CONCLUSION
I will now briefly sum up the argument of this book. The problem of
truth is to discover the nature of the agreement between the things of
the mind, our ideas, and the reality of which ideas are the knowledge.
We call the agreement truth. What is it? We have seen that there are
three different answers, namely--(1) That it is a correspondence
between the idea and the reality; (2) That it is the coherence of the
idea in a consistent and harmonious whole; and (3) That it is a value
that we ourselves give to our ideas.
The theory that truth is correspondence we found to offer this
difficulty. To say of an idea that it corresponds with reality
supposes a knowledge of reality in addition to and distinct from the
knowledge that is the idea, and yet the knowledge of reality is the
idea of it. And if it be said that not the idea but the judgment is
what corresponds with reality in truth, this equally supposes a
knowledge of reality that is not a judgment. If, as the common sense
of mankind requires us to believe, the reality that is known by us
exists in entire independence of our relation of knowing to it, how can
we state this fact without falling into contradiction in the very
statement of it? This is the difficulty of a realist theory of
knowledge.
We next examined the theory that truth is coherence, and this seemed to
present to us an unattainable ideal. {89} Only the whole truth is
wholly true. We followed the idealist argument on which it is based,
and this seemed to lead us inevitably, in the doctrine of the Absolute,
to the paradox that unless we know everything we know nothing.
In pragmatism we met a new principle, the proposal to regard truth as a
value. Truth, it is said, is something that happens to ideas; they
become true, or are made true. There is no criterion, no absolute
standard, independent of ideas to which they must conform if they are
judged to be true. The value of an idea is its practical usefulness as
tested by its workability. Truth is what works. This led us to
criticise the concept of utility. We found that it is impossible to
identify utility with truth even if we include theoretical utility in
its widest meaning, because over and above the usefulness and
workability of an idea there always remains the question of its
relation to reality. But we recognised in the principle of truth-value
an important advance towards a theory of knowledge.
The solution of the problem of truth, it became clear, must be sought
in a theory of knowledge. Have we, in the new theory of life and
knowledge of Bergson's philosophy, an answer to the question, What is
truth? Yes, but not in the form of a direct solution of the dilemma
which confronts us in every theory that accepts the independence of
knowledge and reality--rather in a theory of knowledge in which the
dilemma does not and cannot arise.
The theory of Bergson is that in the intuition of life we know reality
as it is, our knowledge is one with our knowing; and in the intellect
we possess a mode of knowing which is equally immediate but the
essential quality of which is that it externalises or spatialises
reality. We understand this mode of knowing in {90} recognising the
purpose it serves, its practical advantage to us. The theory,
therefore, resembles pragmatism in bringing the concept of utility to
the aid of its theory of knowledge. But, we insisted, the resemblance
is outward only, for the essential tenet of pragmatism, that truth
itself is a value, is fatal to the theory. It would mean, in fact,
that not the mode of knowing, that is the intellect, but the actual
knowledge itself, is a practical endowment. But the problem of truth
arises in a new form, for the practical utility of the intellect
consists in the illusion which it produces in us. It makes the flowing
reality appear as fixed states. How, then, can universal illusion be
consistent with the possession of truth? To answer this question we
examined the nature of illusion and its distinction from error.
In the last chapter we have dealt with the problem of error. The fact
of error presented a difficulty distinct from the question, What is
truth? for it implied a real object of thought, of which it seemed
equally contradictory to say that it exists and that it does not exist.
In the solutions that have been proposed we saw how the problem is
forcing philosophers to examine again the fundamental processes of the
mind and the nature of the universe they reveal.
{91}
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The _Theætetus_ of Plato is an exposition of the problem of truth and
error as it presented itself in ancient philosophy. The quotation I
have made from it, and also the quotations from the _Republic_, are
from Jowett's translation.
The most clear exposition of what I have called the realistic doctrine
is _The Problems of Philosophy_, by the Hon. Bertrand Russell, in the
Home University Library (Williams and Norgate). I have adopted Mr.
Russell's terms, "acquaintance" and "description"; the distinction they
denote seems to me of fundamental importance, and Mr. Russell's
doctrine on this point a permanent addition to philosophy. Mr.
Russell's theory, that in the judgment what is present to the mind is a
relation which is external to the terms of the judgment, and that
agreement or disagreement between this relation and reality makes the
truth or falsehood of the judgment, can only be appreciated if studied
in connection with his general scheme.
The classical work on what I have called the modern idealist doctrine
(I have avoided the word intellectualist) is Mr. F. H. Bradley's
_Appearance and Reality_. I have attempted to give the main lines of
the theory in my chapter on "The Absolute." Although it is a book for
advanced students, it is not a closed volume even to the uninstructed.
The brilliant dialectical skill of the {92} author is acknowledged and
may be enjoyed by those who reject or may fail to understand his
conclusion. Mr. Harold H. Joachim's _The Nature of Truth_ (Oxford,
Clarendon Press) is a most able and scholarly argument for the
coherence theory of truth.
The principal expositions of Pragmatism are the works of William James
and of Dr. F. C. S. Schiller. William James' _The Will to Believe_ was
the first distinct formulation of the principle. _Pragmatism, a New
Name for some Old Ways of Thinking_, is the fullest and most systematic
statement of the doctrine. _The Meaning of Truth_ is a defence of the
doctrine against the criticism that had been meted out to it
unsparingly. All three books are published by Longmans.
Dr. F. C. S. Schiller is uncompromising in his advocacy of a complete
return to the doctrine taught in the ancient world by Protagoras. He
has defended that philosopher against the arguments of Plato in a
polemical pamphlet entitled _Plato or Protagoras?_ (Oxford, Blackwell).
An Essay on "Axioms as Postulates" in _Personal Idealism_ (Macmillan &
Co.), and two volumes of collected essays on _Humanism_ (Macmillan &
Co.), set forth the doctrine, which he prefers to call Humanism, with
great force, abundant illustration, and the relief of no small amount
of humour.
For an account of the theories of Bergson, I may mention my own little
book in this series, _Henri Bergson: The Philosophy of Change_. M.
Bergson's books are _Time and Freewill_, _Matter and Memory_, and
_Creative Evolution_. To these has been recently added _An
Introduction to Metaphysics_ (Macmillan, 1912). It is the
republication in English of an article written in 1903, which has been
for a long time out of print. It is a short and clear statement of the
doctrine of Intuition.
{93}
The important studies of Professor G. F. Stout are not easily
accessible to the general reader, as they consist in contributions to
philosophical journals and proceedings of learned societies. The essay
referred to in the last chapter, "Some Fundamental Points in the Theory
of Knowledge," is in the _St. Andrews Quincentenary Publications_, 1911
(Maclehose). I may mention also his essay on "Error" in _Personal
Idealism_, noticed above, and "The Object of Thought and Real Being,"
in _Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society_, 1911.
{94}
INDEX
NDX
Bergson, Mons. Henri, 63, 69, 73, 89
Berkeley, 20, 32, 73
Coherence Theory, 25, 27
Correspondence Theory, 24, 27
Discovery of Planet Neptune, 59
Faith-attitude of Pragmatism, 55
Formal Logic, 10
Hegel, 44
Hume, 30
Intellectualism, 44
James, William, 44
Kant, 26, 27, 42, 73
Meinong, 84
Pierce, C. S., 44
Plato, 11, 44, 67, 68, 74
Pluralistic Realism, 24
Poincaré, Henri, 54
Pragmatist Theory of Truth, 55
Primary Qualities, 32
Protagoras, His book _The Truth_, 10, 11; His maxim, 44
Pythagoras, 87
Relativity, Principle of, 48, 53, 62
_Republic_ of Plato, 67
S. Anselm's Argument, 29, 31, 41
Schiller, Dr. F. C. S., 44
Self, The Idea of, 36
Socrates, 11, 74
Space and Time, 33, 34, 36
Stout, Prof. G. F., 84
Theætetus of Plato, 11, 74
Unknowable, The, 29, 37
Zeno, 34
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