TRUTH
76
TRUTH
Tho sole ground which tho Hegrlian and the Absolu-
tist have for dpnying these facts is that they will not
square with their theory that the universe is organi-
cally one. Since, therefore, it is confessedly impos-
sible to explain the nature of this unity or to show how
in it the multitudinous differences of the universe are
"reconciled", and since, further, this theory is ac-
knowledged to be hopelessly sceptical, it is surely irra-
tional any longer to maintain it.
C. The Pragmatic Theory. — Life for the Pragmatist is essentially practical. All human activity is pur- posive, and its purpose is the control of human experi- ence with a view to its improvement, both in the individual and in the race. Truth is but a means to this end. Ideas, hypotheses, and theories are but in- struments which man has "made" in order to better both himself and his environment ; and, though specific in type, like all other forms of human activity they exist solely for this end, and are "true" in so far as they fulfil it. Truth is thus a form of value : it is something that works satisfactorily; something that "ministers to human interests, purposes and objects of desire" (Studies in Humanism, 362). There are no axioms or self-evident truths. Until an idea or a judgment has proved itself of value in the manipulation of concrete experience, it is but a postulate or claim to truth. Nor are there any absolute or irreversible truths. A proposition is true so long as it proves itself useful, and no longer. In regard to the essential features of this theory of truth W. James, John Dewey, and A. W. Moore" in America, F. C. S. Schiller in England, G. Simmel in Germany, Papini in Italy, and Henri Bergson, Le Roy, and Abel Rey in France are all sub- stantially in agreement. It is, they say, the only theory which takes account of the psychological processes lay which truth is made, and the only theory which affords a satisfactory answer to the arguments of the sceptic.
In regard to the first of these claims there can be no doubt that Pragmatism is based upon a study of truth "in the making". But the question at issue is not whether interest, purpose, emotion, and volition do as a matter of fact play a part in the process of cognition. That is not di.'iputed. The question is whether, in judging of the validity of a claim to truth, such considerations ought to have weight. If the aim of all cognitive acts is to know reality as it is, then clearly judgments are true only in so far as they satisfy this demand. But this does not help us in deciding what judgments are true and what are not, for the truth of a judgment must already be known before this demand can be satisfied. Similarly with regard to particular interests and purposes; for though such in- terests and purposes may prompt us to seek for knowl- edge, they will not be satisfied until we know truly, or at any rate think we know truly. The satisfaction of our needs, in other words, is posterior to, and already supposes, the po.ssession of true knowledge about whatever we wish to use as a means to the satisfaction of those needs. To act efficiently, we must know what it is we are acting upon and what will be the effects of the action contemplated. The truth of our judgments is verified by their consequences only in those cases where we know that such consequences should ensue if our judgment be true, and then act in order to discover whether in reality they will ensue.
Theoretically, and upon Scholastic principles, since whatever is true is also good, true judgments ought to result in good consequences. But, apart from the fact that the truth of our judgment must in many cases be known before we can act upon them with success, the Pragmatic criterion is too vague and too variable to be of any practical use. "Good conse- quences", "successful operations on reality", "bene- ficial interaction with sensible particulars" denote experiences which it is not easy to recognize or to dis- tinguish from other experiences less good, less success-
ful, and less beneficial. If we take personal valua-
tions as our test, these are proverbially unstable;
while, if social valuations alone are admissible, where
are they to be found, and upon what grounds accepted
by the individual? Moreover, when a valuation has
been made, how are we to know that it is accurate?
VoT this, it would seem, further valuations will be re-
quired, and so on ad infinitum. Distinctively prag-
matic criteria of truth are both impractical and unre-
liable, especially the criterion of felt satisfaction,
which seems to be the favourite (cf. James, " Meaning
of Truth", 88, 89, 101; "Pragmatism", 202, 217;
Schiller, "Studies in Hum.", S2, 185), for in deter-
mining this not only the personal factor, but the mood
of the moment and even physical conditions play a
considerable part. Consequently upon the second
head the claim of the Pragmatist can by no means be
allowed. The Pragmatist theory is not a whit less
sceptical than the theory of the Absolutist, which it
se<>ks to displace. If truth is relative to purposes
and interests, and if these purposes and interests are,
as they are admitted tn be, one and all tinged by per-
sonal idiosyncrasy, then what is true for one man will
not be true for another, and what is true now will not
be true when a change takes place either in the interest
that has engendered it or in the circumstances by
which it has been verified.
k\\ this the Pragmatist grants, but replies that such truth is all that man needs and all that he can get ("Mind", N. S., LXIX, 167). True judgments do not correspond with reality, nor in true judgments do we know reality as it is. The function of cognition, in short, is not to know reahty, but to control it. For this reason truth is identified with its con.sequences — theoretical, if the truth be merely virtual ("Meaning of Truth", 67, 132, 205; "Pragmatism", 208, 209), but in the end practical, particular, concrete. "Truth means successful operations on reality" (Studies in Hum., 118). The truth-relation "consists of inter- vening parts of the universe which can in every par- ticular case be assigned and catalogued" (Meaning of Truth, 234). "The chain of workings which an opinion sets up is the opinion's truth" (Ibid., 235). Thus, in order to refute the Sceptic, the Pragmatist changes the nature of truth, redefining it as the defi- nitely experienceable success which attends the work- ing of certain ideas and judgments; and in so doing he grants precisely what the Sceptic seeks to prove, namely, that our cognitive faculties are incapable of knowing reality as it is. (See Pragmatis.m.)
D. The " Xew" Realist's Theory. — As it is a first principle with both Absolutist and Pragmatist that reality is changed by the very act in which we know it, so the negation of this thesis is the root principle of "New" Realism. In this the "New" Realist is at one with the Scholastic. Reality does not depend upon experience, nor is it modified by experience as such. The "New" Realist, however, has not as yet adopted the correspondence theory of truth. He re- gards both knowledge and truth as unique relations which hold immediately between knower and known, and which are as to their nature indefinable. "The difference between subject and object of consciousness is not a difference of quahty or substance, but a differ- ence of oflSce or place in a configuration" (Journal of Phil. Psychol, and Scientific Meth., VII, 396). Reality is made up of terms and their relations, and truth is just one of these relations, sui generis, and therefore recognizable only by intuition. This ac- count of truth is undoubtedly simple, but there is at any rate one point which it seems altogether to ignore, viz., the existence of judgn>ents and ideas of which, and not of the mind as such, the truth-relation is predicable. We have not on the one hand objects and on the other bare mind; but on the one hand objects and on the other a mind that by means of the judg- ment refers its own ideas to objects — ideas which as
