63 Works of William James
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MR. PITKIN’S REFUTATION OF ‘RADICAL EMPIRICISM'[122] Although Mr. Pitkin does not name me in his acute article on radical empiricism,[123] […] I fear that some readers, knowing me to have applied that name to my own doctrine, may possibly consider themselves to have been in at my death. In point of fact my withers are […]
HUMANISM AND TRUTH ONCE MORE.[129] Mr. Joseph’s criticism of my article ‘Humanism and Truth'[130] is a useful contribution to the general clearing up. He has seriously tried to comprehend what the pragmatic movement may intelligibly mean; and if he has failed, it is the fault neither of his patience nor of his sincerity, but rather […]
No seeker of truth can fail to rejoice at the terre-a-terre sort of discussion of the issues between Empiricism and Transcendentalism (or, as the champions of the latter would probably prefer to say, between Irrationalism and Rationalism) that seems to have begun in Mind.[1] It would seem as if, over concrete examples like Mr. J. […]
THE pivotal part of my book named Pragmatism is its account of the relation called ‘truth’ which may obtain between an idea (opinion, belief, statement, or what not) and its object. ‘Truth,’ I there say, ‘is a property of certain of our ideas. It means their agreement, as falsity means their disagreement, with reality. Pragmatists […]
[Footnote: Read before the Aristotelian Society, December 1, 1884, and first published in Mind, vol. x (1885).–This, and the following articles have received a very slight verbal revision, consisting mostly in the omission of redundancy.] The following inquiry is (to use a distinction familiar to readers of Mr. Shadworth Hodgson) not an inquiry into the […]
[Footnote: Extracts from a presidential address before the American Psychological Association, published in the Psychological Review, vol. ii, p. 105 (1895).] THERE are two ways of knowing things, knowing them immediately or intuitively, and knowing them conceptually or representatively. Altho such things as the white paper before our eyes can be known intuitively, most of […]
I [Footnote: Reprinted from the Journal of Philosophy, etc., August 15, 1907 (vol. iv, p. 464).] Professor J. B. Pratt’s paper in the Journal of Philosophy for June 6, 1907, is so brilliantly written that its misconception of the pragmatist position seems doubly to call for a reply. He asserts that, for a pragmatist, truth […]
[Footnote: Reprint from the Philosophical Review, January, 1908 (vol. xvii, p. 1).] The account of truth given in my volume entitled Pragmatism, continues to meet with such persistent misunderstanding that I am tempted to make a final brief reply. My ideas may well deserve refutation, but they can get none till they are conceived of […]
[Footnote: Reprint from the Journal of Philosophy, July 18, 1907.] My failure in making converts to my conception of truth seems, if I may judge by what I hear in conversation, almost complete. An ordinary philosopher would feel disheartened, and a common choleric sinner would curse God and die, after such a reception. But instead […]
[Footnote: Reprinted, with slightverbal revision, from Mind, vol. xiii, N. S., p. 457 (October,1904). A couple of interpolations from another article in Mind,‘Humanism and truth once more,’ in vol. xiv, have been made.] RECEIVING from the Editor of Mind an advance proof of Mr. Bradley’sarticle on ‘Truth and Practice,’ I understand this as a hint […]
Mr. Bertrand Russell’s article entitled ‘Transatlantic Truth,’ [Footnote: In the Albany Review for January, 1908.] has all the clearness, dialectic subtlety, and wit which one expects from his pen, but it entirely fails to hit the right point of view for apprehending our position. When, for instance, we say that a true proposition is one […]
[Footnote: Reprinted from the Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, vol. ii. No. 5, March 2, 1905.] Humanism is a ferment that has ‘come to stay.’ 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 […]
[Footnote: Extract from an article entitled ‘A World of Pure Experience,’ in the Journal of Philosophy, etc., September 29,1904.] Throughout the history of philosophy the subject and its object have been treated as absolutely discontinuous entities; and thereupon the presence of the latter to the former, or the ‘apprehension’ by the former of the latter, […]
Abstract concepts, such as elasticity, voluminousness, disconnectedness, are salient aspects of our concrete experiences which we find it useful to single out. Useful, because we are then reminded of other things that offer those same aspects; and, if the aspects carry consequences in those other things, we can return to our first things, expecting those […]
[Footnote: Reprint from the Journal of Philosophy for December 3, 1908 (vol. v, p. 689), of a review of Le Pragmatisme et ses Diverses Formes Anglo-Americaines, by Marcel Hebert. (Paris: Librairie critique Emile Nourry. 1908. Pp. 105.)] Professor Marcel Hebert is a singularly erudite and liberal thinker (a seceder, I believe, from the Catholic priesthood) […]
[Footnote: Reprinted from the Journal of Philosophy, etc., 1906.] Professor W. A. Brown, in the Journal for August 15, approves my pragmatism for allowing that a belief in the absolute may give holidays to the spirit, but takes me to task for the narrowness of this concession, and shows by striking examples how great a […]
[Footnote: Originally printed under the title of ‘Truth versus Truthfulness,’ in the Journal of Philosophy.] My account of truth is purely logical and relates to its definition only. I contend that you cannot tell what the WORD ‘true’ MEANS, as applied to a statement, without invoking the CONCEPT OF THE STATEMENTS WORKINGS. Assume, to fix […]
We saw in the last lecture that the pragmatic method, in its dealings with certain concepts, instead of ending with admiring contemplation, plunges forward into the river of experience with them and prolongs the perspective by their means. Design, free-will, the absolute mind, spirit instead of matter, have for their sole meaning a better promise […]
[Footnote: Remarks at the meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Cornell University, December, 1907.] My account of truth is realistic, and follows the epistemological dualism of common sense. Suppose I say to you ‘The thing exists’– is that true or not? How can you tell? Not till my statement has developed its meaning farther is […]
I am now to make the pragmatic method more familiar by giving you some illustrations of its application to particular problems. I will begin with what is driest, and the first thing I shall take will be the problem of Substance. Everyone uses the old distinction between substance and attribute, enshrined as it is in […]