Page:Chance, love, and logic - philosophical essays (IA chancelovelogicp00peir 0).pdf/29

 *phasis on particular experiences endangered the principle of continuity which in the hands of men like Weierstrass had reformed modern mathematics. For this reason he began to call his own doctrine pragmaticism, a sufficiently unattractive name, he thought, to save it from kidnappers and from popularity. He never, however, abandoned the principle of pragmatism, that the meaning of an idea is clarified (because constituted) by its conceivable experimental consequences. Indeed, if we want to clarify the meaning of the idea of pragmatism, let us apply the pragmatic test to it. What will be the effect of accepting it? Obviously it will be to develop certain general ideas or habits of looking at things.

Peirce's pragmatism has, therefore, a decidedly intellectual cast. The meaning of an idea or proposition is found not by an intuition of it but by working out its implications. It admits that thought does not constitute reality. Categories can have no concrete being without action or immediate feeling. But thought is none the less an essential ingredient of reality; thought is "the melody running through the succession of our sensations." Pragmatism, according to Peirce, seeks to define the rational purport, not the sensuous quality. It is interested not in the effect of our practical occupations or desires on our ideas, but in the function of ideas as guides of action. Whether a man is to pay damages in a certain lawsuit may depend, in fact, on a term in the Aristotelian logic such as proximate cause.

It is of interest to observe that though Peirce is an ardent admirer of Darwin's method, his scientific caution makes