This chapter articulates what methodologism as pragmatism means. A central tenet of this view is that doing is constitutive of both meaning and knowing. Methodologism holds that meaning and knowledge arise from following a method – a procedure oriented towards achieving the desired outcome of fixing beliefs or keeping rational conversation going. This framework applies to all epistemic practices. Moreover, methodologism asserts that what is known is not independent of how it is known, thereby bridging the gap between ontology and practice. This line of thought has important precedents in the work of William James, John Dewey, Thomas Kuhn, and others. Crucially, it is the community of practitioners who determine what counts as correctness or incorrectness. Given the diversity of communal rules and regimes of reasoning, pluralism emerges as a natural consequence. Membership in and choice between communities thus carries normative weight. Discursive rationality allows for comparisons between communities in terms of their rationality. Ultimately, it is not merely useful but an ethical obligation – a societal duty to uphold rational practices as a condition of human flourishing.

This chapter highlights the daily activities of the hackers grouped together in the same place, making it possible to experience new form of organisation and order social relations. Thus, the analysis of the relationships between the means and ends of organisation suggests that, far from being confined to individual values and attitudes, the pleasure and power given to ‘doing’ represent organisational principles within hackerspace. The study proposed in this chapter is based on an ethnographic study of/within a hackerspace based in the south of France. The fieldwork combines direct participation with a long-term presence in the community, years of archived exchanges and interviews with all the hackers involved in the initiative. It highlights the structuring of the alternative project and hackers organisation according to their ethics. The hacker ethic is reflected in the organisational tasks and the constitution of a legitimate order ; not linked to rational, charismatic or traditional motives, but to a real power given to the ‘doing’: the do-it-ocracy.