An Introduction to PhilosophyFullerton, George Stuart
Philosophy
An Introduction to Philosophy
Fullerton, George Stuart
Philosophy
Section 61. We have an excellent illustration of Locke's inconsistency
in violating his own principles and going beyond experience, in his
treatment of "Substance." Read, in his "Essay," Book I, Chapter IV,
section 18, and Book II, Chapter XXIII, section 4. These sections are
not long, and might well be read and analyzed in class.
Section 62. See the note to section 51.
Section 64. I write this note (in 1908) to give the reader some idea
of later developments of the doctrine called pragmatism. There has
been a vast amount printed upon the subject in the last two or three
years, but I am not able to say even yet that we have to do with "a
clear-cut doctrine, the limits and consequences of which have been
worked out in detail." Hence, I prefer to leave section 64 as I first
wrote it, merely supplementing it here.
We may fairly consider the three leaders of the pragmatic movement to
be Professor William James, Dr. F. C. S. Schiller, and Professor John
Dewey. The first has developed his doctrine at length in his volume
entitled "Pragmatism" (London, 1907); the second, who calls his
doctrine "Humanism," but declares himself a pragmatist, and in
essential agreement with Professor James, has published two volumes of
philosophical essays entitled "Humanism" (London, 1903) and "Studies in
Humanism" (London, 1907); the third has developed his position in the
first four chapters of the "Studies in Logical Theory" (Chicago, 1903).
Professor James, in his "Pragmatism" (Lecture II), says that
pragmatism, at the outset, at least, stands for no particular results.
It has no dogmas, and no doctrines save its method. This method means:
"The attitude of looking away from first things, principles,
'categories,' supposed necessities; and of looking towards last things,
fruits, consequences, facts." He remarks further, however, that
pragmatism has come to be used also in a wider sense, as signifying a
certain theory of truth (pp. 54-55). This theory is brought forward in
Lecture VI.
The theory maintains that: "True ideas are those that we can
assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those
that we can not" (p. 201). This sounds as though Professor James
abandoned his doctrine touching the Turk and the Christian mentioned in
section 64.
But what do the words "verification" and "validation" pragmatically
mean? We are told that they signify certain practical consequences of
the verified and validated idea. Our ideas may be said to "agree" with
reality when they lead us, through acts and other ideas which they
instigate, up to or towards other parts of experience with which we
feel that the original ideas remain in agreement. "The connections and
transitions come to us from point to point as being progressive,
harmonious, satisfactory. This function of agreeable leading is what
we mean by an idea's verification" (p. 202).
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