PRAGMATISM
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PRAGMATISM
of Experience", and Simmel's "Philosophie dea
Geldes" tend towards establishing the same criterion.
In France, Renouvier's return to the point of view of
practical reason in his neo-Criticism, the so-called
"new philosophy" which minimizes the value of scien-
tific categories as interpretations of reality, and which
has its chief representative in Poincard, who, as James
says, "misses Pragmatism only by the breadth of a
hair", and, finally, Bergson, whom the Pragmatists
everywhere recognize as the most brilliant and logical
of their leaders, represent the growth and develop-
ment of the French School of Pragmatism. Side by
side with this French movement, and not uninfluenced
by it, is the school of Catholic Immanent Apologists,
beginning with Olld-Laprune and coming down to
Blondcl and Le Roy, who exalt action, life, sentiment,
or some other non-rational clement into the sole and
supreme criterion of higher spiritual truth. In Italy,
Giovanni Papini, author of "Introduzione al prag-
matismo", takes his place among the most advanced
exponents of the principle that "the meaning of
theories consists uniquely in the consequences which
those who believe them true may expect from them"
(Introd., p. 28). Indeed, he seems at times to go far-
ther than the American and English Pragmatists;
when, for instance, in the " Popular Science Monthly"
(Oct., 1907), he writes that Pragmatism "is less a
philosophy than a method of doing without philos-
ophy".
ill. Pragmatic Theory of Knowledge. — In fair- ness to the Pragmatists it must be recorded that, when they claim to shift the centre of philosophic inquiry from the theoretical to the practical, they explain that by "practical" they do not understand merely the "bread and butter" consequences, but include also among practical consequences such considerations as logical consistency, intellectual satisfaction, and har- mony of mental content; and James expressly affirms that by "practical" he means "particular and con- crete". IndividuaHsm or Nominalism is, therefore, the starting-point of the Pragmatist. Indeed Dr. Schiller assures us that the consequences which are the test of truth must be the consequences to some one, for some purpose. The Intellectualism against which Pragmatism is a revolt recognizes logical consistency among the tests of truth. But while Intellectualism refers the truth to be treated to universal standards, to laws, principles, and to established generalizations. Pragmatism uses a standard which is particular, indi- vidual, personal. Besides, realistic Intellectualism, Buch as was taught by the Scholastics, recognizes an order of real things, independent of the mind, not made by the mind, but given in experience, and uses that as a standard of truth, conformitj' to it being a test of truth, and lack of conformity being a proof of falseness. Pragmatism regards this realism as naive, as a relic of primitive modes of philo.sophizing, and is obliged, therefore, to test newly-acquired truth by the standard of truth already in the mind, that is, by per- sonal or individual experience. Again, there underlies the pragmatic account of knowledge a Sensist psy- chology, latent, perhaps, so far as the consciousness of the Pragmatist is concerned. For the Pragmatist, although he does not affirm that we have no knowledge superior to sense knowledge, leaves no room in hia philosophy for knowledge that represents universally and necessarily and, at the same time, validly.
Knowledge begins with sense-impressions. At this point the Pragmatist falls into his initial error, an error, however, of which the idealistic Intellectualist is also guilty. What we are aware of, say both the Pragmatist and the Idealist, is not a thing, or a quality of an object, but the state of self, the subjective condi- tion, the "sensation of whiteness", the "sensation of sweetness" etc. This error, fatal as it is, need not detain us here, because, as has been said, it is common to Idealists and Pragmatists. It is, in fact, the luck-
less Cartesian legacy to all modern systems. Next, we
come to percepts, concepts, or ideas. Incidentally, it
may be remarked that the Pragmatist, in common
with the Sensist, this time, fails to distinguish between
a percept, which is particular and contingent, and an
idea or concept, which is universal and necessary. Let
us take the word concept, and use it as he does, with-
out distinguishing its specific meaning. What is the
value of the concept? The Realist answers that it is a
representation of reality, that, as in the case of the im-
pression, so here, too, there is a something outside the
mind which the concept represents and which is the
primary test of the truth of the concept. The Prag-
matist rejects the notion that concepts represent
reality. However the Pragmatists may differ later on,
they are all agreed on this point: James, Schiller,
Berg.son, Papini, the neo-Critics of science and the
Immanentists. What, then, does the concept do?
Concepts, we are told, are tools fashioned by the
human mind for the manipulation of experience.
James, for example, says "The notions of one Time,
one Space . . . the distinctions between thoughts
and things . . . the conceptions of classes with
subclasses within them . . . surely all these were
once definite conquests made at historic dates by our
ancestors in their attempts to get the chaos of their
crude individual experiences into a more shareable and
manageable shape. They proved of such sovereign
use as DenkmiUel that they are now a part of the very
structure of our mind" (Meaning of Truth, p. 62).
A concept, therefore, is true if, when we use it as a tool to manipulate or handle our experience, the re- sults, the practical results, are satisfactory. It is true if it functions well; in other words, if it "works". Schiller expresses the same notion in almost identical words. Concepts, he tells us, are "tools slowly fash- ioned by the practical intelligence for the mastery of experience" (.Studies in Humanism, p. 64). They are not static but dynamic; their work is never done. For each new experience has to be subjected to the process of manipulation, and this process implies the readjustment of all past experience. Hence, as Schiller says, there are truths but there is no truth ; or, as James expresses it, truth is not transcendent but ambulatory; that is to say, no truth is made and set aside, or out- side experience, for future reference of new truth to it ; experience is a stream out of which we can never step; no item of experience can ever be verified defi- nitely and irrevocably; it is verified provisionally now, but must be verified again to-morrow, when I acquire a new experience. Verificabihty and not verification is the test of experience; and, therefore, the function of the concept, of any concept or of all of them, goes on indefinitely.
Professor Dewey agrees with James and Schiller in his description of the meaning of concepts. He ap- pears to differ from them merely in the greater em- phasis which he lays on the strain or stress which the concept relieves. Our first experience, he says, is not knowledge properly so-called. When to this is added a second experience there is likely to arise in the mind a sense of contradiction, or, at least, a consciousness of the lack of coordination, between the first and the second. Hence arises doubt, or uneasiness, or strain, or some other form of the throes of thinking. We can- not rest until this painful condition is remedied. Therefore we inquire, and continue to inquire until we obtain an answer which satisfies by removing the inconsistency which existed, or by bringing about the adjustment which is required. In this inquiry we use the concept as a "plan of action"; if the plan leads to satisfaction, it is true, if it does not, it is false. For Dewey, as for James and Schiller, each adjustment means a going over and a doing over of all the previous contents of experience, or, at least, of those contents which are in any way relevant or referrable to the newly-acquired item. Here, therefore, we have once
