Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1993. [Vol. 1.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 21)

STUDIES - Zsolt Virágos: Some Observations on Myth and Practical' Pragmatism in American Culture

philosophy reflecting American commercial interests, social Darwinism, and imperialism in government and business. Indeed, as Kenneth R. Merrill remarks, "To many James's version of pragmatism seemed an invitation to cynicism, to a kind of philosophical Machiavellianism."

9 Or, as Josiah Royce observed sarcastically, "a pragmatist on a witness stand in court would, presumably, swear to tell the expedient, the whole expedient, and nothing but the expedient, so help him future experience."

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0 In a technical and conceptual sense James's fundamental belief that the "truth" is the "successful" connection of perceiver and world (and in stressing the importance of the human perceiver's intentions he certaily reached back to Emerson) may have been misunderstood. For practical purposes, however, it has been the ostensibly misunderstood James (just like the misunderstood Freud a few years later) who has had a wide social appeal. After all, the fallibilistic allegation that the test of a truth is the experience it foretells is not too remote from the irresistible doctrine of man as a truthmaker. The idea that man is largely the author rather than discoverer of truth

—the method of making truth rather than finding it

—has been reinforced in this century by people like F. C. S. Schiller,

1

1 an adherent of the so-called hypothetico-deductive method,

1

2 who seems to make us believe that whatever we wish were true until it proves troublesome, perverting hereby an epistemologically responsible inquiry into a matter of convenience. James's tacit encouragement that in moments of doubt or moral dilemma we may take the answer that we find most satisfying, smacks of the grossest sort of relativism. The "try it

—if it works, it is right" cliché can encourage a variety of responses

—cheerful "way-out" solutions to painful dilemmas, therapeutic rescue operations in hopeless deadlocks

— but it can also contribute to dangerous adventurism in politics, business, 9 Kenneth R. Merrill, "From Edwards to Quine: Two Hundred Years of American Philosophy," in: Issues and Ideas in America, eds. Benjamin J. Taylor and Thurman J. White (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1976), p. 238. 1

0 Ibid. 1

1 F. C. S. Schiller, "William James and the Making of Pragmatism," The Personalist 8 (1927): pp. 81—93. 1

2 W. V. Quine, "The Pragmatist's Place in Empirism," in: R. J. Mulvaney and P. M. Zeltner, eds. op. cit, p. 33. 144