Pragmaticism

William James hated the common use of his term "Pragmatism" so much that he coined the mouthful of a word "Pragmaticism" to describe his view in the hopes that it would not catch on. It hasn't. Shoe, gives us its own definition of "Pragmatic" in this October 7th 2005 strip (click on thumbnail to enlarge) as an "appliance that slices and dices prags".

James objection to the simplification of the term in common usage, and this comics implicature that even that common usage is to complex for the children of today seemed to me mildly funny... however, unfortunately, I have discovered in the writing of this post that "Prag" has a somewhat unsavoury slang meaning; which darkens what I intended to be a light hearted post teasing James about his objection to the common use of "Pragmatism".

Perhaps James' objection to the popular use of his term was much more farsighted than I thought.