Pragmatism, according to Mr. James, is a temper of mind, an attitude;
it is also a theory of the nature of ideas and truth; and, finally, it
is a theory about reality. It is pragmatism as method which is
emphasized, I take it, in the subtitle, "a new name for some old ways
of thinking."[69] It is this aspect which I suppose to be uppermost in
Mr. James's own mind; one frequently gets the impression that he
conceives the discussion of the other two points to be illustrative
material, more or less hypothetical, of the method. The briefest and
at the same time the most comprehensive formula for the method is:
"The attitude of looking away from first things, principles,
'categories,' supposed necessities; and of looking towards last
things, fruits, consequences, facts" (pp. 54-55). And as the attitude
looked "away from" is the rationalistic, perhaps the chief aim of the
lectures is to exemplify some typical differences resulting from
taking one outlook or the other.
But pragmatism is "used in a still wider sense, as meaning also a
certain theory of truth" (p. 55); it is "a genetic theory of what is
meant by truth" (p. 65). Truth means, as a matter of course,
agreement, correspondence, of idea and fact (p. 198), but what do
agreement, correspondence, mean? With rationalism they mean "a static,
inert relation," which is so ultimate that of it nothing more can be
said. With pragmatism they signify the guiding or leading power of
ideas by which we "dip into the particulars of experience again," and
if by its aid we set up the arrangements and connections among
experienced objects which the idea intends, the idea is verified; it
corresponds with the things it means to square with (pp. 205-6). The
idea is true which works in leading us to what it purports (p.
80).[70] Or, "any idea that will carry us prosperously from any one
part of experience to any other part, linking things satisfactorily,
working securely, simplifying, saving labor, is true for just so much,
true in so far forth" (p. 58). This notion presupposes that ideas are
essentially intentions (plans and methods), and that what they, as
ideas, ultimately intend is _prospective_--certain changes in prior
existing things. This contrasts again with rationalism, with its copy
theory, where ideas, _as_ ideas, are ineffective and impotent, since
they mean only to mirror a reality (p. 69) complete without them. Thus
we are led to the third aspect of pragmatism. The alternative between
rationalism and pragmatism "concerns the structure of the universe
itself" (p. 258). "The essential contrast is that reality ... for
pragmatism is still in the making" (p. 257). And in a recent number of
the _Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods_,[71]
he says: "I was primarily concerned in my lectures with contrasting
the belief that the world is still in the process of making with the
belief that there is an eternal edition of it ready-made and
complete."
I
It will be following Mr. James's example, I think, if we here regard
pragmatism as primarily a method, and treat the account of ideas and
their truth and of reality somewhat incidentally so far as the
discussion of them serves to exemplify or enforce the method.
Regarding the attitude of orientation which looks to outcomes and
consequences, one readily sees that it has, as Mr. James points out,
points of contact with historic empiricism, nominalism, and
utilitarianism. It insists that general notions shall "cash in" as
particular objects and qualities in experience; that "principles" are
ultimately subsumed under facts, rather than the reverse; that the
empirical consequence rather than the a priori basis is the
sanctioning and warranting factor. But all of these ideas are colored
and transformed by the dominant influence of experimental science: the
method of treating conceptions, theories, etc., as working hypotheses,
as directors for certain experiments and experimental observations.
Pragmatism as attitude represents what Mr. Peirce has happily termed
the "laboratory habit of mind" extended into every area where inquiry
may fruitfully be carried on. A scientist would, I think, wonder not
so much at the method as at the lateness of philosophy's conversion to
what has made science what it is. Nevertheless it is impossible to
forecast the intellectual change that would proceed from carrying the
method sincerely and unreservedly into all fields of inquiry. Leaving
philosophy out of account, what a change would be wrought in the
historical and social sciences--in the conceptions of politics and law
and political economy! Mr. James does not claim too much when he says:
"The center of gravity of philosophy must alter its place. The earth
of things, long thrown into shadow by the glories of the upper ether,
must resume its rights.... It will be an alteration in the 'seat of
authority' that reminds one almost of the Protestant Reformation" (p.
123).
I can imagine that many would not accept this method in philosophy for
very diverse reasons, perhaps among the most potent of which is lack
of faith in the power of the elements and processes of experience and
life to guarantee their own security and prosperity; because, that is,
of the feeling that the world of experience is so unstable, mistaken,
and fragmentary that it must have an absolutely permanent, true, and
complete ground. I cannot imagine, however, that so much uncertainty
and controversy as actually exists should arise about the content and
import of the doctrine on the basis of the general formula. It is when
the method is applied to special points that questions arise. Mr.
James reminds us in his preface that the pragmatic movement has found
expression "from so many points of view, that much unconcerted
statement has resulted." And speaking of his lectures he goes on to
say: "I have sought to unify the picture as it presents itself to my
own eyes, dealing in broad strokes." The "different points of view"
here spoken of have concerned themselves with viewing pragmatically a
number of different things. And it is, I think, Mr. James's effort to
combine them, as they stand, which occasions misunderstanding among
Mr. James's readers. Mr. James himself applied it, for example, in
1898 to philosophic controversies to indicate what they mean in terms
of practical issues at stake. Before that, Mr. Peirce himself (in
1878) had applied the method to the proper way of _conceiving_ and
defining objects. Then it has been applied to _ideas_ in order to find
out what they mean in terms of what they intend, and what and how they
must intend in order to be true. Again, it has been applied to
_beliefs_, to what men actually accept, hold to, and affirm. Indeed,
it lies in the nature of pragmatism that it should be applied as
widely as possible; and to things as diverse as controversies,
beliefs, truths, ideas, and objects. But yet the situations and
problems _are_ diverse; so much so that, while the meaning of each may
be told on the basis of "last things," "fruits," "consequences,"
"facts," _it is quite certain that the specific last things and facts
will be very different in the diverse cases, and that very different
types of meaning will stand out_. "Meaning" will itself _mean_
something quite different in the case of "objects" from what it will
mean in the case of "ideas," and for "ideas" something different from
"truths." Now the explanation to which I have been led of the
unsatisfactory condition of contemporary pragmatic discussion is that
in composing these "different points of view" into a single pictorial
whole, the distinct type of consequence and hence of meaning of
"practical" appropriate to each has not been sufficiently emphasized.
1. When we consider separately the subjects to which the pragmatic
method has been applied, we find that Mr. James has provided the
necessary formula for each--with his never-failing instinct for the
concrete. We take first the question of the significance of an object:
the meaning which should properly be contained in its conception or
definition. "To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object,
then, we need only consider what conceivable effects of a practical
kind the object may involve--what sensations we are to expect from it
and what reactions we must prepare" (pp. 46-47). Or, more shortly, as
it is quoted from Ostwald, "All realities influence our practice, and
that influence is their meaning for us" (p. 48). Here it will be noted
that the start is from objects already empirically given or presented,
existentially vouched for, and the question is as to their proper
conception--What is the proper meaning, or idea, of an object? And the
meaning is the effects _these given objects produce_. One might doubt
the correctness of this theory, but I do not see how one could doubt
its import, or could accuse it of subjectivism or idealism, since the
object with its power to produce effects is assumed. Meaning is
expressly distinguished from objects, not confused with them (as in
idealism), and is said to consist in the practical reactions objects
exact of us or impose upon us. When, then, it is a question of an
object, "meaning" signifies its _conceptual content or connotation,
and "practical" means the future responses which an object requires of
us or commits us to_.
2. But we may also start from a given idea, and ask what the _idea_
means. Pragmatism will, of course, look to future consequences, but
they will clearly be of a different sort when we start from an idea as
idea, than when we start from an object. For what an idea as idea
means, is precisely that an object is _not_ given. The pragmatic
procedure here is to set the idea "at work within the stream of
experience. It appears less as a solution than as a program for more
work, and particularly as an indication of the ways in which existing
realities may be changed. Theories, thus, become instruments.... We
don't lie back on them, we move forward, and, on occasion, make nature
over again by their aid" (p. 53). In other words, an idea is a draft
drawn upon existing things, and intention to act so as to arrange them
in a certain way. From which it follows that if the draft is honored,
if existences, following upon the actions, rearrange or readjust
themselves in the way the idea intends, the idea is true. When, then,
it is a question of an idea, it is the idea itself which is practical
(being an intent) and its _meaning_ resides in the existences which,
as changed, it intends. While the meaning of an object is the changes
it requires in our attitude,[72] the meaning of an idea is the changes
it, as our attitude, effects in objects.
3. Then we have another formula, applicable not to objects nor ideas
as objects and ideas, but to _truths_--to things, that is, where the
meaning of the object and of the idea is assumed to be already
ascertained. It reads: "What difference would it practically make to
anyone if this notion rather than that notion were true? If no
practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives
mean practically the same thing, and all dispute is idle" (p. 45).
There can be "no difference in abstract truth that doesn't express
itself in a difference in concrete fact, and in conduct consequent
upon the fact, imposed on somebody" (p. 50).[73] Now when we start
with something which is already a truth (or taken to be truth), and
ask for its meaning in terms of its consequences, it is implied that
the conception, or conceptual significance, is already clear, and that
the existences it refers to are already in hand. Meaning here, then,
can be neither the connotative nor denotative reference of a term;
they are covered by the two prior formulae. Meaning here means
_value_, importance. The practical factor is, then, the worth
character of these consequences: they are good or bad; desirable or
undesirable; or merely _nil_, indifferent, in which latter case belief
is idle, the controversy a vain and conventional, or verbal, one.
The term "meaning" and the term "practical" taken in isolation, and
without explicit definition from their specific context and problem,
are triply ambiguous. The meaning may be the conception or definition
of an _object_; it may be the denotative existential reference of an
_idea_; it may be actual value or _importance_. So practical in the
corresponding cases may mean the attitudes and conduct exacted of us
by objects; or the capacity and tendency of an idea to effect changes
in prior existences; or the desirable and undesirable quality of
certain ends. The general pragmatic attitude, none the less, is
applied in all cases.
If the differing problems and the correlative diverse significations
of the terms "meaning" and "practical" are borne in mind, not all will
be converted to pragmatism, but the present uncertainty as to what
pragmatism is, anyway, and the present constant complaints on both
sides of misunderstanding will, I think, be minimized. At all events,
I have reached the conclusion that what the pragmatic movement just
now wants is a clear and consistent bearing in mind of these different
problems and of what is meant by practical in each. Accordingly the
rest of this paper is an endeavor to elucidate from the standpoint of
pragmatic method the importance of enforcing these distinctions.