Part 2 (2/2)

We may add a pa.s.sage with the same bearing, from ”The Meaning of Truth”. In this quotation James is retracting the statement made in the University of California Address that without the future there is no difference between theism and materialism. He says: ”Even if matter could do every outward thing that G.o.d does, the idea of it would not work as satisfactorily, because the chief call for a G.o.d on modern men's part is for a being who will inwardly recognize them and judge them sympathetically. Matter disappoints this craving of our ego, and so G.o.d remains for most men the truer hypothesis, and indeed remain so for definite pragmatic reasons”. (p. 189, notes).

The contrast between 'intellectual' and 'practical' seems to make his position certain. If truth is tested by practical workings, _as contrasted with_ intellectual workings, it cannot be said to be limited to fulfilled expectation.

The statement that the soul is good _or_ true shows the same thing.

The relation of truth to extraneous values is here beyond question.

The other pa.s.sages all bear, more or less obviously, in the same direction.

As James keeps restating his position, there are many of the definitions that could be interpreted to mean either values or fulfillments, and even a few which seem to refer to fulfillment alone.

The two following examples can be taken to mean either:

”'Truth' in our ideas and beliefs means ... that ideas (which themselves are but parts of our experience) become true just in so far as they help us to get into satisfactory relation with other parts of our experience, to summarize them and get about among them by conceptual short-cuts instead of following the interminable succession of particular phenomena. Any idea upon which we can ride, so to speak; any idea that will carry us prosperously from one part of our experience to any other part, linking things satisfactorily, working securely, simplifying, saving labor, is true for just so much, true in so far forth, true instrumentally”. (p.58).

”A new opinion counts as true just in proportion as it gratifies the individual's desire to a.s.similate the novel in his experience to his beliefs in stock. It must both lean on old truth and grasp new fact; and its success ... in doing this, is a matter for individual appreciation. When old truth grows, then, by new truth's addition, it is for subjective reasons. We are in the process and obey the reasons.

The new idea is truest which performs most felicitously its function of satisfying this double urgency. It makes itself true, gets itself cla.s.sed as true, by the way it works.” (p.64).

But we can turn from these to a paragraph in which truth seems to be limited to fulfilled expectations alone.

”True ideas are those which we can a.s.similate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those which we cannot. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that, therefore, is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known as....

”But what do validation and verification themselves pragmatically mean? They again signify certain practical consequences of the verified and validated idea.... They head us ... through the acts and other ideas which they instigate, into or 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”. (pp.201-202).

_The Relation of Truth to Utility_--It seems certain from the foregoing that James means, at least at certain times, to define the true in terms of the valuable. Satisfaction he is using as satisfaction _by_ rather than satisfaction _of_. As we have pointed out, one may be satisfied of the correctness of one's idea without being at all satisfied by it. This distinction has been most clearly set forth by Boodin, in his discussion of 'What pragmatism is not', in the following words: ”The truth satisfaction may run counter to any moral or esthetic satisfaction in the particular case. It may consist in the discovery that the friend we had backed had involved us in financial failure, that the picture we had bought from the catalogue description is anything but beautiful. But we are no longer uncertain as regards the truth. Our restlessness, so far as that particular curiosity is concerned, has come to an end”.[9]

[9] Boodin: Truth and Reality, pp. 193-4.

It is clear then, that the discovery of truth is not to be identified with a predominantly satisfactory state of mind at the moment. Our state of mind at the moment may have only a grain of satisfaction, yet this is of so unique a kind and so entirely distinguishable from the other contents of the mind that it is perfectly practicable as a criterion. It is simply ”the cessation of the irritation of a doubt”, as Peirce puts it, or the feeling that my idea has led as it promised.

The feeling of fulfilled expectation is thus a very distinct and recognizable _part_ of the whole general feeling commonly described as 'satisfaction'. When 'utility' in our ideas, therefore, means a momentary feeling of dominant satisfaction, truth cannot be identified with it.

And neither, as I wish now to point out, can truth be identified with utility when utility means a long-run satisfactoriness, or satisfactoriness of the idea for a considerable number of people through a considerable period of time. The same objection arises here which we noted a moment ago--that the satisfaction may be quite indifferent to the special satisfaction arising from tests. As has been often shown, many ideas are satisfactory for a long period of time simply because they are _not_ subjected to tests. ”A hope is not a hope, a fear is not a fear, once either is recognized as unfounded.... A delusion is delusion only so long as it is not known to be one. A mistake can be built upon only so long as it is not suspected”.

Some actual delusions which were not readily subjected to tests have been long useful in this way. ”For instance, basing ourselves on Lafcadio Hearn, we might quite admit that the opinions summed up under the t.i.tle 'Ancestor-Wors.h.i.+p' had been ... 'exactly what was required'

by the former inhabitants of j.a.pan”. ”It was good for primitive man to believe that dead ancestors required to be fed and honored ... because it induced savages to bring up their offspring instead of letting it perish. But although it was useful to hold that opinion, the opinion was false”. ”Mankind has always wanted, perhaps always required, and certainly made itself, a stock of delusions and sophisms”.[10]

[10] Lee: Vital Lies, vol. 1, pp. 11, 31, 33, 72.

Perhaps we would all agree that the belief that 'G.o.d is on our side'

has been useful to the tribe holding it. If has increased zeal and fighting efficiency tremendously. But since G.o.d can't be on both sides, the belief of one party to the conflict is untrue, no matter how useful. To believe that (beneficial) tribal customs are enforced by the tribal G.o.ds is useful, but if the tribal G.o.ds are non-existent the belief is false. The beautiful imaginings of poets are sometimes useful in minimizing and disguising the hard and ugly reality, but when they will not test out they cannot be said because of their beauty or desirability to be true.

We must conclude then, that some delusions are useful. And we may go on and question James' identification of truth and utility from another point of view. Instead of agreeing that true ideas and useful ideas are the same, we have shown that some useful ideas are false: but the converse is also demonstrable, that some true ideas are useless.

There are formulas in pure science which are of no use to anyone outside the science because their practical bearings, if such there be, have not yet been discovered, and are of no use to the scientist himself because, themselves the products of deduction, they as yet suggest nothing that can be developed farther from them. While these formulas may later be found useful in either of these senses--for 'practical demands' outside the science, or as a means to something else within the science--they are now already true quite apart from utility, because they will test out by fulfilling expectations.

Knowledge that is not useful is most striking in relation to 'vice'.

One may have a true idea as to how to lie and cheat, may know what cheating is and how it is done, and yet involve both himself and others in most _un_satisfactory consequences. The person who is attempting to stop the use of liquor, and who to this end has located in a 'dry' district, may receive correct information as to the location of a 'blind-tiger'--information which while true may bring about his downfall. Knowledge about any form of vice, true knowledge that can be tested out, may upon occasion be harmful to any extent we like.

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