The Pragmatic Theory Of Truth As Developed By Peirce, James, And Dewey Part 1

The pragmatic theory of truth as developed by Peirce, James, and Dewey.

by Delton Loring Geyer.

INTRODUCTORY.

This thesis attempts to trace the growth of the pragmatic doctrine of truth through the works of its three most famous advocates in America.

An examination of Peirce's initial statement of pragmatism is followed by a discussion of his objections to the meaning put upon his doctrine by his would-be disciples, and his resort, in order to save himself from these 'perversions', to a renaming of his theory. Some evident contradictions in his different principles are pointed out.

The changing position of William James is then followed through magazine articles and books appearing successively during a period of about thirty years. One finds here a gradually but continually widening divergence from the rationalistic theories, which culminates finally in the much-quoted extreme statements of the book 'Pragmatism'. The few subsequently published references to truth seem to consist largely of defenses or retractions of the tenets there set forth. As has been so often said, William James was too sympathetic toward the doctrines of other men to maintain a consistent doctrine of his own. His best work, like that of the higher literary type to which he approached, was to transcribe and interpret the feelings of other men. His genius lay in the clearness with which he could translate these ideas and the lucid fashion in which he could cut to the heart of ambiguities in them. With the highest and most sincere admiration for the spirit of James' labors in philosophy and psychology, the writer is unable to find there permanent contributions to the solution of the particular problem which we have before us here, the problem of truth. In his splendid protest against all static theories, he seems to have accepted pragmatism for what it was not rather than for what it was. It was not a cut-and-dried system leaving no room for individuality, and that this was one of his strongest reasons for accepting it is shown by his asking again and again: "If this (pragmatism) is not truth, what is?" He was attempting to find a theory--almost any theory, one thinks sometimes--which would serve as an alternative to the older doctrines so incompatible with his temperament.

It is interesting to note that the frequent protests made by Peirce against the turn given his ideas by his followers are always directed against the work of James and Schiller, and never, so far as I have been able to ascertain, against that of Dewey. It therefore seems worth while to undertake a direct comparison between the views of Peirce and Dewey. This comparison, then, occupies the latter part of the thesis, with the result, it may be said at once, that Dewey's work is found to be very closely related to the original formulation of pragmatism as made by Peirce.

The excellent historical sketches of pragmatism which have appeared during the last five years[1] have been somewhat broader in scope than the present treatise, for they have usually described the development of all the pragmatic doctrines in the ma.s.s while the emphasis here is placed on the intensive treatment of a single doctrine, and this doctrine is followed, moreover, through a limited number of its expounders. Further, almost all such sketches are taken up for the most part in showing how pragmatism grew out of the older doctrines or in contrasting it with various alternative theories while the thing attempted here is, again, a careful comparison of the views of three thinkers within the School itself--with of course the writer's own reaction to these views. It has thus seemed best to undertake no (necessarily fragmentary) treatment of truth as 'intuition' or 'coherence' or 'correspondence' or the rest.

[1] See for example an article by Alfred Lloyd on "Conformity, Consistency, and Truth" in the Journal of Philosophy for May 22, 1913; also Boodin's Truth and Reality, Caldwell's Pragmatism and Idealism, De Laguna's Dogmatism and Evolution, Murray's Pragmatism, Moore's Pragmatism and Its Critics, and others.

General criticism of the pragmatic theory of truth, as is evident to anyone who has followed the controversy, has been princ.i.p.ally directed against the more 'radical' statements of James and Schiller. Whether this is merely because these champions of the theory are more extreme, or whether they are really more p.r.o.ne to errors in their reasoning, we need not determine here. But it is worth pointing out that, on the other hand, if Peirce and Dewey were to be taken as the truer representatives of pragmatism a large part of the flood of recent criticism would be irrelevant. This is by no means to say that the work of Peirce and Dewey is above criticism; it is merely to call attention to the fact that most of the criticism of pragmatism is directed against principles which these two men do not happen to hold.

An understanding of the doctrine in its more conservative terms, however, is certainly on the increase, and we are seldom nowadays burdened with refutations of such alleged pragmatism as that anything is true which it is pleasant to believe or that any theory of procedure is true which happens to turn out well.

CHAPTER I.

THE PRAGMATIC DOCTRINE AS ORIGINALLY PROPOSED BY PEIRCE.

Pragmatism has been described as an att.i.tude of mind, as a method of investigation, and as a theory of truth. The att.i.tude is that of looking forward to outcomes rather than back to origins. The method is the use of actual or possible outcomes of our ideas to determine these ideas' real meaning. The theory of truth defines the truth of our beliefs in terms of the outcome of these beliefs.

Pragmatism as a principle of method, like the Mendelian laws of heredity, lay for decades in oblivion. It was brought to light and to the world's notice in 1898 by William James, who by his wonderful literary style immediately gave it the widest currency. The doctrine was originally proposed in 1878 by C. S. Peirce in a paper for the Popular Science Monthly ent.i.tled "How To Make Our Ideas Clear." This article was the second of six on the general topic. "Ill.u.s.trations of the Logic of Science." The other articles of the series were respectively called "The Fixation of Belief," "The Doctrine of Chances," "The Probability of Induction," "The Order of Nature," and "Induction, Deduction, and Hypothesis."

In the famous discussion of How To Make Our Ideas Clear, Peirce pointed out that by a _clear_ idea is meant, according to the logicians, one which will be recognized wherever it is met with, so that no other will be mistaken for it. But since to do this without exception is impossible to human beings, and since to have such acquaintance with the idea as to have lost all hesitancy in recognizing it _in ordinary cases_ amounts only to a subjective feeling of mastery which may be entirely mistaken, they supplement the idea of 'clearness' with that of 'distinctness'. A distinct idea is defined as one that contains nothing which is not clear. By the _contents_ of an idea logicians understand whatever is contained in its definition, so that an idea is _distinctly_ apprehended, according to them, when we can give a precise definition of it, in abstract terms. Here the professional logicians leave the subject, but it is easy to show that the doctrine that familiar use and abstract distinctness make the perfection of apprehension, "has its only true place in philosophies which have long been extinct", and it is now time to formulate a method of attaining "a more perfect clearness of thought such as we see and admire in the thinkers of our own time".

The action of thought is excited by the irritation of a doubt, and ceases when belief is attained; so that the production of belief is the sole function of thought. As thought appeases the irritation of a doubt, which is the motive for thinking, it relaxes and comes to rest for a moment when belief is reached. But belief is a rule for action, and its application requires further thought and further doubt, so that at the same time that it is a stopping place it is also a new starting place for thought. The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition.

"The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit, and different beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which they give rise. If beliefs do not differ in this respect, if they appease the same doubt by producing the same rule of action, then no more differences in the manner of consciousness of them can make them different beliefs, any more than playing a tune in different keys is playing a different tune."

Imaginary distinctions are made very frequently, it is true, between beliefs which differ only in their mode of expression. Such false distinctions do as much harm as the confusion of beliefs really different. "One singular deception of this sort, which often occurs, is to mistake the sensation produced by our own unclearness of thought for a character of the object we are thinking. Instead of perceiving that the obscurity is purely subjective, we fancy that we contemplate a quality of the object which is essentially mysterious; and if our conception be afterwards presented to us in a clear form we do not recognize it as the same, owing to the absence of the feeling of unintelligibility.... Another such deception is to mistake a mere difference in the grammatical construction of two words for a distinction between the ideas they express.... From all these sophisms we shall be perfectly safe so long as we reflect that the whole function of thought is to produce habits of action; and that whatever is connected with a thought, but irrelevant to its purpose, is an accretion to it, but no part of it".

"To develop a meaning we have, therefore, simply to determine what habits it produces, for what a thing means is simply what habits it involves. Now the ident.i.ty of a habit depends on how it might lead us to act, not merely under such circ.u.mstances as are likely to arise, but under such as might possibly occur, no matter how improbable....

Thus we come down to what is tangible and practical as the root of every real distinction of thought, no matter how _subtle_ it may be; and there is no distinction so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference in practice".

As an example, consider the doctrine of transubstantiation. Are the elements of the sacrament flesh and blood 'only in a tropical sense'

or are they literally just that? Now "we have no conception of wine except what may enter into a belief either, (1) that this, that, or the other is wine, or (2) that wine possesses certain properties. Such beliefs are nothing but self-notifications that we should, upon occasion, act in regard to such things as we believe to be wine according to the qualities which we believe wine to possess. The occasion of such action would be some sensible perception, the motive of it to produce some sensible result. Thus our action has exclusive reference to what affects our senses, our habit has the same bearing as our action, our belief the same as our habit, our conception the same as our belief; and we can consequently mean nothing by wine but what has certain effects, direct or indirect, upon the senses; and to talk of something as having all the sensible characters of wine, yet being in reality blood, is senseless jargon.... Our idea of anything _is_ our idea of its sensible effects; and if we fancy that we have any other, we deceive ourselves, and mistake a mere sensation accompanying the thought for a part of the thought itself".

"It appears, then, that the rule for attaining ... clearness of apprehension is as follows: _Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object"._ (Italics mine).

An application of this method to a conception which particularly concerns logic occupies the last section of the article,--a use of the method to make clear our conception of "reality". Considering clearness in the sense of familiarity, no idea could be clearer than this, for everyone uses it with perfect confidence. Clearness in the sense of definition is only slightly more difficult,--"we may define the real as that whose characters are independent of what anybody may think them to be". But however satisfactory this is as a definition, it does not by any means make our idea of reality perfectly clear.

"Here, then, let us apply our rules. According to them, reality, like every other quality, consists in the peculiar sensible effects which things partaking of it produce. The only effect which real things have is to cause belief, for all the sensations which they excite emerge into consciousness in the form of beliefs. The question therefore is, how is true belief (or belief in the real) distinguished from false belief (belief in fiction)". Briefly this may be answered by saying that the true belief is the one which will be arrived at after a complete examination of all the evidence. "That opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real."

(Note: "Fate means merely that which is sure to come true, and can nohow be avoided".) The real thus depends indeed upon what is ultimately thought about it, but not upon what any particular person thinks about it. This is clearly brought out in contrast to non-scientific investigation, where personal equation counts for a great deal more. "It is hard to convince a follower of the _a priori_ method by adducing facts; but show him that an opinion that he is defending is inconsistent with what he has laid down elsewhere, and he will be very apt to retract it. These minds do not seem to believe that disputation is ever to cease; they seem to think that the opinion which is natural for one man is not so for another, and that belief will, consequently, never be settled. In contenting themselves with fixing their own opinions by a method which would lead another man to a different result, they betray their feeble hold upon the conception of what truth is. On the other hand, all the followers of science are fully persuaded that the processes of investigation, if only pushed far enough, will give one certain solution to every question to which they can be applied. One man may investigate the velocity of light by studying the transits of Venus and the aberration of the stars; another by the opposition of Mars and eclipses of Jupiter's satellites; a third by the method of Fizian.... They may at first obtain different results, but as each perfects his method and his processes, the results will move steadily together toward a destined center. So with all scientific research. Different minds may set out with the most antagonistic views, but the process of investigation carries them by a force outside of themselves to one and the same conclusion". This conclusion, to be sure, may be long postponed, and might indeed be preceded by a false belief which should be accepted universally. But "the opinion which would finally result from investigation does not depend on how anybody may actually think....

The reality of that which is real does depend on the real fact that the investigation is destined to lead, at last, if continued long enough, to a belief in it".

It will be seen that this article does not intend to put forward any new theory of truth. It is simply an attempt at expounding a new theory of clearness. Peirce desires to describe a new way of clearing up metaphysical disputes, the method, namely, of finding the meaning of each question by reducing it to its experimental consequences.

For Peirce a doctrine could be perfectly clear and yet false. This would be the case where one had a vivid idea of all the outcomes in experience involved by the idea, but yet was unable to prophesy any outcome that should be verified by future fact. Our idea of the object would not in that case 'correspond to the reality' in the sense of giving us a belief which could be 'verified by all investigators'.

Peirce, then, instead of having a radical and startling theory of truth to propose, would consider himself an ultra-conservative on the question of what shall be called truth. Approaching the matter from the standpoint of a scientist, (for he says in another connection that he had at this time spent most of his life in a laboratory), he is concerned only with an attempt to apply "the fruitful methods of science" to "the barren field of metaphysics". For metaphysics seems to him very much in need of outside help. His different conception of the two disciplines may be seen from the following pa.s.sage. In contrast to philosophy, he is eulogizing the natural sciences, "where investigators, instead of condemning each the work of the others as misdirected from beginning to end, co-operate, stand upon one another's shoulders, and multiply incontestable results; where every observation is repeated, and isolated observations count for little; where every hypothesis that merits attention is subjected to severe but fair examination, and only after the predictions to which it leads have been remarkably borne out by experience is trusted at all, and then only provisionally; where a radically false step is rarely taken, even the most faulty of those theories which gain credence being true in their main experiential predictions".

It is in a desire to elevate metaphysics to somewhere near this level that Peirce proposes his new theory of clearness, believing that much of the useless disputation of philosophy, as he sees it, will end when we know exactly what we are talking about according to this test.

On the question of truth he might indeed have referred to another of his early articles, where the same idea of the independence of truth from individual opinion is brought out. The much-quoted paper on "How To Make Our Ideas Clear" was, as we have noted, the second of a series called "Ill.u.s.trations of the Logic of Science". In order to get his doctrine of truth more adequately before us, we may turn for a moment to the first article of the series, the paper called "The Fixation of Belief".

Here Peirce begins by pointing out four methods for fixing belief. In the first, or 'method of tenacity', one simply picks out the belief which for some reason he _desires_, and holds to it by closing his eyes to all evidence pointing the other way. The second, or the 'method of authority', is the same except that the individual is replaced by the state. The third, or 'a priori method', makes a thing true when it is 'agreeable to reason'. But this sort of truth varies between persons, for what is agreeable to reason is more or less a matter of taste.

In contrast with these, and especially with the _a priori_ method, a method must be discovered which will determine truth entirely apart from individual opinion. This is the method of science. That is, "To satisfy our doubt ... it is necessary that a method should be found by which our beliefs may be caused by nothing human, but by some external permanency--by something upon which our thinking has no effect.... It must be something which affects, or might affect, every man. And, though these affections are necessarily as various as are individual conditions, yet the method must be such that the ultimate conclusion of every man shall be the same. Such is the method of science. Its fundamental hypothesis, restated in more familiar language, is this: There are real things whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them; those realities affect our senses according to regular laws, and, though our sensations are as different as our relations to the objects, yet, by taking advantage of the laws of perception, we can ascertain by reasoning how things really are, and any man, if he have sufficient experience, and reason enough about it, will be led to one true conclusion. The new conception here involved is that of reality. It may be asked how I know that there are any realities. If this hypothesis is the sole support of my method of inquiry, my method of inquiry must not be used to support my hypothesis. The reply is this: 1. If investigation cannot be regarded as proving that there are real things, it at least does not lead to a contrary conclusion; but the method and conception on which it is based remain ever in harmony. No doubts of the method, therefore, arise with its practice, as is the case with all the others. 2. The feeling which gives rise to any method of fixing belief is a dissatisfaction at two repugnant propositions. But here already is a vague concession that there is some _one_ thing to which a proposition should conform.... n.o.body, therefore, can really doubt that there are realities, or, if he did, doubt would not be a source of dissatisfaction. The hypothesis, therefore, is one which every mind admits. So that the social impulse does not cause me to doubt it. 3.

Everybody uses the scientific method about a great many things, and only ceases to use it when he does not know how to apply it. 4.

Experience of the method has not led me to doubt it, but, on the contrary, scientific investigation has had the most wonderful triumphs in the way of settling opinion. These afford the explanation of my not doubting the method or the hypothesis which it supposes". (p.12)

The method of science, therefore, is procedure based on the hypothesis that there are realities independent of what we may think them to be.

This, it seems, is what Peirce regards as the fundamental principle of the 'logic of science'. This principle, stated here in the first paper, is again stated as we have seen, towards the close of the second paper. There he says again, "All the followers of science are fully persuaded that the processes of investigation, if only pushed far enough, will give one certain solution to every question to which they can be applied.... Different minds may set out with the most antagonistic views, but the progress of investigation carries them by a force outside of themselves to one and the same conclusion.... This great law is embodied in the conception of truth and reality. That opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. This is the way I would explain reality".

(p.300).

It is well at this point to call attention to a distinction. It is to be noticed that in the first paper and in the latter part of the second he is talking of a method for attaining truth. But in the body of the second paper he is talking of a method for attaining clearness.

These two should be kept distinct in our minds. The use of the various methods described for finding the velocity of light were endeavors to find the truth, not to make our ideas clear. Clearness and truth Peirce believes to have no invariable connection. He says in ending the article on "How To Make Our Ideas Clear", "It is certainly important to know how to make our ideas clear, _but they may be ever so clear without being true_". (p.302, italics mine.) There are, then, two methods under consideration: the scientific method for reaching truth, with its postulate that there are independent realities, and the logical method for securing clearness, which as he has just stated, has no necessary connection with truth.

Now I should like to point out, in criticism, that these two methods cannot be used together, or rather that the postulate of the 'scientific method' will not endure the test proposed by the 'method for clearness'. The scientific method postulates a reality unaffected by our opinions about it. But when we apply the method for clearness to this reality it seems to vanish.

The process is this: Peirce, as we will remember, begins his discussion of the real by defining it as "that whose characters are independent of what anybody may think them to be." Then pa.s.sing on to apply his method for clearness he finds that "reality, like every other quality, consists in the peculiar sensible effects which things partaking of it produce", and adds that "the only effects which real things have is to cause belief, for all the sensations which they excite emerge into consciousness in the form of beliefs". Reality is the sum of its sensible effects, its sensible effects are beliefs, so reality is a sum of beliefs.

Now, reality cannot be the sum of _all_ beliefs regarding the real, because reality is defined in another connection as the object represented by a _true_ opinion, and a true opinion is that which is fated to be agreed to after an investigation is complete. Reality then can consist only in certain selected beliefs. But if reality is this set of ultimately-adopted beliefs, what is truth itself? For truth has been defined as the beliefs which will be ultimately adopted.

In other words, when Peirce applies his method for clearness to the concept of reality, he reduces reality to truth. He identifies the two. Then there remains no independent realty which stands as a _check_ on truth. And this was the postulate of his method of science.

Since the application of his own method for clearness eliminates reality, it looks as though Peirce must abandon either this method or the postulate of science. He cannot use both the method for clearness and the postulate of the method of science.

We must remember that Peirce was a pioneer in this movement. And in making the transition from the older form of thought, he occasionally uses a word both in the old sense and in the new. Such would seem to be his difficulty with the word 'reality', which he uses both in the newer sense which the method for clearness would show it to have, and in the old orthodox sense of something absolute. When he says "reality ... consists of the peculiar sensible effects which things partaking of it produce", he seems to have the two senses of the word in one sentence. Reality consists in sensible effects, or it is that which is produced somehow by means of our senses. But, when things _partake_ of reality, reality exists in advance and produces those effects. Reality is conceived both as the things produced and as the producer of these things.

A somewhat similar difficulty occurs, as I may point out again in criticism, in the use of the words 'meaning' and 'belief'. Here the confusion is caused, not by using a word in two senses, as in the case of 'reality', but by using both the words 'meaning' and 'belief' in the same sense. Peirce defines both 'meaning' and 'belief' as a sum of habits, and indicates no difference between them.

Thus he says of meaning, "There is no distinction of meaning so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference in practice".

(293) "To develop its meaning, we have, therefore, simply to determine what habits it produces, for what a thing means is simply what habits it involves". (p. 292).

But he says similarly of belief, "Belief involves the establishment in our nature of a rule of action, or, say for short, of a habit". "Since belief is a rule for action, it is a new starting point for thought".

"The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit, and different beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which they give rise". (p. 291).