I hope this statement of the difficulty, however inadequate, will
serve at least to indicate that a functional logic inherits the
problem in question and does not create it; that it has never for a
moment denied the prima facie working distinction between "ideas,"
"thoughts," "meanings," and "facts," "existences," "the environment,"
nor the necessity of a control of meaning by facts. It is concerned
not with denying, but with understanding. What is denied is not the
genuineness of the problem of the terms in which it is stated, but
the reality and value of the orthodox interpretation. What is insisted
upon is the relative, instrumental, or working character of the
distinction--that it _is_ a _logical_ distinction, instituted and
maintained in the interests of intelligence, with all that
intelligence imports in the exercise of the life functions. To this
positive side I now turn.
In the analysis it may prove convenient to take an illustration of a
man lost in the woods, taking this case as typical of any reflective
situation in so far as it involves perplexity--a problem to be solved.
The problem is to find a correct idea of the way home--a practical
idea or plan of action which will lead to success, or the realization
of the purpose to get home. Now the critics of the experimental theory
of logic make the point that this practical idea, the truth of which
is evidenced in the successful meeting of a need, is dependent for its
success upon a purely presentative idea, that of the existent
environment, whose validity has nothing to do with success but depends
on agreement with the given state of affairs. It is said that what
makes a man's idea of his environment true is its agreement with the
actual environment, and "generally a true idea in any situation
consists in its agreement with reality." I have already indicated my
acceptance of this formula. But it was long my misfortune not to be
possessed offhand of those perfectly clear notions of just what is
meant in this formula by the terms "idea," "existence," and
"agreement" which are possessed by other writers on epistemology; and
when I analyzed these notions I found the distinction between the
practical idea and the theoretical not fixed nor final, and I found a
somewhat startling similarity between the notions of "success" and
"agreement."
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