260903: Pragmatism Turned The Tide
So in many ways pragmatism (minus Peirce) feels like an important beginning for cybernetics1 & systems theory, and in a weird way computer science and even machine intelligence?2 Even as it preemptively rejects the notion of compsci's formalism having anything much to bear on reality.
That pragmatist worldview & methodology sets the stage for the fall of Platonism & Enlightenment philosophy. Much of it seems obvious in retrospect (like natural selection) but nonetheless marked a significant upgrade over the competing intellectualisms of its age. Broadly:
(1) Re-embed the mind in the body, and the body in an environment both material & social-symbolic;
(2) Seek to understand environment-minded bodies as engaged in patterned (intentional, habitual or creative3) responses to said environ...
(3) ...Responses that are trained by feedback loops ("hermeneutic circles," "reflex arcs")4, and alter than environment for the purpose of ultimately upholding the body's negentropic integrity...
(4) ...Which often involves extensive niche construction (the realm of craft, tekne, art)...
(5) ...And since many bodies live alongside one another, in a reflexive (mutually sensitive) way, their responses end up co-constructing a lived world.5
And maybe I'd also add:
(6) One important sub-set of responses, "communication," is specifically used to alter other agents' behaviors, by appealing to their interests; in other words, used to plan & bargain over the terms of worldly co-construction.
I think the "games" metaphor is implicitly pragmatist—its two most influential advocates, Wittgenstein & Goffman, were influenced by James & Mead respectively—but I will leave such talk for another day.
Dewey's reflex arc concept anticipates the cybernetic project in 1896; Wiener trained at Harvard under the pragmatists Royce and Santayana.↩
See e.g. James's associationism as anticipating connectionism.↩
James was also early to the notion now associated with Heidegger: that we run on habit until our model breaks, at which point we are surprised, and more creatively engage.↩
See e.g. Thorndike's (now taken for granted) Law of Effect, which laid the basis for reinforcement learning; Thorndike was a student of James.↩
Schutz built atop James's psychological work; he then trains Luckmann, who partners with Berger to write the George Mead-inspired Social Construction of Reality (1966).↩