Think Beyond Yourself

Many of the ideas I shared in this article come from the philosophy of pragmatism. If you Google ‘pragmatism’, you’ll probably read that the philosophical movement was founded by Charles Sanders Peirce, a former professor at Johns Hopkins University. But if you look closer into the story behind the philosophy, you’ll find that it was William James who actually credited Peirce as the founder in 1898.

Even though Charles Sanders Peirce was a well-respected academic during the 1880s, he had fallen from grace by the end of the 19th century. James and Peirce got to know each other during the 1860s when they were both students at the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard. Peirce, once considered as a prodigy of mathematics and logic, went on to become a professor at Johns Hopkins University. But he lost his position in 1884 due to a scandal involving his re-marriage. It’s truly a sad story.

Peirce’s first wife left him in 1875 and shortly after that, he became involved with another woman, while still being legally married. However, his divorce became final eight years later. During those eight years, he lived with a woman he was not married to. Apparently, Simon Newcomb, who was Peirce’s colleague, told on him. Consequently, he was let go in what became a public scandal.

Sadly, Peirce never found academic employment again and lived in poverty for years after he was fired. Peirce even lived and slept on the streets of New York City for years.

No one helped him, except for his old friend William James. After James overcame his depression in 1870, he started building a body of work that, more than a century later, remains relevant.

James became a Harvard professor and an academic celebrity due to the publication of his book, Principles of Psychology. A book that took him twelve years to write and was published in 1890. In contrast to his friend, James’ career was on the rise for years.

And out of nowhere, in 1898, William James credited “the principle of pragmatism” to the forgotten Charles Sanders Peirce, in a lecture called “Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results.”

Pragmatism means that one must look at the practical value of ideas. James believed scientists wasted their time on abstract ideas and theories that had no impact on people’s lives. Would you change the way you lived if a scientist proved how the earth was created Louis Menand, author of Pragmatism A Reader, says of the principle of pragmatism that, “We can never hope for absolute proof of anything.

All our decisions are bets on what the universe is today, and what it will do tomorrow.”

Regardless of what people think of pragmatism, one thing is sure William James did a favor to Peirce by crediting the philosophy to him. And that is exactly what makes James great. He didn’t strive to take credit for something that he created. Because without James’ actions and promotion of pragmatism, the philosophy wouldn’t exist and Peirce would be forgotten.

By that act, James did something meaningful—he helped a friend. Peirce gained some respect and even wrote several papers in his last years. And from all the wisdom of James, that’s the most important thing I’ve learned. William James himself once said “The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.”

Practically speaking, there’s no purpose to doing something that outlasts you. You won’t be there to see it anyway. But that’s not the point. If we live our lives every day with that idea in mind—that we should strive for doing creating useful things that matter to others—we end up spending our time on things that actually make a difference. When you do that, life automatically has meaning—to everyone.