All of us have our own story of getting lost. When our existential coordinates shift or even disappear, this is often accompanied by a troubling feeling of disorientation. Maybe the plans we made for our life get crossed and fail, perhaps by losing a job or after a family break-up. Yet it does not even take a major incident to shake the certainties we relied on. Sometimes we only realize after a slow and impalpable process of alienation that we have slipped into existential homelessness. Then, we no longer identify with the community we used to belong to, and seriously question the practices and attitudes that shaped our life so far. When we arrive at this point, we have to make the world our home anew. Though this task is certainly a personal one, it also has a social dimension. First, because human beings have always been confronted with it and we can choose from a variety of existing traditions, religious as well as secular, to accomplish it. And second, because the choices we make do affect others.

We are facing immense social, cultural, political, and ecological global challenges. In order to figure out how to deal with them, and dealing with them in a manner that is not merely averting the worst, we have to undergo radical changes and find a way of living together well. We need a more encompassing humanism. Prevalent humanist positions tend to define themselves in opposition to religion and highlight the difference between believers and non-believers, theists and atheists. Underlining the divide of “religious” versus “secular” by marking the other party as naive or even irrational, respectively immoral and not trustworthy, only fuels religiously framed culture struggles. Religious fundamentalism and cynical nihilism prosper and thrive in such a matrix. That is why we need not only to give up that dichotomy, but also seek for “true complicity” between those who resist that divide and are committed to an open-minded and peaceful way of living together.¹

In order to promote a position which considers humanism and religion as not necessarily antagonistic or inimical, and which even undermines the strict religious versus secular dichotomy, I would like to suggest a humanist re-reading of philosophical pragmatism. To begin with, humanism and pragmatism are natural allies, since they share basic principles and goals. Generally, both endorse taking an emancipatory outlook on authorities, that is, they highlight individual autonomy and consider critical thinking vital. Consequently, norms and values are grounded in human needs and interests, derived from experience. This appreciation of experience applies not only to the question of what we should do, that is, the field of morals, but also to the question of what we can know. Therefore, both have a strong affinity for considering inquiry, and, more specifically, the sciences, as a major source of knowledge. Moreover, humanism and pragmatism take a naturalist outlook, precluding any supernatural powers to be at work in our world. With regard to the self-understanding of human beings, it follows that we are products of evolutionary processes and part of nature. Last but not least, both pursue a meliorist project, a striving for the better: one of the main goals of pragmatist and humanist positions is human flourishing in all its dimensions, that is, they aim at individual perfectionism and a maximum of self-realization as well as social improvement.

However, pragmatism is, above all, a “mediate way of thinking” (James 1975, 26). It fundamentally aims at reconciling opposing perspectives and liquefying dichotomies by rethinking them in the light of their practical meaning. Thereby, it is a fruitful resource for reconstruction and reformation. Instead of providing a strict system of propositions to be held true, pragmatism provides a critical method to evaluate statements and doctrines by way of relating them to human experience. Looking at the practical difference an assumption makes, that is, putting its guiding function to the test, pragmatism filters out empty, senseless, or wrong propositions. This “pragmatist razor” does not discriminate between religious, scientific, philosophical, or other hypotheses. Religious beliefs can be allotments to reality just like scientific findings. And vice versa: a scientific theory may turn out as empty as a certain religious teaching. Thus, pragmatism is neither theist nor atheist. It does not favor science over religion nor religion over science. Rather, it engages with any perspective which “works”, and it thinks of no point of view as all-encompassing. The whole of reality can only be described approximately and cooperatively. Pragmatism is committed to a critical pluralism and can be conceived of as a navigation system that helps to come to terms with the situation many people are confronted with nowadays: They find themselves born into a certain tradition, but this tradition is obviously only one of a variety of traditions. Each is an option on its own, so that particular traditions lose their comprehensive grip.² Pragmatism fully embraces this pluralist challenge without becoming relativistic. From a pragmatist standpoint, traditions can be regarded as “clotted” experience, that is, the result of a historic and social process of human dealings with the world. What they preserved is worth a look. Their practices and ideas, whether they are framed as religious or not, are taken as at least potential contributions to the existential task of making this world a home.³ For the pragmatist, the potential of any worldview to create intimacy with the world becomes the crucial criterion for its adequateness. Hence, pragmatism is designed to be more than an armchair philosophy. It wants to be a way of life.

Drawing mainly on pragmatist thinkers William James and F. C. S. Schiller, I will highlight a fundamentally humanist strand of pragmatism and explore its potentials for a worldview that relies only on human resources. That is, I will offer a specific pragmatic version of humanism that is based on the idea that there is (at least for us) no other standpoint than the human one, and that is grounded in everyday experience. From the perspective of this pragmatic humanism, taking human experience seriously involves acknowledging the human search for meaning and fullness of life, as well as the human need for consolation and hope. At the same time, it demands critical thinking: feeling at home in the world must not rest on false certainties and self-delusion. Thus, pragmatic humanism on the one hand aims at fostering human creativity and transformative action, and underlines our responsibility to strive for the better. On the other hand, it calls for a sense of the tragic, the disturbances and limitations of human life.

This book introduces the deeply pluralist outlook provided by pragmatic humanism and traces its perspectives on science, religion, and ethics. Furthermore, it suggests how to address existential challenges, that is, its potential to be not only a theoretical position, but a way of life. So this book is written for—at least—two audiences. On the one hand, it aims at readers who are trying to lead a meaningful life without clinging to delusions. Following the pragmatist attitude, this does not mean to provide (or even prescribe) any answers to the questions of life. To be sure, I won’t provide any plan for how to become a happier or more successful person in ten steps in this book. Instead, I hope to contribute to the challenge of building a personal attitude that allows one to address the task of making the world a home. On the other hand, this book also aims at readers who are interested in philosophical pragmatism and philosophical research in general. Yet, it is not meant to be “exegetic”. That is, this book thinks along with authors like William James and F. C. S. Schiller, yet without the pretense of “getting it right”. Rather, I would like to understand my dealings with these thinkers as more of a conversation—which implies the possibility of fierce (and mutual) disagreement. However, it is not my principal aim to criticize what James and Schiller got wrong (though there are certainly enough aspects to fill various studies with it),⁴ but to draw on what their version of pragmatism offers for a humanist worldview.

To begin with, in the second chapter the historical roots and major propositions of F. C. S. Schiller’s and William James’ thinking are outlined in order to approach what pragmatic humanism is about. The meliorist attitude at the core of their philosophy highlights the human responsibility to strive for a better world. Given that the findings of scientific research are a major source for reliable knowledge and thus play a vital role for solving problems and making life more comfortable, a certain belief in science is a common thread of humanist positions. The third chapter thus examines the question of science and its authority. Furthermore, it addresses the question of how science is organized best in order to contribute to the meliorist project. As science and religion are frequently understood as opponents, the humanist orientation toward science often comes with an anti-religious attitude. In the fourth chapter, a more sympathetic yet not less critical view on religion is suggested, a view that aims at transforming religious traditions in the spirit of humanism. However, how could we understand the relation of pragmatic humanism and religion beyond this reformatory role? Is it a “religion-minus-God”? If we consider it at least a worldview, it has to address the question “How should I live?” The fifth chapter, hence, explores the ethical implications of pragmatic humanism and proposes guidelines for finding out how to live a good life. This includes dealing with death and finitude, as well as with our need for comfort facing them. Therefore, the “last things” are the focal point of the sixth chapter. Pragmatic humanism regards mortality as an essential feature of human beings. Asking how to resist nihilism and make our lives meaningful is thus a vital issue. At the same time, it is a challenging task we have to affirm. In the concluding remarks, the implications of venturing this enterprise are outlined.