The Pragmatic Theory Of Truth As Developed By Peirce, James, And Dewey Part 3

We may conclude this section by citing a paragraph which will show the fallacious reasoning by which James came to identify the truth and the utility of ideas. At one point in replying to a criticism he says: "I can conceive no other objective _content_ to the notion of an ideally perfect truth than that of penetration into [a completely satisfactory] terminus, nor can I conceive that the notion would ever have grown up, or that true ideas would ever have been sorted out from false or idle ones, save for the greater sum of satisfactions, intellectual or practical, which the truer ones brought with them. Can we imagine a man absolutely satisfied with an idea and with all his relations to his other ideas and to his sensible experiences, who should yet _not_ take its content as a true account of reality? The _matter_ of the true is thus absolutely identical with the matter of the satisfactory. You may put either word first in your way of talking; but leave out that whole notion of satisfactory working or leading (which is the essence of my pragmatic account) and call truth a static, logical relation, independent even of possible leadings or satisfactions, and it seems to me that you cut all ground from under you". (Meaning of Truth, p. 160).[11]

[11] It is interesting to see that Peirce had the following comment to make in 1878 upon the utility of truth.

"Logicality in regard to practical matters is the most useful quality an animal can possess, and might, therefore, result from the action of natural selection; but outside of these it is probably of more advantage to the animal to have his mind filled with pleasing and encouraging visions, independently of their truth; and thus upon impractical subjects, natural selection might occasion a fallacious tendency of thought". (From the first article in the series "Ill.u.s.trations of the Logic of Science", Popular Science Monthly, vol. 12, p. 3).

Now it is to be observed that this paragraph contains at least three logical fallacies. In the first sentence there is a false a.s.sumption, namely that 'all that survives is valuable'. 'Then', we are given to understand, 'since true ideas survive, they must be valuable'. No biologist would agree to this major premise. 'Correlation' preserves many things that are not valuable, as also do other factors.

In the second sentence there is an implied false conversion. The second sentence says, in substance, that all true ideas are satisfactory (valuable). This is supposed to prove the a.s.sertion of the first sentence, namely, that all satisfactory (valuable) ideas are true.

In the last sentence there is a false disjunction. Truth, it is stated, must either be satisfactory (valuable) working, or a static logical relation. We have tried to show that it may simply mean reliable working or working that leads as it promised. This may be neither predominantly valuable working nor a static logical relation.

_The Relation of Satisfaction to Agreement and Consistency._--James continually rea.s.serts that he has 'remained an epistemological realist', that he has 'always postulated an independent reality', that ideas to be true must 'agree with reality', etc.[12]

[12] For example, in the Meaning of Truth, pages 195 and 233.

Reality he defines most clearly as follows:

"'Reality' is in general what truths have to take account of....

"The first part of reality from this point of view is the flux of our sensations. Sensations are forced upon us.... Over their nature, order and quant.i.ty we have as good as no control....

"The second part of reality, as something that our beliefs must also take account of, is the _relations_ that obtain between their copies in our minds. This part falls into two sub-parts: (1) the relations that are mutable and accidental, as those of date and place; and (2) those that are fixed and essential because they are grounded on the inner nature of their terms. Both sorts of relation are matters of immediate perception. Both are 'facts'....

"The third part of reality, additional to these perceptions (tho largely based upon them), is the _previous truths_ of which every new inquiry takes account". (Pragmatism, p. 244).

An idea's agreement with reality, or better with all those parts of reality, means a satisfactory relation of the idea to them. Relation to the sensational part of reality is found satisfactory when the idea leads to it without jar or discord. "... What do the words verification and validation themselves pragmatically mean? They again signify certain practical consequences of the verified and validated idea. It is hard to find any one phrase that characterizes these consequences better than the ordinary agreement-formula--just such consequences being what we have in mind when we say that our ideas 'agree' with reality. They lead us, namely, through the acts and other ideas which they instigate, into and up to, or towards, other parts of experience with which we feel all the while ... that the original ideas remain in agreement. The connections and transitions come to us from point to point as being progressive, harmonious, satisfactory.

This function of agreeable leading is what we mean by an idea's verification". (Pragmatism, pp. 201-2).

An idea's relation to the other parts of reality is conceived more broadly. Thus pragmatism's "only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the collectivity of life's demands, nothing being omitted. If theological ideas should do this, if the notion of G.o.d, in particular, should prove to do it, how could pragmatism possibly deny G.o.d's existence? She could see no meaning in treating as 'not true' a notion that was pragmatically so successful. What other kind of truth could there be, for her, than all this _agreement with concrete reality_"? (Pragmatism, p. 80, italics mine). Agreement with reality here means ability to satisfy the sum of life's demands.

James considers that this leaves little room for license in the choice of our beliefs. "Between the coercions of the sensible order and those of the ideal order, our mind is thus wedged tightly". "Our (any) theory must mediate between all previous truths and certain new experiences. It must derange common sense and previous belief as little as possible, and it must lead to some sensible terminus or other that can be verified exactly. To 'work' means both these things; and the squeeze is so tight that there is little loose play for any hypothesis. Our theories are thus wedged and controlled as nothing else is". "Pent in, as the pragmatist more than anyone else sees himself to be, between the whole body of funded truths squeezed from the past and the coercions of the world of sense about him, who so well as he feels the immense pressure of objective control under which our minds perform their operations". (Pragmatism, pp. 211, 217, 233).

Now on the contrary it immediately occurs to a reader that if reality be simply "what truths have to take account of", and if taking-account-of merely means agreeing in such a way as to satisfy "the collectivity of life's demands", then the proportion in which these parts of reality will count will vary enormously. One person may find the 'previous-truths' part of reality to make such a strong 'demand' that he will disregard 'principles' or reasoning almost entirely.

Another may disregard the 'sensational' part of reality, and give no consideration whatever to 'scientific' results. These things, in fact, are exactly the things that do take place. The opinionated person, the crank, the fanatic, as well as the merely prejudiced, all refuse to open their minds and give any particular consideration to such kinds of evidence. There is therefore a great deal of room for license, and a great deal of license practiced, when the agreement of our ideas with reality means nothing more than their satisfactoriness to our lives' demands.

How James fell into this error is shown, I believe, by his overestimation of the common man's regard for truth, and especially for consistency. Thus he remarks: "As we humans are const.i.tuted in point of fact, we find that to believe in other men's minds, in independent physical realities, in past events, in eternal logical relations, is satisfactory.... Above all we find _consistency_ satisfactory, consistency between the present idea and the entire rest of our mental equipment...." "After man's interest in breathing freely, the greatest of all his interests (because it never fluctuates or remits, as most of his physical interests do), is his interest in _consistency_, in feeling that what he now thinks goes with what he thinks on other occasions". (Meaning of Truth, pp. 192, 211).

The general method of James on this point, then, is to define truth in terms of satisfaction and then to try to show that these satisfactions cannot be secured illegitimately. That is, that we _must_ defer to experimental findings, to consistency, and to other _checks_ on opinion. Consistency must be satisfactory because people are so const.i.tuted as to find it so. Agreement with reality, where reality means epistemological reality, is satisfactory for the same reason.

And agreement with reality, where reality includes in addition principles and previous truths, must be satisfactory because agreement in this case merely means such taking-account-of as will satisfy the greater proportion of the demands of life. In other words, by defining agreement in this case in terms of satisfactions, he makes it certain that agreement and satisfaction will coincide by the device of arguing in a circle. It turns out that, from over-anxiety to a.s.sure the coincidence of agreement and satisfaction, he entirely loses the possibility of using reality and agreement with reality in the usual sense of checks on satisfactions.

CHAPTER III.

THE PRAGMATIC DOCTRINE AS SET FORTH BY DEWEY.

The position of Dewey is best represented in his paper called "The Experimental Theory of Knowledge".[13] In the method of presentation, this article is much like James' account "The Function of Cognition".

Both a.s.sume some simple type of consciousness and study it by gradually introducing more and more complexity. In aim, also, the two are similar, for the purpose of each is simply to describe. Dewey attempts here to tell of a knowing just as one describes any other object, concern, or event. "What we want", he announces "is just something which takes itself for knowledge, rightly or wrongly".

[13] Mind, N. S. 15, July 1906. Reprinted in "The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays", p. 77.

Page references are to the latter.

Let us suppose, then, that we have simply a floating odor. If this odor starts changes that end in picking and enjoying a rose, what sort of changes must these be to involve some where within their course that which we call knowledge?

Now it can be shown, first, that there is a difference between knowing and mere presence in consciousness. If the smell is simply displaced by a felt movement, and this in turn is displaced by the enjoyment of the rose, in such a way that there is no experience of connection between the three stages of the process,--that is, without the appearance of memory or antic.i.p.ation,--then "such an experience neither is, in whole or in part, a knowledge". "Acquaintance is presence honored by an escort; presence is introduced as familiar, or an a.s.sociation springs up to greet it. Acquaintance always implies a little friendliness; a trace of re-knowing, of antic.i.p.atory welcome or dread of the trait to follow.... To be a smell (or anything else) is one thing, to be _known_ as a smell, another; to be a 'feeling' is one thing, to be _known_ as a 'feeling' is another. The first is thinghood; existence indubitable, direct; in this way all things _are_ that are in 'consciousness' at all. The second is _reflected_ being, things indicating and calling for other things--something offering the possibility of truth and hence of falsity. The first is genuine immediacy; the second (in the instance discussed) a pseudo-immediacy, which in the same breath that it proclaims its immediacy smuggles in another term (and one which is unexperienced both in itself and in its relation) the subject of 'consciousness', to which the immediate is related.... To be acquainted with a thing is to be a.s.sured (from the standpoint of the experience itself) that it is of such and such a character; that it will behave, if given an opportunity, in such and such a way; that the obviously and flagrantly present trait is a.s.sociated with fellow traits that will show themselves if the leading of the present trait is followed out. To be acquainted is to antic.i.p.ate to some extent, on the basis of previous experience". (pp.

81, 82).

Besides mere existence, there is another type of experience which is often confused with knowledge,--a type which Dewey calls the 'cognitive' as distinct from genuine knowledge or the 'cognitional'.

In this experience "we retrospectively attribute intellectual force and function to the smell". This involves memory but not antic.i.p.ation.

As we look back from the enjoyment of the rose, we can say that in a sense the odor meant the rose, even though it led us here blindly.

That is, if the odor suggests the finding of its cause, without specifying what the cause is, and if we then search about and find the rose, we can say that the odor meant the rose in the sense that it actually led to the discovery of it. "Yet the smell is not cognitional because it did not knowingly intend to mean this, but is found, after the event, to have meant it". (p. 84).

Now, "before the category of confirmation or refutation can be introduced, there must be something which _means_ to mean something".

Let us therefore introduce a further complexity into the ill.u.s.tration.

Let us suppose that the smell occurs at a later date, and is then "aware of something else which it means, which it intends to effect by an operation incited by it and without which its own presence is abortive, and, so to say, unjustified, senseless". Here we have something "which is contemporaneously aware of meaning something beyond itself, instead of having this meaning ascribed to it by another at a later period. _The odor knows the rose_, _the rose is known by the odor_, and the import of each term is const.i.tuted by the relations.h.i.+p in which it stands to the other". (p. 88). This is the genuine 'cognitional' experience.

When the odor recurs 'cognitionally', both the odor and the rose are present in the same experience, though both are not present in the same way. "Things can be presented as absent, just as they can be presented as hard or soft". The enjoyment of the rose is present as _going_ to be there in the same way that the odor is. "The situation is inherently an uneasy one--one in which everything hangs upon the performance of the operation indicated; upon the adequacy of movement as a connecting link, or real adjustment of the thing meaning and the thing meant. Generalizing from this instance, we get the following definition: An experience is a knowledge, if in its quale there is an experienced distinction and connection of two elements of the following sort: one means or intends the presence of the other in the same fas.h.i.+on in which it itself is already present, while the other is that which, while not present in the same fas.h.i.+on, must become present if the meaning or intention of its companion or yoke-fellow is to be fulfilled through the operation it sets up". (p. 90).

Now in the transformation from this tensional situation into a harmonious situation, there is an experience either of fulfilment or disappointment. If there is a disappointment of expectation, this may throw one back in reflection upon the original situation. The smell, we may say, seemed to mean a rose, yet it did not in fact lead to a rose. There is something else which enters in. We then begin an investigation. "Smells may become the object of knowledge. They may take, _pro tempore_, the place which the rose formerly occupied. One may, that is, observe the cases in which the odors mean other things than just roses, may voluntarily produce new cases for the sake of further inspection; and thus account for the cases where meanings had been falsified in the issue; discriminate more carefully the peculiarities of those meanings which the event verified, and thus safeguard and bulwark to some extent the employing of similar meanings in the future". (p. 93). When we reflect upon these fulfilments or refusals, we find in them a quality "quite lacking to them in their immediate occurrence as just fulfilments and disappointments",--the quality of affording a.s.surance and correction. "Truth and falsity are not properties of any experience or thing, in and of itself or in its first intention; but of things where the problem of a.s.surance consciously enters in. Truth and falsity present themselves as significant facts only in situations in which specific meanings and their already experienced fulfilments and non-fulfilments are intentionally compared and contrasted with reference to the question of the worth, as to the reliability of meaning, of the given meaning or cla.s.s of meanings. Like knowledge itself, truth is an experienced relation of things, and it has no meaning outside of such relation".

(p. 95).

Though this paper is by t.i.tle a discussion of a theory of knowledge, we may find in this last paragraph a very clear relating of the whole to a theory of truth. If we attempt to differentiate in this article between knowledge and truth, we find that while Dewey uses 'knowledge'

to refer either to the prospective or to the retrospective end of the experimental experience, he evidently intends to limit truth to the retrospective or confirmatory end of the experience. When he says, "Truth and falsity are not properties of any experience or thing in and of itself or in its first intention, but of things where the problem of a.s.surance consciously enters in. Truth and falsity present themselves as significant facts only in situations in which specific meanings and their already experienced fulfilments are intentionally compared and contrasted with reference to the question of the worth, as to reliability of meaning, of the given meaning or cla.s.s of meanings", it seems that truth is to be confined to retrospective experience. The truth of an idea means that it allows one at its fulfilment to look back at its former meaning and think of it as now confirmed. The difference between knowledge and truth is then a difference in the time at which the developing experience is examined.

If one takes the experience at the appearance of the knowing odor, he gets acquaintance; if one takes it at the stage at which it has developed into a confirmation, he gets truth. Knowledge may be either stage of the experience of verification, but truth is confined to the later, confirmatory, stage.

Truth, then, is simply a matter of confirmation of prediction or of fulfilment of expectation. An idea is made true by leading as it promised. And an idea is made false when it leads to refutation of expectation. There seems to be no necessity here for an absolute reality for the ideas to conform to, or 'correspond' to, for truth is a certain kind of relation between the ideas themselves--the relation, namely, of leading to fulfilment of expectations.

CONTRAST BETWEEN JAMES AND DEWEY.

If, now, we wish to bring out the difference between the account of truth which we have just examined and the account that is given by James, we will find the distinction quite evident. Truth, for Dewey, is that relation which arises when, at an experience of fulfilment, one looks back to the former experience and thinks of its leading as now confirmed. An idea is true, therefore, when we can refer back to it in this way and say, "That pointing led me to this experience, as it said it would". The pointing, by bringing a fulfilment, is _made_ true--at this point of confirmation it _becomes_ true.

Since a true idea is defined, then, as one which leads as it promised, it is obvious that truth will not be concerned in any way with incidental or accidental _values_ which might be led to by the idea.

It has no relation to whether the goal is _worth while_ being led to or not. James speaks of truth as a leading that is worth while. For Dewey the goal may be valuable, useless, or even pernicious,--these are entirely irrelevant to truth, which is determined solely by the fact that the idea leads _as it promised_.

The existence of this distinction was pointed out, after the appearance of James' "Pragmatism", by Dewey himself.[14] After a careful discussion of some other points of difference, he says of this matter of the place of the value of an idea in reference to its truth: "We have the theory that ideas as ideas are always working hypotheses concerning attaining 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 actually produced by the working of the idea in cooperation with, or application to, prior realities are good consequences in the specific sense of good which is relevant to establis.h.i.+ng the truth of an idea.

This is, at times, unequivocally recognized by Mr. James.... But at other times any good that 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 from him on such points as these: If ideas terminate in good consequences, but yet the goodness of the consequence was no part of the intention of the idea, does the goodness have any verifying force? If the goodness of consequences arises from the context of the idea 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 these consequences?

[14] "What Does Pragmatism Mean by Practical?", Journal of Philosophy, etc., 1908, v. 5, p. 85.

"Since Mr. James has referred to me as saying 'truth is what gives satisfaction' (p. 234), I may remark ... that I 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 fulfil what it intends....

"When he says ... of the idea of an absolute, 'so far as it affords such comfort it surely is not sterile, it has that amount of value; it performs a concrete function. As a good pragmatist I ought to call the absolute true _in so far forth_ then; and I unhesitatingly now do so', the doctrine seems to be unambiguous: that _any_ good, consequent upon acceptance of belief, is, in so far forth, a warrant for truth. Of course Mr. James holds that this 'in so far' goes a very small way....

But even the slightest concession, is, I think, non-pragmatic unless the satisfaction is relevant to the idea as intent. Now the satisfaction in question comes not from the _idea as idea_, but from its acceptance _as true_. Can a satisfaction dependent upon an a.s.sumption that an idea is already true be relevant to testing the truth of an idea? And can an idea, like that of the absolute, which, if true, 'absolutely' precludes any appeal to consequences as test of truth, be confirmed by use of the pragmatic test without sheer self-contradiction"?[15] "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 the 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 future discussion. At present pragmatism is accepted by those whose own notions are thoroughly rationalistic in make-up as a means of refurbis.h.i.+ng, galvanizing, and justifying those very notions.

It is rejected by non-rationalists (empiricists and naturalistic idealists) because it seems to them identified with the notion that pragmatism holds that the desirability of certain beliefs overrides the question of the meaning of the idea 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.