Friends,

A formal definition of Pragmatism:

"a philosophy that stresses the relation of theory to praxis and takes the continuity of experience and nature as revealed through the outcome of directed action as the starting point for reflection."

The idea of western civilization and the western toilet are intermingled and constantly intermingling. As Slavoj Zizek once put it, as soon as you flush the toilet "you're confronted wth ideology" (for me, a subdivision of philosophy). There is a continuity between the idea of western civilization and the artistic, yes, artistic and engineering work that went into building the device itself, are constantly pushing against each other as we speak (this is a crude, weak way of putting it, but its the best I can do right now). The idea and the thing are two sides of the same coin, as it were.

"Experience is the ongoing transaction of organism and environment, i.e., both subject and object are constituted in the process." The first clause seems straightforward enough, living experience comes from you interacting with the world. Out of that world, or void, in fact, for our purposes, both the tools for furthering your experience and the specific ends to which that tool will be used, are derived.

So, a chimpanzee sees a heavy branch and gets the idea that it might be good to use that to crack open a coconut or something like that. Perhaps the branch is the subject which the chimp will use with the object of cracking open the coconut. In this way one begins to contextualize his world by making choices. That coconut could just as easily be cracked open with a heavy stone, or whatever. But the relationship of the branch to the coconut is "constituted" in this way.

"When intelligently ordered, initial conditions are deliberately transformed according to ends-in-view, i.e., intentionally, into a subsequent state of affairs thought to be more desirable. Knowledge is therefore guided by interests or values."

We seek knowledge, initially, for a specific purpose of solving a problem, for taking us from here to there, to make things "better." This "better," whatever that might be, are the ends-in-view. But when we have solved the problem, we get to thinking... We get to thinking about things beyond the initial utilitarian concern, this is our "starting point for reflection." In other words, abstract ideas led to the development of the toilet, and innovation in toilet design and construction, will, I think lead to contributions to the world of ideas.

Again, see Authors@Google: Slavoj Zizek. Changes in toilets seem to inspire him, albeit in a tiny part, to come up with interesting and provocative ideas. I hear some people call this Slovenian philosopher "The Elvis of Cultural Commentary."

"Since the reality of objects cannot be known prior to experience, truth claims can be justified only as the fulfilment of conditions that are experimentally determined, i.e., the outcome of inquiry."

The definition in quotation marks comes from The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (1995).

Good Night and Good Luck!

wingedcentaur