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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.