The Pragmatists declared that
philosophy must be practical
and that practicality consists of
dispensing with all
absolute principles and standards
absolute principles and standards
that there is
no such thing as
objective reality or permanent truth
that
truth is
that which works,
truth is
that which works,
and its validity can be judged only by its consequences—
that no facts can be known with certainty in advance,
and anything may be tried by rule-of-thumb
that there is no such thing as a distinction between an external world and a consciousness
(between the perceived and the perceiver),
there is only an undifferentiated package-deal labeled “experience,” and whatever one wishes to be true, is true,
whatever one wishes to exist, does exist,
provided it works or makes one feel better.
A later school of more Kantian Pragmatists amended this philosophy as follows. If there is no such thing as an objective reality, men’s metaphysical choice is whether the selfish, dictatorial whims of an individual or the democratic whims of a collective are to shape that plastic goo which the ignorant call “reality,”
therefore this school decided that
objectivity
consists of
collective subjectivism—
that
knowledge
is to be
gained by means of
gained by means of
public polls
among
special elites
of “competent investigators”
who can “predict and control” reality
that
whatever people wish to be true, is true,
whatever people wish to exist, does exist,
and
anyone who holds any firm convictions of his own
is an arbitrary, mystic dogmatist,
since
reality is indeterminate
and
people determine its actual nature.
From Ayn Rand : For the New Intellectual
