I was struck by pragmatism and the way it is explained because it reminds me a lot of Ponge’s “Bread” vignette. Ponge finishes “Bread” by saying, “But let’s cut short here. For bread should be mouthed less as an object of respect than of consumption.” Ponge warns us not to worship or simply sit around discussing the bread. After all, bread it meant to be eaten not deified. To me, bread represents the ordinary in this vignette, something to be used and appreciated but not in spite of its utility.
Pragmatism sounds a lot like this to me—we should think of things in relation to how they work for us and exist to us. James says, “[t]o attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only consider what conceivable effects of a practical kind the object may involve—what sensations we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must prepare.” What is the point of bread or something ordinary if we never think of it in terms of us and our lives?
I also thought of "Bread," specifically with the idea from Morris Cohen that states, "Thinking is an instrument of adjustment to the conditions of life - but it becomes an end in itself" (xxii). If we were to discuss bread so thoroughly without regard to it in terms of its use for us and our lives, this type of thinking would be an end in itself. However, if we were to think about and discuss bread pragmatically, we would more practically apply bread to us and our lives.
ReplyDeleteAlso relevant, from James, "To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object...we need only consider what effects of a conceivably practical kind the object may involve - what sensations we are to expect from it , and what reactions we must prepare" (xiii).
DeleteKat, your observation reminds me of a line from "Experience": "If a man should consider the nicety of the passage of a piece of bread down his throat, he would starve."
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