Paris Final

7/24/2019 Paris Final

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Experience and Critique.Placing Pragmatism in Modern Philosophy

1. IntroPragmatism is a well-known philosophical approach, and the label

'pragmatism' is attached to a wide variety of positions, ranging from

Richard Rorty's lingistic pragmatism to !ine's post-empiricist philo-

sophy" ##$ernstein% Pihlstr&hm Some athors, sch as Robert $ran-

dom, do even take athors as diverse as (ittgenstein and )eideggerto be all fellow pragmatists" *he main point of pragmatism, according

to this broad nderstanding, is a re+ection of the idea that there is a

metaphysical point of view from which we cold reflect on the world"

nstead, we have to eplain, as .heryl isak pts it, 0or practices

and concepts, inclding or epistemic norms and standards, using

those very practices, concepts, norms, and standards"0 #isak 2134

5 Pragmatism, in short, stands for a practice-oriented, anti-fon-

dationalist and anti-cartesian style of thinking"*his wide nderstanding actally says more abot pragmatism's

place in modernity than abot pragmatism itself" 6nyone even faintly

acainted with modern philosophy will recogni8e that this descripti-

on does not only apply to pragmatism proper" t is rather a pragmatist

revision of a common modern theme, which can be traced back to

9ant4 )man reason is determined and bond by nothing bt itself"

will arge that we can find a mch more specific contribtion of

pragmatism to this modern theme, one which differentiates it morereliably from other approaches" *his specific difference has to be

soght in pragmatism's insistence on the irredcibly immediate di-

mension of eperience" .oncepts like Peirce's 0secondness0 or :e-

wey's distinctions between 'direct' and 'indirect' eperiences ##)ilde-

brandt 3; point towards a deep appreciation of the fact that the h-

man being is not only a rationalanimal, bt also an experiencingani-

mal" *his appreciation is characteristic for all three classical pragma-


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tists, that is, for r

in retreating from this philosophical etremism, they tend to show the

limits of modernity and its vision of rational self-control = an eample

for this approach cold be


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living" $t there's something distinctive in the modern nderstandingof criticism" *his characteristic can be illstrated by tracing the diffe-

rent ses of the word 0modern0" $eing modern is, to pt it paradoi-

cally, not an invention of modernity" People have described themsel-

ves as being 0modern0 as early as in the 5th centry, and repeated

that verdict in the 1th centry as well as in the 17th centry" #)-n the one hand, it signifies the hope and the possibility of

progress" 6s an nconditional beginning, it becomes possible to dis-

lodge the brdens of history, sch as metaphysical misconceptionsand other forms of idolatry" t seems possible now to give hman life

its most adeate form, to free it from misery, nnecessary hardship

and intolerable afflictions" (e all know the battle cry of all modern re-

voltions4 )istory is in or own hands, becase all of or problems as

well as their soltions are man-made and ths sb+ect to change"

@rom this perspective, modernity marks the possibility of beginning a

self-determined life, free and independent" $t this progress comes

at a cost" *he very same rptre which allows for the new beginning

also implies a problematic distance between the hman agent and

the world it is acting on" *his shift can be best be broght ot in con-

trasting the modern nderstanding of reason with ancient and premo-

dern conceptions" @or Plato and the ma+ority of the premodern traditi-

on, the power of reason was eplained by reference to its ob+ective

relation to being itself" #cf" *aylor, Sorces 1; Reason was thoght

to participate in the final, eternal and ever-lasting strctres of being"

n contrast, the modern conception believes that all nderstanding is

constittively tied to a set of theories, conceptions and conditions

which do notnecessarily belong to the eternal fabric of being" n mo-

dern philosophical +argon, these conditions are sally called the

subjectiveconditions of knowledge and nderstanding" n modern ti-

mes, every grasp of the ob+ective world always remains a subjective

grasp, irredcably tied to man-made pro+ects and man-made pro+ecti-

ons"


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(e can now better see in which way criticism is tied to modernity" fyo liberate hman reason from the dictate to contemplate a precon-

cieved order, the reslting capacity is = criticism" @or modern thin-

king, reason is essentially definedby its critical capacity" f yo ac-

cept the modern idea that there is no natral order commanding

oneDs thoght, as it were, from otside, then yo are left with nothing

bt the idea of critie" odern hman reason becomes refleively

concerned with itself, since natre or being cannot act anymore as a

final arbiter" *hs, the real power of reason manifests itself eclsive-

ly in its critical capacity to review, to rework and finally to transform its

own opinions" odern philosophy is more interested in the methodof

reasons than in specific reslts of thinking"

?ooking at the history of modern philosophy, this idea trns ot to be

ite powerfl" t allows for the modern conception of atonomy,

which governs modern moral, political and epistemological philoso-

phy to this day" *he ideal of atonomy epresses the conviction that

critie is, in the end, a positive attribte4 .ritie is made possible

by the power of reason to control itself and to give itself an ncondi-

tional law, liberated from the demands of tradition, religion, irrationali-

ty and the like" *his approach has been taken by the progressive

side of modernity, for eample by 9ant and Eerman dealism, and it

is also inflencing Pragmatism"

$t, by the very same token, criticism also seems to sffer from the

disconcerting detachment from the world that we have +st diagnosed

for the modern consciosness in general" *he praise of atonomy

ickly slides into skepticism and nihilism, since modern reason, n-

derstood as a permanent critical capacity, leaves no room for a final

resoltion of conflicts or trth claims" *here is no absolte certainty4

Fverything is in the fl, and every belief can trn ot to be a mista-

ke" (hile one sides takes this to be a sign of a healthy plralism

which allows reason to grow and improve, the skeptics prefer to see

the modern sitation as a problem for which the modern, atono-


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mos nderstanding of reason offers no soltion" *o them, atonomyand continos criticism look like an impotent, self-referential game

which has lost its toch with reality"

3. Science and Experience$t the pictre of modernity that have drawn p to now is not yet

complete" n fact, there is a poplar answer to the estion how the

reflecting mind, taken as an atonomos and essentially critical

power, keeps in toch with the world" *he typical modern answer is4

critical reason reaches the world throgh eperience" t is eperiencewhich is spposed to bridge the gap between mind and world" *his is

how the historian artin


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natral sciences had been able to break with long-held pre+dicesand reach new gronds, becase they relied on eperience, and not

on dogmatism or traditional assmptions" *his is at least what 9ant

assmed" 6nd he draw the conseence that philosophy shold fol-

low science's lead4 *he hman self-reflection has to accept the n-

conditional tie beetween eperience and the critical mind, which is

eactly 9antDs IcriticalJ path of philosophical iniry"

>ne of the reasons 9ant plays sch an important part for modern

philosophy is that he is trying to draw the conseenes of a poplar

nderstanding of science which is still valid today" 6ccording to this

nderstanding, scientific progress has been made possible by con-

fronting the critical power of reason with the nbiased reslts of em-

pirical investigations" :e to its empirical orientation, modern science

cold establish sch a wide-ranging and historically nparalleled n-

derstanding of natre" Fperience spplies thinking with the material

it can work on and allows it to form new assmptions as well as to

test them" 6s long as we keep in toch with eperience, we can claim

to be bothcritical and progressive"

*oday, one is ick in pointing ot that this poplar image of science

is overly idealistic" *he history and sociology of science has shown

that scientists are not a better species" *hey are as dogmatic as the

rest of s, taken in by clods of ideology and pre+dices, and the

scientific method does not in itself grant the scientist any magical cri-

tical power" $t it is still possible to arge that as a whole, science

does progress, even if its concrete practice has little to do with this

simplistic idealisation" 6nd we shold also not forget that these cor-

rections of the poplar image mostly arge in the name of a better,

more realistic assessment of the scientific practices" *hey claim to

show that reality forces s to ad+st or simplistic nderstanding of

the workings of science = which is +st another reiteration of modern

critical thinking"


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*he real challenge, it seems to me, is conceptal" (e have to nder-stand how eperience canpossiblycontribte to the critical power of

reason" *he most dominant answers to this estion can be roghly

divided in two camps" *he first view is what will call the intellectua-

listapproach" ntellectalism is motivated by the demand that eperi-

ence has to be intelligiblein order to fllfill its critical role" *his dimen-

sion of eperience has been constantly defended by athors like

9ant or, more recently, Sellars and c:owell" *hey emphasi8e that

eperience only affects reason in a certain form, for eample in the

lingistic form, or according to the categories of the nderstanding" n

this 9antian tradition, eperience is only rationally assessible if it ass-

mes the right form = the form, that is, of a possible contentfor fr-

ther reflection" @or the intellectalist, eperience has to assme a

certain form in order to be rationally relevant at all"

*here are good reasons for the intellectalist thesis" ts main motiva-

tion is to defend the modern nderstanding of rationality as an essen-

tially atonomos activity" f we claim that eperience somehow con-

tribtes to the critical mind, it cannot be flly aliento its fndamental

operations" *hat is4 t has to conform to the forms of hman reaso-

ning" (ithot this reirement, we wold not be able to frther reflect

pon eperience" 6nd if the hman mind cannot critically reflect pon

its eperiences, that is, if it cannot correct or affirm them, it can hard-

ly be called atonomos" *he references to eperience wold give

s, as


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form" $t if eperience has to assme a certain form in order to berationally accontable, we are marginali8ing those eperiences which

do not, or not yet, assme sch a rational form" *o pt it differently4 n

the intellectalist tradition, eperience is only discssed from the sb-

+ective point of view" *his redction of eperience has given rise to a

conter-crrent to epistemological intellectalism, which will call

anti-intellectalism"

*he anti-intellectalists try to defend a different nderstanding of e-

perience" Sch an alternative to 9ant had been first flly articlated

by )egel" @or him, eperience is mch more than a possible content

for +dgments" t is also discssed as a forcewhich actively shapes

or forms of reasoning, as it were, from the otside" Fperience is

seen as that which challenges the sb+ect and its principles, confron-

ting it with something which is notflly rationally nderstood" 6nd n-

dergoing an eperience does not only reslt in a new set of opinions,

bt rather in a transformation of the very forms of oneDs own nder-

standing"

)egel calls this transformative dimension of eperience the 'negativi-

tiy' of the mind, and for him, the modern mind is essentiallycharacte-

rised by negativity" *he philosophical investigation of that dimension

of negativity is not restricted to )egel, nor does it have to assme the

)egelian form" 6thors like )eidegger, $ataille or @ocalt had also

been eperimenting with the idea that there is, in eperience, some-

thing which cannot be redced to the form of the sb+ect"

*aken literally, this idea seems to be at its core paradoical, since

how can we nderstand eperience withot attaching it to the eperi-

encing sb+ectH ##


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informedby eperience" So this ob+ective side has somehow to be in-clded in a fll accont of hman eperience" 6nd yet, this ob+ective

dimension is difficlt to grasp" Since it is ot of reach for the sb+ect,

it is mostly descibed in negative terms4 Fperience, in the anti-intel-

lectalist form, is something elsive, irritiatingly vage, inarticlate,

preconceptal" t is described as something overwhelming, destabili-

8ing, sbversive, sblime, or simply as something irreftably 'given',

as it is claimed in the empiricist tradition"

*he point in distingishing these two approaches is systematic" *he

recrrent insistence on either the immediacy of eperience or its for-

mal mediation points to a systematic ambigity inherent in the mo-

dern notion of critie itself" *he idea of an eperience withot a sb-

+ect is actally as paradoical as the conception of an absolte ratio-

nal atonomy which can pt anyclaim in +eopardy" *he opposition

between intellectalism and anti-intellectalism manifests a systema-

tic instability in the modern self-nderstanding of reason itself"

4. Pragmatism's Experimental cco!nt ofExperiencen the light of the preceeding discssion, .lasical Pragmatism can

now be firmly placed within the anti-intellectalist tradition" t tries to

develop a wider approach to eperience and rationality that is driven

by one central idea4 nstead of setting anti-intellectalism over and

against the intellectalistic nderstanding of eperience, both shold

be integrated in an etended nderstanding of science and rationali-

ty" @rom that broader perspective, intellectalism's mistake is not that

it reires eperience to be sb+ectively intelligible" ts mistake is rat-

her that it does not place this reirement within a wider setting, one

which allows to assess how these forms of intelligibility change and

emerge" *he opposition between intellectalist and anti-intellectalist

philosophy shold not be seen as two antagonisticapproaches to re-

ason, bt rather as the articlation of aproductive tensionfeling mo-

dern rationality"


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*he key to this approach is to leave behind the 9antian redction ofeperience" Fperience, in pragmatist terms, is not something which

gives s 0access0 to the world, nor is it something that simply 0cons-

trains0 or thinking or 0confronts0 s with the prely nintelligible"

Rather, eperience is treated as something which develops, and ths

incldes bothactivity and passivity, intelligibility and negativity" t is

reconstrcted as a circlar movement, in which the eperiencing sb-

+ect and the eperienced ob+ect are bond together in iniry"

.ritics have often epressed reservations against this broad concept

of eperience, especially as it has been developed by :ewey" ##Rorty

1BA; t seems to be so wide and comprehensive that it loses any

distinctive eplanatory power" $t note that for Pragmatism, this com-

prehensive nderstanding is actally an attempt to rectifythe central

mistake of intellectalism" 6s long as we restrict eperience to its

sb+ective forms, the critical power of the modern mind is not only li -

mited, bt actally dogmatic4 f we eclde feelings, emotions and

vage nderstanding of the realm of rationality, most of the problems

which occpy or lives are roled ot of reason proper" 6ccordingly,

pragmatism tries to present a philosophical accont which allows to

extendcritical rationality to also inclde the side of negativity" @rom a

pragmatistic point of view, critical reasoning within the limits of intel-

lectalism is a misnderstanding of reason's real form and power,

and actally constittes a misnderstanding of modernity"

*he overall strctre of this conception of eperience is reminiscent

of the )egelian approach" *hat's no srprise4 $oth Peirce and :ewey

had had their share of Eerman dealism, and there is a lot of interes-

ting research crrently sorting ot the similaraties and differences

between these two philosophical approaches" >ne distinctive diffe-

rence, thogh, is readily identified" )egel insisted that the dialectical

movement between sb+ect and ob+ect finally leads to an overall pro-

gress of the spirit, whereas Pragmatism takes care not to blr the ori-


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ginal tension between both sides" *heir nderstanding of eperienceis less ambitios and more mndane than )egel's"

.lassical Pragmatism takes the scientific experimentto be the para-

digm of eperience" *his is a very consistent response to the modern

problem of how to define critie" *he modern praise of critie, one

cold arge, has been born roghly at the same time as the wide-

spread instittionalisation of the scientific eperiment" .orrespondin-

gly, any accont of critie has to regard the scientific eperiment as

its model" 6nd this is how the eperiment can be described in prag-

matistic perspective4 6n eperiment is a spatially and temporally

bond rational practice, in which both the active and the passive di-

mensions of eperience develop and inflence each other" *hinking

and logic form constittive parts of this eperimental practice, as well

as material instrments, diagrams and signs" 6nd althogh the epe-

rimental iniry is a firmly sitated and temporally limited practice, it

is also oriented and gided by overarching principles which direct the

condct of iniry in a more general and abstract way"

>ne can see how far this nderstanding diverges from the common,

mostly positivistic conception, which redces the eperimental practi-

ce to the simple activity of ptting a given proposition to a test" *his

temporal and, if yo like, dialectical strctre is of tmost importance

for a proper nderstanding of iniry" *aken as a temporal practice,

the eperiment is spposed to be the answer to the modern division

of eperience" *he eperiment always incldes bothsides of eperi-

ence4 t can only proceed with the spport of means which are flly

nderstood, sch as propositions, meanings and instrments" $t it

ses these clear and transparent means in order to improve on a

non-transparent and ndetermined nderstanding" *his is the overall

significance of the pragmatist thesis that the origin of the eperiment

is, as yo well know, the state of dobt" :obt is the initial incentive

for eperimentation, and, as .hristopher )ookway stresses, its conti-

nos point of reference for the measrement of sccess" ote4


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0:obt is not necessary only as a stimls to real iniry%it has a contining role in monitoring the iniry, in takingresponsibility for how sccessfl it is"0 #)ookway 223453

?ooking back at or previos discssion, we can see that dobt is an

eemplar of the eperience of 'negativity'" *he conversion of dobt

into articlate knowledge, then, is an eample of the sccessfl

transformation of this negative eperience into new forms of nder-

standing" t is a feeling, something inchoate and inarticlate, which is

then integrated into a rational form" *he eperiment, nderstood this

way, gives s a paradigm case where this adaption scceeds" take

this to be the central insight of classical pragmatism, which is shared

by all three classical athors regardless of the differences they have

in regards of other sb+ects"

?et me now highlight two central aspects of this eperimental nder-

standing of eperience and rationality4 the passivity of the sb+ect,

and the material dimension of the process of iniry" *he passive di-

mension is already implied in the reglative fnction of dobt" :obt

is an eistential state in which the dobting sb+ect is entangled, and

from which it needs to liberate itself" *his overpowering of the sb+ect

is vividly shown in the rather strong vocablary that is sed by Peirce

to describe this dimension of iniry" )is description reads as follows4

*he irritation of dobt cases a strggle to attain a state ofbelief" shall term this strggle inquiry, thogh it mst beadmitted that this is sometimes not a very apt designation"#FP , 11;

Peirce's description likens the eperiment to a physical conflict"

:obt causesa contermovement in which belief is to be regained,

and this contermovement is called a struggle" *he Peircian inirer

is, as it were, overwhelmedby the sitation and strggles to regain

orientation"

*his emphasis of the passive dimension of iniry is probably the re-

ason that pragmatism has early gained a reptation to be a disrep-


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table kind of philosophy that redces knowledge and rationality tomere reactive powers4 (e enconter problems, somehow deal with

it, and then go on" )ow do yo integrate the hman est for trth

and nderstanding in that passive modelH *he answer is4 $y pointing

ot that the hman knowledge and its motiviating ideas, sch as criti-

e and critical nderstanding, are an accomplishment, a cltral

prodct which shold not be taken for granted" Pragmatism is clai-

ming to get hold of negativity withot giving away the idea that pro-

gressive knowledge is possible" 9nowledge is possible not becase

there is some transcendentally secred 'access' to the world, bt rat-

her becase knowledge and vales have to be producedand secu-

redby the right kind of practices" 6ccordingly, Peirce describes epe-

rimental work along these lines as something to be prsed with 0dll

patience0 #FP, 111, reiring that something is actally doneby 0ma-

niplating real things instead of words and fancies"0 #FP , 111

*he second point want to highlight is the material dimension of in-

iry" t can be sitated on two levels" >n a basic level, former epe-

riences and iniries leave their traces in the individal bodies, giving

them orientation in the form of habits and capacities" $t pragma-

tism's 'material trn', as one cold call it, goes frther" @or pragma-

tism, the process of eperience is always made possibleby material

elements that are sally not considered to be part of the hman

mind" *his can be illstrated by two eemplary otes" Peirce, for e-

ample, famosly claims that 0man can think only by means of words

or other eternal symbols0 #FP , 5;" *hinking +st ain't in the head,

or at least not eclsively" *his is what :ewey writes, among otherthings, abot thinking4

0niry proceeds by reflection, by thinking, bt not, mostdecidedly, by thinking as conceived in the old tradition, assomething cooped p within 'mind'" @or eperimental in-iry or thinking signifies directed activity, doing some-thing which varies the conditions nder which ob+ects areobserved and directly had and by institting new arrange-ments among them0 #!., BB


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*aken together, the material and passive dimension highlight thatknowledge, for pragmatism, is always is the reslt of a jointcoopera-

tion of mind and world" *hinking is an embodied practice which can-

not be redced the sb+ective condct alone"

Kote that these two dimensions are spposed to add p to a descrip-

tion of rationality which is agreeingwith the modern conception of cri-

tie and the atonomy of reason" *he embodied natre of knowled-

ge is not taken to be an obstacle to this nderstanding" n forming or

second natre, it is rather considered to be a necessary condition of

the very possibility of knowledge" >nly by embodying sense and

meaning in habits and signs, knowledge can be both had and impro-

ved" 6nd only by embedding thoght and eplicit thinking in the over-

arching sphere of eperience, can it actally hope to be somehow

aboutthe world to which it refers" >r this, at least, seems to the main

idea"

". #!tro

?ooking back at the overall argment so far, we can now smmari8ePragmatism's contribtion to modernity" t is twofold" @or one thing,

Pragmatism develops a critical nderstanding of the one-sided intel-

lectalist approach to eperience and rationality" t is important to see

that this criticism of other philosophical approaches has to be nder-

stood as an attempt to furtherthe modern nderstanding" @rom prag-

matism's perspective, the modern nderstanding of rational atono-

my and criticism is actally a misnderstanding" t is a misnderstan-

ding wedded to modern sb+ectivism, which treats the mind as some-

thing that is always internal to the acting sb+ect"

Sb+ectivism has recieved ite some criticism in the 2th centry,

ranging from )eidegger's fndamental ontology to the philosophy of

langage" Some of these criticism, sch as )eidegger's, tend to dis-

miss the modern dimension of the problem and try to articlate a po-

sition which is spposed to overcome modernity" >thers, like the

analytic philosophy of langage, are brdened with a too intellectali-


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stic nderstanding of rationality and an often ncritical attitde to-wards science" Pragmatism seems to offer a viable alternative here"

t does not call for a critie of rational atonomy, bt for its recon-

struction" (e shold nderstand modern critical thinking as an histo-

rical achievement, constittively bond by certain instittion and cer-

tain practices" *his achievement, from pragmatism's perspective, has

ite some vale and ths needs to be defended" $t sch a defen-

se shold not be seen as giving a logical fondation to something al-

ready pre-eisting"

*his brings me to the second important reslt of the preceeding dis-

cssion" >ne main problem of modern philosophy is that most defen-

ses of the modern vales tend to take modernity for granted" *his po-

sition is no longer applicable today" *he very notion of modernity is

actally a misnomer" t implies a niversal historic event, something

that captres, as it were, the whole planet" $t in the 1"st centry,

history can no longer be redced to the local history of Frope and

its former colonies" n the same vein, it seems implasible today to

think that there is +st one way to do science" odern science is split

among many disciplines with very different, and often incompatible,

frameworks of investigation, and even the approaches within one

scholarly discipline can diverge to a massive degree" *here is no

sch thing as themodern science, and every attempt to se it as a

paradigm for rational thoght is doomed to fail"

So paradoically, the pragmatist analysis of the eperiment allows it

to take distance from the narrative of modernity and its glorification of

science" 6ll these modern vales abot which have talked, in parti-

clar atononomy and criticism, shold not be taken as permanent

trths, bt rather as guiding principles" *hese principles have grown

in the corse of modern history, and they have proven to be of some

vale" $t neither their content, nor their vale is permanent" *his im-

plies that we have to pt modernity into perspective" (e have to ask4


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(hy shold one be modern at allH (hat's the point of being criticalH6nd why mst criticism assme thisform rather than anotherH

Pragmatism can help to see that these estions can very well be

well asked from withinmodernity" >r emotional attachments to the-

se ideas, concepts and historical self-descriptions are actally an im-

portantpartof or rationality% as are or dobts" *hs it is necessary

not only to be critical, bt to be self-critical" *he challenge is to nder-

stand where we crrently stand, right here and now, at this historical

+nctre" (e have to ask4 (hat is or own presentH (hat sense can

we attach to itH 6nd what has to be done in order to live p to that

self-nderstandingH 6sking these estions, it seems to me, constit-

tes the very essence of modern thinking"

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