Thomas Mitchell Shackleford

“ Beliefs, in short, are really rules for action; and the whole function in thinking is but one step in the production of habits of action. If there were any part of a thought that made no difference in the thought's practical consequences, then that part would be no proper element of the thought's significance. Thus the same thought may be clad in different words; but if the different words suggest no different conduct, they are mere outer accretions, and have part in the thought's meaning. If, however, they determine conduct differently, they are essential elements of the significance. ”

“ Definitions must necessarily delimit and restrict, consequently with the growth of knowledge they become insufficient and obsolete. The discovery of one new fact may invalidate and completely overthrow a definition that may have passed current and remained unchallenged for years. In other words, "new facts burst old rules" and definitions, both are man-made products, so it should never be forgotten that definitions and "rules are made for man, not man for rules" and definitions. No science is finished, none can be called exact, all are in the process of formation. ”

“ However, pragmatism, being what its protagonist says it is, ought not to be expected to mean the same thing or to make a like appeal to different minds. Evidently, it was with deep design that Professor James began the first lecture in his "Pragmatism" with that paradoxical quotation from Mr. Chesterton's "Heretics," as to the most important thing about a man being his philosophy. It contains a greater modicum of truth than most paradoxes, for as a man's philosophy is, so will be "his view of the universe," and, as that view is, so will be his life. ”

“ There is a spirit of unrest in the air which has invaded and seriously affected, not only philosophy and science, but religion and government. In fact, it would seem that all things are being called in question, and that "there is a general reaction against uncritical acceptance of the authority of tradition along all lines of thought." What may ultimately survive or what may perish we cannot tell. Some of us believe that the pragmatic movement is one of the contributing causes, perhaps the most important, toward bringing about this condition of affairs. ”

“ It might well be that its critics would have fared better from the beginning if they had remembered that "good humor is a philosophic state of mind," even if it be not true "that one should always talk of philosophy with a smile." It undoubtedly would have been more in unison with the true philosophic spirit, and, perhaps, attended with better results, if they had set to work in good earnest to refute the arguments advanced by Professor James and the other leaders, instead of contenting themselves with giving pragmatism a bad name and bestowing upon it abuse and opprobrious epithets. ”

“ We think that it has already accomplished a most salutary work in philosophy and religion, which is far from being finished, and we look for it to make its presence strongly felt along educational and governmental lines. We believe that it is destined to invade our law-making bodies and courts of justice, where it must be admitted that it is sorely needed. In fine, we believe that the days of blind authority and antiquated precedents are numbered, and that the principle of pragmatism will perform a like mission in the world to that of the woman's leaven in the three measures of meal. ”

“ From this paradox our pragmatist proceeds to develop the thesis that "the history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments," and to show us how temperament "loads the evidence" not only for philosophers, but for all of us. In this he follows Fichte, who has said somewhere, "what system of philosophy you hold depends wholly upon what manner of man you are." So Dr. Schiller has said, "the fit of a man's philosophy is (and ought to be) as individual as the fit of his clothes." ”

“ Our conception of these effects, then, is for us the whole of our conception of the object, so far as that conception has positive significance at all.
He goes on to say:
This is the principle of Peirce, the principle of pragmatism. I think myself that it should be expressed more broadly than Mr. Peirce expresses it. The ultimate test for us of what a truth means is indeed the conduct it dictates or inspires. But it inspires that conduct because it first foretells some particular turn to our experience which shall call for just that conduct from us. ”

“ Professor James defines the principle as follows:
The doctrine that the whole "meaning" of a conception expresses itself in practical consequences, consequences either in the shape of conduct to be recommended, or in that of experience to be expected, if the conception be true; which consequences would be different if it were untrue, and must be different from the consequences by which the meaning of other conceptions is in turn expressed. If a second conception should not appear to have other consequences, then it must really be only the first conception under a different name. ”

“ All that the pragmatic method implies, then, is that truths should have practical consequences. In England the word has been used more broadly to cover the notion that the truth of any statement consists in the consequences, and particularly in their being good consequences. Here we get beyond affairs of method altogether; and since my pragmatism and this wider pragmatism are so different, and both are important enough to have different names, I think that Mr. Schiller's proposal to call the wider pragmatism by the name of "Humanism" is excellent and ought to be adopted. ”

“ In violation of every rule of interpretation, common-sense or legal, they have ignored the context and pounced upon single words and isolated sentences. Truly, in philosophy as elsewhere, "none are so blind as those who will not see." ”

“ Strive to bring all debated conceptions to that "pragmatic" test, and you will escape vain wrangling: if it can make no practical difference which of two statements be true, then they are really one statement in two verbal forms; if it can make no practical difference whether a statement be true or false, then the statement has no real meaning. In neither case is there anything fit to quarrel about: we may save our breadth, and pass to more important things. ”

“ And I should prefer for our purposes this evening to express Peirce's principle by saying that the effective meaning of any philosophic proposition can always be brought down to some particular consequence, in our future practical experience, whether active or passive; the point lying rather in the fact that the experience must be particular, than in the fact that it must be active. ”

“ Suppose there are two different philosophical definitions, or propositions, or maxims, or what not, which seem to contradict each other, and about which men dispute. If, by supposing the truth of the one, you can see no conceivable practical consequences to anybody at any time or place, which is different from what you would foresee if you supposed the truth of the other, why then the difference between the two propositions is no difference,—it is only a specious and verbal difference, unworthy of further contention. ”

“ That the common people have heard its teachers gladly may prove to be, not its reproach, but its honor and its glory. Again and again it has happened that "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called," but rather those who have become as little children, single-minded and simple-hearted.
We are still passing through one of those great transitional eras of human thought which recur at somewhat irregular intervals. ”

“ We all remember what Emerson said long ago about ideas announcing truth being in the air, seeking to gain entrance to different minds in different parts of the world at the same time, and "the most impressionable brain will announce it first, but all will announce it a few minutes later." But it is not to be expected that all minds will be impressed in the same way or to a like degree, or that all would have equal power of utterance. ”

“ In construing any part of a writing, regard should be had to the entire instrument. Other portions may throw much light upon the one under special investigation or consideration, and greatly modify the meaning which it would bear as an independent clause. Every part of a writing should be brought into action in order to collect from the whole one uniform and consistent purpose, if that is possible. Accordingly, if one construction will give reasonable effect to every part of an instrument, while another would require the rejection of a part, the former will be preferred. ”

“ The one condition of understanding humanism is to become inductiveminded oneself, to drop rigorous definitions, and follow lines of least resistance "on the whole."
It would seem that this was expecting entirely too much. He had also said in The Journal of Philosophy for March 2, 1905:
It is not a single hypothesis or theorem, and it dwells on no new facts. It is rather a slow shifting in the philosophic perspective, making things appear as from a new center of interest or point of sight. ”

“ Schiller says:
Two men, therefore, with different temperaments, ought not to arrive at the same metaphysic, nor can they do so honestly; each should react individually on the food for thought which his personal life affords, and the resulting differences ought not to be set aside as void of ultimate significance. ”

“ As I have said, entire harmony has not existed in pragmatist ranks, of which fact the critics have made the most. Even so, such differences furnish no justification for the failure of the professional philosophers to understand the lucid statements of Professor James, or of the other two leaders, Dr. Schiller and Professor Dewey, as some of them seem to have done. The points of divergence among them are easily discernible by those who really try to see and understand the movement. ”

“ It would be an easy task to set forth various points of difference, as well as apparent, if not real, contradictions, among those who have grasped their pens, even if they can not be said to have drawn their swords, and hastened to do battle in its defense. In doing this, however, we should only be following in the wake of the hostile critics who have emphasized these points to the exclusion of any real merits which the movement may possess. ”

“ Its defenders have not come before the world with a ready-made and fully developed doctrine, thought out into all its consequences and tested in all its applications. It is just the tentative and provisional nature of many expositions of pragmatism which makes it hard to grasp its meaning unequivocally. ”

“ ONE who undertakes to tell what pragmatism is has a hard task to perform. Before he gets through with it, he may find himself in a like plight with old Kaspar in' trying to tell his grandchildren of the battle of Blenheim. ”

“ A pragmatist turns his back resolutely and once for all upon a lot of inveterate habits dear to professional philosophers. He turns away from abstractions and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed principles, closed systems and pretended absolutes and origins. ”

“ It may be said to have begun some fifty years ago with the launching of the evolutionary hypothesis, but when or what the end may be no one can say. Whatever the result may be, whether for good or ill, things will never be just the same again. ”

“ Ninety-five per cent., and a little more, of all who have rallied so valiantly to the pragmatic banner totally misunderstand the new philosophy. And it is even nearer the truth to say that one hundred per cent, of all the critics who to their own satisfaction have completely demolished the pragmatic structure have fired their shots at the wrong target. ”

“ Some writers are strongly conscious of the shifting, others half unconscious, even though their own vision may have undergone much change. The result is no small confusion in debate, the half-conscious humanists taking part against the radical ones, as if they wished to count upon the other side. ”

“ If it be true, as has been somewhat sneeringly said, that pragmatism has made comparatively few converts among the professional philosophers, but has made its strongest appeal to the men in the street, it may be fittingly replied that this has been likewise true of the greatest movements in the world's history. ”

“ It is further true that a writer, especially along philosophical or theological lines, either forms a school or system of his own, which he is likely to do if he is a genius, or else joins or connects himself with one of the already existing schools. ”

“ Of course, there are some points of difference in the application of these rules by the courts to the different kinds or classes of instruments, but such points are of minor importance and may be treated as negligible for our present purposes. In setting forth some of these cardinal rules, I shall divest them of all legal technicalities, as far as may be, and clothe them in plain, simple language.
1. When the language of a writing is plain and unequivocal, there is neither occasion nor opportunity for interpretation. ”

“ By shaping our faith for us it largely "divides us into possibility men and anti-possibility men" and explains why "each of us dichotomizes the Kosmos in a different place," thereby each making for himself the world in which he lives. ”

“ Perhaps, one barrier in the way of those who have "seriously tried to comprehend what the pragmatic movement may intelligibly mean" is mental myopia, which prevents them from assuming the proper attitude in order to gain the right point of view. ”