Pragmatism believes in the reality of experience and, therefore, in biological and social settings. This stream of thought involves essentially three concepts:
1. That ideas mean only their consequences in experience.
2. That experience is essentially social in origin and predominately social in purpose.
3. That we find out what to expect in life by studying experimentally the uniformities in experience.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The pragmatist gives shape to his view by exploring experiences. He refuses to speculate or to construct theories which go beyond the obvious realities of human life. He believes that our experience is practical and that it is reaction to stimulation in a biological and social setting.
According to Pragmatists, the world is all foreground involving particular units of activity in which an individual of a group is engaged at a given time. The world is characterized by process and change, an overflowing stream of change and movement. It is precarious, uncertain, incomplete and indeterminate. There is room for change, for improvements made by man. The world is pluralistic.
It is a multiversity rather than a universe. The world has ends within its own process. This challenges a moral norm. The world is not, nor does it include, a trans-empirical reality. Pragmatism asserts the non-theistic, non-mystical, and non-spiritual character of existence.
Man is continuous with the world. Man is not a creation given birth from a source higher than nature, and not a new kind of creature emerging in nature. He is not an active cause in the world.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
There is simple stimulus response, but also delayed response to allow for comprehension of a situation which is a total response that handles and forces and helps determine their future direction. The world does not guarantee progress, but, is indeterminate with regard to values. Man’s redirecting power can help determine the future.
The pragmatist simply believes that knowledge is experience. This experience assumes an organism and an environment experience is an outcome of their continual interaction.
The pragmatist believes that value arises as does experience itself in the interaction between the individual and his environment. The good is simply what satisfies the inclination, the desires, the wishes, or the wants of the individual. The pragmatist always is concerned about what is best for the greatest number under the circumstances where the need for judgment arises