These elements in turn imply an outlook that is progressive (in the sense of forward-looking), secular, and experimental, and that is commonsensical without making a fetish of common sense-for common sense is a repository of prejudice and ignorance as well as a fount of wisdom. R.W. Sleeper has helpfully summarized the pragmatic outlook in describing Dewey’s philosophy as ‘a philosophy rooted in common sense and dedicated to the transformation of culture, to the resolution of the conflicts that divide us.’ Also apt is Cornel West’s description of the ‘common denominator’ of pragmatism as ‘a future-oriented instrumentalism that tries to deploy thought as a weapon to enable more effective action.‘
Evidence
It is not that Peirce or Holmes or Nietzsche was a “Romantic” in a precise sense, if there is such a sense. It is that they wished to shift attention from a passive, contemplative relation between an observing subject and an objective reality, whether natural or social, to an active, creative relation between striving human beings and the problems that beset them and that they seek to overcome. For these thinkers, thought was an exertion of will instrumental to some human desire (and we see here the link between pragmatism and utilitarianism). Social institutions-whether science, law, or religion-were the product of shifting human desires rather than of a reality external to those desires. Human beings had not only eyes but hands as well. — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 25 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Dewey does not aim at judgments that shall be absolutely ‘true’, or condemn their contradictories as absolutely ‘false’. In his opinion there is a process called ‘inquiry’, which is one form of mutual adjustment between an organism and its environment. — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2928 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Common sense is a historical construct with changing ideological contents.; Ambedkar prized universal principles where Dewey distrusted fixed rules.; Common sense can be worked upon to transform it into conscious class struggle (+7 more)
Related
- Pragmatism redefined thought as an active tool for solving problems rather than passive contemplation. (similarity 0.89)
- Dewey viewed inquiry as organism-environment mutual adjustment (similarity 0.85)
- Ambedkar prized universal principles where Dewey distrusted fixed rules. (similarity 0.82)
- Histories of pragmatism usually begin with Charles Sanders Peirce, although he himself gave credit for the idea to a lawyer friend, Nicholas St. John Green, and anticipations can be found much… (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Pragmatism redefined thought as an active tool for solving problems rather than passive contemplation.
#expands(0.85) — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 25 - Dewey viewed inquiry as organism-environment mutual adjustment
#expands(0.70) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2928