Pragmatism LO21400 -was Reification

John Gunkler (jgunkler@sprintmail.com)
Mon, 26 Apr 1999 10:35:23 -0500

Replying to LO21384 --

At,

I have seldom seen a better, more concise summary of pragmatism than your
description of why apartheid failed:

>Apartheid hit the dust with little bloodshed because enough people got
>the common sense in their heads that apartheid did not work, does not
>work and will not work.

Thus, I find it difficult to understand what you mean when you vilify
"pragmatism." Pragmatism, the philosophy of Dewey and, before him,
William James, was fundamentally a philosophy of "What is true is what
works." Thus, to reject a policy because it does not work is a very
pragmatic viewpoint.

-- 

"John Gunkler" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>

Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>