CRITIQUE OF WILLIAM JAMESS PRAGMATIC THEORY OF TRUTH

Paul Gerard Horrigan, Ph.D., 2010.

Jamess Pragmatism and Pragmatic Theory of Truth

To be undertaken here will be a brief exposition and epistemological critique of the
pragmatic theory of truth of Harvard psychologist and philosopher William James (born January
11, 1842 - died August 26, 1910),1 classical pragmatisms most famous exponent, the other two
1

Studies on William James: E. BOUTROUX, William James, Longmans, Green, London, 1912 ; H. V. KNOX, The
Philosophy of William James, Constable, London, 1914 ; T. FLOURNOY, The Philosophy of William James, Henry
Holt and Co., New York, 1917 ; J. E. TURNER, An Examination of William Jamess Philosophy: A Critical Essay
for the General Reader, B. H. Blackwell, Oxford, 1919 ; S. TISSI, James, Athena, Milan, 1924 ; H. M. KALLEN,
Introduction to the Philosophy of William James, Random House, New York, 1925 ; J. S. BIXLER, Religion in the
Philosophy of William James, Marshall Jones Co., Boston, 1926 ; R. B. PERRY, The Thought and Character of
William James, 2 vols., Little, Brown, Boston, 1935 ; R. P. PERRY, In the Spirit of William James, Yale University
Press, New Haven, 1938 ; M. C. OTTO (ed.), William James: The Man and the Thinker, University of Wisconsin
Press, Madison, 1942 ; G. CASTIGLIONI, James, La Scuola, Brescia, 1945 ; R. B. PERRY, The Thought and
Character of William James: Briefer Edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1948 ; L. MORRIS,
William James: The Message of a Modern Mind, Charles Scribners Sons, New York, 1950 ; C. H. COMPTON,
William James: Philosopher and Man, The Scarecrow Press, New York, 1957 ; G. A. ROGGERONE, James e la
crisi della coscienza contemporanea, Milan, 1961 ; G. RICONDA, La filosofia di W. James, Turin, 1962 ; G. H.
CLARK, William James, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., Philadelphia, 1963 ; T. R. MARTLAND, The
Metaphysics of William James and John Dewey: Process and Structure in Philosophy and Religion, The
Philosophical Library, New York, 1963 ; E. C. MOORE, William James, Washington Square Press, New York,
1965 ; L. M. RAVAGNAN, James, Centro Editor de America Latina, Buenos Aires, 1968 ; J. D. WILD, The
Radical Empiricism of William James, Doubleday, Garden City, NY, 1969 ; R. B. MACLEOD (ed.), William
James: Unfinished Business, American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C., 1969 ; G. ARGERI, Concetti
fondamentali del pragmatismo nel James e nel Dewey, Palermo, 1974 ; P. K. DOOLEY, Pragmatism as Humanism:
The Philosophy of William James, Littlefield, Adams & Co., Totowa, NJ, 1975 ; W. R. CORTI (ed.), The
Philosophy of William James, Menier, Hamburg, 1976 ; C. H. SEIGFRIED, Chaos and Context: A Study in William
James, Ohio University Press, Athens, 1978 ; L. BELLATALLA, Uomo e ragione in W. James, Turin, 1979 ; B.
WILSHIRE, William James and Phenomenology: A Study of The Principles of Psychology, AMS Press, New
York, 1979 ; R. J. VANDEN BURGT, The Religious Philosophy of William James, Nelson-Hall, Chicago, 1981 ; H.
S. LEVINSON, The Religious Investigations of William James, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill,
1981 ; E. K. SUCKIEL, The Pragmatic Philosophy of William James, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame,
IN, 1982 ; M. P. FORD, William Jamess Philosophy: A New Perspective, University of Massachusetts Press,
Amherst, 1982 ; J. BARZUN, A Stroll with William James, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1984 ; E.
TAYLOR, William James on Exceptional Mental States: The 1896 Lowell Lectures, University of Massachusetts
Press, Amherst, 1984 ; H. M. FEINSTEIN, Becoming William James, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1984 ;
G. E. MYERS, William James: His Life and Thought, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1986 ; G. BIRD,
William James (The Arguments of the Philosophers), Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1986 ; E. FONTINELL,
Self, God and Immortality: A Jamesian Investigation, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1986 ; J. EDIE,
William James and Phenomenology, Indiana University Press, Indianapolis, 1987 ; N. FRANKENBERRY, Religion
and Radical Empiricism, SUNY Press, Albany, 1987 ; D. W. BJORK, William James: The Center of His Vision,
Columbia University Press, New York, 1988 ; C. H. SEIGFRIED, William Jamess Radical Reconstruction of
Philosophy, SUNY Press, Albany, NY, 1990 ; J. DE TORRE, William James: Pragmatism, Southeast Asian Science
Foundation, Manila, 1990 ; G. P. GRAHAM, William James and the Affirmation of God, Peter Lang, New York,
1992 ; T. L. S. SPRIGGE, James and Bradley: American Truth and British Reality, Open Court, Chicago, 1993 ; B.
RAMSEY, Submitting to Freedom: The Religious Vision of William James, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1993 ;
E. TAYLOR, William James on Consciousness Beyond the Margin, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1996
; R. A. PUTNAM (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to William James, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,

being John Dewey (though his pragmatist philosophy is described as instrumentalism) and F.
C. S. Schiller (whose philosophical pragmatism is termed humanism). Though the term
pragmatism as a theory of knowledge originated in modern times with Charles Sanders Pierce
in 1878, pragmatism was made famous as a philosophy and hugely popularized by the American
William James, who died at the age of 68 in 1910. James as psychologist published his famous
The Principles of Psychology in two volumes in 1890, while his main philosophical works came
after this, namely: The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897), The
Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902), Pragmatism: A New Name
for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907), A Pluralistic Universe (1909), The Meaning of Truth: A
Sequel to Pragmatism (1909), Some Problems of Philosophy: A Beginning of an Introduction
to Philosophy (posthumously in 1911), Essays in Radical Empiricism (posthumously in 1912).
Though ultimately immanentist in methodology (something that Jamess philosophy
shares with rationalism and idealism), the classical pragmatism of James is a revolt against the a
priorism of the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant and especially the absolute idealism of
G. W. F. Hegel, in favor of the empiricist schools of philosophy: the empiricism of early modern
philosophy (Hume), the later empiricist inspired French positivism of the first half of the
nineteenth century (Comte) and British utilitarianism of the second half of the nineteenth century
(Mill). In his 1907 book Pragmatism, James describes the empiricist, nominalist, positivist and
utilitarianist inspirations of his pragmatist philosophy, which in many places in his works he
describes as a radical empiricism: Pragmatism represents a perfectly familiar attitude in
philosophy, the empiricist attitude, but it represents it, as it seems to me, both in a more radical
and in a less objectionable form than it has ever yet assumed. A pragmatist turns his back
resolutely and once for all upon a lot of inveterate habits dear to professional philosophers. He
turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons,
from fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended absolutes and origins. He turns towards
concreteness and adequacy, towards facts, towards action and towards power. That means the
empiricist temper regnant and the rationalist temper sincerely given up. It means the open air and
possibilities of nature as against dogma, artificiality, and the pretence of finality in truth. At the
same time it does not stand for any special results. It is a method onlyBeing nothing
essentially new, it harmonizes with many ancient philosophic tendencies. It agrees with
nominalism for instance, in always appealing to particulars; with utilitarianism in emphasizing
practical aspects; with positivism in its disdain for verbal solutions, useless questions and
metaphysical abstractionsNo particular results then, so far, but only an attitude of orientation,
is what the pragmatic method means. The attitude of looking away from the first things,

1997 ; L. SIMON, Genuine Reality: A Life of William James, Harcourt Brace, New York, 1998 ; R. GALE, The
Divided Self of William James, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999 ; D. C. LAMBERTH, William James
and the Metaphysics of Experience, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999 ; R. B. GOODMAN,
Wittgenstein and William James, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2002 ; W. PROUDFOOT (ed.), William
James and a Science of Religions, Columbia University Press, New York, 2004 ; R. M. GALE, The Philosophy of
William James: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005 ; R. D. RICHARDSON, William
James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism, Houghton Mifflin, 2006 ; J. O. PAWELSKI, The Dynamic
Individualism of William James, SUNY Press, Albany, NY, 2007 ; S. PIHLSTRM, The Trail of the Human
Serpent is Over Everything: Jamesian Perspectives on Mind, World, and Religion, University Press of America,
Lanham, MD, 2008 ; M. R. SLATER, William James on Ethics and Faith, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
2009.

principles, categories, supposed necessities; and of looking towards last things, fruits,
consequences, facts.2
Concerning Jamess pragmatic theory of truth, Frank Thilly and Ledger Wood write:
Pragmatism is a method of determining the truth or falsity of propositions according as they do
or do not fulfill our purposes and satisfy our biological and emotional needs; a true proposition is
one the acceptance of which leads to success, a false proposition is one which produces failure
and frustration. In introducing a reference to satisfactoriness, expediency, practicality and
instrumentality in his definition of truth, James drastically alters the complexion of the
pragmatism of Pierces more intellectualistic formulation.
The test, then, of a theory, a belief, a doctrine, must be its effects on us, its practical
consequences. This is the pragmatic test. Always ask yourself what difference it will make in
your experience whether you accept materialism or idealism, determinism or free will, monism
or pluralism, atheism or theism. On the one side, it is a doctrine of despair, on the other a
doctrine of hope. On pragmatic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily, in the
widest sense of the word, it is true. The test of truth, then, it its practical consequences; the
possession of truth is not an end in itself, but only a preliminary means to other vital
satisfactions. Knowledge is an instrument; it exists for the sake of life, not life for the sake of
knowledge. James enlarges this pragmatic or instrumental conception so as to include in the idea
of practical utility logical consistency and verification. True ideas are those we can assimilate,
validate, corroborate, and verify. Ideas that tell us which of the realities to expect count as true
ideas. We can, therefore, say of truth that it is useful because it is true, or that it is true because it
is useful. Truth in science is what gives us the maximum possible sum of satisfaction, taste
included, but consistency both with previous truth and novel fact is always the most imperious
claimant.3
In pragmatism truth is produced, manufactured, made by means of postulation and
experimentation. For the pragmatist, something is true if it is able to satisfy some human need; it
is false if it fails to do so. In the words of the noted pragmatist, the advocate of humanism F. C.
S. Schiller: Pragmatism essays to trace the actual making of truth, the actual ways in which
discriminations between the true and the false are effected, and derives from these its
generalizations about the method of determining the nature of truth. It is from such empirical
observations that it derives its doctrine that when an assertion claims truth, its consequences are
always used to test its claim. In other words, what follows from its truth for any human interest,
and more particularly in the first place, for the interest with which it is directly concerned, is
what establishes its real truth and validityHuman interest, then, is vital to the existence of
truth: to say that a truth has consequences and that what has none is meaningless, means that it
has a bearing upon some human interest. Its consequences must be consequences to some one
for some purpose.4
For pragmatism, truth is not permanent, necessary, universal, objective or absolute;
instead, truth, for the pragmatist, is essentially relative, particular, provisional, transformable,
2

W. JAMES, Pragmatism, Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1907, pp. 51 ff.
F. THILLY and L. WOOD, A History of Philosophy, Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1957, p. 639.
4
F. C. S. SCHILLER, Studies in Humanism, Macmillan, London, pp. 4-6.
3

subjective. In pragmatism, the sense of any proposition, and therefore its truth or falsity, is to be
judged by the mental habit it induces, the effect it has in action, and its pragmatic or working
value. In pragmatism the truth or knowledge-value of a particular proposition is not at all any
insight it is supposed to give us into things, but rather its relation of utility to human living.
Hence, the pragmatists disdain for traditional metaphysics or ontology. In pragmatism, human
functions, including all intellectual functions of cognition or belief, are essentially subordinated
and subservient to mans practical needs, to mans life, his conduct, and behaviour. For the
pragmatist, religious belief, like all beliefs, have their truth value in the degree of their usefulness
to human living and well-being. Therefore, pragmatism is more than just a method; rather, it is a
doctrine, a theory of knowledge or a type of epistemology, a philosophy.
In the pragmatist world, if a particular judgment, or assumption, or axiom, or postulate,
or theory, or system of thought works, and satisfies our psychical or emotional or social needs,
then, so far and so long as it does this, it is useful, valuable, and true. James writes in his
Pragmatism: True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify.
False ideas are those that 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.
This thesis is what I have to defend. The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property
inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in
fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is
the process of its valid-ation.5
James maintains that any idea that will carry us prosperously from any one part of our
experience to any other part, linking things satisfactorily, working securely, saving labor, is true
for just so much, true in so far forth, true instrumentally.6 For James, an idea is not simply a
mirror or passive reflection of reality; it is a habit of acting in a certain way, and therefore it is a
plan or guide for our action. If we follow out this plan, we will have a series of experiences that
either lead up to the reality or do not. For example, our idea of tigers prompts us to perform
certain actions that either lead us into the presence of tigers or do not. If these experiences carry
us to the reality, the idea that prompted them is true, if they fail to do so it is false. In short, an
idea is true if it leads us to its object. The series of experiences linking the idea with the reality is
the concrete relation of agreement or pointing.
Accordingly, for James, truth is not an unchanging or inherent property of an idea; it
is something that happens to an idea when it is verified by experienceNeither is truth
something we discover in reality, as though it existed there before we thought about it. We make
truth by formulating ideas and acting upon them; the process of verification (as the word
indicates) is indeed one of truth-making. Bergson puts his finger on the essential nature of truth
in Jamess philosophy when he writes: We invent truth in order to use reality, as we create
mechanical devices to use natural forces. It seems to me that we can sum up the whole essence of

5
6

W. JAMES, op. cit., pp. 200-202.

W. JAMES, op. cit., p. 58.

the pragmatic conception of truth in a formula such as this: while in other doctrines a new truth
is a discovery, for pragmatism it is an invention.7
Although James insists that it is one of mans primary duties to pursue true ideas, he
does not regard their possession as an end in itself but only as a preliminary means towards
other vital satisfactions.8 This is understandable against the background of his voluntaristic
psychology, which claims that perception and thinking are only for the sake of action, and action
is for the satisfaction of some human need.9 Hence James sees little value in a purely objective
knowledge divorced from human desires and human reasons for knowing. True ideas are always
useful ones; they enable us to use reality in order to satisfy some need. Thus truth is a species of
good: The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good,
too, for definite, assignable reasons.10
There are, accordingly, two aspects to a true idea: its verification by the facts, and its
usefulness for life. These can be distinguished but not separated; unless we have some need or
desire for an object, we will not be led to verify our idea of it. If we have no interest in tigers, we
will not be prompted to set in motion the actions that will lead us into their presence. An idea is
nothing but an instrument for satisfying some desire or need, and its verification in experience is
not an end in itself but a process that is fulfilled only in its actual use.
Since individuals differ in their needs and desires, it is understandable that Jamess
pragmatism should stress the role of the individual in determining the truth. An idea is true
insofar as it is satisfactory, but what satisfies one person does not always satisfy another. Hence
truth is to a certain degree plastic and relative to the individual.1112
As regards Jamess pragmatic theory of truth as an expression of purpose, B. A. G. Fuller
writes: By what principle is the selective activity of consciousness motivated? By the total
purpose of the consciousness in question, James answers. We attend to and promote what gives
our total nature, including our emotions and yearnings and aspirations, the greatest satisfaction.
The ideas that interest us are previews of situations that have bearing upon the achievement of
that satisfaction. They are not mere memories of situations that are dead and gone. When we
think, we are not dully looking over photographs of the past. We are trying to paint a portrait of
future experiences that will answer to our desires and fulfill our total purpose. These experiences
are the objects to which ideas are supposed to refer.
Furthermore, and here we come to Jamess pragmatic view of the nature of truth, the
feel of truth which some ideas have is simply the feeling that they do anticipate the desired and
satisfying experience. They correspond to their objects by producing them. Conversely, the
falsity of an idea is the feeling that the experience it pictures is undesirable or unlikely to occur.
7

H. BERGSON, Sur la pragmatisme de William James, vrit et ralit, written as a prefece to Jamess
Pragmatism, Flammarion, Paris, 1911.
8
W. JAMES, op. cit., p. 203.
9
Cf. W. JAMES, The Will to Believe, Longmans, New York, 1897, p. 114.
10
W. JAMES, Pragmatism, Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1907, p. 76.
11
Cf. W. JAMES, op. cit., p. 61.
12
E. GILSON, T. LANGAN, and A. MAURER, Recent Philosophy: Hegel to Present, Random House, New York,
1966, pp. 640-642.

Since true ideas are regarded as forecasts of agreeable and satisfying experiences, they are in
themselves agreeable and satisfactory to entertain. Nevertheless, the proof of the pudding is in
the eating. For the idea to be truly true, it must work not merely by being pleasing in itself, but
by anticipating or producing the satisfactory experiences it promises. As long as it continues to
work in this way, it remains true. When it ceases to yield satisfactory results and no longer
works, it becomes false, and goes into the scrapbasket of outworn creeds, outgrown
hypotheses, and discredited theories.
Plainly then, for James, thinking is secondary to willing. Idea reflects impulse, and
reflects it as it wants to be reflected. The will determines how and what we shall think. Ideas,
insofar as they satisfy or disappoint the expectations of the will, envisage truth or error. The truth
of an idea has nothing to do with anything outside experience, or even with any permanent form
and constitution of experience. It denotes simply that the idea is working satisfactorily at the
moment as a means of getting out of experience what we now want. To be true an idea must
continually come true.13
Describing the anti-theoretical, anti-speculative, practical consequentialism of the
philosophy of pragmatism, Juan Jose Sanguineti writes: Pragmatism is the philosophy that
reduces the value of theoretical truth to its practical consequences. By theory or speculation is
intended knowledge insofar as it indicates that which is; instead, the practical truth indicates that
which must be done. For realism the ultimate foundation of action is found in the nature of
things, since something acts insofar as it is (agere sequitur esse). In pragmatism no truth is
theoretical, in the sense that no truth indicates being: truth is reduced to a human conception that
serves action (theory as a function of the praxis). Then it is clear that pragmatism is the
consequence of every doctrine where the notion of truth disappears, such as skepticism or even
idealism, since if human thought is not a reflection of reality, it will be necessary to assign to it
some function in the context of human conduct: thought will at least have to be useful for human
life.14
With regard to Jamess pragmatism in particular, Sanguineti states: According to James,
ideas have value only in virtue of their practical results for the individual or for society. The sole
criterion of truth is efficacy: for example, if religion betters man, it is true. It is not necessary to
ask whether a theory is true or not in itself, because this will be seen in the concrete action.
Ancient empiricism assigned importance to the past experience as the cause of knowledge, but
James holds to be more important the future experience as the field of inquiry and verification.
Human life begins with sensorial impressions, which awaken a process of reflection (thought),
which in turn is carried in the future action. Life is a continuous circle where the material of
experience is constantly elaborated and projected towards the end of action. Science is
essentially action in the world.
For this reason faith, if it shows itself to be useful, has an important role in life. It does
not matter that a hypothesis is not verified, when it is operative: the risk of error must be
assumed, for example in religious and moral hypotheses, because it is also true that he who does

13
14

B. A. G. FULLER, A History of Philosophy, Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1957, pp. 536-537.
J. J. SANGUINETI, Logic and Gnoseology, Urbaniana University Press, Rome, 1988, pp. 182-183.

not believe likewise decides. In human relations, where the interplay of love and sympathy
enters, only those win who have faith in their possibilities.15
Then, criticizing the pragmatic theory of truth of James rooted in its practical usefulness,
Sanguineti notes: a) it is true that practice can serve as the verification or sign of truth, but only
with regard to the practical truths: a new commercial product shows itself to be useful in
practice; instead, the phrase Caesar was emperor is true or false without practical
consequences; b) the theory of James bases itself on some principle with respect to that which is
practical, a principle which is already the object of a theoretical affirmation. Otherwise, how
would one know whether an idea is practical? (each person may have very different concepts
with regard to this); c) it is true that only with a great faith and conviction can one act
efficaciously, but a conviction ordinarily is born from the cognizance of truth (a physician cures
an illness with certain medicines of which he is certain). Only in extraordinary cases of new
hypotheses is it necessary to have a faith risking the repudiation of reality.16
In its application as a method, pragmatism holds that a thought is true, not because it
agrees with some extra-mental reality, but because it works out right when it is applied to some
specific situation; it is false, not because it misrepresents reality, but because, when it is used, it
does not work out right. Truth, therefore, for pragmatism, consists in the usefulness of an idea in
practice: a proposition is not true or false in itself as an inactive thought in the human mind; it is
verified or falsified, that is, made true or false, by proving usable in practice.
As was said, the pragmatic is simply what will work, what is in fact effective for present
action, and pragmatism finds in this norm the sole criterion for the determination of the truth or
falsity of ideas. The very function of the human intellect is ordered towards, and gets its very
meaning from, action. The end of knowledge would be none other than the furnishing for the
pragmatist with the rules for acting. When the pragmatist discovers these sets of rules, he rests
there, content with what he deems to be belief, that is, an immediate and necessary preparation
for activity. The entire meaning of what is known lies in the action that is performed; the whole
value of human understanding would be found there. Thought receives its value and meaning in
its practical consequences.
Critiques of Pragmatism
Celestine Bittles Critique of Pragmatism. Bittle describes the various contradictions,
confusions and inconsistencies inherent in the pragmatist epistemological system, writing that,
for pragmatism, which is a voluntarist system, the truth of judgments does not arise from their
correspondence to reality. The pragmatist criterion of truth consists in the utility of a belief in
satisfying human needs in a social way. That is true which works, which has practical value,
which leads to beneficial results for human progress, which promotes the best interest of
mankind through living experience. Results make a belief true or false for the time being. Beliefs
become true, when they function for the social welfare of humanity; and false, when they cease
to function along these lines. Truth is, therefore, nothing static and immutable, but something
dynamic and perpetually changing. Consequently, a belief may be true at one stage of
15
16

J. J. SANGUINETI, op. cit., p. 184.

J. J. SANGUINETI, op. cit., p. 185.

development, and the same belief may be false at a different stage; something may be true under
one set of conditions and false under another; a theory may be true for one class of people and
false for another class, depending on the intellectual and cultural conditions prevailing at a
particular time and in a particular locality. Truth, as will be seen, is entirely subjective in
character.
This interpretation of truth is contrary to the accepted meaning attached to the world by
all men, whether educated or uneducated, and amounts to a perversion of language. To identify
truth with utility is nothing less than to reduce the true to the good. The good, however,
is the object of the will, not of the intellect, while the true has been considered by men at all
times to be the proper object of the intellect. A lamentable confusion of thought must result from
this identification of the true with the good. If both are identical, so that truth is the object of
the will, what can possibly be the object of the intellect? As a natural faculty of man it must have
a natural object, just as well as the will; but if we remove truth from the intellect, the latter is
without a proper object with which to exercise its power. The exercise of any power or faculty
involves the striving to realize something, and that demands an object within its own proper
sphere of activity. Every power or faculty of the human organism, internal as well as external,
had its proper object; the will, for instance, strives toward the realization of the good. But what
could possibly be the object of the intellect except the realization and acquisition of truth?
There is no other object assignable or discoverable. Pragmatists may assert that the true is
identical with the good, but that will never really identify such totally disparate things. Their
attitude is unjustifiable, because contrary to the fundamental conceptions of men.
Besides, in identifying the true with the good, pragmatists do not solve the
epistemological problem of knowledge. The problem of knowledge remains just as acute as
before; it cannot be solved by transferring the concept of truth from the field of knowledge to
the field of action and then denying that a problem of knowledge exists. We must still answer
the questions: Is there an objective reality which is extra-mental? Can this reality be known?
How is it known? How do our judgments interpret this reality? Do they correspond with it? How
can we have certitude about this? These questions constitute the problem of knowledge and the
mind of man will not be satisfied, and will continue to exert its powers of reasoning, until these
questions are answered or until the mind sinks in despair into skepticism. But ignore this
problem the mind cannot. Whether we call the answers to these questions truth or whether we
give it another name, makes little difference: it is the problem and its solution that count, and
they pertain to the province of the intellect and must be solved by the intellect and not by the
will. Pragmatism, therefore, does not solve the problem of knowledge by dubbing it
metaphysics and then ignoring its existence.
And pragmatists are inconsistent. They identify truth with utility and thus transfer it
to the province of the will. Nevertheless, they appeal to the intellect with a great array of
arguments, to prove that truth is to be judged according to its beneficial results. Thereby they
surreptitiously substitute the intellect for the will as the arbiter of truth and error and
unconsciously admit after all that it is in the intellect, and not the will, which must decide
whether their theory or opposite theories give the correct (or true) solution of the problem of
knowledge and truth. Since they appeal to the reasoning intellect, they must abide by its verdict.
Now, it is the verdict of the reasoning intellect, as we have shown, that truth is found in the
8

judgment interpreting reality and not in the results which flow from a certain belief. It is not
utility which determines the truth of judgments, beliefs and theories, but the objective
evidence of reality. In fact, when pragmatists attempt to prove their own theory, they marshall
numerous facts and reasons in order to show that utility and not objective evidence is the
criterion of truth and the motive of certitude; and in doing so, they appeal to the objective
evidence of these facts and reasons to establish their case. Their own attitude and action is their
best refutation.
Moreover, pragmatists claim that those beliefs are true which satisfy human needs and
produce beneficial results for man in a social way. What needs, and what beneficial results? We
must know them, so as to be able to ascertain which beliefs contain truth and which error. In
order to know whether needs are real or apparent and whether results are beneficial or harmful, it
is necessary for the intellect to discover the facts regarding these needs and results and then pass
judgment on the truth or error of the beliefs. But here again, if any judgment corresponds to the
facts at issue, it is true; and if it does not, it is false. Thus it can be seen that truth and error
reside in the judgment and their presence is determined by the objective evidence of the facts.
The good results may be taken as an index or sign of truth, but the ultimate criterion of truth lies
in the objective evidence before the mind. As long as it is necessary to have a criterion to
discriminate between real and apparent needs, between beneficial and harmful results,
between beliefs which work and those which do not work, results cannot be considered the
ultimate criterion. Results do not appear with labels attached; they can be discerned only by the
intellect. Even from a pragmatist standpoint, then, the truth or error of beliefs cannot be decided
without the judging power of the intellect. The ultimate criterion for the intellect, however, as
has been seen, consists in the clear self-manifestation of reality or self-evidence. Hence,
pragmatism does not satisfy the needs of the intellect as a theory of truth and knowledge and,
judged by its own criterion, is unsatisfactory and therefore false.
Finally, how can I apply the pragmatist criterion to everyday existential judgments? I
judge that My watch is slow, a car is passing, my feet are cold, and so on. These statements
contain truth or error. By what possible results for human progress and welfare am I to decide
whether they are true or false? Or will a pragmatist seriously assert that there is no truth or error
in these and similar judgments? If he claims there is not, we must dissent; if he agrees that there
is, he must admit that his criterion does not apply. A criterion, however, which fails in its
essential function, is worthless, because it is no criterion at all: it does not work.17
P. Coffeys Critique of the Pragmatist Criterion of Utility in Relation to Truth: We do
not deny that the practical issues of a belief can create a presumption for or against its truth, that
the fruits of a doctrine can be even a criterion, a subsidiary test, of its truth or falsity, i.e. its
practical fruits: for of course if speculatively false conclusions follow logically from any
doctrine as antecedent, this is a certain index that the doctrine is false.18 But in some measure the
truth or otherwise of doctrines that have or ought to have a bearing on human conduct can be
judged by their moral consequences. Let us see how, and how far.

17
18

C. BITTLE, op. cit., pp. 322-325.

Cf. P. COFFEY, The Science of Logic, Peter Smith, New York, 1938, pp. 296-297 (vol. 1) and p. 313 (vol. 2).

Firstly, man ought to find in his fundamental beliefs, in his philosophy of life, his
general world-outlook or Weltanschauung, principles whereby to guide and direct his conduct:
all philosophy should embody an Ethic or practical philosophy, a philosophy of conduct. Hence
if any philosophy contains no directive principles, throws no light on the problem of conduct
(e.g., skepticism, agnosticism), or contains ethical principles the application of which would do
violence to mans moral nature, subvert the whole moral order and lead to moral chaos, e.g., by
opening the way to murder, suicide, fraud, injustice, sexual immorality, etc. (as would atheism,
materialism, evolutionism or the survival of the fittest, meaning the strongest, with the
Nietzschean corollary that Might is Right, etc.), such philosophy cannot be sound or true but
must have something rotten in it. Yet, obviously, the test is not ultimate, for it assumes that we
know (otherwise and independently) what kind of conduct is right, and what kind is criminal:
which implies knowledge of the real nature, destiny and end of man.
Hence, secondly, it yields only a presumption, or a practical confirmation, of the truth or
falsity of doctrines. The moral issues of a system, therefore, should arouse inquiry, stimulate
reflection, and urge us to verify by speculative investigation the conclusion they suggest to us
regarding the truth or falsity of the system.
Thirdly, when the moral issues of a philosophy are perverse, noxious, disastrous,
scholastics use thus argumentum ex consectariis, this discerning of systems by their fruits:
ex fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos, as a negative, indirect and confirmatory argument in
refutation of such systems. It is an argument which can have much force and can make a strong
and effective appeal to right-minded people. But for grounding human certitude it can never be
ultimate.
Pragmatism, however, goes much farther than all this, for (a) it identifies the truth of a
judgment or belief with its utility; (b) it denies that truth in the sense of conformity of the
judgment with reality is intellectually attainable; (c) it holds that the only and universal test of
the truth of a judgment, i.e. of its real conformity or harmony with the veritable needs of human
life and existence, is to be found by living it, by experiencing how it works, whether it succeeds
by being assimilated, incorporated in the progressive current of human existence, or fails by
being rejected and eliminated from among the beliefs that are found really helpful and
beneficent. Against all of which we assert that experienced utility is neither identical with truth,
nor is it the only or the adequate test of truth, nor is the Pragmatist application of it any more
than a misleading evasion of the real problem as to the ultimate ground and motive of human
certitude.
What do Pragmatists mean by the utility of a belief, its suitability, its working-value, its
success, the character of its practical issues, its harmony with the process and purpose of human
existence? We are told that a belief or judgment is true if it verifies or realizes what those and
other similar expressions imply. But what do they imply? They are all relative to an end. They
are all unintelligible unless in reference to an end, and to a known end, to something certainly
known to be an end, a good, a perfection, a something really worthy of attainment. A belief is
true if it proves useful, suitable, workable, successful. But useful, etc., for what? For helping,
developing, enlarging, perfecting human life and existence generally? But what is the end or
object or aim of human existence? Until I know this how am I to know whether the actual
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working of a belief is good or bad, successful or unsuccessful? How am I to judge of a means

unless and until I know the nature of the end to which it is a means? And how can I discover the
supreme, essential end or perfection of human nature, and the veritable goal of human existence,
unless by the use of my intellect or reason on the data of experience. But there we are back into
the intellectualism, and metaphysics which it was the raison dtre of Pragmatism to
demolish.
The pragmatist criterion of the experienced success of a belief in helping, developing,
forwarding, enlarging, perfecting human existence, will not itself work, and cannot itself even
begin to be applied, until we know whether human life has a purpose, whether there is a good
towards which it moves, and what this good is: for only then can we judge what movements,
what conduct, what beliefs, tend to develop and perfect life, and what ones tend in the opposite
direction. But how can we know these things? Only by intellect, if at all. They are some of the
problems of metaphysics; and their solution is a piece of amusement in which pragmatists
might profitably indulge.
Again: if it is only by the actual living of a belief that men generally can discover its
truth by assimilating it with their vital experience, or its falsity by rejecting or eliminating it
from their vital experience; if its truth or falsity consists in the relation it gets to vital
experience through this alternative process, and is always relative to the actual stage of human
progress at which this sifting process is going on; and if also the whole general human
movement, or the whole cosmic movement, with which all human vital experience, intellectual
or intuitional, is one and continuous, be the whole of (the ever-evolving) reality, and be an end
in itself, does it not follow that all beliefs, while entertained by any one and in any degree
operative, are eo ipso true? And moreover, do not these questions inevitably arise: Are not all
beliefs and all conduct equally right or equally wrong? Is it not that whatever is, is right? or
rather that right and wrong become unintelligible? Is man really responsible and free? or is the
process of perpetual change, or fieri, in which reality is supposed to consist, subject to a rigid
and blind determinism? Once more, these are all questions for which we must find an answer
before the test proposed by pragmatists can be intelligently reduced to practice. They are
questions which the Pragmatist test cannot decide, and which must be decided, if at all, by
intellect interpreting the data of experience.
Finally, if we apply to beliefs the test of success, or harmonizing or not harmonizing
with the progressive development of our human activity, it must be remembered that no small
department of that activity is intellectual; and, what is more, that intellect exercises and that as
rational beings we should not try to prevent it, and cannot succeed even if we try to prevent it,
from exercizing a supreme suzerainty over all other domains of mental life and action. If a
belief cannot be assimilated or lived because it is intellectually incompatible with some
already accepted belief, is this failure a practical issue which determines the falsity of the former
belief? If so, and the pragmatist cannot consistently deny it, the whole intellectual domain
becomes practical, and the intellectual failure of any belief becomes the index of its falsity. But
the intellectual failure of a belief to impose itself arises from its apprehended incompatibility
with other judgments known to be true, or from its opposition to the objective evidence of the
data of experience, or from its want of adequate objective grounds for intellectual assent. The
Pragmatist test, therefore, as applied to the domain of intellectual needs and functions and
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interests, becomes the test demanded by intellectualism, viz. objective evidence. Now there is an
exceedingly wide department of human judgments, belief in which can have no other human
interest to test them than this purely intellectual kind of success or failure: all purely speculative
judgments the knowledge of which can have no other cause than mans intellectual desire for
knowledge, and no other practical effect or interest (by which to test how they work) than the
satisfaction of this natural cupiditas sciendi. And if, further, intellect will nolens volens assert its
supremacy over all our beliefs, and its right to judge all their sources and motives, then the
intellectual test of objective evidence must remain supreme and ultimate.19
Joseph T. Barrons Critique of Pragmatism: Pragmatisms Faulty Theory of
Consciousness. This school regards experience as a continuous stream out of which the mind
selects certain aspects because of their usefulness or aptitude for service. Thought is
fundamentally selective. The mind is not necessitated by the presentation of experience to select
this or that particular aspect. It is essentially free in the exercise of its preferences. But does
introspection bear out this contention? When we examine the way in which our knowledge is
formed, is it not apparent that our environment often forces knowledge upon us, in the sense that
we feel ourselves under compulsion as to what we cognize? Is it not equally apparent that very
frequently we are compelled to become aware of realities which are antagonistic to our needs,
and which thwart our desires? If our knowledge is to be true must we not adjust our judgments
about reality to the reality which we are judging? If the verdict of introspection is worthy of
credence the basic note in the pragmatic doctrine of knowledge is not founded on fact.
Knowledge is Not Wholly Practical. Granting that knowledge is the result of the
interaction of a mind with its environment, the deduction that knowledge never transcends the
sphere of the practical is illicit it is an undue restriction of the scope of cognitive interest.
Knowledge, considered either phylogenetically or ontogenetically, may have emerged as a
practical interest, but that is no warrant for the assertion that it must remain practical.
Pragmatism stresses unduly the instrumental aspect of thinking. The falsity of its position is due
to the fallacious assumption that a being can only function within the limits of the causes which
brought it into being. Once a being has been realized it can develop new needs which go beyond
the causes which produced it. Thought may have been practical at its inception but introspection
tells us that it goes beyond its practical beginnings. When man begins to think he becomes a
thinking being, and he is thereby released from the necessity of confining his thinking to facts of
practical interest. Human beings no longer have merely the need to live, they have also the need
to know. Man began to think in order that he might eat; he has evolved to the point where he eats
in order that he may think.20
Knowledge is scientific or contemplative as well as practical because the world is
intelligible as well as plastic. We all feel within us the urge to know for the mere sake of
knowing. Curiosity, a species of divine discontent, impels us to acquire knowledge, much of
which is utterly impractical. Thinking is a means to an end, but it can become an end in itself.
The enjoyment which comes from knowledge is one of the values which enrich life for us, and
hence contemplative thinking is not necessarily otiose. Disinterested contemplation and

19
20

P. COFFEY, op. cit., pp. 360-365.

W. P. MONTAGUE, The Ways of Knowing, Macmillan, New York, 1925, p. 158.

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enjoyment of the beauty, grandeur, meaning, and order of things for their own sake are for some
human beings inherently worthful functions of consciousness.21
This summary discussion of the pragmatic doctrine on the nature of knowledge cannot
be dismissed without mention of the deprecatory attitude of this school toward metaphysical
reasoning, and toward speculative philosophy in general. Pragmatists inveigh against abstract
speculation alleging that it is futile and barren. They maintain that philosophy should be put to
work. It should descend from the clouds and become pedestrian. It should busy itself in the
answering of those urgent social problems that are clamoring for solution. This is an attitude of
mind that is found not only among those of a pragmatic bent it is found also among scientists.
Despite its widespread acceptance this view cannot be sustained.
The chief reason forbidding its acceptance is that it is too exclusive. Philosophy should
be practical but should it be confined to that realm alone? A more comprehensive and a truer
view of the function of philosophy includes its speculative as well as its practical function. It is
worthy of note that in establishing his view of the instrumental character of our thinking Dewey
has created a speculative philosophy. He proves that thought should not be speculative by a
speculation. The practical value of his speculation seems at best only the negative one of
clearing away supposed mental obstacles to change and reconstruction, and since its own
metaphysical peculiarities are far more obscure and doubt-provoking than the practical attitude
for which they are intended to supply a foundation, they are liable to weaken, rather than
increase the possible influence for good which philosophy may exert.22
It may be asserted that those who deny the validity of metaphysical and speculative
thinking do so at the risk of self-contradiction, for their very assertion that metaphysical thinking
is nugatory is itself metaphysical.23

21

J. A. LEIGHTON, The Field of Philosophy, Appleton Co., New York, 1922, p. 360.
A. K. ROGERS, English and American Philosophy since 1800, Macmillan, New York, 1922, p. 393.
23
J. T. BARRON, Elements of Epistemology, Macmillan, New York, 1936, 48-50.
22

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