(III) In the third place, he asserts that "to an unascertainable extent our truths are man-made products" (p. 242).
To what he asserts under each of these three heads there are, I think, serious objections; and I now propose to point out what seem to me to be the principal ones, under each head separately.
(I)
Professor James is plainly anxious to assert some connection between truth and "verification" or "utility." And that there is some connection between them everybody will admit. That many of our true ideas are verified; that many of them can be verified; and that many of them are useful, is, I take it, quite indisputable. But Professor James seems plainly to wish to assert something more than this. And one more thing which he wishes to assert is, I think, pretty plain. He suggests, at the beginning of Lecture VI, that he is going to tell us in what sense it is that our true ideas "agree with reality." Truth, he says, certainly means their agreement with reality; the only question is as to what we are to understand by the words "agreement" and "reality" in this proposition. And he first briefly considers the theory, that the sense in which our true ideas agree with reality, is that they "copy" some reality. And he affirms that some of our true ideas really do do this. But he rejects the theory, as a theory of what truth means, on the ground that they do not all do so. Plainly, therefore, he implies that no theory of what truth means will be correct, unless it tells us of some property which belongs to all our true ideas without exception. But his own theory is a theory of what truth means. Apparently, therefore, he wishes to assert that not only many but all our true ideas are or can be verified; that all of them are useful. And it is, I think, pretty plain that this is one of the things which he wishes to assert.
Apparently, therefore, Professor James wishes to assert that all our true ideas are or can be verified—that all are useful. And certainly this is not a truism like the proposition that many of them are so. Even if this were all that he meant, it would be worth discussing. But even this, I think, is not all. The very first proposition in which he expresses his theory is the following. "True ideas," he says (p. 201) "are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot." And what does this mean? Let us, for brevity's sake, substitute the word "verify" alone for the four words which Professor James uses, as he himself subsequently seems to do. He asserts, then, that true ideas are those which we can verify. And plainly he does not mean by this merely that some of the ideas which we can verify are true, while plenty of others, which we can verify, are not true. The plain meaning of his words is that all the ideas which we can verify are true. No one would use them who did not mean this. Apparently, therefore, Professor James means to assert not merely that we can verify all our true ideas; but also that all the ideas, which we can verify, are true. And so, too, with utility or usefulness. He seems to mean not merely that all our true ideas are useful; but that all those which are useful are true. This would follow, for one thing, from the fact that he seems to use the words "verification" or "verifiability" and "usefulness" as if they came to the same thing. But, in this case too, he asserts it in words that have but one plain meaning. "The true" he says (p. 222) "is only the expedient in the way of our thinking." "The true" is the expedient: that is, all expedient thinking is true. Or again: "An idea is 'true' so long as to believe it is profitable to our lives" (p. 75). That is to say, every idea, which is profitable to our lives, is, while it is so, true. These words certainly have a plain enough meaning. Apparently, therefore, Professor James means to assert not merely that all true ideas are useful, but also that all useful ideas are true.
Professor James' words, then, do at least suggest that he wishes to assert all four of the following propositions. He wishes to assert, it would seem—
(1) That we can verify all those of our ideas, which are true.
(2) That all those among our ideas, which we can verify, are true.
(3) That all our true ideas are useful.