and “ reality, ” the current accounts of which it finds untenable
or unmeaning. “ Truth, ” for example, cannot be defined as
the agreement or correspondence of thought with “ reality, ”
for how can thought determine whether it correctly “copies ”
what transcends it? Nor can our truth be a copy of a transcendent
and absolute truth (Dewey). If it be asked, therefore,
what such phrases mean, it is found that their meaning is really
defined by their use. The real difference between two conceptions
lies in their application, in the different consequences for
the purposes of life which their acceptance carries. When no
such “practical” difference can be found, conceptions are
identical; when they will not “ work, ” i.e. when they thwart
the purpose which demanded them, they are false;'when they
are inapplicable they are unmeaning (A. Sidgwick). Hence
the “ principle of Peirce” may be formulated as being that
“ every truth has practical consequences, and these are the test
of its truth.” It is clear that this (1) implicitly considers truth
as a value, and so connects it with the conception of good, and
(2) openly raises the question-What is truth, and how is it to
be distinguished from error? This accordingly becomes the
central problem of pragmatism. This same issue also arises
independently out of the breakdown or rationalistic theories
of knowledge (F. H. Bradley, H. H. joachim). Logical analysis,
after assuming that truth is independent and not of our making,
has to confess that all logical operations involve an apparently
arbitrary interference with their data (Bradley). Again, it
assumes an ideal of truth which turns out to be humanly unattainable
and incompatible with the existence of error, and an
ideal of science which no human science can be conceived as
attaining. The obvious way of avoiding the scepticism into
which rationalism is thus driven is to revise the assumptions
about the nature and postulates of truth which lead to it.
3. The ethical affinities of pragmatism spring from the
perception that all knowing is referred to a purpose. This
at once renders it “ useful, ” 'i.e. a means to an end or “ good.”
Completely “ useless ” knowledge becomes impossible, though
the uses of knowledge may still vary greatly in character, in
directness, and in the extent and force of their appeal to different
minds. This relation to a “ good ” must not, however, be
construed as a doctrine of ethics in the narrower sense; nor is
its “ utilitarianism ” to be confused with the hedonism 'of the
British associationists. “ Useful” means “ good for an (any)
end, ” and the “ good ” which the “ true” claims must be
understood as cognitive. But cognitive “good” and moral
“good ” are brought into close connexion, as species of teleological
“good ” and contributory to “the Good.” Thus only
the generic, not the specific, difference between them is abolished.
The “ true ” becomes a sort of value, like the beautiful and the
(moral) good. Moreover, since the “ real ” is the object of the
“ true, ” and can be distinguished from the “ unreal” only by
developing superior value in the process of cognition which
arrives at it, the notions of “ reality ” and “ fact ” also turn out
to be disguised forms of value. Thus the dualism between
judgments of fact and judgments of value disappears: whatever
“facts ” we recognize are seen to be relative to the complex
of human purposes to which they are revealed. It should
further be noted that pragmatism conceives “practice ” very
widely: it includes' everything related to the control of experience.
The dualism, therefore, between “ practice ” and
“theory” also vanishes; a “ theory ” unrelated to practice
(howev'er indirectly) is simply an illusion. Lastly it may be
pointed out that, as asserting the efficacy of thought and
the reality of choice, pragmatism involves a real, though
determinable, in determination in the course of events.
4. Pragmatism has very distinctly a connexion with religion,
because it explains, and to some extent justifies, the faith attitude
or will to believe, and those who study the psychology
of religion cannot but be impressed with the pragmatic nature
of this attitude. If the whole of a man's personality goes to
the making of the truth he accepts, it is clear that his beliefs
are not matters of “ pure reason, ” and that his passional°and
volitional nature must contribute to them and cannot validly
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be excluded. His religion also is ultimately a vital attitude which rests on his interests and on his choices between alternatives which are real for him. It is not however asserted that his mere willing to believe is a proof of the truth of what he wishes to believe, any more than a will to disbelieve justifies disbelief. His will to believe merely recognizes that choice is necessary and implies risk, and puts him in a position to obtain verification (or disproof). The pragmatic claim for religion, therefore, is that to those who will take the first step and will to believe an encouraging amount of the appropriate verifications accrues. It is further pointed out that this procedure is quite consonant with the practice of science with regard to its axioms. Originally these are always postulates which have to be assumed before they can be proved, and thus in a way “ make ” the evidence which confirms them. Scientific and religious verification therefore, though superficially distinct, are alike in kind. The pragmatic doctrine of truth, which it is now possible to outline, results from a convergence of the above lines of argument. Because truth is a value and vitally valuable, and all meaning depends on its context and its relation to us, there cannot be any abstract “ absolute ” truth disconnected from all human purposes. Because all truth is primarily a claim which may turn out to be false, it has to be tested. To test it is to try to distinguish between truth and falsity, and to answer the question-What renders the claim of a judgment to be true, really true? Now such testing, though it varies greatly in different departments of knowledge, is always effected by the consequences to which the claim leads when acted on. Only if they are “ good ” is the claim validated and the reasoning judged to be “ right ”: only if they are tested does the theory of truth become intelligible and that of error explicable. If, therefore, a logic fails to employ the pragmatic test, it is doomed to remain purely formal, and the possibility of applying its doctrines to actual knowing, and their real validity, remain in doubt. By applying the pragmatic test on the other hand, it is possible to describe how truths are developed and errors corrected, and how in general old truths are adjusted to new situations. This “making of truth ” is conceived as making for greater satisfaction and greater control of experience. It renders the truth of any time relative to the knowledge of the time, and precludes the notion of any rigid, static or incorrigible truth. Thus truth is continually being made and re-made. If the new truth seems to be such that our cognitive purposes would have been better served by it than they were by the-truth we had at the time, it is antedated and said to have been “ true all along.” If an old truth is improved upon, it is revalued as “ false. ” To this double process there is no actual end, but ideally an “ absolute ” truth (or system of truths) would be a truth which would be adequate to every purpose.
Extensions of pragmatism in a variety of directions readily suggest themselves, and indeed only the doctrine of truth in the above sketch can be treated as strictly indispensable. If however the logical method of pragmatism is critically applied to all the sciences, many doctrines will be cut out which have little or no “ pragmatic value.” This all-round application of the pragmatic method has received the name of “ humanism.” It expressly refers itself to the maxim of Protagoras that “ man is the measure of all things, ” and is best conceived as a protest against the assumption that logic can treat thought in abstraction from its psychological context and the personality of the knower, i.e. that knowledge can be dehumanized. To arbitrary and unverifiable metaphysical speculation, and to forms of “ absolutism” which have lost touch with human interests, this humanism is particularly destructive. It emphasizes still more than pragmatism the personal aspect of all knowing and its contribution to the “making of reality ” which necessarily accompanies the making of truth. B@~}t also goes on to raise the question whether the making of reality for our knowledge does not, in view of the essentially practical nature of knowledge, imply also a real making of reality by us, and so throw light upon the whole genesis of reality. In this direction pragmatism may ultimately lead to a number of metaphysics,
