Practical Action

When looking at the history of the word Pragmatism, James writes “The term is derived from the same Greek word...meaning action, from which our words “practice” and “practical” come” (pg. 94).  When looking at the two words together, it means to make practical action.  James later writes “He turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed principal, closed systems, and pretended absolutes and origins.  He turns toward facts, towards action and towards power” (pg 97).  This quote really helped me to understand the self power that Pragmatism is.  James is making it clear that Pragmatism, like its actual meaning, is all about the self making practical decisions for himself.  This makes Pragmatism ordinary, because by following the idea of Pragmatism man is doing what is ordinary for himself, opposed to following other’s fixed principals or closed systems.  Pragmatism is the right to decided for one’s self and to go towards facts and actions that he believes in; following his own path of ordinary opposed to following other’s paths of ordinary.  Lastly James writes “At the same time it does not stand for any special result.  It is a method only” (pg. 97).  This means that it does not matter the out come of the decision, as long as it is right for you.  It is the method of what your do pertaining towards your own truth, not the outcome of what you do.