Cincinnati Pragmatism

Personally, all systems of thought are grounded upon their respective rational miracles, which their merit is in their utility not their rationality or soundness. Many traditional philosophers, such as Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant,  do not accept the doctrine of rational miracles, but believe in the rational due to their acceptance of the principle of non-contradiction. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche regards the traditional philosophers' belief of rationality as perfectly ridiculous, because all philosophical concepts are nothing more than the prejudices of their respective philosophers (i.e., rationality or soundness). "They are all advocates who resent that name, and for the most part even wily spokesmen for their prejudices which they baptize truths" (Nietzsche, BGE, 5). Philosophers are motivated by some need to purport this or that vision of truth over others, whether it may be a metaphysical need to defend some moral doctrine, certainty, or an atomist need to construct some vision of the world. Regardless of their agendas, they all seek to provide a synchronic structure, which is outside of their historical prejudices, which is always opposite the case.

Understood in this way, Nietzsche speaks of Kant and how proud the latter is of his transcendental categories, which are meant to represent concepts that are outside of experience, but make experience possible. "Kant was the first and foremost proud of his table of categories" (Nietzsche, 11). Kant's categories, however, are not truly synchronic in an absolute sense, but only represent his need  to believe that he had done the most difficult task of metaphysics by reducing metaphysics to the "synthetic a priori judgment."  A Synchronic structure, outside of time, is separate but not categorically distinct from a diachronic sequence (or the progression of time), but the former and the latter mutually define one another. In other words, we cannot conceive of a world without prejudices that make the world possible, but are not found in world itself. We cannot, for example, conceive of an experience outside of time and space, but we never directly perceive time or space in the experience itself. On the other hand, we are not as na?ve as Kant to believe that those "a priori" truths of time and space are outside of history and experience. As Nietzsche says,

Origin of knowledge --over immense period of time the intellect produced nothing but errors. A few of these proved to be useful and helped to preserve the species....Such erroneous articles of faith, which were continually inherited, until they became almost part of the basic endowment of the species (Nietzsche, GS, 169).

We pretend that these  a priori prejudices are synchronic (outside of time), really know that they have historicity, but agree to this non sense, because such acceptance makes sense of the phenomena, or serve some other practical ends. Ergo, our contradictory position about the distinction between the synchronic and diachronic is a "rational miracle." We accept the non sense of a priori truths out of faith in order to make sense of experience. It is part of our "erroneous articles of faith." Hence the "erroneous articles of faith" are our rational miracles, because they serve some practical end.

Regardless of Nietzsche's profound madness, he proclaims that some philosophical ideas serve human needs or practical ends better than others, so his thought does not dissolve into complete and utter relativism. Nietzsche's concept of truth is profoundly similar to the American pragmatist William James' concept of truth: truth is whatever serves human needs the best under certain circumstances.  Although James and Peirce are more focused upon the scientific than the aesthetic, they and Nietzsche accept the philosophical doctrine of "rational miracles." Accordingly, Cincinnati pragmatism is a combination of Nietzsche's madness and the sanity of classic Harvard pragmatism, which argues for the doctrine of "rational miracles."