{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_10970/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_10970","id":"gutenberg_10970","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10970","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Pragmatism"],"text":"PRAGMATISM\n\nBy\n\nD.L. MURRAY\n\nWITH A PREFACE BY DR. F.C.S. SCHILLER\n\n\nPHILOSOPHIES ANCIENT AND MODERN\n\nPRAGMATISM\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n  PREFACE BY DR. F.C.S. SCHILLER\n  I.    THE GENESIS OF PRAGMATISM\n  II.   THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY\n  III.  WILL IN COGNITION\n  IV.   THE DILEMMAS OF DOGMATISM\n  V.    THE PROBLEM OF TRUTH AND ERROR\n  VI.   THE FAILURE OF FORMAL LOGIC\n  VII.  THE BANKRUPTCY OF INTELLECTUALISM\n  VIII. THOUGHT AND LIFE\n  BIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nMr. Murray's youthful modesty insists that his study of Pragmatism needs\na sponsor; this is not at all my own opinion, but I may take the\nopportunity of pointing out how singularly qualified he is to give a\ngood account of it.\n\nIn the first place he is young, and youth is an almost indispensable\nqualification for the appreciation of novelty; for the mind works more\nand more stiffly as it grows older, and becomes less and less capable of\nabsorbing what is new. Hence, if our 'great authorities' lived for ever,\nthey would become complete _Struldbrugs_. This is the justification of\ndeath from the standpoint of social progress. And as there is no subject\nin which _Struldbruggery_ is more rampant than in philosophy, a youthful\nand nimble mind is here particularly needed. It has given Mr. Murray an\neye also to the varieties of Pragmatism and to their connections.\n\nSecondly, Mr. Murray has (like myself) enjoyed the advantage of a\nseverely intellectualistic training in the classical philosophy of\nOxford University, and in its premier college, Balliol. The aim of this\ntraining is to instil into the best minds the country produces an\nadamantine conviction that philosophy has made no progress since\nAristotle. It costs about \u00a350,000 a year, but on the whole it is\nsingularly successful. Its effect upon capable minds possessed of common\nsense is to produce that contempt for pure intellect which distinguishes\nthe British nation from all others, and ensures the practical success of\nadministrators selected by an examination so gloriously irrelevant to\ntheir future duties that, since the lamentable demise of the Chinese\nsystem, it may boast to be the most antiquated in the world. In minds,\nhowever, which are more prone to theorizing, but at the same time\nclear-headed, this training produces a keenness of insight into the\ndefects of intellectualism and a perception of the _intellectual\nnecessity_ of Pragmatism which can probably be reached in no other way.\nMr. Murray, therefore, is quite right in emphasizing, above all, the\nservices of Pragmatism as a rigorously critical theory of knowledge, and\nin refuting the amiable delusion of many pedants that Pragmatism is\nmerely an emotional revolt against the rigors of Logic. It is\nessentially a reform of Logic, which protests against a Logic that has\nbecome so formal as to abstract from meaning altogether.\n\nThirdly, an elementary introduction to Pragmatism was greatly needed,\nless because the subject is inherently difficult than because it has\nbecome so deeply involved in philosophic controversy. Intrinsically it\nshould be as easy to make philosophy intelligible as any other subject.\nThe exposition of a truth is difficult only to those who have not\nunderstood it, or do not desire to reveal it. But British philosophy had\nlong become almost as open as German to the (German) gibe that\n'philosophy is nothing but the systematic misuse of a terminology\ninvented expressly for this purpose,' and Pragmatism, too, could obtain\na hearing only by showing that it could parley with its foes in the\ntechnical language of Kant and Hegel.\n\nHence it had no leisure to compose a fitting introduction to itself for\nstudents of philosophy. William James's _Pragmatism_, great as it is as\na work of genius, brilliant as it is as a contribution to literature,\nwas intended mainly for the man in the street. It is so lacking in the\nfamiliar philosophic catchwords that it may be doubted whether any\nprofessor has quite understood it. And moreover, it was written some\nyears ago, and no longer covers the whole ground. The other writings of\nthe pragmatists have all been too controversial and technical.\n\nThe critics of Pragmatism have produced only caricatures so gross as to\nbe unrecognizable, and so obscure as to be unintelligible. Mr. Murray's\nlittle book alone may claim to be (within its limits) a complete survey\nof the field, simply worded, and yet not unmindful of due technicality.\nIt is also up to date, though in dealing with so progressive a subject\nit is impossible to say how long it is destined to remain so.\n\nF.C.S. SCHILLER.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nTHE GENESIS OF PRAGMATISM\n\nThere is a curious impression to-day in the world of thought that\nPragmatism is the most audacious of philosophic novelties, the most\nanarchical transvaluation of all respectable traditions. Sometimes it is\npictured as an insurgence of emotion against logic, sometimes as an\nassault of theology upon the integrity of Pure Reason. One day it is\ndescribed as the reckless theorizing of dilettanti whose knowledge of\nphilosophy is too superficial to require refutation, the next as a\ntransatlantic importation of the debasing slang of the Wild West. Abroad\nit is frequently denounced as an outbreak of the sordid commercialism of\nthe Anglo-Saxon mind.\n\nAll these ideas are mistaken. Pragmatism is neither a revolt against\nphilosophy nor a revolution in philosophy, except in so far as it is an\nimportant evolution of philosophy. It is a collective name for the most\nmodern solution of puzzles which have impeded philosophical progress\nfrom time immemorial, and it has arisen naturally in the course of\nphilosophical reflection. It answers the big problems which are as\nfamiliar to the scientist and the theologian as to the metaphysician and\nepistemologist, and which are both intelligible and interesting to\ncommon sense.\n\nThe following questions stand out: (1) Can the possibility of knowledge\nbe maintained against Hume and other sceptics? Certainly, if it can be\nshown that 'The New Psychology' has antiquated the analysis of mind\nwhich Hume assumed and 'British Associationism' respectfully continued\nto uphold. (2) Seeing that inclination and volition indisputably play a\npart in the _acceptance_ of all beliefs, scientific and religious, what\nis the logical significance of this fact? This yields the problem 'The\nWill to Believe,' and more generally of 'the place of Will in\ncognition.' (3) Is there no criterion by which the divergent claims of\nrival creeds and philosophies--to be possessed of unconditional\ntruth--can be scientifically tested? The sceptic's sneer, that the\nshifting systems of philosophy illustrate only the changing fashions of\na great illusion about man's capacity for truth, plunges dogmatism into\na 'Dilemma,' from which it can emerge only by finding a way of\ndiscriminating a 'truth' from an 'error,' and so solving the 'problem of\nTruth and Error.' The weird verbalism of the traditional Logic suggests\na problem which strikes deeper even than the question, 'What _do_ you\nmean by truth?' viz.: 'Do you mean anything?' and so the 'problem of\nMeaning' is propounded by the failure of Formal Logic. Is Logic not\nconcerned at all with _meaning_, is it only juggling with empty forms of\nwords? Lastly, if from all this there springs up a conviction of 'The\nBankruptcy of Intellectualism,' the question suggests itself whether the\nrelation between abstract thinking and concrete experience, between\n'Thought' and 'Life,' has been rightly grasped. Is life worth living\nonly for the sake of philosophic contemplation, or is thinking only\nworth doing to aid us in the struggle for life? Are 'theory' and\n'practice' two separate kingdoms with rigid frontiers, strictly guarded,\nor does it appear that theories which cannot be applied have, in the\nend, neither worth, nor truth, nor even meaning?\n\nIt is plain from this catalogue of inquiries that Pragmatism makes no\nabrupt breach in tradition. It is not the _p\u00e9troleuse_ of philosophy. It\ndoes not wipe out the history of speculation in order to announce a\nmillennium of new ideas; it claims, on the contrary, to be the\nculmination and _d\u00e9no\u00fbment_ of that history. It cannot rightly be\nrepresented as trying either to sell new lamps for old, or to\njerry-build a new metaphysical system on the ruins of all previous\nachievements. Its real task is singularly modest. It aims merely at\ninstructing system-builders in the elementary laws which condition the\nstability of such structures and conduce to their conservation.\n\nIt is therefore a grave mistake to regard it as a parochial\neccentricity, as a specific Americanism. Nor is it the product of the\nmisplaced ingenuity of individual paradox-mongers. It has come into\nbeing by the _convergence_ of distinct lines of thought pursued in\ndifferent countries by different thinkers.\n\n1. One of the most interesting of these has originated in the scientific\nworld. The immense growth of scientific knowledge during the last\ncentury was bound to react on human conceptions of scientific procedure.\nThe enormous number of new facts brought to light by manipulating\nhypotheses could not but modify our view of scientific law. Laws no\nlonger seem to scientists the immutable foundations of an eternal order,\nbut are inevitably treated as man-made formulae for grouping and\npredicting the events which verify them. The labours of physicists like\nMach, Duhem, and Ostwald, point to alternative formulations of new\nhypotheses for the best established laws. The physics of Newton are no\nlonger final, and the notion of 'energy' is a dangerous rival to the\nolder conception of 'matter.' It is, of course, indifferent to the\nphilosopher whether the new physics are successful in superseding the\nold or not. What it concerns him to note is that dogmatic confidence in\nthe finality of scientific laws has given place to a belief that our\n\"laws\" are only working formulae for scientific purposes, and that no\nscience can truly boast of having read off the mind of the Deity. As Sir\nJ.J. Thomson neatly puts it, a scientific theory, for the enlightened\nmodern scientist, is a 'policy and not a creed.' Science has become\ncontent to be only 'a conceptual shorthand,' provided that its message\nbe humanly intelligible. It no longer claims truth because abstractly\nand absolutely it 'corresponds with Nature,' but because it yields a\nconvenient means of mastering the flux of events.\n\nEven mathematics, long the pattern of absolute knowledge, has not\nescaped the stigma of relativity. 'Metageometries' have been invented by\nRiemann and Lobatschewski as rivals to the assumptions of Euclid, and\nthe brilliant writings of Poincar\u00e9 have explained the human devices on\nwhich mathematical concepts rest. Euclidean geometry is reduced to a\nuseful interpretation of the data of experience; it is not theoretically\nthe only one. Its superior validity is dependent upon its use when\napplied to the physical world. Even mathematics, therefore, lend\nthemselves to the philosophic inference drawn by Henri Bergson and\nothers, that all conceptual systems of the human mind have a merely\nconditional truth, depending on the circumstances of their application.\n\n2. Another fountain-head of Pragmatic philosophy has been Darwinism.\nIndeed, the Pragmatic is the only philosophizing which has completely\nassimilated Evolution. The insight into the real fluidity of natural\nspecies ought long ago to have toned down the artificial rigidity of\nlogical classifications. To know reality man can no longer rest in a\n'timeless' contemplation of a static system; he must expand his thoughts\nso as to cope with a perpetually changing process. Since the world\nchanges, his 'truths' must change to fit it. He is faced with the\nnecessity of a continuous reconstruction of beliefs. This influence of\nDarwin has inspired the logical theories of Professor Dewey and the\n'Chicago School' of Pragmatists. Thought in their writings is\nessentially the instrument of this readjustment. Its function is to\neffect the necessary changes in beliefs as economically and usefully as\npossible. It is an evolving process which keeps pace with the evolution\nof reality and the changing situations of mortal life.\n\n3. It is not, however, entirely the reaction of science upon philosophy\nwhich has given birth to Pragmatism. Philosophy itself has been rent by\ninternal convulsions. These have been emphasized in the work of Dr.\nF.C.S. Schiller, who has shown that already in the days of Plato the\ndistinction between 'truth' and 'error' was baffling philosophy, that\nPlato's _Theaetetus_ has failed to establish it, and that the famous\ndictum of Protagoras, 'Man is the measure of all things,' distinctly\nforeshadows the 'Pragmatic,' or, as he calls it, the 'Humanist,'\nsolution of the difficulty.\n\nElsewhere Dr. Schiller has commented on the controversies raised by\nHume's criticism of dogmatism. He has shown that Kant failed to answer\nHume because he accepted Hume's psychology, and that no _a priori_\nphilosophers have since been able to devise any consistent and tenable\ndoctrine. The idealistic theories of the 'Absolute' reveal their\nfutility by their want of application to the genuine problems of life,\nand by the theoretic agnosticism from which they cannot escape. Hence\nthe need for a new Theory of Knowledge and a thorough reform of Logic.\n\n4. At this point he joins forces with Mr. Alfred Sidgwick, who has long\nbeen urging a radical criticism of the procedures of Formal Logic, and\nshown the gulf between them and the processes of concrete thought.\nSidgwick has demonstrated that the belief in formal truth renders Logic\nmerely verbal, and that the actual _meaning_ of assertions completely\nescapes it.\n\n5. The most sensational approach to Pragmatism, however, is that from\nthe side of religion. The Pragmatic method of deciding religious\nproblems, which asserts the legitimacy of a 'Faith' that precedes\nknowledge, has always been, more or less consciously, practised by the\nreligious. It is brilliantly advocated in the _Thoughts_ of Pascal, and\nclearly and forcibly defended in that most remarkable essay in\nunprofessional philosophy, Cardinal Newman's _Grammar of Assent_. This\nline of reasoning, however, is most familiarly associated with the name\nof William James; he first illustrated the Pragmatic Method by a famous\npaper (for a theological audience) on _The Will to Believe,_ and founded\nthe psychological study of religious experience in his Gifford Lectures\non _The Varieties of Religious Experience_.\n\n6. This brings us to the last, and historically the most fertile, of the\nsources of Pragmatism, Psychology. The publication in 1890 of James's\ngreat _Principles of Psychology_ opened a new era in the history of that\nscience. More than that, it was destined in the long run to work a\ntransformation in philosophy as a whole, by introducing into it those\nbiological and voluntaristic principles to which he afterwards applied\nthe generic name of Pragmatism, or philosophy of action. We must pass,\nthen, to consider the New Psychology of William James.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nTHE NEW PSYCHOLOGY\n\nUntil the year 1890, when James's _Principles_ were published, the\npsychology of Hume reigned absolutely in philosophy.[A] All empiricists\naccepted it enthusiastically, as the sum of philosophic wisdom; all\napriorists submitted to it, even in supplementing and modifying it by\n'transcendental' and metaphysical additions; in either case it remained\nuncontested _as psychology_, and, by propounding an utterly erroneous\nanalysis of the mind and its experience, entangled philosophy in\ninextricable difficulties.\n\n\n\nHume had, as philosophers commonly do, set out from the practically\nsufficient analysis of experience which all find ready-made in language.\nHe accepted, therefore, from common sense the belief that physical\nreality is composed of a multitude of separate existences that act on\none another, and tried to conceive mental life strictly on the same\nanalogy. His theory of experience, therefore, closely parallels the\natomistic theory of matter. Just as the physicist explains bodies as\ncollections of discrete particles, so Hume reduced all the contents of\nthe mind to a number of elementary sensations. Whether the mind was\nreflecting on its own internal ideas, or whether it was undergoing\nimpressions which it supposed to come from an external source, all that\nwas really happening was a succession of detached sensations. It seemed\nto Hume indisputable that every distinct perception (or 'impression')\nwas a distinct existence, and that all 'ideas' were equally distinct,\nthough fainter, copies of impressions. Beyond impressions and ideas it\nwas unnecessary to look. Thus to look at a chessboard was to have a\nnumber of sensations of black and white arranged in a certain order, to\nlisten to a piece of music was to experience a succession of loud and\nsoft auditory sensations, to handle a stone was to receive a group of\nsensations of touch. To suppose that anything beyond these sensory units\nwas ever really experienced was futile fiction. Experience was a mosaic,\nof which the stones were the detached sensations, and their washed-out\ncopies, the ideas.\n\nIf this analysis of the mind were correct--and its correctness was not\ndisputed for more than a hundred years, for were not the sensations\nadmitted to be the ultimate analysis of all that was perceived?--the\ncommon-sense belief that knowledge revealed a world outside the thinker\nwas, of course, erroneous. For common sense could hardly treat 'things'\nas merely 'sensations' artificially grouped together in space, each\n'thing' being a complex of a number of sensations having relation to\nsimilar complexes. It held rather that the successive appearances of\nthings were related in time, in such a way that they could be supposed\nto reveal a single object able to endure in spite of surface changes,\nand to manifest the identity of its sensory 'qualities.' Similarly, the\nsuccession of ideas within the mind was for it supported by the inward\nunity of the soul within which they arose. Moreover, Hume's analysis\nmade havoc of all idea, of 'causation.' If every sensation was a\nseparate being, how was it to be connected with any other in any regular\nor necessary connection? Two events related as 'cause' and 'effect' must\nbe a myth.\n\nThese subversive consequences of his theory Hume did not conceal, though\nhe did not push his mental 'atomism' to its logical extreme. When he\ndefined material objects as 'coloured points disposed in a certain\norder,' he was in fact admitting space as a relating factor; when he\nspoke of the succession of impressions and ideas in experience, he was\ntacitly assuming that what was apprehended was not a bare succession of\nsensations, but _also_ the fact that they were succeeding one another,\nand so allowing a sense of temporal relation. But further than this he\nrefused to go. The idea of a continuous self was fantastic. There was\nnothing beneath the ideas to connect them. The notion of causal\nconnection was equally chimerical. Each sensation was distinct and\nexisted in its own right. It could therefore occur alone. There was\nnothing to link together the distinct impressions. Hence necessary\nconnection in events could not be more than a fiction of the mind based\non expectation of customary sequences; how the mind he had described as\nnon-existent could form an expectation or observe a sequence was calmly\nleft a mystery.\n\nHume, then, seemed to leave to his successors in philosophy a task of\nsynthesis. He had tumbled the soul off her high watch-tower, but how to\ncombine her shattered fragments again into a working unity he declined\nto say. He saw the sceptical implications of his analysis, but professed\nhimself unable to suggest a remedy.\n\nHe had, however, made the embarrassments of the theory of knowledge\nsufficiently clear for Kant, his most important successor, to hit upon\nthe most obvious palliative, and in the _Critique of Pure Reason_ Kant\nset himself to patch up Hume's analysis. Experience as it came through\nthe channels of sense, he admitted Hume had analysed correctly; it was\n'a manifold,' a whirl of separate sensations. But these _per se_ could\nnot yield knowledge. They must be made to cohere, and the way to do this\nhe had found. The mind on to which they fell was equipped with a\ncomplicated apparatus of faculties which could organize the chaotic\nmanifold of sense and turn it into the connected world which common\nsense and science recognize. First it views the data of sense in the\nlight of its own 'pure intuitions,' and, lo! they are seen to be in\nSpace and Time; then it solidifies them with its own 'categories,' which\nturn them into 'substances' and 'causes' and endow them with all the\nattributes required to sustain that status; finally it refers them all\nto a Transcendental Ego, which is not, indeed, a soul, but sufficiently\nlike one to provide something that can admire the creative synthesis of\n'mind as such.'\n\nHad Hume lived to read Kant's _Critique_, he would probably have jeered\nat the vain complications of Kant's transcendental machinery, and made\nit clear that between the primary manifold of sensation and the first\nconstructions of the intellect there still yawns a gulf which Kant's\nlaboured explanations nowhere bridge.\n\nWhy does the chaotic 'matter' of sensations submit itself so tamely to\nthe forming of the mind? How can the _a priori_ necessities of thought,\nwhich are the 'presuppositions' of the complexities Kant loved, operate\nupon so alien a stuff as the sensations are assumed to be? And, after\nall, was not Kant a bit premature in proclaiming the _finality_ of his\nanalysis and of his refutation of empiricism for all time? The searching\nquestion, Why should the future resemble the past? had received no\nanswer, and so might not the mind itself, with all its categories, be\nsusceptible to change? Was it certain that the miracle whereby the data\npresented to our faculties conformed to them would be a standing one?\nHad not Kant himself as good as admitted that our faculties might\ndistort reality instead of making it intelligible?\n\nThe truth is that at this point Kant is open to a charge against which\nthe assumptions he shared with Hume admit of no defence. Hume had been\nthe first to discover that we are in the habit of trying to rationalize\nour sense-data by putting ideal constructions upon them, though he had\nabstained from sanctifying the practice by a hideous jargon of technical\nterminology. But this way of eking out the facts only seemed to him to\n_falsify_ them. Truth in his view was to be reached by accepting with\ndocility the sensations given from without. To set to work to 'imagine'\nconnections between them, and to claim for them a higher truth, had\nseemed to him an outrage. What right, then, had Kant to legitimate the\nmind's impudence in tampering with sensations? Was not every _a priori_\nform an 'imagination,' and a vain one at that?\n\nTo these objections the Kantian school have never found an answer. They\nhave simply repeated Kant's phrases about the necessary\n'presuppositions' which were to be added to Hume's data. The English\npsychologists (the Mills, Bain, etc.) exhibited a similar fidelity. They\nnever accepted the _a priori_, but relied on 'the association of ideas'\nto build up a mind out of isolated sensations. But was this expedient\nreally thinkable? For if all 'sensations' or qualities are separate\nentities, how can the addition of more 'distinct existences' of the same\nsort really bind them together? If in 'the cat is upon the wall,' 'upon'\nis a distinct entity which has to relate 'cat' and 'wall,' what is to\nconnect 'cat' with 'upon' and 'upon' with 'wall'? The atomizing method\ncarried to its logical extreme demands that not only 'sensations' but\nalso 'thoughts' should be essentially disconnected, and then, of course,\n_no_ thinking can cohere.\n\nPsychology, then, had worked itself to a breakdown by accepting the\n'sensationalistic' analysis offered by Hume, and dragged philosophy with\nit. Yet the escape was as easy as the egg of Columbus to the insight of\ngenius. William James had merely to invert the problem. Instead of\nassuming with Hume that because some experiences seemed to attest the\npresence of distinct objects, all connections were illusory and all\nexperience must ultimately consist of psychical atoms, James had merely\nto maintain that this separation was secondary and artificial, and that\nexperience was initially a continuum. Once this is pointed out, the fact\nis obvious. The stream of experience no doubt contains what it is\nafterwards possible to single out as 'sensations,' but it presents them\nalso as connected by 'relations.' Moreover, the 'sensations' or\n'qualities' and their 'relations' exhibit the immediate indiscerptible\nunity of a fluid rather than a succession of flashes. Temporal and\nspatial relations with all the connections they sustain are perceived\njust as directly as what we come to distinguish as the 'things' in them.\n'Consciousness,' James insists, 'does not appear to itself chopped up in\nbits,' and 'we ought to say a feeling of _and_, a feeling of _if_, a\nfeeling of _but_, and a feeling of _by_, quite as readily as we say a\nfeeling of _blue_ or a feeling of _cold_. All things in experience\nnaturally 'compenetrate,' to use a phrase of Bergson's; they are\ndistinct and they are united at the same time.\n\nThe great crux in Hume is thus seen to be illusory. Immediate experience\ndoes not require 'synthesis': it calls for 'analysis.' It is not a\njigsaw puzzle, to be pieced together without glue: it is a confused\nwhole which has to be divided and set in order for clear thinking.\nHume's mistake was to have started from experience _as partly analysed_\nby common sense, and not from the flux _as given_. His 'sensations' were\nthe qualities already analysed out of the flux; he took these selections\nfor the whole and neglected the other less obvious features in it--viz.,\nthe relations which floated them.\n\nThus the puzzle 'How do \"relations\" relate?' received its solution in\nthis new account of experience. Philosophers are puzzled by this\nquestion because they confuse percepts with concepts. Percepts are\n_given_ in relation; but concepts, being ideal dissections of the\nperceptual flux, are discontinuous terms which have to be related by an\nact of thought, because they were made for this very purpose of\ndistinction. Thus the eye sees cats sitting upon walls, as parts of a\nrural landscape, and without the sharp distinctions which exist between\nthe concepts 'cat,' 'upon,' 'wall.' These ideas were _meant_ to\ndisconnect 'the cat' in thought from the site it sat upon. Thought,\nthen, has _made_ the 'atomism' it professed to find. It has only to\nunmake it, and to allow the distinctions it held apart to merge again\ninto the stream of change.\n\nAll Hume's problems, therefore, are unreal, and those of his apriorist\ncritics are doubly removed from reality. The whole conception of\nphilosophy as aiming at uniting disjointed data in a higher synthesis\nruns counter to the real movement, which aims at the analysis of a given\nwhole. The real question about causation is not how events can be\nconnected causally, but why are certain antecedents preferred and\ndissected out and entitled 'causes.' So the 'self' is not one\n(undiscoverable) item imagined to keep in order a host of other such\nitems. Any given moment of a consciousness is just the mass of its\n'sensations,' but these are consciously the heirs of its history and\nconnected with a past which is remembered. No Transcendental Ego could\ndo more to support the process of experience than is achieved by 'a\nstream of consciousness which carries its own past along.' Here, then,\nis the straight way James desiderated, a critical philosophy which goes,\nnot 'through' the complexities of Kantism, but leaves them on one side\nas superfluous 'curios.'\n\nBut there remains an even more important deduction from the new\npsychology. Hume had been convicted of error in selecting those elements\nof the flux which served his purpose and neglecting the rest. But this\nmistake might reveal the important fact that all analysis was a choice,\nand inspired by volitions. A mind that analyses cannot but be _active_\nin handling its experience. It manipulates it to serve its ends. It\nemphasizes only those portions of the flux which seem to it important.\nIn a better and fairer analysis than Hume's these features will persist.\nIt, too, would be a product of selection, of a selection depending on\nits maker's preferences. As James showed, the distinction between\n'dreams' and 'realities,' between 'things' and 'illusions,' results only\nfrom the differential values we attach to the parts of the flux\naccording as they seem important or interesting to us or not. The\nvolitional contribution is all-pervasive in our thinking. And once this\nvolitional interference with 'pure perception' is shown to be\nindispensable, it must be allowed to be legitimate. Nor can this\napproval of our interference be restricted to selections. It must be\nextended to _additions_. Just as we can select factors from 'the given'\nto construct 'reality,' we can add hypotheses to it to make it\n'intelligible.' We can claim the right of causal analysis, and assume\nthat our dissections have laid bare the inner springs of the connection\nof events. Moreover, to the 'real world which our choice has built out\nof the chaos of 'appearances' we may hypothetically add 'infernal' and\n'heavenly' regions.[B] Both are transformations of 'the given' by the\nwill, but, like the postulate of causal series, experience _may_ confirm\nthem. Kant's _a priori_ activity of the mind may thus in a sense supply\nan answer to Hume--but only in a voluntaristic philosophy which would\nprobably have seemed too bold both to him and to Hume.\n\n\n\nThere can be no doubt that we do not approach the data of perception in\nan attitude of quiescent resignation. Our desires and needs equip us\nwith assumptions and 'first principles,' which originate from within,\nnot from without. But how precisely should this mental contribution to\nknowledge be conceived? In the last chapter of his _Psychology_ James\nsuggested that the mind's organization is essentially biological. It has\nevolved according to sound Darwinian principles, and in so doing the\nfittest of its 'variations' have survived. But were these variations\nquite fortuitous? May they not have been purposive responses to the\nstimulation of environment? Can logic have been invented like saws and\nships for purposes of human service? These are some of the stimulating\nquestions which James's work in _Psychology_ has suggested.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote A: Not in Bradley's \"Logic.\"]\n\n[Footnote B: This is the substance of the doctrine of 'The Will to\nBelieve.']\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nWILL IN COGNITION\n\nThe new psychology of James was bound to produce a new theory of\nknowledge, and though it did not actually explore this problem, it\ncontained several valuable suggestions upon the subject. For instance,\nin a brief passage discussing 'The Relations of Belief and Will,' James\npointed out that belief is essentially an attitude of the will towards\nan idea, adding that in order to acquire a belief 'we need only in cold\nblood act as if the thing in question were real, and keep acting as if\nit were real, and it will infallibly end by growing into such a\nconnection with our life that it will become real' (ii., p. 321). This\npassage is an outline of the doctrine of 'The Will to Believe,' which he\nwas afterwards to develop so forcibly.\n\nAgain, in his last chapter, James criticized the doctrine of Spencer\nthat all the principles of thought, all its general truths and axioms,\nwere derived from impressions of the external world. He argued, on the\nother hand, that such ways of looking at phenomena must originate in the\nmind, and be prior to the experience which confirms them. Without\ndigging further into the character of this mental contribution to\nknowledge, James contented himself with the suggestion that the use of\nthese axiomatic principles might be construed in Darwinian style as a\n'variation' surviving by its fitness, thus introducing into his account\nof mental process the important idea that thinking might be tested by\nits vital value.\n\nWhat if knowledge be neither a dull submission to dictation from without\nnor an unexplained necessity of thought? What if it be a bold adventure,\nan experimental sally of a Will to live, to know and to control reality?\nWhat if its principles were frankly _risky_, and their truth had to be\n_desired_ before it was tested and assured? In a word, what if first\nprinciples were to begin with _postulates?_ Thus the way is paved from\nthe new psychology to a new theory of knowledge. A third alternative to\nthe banal dilemma of 'empiricism' or 'apriorism' suggests itself.\n\nThe old _empiricist_ view, as typified by Mill, was that the mind had\nbeen impressed with all its principles, such as the truths of\narithmetic, the axioms of geometry, and the law of causation, by an\nuncontradicted course of experience, until it generalized facts into\n'laws,' and was enabled to predict a similar future with certainty. But\nthis theory had really been exploded in advance by Hume. Facts do not\n_appear_ as causally connected, nor, if they did, would this guarantee\nthat they will continue to do so in the future. The continuum of\nexperience, we may add, is not _given_ as a series of arithmetical units\nor geometrical equalities, unless we deliberately measure it out in\naccordance with mathematical principles. Empiricism thus gives no real\naccount of the scientific rational order of the world.\n\nBut does it follow from the failure of empiricism that apriorism is\ntrue? This has always been assumed, and held to dispense rationalist\nphilosophers from giving any direct and positive proof that these\nprinciples are _a priori_ truths. But manifestly their procedure is\nlogically far from cogent. If a third explanation can be thought of, it\nwill _not_ follow that apriorism is true. All that follows is that\n_something_ has to be assumed before experience proves it. What that\nsomething is, and whence it comes, remains an open question. Moreover,\napriorism has _not_ escaped from the empirical doubt about the future.\nEven granted that facts now conform to the necessities of our thoughts,\nwhy should they so comport themselves for ever?\n\nLet us, therefore, try a compromise, which ignores neither that which we\nbring to experience (like empiricism), nor that which we gain from\nexperience (like apriorism). This compromise is effected by the doctrine\nof postulation. For though a postulate proceeds from us, and is meant to\nguide thought in anticipating facts, it yet allows the facts to test and\nmould it; so that its working modifies, expands, or restricts its\ndemands, and fits it to meet the exigencies of experience, and permits,\nalso, a certain reinterpretation of the previous 'facts' in order to\nconform them to the postulate.\n\nA postulate thus fully meets the demands of apriorism. It is 'universal'\nin claim, because it is convenient and economical to make a rule carry\nas far as it will go; and it is 'necessary,' because all fresh facts are\non principle subjected to it, in the hope that they will support and\nillustrate it. Yet a postulate can never be accused of being a mere\nsophistication, or a bar to the progress of knowledge, because it is\nalways willing to submit to verification in the course of fresh\nexperience, and can always be reconstructed or abandoned, should it\ncease to edify. A long and successful course of service raises a\npostulate to the dignity of an 'axiom'--_i.e._, a principle which it is\nincredible anyone should think worth disputing--whereas repeated failure\nin application degrades it to the position of a prejudice--_i.e._, an _a\npriori_ opinion which is always belied by its consequences.\n\nA 'postulate' thus differs essentially from the '_a priori_ truth' by\nits dependence upon the will, by its being the product of a free choice.\nWe have always to select the assumptions upon which we mean to act in\nour commerce with reality. We select the rules upon which we go, and we\nselect the 'facts' by which we claim to support our rules, stripping\nthem of all the 'irrelevant' details involved by their position in the\nflux of happenings. Thus we emphasize that side of things which fits in\nwith our expectations, until the facts are 'faked' sufficiently to\nfigure as 'cases' of our 'law.' Postulation and the verifying of\npostulates is thus a process of reciprocal discrimination and selection.\nThe postulate once formulated, we seek in the flux for confirmations of\nit, and thus construct a system of 'facts' which are relative to it;\nthat is how the postulate reacts upon experience. If, on the other hand,\nthis process of selection is unfruitful, and the confirmations of our\nrule turn out infinitesimal, we alter the rule; and thus the 'facts' in\nthe case reject the postulate.\n\nThis continuous process of selection and rejection of 'principles' and\n'facts' has, as we have said, a thoroughly _biological_ tinge. The\nfitness of a postulate to survive is being continually tested. It\nsprings in the first place from a human hope that events may be\nsystematized in a certain way, and it endures so long as it enables men\nto deal with them in that way. If it fails, the formation of fresh\nideals and fresh hypotheses is demanded; but that which causes one\npostulate to prevail over another is always the satisfaction which, if\nsuccessful, it promises to some need or desire. Thus 'thought' is\neverywhere inspired by 'will.' It is an _instrument_, the most potent\nman has found, whereby he brings about a harmony with his environment.\nThis harmony is always something of a compromise. We postulate\nconformity between Nature and one of our ideals. We usually desire more\nthan we can get, but insist on all that Nature can concede.\n\nCausation serves as a good example. Experience as it first comes to us\nis a mere flood of happenings, with no distinction between causal and\ncasual sequences. Clearly our whole ability to control our life, or even\nto continue it, demands that we should _predict_ what happens, and guide\nour actions accordingly. We therefore postulate a right to _dissect_\nthe flux, to fit together selected series without reference to the\nrest. Thus, a systematic network of natural 'laws' is slowly knit\ntogether, and chaos visibly transforms itself into scientific order. The\npostulation of 'causes' is verified by its success. Moreover, it is to\nbe noted that to this postulate there is no alternative. A belief that\nall events are casual would be scientifically worthless. So is a\ndoctrine (still popular among philosophers) that the only true 'cause'\nis the total universe at one moment, the only true 'effect,' the whole\nof reality at the next. For that is merely to reinstate the given chaos\nscience tried to analyse, and to forbid us to make selections from it.\nIt would make prediction wholly vain, and entangle truth in a totality\nof things which is unique at every instant, and never can recur.\n\nThe principles of mathematics are as clearly postulates. In Euclidean\ngeometry we assume definitions of 'points,' 'lines,' 'surfaces,' etc.,\nwhich are never found in nature, but form the most convenient\nabstractions for measuring things. Both 'space' and 'time,' as defined\nfor mathematical purposes, are ideal constructions drawn from empirical\n'space' (extension) and 'time' (succession) feelings, and purged of the\nsubjective variations of these experiences. Nevertheless, geometry\nforms the handiest system for applying to experience and calculating\nshapes and motions. But, ideally, other systems might be used. The\n'metageometries' have constructed other ideal 'spaces' out of postulates\ndiffering from Euclid's, though when applied to real space their greater\ncomplexity destroys their value. The postulatory character of the\narithmetical unit is quite as clear; for, in application, we always have\nto _agree_ as to what is to count as 'one'; if we agree to count apples,\nand count the two halves of an apple as each equalling one, we are said\nto be 'wrong,' though, if we were dividing the apple among two\napplicants, it would be quite right to treat each half as 'one' share.\nAgain, though one penny added to another makes two, one drop of water\nadded to another makes one, or a dozen, according as it is dropped.\nCommon sense, therefore, admits that we may reckon variously, and that\narithmetic does not _apply_ to _all_ things.\n\nAgain, it is impossible to concede any meaning even to the central 'law\nof thought' itself--the Law of Identity ('A is A')--except as a\npostulate. Outside of Formal Logic and lunatic asylums no one wishes to\nassert that 'A is A.' All significant assertion takes the form 'A is B.'\nBut A and B are _different_, and, indeed, no two 'A's' are ever _quite_\nthe same. Hence, when we assert either the 'identity' of 'A' in two\ncontexts, or that of 'A' and 'B,' in 'A is B,' we are clearly _ignoring\ndifferences which really exist--i.e._, we postulate that in spite of\nthese differences A and B will for our purposes behave as if they were\none ('identical'). And we should realize that this postulate is of our\nmaking, and involves a risk. It may be that experience refuses to\nconfirm it, and convicts us instead of a 'mistaken identity.' In short,\n_every identity we reason from is made by our postulating an irrelevance\nof differences_.\n\nThere is thus, perhaps, no fundamental procedure of thought in which we\ncannot trace some deliberately adopted attitude. We distinguish between\n'ourselves' and the 'external' world, perhaps because we have more\ncontrol over our thoughts and limbs, and less, or none, over sticks and\nstones and mountains; fundamental as it is, it is a distinction _within_\nexperience, and is not given ready-made, but elaborated in the course of\nour dealings with it. Similarly, in accordance with its varying degrees\nof vividness, continuity, and value, experience itself gets sorted into\n'realities,' 'dreams,' and 'hallucinations.' In short, when the\nprocesses of discriminating between 'dreams' and 'reality' are\nconsidered, all these distinctions will ultimately be found to be\njudgments of value.\n\nNor is it only in the realm of scientific knowing that postulation\nreveals itself as a practicable and successful method of anticipating\nexperience and consolidating fact. The same method has always been\nemployed by man in reaching out towards the final syntheses which (in\nimagination) complete his vision of reality. The 'truths' of all\nreligions originate in postulates. 'Gods' and 'devils,' 'heavens' and\n'hells,' are essentially demands for a moral order in experience which\ntranscend the given. The value of the actual world is supplemented and\nenhanced by being conceived as projected and continued into a greater,\nand our postulates are verified by the salutary influence they exercise\non our earthly life. Both postulation and verification, then, are\napplicable to the problems of religion as of science. This is the\nmeaning of the Will to Believe. When James first defined and defended\nit, it provoked abundant protest, on the ground that it allowed everyone\nto believe whatever he pleased and to call it 'true.' The critics had\nsimply failed to see that verification by experience is just as integral\na part of voluntaristic procedure as experimental postulation, and that\nJames himself had from the first asserted this. Indeed, that he had\nfirst given a theological illustration of the function of volition in\nknowing was merely an accident. But that the will to believe was capable\nof being generalized into a voluntarist theory of all knowledge was soon\nshown in Dr. Schiller's _Axioms as Postulates_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\nTHE DILEMMAS OF DOGMATISM\n\nEvery man, probably, is by instinct a dogmatist. He feels perfectly sure\nthat he knows some things, and is right about them against the world.\nWhatever he believes in he does not doubt, but holds to be\nself-evidently or indisputably true. His naive dogmatism, moreover,\nspontaneously assumes that his truth is universal and shared by all\nothers.\n\nIf now he could live like a fakir, wholly wrapped in a cloud of his own\nimaginings, and nothing ever happened to disappoint his expectations, to\njar upon his prejudices, and to convict him of error; if he never held\nconverse with anyone who took a different view and controverted him, his\ndogmatism would be lifelong and incurable. But as he lives socially, he\nhas in practice to outgrow it, and this lands him in a serious\ntheoretical dilemma. He has to learn to live with others who differ from\nhim in their dogmatizing. Social life plainly would become impossible\nif all rigidly insisted on the absolute rightness of their own beliefs\nand the absolute wrongness of all others.\n\nSo compromises have to be made to get at a common 'truth.' It must be\nrecognized that not everything which is believed to be 'knowledge' is\nknowledge. In fact, it is safer to assume that none have knowledge,\nthough all think they have; to say fact, men only have 'opinions,' which\nmay be nearer to or farther from 'the truth,' but are not of necessity\nas unquestionable as they seem to be. Out of this concession to the\nsocial life arise three problems. How are 'opinions' to be compared with\neach other, and how is the extent of their 'truth' or 'error' to be\ndetermined? How is the belief in absolute truth to be interpreted and\ndiscounted? How is the penitent dogmatist, once he has allowed doubt to\ncorrupt his self-confidence, to be stopped from doubting all things and\nturning sceptic?\n\nAs regards the first problem, the first question is whether we shall try\nto _test_ opinions and to arrive at a standard of value by which to\nmeasure them by comparing the opinions themselves with one another, or\nshall presume that there must be some absolute standard which alone is\ntruly true, whether we are aware of it or not. The former view is\n_relativism_, the latter is _absolutism_, in the matter of truth.\n\nNow, there can be no doubt that absolutism is more congenial to our\nnatural prejudices. Accordingly it is the method tried first; but it\nsoon conducts dogmatism to an awkward series of dilemmas.\n\n1. If there is absolute truth, who has it? and who can use the absolute\ncriterion of opinions it is supposed to form? Not, surely, everyone who\n_thinks_ he has. It will never do to let every dogmatist vote for\nhimself and condemn all others. That way war and madness lie. Until\nthere is absolute agreement, there cannot be absolute truth.\n\n2. But absolute truth may still be reverenced as an ideal, to save us\nfrom the scepticism to which a complete relativity of truth would lead.\nBut would it save us? If it is admitted that no one can arrogate to\nhimself its possession, what use is it to believe that it is an ideal?\nFor if no one can assume that he has it, all _human_ truth is, in fact,\nsuch as the relativist asserted, and scepticism is just as inevitable as\nbefore. It makes no difference to the sceptical inference whether there\nis no absolute truth, or whether it is unattained by man, and human\nunattainable.\n\n3. It was a mistake, therefore, to admit that opinions cannot be\ncompared together. Some are much more certain than others, and, indeed,\n'self-evident' and 'intuitive.' Let us therefore take these to be\n'truer.' If so, the thinker who feels most certain he is right is most\nlikely to be right.\n\n4. This suggestion will be welcomed by all dogmatists--until they\ndiscover that it does not help them to agree together, because they are\nall as certain as can be. But a critically-minded man will urge against\nit that _'certainty' is a subjective and psychological criterion_, and\nthat no one has been able to devise a method for distinguishing the\nalleged logical from the undeniable psychological certainty. He will\nhesitate to say, therefore, that because a belief seems certain it is\ntrue, and to trust the formal claim to infallibility which is made in\nevery judgment. And when 'intuitions' are appealed to, he will ask how\n'true' intuitions are to be discriminated from 'false,' sound from\ninsane, and inquire to what he is committing himself in admitting the\ntruth of intuitions. He will demand, therefore, the publication of a\nlist of the intuitions which are absolutely true. But he will not get\nit, and if he did, it may be predicted that he would not find a single\none which has not been disputed by some eminent philosopher.\n\n5. Intuitions, therefore, are an embarrassment, rather than a help to\nIntellectualism. It has to maintain both that intuitions are the\nfoundations of all truth and certitude, and also that not all are true.\nBut our natural curiosity as to how these sorts are to be known apart is\nleft unsatisfied. We must not ask which are true, and which not. No one\ncan say in advance about what matters intuitive certainty is possible;\nwhat is, or is not, an intuition is revealed only to reflection after\nthe event. Only if an intuition _has_ played us false, we may be sure it\n_was_ not infallible; it must either have been one of the fallible sort,\nor else no intuition at all.\n\n6. At this point universal scepticism begins to raise its hydra head,\nand to grin at the dogmatist's discomfiture. For in point of fact the\nhistory of thought reveals, not a steady accumulation of indubitable\ntruth, but a continuous strife of opinions, in which the most widely\naccepted beliefs daily succumb to fresh criticism and fall into\ndisrepute as the 'errors of the past.' Nothing, it seems, can guarantee\na 'truth,' however firmly it may be believed for a time, from the\ncorrosive force of new speculation and changed opinion; to survey the\nfield of philosophic dispute, strewn with the remains of 'infallible'\nsystems and 'absolute' certainties, is to be led irresistibly to a\nsceptical doubt as to the competence of human thought. If 'absolute\ntruth' is our ideal and acquaintance with 'absolute reality' our aim,\nthen, in view of the persistent illusions on both these points to which\nthe human mind is liable, it seems necessary to recognize the\nhopelessness of our search. Thus the last dilemma of dogmatism is\nreached. In view of the diversity of human beliefs and the discredit\nwhich has historically fallen on the most axiomatic articles of faith,\nwe must either admit scepticism to be the issue of the debate, or else,\ncondemning our absolute view of truth, find some means of utilizing the\nrelative truths which are all that humanity seems able to grasp. But to\ncome to terms with relativism is to renounce the dogmatic attitude\nentirely, and to approach the problems of philosophy in a totally\ndifferent spirit.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\nTHE PROBLEM OF TRUTH AND ERROR\n\nIt has been shown in the last chapter how urgent has become the problem\nof discriminating between the true and false among relative 'truths.'\nFor absolute truth has become a chimera, self-evidence an illusion, and\nintuition untrustworthy. All three are psychologically very real to\nthose who believe in them, but logically they succumb to the assaults of\na scepticism which infers from the fact that no 'truths' are absolute\nthat all may reasonably be overthrown.\n\nThe only obstacle to its triumph lies in the existence of 'relative'\ntruths which are _not_ absolute, and do not claim to be, and in the\nunexamined possibility that in a relativist interpretation of all truth\na meaning may be found for the distinction between 'true' and 'false.'\nNow, not even a sceptic could deny that the size of an object is better\nmeasured by a yard-measure than by the eye, even though it may be\nmeaningless to ask what its size may be absolutely; or that it is\nprobable that bread will be found more nourishing than stone, even\nthough it may not be a perfect elixir of life. Even if he denied this,\nthe sceptic's _acts_ would convict his _words_ of insincerity, and\n_practically_, at any rate, no one has been or can be a sceptic,\nwhatever the extent of his _theoretic_ doubts.\n\nThis fact is construed by the pragmatist as a significant indication of\nthe way out of the epistemological _impasse_. The 'relative' truths,\nwhich Intellectualism passed by with contempt, may differ in _practical\nvalue_ and lead to the conceptions of _practical truth_ and certainty\nwhich may be better adapted to the requirements of human life than the\nelusive and discredited ideals of absolute truth and certainty, and may\nenable us to justify the distinctions we make between the 'true' and the\n'false. At any rate, this suggestion seems worth following up.\n\nTo begin with, we must radically disabuse our minds of the idea that\nthinking _starts from certainty._ Even the self-evident and\nself-confident 'intuitions' that impress the uncritical so much with\ntheir claim to infallibility are really the results of antecedent doubts\nand ponderings, and would never be enunciated unless there were thought\nto be a dispute about them. In real life thought starts from\nperplexities, from situations in which, as Professor Dewey says, beliefs\nhave to be 'reconstructed,' and it aims at setting doubts at rest. It is\npsychologically impossible for a rational mind to assert what it knows\nto be true, and supposes everyone else to admit the truth of. This is\nwhy even a philosopher's conversation does not consist of a rehearsal of\nall the unchallenged truisms that he can remember.\n\nBeing thus conditioned by a doubt, every judgment is a challenge. It\nclaims truth, and backs its claims by the authority of its maker; but it\nwould be folly to imagine that it thereby becomes _ipso facto_ true, or\nis meant to be universally accepted without testing. Its maker must know\nthis as well as anyone, unless his dogmatism has quite blotted out his\ncommon sense. Indeed, he may himself have given preference to the\njudgment he made over the alternatives that occurred to him only after\nmuch debate and hesitation, and may propound it only as a basis for\nfurther discussion and testing.\n\nInitially, then, every judgment is a _truth-claim_, and this claim is\nmerely _formal_. It does not _mean_ that the claim is absolutely true,\nand that it is impious to question it. On the contrary, it has still to\nbe validated by others, and may work in such a way that its own maker\nwithdraws it, and corrects it by a better. The intellectualist accounts\nof truth have all failed to make this vital distinction between\n'truth-claim' and validated truth. They rest on a _confusion of formal\nwith absolute truth_, and it is on this account that they cannot\ndistinguish between 'truth' and error. For false judgments also formally\nclaim 'truth,' No judgment alleges that it is false.[C]\n\n\n\nOn the other hand, if the distinction between truth-claims and validated\ntruths is made, there ceases to be any _theoretic_ difficulty about the\nconception and correction of errors, however difficult it may be to\ndetect them in practice. 'Truths' will be 'claims' which have worked\nwell and maintained themselves; 'errors,' such as have been superseded\nby better ones. All 'truths' must be _tested_ by something more\nobjective than their own self-assertiveness, and this testing by their\nworking and the consequences to which they lead may go on indefinitely.\nIn other words, however much a 'truth' has been validated, it is always\npossible to test it further. _I.e.,_ it is never theoretically\n'absolute,' however well it may practically be assured. For a\nconfirmation of this doctrine Pragmatism appeals to the history of\nscientific truth, which has shown a continuous correction of 'truths,'\nwhich were re-valued as 'errors,' as better statements for them became\navailable.\n\nIt may also be confirmed negatively by the breakdown of the current\ndefinitions of truth, which all seem in the end to mean nothing.\n\nThe oldest and commonest definition of a 'truth' which is given is that\nit is 'the correspondence of a thought to reality.' But Intellectualism\nnever perceived the difficulties lurking in it. At first sight this\nseems a brave attempt to get outside the circle of thought in order to\ntest its value and to control its vagaries. Unluckily, this theory can\nonly assert, and neither explains nor proves, the connection between the\nthought and the reality it desiderates. For, granting that it is the\nintent of every thought to correspond with reality, we must yet inquire\nhow the alleged correspondence is to be made out. Made out it must be;\nfor as the criterion is quite formal and holds of all assertions, the\nclaim to 'correspond' may be false. To prove the correspondence, then,\nthe 'reality' would have somehow to be known apart from the truth-claim\nof the thought, in order that the two might be compared and found to\nagree. But if the reality were already known directly, what would be\nthe need of asserting an idea of it and claiming 'truth' for this? How,\nmoreover, could the claim be tested, if, as is admitted, the reality is\nnot directly known? To assert the 'correspondence' must become a\ngroundless postulate about something which is defined to transcend all\nknowledge. The correspondence theory, then, does not _test_ the\ntruth-claim of the assertion; it only gives a fresh definition of it. A\n'true' thought, it says, is one which _claims to correspond_ with a\n'reality.' _But so does a false,_ and hence the theory leaves us as we\nwere, puzzled to distinguish them.[D]\n\n\n\nYet the theory is not wholly wrong. Many of our thoughts do claim to\ncorrespond with reality in ways that can be verified. If the judgment\n'There is a green carpet in my hall' is taken to mean 'If I enter my\nhall, I shall _see_ a green carpet,' perception tests whether the\njudgment 'corresponds' with the reality perceived, and so goes to\nvalidate or disprove the claim. But the limits within which this\ncorrespondence works are very strait. It applies only to such judgments\nas are anticipations of perception,[E] and will test a truth-claim only\nwhere there is willingness to act on it. It implies an experiment, and\nis not a wholly intellectual process.\n\n\n\nThe superiority of the 'correspondence' theory over the belief in\n'intuitions' lies in its insistence that thought is not to audit its own\naccounts. Its success or failure depends upon factors external to it,\nwhich establish the truth or falsehood of its claims. No such guarantee\nis offered by the next theory, which is known as the 'consistence' or\n'coherence' theory. In order to avoid the difficulty which wrecked the\n'correspondence' theory, that of making the truth of an assertion reside\nin an inexperienceable relation to an unattainable reality, this view\nmaintains that an idea is true if it is consistent with the rest of our\nthoughts, and so can be fitted with them into a coherent system. No\ndoubt a coherence among our ideas is a convenience and a part of their\n'working,' but it is hardly a test of their objective truth. For a\nharmonious system of thoughts is conceivable which would either not\napply to reality at all, or, if applied, would completely fail. On this\ntheory systematic delusions, fictions, and dreams, might properly lay\nclaim to truth. True, they might not be quite consistent: but neither\nare the systems of our sciences. If, then, this _absolute_ coherence be\ninsisted on, this test condemns our whole knowledge; if not, it remains\nformal, and fails to recognize any distinctions of value in the claims\nwhich can be systematized.\n\nTo avoid this _reductio ad absurdum_, it has been suggested that it is\nnot the coherence of the idea in human, finite, minds which constitutes\n'truth,' but the perfect consistency of the experience of an Absolute\nMind. The test, then, of our limited coherency will lie in its relation\nto this Absolute System. But here we have the correspondence doctrine\nonce again in a fresh disguise; our human systems are now 'true' if they\ncorrespond with the Absolute's, But as there is no way for us of sharing\nthe Absolute Experience, our test is again illusory, and productive of a\ndepressing scepticism; and, again, we have only asserted that truth is\nwhat _claims_ to be part of the Absolute System.\n\nA word may be devoted to the simple refusal of intuitionists to give an\naccount of Truth on the ground that it is 'indefinable.' Truth is taken\nto be an ultimate unanalyzable quality of certain propositions,\nintuitively felt, and incapable of description. Error, by the same\ntoken, should be equally indefinable and as immediately apprehended.\nHow, then, can there be differences of opinion, and mistakes as to what\nis true and what false? How is it that a proposition which is felt to be\n'true' so often turns out to be erroneous? If all errors are felt to be\ntrue by those they deceive, is it not clear that immediate feeling is\nnot a good enough test of a validated truth? Thus, once again, we find\nthat an account of truth-claim is being foisted on us in place of a\ndescription of truth-testing.\n\nThe intellectualist, then, being in every case unable to justify the\nvital distinction commonly made between the true and the false, we\nreturn to the pragmatist. He starts with no preconceptions as to what\ntruth must mean, whether it exists or not; he is content to watch how\n_de facto_ claims to truth get themselves validated in experience. He\nobserves that every question is intimately related to some scheme of\nhuman purposes. For it has to be _put_, in order to come into being.\nHence every inquiry arises, and every question is asked, because of\nobstacles and problems which arise in the carrying out of human\npurposes. So soon as uncertainty arises in the course of fulfilling a\npurpose, an idea or belief is formulated _and acted on_, to fill the gap\nwhere immediate certitude has broken down. This engenders the\ntruth-claim, which is necessarily a 'good' in its maker's eyes, because\nit has been selected by him and judged _preferable_ to any alternative\nthat occurred to him.\n\nHow, then, is it tested? Simply by the consequences which follow from\nadopting it and using it as an assumption upon which to work. If these\nconsequences are satisfactory, if they promote the purpose in hand,\ninstead of thwarting it, and thus have a valuable effect upon life, then\nthe truth-claim maintains its 'truth,' and is so far validated. This is\nthe universal method of testing assertions alike in the formation of\nmathematical laws, physical hypotheses, religious beliefs, and ethical\npostulates. Hence such pragmatic aphorisms as 'truth is useful' or\n'truth is a matter of practical consequences' mean essentially that all\nassertions must be _tested by being applied to a real problem of\nknowing._ What is signified by such statements is that no 'truth' must\nbe accepted merely on account of the insistence of its claim, but that\nevery idea must be tested by the consequences of its working. Its truth\nwill then depend upon those consequences being fruitful for life in\ngeneral, and in particular for the purpose behind the particular inquiry\nin which it arose. Truth is a _value_ and a satisfaction; but\n'intellectual satisfaction' is not a morbid delight in dialectical and\nverbal juggling: it is the satisfaction which rewards the hard labour of\nrationalizing experience and rendering it more conformable with human\ndesires.\n\nIt should be clear, though it is often misunderstood, that there is\nnothing arbitrary or 'subjective' in this method of testing beliefs. It\ndoes not mean that we are free to assert the truth of every idea which\nseems to us pretty or pleasant. The very term 'useful' was chosen by\npragmatists as a protest against the common philosophic licence of\nalleging 'truths' which could never be applied or tested, and were\nsupposed to be none the worse for being 'useless.' It is clear both that\nsuch 'truths' must be a monopoly of Intellectualism, and also that they\ndo allow every man to believe whatever he wishes, provided only that he\nboldly claims 'self-evidence' for his idiosyncrasy. In this purely\nsubjective sense, into which Intellectualism is driven, it is, however,\nclear that there can be no useless ideas. For any idea anyone decided to\nadopt, because it pleased or amused him, would be _ipso facto_ true.\nPragmatism, therefore, by refuting 'useless' knowledge, shows that it\ndoes _not_ admit such merely subjective 'uses.' It insists that ideas\nmust be more objectively useful--viz., by showing ability to cope with\nthe situation they were devised to meet. If they fail to harmonize with\nthe situation they are untrue, however attractive they may be. For ideas\ndo not function in a void; they have to work in a world of fact, and to\nadapt themselves to all facts, though they may succeed in transforming\nthem in the end.\n\nNor has an idea to reckon only with facts: it has also to cohere with\nother ideas. It must be congruous with the mass of other beliefs held\nfor good reasons by the thinker who accepts it. For no one can afford to\nhave a stock of beliefs which conflict too violently with those of his\nfellows. If his 'intuitions' contrast too seriously with those of\nothers, and he acts on them, he will be shut up as a lunatic. If, then,\nthe 'useful' idea has to approve itself both to its maker and his\nfellows without developing limitations in its use, it is clear that a\npragmatic truth is really far less arbitrary and subjective than the\n'truths' accepted as absolute, on the bare ground that they seem\n'self-evident' to a few intellectualists.\n\nIf, however, it be urged that pragmatic truths never grow absolutely\ntrue at all, and that the most prolonged pragmatic tests do not exclude\nthe possibility of an ultimate error in the idea, there is no difficulty\nabout admitting this. The pragmatic test yields _practical_, and not\n'absolute,' certainty. The existence of absolute certainty is denied,\nand the demand for it, in a world which contains only the practical\nsort, merely plays into the hands of scepticism. The uncertainty of all\nour verificatory processes, however, is not the creation of the\npragmatist, nor is he a god to abolish it. Abstractly, there is always a\ndoubt about what transcends our immediate experience, and this is why it\nis so healthy to have to repudiate so many theoretic doubts in every act\nwe do. For beliefs have to be acted on, and the results of the action\nrightly react on the beliefs. The pragmatic test is practically\nadequate, and is the only one available. That it brings out the risk of\naction only brings out its superiority to a theory which cannot get\nstarted at all until it is supplied with absolute certainty, and\nmeantime can only idly rail at all existing human truths.\n\nWe have in all this consistently referred the truth of ideas to\nindividual experiences for verification. This evidently makes all truths\nin some sense dependent upon the personality of those who assert and\naccept them. Intellectualist logic, on the other hand, has always\nproclaimed that mental processes, if true, are 'independent' of the\nidiosyncrasies of particular minds. Ideas have a _fixed_ meaning, and\ncohere in bodies of 'universal' truth, quite irrespective of whether any\nparticular mind harbours them or not. This is not only a contention\nfatal to the pragmatic claims, but also bound up with other assumptions\nof Formal Logic. So it becomes necessary to inquire whether this Logic\nis a success, and so can coherently abstract from the personality of the\nknower and the particular situations that incite him to know.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote C: Not even 'I lie,' which is meaningless as it stands, _Cf._\nDr. Schiller's _Formal Logic_, p. 373.]\n\n[Footnote D: This same difficulty reappears in various forms, as _e.g._,\nin a recent theory which makes the truth of a judgment lie in its\nasserting a relation between different objects, and not in the existence\nof those objects themselves. This formula also applies as evidently to\nfalse judgments as to true. It, too, brings no independent evidence of\nthe existence of the objects referred to, and might fall into error\nthrough asserting a relation between objects which did not exist. It is,\nmoreover, incapable of showing that a relation corresponding to the idea\nwe have of it really exists when we judge that it does.]\n\n[Footnote E: Each perception, however, contains much that is supplied by\nthe mind, not 'given' to it.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\nTHE FAILURE OF FORMAL LOGIC\n\nIn order to escape the necessity of concerning itself with personality\nand particular circumstances in questions of truth and error,\nIntellectualism appeals to Logic, which it conceives as a purely formal\nscience and its impregnable citadel. This appeal, however, rests on a\nnumber of questionable assumptions, and most of these are not avowed.\n\n1. It assumes that forms of thought can be treated in abstraction from\ntheir matter--in other words, that the general types of thinking are\nnever affected by the particular context in which they occur. Now, this\nmeans that the question of real truth must not be raised; for, as we\nhave seen (Chapter V.), real truth is always an affair of particular\nconsequences. The result is, that as truth-claims are no longer tested,\nthey _all pass as true_ for Logic, and are even raised to the rank of\n'absolute truths,' or are mistaken for them. For the notion of a really\n('materially') true judgment which someone has chosen, made, and tested,\nthere is substituted that of a formally valid proposition, and in the\nend Logic gets so involved in the study of 'validity' that it puts aside\naltogether all real tests of truth, and becomes a game with verbal\nsymbols which is entirely irrelevant to scientific thinking.\n\n2. Formal Logic assumes the right of abstracting from the whole process\nof making an assertion. It presumes that the assertion has already been\nmade somehow. How, it does not inquire. Yet it is clear that in each\ncase there were concrete reasons why just _that_ assertion was preferred\nto any other. These concrete reasons it makes bold to dismiss as\n'psychological,' and between 'logic' and 'psychology'[F] it decrees an\nabsolute divorce. Where, when, why, by and to whom, an assertion was\nmade, is taken to be irrelevant, and put aside as 'extralogical.'\n\n\n\n3. This convenient assumption, however, ultimately necessitates an\nabstraction from meaning, though Formal Logic does not avow this openly.\nEvery assertion is meant to convey a certain meaning in a certain\ncontext, and therefore its verbal 'form' has to take on its own\nindividual _nuance_ of meaning. What any particular form of words does\nin fact mean on any particular occasion always depends upon the use of\nthe words in a particular context. Meaning, therefore, cannot be\ndepersonalized; if meanings are depersonalized, they cease to be real,\nand become verbal.\n\nFormal Logic has, in fact, mistaken _words_, which are (within the same\nlanguage) identical on all occasions, for the _thoughts_ they are\nintended to express, which are varied to suit each occasion. Words alone\nare tolerant of the abstract treatment Formal Logic demands. This\n'science,' therefore, finally reduces to mere verbalism, distracted by\ninconsistent relapses into 'psychology.'\n\nBut will this conception of Logic either work out consistently in itself\nor lead to a tenable theory of scientific thinking? Emphatically not.\nWhat is the use of a logic which (1) cannot effect the capital\ndistinction of all thought, that between the true and the false? (2) is\ndebarred by its own principles from considering the _meaning_ of any\nreal assertion? and (3) is thus tossed helplessly from horn to horn of\nthe dilemma 'either verbalism or psychology'?\n\nWe may select a few examples of this fatal dilemma.\n\n1. In dealing with what it calls 'the meaning' of terms, propositions,\netc., Formal Logic has always to choose between the meaning of the\n_words_ and the meaning of the _man_. For it is clear that words which\nmay be used ambiguously may on occasion leave no doubt as to their\nmeaning, while conversely all may become 'ambiguous' in a context. If,\ntherefore, the occasion is abstracted from, all forms must be treated\nverbally as ambiguous formulae, which may be used in different senses.\nIf it is, nevertheless, attempted to deal with their actual meaning on\nany given occasion, what its maker meant the words to convey must be\ndiscovered, and the inquiry at once becomes 'psychological'--that is to\nsay, 'extralogical.'\n\n2. If judgments are not to be verbal ('propositions'), but real\nassertions which are actually meant, they must proceed from personal\nselections, and must have been chosen from among alternative\nformulations because of their superior value for their maker's purpose.\nBut all this is plainly an affair of psychology. So inevitable is this\nthat a truly formal Ideal of 'Logic' would exclude all judgment whatever\nfrom the complete system of 'eternal' Truth. For from such a system no\npart could be rightly extracted to stand alone. Such a selection could\nbe effected and justified only by the exigencies of a human thinker.\n\nThe impotent verbalism of the formal treatment of judgment appears in\nanother way when the question is raised _how_ a 'true' judgment is to be\ndistinguished from a 'false.' For the logician, if his public will not\naccept either the relegation of this distinction to 'psychology' or the\nproper formal answer that _all_ judgments are (formally) 'true' and even\n'infallible,' can think of nothing better to say than that if the\n'judgment' is not true it was not a 'true judgment,' but a false\n'opinion' which may be abandoned to 'psychology.'[G] Apparently he is\nnot concerned to help men to discriminate between 'judgments' and\n'opinions,' or even to show that true 'judgments' do in fact occur.\n\n\n\n3. Inference involves Formal Logic in a host of difficulties.\n\n_(a)_ If it is not to be a verbal manipulation of phrases whose coming\ntogether is not inquired into, it must be a connected train of thought.\nBut such a connection of thoughts cannot be conceived or understood\nwithout reference to the purpose of a reasoner, who _selects_ what he\nrequires from the totality of 'truths.' If, then, 'Logic' has merely to\ncontemplate this eternal and immutable system of truth in its integrity,\nand forbids all selection from it for a merely human purpose, how can it\neither justify, or even understand, the drawing of any inference\nwhatever?\n\n(_b_) Formal Logic clearly will not quail before the charge of\nuselessness. But on its own principles it ought to be consistent. But by\nthis test also, when it is rigorously judged by it, it fails completely.\nIts inconsistencies are many and incurable. It cannot even be consistent\nin its theory of the simplest fundamentals. It is found upon some\noccasions to define judgment as that which may be _either_ true _or_\nfalse; and upon others as that which is 'true' (formally)--_i.e._, it\ncannot decide whether or not to ignore the existence of error.\n\n(_c_) The Formal view of inference regards it as a 'paradox.' An\ninference is required on the one hand to supply fresh information, and\non the other to follow rigorously from its premisses; it must, in a\nword, exhibit both _novelty_ and _necessity_. It would seem, however,\nthat if our inference genuinely had imparted new knowledge, the event\nmust be merely psychological; for how can any process or event perturb,\nor add to, the completed totality of truth in itself? On the other hand,\nif the 'necessity' of the operation be taken seriously, the 'inference'\nbecomes illusory; for if the conclusion inferred is already contained\nin the premisses, what sense is there in the purely verbal process of\ndrawing it out?\n\n(_d_) Most glaringly inadequate of all, however, is the Formal doctrine\nof 'Proof' contained in its theory of the Syllogism. A Formal or verbal\nsyllogism depends essentially on the ability of its Middle Term to\nconnect the terms in its conclusion. If, however, the Middle Term has\nnot _the same_ meaning in the two premisses, the syllogism breaks in\ntwo, and no 'valid' conclusion can be reached. Now, whether in fact any\nparticular Middle Term bears the same meaning in any actual reasoning\nFormal Logic has debarred itself from inquiring, by deciding that actual\nmeaning was 'psychological.' It has to be content, therefore, with an\nidentity _in the word_ employed for its Middle, But this evidence may\nalways fail; for when two premisses which are (in general) 'true' are\nbrought together for the purpose of drawing a particular conclusion, a\nglaring falsehood may result. _E.g._, it would in general be granted\nthat 'iron sinks in water,' yet it does not follow that because 'this\nship is iron' it will 'sink in water,' Hence syllogistic 'proof' seems\nquite devoid of the 'cogency' it claimed. After a conclusion has been\n'demonstrated' _it has still to come true in fact_. This flaw in the\nSyllogism was first pointed out by Mr. Alfred Sidgwick.\n\n(_e_) The formal Syllogism, moreover, conceals another formal flaw. An\ninfinite regress lurks in its bosom. For if its premisses are disputed,\nthey must in turn be 'proved.' Four fresh premisses are needed, and if\nthese again are challenged, the number of true premisses needed to prove\nthe first conclusion goes on doubling at every step _ad infinitum_. The\nonly way to stop the process that occurred to logicians was an appeal to\nthe 'self-evident' truth of 'intuitions'; but this has been shown to be\nargumentatively worthless. From this difficulty the pragmatist alone\nescapes, by assuming his premisses _provisionally_ and arguing\n_forwards_, in order to test them by their consequences. If the deduced\nconclusion can be verified in fact, the premisses grow more assured.\nThus every real inference is an experiment, and 'proof' is an affair of\ncontinuous trial and verification--not an infinite falling back upon an\nelusive 'certainty,' but an infinite reaching forwards towards a fuller\nconsummation.\n\n(_f_) So long as the logician regards his premisses not as hypotheses to\nbe tested, but as established truths, he must condemn the Syllogism as a\nformal fallacy. It is inevitably a _petitio principii_. If the argument\n'All men are mortal; Smith is a man, therefore Smith is mortal,' means\nthat we know, before drawing our inference, that literally all men are\nmortal, we must already have discovered that Smith is mortal; if we did\nnot know beforehand that Smith is mortal, we were not justified in\nstating that _all_ men are mortal. Nor is it an escape to interpret 'All\nmen are mortal' to mean that immortals are excluded from 'man' by\ndefinition. For then the question is merely begged in the minor premiss.\nThat 'Smith is a man' cannot be asserted without assuming that he is\nmortal. If, lastly, 'All men are mortal' be taken to state a law of\nnature conjoining inseparably mortality and humanity, the logician\neither already knows that Smith is rightly classed under the species\n'man,' and so subject to its mortality, or else he _assumes_ this. But\nhow does he know Smith is not like Elijah or Tithonus, a peculiar case,\nto which for some reason the law does not apply? Will he declare it to\nbe 'intuitively certain' that whatever is called, or looks like, a case\nof a 'law' _ipso facto_ becomes one?\n\nThe logician's analysis of reasoning, then, breaks down. In whichever\nway he interprets the Syllogism it is revealed as either a superfluity\nor a fallacy: it is never a 'formally valid inference' that can compel\nassent. But common sense is undismayed by the pragmatist's discovery\nthat if the Syllogism is to have any sense its premisses _must_ be taken\nas disputable; for, unlike Formal Logic, it has perceived that men do\nnot reason about what they think they know for certain, but about\nmatters in dispute.\n\n4. It is not necessary to dwell at length on the futility of the formal\nnotion of Induction. Formal Induction presupposes that enough particular\ninstances have been collected to establish a general rule; but in actual\npractice inductions always repose, not on indiscriminate observation,\nbut on a _selection of relevant instances_, and never claim to be based\nupon an _exhaustive_ knowledge of particulars. Hence _in form_ the most\nsatisfactory induction is always incomplete, and differs in no wise from\na bad one. 'All bodies fall to the ground' is an induction which has\nworked. 'All swans are white' broke down when black swans were\ndiscovered in Australia. The validity of an induction, then, is not a\nquestion of form.\n\nThe necessity for such selection no intellectualist theory of Induction\nhas understood. All have aimed at exhaustiveness, and imagined that if\nit could be attained, inductive reasoning would be rendered sound, and\nnot impossible. Their ideal 'cause' was the totality of reality,\nidentified with its 'effect,' in a meaningless tautology. Nothing but\nvoluntarism can enable logicians to see that our actual procedure in\nknowing is the reverse of this, that causal explanation is the\n_analysis_ of a continuum, and that 'phenomena,' 'events,' 'effects,'\nand 'causes' are all creations of our selective attention; that in\nselecting them we run a risk of analyzing falsely, and that if we do,\nour 'inductions' will be worthless. But whether they are right or wrong,\nvaluable or not, real reasoning from 'facts' can never be a 'formally\nvalid' process.\n\nWe are thus brought to see the hollowness of the contention that 'Pure\nReason' can ignore its psychological context and dehumanize itself. A\nthought, to be thought at all, must seem _worth_ thinking to someone, it\nmust convey the meaning he intends, it must be true in his eyes and\nrelevant to his purposes in the situation in which it arises--_i.e._, it\nmust have a motive, a value, a meaning, a purpose, a context, and be\nselected from a greater whole for its relevance to these. None of these\nfeatures does intellectualist logic deign to recognize. For if truth is\nabsolute and not relative, it is all or nothing. Yet no actual thinking\nhas such transcendent aims. It is content with selections relative to a\nconcrete situation. If it were permissible to diversify a\ndebate--_e.g._, about the authorship of the _Odyssey_--by an irruption\nof undisputed truths--_e.g._, a recitation of the multiplication\ntable--how would it be possible to distinguish a philosopher from a\nlunatic?\n\nFormal Logic is either a perennial source of errors about real thinking,\nor at best an aimless dissection of a _caput mortuum--i.e._, of the\nverbal husks of dead thoughts, whose value Formal Logic could neither\nestablish nor apprehend, A real Logic, therefore, would most anxiously\navoid all the initial abstractions which have reduced Formal Logic to\nsuch impotence, and would abandon the insane attempt to eliminate the\nthinker from the theory of thought.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote F: The descriptive science of thought, in its concrete\nactuality in different minds.]\n\n[Footnote G: The most popular contribution which Oxford makes just now\nto the theory of Error is, 'A judgment which is erroneous is not really\na judgment.' So when a professor 'judges' he is infallible--by\ndefinition!]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\nTHE BANKRUPTCY OF INTELLECTUALISM\n\nWe have now struggled through the quagmires of intellectualist\nphilosophy, and found that neither in its Psychology, which divided the\nmind's integrity into a heap of faculties, and comminuted it into a\ndust-cloud of sensations; nor in its Epistemology, which ignored the\nwill to know and the value of knowing; nor in its Logic, which\nabstracted thought wholly from the thinking and the thinker, and so\nfinally from, all meaning, could man find a practicable route of\nphilosophic progress. But our struggles will not have been in vain if\nthey have left us with a willingness to try the pragmatist alternative,\nand convinced us that it is not a wanton innovation, but the only path\nof salvation for the scientific spirit.\n\nBut before we venture on it, it will be well to restore confidence in\nthe solvency of human thought by analysing the causes of the bankruptcy\nof Intellectualism and exposing the extravagance of the assumptions\nwhich conducted to it.\n\nWas it not, after all, an unwarranted assumption that severed the\nintellect from its natural connection with human activity? No doubt it\nseemed to simplify the problem to suppose that the functioning of the\nintellect could be studied as a thing apart, and unrelated to the\ngeneral context of the vital functions. Again, it was to simplify to\nassume that thought could be considered apart from the personality of\nthe human thinker. But it should not have been forgotten that it is\npossible to pay too dearly for simplifications and abstractions, and\nthat they all involve a risk, which the event may show should never have\nbeen taken. So it is in this case. Its rash assumptions confront\nIntellectualism with a host of problems it cannot attack. It can do\nnothing to assuage the conflict of opinions which all claim truth with\nequal confidence. It cannot understand the correction of error which is\ncontinually proceeding. Nor can it understand, either the existence of\nerror or the meaning of truth, or the means of distinguishing between\nthem. It has no means of testing and confuting even the wildest and\nmaddest assertions. It cannot discriminate between the intuitions of the\nsage and of the lunatic. It is forced to view energy of will in knowing\nas a source merely of corruption, and when it finds that as a psychic\nfact willing is ineradicable, it must conclude that we are\nconstitutionally incapable of that passive reflection of reality which\nit regards as the _sine qua non_ of truth. Hence, if disinterestedness\nis the condition of knowing, knowledge is impossible. And it is so\nentangled in its unintelligible theory of truth as a copying of reality\nthat, rather than renounce it, when it finds that human knowing is _not_\ncopying, it prefers a surrender to Scepticism.\n\nYet is not its whole procedure a signal example of human arbitrariness\nand perversity? We professed to be impelled by logical necessity at\nevery step, but were free to escape from all our perplexities by\nadopting the pragmatic inferences from them. The Pragmatic Method of\nobserving the consequences readily suggests the means of discriminating\nbetween truth and error, of sifting values and of testing claims. And,\nthough not infallible, it is adequate to all our needs. The pragmatic\nnotion that _Truth is practical_ closes the artificial gulf between the\ntheoretic and the practical side of life, and assigns to truth a\nbiological function and vital value. The humanist contention that _Truth\nis human_ rescues man from the despondency in which his failure to grasp\nabsolute truth had left him. The Protagorean dictum that _Man is the\nmeasure of all things_ assures him that _his_ knowledge may become\nadequate to _his_ reality, and that the value of truths and the\ndifferences between truth and error also are susceptible of estimation.\n\nTrue, this policy averts the bankruptcy of the intellect by scaling down\nthe intolerable charges on it. True, practical knowledge is not\nabsolute; but if it is enough to live by, is it not better to live by it\nthan to be lured on to perish in the deserts of Scepticism by the\n_mirage_ of an absolute truth not humanly attainable? True, verification\nis not 'proof,' but as its conclusions are not incorrigible, its defects\nare not fatal, and its demands are not impracticable. True, no truth and\nno reality are wholly 'objective,' in the sense of wholly indifferent to\nour action; but to say that the human and 'subjective' factor in all\nknowledge must be taken into account does not preclude our apprehending\nand measuring an 'objective' world as real as, and more knowable than,\nany other theory can offer.\n\nThus the proposals of Pragmatism for reconstructing the business of the\nintellect, and rescuing it from the bankruptcy of Intellectualism, are\nnot unreasonable. They open out to it a prospect of recovering its\ncredit and its usefulness by returning to the service of Life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n\nTHOUGHT AND LIFE\n\nThe mission of Pragmatism is to bring Philosophy into relation to real\nLife and Action. So far from regarding Thought as a self-centred,\nself-enclosed activity, Pragmatism insists upon replacing it in its\ncontext among the other functions of life, and in measuring its value by\nits effect upon them. So far, again, from regarding the abstract\nintellect as a vast Juggernaut machine which absorbs and crushes the\nindividual thinker, it treats him individually as having his own\nconstitution, _raison d'\u00eatre,_ and intrinsic interest, and credits him\nwith a power to make new truths and to enrich the resources of thought.\nEach thinker has before him an individual situation, a system of aims\nand values, a stock of knowledge and of means from which he must select\nwhat is relevant to his ends, and so cannot escape in any judgment from\nthe responsibilities of a personal decision.\n\nThus, for Pragmatism _every thought is an act_ with a person behind it,\nwho is responsible for launching it into the world of fact. The result\nof this change of attitude is immediate. In the first place, as has been\nshown in Chapter V., by bringing thought face to face with the whole\nexperience upon which it claims to work, we are enabled to find a\ntangible rule for evaluating its assertions and distinguishing truth\nfrom error. And, secondly, by recognizing that the mind is not an\napparatus which functions in a vacuum, but is a constituent of an\nindividual organism, we see that thinking always depends upon a purpose;\nfor it is the purpose of an inquiry which gives reflection its cue, and\ndetermines its scope and (most essential of all) its meaning.\n\nWe are thus led from the narrower logical question, 'What constitutes\nthe \"truth\" of a statement?' to a wider outlook, from which we can\nsurvey the place of knowing in human life at large. This may be called\nthe transition from Pragmatism to Humanism. This last word was\nintroduced into philosophic terminology by Dr. Schiller in order to\ndescribe his general philosophical position as distinct from the\noriginal question of the theory of knowledge, which had been treated by\nJames under the name of Pragmatism.\n\nTo the Humanist the best definition of life is one which displays it as\nthroughout purposive, as a rational pursuit of ends. This raises the\nquestion of the validity of valuations. Valuation is a widespread human\npractice. In their most general aspect we classify all objects as 'good'\nand 'bad,' according as they are ends to be pursued or avoided, or means\nwhich further or frustrate the pursuit of ends. This general antithesis\nbetween the 'good' and the 'bad' has numerous specific forms, applicable\nto different departments of human activity. Thus, in conduct, actions\nare judged 'good' or 'evil' and 'right' or 'wrong'; in thinking, ideas\nare 'true' or 'false,' and 'relevant' or 'irrelevant'; for art, objects\nare 'beautiful' or 'ugly,' and so forth, for the modes of valuation in\nlife are innumerable. Any one of these adjectives either denotes value\nor censures lack of worth, and each gets its meaning by reference to the\nspecific purpose, moral, aesthetic, or intellectual, it appeals to. The\n_summum bonum_, or supreme good, will then be the ideal of the\nharmonious satisfaction of all purposes.\n\nWhat, then, from the standpoint of Humanism, is the function of\n'truth-values' in our life? They indicate a relation to the cognitive\nend. What is this end? Surely not self-sufficing? A truth that is merely\ntrue in itself has no interest for human life, and no human mind has an\ninterest in discovering and affirming it. Truth, therefore, cannot\nstand aloof from life. It must somehow subserve our vital purposes. But\nhow shall it do this? Only by becoming applicable to the reality we have\nto live with, by becoming useful for the changes we desire to effect in\nit. Whoever will not admit this, and renders truth inapplicable, does in\nfact render it unmeaning.\n\nThe fact that thought essentially refers to a 'reality' external to it\nin no way diminishes its purposive character. Whether the mind is\nidealizing an aspect of reality (as in mathematics) or abstracting,\nclassifying, and predicting (as in science), it is always the fact that\na particular kind of reality is needed for some serious or trivial\npurpose which guides the operations of the thinker. A mind which craved\nto embrace all or 'any' reality need not _think_; it would do better to\nfloat without discrimination upon the flux of change. This procedure\nwould be so absolutely antithetical to human knowing that it seems a\nwanton paradox on that account to treat it as the final goal of\nknowledge.\n\nActually, of course, the philosophers who claim to be devoted to pure\ntheory follow no such course. They deliberately choose their ideal of\nwhat is worth knowing--_e.g._, 'God,' or 'the unity of all things,' or\n'the laws of the universe'--and, disregarding all other existences,\nthey pursue the kind of reality they desire because of its religious or\nmoral or aesthetic value. For there could be no greater mistake than to\nsuppose that the common antithesis between 'reality' and the 'un-real'\nusually means the same thing as the distinction between what 'exists'\nand what is absolutely non-existent. On the contrary, it is usually a\njudgment of value. We may say that the 'haunted' house is real and the\n'ghost' is not; but as an hallucination the ghost is real enough. Utopia\nis unreal for the politician, but exists as an ideal for the theorist.\nThe Platonist treats our physical world of sight and touch, which we\nthink the most real of all, as a mere illusion compared to the 'Ideas'\nof his metaphysical world. The thinker who declares he wants to know all\nabout 'reality' does not mean that he wishes to investigate _everything_\nwhich in any sense exists, but that he wishes to know what _he_\nconsiders _best worth knowing_--and this, of course, implies a personal\nvaluation, a purged and expurgated extract, which will not offend his\ntaste. So all philosophies are, in fact, selective. Even the more\nconscientious rationalists show very little anxiety to include in their\nintellectual scheme a knowledge of their opponents' opinions--indeed,\nthey seem to think that the existence of such facts may be made\ndependent wholly on their will to recognize them. An exposition of\nPragmatism is for them a 'reality' which does not count: it is not worth\nknowing about. And this is only natural, after all. For 'reality,' the\nobject of the mind's search, is always a selection, conceived after the\nlikeness of the heart's desire, the product of a human purpose.\n\nTo recognize this is to appreciate the wisdom of Humanism's refusal to\ntreat the world, for good or bad, as a given and completed whole. For\nnot only is what we call the real world always a selection from a larger\nwhole from which we have ventured to exclude great masses of\nirrelevance, but every day brings fresh experience, and may bring fresh\nenlightenment. And since man has always an interest in improving his\ncondition, is it not futile to forbid him to re-make his world as beat\nhe can? Why prematurely claim to have reached finality, when unexpected\nnovelties may shatter any system before it is even completed? Our world\nis plastic, it is most 'really' what we can make of it, and the process\nof our making is not ended. Whether a decree of Fate has fixed any\nultimate limits to our efforts we have no means of knowing, and no\noccasion to assume. Is not our wisest course, then, to persist in\ntrying? It is bad method ever to despair of knowing what we need.\n\nFor good or ill, the world with which the Humanist contends is always a\nworld that reveals itself to him. Reality, as it is assumed, presumed,\nor guessed to be 'in itself,' apart from our experience of it, is\ncancelled from his reckonings. For he cannot discover how he (or anyone)\ncan get any 'knowledge' or 'intuition' which transcends all human\nfaculties. The theories of metaphysicians on these lofty themes he\nregards as personal postulates which, in so far as they cannot be\nsubjected to the pragmatic method, must remain open questions. Human\nexperience does not warrant such gratuitous demands. It confirms neither\nthe rigid system of unchanging fact which realism postulates (seeing\nthat the only facts that science speaks of are ever changing in its\nprogress), nor finds its problems, conflicts, and errors credible as a\nreflexion of any Universal Mind, unless Idealism ultimately repudiates\nthe sanity of its Absolute.\n\nThe superiority of Humanism, then, lies in this, that it does not\ndiscourage human enterprise by assuming that the real is completely\nrigid and eternally achieved without regard to human effort. In the\ndrama that unrolls reality, every man, it teaches, has a duty and a\npower to play his humble but essential part. Humanism is neither an\nOptimism nor a Pessimism--both of which must consistently, in their\nextreme form, deny that reality can be improved--but concedes to man the\nright and duty to improve the world. It impresses us with the necessity\nof acting, it vindicates the procedure of acting on our hopes, it shows\nus how we may correct our errors, and so gives reasons for our faith in\nthe possibility of Progress.\n\n\n\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n\n  WILLIAM JAMES:\n    _The Principles of Psychology_, 1890.\n    _The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy_, 1897.\n    _The Varieties of Religious Experience_, 1902.\n    _Pragmatism, a New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking_, 1907.\n    _A Pluralistic Universe_, 1909.\n    _The Meaning of Truth_, 1909.\n    _Some Problems of Philosophy_, 1911.\n    _Radical Empiricism_, 1912.\n\n  F.C.S. SCHILLER:\n    _Riddles of the Sphinx_, 1891 (revised edition, 1910).\n    _Axioms as Postulates_ (in _Personal Idealism_, ed. Henry\n      Sturt, 1902).\n    _Humanism: Philosophical Essays_, 1903.\n    _Studies in Humanism_, 1907.\n    _Formal Logic, a Scientific and Social Problem_, 1912.\n\n  HENRY STURT:\n    _Idola Theatri, a Criticism of Oxford Thought and Thinkers from the\n      Standpoint of Personal Idealism_, 1906.\n\n  J. DEWEY AND OTHERS:\n    _Studies in Logical Theory_, 1903.\n\n  J. DEWEY:\n    _The Influence of Darwinism, and Other Essays_, 1910.\n\n  H.V. KNOX:\n    _The Evolution of Truth_, Quarterly Review, No. 419. April, 1909.\n\n  A.W. MOORE:\n    _Pragmatism and its Critics_, 1911.\n\n  A. SIDGWICK:\n    _The Application of Logic_, 1910.","title":"Pragmatism","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":16333}