On Cheryl Misak’s Modest Pragmatism

Abstract

1. IntroductionDisagreement about meaning of pragmatism has characterised it from its earliest years. Peirce hoped that his work would aid natural sciences by clarifying concepts scientists use in course of their investigations. In contrast, James focused on role pragmatism might play in all areas of human life, seeing it in particular as a way of reconciling science with religious belief. James was excited by what he saw as radical potential of his philosophy, going so far as to express hope that pragmatism might become a movement with consequences comparable in signifycance to those of Protestant Reformation.1 For his part, Peirce was sceptical of radical aspirations of some pragmatists, and regarded versions such as that of James to have fallen away from sober insights of his own position.In 1908, Arthur Lovejoy was able to discriminate thirteen versions of pragmatism, and a century later its diversity appears considerably greater.2 In light of number of philosophers who either identify as pragmatists or have been associated with pragmatism, it is natural that attempts have been made to take account of this diversity. These attempts often follow Peirce by contrasting his formulations of pragmatism with apparent deficiencies of Jamesian and Deweyan varieties.3 This is approach adopted by Cheryl Misak. Misak draws on elements in Peirce's work in order to develop what she describes as a desirably form of pragmatism.4 This she sets against problems of Jurgen Habermas' Kantian pragmatism on one hand, and of what she thinks radicalism of writers such as Richard Rorty on other.5 She claims that pragmatists should have no truck with aspiration to justify beliefs and practices by means of transcendental argument, yet at same time thinks that we might draw upon resources present within our social practices in order to move beyond kind of ethnocentrism proposed by Rorty. Specifically, these practices are said to provide for a substantive account of truth. Misak rejects transcendental and metaphysical theories of truth but also argues that if we inspect our practices, we nevertheless find robust standards of truth and objectivity operating there. As she remarks, trail of human serpent is over everything (to use James' phrase), but (as James himself may or may not have seen) this does not toss us into a sea of arbitrariness, where there is no truth or where truth varies from person to person or culture to culture.6I argue that Misak is unsuccessful in identifying a position which is modest in sense she claims. I begin by examining her most important contribution to pragmatism, her reworking of Peirce's account of truth into an understanding of truth as indefeasibility. Contrary to what Misak claims, I argue that idea of indefeasibility does not take us further than general pragmatist commitment to fallibilism and open-mindedness. I then suggest that Misak's occasionally expressed willingness to side with Rorty's wholehearted acceptance of contingency is correct insight to take from pragmatism, and that it should not be thought threatening once it is seen that apparent dangers of radical pragmatism are not in fact present.2. Misak's account of truth as indefeasibilityIn The American Pragmatists and other important work, Misak takes pragmatists to be in broad agreement in giving up on many of assumptions of modern philosophy. Pragmatists accept that there is no bedrock upon which to anchor belief; they set aside the idea that we might find a foundation for our principles of right belief and of right action in some infallible source - from God, from some special faculty of intuition, or from what is given to us with certainty by experience. Once this step is taken, however, a danger threatens, which is that the source for, and status of, our judgements, theories, and principles is altogether human and therefore arbitrary. …