The pragmatic theory of truth as developed by Peirce, James, and Dewey

THE PRAGMATIC DOCTRINE AS ORIGINALLY PROPOSED BY PEIRCE.

Pragmatism has been described as an attitude of mind, as a method of investigation, and as a theory of truth. The attitude is that of looking forward to outcomes rather than back to origins. The method is the use of actual or possible outcomes of our ideas to determine these ideas' real meaning. The theory of truth defines the truth of our beliefs in terms of the outcome of these beliefs.

Pragmatism as a principle of method, like the Mendelian laws of heredity, lay for decades in oblivion. It was brought to light and to the world's notice in 1898 by William James, who by his wonderful literary style immediately gave it the widest currency. The doctrine was originally proposed in 1878 by C. S. Peirce in a paper for the Popular Science Monthly entitled "How To Make Our Ideas Clear." This article was the second of six on the general topic. "Illustrations of the Logic of Science." The other articles of the series were respectively called "The Fixation of Belief," "The Doctrine of Chances," "The Probability of Induction," "The Order of Nature," and "Induction, Deduction, and Hypothesis."

In the famous discussion of How To Make Our Ideas Clear, Peirce pointed out that by a clear idea is meant, according to the logicians, one which will be recognized wherever it is met with, so that no other will be mistaken for it. But since to do this without exception is impossible to human beings, and since to have such acquaintance with the idea as to have lost all hesitancy in recognizing it in ordinary cases amounts only to a subjective feeling of mastery which may be entirely mistaken, they supplement the idea of 'clearness' with that of 'distinctness'. A distinct idea is defined as one that contains nothing which is not clear. By the contents of an idea logicians understand whatever is contained in its definition, so that an idea is distinctly apprehended, according to them, when we can give a precise definition of it, in abstract terms. Here the professional logicians leave the subject, but it is easy to show that the doctrine that familiar use and abstract distinctness make the perfection of apprehension, "has its only true place in philosophies which have long been extinct", and it is now time to formulate a method of attaining "a more perfect clearness of thought such as we see and admire in the thinkers of our own time".

The action of thought is excited by the irritation of a doubt, and ceases when belief is attained; so that the production of belief is the sole function of thought. As thought appeases the irritation of a doubt, which is the motive for thinking, it relaxes and comes to rest for a moment when belief is reached. But belief is a rule for action, and its application requires further thought and further doubt, so that at the same time that it is a stopping place it is also a new starting place for thought. The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition.

"The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit, and different beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which they give rise. If beliefs do not differ in this respect, if they appease the same doubt by producing the same rule of action, then no more differences in the manner of consciousness of them can make them different beliefs, any more than playing a tune in different keys is playing a different tune."

Imaginary distinctions are made very frequently, it is true, between beliefs which differ only in their mode of expression. Such false distinctions do as much harm as the confusion of beliefs really different. "One singular deception of this sort, which often occurs, is to mistake the sensation produced by our own unclearness of thought for a character of the object we are thinking. Instead of perceiving that the obscurity is purely subjective, we fancy that we contemplate a quality of the object which is essentially mysterious; and if our conception be afterwards presented to us in a clear form we do not recognize it as the same, owing to the absence of the feeling of unintelligibility.... Another such deception is to mistake a mere difference in the grammatical construction of two words for a distinction between the ideas they express.... From all these sophisms we shall be perfectly safe so long as we reflect that the whole function of thought is to produce habits of action; and that whatever is connected with a thought, but irrelevant to its purpose, is an accretion to it, but no part of it".

"To develop a meaning we have, therefore, simply to determine what habits it produces, for what a thing means is simply what habits it involves. Now the identity of a habit depends on how it might lead us to act, not merely under such circumstances as are likely to arise, but under such as might possibly occur, no matter how improbable.... Thus we come down to what is tangible and practical as the root of every real distinction of thought, no matter how subtle it may be; and there is no distinction so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference in practice".

As an example, consider the doctrine of transubstantiation. Are the elements of the sacrament flesh and blood 'only in a tropical sense' or are they literally just that? Now "we have no conception of wine except what may enter into a belief either, (1) that this, that, or the other is wine, or (2) that wine possesses certain properties. Such beliefs are nothing but self-notifications that we should, upon occasion, act in regard to such things as we believe to be wine according to the qualities which we believe wine to possess. The occasion of such action would be some sensible perception, the motive of it to produce some sensible result. Thus our action has exclusive reference to what affects our senses, our habit has the same bearing as our action, our belief the same as our habit, our conception the same as our belief; and we can consequently mean nothing by wine but what has certain effects, direct or indirect, upon the senses; and to talk of something as having all the sensible characters of wine, yet being in reality blood, is senseless jargon.... Our idea of anything is our idea of its sensible effects; and if we fancy that we have any other, we deceive ourselves, and mistake a mere sensation accompanying the thought for a part of the thought itself".

"It appears, then, that the rule for attaining ... clearness of apprehension is as follows: Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object". (Italics mine).

An application of this method to a conception which particularly concerns logic occupies the last section of the article,--a use of the method to make clear our conception of "reality". Considering clearness in the sense of familiarity, no idea could be clearer than this, for everyone uses it with perfect confidence. Clearness in the sense of definition is only slightly more difficult,--"we may define the real as that whose characters are independent of what anybody may think them to be". But however satisfactory this is as a definition, it does not by any means make our idea of reality perfectly clear. "Here, then, let us apply our rules. According to them, reality, like every other quality, consists in the peculiar sensible effects which things partaking of it produce. The only effect which real things have is to cause belief, for all the sensations which they excite emerge into consciousness in the form of beliefs. The question therefore is, how is true belief (or belief in the real) distinguished from false belief (belief in fiction)". Briefly this may be answered by saying that the true belief is the one which will be arrived at after a complete examination of all the evidence. "That opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real." (Note: "Fate means merely that which is sure to come true, and can nohow be avoided".) The real thus depends indeed upon what is ultimately thought about it, but not upon what any particular person thinks about it. This is clearly brought out in contrast to non-scientific investigation, where personal equation counts for a great deal more. "It is hard to convince a follower of the a priori method by adducing facts; but show him that an opinion that he is defending is inconsistent with what he has laid down elsewhere, and he will be very apt to retract it. These minds do not seem to believe that disputation is ever to cease; they seem to think that the opinion which is natural for one man is not so for another, and that belief will, consequently, never be settled. In contenting themselves with fixing their own opinions by a method which would lead another man to a different result, they betray their feeble hold upon the conception of what truth is. On the other hand, all the followers of science are fully persuaded that the processes of investigation, if only pushed far enough, will give one certain solution to every question to which they can be applied. One man may investigate the velocity of light by studying the transits of Venus and the aberration of the stars; another by the opposition of Mars and eclipses of Jupiter's satellites; a third by the method of Fizian.... They may at first obtain different results, but as each perfects his method and his processes, the results will move steadily together toward a destined center. So with all scientific research. Different minds may set out with the most antagonistic views, but the process of investigation carries them by a force outside of themselves to one and the same conclusion". This conclusion, to be sure, may be long postponed, and might indeed be preceded by a false belief which should be accepted universally. But "the opinion which would finally result from investigation does not depend on how anybody may actually think.... The reality of that which is real does depend on the real fact that the investigation is destined to lead, at last, if continued long enough, to a belief in it".

It will be seen that this article does not intend to put forward any new theory of truth. It is simply an attempt at expounding a new theory of clearness. Peirce desires to describe a new way of clearing up metaphysical disputes, the method, namely, of finding the meaning of each question by reducing it to its experimental consequences.

For Peirce a doctrine could be perfectly clear and yet false. This would be the case where one had a vivid idea of all the outcomes in experience involved by the idea, but yet was unable to prophesy any outcome that should be verified by future fact. Our idea of the object would not in that case 'correspond to the reality' in the sense of giving us a belief which could be 'verified by all investigators'.

Peirce, then, instead of having a radical and startling theory of truth to propose, would consider himself an ultra-conservative on the question of what shall be called truth. Approaching the matter from the standpoint of a scientist, (for he says in another connection that he had at this time spent most of his life in a laboratory), he is concerned only with an attempt to apply "the fruitful methods of science" to "the barren field of metaphysics". For metaphysics seems to him very much in need of outside help. His different conception of the two disciplines may be seen from the following passage. In contrast to philosophy, he is eulogizing the natural sciences, "where investigators, instead of condemning each the work of the others as misdirected from beginning to end, co-operate, stand upon one another's shoulders, and multiply incontestable results; where every observation is repeated, and isolated observations count for little; where every hypothesis that merits attention is subjected to severe but fair examination, and only after the predictions to which it leads have been remarkably borne out by experience is trusted at all, and then only provisionally; where a radically false step is rarely taken, even the most faulty of those theories which gain credence being true in their main experiential predictions".