Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of ThinkingJames, William
Philosophy
Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking
James, William
Pragmatism
"'After trudging through the snow from one end of the city to the other
in the vain hope of securing employment, and with his wife and six
children without food and ordered to leave their home in an upper east
side tenement house because of non-payment of rent, John Corcoran, a
clerk, to-day ended his life by drinking carbolic acid. Corcoran lost
his position three weeks ago through illness, and during the period of
idleness his scanty savings disappeared. Yesterday he obtained work with
a gang of city snow shovelers, but he was too weak from illness and was
forced to quit after an hour's trial with the shovel. Then the
weary task of looking for employment was again resumed. Thoroughly
discouraged, Corcoran returned to his home late last night to find his
wife and children without food and the notice of dispossession on the
door.' On the following morning he drank the poison.
"The records of many more such cases lie before me [Mr. Swift goes on];
an encyclopedia might easily be filled with their kind. These few I cite
as an interpretation of the universe. 'We are aware of the presence of
God in His world,' says a writer in a recent English Review. [The very
presence of ill in the temporal order is the condition of the perfection
of the eternal order, writes Professor Royce ('The World and the
Individual,' II, 385).] 'The Absolute is the richer for every discord,
and for all diversity which it embraces,' says F. H. Bradley (Appearance
and Reality, 204). He means that these slain men make the universe
richer, and that is Philosophy. But while Professors Royce and Bradley
and a whole host of guileless thoroughfed thinkers are unveiling
Reality and the Absolute and explaining away evil and pain, this is the
condition of the only beings known to us anywhere in the universe with
a developed consciousness of what the universe is. What these people
experience IS Reality. It gives us an absolute phase of the universe. It
is the personal experience of those most qualified in all our circle
of knowledge to HAVE experience, to tell us WHAT is. Now, what does
THINKING ABOUT the experience of these persons come to compared with
directly, personally feeling it, as they feel it? The philosophers are
dealing in shades, while those who live and feel know truth. And the
mind of mankind-not yet the mind of philosophers and of the proprietary
class-but of the great mass of the silently thinking and feeling men,
is coming to this view. They are judging the universe as they have
heretofore permitted the hierophants of religion and learning to judge
THEM. ...
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account