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William James: mediation, body and emotions
If Pierce was the misunderstood genius who created the pragmatic method, let's say that James was the one who capitalised on his ideas, spreading them to the general public.
Willam James (1842-1910) was the eldest of a family of five siblings, dominated by a patriarch (Henry James) who was individualistic and critical of established institutions. The family spent several years in Geneva and Paris, and were popular for their after-dinner gatherings, which provided James with a good basis for his intellectual and cultural development.
He was an intellectually versatile person. His father forced him to give up a career in the arts to pursue a career in science, and he entered Harvard to study chemistry and then medicine. He obtained a Doctor of Medicine degree but never practised, as he had no faith in the medicine of the time, preferring instead to teach physiology and then psychology at the same university, as an assistant professor. All of these career turns would later be reflected in his work.
During that time, psychology was beginning to establish itself as an academic discipline, closely linked to philosophy departments. James established the first scientific psychological laboratory in the United States, emphasising the unity between the two disciplines.
And we give it back to you... the people
After 12 years of work, James became an international success with the appearance of his “Principles of Psychology” in 1890, a 1,200-page treatise on psychology in which he moved psychology away from the metaphysical vein of the 19th century to create a modern science. He died one of the world's most famous philosophers. The fate of his colleague Peirce, on the other hand, was very different. He never managed to publish a book of philosophy, never held a permanent academic position and often lived in squalor. James “generously” announced to the world in 1898 that Peirce had been the founder of pragmatism, but it was not until the 1930s that his papers began to appear and with them his academic recognition.
James built on Peirce's ideas by claiming that pragmatism was a method of defining truth. His writings on the subject became very popular, as they offered intriguing slogans and claims that often seemed to fly in the face of common sense.
“Any idea that takes us prosperously from one part of our experience to any other part, that links things satisfactorily, works safely, saves labour; it is very true, henceforth true, instrumentally true”.”
Any idea that takes us somewhere else is a good one. Dangerous.
James never understood «practical consequences» as fully as Peirce did, and does not share his restriction to general patterns of behaviour. James ceased to be a believer, but he held that if a religious belief makes someone feel better and that contributes to the pragmatic clarification that «God exists», that idea is a good one. A belief can be made real simply by the fact that holding it contributes to our happiness and satisfaction.
It is easy to see that, unless we contextualise a religious belief very much, it could lead to a lot of experiential surprises and disappointments. A “concrete life”, a respectful idea or a consolation, need not be logical.
Perhaps it is this populist misinterpretation of pragmatic thinking, to which James somehow unwittingly contributed, that can help us understand a little better the contradictions of American society and the objects it produces.
However, I do not think it is fair to judge James for popularising the method, because if he was able to do so, it is because it struck a chord with us.
Mediators between hard and soft
In 1907 William James published a series of articles under the title “Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking”, in which he claimed that all the problems that philosophy had hitherto had, boiled down to a clash of temperaments between “hard-minded” and “soft-minded” people. The hard-minded tend to experience and follow «the facts», while the sensitive-minded prefer to appeal to rationalisation. Hard-minded people are materialistic, pessimistic, dogmatic and fatalistic, while soft-minded people tend to be idealistic, optimistic, religious and believe in free will.
Pragmatism presents itself as a mediating philosophy between «scientific loyalty to facts» and «old-fashioned confidence in human values». Conformity to tough-minded standards for acquiring knowledge does not prevent us from adopting the kind of worldview to which the sensible-minded aspire. By using the «pragmatic method» (the clarification of hypotheses by identifying their practical consequences) to get closer to the truth, disputes begin to dissolve. Unless some «practical difference» tips the balance to one side or the other, the dispute will be inactive.
Here I pause and sweep for home, making a small reflection on the role of design as a conflict mediation. As a formal solution that succeeds when there is consensus between all parties. And without needing to illustrate anything, I think everyone will have their own example in mind.
Emotions, the glue of our ideas
He was in fragile health, perhaps this and his knowledge of physiology influenced his special sensitivity to the body, which was always at the centre of his ideas.
In line with Pierce's ideas, he considered our experiences as a fundamental reality and the basis of everything we can know. But how do we acquire knowledge - how do we think?
While the objects we perceive may seem distinct or separate, our awareness of them is continuous, as if they float in a stream. Things themselves are discrete and discontinuous, but they pass before us like a chain of events. It is only when things contrast violently with each other, “like thunder against silence”, that we overlook our association of thoughts and become aware of the previous silence.
“We believe that the thunder itself abolishes and excludes silence; but the feeling of the thunder is also the feeling of the silence that has just disappeared”.
Although we do not always pay attention to it, our bodily posture, attitude and condition invariably also influence our whole experience: “We think, and as we do so we feel our body as the seat of our thought”. This is why James blames our tendency to focus on things through language rather than experiencing them with our bodies.
We do not perceive experiences as real unless we live them in person. When we drive, we don't perceive other vehicles as people in metal boxes. When we interact with someone through a device, we are always left with a vague sense of unreality, of having dreamt.
I take another circumstantial pause. I am writing some of these lines sitting on a park bench and it is quite hot. Several South American domestic workers are helping elderly people to walk. An old man who walks with great difficulty, gets half stuck in his walk, as if blocked. When he stands up he can hardly speak and stammers a lot. “Walk, Mr Martin, walk», the girl tells him. And then, after a little push while she accompanies him by the arm, the poor man suddenly regains his walking cadence, and with it, the thread of the conversation they had started. “Now, yes, very good”.
For James, emotions have a guiding function, which is at the core of everything we think and do. The vast majority of potential impressions for the senses never end up in an experience “Why? Because they are of no interest to me. My experience is what I choose to pay attention to. Only the elements of which I am aware shape my mind. Without selective interest, experience is chaos”.”
In essence, James argues that it is the perception of exciting events that cause a change in the body, and we perceive these bodily reactions through emotions. In fact, emotions become the backbone of our decision-making, as they provide us with a guide to the practical consequences of our particular actions. The body becomes a blackboard on which all our perceptions are projected, so it makes no sense to separate it from our thinking. But neither does it justify some tattoos...
Emotions provide us with the information we need to take action in complex situations where logic and calculation are not enough.. Indeed, this occurs in most social situations, where actions are taken without consideration of the most appropriate course of action. In that sense, it is impossible to separate reason and emotion, as they are intertwined in the process of experience.
I return to the park where I find myself writing part of this text. Now another South American girl passes by, this time walking a blonde baby, barely two years old. They play up and down a small mound of earth. She encourages him to climb what must look like a mountain to him. As the child goes down the ramp, his stomach tingles, and he bursts out laughing.
Our society has rather neglected the body and emotions when it comes to design solutions. We tend to fall into frivolity and childishness when we use any emotional component. Perhaps we lack a great deal of knowledge and, surely, values to be able to use these resources in a more intelligent way.
We will continue talking about social situations, learning and emotions and childhood with our next pragmatist. The teacher we would have liked to have.
Continue reading
This post is the second in a series of four on Pragmatism and Design:
- Charles Sanders Pierce (I)
Practical consequences, abduction and semiotics. - William James (II)
Mediation, body and emotions. - John Dewey (III)
Learning, experience and closure. - George Herbert Mead (IV)
Identity, social relations and objects.
Bibliography
Brag M. “Pragmatism”. In Our Time. BBC Radio 4.
Dalsgaard, P. (2014). “Pragmatism and design thinking”. International Journal of Design, 8(1), 143-155.
Legg C., Hookway C. “Pragmatism”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
James. W. (1907) “Pragmatism. A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking”.
Rylander A. «Pragmatism and Design Research». Ingår i Designfakultetens serie kunskapssammanställningar, utgiven i april 2012.
White. M. (1969) “The Power of Positive Pragmatism”. The New York Review of Books.