 CHAPTER 12 WHAT PRAGMATISM MEANS BIPRACTICAL Pragmatism, according to Mr. James, is a temper of mind and attitude. It is also a theory of the nature of ideas and truth, and, finally, it is a theory about reality. It is pragmatism as a method which is emphasized, I take it, in the subtitle, quote, a new name for some old ways of thinking, unquote. It is this aspect which I suppose to be uppermost in Mr. James' own mind, one frequently gets the impression that he conceives a discussion of the other two points to be illustrative material, more or less hypothetical, of the method. The briefest, and at the same time the most comprehensive formula for the method is, quote, the attitude of looking away from first things, principles, categories, supposed necessities, and of looking toward last things, fruits, consequences, facts, unquote, pages 54 and 55. And as the attitude looked, quote, away from, unquote, is the rationalistic, perhaps the chief aim of the lectures is to exemplify some typical differences resulting from taking one outlook or the other. But pragmatism is, quote, used in a still wider sense, as meaning also a certain theory of truth, unquote, page 55. It is, quote, a genetic theory of what is meant by truth, unquote, page 65. Truth means, as a matter of course, agreement, correspondence, of idea and fact, page 198. But what do agreement, correspondence, mean? With rationalism they mean, quote, a static inert relation, unquote, which is so ultimate that of it nothing more can be said. With pragmatism they signify the guiding or leading power of ideas by which we, quote, dip into the particulars of experience again, unquote. And if by its aid we set up the arrangements and connections among experienced objects which the idea intends, the idea is verified. It corresponds with the things it means to square with, pages 205 and 6. The idea is true which works in leading us to what it purports, page 80, or, quote, any idea that will carry us prosperously from any one part of experience to any other part, linking things satisfactorily, working securely, simplifying, saving labor is true for just so much, true in so far forth, unquote. This notion presupposes that ideas are essentially intentions, plans and methods, and that what they, as ideas, ultimately intend is prospective. Certain changes in prior existing things. This contrasts again with rationalism, with its copy theory, where ideas, as ideas, are ineffective and impotent, since they mean only to mirror a reality, page 69, complete without them. Thus we are led to the third aspect of pragmatism. The alternative between rationalism and pragmatism, quote, concerns the structure of the universe itself, unquote, page 258, quote. The essential contrast is that reality, for pragmatism, is still in the making, unquote, page 257. And in a recent number of the Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, he says, quote, I was primarily concerned in my lectures with contrasting the belief that the world is still in the process of making, with the belief that there is an eternal addition of it, ready-made and complete, unquote, one. It will be following Mr. James's example, I think, if we here regard pragmatism as primarily a method, and treat the account of ideas and their truth and of reality somewhat incidentally, so far as the discussion of them serves to exemplify or enforce the method. Regarding the attitude of orientation, which looks to outcomes and consequences, one readily sees that it has, as Mr. James points out, points of contact with historic empiricism, nominalism, and utilitarianism. It insists that general notions sell, quote, cash-in, unquote, as particular objects and qualities and experience, that, quote, principles, unquote, are ultimately subsumed under facts, rather than the reverse, that the empirical consequence, rather than the a priori basis, is the sanctioning and warranting factor. But all of these ideas are colored and transformed by the dominant influence of experimental science, the method of treating conceptions, theories, et cetera, as working hypotheses, as directors for certain experiments and experimental observations. Pragmatism as attitude represents what Mr. Purse has happily termed the, quote, laboratory habit of mind, unquote, extended into every area where inquiry may fruitfully be carried on. A scientist would, I think, wonder not so much at the method, as at the lateness of philosophy's conversion to what has made science what it is. Nevertheless, it is impossible to forecast the intellectual change that would proceed from carrying the method sincerely and unreservedly into all fields of inquiry. Leaving philosophy out of account, what a change would be wrought in the historical and social sciences, in the conceptions of politics and law and political economy. Mr. James does not claim too much when he says, quote, the center of gravity of philosophy must alter its place. The earth of things, long thrown into shadow by the glories of the upper ether, must resume its rights. It will be an alteration of the seat of authority that reminds one almost of the Protestant Reformation, unquote, page 123. I can imagine that many would not accept this method in philosophy for very diverse reasons, perhaps among the most potent of which is lack of faith in the power of the elements and processes of experience and life to guarantee their own security and prosperity, because that is the feeling that the world of experience is so unstable, mistaken, and fragmentary, that it must have an absolutely permanent, true, and complete ground. I cannot imagine, however, that so much uncertainty and controversy as actually exists should arise about the content and import of the doctrine on the basis of the general formula. It is when the method is applied to special points that questions arise. Mr. James reminds us in his preface that the pragmatic movement has found expression, quote, from so many points of view that much unconcerted statement has resulted, unquote, and speaking of his lectures, he goes on to say, quote, I have sought to unify the picture as it presents itself to my own eyes dealing in broad strokes, unquote. The, quote, different points of view, unquote, here spoken of, have concerned themselves with viewing pragmatically a number of different things. And it is, I think, Mr. James's effort to combine them as they stand, which occasions misunderstanding among Mr. James's readers. James himself applied it, for example, in 1898 to philosophic controversies to indicate what they mean in terms of practical issues at stake. Before that, Mr. Purse himself, in 1878, had applied the method to the proper way of conceiving and defining objects. Then it has been applied to ideas in order to find out what they mean in terms of what they intend and what and how they must intend in order to be true. Again, it has been applied to beliefs, to what men actually accept, hold to, and affirm. Indeed, it lies in the nature of pragmatism that it should be applied as widely as possible into things as diverse as controversies, beliefs, truths, ideas, and object. But yet the situations and problems are diverse, so much so that while the meaning of each may be told on the basis of last things, fruits, consequences, facts, it is quite certain that the specific last things and facts will be very different in the diverse cases and that very different types of meaning will stand out. Meaning will itself mean something quite different in the case of objects from what it will mean in the case of ideas, and for ideas, something different from truths. Now the explanation to which I have been led of the unsatisfactory condition of contemporary pragmatic discussion is that in composing these different points of view into a single pictorial whole, the distinct type of consequence and hence the meaning of practical appropriate to each has not been sufficiently emphasized. 1. When we consider separately the subjects to which the pragmatic method has been applied, we find that Mr. James has provided the necessary formula for each, with his never-failing instinct for the concrete. We take first the question of the significance of an object, the meaning which should properly be contained in its conception or definition. Quote, To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object then, we need only consider what conceivable effects of a practical kind the object may involve, what sensations we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must prepare. Quote, Pages 46 and 47. Or, more shortly, as it is quoted from Ostwald, Quote, All realities influence our practice, and that influences their meaning for us. Quote, Page 48. Here it will be noted that the start is from objects already empirically given or presented, existentially vouched for, and the question is as to their proper conception. What is the proper meaning or idea of an object? And the meaning is the effects these given objects produce. One might doubt the correctness of this theory, but I do not see how one could doubt its import, or could accuse it of subjectivism or idealism, since the object with its power to produce effects is assumed. Meaning is expressly distinguished from objects, not confused with them, as in idealism, and is said to consist in the practical reactions objects exact of us or impose on us. When then, it is a question of an object, meaning signifies its conceptual content or connotation, and practical means the future responses which an object requires of us or commits us to. Quote, But we may also start from a given idea and ask what the idea means. Pragmatism will, of course, look to future consequences, but they will clearly be of a different sort when we start from the idea as idea, than when we start from an object. For what an idea as idea means is precisely that an object is not given. The pragmatic procedure here is to set the idea, quote, at work within this dream of experience. It appears less as a solution than as a program for mere work, and particularly as an indication of the ways in which existing realities may be changed. Theories, thus, become instruments. We don't lie back on them, we move forward, and on occasion make nature over again by their aid, unquote, page 53. In other words, an idea is a draft to draw upon existing things and intention to act so as to arrange them in a certain way, from which it follows that if the draft is honored, if existences, following upon the actions, rearrange or readjust themselves in the way the idea intends, the idea is true. When, then, it is a question of an idea, it is the idea itself which is practical, being an intent, and its meaning resides in the existences which, as changed, it intends. While the meaning of an object is the changes it requires in our attitude, the meaning of an idea is the changes it, as our attitude, affects an object. 3. Then we have another formula, applicable not to objects nor ideas as objects and ideas, but to truths, to things that is, with a meaning of the object and of the ideas assumed to be already ascertained. It reads, quote, 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, unquote, page 45. There can be, quote, No difference in abstract truth that doesn't express itself in a difference in concrete fact, and in conduct consequent upon the fact, imposed on somebody, unquote, page 50. Now when we start with something which is already a truth, or taken to be a truth, and asked for its meaning in terms of its consequences, it is implied that the conception, or conceptual significance, is already clear, and that the existences it refers to are already in hand. Meaning here, then, can be neither the connotative nor denotative reference of a term. They are covered by the two prior formulae. Meaning here means value, importance. The practical factor is, then, the character of these consequences. They are good or bad, desirable or undesirable, or merely nil, indifferent, in which latter case belief is idle, the controversy of vain and conventional, or verbal one. The term meaning, and the term practical, taken in isolation, and without explicit definition from the specific context and problem, are triply ambiguous. It may be the conception or definition of an object. It may be the denotative existential reference of an idea. It may be actual value or importance. So, practical in the corresponding cases may mean the attitudes and conduct exacted of us by objects, or the capacity and tendency of an idea to effect changes in prior existences, or the desirable and undesirable quality of certain ends. The general pragmatic attitude, nonetheless, is applied in all cases. If the differing problems and the correlative diverse significations of the terms meaning and practical are borne in mind, not all will be converted to pragmatism. But the present uncertainty as to what pragmatism is, anyway, and the present constant complaints on both sides of misunderstanding will, I think, be minimized. At all events, what the pragmatic movement just now wants is a clear and consistent bearing in mind of these different problems and of what is meant by practical in each. Accordingly, the rest of this paper is an endeavor to elucidate from the standpoint of pragmatic method the importance of enforcing these distinctions. Two. First, as to the problems of philosophy when pragmatically approached, Mr. James says, quote, The function of philosophy ought to be to find out what definite difference it will make to you and me, a definite instance of our life, if this world formula or that world formula be true, unquote, page 50. Here the world formula is assumed as already given. It is there, defined and constituted, and the question is, as to its import, if believed. But from the second standpoint, that of ideas working hypothesis, the function of philosophy is not to find out what difference ready-made formula I make, if true, but to arrive at and to clarify their meaning as programs of behavior for modifying the existent world. From this standpoint, the meaning of a world formula is practical and moral, not merely in the consequences which flow from accepting a certain conceptual content is true, but as regards that content itself. And thus, at the very outset, we are compelled to face this question, does Mr. James employ the pragmatic method to discover the value in terms of consequences in life of some formula, which has its logical content already fixed, or does he employ it to criticize and revise, and ultimately to constitute the meaning of that formula? If it is the first, there is danger that the pragmatic method will be employed only to vivify, if not validate, doctrines which in themselves are pieces of rationalistic metaphysics, not inherently pragmatic. If the last, there is danger that some readers will think old notions are being confirmed, when in truth they are being translated into new and inconsistent notions. Consider the case of design. Mr. James begins with accepting a ready-made notion to which he then applies the pragmatic criterion. The traditional notion is that of a quote, seeing force that runs things, unquote. This is rationalistically and retrospectively empty. It being there makes no difference. This seems to overlook the fact that the past world may be just what it is in virtue of the difference which a blind force or a seeing force has already made in it. A pragmatist as well as a rationalist may reply that it makes no difference retrospectively, only because we leave out the most important retrospective difference. But, quote, returning with it into experience, we gain a more confiding outlook on the future. If not a blind force, but a seeing force runs things, we may reasonably expect better issues. This vague confidence in the future is the sole pragmatic meaning at present discernible in the terms design and designer, unquote, page 115, italics mind. Now, is this meaning intended to replace the meaning of a quote seeing force which runs things, unquote? Or is it intended to super add a pragmatic value and validation to that concept of a seeing force? Or does it mean that irrespective of the existence of any such object, a belief in it has that value? Strict pragmatism would seem to require the first interpretation. The same difficulties arise in the discussion of spiritualistic theism versus materialism. Compare the two following statements, quote, the notion of God guarantees an ideal order that shall be permanently preserved, unquote, page 106, quote, here then in these different emotional and practical appeals, in these adjustments of our attitudes of hope and expectation and all the delicate consequences which their differences entail, lie the real meanings of materialism and spiritualism, unquote, page 107, italics mind. Does the latter method of determining the meaning of, say, a spiritual God afford the substitute for the conception of him as a superhuman power, affecting the eternal preservation of something? Does it, that is, define God, supply the context for our notion of God? Or does it merely super add a value to the meaning already fixed? And, if the latter, does the object God has defined or the notion, or the belief, the acceptance of the notion, affect these consequent values? In either of the latter alternatives, the good, valuable consequences cannot clarify the meaning or conception of God, for by the argument, they proceed from a prior definition of God. They cannot prove or render more probable the existence of such a being, for by the argument, these desirable consequences depend upon accepting such an existence. And not even pragmatism can prove an existence from desirable consequences which themselves exist, only when and if, that other existence is there. On the other hand, if the pragmatic method is not applied simply to tell the value of a belief or controversy, but to fix the meaning of the terms involved in the belief, resulting consequences would serve to constitute the entire meaning, intellectual as well as practical, of the terms, and hence the pragmatic method would simply abolish the meaning of an antecedent power, which will perpetuate eternally some existence. For that consequence flows not from the belief or idea, but from the existence, the power. It is not pragmatic at all. Accordingly when Mr. James says, quote, other than its practical significance, the words God, free will, design have none. Yet dark though they be in themselves or intellectualistically taken, when we bear them on to life's thicket with us, the darkness then grows light about us, unquote, page 121, italics in mind. What is it meant? Is it meant that when we take the intellectualistic notion and employ it, it gets a value in the way of results, and hence then has some value of its own, or is it meant that the intellectual content itself must be determined in terms of the changes affected in the ordering of life's thicket? An explicit declaration on this point would settle, I think, not merely a point interesting in itself, but one essential to the determination of what is pragmatic method. For myself, I have no hesitation in saying that it seems un-pragmatic for pragmatism to content itself with finding out the value of a conception whose own inherent significance pragmatism has not first determined, a fact which entails that it be taken not as a truth, but simply as a working hypothesis. In the particular case in question, moreover, it is difficult to see how the pragmatic method could possibly be applied to a notion of eternal perpetuation, which, by its nature, can never be empirically verified, or cached in any particular case. This brings us to the question of truth. The problem here is also ambiguous in advance of definition. Does the problem of what is truth refer to discovering the true meaning of something? Or to discovering what an idea has to affect, and how, in order to be true? Or to discovering what the value of truth is when it is an existent and accomplished fact? One, we may of course find the true meaning of a thing as distinct from its incorrect interpretation without thereby establishing the truth of the true meaning, as we may dispute about the true meaning of a passage in the classics concerning centaurs without the determination of its true sense establishing the truth of the notion that there are centaurs. Occasionally, this true meaning seems to be what Mr. James has in mind as when, after the passage upon design already quoted, he goes on, quote, but if cosmic confidence is right, not wrong, better, not worse, that vague confidence in the future is a most important meaning. That much at least of possible truth the terms will have in them, quote, page 115. Truth here seems to mean that design has a genuine, not merely conventional or verbal meaning that something is at stake. There are frequently points where truth seems to mean just meaning that is genuine as distinct from empty or verbal. Two, but the problem of the meaning of truth may also refer to the meaning or value of truths that already exist as truths. We have them, they exist, now what do they mean? The answer is, quote, true ideas lead us into useful verbal and conceptual quarters as well as directly up to useful sensible termini. They lead to consistency, stability, and flowing human intercourse, unquote, page 215. This, referring to things already true, I do not suppose the most case-hardened rationalist would question. And even if he questions the pragmatic contention that the consequences define the meaning of truth, he should see that here is not an account of what it means for an idea to become true, but only of what it means after it has become true. Truth as fate accompli. It is the meaning of truth as fate accompli, which is here defined. Bearing this in mind, I do not know why a mild tempered rationalist should object to the doctrine that truth is not valuable per se, but because, when given, it leads to desirable consequences. Quote, a true thought is useful here because the home, which is its object, is useful. The practical value of true ideas is thus primarily derived from the practical importance of their objects to us, unquote, page 203. And many besides confirmed pragmatists and a utilitarian, for example, would be willing to say that our duty to pursue truth is conditioned upon its leading to objects which upon the whole are valuable. Quote, the concrete benefits we gain are what we mean by calling the pursuit a duty, unquote. Page 231, compare page 76. 3. Difficulties have arisen chiefly because Mr. James is charged with converting simply the foregoing proposition, and arguing that since true ideas are good, any idea if good in any way is true. Certainly, transition from one of these conceptions to the other is facilitated by the fact that ideas are tested as to their validity by a certain goodness, vis, whether they are good for accomplishing what they intend, for what they claim to be good for, that is, certain modifications in prior given existences. In this case, it is the idea which is practical, since it is essentially an intent and plan of altering prior existences in a specific situation, which is indicated to be unsatisfactory by the very fact that it needs or suggests a specific modification. Then arises the theory that ideas as ideas are always working hypotheses concerning the attaining of particular empirical results, and are tentative programs, or sketches of method, for attaining them. If we stick consistently to this notion of ideas, only consequences which are sexually produced by the working of the idea in cooperation with or application to prior existences are good consequences in the specific sense of good which is relevant to establishing the truth of an idea. This is, at times, unequivocally recognized by Mr. James. See, for example, the reference to verification on page 201. The acceptance of the idea that verification is the advent of the object intended on page 205. But at other times any good which flows from acceptance of a belief is treated as if it were an evidence, in so far, of the truth of the idea. This holds particularly when theological notions are under consideration. Light would be thrown upon how Mr. James conceives this matter by statements on such points as these. If ideas terminate in good consequences but yet the goodness of the consequences was no part of the intention of an idea, does the goodness have any verifying force? If the goodness of consequences arises from the context of the idea in belief, rather than from the idea itself, does it have any verifying force? If an idea leads to consequences which are good in the one respect, only of fulfilling the intent of the idea, as when one drinks a liquid to test the idea that it is a poison. Does the badness of the consequences in every other respect detract from the verifying force of consequences? Since Mr. James has referred to me as saying truth is what gives satisfaction on page 234, I may remark, apart from the fact that I do not think I ever said that truth is what gives satisfaction, that I have never identified any satisfaction with the truth of an idea save that satisfaction which arises when the idea as working hypothesis or tentative method is applied to prior existences in such a way as to fulfill what it intends. My final impression which I cannot adequately prove is that upon the whole Mr. James is most concerned to enforce as against rationalism two conclusions about the character of truths as fates a complete, namely that they are made, not a priori or eternally in existence and that their value or importance is not static but dynamic and practical. The special question of how truths are made is not particularly relevant to this anti-rationalistic crusade while it is the chief question of interest to many. Because of this conflict of problems when Mr. James says about the value of truth when accomplished is likely to be interpreted by some as a criterion of the truth of ideas while, on the other hand Mr. James himself is likely to pass lightly from the consequences that determine the worth of a belief to those which decide the worth of an idea. When Mr. James says the function of giving quote satisfaction in marrying previous parts of experience with newer parts, unquote is necessary in order to establish truth the doctrine is unambiguous the satisfactory character of consequences is itself measured and defined by the conditions which led up to it. The inherently satisfactory quality of results is not taken as validating the antecedent intellectual operations. But when he says, not of his own position but an opponents of the idea of an absolute, quote so far as it afford such comfort it surely is not sterile, it has that amount of value, it performs a concrete function. As a good pragmatist I myself ought to call the absolute true in so far forth then, and I unhesitatingly now do so, unquote, page 73 the doctrine seems to be as unambiguous in the other direction that any good consequent upon acceptance of a belief is, in so far forth, a warrant of truth. In such passages as the following which are of the common type, the two notions seem blended together, quote, ideas become true just in so far as they help us to get into satisfactory relations with other parts of our experience, unquote page 58, and again on the same page, quote any idea that will carry us prosperously from any one part of our experience to any other part linking things satisfactorily working securely, simplifying, saving labor is true for just so much, unquote italics mind. An explicit statement as to whether the carrying function, the linking of things, is satisfactory and prosperous, and hence true in so far as it executes the intent of an idea, or whether the satisfaction and prosperity reside in the material consequences on their own account, and in that aspect make the idea true would, I am sure, locate the point at issue and economize and fructify for the discussion. At present pragmatism is accepted by those whose own notions are thoroughly rationalistic in makeup as a means of refurbishing, galvanizing and justifying those very notions. It is rejected by non-rationalists, empiricists and naturalistic idealists because it seems to them identified with a notion that pragmatism holds that the desirability of certain beliefs and the determination of the meaning of the ideas involved in them and the existence of objects denoted by them. Others, like myself, who believe thoroughly in pragmatism as a method of orientation as defined by Mr. James, and who would apply the method of the determination of the meaning of objects, the intent and worth of ideas as ideas, and to the human and moral value of beliefs when these various factors do not know whether they are pragmatists in some other sense because they are not sure whether the practical, in the sense of desirable facts which define the worth of a belief is confused with the practical as an attitude imposed by objects and with the practical as a power and function of ideas to affect changes in prior existences. Hence the importance of knowing which one of the three senses of practical is conveyed in any given passage. It would do Mr. James an injustice, however, to stop here. His real doctrine is that a belief is true when it satisfies both personal needs and the requirements of objective things. Speaking of pragmatism, he says, quote, her only test of probable truths is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the collectivity of experiences' demands, nothing being omitted. Page 80, italics' mine. And again, quote, that new idea's truest which performs most felicitously its function of satisfying our double urgency, quote, page 64. It does not appear certain from the context that this double urgency is that of the personal and the objective demands respectively, but it is probable. See also page 217, where consistency with previous truth and novel fact is said to be always the most imperious claimant. On this basis, the insofar fourth of the truth of the absolute because of the comfort it supplies means that one of the two conditions which need to be satisfied has been met. So that if the idea of the absolute met the other one also, it would be quite true. I have no doubt this is Mr. James's meaning, and it sufficiently regards him from the charge that pragmatism means that anything which is agreeable is true. At the same time, I do not think in logical strictness that satisfying one of two tests when satisfaction of both is required can be said to constitute a belief true even insofar fourth. Three. At all events, this raises a question not touched so far. The place of the personal and the determination of truth. Mr. James, for example, emphasizes the doctrine suggested in the following words. We say this theory solves it, the problem, more satisfactorily than that theory. But that means more satisfactorily to ourselves, and individuals will emphasize their points of satisfaction differently. Page 61, italics mine. This opens out into a question which reflects the place of the personal factor in the constitution of knowledge systems and of reality. I cannot hear enter upon, save to say that a synthetic pragmatism such as Mr. James has ventured upon will take a very different form according as the point of view of what he calls the Chicago school, or that of humanism is taken as a basis for interpreting the nature of the personal. According to the latter view, the personal appears to be ultimate and the metaphysically real. Associations with idealism, more over, give it an idealistic turn, a translation, in effect, of monistic, intellectualistic idealism into pluralistic, volunteeristic idealism. But according to the former, the personal is not ultimate, but is to be analyzed and defined biologically on its genetic side, ethically on its perspective and functioning side. There is, however, one phase of the teaching illustrated by the quotation which is directly relevant here. Because Mr. James recognizes that the personal element enters into judgments passed upon whether a problem has or has not been satisfactorily solved, he is charged with extreme subjectivism with encouraging the element of personal preference to run roughshod over all objective controls. Now the question raised in the quotation is primarily one of fact, not of doctrine. Is or is not a personal factor found in truth evaluations? If it is, pragmatism is not responsible for introducing it. If it is not, it ought to be possible to refute pragmatism by appeal to empirical fact, rather than by reviling it for subjectivism. Now it is an old story that philosophers in common with theologians and social theorists are as sure that personal habits and interests shape their doctrines, as they are that their own beliefs are absolutely universal and objective and quality. Hence arises that dishonesty, that insincerity characteristic of philosophic discussion. As Mr. James says, page 8, quote, the most potential of all our premises is never mentioned, unquote. Now the moment the complicity of the personal factor in our philosophic valuations is recognized fully, frankly, and generally that moment a new era in philosophy will begin. We shall have to discover the personal factors that now influence us unconsciously and begin to accept a new and moral responsibility for them, a responsibility for judging and testing them by their consequences. So long as we ignore this factor, its deeds will be largely evil, not because it is evil, but because flourishing in the dark is without responsibility and without check. The only way to control it is by recognizing it. And while I would not prophesy of pragmatism's future, I would say that this element which is now so generally condemned as intellectual dishonesty, perhaps because of an uneasy instinctive recognition of the searching of hearts its acceptance would involve will in the future be accounted unto philosophy for righteousness's sake. So much in general. In particular cases it is possible that Mr. James's language occasionally leaves the impression that the fact of the inevitable involution of the personal factor in every belief gives some special sanction to some special belief. Mr. James says that his essay on the right to believe was unluckily entitled to the quote will to believe quote, page 258. Well, even the term right is unfortunate if the personal or belief factor is inevitable. Unfortunate because it seems to indicate a privilege which might be exercised in special cases. In religion, for example, though not in science. Or because it suggests to some minds that the fact of the personal complicity involves in belief is a warrant for this or that special personal attitude instead of being a warning to locate and define it so as to accept responsibility for it. If we mean by will not something deliberate and consciously intentional much less something insincere but an active personal participation then belief as will rather than either the right or the will to believe seems to phrase the matter correctly. I have attempted to review not so much Mr. James's book as the present status of the pragmatic movement which is expressed in the book and I have selected only those points which seem to bear directly upon matters of contemporary controversy even as an account of this limited field the foregoing pages do an injustice to Mr. James save as it is recognized that his lectures were popular lectures as the title page advises us. We cannot expect in such lectures the kind of explicitness which would satisfy the professional and technical interests that have inspired this review. Moreover, it is inevitable that the attempt to compose different points of view hitherto uncoordinated into a single whole should give rise to problems foreign to any one factor of the synthesis left to itself. The need and possibility of the discrimination of various elements in the pragmatic meaning of practical attempted in this review would hardly have been recognized by me were it not for the byproducts of perplexity and confusion which Mr. James's combination has affected. Mr. James has given so many evidences of the sincerity of his intellectual aims that I trust to his pardon for the injustice which the character of my review may have done him in view of whatever service it may render in clarifying the problem to which he is devoted. As for the book itself, it is in any case beyond a critic's praise or blame. It is more likely to take place as a philosophical classic than any other writing of our day. A critic who should attempt to appraise it would probably give one more illustration of the sterility of criticism compared with the productiveness of creative genius. Even those who dislike pragmatism can hardly fail to find much of profit in the exhibition of Mr. James's instinct for concrete facts, the breadth of his sympathies, and his illuminating insights. Unreserved frankness, lucid imagination, varied contacts with life digested into summary and trenchant conclusions, keen perceptions of human nature in the concrete, a constant sense of the subordination of philosophy of life, capacity to put things into an English which projects ideas as if bodily into space till they are solid things to walk around and survey from different sides. These things are not so common in philosophy that they may not smell sweet even by the name of pragmatism. End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 of Essays in Experimental Logic This is a LibreBox recording. All LibreBox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibreBox.org Essays in Experimental Logic by John Dewey Chapter 13 An Added Note as to the Practical It is easier to start a legend than to prevent its continued circulation. No misconception of the instrumental logic has been more persistent than the belief that it makes knowledge merely a means to a practical end or to the satisfaction of practical needs. Practical being taken to signify some quite definite utilities of a material or bread and butter type. Habitual associations aroused by the word pragmatic have been stronger than the most explicit and emphatic statements which any pragmatist has been able to make. But I again affirm that the term pragmatic means only the rule of referring all thinking, all reflective considerations to consequences for final meaning and test. Nothing is said about the nature of the consequences. They may be aesthetic or moral or political or religious in quality. Anything new please. All that the theory requires is that they be in some way consequences of thinking. Not indeed. Of it alone. But of it acted upon in connection with other things. This is no afterthought inserted to lessen the force of objections. Mr. Pierce explained that he took the term pragmatic from Kent in order to denote all consequences. When he refers to their practical character it is only to indicate a criterion by which to avoid purely verbal disputes. Different consequences are alleged to constitute rival meanings of a term. Is a difference more than merely one of formulation? The way to get an answer is to ask whether if realized these consequences would exact the different modes of behavior. If they do not make such a difference in conduct, the difference between them is conventional. It is not that consequences are themselves practical, but that practical consequences from them may at times be appealed to in order to decide the specific question of whether to propose meanings differ save in words. Mr. James says expressly what is important is that the consequences should be specific not that they should be active. When he said that general notions must cash in, he meant of course that they must be translatable into verifiable specific things, but the words cash in were enough for some of his critics who pride themselves upon a logical rigor unattainable by mere pragmatists in the logical version of pragmatism termed instrumentalism. Action or practice does indeed play a fundamental role. But it concerns not the nature of consequences, but the nature of knowing. T, analysis is ultimately physical and active. That meanings in their logical quality are standpoints, attitudes, and methods of behaving toward facts and that active experimentation is essential to verification. Put in another way, it holds that thinking does not mean any transcendent states or acts suddenly introduced into a previously natural scene, but that the operations of knowing are or are artfully derived from natural responses of the organism which constitute knowing in virtue of the situation of doubt in which they arise and in virtue of the uses of inquiry, reconstruction, and control to which they are put. There is no warrant in the doctrine for carrying over this practical quality into the consequences in which action culminates. And by which it is tested and corrected, a knowing as an act is instrumental to the resultant controlled and more significant situation. This does not imply anything about the intrinsic or the instrumental character of the consequent situation. That is whatever it may be in a given case. There is nothing, novel, nor heterodox in the notion that thinking is instrumental. The very word is redolent of an organum, whether novum or veteran. The term instrumentality applied to thinking raises at once. However, the question of whether thinking as a tool falls within or without the subject matter which it shapes into knowledge. The answer of formal logic adopted moreover by Kant and followed in some way by all neo-Cantian logics is unambiguous. To call logic formal means precisely that mind or thought supplies forms foreign to the original subject matter, but yet required in order that it should have the appropriate form of knowledge. In this regard it deviates from the Aristotle in organum which it professes to follow for according to Aristotle the processes of knowing, of teaching and learning, which lead up to knowledge but the actualization through the potentialities of the same forms or natures which are previously actualized in nature through the potentialities of extra-organic bodies. Thinking which is not instrumental to truth, which is merely formal in the modern sense, would have been a monstrosity inconceivable to him, but the discarding of the metaphysics of form and matter of cyclic actualization of any eternal species deprived the Aristotleian thought of any place within this game of things and left it an activity with forms alien to subject matter to conceive of thinking as instrumental to truth or knowledge and as a tool shaped out of the same subject matter as that to which it is applied is but to return to the Aristotleian tradition about logic that the practice of science in the meantime substituted a logic of experimental discovery of which definition and classification are themselves but auxiliary tools for a logic of arrangement and exposition of what is already known necessitates, however, a very different sort of organon. It makes necessary the conception that the object of knowledge is not something with which thinking sets out something with which it ends something which the processes of inquiry and testing that constitute thinking themselves produce. Thus the object of knowledge is practical in the sense that it depends upon a specific kind of practice for its existence for its existence as an object of knowledge how practical it may be in any other sense then this is quite another story the object of knowledge marks an achieved triumph a secured control that holds by the very nature of knowledge what other uses it may have depends upon its own inherent character not upon anything in the nature of knowledge we do not know the origin in nature and the cure of malaria till we can both produce and eliminate malaria the value of either the production or the removal depends upon the character of malaria in relation to other things and so it is with mathematical knowledge or with knowledge of politics or art their respective objects are not known till they are made in course of the process of experimental thinking their usefulness when made is whatever from infinity to zero experience may subsequently determine it to be end of section 14 chapter 14 of essays in experimental logic this is a LibriVox recording while LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org essays in experimental logic by John Dewey chapter 14 the logic of judgments of practice their nature in introducing the discussion I shall first say a word to avoid possible misunderstandings it may be objected that such a term as practical judgment is misleading that the term practical judgment is a misnomer and a dangerous one since all judgments by their very nature are intellectual or theoretical consequently there is a danger that the term will lead us to treat as judgment and knowledge something which is not really knowledge at all and thus start us on the road which ends in mysticism or obscurantism all this is admitted I do not mean by practical judgment a type of judgment having a different organ and source from other judgments I mean simply a kind of judgment having a specific type of subject matter propositions exist relating to agenda to things to do or be done judgments of a situation demanding action there are, for example propositions of the form M N should do thus and so it is better, wiser, more prudent right advisable, opportune expedient, etc to act thus and so and this is the type of judgment I denote practical it may also be objected but this type of subject matter is not distinctive that there is no ground for marking it off from judgments of the form SP or MRN I am willing, again to admit that such may turn out to be the fact but, meanwhile, the prima facie difference is worth considering if only for the sake of reaching a conclusion as to whether or no there is a kind of subject matter so distinctive as to imply a distinctive logical form to assume in advance that the subject matter of practical judgments must be reducible to the form SP or MRN is assurantly as gratuitous as the contrary assumption it begs one of the most important questions about the world which can be asked the nature of time moreover, current discussion exhibits, if not a complete void at least a decided lacuna as to propositions of this type MRN has recently said that of the two parts of logic the first enumerates or inventories the different kinds are forms of propositions footnote scientific method in philosophy page 57 and footnote it is noticeable that he does not even mention this kind as a possible kind yet it is conceivable that this omission seriously compromises the discussion of other kinds additional specimens of practical judgments may be given he had better consult a physician it would not be advisable for you to invest in those bonds the United States should either modify its Monroe Doctrine or else make more efficient military preparations this is a good time to build a house if I do that I shall be doing wrong etc it is silly to dwell upon the practical importance of judgments of this sort but not wholly silly to say that their practical importance arouses suspicion as to the grounds of their neglect in discussion of logical forms in general regarding them we may say 1. their subject matter implies an incomplete situation this incompleteness is not physical something is there but what is there does not constitute the entire objective situation as there it requires something else only after this something else has been supplied will the given coincide with the full subject matter this consideration has an important bearing upon the conception of the indeterminate and contingent it is sometimes assumed both by adherents and by opponents that the validity of these notions entails that the given is itself indeterminate which appears to be nonsense the logical implication is that of a subject matter is yet undeterminated unfinished or not wholly given the implication is of future things moreover the incompleteness is not personal I mean by this that the situation is not confined within the one making the judgment the practical judgment is neither exclusively nor primarily about oneself on the contrary it is a judgment about oneself only as it is a judgment about the situation in which one is included and in which a multitude of other factors external to self are included the contrary assumption is so constantly made about moral judgments that this statement must appear dogmatic but surely the prima facie case is that when I judge that I should not give money to the street beggar I am judging the nature of an objective situation and that the conclusion about myself is governed by the proposition about the situation in which I happen to be included the full complex proposition includes the beggar social conditions and consequences a charity organization society etc on exactly the same footing as it contains myself aside from the fact that it seems impossible to defend the objectivity of moral propositions on any other ground we may at least point to the fact that judgments of policy whether made about ourselves or some other agent are certainly judgments of a situation which is temporarily unfinished now is a good time for me to buy certain railway bonds is a judgment about myself only because it is primarily a judgment about hundreds of factors wholly external to myself if the genuine existence of such propositions be admitted the only question about moral judgments is whether or no there are cases of practical judgments as the latter have been defined a question of utmost importance for moral theory but not of crucial import for our logical discussion to their subject matter implies that the proposition is itself a factor in the completion of the situation carrying it forward to its conclusion according as the judgment is that this or that should be done the situation will when completed have this or that subject matter the proposition that it is well to do this is a proposition to treat the given in a certain way since the way is established by the proposition the proposition is a determining factor in the outcome as a proposition about the supplementation of the given it is a factor in the supplementation and this is not an extraneous matter something subsequent to the proposition but in its own logical force here is found prima facie at least a marked distinction of the practical proposition from the descriptive and narrative propositions from the familiar SP propositions and from those of pure mathematics the matter imply that the proposition does not enter into the constitution of the subject matter of the proposition there also is a distinction from another kind of contingent proposition namely that which has the form he has started for your house the house is still burning it will probably rain the unfinishedness of the given is implied in these propositions but it is not implied that the proposition is a factor in determining their completion three the subject matter implies that it makes a difference how the given is terminated that one outcome is better than another and that the proposition is to be a factor in securing as far as may be the better in other words there is something objectively at stake in the forming of the proposition at right or wrong descriptive judgment a judgment confined to the given whether temporal spatial or subsistent does not affect its subject matter it does not help or hinder its development for by hypothesis it has no development but a practical proposition affects the subject matter for better or worse for it is a judgment as to the condition the thing to be done of the existence of the complete subject matter footnote the analytic realists have shown a peculiar disinclination to discuss the nature of future consequences as terms of propositions they certainly are not identical with the mental act of referring to them they are objective to it do they therefore already subsist in some realm of subsistence or is subsistence a name for the fact of logical reference leaving the determination of the meaning of subsistence dependent upon a determination of the meaning of logical more generally what is the position of analytic realism about the future and footnote for a practical proposition is binary it is a judgment that the given is to be treated in a specified way it is also a judgment that the given admits of such treatment that it admits of a specified objective termination it is a judgment at the same stroke of end the result to be brought about and of means ethical theories which disconnect the discussion of ends as so many of them do from determination of means thereby take discussion of ends out of the region of judgment if there be such ends they have no intellectual status to judge that I should see a physician implies that the given elements of the situation should be completed in a specific way and also that they afford the conditions which make the proposed completion practicable the proposition concerns both resources and obstacles intellectual determination of elements lying in the way of say proper vigor and of elements which can be utilized to get around or surmount these obstacles the judgment regarding the need of a physician implies the existence of hindrances in the pursuit of the normal occupations of life but it equally implies the existence of positive factors which may be set in motion to surmount the hindrances and reinstate normal pursuits it is worthwhile to call attention to the reciprocal character of the practical judgment in its bearing upon the statement of means from the side of the end the reciprocal nature locates and condemns utopianism and romanticism what is sometimes called idealism from the side of means it locates and condemns materialism and predeterminism what is sometimes called mechanism by materialism i mean the conception that the given contains exhaustively the entire subject matter of practical judgment that the facts in their giveness are all there is to it the given is undoubtedly just what it is it is determinant throughout but it is the given of something to be done the survey and inventory of present conditions of facts are not something complete in themselves they exist for the sake of an intelligent determination of what is to be done of what is required to complete the given to conceive the given in any such way then as to imply that it negates in its given character the possibility of any doing of any modification is self contradictory as a part of a practical judgment the discovery that a man is suffering from an illness is not a discovery that he must suffer or that the subsequent course of events is determined by his illness it is the indication of a needed and a possible course by which to restore health even the discovery that the illness is hopeless falls within this principle it is an indication not to waste time and money on certain fruitless endeavors with respect to death etc. it is also an indication of search for conditions which will render in the future similar cases remediable not hopeless the whole case for the genuineness of practical judgment stands or falls with this principle it is open to question but decision as to its validity must rest upon empirical evidence it cannot be ruled out of court by a dialectic development of the implications of propositions about what is already given or what has already happened that is its invalidity cannot be deduced from an assertion that the character of the scientific judgment as a discovery and statement of what is forbids it much less from an analysis of mathematical propositions for this method only begs the question unless the facts are complicated by the surreptitious introduction of some preconception the prima facie empirical case is that the scientific judgment the determinant diagnosis favors instead of forbidding the doctrine of a possibility of change of the given to overthrow this presumption means I repeat there is never specific evidence which makes it impossible and in view of the immense body of empirical evidence showing that we add to control of what is given the subject matter of scientific judgment by means of scientific judgment the likelihood of any such discovery seems slight these considerations throw light upon the proper meaning of practical idealism mechanism idealism in action does not seem to be anything except an explicit recognition of just the implications we have been considering it signifies a recognition that the given is given as obstacles to one course of active development or completion and as resources for another course by which development of the situation directly blocked may be indirectly secured it is not a blind instinct of hopefulness or that miscellaneous obscurantist emotionalism often called optimism any more than it is utopianism it is recognition of the increased liberation and redirection of the course of events achieved through accurate discovery or more specifically it is this recognition operating as a ruling motive in extending the work of discovery and utilizing its results mechanism means the reciprocal recognition on the side of means it is the recognition of the import within the practical judgment of the given of fact in its determinant character the facts in their isolation taken as complete in themselves are not mechanistic at most they just are and that is the end of them they are mechanistic as indicating the mechanism the means of accomplishing the possibilities which they indicate apart from a forward look the anticipation of the future movement of affairs mechanism is a meaningless conception there is no sense in implying the conception to a finished world to any scene which is simply and only done with propositions regarding a past world just as past not as furnishing the conditions of what is to be done might be complete and accurate but they would be of the nature of a complex catalogue to introduce in addition the conception of mechanism is to introduce the implication of possibilities of future accomplishment footnote supposing the question to be that of some molten state of the earth in past geologic ages taken as the complete subject matter of a proposition or science the facts discovered cannot be regarded as causative of or a mechanism of the appearance of life for by definition they form a closed system to introduce reference to a future event is to deny the definition otherwise a statement of that past condition of the earth as a mechanical condition of the later emergence of life means that the past stage is taken not merely as past but as in process of transition to its future as in process of alteration in the direction of life change in this direction is an integral part of a statement of the early stage of the earth's history a purely geologic statement may be quite accurate in its own universe of discourse and yet quite incomplete and hence inaccurate in another universe of discourse that is to say a geologists propositions may accurately set forth a prior state of things while ignoring any reference to a later state entailed by them but a would-be philosophy may not ignore the implied future and footnote 5 the judgment of what is to be done implies as we have just seen a statement of what the given facts of the situation are taken as indications of the course to pursue and of the means to be employed in its pursuit such a statement demands accuracy completeness is not so much an additional requirement as it is a condition of accuracy for accuracy depends fundamentally upon relevancy to the determination of what is to be done completeness does not mean exhaustiveness per se but adequacy as respects end and its means to include too much or what is irrelevant is a violation of the demand for accuracy quite as well as to leave out to fail to discover what is important clear recognition of this fact will enable one to avoid certain dialectic confusions it has been argued that a judgment of given existence or fact cannot be hypothetical that factuality and hypothetical character are contradictions in terms they would be if the two qualifications were used in the same respect but they are not the hypothesis is that the facts which constitute the terms of the proposition of the given are relevant and adequate for the purpose in hand the determination of a possibility to be accomplished in action the data may be as factual as absolute as you please and yet in no way guarantee that they are the data of this particular judgment suppose the thing to be done is the formation of a prediction regarding the return of a comment the prime difficulty is not in making observations or in the mathematical calculations based upon them difficult as these things may be it is making sure that we have taken as data the observations really implicated in the doing rightly of this particular thing that we have not left out something which is relevant or included something which has nothing to do with the further movement of the comment Darwin's hypothesis of natural selection does not stand or fall for the correctness of his propositions regarding breeding of animals in domestication the facts of artificial selection may be as stated in themselves there may be nothing hypothetical about them but their bearing upon the origin of species is a hypothesis logically any factual proposition is a hypothetical proposition when it is made the basis of any interference the bearing of this remark upon the nature of the truth of practical judgments including the judgment of what is given is obvious their truth or falsity is constituted by the issue the determination of ended means constituting the terms and relations of the practical proposition is hypothetical until the course of action indicated has been tried the event or issue of such action is the truth or falsity of the judgment this is an immediate conclusion from the fact that only the issue gives the complete subject matter in this case at least verification and truth completely coincide unless there is some serious error in the prior analysis this completes the account preliminary to a consideration of other matters the account suggests another and independent question with respect to which I shall make an excursus how far is it possible and legitimate to extend or generalize the results reached to apply to all propositions of facts that is to say is it possible and legitimate to treat all scientific or descriptive statements of matters of fact as implying indirectly if not directly to anything to be done future possibilities to be realized in action the question as to legitimacy is too complicated to be discussed in an incidental way but it cannot be denied that there is a possibility of such application nor that the possibility is worth careful examination we may frame at least a hypothesis that all judgments of fact have reference to a determination of courses of action and to the discovery of means for their realization in the sense already explained all propositions which state discoveries or ascertainments all categorical propositions would be hypothetical and their truth would coincide with their tested consequences effected by intelligent action this theory may be called pragmatism but it is a type of pragmatism quite free from dependence upon a volunteerilistic psychology it is not complicated by reference to emotional satisfactions or the play of desires I am not arguing the point but possibly critics of pragmatism would get a new light upon its meaning worthy to set out with an analysis of ordinary practical judgments and then proceed to consider the bearing of its result upon judgments of facts and essences Mr. Bertrand Russell has remarked footnote philosophical essays page 104-105 and footnote that pragmatism originated as a theory about the truth of theories but ignored the truths of fact upon which theories rest and by which they are tested I am not concerned to question this so far as the origin of pragmatism is concerned philosophy, at least has been mainly a matter of theories and Mr. James was conscientious enough to be troubled about the way in which the meaning of such theories is to be settled and the way in which they are to be tested his pragmatism was in effect as Mr. Russell recognizes a statement of the need of applying to philosophic theories the same kinds of test as are used in the theories of the inductive sciences but this does not preclude the application of a like method to dealing with so called truths of fact facts may be facts and yet not be the facts of the inquiry in hand in all scientific inquiry however to call them facts or data or truths of fact signifies that they are taken as the relevant facts of the interference to be made if as this would seem to indicate they are then implicated however indirectly in a proposition about what is to be done they are themselves theoretical and logical quality accuracy of statement and correctness of reasoning would then be factors in truth but so also would be verification truth would be a triadic relation but of a different sort from that expounded by Mr. Russell for accuracy and correctness would both be functions of verifiability End of section 15