Pragmatism (instrumentalism):
“Pragmatism”, whose Greek origin is given as Pragmaticus, is expressed in Arabic as dhari‘iyyah, dhara’i‘iyyah, amaliyyah, amalaniyyah, adatiyyah and similar terms, depending on the translation or the different orientations within this philosophy.
The name derives from the Greek word pragma, expressed in English by “action”: work, deed, conduct, behaviour, activity or effectiveness; or by “affair”: a question, matter or concern, whether commercial, political, professional or otherwise.
The Greek historian Polybius (d. 118 BCE) is reported to have called his writings “pragmatic”, indicating that he intended them to be useful and beneficial to readers.[1]
In this context, “utilitarianism” is synonymous with pragmatism in its general sense.[2] It is applied to “every doctrine that makes the useful the foundation of all values, both in knowledge and in action. The name ‘utilitarianism’ thus denotes the system that reduces the meaning of what is right and just to what is useful and, consequently, makes utility the foundation of right and morality.”[3]
“Pragmatism is a philosophical doctrine maintaining that reason reaches its goal only when it leads its possessor to effective action. A correct idea is a successful idea, that is, an idea verified by experience. Everything realised in practice is true, and the truth of a proposition is measured only by its practical consequences.
All this means that the mind contains no primary knowledge from which correct conclusions can be deduced independently of their practical aspect. Everything instead depends on the results of practical experience, which resolve grounds for doubt. If scientific truths change with the ages, what is true in the present may become untrue in the future. The consequence is very clear: the truth of propositions changes as knowledge changes; matters are judged by their results; and truth is relative, that is, related to a particular time, place and stage of knowledge. What matters, then, is not that reason should lead us to knowledge of things, but that it should lead us to act effectively upon them.
Alongside this doctrine, adopted by the Americans Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914 CE), William James (1842-1910 CE) and John Dewey (1859-1952 CE),[4] stand related French doctrines. Henri Bergson (1859-1941 CE) said that reason is the ability to make tools. Édouard Le Roy (1870-1954 CE) said that a religion’s value is measured by its rules of conduct, not by the truths it contains. Maurice Blondel (1861-1949 CE) said that action encompasses reason: it precedes and prepares thought, follows it and transcends it; it is an internal synthesis rather than an objective representation.
He also said that thinking about God is an action.
As you can see, there is an element of pragmatism in these doctrines, although they do not go so far in reducing truth to practical success. Although Blondel shares some opinions with pragmatists, he calls his doctrine a philosophy of action, not a philosophy of pragmatism. ‘Pragmatic’ means pertaining to pragmatism, that is, practical or utilitarian.
One branch of pragmatism is instrumentalism, Dewey’s view that theory is a tool or instrument for affecting and transforming experience, and theoretical knowledge is a means of controlling anomalous situations or increasing the value of previous experiences in their immediate significance. For medieval philosophers, the ‘instrumental cause’ is the efficient cause.”[5]
We now turn to the best-known leader of pragmatic theory, William James, described as “the distinguished leader of American philosophy”, who brought this theory to prominence and left a wide intellectual influence in the Western world.
James traces the value of truth to benefit and makes benefit the principle affecting our choices in the activity of consciousness. What is useful, successful or beneficial is “true”. James understands usefulness, success or benefit broadly:
A. In physical experience, what is useful is what enables prediction, action, influence and production.
B. In psychological or intellectual experience, what is useful is what benefits thought and gives us a sense of rationality, a feeling of comfort and peace.
C. In religious experience, a belief is true if it succeeds spiritually: if it gives the soul reassurance and consolation, helps us endure life’s trials and lifts us above ourselves.[6]
James’s philosophy amounts to the claim that ideas are true insofar as they are, or we believe them to be, useful to our lives. Accordingly, the validity of a belief consists in its benefit. As he says: “If theological ideas prove to have value in concrete, tangible life, then for the pragmatist they are true, in the sense that they are useful to that extent. How much further they are true depends entirely on their relationships to other truths that must also be acknowledged.”[7]
In his lecture on “Pragmatism and Religion”, the final lecture in Pragmatism, he presents the outcome of his theory: “On pragmatic principles, we cannot reject any hypothesis if useful consequences for life flow from it. Concepts relating to the universe, as things to be thought about and taken into account, may be as real for pragmatism as particular sensations. They certainly have no meaning or reality if they have no use. But if they have any use or benefit, they have precisely that much meaning or significance. The meaning will be true if this benefit harmonises and agrees with life’s other benefits. Thus the usefulness of ‘the Absolute’[8] has been established throughout the entire general course of humanity’s religious history…” He then says: “According to pragmatic principles, if the hypothesis of ‘God’[9] works satisfactorily in the broadest sense of the word, it is a true hypothesis. Whatever difficulties it may produce, experience shows beyond the slightest doubt that it works satisfactorily. The problem lies in constructing, formulating, stating and shaping it so that it joins satisfactorily with all other truths… Likewise, on the evidence supplied by religious experience, we may believe that higher powers exist and work to save the world according to ideal plans resembling our own.”[10]
James holds that religion should be judged solely by its results.[11] He wants people to be happy; if belief in God makes them happy, that belief is true. Russell answered James and exposed the incoherence of this utilitarian interpretation of religion and truth. He concluded his discussion with this valuable observation: “This does not satisfy the person who desires an object of worship. He does not wish to say: if I believe in God, I shall be happy. Rather, he wishes to say: I believe in God, and therefore I am happy! When he believes in God, he believes in Him as he believes in the existence of Roosevelt, Churchill or Hitler. For him, God is a real being, not merely a human idea with good effects. It is this genuine belief that has good effects, not the powerless substitute James gives us. Plainly, if I say ‘Hitler exists’, I do not mean ‘the effects of believing that Hitler exists are good’. For the true believer, the same applies to God.”[12] “To God belongs the highest description, and He is the Mighty, the Wise” [al-Nahl: 60]; “There is nothing like Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing” [al-Shura: 11].
The famous philosopher George Santayana (1863-1953 CE) said: “A person’s belief may be superstitious, but that superstition itself is good so long as life is improved by it. The improvement of life is better than the consistency of sound logic, if superstition improves life more than logical inference does.”[13]
This discussion of utilitarianism and pragmatism is only a brief indication of a vast philosophy with its theories, schools and subdivisions, which has a powerful presence and influence in contemporary life. Those wishing to learn more may consult The Doctrine of General Utility in Moral Philosophy by Dr Tawfiq al-Tawil (1909-1991 CE). It is a valuable book, with rigorous scholarly material and a clear presentation of utilitarianism, its history and its different schools, from which those without a philosophical specialism can derive great benefit.
[1] See the entry “Pragmatism” in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the second lecture in Pragmatism by William James (1842-1910 CE), translated into Arabic by Walid Shahadah, Dar al-Farqad, Damascus, pp. 49-82.
[2] In its specific sense, “utilitarianism” denotes a particular moral philosophy. See the writings of Jamil Saliba and Lalande under “Utilitarianism”, and the biographies of the best-known advocates of utility in ethics and law, the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and his student John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), in Dr Abd al-Rahman Badawi’s Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, Arab Institute for Research and Publishing, Beirut, 1984 CE, 1/362 and 2/466.
[3] Lalande’s Philosophical Encyclopaedia by the French philosopher André Lalande (1876-1963 CE), Oueidat Publications, Beirut, 2001 CE, 3/1514. Jamil Saliba concluded his entry on “Utilitarianism” in The Philosophical Dictionary, 2/499-500: “In sum, the doctrine of utility makes the realisation of benefit its principle, securing the greatest share of happiness its rule, and agreement between individual and general utility its aim. For utilitarians, good actions are those that lead to happiness and bad actions those that lead to misery. Happiness means pleasure free of pain; misery means pain free of pleasure. Happiness and utility are identical in essence.”
[4] These three are the founding pioneers of pragmatism.
[5] Jamil Saliba, The Philosophical Dictionary, Dar al-Kitab al-Lubnani, Beirut, 1982 CE, 1/203-204. A useful discussion of pragmatism appears in Lalande’s Philosophical Encyclopaedia, Oueidat Publications, Beirut, 2001 CE, 2/1012-1018, where it is expressed by dhari‘iyyah. Most Arabic writings and encyclopaedias translate pragmatism as practical or utilitarian philosophy. The compilers of The Philosophical Dictionary issued by the Arabic Language Academy in Cairo, 1983 CE, p. 32, chose to spell the word with jim and omit the alif: brajmatiyyah. It seems to us that spelling it with ghayn and adding the alif, baraghmatiyyah, is better and more correct.
[6] Dr Abd al-Rahman Badawi, Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, Arab Institute for Research and Publishing, Beirut, 1984 CE, 1/448.
[7] William James, Pragmatism, translated by Muhammad Ali al-Aryan, introduction by Zaki Najib Mahmud, National Center for Translation, Cairo, 2008 CE, p. 96.
[8] James uses “the Absolute”, avoiding “God” or “the Lord”, in consideration of belief in a higher authority and supreme creator among adherents of religions, whether scriptural or pagan. Abd al-Rahman Badawi defines the Absolute as “that which is in itself”: self-sufficient, separate from others, self-subsisting and unconditioned by any condition or anything else. He consequently distinguishes four kinds: the pure or simple Absolute, the Absolute in itself, the Absolute in relation to something else, and the Absolute within its kind. The first is God, the First Being, or the Cause of causes. He then says that twentieth-century philosophies with a religious orientation show a clear tendency to use “the Absolute” in place of “God”, and sometimes use “absolute value” to denote the Absolute in the sense of God. Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2/448.
[9] What is meant is supposition or probability concerning God’s existence. “Glorified and exalted is He, far above what they say” [al-Isra’: 43].
[10] Pragmatism, al-Aryan’s translation, pp. 317 and 362; Walid Shahadah’s translation, pp. 245 and 269. Bertrand Russell quoted it in A History of Western Philosophy, Book Three: Modern Philosophy, translated by Dr Muhammad Fathi al-Shiniti, Egyptian General Book Authority, 1977 CE, p. 472. I have endeavoured to formulate James’s words in accordance with these three translations.
[11] M. M. Bocheński, Contemporary Philosophy in Europe, translated by Dr Izzat Qarni, National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, Kuwait, 1992 CE, p. 160.
[12] A History of Western Philosophy, pp. 474-475.
[13] Quoted by Will Durant in The Story of Philosophy from Plato to John Dewey: The Lives and Opinions of the World’s Greatest Philosophers, translated by Fath Allah Muhammad al-Musha‘sha‘, Maktabat al-Ma‘arif, Beirut, 6th edition, 1408 AH, p. 604, and attributed to Santayana’s Scepticism and Animal Faith. Earlier, on p. 602, after noting the broad fame Santayana gained on publishing the five volumes of The Life of Reason, Durant said: “He astonished the world a second time by publishing his valuable Scepticism and Animal Faith in 1923 CE, announcing it as an introduction to a new philosophical system. It was a pleasure to see a man of sixty setting sail on new and distant voyages, producing a book vigorous in thought and beautiful in style, like his earlier books…”