cerned primarily with getting and keeping power and
with putting power above all other values (including
goodness). Thomas HOBBEScontinues this emphasis on
power, proclaiming it essential to the human purpose
of avoiding pain and gaining pleasure. This materialis-
tic view of power is continued in Karl MARX’s theory of
COMMUNISM, in which the whole history of politics is
just an expression of the economic power of the ruling
social class. This Marxist obsession with power
informs much of 20th-century sociology, which sees
all social relations in terms of who has more and less
power, who controls whom, what groups are power-
less, and how power can be redistributed. This LEFTIST
attitude usually assigns power to the oppressors and
lack of power to the oppressed. This view sees power
as negative and destructive until the oppressed have it
(and then it will be used positively and justly). Ameri-
can PLURALISM(as expressed by James MADISON), com-
ing from a Calvinist view of human evil, seeks to
divide and distribute political power because it will
corrupt anyone who possesses it. In Lord ACTON’s
famous phrase, “Power corrupts, and absolute power
corrupts absolutely.” MEDIEVAL CATHOLIC political
thought is less concerned about the misuse of power
(in CHURCH AND STATE) and sees the possibility of really
beneficial use of power and authority in the Christian
king under the counsel of the church. POST-MODERNIST
thinker Michel FOUCAULT emphasizes the informal
influences of cultural power in Modern democratic
society. Generally, in LIBERAL theory (John LOCKE),
power is viewed with suspicion, as potentially tyranni-
cal and abusive. But Modern politics remains obsessed
and fascinated with power and the pursuit to define
and acquire it.
Further Reading
Bell, R., Edwards, D. V., and Wagner, R. H., eds. Political Power:
A Reader in Theory and Research.New York: Free Press,
1969.
pragmatism
Pragmatism holds that practice rather than cognition
is the proper guide to understanding concepts such as
meaning, truth, REASON, and values.
Charles Peirce’s writings are the origin of pragma-
tism as an approach to philosophical and ethical
issues. In the late 1800s, Peirce argued that the mean-
ing of words should be determined by the practical
consequences of their application and use. Thus, the
practical effect of the use of a word, as measured by
our experience of the world, determined its meaning.
The full meaning of a word would be a catalogue of all
its effects, and a word that produced no effects would
be meaningless.
Peirce confined his use of the term pragmatismto
his theory of meaning. However, others, most notably
William James and John Dewey, adopted its use and
applied it in a much broader context. In general, this
trio of U.S. philosophers aimed to articulate a philo-
sophical approach that was distinct from the then
dominant European philosophical position of IDEALISM.
James and Dewey applied the idea of pragmatism to
the concept of truth. They argued that the truth of a
proposition rested on the practical consequences of
taking it to be true. The relevant consequences are
those that make a difference to our experiences, our
“actual lives.” A true proposition is one that is useful
or beneficial. This theory of truth was intended to
oppose the correspondence-theory truth that held that
the truth of a proposition is determined by a corre-
spondence between its content and some state of
affairs in the world. This latter theory of truth seemed
to require an objective, or ideal, standpoint outside
both proposition and world, and it was this sort of
“absurdity” to which pragmatists objected.
Peirce argued that the determination of what is use-
ful and beneficial is made by the objective standards
determined by an ideal community of inquirers. James,
however, argued that success and usefulness are deter-
mined by actual communities. James’s subjectivist
pragmatism was rejected by Peirce.
Pragmatism is now most closely associated in phi-
losophy with its theory of truth. It was however
quickly challenged, most notably by Bertrand Russell
who argued that pragmatists gave no account of what
truth is, only an account of what means we use for
deciding which propositions are true. In other words,
this is not a theory of truth but of justification (i.e., we
are justified in taking “useful” beliefs to be true), but
this says nothing about the concept itself and is com-
patible with a correspondence theory of truth. More-
over, Russell pointed out that useful beliefs could also
be false and so undermined the conceptual connection
pragmatists attempted to draw between usefulness and
truth.
Although the specific account of truth pragmatists
offered was not widely adopted, the general spirit of the
pragmatists’ approach to conceptual questions had a
very large influence on the development of U.S. philos-pragmatism 239