt to merge empirical and moral thinking. Rather than treating them as diametrically opposed — as was common at the time — James illustrated the point with his famous analogy of men going counter-clockwise around a tree to catch a squirrel: "The resultant metaphysical problem now is this: Does the man go round the squirrel or not?" (1907: 27). The answer lies in recognizing that both parties seek the same goal, even if they are moving in opposite directions. James's pragmatism was an endeavor to resolve Descartes' epistemological problem: how, and whether, one can know "truth," and what "truth" or reality actually is.

Later thinkers, such as Dewey and C.I. Lewis, expanded pragmatism to science and logic. Thus, while James can be seen as an exponent of "narrow pragmatism," neo-pragmatists — beginning with Dewey — were the founders of what became known as "wider pragmatism." The difference between Peirce and James is that while Peirce argued that pragmatism could explain the substance of science and reality — namely, that reality could be proved because it was practical and useful to us — James diverged by applying the theory to religion and systems of truth. James demonstrated that, since belief depends on what serves our needs, there could, ipso facto, be relative truth: multiple "truths" equally valid at the same time. This necessarily led to, and later reinforced, the American predilection — particularly in the 1960s and 1970s — toward relativism. Pragmatism thereby became an intrinsically American philosophy (James, 3:2).

Pragmatism and Pluralism

Pluralism I, as characterized by Manley (1983), refers to the American legal and political system where, contrary to popular opinion — which sees political power distributed according to greatest resources and influence — Pluralism I sees the possibility of different elites gaining different, or relative, amounts of political power regardless of resources and influence, as long as a specific party feels passionately enough about a specific political issue. Pluralism II (or "neo" or "post-pluralism") emerged with the widening of gaps between social classes, the Watergate scandal, the influence of corporations, and unemployment, among other factors. Beginning with Dahl in 1967, it posited multiple centers of power and limited popular sovereignty as the two fundamentals of American pluralism. According to Pluralism II, this can work to America's advantage, since the multiple forces of power serve to subdue any single dominant influence while also promoting the consent of all citizens and encouraging peaceful settlement of conflict.

Early twentieth-century American pragmatism, albeit applied to religion and "truth," is more congruent with Pluralism II than with Pluralism I. James saw all religions and beliefs as equally "true" in that each led to practical ends — providing the practitioner with a sense of stability, community, and pleasure, and serving as an instrument with which to lead one's life. In the economic sense of the term, therefore, they were "rational" in that they served human purposes. According to this sense of "truth," all religions were equally valid. As James famously wrote:

"The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good, too, for definite assignable reasons." (1907: 42)

And later:

"The true, to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as the right is only the expedient in the way of our behaving. Expedient in almost any fashion; and expedient in the long run and on the whole, of course." (1907: 106)

And furthermore:

"Any idea upon which we can ride … any idea that will carry us prosperously from any one part of our experience to any other part, linking things satisfactorily, working securely, saving labor — is true for just so much, true in so far forth, true instrumentally." (1907: 34)

Each of the multiple agendas within Pluralism II sees political truth from its own orbit, with no central orbit of dominating truth or sovereignty. In this way, all serve as multiple facets of achieving a certain pragmatic political purpose, and each serves as a check against any one central factor — such as the Presidency — asserting itself as the singular "truth."

Pragmatism and Public Choice Theory

The American public is often under the impression that politics is a disinterested field where politicians work for the good of the public. Economists, under the banner of public choice theory, view politics as a rational field where politicians work toward their own ends, and where any official, at whatever level, ultimately acts in his or her own self-interest. These ends may, if left unchecked, lead to particularly troubling and dangerous conclusions.

Public choice theory has both similarities and disparities with pragmatism. On the one hand, it can be seen as comprising fragmented groups of political perspectives, each holding its own subscription to a particular selfish "truth." On the other hand, public choice refers to individuals rather than to groups and differs from early pragmatism in that the latter was articulated in connection with a more ideal, wider definition of "truth" — one referring to a system of global beliefs and ways of thinking, primarily in the religious sense. Public choice refers to a narrower, more mercenary sense of "truth" as applied specifically to individual self-interest and the individual's pursuit of personal power.

Buchanan's observation, however, that public choice is "nothing more than common sense, as opposed to romance" and that "our systematic way of looking at politics is nothing more than common sense" (Felkins, 1990) instinctively recalls pragmatism's claim to being more in tune with reality and common sense than other truth-analyzing movements such as Cartesianism. Observation of the world reveals that people naturally choose what serves their ends and reject what does not — and "truth," therefore, serves commonsensical ends.

References

Felkins, L. (1997). Introduction to Public Choice Theory.

James, W. (1907). Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975.

James, W. (1909). The Meaning of Truth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975.

Krasner, Stephen D. (ed.). (1983). International Regimes. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Manley, J. F. (1983). Neo-pluralism: A class analysis of Pluralism I and Pluralism II. American Political Science Review, 77, 368–383.

Williamson, John. (1990). What Washington means by policy reform. In John Williamson (ed.), Latin American Adjustment: How Much Has Happened? Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics.