 Chapter 4 of Philosophical Essays by Bertrand Russell Second half This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Landon D.C. Elkind at the University of Iowa in Coralville, Iowa Pragmatism Pragmatists are never weary of invading against those who say that our beliefs ought not to be influenced by considerations which in fact do influence them They point triumphantly to the influence of desire upon belief and boast that their theory alone is based upon a true psychological account of how belief arises With this account we have no quarrel What we deny is its relevance to the question what is meant by truth and falsehood At first sight it might seem a perfectly proper inductive proceeding to inquire what properties a belief must have in order that we may call it true and to infer that those properties constitute the meaning of truth There is however a fallacy in this method of inquiry and this fallacy in our opinion is at the bottom of the whole pragmatist philosophy There is in the first place an ambiguity in the word meaning We may say that cloud means rain or we may say plui means rain It is obvious that these two senses of meaning are wholly different What they have in common is that in each case we have one thing which points to another The cloud is a sign that rain is coming The word plui is a sign which signifies rain But beyond this the two senses of meaning have little in common In the first sense one thing means another when the existence past present or future of the other can be inferred from the one that is when there is a causal connection between them In the second sense meaning is confined to symbols that is to words and whatever other ways may be employed for communicating our thoughts It is this second sense of meaning which we expect a dictionary to give us When we ask what does such and such a word mean what we want to know is what is in the mind of a person using the word A confusion of the two senses of meaning is not uncommon in philosophy and if we are not mistaken pragmatism has confused them in its inquiry as to the meaning of truth It has discovered something which has a causal connection with our beliefs that things are true and which therefore in the first sense of meaning may be taken to be what these beliefs mean It has then supposed that this is what is meant in the second sense by truth that is what we have in mind or should have in mind when we use the word truth This confusion between the two senses of meaning seems to be necessarily involved in the method adopted by pragmatists namely the method which inquires into the causes of our judging things to be true in the hope of thereby discovering what truth means Let us grant to the pragmatists in order to avoid disputes concerning what is unimportant that what causes people to judge that a belief about which a doubt has arisen is true is the fact that this belief is found to further the purposes which let us to inquire into its truth Then to judge that a belief is true means that this belief furthers our purposes in the sense in which the cloud means rain that is there is a causal connection between them but truth is not the same thing as furthering our purposes any more than the cloud is the same thing as rain When we say that a belief is true the thought we wish to convey is not the same thought as when we say that the belief furthers our purposes thus true does not mean furthering our purposes in the sense in which plui means rain Thus pragmatism does not answer the question what is in our minds when we judge that a certain belief is true We find pragmatists when pressed willing to admit this fact Thus Dr. Schiller says, footnote 1 studies in humanism page 144 end of footnote 1 quote In a sense therefore the predictions of good and bad, true and false and so on may take rank with the experiences of sweet, red, loud, hard and so on as ultimate facts which need be analyzed no further end of quote to which he adds in a footnote quote the purport of this remark is to confute the notion which seems dimly to undersize some intellectualist criticisms that the specific character of the truth predication is ignored in pragmatist quarters end of quote This fundamental meaning of truth is treated by Dr. Schiller as unimportant because it does not enable us to distinguish the cases in which we have rightly predicated truth from those in which we have done so wrongly The pragmatist test he maintains enables us to distinguish the truly true from the falsely true An untested predication of truth he calls truth as claim A predication which is subsequent to the application of the pragmatist test he calls truth validated The distinction between the two is treated at length in his essay on the ambiguity of truth footnote 1 studies in humanism pages 141 through 162 end of footnote 1 This ambiguity appears to us to be wholly non-existent The distinction involved is the distinction between what is true and what is thought to be true The reader who will throughout this essay on the ambiguity of truth substitute butter for truth and margarine for falsehood will find that the point involved is one which has no special relevance to the nature of truth There is butter as claim that is whatever the grocer calls butter this we will suppose includes margarine There is butter validated which is butter that after the usual tests has been found not to be margarine But there is no ambiguity in the word butter When the grocer pointing to the margarine says this is butter he means by butter precisely what the customer means when he says this is not butter To argue from the grocer's language that butter has two meanings one of which includes margarine while the other does not would be obviously absurd Similarly when the rash man without applying any tests affirms this belief is true while the prudent man after applying suitable tests judges this belief is not true The two men mean the same thing by the word true only one of them applies it wrongly Thus Dr. Schiller's reasons for regarding the specific character of the truth predication as unimportant are not valid We must now return to the two senses of meaning and show how they are relevant to our problem It is evident that in the sense in which the meaning of a word is what is in our minds when we use the word the meaning of the word truth is just that specific character of the truth predication which as Dr. Schiller confesses is something quite other than furthering our purposes His contention is that the beliefs of which we can predicate truth truly are those which further our purposes and his reason for saying this is that the beliefs which further our purposes are those which we persist in calling true after reflection but that only proves that these are the beliefs which we continue to think true not that these are the beliefs which are true owing however to confusion of the two senses of meaning he is led to argue that usefulness gives the meaning of truth and that therefore when a belief is useful it must be true all that really follows if we grant the whole of the psychological argument is that beliefs which are found to be useful will continue to be thought true this is an entirely different proposition and one which by itself throws no light whatever either upon the nature of truth or upon what beliefs are in fact true it may well be that beliefs which fulfill certain purposes are true while beliefs which fulfill others are not true or again that there is no connection whatever between truth and usefulness Dr. Schiller's argument and William James's for the two are practically identical on this point involves a variety of the very assumption which he criticizes in others namely the assumption that all our beliefs are true in pragmatism the assumption is that the beliefs which we persist in holding must be true it is then pointed out how very unreasonable our grounds often are for persisting in a belief and this fact instead of being used to throw doubt on the belief is used to discredit reasonableness thus we are brought back to the standpoint of the will to believe and we find that the precepts of that essay really underlie the whole pragmatist theory of truth but the superstructure is so vast that pragmatists appear to be no longer aware of the foundations upon which their edifice is reared we may now restate the pragmatist theory of truth in bald outline giving due prominence to presuppositions of which pragmatists themselves are perhaps not fully conscious their major premise is this beliefs which persist after a doubt has been raised are true their minor premise is beliefs which are found to be serviceable persist after a doubt has been raised hence it follows that such beliefs are true the pragmatist then turns around and exhorts us to cherish such beliefs on the ground that they are true but if his psychology was right the exhortation is needless since by his minor premise we certainly shall cherish such beliefs his major premise should be beliefs which we cherish after you have raised a doubt are true but those who have raised the doubt can hardly be expected to be much impressed by this premise the argument is a form of the old refutation of an opponent by the contention that the whole human race thinks as you do which is a somewhat unsuccessful weapon against a human being who does not think as you do it is now time to turn our attention to the metaphysics which Dr. Schiller has based upon the pragmatist theory of truth pragmatism as such professes to be only a method the metaphysical doctrine which Dr. Schiller derives from it he calls humanism in regard to metaphysics pragmatism professes to be a kind of universal provider willing and able to suit all tastes as William James puts it quote against rationalism as a pretension and a method pragmatism is fully armed and militant but at the outset at least it stands for no particular results it has no dogmas and no doctrines save its method as the young Italian pragmatist Papini has well said it lies in the midst of our theories like a corridor in a hotel innumerable chambers open out of it in one you may find a man writing an atheistic volume in the next someone on his knees praying for faith and strength in a third a chemist investigating a body's properties in a fourth a system of idealistic metaphysics is being ex cogitated in a fifth the impossibility of metaphysics is being shown but they all own the corridor and all must pass through it if they want a practicable way of getting into or out of their respective rooms end of quote footnote one pragmatism page 54 end of footnote one in spite of this catholicity however we agree with doctor Schiller in thinking that his metaphysics is the one which naturally results from pragmatism it will be remembered that in considering induction we pointed to the dependence of inductive verification upon an appeal to facts humanism as a metaphysics results from the application of pragmatic method to the question what is a fact this subject has been treated by doctor Schiller in his essay on the making of reality footnote one studies in humanism pages 421 through 451 end of footnote one the main purpose of humanist metaphysics is to emphasize the primacy of the will the will it is true requires a datum of fact to which to apply its operations but this datum is itself the product of previous volitions and although we cannot quite deny some original highly which has been molded by will yet this is remote and unimportant and has been transformed into genuine reality by the agency of human beings and other beings more or less resembling them nothing that can be known nothing that can properly be called real is independent of the knower there is no such thing as mere knowing in which we passively apprehend the nature of a merely given object all knowing is bound up with doing and everything that we know has been in some degree altered by our agency this doctor Schiller says is obvious in the case of our acquaintances who plainly are more or less affected by the fact that we are acquainted with them when we say that something is independent of our knowing we mean according to him that the thing is not aware that we know it but as a matter of fact everything we know even a stone is aware of us in its own way to the charge that this is hylozoism doctor Schiller replies by admitting it the grounds for these opinions are not set forth quite so clearly as could be wished but we may gather them from a complimentary illusion to Hegel's dialectic at the beginning of the essay imagine some fact in regard to which we entertain a belief the belief leads to action and the action alters the fact if it alters it into harmony with our wishes the belief is proved to have been what pragmatists call true since it has proved successful in action in this case since the belief in the fact is true it follows that the fact is real thus the belief has made the fact but if the outcome of the belief is a fact which though in harmony with the wishes which originally led us to concern ourselves with the matter is in conflict with others of our wishes the belief is not true as regards these other wishes we shall have to change our belief and take fresh action on the new belief and so bring the fact into harmony with these new wishes in this way so long as we have any unsatisfied wishes we are led on in a cycle of beliefs and actions the beliefs becoming gradually truer and the facts with which the beliefs are concerned becoming gradually more real as greater harmony is established between the facts and our wishes the motive power of this whole development is the pragmatic definition of truth for if we believe A to be a fact that belief is true if it is successful as a means to satisfying our wishes hence so long as our wishes are not completely satisfied the belief that A is a fact is not completely true and therefore A is not completely a fact thus complete truth and complete reality go hand in hand and both are only to be found at the end of the road which leads to the complete satisfaction of all our wishes the similarity of the above process to the Hegelian dialectic is emphasized by Dr. Schiller with his inveterate love of a pun he has christened this process tri-electic he does not seem however to have observed that his process, like Hegel's introduces a distinction between appearance and reality that appearance embraces the whole of the world as we know it and that it is only to reality that the pragmatic test of truth applies the facts which he can accept as real must be such as not to thwart our purposes the facts which appear are very often such as to thwart our purposes if a fact is such as to thwart our purposes the pragmatist test of truth is not fully applicable to it for by believing that it will thwart our purposes we do not prevent it from doing so and our belief, though possibly preferable pragmatically to any other does not secure the satisfaction of our desires if on the other hand we believe that the fact is not such as to thwart our purposes we believe what ex-hypothesis is not the case hence it follows that such facts cannot be real since many apparent facts thwart our purposes we are led to distinguish between real and apparent facts hence it is not here on earth that pragmatism applies but only in Dr. Schiller's heaven just as it is only in Mr. Bradley's heaven that Mr. Bradley's metaphysics applies the whole doctrine therefore reduces itself to the proposition that it would be heavenly to live in a world where one's philosophy was true and this is a proposition which we have no desire to controvert the distinction between appearance and reality is one which Dr. Schiller is never weary of attacking indeed a very large proportion of his writings is directed against it his complete reality, he holds, is being progressively realized and is not, like the absolute, something wholly unconnected with our actual world of appearance but his only reason for supposing that his complete reality is being progressively realized is a tacit assumption of cooperation among the agents composing the universe he assumes, that is, that the various desires which, according to him form the motive power of all that occurs in the universe are not such as to counteract each other the world's activities are not to be conceived as a tug of war for this view there is, we fancy, no argument except the pragmatic argument, that it is pleasant and cannot be conclusively disproved thus the whole humanist metaphysics rests upon the pragmatic theory of truth and falls with that theory moreover, it introduces in a slightly modified form the old distinction of appearance and reality of which the difficulties have been admirably set forth by Dr. Schiller himself since the distinction, and therefore the difficulties result inevitably from the pragmatic theory of truth they afford a new argument against that theory for they show that the theory is applicable not to our actual world, but to an ideal world where all the hopes of pragmatists have been realized although for the reasons alleged above we do not ourselves accept the pragmatist philosophy we nevertheless believe that it is likely to achieve widespread popularity because it embodies some of the main intellectual and political tendencies of our time this aspect of pragmatism deserves consideration since the influence of a doctrine, as pragmatists have very prudently pointed out is by no means proportional to its intellectual value on the intellectual side pragmatism embodies skepticism, evolution and the new insight into the nature and scope of scientific induction on the political side it embodies democracy the increased belief in human power which has come from the progress of mechanical invention and the Bismarckian belief in force the skepticism embodied in pragmatism is that which says since all beliefs are absurd we may as well believe what is most convenient this is by no means a new contention in England it has been popularized by Mr. Balfour's foundations of belief and notes on insular free trade skepticism is of the very essence of the pragmatic philosophy nothing is certain, everything is liable to revision and the attainment of any truth in which we cannot rest securely is impossible therefore not worthwhile to trouble our heads about what really is true what is thought to be true is all that need concern us instead of the old distinction between true and false we adopt the more useful distinction between what we persist in thinking true and what merely seems true at first sight later on the old meanings of true and false may slip back unnoticed and we may come to think that what is true in the pragmatic sense is true in the old sense also this happens especially in regard to religion but on pragmatist principles there is no reason to regret this for the true is what it is useful to believe and therefore it is useful to believe what pragmatism declares to be true skepticism therefore though necessary at the start must be banished later on if we are to get the full benefits of pragmatism in this there is no great psychological difficulty since as Hume confessed the skeptical attitude is one not easily maintained in practice the philosophy of evolution has also had its share in generating the pragmatic tone of mind it has led people to regard everything as fluid and in process of development everything as passing by imperceptible gradations into everything else some biologists it is true have begun to regard development as discontinuous proceeding by the sudden appearance of freaks but philosophers and the general public have not been influenced by this change hence it has come to be felt that all sharp antitheses such as that of true and false must be blurred and all finality must be avoided we must always build a road by which everything can pass into everything else at a leisurely pace and with small steps instead of the true we shall have the more true or the most true up to date and between different claimants for truth we must provide a struggle for existence leading to the survival of the strongest all this is admirably affected by the pragmatist theory of truth once Sir Bergson whom pragmatists claim as an ally may be regarded as embodying this tendency the influence of modern theories of scientific induction has probably been more restricted in point of numbers than the influence of skepticism or of evolution but the men influenced have been important by their scientific eminence we may take as their protagonist Montseer Poincaré who while not extending the pragmatist doctrine to particular facts has dealt in a thoroughly pragmatic spirit with the general hypotheses of logic, mathematics and physics showing that what leads to the acceptance of a scientific hypothesis is its convenience such general assumptions as causality the existence of an external world and so on cannot be supported by Mill's cannons of induction but require a far more comprehensive treatment of the whole organized body of accepted scientific doctrine it is in such treatment that the pragmatic method is seen at its best and among men of science its apparent success in this direction has doubtless contributed greatly to its acceptance the influence of democracy in promoting pragmatism is visible in almost every page of William James' writing there is an impatience of authority an unwillingness to condemn widespread prejudices a tendency to decide philosophical questions by putting them to a vote which contrast curiously with the usual dictatorial tone of philosophic writings Dr. Schiller at one time set to work to elucidate the question of a future life by taking a poll footnote 1 see his essay on the desire for immortality humanism pages 228 through 249 we do not of course that he would have considered the result of the poll decisive even if the electorate had been larger end of footnote 1 William James claims for the pragmatist temper quote the open air and possibilities of nature as against dogma artificiality and the pretense of finality and truth end of quote a thing which simply is true whether you like it or not is to him as hateful as a Russian autocracy he feels that he is escaping from a prison may not by stone walls but by hard facts when he has humanized truth and made it like the police force in a democracy the servant of the people instead of their master the democratic temper pervades even the religion of the pragmatists they have the religion they have chosen the traditional reverence is changed into satisfaction with their own handiwork quote the prince of darkness James says may be a gentleman as we are told he is but whatever the god of earth and heaven is he can surely be no gentleman end of quote footnote 2 pragmatism page 72 end of footnote 2 he is rather we should say meet by pragmatists as an elected president to whom we give a respect which is really a tribute to the wisdom of our own choice a government in which we have no voice is repugnant to the democratic temper William James carries up to heaven the revolt of his new England ancestors the power to which he can yield respect must be a George Washington rather than a George the third closely connected with this democratic spirit is the belief in human power which is one of the dominant notes of pragmatism by the progress of mechanical invention the possibilities of our command over nature have been shown to be much greater than they were formerly supposed to be and no definite limits can be set to them hence has arisen especially in America where the economic conditions are favorable and the chief concern of most people is with those matters in which recent advances have been greatest a general feeling that by energy and hope all obstacles can be overcome and that it is a mark of laziness or peace and enmity to admit that anything is impossible the habit of mind which believes that there are no essential impossibilities has been fostered by the doctrine of evolution with its literary corollary of the ubermensch hence have arisen a self-confidence and a pride of life which in many ways remind one of the Renaissance and establish some affinity between historical humanism and its modern namesake for the modern humanism is essentially the philosophy which is appropriate as Dr. Schiller himself has said to quote the young the strong the virile end of quote footnote one humanism page eight end of quote the inventor the financier the advertiser the successful men of action generally can find in pragmatism an expression of their instinctive view of the world such men both for good and evil expect the world to be malleable to their wishes and in a greater or less degree find their expectation justified by success hence arises a disbelief in those hard facts which pragmatists tend to deny and a confidence of victory in contests with the outer world whether these contests be cognitive or more directly practical an Italian pragmatist has expressed this confidence in victory as follows quote perfecto perche e omniposente sostituiamo dunque al mysticismo dea renuncia dell'imitazione di Cristo il mysticismo della conquista dell'imitazione di Dio end of quote footnote one Leonardo april 1905 l'imitazione di Dio page 64 end of footnote one other pragmatists have been less explicit than this modern Thomas Achimpis but he has correctly expressed the spirit of their philosophy from the confidence of victory in contests it is an easy passage to the love of contest for this pragmatism provides full scope the many different truths as claim must fight it out among themselves and the victor will become truth validated Dr. Schiller on one occasion implicitly confesses that with his theory of truth persecution can actually make a doctrine true which would otherwise be false since it can make a doctrine quote useful to our lives end of quote footnote two humanism page 59 quote questions may arise out of the fact that not only does what works receive social recognition but also that what receives social recognition for this very reason largely works end of quote end of footnote two in the absence of any standard of truth other than success it seems evident that the familiar methods of the struggle of existence must be applied to the elucidation of difficult questions and that ironclads and maximum guns must be the ultimate arbiters of metaphysical truth the worship of force as we find it in Nietzsche is not to be found in the same form in William James who though he lauds the will and the life of action does not wish action to be bellicose nevertheless the excessive individualism of the pragmatic theory of truth is inherently connected with the appeal to force if there is a nonhuman truth which one man may know while another does not there is a standard outside the disputants to which we may urge the dispute ought to be submitted hence a pacific and judicial settlement of disputes is at least theoretically possible if on the contrary the only way of discovering which of the disputants is in the right is to wait and see which of them is successful there is no longer any principle except force by which the issue can be decided it is true of course that in a private dispute the public opinion of the community especially as embodied in the law will usually compel a peaceful decision but this public opinion is formed at least in theory upon an objective estimate of the rights and wrongs of the case in place of this if pragmatism were the accepted creed public opinion would have to be guided by the interests of the community to this there would be no objection if as would commonly be done the maintenance of justice could be taken as one of the ends which it is in the interest of the community to pursue but in a pragmatist community this would be impossible since justice is derivative from the interests of the community and not an independent constituent of those interests in international matters owing to the fact that the disputants are often strong enough to be independent of outside control these considerations become more important if the pragmatist urges that always and everywhere the only ultimate arbiter in a dispute must be force the reply is that although this is true at the actual moment of the battle it is yet not true in a wider sense since it ignores the motives which generate the force on either side the hopes of international peace like the achievement of internal peace depend upon the creation of an effective force of public opinion formed upon an estimate of the rights and wrongs of disputes thus it would be misleading to say that the dispute is decided by force without adding that force is dependent upon justice but the possibility of such an opinion depends upon the possibility of a standard of justice which is a cause not an effect of the wishes of the community and such a standard of justice seems incompatible with the pragmatist philosophy this philosophy therefore although it begins with liberty and toleration develops by inherent necessity into the appeal to force and the arbitrement of the big battalions by this development it becomes easily adapted to democracy at home and to imperialism abroad thus here again it is more delicately adjusted to the requirements of the time than any other philosophy which has hitherto been invented to sum up pragmatism appeals to the temper of mind which finds of this planet the whole of its imaginative material which feels confident of progress and unaware of non-human limitations to human power which loves battle with all the attendant risks because it has no real doubt that it will achieve victory which desires religion as it desires railways and electric light as a comfort and a help in the affairs of this world not as providing non-human objects to satisfy the hunger for perfection and for something to be worshiped without reserve but for those who feel that life on this planet would be a life in prison if there were not for the windows into a greater world beyond for those to whom a belief in man's omnipotence seems arrogant who desire rather the stoic freedom that comes of mastery over the passions than the Napoleonic domination that sees the kingdoms of this world at its feet in a word to men who do not find man an adequate object of their worship the pragmatist's world will seem narrow and petty robbing life of all that gives it value and making man himself smaller by depriving the universe which he contemplates all its splendor End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of Philosophical Essays by Bertrand Russell This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Landon D.C. Alkind at the University of Iowa in Coralville, Iowa William James' Conception of Truth Footnote 1 Pragmatism a new name for some old ways of thinking Popular Lectures on Philosophy by William James Longsman's Green & Company 1907 The following article is reprinted from the Albany Review January 1908 where it appeared under the title Transatlantic Truth It has been criticized by William James in The Meaning of Truth Longman's 1909 in the article called Two English Critics End of Footnote 1 Quote The history of philosophy as William James observes is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments End of quote In dealing with a temperament of such charm as his it is not pleasant to think of a clash one does not willingly differ or meet so much urbanity by churlish criticisms Fortunately a very large part of his book is concerned with the advocacy of positions which pragmatism shares with other forms of empiricism With all this part of his book I, as an empiricist find myself broadly speaking in agreement I might instance the lecture devoted to a problem which he considers quote the most central of all philosophical problems end quote namely that of the one and the many In this lecture he declares himself on the whole a pluralist after a discussion of the kinds and degrees of unity to be found in the world to which any empiricist may wholly assent Throughout the book the distinctive tenets of pragmatism only make their appearance now and again after the ground has been carefully prepared James speaks somewhere of Dr. Schiller's quote but and foremost statement of the humanist position end quote his own statement is the very reverse of but and foremost it is insinuating gradual imperceptible a good illustration of his insinuating method is afforded by his lecture on common sense the categories of common sense as he points out and as we may all agree embody discoveries of our remote ancestors but these discoveries cannot be regarded as final because science and still more philosophy finds common sense notions inadequate in many ways common sense science and philosophy we are told are all insufficiently true in some respect and to this again we may agree but he adds quote it is evident that the conflict of these so widely differing systems obliges us to overhaul the very idea of truth for at present we have no definite notion of what the word may mean end quote page 192 here as I think we have a mere one sequitur a damson tart, a plum tart and a gooseberry tart may all be insufficiently sweet but does that oblige us to overhaul the very notion of sweetness or show that we have no definite notion of what the word sweetness may mean it seems to me on the contrary that if we perceive that they are insufficiently sweet that shows that we do know what sweetness is and the same surely applies to truth but this remark is merely by the way James like most philosophers represents his views as mediating between two opposing schools he begins by distinguishing two philosophic types called respectively the quote tender minded end quote and the quote tough minded end quote the tender minded are quote rationalistic intellectualistic idealistic optimistic religious freewillist monistic dogmatical end quote the tough minded are quote empiricist sensationalistic materialistic pessimistic irreligious fatalistic pluralistic skeptical end quote traditionally German philosophy was on the whole tender minded British philosophy was on the whole tough minded it will clear the ground for me to confess at once that I belong with some reserves to the tough minded type pragmatism William James a verse quote can satisfy both kinds of demand it can remain religious like the rationalisms but at the same time like the empiricisms it can preserve the richest intimacy with facts end quote this reconciliation to my mind is a I find myself agreeing with the tough minded half of pragmatism and totally disagreeing with the tender minded half but the disentangling of the two halves must be postponed till we have seen how the reconciliation professes to be affected pragmatism represents on the one hand a method a habit of mind on the other a certain theory as to what constitutes truth the latter is more nearly what Dr. Schiller calls humanism but this name is not adopted by James we must therefore distinguish the pragmatic method and the pragmatic theory of truth the former up to a point is involved in all induction and is certainly largely commendable the latter is the essential novelty and the point of real importance but let us first consider the pragmatic method quote pragmatism says James represents a perfectly familiar attitude in philosophy the empiricist attitude but it represents it as it seems to me both in a more radical and in a less objectionable form than it has ever yet assumed a pragmatist turns his back resolutely and once for all upon a lot of inveterate habits dear to professional philosophers he turns away from abstraction and inefficiency from verbal solutions from bad a priori reasons from fixed principles closed systems and pretended absolutes and origins he turns towards concreteness and adequacy towards facts towards action and towards power that means the empiricist temper regnant and the rationalist temper sincerely given up it means the open air and possibilities of nature as against dogma artificiality and the pretense of finality and truth and of quote page 51 the temper of mind here described is one with which I for my part in the main cordially sympathize but I think there is an impression in the mind of William James as of some other pragmatists that pragmatism involves a more open mind than its opposite as regards scientific questions or even the less important questions of philosophy this is no doubt more or less the case as regards the fundamental questions of philosophy especially as regards what I consider the fundamental question namely the nature of truth pragmatism is absolutely dogmatic the hypothesis that pragmatism is erroneous is not allowed to enter for the pragmatic competition however well it may work it is not to be entertained to quote turn your back resolutely and once for all and quote upon the philosophy of others may be heroic or praise worthy but it is not undogmatic or open minded a modest shrinking from self assertion a sense that all our theories are provisional a constant realization that after all the hypothesis of our opponents may be the right one these characterize the truly critical temper but I do not observe that they invariably characterize the writings of pragmatists dogmatism in fundamentals is more or less unavoidable in philosophy but I do not blame pragmatists for what could not be otherwise but I demur to their claim to a greater open mindedness than is or may be possessed by their critics William James however it must be admitted is about as little pontifical as a philosopher well can be and his complete absence of unction is most refreshing quote in this real world of sweat and dirt he says it seems to me that when a view of things is noble that ought to count as a presumption against its truth and as a philosophic disqualification and quote page 72 accordingly his contentions are never supported by fine writing he brings them into the marketplace and is not afraid to be homely untechnical and slangy all this makes his books refreshing to read and shows that they contain what he really lives by not merely what he holds in his professional capacity but it is time to return to the pragmatic method quote the pragmatic method we are told is primarily a method of settling metaphysical disputes that otherwise might be interminable is the world one or many fated or free material or spiritual here are notions either which may or may not hold good of the world and disputes over such notions are unending the pragmatic method in such cases is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences what difference would it practically make to anyone if this notion rather than that notion were true if no practical difference whatever can be traced then the alternatives mean practically the same thing and all dispute is idle whenever a dispute is serious we ought to be able to show some practical difference that must follow from one side or the others being right end quote and again quote to attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object then we need only consider what conceivable effects the object may involve what sensations we are to expect from it and what reactions we must prepare our conception of these effects whether immediate or remote is then for us the whole of our conception of the object so far as that conception has positive significance at all end of quote to this method applied within limits and to suitable topics there is no ground for objecting on the contrary it is wholesome to keep in touch with concrete facts as far as possible by remembering to bring our theories constantly into connection with them the method however involves more than is stated in the extract which I quoted just now it involves also the suggestion of the pragmatic criterion of truth a belief is to be judged true in so far as the practical consequences of its adoption are good some pragmatists for example LaRoy who has lately suffered papal condemnation regard the pragmatic test as giving only a criterion footnote 1 confer for example LaRoy comment suppose the problem did you review de metaphysique et de moral 15 number 4 july 1907 pages 506 507 note end of footnote 1 others notably Dr. Schiller regarded as giving the actual meaning of truth William James agrees with Dr. Schiller though like him he does not enter into the question of criterion versus meaning the pragmatic theory of truth is the central doctrine of pragmatism and we must consider it at some length William James states it in various ways some of which I shall now quote he says quote ideas which themselves are but parts of our experience become true just in so far as they help us get into satisfactory relation with other parts of our experience end of quote page 58 again quote truth is one species of good and not as is usually supposed a category distinct from good and coordinate with it the true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief and good too for definite assignable reasons end quote page 75 that truth means agreement with reality may be said by a pragmatist as well as by anyone else but the pragmatist differs from others as to what is meant by agreement and also it would seem as to what is meant by reality William James gives the following definition of agreement quote to agree in the widest sense with a reality can only mean to be guided either straight up to it or into its surroundings or to be put into such working touch with it as to handle either it or something connected with it better than if we disagreed end of quote page 212 this language is rather metaphorical and a little puzzling it is plain however that agreement is regarded as practical not as merely intellectual this emphasis on practice is of course one of the leading features of pragmatism in order to understand the pragmatic notion of truth we have to be clear as to the basis of fact upon which truths are supposed to rest immediate sensible experience for example does not come under the alternative of true and false quote day follows day says James and its contents are simply added the new contents themselves are not true they simply come and are truth is what we say about them end of quote page 62 thus when we are merely aware of sensible objects we are not to be regarded as knowing any truth although we have a certain kind of contact with reality it is important to realize that the facts which thus lie outside the scope of truth and falsehood supply the material which is presupposed by the pragmatic theory our beliefs have to agree with matters of fact it is an essential part of their satisfactoriness that they should do so james also mentions what he calls relations among purely mental ideas as parts of our stock in trade with which pragmatism starts he mentions as instances one and one make two white differs less from gray than it does from black and so on all such propositions as these then we are supposed to know for certain before we can get underway as james puts it quote between the coercions of the sensible order and those of the ideal order our mind is thus wedged tightly our ideas must agree with realities be such realities concrete or abstract be they facts be they principles under penalty of endless inconsistency and frustration end of quote page 211 thus it is only when we pass beyond plain matters of fact and our priori truisms that the pragmatic notion of truth comes in it is in short the notion to be applied to doubtful cases but it is not the notion to be applied to cases about which there can be no doubt and that there are cases about which there can be no doubt is presupposed in the very statement of the pragmatist position quote our account of truth james tells us is an account of processes of leading realized in rebus and having only this quality in common that they pay end of quote page 218 we may thus sum up the philosophy and the following definition a truth is anything which it pays to believe now if this definition is to be useful as pragmatism intends it to be it must be possible to know that it pays to believe something without knowing anything that pragmatism would call a truth hence the knowledge that a certain belief pays must be classed as knowledge of a sensible fact or of a relation among purely mental ideas or as some compound of the two and must be so easy to discover as not to be worthy of having the pragmatic test applied to it there is however some difficulty in this view let us consider for a moment what it means to say that a belief pays we must suppose that this means that the consequences of entertaining the belief are better than those of rejecting it in order to know this we must know what are the consequences of entertaining it and what are the consequences of rejecting it we must know also what consequences are good what bad what consequences are better what worse take say belief in the Roman Catholic faith this we may agree causes a certain amount of happiness at the expense of a certain amount of stupidity and priestly domination such a view is disputable and disputed but we will let that pass but then comes the question whether admitting the effects to be such they are to be classed as whole good or on the whole bad and this question is one which is so difficult that our test of truth becomes practically useless it is far easier it seems to me to settle the plain question of fact have popes been always infallible than to settle the question whether the effects of thinking them infallible are on the whole good yet this question of the truth of Roman Catholicism is just the sort of question that pragmatists consider especially suitable to their method the notion that it is quite easy to know when the consequences of a belief are good so easy in fact that a theory of knowledge need take no account of anything so simple this notion I must say seems to me one of the strangest assumptions for a theory of knowledge to make let us take another illustration many of the men of the French Revolution were disciples of Rousseau and their belief in his doctrines had far reaching effects which make Europe at this day a different place from what it would have been without that belief if on the whole the effects of their belief have been good we shall have to say that their belief was true if bad that it was false but how are we to strike the balance it is almost impossible to disentangle what the effects have been and even if we could ascertain them our judgment as to whether they have been good or bad would depend upon our political opinions it is surely far easier to discover by direct investigation that the contrat social is a myth than to decide whether belief in it has done harm or good on the whole another difficulty which I feel in regard to the pragmatist meaning of truth may be stated as follows suppose I accept the pragmatic criterion and suppose you persuade me that a certain belief is useful suppose I there upon conclude that the belief is true is it not obvious there is a transition in my mind from seeing that the belief is useful to actually holding that the belief is true yet this could not be so if the pragmatic account of truth were valid take say the belief that other people exist according to the pragmatists to say it is true that other people exist means it is useful to believe that other people exist but if so then these two phrases are merely different words for the same proposition therefore when I believe the one I believe the other if this were so there could be no transition from the one to the other as plainly there is this shows that the word true represents for us a different idea from that represented by the phrase useful to believe and that therefore the pragmatic definition of truth ignores without destroying the meaning commonly given to the word true which meaning, in my opinion is of fundamental importance and can only be ignored at the cost of hopeless inadequacy this brings me to the difference between criterion and meaning a point on which neither James nor the other is very clear I may best explain the difference to begin with by an instance if you wish to know whether a certain book is in a library you consult the catalogue books mentioned in the catalogue are presumably in the library books not mentioned in it are presumably not in the library thus the catalogue affords a criterion of whether a book is in the library or not but even supposing the catalogue perfect it is obvious that when you say the book is in the library you do not mean that it is mentioned in the catalogue you mean that the actual book is to be found somewhere in the shelves it therefore remains an intelligible hypothesis that there are books in the library which are not yet cataloged or that there are books cataloged which have been lost and are no longer in the library and it remains an inference from the discovery that a book is mentioned in the catalogue to the conclusion that the book is in the library speaking abstractly we may say that a property A is a criterion of a property B when the same objects possess both and A is a useful criterion of B if it is easier to discover whether an object possesses the property A than whether it possesses the property B thus being mentioned in the catalogue is a useful criterion of being in the library because it is easier to consult the catalogue than to hunt through the shelves now if pragmatists only affirmed that utility is a criterion of truth very much less to be said against their view for there certainly seem to be few cases if any in which it is clearly useful to believe what is false the chief criticism one would then have to make on pragmatism would be to deny that utility is a useful criterion because it is so often harder to determine whether a belief is useful than whether it is true the arguments of pragmatists are almost wholly directed to proving that utility is a criterion that utility is the meaning of truth is then supposed to follow but to return to our illustration of the library suppose we had conceded that there are no mistakes in the British Museum catalogue would it follow that the catalogue would do without the books we can imagine some person long engaged in a comparative study of libraries and having in the process naturally lost all taste for reading declaring that the catalogue is the only important thing ask for the books they are useless lumber no one ever wants them and the principle of economy should lead us to be content with the catalogue indeed if you consider the matter with an open mind you will see that the catalogue is the library for it tells you everything you can possibly wish to know about the library let us then save the taxpayers money by destroying the books allow free access to the catalogue but condemn the desire to read as involving an exploded dogmatic realism this analogy of the library is not to my mind to be sarcastic or unjust but as close and exact an analogy as I have been able to think of the point I am trying to make clear is concealed from pragmatists I think by the fact that their theories start very often from such things as the general hypotheses of science either atoms and the like in such cases we take little interest in the hypotheses themselves which as well we know are liable to rapid change what we care about are the inferences as to sensible phenomena which the hypotheses enable us to make all we ask of the hypotheses is that they should work though it should be observed that what constitutes working is not the general agreeableness of the results but the conformity of these results but in the case of these general scientific hypotheses no sensible man believes that they are true as they stand they are believed to be true in part and to work because of the part that is true but it is expected that in time some element of falsehood will be discovered and some truer theory will be substituted as pragmatism would seem to derive its notion of what constitutes belief from cases in which properly speaking belief is absent and in which what is pragmatically important there is but a slender interest in truth or falsehood as compared to the interest in what works but when this method is extended to cases in which the proposition in question has an emotional interest on its own account apart from its working the pragmatic account becomes less satisfactory this point has been well brought out by professor stout in mind footnote 1 october 1907 pages 586 to 588 this criticism occurs in the course of a very sympathetic review of dr. shillers studies in humanism end of footnote 1 and what I have to say is mostly contained in his remarks take the question whether other people exist it seems perfectly possible to suppose that the hypothesis that they exist will always work even if they do not in fact exist it is plain also that it makes for happiness to believe that they exist for even the greatest misanthropist would not wish to be deprived of the objects of his hate hence the belief that other people exist is pragmatically a true belief but if I am troubled by solipsism the discovery that a belief in the existence of others is true in the pragmatist's sense is not enough to allay my sense of loneliness the assumption that I should profit by rejecting solipsism is not alone sufficient to make me reject it for what I desire is not that the belief in solipsism should be false in the pragmatic sense but that other people should in fact exist and with the pragmatist's meaning of truth these two do not necessarily go together the belief in solipsism might be false even if I were the only person or thing in the universe this paradoxical consequence would, I presume not be admitted by pragmatists yet it is an inevitable outcome of the divorce which they make between fact and truth returning to our illustration we may say that facts are represented by the books and truths by the entries in the catalog so long as you do not wish to read the books the truths will do in place of the facts and the imperfections of your library can be remedied by simply making new entries in the catalog but as soon as you actually wish to read a book the truths become inadequate and the facts become all important the pragmatic account of truth assumes so it seems to me that no one takes any interest in facts and that the truth of the proposition that your friend exists is an adequate substitute for the fact of his existence facts, they tell us are neither true nor false therefore truth cannot be concerned with them but the truth A exists if it is a truth is concerned with A who in that case is a fact and to say that A exists may be true even if A does not exist is to give a meaning to truth which robs it of all interest Dr. Schiller is fond of attacking the view that truth must correspond we may conciliate him by agreeing that his truth at any rate need not correspond with reality but we shall have to add that reality is to us more interesting than such truth I am of course aware that pragmatists minimize the basis of fact and speak of the making of reality in Paripassu with the making of truth it is easy to criticize the claim to make reality except with an obvious limits but when such criticisms are met by pointing to the pragmatists admission that after all there must be a basis of fact for our creative activity to work upon then the opposite line of criticism comes into play Dr. Schiller in his essay on the making of reality minimizes the importance of the basis of fact on the ground it would seem that facts will not submit to pragmatic treatment and that if pragmatism is true they are unknowable footnote 1 confer studies in humanism pages 434 to 436 end of footnote 1 hence on pragmatist principles it is useless to think about facts we therefore return to fictions with a sigh of relief and soothe our scruples by calling them realities but it seems something of a patissio principi to condemn facts because pragmatism though it finds them necessary is unable to deal with them and William James it should be said makes less attempt than Dr. Schiller does to minimize facts in this essay therefore I have considered the difficulties which pragmatism has to face if it admits facts rather than those no less serious which it has to face if it denies them it is chiefly in regard to religion that the pragmatist use of truth seems to me misleading pragmatists boast much of their ability to reconcile religion and science and William James as we saw professes to have discovered a position combining the merits of tender mindedness and tough mindedness the combination is really effected if I am not mistaken in a way of which pragmatists are not themselves thoroughly aware for their position if they fully realized it would I think be this we cannot know whether in fact there is a god or a future life but we can know that the belief in god and a future life is true this position it is to be feared would not afford much comfort to the religious if it were understood we cannot but feel some sympathy with the pope in his condemnation of it quote on pragmatic principles James says we cannot reject any hypothesis if consequences useful to life flow from it end of quote page 273 he proceeds to point out that consequences useful to life flow from the hypothesis of the absolute which is therefore a true hypothesis but it should be observed that these useful consequences flow from the hypothesis that the absolute is a fact not from the hypothesis that useful consequences flow from the belief in the absolute but we cannot believe the hypothesis that the absolute is a fact merely because we perceive that useful consequences flow from this hypothesis what we can believe on such grounds is that this hypothesis is what pragmatists call true that is that it is useful but it is not from this belief that the useful consequences flow and the grounds alleged do not make us believe that the absolute is a fact which is the useful belief in other words the useful belief is that the absolute is a fact and pragmatism shows that this belief is what it calls true thus pragmatism persuades us that belief in the absolute is true but does not persuade us that the absolute is a fact the belief which it persuades us to adopt is therefore not the one which is useful in ordinary logic if the belief in the absolute is true it follows that the absolute is a fact but with the pragmatist's meaning of true this does not follow hence the proposition which he proves is not as he thinks the one from which comforting consequences follow in another place James says quote on pragmatistic principles the basis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word it is true page 299 this proposition is in reality a mere tautology for we have laid down the definition the word true means working satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word hence the proposition stated by james is a mere variant on the following on pragmatistic principles if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word then it works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word this would hold even on other than pragmatistic principles presumably what is peculiar to pragmatism is the belief that this is an important contribution to the philosophy of religion the advantage of the pragmatic method is that it decides the question of the truth of the existence of God by purely mundane arguments namely by the effects of belief in his existence upon our life in this world but unfortunately this gives a merely mundane conclusion namely that belief in God is true that is useful whereas what religion desires is the conclusion that God exists which pragmatism never even approaches I infer therefore that the pragmatic philosophy of religion like most philosophies whose conclusions are interesting turns on an unconscious play upon words a common word in this case the word true is taken at the outset in an uncommon sense but as the argument proceeds the usual sense of the word gradually slips back and the conclusions arrived at seem therefore quite different from what they would have been seen to be if the initial definition had been remembered the point is of course that so soon as it is admitted that there are things that exist it is impossible to avoid recognizing a distinction to which we may give what name we please between believing in the existence of something that exists and believing in the existence of something that does not exist it is common to call the one belief true the other false but if with the pragmatists we prefer to give a different meaning to the words true and false that does not prevent the distinction commonly called the distinction of true and false from persisting the pragmatist attempt to ignore this distinction fails as it seems to me because a basis of fact cannot be avoided by pragmatism and this basis of fact demands the usual antithesis of true and false it is hardly to be supposed that pragmatists will admit this conclusion but it may be hoped that they will tell us in more detail how they propose to avoid it pragmatism if I have not misunderstood it is largely a generalization from the procedure of the inductive sciences in so far as it lays stress upon the importance of induction I find myself in agreement with it and as to the nature of induction also I think it is far more nearly right than are most of the traditional accounts but on fundamental questions of philosophy I find myself wholly opposed to it and unable to see that inductive procedure gives any warrant for its conclusions to make this clear I will very briefly explain how I conceive the nature and scope of induction when we survey our beliefs we find that we hold different beliefs with very different degrees of conviction some such as the belief that I am sitting in a chair or that 2 plus 2 is equal to 4 can be doubted by few except those who have had a long training in philosophy such beliefs are held so firmly that non-philosophers who deny them are put into lunatic asylums other beliefs such as the facts of history are held rather less firmly but still in the main without much doubt where they are well authenticated beliefs about the future as that the sun will rise tomorrow and that the trains will run approximately as in Bradshaw may be held with almost as great conviction as beliefs about the past scientific laws are generally believed less firmly and there is a gradation among them from such as seem nearly certain to such as have only a slight probability in their favor philosophical beliefs finally will with most people take a still lower place since the opposite beliefs of others can hardly fail to induce doubt belief therefore is a matter of degree to speak of belief disbelief doubt and suspense of judgment as the only possibilities is as if from the writing on the thermometer we were to suppose that blood heat summer heat and freezing were the only temperatures there is a continuous gradation belief and the more firmly we believe anything the less willing we are to abandon it in case of conflict besides the degree of our belief there is another important respect in which a belief may vary namely in the extent to which it is spontaneous or derivative a belief obtained by inference may be called derivative one not so obtained spontaneous when we do not need any outside evidence to make us entertain a belief we may say that what we believe is obvious our belief in the existence of sensible objects is of this nature seeing is believing and we demand no further evidence the same applies to certain logical principles for example that whatever follows from a true proposition must be true a proposition may be obvious in very varying degrees for example in matters of aesthetic taste we have to judge immediately whether a work of art is beautiful or not but the degree of obviousness involved is probably small so that we feel no very great confidence in our judgment spontaneous beliefs are not necessarily stronger than derivative beliefs moreover few beliefs if any are wholly spontaneous in an educated man the more a man has organized his knowledge the more his beliefs will be interdependent and the more will obvious truths be reinforced by their connection with other obvious truths in spite of this fact however obviousness remains always the ultimate source of our beliefs for what is called verification or deduction consists always in being brought into relation with one or more obvious propositions this process of verification is necessary even for propositions which seem obvious since it appears on examination that two apparently obvious propositions may be inconsistent and hence that apparent obviousness is not a sufficient guarantee of truth we therefore have to subject our beliefs to a process of organization making groups of such as are mutually consistent and when two such groups are not consistent with each other selecting that group which seems to us to contain the most evidence account being taken both of the degree of obviousness of the propositions it contains and of the number of such propositions it is as the result of such a process for example that we are led if we are led to conclude that colors are not objective properties of things induction in a broad sense may be described as the process of selecting hypotheses which will organize our spontaneous beliefs preserving as many of them as possible and interconnecting them by general propositions which as is said explain them that is give a ground from which they can be deduced in this sense all knowledge is inductive as soon as it is reflective and organized in any science there is a greater or less degree of obviousness about many of its propositions those that are obvious are called data other propositions are only accepted because of their connection with the data this connection itself may be of two kinds either that the propositions in question can be deduced from the data or that the data can be deduced from the propositions in question and we know of no way of deducing the data without assuming the propositions in question the latter is the case of working hypotheses which covers all the general laws of science and all the metaphysics both of common sense and of professed philosophy it is apparently by generalizing the conception of hypothesis that pragmatism has arisen but three points seem to me to have been overlooked in this generalization first working hypotheses are only a small part of our beliefs not the whole as pragmatism seems to think secondly prudent people give only a low degree of belief to working hypotheses it is therefore a curious procedure to select them as the very types of belief in general thirdly pragmatism seems to confound two very different conceptions of working when science says that a hypothesis works it means that from this hypothesis we can deduce a number of propositions which are verifiable that is obvious under suitable circumstances and that we cannot deduce any propositions of which the contradictory are verifiable but when pragmatism says that a hypothesis works it means that the effects of believing it are good including among the effects not only the beliefs which we deduce from it but also the emotions entailed by it or its perceived consequences and the actions to which we are prompted by it or its perceived consequences this is a totally different conception of working and one for which the authority of scientific procedure cannot be invoked I infer therefore that induction rightly analyzed does not lead us to pragmatism and that the inductive results which pragmatism takes as the very type of truth are precisely those among our beliefs which should be held with most caution and least conviction to sum up while agreeing with the empirical temper of pragmatism with its readiness to treat all philosophical tenets as working hypotheses we cannot agree that when we say a belief is true we mean that it is a hypothesis which works especially if we mean by this to take account of the excellence of its effects and not merely of the truth of its consequences if to avoid disputes about words we agree to accept the pragmatic definition of the word truth we find that the belief that a exists may be true even when a does not exist this shows that the conclusions arrived at by pragmatism in the sphere of religion do not have the meaning which they appear to have and are incapable when rightly understood of yielding us the satisfaction which they promise the attempt to get rid of fact turns out to be a failure and thus the old notion of truth reappears and if the pragmatist states that utility is to be a criterion of truth we shall reply first that it is not a useful criterion because it is usually harder to discover whether a belief is useful than whether it is true secondly that since no a priori reason is shown why truth and utility should always go together utility can only be shown to be a criterion at all by showing inductively that it accompanies truth in all known instances which requires that we should already know in many instances what things are true finally therefore the pragmatist theory of truth is to be condemned on the ground that it does not work end of chapter 5