What’s a personal mantra or philosophy you live by?
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Pragmatism is probably the philosophy I try to live by most. For me, that means asking what works best for the task at hand, with the least unnecessary fuss. That does not necessarily mean choosing whatever is easiest. It means judging ideas by what they allow us to do, while accepting that action rarely waits for perfect certainty.
William James (1896) gives that instinct a theoretical backbone. In his works (1897; 1902; 1907) James argues that we are pulled between two aims: gaining truth and avoiding error. The more determined we are to avoid being wrong, the more likely we may be to miss something true, and vice versa. Sometimes caution matters most. Sometimes waiting for certainty simply becomes another way of refusing to decide. Pragmatism begins from the fact that we often have to make judgements under conditions that are incomplete, uncertain, or still unfolding.
That is probably what I like most about it. Pragmatism allows for movement. I can take stock of what I know, use the skills and tools I already have, recognise what I do not know, and acquire something new if I need to. Then I can act, see what happens, and let the consequences shape the next attempt. Dewey’s idea that the end of one inquiry becomes the beginning of another appeals to me for exactly this reason. A solution is rarely the end of the story. It becomes material for the next question.
Dewey (1929) develops this practical orientation further in The Quest for Certainty. He argues against the desire to eliminate all error and uncertainty, because doing so can pull theory away from the messiness of lived experience. Inquiry instead begins with an indeterminate situation that we try to make more intelligible. We describe the problem, identify the relationships within it, formulate a clearer question, and use concepts as tools rather than as detached ends in themselves. That is probably the philosophy I try to practise most often: use the best tools currently available, test them against their consequences, and treat every answer as provisional enough to be questioned again.
Oddly enough, I know very little about philosophy in any formal sense. I am not a philosopher. I just really enjoy disappearing into long-form YouTube videos where someone patiently explains absurdism, Grue, the Eleatics, Lucretius, or whether the table is still on the floor when nobody is looking at it. I barely understand some of it, but I love the process of trying to understand it. There is something deeply satisfying about wrestling with an idea that initially feels completely beyond me and then, weeks later, casually saying something like “Socratic dialogue” in a completely unrelated conversation about why certain podcasts are so bland.
Maybe that is part of the pragmatism too. You do not need to master everything before you are allowed to engage with it. You just need somewhere to begin, one step forward just like the Fool.
