In introducing the discussion, I shall first say a word to avoid
possible misunderstandings. It may be objected that such a term as
"practical judgment" is misleading; that the term "practical judgment"
is a misnomer, and a dangerous one, since all judgments by their very
nature are intellectual or theoretical. Consequently, there is a
danger that the term will lead us to treat as judgment and knowledge
something which is not really knowledge at all and thus start us on
the road which ends in mysticism or obscurantism. All this is
admitted. I do not mean by practical judgment a type of judgment
having a different organ and source from other judgments. I mean
simply a kind of judgment having a specific type of subject-matter.
Propositions exist relating to _agenda_--to things to do or be done,
judgments of a situation demanding action. There are, for example,
propositions of the form: M. N. should do thus and so; it is better,
wiser, more prudent, right, advisable, opportune, expedient, etc., to
act thus and so. And this is the type of judgment I denote practical.
It may also be objected that this type of subject-matter is not
distinctive; that there is no ground for marking it off from
judgments of the form _SP_, or _mRn_. I am willing, again, to admit
that such may turn out to be the fact. But meanwhile the prima facie
difference is worth considering, if only for the sake of reaching a
conclusion as to whether or no there is a kind of subject-matter so
distinctive as to imply a distinctive logical form. To assume in
advance that the subject-matter of practical judgments _must_ be
reducible to the form _SP_ or _mRn_ is assuredly as gratuitous as the
contrary assumption. It begs one of the most important questions about
the world which can be asked: the nature of time. Moreover, current
discussion exhibits, if not a complete void, at least a decided lacuna
as to propositions of this type. Mr. Russell has recently said that of
the two parts of logic the first enumerates or inventories the
different kinds or forms of propositions.[78] It is noticeable that he
does not even mention this kind as a possible kind. Yet it is
conceivable that this omission seriously compromises the discussion of
other kinds.
Additional specimens of practical judgments may be given: He had
better consult a physician; it would not be advisable for you to
invest in those bonds; the United States should either modify its
Monroe Doctrine or else make more efficient military preparations;
this is a good time to build a house; if I do that I shall be doing
wrong, etc. It is silly to dwell upon the practical importance of
judgments of this sort, but not wholly silly to say that their
practical importance arouses suspicion as to the grounds of their
neglect in discussion of logical forms in general. Regarding them, we
may say:
1. Their subject-matter implies an incomplete situation. This
incompleteness is not psychical. Something is "there," but what is
there does not constitute the entire objective situation. _As_ there,
it requires something else. Only after this something else has been
supplied will the given coincide with the full subject-matter. This
consideration has an important bearing upon the conception of the
indeterminate and contingent. It is sometimes assumed (both by
adherents and by opponents) that the validity of these notions entails
that the _given_ is itself indeterminate--which appears to be
nonsense. The logical implication is that of a subject-matter as yet
_unterminated_, unfinished, or not wholly given. The implication is of
future things. Moreover, the incompleteness is not personal. I mean by
this that the situation is not confined _within_ the one making the
judgment; the practical judgment is neither exclusively nor primarily
about one's self. On the contrary, it is a judgment about one's self
only as it is a judgment about the situation in which one is included,
and in which a multitude of other factors external to self are
included. The contrary assumption is so constantly made about moral
judgments that this statement must appear dogmatic. But surely the
prima facie case is that when I judge that I should not give money to
the street beggar I am judging the nature of an objective situation,
and that the conclusion about myself is governed by the proposition
about the situation in which I happen to be included. The full,
complex proposition includes the beggar, social conditions and
consequences, a charity organization society, etc., on exactly the
same footing as it contains myself. Aside from the fact that it seems
impossible to defend the "objectivity" of moral propositions on any
other ground, we may at least point to the fact that judgments of
policy, whether made about ourselves or some other agent, are
certainly judgments of a _situation_ which is temporarily unfinished.
"Now is a good time for me to buy certain railway bonds" is a judgment
about myself only because it is primarily a judgment about hundreds of
factors wholly external to myself. If the genuine existence of such
propositions be admitted, the only question about moral judgments is
whether or no they are cases of practical judgments as the latter have
been defined--a question of utmost importance for moral theory, but
not of crucial import for our logical discussion.
2. Their subject-matter implies that the proposition is itself a
factor in the completion of the situation, carrying it forward to its
conclusion. According as the judgment is that this or that should be
done, the situation will, when completed, have this or that
subject-matter. The proposition that it is well to do this is a
proposition to treat the given in a certain way. Since the way is
established by the proposition, the proposition is _a_ determining
factor in the outcome. As a proposition about the supplementation of
the given, it is a factor _in_ the supplementation--and this not as an
extraneous matter, something subsequent to the proposition, but in its
own logical force. Here is found, prima facie at least, a marked
distinction of the practical proposition from descriptive and
narrative propositions, from the familiar _SP_ propositions and from
those of pure mathematics. The latter imply that the proposition does
not enter into the constitution of the subject-matter of the
proposition. There also is a distinction from another kind of
contingent proposition, namely, that which has the form: "He has
started for your house"; "The house is still burning"; "It will
probably rain." The unfinishedness of the given is implied in these
propositions, but it is not implied that the proposition is a factor
in determining their completion.
3. The subject-matter implies that it makes a difference how the given
is terminated: that one outcome is better than another, and that the
proposition is to be a factor in securing (as far as may be) the
better. In other words, there is something objectively at stake in the
forming of the proposition. A right or wrong _descriptive_ judgment (a
judgment confined to the given, whether temporal, spatial, or
subsistent) does not affect its subject-matter; it does not help or
hinder its development, for by hypothesis it has no development. But a
practical proposition affects the subject-matter for better or worse,
for it is a judgment as to the condition (the thing to be done) of the
existence of the complete subject-matter.[79]
4. A practical proposition is binary. It is a judgment that the given
is to be treated in a specified way; it is also a judgment that the
given admits of such treatment, that it admits of a specified
objective termination. It is a judgment, at the same stroke, of
end--the result to be brought about--and of means. Ethical theories
which disconnect the discussion of ends--as so many of them do--from
determination of means, thereby take discussion of ends out of the
region of judgment. If there be such ends, they have no intellectual
status.
To judge that I should see a physician implies that the given elements
of the situation should be completed in a specific way and also that
they afford the conditions which make the proposed completion
practicable. The proposition concerns both resources and
obstacles--intellectual determination of elements lying in the way of,
say, proper vigor, and of elements which can be utilized to get around
or surmount these obstacles. The judgment regarding the need of a
physician implies the existence of hindrances in the pursuit of the
normal occupations of life, but it equally implies the existence of
positive factors which may be set in motion to surmount the hindrances
and reinstate normal pursuits.
It is worth while to call attention to the reciprocal character of the
practical judgment in its bearing upon the statement of means. From the
side of the end, the reciprocal nature locates and condemns utopianism
and romanticism: what is sometimes called idealism. From the side of
means, it locates and condemns materialism and predeterminism: what is
sometimes called mechanism. By materialism I mean the conception that
the given contains exhaustively the entire subject-matter of practical
judgment: that the facts in their givenness are all "there is to it."
The given is undoubtedly just what it is; it is determinate throughout.
But it is the given _of_ something to be done. The survey and inventory
of present conditions (of facts) are not something complete in
themselves; they exist for the sake of an intelligent determination of
what is to be done, of what is required to complete the given. To
conceive the given in any such way, then, as to imply that it negates
in its given character the possibility of any doing, of any
modification, is self-contradictory. As a part of a practical judgment,
the discovery that a man is suffering from an illness is not a
discovery that he must suffer, or that the subsequent course of events
is determined by his illness; it is the indication of a needed and a
possible course by which to restore health. Even the discovery that the
illness is hopeless falls within this principle. It is an indication
not to waste time and money on certain fruitless endeavors, to prepare
affairs with respect to death, etc. It is also an indication of search
for conditions which will render in the future similar cases
remediable, not hopeless. The whole case for the genuineness of
practical judgments stands or falls with this principle. It is open to
question. But decision as to its validity must rest upon empirical
evidence. It cannot be ruled out of court by a dialectic development of
the implications of propositions about what is already given or what
has already happened. That is, its invalidity cannot be deduced from an
assertion that the character of the scientific judgment as a discovery
and statement of what is forbids it, much less from an analysis of
mathematical propositions. For this method only begs the question.
Unless the facts are complicated by the surreptitious introduction of
some preconception, the prima facie empirical case is that the
scientific judgment--the determinate diagnosis--favors instead of
forbidding the doctrine of a possibility of change of the given. To
overthrow this presumption means, I repeat, to discover specific
evidence which makes it impossible. And in view of the immense body of
empirical evidence showing that we add to control of what is given (the
subject-matter of scientific judgment) by means of scientific judgment,
the likelihood of any such discovery seems slight.
These considerations throw light upon the proper meaning of
(practical) idealism and of mechanism. Idealism in action does not
seem to be anything except an explicit recognition of just the
implications we have been considering. It signifies a recognition that
the given is given _as_ obstacles to one course of active development
or completion and _as_ resources for another course by which
development of the situation directly blocked may be indirectly
secured. It is not a blind instinct of hopefulness or that
miscellaneous obscurantist emotionalism often called optimism, any
more than it is utopianism. It is recognition of the increased
liberation and redirection of the course of events achieved through
accurate discovery. Or, more specifically, it is this recognition
operating as a ruling motive in extending the work of discovery and
utilizing its results.
"Mechanism" means the reciprocal recognition on the side of means. It
is the recognition of the import within the practical judgment, of the
given, of fact, in its determinate character. The facts in their
isolation, taken as complete in themselves, are not mechanistic. At
most, they just are, and that is the end of them. They are mechanistic
as indicating the mechanism, the means, of accomplishing the
possibilities which they indicate. Apart from a forward look (the
anticipation of the future movement of affairs) mechanism is a
meaningless conception. There is no sense in applying the conception
to a finished world, to any scene which is simply and only done with.
Propositions regarding a past world, just as past (not as furnishing
the conditions of what is to be done), might be complete and accurate,
but they would be of the nature of a complex catalogue. To introduce,
in addition, the conception of mechanism is to introduce the
implication of possibilities of future accomplishment.[80]
5. The judgment of what is to be done implies, as we have just seen, a
statement of what the given facts of the situation are, taken as
indications of the course to pursue and of the means to be employed in
its pursuit. Such a statement demands accuracy. Completeness is not so
much an additional requirement as it is a condition of accuracy. For
accuracy depends fundamentally upon relevancy to the determination of
what is to be done. Completeness does not mean exhaustiveness _per
se_, but adequacy as respects end and its means. To include too much,
or what is irrelevant, is a violation of the demand for accuracy quite
as well as to leave out--to fail to discover--what is important.
Clear recognition of this fact will enable one to avoid certain
dialectic confusions. It has been argued that a judgment of given
existence, or fact, cannot be hypothetical; that factuality and
hypothetical character are contradictions in terms. They would be if
the two qualifications were used in the same respect. But they are
not. The hypothesis is that the facts which constitute the terms of
the proposition of the given are relevant and adequate for the purpose
in hand--the determination of a possibility to be accomplished in
action. The data may be as factual, as absolute as you please, and yet
in no way guarantee that they are the data _of_ this particular
judgment. Suppose the thing to be done is the formation of a
prediction regarding the return of a comet. The prime difficulty is
not in making observations, or in the mathematical calculations based
upon them--difficult as these things may be. It is making sure that we
have taken as data the observations really implicated in the doing
rightly of this particular thing: that we have not left out something
which is relevant, or included something which has nothing to do with
the further movement of the comet. Darwin's hypothesis of natural
selection does not stand or fall with the correctness of his
propositions regarding breeding of animals in domestication. The facts
of artificial selection may be as stated--in themselves there may be
nothing hypothetical about them. But their bearing upon the origin of
species _is_ a hypothesis. Logically, any factual proposition is a
hypothetical proposition when it is made the basis of any inference.
6. The bearing of this remark upon the nature of the truth of practical
judgments (including the judgment of what is given) is obvious. Their
truth or falsity is constituted by the issue. The determination of
end-means (constituting the terms and relations of the practical
proposition) is hypothetical until the course of action indicated has
been tried. The event or issue of such action _is_ the truth or falsity
of the judgment. This is an immediate conclusion from the fact that
only the issue gives the complete subject-matter. In this case, at
least, verification and truth completely coincide--unless there is some
serious error in the prior analysis.
This completes the account, preliminary to a consideration of other
matters. But the account suggests another and independent question
with respect to which I shall make an excursus. How far is it possible
and legitimate to extend or generalize the results reached to apply to
all propositions of facts? That is to say, is it possible and
legitimate to treat all scientific or descriptive statements of
matters of fact as implying indirectly if not directly, something to
be done, future possibilities to be realized in action? The question
as to legitimacy is too complicated to be discussed in an incidental
way. But it cannot be denied that there is a possibility of such
application, nor that the possibility is worth careful examination. We
may frame at least a hypothesis that all judgments of fact have
reference to a determination of courses of action to be tried and to
the discovery of means for their realization. In the sense already
explained all propositions which state discoveries or ascertainments,
all categorical propositions, would be hypothetical, and their truth
would coincide with their tested consequences effected by intelligent
action.
This theory may be called pragmatism. But it is a type of pragmatism
quite free from dependence upon a voluntaristic psychology. It is not
complicated by reference to emotional satisfactions or the play of
desires.
I am not arguing the point. But possibly critics of pragmatism would
get a new light upon its meaning were they to set out with an
analysis of ordinary practical judgments and then proceed to consider
the bearing of its result upon judgments of facts and essences. Mr.
Bertrand Russell has remarked[81] that pragmatism originated as a
theory about the truth of theories, but ignored the "truths of fact"
upon which theories rest and by which they are tested. I am not
concerned to question this so far as the origin of pragmatism is
concerned. Philosophy, at least, has been mainly a matter of theories;
and Mr. James was conscientious enough to be troubled about the way in
which the meaning of such theories is to be settled and the way in
which they are to be tested. His pragmatism was in effect (as Mr.
Russell recognizes) a statement of the need of applying to philosophic
theories the same kinds of test as are used in the theories of the
inductive sciences. But this does not preclude the application of a
like method to dealing with so-called "truths of fact." Facts may be
facts, and yet not be the facts _of_ the inquiry in hand. In all
scientific inquiry, however, to call them facts or data or truths of
fact signifies that they are taken as the _relevant_ facts of the
inference to be made. _If_ (as this would seem to indicate) they are
then implicated however indirectly in a proposition about what is to
be done, they are themselves theoretical in logical quality. Accuracy
of statement and correctness of reasoning would then be factors in
truth, but so also would be verification. Truth would be a triadic
relation, but of a different sort from that expounded by Mr. Russell.
For accuracy and correctness would both be functions of verifiability.