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Title: The pragmatic theory of truth as developed by Peirce, James, and Dewey
Author: Delton Loring Geyer
Release Date: September 28, 2011 [EBook #37552]
Language: English
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THE PRAGMATIC THEORY OF TRUTH AS DEVELOPED BY PEIRCE, JAMES, AND DEWEY
BY
DENTON LORING GEYER
B.A. University of Wisconsin, 1910
M.A. University of Wisconsin, 1911
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN PHILOSOPHY
IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
1914
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I.
THE PRAGMATIC DOCTRINE AS ORIGINALLY PROPOSED BY PEIRCE
CHAPTER II.
THE INTERPRETATION GIVEN TO PRAGMATISM BY JAMES
JAMES' EXPOSITION OF PEIRCE
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRAGMATIC DOCTRINE THROUGH THE
EARLIER WRITINGS OF JAMES
THE THEORY OF TRUTH IN 'PRAGMATISM' AND 'THE MEANING OF TRUTH'
_The Ambiguity of 'Satisfaction'_
_The Relation of Truth to Utility_
_The Relation of Satisfaction to Agreement and Consistency_
CHAPTER III.
THE PRAGMATIC DOCTRINE AS SET FORTH BY DEWEY
"THE EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE"
CONTRAST BETWEEN JAMES AND DEWEY
CHAPTER IV.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE PRAGMATIC THEORY OF TRUTH AS DEVELOPED BY PEIRCE, JAMES, AND
DEWEY.
INTRODUCTORY.
This thesis attempts to trace the growth of the pragmatic doctrine of
truth through the works of its three most famous advocates in America.
An examination of Peirce's initial statement of pragmatism is followed
by a discussion of his objections to the meaning put upon his doctrine
by his would-be disciples, and his resort, in order to save himself
from these 'perversions', to a renaming of his theory. Some evident
contradictions in his different principles are pointed out.
The changing position of William James is then followed through
magazine articles and books appearing successively during a period of
about thirty years. One finds here a gradually but continually
widening divergence from the rationalistic theories, which culminates
finally in the much-quoted extreme statements of the book
'Pragmatism'. The few subsequently published references to truth seem
to consist largely of defenses or retractions of the tenets there set
forth. As has been so often said, William James was too sympathetic
toward the doctrines of other men to maintain a consistent doctrine of
his own. His best work, like that of the higher literary type to which
he approached, was to transcribe and interpret the feelings of other
men. His genius lay in the clearness with which he could translate
these ideas and the lucid fashion in which he could cut to the heart
of ambiguities in them. With the highest and most sincere admiration
for the spirit of James' labors in philosophy and psychology, the
writer is unable to find there permanent contributions to the solution
of the particular problem which we have before us here, the problem of
truth. In his splendid protest against all static theories, he seems
to have accepted pragmatism for what it was not rather than for what
it was. It was not a cut-and-dried system leaving no room for
individuality, and that this was one of his strongest reasons for
accepting it is shown by his asking again and again: "If this
(pragmatism) is not truth, what is?" He was attempting to find a
theory--almost any theory, one thinks sometimes--which would serve as
an alternative to the older doctrines so incompatible with his
temperament.
It is interesting to note that the frequent protests made by Peirce
against the turn given his ideas by his followers are always directed
against the work of James and Schiller, and never, so far as I have
been able to ascertain, against that of Dewey. It therefore seems
worth while to undertake a direct comparison between the views of
Peirce and Dewey. This comparison, then, occupies the latter part of
the thesis, with the result, it may be said at once, that Dewey's work
is found to be very closely related to the original formulation of
pragmatism as made by Peirce.
The excellent historical sketches of pragmatism which have appeared
during the last five years[1] have been somewhat broader in scope than
the present treatise, for they have usually described the development
of all the pragmatic doctrines in the mass while the emphasis here is
placed on the intensive treatment of a single doctrine, and this
doctrine is followed, moreover, through a limited number of its
expounders. Further, almost all such sketches are taken up for the
most part in showing how pragmatism grew out of the older doctrines or
in contrasting it with various alternative theories while the thing
attempted here is, again, a careful comparison of the views of three
thinkers within the School itself--with of course the writer's own
reaction to these views. It has thus seemed best to undertake no
(necessarily fragmentary) treatment of truth as 'intuition' or
'coherence' or 'correspondence' or the rest.
[1] See for example an article by Alfred Lloyd on
"Conformity, Consistency, and Truth" in the Journal of
Philosophy for May 22, 1913; also Boodin's Truth and
Reality, Caldwell's Pragmatism and Idealism, De Laguna's
Dogmatism and Evolution, Murray's Pragmatism, Moore's
Pragmatism and Its Critics, and others.
General criticism of the pragmatic theory of truth, as is evident to
anyone who has followed the controversy, has been principally directed
against the more 'radical' statements of James and Schiller. Whether
this is merely because these champions of the theory are more extreme,
or whether they are really more prone to errors in their reasoning, we
need not determine here. But it is worth pointing out that, on the
other hand, if Peirce and Dewey were to be taken as the truer
representatives of pragmatism a large part of the flood of recent
criticism would be irrelevant. This is by no means to say that the
work of Peirce and Dewey is above criticism; it is merely to call
attention to the fact that most of the criticism of pragmatism is
directed against principles which these two men do not happen to hold.
An understanding of the doctrine in its more conservative terms,
however, is certainly on the increase, and we are seldom nowadays
burdened with refutations of such alleged pragmatism as that anything
is true which it is pleasant to believe or that any theory of
procedure is true which happens to turn out well.
CHAPTER I.
THE PRAGMATIC DOCTRINE AS ORIGINALLY PROPOSED BY PEIRCE.
Pragmatism has been described as an attitude of mind, as a method of
investigation, and as a theory of truth. The attitude is that of
looking forward to outcomes rather than back to origins. The method is
the use of actual or possible outcomes of our ideas to determine these
ideas' real meaning. The theory of truth defines the truth of our
beliefs in terms of the outcome of these beliefs.
Pragmatism as a principle of method, like the Mendelian laws of
heredity, lay for decades in oblivion. It was brought to light and to
the world's notice in 1898 by William James, who by his wonderful
literary style immediately gave it the widest currency. The doctrine
was originally proposed in 1878 by C. S. Peirce in a paper for the
Popular Science Monthly entitled "How To Make Our Ideas Clear." This
article was the second of six on the general topic. "Illustrations of
the Logic of Science." The other articles of the series were
respectively called "The Fixation of Belief," "The Doctrine of
Chances," "The Probability of Induction," "The Order of Nature," and
"Induction, Deduction, and Hypothesis."
In the famous discussion of How To Make Our Ideas Clear, Peirce
pointed out that by a _clear_ idea is meant, according to the
logicians, one which will be recognized wherever it is met with, so
that no other will be mistaken for it. But since to do this without
exception is impossible to human beings, and since to have such
acquaintance with the idea as to have lost all hesitancy in
recognizing it _in ordinary cases_ amounts only to a subjective
feeling of mastery which may be entirely mistaken, they supplement the
idea of 'clearness' with that of 'distinctness'. A distinct idea is
defined as one that contains nothing which is not clear. By the
_contents_ of an idea logicians understand whatever is contained in
its definition, so that an idea is _distinctly_ apprehended, according
to them, when we can give a precise definition of it, in abstract
terms. Here the professional logicians leave the subject, but it is
easy to show that the doctrine that familiar use and abstract
distinctness make the perfection of apprehension, "has its only true
place in philosophies which have long been extinct", and it is now
time to formulate a method of attaining "a more perfect clearness of
thought such as we see and admire in the thinkers of our own time".
The action of thought is excited by the irritation of a doubt, and
ceases when belief is attained; so that the production of belief is
the sole function of thought. As thought appeases the irritation of a
doubt, which is the motive for thinking, it relaxes and comes to rest
for a moment when belief is reached. But belief is a rule for action,
and its application requires further thought and further doubt, so
that at the same time that it is a stopping place it is also a new
starting place for thought. The final upshot of thinking is the
exercise of volition.
"The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit, and different
beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which
they give rise. If beliefs do not differ in this respect, if they
appease the same doubt by producing the same rule of action, then no
more differences in the manner of consciousness of them can make them
different beliefs, any more than playing a tune in different keys is
playing a different tune."
Imaginary distinctions are made very frequently, it is true, between
beliefs which differ only in their mode of expression. Such false
distinctions do as much harm as the confusion of beliefs really
different. "One singular deception of this sort, which often occurs,
is to mistake the sensation produced by our own unclearness of thought
for a character of the object we are thinking. Instead of perceiving
that the obscurity is purely subjective, we fancy that we contemplate
a quality of the object which is essentially mysterious; and if our
conception be afterwards presented to us in a clear form we do not
recognize it as the same, owing to the absence of the feeling of
unintelligibility.... Another such deception is to mistake a mere
difference in the grammatical construction of two words for a
distinction between the ideas they express.... From all these sophisms
we shall be perfectly safe so long as we reflect that the whole
function of thought is to produce habits of action; and that whatever
is connected with a thought, but irrelevant to its purpose, is an
accretion to it, but no part of it".
"To develop a meaning we have, therefore, simply to determine what
habits it produces, for what a thing means is simply what habits it
involves. Now the identity of a habit depends on how it might lead us
to act, not merely under such circumstances as are likely to arise,
but under such as might possibly occur, no matter how improbable....
Thus we come down to what is tangible and practical as the root of
every real distinction of thought, no matter how _subtle_ it may be;
and there is no distinction so fine as to consist in anything but a
possible difference in practice".
As an example, consider the doctrine of transubstantiation. Are the
elements of the sacrament flesh and blood 'only in a tropical sense'
or are they literally just that? Now "we have no conception of wine
except what may enter into a belief either, (1) that this, that, or
the other is wine, or (2) that wine possesses certain properties. Such
beliefs are nothing but self-notifications that we should, upon
occasion, act in regard to such things as we believe to be wine
according to the qualities which we believe wine to possess. The
occasion of such action would be some sensible perception, the motive
of it to produce some sensible result. Thus our action has exclusive
reference to what affects our senses, our habit has the same bearing
as our action, our belief the same as our habit, our conception the
same as our belief; and we can consequently mean nothing by wine but
what has certain effects, direct or indirect, upon the senses; and to
talk of something as having all the sensible characters of wine, yet
being in reality blood, is senseless jargon.... Our idea of anything
_is_ our idea of its sensible effects; and if we fancy that we have
any other, we deceive ourselves, and mistake a mere sensation
accompanying the thought for a part of the thought itself".
"It appears, then, that the rule for attaining ... clearness of
apprehension is as follows: _Consider what effects, which might
conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our
conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole
of our conception of the object"._ (Italics mine).
An application of this method to a conception which particularly
concerns logic occupies the last section of the article,--a use of the
method to make clear our conception of "reality". Considering
clearness in the sense of familiarity, no idea could be clearer than
this, for everyone uses it with perfect confidence. Clearness in the
sense of definition is only slightly more difficult,--"we may define
the real as that whose characters are independent of what anybody may
think them to be". But however satisfactory this is as a definition,
it does not by any means make our idea of reality perfectly clear.
"Here, then, let us apply our rules. According to them, reality, like
every other quality, consists in the peculiar sensible effects which
things partaking of it produce. The only effect which real things have
is to cause belief, for all the sensations which they excite emerge
into consciousness in the form of beliefs. The question therefore is,
how is true belief (or belief in the real) distinguished from false
belief (belief in fiction)". Briefly this may be answered by saying
that the true belief is the one which will be arrived at after a
complete examination of all the evidence. "That opinion which is fated
to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by
the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real."
(Note: "Fate means merely that which is sure to come true, and can
nohow be avoided".) The real thus depends indeed upon what is
ultimately thought about it, but not upon what any particular person
thinks about it. This is clearly brought out in contrast to
non-scientific investigation, where personal equation counts for a
great deal more. "It is hard to convince a follower of the _a priori_
method by adducing facts; but show him that an opinion that he is
defending is inconsistent with what he has laid down elsewhere, and he
will be very apt to retract it. These minds do not seem to believe
that disputation is ever to cease; they seem to think that the opinion
which is natural for one man is not so for another, and that belief
will, consequently, never be settled. In contenting themselves with
fixing their own opinions by a method which would lead another man to
a different result, they betray their feeble hold upon the conception
of what truth is. On the other hand, all the followers of science are
fully persuaded that the processes of investigation, if only pushed
far enough, will give one certain solution to every question to which
they can be applied. One man may investigate the velocity of light by
studying the transits of Venus and the aberration of the stars;
another by the opposition of Mars and eclipses of Jupiter's
satellites; a third by the method of Fizian.... They may at first
obtain different results, but as each perfects his method and his
processes, the results will move steadily together toward a destined
center. So with all scientific research. Different minds may set out
with the most antagonistic views, but the process of investigation
carries them by a force outside of themselves to one and the same
conclusion". This conclusion, to be sure, may be long postponed, and
might indeed be preceded by a false belief which should be accepted
universally. But "the opinion which would finally result from
investigation does not depend on how anybody may actually think....
The reality of that which is real does depend on the real fact that
the investigation is destined to lead, at last, if continued long
enough, to a belief in it".
It will be seen that this article does not intend to put forward any
new theory of truth. It is simply an attempt at expounding a new
theory of clearness. Peirce desires to describe a new way of clearing
up metaphysical disputes, the method, namely, of finding the meaning
of each question by reducing it to its experimental consequences.
For Peirce a doctrine could be perfectly clear and yet false. This
would be the case where one had a vivid idea of all the outcomes in
experience involved by the idea, but yet was unable to prophesy any
outcome that should be verified by future fact. Our idea of the object
would not in that case 'correspond to the reality' in the sense of
giving us a belief which could be 'verified by all investigators'.
Peirce, then, instead of having a radical and startling theory of
truth to propose, would consider himself an ultra-conservative on the
question of what shall be called truth. Approaching the matter from
the standpoint of a scientist, (for he says in another connection that
he had at this time spent most of his life in a laboratory), he is
concerned only with an attempt to apply "the fruitful methods of
science" to "the barren field of metaphysics". For metaphysics seems
to him very much in need of outside help. His different conception of
the two disciplines may be seen from the following passage. In
contrast to philosophy, he is eulogizing the natural sciences, "where
investigators, instead of condemning each the work of the others as
misdirected from beginning to end, co-operate, stand upon one
another's shoulders, and multiply incontestable results; where every
observation is repeated, and isolated observations count for little;
where every hypothesis that merits attention is subjected to severe
but fair examination, and only after the predictions to which it leads
have been remarkably borne out by experience is trusted at all, and
then only provisionally; where a radically false step is rarely taken,
even the most faulty of those theories which gain credence being true
in their main experiential predictions".
It is in a desire to elevate metaphysics to somewhere near this level
that Peirce proposes his new theory of clearness, believing that much
of the useless disputation of philosophy, as he sees it, will end when
we know exactly what we are talking about according to this test.
On the question of truth he might indeed have referred to another of
his early articles, where the same idea of the independence of truth
from individual opinion is brought out. The much-quoted paper on "How
To Make Our Ideas Clear" was, as we have noted, the second of a series
called "Illustrations of the Logic of Science". In order to get his
doctrine of truth more adequately before us, we may turn for a moment
to the first article of the series, the paper called "The Fixation of
Belief".
Here Peirce begins by pointing out four methods for fixing belief. In
the first, or 'method of tenacity', one simply picks out the belief
which for some reason he _desires_, and holds to it by closing his
eyes to all evidence pointing the other way. The second, or the
'method of authority', is the same except that the individual is
replaced by the state. The third, or 'a priori method', makes a thing
true when it is 'agreeable to reason'. But this sort of truth varies
between persons, for what is agreeable to reason is more or less a
matter of taste.
In contrast with these, and especially with the _a priori_ method, a
method must be discovered which will determine truth entirely apart
from individual opinion. This is the method of science. That is, "To
satisfy our doubt ... it is necessary that a method should be found by
which our beliefs may be caused by nothing human, but by some external
permanency--by something upon which our thinking has no effect.... It
must be something which affects, or might affect, every man. And,
though these affections are necessarily as various as are individual
conditions, yet the method must be such that the ultimate conclusion
of every man shall be the same. Such is the method of science. Its
fundamental hypothesis, restated in more familiar language, is this:
There are real things whose characters are entirely independent of our
opinions about them; those realities affect our senses according to
regular laws, and, though our sensations are as different as our
relations to the objects, yet, by taking advantage of the laws of
perception, we can ascertain by reasoning how things really are, and
any man, if he have sufficient experience, and reason enough about it,
will be led to one true conclusion. The new conception here involved
is that of reality. It may be asked how I know that there are any
realities. If this hypothesis is the sole support of my method of
inquiry, my method of inquiry must not be used to support my
hypothesis. The reply is this: 1. If investigation cannot be regarded
as proving that there are real things, it at least does not lead to a
contrary conclusion; but the method and conception on which it is
based remain ever in harmony. No doubts of the method, therefore,
arise with its practice, as is the case with all the others. 2. The
feeling which gives rise to any method of fixing belief is a
dissatisfaction at two repugnant propositions. But here already is a
vague concession that there is some _one_ thing to which a proposition
should conform.... Nobody, therefore, can really doubt that there are
realities, or, if he did, doubt would not be a source of
dissatisfaction. The hypothesis, therefore, is one which every mind
admits. So that the social impulse does not cause me to doubt it. 3.
Everybody uses the scientific method about a great many things, and
only ceases to use it when he does not know how to apply it. 4.
Experience of the method has not led me to doubt it, but, on the
contrary, scientific investigation has had the most wonderful triumphs
in the way of settling opinion. These afford the explanation of my not
doubting the method or the hypothesis which it supposes". (p.12)
The method of science, therefore, is procedure based on the hypothesis
that there are realities independent of what we may think them to be.
This, it seems, is what Peirce regards as the fundamental principle of
the 'logic of science'. This principle, stated here in the first
paper, is again stated as we have seen, towards the close of the
second paper. There he says again, "All the followers of science are
fully persuaded that the processes of investigation, if only pushed
far enough, will give one certain solution to every question to which
they can be applied.... Different minds may set out with the most
antagonistic views, but the progress of investigation carries them by
a force outside of themselves to one and the same conclusion.... This
great law is embodied in the conception of truth and reality. That
opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who
investigate, is what we mean by truth, and the object represented in
this opinion is the real. This is the way I would explain reality".
(p.300).
It is well at this point to call attention to a distinction. It is to
be noticed that in the first paper and in the latter part of the
second he is talking of a method for attaining truth. But in the body
of the second paper he is talking of a method for attaining clearness.
These two should be kept distinct in our minds. The use of the various
methods described for finding the velocity of light were endeavors to
find the truth, not to make our ideas clear. Clearness and truth
Peirce believes to have no invariable connection. He says in ending
the article on "How To Make Our Ideas Clear", "It is certainly
important to know how to make our ideas clear, _but they may be ever
so clear without being true_". (p.302, italics mine.) There are, then,
two methods under consideration: the scientific method for reaching
truth, with its postulate that there are independent realities, and
the logical method for securing clearness, which as he has just
stated, has no necessary connection with truth.
Now I should like to point out, in criticism, that these two methods
cannot be used together, or rather that the postulate of the
'scientific method' will not endure the test proposed by the 'method
for clearness'. The scientific method postulates a reality unaffected
by our opinions about it. But when we apply the method for clearness
to this reality it seems to vanish.
The process is this: Peirce, as we will remember, begins his
discussion of the real by defining it as "that whose characters are
independent of what anybody may think them to be." Then passing on to
apply his method for clearness he finds that "reality, like every
other quality, consists in the peculiar sensible effects which things
partaking of it produce", and adds that "the only effects which real
things have is to cause belief, for all the sensations which they
excite emerge into consciousness in the form of beliefs". Reality is
the sum of its sensible effects, its sensible effects are beliefs, so
reality is a sum of beliefs.
Now, reality cannot be the sum of _all_ beliefs regarding the real,
because reality is defined in another connection as the object
represented by a _true_ opinion, and a true opinion is that which is
fated to be agreed to after an investigation is complete. Reality then
can consist only in certain selected beliefs. But if reality is this
set of ultimately-adopted beliefs, what is truth itself? For truth has
been defined as the beliefs which will be ultimately adopted.
In other words, when Peirce applies his method for clearness to the
concept of reality, he reduces reality to truth. He identifies the
two. Then there remains no independent realty which stands as a
_check_ on truth. And this was the postulate of his method of science.
Since the application of his own method for clearness eliminates
reality, it looks as though Peirce must abandon either this method or
the postulate of science. He cannot use both the method for clearness
and the postulate of the method of science.
We must remember that Peirce was a pioneer in this movement. And in
making the transition from the older form of thought, he occasionally
uses a word both in the old sense and in the new. Such would seem to
be his difficulty with the word 'reality', which he uses both in the
newer sense which the method for clearness would show it to have, and
in the old orthodox sense of something absolute. When he says "reality
... consists of the peculiar sensible effects which things partaking
of it produce", he seems to have the two senses of the word in one
sentence. Reality consists in sensible effects, or it is that which is
produced somehow by means of our senses. But, when things _partake_ of
reality, reality exists in advance and produces those effects. Reality
is conceived both as the things produced and as the producer of these
things.
A somewhat similar difficulty occurs, as I may point out again in
criticism, in the use of the words 'meaning' and 'belief'. Here the
confusion is caused, not by using a word in two senses, as in the case
of 'reality', but by using both the words 'meaning' and 'belief' in
the same sense. Peirce defines both 'meaning' and 'belief' as a sum of
habits, and indicates no difference between them.
Thus he says of meaning, "There is no distinction of meaning so fine
as to consist in anything but a possible difference in practice".
(293) "To develop its meaning, we have, therefore, simply to determine
what habits it produces, for what a thing means is simply what habits
it involves". (p. 292).
But he says similarly of belief, "Belief involves the establishment in
our nature of a rule of action, or, say for short, of a habit". "Since
belief is a rule for action, it is a new starting point for thought".
"The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit, and different
beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which
they give rise". (p. 291).
Now it will be agreed that instead of defining belief and meaning in
terms of the same thing and thus identifying them, we ought sharply to
distinguish between them. To have the meaning of a thing is not at all
the same as to believe in it. Thus one may have clearly in mind the
meaning of centaurs or of fairies or of any of the characters of
mythology without in the slightest degree believing in them. Defining
these things in terms of sensible effects, we could say that we know
their meaning in the sense that we understand which sensible effects
would be involved if they did exist. But to have a belief about them
would mean that we would _expect_ these sensible effects. In other
words, a belief involves the possibility of fulfillment or frustration
of expectation. To believe in anything is therefore a distinct step
beyond understanding it.
In inserting these theories of reality and of belief in this
discussion of a method for clear apprehension, Peirce is passing
beyond a doctrine of clearness and involving himself in a doctrine of
truth. We have seen that he does not seem to be able to maintain the
postulated reality underlying his description of the scientific method
for attaining truth. And it now seems that he is in equal difficulty
with belief. If _meaning_ is simply a sum of habits, belief is _not_
simply a sum of habits, for the two are not the same. And if, as we
have said, the quality that distinguishes belief from meaning is the
fact that it involves expectation, then we appear to be on the verge
of a new theory of truth,--a theory saying that truth is simply the
fulfillment of these expectations.
Such, we may note, is the interpretation that Dewey puts upon the
pragmatic method,--such is the theory of truth that he finds involved
in it.
The interpretations of pragmatism which came particularly to the
notice of Peirce, however, were those made by James and Schiller, and
against these, we may say here, he made vigorous protest. These he
regarded as perversions of his doctrine. And he was so desirous of
indicating that his own theory of clearness involved for himself no
such developments as these, that, in order to make the distinctions
clear, he renamed his own doctrine.
His first article of dissent, appearing in The Monist in 1905, was
directed mainly, however, against the looseness of popular usage. He
traces briefly the doctrine's growth. Referring back to his original
statement in 1878, he says of himself that he "framed the theory that
a _conception_, that is, the rational purpose of a word or other
expression, lies exclusively in its conceivable bearing upon the
conduct of life; so that, since obviously nothing that might not
result from experiment can have any direct bearing upon conduct, if
one can define accurately all the conceivably experimental phenomena
which the affirmation or denial of a concept could imply, one will
have therein a complete definition of the concept, and _there is
absolutely nothing more in it_. For this doctrine he [Peirce, now
speaking of himself] invented the name of pragmatism.... His word
'pragmatism' has gained general recognition in a generalized sense
that seems to argue power of growth and vitality. The famed
psychologist, James, first took it up, seeing that his 'radical
empiricism' substantially answered to the writer's definition, albeit
with a certain difference in point of view. Next the admirably clear
and brilliant thinker, Mr. Ferdinand C. S. Schiller, casting about for
a more attractive name for the 'anthropomorphism' of his _Riddle of
the Sphinx_, lit, in that most remarkable paper of his on Axioms as
Postulates, upon the designation 'pragmatism', which in its original
sense was in generic agreement with his own doctrine, for which he has
since found the more appropriate specification 'humanism', while he
still retains pragmatism in a somewhat wider sense. So far all went
happily. But at present the word begins to be met with occasionally in
the literary journals, where it gets abused in the merciless way that
words have to expect when they fall into literary clutches. Sometimes
the manners of the British have effloresced in scolding at the word as
ill-chosen--ill-chosen, that is, to express some meaning that it was
rather designed to exclude. So, then, the writer, finding his bantling
'pragmatism' so promoted, feels that it is time to kiss his child
good-by and relinquish it in its higher destiny; while to serve the
precise purpose of expressing the original definition, he begs to
announce the birth of the word 'pragmaticism', which is ugly enough to
be safe from kidnappers". (pp. 165-6).
Three years later Peirce published an article of much more outspoken
protest, this time including in his repudiation the professional
philosophers as well as the popularists. Writing for the Hibbert
Journal (v.7) he states his case as follows:
"About forty years ago my studies of Kant, Berkeley, and others led
me, after convincing myself that all thinking is performed in signs,
and that mediation takes the form of dialogue, so that it is proper to
speak of the 'meaning' of a concept, to conclude that to acquire full
mastery of that meaning it is requisite, in the first place, to learn
to recognize that concept under every disguise, through extensive
familiarity with instances of it. But this, after all, does not imply
any true understanding of it; so that it is further requisite that we
should make an abstract logical analysis of it into its ultimate
elements, or as complete an analysis as we can compass. But even so,
we may still be without any living comprehension of it; and the only
way to complete our knowledge of its nature is to discover and
recognize just what habits of conduct a belief in the truth of the
concept (of any conceivable subject, and under any conceivable
circumstances) would reasonably develop; that is to say, what habits
would ultimately result from a sufficient consideration of such truth.
It is necessary to understand the word 'conduct', here, in the
broadest sense. If, for example, the predication of a given concept
were to lead to our admitting that a given form of reasoning
concerning the subject of which it was affirmed was valid, when it
would not otherwise be valid, the recognition of that effect in our
reasoning would decidedly be a habit of conduct". (p.108).
After referring to his own expositions he continues, "... But in 1897
Professor James remodelled the matter, and transmogrified it into a
doctrine of philosophy, some parts of which I highly approved, while
other and more prominent parts I regarded, and still regard, as
opposed to sound logic. About the same time Professor Papirie
discovered, to the delight of the Pragmatist school, that this
doctrine was incapable of definition, which would certainly seem to
distinguish it from every other doctrine in whatever branch of
science, I was coming to the conclusion that my poor little maxim
should be called by another name; and I accordingly, in April 1905,
renamed it Pragmaticism." (p.109).
"My original essay, having been written for a popular monthly,
assumes, for no better reason than that real inquiry cannot begin
until a state of real doubt arises, and ends as soon as a real Belief
is attained, that a 'settlement of belief', or in other words, a
_state of satisfaction_, is all that Truth, or the aim of inquiry,
consists in. The reason I gave for this was so flimsy, while the
inference was so nearly the gist of Pragmaticism, that I must confess
the argument of that essay might be said with some justice to beg the
question. The first part of the essay is occupied, however, with
showing that, if Truth consists in satisfaction, it cannot be any
_actual_ satisfaction, but must be the satisfaction that would
ultimately be found if the inquiry were pushed to its ultimate and
indefeasible issue. This, I beg to point out, is a very different
position from that of Mr. Schiller and the pragmatists of to-day....
Their avowedly undefinable position, if it be not capable of logical
characterization, seems to me to be characterized by an angry hatred
of strict logic, and even a disposition to rate any exact thought
which interferes with their doctrine as all humbug. At the same time
it seems to me clear that their approximate acceptance of the
Pragmaticistic principle, and even that very casting aside of
difficult distinctions (although I cannot approve of it), has helped
them to a mightily clear discernment of some fundamental truths that
other philosophers have seen but through a mist, or most of them not
at all. Among such truths,--all of them old, of course, yet
acknowledged by few--I reckon their denial of necessitarianism; their
rejection of any 'consciousness' different from a visceral or other
external sensation; their acknowledgment that there are, in a
Pragmatistical sense, Real habits ... and their insistence upon
interpreting all hypostatic abstractions in terms of what they _would_
or _might_ (not actually _will_) come to in the concrete. It seems to
me a pity that they should allow a philosophy so instinct with life to
become infected with seeds of death in such notions as that of the
unreality of all ideas of infinity and that of the mutability of
truth, and in such confusions of thought as that of active willing
(willing to control thought, to doubt, and to weigh reasons) with
willing not to exert the will (willing to believe)". (pp.111, 112).
The difference between the position of Peirce and of James may be
stated in another way as constituted by the fact that James introduces
the factor of _value_ as a criterion for meaning and for truth, while
for Peirce these elements did not enter the question at all. For James
the value of a belief is an apparent evidence for its truth, while for
Peirce value had no relation to truth. For an account of this
development of the pragmatic doctrine we pass on now to a discussion
of James.
CHAPTER II.
THE INTERPRETATION GIVEN TO PRAGMATISM BY JAMES.
James first uses the term 'pragmatism', as Peirce had done, to refer
to a method for attaining clearness. When, in 1898, he brought again
before the public the original article by Peirce, he was simply
expounding the Peircian doctrine without making any attempt to pass
beyond it. But, as we have just seen, he later gave it a construction,
an interpretation as a theory of truth, with which its originator
could not agree. In this chapter we may, therefore, look first at his
exposition of the doctrine of clearness, and after that, in order to
understand James' development of the doctrine into a theory of truth,
we may turn back for a moment to some of his previous publications on
the question of truth. It will then be possible to trace
chronologically his developing attitude toward the truth controversy.
From this we may pass finally to an indication of some of the
difficulties in which he becomes involved. The most important of
these, it may be said again, is that he construes the test of truth of
an idea to be, not merely that the idea leads to expected
consequences, but that it leads to predominantly desirable
consequences. The outcomes which stand as evidence for truth are then
not merely outcomes bringing fulfilled expectations but outcomes
bringing happiness.
JAMES' EXPOSITION OF PEIRCE.
James in expounding the doctrine of Peirce explains the pragmatic
principle as a method of investigating philosophic controversies,
reducing them to essentials (clear meanings), and selecting those
worthy of discussion.[2] "Suppose", he says, "that there are two
different philosophical definitions, or propositions, or maxims, or
what not, which seem to contradict each other, and about which men
dispute. If, by assuming the truth of the one, you can foresee no
practical consequence to anybody, at any time or place, which is
different from what you would foresee if you assumed the truth of the
other, why then the difference between the two propositions is no real
difference--it is only a specious and verbal difference, unworthy of
future contention.... There can _be_ no difference which does not
_make_ a difference--no difference in the abstract truth which does
not express itself in a difference of concrete fact, and of conduct
consequent upon that fact, imposed upon somebody, somehow, somewhere
and somewhen.... The whole function of philosophy ought to be to find
out what definite difference it would make to you and me, at definite
instants of our life, if this world-formula or that world-formula be
the one which is true". (p.675).
[2] "The Pragmatic Method", University of California
Chronicle 1898. Reprinted in Journal of Philosophy, 1904,
v. 1, p. 673. Page references are to the latter.
This doctrine is illustrated by using it to secure the essence of two
philosophical questions, materialism vs. theism and the one _vs._ the
many. If we suppose for an instant, he suggests, that this moment is
the last moment of the universe's existence, there will be no
_difference_ between materialism and theism. All the effects that
might be ascribed to either have come about.
"These facts are in, are bagged, are captured; and the good that's in
them is gained, be the atom or be the God their cause." (p. 677). "The
God, if there, has been doing just what the atom could do--appearing
in the character of atoms, so to speak, and earning such gratitude as
is due to atoms, and no more". Future good or ill is ruled out by
postulate. Taken thus retrospectively, there could be no difference
between materialism and theism.
But taken prospectively, they point to wholly different consequences.
"For, according to the theory of mechanical evolution, the laws of
redistribution of matter and motion, though they are certainly to
thank for all the good hours which our organisms have ever yielded us
and all the ideals which our minds now frame, are yet fatally certain
to undo their work again, and to redissolve everything that they have
evolved.... We make complaint of |materialism| for what it is
_not_--not a permanent warrant for our more ideal interests, not a
fulfiller of our remotest hopes.... Materialism means simply the
denial that the moral order is eternal, and the cutting off of
ultimate hopes; theism means the affirmation of an eternal moral order
and the letting loose of hope. Surely here is an issue genuine enough
for anyone who feels it....
"[And] if there be a God, it is not likely that he is confined solely
to making differences in the world's latter end; he probably makes
differences all along its course. Now the principle of practicalism
says that that very meaning of the conception of God lies in the
differences which must be made in experience if the conception be
true. God's famous inventory of perfections, as elaborated by dogmatic
theology, either means nothing, says our principle, or it implies
certain definite things that we can feel and do at certain definite
moments of our lives, things that we could not feel and should not do
were no God present and were the business of the universe carried on
by material atoms instead. So far as our conceptions of the Deity
involve no such experiences, they are meaningless and verbal,--scholastic
entities and abstractions, as the positivists say, and fit objects for
their scorn. But so far as they do involve such definite experiences,
God means something for us, and may be real". (pp.678-680).
The second illustration of the pragmatic principle--the supposed
opposition between the One and the Many--may be treated more briefly.
James suggests certain definite and practical sets of results in which
to define 'oneness', and tries out the conception to see whether this
result or that is what oneness means. He finds this method to clarify
the difficulty here as well as in the previous case. In summarizing he
says: "I have little doubt myself that this old quarrel might be
completely smoothed out to the satisfaction of all claimants, if only
the maxim of Peirce were methodically followed here. The current
monism on the whole still keeps talking in too abstract a way. It says
that the world must either be pure disconnectedness, no universe at
all, or absolute unity. It insists that there is no stopping-place
half-way. Any connection whatever, says this monism, is only possible
if there be still more connection, until at last we are driven to
admit the absolutely total connection required. But this absolutely
total connection either means nothing, is the mere word 'one' spelt
long, or else it means the sum of all the partial connections that can
possibly be conceived. I believe that when we thus attack the
question, and set ourselves to search for these possible connections,
and conceive each in a definite and practical way, the dispute is
already in a fair way to be settled beyond the chance of
misunderstanding, by a compromise in which the Many and the One both
get their lawful rights". (p. 685).
In concluding, James relates Peirce to the English Empiricists,
asserting that it was they "who first introduced the custom of
interpreting the meaning of conceptions by asking what differences
they make for life.... The great English way of investigating a
conception is to ask yourself right off, 'What is it known as? In what
facts does it result? What is its _cash-value_ in terms of particular
experience? And what special difference would come into the world
according as it were true or false?' Thus does Locke treat the
conception of personal identity. What you mean by it is just your
chain of memories, says he.... So Berkeley with his 'matter'. The
cash-value of matter is just our physical sensations.... Hume does the
same thing with causation. It is known as habitual antecedence....
Stewart and Brown, James Mill, John Mill, and Bain, have followed more
or less consistently the same method; and Shadworth Hodgson has used
it almost as explicitly as Mr. Peirce.... The short-comings and
negations and the baldnesses of the English philosophers in question
come, not from their eye to merely practical results, but solely from
their failure to track the practical results completely enough to see
how far they extend". (pp. 685-6).
* * * * *
It will be at once observed that James, as well as Peirce, is at this
point saying nothing about a new doctrine of truth, but is concerning
himself only with a new doctrine of clearness. Meaning and clearness
of meanings are his only topics in this paper. Thus he states, "The
only _meaning_ of the conception of God lies in the differences which
must be made in experience _if_ the conception be true. God's famous
inventory of perfection ... either _means_ nothing, says our
principle, or it implies certain definite things that we can feel and
do at certain definite moments in our lives". And again in speaking of
the pluralism-monism controversy, "Any connection whatever, says this
monism, is only possible if there be still more connection, until at
last we are driven to admit the absolutely total connection required.
But this absolutely total connection either _means_ nothing, is the
mere word 'one' spelt long, or else it means the sum of all the
partial connections...."
But as we all know, James did afterward embrace the new pragmatic
theory of truth. While he did not in 1898 use the word pragmatism to
designate anything except a new method for securing clearness, yet it
can be shown that he had been developing another line of thought,
since a much earlier date, which did lead quite directly toward the
pragmatic theory of truth. It may be well at this point then to go
back and trace the growth of this idea of truth through such writing
as he had done before this time. It will be found, I think, that
James' whole philosophic tendency to move away from the transcendental
and unitary toward the particular was influencing him towards this new
conception.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE DOCTRINE THROUGH THE EARLIER WRITINGS OF JAMES.
The first article which James wrote on truth, as he later states,[3]
was entitled "The Function of Cognition", and was published in _Mind_
in 1885. Commenting on this article in 1909 he asserts that many of
the essential theses of the book "Pragmatism", published twenty-two
years later, were already to be found here, and that the difference is
mainly one of emphasis.[4]
[3] "The Meaning of Truth", Preface, p. viii.
[4] Same, p. 137.
This article attempts to give a description of knowing as it actually
occurs,--not how it originated nor how it is antecedently possible.
The thesis is that an idea knows an external reality when it points to
it, resembles it, and is able to affect it. The plan of exposition is
to start with the simplest imaginable material and then gradually
introduce additional matter as it is needed until we have cognition as
it actually occurs. James postulates a single, momentarily-existing,
floating feeling as the entire content, at the instant, of the
universe. What, then, can this momentary feeling know? Calling it a
'feeling of _q_', it can be made any particular feeling (fragrance,
pain, hardness) that the reader likes. We see, first, that the feeling
cannot properly be said to know itself. There is no inner duality of
the knower on the one hand and content or known on the other. "If the
content of the feeling occurs nowhere else in the universe outside of
the feeling itself, and perish with the feeling, common usage refuses
to call it a reality, and brands it as a subjective feature of the
feeling's constitution, or at most as the feeling's dream. For the
feeling to be cognitive in the specific sense, then, it must be
self-transcendent". And we must therefore "create a reality outside of
it to correspond to the intrinsic quality _q_". This can stand as the
first complication of that universe. Agreeing that the feeling cannot
be said to know itself, under what conditions does it know the
external reality? James replies, "If the newly-created reality
_resemble_ the feeling's quality _q_, I say that the feeling may be
held by us to be _cognizant of that reality_". It may be objected that
a momentary feeling cannot properly know a thing because it has no
_time_ to become aware of any of the _relations_ of the thing. But
this rules out only one of the kinds of knowledge, namely "knowledge
about" the thing; knowledge as direct acquaintance remains. We may
then assert that "if there be in the universe a _q_ other than the _q_
in the feeling the latter may have acquaintance with an entity
ejective to itself; an acquaintance moreover, which, as mere
acquaintance it would be hard to imagine susceptible either of
improvement or increase, being in its way complete; and which would
oblige us (so long as we refuse not to call acquaintance knowledge) to
say not only that the feeling is cognitive, but that all qualities _of
feeling, so long as there is anything outside of them which they
resemble_, are feelings of qualities of existence, and perceptions of
outward fact". But this would be true, as unexceptional rule, only in
our artificially simplified universe. If there were a number of
different _q's_ for the feeling to resemble, while it meant only one
of them, there would obviously be something more than resemblance in
the case of the one which it did know. This fact, that resemblance is
not enough in itself to constitute knowledge, can be seen also from
remembering that many feelings which do resemble each other
closely,--e. g., toothaches--do not on that account know each other.
Really to know a thing, a feeling must not only resemble the thing,
but must also be able to act on it. In brief, "the feeling of _q_
knows whatever reality it resembles, and either directly or indirectly
operates on. If it resemble without operating, it is a dream; if it
operates without resembling, it is an error". Such is the formula for
perceptual knowledge. Concepts must be reduced to percepts, after
which the same rule holds. We may say, to make the formula complete,
"A percept knows whatever reality it directly or indirectly operates
on and resembles; a conceptual feeling, or thought, knows a reality,
whenever it actually or potentially terminates in a percept that
operates on, or resembles that reality, or is otherwise connected with
it or with its context".
"The latter percept [the one to which the concept has been reduced]
may be either sensation or sensorial idea; and when I say the thought
must _terminate_ in such a percept, I mean that it must ultimately be
capable of leading up thereto,--by way of practical experience if the
terminal feeling be a sensation; by way of logical or habitual
suggestion, if it be only an image in the mind". "These percepts,
these _termini_, these sensible things, these mere matters of
acquaintance, are the only realities we ever directly know, and the
whole history of our thought is the history of our substitution of one
of them for the other, and the reduction of the substitute to the
status of a conceptual sign. Condemned though they be by some
thinkers, these sensations are the mother-earth, the anchorage, the
stable rock, the first and last limits, the _terminus a quo_ and the
_terminus ad quem_ of the mind. To find such sensational termini
should be our aim with all our higher thought. They end discussion;
they destroy the false conceit of knowledge; and without them we are
all at sea with each other's meanings.... We can never be sure we
understand each other till we are able to bring the matter to this
test. This is why metaphysical discussions are so much like fighting
with the air; they have no practical issue of a sensational kind.
Scientific theories, on the other hand, always terminate in definite
percepts. You can deduce a possible sensation from your theory and,
taking me into your laboratory prove that your theory is true of my
world by giving me the sensation then and there".
At this point James quotes, in substantiation, the following passage
from Peirce's article of 1878: "There is no distinction in meaning so
fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference in
practice.... It appears, then, that the rule for attaining the highest
grade of clearness of apprehension is as follows: Consider what
effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive
the object of our conception to have. Then our conception of these
effects is the whole of our conception of the object."
In this early paper of James' are to be found foreshadowings of
pragmatism both as a method and as a theory of truth. Pragmatism as a
method is shown in the whole discussion of the primacy of sensations
and of the necessity for reducing conceptions to perceptions. This is
exactly in line with the pragmatism proposed by Peirce in 1878 and
here quoted from by James. Pragmatism as a theory of truth is
anticipated by the proposal that the idea knows, and knows truly, the
reality which it is able to make changes in. The idea _proves_ its
reference to a given reality by making these specified changes. It is
antecedently true only if it can bring about these changes. The next
step is to say that its truth _consists_ in its ability to forecast
and bring to pass these changes. Then we have pragmatism as a theory
of truth. James did not take this step, as we shall see, until after
1904.
There is also a suggestion of the 'subjectivity' of James' later
theory of truth, which would differentiate him even at this time from
Peirce on the question of truth. He has said that a true idea must
indeed resemble reality, but who, he asks, is to determine what is
real? He answers that an idea is true when it resembles something
which I, as critic, _think_ to be reality. "When [the enquirer] finds
that the feeling that he is studying contemplates what he himself
regards as a reality he must of course admit the feeling itself to be
truly cognitive". Peirce would say that the idea is not true unless it
points to a reality that would be found by _all_ investigators, quite
irrespective of what the _one_ person acting as critic may think.
James and Pierce would therefore, begin to diverge even at this early
date on the truth question. As to what constitutes clearness, they are
in agreement.
Something of the same idea is stated again four years later in an
article which appeared in Mind[5] and which was republished the
following year as a chapter of the Principles of Psychology.[6] One
passage will show the general trend; "A conception to prevail, must
_terminate_ in a world of orderly experience. A rare phenomenon, to
displace frequent ones, must belong with others more frequent still.
The history of science is strewn with wrecks and ruins of
theory--essences and principles, fluids and forces--once fondly clung
to, but found to hang together with no facts of sense. The exceptional
phenomena solicit our belief in vain until such time as we chance to
conceive of them as of kinds already admitted to exist. What science
means by 'verification' is no more than this, that _no object of
conception shall be believed which sooner or later has not some
permanent object of sensation for its term_.... Sensible vividness or
pungency is then the vital factor in reality when once the conflict
between objects, and the connecting of them together in the mind, has
begun." (Italics mine).
[5] "The Psychology of Belief", Mind 1889, v. 14, p. 31.
[6] Vol. II, chapter XXI.
And in another connection he expresses the idea as follows:
"Conceptual systems which neither began nor left off in sensations
would be like bridges without piers. Systems about fact must plunge
themselves into sensations as bridges plunge themselves into the rock.
Sensations are the stable rock, the _terminus a quo_ and the _terminus
ad quem_ of thought. To find such termini is our aim with all our
theories---to conceive first when and where a certain sensation may be
had and then to have it. Finding it stops discussion. Failure to find
it kills the false conceit of knowledge. Only when you deduce a
possible sensation for me from your theory, and give it to me when and
where the theory requires, do I begin to be sure that your thought has
anything to do with truth." (11:7).
In 1902 James contributed to the "Dictionary of Philosophy and
Psychology" published by J. Mark Baldwin the following definition for
Pragmatism.
"The doctrine that the whole 'meaning' of a conception expresses
itself in practical consequences, consequences either in the shape of
conduct to be recommended, or in that of experience to be expected, if
the conception be true; which consequences would be different if it
were untrue, and must be different from the consequences by which the
meaning of other conceptions is in turn expressed. If a second
conception should not appear to have either consequences, then it must
really be only the first conception under a different name. In
methodology it is certain that to trace and compare their respective
consequences is an admirable way of establishing the different
meanings of different conceptions".
It will be seem that James has not in 1902 differentiated between
pragmatism as a method and as a theory of truth. Leaving out the one
reference to truth, the definition is an excellent statement of the
Peircian doctrine of clearness. This is especially to be noticed in
the last two sentences, which are perfectly 'orthodox' statements of
method alone.
In 1904 and 1905 James published two papers in Mind on the truth
question. The first, "Humanism and Truth", may be called his
'border-line' article. In this he is attempting to give a sympathetic
interpretation of the humanistic theory of truth--which he later said
is exactly like his own--but is still making the interpretation as an
outsider. In the second article he has definitely embraced the
humanistic theory and is defending it.
The first article begins as follows:[7] "Receiving from the editor of
Mind an advance proof of Mr. Bradley's article for July on 'Truth and
Practice', I understand this as a hint to me to join in the
controversy over 'Pragmatism' which seems to have seriously begun. As
my name has been coupled with the movement, I deem it wise to take the
hint, the more so as in some quarters greater credit has been given me
than I deserve, and probably undeserved discredit in other quarters
falls also to my lot.
[7] Mind, N. S. 13, p. 457.
"First, as to the word 'pragmatism'. I myself have only used the term
to indicate a method of carrying on abstract discussion. The serious
meaning of a concept, says Mr. Peirce, lies in the concrete difference
to someone which its being true will make. Strive to bring all debated
questions to that 'pragmatic' test, and you will escape vain
wrangling: if it can make no practical difference which of two
statements be true, then they are really one statement in two verbal
forms; if it can make no practical difference whether a given
statement be true or false, then the statement has no real meaning. In
neither case is there anything fit to quarrel about; we may save our
breath, and pass to more important things.
"All that the pragmatic method implies, then, is that truths should
_have_ practical consequences. In England the word has been used more
broadly, to cover the notion that the truth of any statement consists
in the consequences, and particularly in their being good
consequences. Here we get beyond affairs of method altogether; and
since this pragmatism and the wider pragmatism are so different, and
both are important enough to have different names, I think that Mr.
Schiller's proposal to call the wider pragmatism by the name of
'Humanism' is excellent and ought to be adopted. The narrower
pragmatism may still be spoken of as the 'pragmatic method'.
"If further egotism be in order. I may say that the account of truth
given by Messrs. Sturt and Schiller and by Professor Dewey and his
school ... goes beyond any theorizing which I personally had ever
indulged in until I read their writings. After reading these, _I feel
almost sure that these authors are right in their main contentions_,
but the originality is wholly theirs, and I can hardly recognize in my
own humble doctrine that concepts are teleological instruments
anything considerable enough to warrant my being called, as I have
been, the 'father' of so important a movement forward in
philosophy".[8] (Italic mine).
[8] This paragraph appears as a footnote.
"I think that a decided effort at a sympathetic mental play with
humanism is the provisional attitude to be recommended to the reader.
"_When I find myself playing sympathetically with humanism_, something
like what follows is what I end by conceiving it to mean". (Italics
mine).
Such is the conservative tone in which the article is begun. Yet
before it is ended we find these passages: "It seems obvious that the
pragmatic account of all this routine of phenomenal knowledge is
accurate". (p.468). "The humanism, for instance, which I see and try
so hard to defend, is the completest truth attained from my point of
view up to date". (p.472).
In a supplementary article, "Humanism and Truth Once More", published
a few months later in answer to questions prompted by this one, the
acceptance of humanism is entirely definite. And here James finds that
he has been advocating the doctrine for several years. He says, "I
myself put forth on several occasions a radically pragmatist account
of knowledge". (Mind, v. 14, p. 196). And again he remarks, "When
following Schiller and Dewey, I define the true as that which gives
the maximal combination of satisfaction ...". (p.196).
THE THEORY OF TRUTH IN 'PRAGMATISM' AND 'THE MEANING OF TRUTH'.
In 1907 when he published his book "Pragmatism", James, as we all
know, was willing to accept the new theory of truth unreservedly. The
hesitating on the margin, the mere interpreting of other's views, are
things of the past. From 1907 James' position toward pragmatism as a
truth-theory is unequivocal.
Throughout the book, as I should like to point out, James is using
'pragmatism' in two senses, and 'truth' in two senses. The two
meanings of pragmatism he recognizes himself, and points out clearly
the difference between pragmatism as a method for attaining clearness
in our ideas and pragmatism as a theory of the truth or falsity of
those ideas. But the two meanings of 'truth' he does not distinguish.
And it is here that he differs from Dewey, as we shall presently see.
He differed from Peirce on the question of the meaning of
pragmatism--as to whether it could be developed to include a doctrine
of truth as well as of clearness. He differs from Dewey on the
question of 'truth'--as to whether truth shall be used in both of the
two specified senses or only in one of them.
_The Ambiguity of 'Satisfaction'_--The double meaning of truth in
James' writing at this date may be indicated in this way: While truth
is to be defined in terms of satisfaction, what is satisfaction? Does
it mean that I am to be satisfied _of_ a certain quality in the idea,
or that I am to be satisfied _by_ it? In other words, is the criterion
of truth the fact that the idea leads as it promised or is it the fact
that its leading, whether just as it promised or not, is desirable?
Which, in short, are we to take as truth,--fulfilled expectations or
value of results?
It is in failing to distinguish between these two that James involves
himself, I believe, in most of his difficulties, and it is in the
recognition and explicit indication of this difference that Dewey
differentiates himself from James. We may pass on to cite specific
instances in which James uses each of these criteria. We will find, of
course, that there are passages which can be interpreted as meaning
either value or fulfillment, but there are many in which the use of
value as a criterion seems unmistakable.
The following quotations may be instanced: "If theological views prove
to have value for concrete life, they will be true, for pragmatism, in
the sense of being good for so much. For how much more they are true,
will depend entirely on their relation to the other truths that have
also to be acknowledged". For example, in so far as the Absolute
affords comfort, it is not sterile; "it has that amount of value; it
performs a concrete function. I myself ought to call the Absolute true
'in so far forth', then; and I unhesitatingly now do so". (p.72).
"On pragmatic principles, if the hypothesis of God works
satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true. Now
whatever its residual difficulties may be, experience shows that it
certainly does work, and that the problem is to build out and
determine it so that it will combine satisfactorily with all the other
working truths". (p. 299).
"The true is the name for whatever proves itself to be good in the way
of belief, and good, too, for definite, assignable reasons". (p. 76).
"Empirical psychologists ... have denied the soul, save as the name
for verifiable cohesions in our inner life. They redescend into the
stream of experience with it, and cash it into so much small-change
value in the way of 'ideas' and their connections with each other. The
soul is good or '_true_' for just so much, but no more". (p. 92,
italics mine).
"Since almost any object may some day become temporarily important,
the advantage of having a stock of extra truths, of ideas that shall
be true of merely possible situations, is obvious.... Whenever such
extra truths become practically relevant to one of our emergencies, it
passes from cold storage to do work in the world and our belief in it
grows active. You can say of it then either that _'it is useful
because it is true' or that it is 'true because it is useful'_. _Both
these phrases mean exactly the same thing_.... From this simple cue
pragmatism gets her general notion of truth as something essentially
bound up with the way in which one moment in our experience may lead
us towards other moments _which it will be worth while to have been
led to_. Primarily, and on the common-sense level, the truth of a
state of mind means this function of _a leading that is worth while_".
(pp. 204-205, italics mine).
"To 'agree' in the widest sense with reality can only mean to be
guided either straight up to it or into its surroundings, or to be put
into such working touch with it as to handle either it or something
connected with it better than if we disagreed. _Better either
intellectually or practically!..._ An idea that helps us to deal,
whether _practically or intellectually_, with either reality or its
belongings, that doesn't entangle our progress in frustrations, that
fits, in fact, and adapts our life to the reality's whole setting,
will----hold true of that reality". (pp. 212-213).
"'The true', to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way
of our thinking, just as the 'right' is only the expedient in the way
of our behaving. _Expedient in almost any fashion_; and expedient in
the long run and on the whole of course". (p. 222).
We may add a passage with the same bearing, from "The Meaning of
Truth". In this quotation James is retracting the statement made in
the University of California Address that without the future there is
no difference between theism and materialism. He says: "Even if matter
could do every outward thing that God does, the idea of it would not
work as satisfactorily, because the chief call for a God on modern
men's part is for a being who will inwardly recognize them and judge
them sympathetically. Matter disappoints this craving of our ego, and
so God remains for most men the truer hypothesis, and indeed remain so
for definite pragmatic reasons". (p. 189, notes).
The contrast between 'intellectual' and 'practical' seems to make his
position certain. If truth is tested by practical workings, _as
contrasted with_ intellectual workings, it cannot be said to be
limited to fulfilled expectation.
The statement that the soul is good _or_ true shows the same thing.
The relation of truth to extraneous values is here beyond question.
The other passages all bear, more or less obviously, in the same
direction.
As James keeps restating his position, there are many of the
definitions that could be interpreted to mean either values or
fulfillments, and even a few which seem to refer to fulfillment alone.
The two following examples can be taken to mean either:
"'Truth' in our ideas and beliefs means ... that ideas (which
themselves are but parts of our experience) become true just in so far
as they help us to get into satisfactory relation with other parts of
our experience, to summarize them and get about among them by
conceptual short-cuts instead of following the interminable succession
of particular phenomena. Any idea upon which we can ride, so to speak;
any idea that will carry us prosperously from one part of our
experience to any other part, linking things satisfactorily, working
securely, simplifying, saving labor, is true for just so much, true in
so far forth, true instrumentally". (p.58).
"A new opinion counts as true just in proportion as it gratifies the
individual's desire to assimilate the novel in his experience to his
beliefs in stock. It must both lean on old truth and grasp new fact;
and its success ... in doing this, is a matter for individual
appreciation. When old truth grows, then, by new truth's addition, it
is for subjective reasons. We are in the process and obey the reasons.
The new idea is truest which performs most felicitously its function
of satisfying this double urgency. It makes itself true, gets itself
classed as true, by the way it works." (p.64).
But we can turn from these to a paragraph in which truth seems to be
limited to fulfilled expectations alone.
"True ideas are those which we can assimilate, validate, corroborate,
and verify. False ideas are those which we cannot. That is the
practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that,
therefore, is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known
as....
"But what do validation and verification themselves pragmatically
mean? They again signify certain practical consequences of the
verified and validated idea.... They head us ... through the acts and
other ideas which they instigate, into or up to, or towards, other
parts of experience with which we feel all the while ... that the
original ideas remain in agreement. The connections and transitions
come to us from point to point as being progressive, harmonious,
satisfactory. This function of agreeable leading is what we mean by an
idea's verification". (pp.201-202).
_The Relation of Truth to Utility_--It seems certain from the
foregoing that James means, at least at certain times, to define the
true in terms of the valuable. Satisfaction he is using as
satisfaction _by_ rather than satisfaction _of_. As we have pointed
out, one may be satisfied of the correctness of one's idea without
being at all satisfied by it. This distinction has been most clearly
set forth by Boodin, in his discussion of 'What pragmatism is not', in
the following words: "The truth satisfaction may run counter to any
moral or esthetic satisfaction in the particular case. It may consist
in the discovery that the friend we had backed had involved us in
financial failure, that the picture we had bought from the catalogue
description is anything but beautiful. But we are no longer uncertain
as regards the truth. Our restlessness, so far as that particular
curiosity is concerned, has come to an end".[9]
[9] Boodin: Truth and Reality, pp. 193-4.
It is clear then, that the discovery of truth is not to be identified
with a predominantly satisfactory state of mind at the moment. Our
state of mind at the moment may have only a grain of satisfaction, yet
this is of so unique a kind and so entirely distinguishable from the
other contents of the mind that it is perfectly practicable as a
criterion. It is simply "the cessation of the irritation of a doubt",
as Peirce puts it, or the feeling that my idea has led as it promised.
The feeling of fulfilled expectation is thus a very distinct and
recognizable _part_ of the whole general feeling commonly described as
'satisfaction'. When 'utility' in our ideas, therefore, means a
momentary feeling of dominant satisfaction, truth cannot be identified
with it.
And neither, as I wish now to point out, can truth be identified with
utility when utility means a long-run satisfactoriness, or
satisfactoriness of the idea for a considerable number of people
through a considerable period of time. The same objection arises here
which we noted a moment ago--that the satisfaction may be quite
indifferent to the special satisfaction arising from tests. As has
been often shown, many ideas are satisfactory for a long period of
time simply because they are _not_ subjected to tests. "A hope is not
a hope, a fear is not a fear, once either is recognized as
unfounded.... A delusion is delusion only so long as it is not known
to be one. A mistake can be built upon only so long as it is not
suspected".
Some actual delusions which were not readily subjected to tests have
been long useful in this way. "For instance, basing ourselves on
Lafcadio Hearn, we might quite admit that the opinions summed up under
the title 'Ancestor-Worship' had been ... 'exactly what was required'
by the former inhabitants of Japan". "It was good for primitive man to
believe that dead ancestors required to be fed and honored ... because
it induced savages to bring up their offspring instead of letting it
perish. But although it was useful to hold that opinion, the opinion
was false". "Mankind has always wanted, perhaps always required, and
certainly made itself, a stock of delusions and sophisms".[10]
[10] Lee: Vital Lies, vol. 1, pp. 11, 31, 33, 72.
Perhaps we would all agree that the belief that 'God is on our side'
has been useful to the tribe holding it. If has increased zeal and
fighting efficiency tremendously. But since God can't be on both
sides, the belief of one party to the conflict is untrue, no matter
how useful. To believe that (beneficial) tribal customs are enforced
by the tribal gods is useful, but if the tribal gods are non-existent
the belief is false. The beautiful imaginings of poets are sometimes
useful in minimizing and disguising the hard and ugly reality, but
when they will not test out they cannot be said because of their
beauty or desirability to be true.
We must conclude then, that some delusions are useful. And we may go
on and question James' identification of truth and utility from
another point of view. Instead of agreeing that true ideas and useful
ideas are the same, we have shown that some useful ideas are false:
but the converse is also demonstrable, that some true ideas are
useless.
There are formulas in pure science which are of no use to anyone
outside the science because their practical bearings, if such there
be, have not yet been discovered, and are of no use to the scientist
himself because, themselves the products of deduction, they as yet
suggest nothing that can be developed farther from them. While these
formulas may later be found useful in either of these senses--for
'practical demands' outside the science, or as a means to something
else within the science--they are now already true quite apart from
utility, because they will test out by fulfilling expectations.
Knowledge that is not useful is most striking in relation to 'vice'.
One may have a true idea as to how to lie and cheat, may know what
cheating is and how it is done, and yet involve both himself and
others in most _un_satisfactory consequences. The person who is
attempting to stop the use of liquor, and who to this end has located
in a 'dry' district, may receive correct information as to the
location of a 'blind-tiger'--information which while true may bring
about his downfall. Knowledge about any form of vice, true knowledge
that can be tested out, may upon occasion be harmful to any extent we
like.
We may conclude this section by citing a paragraph which will show the
fallacious reasoning by which James came to identify the truth and the
utility of ideas. At one point in replying to a criticism he says: "I
can conceive no other objective _content_ to the notion of an ideally
perfect truth than that of penetration into [a completely
satisfactory] terminus, nor can I conceive that the notion would ever
have grown up, or that true ideas would ever have been sorted out from
false or idle ones, save for the greater sum of satisfactions,
intellectual or practical, which the truer ones brought with them. Can
we imagine a man absolutely satisfied with an idea and with all his
relations to his other ideas and to his sensible experiences, who
should yet _not_ take its content as a true account of reality? The
_matter_ of the true is thus absolutely identical with the matter of
the satisfactory. You may put either word first in your way of
talking; but leave out that whole notion of satisfactory working or
leading (which is the essence of my pragmatic account) and call truth
a static, logical relation, independent even of possible leadings or
satisfactions, and it seems to me that you cut all ground from under
you". (Meaning of Truth, p. 160).[11]
[11] It is interesting to see that Peirce had the
following comment to make in 1878 upon the utility of truth.
"Logicality in regard to practical matters is the most
useful quality an animal can possess, and might, therefore,
result from the action of natural selection; but outside of
these it is probably of more advantage to the animal to have
his mind filled with pleasing and encouraging visions,
independently of their truth; and thus upon impractical
subjects, natural selection might occasion a fallacious
tendency of thought". (From the first article in the series
"Illustrations of the Logic of Science", Popular Science
Monthly, vol. 12, p. 3).
Now it is to be observed that this paragraph contains at least three
logical fallacies. In the first sentence there is a false assumption,
namely that 'all that survives is valuable'. 'Then', we are given to
understand, 'since true ideas survive, they must be valuable'. No
biologist would agree to this major premise. 'Correlation' preserves
many things that are not valuable, as also do other factors.
In the second sentence there is an implied false conversion. The
second sentence says, in substance, that all true ideas are
satisfactory (valuable). This is supposed to prove the assertion of
the first sentence, namely, that all satisfactory (valuable) ideas are
true.
In the last sentence there is a false disjunction. Truth, it is
stated, must either be satisfactory (valuable) working, or a static
logical relation. We have tried to show that it may simply mean
reliable working or working that leads as it promised. This may be
neither predominantly valuable working nor a static logical relation.
_The Relation of Satisfaction to Agreement and Consistency._--James
continually reasserts that he has 'remained an epistemological
realist', that he has 'always postulated an independent reality', that
ideas to be true must 'agree with reality', etc.[12]
[12] For example, in the Meaning of Truth, pages 195 and 233.
Reality he defines most clearly as follows:
"'Reality' is in general what truths have to take account of....
"The first part of reality from this point of view is the flux of our
sensations. Sensations are forced upon us.... Over their nature, order
and quantity we have as good as no control....
"The second part of reality, as something that our beliefs must also
take account of, is the _relations_ that obtain between their copies
in our minds. This part falls into two sub-parts: (1) the relations
that are mutable and accidental, as those of date and place; and (2)
those that are fixed and essential because they are grounded on the
inner nature of their terms. Both sorts of relation are matters of
immediate perception. Both are 'facts'....
"The third part of reality, additional to these perceptions (tho
largely based upon them), is the _previous truths_ of which every new
inquiry takes account". (Pragmatism, p. 244).
An idea's agreement with reality, or better with all those parts of
reality, means a satisfactory relation of the idea to them. Relation
to the sensational part of reality is found satisfactory when the idea
leads to it without jar or discord. "... What do the words
verification and validation themselves pragmatically mean? They again
signify certain practical consequences of the verified and validated
idea. It is hard to find any one phrase that characterizes these
consequences better than the ordinary agreement-formula--just such
consequences being what we have in mind when we say that our ideas
'agree' with reality. They lead us, namely, through the acts and other
ideas which they instigate, into and up to, or towards, other parts of
experience with which we feel all the while ... that the original
ideas remain in agreement. The connections and transitions come to us
from point to point as being progressive, harmonious, satisfactory.
This function of agreeable leading is what we mean by an idea's
verification". (Pragmatism, pp. 201-2).
An idea's relation to the other parts of reality is conceived more
broadly. Thus pragmatism's "only test of probable truth is what works
best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life best and
combines with the collectivity of life's demands, nothing being
omitted. If theological ideas should do this, if the notion of God, in
particular, should prove to do it, how could pragmatism possibly deny
God's existence? She could see no meaning in treating as 'not true' a
notion that was pragmatically so successful. What other kind of truth
could there be, for her, than all this _agreement with concrete
reality_"? (Pragmatism, p. 80, italics mine). Agreement with reality
here means ability to satisfy the sum of life's demands.
James considers that this leaves little room for license in the choice
of our beliefs. "Between the coercions of the sensible order and those
of the ideal order, our mind is thus wedged tightly". "Our (any)
theory must mediate between all previous truths and certain new
experiences. It must derange common sense and previous belief as
little as possible, and it must lead to some sensible terminus or
other that can be verified exactly. To 'work' means both these things;
and the squeeze is so tight that there is little loose play for any
hypothesis. Our theories are thus wedged and controlled as nothing
else is". "Pent in, as the pragmatist more than anyone else sees
himself to be, between the whole body of funded truths squeezed from
the past and the coercions of the world of sense about him, who so
well as he feels the immense pressure of objective control under which
our minds perform their operations". (Pragmatism, pp. 211, 217, 233).
Now on the contrary it immediately occurs to a reader that if reality
be simply "what truths have to take account of", and if
taking-account-of merely means agreeing in such a way as to satisfy
"the collectivity of life's demands", then the proportion in which
these parts of reality will count will vary enormously. One person may
find the 'previous-truths' part of reality to make such a strong
'demand' that he will disregard 'principles' or reasoning almost
entirely.
Another may disregard the 'sensational' part of reality, and give no
consideration whatever to 'scientific' results. These things, in fact,
are exactly the things that do take place. The opinionated person, the
crank, the fanatic, as well as the merely prejudiced, all refuse to
open their minds and give any particular consideration to such kinds
of evidence. There is therefore a great deal of room for license, and
a great deal of license practiced, when the agreement of our ideas
with reality means nothing more than their satisfactoriness to our
lives' demands.
How James fell into this error is shown, I believe, by his
overestimation of the common man's regard for truth, and especially
for consistency. Thus he remarks: "As we humans are constituted in
point of fact, we find that to believe in other men's minds, in
independent physical realities, in past events, in eternal logical
relations, is satisfactory.... Above all we find _consistency_
satisfactory, consistency between the present idea and the entire rest
of our mental equipment...." "After man's interest in breathing
freely, the greatest of all his interests (because it never fluctuates
or remits, as most of his physical interests do), is his interest in
_consistency_, in feeling that what he now thinks goes with what he
thinks on other occasions". (Meaning of Truth, pp. 192, 211).
The general method of James on this point, then, is to define truth in
terms of satisfaction and then to try to show that these satisfactions
cannot be secured illegitimately. That is, that we _must_ defer to
experimental findings, to consistency, and to other _checks_ on
opinion. Consistency must be satisfactory because people are so
constituted as to find it so. Agreement with reality, where reality
means epistemological reality, is satisfactory for the same reason.
And agreement with reality, where reality includes in addition
principles and previous truths, must be satisfactory because agreement
in this case merely means such taking-account-of as will satisfy the
greater proportion of the demands of life. In other words, by defining
agreement in this case in terms of satisfactions, he makes it certain
that agreement and satisfaction will coincide by the device of arguing
in a circle. It turns out that, from over-anxiety to assure the
coincidence of agreement and satisfaction, he entirely loses the
possibility of using reality and agreement with reality in the usual
sense of checks on satisfactions.
CHAPTER III.
THE PRAGMATIC DOCTRINE AS SET FORTH BY DEWEY.
The position of Dewey is best represented in his paper called "The
Experimental Theory of Knowledge".[13] In the method of presentation,
this article is much like James' account "The Function of Cognition".
Both assume some simple type of consciousness and study it by
gradually introducing more and more complexity. In aim, also, the two
are similar, for the purpose of each is simply to describe. Dewey
attempts here to tell of a knowing just as one describes any other
object, concern, or event. "What we want", he announces "is just
something which takes itself for knowledge, rightly or wrongly".
[13] Mind, N. S. 15, July 1906. Reprinted in "The Influence
of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays", p. 77.
Page references are to the latter.
Let us suppose, then, that we have simply a floating odor. If this
odor starts changes that end in picking and enjoying a rose, what sort
of changes must these be to involve some where within their course
that which we call knowledge?
Now it can be shown, first, that there is a difference between knowing
and mere presence in consciousness. If the smell is simply displaced
by a felt movement, and this in turn is displaced by the enjoyment of
the rose, in such a way that there is no experience of connection
between the three stages of the process,--that is, without the
appearance of memory or anticipation,--then "such an experience
neither is, in whole or in part, a knowledge". "Acquaintance is
presence honored by an escort; presence is introduced as familiar, or
an association springs up to greet it. Acquaintance always implies a
little friendliness; a trace of re-knowing, of anticipatory welcome or
dread of the trait to follow.... To be a smell (or anything else) is
one thing, to be _known_ as a smell, another; to be a 'feeling' is one
thing, to be _known_ as a 'feeling' is another. The first is
thinghood; existence indubitable, direct; in this way all things _are_
that are in 'consciousness' at all. The second is _reflected_ being,
things indicating and calling for other things--something offering the
possibility of truth and hence of falsity. The first is genuine
immediacy; the second (in the instance discussed) a pseudo-immediacy,
which in the same breath that it proclaims its immediacy smuggles in
another term (and one which is unexperienced both in itself and in its
relation) the subject of 'consciousness', to which the immediate is
related.... To be acquainted with a thing is to be assured (from the
standpoint of the experience itself) that it is of such and such a
character; that it will behave, if given an opportunity, in such and
such a way; that the obviously and flagrantly present trait is
associated with fellow traits that will show themselves if the leading
of the present trait is followed out. To be acquainted is to
anticipate to some extent, on the basis of previous experience". (pp.
81, 82).
Besides mere existence, there is another type of experience which is
often confused with knowledge,--a type which Dewey calls the
'cognitive' as distinct from genuine knowledge or the 'cognitional'.
In this experience "we retrospectively attribute intellectual force
and function to the smell". This involves memory but not anticipation.
As we look back from the enjoyment of the rose, we can say that in a
sense the odor meant the rose, even though it led us here blindly.
That is, if the odor suggests the finding of its cause, without
specifying what the cause is, and if we then search about and find the
rose, we can say that the odor meant the rose in the sense that it
actually led to the discovery of it. "Yet the smell is not cognitional
because it did not knowingly intend to mean this, but is found, after
the event, to have meant it". (p. 84).
Now, "before the category of confirmation or refutation can be
introduced, there must be something which _means_ to mean something".
Let us therefore introduce a further complexity into the illustration.
Let us suppose that the smell occurs at a later date, and is then
"aware of something else which it means, which it intends to effect by
an operation incited by it and without which its own presence is
abortive, and, so to say, unjustified, senseless". Here we have
something "which is contemporaneously aware of meaning something
beyond itself, instead of having this meaning ascribed to it by
another at a later period. _The odor knows the rose_, _the rose is
known by the odor_, and the import of each term is constituted by the
relationship in which it stands to the other". (p. 88). This is the
genuine 'cognitional' experience.
When the odor recurs 'cognitionally', both the odor and the rose are
present in the same experience, though both are not present in the
same way. "Things can be presented as absent, just as they can be
presented as hard or soft". The enjoyment of the rose is present as
_going_ to be there in the same way that the odor is. "The situation
is inherently an uneasy one--one in which everything hangs upon the
performance of the operation indicated; upon the adequacy of movement
as a connecting link, or real adjustment of the thing meaning and the
thing meant. Generalizing from this instance, we get the following
definition: An experience is a knowledge, if in its quale there is an
experienced distinction and connection of two elements of the
following sort: one means or intends the presence of the other in the
same fashion in which it itself is already present, while the other is
that which, while not present in the same fashion, must become present
if the meaning or intention of its companion or yoke-fellow is to be
fulfilled through the operation it sets up". (p. 90).
Now in the transformation from this tensional situation into a
harmonious situation, there is an experience either of fulfilment or
disappointment. If there is a disappointment of expectation, this may
throw one back in reflection upon the original situation. The smell,
we may say, seemed to mean a rose, yet it did not in fact lead to a
rose. There is something else which enters in. We then begin an
investigation. "Smells may become the object of knowledge. They may
take, _pro tempore_, the place which the rose formerly occupied. One
may, that is, observe the cases in which the odors mean other things
than just roses, may voluntarily produce new cases for the sake of
further inspection; and thus account for the cases where meanings had
been falsified in the issue; discriminate more carefully the
peculiarities of those meanings which the event verified, and thus
safeguard and bulwark to some extent the employing of similar meanings
in the future". (p. 93). When we reflect upon these fulfilments or
refusals, we find in them a quality "quite lacking to them in their
immediate occurrence as just fulfilments and disappointments",--the
quality of affording assurance and correction. "Truth and falsity are
not properties of any experience or thing, in and of itself or in its
first intention; but of things where the problem of assurance
consciously enters in. Truth and falsity present themselves as
significant facts only in situations in which specific meanings and
their already experienced fulfilments and non-fulfilments are
intentionally compared and contrasted with reference to the question
of the worth, as to the reliability of meaning, of the given meaning
or class of meanings. Like knowledge itself, truth is an experienced
relation of things, and it has no meaning outside of such relation".
(p. 95).
Though this paper is by title a discussion of a theory of knowledge,
we may find in this last paragraph a very clear relating of the whole
to a theory of truth. If we attempt to differentiate in this article
between knowledge and truth, we find that while Dewey uses 'knowledge'
to refer either to the prospective or to the retrospective end of the
experimental experience, he evidently intends to limit truth to the
retrospective or confirmatory end of the experience. When he says,
"Truth and falsity are not properties of any experience or thing in
and of itself or in its first intention, but of things where the
problem of assurance consciously enters in. Truth and falsity present
themselves as significant facts only in situations in which specific
meanings and their already experienced fulfilments are intentionally
compared and contrasted with reference to the question of the worth,
as to reliability of meaning, of the given meaning or class of
meanings", it seems that truth is to be confined to retrospective
experience. The truth of an idea means that it allows one at its
fulfilment to look back at its former meaning and think of it as now
confirmed. The difference between knowledge and truth is then a
difference in the time at which the developing experience is examined.
If one takes the experience at the appearance of the knowing odor, he
gets acquaintance; if one takes it at the stage at which it has
developed into a confirmation, he gets truth. Knowledge may be either
stage of the experience of verification, but truth is confined to the
later, confirmatory, stage.
Truth, then, is simply a matter of confirmation of prediction or of
fulfilment of expectation. An idea is made true by leading as it
promised. And an idea is made false when it leads to refutation of
expectation. There seems to be no necessity here for an absolute
reality for the ideas to conform to, or 'correspond' to, for truth is
a certain kind of relation between the ideas themselves--the relation,
namely, of leading to fulfilment of expectations.
CONTRAST BETWEEN JAMES AND DEWEY.
If, now, we wish to bring out the difference between the account of
truth which we have just examined and the account that is given by
James, we will find the distinction quite evident. Truth, for Dewey,
is that relation which arises when, at an experience of fulfilment,
one looks back to the former experience and thinks of its leading as
now confirmed. An idea is true, therefore, when we can refer back to
it in this way and say, "That pointing led me to this experience, as
it said it would". The pointing, by bringing a fulfilment, is _made_
true--at this point of confirmation it _becomes_ true.
Since a true idea is defined, then, as one which leads as it promised,
it is obvious that truth will not be concerned in any way with
incidental or accidental _values_ which might be led to by the idea.
It has no relation to whether the goal is _worth while_ being led to
or not. James speaks of truth as a leading that is worth while. For
Dewey the goal may be valuable, useless, or even pernicious,--these
are entirely irrelevant to truth, which is determined solely by the
fact that the idea leads _as it promised_.
The existence of this distinction was pointed out, after the
appearance of James' "Pragmatism", by Dewey himself.[14] After a
careful discussion of some other points of difference, he says of this
matter of the place of the value of an idea in reference to its truth:
"We have the theory that ideas as ideas are always working hypotheses
concerning attaining particular empirical results, and are tentative
programs (or sketches of method) for attaining them. If we stick
consistently to this notion of ideas, only consequences which are
actually produced by the working of the idea in cooperation with, or
application to, prior realities are good consequences in the specific
sense of good which is relevant to establishing the truth of an idea.
This is, at times, unequivocally recognized by Mr. James.... But at
other times any good that flows from acceptance of a belief is treated
as if it were an evidence, _in so far_, of the truth of the idea. This
holds particularly when theological notions are under consideration.
Light would be thrown upon how Mr. James conceives this matter by
statements from him on such points as these: If ideas terminate in
good consequences, but yet the goodness of the consequence was no part
of the intention of the idea, does the goodness have any verifying
force? If the goodness of consequences arises from the context of the
idea rather than from the idea itself, does it have any verifying
force? If an idea leads to consequences which are good in the _one_
respect only of fulfilling the intent of the idea, (as when one drinks
a liquid to test the idea that it is a poison), does the badness of
the consequences in every other respect detract from the verifying
force of these consequences?
[14] "What Does Pragmatism Mean by Practical?",
Journal of Philosophy, etc., 1908, v. 5, p. 85.
"Since Mr. James has referred to me as saying 'truth is what gives
satisfaction' (p. 234), I may remark ... that I never identified _any_
satisfaction with the truth of an idea, save _that_ satisfaction which
arises when the idea as working hypothesis or tentative method is
applied to prior existences in such a way as to fulfil what it
intends....
"When he says ... of the idea of an absolute, 'so far as it affords
such comfort it surely is not sterile, it has that amount of value; it
performs a concrete function. As a good pragmatist I ought to call the
absolute true _in so far forth_ then; and I unhesitatingly now do so',
the doctrine seems to be unambiguous: that _any_ good, consequent upon
acceptance of belief, is, in so far forth, a warrant for truth. Of
course Mr. James holds that this 'in so far' goes a very small way....
But even the slightest concession, is, I think, non-pragmatic unless
the satisfaction is relevant to the idea as intent. Now the
satisfaction in question comes not from the _idea as idea_, but from
its acceptance _as true_. Can a satisfaction dependent upon an
assumption that an idea is already true be relevant to testing the
truth of an idea? And can an idea, like that of the absolute, which,
if true, 'absolutely' precludes any appeal to consequences as test of
truth, be confirmed by use of the pragmatic test without sheer
self-contradiction"?[15] "An explicit statement as to whether the
carrying function, the linking of things, is satisfactory and
prosperous and hence true in so far as it executes the intent of the
idea; or whether the satisfaction and prosperity reside in the
material consequences on their own account and in that aspect make the
idea true, would, I am sure, locate the point at issue and economize
and fructify future discussion. At present pragmatism is accepted by
those whose own notions are thoroughly rationalistic in make-up as a
means of refurbishing, galvanizing, and justifying those very notions.
It is rejected by non-rationalists (empiricists and naturalistic
idealists) because it seems to them identified with the notion that
pragmatism holds that the desirability of certain beliefs overrides
the question of the meaning of the idea involved in them and the
existence of objects denoted by them. Others (like myself) who believe
thoroughly in pragmatism as a method of orientation as defined by Mr.
James, and who would apply the method to the determination of the
meaning of objects, the intent and worth of ideas as ideas, and to the
human and moral value of beliefs, when these problems are carefully
distinguished from one another, do not know whether they are
pragmatists or not, because they are not sure whether the 'practical',
in the sense of the desirable facts which define the worth of a
belief, is confused with the practical as an attitude imposed by
objects, and with the practical as a power and function of idea to
effect changes in prior existences. Hence the importance of knowing
what pragmatism means by practical....
[15] The last four sentences appear in a footnote.
"I would do Mr. James an injustice, however, to stop here. His real
doctrine, I think, is that a belief is true when it satisfies _both_
the personal needs _and_ the requirements of objective things.
Speaking of pragmatism, he says, 'Her only test of probable truth is
what works best in the way of _leading us_, what fits every part of
life best _and combines with the collectivity of experience's
demands_, nothing being omitted'. And again, 'That new idea is truest
which performs most felicitously its function of satisfying _our
double urgency_'. (p. 64). It does not appear certain from the context
that this 'double urgency' is that of the personal and the objective
demands, but it is probable.... On this basis, the 'in so far forth'
of the truth of the absolute because of the comfort it supplies, means
that _one_ of the two conditions which need to be satisfied has been
met, so that if the absolute met the other one also it would be quite
true. I have no doubt that this is Mr. James' meaning, and it
sufficiently safeguards him from charges that pragmatism means that
anything that is agreeable is true. At the same time, I do not think,
in logical strictness, that satisfying one of two tests, when
satisfaction of both is required, can be said to constitute a belief
true even 'in so far forth'".
CHAPTER IV.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.
Writing as a scientist and publishing his work in a scientific
journal, Peirce proposed in 1878 a new method for making our ideas
clear. He was attempting a description of the logic of the sciences.
He believed himself to be showing how the greatest of our modern
thinkers do make clear to themselves their ideas of the objects with
which they work. The meaning of anything, said Peirce, consists in the
actual or possible effects which it might produce. Our idea of the
thing is clear when we have in mind these sensible effects. This
theory of clearness he called pragmatism.
No one, it seems, paid any especial attention to this theory at the
time. But twenty years later James brought the subject to the
forefront of discussion by explaining it anew in his exceptionally
lucid way and by making a particular application of it to religion.
But for James the method for clearness very soon grew into a new
theory of truth, and in this way, in spite of the fact that the method
had been proposed by a scientist as a description of the procedure of
science, he seems to have lost for it the support of science. The
reason for this outcome was his introduction of value as a criterion
for truth. This, James recognizes, was counter to all the scientific
ideals of many of the workers in science, for the essence of their
procedure, as they saw it, was to put all desire as to outcomes behind
them and to try to find out how things actually prove or test out to
be, quite apart from how we would like them to be. To introduce the
general value of an outcome, then, as a criterion for truth, seems to
destroy what the scientist had been thinking of as 'pure research',
and to involve control by an outside influence that would determine
which things are or are not valuable and worth investigating. It was
sufficiently well known to the scientist that most of the greatest
scientific discoveries were made by men who had no appreciation or
interest in the general utility of the outcome, and whose results were
applied only much later and, as it were, by accident. To say, then,
that the truth of an idea was influenced by its general value was to
run afoul of all the sorely sensitive ideals which the scientist had
acquired in his recent contest with the domination of the church. It
is hardly to be wondered at, therefore, that the interpretation of
pragmatism given by James was not popular with persons of a scientific
temperament.
Further, if the value or desirability of an idea has an influence upon
its truth, then truth will vary from person to person, for
desirability varies with the taste of the person concerned. Peirce had
warned against individual standards of truth in his discussion of the
Methods of Fixing Belief. The scientific conception, as it had
differentiated itself from other conceptions of truth, had attempted
to secure a kind of truth not determined by what we would like or by
what can be made to seem desirable by oratory or by what can be made
to win out over other opinions by skill in debate, but by some
criterion quite apart from desire and opinion. Peirce had attempted
such a criterion in his postulate of an unchanging eternal reality.
Instead, that is, of consulting with each other, of debating with each
other to find the truth, we ought to consult this reality. In other
words, to undertake scientific experiment. Such had been Peirce's
description of the scientific and modern method of attaining truth as
contrasted, as he says, with that of the medievalists.
Now the difficulty in Peirce's method, as we have seen, was that this
postulate of an external reality unaffected by our opinions would not
endure the test for clearness. Every object, says Peirce, reduces to
the sum of its effects. The only effect of real things, he says again,
is to produce belief. From these two propositions it would seem to
follow that reality is a sum of beliefs. But this, of course,
eliminates any unchanging reality independent of our opinions about
it.
We saw further that Peirce defined both belief and meaning as habit
and made no distinction between them. Now as belief and meaning are
obviously not the same, we are in need of new definitions for these
terms.
At this point we turned to the interpretation of Dewey. For Dewey the
distinction would seem to be that while meaning may well be defined as
habit, belief is to be defined as expectation. If we believe in
anything, this means that we expect certain results from it. To
believe is to suppose that if we were to come into relation with the
thing we would find certain effects to come about.
From this conception the Deweyan theory of truth would seem to follow
immediately. If belief means a sum of expectations, the truth of a
belief would mean the verification of these expectations. A true
belief simply means one that fulfils expectations.
The Deweyan development of the pragmatic method is obviously very much
more in harmony with the procedure of science than that of James.
James seems to have 'left the track' in his interpretation of the
pragmatic method when he related truth to the predominantly valuable.
Truth we have found to have no necessary or invariable connection with
general value, for many ideas would be acknowledged to be perfectly
true while at the same time being either useless or harmful. For Dewey
this matter of value has no place in relation to the test of the truth
of an idea, for its truth means nothing more than its ability to lead
as it promises.
We seem, then, it may be said in conclusion, to be confronted with
something like the following alternatives:
If we believe that Dewey could not have made a correct deduction from
the pragmatic method when he developed it into a theory of truth
making truth dependent upon fulfilled expectations alone, then very
obviously the next step in this investigation is to find the point at
which his inference went wrong. This means a re-examination of each
step in his reasoning.
If we believe that Dewey does make a correct deduction from the
pragmatic method in this development toward truth, then we are
confronted with the alternative of either accepting the Deweyan theory
of truth or of rejecting the Peircian theory of clearness. That is, if
we begin with Peirce on method, we must then go clear through to Dewey
on truth. And if we reject Dewey, while believing that Peirce gave a
correct description of the method of science, then it seems that we
must conclude that the method of science and the method of philosophy
are not the same.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE WORKS OF CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE
1865. On an improvement of Boole's calculus of logic. Proc. Am. Acad.
Arts and Sci., v. 7, p. 250.
1867. Logical Papers.
1868. Questions concerning certain faculties claimed for man. Jour.
Spec. Phil. 2:103.
Nominalism and realism. Jour. Spec. Phil. 2:57.
On the meaning of 'determined'. Jour. Spec. Phil. 2:190.
Some consequences of four incapacities. Jour. Spec. Phil. 2:140.
Grounds for the validity of the laws of logic. Jour. Spec.
Phil. 2:193.
1871. Review and discussion of Fraser's "Works of Berkeley." No. Am.
Rev. 113:449.
1878. Illustrations of the logic of science.
I--The fixation of belief. Pop. Sci. Mo. 12:1.
II--How to make our ideas clear. Pop. Sci. Mo. 12:286.
III--The doctrine of chances. Pop. Sci. Mo. 12:604.
IV--The probability of induction. Pop. Sci. Mo. 12:705.
1879. Illustrations of the logic of science.
V--The order of nature. Pop. Sci. Mo. 13:203.
VI--Deduction, induction, and hypothesis. Pop. Sci. Mo. 13:470.
La logique de la science. Rev. Philos. 6:553, 7:39.
1880. On the algebra of logic. Am. Jour. Math. 3:15. Also, Rev.
Philos. 12:646.
1883. (Editor) Studies in Logic.
1884. Numerical measure of success of predictions. Science 4:453.
Old stone mill at Newport. Science 4:512.
1888. Logical machines. Am. Jour. Psy. 1:165.
1890. The architecture of theories. Monist 1:161.
1891. The doctrine of necessity examined. Monist 2:321.
The law of mind. Monist 2:533.
1892. Man's glassy essence. Monist 3:1.
Evolutionary love. Monist 3:176.
Reply to the necessitarians. Monist 3:526.
1896. The regenerated logic. Monist 7:19.
The logic of relatives. Monist 7:161.
1900. Infinitesimals. Science 11:430.
Decennial celebration of Clark University. Science 11:620.
Century's great men of science. Smithsonian Institute Reports,
1900, p. 673.
Annotations on the first three chapters of Pearson's Grammar of
Science. Pop. Sci. Mo. 58:296.
1901. Campanus. Science 13:809.
1905. What pragmatism is. Monist 15:161.
The issues of pragmaticism. Monist 15:481.
1906. Mr. Peterson's proposed discussion. Monist 16:147.
Prolegomena to an apology for pragmaticism. Monist 16:492.
1908. Some amazing mazes. Monist 18:227, 416, 19:36.
A neglected argument for the reality of God. Hib. Jour. 7:90.
1910. On non-Aristotelian logic. Monist 20:158.
THE WORKS OF WILLIAM JAMES
A "List of the Published Writings of William James" will be found in
the Psychological Review for March 1911, v. 18, p. 157.
THE WORKS OF JOHN DEWEY
_On Logic and Metaphysics:_
1882. The metaphysical assumptions of materialism. Jour. Spec.
Phil. 16:208.
The pantheism of Spinoza. Jour. Spec. Phil. 16:249.
1883. Knowledge and the relativity of feeling. Jour. Spec. Phil. 17:56.
1884. Kant and philosophic method. Jour. Spec. Phil. 18:162.
1886. The psychological standpoint. Mind 11:1.
Psychology as philosophic method. Mind 11:153.
1887. "Illusory psychology." Mind 12:83.
Knowledge as idealization. Mind 12:382.
1888. Leibniz's New Essays Concerning Human Understanding.
1890. On some current conceptions of the term 'self'. Mind 15:58.
1891. The present position of logical theory. Monist 2:1.
1892. The superstition of necessity. Monist 3:362.
1894. The ego as cause. Phil. Rev. 3:337.
1895. Interest as Related To Will.
1900. Some stages of logical thought. Phil. Rev. 9:465.
1903. Logical Conditions of a Scientific Treatment of Morality.
(And others) Studies in Logical Theory.
1904. Notes upon logical topics.
I--A classification of contemporary tendencies. Jour. Phil. 1:57.
II--The meaning of the term idea. Jour. Phil. 1:175.
1905. Immediate empiricism. Jour. Phil. 2:597.
The knowledge experience and its relationships. Jour. Phil. 2:652.
The knowledge experience again. Jour. Phil. 2:707.
The postulate of immediate empiricism. Jour. Phil. 2:393.
The realism of pragmatism. Jour. Phil. 2:324.
1906. Reality as experience. Jour. Phil. 3:253.
The terms 'conscious' and 'consciousness'. Jour. Phil. 3:39.
Beliefs and realities. Phil. Rev. 15:113.
Experience and objective idealism. Phil. Rev. 15:465.
The experimental theory of knowledge. Mind 15:293.
1907. The control of ideas by facts. Jour. Phil. 4:197, 253, 309.
Pure experience and reality: a disclaimer. Phil. Rev. 16:419.
Reality and the criterion for truth of ideas. Mind 15:317.
1908. What does pragmatism mean by practical? Jour. Phil. 5:85.
Logical character of ideas. Jour. Phil. 5:375.
1909. Objects, data, and existence: Reply to Professor McGilvary.
Jour. Phil. 6:13.
Dilemma of the intellectualistic theory of truth. Jour. Phil. 6:433.
Darwin's influence on philosophy. Pop. Sci. Mo. 75:90.
1910. Some implications of anti-intellectualism. Jour. Phil. 7:477.
Short cuts to realism examined. Jour. Phil. 7:553.
Valid knowledge and the subjectivity of experience. Jour.
Phil. 7:169.
Science as subject-matter and as method. Science n. s. 31:121.
How We Think.
Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, and Other Essays.
1911. Rejoinder to Dr. Spaulding. Jour. Phil. 8:77.
Brief studies in realism. Jour. Phil. 8:393, 546.
Joint discussion with Dr. Spaulding. Jour. Phil. 8:574.
1912. Reply to Professor McGilvary's questions. Jour. Phil. 9:19.
In response to Professor McGilvary. Jour. Phil. 9:544.
Perception and organic action. Jour. Phil. 9:645.
Reply to Professor Royce's critique of instrumentalism. Phil.
Rev. 21:69.
_On Psychology, Ethics, Education, etc.:_
1890. Moral theory and practice. Int. Jour. Ethics 1:186.
1891. Psychology.
Outline of a Critical Theory of Ethics.
1892. Green's theory of the moral motive. Phil. Rev. 1:593.
1893. Teaching ethics in high school. Ed. Rev. 6:313.
Self-realization as the moral ideal. Phil. Rev. 2:652.
1894. The psychology of infant language. Psy. Rev. 1:63.
The theory of emotion.
I--Emotional attitudes. Psy. Rev. 1:553.
1895. The theory of emotion.
II--The significance of the emotions. Psy. Rev. 2:13.
1896. The metaphysical method in ethics. Psy. Rev. 3:181
The reflex arc concept in psychology. Psy. Rev. 3:357.
Influence of the high school upon educational methods.
Ed. Rev. 4:1.
1897. The psychology of effort. Phil. Rev. 6:43.
(And J. A. McLellan) Psychology of Number and its Application to
Methods of Teaching Arithmetic.
Evolution and ethics. Monist 8:321.
Psychological aspects of school curriculums. Ed. Rev. 13:356.
1898. Some remarks on the psychology of number. Ped. Sem. 5:426.
W. T. Harris's Psychological Foundation of Education. Ed. Rev. 16:1.
Social interpretations. Phil. Rev. 7:631.
1900. Psychology and social practice. Psy. Rev. 7:105.
1901. Psychology and Social Practice.
Are the schools doing what the people want them to do? Ed.
Rev. 21:459.
The situation as regards the course of study. Ed. Rev. 22:26.
1902. The evolutionary method as applied to morality.
I--Its scientific necessity. Phil. Rev. 11:107.
II--Its significance for conduct. Phil. Rev. 11:353.
Interpretation of the savage mind. Psy. Rev. 9:217.
Academic freedom. Ed. Rev. 23:1.
Problems in secondary education. Sch. Rev. 19:13.
Syllabus of courses. El. Sch. 73:200.
The school as a social center. El. Sch. 73:563.
1903. Emerson: The philosopher of democracy. Int. Jour. Ethics 13:405.
Shortening the years of elementary schooling. Sch. Rev. 11:17.
The psychological and the logical in teaching geometry. Ed.
Rev. 25:386.
1904. The philosophical work of Herbert Spencer. Phil. Rev. 13:159.
1906. Culture and industry in education. Ed. Bi-Monthly 1:1.
The Educational Situation.
1907. The life of reason. Ed. Rev. 34:116.
1908. (And Tufts) Ethics.
Religion and our schools. Hib. Jour. 6:796.
1909. Is nature good? Hib. Jour. 7:827.
Moral Principles in Education.
1910. How We Think.
William James. Jour. Phil. 7:505.
1911. Is coeducation injurious to girls? Ladies Home Jour. 28:22.
Maeterlinck's philosophy of life. Hib. Jour. 9:765.
1913. Interest and Effort in Education.
An undemocratic proposal. Vocational Ed. 2:374.
Industrial education and democracy. Survey 29:870.
1914. Report on the Fairhope experiment in organic education.
Survey 32:199.
National policy of industrial education. New Republic, v. I.
Nature and reason in law. Int. Jour. Eth. 25:25.
WORKS ON TRUTH
(See also the list under 'Pragmatism').
1624. Herbert de Clerbury, E.--De Veritate Prout Distinguitur a
Revelatione, a Possibiliti et a Falso.
1674. Malbranche, N.--De la Recherche de la Verite.
1690. Locke, J.--Essay Concerning the Human Understanding.
1780. Beattie, James.--An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth.
1781. Kant, Im.--Kritik der reinen Vernunft.
1800. Kant, Im.--Logik.
1811. Fries, J.--System der Logik, p. 448 ff.
1817. Hegel, F.--Encyclopädie. Sec. 21.
1826. Hume, D.--Treatise on Human Nature. iv, sec. 2.
1840. Abercombie, J.--An Inquiry Concerning the Intellectual Powers and
the Investigation of Truth.
1842. Thomson, W.--Outlines of the Necessary Laws of Thought.
1854. Bailey, S.--Essays on the Pursuit of Truth.
1862. Tiberghien, G.--Logique. v. 2, pp. 322-355.
1866. Hamilton, Sir Wm.--Logic. Lectures 28-31.
1875. Forster, W.--Wahrheit und Wahrschleinlichkeit.
1877. Jevons, W. S.--The Principles of Science. 2nd ed., pp. 374-396.
1878. Schuppe, W.--Logik. v. 1, pp. 622-696.
1880. Wundt, W.--Logik.
1882. Bergmann, J.--Die Grundprobleme der Logik. p. 96ff.
1884. Schulbert-Soldern, R. von.--Grundlagen einer Erkenntnisstheorie.
p. 156ff.
1885. Royce, J.--The Religious Aspect of Philosophy.
1889. Argyle, Duke of--What Is Truth?
Stephen, L.--On some kinds of necessary truth. Mind 14:50, 188.
1890. Carus, Paul--The criterion of truth. Monist 1:229.
1892. Rickert, H.--Der Gegenstand der Erkenntniss. Freib. pp. 63-64.
1893. Bradley, F. H.--Appearance and Reality. Chapters 16, 24.
Cousin, Victor--Lectures on the True, the Beautiful, and the Good.
Soyen, Shakn--Universality of truth. Monist 4:161.
Miller, D. S.--The meaning of truth and error. Phil. Rev. 2:408.
Smith, W.--Certitude. Phil. Rev. 2:665.
1894. Gordy, J. P.--The test of belief. Phil. Rev. 3:257.
1895. Jerusalem, W.--Die Urteilsfunction. p. 185ff.
Bosanquet, B.--Essentials of Logic. pp. 69-79.
Sigwart, C.--Logic. v. 1, pp. 295-326.
1896. Hodder, A.--Truth and the tests of truth. Phil. Rev. 5:1.
Wundt, W.--Ueber naiven und kritischen Realismus. Phil.
Studien 12:332.
1897. Brochard, Victor--De L'Erreur.
Jordan, D. S.--The stability of truth. Pop. Sci. Mo. 4:642, 749.
Strümpell, Ludw.--Unterchiede der Wahrheiten und irrtümer. p. 58.
1898. Baillie, J. B.--Truth and history. Mind 7:506.
Powell, J. W.--Truth and Error.
1899. Eisler, W.--Wörterbuch der philosophischen Begriffe.
1900. Sidgwick, H.--Criteria of truth and error. Mind 9:8.
1901. Creighton, J. E.--Methodology and truth. Phil. Rev. 10:408.
French, F. C.--The doctrine of the twofold truth. Phil.
Rev. 10:477.
Royce, J.--The World and the Individual.
Smyth, J.--Truth and Reality.
1902. Baldwin, J. M.--Development and Evolution. Chapter 17.
Pritchett, H. S.--What is truth? Outlook 70:620.
1903. Duprat, Guillaume L.--Le Mesonge. Etude de psycho-sociologie
pathologique et normale.
Pilate's What is truth. Catholic World 77:705.
1904. Bradley, F. H.--On truth and practice. Mind 13:309.
Glasenapp, G. v.--Der Wert der Wahrheit. Zeitsch. f. Philos. u.
phil. Kr. 123:186, 124:25.
Rogers, A. K.--James on humanism and truth. Jour. Phil. 1:693.
1905. Alexander, H. B.--Phenomenalism and the problem of knowledge.
Jour. Phil. 2:182.
Alexander, H. B.--Quantity, quality, and the function of
knowledge. Jour. Phil. 2:459.
Hyslop, J. H.--Problems of Philosophy. Chapter 7.
Joachim, H. H.--'Absolute' and 'relative' truth. Mind 14:1.
Joseph, H. W. B.--Professor James on 'humanism and truth'.
Mind 14:28.
Knox, H. V.--Mr. Bradley's absolute criterion. Mind 14:210.
Overstreet, H. A.--Conceptual completeness and abstract truth.
Phil. Rev. 14:308.
Pitkin, W. B.--Psychology of eternal truths. Jour. Phil. 2:449.
Taylor, A. E.--Truth and practice. Phil. Rev. 14:265.
1906. Gore, George--Scientific sketch of untruth. Monist 16:96.
Russell, B.--The nature of truth. Mind 15:528.
Review of Joachim's The Nature of Truth. Nation 83:42.
Schiller, F. C. S.---The ambiguity of truth. Mind 15:161.
Schiller, F. C. S.--Joachim's The Nature of Truth. Jour.
Phil. 3:549.
Taylor, A. E.--Truth and consequences. Mind 15:81.
Openmindedness. Catholic World 82:756.
1908. Bakewell, C. M.--On the meaning of truth. Phil. Rev. 17:579.
Creighton, J. E.--The nature and criterion of truth. Phil.
Rev. 17:592.
Gardiner, H. N.--The problems of truth. Phil. Rev. 17:113.
Moore, A. W.--Truth value. Jour. Phil. 5:429.
Prat, J. B.--Truth and ideas. Jour. Phil. 5:122.
Urbana, F. M.--On a supposed criterion of the absolute truth of
some propositions. Jour. Phil. 5:701.
1909. Bradley, F. H.--On truth and coherence. Mind 18:322.
Bradley, F. H.--Coherence and contradiction. Mind 18:489.
Buckham, J. W.--Organization of truth. Int. Jour. Eth. 20:63.
Carritt, E. F.--Truth in art and religion. Hib. Jour. 8:362.
Knox, H. V.--The evolution of truth. Quarterly Rev. No. 419.
1910. Alexander, H. B.--Truth and nature. Monist 20:585.
Boodin, J. E.--The nature of truth. Phil. Rev. 19:395.
Bradley, F. H.--On appearance, error, and contradiction.
Mind 19:153.
Jacobson, Edmund--Relational account of truth. Jour. Phil. 7:253.
Russell, B.--Philosophical Essays. Essays 5, 6, 7.
Schmidt, Karl--Hertz's theory of truth. Monist 20:445.
Tsanoff, R. A.--Professor Boodin on the nature of truth. Phil.
Rev. 19:632.
Plea for the half-truth. Atlantic 105:576.
Truth as once for all delivered. Bib. World 35:219.
1911. Alexander, H. B.--Goodness and beauty of truth. Jour. Phil. 5:29.
Boodin, J. E.--The divine five-fold truth. Monist 21:288.
Boodin, J. E.--The nature of truth: a reply. Phil. Rev. 20:59.
Boodin, J. E.--Truth and Reality.
Bradley, F. F.--On some aspects of truth. Mind 20:305.
Carus, Paul--Truth on Trial.
McGilvary, E. B.--The 'fringe' of William James's psychology as
the basis of logic. Phil. Rev. 20:137.
Rother, A. J.--Certitude.
Royce, J.--William James, and Other Essays.
Self-sufficiency of truth. Bib. World 37:147.
1912. Fawcett, E. D.--Truth's 'original object'. Mind 21:89.
Larson, C. D.--What Is Truth?
Leuba, J. H.--Religion and the discovery of truth. Jour.
Phil. 9:406.
Review of Jordan's Stability of Truth. Int. Jour. Eth. 23:92.
Zahlfeisch, Johann--Ist die Lüge erlaubt? Archiv. f. system.
Philos. 18:241.
1913. Alexander, S.--Collective willing and truth. Mind 22:14, 161.
Gerould, K. F.--Boundarie of truth. Atlantic 112:454.
Lloyd, A. H.--Conformity, consistency, and truth. Jour.
Phil. 10:281.
Moore, A. W.--The aviary theory of truth and error. Jour.
Phil. 10:542.
Wright, W. K.--Genesis of the categories. Jour. Phil. 10:645.
Wright, H. W.--Practical success as the criterion of truth.
Phil. Rev. 22:606.
1914. Bowman, A. A.--The problem of knowledge from the standpoint of
validity. Phil. Rev. 23:1, 146, 299.
Bradley, F. H.--Essays on Truth and Reality.
Broad, C. D.--Mr. Bradley on truth and reality. Mind 23:349.
Capron, F. H.--Anatomy of Truth.
Leighton, J. A.--Truth, reality, and relation. Phil. Rev. 23:17.
Rother, A. J.--Truth and Error.
Sidgwick, A.--Truth and working. Mind 23:99.
Strange, E. H.--Objectives, truth, and error. Mind 23:489.
WORKS ON PRAGMATISM
(See also the list under 'Truth').
1900. Caldwell, W.--Pragmatism. Mind 9:433.
1902. Schiller, F. C. S.--'Useless' knowledge. Mind 11:196.
Schiller, F. C. S.--Axioms As Postulates.
1903. King, Irving--Pragmatism as a philosophical method. Phil.
Rev. 12:511.
Schiller, F. C. S.--Humanism: Philosophical Essays.
1904. Bawden, Heath--What is pragmatism? Jour. Phil. 1:421.
Creighton, J. E.--Purpose as a logical category. Phil. Rev. 13:284.
Leighton, J. A.--Pragmatism. Jour. Phil. 1:148.
1905. Bode, B. H.--Pure experience and the external world. Jour.
Phil. 2:128.
Bode, B. H.--The cognitive experience and its object. Jour.
Phil. 2:658.
Bode, B. H.--The concept of pure experience. Phil. Rev. 14:684.
Hoernle, R. F. A.--Pragmatism versus absolutism. Mind 14:297, 441.
King, Irving--Pragmatic interpretation of the Christian dogma.
Monist 15:248.
Moore, A. W.--Pragmatism and its critics. Phil. Rev. 14:284.
Schiller, F. C. S.--The definition of 'pragmatism' and
'humanism'. Mind 14:235.
1906. Bode, B. H.--Realism and pragmatism. Jour. Phil. 3:393.
Colvin, S. S.--Pragmatism, old and new. Monist 16:547.
Rogers, A. K.--Professor James' theory of knowledge. Phil.
Rev. 15:577.
Rousmaniere, F. H.--A definition of experimentation. Jour.
Phil. 3:673.
Russell, J. E.--Pragmatism's meaning of truth. Jour. Phil. 3:599.
Russell, J. E.--Some difficulties with the epistemology of
pragmatism and radical empiricism. Phil. Rev. 15:406.
Schiller, F. C. S.--Pragmatism and pseudo-pragmatism.
Sturt, H.--Idola Theatri, a Criticism of Oxford Thought and
Thinkers from the Standpoint of Personal Idealism. Mind 15:375.
Vailati, Giovanni--Pragmatism and mathematical logic. Monist
16:481.
1907. Brown, W. A.--Pragmatic value of the absolute. Jour.
Phil. 4:459.
Bush, W. T.--Papini on Introduzione al prafmatismo. Jour.
Phil. 4:639.
Foster, G. B.--Pragmatism and knowledge. Am. Jour. Theol. 11:591.
Moore, A. W.--Perry on pragmatism. Jour. Phil. 4:567.
Nichols, H.--Pragmatism versus science. Jour. Phil. 4:122.
Papini, G.--What pragmatism is like. Pop. Sci. Mo. 71:351.
Perry, R. B.--A review of pragmatism as a philosophical
generalization. Jour. Phil. 4:421.
Perry, R. B.--A review of pragmatism as a theory of knowledge.
Jour. Phil. 4:365.
Pratt, J. B.--Truth and its verification. Jour. Phil. 4:320.
Review of Schiller's Humanism. Nation 84:436.
Review of Papini's Tragico Quotidiano. Nation 85:521.
Reviews of James's Pragmatism. Bookman 26:215. No. Am. 185:884.
Science n. s. 26:464. Nation 85:57. Ind. 63:630.
Schiller, F. C. S.--The pragmatic babe in the woods. Jour.
Phil. 4:42.
Schiller, F. C. S.--Cure of doubt. Jour. Phil. 4:235.
Schiller, F. C. S.--Pragmatism versus skepticism. Jour.
Phil. 4:482.
Schiller, F. C. S.--Studies in Humanism.
Schiller, F. C. S.--Review of James's Pragmatism. Mind 16:593.
Sellars, R. W.--Dewey's view of agreement. Jour. Phil. 4:432.
Shorey, P.--Equivocation of pragmatism. Dial 43:273.
Slosson, E. E.--What is pragmatism? Ind. 62:422.
Talbot, Ellen B.--The philosophy of Fichte in its relation to
pragmatism. Phil. Rev. 16:488.
Fascination of the pragmatic method. Cur. Lit. 43:186.
A new philosophy. Harper's W. 51:1264.
The newest philosophy. Cur. Lit. 42:652.
Pragmatic philosophy. Ind. 62:797.
Pragmatism, a new philosophy. Ed. Rev. 34:227.
Where pragmatism fails. Cur. Lit. 46:415.
1908. Armstrong, A. C.--Evolution of pragmatism. Jour. Phil. 5:645.
Bawden, H. H.--New philosophy called pragmatism. Pop. Sci.
Mo. 73:61.
Bradley, F. H.--On the ambiguity of pragmatism. Mind 17:226.
Burke, J. B.--Fashionable philosophy at Oxford and Harvard. Liv.
Age 257:559.
Bush, W. T.--Provisional and eternal truth. Jour. Phil. 5:181.
Carus, Paul--Pragmatism. Monist 18:321.
Hebert, M.--Le Pragmatisme. Etude de ses Diverse Formes.
Hibben, J. B.--The test of pragmatism. Phil. Rev. 17:365.
Lovejoy, A. O.--Thirteen pragmatisms. Jour. Phil. 5:5, 29.
Lovejoy, A. O.--Pragmatism and theology. Am. Jour. Theol. 12:116.
McGilvary, E. B.--British exponents of pragmatism. Hib.
Jour. 6:632.
McTaggart, J. E.--Review of James's Pragmatism. Mind 17:104.
Salter, W. M.--A. new philosophy. Atlantic 101:657.
Schiller, F. C. S.--Is Mr. Bradley a pragmatism? Mind 17:370.
Schiller, F. C. S.--British exponents of pragmatism. Hib.
Jour. 6:903.
Schinz, A.--Dewey's pragmatism. Jour. Phil. 5:617.
Sidgwick, A.--The ambiguity of pragmatism. Mind 17:368.
Strong, A. L.--Religious aspects of pragmatism. Am. Jour.
Theol. 12:231.
Strong, C. A.--Pragmatism and its definition of truth. Jour.
Phil. 5:256.
Vialiti, G.--A pragmatic zoologist. Monist 18:142.
1909. Agnew, P. G.--What is pragmatism? Forum 41:70.
Carus, Paul--A German critic of pragmatism. Monist 19:136.
Carus, Paul--A postscript on pragmatism. Monist 19:85.
Carus, Paul--Professor John Hibben on 'the test of pragmatism'.
Monist 19:319.
Corrance, H. C.--Review of Hebert's Le Pragmatisme. Hib.
Jour. 7:218.
Cox, J. W.--Concepts of truth and reality. Am. Cath. Q. 34:139.
Huizinga, A. V.--The American philosophy pragmatism. Bib. Sac. 66:78.
Kallen, H. M.--Affiliations of pragmatism. Jour. Phil. 6:655.
Kallen, H. M.--Dr. Montague and the pragmatic notion of value.
Jour. Phil. 6:549.
Knox, H. V.--Pragmatism: the evolution of truth. Quarterly
Rev. 210:379.
Ladd, G. T.--The confusion of pragmatism. Hib. Jour. 7:784.
McGilvary, E. B.--British exponents of pragmatism (A rejoinder).
Hib. Jour. 7:443.
Montague, W. P.--The true, the good, and the beautiful from a
pragmatic standpoint. Jour. Phil. 6:233.
Montague, W. P.--May a realist be a pragmatist? Jour.
Phil. 6:460, 485, 543, 501.
Moore, A. W.--"Anti-pragmatisme." Jour. Phil. 6:291.
Moore, T. V.--Pragmatism of William James. Catholic World 90:341.
Moore, A. W.--Pragmatism and solipsism. Jour. Phil. 6:378.
More, P. E.--New stage of pragmatism. Nation 88:456.
Murray, D. L.--Pragmatic realism. Mind 18:377.
Pratt, J. B.--What Is Pragmatism?
Pratt, J. B.--What is pragmatism? Am. Jour. Theol. 13:477.
Schiller, F. C S.--Humanism and intuition. Mind 18:125.
Schiller, F. C. S.--Logic as psychology. Mind 18:400.
Schiller, F. C. S.--Humanism, intuitionism, and objective
reality. Mind 18:570.
Schinz, A.--Anti-pragmatisme.
Schinz, A.--Rousseau a forerunner of pragmatism. Monist 19:481.
Schinz, A.--A few words in reply to Professor Moore's criticism
of 'Anti-pragmatism'. Jour. Phil. 6:434.
Shackleford, T. M.--What pragmatism is, as I understand it.
Pop. Sci. Mo. 75:571.
Taylor, A. E.--Review of James's Pluralistic Universe.
Mind 18:576.
Tausch, Edwin--William James the pragmatist. Monist 19:1.
Origin of pragmatism. Nation 88:358.
Philosophy in the open. Bookman 29:661.
Pragmatism as a strangler of literature. Cur. Lit. 46:637.
1910. Boodin, J. E.--Pragmatic realism. Monist 20:602.
Carus, Paul--Pragmatist view of truth. Monist 20:139.
Carus, Paul--Truth. Monist 20:481.
Cockrell, T. D. A.--Is pragmatism pragmatic? Dial 48:422.
De Laguna, T.--Dogmatism and Evolution.
Fite, W.--O'Sullivan's Old Criticism and New Pragmatism. Jour.
Phil. 7:499.
Gillespie, C. M.--The truth of Protagoras. Mind 19:470.
Jacoby, Gunther--Der Pragmatismus.
Kallen, H. M.--James, Bergson, and Mr. Pitkin. Jour.
Phil. 7:353.
Lee, V.--Two pragmatisms. No. Am. 192:449.
Lloyd, A. H.--Possible idealism of a pluralist. Am. Jour.
Theol. 14:406.
Macintosh, D. C.--Pragmatic element in the teaching of Paul. Am.
Jour. Theol. 13:361.
McGiffert, A. C.--The pragmatism of Kant. Jour. Phil. 7:197.
Miller, D. S.--Some of the tendencies of Professor James's work.
Jour. Phil. 7:645.
Moore, A. W.--Pragmatism and Its Critics.
Moore, A. W.--How ideas work. Jour. Phil. 7:617.
O'Sullivan, J. M.--Old Criticism and New Pragmatism.
Russell, B.--Philosophical Essays. Chapters 4, 6.
Reviews of James's Meaning of Truth. Nation 90:88. Hib. Jour.
8:904. Ed. Rev. 40:201.
Russell, J. E.--Review of James's Meaning of Truth. Jour.
Phil. 7:22.
Schinz, A.--Anti-pragmatism.
Shackelford, T. M.--What is pragmatism? Sci. Am. S. 70:78.
Sidgwick, A.--The Application of Logic.
Stettheimer, E.--Rowland's Right To Believe. Jour. Phil. 7:330.
Walker, L. J.--Theory of Knowledge: Absolutism, Pragmatism, and
Realism.
1911. Brown, H. C.--De Laguna's Dogmatism and Evolution. Jour.
Phil. 8:556.
Cockerell, T. D. A.--Reality and truth. Pop. Sci. Mo. 78:371.
Eastman, Max--Dewey's How We Think. Jour. Phil. 8:244.
Fawcett, E. D.--A note on pragmatism. Mind 20:399.
Jacks, L. P.--William James and his message. Contemp. Rev. 99:20.
Kallen, H. M.--Boutroux's William James. Jour. Phil. 8:583.
Kallen, H. M.--Pragmatism and its 'principles'. Jour. Phil. 8:617.
More, P. E.--The Pragmatism of William James.
Patten, S. N.--Pragmatism and social science. Jour. Phil. 8:653.
Pratt, J. B.--The religious philosophy of William James. Hib.
Jour. 10:225.
Riley, I. W.--Continental critics of pragmatism. Jour.
Phil. 8:225, 289.
Russell, J. E.--Truth as value and the value of truth. Mind 20:538.
Schiller, F. C. S.--Article 'pragmatism' in Encyclopedia Brittanica.
Schiller, F. C. S.--Review of James's Some Problems of
Philosophy. Mind 20:571.
Turner, W.--Pragmatism: what does it mean? Cath. World 94:178.
Vibbert, C. B.--Moore's Pragmatism and its Critics. Jour.
Phil. 8:468.
1912. Berkeley, H.--The kernel of pragmatism. Mind 21:84.
Ceulemans, J. B.--Metaphysics of pragmatism. Am. Cath. Q. 37:310.
Jacoby, Gunther--Bergson, pragmatism, and Schopenhauer.
Monist 22:593.
Kallen, H. M.--Royce's William James. Jour. Phil. 9:548.
Lee, Vernon--Vital Lies. v. 1, part 1.
Lee, Vernon--What is truth? a criticism of pragmatism. Yale
Rev. n. s. 1:600.
Loewenberg, J.--Vaihinger's Die Philosophie des Als Ob. Jour.
Phil. 9:717.
Macintosh, D. C.--Representational pragmatism. Mind 21:167.
Montague, W. P.--Review of James's Some Problems of Philosophy.
Jour. Phil. 9:22.
Murray, D. L.--Pragmatism.
Reviews of Moore's Pragmatism and Its Critics. Nation 92:13. Int
Jour. Eth. 22:222.
Riley, I. W.--Huizinga's The American Philosophy Pragmatism.
Jour. Phil. 9:248.
Russell, B.--Review of James's Essays in Radical Empiricism.
Mind 21:571.
Russell, J. E.--Bergson's anti-intellectualism. Jour.
Phil. 9:129.
Schiller, F. C. S.--Formal Logic, A Scientific and Social
Problem.
Schiller, F. C. S.--The 'working' of 'truth'. Mind 21:532.
1913. Alexander, S.--Collective willing and truth. Mind 22:14, 161.
Boodin, J. E.--Pragmatic realism.--The five attributes.
Mind 22:509.
Carr, H. W.--Logic and life. Mind 22:484.
Carr, H. W.--The Problem of Truth.
Caldwell, W.--Pragmatism and Idealism.
Knox, H. V.--William James and his philosophy. Mind 22:231.
Moore, A. W.--Pragmatism, science, and truth.
Perry, R. B.--Realism and pragmatism. Mind 22:544.
Review of Vernon Lee's Vital Lies. Nation 96:414.
Royce, J.--Psychological problems emphasized by pragmatism. Pop.
Sci. Mo. 83:394.
Schiller, F. C. S.--The 'working' of truths and their
'criterion'. Mind 22:532.
Schiller, F. C. S.--Humanism.
Stebbing, L. S.--The 'working' of 'truths'. Mind 22:250.
Wright, W. K.--Practical success as the criterion of truth.
Phil. Rev. 22:606.
1914. Knox, H. V.--Philosophy of William James.
Moore, J. S.--Value in its relation to meaning and purpose.
Jour. Phil. 11:184.
Ross, G. R. T.--Aristotle and abstract truth--A reply to Mr.
Schiller. Mind 23:396.
Sidgwick, A.--Truth and working. Mind 23:99.
Stebbing, L. S.--Pragmatism and French Voluntarism.
Wilde, N.--The pragmatism of Pascal. Phil. Rev. 23:540.
Can socialism be identified with pragmatism? Cur. Opinion 56:45.
VITA.
The writer was born in 1884 at Pomeroy, Ohio, and received his earlier
education in the country schools near that city. His college
preparatory work was done in the high school of Roswell, New Mexico,
from which he was graduated in 1906. He then entered immediately the
University of Wisconsin, and from this institution received the
Bachelor's degree in 1910 and the Master's degree in 1911. From 1911
to 1914, while acting as fellow or as assistant, he studied in the
graduate school of the University of Illinois.
Transcriber's Notes:
Page numbers have been removed from the Table of Contents
Footnotes have been sequentially numbered and placed after the
paragraph where they are noted.
Other changes to the text:
JAMES' EXPOSITION OF PEIRCE. (in the Table of Contents)
(Removed 's in JAMES'S to match the title of Section in
Chapter 2, which is consistent with author's usage throughout)
consider the doctrine of transubstantiation
(transubstantiation was transsubstantiation)
true in their main experiential predictions
(experiential was experiental)
multiply incontestable results
(incontestable was incontestible)
false belief (belief in fiction)".
(. was ,)
and then only provisionally;
(then was when)
towards the close of
(the was th)
cannot be used together
(together was togethehr)
if one can define accurately all
(accurately was acurately)
or false?' Thus does Locke
(missing closing quote added)
only an image in the mind
(mind was mand)
try so hard to defend
(so was to)
In Footnote 12, the word pages was pagges
Yet the smell is not cognitional
(smell is was small was)
Let us suppose that the smell occurs
(smell was small)
thus account for the cases where meanings
(cases was cses)
their immediate occurrence as
(occurrence was occurence)
which the developing experience is examined
(experience was experince)
if one takes it at the stage
(at was t)
for truth is a certain
(certain was certian)
the collectivity of experience's demands
(experience's was experiences)
I have no doubt that this is
(this was his)
true even 'in so far forth'".
(was missing closing single quote mark)
The reason for this outcome
(reason was reasons)
The scientific conception, as it had differentiated itself from
(differentiated was differenciated)
Typographic errors in the bibliography have been repaired without
note, with the following exceptions.
1854. Bailey, S.--Essays on the Pursuit of Truth.
(S. was originally missing)
1780. Beattie, James.--An Essay on the Nature and Immutability
of Truth.
(duplicate entry removed)
1902. Pritchett, H. S.--What is truth? Outlook 70:620.
(H. S. originally missing)
Wright, H. W.--Practical success as the criterion of truth.
(was W. K.)
1879. Illustrations of the logic of science.
(added second header for clarity)
1895. The theory of emotion.
(added second header for clarity)
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