Pragmaticism

Part of a series on
Charles Sanders Peirce
Bibliography
Pragmatism in epistemology
Abductive reasoning Fallibilism Pragmaticism as maxim as theory of truth Community of inquiry
Logic
Continuous predicate Peirce's law Entitative graph in Qualitative logic Existential graph Functional completeness Logic gate Logic of information Logical graph Logical NOR Second-order logic Trikonic Type-token distinction
Semiotic theory
Indexicality Interpretant Semiosis Sign relation Universal rhetoric
Miscellaneous contributions
Agapism Bell triangle Categories Phaneron Synechism Tychism Classification of sciences Listing number Quincuncial projection
Biographical
Joseph Morton Ransdell Allan Marquand Juliette Peirce Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce Roberta Kevelson Christine Ladd-Franklin Victoria, Lady Welby The Metaphysical Club book Peirce Geodetic Monument
v t e

"Pragmaticism" is a term used by Charles Sanders Peirce for his pragmatic philosophy starting in 1905, in order to distance himself and it from pragmatism, the original name, which had been used in a manner he did not approve of in the "literary journals". Peirce in 1905 announced his coinage "pragmaticism", saying that it was "ugly enough to be safe from kidnappers" (Collected Papers (CP) 5.414). Today, outside of philosophy, "pragmatism" is often taken to refer to a compromise of aims or principles, even a ruthless search for mercenary advantage. Peirce gave other or more specific reasons for the distinction in a surviving draft letter that year and in later writings. Peirce's pragmatism, that is, pragmaticism, differed in Peirce's view from other pragmatisms by its commitments to the spirit of strict logic, the immutability of truth, the reality of infinity, and the difference between (1) actively willing to control thought, to doubt, to weigh reasons, and (2) willing not to exert the will, willing to believe.^[1] In his view his pragmatism is, strictly speaking, not itself a whole philosophy, but instead a general method for the clarification of ideas. He first publicly formulated his pragmatism as an aspect of scientific logic along with principles of statistics and modes of inference in his "Illustrations of the Logic of Science" series of articles in 1877-8.