| 释义 |
pragmatism|ˈprægmətɪz(ə)m|
[f. Gr. πρᾶγµα, πραγµατ- a deed, act (see pragmatic) + -ism. Cf. Ger. pragmatismus.]
1. Officiousness; pedantry; an instance of this.
1863Cowden Clarke Shaks. Char. viii. 211 Our laughing at his pragmatisms and solemn coxcombry. 1895E. J. Harding in Critic (N.Y.) 9 Feb. 95 How refreshing it is, this absence of pragmatism, this genial resolve to take life as it is, for better for worse.
2. Matter-of-fact treatment of things; attention to facts.
1872Geo. Eliot Middlem. lxxi, Mrs. Dollop..had often to resist the shallow pragmatism of customers disposed to think that their reports from the outer world were of equal force with what had ‘come up’ in her mind.
†3. A method of treating history in which the phenomena are considered with special reference to their causes, antecedent conditions, and results, and to their practical lessons. Obs.
[1832Sir W. Hamilton Discuss. (1853) 111 note, No word occurs more frequently in the historical and philosophical literature of Germany and Holland, than pragmatisch, or pragmaticus, and Pragmatismus,..the word is peculiarly employed to denote that form of history, which, neglecting circumstantial details, is occupied in the scientific evolution of causes and effects.] 1865tr. Strauss' New Life Jesus I. ii. xvi, I have drawn attention..to the prophetic pragmatism of Matthew. 1884D. Hunter tr. Reuss's Hist. Canon xv. 274 According to the pragmatism of history, we should now turn our attention to the influence which the reforming movement of the sixteenth century exercised on the notion of the biblical canon.
4. a. Philos. The doctrine that the whole ‘meaning’ of a conception expresses itself in practical consequences, either in the shape of conduct to be recommended, or of experiences to be expected, if the conception be true (W. James); or, the method of testing the value of any assertion that claims to be true, by its consequences, i.e. by its practical bearing upon human interests and purposes (F. C. S. Schiller). Also, the philosophical method of inquiry of C. S. Peirce; = pragmaticism 2.
1898W. James Philos. Concept. & Pract. Results 5 The principle of practicalism or pragmatism, as he [C. S. Peirce] called it, when I first heard him enunciate it at Cambridge [Mass.] in the early '70s, is the clue..by following which..we may keep our feet upon the proper trail. Ibid. 6 To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only consider what effects of a conceivable practical kind the object may involve... Our conception of these effects, then, is for us the whole of our conception of the object, so far as that conception has positive significance at all. This is the principle of Peirce, the principle of pragmatism. 1900W. Caldwell in Mind Oct. 436 In this so-called Pragmatism or Practicalism of Prof. James. 1902F. C. S. Schiller ibid. Apr. 203 To set forth fully the doctrine which he has named Pragmatism, and which I would fain advance against that of Aristotle. 1902― Personal Idealism 63. 1902 C. S. Peirce in Baldwin Dict. Philos. & Psychol. II. 322/2 Synechism..is not opposed to pragmatism in the manner in which C. S. Peirce applied it, but includes that procedure as a step. 1903Hibbert Jrnl. Mar. 577 Pragmatism is a new analysis of ‘truth’ inspired by the recent progress of psychology. 1906Schiller Humanism 8 Pragmatism is the doctrine that ‘truths’ are ‘values’, and that ‘realities’ are arrived at by processes of valuation. 1906Academy 4 Aug. 106/1 The most recent and (philosophically speaking) fashionable ‘ism’ that the new century has produced—known, by some as Humanism, and by others as Pragmatism. 1928T. S. Eliot For Lancelot Andrewes iv. 84 The great weakness of Pragmatism is that it ends by being of no use to anybody. 1946B. Russell in J. Feibleman Introd. Peirce's Philos. p. xv, Pragmatism, for Peirce, was only a method; the truths which it sought to discover were absolute and eternal. 1967Encycl. Philos. VI. 432/1 Pragmatism is a method of clarifying and determining the meaning of signs. 1971G. Petrović in R. Klibansky Contemp. Philos. IV. 394 We have come a great distance..from the confusion of pragmatism with Marxism. 1974K. R. Popper in P. A. Schilpp Philos. K. Popper I. 99 The tendency of English philosophers to flirt with nonrealistic epistemologies: phenomenalism, positivism,..sensationalism, pragmatism—these playthings of philosophers were in those days still more popular than realism.
b. Politics. Theory that advocates dealing with social and political problems primarily by practical methods adapted to the existing circumstances, rather than by methods which have been conformed to some ideology.
1951A. B. Ulam Philos. Found. Eng. Socialism iii. 77 It is true that the Fabian movement and British socialism in general have been built upon foundations quite different from those of Marxism. We have here first of all a sturdy spirit of pragmatism. 1966New Left Rev. Jan.–Feb. 25 Thompson at one point calls the Communist Party the ‘alter ego’ of the Labour and trade union Left. But he fails to see the implications of this; that the two are not so very different in nature, for they are united by a common pragmatism, which has led so often to a day-to-day accommodation. 1976Times 2 Apr. 8/4 Your struggle with Adolf Hitler, when Britain cast overboard the philosophy of pragmatism, or utilitarianism—the philosophy of recognizing any group of gangsters, any puppets, as head of a country as long as they were in control of its territory. 1976Survey Summer–Autumn 156 Now that Mao is dead there will no doubt be a sharp reaction towards ‘pragmatism’. |