The third foundation of philosophy

that is really important for quality of research and

has really made school, especially in symbolic interactionism for
instance, is pragmatism. And pragmatism is another reason
why you can spend years and years in library reading all
kinds of different views on what pragmatism actually is and
what forms of pragmatism we can find. Or do we need to call it
pragmaticism rather than pragmatism. But I'll just try to give
a superficial overview of pragmatism. What is pragmatism? What is so pragmatic
about it? Well pragmatism started in the United
States at the end of the 19th century and central figures in pragmatism
are Charles Sanders Pierce, William James and John Dewey, and
later George Herbert Meade and some would say that the Thomases
were pragmatists as well. And the central idea of pragmatism is that researchers
try to focus
completely on practical issues. Now what are these practical issues then? Well
maybe let's define it negatively. What are not practical issues? Well non practical
issues are issues that arm chair philosophers
were thinking about. And just like pragmatists would focus on, okay, let's look at
what is relevant for
us. For science, for researchers,
for people, and not so much about what is nice to sit and ponder
about and have intellectual debates, but are not practical in life,
in science, and so on. So where do these pragmatists look at? Well, they look at
all aspects of social
life that have practical relevance for an investigation. And they try to get
everything that is of
practical relevance into this research. So there's not a very small
focus of the research. And pragmatists have worked a lot, and especially Charles
Sanders Peirce,
on logic. How do we use logic in order
to do empirical science and they've focused a lot on what is
called a fallibalist view of science. Which means that they look
at knowledge as temporary. They looked as knowledge as useful
as long as it is practical. As long as we can use it, and
if it turns out we are wrong, well we maybe have to put it aside. Or if we are
wrong, but it's still useful,
then we maybe should use it. So that was a total
pragmatic view of knowledge. We do not have to be right per se. No we can use wrong
knowledge
as long as it is practical. You don't have to think about
the world all the time as a globe. Whereas thinking about the world
as flat might be useful sometimes. The central maxim we always read when
we read something about pragmatism, and you always hear it when you hear something
about pragmatism is this pragmatist maxim. And that says, consider what effects,
that
might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of
our conception to have. So consider that. Then our conception of these effects is
the whole of our conception of the object. As all maxims in social science or in
philosophy, you have to think about
three or four times about this one. What does it say? Well, you might remember
that other maxim or theorem. If man defines situations as real,
they're real and they're consequences. The Thomas Theorem. This says more or less
the same. Our conception of the effects is the whole
of our conception of the objects. So, if we define situations as real,
it doesn't really matter if it's real or not, if we define situations as real,
they're real in their consequences. So, if we define Pastoralists
turning into elephants? It doesn't matter if it really happened,
from a pragmatist point of view. It only matters if we
believed it happened. And if we believed it happened, and
it's useful for us, then it is pragmatic. Now again, this is pretty hard,
and do we need this? Is David Silva right by saying we
shouldn’t be discussing all these philosophical concepts for
a cause on qualitative research or a book on qualitative research? I guess he’s
right. At least he's partly right. But, many people do so
we need to discuss it and we need to know it, but
do you need to put it in a research paper? Well, probably not, only if necessary.
Maybe, let's give it a pragmatic thought. If it is practical, you would use it. If
it's not, you wouldn't.