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I’m Ben UdeIΙ. Quadruplicity drinks procrastination, quoth Bertrand Russell making sense, and the best proof am I. Lifelong layabout layman. EMAIL: baudell@ΑntіѕраΜgmail.com . Delete the “ΑntіѕраΜ” from my email address; it’s there in order to avoid spam. Also, I post at peirce-l and currently am co-manager there and co-manager & webmaster at Arisbe: The Peirce Gateway. I'm not Tetrast in Greece or on Twitter or art websites.
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The Century Dictionary: empirical, entelechy, experience, pragmatic.
Permalink: http://peircematters.blogspot.com/2006/01/definitions.html
From a post on Jan. 13, 2006 by Joseph Ransdell to me and peirce-l:
François Latraverse, in the philosophy department at the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM), is Director of the group editing the Century Dictionary volume of the new edition of CSP's work (Writings of CSP) for the Peirce Edition Project, which will be Volume 7. I have learned from him that the entries for "pragmatic", "pragmatism," etc., in the Supplementary volume of the Dictionary (the original version was published in 1889), are by John Dewey rather than Peirce. So you will want to make a note of that in the blog, but I think we would want to retain the entry nonetheless since it does do a creditable job of including Peirce's view. I doubt that Peirce himself would have done it much differently than Dewey did since it was certainly necessary by that time to take due account not only of Peirce as originator of the conception as it appears in the reference to him there but also of the looser or broader meanings that had accrued to those terms by that time in virtue of James' usages and others that had developed by that time. Dewey seems to me to have been as scrupulous about all this as Peirce would have been had it been him who made the entries in the supplementary volume.
From the Century Dictionary at http://www.global-language.com/century/ (From there, download and install special viewing software; it's free & well worth the trouble in order to be able to view the original pages through the links just below.)
-- Main Dictionary: empiric, empirical, empirically empiricism, empiricist, empirism, empiristic.
Century Dictionary, Vol. III, Page 1903, Empire to Emplaster (DjVu),
-- Supplement: empiricistic, empirico-psychological, empiriocritical, empiriocriticism.
Dictionary Supplement, Vol. XI, Page 0421, Emissivity to Enamel-Prism (DjVu),
-- Main Dictionary: entelechy
Century Dictionary, Vol. III, Page 1946, Entastic to Enter (DjVu),
-- Main Dictionary: experience (n.), experience (v.), experienced, experiencer, experient, experiential, experientialism, experientialist
Century Dictionary, Vol. III, Page 2079, Experience to Experimentalize (DjVu),
-- Main Dictionary: pragmatic, pragmatica, pragmatical, pragmatically, pragmaticalness, pragmatism, pragmatist, pragmatize, pragmatizer
Century Dictionary, Vol. VI, Page 4667, Praemunire to Pragmatize (DjVu),
-- Supplement: pragmatic, pragmaticism, pragmatism, pragmatist
Dictionary Supplement, Vol. XII, Page 1050, Pps to Prairie-Hare (DjVu),
Notes:
I've replaced the dagger symbol with "(obs.)" (for "obsolete").
I’ve replaced the greater-than & lesser-than symbols with braces (to indicate derivations of word forms).
In phonetic renditions, dots and accents after a character represent the Century Dictionary's placement of accents or dots above or below the character. So, herein, a raised dot after a vowel stands for the Century Dictionary's placement of a raised dot OVER the vowel. Greek transliteration is likewise with these two exceptions: "e^" will stand for the Greek letter eta, and "o^" will stand for the Greek letter omega. This is all in order that, if a reader wishes to copy & paste from here, s/he won’t need to worry about coding issues arising in emails etc. (Western Windows, Unicode, etc., etc.). This Webpage's characters are all or mostly ASCII.
EMPIRIC, EMPIRICAL, EMPIRICISM, EMPIRICIST, EMPIRISM, EMPIRISTICCentury Dictionary, Vol. III, Page 1903, Empire to Emplaster (DjVu)
EMPIRIC (em-pir'ik), a. and n. [Formerly empirick; { OF. empirique, F. empirique = Sp. empi'rico = Pg. It. empirico (cf. D. G. empirisch = Dan. Sw. empirisk), L. empiricus, { Gr. empeiriko's, experienced (or hoi empirikoi', the Empirics: see II., 1), { empeiri'a, experience, mere experience or practice without knowledge, esp. in medicine, empiricism, { empeiro's, experienced or practised in, { en, in, + peira, a trial, experiment, attempt; akin to po'ros, a way, { per, par = E. fare, go.]
I. a. 1. Same as empirical. -2. Versed in physical experimentation: as, an empiric alchemist. -- 3. Of or pertaining to the medical empirics.
It is accounted an error to commit a natural body to empiric physicians. Bacon, Advancement of Learning, i. 17.
II. n. 1. [cap.] One of an ancient sect of Greek physicians who maintained that practice or experience, and not theory, is the foundation of the science of medicine.
Among the Greek physicians, those who founded their practice on experience called themselves empirics; those who relied on theory, methodists; and those who held a middle course, dogmatists. Fleming, Vocab. of Philos. (ed. Krauth), p. 157.
2. An experimenter in medical practice, destitute of adequate knowledge; an irregular or unscientific physician; more distinctively, a quack or charlatan.
It is not safe for the Church of Christ when bishops learn what belongeth unto government, as empirics learn physic, by killing of the sick. Hooker, Eccles. Polity, vii. 24.
This is the cause why empirics and old women are more happy many times in their cures than learned physicians, because they are more religious in holding their medicines. Bacon, Advancement of Learning, it. 198.
There are many empiricks in the world who pretend to infallible methods of curing all patients. Bp. Atterbury, Sermons, II. viii.
Empiricks and mountebanks. Shaftesbury, Advice to an Author, it. § 2.
3. In general, one who depends mainly upon experience or intuition; one whose procedure in any field of action or inquiry is too exclusively empirical.
The empiric .... instead of ascending from sense to intellect (the natural progress of all true learning), . . . hurries, on the contrary, into the midst of sense, where he wanders at random without any end, and is lost in a labyrinth of infinite particulars. Harris, Hermes, iv.
Vague generalisations may form the stock-in-trade of the political empiric, but he is an empiric notwithstanding. Stubbs, Medieval and Modern Hist., p. 91.
=Syn. 2. Mountebank, etc. See quack, n.
EMPIRICAL (em-pir'i-ka..l), a. [{ empiric + -al.]
1. Pertaining to or derived from experience or experiments; depending upon or derived from the observation of phenomena.
In philosophical language the term empirical means simply what belongs to or is the product of experience or observation. Sir W. Hamilton.
Now here again we may observe the error into which Locke was led by confounding the cause of our ideas with their occasion. There can be no idea, he argues, prior to experience; granted. Therefore he concludes the mind previous to it is, as it were, a tabula rasa, owing every notion which it gains primarily to an empirical source. J. D. Morell.
The empirical generalization that guides the farmer in his rotation of crops serves to bring his actions into concord with certain of the actions going on in plants and soil. H. Spencer, Prin. of Biol, §28.
2. Derived, as a general proposition, from a narrow range of observation, without any warrant for its exactitude or for its wider validity.
The empirical diagram only represents the relative number and position of the parts, just as a careful observation shows them in the flower; but if the diagram also indicates the places where members are suppressed, . . . I call it a theoretical diagram. Sachs, Botany (trans.), p. 525.
It is not at all impossible that Henry II. may have been among the pupils of Vacarius: certainly he was more of a lawyer than mere empirical education could make him. Stubbs, Medieval and Modern Hist., p. 303.
3. Pertaining to the medical practice of an empiric, in either of the medical senses of that word; hence, charlatanical; quackish.
The empirical treatment he submitted to . . . hastened his end. Goldsmith, Bolingbroke.
Empirical certainty, cognition, ego, idealism, etc. See the nouns.
--Empirical formula or law, a formula which sufficiently satisfies certain observations, but which is not supported by any established theory or probable hypothesis. so that it cannot be relied upon far beyond the conditions of the observations upon which it rests. Thus, the formula of Dulong and Petit expressing the relation between the temperature of a body and its radiative power cannot be extended to the calculation of the heat of the sun, since there is no reason for supposing that it would approximate to the truth so far beyond the temperatures at which the experiments were made.
EMPIRICALLY (em-pir'i-ka..l-i), adv. In an empirical manner; by experiment; according to experience; without science; in the manner of quacks.
Every science begins by acumulating observations, and presently generalizes these empirically. H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, §22
EMPIRICISM (em-pir'-i-sizm), n. [{ empiric + ism, See empiric.]
1. The character of being empirical; reliance on direct experience and observation rather than on theory; empirical method; especially, an undue relilance upon mere individual experience.
He [Radcliffe] knew, it is true, that experience, the safest guide after the mind is prepared for her instructions by previous institution, is apt, without such preparation, to degenerate to a vulgar and presumptuous empiricism. V. Knox, Essays, xxxviii.
At present, he [Bacon] reflected, some were content to rest in empiricism and isolated facts; others ascended too hastily to first principles. E.A. Abbott, Bacon, p. 344.
What is called empiricism is the application of superficial truths, recognized in a loose, unsystematic way, to immediate and special needs. L. F. Ward, Dynam. Sociol., II. 203.
2. In med., the practice of empirics; hence, quackery; the pretension of an ignorant person to medical skill.
Shudder to destroy life, either by the naked knife or by the surer and safer medium of empiricism. Dwight.
3. The metaphysical theory that all ideas are derived from sensuous experience -- that is, that there are no innate or a priori conceptions.
The terms Empiricism, Empiricist, Empirical, although commonly employed by metaphysicians with contempt to mark a mode of investigation which admits no higher source than experience (by them often unwarrantably restricted to Sensation), may be accepted without demur, since even the flavor of contempt only serves to emphasize the distinction. G. H. Lewes, Probs. of Life and Mind, I. ii. §14.
EMPIRICIST (em-pir'i-sist), n. [( empiric + -ist.]
1. One who believes in philosophical empiricism; one who regards sensuous experience as the sole source of all ideas and knowledge.
Berkeley, as a consistent empiricist, saw that Sensation shuts itself up within its own home, and does not include its object. The object must be supplied from without, and he supplied it provisionally by the name of God. N. A. Rev., CXX. 409.
The empiricist can take no cognizance of anything that transcends experience. New Princeton Rev., II. 169.
2. A medical empiric.
EMPIRICTIC, EMPIRICUTIC (em-pi-rik'tik, em-pir-i-ku¯'-tik), a. [An unmeaning extension of empiric.] Empirical.
The most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutick. Shak., Cor., if. 1.
EMPIRISM (em'pi-rizm), n. [= F. empirisme = Sp. Pg. It. empirismo = I). Dan. empirisme = Sw. empirism, ( NL. 'empirismus, ( Gr. empeiros, experienced: see empiric.] Empiricism. [Rare.]
It is to this sense [second muscular], mainly, that we owe the conception of force, the origin of which empirism could never otherwise explain. G. S. Hall, German Culture, p. 219.
EMPIRISTIC (em-pi-ris'tik), a. Of or pertaining to empiricism or to the empiricists; empirical. [Rare.]
The empiristic view which Helmholtz defends is that the space-determinations we perceive are in every case products of a process of unconscious inference. W. James, Mind, XlI. 545.
EMPIRICISTIC, EMPIRICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL, EMPIRIOCRITICAL, EMPIRIOCRITICISM
Dictionary Supplement, Vol. XI, Page 0421, Emissivity to Enamel-Prism (DjVu),
EMPIRICISTIC (em-pir-i-sis'tik), a. [empiricist + -ic.] Same as empiristic.
An empiricistic psychology [of Bernardino Telesio], the singular completeness and consistency of which accounts for its wide influence on Italian philosophy. Jour. Philos., Psychol. and Sci. Methods, May 26, 1904, p. 3O7.
EMPIRICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL (em-pir"-i-ko¯-si¯-ko¯-loj'-i-ka..l). a. Pertaining to or characteristic of empirical, as distinguished from speculative or philosophical, psychology.
The principle of psycho-physical parallelism has an empirico-psychological significance, and is thus totally different from certain metaphysical principles that have sometimes been designated by the same name. W. Wundt (trans.), Outlines of Psychol., p. 318.
EMPIRIOCRITICAL (em-pir"i-o¯-krit'i-ka..l), a. Of or pertaining to empiriocriticism.
EMPIRIOCRITICISM (em-pir"-i-o¯-krit'i-sism), n. [Gr. empeiri'a, experience, + NL. criticismus, criticism.] The system of philosophy of Richard Avenarius (1843-96), founded on pure experience, that is, natural experience conceptually amplified, clarified, and completed. The only assumption of the system not given in experience is supposed to be that the motions of our fellow-men have the same interpretation as our own. This is one of the most important philosophical developments of the latter half of the nineteenth century, but is understood by few, owing to the difficulty of its author's principal treatise and his employment of a novel terminology, which is insufficiently explained.
Empirio-criticism . . . is the hypothesis of the inseparability of subject and object, or . . . of ego and environment, in purely empirical, or a posteriori form. Encyc. Brit., XXX. 668.
ENTELECHY
Century Dictionary, Vol. III, Page 1946, Entastic to Enter (DjVu)
ENTELECHY (en-tel' e-ki), n. [{L. entelechia, { Gr. entele'cheia, actuality, (en te'lei e'chein, be complete (cf. entele^'s, complete, full): en, in; dat. of te'los, end, completion; e'chein, have, hold, intr. be.] Realization: opposed to power or potentiality, and nearly the same as energy or act (actuality). The only difference is that entelechy implies a more perfect realization. The idea of entelechy is connected with that of form, the idea of power with that of matter. Thus, iron is potentially in its ore, which to be made iron must be worked; when this is done, the iron exists in entelechy. The development from being in posse or in germ to entelechy takes place, according to Aristotle, by means of a change, the imperfect action or energy, of which the perfected result is the entelechy. Entelechy is, however, either first or second. First entelechy is being in working order; second entelechy is being in action. The soul is said to be the first entelechy of the body, which seems to imply that it grows out of the body as its germ; but the idea more insisted upon is that man without the soul would be but a body, while the soul, once developed, is not lost when the man sleeps. Cudworth terms his plastic nature (which see, under nature) a first entelechy, and Leibnitz calls a monad an entelechy.
EXPERIENCE (n.), EXPERIENCE (v.), EXPERIENCED, EXPERIENCER, EXPERIENT, EXPERIENTIAL, EXPERIENTIALISM, EXPERIENTIALIST
Century Dictionary, Vol. III, Page 2079, Experience to Experimentalize (DjVu)
EXPERIENCE (eks-pe¯' ri-ens), n. [{ ME. Experience, experiens, { OF. experience, F. expe'rience = Pr. experientia, esperientia = Sp. Pg. experiencia = It. esperienza, sperienza, esperienzia, sperienzia, { L. experientia, a trial, proof, experiment, experimental knowledge, experience, { experien(t-)s, ppr. of experiri, try, put to the test, undertake, undergo, { ex, out, +*periri, go through, in pp. peritus, experienced, expert: see expert and peril.]
1. The state or fact of having made trial or proof, or of having acquired knowledge, wisdom, skill, etc., by actual trial or observation; also, the knowledge so acquired; personal and practical acquaintance with anything; experimental cognition or perception: as, he knows what suffering is by long experience; experience teaches even fools.
He that hath as much Experience of you as I have had will confess that the Handmaid of God Almighty was never so prodigal of her Gifts to any. Howell, Letters, I. iv. 14.
We were sufficiently instructed by experience what the holy Psalmist means by the Dew of Hermon, our Tents being as wet with it as if it had rain'd all Night. Maundrell, Aleppo to Jerusalem, p. 57.
A man of science who . . . had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one. Hawthorne, Birthmark.
Till we have some experience of the duties of religion, we are incapable of entering duly into the privileges. J. H. Newman, Parochial Sermons, i. 245.
2. In philos., knowledge acquired through external or internal perception; also, the totality of the cognitions given by perception, taken in their connection; all that is perceived, understood, and remembered. Locke defines it as our observation, employed either about external sensible objects or about the internal operations of our minds, perceived and reflected upon by ourselves. The Latin experientia was used in its philosophical sense by Celsus and others, and in the middle ages by Roger Bacon. It translates the Greek empeiri'a of the Stoics. See empiric.
The great and indeed the only ultimate source of our knowledge of nature and her laws is experience, by which we mean not the experience of one man only, or of one generation, but the accumulated experience of all mankind in all ages, registered in books, or recorded by tradition. Sir J. Herschel.
The unity of experience embraces both the inner and the outer life. E. Caird, Philos. of Kant, p. 387.
Specifically--3. That which has been learned, suffered, or done, considered as productive of practical judgment and skill; the sum of practical wisdom taught by all the events, vicissitudes, and observations of one's life, or by any particular class or division of them.
That which all men's experience teacheth them may not in any wise be denied. Hooker, Eccles. Polity, iii. 8.
Who shall march out before ye, coy'd and courted By all the mistresses of war, care, counsel, Quick-ey'd experience, and victory twin'd to him? Fletcher, Bonduca, iv. 3.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest. Tennyson, Locksley Hall.
In a world so charged and sparkling with power, a man does not live long and actively without costly additions of experience, which, though not spoken, are recorded in his mind. Emerson, Old Age.
4. An individual or particular instance of trim or observation.
Real apprehension is, as I have said, in the first instance an experience or information about the concrete. J. H. Newman, Gram. of Assent, p. 21.
The like holds good with respect to the relations between sounds and vibrating objects, which we learn only by a generalization of experiences. H. Spencer, Prim of Psychol.
This is what distance does for us; the harsh and bitter features of this or that experience are slowly obliterated, and memory begins to look on the past. W. Black.
5(Obs.). An experiment.
She caused him to make experience Upon wild beasts. Spenser, F. Q.
If my affection be suspected, make Experience of my loyalty, by some service. Shirley, Love Tricks, i. 1.
6. A fixed mental impression or emotion; specifically, a guiding or controlling religious feeling, as at the time of conversion or resulting from subsequent influences.
All that can be argued from the purity and perfection of the word of God, with respect to experiences, is this,that those experiences which are agreeable to the word of God are right and cannot be otherwise and not that those affections which must be right which arise on occasion of the word of God coming to the mind. Edwards, Wrks, III. 32.
The rapture of the Moravian and Quietist, . . . the revival of the Calvinistic churches, the experiences of the Methodists, are varying forms of that shudder of awe and delight with which the individual soul always mingles with the universal soul. Emerson, Essays, 1st ser., p. 256.
Experience meeting, a meeting, especially in the Methodist Church, where the members relate their religious experiences; a covenant or conference meeting.
He is in that ecstasy of mind which prompts those who were never orators before to rise in an experience meeting and pour out a flood of feeling in the tritest language and the most conventional terms. C. D. Warner, Backlog Studies, p. 127.
= Syn. Experience, Experiment, Observation.
Experience is strictly that which befalls a man, or which he goes through, while experiment is that which one actively undertakes. Observation is looking on, without necessarily having any connection with the matter: it is one thing to know of a man's goodness or of the horrors of war by observation, and quite another to know of it or them by experience. To know of a man's goodness by experiment would be to have put it to actual and intentional test. See practice.
EXPERIENCE (eks-pe¯'ri-ens), v. t.; pret. and pp. experienced, ppr. experiencing. [{ experience, n.]
1. To learn by practical trial or proof; try or prove by use, by suffering, or by enjoyment; have happen to or befall one; acquire a perception of; undergo: as, we all experience pain, sorrow, and pleasure; we experience good and evil; we often experience a change of sentiments and views, or pleasurable or painful sensations.
Your soul will then experience the most terrible fears. Southwell, Poetical Works, Pref., p. 56.
You have not yet experienced at her hands My treatment. Browning, Ring and Book, I. 309.
2(obs.). To practise or drill; exercise.
The youthful sailors thus with early care Their arms experience and for sea prepare. W. Harte, tr. of Sixth Thebaid of Statius.
To experience religion, to become converted. [Colloq.]
I experienced religion at one of brother Armstrong's protracted meetings. Widow Bedott Papers, p. 108.
EXPERIENCED (eks-pe¯'ri-enst), p. a. Taught by practice or by repeated observations; skilful or wise by means of trials, use, or observation: as, an experienced artist; an experienced physician.
I esteem it a greater Advantage that so worthy and well-experienced a Knight as Sir Talbot Bows is to be my Collegue and Fellow-Burgess. Howell, Letters, I. v. 4.
We must perfect, as much as we can, our ideas of the distinct species; or learn them from such as are used to that sort of things, and are experienced in them. Locke.
EXPERIENCER (eks-pe¯'ri-en-se.r), n. One who experiences; one who makes trials or experiments. [rare.]
A curious experiencer did affirm that the likeness of any object, . . . if strongly inlightned, will appear to another, in the eye of him that looks strongly and steadily upon it,. . . even after he shall have turned his eyes from it. Sir K. Digby, Nature of Bodies, viii.
EXPERIENT (eks-pe¯'ri-ent), a. [{ OF. experient, { L. experien(t-)s, ppr. of experiri: see experience.] Experienced.
Which wisdom sure he learn'd Of his experient father. Chapman, All Fools, i. 1.
Why is the Prince, now ripe and full experient,
Not made a dore in the State? Beau. and Fl., Cupid's Revenge, iii. 1.
EXPERIENTIAL (eks-pe¯-ri-en'shal), a. [{ L. experientia, experience, + -al.] relating to or having experience; derived from experience; empirical.
Again, what are called physical laws--laws of nature-- are all generalisations from observation, are only empirical or experiential information. Sir W. Hamilton.
It is evident that this distinction of necessary and experiential truths involves the same antithesis which we have already considered--the antithesis of thoughts and things. Necessary truths are derived from our own thoughts; experiential truths are derived from our observation of things about us. The opposition of necessary and experiential truths is another aspect of the fundamental antithesis of philosophy. Whewell, Hist. Scientific Ideas, I. 27.
But notwithstanding the utter darkness regarding ways and means, our imagination can reach much more readily the final outcome of our transcendental than of our experiential attitude. Mind, IX. 358.
EXPERIENTIALISM (eks-pe¯-ri-en'sha..l-izm), n. [{ experiential + -ism.] The doctrine that all our knowledge has its origin in experience, and must submit to the test of experience.
Experientialism is, in short, a philosophical or logical theory, not a psychological one. G.C. Bobertson.
EXPERIENTIALIST (eks-pe¯-ri-en'sha..l-ist), n. and a. [{experiential + -ist.] I. n. One who holds the doctrines of experientialism. II. a. Pertaining or relating to experientialism.
PRAGMATIC, PRAGMATICA, PRAGMATICAL, PRAGMATICALLY, PRAGMATICALNESS, PRAGMATISM, PRAGMATIST, PRAGMATIZE, PRAGMATIZER
Century Dictionary, Vol. VI, Page 4667, Praemunire to Pragmatize (DjVu)
PRAGMATIC (prag-mat'ik), a. and n. [{ F. pragmatique = Sp. pragma'tico = Pg. pragmatico = It. prammatico, pragmatico (cf. D. G. pragmatisch = Sw. Dan. pragmatisk), adj., pragmatic (as a noun, masc., in def. 1; fem. F. pragmatique = Sp. pragma'tica, n., = Pg. pragmatica, n., = It. prammatica, pragmatica. in def. 3); { LL. pragmaticus, relating to civil affairs (pragmatica sanctio or jussio or annotatio or constitutio, a pragmatic sanction, i.e. an imperial decree relating to the affairs of a community, ML. simply pragmatica, a decree); in L., as a noun, a person versed in the law who furnished arguments and points to advocates and orators, a kind of attorney; { Gr. pragmatiko's, active, versed in affairs, etc., { pra^gma (} LL. pragma), a thing done, a fact, pl. prag'mata, affairs, state affairs, public business, etc., { pra'ssein (root prag), do: see practic, practice, etc.]
I.a. 1. relating to civil affairs; relating or pertaining to the affairs of a community. See pragmatic sanction, below.
--2. Same as pragmatical, in any sense.
nor can your Palace be a dwelling-place For Safety, whilst pragmatic Logos or Sly Charis revel in your princely Grace. J. Beaumont, Psyche, v. 153.
I love to hit These pragmatic young men at their own weapons. B. Jonson, Devil is an Ass, i. 3.
3. In the Kantian philos., practical in a particular way--namely, having reference to happiness.
--Pragmatic method, pragmatic treatment, the treatment of historical phenomena with special reference to their causes, antecedent conditions, and results. Also pragmatism.
--Pragmatic sanction, a term first applied to certain decrees of the Byzantine emperors, regulating the interests of their subject provinces and towns; then to a system of limitations set to the spiritual power of the Pope in European countries: as, for instance, the French pragmatic sanction of 1268, and that of 1438. Lastly, it became the name for an arrangement or family compact, made by different potentates, regarding succession to sovereignty -- the most noted being the instrument by which the emperor Charles VI., being without male issue, endeavored to secure the succession to his female descendants, settling his dominions on his daughter Maria Theresa.
II. n. 1(obs.). A man of business; one who is versed or active in affairs.
He's my attorney and solicitor too; a fine pragmatic. B. Jonson.
2(obs.). A busybody; a meddlesome person.
Such pragmaticks . . . labour impertinently. Bp. Gauden, Tears of the Church, p. 502. (Davies.)
Keep to your problems of ten groats; these matters are not for pragmaticks and folkmooters to babble in. Milton, Prose Works, I. 336.
3. A decree or ordinance issued by the head of a state.
A pragmatic was issued, September 18th, 1495, prescribing the weapons and the seasons for a regular training of the militia. Prescott, Ferd. and Isa., ii. 26, note.
PRAGMATICA (prag-mat'i-ka..¨), n. [ML.: see pragmatic.] Same as pragmatic, n., 3.
Royal pragmaticas began to take the place of constitutional laws. Encyc. Brit., IX. 811.
PRAGMATICAL (prag-mat'i-ka..l), a. and n. [{ pragmatic + -al.]
I.a. 1(obs.). Versed in affairs; skilled in business; engaged in business pursuits.
Pragmatical men may not go away with an opinion that learning is like a lark, that can mount, and sing, and please herself, and nothing else. Bacon, Advancement of Learning, ii. 323.
2. Active; diligent; busy.
I received instructions how to behave in town, with directions to masters and hooks to take in search of the antiquities, churches, collections, etc. Accordingly, the next day, Nov. 6th, I began to be very pragmatical. Evelyn, Diary, Nov. 4, 1644.
3. Pertaining to business or to material interests; hence, material; commonplace.
Low pragmatical earthly views of the gospel. Hare.
"In One Town," though a little pragmatical and matter of fact, is not uninteresting. Athenaeum, So. 8068, p. 203.
4(obs.). Practical; authoritative.
Can a man thus imployd find himselfe discontented or dishonour'd for want of admittance to have a pragmaticall voyce at Sessions and Jayle deliveries? Milton, On Def. of Humb. Remonst.
5. Unduly busy over the affairs of others; meddlesome; interfering; officious.
The fellow grew so pragmatical that he took on him the management of my whole family. --- Arbuthnot.
6. Characterized by officiousness; performed or delivered by an officious person; intrusive.
It is like you to give a pragmatical opinion without being acquainted with any of the circumstances of the case. Charlotte Bronte¨, The Professor.
Suddenly an unknown individual, in plain clothes and with a pragmatical demeanor, interrupted the discourse by giving a flat contradiction to some of the doctrines advanced. Motley, Dutch Republic, I. 544.
7. Busy over trifles; self-important; busy.
You cannot imagine what airs all the little pragmatical fellows about us have given themselves since the reading of those papers. Addison, The Tall Club.
II. (obs.) n. A professional opinion or decision.
The eloquent persuasions and pragmaticals of Mr. Secretary Windwood. Bacon, To the King, 1617, July 25, Works, XIII. 232.
PRAGMATICALLY (prag-mat'i-ka..l-i), adv. In a pragmatic manner.
Over busy, or pragmatically curious. --- Barrow, Sermons, I. 597.
PRAGMATICALNESS (prag-mat'i-ka..l-nes), n. The character of being pragmatical, in any sense; especially, meddlesomeness; officiousness; excessive zeal.
PRAGMATISM (prag'ma..-tizm), n. [{ pragmat(ic) + -ism.] 1. Pragmatical character or conduct; officiousness; busy impertinence.
Mrs. Dollop, the spirited landlady of the Tankard in Slaughter Lane, . . . had often to resist the shallow pragmatism of customers disposed to think that their reports from the outer world were of equal force with what had "come up" in her mind. George Eliot, Middlemarch, lxxi.
2. In hist., same as pragmatic method. See pragmatic, a.
PRAGMATIST (prag'ma..-tist), n [{pragmat(ic) + -ist.] One who is impertinently busy or meddling.
We may say of pragmatists that their eyes look all ways but inward. Bp. Reynolds, The Passions, xvi.
PRAGMATIZE (prag'ma..-ti¯z),; v. t.; pref. and pp. pragmatized, ppr. pragmatizing. [{pragmat(ic) + -ize.] To make real or material; attribute a practical objective existence to (some product of imagination or fancy).
The merest shadowy fancy or broken-down metaphor, when once it gains a sense of reality, may begin to be spoken of as an actual event . . . . One of the miraculous passages in the life of Mohammed himself is traced plausibly by Sprenger to such a pragmatized metaphor. E. B. Tyler, Prim. Culture, I. 407.
PRAGMATIZER (prag'ma..-ti¯-ze.r), n. [{ pragmatize+ -er1.] One who pragmatizes, or attributes objective existence to what is subjective, imaginary, or fanciful.
The pragmatizer is a stupid creature; nothing is too beautiful or too sacred to be made dull and vulgar by his touch. E.B. Tyler, Prim. Culture, I. 368.
PRAGMATIC, PRAGMATICISM, PRAGMATISM, PRAGMATIST
Dictionary Supplement, Vol. XII, Page 1050, Pps to Prairie-Hare (DjVu)
PRAGMATIC, a. 3. A term used (by Kant) to denote rules of action (otherwise denominated 'counsels of prudence') which have to do with the attainment of happiness. As used by him, it is antithetic to the term 'practical,' which refers to principles of action (otherwise called 'categorical imperatives') which have to do with the attainment of virtue.
We might . . . call the first kind of imperatives technical (belonging to art), the second pragmatic (to welfare), the third moral (belonging to free conduct generally, that is, to morals). Kant (trans.), Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Ethics, p. 40.
4. Having to do with pragmatism as a philosophy: as, the pragmatic movement; pragmatic thought. See *pragmatism, 3.
PRAGMATICISM (prag-mat' i-sizm), n. [pragmatic + ism.] A special and limited form of pragmatism, in which the pragmatism is restricted to the determining of the meaning of concepts (particularly of philosophic concepts) by consideration of the experimental differences in the conduct of life which would conceivably result from the affirmation or denial of the meaning in question.<
He [the writer] framed the theory that a conception, that is, the rational purport of a word or other expression, lies exclusively in its conceivable bearing upon-the conduct of life. . . . To serve the precise purpose of expressing the original definition, he begs to announce the birth of the word "pragmaticism." C. S. Peirce, in The Monist, April, 1905, p. 166.
PRAGMATISM, n. 3. In philos., a method of thought, a general movement or tendency of thought, and a specific school, in which stress is placed upon practical consequences and practical values as standards for explicating philosophic conceptions and as tests for determining their value and, especially, their truth.
The word is used in a variety of senses, of greater or less breadth and definiteness. The following meanings of the term are arranged in the order of descending generality:
(a) An attitude of mind, namely that of
"looking away from first things, principles, 'categories, supposed necessities, and of looking toward last things, fruits, consequences, facts." W. James, Pragmatism, a New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, p. 55.
(b) A theory concerning the proper method of determining the meaning of conceptions. "Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object." C.S. Peirce, in Baldwin's Dict. of Philos. and Psychol., II. This theory was first propounded by Mr. Peirce in an article upon "How to Make our Ideas Clear" in the "Popular Science Monthly" in 1878. The term 'pragmatism' does not, however, appear there. In an article in the "Monist" for 1905, Mr. Peirce says that he "has used it continually in philosophic conversation, since, perhaps, the mid-seventies." The term was publicly introduced in print by Professor William James in 1898 in an address upon "Philosophic Conceptions and Practical Realities," in which the authorship of the term and of the method is credited to Mr. Peirce. The latter has recently used the term 'pragmaticism ' to express this meaning.
(c) The theory that the processes and the materials of knowledge are determined by practical or purposive considerations--that there is no such thing as knowledge determined by exclusively theoretical. speculative, or abstract intellectual considerations. This definition expresses the net or mean sense of the term in its various uses.
"Now quite the most striking feature of the new theory was its recognition of an inseparable connection between rational cognition and rational purpose; and that consideration it was which determined the preference for the name 'pragmatism.'" C.S. Peirce, in The Monist, 1905.
F. C. S. Schiller has defined pragmatism as "the thorough recognition that the purposive character of mental life generally must influence and pervade also our most remotely cognitive activities." Humanism, Philosophic Essays, p. 8.
Pragmatism -- by which I mean the doctrine that reality possesses practical character and that this character is most efficaciously expressed in the function of intelligence. J. Dewey, in Essays Philosophical and Psychological, p. 59.
(d) A theory of the nature of truth, namely, that the correspondence between fact and idea which constitutes truth consists in the power of the idea in question to work satisfactorily, or to produce the results intended by it.
Such then would be the scope of pragmatism --first, a method, and second, a genetic theory of what is meant by truth. W. James, Pragmatism, p. 65.
(e) A metaphysical theory regarding the nature of reality, namely that it is still in process of making, and that human ideas and efforts play a fundamental role in its making: the equivalent of humanism as a metaphysical term.
The essential contrast is that for rationalism reality is ready-made and complete from all eternity, while for pragmatism it is still in the making, and awaits part of its complexion from the future. W. James, Pragmatism, p. 257.
Pragmatism . . . is a conscious application to epistemology (or logic) of a teleological psychology, which implies, ultimately, a voluntaristic metaphysic. F. C. S. Schiller, Studies in,Humanism, p. 12.
PRAGMATIST, n. 2. One who adheres to or professes the philosophy of pragmatism; more loosely, an opponent of rationalism and absolutism in philosophy; a supporter of the experimental method of reasoning in philosophy; a supporter of empiricism, but, unlike other empiricists, one who judges by consequences rather than by antecedents. See *pragmatism, 3.
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