D. L. Murray

“ At this point universal scepticism begins to raise its hydra head, and to grin at the dogmatist's discomfiture. For in point of fact the history of thought reveals, not a steady accumulation of indubitable truth, but a continuous strife of opinions, in which the most widely accepted beliefs daily succumb to fresh criticism and fall into disrepute as the 'errors of the past.' Nothing, it seems, can guarantee a 'truth,' however firmly it may be believed for a time, from the corrosive force of new speculation and changed opinion ”

“ Lastly, if from all this there springs up a conviction of 'The Bankruptcy of Intellectualism,' the question suggests itself whether the relation between abstract thinking and concrete experience, between 'Thought' and 'Life,' has been rightly grasped. Is life worth living only for the sake of philosophic contemplation, or is thinking only worth doing to aid us in the struggle for life? Are 'theory' and 'practice' two separate kingdoms with rigid frontiers, strictly guarded, or does it appear that theories which cannot be applied have, in the end, neither worth, nor truth, nor even meaning? ”

“ What, then, from the standpoint of Humanism, is the function of 'truth-values' in our life? They indicate a relation to the cognitive end. What is this end? Surely not self-sufficing? A truth that is merely true in itself has no interest for human life, and no human mind has an interest in discovering and affirming it. Truth, therefore, cannot stand aloof from life. It must somehow subserve our vital purposes. But how shall it do this? Only by becoming applicable to the reality we have to live with, by becoming useful for the changes we desire to effect in it. ”

“ Utopia is unreal for the politician, but exists as an ideal for the theorist. The Platonist treats our physical world of sight and touch, which we think the most real of all, as a mere illusion compared to the 'Ideas' of his metaphysical world. The thinker who declares he wants to know all about 'reality' does not mean that he wishes to investigate everything which in any sense exists, but that he wishes to know what he considers best worth knowing—and this, of course, implies a personal valuation, a purged and expurgated extract, which will not offend his taste. ”

“ Yet a postulate can never be accused of being a mere sophistication, or a bar to the progress of knowledge, because it is always willing to submit to verification in the course of fresh experience, and can always be reconstructed or abandoned, should it cease to edify. A long and successful course of service raises a postulate to the dignity of an 'axiom'—i.e., a principle which it is incredible anyone should think worth disputing—whereas repeated failure in application degrades it to the position of a prejudice—i.e., an a priori opinion which is always belied by its consequences. ”

“ But such a connection of thoughts cannot be conceived or understood without reference to the purpose of a reasoner, who selects what he requires from the totality of 'truths.' If, then, 'Logic' has merely to contemplate this eternal and immutable system of truth in its integrity, and forbids all selection from it for a merely human purpose, how can it either justify, or even understand, the drawing of any inference whatever? ”

“ True, verification is not 'proof,' but as its conclusions are not incorrigible, its defects are not fatal, and its demands are not impracticable. True, no truth and no reality are wholly 'objective,' in the sense of wholly indifferent to our action; but to say that the human and 'subjective' factor in all knowledge must be taken into account does not preclude our apprehending and measuring an 'objective' world as real as, and more knowable than, any other theory can offer. ”

“ For no one can afford to have a stock of beliefs which conflict too violently with those of his fellows. If his 'intuitions' contrast too seriously with those of others, and he acts on them, he will be shut up as a lunatic. If, then, the 'useful' idea has to approve itself both to its maker and his fellows without developing limitations in its use, it is clear that a pragmatic truth is really far less arbitrary and subjective than the 'truths' accepted as absolute, on the bare ground that they seem 'self-evident' to a few intellectualists. ”

“ For 'reality,' the object of the mind's search, is always a selection, conceived after the likeness of the heart's desire, the product of a human purpose.
To recognize this is to appreciate the wisdom of Humanism's refusal to treat the world, for good or bad, as a given and completed whole. For not only is what we call the real world always a selection from a larger whole from which we have ventured to exclude great masses of irrelevance, but every day brings fresh experience, and may bring fresh enlightenment. ”

“ A thought, to be thought at all, must seem worth thinking to someone, it must convey the meaning he intends, it must be true in his eyes and relevant to his purposes in the situation in which it arises—i.e., it must have a motive, a value, a meaning, a purpose, a context, and be selected from a greater whole for its relevance to these. None of these features does intellectualist logic deign to recognize. For if truth is absolute and not relative, it is all or nothing. Yet no actual thinking has such transcendent aims. ”

“ If it is admitted that no one can arrogate to himself its possession, what use is it to believe that it is an ideal? For if no one can assume that he has it, all human truth is, in fact, such as the relativist asserted, and scepticism is just as inevitable as before. It makes no difference to the sceptical inference whether there is no absolute truth, or whether it is unattained by man, and human unattainable. ”

“ It is plain from this catalogue of inquiries that Pragmatism makes no abrupt breach in tradition. It is not the pétroleuse of philosophy. It does not wipe out the history of speculation in order to announce a millennium of new ideas; it claims, on the contrary, to be the culmination and dénoûment of that history. It cannot rightly be represented as trying either to sell new lamps for old, or to jerry-build a new metaphysical system on the ruins of all previous achievements. ”

“ A mind that analyses cannot but be active in handling its experience. It manipulates it to serve its ends. It emphasizes only those portions of the flux which seem to it important. In a better and fairer analysis than Hume's these features will persist. It, too, would be a product of selection, of a selection depending on its maker's preferences. As James showed, the distinction between 'dreams' and 'realities,' between 'things' and 'illusions,' results only from the differential values we attach to the parts of the flux according as they seem important or interesting to us or not. ”

“ It springs in the first place from a human hope that events may be systematized in a certain way, and it endures so long as it enables men to deal with them in that way. If it fails, the formation of fresh ideals and fresh hypotheses is demanded; but that which causes one postulate to prevail over another is always the satisfaction which, if successful, it promises to some need or desire. Thus 'thought' is everywhere inspired by 'will.' It is an instrument, the most potent man has found, whereby he brings about a harmony with his environment. ”

“ How is it that a proposition which is felt to be 'true' so often turns out to be erroneous? If all errors are felt to be true by those they deceive, is it not clear that immediate feeling is not a good enough test of a validated truth? Thus, once again, we find that an account of truth-claim is being foisted on us in place of a description of truth-testing.
The intellectualist, then, being in every case unable to justify the vital distinction commonly made between the true and the false, we return to the pragmatist. ”

“ It is forced to view energy of will in knowing as a source merely of corruption, and when it finds that as a psychic fact willing is ineradicable, it must conclude that we are constitutionally incapable of that passive reflection of reality which it regards as the sine qua non of truth. Hence, if disinterestedness is the condition of knowing, knowledge is impossible. And it is so entangled in its unintelligible theory of truth as a copying of reality that, rather than renounce it, when it finds that human knowing is not copying, it prefers a surrender to Scepticism. ”

“ In order to escape the necessity of concerning itself with personality and particular circumstances in questions of truth and error, Intellectualism appeals to Logic, which it conceives as a purely formal science and its impregnable citadel. ”

“ If now he could live like a fakir, wholly wrapped in a cloud of his own imaginings, and nothing ever happened to disappoint his expectations, to jar upon his prejudices, and to convict him of error; if he never held converse with anyone who took a different view and controverted him, his dogmatism would be lifelong and incurable. ”

“ The pragmatic test yields practical, and not 'absolute,' certainty. The existence of absolute certainty is denied, and the demand for it, in a world which contains only the practical sort, merely plays into the hands of scepticism. The uncertainty of all our verificatory processes, however, is not the creation of the pragmatist, nor is he a god to abolish it. Abstractly, there is always a doubt about what transcends our immediate experience, and this is why it is so healthy to have to repudiate so many theoretic doubts in every act we do. ”

“ Whoever will not admit this, and renders truth inapplicable, does in fact render it unmeaning.
The fact that thought essentially refers to a 'reality' external to it in no way diminishes its purposive character. Whether the mind is idealizing an aspect of reality (as in mathematics) or abstracting, classifying, and predicting (as in science) , it is always the fact that a particular kind of reality is needed for some serious or trivial purpose which guides the operations of the thinker. A mind which craved to embrace all or 'any' reality need not think ”

“ Hence such pragmatic aphorisms as 'truth is useful' or 'truth is a matter of practical consequences' mean essentially that all assertions must be tested by being applied to a real problem of knowing. What is signified by such statements is that no 'truth' must be accepted merely on account of the insistence of its claim, but that every idea must be tested by the consequences of its working. Its truth will then depend upon those consequences being fruitful for life in general, and in particular for the purpose behind the particular inquiry in which it arose. Truth is a value and a satisfaction ”

“ It does not mean that we are free to assert the truth of every idea which seems to us pretty or pleasant. The very term 'useful' was chosen by pragmatists as a protest against the common philosophic licence of alleging 'truths' which could never be applied or tested, and were supposed to be none the worse for being 'useless.' It is clear both that such 'truths' must be a monopoly of Intellectualism, and also that they do allow every man to believe whatever he wishes, provided only that he boldly claims 'self-evidence' for his idiosyncrasy. ”

“ Hume had, as philosophers commonly do, set out from the practically sufficient analysis of experience which all find ready-made in language. He accepted, therefore, from common sense the belief that physical reality is composed of a multitude of separate existences that act on one another, and tried to conceive mental life strictly on the same analogy. His theory of experience, therefore, closely parallels the atomistic theory of matter. Just as the physicist explains bodies as collections of discrete particles, so Hume reduced all the contents of the mind to a number of elementary sensations. ”

“ If 'absolute truth' is our ideal and acquaintance with 'absolute reality' our aim, then, in view of the persistent illusions on both these points to which the human mind is liable, it seems necessary to recognize the hopelessness of our search. Thus the last dilemma of dogmatism is reached. ”

“ In view of the diversity of human beliefs and the discredit which has historically fallen on the most axiomatic articles of faith, we must either admit scepticism to be the issue of the debate, or else, condemning our absolute view of truth, find some means of utilizing the relative truths which are all that humanity seems able to grasp. But to come to terms with relativism is to renounce the dogmatic attitude entirely, and to approach the problems of philosophy in a totally different spirit. ”

“ The oldest and commonest definition of a 'truth' which is given is that it is 'the correspondence of a thought to reality.' But Intellectualism never perceived the difficulties lurking in it. At first sight this seems a brave attempt to get outside the circle of thought in order to test its value and to control its vagaries. ”

“ Thus, in conduct, actions are judged 'good' or 'evil' and 'right' or 'wrong'; in thinking, ideas are 'true' or 'false,' and 'relevant' or 'irrelevant'; for art, objects are 'beautiful' or 'ugly,' and so forth, for the modes of valuation in life are innumerable. Any one of these adjectives either denotes value or censures lack of worth, and each gets its meaning by reference to the specific purpose, moral, aesthetic, or intellectual, it appeals to. The summum bonum, or supreme good, will then be the ideal of the harmonious satisfaction of all purposes. ”

“ This is why even a philosopher's conversation does not consist of a rehearsal of all the unchallenged truisms that he can remember.
Being thus conditioned by a doubt, every judgment is a challenge. It claims truth, and backs its claims by the authority of its maker ”

“ The logician's analysis of reasoning, then, breaks down. In whichever way he interprets the Syllogism it is revealed as either a superfluity or a fallacy: it is never a 'formally valid inference' that can compel assent. But common sense is undismayed by the pragmatist's discovery that if the Syllogism is to have any sense its premisses must be taken as disputable; for, unlike Formal Logic, it has perceived that men do not reason about what they think they know for certain, but about matters in dispute. ”

“ We postulate conformity between Nature and one of our ideals. We usually desire more than we can get, but insist on all that Nature can concede.
Causation serves as a good example. Experience as it first comes to us is a mere flood of happenings, with no distinction between causal and casual sequences. Clearly our whole ability to control our life, or even to continue it, demands that we should predict what happens, and guide our actions accordingly. We therefore postulate a right to dissect the flux, to fit together selected series without reference to the rest. ”

“ Even the self-evident and self-confident 'intuitions' that impress the uncritical so much with their claim to infallibility are really the results of antecedent doubts and ponderings, and would never be enunciated unless there were thought to be a dispute about them. In real life thought starts from perplexities, from situations in which, as Professor Dewey says, beliefs have to be 'reconstructed,' and it aims at setting doubts at rest. It is psychologically impossible for a rational mind to assert what it knows to be true, and supposes everyone else to admit the truth of. ”