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Updated: May 23, 2025
Schiller still gives to all this view of truth the name of 'Humanism, but, for this doctrine too, the name of pragmatism seems fairly to be in the ascendant, so I will treat it under the name of pragmatism in these lectures. Such then would be the scope of pragmatism first, a method; and second, a genetic theory of what is meant by truth. And these two things must be our future topics.
In reality Browning's attitude towards truth approaches more nearly what has now begun to style itself "Pragmatism" than it approaches Pyrrhonism; but philosophers whose joy is to beat the air may find that it is condemnatory of their methods.
Schiller in order to describe his general philosophical position as distinct from the original question of the theory of knowledge, which had been treated by James under the name of Pragmatism. To the Humanist the best definition of life is one which displays it as throughout purposive, as a rational pursuit of ends. This raises the question of the validity of valuations.
The essence of latter-day realism and pragmatism, its courageous determination to tear away a veil of which she had always been dimly aware, to look the facts of human nature in the face, refreshed her: an increasing portion of it she understood; and she was constantly under the spell of the excitement that partially grasps, that hovers on the verge of inspiring discoveries.
There was a far-reaching web of complicated relationships official, political, matrimonial, commercial and otherwise which had a very practical effect upon the performance of theoretical duty. Delany was neither an idealist nor a philosopher. He was an empiricist, with a touch of pragmatism though he did not know it. He was "a practical man."
I find a still more radical pragmatism than Ostwald's in an address by Professor W. S. Franklin: "I think that the sickliest notion of physics, even if a student gets it, is that it is 'the science of masses, molecules and the ether. And I think that the healthiest notion, even if a student does not wholly get it, is that physics is the science of the ways of taking hold of bodies and pushing them!"
It is brilliantly advocated in the Thoughts of Pascal, and clearly and forcibly defended in that most remarkable essay in unprofessional philosophy, Cardinal Newman's Grammar of Assent. This brings us to the last, and historically the most fertile, of the sources of Pragmatism, Psychology.
Some of them are named scholasticism, sensationalism, rationalism, idealism, realism, empiricism, transcendentalism, pragmatism, etc. Many of them have been criticized in connection with the discussion of some educational problem.
The foregoing statements reproduce the essential content of the lecture on Truth in my book PRAGMATISM. Schiller's doctrine of 'humanism, Dewey's 'Studies in logical theory, and my own 'radical empiricism, all involve this general notion of truth as 'working, either actual or conceivable.
But although it is salutary and stimulating to be told that one should be responsible for the immediate issues and bearings of his words and thoughts, I decline to be deprived of the pleasure and profit of dwelling also on remoter bearings and issues, and it is the TENDENCY of pragmatism to refuse this privilege.
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