International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, philosophical pragmatism is: "The theory developed by Ch.S. PEIRCE and W. JAMES that the meaning of a proposition or course of action lies in its observable consequences, and that the sum of these consequences constitutes its meaning".

J. WARFIELD enumerates the following components of PEIRCE's pragmatism (pers.comm.):

"- Inference gradually leads into habit

"- Authority is one of the four ways of fixing belief

"- Once belief is fixed by authority, it is sustained by tenacity

"- If authority and tenacity are not the origins of belief, then two other possibilities remain: metaphysics and science

"- Metaphysics fixes belief through speculative reasoning

"- Science fixes belief through cyclic means involving investigations of questions

"- Questions are superior to assertive hypotheses as bases for scientific study.

Moreover, "Every question involves contextual implication" which "In the first instance refers to:

a) the linguistic demand places on the recipient of the question

b) the hypotheses that underlie the question"

(This is obviously where the systemic view enters).

"In the second instance contextual implication refers to

a) the (implied) questions to which those hypotheses are possible answers, and

b) The contextual implication of the implied questions

c) the hypotheses underlying those questions… "and so on until a possible point is reached where there is no contextual implication. If such a point is reached it is in the axiomatic domain" (Ibid)

This is a typical recursive process which should not leave any epistemological stone unturned.

C.W. CHURCHMAN and R.L. ACKOFF gave a systemic interpretation of pragmatism as follows:

"a) From criticism it borrows the notion of the interplay of observation and concepts, though it gives neither an autonomy or fixed character.

"b) From Hegelianism it incorporates the rejection of the "certainty" of immediate sense data, but it denies the "primacy" of any absolute.

"c) From Hegelianism it incorporates the notion of process as critical to inquiry, but negates Hegelian idealism and metaphysics.

"d) From 19th century developments in formal and physical sciences it incorporates the rejection of the certainty of scientific laws (as expressed, for example by POINCARÉ (1857-1912), and recognizes that the a priori, through necessary, is selected, not given.

"e) From a development characterized by the French philosopher RENOUVIER (1815 – 1903) it accepts the notion that scientific interests cannot be separated from other human interests (e.g. morals), and that truth is a function of usefulness.

"f) From 19th century developments in psychology and British social philosophy it accepts an orientation toward objectives, goals, aims and desires.

"g) Finally, from KANT, it eventually incorporates the notion of "ideal pursuit" as a measure of progress, but unlike KANT, it seeks to treat ideals naturistically (1950, p.194).

While the influence of "ideal pursuit" is obvious in anything C.W. CHURCHMAN has done, and in the pragmatic stand in the whole of R.L. ACKOFF's work, the systemic view is only latent in their interpretation of pragmatism, in the form of a somewhat vaguely enunciated concern for global interconnections between human concerns.

C.S. PEIRCE's pragmatism is possibly reflected in a stronger and truer systemic way in J.G. WARFIELD's Generic Design Science, Interpretive Structural Modeling and Nominal Group Technique.