The Pragmatic Maxim

Without Charles Sanders Peirce we would never have had pragmatism.

Nor would he have seen his thought child batted around until he finally despaired and called it pragmaticism

Here is a version of the pragmatic maxim to provide a taste of the origins of pragmatism and a link to Triadic Philosophy.

“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."

There it is.

A radical paring down of philosophy’s method

From the standpoint of Triadic Philosophy, this is basically Jesus classic universal truth — “By their fruits you shall know them”

Considering effects is what Triadic Philosophy advocates and makes possible on a daily basis.

Personal, communal and universal actions should be practical. There should be clear goals and objectives.

Triadic Philosophy sees all effects according with of universal values and aesthetic benchmarks.

Human thought is in itself powerful. Triadic thinking ress on the values of tolerance, helpfulness and democracy and aims at truth and beauty.

As a largely unemployed genius, subject to frequent rejections, Peirce hatched several schemes that went nowhere. Among them was an effort to teach logic to ordinary human beings. This is a universal need. Logic is a good result.

To give the pragmatic maxim its proper due is to move beyond today’s standard thinking which contains dualism, nominalism, binary and and other elements that ignore and diminish the role of ethics and aesthetics.

I have no hesitation in seeing Triadic Philosophy as a universal antidote to the two-sided, materialist thought that has reigned on this planet.