Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking : Popular Lectures on Philosophy |
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Common terms and phrases
Abso absolute absolute edition absolute monism abstract actual agree atoms beliefs better called claim common sense conceive conception concrete connexion copy definite difference divine doctrine empiricism empiricist ence eternal everything exist experience facts feel finite follow forms Frederick Myers free-will human hypothesis ical ideal imagine intellectual intellectualist kind knower lecture live logic Lowell Institute lute matter melioristic ment mental metaphysical mind monistic mystical nature ness notion object particular philosophy plural pluralistic possible practical prag pragmatic method PRAGMATISM MEANS pragmatist principle protestantism question radical rationalism rationalist reality reason relations religion religious Schiller Scholasticism sensations sensible simply sort spirit stage substance suppose talk temperament tender-minded theism theory things thought tically tion tism tough-minded transcendental idealism treat true ideas truth uncon unified union unity universe vague verified whole word
Popular passages
Page 201 - The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth HAPPENS to an idea. It BECOMES true, is MADE true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-FICATION. Its validity is the process of its valid-ATION.
Page 45 - The pragmatic method in such cases is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences. What difference would it practically make to any one if this notion rather than that notion were true? If no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing, and all dispute is idle.
Page 51 - He turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended absolutes and origins. He turns towards concreteness and adequacy, towards facts, towards action and towards power.
Page 208 - Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs 'pass,' so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them. But this all points to direct face-to-face verifications somewhere, without which the fabric of truth collapses like a financial system with no cash-basis whatever. You accept my verification of one thing, I yours of another. We trade on each other's truth. But beliefs verified concretely by somebody are the posts...
Page 104 - ... the energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed, and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish.
Page 213 - The essential thing is the process of being guided. Any idea that helps us to deal, whether practically or intellectually, with either the reality or its belongings, that doesn't entangle our progress in frustrations, that fits, in fact, and adapts our life to the reality's whole setting, will agree sufficiently to meet the requirement. It will hold true of that reality. Thus, names are just as 'true' or 'false' as definite mental pictures are.
Page 299 - On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true. Now whatever its residual difficulties may be, experience shows that it certainly does work, and that the problem is to build it out and determine it so that it will combine satisfactorily with all the other working truths.
Page 45 - Although one or two of the hotter disputants called my speech a shuffling evasion, saying they wanted no quibbling or scholastic hair-splitting, but meant just plain honest English 'round,' the majority seemed to think that the distinction had assuaged the dispute.
Page 222 - The true,' to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving. Expedient in almost any fashion; and expedient in the long run and on the whole of course; for what meets expediently all the experience in sight won't necessarily meet all farther experiences equally satisfactorily.
Page 91 - For supposing a man punished now for what he had done in another life, whereof he could be made to have no consciousness at all, what difference is there between that punishment, and being created miserable...