Readings in Methodology: African Perspectives

1. Pragmatism as a Vision of the World and as a Method: A Philosophical Examination of the Challenges Presented to Contemporary Social Research by Subjective Idealism

1 Pragmatism as a Vision of the World and as a Method: A Philosophical Examination of the Challenges Presented to Contemporary Social Research by Subjective Idealism Nkolo Foé Carried along by the current wave of postmodernism, today, pragmatism dominates the entire social, economic and cultural field. With respect to epistemology, its world vision and its methodology have succeeded in establishing themselves in all sectors of research in the sciences of man and society: philosophy, literature, sociology, economics, political science, etc. As a theory of knowledge, pragmatism makes the claim of understanding reality starting from views of “radical empiricism.” Thus, it merges reality with “experience,” i.e., with the satisfaction of subjective interests of the informed subject. It is here then that pragmatism meets the central problem of subjective idealism, which relates man’s knowledge of the world to the content of his own consciousness. The decisive question raised then by subjective idealism and pragmatism is the following: is knowledge of the objective world possible? Essential in epistemology and in methodology, this question involves another, that of the very possibility of objective truth and absolute truth in the undertaking of knowledge. This article will attempt to answer these various questions. The Historical Context of Pragmatism The current trend of pragmatism and subjective idealism is inseparable from the global expansion of capitalism. At the same time as its development at the end of the 19th century, this doctrine quickly emerged as the philosophy of the advanced 4 Readings in Methodology: African Perspectives industrial bourgeoisie. Its objective was to offer a credible alternative to the Enlightenment of the previous century. A historical reminder would be useful here. The philosophy of the Enlightenment, with its concepts of Reason, the Universal and Freedom, established itself on modern consciousness as a world view of a bourgeoisie in search of its own identity. This was a century par excellence of the reform of mentalities and social and political revolution; 18th century Europe needed a coherent and stable body of principles. The cosmic and historical odyssey of reason, such as it was later synthesized by Hegel, encapsulates this vision of the world. By clear and unequivocal affirmation of the principle of reason and the universal, the new bourgeois Europe, recently emerged from the Middle Ages, provided itself with theoretical, cultural and political means to realize its essential historical purpose, thanks to science and technology, but also to the construction of a modern capitalist economy and a liberal and democratic state. As defined by the thinkers of the Enlightenment, and also by Hegel himself, the idea of reason and the universal certainly appears as a global vision of the world, but also as general explicative principle of the enigmas of the universe. The formation of pragmatism and the rediscovery of subjective idealism (inspired both by ancient sophistry, the sensualism of George Berkeley and the empirio-criticism of Ernst Mach) attempted to provide a philosophical response to the decline of the great systems directed towards a global explanation of the world, whether it be the Enlightenment itself or Hegelianism or Marxism. The particular character of these systems was to adopt a project or provide a utopia, a vision. In advanced capitalist societies, it was hedonism – as a moral and social ideal – and the cult of the moment, which replaced vision, utopia, the meaning of history and perspectives. Corresponding to the triumph of positivism, it was this period which saw philosophy renounce its deepest-rooted claim which, since Descartes, had been to transform the world. Henceforth, philosophy could allow itself to downwardly revise its ambitions by assigning itself a minimum task, i.e., to interpret the world. By way of example: Wittgenstein established that as it is not a doctrine, but a mere activity, the only true goal of philosophy consisted in the logical clarification of thought. If, for Wittgenstein, a philosophical work consists essentially of clarifications and not explanations or suggestions, it is because “the objective of philosophy it to clarify and rigorously define the scope of thoughts which otherwise are, as it were, confused and blurred” (Wittgenstein 1961:52). Analytical philosophy gave these views their radical form. In his critique of this latter current of thought, Herbert Marcuse sized up these questions, by taking up the challenge raised by systems of this sort, not only in philosophy and methodology, but also in social thought itself, in its totality. Let us return to the subject of pragmatism. Whether it be Charles S. Peirce, John Dewey or even William James, pragmatism...