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PREVIEW-Episode 20: Pragmatism – Peirce and James

June 9, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 18 Comments

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:50 — 28.3MB)

This is a 31-minute preview of a 2 hr, 8-minute episode.

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On Pragmatism (1907) by William James and "The Fixation of Belief" (1877) and "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" (1878) by Charles Sanders Peirce.

Is truth a primitive relation between our representations and things objectively in the world, or is it an analyzable process by which propositions "prove their worth" by being useful in some way, like by fitting well with other portions of our experience or being delicious?

Peirce, the inventor of pragmatism, focuses on the philosophy of science and thinks of inquiry as a way for us to just settle on any belief we can stomach. James, who popularized pragmatism, has a wider view that applies not only to science but to religious beliefs. If it makes you feel nice to believe in Hogwarts, should you do so?

The episode features then-guest podcaster Dylan Casey; we continued it in episode 22.

Read Pragmatism online or purchase it. Buy the Pierce essays together

End Song: "Friend" from 1998’s Mark Lint and the Fake Johnson Trio; the whole album is now free online.

Looking for the full Citizen version?

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Filed Under: Podcast Episodes Tagged With: Charles Sanders Pierce, coherence theory of truth, epistemology, Immanuel Kant, philosophy of science, pragmatism, William James

Comments

  1. parrhesiastes says

    April 25, 2012 at 7:14 am

    FWIW, in the discussion of Peirce around 21:00
    “Let them ask themselves what they would say to a reformed Mussulman who should hesitate to give up his old notions in regard to the relations of the sexes; or to a reformed Catholic who should still shrink from reading the Bible.”
    …the word Mussulman is archaic term for Muslim, which is still commonly used in South-Asian countries/languages. Also, Nietzsche also used the same word (_German: Muselmänner_) in Beyond Good and Evil (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4363/4363-h/4363-h.htm)

    Reply
  2. Rob says

    May 3, 2012 at 9:02 pm

    Will you guys do an episode on Pierce and his writings? His logic and semiotics and The Fixation of Belief.

    Reply
  3. Justin Wagner says

    September 6, 2012 at 1:07 pm

    Found this on the talk page for the wikipedia article on tripe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tripe#That_book_link_at_the_bottom…

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Topic for #22: More on William James’s Pragmatism | The Partially Examined Life | A Philosophy Podcast says:
    June 23, 2010 at 11:32 am

    […] felt cut off in our Episode 20 discussion and wanted to spend a bit of time discussing more of the specific problems that William […]

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  2. Episode 22: More James’s Pragmatism: Is Faith Justified? What is Truth? | The Partially Examined Life | A Philosophy Podcast says:
    July 18, 2010 at 1:07 am

    […] William James’s “The Will to Believe” and continuing our discussion from Episode 20 on James’s conception of truth as described in his books Pragmatism and The Meaning of Truth, […]

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  3. Pirsig as an American Pragmatist | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    February 22, 2012 at 10:02 pm

    […] Sanders Pierce, William and John Dewey were, more or less, the original founders of American pragmatism, although James had said that “pragmatism” was a new name for some very old ideas. The […]

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  4. More Voices on Buddhism and Science | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    April 19, 2012 at 3:56 pm

    […] in history. Henry David Thoreau published the Lotus Sutra in the first issue of The Dial in 1844. William James was absorbing Transcendentalist ideas at the family dinner table, where his godfather Ralph Waldo […]

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  5. My Own Private Language? | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    May 22, 2012 at 9:37 am

    […] in favor of public language? Or is that too simple? As I was listening to episode 56, a quote from William James from Pragmatismcame to mind: All human thinking gets discursified; we exchange ideas; we lend and […]

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  6. Meaning and Context | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    May 31, 2012 at 5:03 pm

    […] his book Wittgenstein and William James,Russell Goodman makes a case that James influenced Wittgenstein’s thought and he does so by detailing their shared commitment to […]

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  7. Topic for #61: Nietzsche on Truth | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    July 15, 2012 at 8:51 am

    […] radical on the face of it that the pragmatist conception of truth, by which “the true” is in some way defined as what is useful for human endeavor, it […]

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  8. Theistic Objectivism (more on Dallas Willard) | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    September 7, 2012 at 10:46 am

    […] makes them all liars. There are difficulties with this type of view (which we went into in our pragmatism episodes, but the mature solution is not to just say the hell with it and go back to a philosophically […]

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  9. Eliezer Yudkowsky and Luke Muehlhauser on Modern Rationalism (Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot) | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    January 3, 2013 at 12:46 pm

    […] the same kind of way that’s been attempted time and again by, e.g. logical posititivism, pragmatism, and others from Hume to the present. While Eliezer’s version of the rational life is less […]

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  10. Intro is fashionably late for September: Psychology by William James | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    September 7, 2013 at 9:47 am

    […] of Psychology. (And all this was well before he became the name brand of pragmatism, as covered in PEL’s episodes on James. We’re focusing on Chapters XI and […]

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  11. Paying for Episodes (and Listening Tech Tips) | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    April 25, 2014 at 9:07 pm

    […] have been subsequently referred to in many other discussions. We’ve also referred a lot to pragmatism subsequently, and the philosophy of mind episode is to this date our only real treatment of that […]

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  12. Our New Citizen Feed, August Not School Doings, and a New Mayor of Not School | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    August 3, 2015 at 8:29 pm

    […] discussion covers C.S. Peirce's essay, "The Fixation of Belief." You may recall this essay from PEL's episode 20. Here's a fresh take on it, in a short (30 min) […]

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  13. Topic for #127: John Dewey on Experience and Nature | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    November 13, 2015 at 10:56 am

    […] Dewey is primarily known for two things: Being one of the big names in pragmatism, and for his highly influential claims about education, specifically pointing out the active nature […]

    Reply
  14. Fixing Our Beliefs | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    June 28, 2016 at 7:01 am

    […] of Belief" written by Charles Sanders Peirce, the father of Pragmatism (subjects covered by PEL on podcasts and Not School discussions available on the citizen […]

    Reply
  15. Pragmatism Synopsis and Resources – earthtokevin says:
    November 23, 2016 at 5:08 pm

    […] 20: Pragmatism – Peirce and James http://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2010/06/09/episode-20-pragmatism-peirce-and-james-2/ June 9, 2010 by Mark […]

    Reply

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