Man as the Measure of All Things: Pragmatic Humanism and Its Pitfalls

Honnacker, Ana

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-94099-1_7

Ana Honnacker²

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Abstract

Philosophical pragmatism takes human experience as the touchstone of any theorizing. Authors like William James and F.C.S. Schiller suggested to transform philosophy into a critical and emancipatory project, turning the quest for truth into a project of creative and responsible world-making. Their basic insight that man is the measure of all things demands for being actively engaged in building a better world. As pragmatism denies objective criteria for critique, listening to a plurality of voices and their experiences becomes crucial. This chapter offers a humanist re-reading of philosophical pragmatism and explores its challenges and prospects. With pointing out problematic assumptions in the work of James and Schiller, the unfinished agenda of their pragmatic humanism becomes visible.

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Notes

1.
Arthur Lovejoy, “The Thirteen Pragmatisms”, The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods. Vol. 5, No. 1 (1908), 5.
2.
William James, Some Problems of Philosophy. A Beginning of an Introduction to Philosophy. The Works of William James. Vol. 7 (Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press, 1979), 55.
3.
See Mark J. Porrovecchio, F.C.S. Schiller and the Dawn of Pragmatism. The Rhetoric of a Philosophical Rebel (Lanham et al.: Lexington Books, 2011), xvxix.
4.
On the topic of the selective reception of the pragmatist tradition see Mark J. Porrovecchio, Cracks in the Pragmatic Façade: “F.C.S. Schiller and the Nature of Counter-Democratic Tendencies”, in: Ethics and Politics, XII (2010): 86–112.
5.
See Abel Reuben, The Pragmatic Humanism of F.C.S. Schiller (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1955), 5.
6.
For an overview of Schiller’s treatment of logic see Abel, The Pragmatic Humanism of F.C.S. Schiller, 14–93.
7.
For example The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Turn of the Screw (1898) or The Golden Bowl (1904).
8.
See Abel, The Pragmatic Humanism of F.C.S. Schiller, 11.
9.
Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller, “The Definition of Pragmatism and Humanism,” in Studies in Humanism, ed. F.C.S. Schiller (London et al.: Macmillan and Co, 1912), 12.
10.
William James, Pragmatism, A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. The Works of William James Vol. 1 (Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press, 1975), 37.
11.
Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller, “The Making of Truth,” in Studies in Humanism, ed. F.C.S. Schiller (London et al.: Macmillan and Co, 1912), 185.
12.
For the metaphor of the sculptor see William James, “Reflex Action and Theism,” in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. The Works of William James. Vol. 6 (Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press, 1979), 103 and William James, The Principles of Psychology. Vol. 1, The Works of William James, Vol. 8/1 (Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press, 1981), 277–278.
13.
James, “Reflex Action and Theism,” 103.
14.
That of course premises freedom and indeed freedom is a postulate made by both James and Schiller, see for example Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller, “Freedom,” in Studies in Humanism, ed. F.C.S. Schiller (London et al.: Macmillan and Co, 1912) and William James, The Principles of Psychology. Vol. II. The Works of William James, Vol. 8/2 (Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press 1981), 948, 173–1182.
15.
Cf. Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller, “The Humanistic View of Life,” in: Our Human Truths (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), 18–19.
16.
“You may interpret the word I ‘salvation’ in any way you like, and make it as diffuse and distributive, or as climacteric and integral a phenomenon as you please” (James, Pragmatism, 110).
17.
James, Pragmatism, 114.
18.
James, Pragmatism, 115.
19.
Charlene H. Seigfried, Pragmatism and Feminism. Reweaving the Social Fabric (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press 1996), 17.
20.
See Abel, The Pragmatic Humanism of F.C.S. Schiller, 130 and William James, “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life,” in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. The Works of William James. Vol. 6 (Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press, 1979).
21.
Two most prominent examples are Cornel West and his prophetic pragmatism that can be read as anti-nihilist humanism that draws on the Christian tradition on the one hand and Richard Rorty’s deeply anti-religious pragmatic humanism on the other hand.
22.
In reminiscence of Beckett’s famous statement “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
23.
See for example Abel, The Pragmatic Humanism of F.C.S. Schiller, 128 and James “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life”.
24.
Abel, The Pragmatic Humanism of F.C.S. Schiller, 127.
25.
James, “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life,” 155.
26.
Nevertheless James cannot be considered a utilitarian himself, see Sami Pihlström, Pragmatic Pluralism and the Problem of God (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 104, 107.
27.
James, “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life,” 155–156.
28.
Richard Rorty, “Feminism and Pragmatism”. The Tanner Lectures on Human Values (delivered at University of Michigan, l December 7, 1990, http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/r/rorty92.pdf), 4–5. Feminists have worked a lot on how language reflects male dominance and marginalizes other ways of expression, see Seigfried, Pragmatism and Feminism, 22.
29.
For an elaborate discussion of the case of Eckford see Danielle Allen, Talking To Strangers. Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2004), especialle Chap. 2.
30.
See his Essay “On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings,” published in his Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals in 1899.
31.
See Seigfried, Pragmatism and Feminism, 15, 112–113. Actually, James, as pragmatism in general, was and still is even seen as a strikingly “feminine” thinker both in style and content. This is suggested to be a reason for his underlining of masculinity, see Seigfried, Pragmatism and Feminism, 31–37, 141. Of all the classic pragmatists, he is still the one that received the least critical examination. An extensive and inspiring re-reading can be found in the volume Feminist Interpretations of William James, ed. Erin C. Tarver and Shannon Sullivan (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015).
32.
For example in the classic by Jaques Barzun, A Stroll with William James (London: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 125.
33.
See William James, Principles of Psychology II, 1044–1045.
34.
See James, Principles of Psychology II, 991.
35.
See James, Principles of Psychology II, 1055–1056.
36.
For a more detailed discussion on James’ sexism see Seigfried, Pragmatism and Feminism, 111–141. For an ethics of care that is nevertheless based on James see ibid., 206–223.
37.
James, Principles of Psychology I, 279.
38.
See Seigfried, Pragmatism and Feminism, 126.
39.
William James, “Great Men and Their Environment,” in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. The Works of William James. Vol. 6 (Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press, 1979). For a closer critical examination of Great Men and Their Environment see Erin C. Tarver, “Lady Pragmatism and the Great Man. The Need for Feminist Pragmatism,” in Feminist Interpretations of William James, ed. Erin C. Tarver and Shannon Sullivan (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015).
40.
That these means actually have been available all along becomes clear in the case of W.E.B. DuBois, the only early pragmatist who developed a radical criticism of sexism and conjoined it with his reflections on racial discrimination, see Seigfried, Pragmatism and Feminism, 104–108. Seigfried also points out that James’ sharing of the typical Victorian view is deliberalely adopted, see ibid., 115.
41.
Abel, for example, took this course and stated that “Schiller’s social philosophy was nothing less than fantastic”(Abel, The Pragmatic Humanism of F.C.S. Schiller, 145).
42.
Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller, “Ant-Men or Super-Men?,” in Our Human Truths (New York: Columbia University Press 1939), 265–266.
43.
Schiller, “Ant-Men or Super-Men?,” 251.
44.
Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller, “Facisms and Dictatorships,” in Our Human Truths (New York: Columbia University Press 1939), 275.
45.
Schiller, “Fascisms and Dicatorships,” 276.
46.
See Abel, The Pragmatic Humanism of F.C.S. Schiller, 146.
47.
See Porrovecchio, F.C.S. Schiller and the Dawn of Pragmatism, 238–240.
48.
„Germany, in Hitler’s National Socialism, has apparently the maddest of all dictatorships, based on the pseudo-science of fantastic race-theories and the barbarism of anti-Semitic [sic] Judenhetzen” (Schiller, “Ant-Men or Super-Men?,” 260).
49.
See Schiller, “Fascisms and Dictatorships,” 270–271. See also Porrovecchio, F.C.S. Schiller and the Dawn of Pragmatism, xxii.
50.
Daniel J. Kevles, Daniel J., In the Name of Eugenics. Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press, 1995), 116.
51.
I owe these contextual insights and clarifications to Dominik Hammer and his research in the history of eugenics.
52.
See Seigfried, Pragmatism and Feminism, 11.
53.
See Seigfried, Pragmatism and Feminism, 126.
54.
Seigfried, Pragmatism and Feminism, 261.
55.
James, “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life,” 156.
56.
See Seigfried, Pragmatism and Feminism, 79, 270.
57.
Rorty, “Feminism and Pragmatism”, 14.
58.
Seigfried, Pragmatism and Feminism, 10.
59.
See José Medina, “The Will Not To Believe. Pragmatism, Oppression, and Standpoint Theory,” in Feminist Interpretations of William James, ed. Erin C. Tarver and Shannon Sullivan (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015).
60.
Medina, “The Will Not to Believe,” 244.
61.
Medina further elaborates on how to make room for the necessary self-estrangement in “The Will Not to Believe,” 251–258.
62.
For an impressive analysis see Yuval Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (London: Harvill Secker, 2015).
63.
Again, I owe this to helpful conversations with Dominik Hammer.
64.
Schiller, “Problems of Belief,” 192 (quoted from Abel, The Pragmatic Humanism of F.C.S. Schiller, 149).

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Hannover Institute for Philosophical Research, Hannover, Germany
Ana Honnacker

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Religion Department, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA
Anthony B. Pinn

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Honnacker, A. (2018). Man as the Measure of All Things: Pragmatic Humanism and Its Pitfalls. In: Pinn, A. (eds) Humanism and the Challenge of Difference. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94099-1_7

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94099-1_7
Published: 04 October 2018
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