An Outline of Pragmatic Rationalism as a General Theory about the Human World

The human world, consisting of all human practice and activities, has its past, present and future. A general theory about the human world must, at the very least, provide not only a way of understanding the most outstanding cases of development in the past history of the human world, but also a way of guiding the present and future human activities concerning most significant issues towards a better direction of development in the human world. In fact, the vast range of humanities could be regarded as studies about the human world, whence philosophy, in particular, could be understood as a study ultimately seeking a general theory about the human world. More specifically, philosophy may be regarded as having been concerned with rational concepts and general principles useful for the understanding and guidance of the human world. This conception of philosophy may then provide a re-direction of philosophy, which in modern times has been largely concerned with the standpoint of the Cartesian ego and language, and hence a much needed new and more useful direction out of the present confused state of philosophy. One way to pursue this new direction of philosophy is to find in Socrates's philosophy the central ideas useful for the development of a general theory about the human world. It is as such a development that Pragmatic Rationalism is proposed here.