Pragmatism

Description

David Ellerman:

"Pragmatism views the social world as being actively constructed by people so, at each point in time, it is radically incomplete and in a state of becoming. People’s values and opinions, their preferences and beliefs, are always incomplete and in a state of changing in a process of probing values and testing beliefs. Hence the notion of there being some predefined “One Best Way” that could be scientifically discovered by social engineers does not occur, and the notion of a “solution” to a social problem without the active involvement of the parties seems out of place. As people find out more about the possible means to their ends in a social learning process, their conception of the ends may change as well. Hence Pragmatism sees a unity of knowing and doing giving a two-way interaction between means and ends in contrast to the engineering vision of finding the optimal means to reach the ends given by some social welfare index. One of the best recent statements of this perspective is Charles Lindblom’s 1990 book, Inquiry and Change." (http://www.blog.ellerman.org/2010/01/social-engineering-vs-pragmatism-part-i-of-commentary-on-the-sarkozy-stiglitz-commission/)