The Metaphysical Club 
by 

Louis Menand

 

Denying the Privilege and Presumption of Power

Philosophy is, more often than it likes to admit, a response to traumatic political events. It is therefore frequently less about the concepts it makes explicit - knowledge, truth, correct action - than it is about dealing with the lingering consequences of profound social upset. The Metaphysical Club documents this thesis in its analysis of the roots of American Pragmatism.

Few might recognise today that the various schools of American Pragmatism associated with philosophers from C. S. Peirce in the 19th century to Richard Rorty in the 21st century have their origins in a specific national tragedy, the American Civil War. The intention of the first ‘pragmaticists’ (as Peirce called them) was to release the world from the doctrinaire use of reason that they perceived led to that conflict. 

Often confused with ‘vulgar relativity,’ Pragmatism is really a recognition that none of us actually knows what constitutes reason. The criteria of right thinking change about as frequently as what is thought. The contribution of pragmatic philosophy has been to establish truth as a necessary ideal but error as an equally necessary condition of inquiry. The essential lesson is one of humility rather than scepticism.

As the pragmatist philosopher Edgar Singer quipped in the 1930’s, “A fact is that which is not contradicted by any other fact.” This maxim is useful to keep in mind when dealing with various Trumpian attacks on science and the media as well as the fake news that has become routine on social media. 

All knowledge is incomplete and defective. This is a consequence of human finitude. Nevertheless, some claims to knowledge are better than other claims. Distinguishing between what constitutes approaches to the truth and intellectual dead ends is what Pragmatism seeks to accomplish - mainly to help us stop killing each other.

Pragmatism therefore implies a liberalism of thought that denies privileged or preferred modes of thinking. At the same time it seeks to reconcile contrary modes of thinking in the ‘larger truth.’ Its ethical virtues are respect for the intentions of others, confidence that there is indeed a larger truth to be had, and the patience to persist in the search. These are commonly called by their classical names of Faith, Hope, and Charity.