Development of the Doctrine through the Earlier Writings of James.
The first article which James wrote on truth, as he later states,[3] was entitled “The Function of Cognition”, and was published in Mind in 1885. Commenting on this article in 1909 he asserts that many of the essential theses of the book “Pragmatism”, published twenty-two years later, were already to be found here, and that the difference is mainly one of emphasis.[4]
This article attempts to give a description of knowing as it actually occurs,—not how it originated nor how it is antecedently possible. The thesis is that an idea knows an external reality when it points to it, resembles it, and is able to affect it. The plan of exposition is to start with the simplest imaginable material and then gradually introduce additional matter as it is needed until we have cognition as it actually occurs. James postulates a single, momentarily-existing, floating feeling as the entire content, at the instant, of the universe. What, then, can this momentary feeling know? Calling it a ‘feeling of q’, it can be made any particular feeling (fragrance, pain, hardness) that the reader likes. We see, first, that the feeling cannot properly be said to know itself. There is no inner duality of the knower on the one hand and content or known on the other. “If the content of the feeling occurs nowhere else in the universe outside of the feeling itself, and perish with the feeling, common usage refuses to call it a reality, and brands it as a subjective feature of the feeling’s constitution, or at most as the feeling’s dream. For the feeling to be cognitive in the specific sense, then, it must be self-transcendent”. And we must therefore “create a reality outside of it to correspond to the intrinsic quality q”. This can stand as the first complication of that universe. Agreeing that the feeling cannot be said to know itself, under what conditions does it know the external reality? James replies, “If the newly-created reality resemble the feeling’s quality q, I say that the feeling may be held by us to be cognizant of that reality”. It may be objected that a momentary feeling cannot properly know a thing because it has no time to become aware of any of the relations of the thing. But this rules out only one of the kinds of knowledge, namely “knowledge about” the thing; knowledge as direct acquaintance remains. We may then assert that “if there be in the universe a q other than the q in the feeling the latter may have acquaintance with an entity ejective to itself; an acquaintance moreover, which, as mere acquaintance it would be hard to imagine susceptible either of improvement or increase, being in its way complete; and which would oblige us (so long as we refuse not to call acquaintance knowledge) to say not only that the feeling is cognitive, but that all qualities of feeling, so long as there is anything outside of them which they resemble, are feelings of qualities of existence, and perceptions of outward fact”. But this would be true, as unexceptional rule, only in our artificially simplified universe. If there were a number of different q’s for the feeling to resemble, while it meant only one of them, there would obviously be something more than resemblance in the case of the one which it did know. This fact, that resemblance is not enough in itself to constitute knowledge, can be seen also from remembering that many feelings which do resemble each other closely,—e. g., toothaches—do not on that account know each other. Really to know a thing, a feeling must not only resemble the thing, but must also be able to act on it. In brief, “the feeling of q knows whatever reality it resembles, and either directly or indirectly operates on. If it resemble without operating, it is a dream; if it operates without resembling, it is an error”. Such is the formula for perceptual knowledge. Concepts must be reduced to percepts, after which the same rule holds. We may say, to make the formula complete, “A percept knows whatever reality it directly or indirectly operates on and resembles; a conceptual feeling, or thought, knows a reality, whenever it actually or potentially terminates in a percept that operates on, or resembles that reality, or is otherwise connected with it or with its context”.
“The latter percept [the one to which the concept has been reduced] may be either sensation or sensorial idea; and when I say the thought must terminate in such a percept, I mean that it must ultimately be capable of leading up thereto,—by way of practical experience if the terminal feeling be a sensation; by way of logical or habitual suggestion, if it be only an image in the mind”. “These percepts, these termini, these sensible things, these mere matters of acquaintance, are the only realities we ever directly know, and the whole history of our thought is the history of our substitution of one of them for the other, and the reduction of the substitute to the status of a conceptual sign. Condemned though they be by some thinkers, these sensations are the mother-earth, the anchorage, the stable rock, the first and last limits, the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem of the mind. To find such sensational termini should be our aim with all our higher thought. They end discussion; they destroy the false conceit of knowledge; and without them we are all at sea with each other’s meanings…. We can never be sure we understand each other till we are able to bring the matter to this test. This is why metaphysical discussions are so much like fighting with the air; they have no practical issue of a sensational kind. Scientific theories, on the other hand, always terminate in definite percepts. You can deduce a possible sensation from your theory and, taking me into your laboratory prove that your theory is true of my world by giving me the sensation then and there”.
At this point James quotes, in substantiation, the following passage from Peirce’s article of 1878: “There is no distinction in meaning so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference in practice…. It appears, then, that the rule for attaining the highest grade of 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.”
In this early paper of James’ are to be found foreshadowings of pragmatism both as a method and as a theory of truth. Pragmatism as a method is shown in the whole discussion of the primacy of sensations and of the necessity for reducing conceptions to perceptions. This is exactly in line with the pragmatism proposed by Peirce in 1878 and here quoted from by James. Pragmatism as a theory of truth is anticipated by the proposal that the idea knows, and knows truly, the reality which it is able to make changes in. The idea proves its reference to a given reality by making these specified changes. It is antecedently true only if it can bring about these changes. The next step is to say that its truth consists in its ability to forecast and bring to pass these changes. Then we have pragmatism as a theory of truth. James did not take this step, as we shall see, until after 1904.
There is also a suggestion of the ‘subjectivity’ of James’ later theory of truth, which would differentiate him even at this time from Peirce on the question of truth. He has said that a true idea must indeed resemble reality, but who, he asks, is to determine what is real? He answers that an idea is true when it resembles something which I, as critic, think to be reality. “When [the enquirer] finds that the feeling that he is studying contemplates what he himself regards as a reality he must of course admit the feeling itself to be truly cognitive”. Peirce would say that the idea is not true unless it points to a reality that would be found by all investigators, quite irrespective of what the one person acting as critic may think. James and Pierce would therefore, begin to diverge even at this early date on the truth question. As to what constitutes clearness, they are in agreement.
Something of the same idea is stated again four years later in an article which appeared in Mind[5] and which was republished the following year as a chapter of the Principles of Psychology.[6] One passage will show the general trend; “A conception to prevail, must terminate in a world of orderly experience. A rare phenomenon, to displace frequent ones, must belong with others more frequent still. The history of science is strewn with wrecks and ruins of theory—essences and principles, fluids and forces—once fondly clung to, but found to hang together with no facts of sense. The exceptional phenomena solicit our belief in vain until such time as we chance to conceive of them as of kinds already admitted to exist. What science means by ‘verification’ is no more than this, that no object of conception shall be believed which sooner or later has not some permanent object of sensation for its term…. Sensible vividness or pungency is then the vital factor in reality when once the conflict between objects, and the connecting of them together in the mind, has begun.” (Italics mine).
And in another connection he expresses the idea as follows: “Conceptual systems which neither began nor left off in sensations would be like bridges without piers. Systems about fact must plunge themselves into sensations as bridges plunge themselves into the rock. Sensations are the stable rock, the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem of thought. To find such termini is our aim with all our theories—-to conceive first when and where a certain sensation may be had and then to have it. Finding it stops discussion. Failure to find it kills the false conceit of knowledge. Only when you deduce a possible sensation for me from your theory, and give it to me when and where the theory requires, do I begin to be sure that your thought has anything to do with truth.” (11:7).
In 1902 James contributed to the “Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology” published by J. Mark Baldwin the following definition for Pragmatism.
“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 either consequences, then it must really be only the first conception under a different name. In methodology it is certain that to trace and compare their respective consequences is an admirable way of establishing the different meanings of different conceptions”.
It will be seem that James has not in 1902 differentiated between pragmatism as a method and as a theory of truth. Leaving out the one reference to truth, the definition is an excellent statement of the Peircian doctrine of clearness. This is especially to be noticed in the last two sentences, which are perfectly ‘orthodox’ statements of method alone.
In 1904 and 1905 James published two papers in Mind on the truth question. The first, “Humanism and Truth”, may be called his ‘border-line’ article. In this he is attempting to give a sympathetic interpretation of the humanistic theory of truth—which he later said is exactly like his own—but is still making the interpretation as an outsider. In the second article he has definitely embraced the humanistic theory and is defending it.
The first article begins as follows:[7] “Receiving from the editor of Mind an advance proof of Mr. Bradley’s article for July on ‘Truth and Practice’, I understand this as a hint to me to join in the controversy over ‘Pragmatism’ which seems to have seriously begun. As my name has been coupled with the movement, I deem it wise to take the hint, the more so as in some quarters greater credit has been given me than I deserve, and probably undeserved discredit in other quarters falls also to my lot.
“First, as to the word ‘pragmatism’. I myself have only used the term to indicate a method of carrying on abstract discussion. The serious meaning of a concept, says Mr. Peirce, lies in the concrete difference to someone which its being true will make. Strive to bring all debated questions 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 given 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 breath, and pass to more important things.
“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 this pragmatism and the 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. The narrower pragmatism may still be spoken of as the ‘pragmatic method’.
“If further egotism be in order. I may say that the account of truth given by Messrs. Sturt and Schiller and by Professor Dewey and his school … goes beyond any theorizing which I personally had ever indulged in until I read their writings. After reading these, I feel almost sure that these authors are right in their main contentions, but the originality is wholly theirs, and I can hardly recognize in my own humble doctrine that concepts are teleological instruments anything considerable enough to warrant my being called, as I have been, the ‘father’ of so important a movement forward in philosophy”.[8] (Italic mine).
“I think that a decided effort at a sympathetic mental play with humanism is the provisional attitude to be recommended to the reader.
“When I find myself playing sympathetically with humanism, something like what follows is what I end by conceiving it to mean”. (Italics mine).
Such is the conservative tone in which the article is begun. Yet before it is ended we find these passages: “It seems obvious that the pragmatic account of all this routine of phenomenal knowledge is accurate”. (p.468). “The humanism, for instance, which I see and try so hard to defend, is the completest truth attained from my point of view up to date”. (p.472).
In a supplementary article, “Humanism and Truth Once More”, published a few months later in answer to questions prompted by this one, the acceptance of humanism is entirely definite. And here James finds that he has been advocating the doctrine for several years. He says, “I myself put forth on several occasions a radically pragmatist account of knowledge”. (Mind, v. 14, p. 196). And again he remarks, “When following Schiller and Dewey, I define the true as that which gives the maximal combination of satisfaction …”. (p.196).