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.