Part 3 (1/2)
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?