How is pragmaticism realed to darwin and the civil war?

Question

How is pragmaticism realed to darwin and the civil war?

Answer 1

I defer to jon's answer .. .he knows more about this than I do.

But I will add that Pragmatism could not have had much effect on either Darwin or the Civil War ... since William James first published his philosophy of pragmatism in 1907 ... 25 years after Darwin *died* ... and 45 years after the end of the American Civil War.

But Darwin and the Civil War could certainly have had an effect on the philosophy of Pragmatism.

As I understand the philosophy of Pragmatism, it applies a somewhat Darwinian approach to *beliefs*.   Truth is a kind of 'fitness' of a belief ... the 'true' beliefs are the ones that *survive* because they give the largest number of people a common guide through uncertain world (the environment in which we live as humans). Science *works* because it gives all scientists a common method to approach understanding observed phenomena.   Religion *works* because it gives all religious people a common approach to dealing with life's problems and uncertainties.

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Incidentally, for malinalli's benefit I should add that (as with James), Darwin could not have had much effect on the thinking that led to the Civil War.

The Civil War was between 1861 and 1865.

Darwin didn't publish 'Decent of Man' until 1871.  This was the book in which he first outlined human evolution.  His earlier book 'Origin of Species', published in 1859, does not mention human evolution, or human races, even once ... so it could not have had much impact on the thinking that led to the Civil War, especially since it was published just two years before the outbreak of the war and was just starting to make waves among American biologists (like Asa Gray) ... it was certainly not at the top of the reading lists of voting Americans or politicians on the eve of the Civil War.   Plus, slavery had been going on in the United States since the 1620's, almost 200 years before Darwin was *born* ... so slavery and racism hardly needed Darwin or evolution to survive quite well.

Answer 2

Pragmatism was the philosophic concept of William James, but how that relates to the civil war is beyond me.

William James did base his concept of psychology solidly on principles of evolution and natural selection. Psychology lost a good start when they ignored James to follow the incoherence of Freud.

Answer 3

can you ask this question with more detail, maybe it is just me, I am not really getting the question.

My guess would be that many people beleived that blacks were less human and lower down on the evolutionary totem pole and that was the premise or rationalization to enslave them.  This of course is not true at all.  Intelligent people from that era knew that all humans are equal in terms of intelligence....I mean a statistical average when comparing different racial/ ethnic groups.