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Abstract: American philosophic thought revealed its original spirit especially after the Civil War. According to the American tradition, thought was not understood and perceived as transcending historic life, but more as an integrated part of this life, indicating its direction, on the one side, and offering interpretations for it, on the other side.American philosophy has a significant common ground: life, which is the seed - punctum saliens - of this philosophy. Previous philosophies searched the criterion of truth outside of life, sometimes becoming estranged to life. American philosophic thought shows that life is the ultimate instance of truth, real knowledge stimulating life directly or indirectly.Pragmatism, the dominant philosophy in America at the beginning of the 20th century, was in the same time an intellectual movement that not only had an impact on the "academic" philosophy, but also influenced the spirit of law, education, politics, social theory, religion and even art students. It developed as both a movement that, in many ways, criticized traditional philosophy, and a cast of mind preoccupied with setting certain positive goals. From this point of view, it was the manner of thinking the best understood. The authors that contributed the most to forming and defining pragmatism - Charles Sander Peirce, William James and John Dewey - are some of America''''s greatest philosophers. Did they become prestigious because of their pragmatism or, on the contrary, pragmatism became significant mainly because of their genius? It is a rhetorical question, born out of the desire to comprehend the meaning and the significance of their magnificent concepts. philosophic meditation and included the most famous personalities who gave to what is called the spirit of American philosophy its most profound expression.In accordance with the thought of the American philosophers, the philosophic spirit can be enunciated Peirce, James and Dewey advanced the decisive form and gave a clear direction for the development of pragmatism, each of them formulating an original, comprehensive philosophy.The golden era of American philosophy, the period of time when the most influential thinkers presented their theories, was unanimously set as beginning with the Civil War and ending around the ''''30s. This interval coincides with what is usually considered the time when the foundations of the American classical thought were laid. It marked the ripening of with the help of three dominant beliefs. Firstly, the belief that thought is, above all, a response to a particular situation, that it is destined to solve problems. Secondly, the belief that ideas and theories have to have "a sharp edge", that they have to produce differentiations in life and in human behavior. This implies two basic ideas: the first maintains that thought shouldn''''t focus on universal, general and "undated" problems, but on the specific difficulties that arise in actual places and times of life, and the second asserts that the power ideas have to change the course of events depends directly on the extent to which they can be acted upon and be used as directing human behavior. In close relation to this call for a focus on specific problems, there appears the belief that intellectual activity is justified when its results are actualized. An idea not only informs, it should, above all, incite to action. According to the American spirit, if an idea does not lead to action, it should better be ignored.Another characteristic of the American philosophic spirit relates to optimism, feature that has brought both praise and criticism.The optimistic outlook sees the environment as transformable according to human wish; nature can be dominated and civilized, and the major barriers against progress can be surmounted by the use of knowledge. In other words, the universe holds no ultimate enigmas and establishes no absolute boundaries for human creativity. Wherever there are problems, wherever obstacles rise, human intelligence will find, sooner or later, the method to locate and master the internal and external circumstances of processes. Knowledge progressed as a result of the development in natural sciences, which enlarged the range of means to face the barriers produced, more or less mysteriously, by nature. American philosophers hold that the knowledge given by social and philosophic sciences are also meant to equip us for solving problems that arise outside of the social life and history. |
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