The Squirrel and the Method
James illustrates the pragmatic method with a famous thought experiment: a man circles a tree trying to "get round" a squirrel that keeps the trunk between them. Does the man go round the squirrel? It depends what you mean. Pragmatism does not privilege either answer but asks: what practical difference would it make if one were true rather than the other? When no difference can be found, the dispute is merely verbal. This deflationary move is the method's first and most characteristic gesture.
No Difference Without a Difference
It is astonishing to see how many philosophical disputes collapse into insignificance the moment you subject them to this simple test of tracing a concrete consequence. There can BE no difference any-where that doesn't MAKE a difference elsewhere—no difference in abstract truth that doesn't express itself in a difference in concrete fact and in conduct consequent upon that fact, imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere and somewhen.
This is the pragmatic maxim: the meaning of any proposition lies in its conceivable practical consequences. If two formulas lead to the same conduct in every conceivable case, they say the same thing. The method has antecedents in Socrates, Berkeley, and Hume — but James credits its systematic formulation to Charles Sanders Peirce, who published it in 1878 under the name "How to Make Our Ideas Clear".
Philosophy as a Program for Action
Applied systematically, the method transforms philosophy from a gallery of verbal portraits into a program for action. Every concept must earn its keep by making a difference in experience. This does not mean philosophy becomes merely utilitarian or short-sighted — it means that the fruits of genuine thinking are never purely theoretical but always loop back into the fabric of lived experience.
The pragmatic method is developed in Lectures I and II of Pragmatism (1907). The squirrel story opens Lecture II. Peirce's original formulation appeared in Popular Science Monthly, January 1878.
Related Concepts
