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of the Charles S. Peirce Society.
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Klaus Oehler
Noteson theReceptionof
in
American
Pragmatism
1899-1952*
Germany,
I.
Contact quickly arose between the American pragmatistsand German
scholars, whether by correspondenceor through personal encounter.
James,for example,was in touch with Ernst Mach, Wilhelm Wundt and
WilhelmJerusalem.His contact with Jerusalemwas to contributemuch
to the disseminationof pragmaticthoughtin Germany.
Jerusalemwas born in 1854 in Bohmen. After studying classical
philologyin Prague he taught at a gymnasium. In 1891 he completed
his "habilitation" at the Universityof Vienna and, after 29 years as a
university teacher there, was made associate professor of philosophy
and education in 1920. In his autobiographical Selbstdarstellung1
Jerusalemproudlyneglectsto mentionthe political circumstancesresponsible forhis belatedpreferment.His philosophicalthinkingwas influenced
at an earlystage by Spencer,leadingto a biologicalconceptionof psychical
processesand in particularof knowledge. This tendencywas reinforced
throughthe influenceof Ernst Mach, who was appointed to the chair in
Vienna in 1895, and integratedwith genetical and sociological elements
in Jerusalem'sthinking. In his epistemology,Jerusalemsingled mainly
phenomenalismand apriorismout for attack. He saw logic as a general
methodologyof dunking, the purpose of which is to discover a formal
descriptionof thoughtas it actually occurs in scientificand pre-scientific
experience. He termedthis project "empirical logic". In 1905 his book,
Der kritischeIdealismusuni die reine Logik providedsubtle justification
for Jerusalem's rejection of critical idealism and "pure" logic. In
Germany,whereuniversityphilosophywas dominatedby neo-Rantianism,
Jerusalem'scall went unheard. But not in England and America. In his
Jerusalemtells us that
Selbstdarstellungy
26 Klaus Oehler
Prof. F. C. S. Schillerpublishedan article in the International
Journalof Ethics, in which he said that my conceptionof the
process of knowing and of truth was closely related to the
views of the pragmatists. And when William James, with
whom I had been correspondingfor a long time, sent me his
book on pragmatism in April 1907 I at once decided to
translate it myself into German, a plan which Ernst Mach
encouraged me to carry out. The translationappeared in the
same year,makingpragmatismknown in Germany.
Later, in 1926, similar considerationshad led Jerusalemto bring out a
German edition of Lvy-BruhPsLes Fonctions Mentales dans les Socits
Infrieures.Finally, the Selbstdarstellunginformsus, he was planning a
"sociological critique of human reason" in which he wanted "to be able
to describe the complex relationshipsbetween knowledge and society".
He died in Vienna in 1923.
Wilhelm Jerusalemwas one of those philosopherswho are out of step
with the age in which they live. His criticisms of epistemological
idealism,of phenomenalismand apriorism,and his biological and sociological approach to cognitive processesmarked him off,at least within
the German-speaking world, as one of the isolated precursorsand pathfindersof a movementthat would be able to find a footholdin German
philosophyonly decades later. His translationof James*Pragmatism:A
New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking is one of the indispensable
tools of German Jamesscholarship.
What might be describedas the officialstartingpoint of pragmatism's
influencein Germany was the III InternationalCongress for Philosophy
held from 1 to 5 September,1908, in Heidelberg, with Windelband as
president. Pragmatismwas the main object of discussion,runninglike a
red thread through all sections, as is shown by the proceedingsof the
congress,which were published in 1909.2 After Windelband's address,
Josiah Royce, from Harvard, who had been strongly influenced by
Peirce, gave the openingpaper on the subject of "The Problemof Truth
in the Light of Recent Discussion". In spite of the fact that Royce's
paper mentionsPeirce several times, and names him as the founder of
pragmatism,it was not Peirce's pragmatismthat was discussed,but that
of James,Schiller and Dewey - James attracting the most attention.
In his paper,Royce describeshis philosophyas "absolute pragmatism"by
which he means - so Jerusalemsays in his remarkson Royce's paper -
28 Klaus Oehler
Grenzendes pragmatischenMotivsin derErkcnntnisder Welt".5 Although
Scheler discusses Peirce's pragmatic maxim, there is every reason to
suppose that he knew only the Jamesianversion and had not actually
read Peirce. But even Scheler's critique of James is now desperatelyin
need of revision,and his assessmentof pragmatismin general betray
prejudices against American culture that were typical of cultivated
Europeans in the twenties,signs of a resistancetowards the strangeand
the unfamiliarin as far as it threatenedto expose the presuppositionson
which their own position rested. This remainedtypical of the German
attitude to pragmatismbetween the wars. Of course, there were exceptions. Gustav Mllcr's account of Peirce's thoughtin the Archiv fr
Geschichteder Philosophies193 1,8 shows not only insightinto the structure of Peirce's logic and metaphysics,but also discovers links with
German thought,in particularwith Hegel, Schelling and the romantics,
which might have done much to clear the way for a more sympathetic
Peirce reception. In practice, exceptions such as this had little effect
on the main development.
Not even the comparativelyabundant supply of translationsof works
by pragmatistswas sufficientto induce a change. James' The Will to
Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophyhad appeared as early as
1899 in a translationby Thomas Lorenz. In 1907 there followed the
translation into German of James' Varieties of Religious Experience
by Georg Wobbermin and in 1914 A Pluralistic Universe. F. C. S.
Schiller'sStudies in Humanism appeared in translationby Rudolf Eisler
as Humanismus: Beitrdge zu einer pragmatischenPhilosophie. Several
works by John Dewey were also translated into German immediately
after their appearance in the United States. Although pragmatism
became better known as a result of these effortsit was not destinedto
take root at that point in German history.
The most prominentvictim of Scheler's misguided interpretationof
pragmatismwas Max Horkheimer,whose critique of pragmatismwas
directlyinfluencedby Scheler.7 Like Scheler,Horkheimerhad probably
read nothing by Peirce. The impressionthat Horkheimer gave when
teachingwas that - even as an emigrin the United States- he had not
taken American philosophyseriously. That this was a characteristicof
membersof the FrankfurtSchool has been confirmedby Martin Jay's
The Dialectical Imagination.0 In New York the "Institu" pursued a
policy of separatism,motivated by a need to maintain its own identity
and survive as a consciouslyGerman entity.
Der Pragmatismus.
R. W. Emerson,W. James,/. Dewey (1938), a
30 Klaus Oehler
the first large-scale application of pragmatic principles in German
thought. It is genuinely pragmatic; it was born from the spirit of
pragmatism.
In the thirtiesthere were already isolated signs of the beginningof
a new phase in the reception of pragmatism in Germany which has
continueduntil the presentday. Its main discoveryhas been that Charles
Sanders Peirce was the true father of American pragmatism. At the
beginning of this new development we find Heinrich Scholz's review
of the firstfive volumes of Peirce's Collected Papers in the Deutsche
Literaturzeitung(1934, 1936). There followed in 1937 a short article
in the Deutsches Aielsblatt. The author was Jrgenvon Kempski, and
the appearance in 1952 of his book Charles S. Peirce uni der Pragmatistnus13
marksthe real beginningof the modernphase in the reception
of pragmatismin Germany. Since then,James,Dewey and Schillerhave
come to be judged increasinglyin relation to Peirce.
II.
That the receptionof pragmatism,and particularlyPeirce's thinking,
should - with the above noted exceptions - have proved such a
laborious process in Germany is not without irony. Some years ago,
Heidegger's Sein uni Xeit (1927) was translatedinto English,14making
his existentialontology accessible to American philosophersas a whole
for the firsttime. Since then it has been interestingto note that many
of them have reacted by pointingout the similaritiesbetween this form
of existentialphilosophyand pragmatismas it arose and developed in
America. This is not the result of a misconceptionon the part of the
Americans. Over forty years ago, qualified opinion - particularly
among emigrant German philosophers- had drawn attention to this
32 Klaus Oehler
not in the way assumed by classical transcendentalphilosophy. The
pragmatistswere quick to see that the apriori in its full scope is not
simply identical with the conditions of the possibility of objective
knowledgeof objects, but that this also impliesthat basic understanding
which life has prior to all conceptual determinationof reality. The
foundationof existence occurs within the sphereof this understanding.
It seems to me that on this basic question it is indeed justifiable to
equate the teachingsof Peirce and Heidegger.
It is thus not surprisingthat an importantrole is played in pragmatic
idealism by the interpretationof our implicit understandingof things.
For Peirce this applies not merelyto the critique of words but to trends
of thought. As his paper on "The Fixation of Belief" shows, the
historicaldimensionmust be absorbed within philosophicalmethod. In
Germany this method, following Dilthey and Heidegger, is known as
hermeneutics,but its basic characteristicshave been part of American
philosophicalthinkingfor at least a century. There is even a case to
mode of
be made for maintaining that the historico-hermeneutical
thought has been specific to American philosophicalthinking since its
beginnings. This tendencymay have somethingto do with the uniquely
American synthesisof a varietyof European philosophicaland theological
traditions. It is certain,at any rate, that philosophicalhermeneuticshas
never been a German monopoly,and it can be argued that it is only
thanks to Peirce and other American epistemologiststhat certain
anachronistic figures of thought, carried over from Kantianism into
of language
Germanhermeneuticphilosophy,leadingto the hypostatisation
as the subject of history,have been excised. Language, the structuresof
which are continuallybeing transformedin the course of history,must
also be seen as mediated. It was also Peirce who recognizedthe pressure
exertedby realityon the structureof language: the forceor resistanceof
externalnature, and the force or compulsionof social power structures.
With uncanny insight he describes in "The Fixation of Belief" the
methodsof total dominationin a way that freeshim of any suspicionof
having failed to recognize the objective frameworkwithin which social
behaviour must be understood- or of sublimating it to a politico-*
socially neutrallevel. The American pragmatistswere always well aware
that the objective frameworkon the basis of which alone social action
can be understoodis constituted by language, work and power. The
names of Peirce, James, Dewey and Mead have long since become
symbolsof this knowledgethroughoutthe world. If thereseems to be a
34 Klaus Oehler
today still vaguely associated with the conception, which Heidegger
so clearly but erroneouslyput into words, of somethingthat "promotes
technicaloperationand manipulation,but at the same time bars the way
to an awarenessof the specificcharacterof moderntechnology". Anyone
who knows the historyof American pragmatismfrom Peirce to Dewey
will realisethat just the oppositeis the case.
Universitat
Hamburg
NOTES
* Translator'snote: This is an authorizedtranslationof a text based on Klaus
Oehler'sintroductions
to the Jerusalemtranslationof James'Pragmatism(W. James,
Der Pragmatismo:Ein Neuer Name fur alte Denkmetboden,
Felix Meiner Verlag,
Hamburg 1977) and to his own translationof Peirce's "How to Make Our Ideas
Clear" (Charles S. Peirce,Ueber die KlarbeitunsererGedanken,VittorioKlostermann
Frankfurt
am Main,1968) - JohnStopford,
of Hamburg,OxfordUniversity.
University
1. WilhelmJerusalem,
"Mcinc Wege und Ziclc" in RaymundSchmidted., Die
derGegenwart
in Selbstdarstellungen,
III (Leipzig:Felix MeinerVerlag,1922)
Pbilosopbie
S3-9S.
2. Berichtber den III. Internationalen
Kongressfr Philosophiczu Heidelberg
1. bis 5. September1908, Th. Elsenhansed., (Heidelberg,1909).
3. Ludwig Stein, "Pragmatism"in Archiv fur Gescbicbteder Pbilosopbie,XXI,
1909 (Berlin:Carl HaymannsVerlag).
des
4. GntherJacoby,Der Pragmatismo.Neue Babncnin der Wissenscbaftslebre
AusUnds. Eine Wrdigung(Leipzig: Drr, 1909).
5. Max Scheicr, "Erkenntnis
und Arbeit. Eine Studieber Wert und Grenzende*
Motivs in der Erkenntnisder Welt" in Die Wissens
pragmatischen
formenund die
Gesellscbaft,
(Leipzig: Der Neue-GeistVerlag,1926), 231-486.
6. Gustar Mller,"CharlesPeirce" in Archivfr Gescbicbteder Pbilosopbie,XL,
1931 (Berlin:Carl HermannsVerlag), 227-238. See also E. Waibel,Der Pragmatismo
hi der Gescbicbteder Pbilosopbie(Bonn, 19H)> and Klaus Oehler,"Ein in Vergessenheit
des Deutschen Idealismus:JohannGottlieb Fiehte" in
geratenerZeichen-theoretiker
Zeicbenkonstitution.
Aktendes 2. Semiotiscben
KolloquiumsRegens
burg,A. Lange-Seidl
ed., (Berlin:De Gruyter,1980), pp. 63-75.
7. Cf., Max Horkheimer,"Zum Problem der Vahrheit" (1935) in Kritiscbe
S. Fischer,1968) 228-76 and Zur Kritikder instruTbeorie,I (Frankfurt-am-Main:
mentellen
Vernunft(1947) (Frankfurtam Main: S. Fischer,1967).
8. MartinJay, The DialecticalImagination:A Historyof the FrankfurtSchool
and the Instituteof Social Research1923-1950 (Boston: Little,Brownand Co., 1973).
9. Ibid., p. 289.
10. ArnoldGehlen,Der Menscb. SeineNatur und seineStellungin der Welt (Berlin:
Junkerund Dnnhaupt,1940).
1899-1952 35
in Germany,
Noteson Receptionof AmericanPragmatism
11. Ibid., pp. 326f.
12. Ibid., p. 18*.
13. JrgcnYon Kempski,CharlesSandersPrircennd der Pragmatismus
(Stuttgart:
Kohlhammer,
1952).
14. MartinHeidegger,Beingand Time, tr. JohnMacquarrieand Edward Robinson
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell,19*2).
in Pb'tlosopbiscbe
If. JrgcnHabermas, "Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften"
Rundschau,Beiheft5, 1967, 179.
16. Der Spiegel,1976, No. 23, pp. 193-219.
17. Ibid., p. 214.
1941-1944. AlbrechtKnauer
18. Adolf Hitler. Monologetm FMbrerbauptquartier,
Vcrlag,Hamburg,1980, tub 7.1. 1942.