"the characteristic idea of philosophical pragmatism is that efficacy in practical application, the issue of 'which works out more effectively', somehow provides a standard for the determiantion of truth in the case of satements, right in the case of actions, and value in the case of appraisals." oxford companion to philosophy______"if those theories work satisfactorily they will be true" "truth happens to an idea, it becomes true, is made true by events" "the true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good." william james"pragmatism.______________bill james and john dewey took pierce's pragmatism and made it an uttterly subjective judgement concluding that whatever helped you to achieve an aim...what dewey called "goals-in-view" was "good"...a situational ethic that could bend with events unbound by any objective standard..the preeminent american philosophy that has infiltrated the economic system and certainly foreign policy..."no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only permanent interests"...in the post world war II environment george kennan proposed a policy of "containment" of the spread of communism which led to the truman doctrine and harry publicly unveiling the "domino theory" in support of his aim to supply aid to the greek government during its civil war...eisenhower dusted the concept off to support aid for the french in indochina and after the french collapse as grounds for a growing committment from the first of november 1955 to the twenty-ninth of march 1973 at the cost of 58,220 u.s. lives...the south fell in 1975, the communists won...the rest of southeast asia did not ( withh the notable and horrific exception of cambodia )...and now? the "retail giant" where i engage in what passes for work these days gets its nike clothing from...
in cartons manufactured in what would seem to be...
ho chi minh city...american pragmatism in action.
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