Why Pragmatic Should Be Your Next Big Obsession
Pragmatism and the Illegal
Pragmatism is both a normative and descriptive theory. As a theory of descriptive nature, it asserts that the traditional picture of jurisprudence does not fit reality and that pragmatism in law provides a more realistic alternative.
Legal pragmatism in particular, rejects the notion that correct decisions can be derived from a fundamental principle. It advocates a pragmatic approach that is based on context.
What is Pragmatism?
Pragmatism is a philosophy that emerged during the latter part of the nineteenth and early 20th centuries. It was the first North American philosophical movement. (It is worth noting however that some existentialism followers were also referred to as "pragmatists") The pragmaticists, like many other major philosophical movements throughout history were influenced by discontent over the state of the world and the past.
It is a challenge to give an exact definition of pragmatism. Pragmatism is typically focused on results and outcomes. This is sometimes contrasted with other philosophical traditions that take a more theoretical approach to truth and knowledge.
Charles Sanders Peirce is credited as the inventor of pragmatic thinking in the context of philosophy. He believed that only things that can be independently tested and proven through practical experiments is true or real. Peirce also stressed that the only real method of understanding something was to examine the effects it had on other people.
John Dewey, an educator and philosopher who lived from 1859 until 1952, was a second founding pragmatist. He developed a more holistic approach to pragmatism. This included connections to art, education, society and politics. He was influenced by Peirce and by the German idealists Wilhelm von Humboldt und Friedrich Hegel.
The pragmatists had a looser definition of what is truth. This was not intended to be a realism position but rather an attempt to attain a higher level of clarity and solidly settled beliefs. This was achieved through an amalgamation of practical experience and solid reasoning.
The neo-pragmatic concept was later extended by Putnam to be more broadly defined as internal realism. This was an alternative to the theory of correspondence, that did not attempt to create an external God's eye perspective, but instead maintained the objective nature of truth within a description or theory. It was an advanced version of the ideas of Peirce and James.
What is Pragmatism's Theory of Decision-Making?
A legal pragmatist views the law as a means to resolve problems, not as a set rules. Thus, he or she rejects the classical picture of deductive certainty and emphasizes the importance of context in the process of making a decision. Moreover, Pragmatic argue that the notion of foundational principles is misguided because, as a general rule, any such principles would be discarded by the practice. A pragmatist view is superior to a traditional approach to legal decision-making.
The pragmatist view is broad and has led to a myriad of theories in philosophy, ethics and sociology, science, and political theory. Although Charles Sanders Peirce deserves most of the credit for pragmatism and his pragmatism-based maxim - a rule for clarifying the meaning of hypotheses by exploring their practical implications is the core of the doctrine, the concept has since expanded significantly to encompass a variety of views. The doctrine has expanded to encompass a variety of perspectives and beliefs, including the notion that a philosophy theory only true if it is useful, and that knowledge is more than just an abstract representation of the world.
Although the pragmatics have contributed to many areas of philosophy, they're not without critics. The the pragmatists' refusal to accept the concept of a priori propositional knowledge has given rise to an influential and powerful critique of traditional analytical philosophy that has spread beyond philosophy to a variety of social disciplines, including the fields of jurisprudence and political science.
It isn't easy to classify the pragmatist view to law as a description theory. Judges tend to make decisions based on a logical-empirical framework, which relies heavily on precedents and conventional legal materials. A legal pragmatist, however, may claim that this model doesn't accurately reflect the real dynamics of judicial decisions. It is more logical to see a pragmatic approach to law as an normative model that serves as guidelines on how law should evolve and be applied.
What is the Pragmatism Theory of Conflict Resolution?
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that understands knowledge of the world as inseparable from agency within it. It has attracted a wide and sometimes contradictory variety of interpretations. It is sometimes viewed as a response to analytic philosophy, while at other times, it is viewed as a different approach to continental thought. It is an emerging tradition that is and growing.
The pragmatists wanted to stress the importance of experience and individual consciousness in forming beliefs. They were also concerned to correct what they perceived as the flaws in a flawed philosophical heritage which had altered the work of earlier philosophers. These mistakes included Cartesianism Nominalism, and a misunderstood of the importance of human reason.
All pragmatists distrust untested and non-experimental images of reason. They will be suspicious of any argument that asserts that "it works" or "we have always done things this way" are valid. For the legal pragmatist these statements can be seen as being overly legalistic, naively rationalist, and insensitive to the past practice.
Contrary to the traditional notion of law as a set of deductivist laws, the pragmatist stresses the importance of context when making legal decisions. They will also recognize the fact that there are a variety of ways to define law, and that these different interpretations must be embraced. The perspective of perspectivalism may make the legal pragmatic appear less reliant to precedents and previously accepted analogies.
The legal pragmatist's perspective recognizes that judges do not have access to a core set of fundamentals from which they could make well-considered decisions in all cases. The pragmatist therefore wants to stress the importance of understanding the case prior to making a final decision, and is willing to modify a legal rule when it isn't working.
There is no universally agreed definition of a legal pragmaticist however certain traits are common to the philosophical stance. They include a focus on context and the rejection of any attempt to deduce law from abstract principles which are not directly tested in a particular case. The pragmaticist is also aware that the law is constantly evolving and there isn't one correct interpretation.
What is Pragmatism's Theory of Justice?
Legal Pragmatism as a philosophy of justice has been praised for its ability to effect social changes. However, it has also been criticized for being an attempt to avoid legitimate moral and philosophical disputes, by placing them in the realm of legal decision-making. The pragmatist is not interested in relegating philosophical debates to the legal realm. Instead, he takes an open and pragmatic approach, and recognizes that the existence of perspectives is inevitable.
Most legal pragmatists oppose the foundationalist view of legal decision-making, and instead rely on traditional legal sources to decide current cases. They take the view that the cases aren't up to the task of providing a firm enough foundation to draw properly-analyzed legal conclusions and therefore must be supplemented by other sources, such as previously endorsed analogies or principles from precedent.
The legal pragmatist rejects the notion of a set of overarching fundamental principles that can be used to make correct decisions. She believes that this would make it simpler for judges, who can then base their decisions on rules that have been established and make decisions.
Many legal pragmatists in light of the skepticism that is characteristic of neopragmatism and its anti-realism they have adopted a more deflationist stance towards the concept of truth. By focusing on how concepts are used and describing its purpose, and establishing criteria to recognize that a concept has that function, they have been able to suggest that this is all that philosophers can reasonably expect from a theory of truth.
Some pragmatists have taken more expansive views of truth, which they call an objective standard for assertions and inquiries. This perspective combines aspects of pragmatism with those of the classical realist and idealist philosophies, and it is in keeping with the larger pragmatic tradition that views truth as a norm for assertion and inquiry, rather than simply a normative standard to justify or justified assertibility (or any of its derivatives). This holistic perspective of truth is described as an "instrumental theory of truth" since it seeks to define truth in terms of the purposes and values that guide one's engagement with the world.