Peirce later called some of his own remarks here "mistaken". See Discussion page. Authors' contributions indicated as in original by initials:
Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, Volume 2 (Le–Z)
Pragmatic (1) and (2) Pragmatism
[Gr. πραγματικός, versed in affairs]: Ger. pragmatisch, Pragmatismus; Fr. pragmatique, pragmatisme; Ital. prammatico, prammatismo. (1) This term is applied by Kant to the species of hypothetical imperative which he otherwise denominates counsel of prudence, and characterizes as assertorial, those, namely, which prescribe the means necessary to the attainment of happiness, an end which we may postulate for all sentient beings (Grundlegund z. Met. d. Sitten, ed. Rosenkranz, 42; Eng. trans., Abbott, 34). (J.S.)
Pragmatic anthropology, according to Kant, is practical ethics.
Pragmatic horizon is the adaptation of our general knowledge to influencing our morals.
(2) The opinion that metaphysics is to be largely cleared up by the application of the following maxim for attaining clearness of apprehension: 'Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.' (C.S.P.)
The doctrine that the whole meaning of a conception expresses itself in practical consequences, consequences either in the shape of conduct to be recommended, or in that of experiences to be expected, if the conception be true; which consequences would be different if it were untrue, and must be different from the consequences by which the meaning of other conceptions is in turn expressed. If a second conception should not appear to have other consequences, then it must really be only the first conception under a different name. In methodology it is certain that to trace and compare their respective consequences is an admirable way of establishing the differing meanings of different conceptions. (W.J.)
This maxim was first proposed by C. S. Peirce in the Popular Science Monthly for January, 1878 (xii. 287); and he explained how it was to he applied to the doctrine of reality. The writer was led to the maxim by reflection upon Kant's Critic of the Pure Reason. Substantially the same way of dealing with ontology seems to have been practised by the Stoics. The writer subsequently saw that the principle might easily be misapplied, so as to sweep away the whole doctrine of incommensurables, and, in fact. the whole Weierstrassian way of regarding the calculus. In 1896 William James published his Will to Believe, and later his Philos. Conceptions and Pract. Results, which pushed this method to such extremes as must tend to give us pause. The doctrine appears to assume that the end of man is action -- a stoical axiom which, to the present writer at the age of sixty, does not recommend itself so forcibly as it did at thirty. If it be admitted, on the contrary, that action wants an end, and that that end must be something of a general description, then the spirit of the maxim itself, which is that we must look to the upshot of our concepts in order rightly to apprehend them, would direct us towards something different from practical facts, namely, to general ideas, as the true interpreters of our thought. Nevertheless, the maxim has approved itself to the writer, after many years of trial, as of great utility in leading to a relatively high grade of clearness of thought. He would venture to suggest that it should always be put into practice with conscientious thoroughness, but that, when that has been done, and not before, a still higher grade of clearness of thought can be attained by remembering that the only ultimate good which the practical facts to which it directs attention can subserve is to further the development of concrete reasonableness; so that the meaning of the concept does not lie in any individual reaction at all, but in the manner in which those reactions contribute to that development. Indeed, in the article of 1878, above referred to, the writer practised better than he preached; for he applied the stoical maxim most unstoically, in such a sense as to insist upon the reality of the objects of general ideas in their generality.