Pragmatisme: Pierce and Dewey (HC5)

Question 1

Wat is filosofie

Answer 1

Philosophy is the desire or longing for wisdom or knowledge which is satisfied by applying reasoning or reason in exposing the illusory character of alleged trivialities

Question 2

Algemene filosofische wetenschap

Answer 2

Philosophical reflection with regard tot he phenomenon ‘science’

Question 3

Speciale filosofische wetenschap

Answer 3

Philosophical reflection with regard to a specific scientific discipline
–> Economics, physics, psychology, sociology etc.

Question 4

Francis Bacon

Answer 4

Deductie en inductie

Question 5

Deductie

Answer 5

redeneerproces waarbij conclusie worden afgeleid uit algemene principes of aannames, waarbij logische regels worden toegepast om vanuit een gegeven tot een conclusie te komen  algemene gevallen tot specifieke conclusie
 Alle mensen zijn sterfelijk, ik ben mens, dus ik ben sterfelijk

Question 6

Inductie

Answer 6

redeneerproces waarbij conclusies worden afgeleid ui specifieke observaties  specifieke gevallen tot algemene conclusie
 Alleen witte zwanen gezien, dus alle zwanen zijn wit
–> gebruik deductie, geen inductie

Question 7

Aspecten van wetenschappelijke revolutie

Answer 7

1. Rejection of method of authority
2. Acceptance of priority of observation over (possibly) faulty reasoning
3. Application of induction (generalizing on the basis of a limited number of observations)
4. Stimulating the use of experiment
5. Rediscovery of mathematics as a tool for building models

Question 8

Resultaat van Bacon

Answer 8

Methode
a. Observatie
b. Experiment
Wat zien we?
a. De wereld is een ‘mechanisme’
b. Vraag ‘hoe’ in plaats van ‘waarom’
Beschrijvingen
a. Statistiek

Question 9

Cruciale punten van Christendom voor Bacon

Answer 9

A. More emphasis on Vita Activa (Rachel, downward) rather than Vita Contemplativa (Leah, upward)
B. Aim: restore God’s Paradise (Eden):
- Restore control over nature
- Restore divine innocence of man
Slogan: ‘sound reason and true religion’

Question 10

Bacon’s claim

Answer 10

To be able to do this we must get rid of the idols that beset the human mind
‘Four soecies of idols beset the human mind, to which (for distinction’s sake) we have assigned names, calling the first idols of the tribe, the second idols of the den, the third idols of the market, the fourth idols of the theatre’  kijk bij wetenschapsfilosofie
- How to get rid of the false ideas and achieve a sound reason
- Induction and experiment
- Why do we ought to get rid of false ideas?
- To regain control over nature, like in the times of the garden of Eden

Question 11

Pragmatisten
- Charles Sanders Pierce (1839-1914)

Answer 11

• The fixation of beliefs (1877)
• How to make our ideas clear (1878)
  a. Irritation of doubt
  b. State of belief
  c. Inquiry: fixation of belief
  d. Methods of fixation of belief

Question 12

The fixation of beliefs (1877)

Answer 12

• Irritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state of belief, the object of any inquiry is the settlement of opinion
• Peircean anthropology: we are such that we experience doubt as an irritation, and so we can do nothing but to try to get rid of this irritation and enter into a struggle to find a soothing state of belief
• The sole object of inquiry is ‘the settlement of opinion’ by attaining a state of belief in which we are ‘entirely satisfied, whether the belief is true or false’
• Pierce then distinguishes his four methods of belief fixation

Question 13

Pragmatisch standpunt

Answer 13

Science: inquiry under the assumption that the world is the way it is independent of my opinion about that world

Question 14

Pragmatisme is een voorstel of een hypothese

Answer 14

The method of science is to make our beliefs independent of our thoughts. In fact, it compormises a hypothesis:
- ‘there are real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them… and any man [person], if he have sufficient experience and reason enough about [the world] will be led to the one true conclusion’

Question 15

How to make our ideas clear (1878)

Answer 15

Pierce: ‘consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conceptions to have. Then, our conceptions of these effects is the whole of out conception of the object’  pragmatic Maxim

Question 16

Pragmatisme

Answer 16

• The practical is what counts (and nothing else)
• What you believe is what you do, what you do is what you believe. ‘show, don’t tell’

Question 17

Some stages of logical thought

Answer 17

Dogmatisch: short cut to certainty, but complexity makes it unworkable
Critical: deals with complexicty, but instable
Axomiatic: restores stability, but beliefs are only conditionally fixed
Scientific: make the unknown knowt without cons

Question 18

Dewey’s stages of thought

Answer 18

Dewey agrees with Pierce that the purpose of thinking is to secure a stable equilibrium, and he explicitly opts for the Piercean doubt/inquiry model. In his ‘Supermacy of Method’, a chapter from his book Quest for Certainty (1929), Dewey expresses the opinion that, although many definitions of mind and thinking have been given, there is only one ‘that goes tot he heart of the matter: - response tot he doubtful as such.’

Question 19

Dewey over dogmatisch denken

Answer 19

At first, we take ideas or beliefs as fixed. Ideas have a static and rigid meaning, and their function is to solve conflicts. THey represent ‘a recognition of a habitual way of belief: a habit of understanding. ‘an idea, according to Dewey, is therefor ‘a scheme of assigning values,’ or ‘a way of dealing with doubtful cases.’

Question 20

Dewey of kritisch denken

Answer 20

When the whole of our fixed ideas and beliefs become more complex however, we feel a need to discriminate between and reflect on our ideas. This brings us to a second stage of belief fixation: the critical stage
Complexity presents us with ‘critical cases’, cases that cannot be solved by using rigid and fixed ideas. Facing such problems, we conclude that the fixation of our beliefs is the result of our workings, and not the world’s. The result is discussion and ialogue, a conversation of thoughts. We then realise that we must find a method of belief fixation that offers us a new, effective way of handling problematic situations, as discussion only leads to a ‘clash of ideas’, and not to stability

Question 21

Dewey over axiomatisch denken

Answer 21

Dewey descibes this transition as the transition from discussion into reasoning, from ‘subjective reflection into method of proof.’ This method of proof is modelled on syllogistic logic. If we accept the premises and if we accept the way of reasoning as a valid one, this method restores the stability of out beliefs, since we now come to believe what can be derived from the premises. But it also leads, ultimately, to a restless feeling of relativism, to a feeling that it is only taste that determines our beliefs. Our beliefs are only conditionally fixed. Although ‘doubt is awake and inwuiry is active,’ this inquiry is actually ‘rigidly limited’

Question 22

Dewey over wetenschappelijk denken

Answer 22

The transition tot he fourth method of belief fixation provides us with science. We witness the transition from the method of proof to the method of inference. This method of inference is a procedure of discovery, a procedure that takes us from the known to the unknown. It is a method ‘for making friends with facts and ideas hitherto alien.’ Science enables us to direct our inquiry in any direction we may wish for. In that sense science is discovery rather than justification. Within science, suggestions are assessed not so much by the degree to which they fit in with our accepted theories, but by the degree to which they can lead tot he discovery of new knowledge about the world and (what is the same, really!) new solutions to problematic situations.

Question 23

meer informatie over deweys denken

Answer 23

Science, for dewey is ‘inquiry emancipated […] whose sole aim and criterion is discovery.’ Science eases our thoughts and soothes our minds, scince we realize that its purpose is to initiate inquiry, which is our way of clarifying our ideas, and which helps us cope with a hazardous world. This method is the natural outcome of a process of belief fixation, if we link thought to doubt and inquiry the way Peirce and Dewey do. Dewey thus accepts the Peircean view of science.
Dewey’s pragmatism is inspired by the latest scienctific discoveries of this time: the new science of psychology and the grand theory about natural organisms in general and human beings more specifically, as described by Charles Darwin and others. In a piece called ‘the influence of Darwinism of Philosophy’ (1909) Dewey observed that ‘old ideas give way slowly’ and that in fact ‘we do not solve them: we get over them.’ He conludes by saying that ‘the greatest dissolvent in contemporary thought of old questions, the greatest precipitant of new methodes, new intentions, new problems, is the one effected by the scientific revolution that found its climax in the Origin of Species.’ Indeed, for Dewey, human thinking itself is a naturally acquired instrument for coming to terms with problems

Question 24

Charles Darwin

Answer 24

Darwin has initiated a train of thought that shows to what great exxtent people’s thought, ideas, beliefs and actions are the result of the fact that they have a certain phylogenetic (species) and ontogenetic (individual) history. The result is: instincts and habits. The instincts are there, the habits are created depending on context

Question 25

Evolutie

Answer 25

Soorten ontwikkelen in een mechanisch process
- variatie, selectie en transmissie

Question 26

Variatie

Answer 26

Plotselingen kleine veranderingen in generaties

Question 27

Selectie

Answer 27

Survival of the fittest

Question 28

Transmission

Answer 28

DNA

Question 29

Seksuele selectie

Answer 29

• Many properties of animals seem to run against the idea of natural selection: the peacock’s tail, the Irish elk’s antlers, etc.
• Darwin was a pluralist: I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification
• Sexual selection might be a ‘separate evolutionary force’ that selects the taste of potential partners and causes the most beautiful feathers, the biggest antlers, etc.

Question 30

Relevantie evolutie voor begrijpen gedrag

Answer 30

It is in biology and psychology that economist and other social scientists will find the premises needed to fashion more predicitve models.’
- Models: the tools we use to understand the world AND ourselves

Question 31

Dewey over wetenschappelijk denken

Answer 31

‘Reflection appears as the dominant trait of a situation when there is something seriously the matter, some trouble, duet o active discordance, dissentiency, conflict among the factors of a prior non-intellectual experience’ – Dewey

Question 32

Dewey en evolutie over pragmatisme

Answer 32

People are like other living organisms:
- People are fallible, naturally evolved creatures that long for ’thought at rest’
- They have the capability to learn from mistakes by ‘trial-and-error’
Dewey: human thinking itself is an evolved instrument to solve problems; a ‘tool for coping’
- Rejection of the ‘spectator view of knowledge’

Question 33

Tegen de kennis in

Answer 33

• Human beings aim for action (rather than thinking: all thinking is conducive or not conducive for realizing the aims we set ourselves) –> The knower is not a mirror passively representing the order in the ready-made unchanging world (pace empiricism and positivism)
• Reality is not the eternal divine design (pace rationalism) –> Reality = flux. Humans must/will (or: won’t) adapt constantly: ‘change is here to stay’
• Thinking is aimed at solving (pratical) problems. Not at defending an ideology… compare Obama’s ‘meet the press’ statement

Question 34

Coclusion Dewey
- Copying vs. coping

Answer 34

Copying: science as a magnifying mirror and generates all kinds of unnecessary philosophical problems that do not help us take away uncertainty or human suffering
Coping: science as a tool and evades all kinds of unnecessary philosophical problems and opens up the possibility to think of science in a fashion that helps us take away uncertainty and human suffering

Question 35

Academic studies: psychology

Answer 35

• thinking about what we value and ought to value
• thinking out of the box: another tool
• technique: science is a tool