Pragmatism and geography

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

Geoforum 39 (2008) 1527–1529 www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum

Editorial

Pragmatism and geography

1. Introduction . . . is an apposite label with which to head up a collection of seven papers which, between them, refer to and constitute, practically every significant statement there is on the engagement between geography and pragmatism. This is a very unusual opening line. It is all the more strange given that pragmatism is one of the major philosophical achievements of the Anglo-American world where, for more than a century, it has inspired some of the most enduring social, political, economic and aesthetic debates. Yet, despite the relevance of pragmatism to many aspects of human and environmental geography, particularly in the wake of a ‘non-representational’ turn across the discipline, this style of working has received little attention from geographers. The same could – though to a lesser extent – be said about its impact in other fields. The early forms of pragmatism were linked too closely with emerging American liberalism, and set too easily in opposition to the Continental (European) philosophies, including Marxism, that formed the radical edge of sociological inquiry for much of the 20th century. For this, and other reasons, pragmatism was marginalised even in philosophy, sociology and psychology for many years. However, in the last quarter century the intellectual landscape has changed: big gestures are being challenged by small acts, the fixity of structures has been unsettled by the flow of activity, new styles of agonistic democracy aim to remake rather than displace politics. Most critically in a changeable, precarious world whose future is uncertain, whose balance can tip in any direction, there is a new sense of practical urgency – a new quest for normative engagement; a feeling that it is worth pursuing even small victories and minor gains, because they are cumulative and make a difference. All this resonates not only with what pragmatism is, but also with the world that inspired it. Several of the papers in this collection set out ‘simply’ to make that point. It may seem odd for a group of scholars writing now to revisit systematically a set of ideas first aired over a century ago. But pragmatism has been so mytholog0016-7185/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2008.06.003

ised, simplified and marginalised that the space and time is well-spent. It is even worth underlining three key points here. First, while a hallmark of pragmatism is its diversity, pragmatism is a singular term because its proponents always had a lot in common. Several of the papers pull out the core themes, and there is a notable degree of consistency. Perhaps one of the central features of pragmatism is that it is a way of thinking that is grounded in anti-foundationalism. Ideas are not transcendent, fixed truths, rather they are outcomes of embodied experiences and instrumental actions that are dynamic, contingent and continually evolving. Decades before the first post-structuralist utterances, the early pragmatists were turning away from meta-narratives, objective truths, and unifying theories, preferring instead to develop modes of thinking, which they believed had greater utility for helping people to cope with the messiness of everyday life. Pragmatism is, then, a pluralist approach with an appreciation of the fallibilism of all knowledge and every style of knowing. It therefore encourages openness and scepticism to ideas, and debate about the varieties of experience among diverse communities of interest. It is a philosophy of engagement whose very method is about exploring the possibility that there may be other, more useful ways to know, and (inter)act with, the world. Such a commitment does not equate to a belief in ‘anything and everything’ (as has often been the criticism), rather pragmatism promotes an open-mindedness to ideas whose usefulness is ultimately determined through practical application. In pragmatism ideas are ‘true’ if they are able to cope effectively with the world and enable people to accomplish their aims, hopes and desires. And this practical (and political) imperative is important. Running through many of the pragmatist works is a desire to make the world – bit by bit, unevenly, by accident as well as by design – into a better place; to make positive interventions in a world that is continually in the making. Many pragmatists have done just this – they have been practically engaged as well as intellectually inspired – as the papers by Trevor Barnes and Gary Bridge testify.

1528

Editorial / Geoforum 39 (2008) 1527–1529

Second, notwithstanding commonalities, it is important to recognise that the ‘original’ pragmatists were a diverse bunch, who argued amongst themselves, and whose work ‘faced’ in many different directions. The logic of the polymath Charles Sanders Peirce is perhaps the most notable ‘outlier’. Peirce was a trained chemist and worked professionally as a scientist with the US Coast and Geodetic Survey for thirty years whilst simultaneously developing his work in logic and philosophy. The reformed scientific philosophy that he developed during this time attacked all forms of epistemological foundationalism (and, in particular Cartesianism) and emphasised the fallibilism of scientific inquiry. Very little mention of Peirce is made in the collection that follows (beyond a recognition of his role as one of the founders of pragmatism), though his wide-ranging scientific and philosophical works have significantly influenced many areas of intellectual inquiry including the philosophy of science, metaphysics, mathematics, linguistics and semiotics. As is inevitable in a small collection of papers, the treatment of the remaining ‘founding authors’ is uneven. Trevor Barnes and Les Hepple range widely across the work of the Chicago and Harvard ‘schools’, but it is John Dewey who gets by far the most detailed attention by other contributors. Malcolm Cutchin and Gary Bridge in particular focus on his work, as, to an extent, does John Allen. Dewey to be sure is a large figure whose critique of ‘the spectator theory of knowledge’ speaks to many areas of geographical inquiry. Moreover, writing almost a century ago, Dewey was exploring many of the ideas and phenomena that have occupied several areas of contemporary human geography in recent years. To name but a few, these include: a distrust of ‘traditional’ philosophical dualisms (e.g. theory-practice, mind-body, reason-emotion, fact-value); questions over the relevance of social inquiry; concern with the meanings and value of democracy and citizenship; an appreciation of the importance of art – of the aesthetic qualities of social and political life; and understandings of nature. William James attracts less attention in this issue although his writings on truth, knowledge, emotions and religion have much to offer geography’s recent engagement with ethics. His works on the ‘mind-body problem’ and the relationships between emotion, experience and behaviour in particular resonate with the emerging literature on emotional and affective geographies. George Herbert Mead, the last of the ‘classical pragmatists’ to be mentioned here, barely features at all, which is surprising given the potential utility of his work for geography. For example, his unified theory of society, language, mind, self, and consciousness potentially offers an alternative perspective on those areas of geographical inquiry that have been recently dominated by psychoanalytic modes of thinking. Finally, while it is generally recognised that Geography as a discipline derived little momentum from pragmatism in the early 20th century, there are – as Les Hepple puts it in his paper – scattered fragments of a yet-to-be-written history which at least qualifies this view. These fragments in-

clude, for example, encounters between Charles Peirce and GK Gilbert, and between WM Davies and Charles Royce, which are now driving debates on methodology in physical geography. John Dewey may have influenced Gilbert White’s work on hazard and risk; the ideas of William James and George Herbert Mead certainly helped shape the early urban geographies inspired by the so-called ‘Chicago School’. Although only a few geographers have shown any interest in their pragmatic inheritance, the sense of fascination that runs through all the papers in this issue suggest that the time might be right to address this oversight. 2. Pragmatism ‘all the way down’? There are many variations of the story of the senior citizen/religious leader/other sceptic of scientific method who, in response to an account of the Copernican universe, claims that the flat earth stands on a large creature, who is perched on a smaller creature, who rests on a turtle. ‘And after that?’ the scientist inquires with a smug grin. ‘After that, it’s turtles all the way down’. One version of this story claims that William James is ‘the scientist’, though if he were, it is unlikely that his grin would have been smug. Stephen Hawking’s account, which is particularly widely quoted, tells us why. In the opening of ‘A brief history of time’ he uses the anecdote not to show how ridiculous the turtle version of the universe is, but to ask how we know the alternatives to be more plausible. Finding an answer is, in a sense, the quest that inspired pragmatism in the first place; it is the thread that ties classical and neopragmatic thinkers together and – in this issue at least – which connects them with the projects of geography. Intriguingly, more than one of the authors in this collection uses the phrase ‘all the way down’ in their discussion of what pragmatism is, why it is important, and how it makes for plausible answers in a post-enlightenment world. Indeed, several papers trace the imprint of pragmatism, across the two or three generations of philosophy it now spans. First, the imprint of pragmatic thinking is traced through the writings of Wittgenstein, Nietzsche and Heidegger by Owain Jones and in the work of Habermas by Gary Bridge. Both of these authors not only explore how pragmatism resonates within other social theories, but also offer reflections on how an engagement with pragmatism might complement and extend existing theoretical frameworks. Second, the important work of the revivalist or neopragmatists, especially Richard Rorty, Richard Bernstein and Hilary Putnam, is recognised in both saving pragmatism from intellectual obscurity in the post-war period and also bridging the divides between American analytical philosophy and Continental European philosophy. The work of the revivalist or neo-pragmatists is not without its problems – as Hepple explains their readings of classical pragmatism have, at times, been highly controversial – but their work has inspired new ways of thinking with feeling, working with language, and practising the future.

Editorial / Geoforum 39 (2008) 1527–1529

3. We are all pragmatists now! The point of this collection of course is to consider the relevance of pragmatism to the projects of geography, and on this the authors all have something to say. First, they air the possibility (in particular in papers by Trevor Barnes, Gary Bridge and Malcolm Cutchin) that pragmatism can inform – perhaps improve – common approaches to familiar themes; for example space, place, site and situation. Les Hepple’s view on this is more radical: he argues that pragmatism can, perhaps should, have a more thoroughgoing role in shaping more or less everything that geographers do. Second, some authors argue that there are merits in recognising, and building on, the pragmatic resonances of recent innovations in human geography, in particular those around materiality, actor networks in a more than human world, and non-representational styles of working. Owain Jones speaks particularly powerfully to this theme. Third, pragmatism is a theory of practice, so we should expect to think about its practical application and about how, specifically it might influence the development of solutions to real world problems in a range of institutions and at a number of spatial scales. Jon Coaffee and Nicola Headlam develop this idea by providing a rare contemporary glimpse of how pragmatism might – through the development of ‘pragmatic public administration’ – really be put into practice. Finally, while a presumption of this theme issue is that pragmatism has a lot to offer geography; there is equally an argument that geography has much to give back. John Allen’s paper illustrates this point well, exploring the difference that space and spatiality can make to a ‘still-to-be’ developed pragmatic theory of the practice of power. 4. In memorium: Les Hepple As a way of knowing, pragmatism is powerful because it contains an impulse to act in a precarious world with an uncertain future, at least part of which remains to be made;

1529

has still to take place. This is the spirit of the papers in this collection: they consider the radicalism of pragmatism; its relevance for human geography and its capacity to change the world. No-one was more aware of, or inspired by, this idea than Les Hepple. Les worked enthusiastically and for much of his career to excavate the hidden histories of pragmatism, as well as to recognise those histories which could or should have been made, yet were not. It is not surprising that Les was one of a handful of scholars whose enthusiasm inspired our panel session on pragmatism at the 2005 AAG meetings, and whose commitment to that led, in the end, to the collection of papers that follow. Les’s work offers a tantalising glimpse of the value and radical potential of pragmatism for geography. His premature death, in February 2007, has deprived us of a valued scholar, supportive colleague and friend who, we believe, would have enjoyed engaging with the debates that are raised in this collection. We are grateful to Suzanne Hepple for agreeing to publish Les’s paper posthumously, and we dedicate this theme issue to his memory; as one way of recognising the importance of Les Hepple’s written, spoken and lived, contribution to geography’s ‘pragmatist enlightenment’. Nichola Wood School of Geography, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK Tel.: +44 113 343 3348 E-mail address: [email protected] Susan J. Smith Department of Geography, University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK Tel.: +44 191 334 1946 E-mail address: [email protected]