Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The pragmatic theory of truth as developed by Peirce, James, and Dewey
    The pragmatic theory of truth as developed by Peirce, James, and Dewey
    The pragmatic theory of truth as developed by Peirce, James, and Dewey
    Ebook108 pages1 hour

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

    By Denton Loring Geyer

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    "The pragmatic theory of truth as developed by Peirce, James, and Dewey" by Denton Loring Geyer. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGood Press
    Release dateNov 26, 2019
    ISBN4057664623034
    The pragmatic theory of truth as developed by Peirce, James, and Dewey

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

    Related ebooks

    Reference For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      This Essentially Meaningless Conflict

      Sep 22, 2017

      MARILYNNE ROBINSON’S accomplishments are impressive by any standard: she has won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and the National Humanities Medal, among other honors. But perhaps a better measure o

      8 min read

    • Article

      A Perception Of Something

      Nov 7, 2020

      A Perception Of Something
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Universe Knows Right from Wrong

      Sep 9, 2020

      Most of us, most of the time, think and act as though there are facts about good and bad, right and wrong. We think the predatory behavior of Jeffrey Epstein was abhorrent, and that the political actions of Mahatma Gandhi were admirable. Moreover, we

      9 min read

    • Article

      We Have to Talk About Doubt: How to tell the difference between scientific and conspiratorial skepticism.

      Sep 1, 2021

      What is the role of reasonable doubt in advancing science? And how should we contrast scientific doubt with the cavilling doubt of conspiracy theories which play little part in advancing understanding? Over the last year we have seen the scientific m

      5 min read

    • Article

      Full, Frequent, And Fearless

      Sep 25, 2023

      Full, Frequent, And Fearless
      4 min read

    • Article

      Steven Pinker Has His Reasons

      Nov 17, 2021

      A few years ago, at the Princeton Club in Manhattan, I chanced on a memorable chat with the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker. His spouse, the philosopher Rebecca Goldstein, with whom he was tagging along, had been invited onto a panel to discuss th

      19 min read

    • Article

      Herbert Spencer’s Principle of Equal Freedom: Is It Well Grounded?

      Sep 1, 2020

      During the mid-to late nineteenth century, Herbert Spencer was the most widely read philosopher in the world. A large part of his appeal was owing to his ambition of providing a complete and comprehensive account of human reality based on scientific

      38 min read

    • Article

      Why Science Needs Metaphysics: Science can’t tell us whether science explains everything.

      Oct 1, 2015

      Technology cannot keep pace with theoretical predictions about subatomic reality coming from physics. The same applies to our ability to observe the far reaches of the universe. Theory outstrips data and can become more extravagant with the claims it

      6 min read

    • Article

      Changing Minds

      Oct 28, 2019

      Changing Minds
      5 min read

    • Article

      Are Suicide Bombings Really Driven by Ideology?

      May 24, 2018

      Harvey Whitehouse doesn’t like how New Atheists like Richard Dawkins make religion out to be a mere “set of propositions” amounting to a “failed science.” In a 2013 YouTube video, Whitehouse—the director of the Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary A

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Charmed Life of Frank Wilczek

      Mar 17, 2021

      Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek’s new book, Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality, is both a way of thinking about the abundance that characterizes our exterior and interior worlds, and a kind of alternative to traditional religion, a way of being “born aga

      13 min read

    • Article

      Inbuilt Influencer

      May 29, 2022

      Inbuilt Influencer
      2 min read

    • Article

      Are We Cut Out for Universal Morality?

      May 26, 2021

      Footage of a mob storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to subvert the legal and peaceful transfer of power, filled many of us with horror. Underlying that response was our indignation at the brazen violation of central democratic institu

      13 min read

    • Article

      Worthwhile Risks

      Dec 5, 2022

      Worthwhile Risks
      13 min read

    • Article

      Angst and the Empty Set: We Can Experience Nothingness, but Does It Actually Exist?: We can experience nothingness, but does it actually exist?

      Aug 28, 2014

      Suppose you open your handbag one day expecting to find your wallet there, but don’t. Do you literally see the absence of your wallet in your handbag? If you do, it means something important: Absences have a positive presence in your perception that

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Metaphysical Baggage of Physics: Lee Smolin argues that time is more fundamental than physical laws.

      Jan 30, 2014

      An issue on time would not be complete without a conversation with Lee Smolin. High school dropout, theoretical physicist, and founding member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada, Smolin’s life and work reflect many

      7 min read

    • Article

      You Can Learn From Declaring A Mystery

      Jul 10, 2017

      A new paper suggests that to declare something a mystery isn't just a confession of ignorance: Some of the time, you can learn something important from it, says psychologist Tania Lombrozo.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Flashback: Human Uniqueness: Shining a light on the spark that separates man from beast.

      Mar 6, 2014

      A physicist and a philosopher walk into a lab… no, this isn’t the start of a joke. It’s an everyday occurrence in the lab of Andrew Briggs, Professor of Nanomaterials at Oxford University. While working on how to exploit quantum mechanics to better s

      4 min read

    • Article

      Angst And The Empty Set

      Sep 19, 2019

      Suppose you open your handbag one day expecting to find your wallet there, but don’t. Do you literally see the absence of your wallet in your handbag? If you do, it means something important: Absences have a positive presence in your perception that

      4 min read

    • Article

      Can Science Hold All The Answers?

      Oct 27, 2022

      MEASURABILITY, REPRODUCIBILITY, independent verification, accurate predictions — these are the criteria that have elevated scientific experimentation to the arbiter of truth in modern society. Besides the long and impressive history of accomplishment

      6 min read

    Related categories

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

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The pragmatic theory of truth as developed by Peirce, James, and Dewey - Denton Loring Geyer

      Denton Loring Geyer

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

      Published by Good Press, 2022

      goodpress@okpublishing.info

      EAN 4057664623034

      Table of Contents

      INTRODUCTORY.

      CHAPTER I. THE PRAGMATIC DOCTRINE AS ORIGINALLY PROPOSED BY PEIRCE.

      CHAPTER II. The Interpretation Given to Pragmatism by James.

      James’ Exposition of Peirce.

      Development of the Doctrine through the Earlier Writings of James.

      The Theory of Truth in ‘Pragmatism’ and ‘The Meaning of Truth’.

      CHAPTER III. The Pragmatic Doctrine as Set Forth by Dewey.

      Contrast Between James and Dewey.

      CHAPTER IV. Summary and Conclusion.

      BIBLIOGRAPHY

      The Works of Charles Sanders Peirce

      The Works of William James

      The Works of John Dewey

      Works on Truth

      Works on Pragmatism

      VITA.

      INTRODUCTORY.

      Table of Contents

      This thesis attempts to trace the growth of the pragmatic doctrine of truth through the works of its three most famous advocates in America.

      An examination of Peirce’s initial statement of pragmatism is followed by a discussion of his objections to the meaning put upon his doctrine by his would-be disciples, and his resort, in order to save himself from these ‘perversions’, to a renaming of his theory. Some evident contradictions in his different principles are pointed out.

      The changing position of William James is then followed through magazine articles and books appearing successively during a period of about thirty years. One finds here a gradually but continually widening divergence from the rationalistic theories, which culminates finally in the much-quoted extreme statements of the book ‘Pragmatism’. The few subsequently published references to truth seem to consist largely of defenses or retractions of the tenets there set forth. As has been so often said, William James was too sympathetic toward the doctrines of other men to maintain a consistent doctrine of his own. His best work, like that of the higher literary type to which he approached, was to transcribe and interpret the feelings of other men. His genius lay in the clearness with which he could translate these ideas and the lucid fashion in which he could cut to the heart of ambiguities in them. With the highest and most sincere admiration for the spirit of James’ labors in philosophy and psychology, the writer is unable to find there permanent contributions to the solution of the particular problem which we have before us here, the problem of truth. In his splendid protest against all static theories, he seems to have accepted pragmatism for what it was not rather than for what it was. It was not a cut-and-dried system leaving no room for individuality, and that this was one of his strongest reasons for accepting it is shown by his asking again and again: If this (pragmatism) is not truth, what is? He was attempting to find a theory—almost any theory, one thinks sometimes—which would serve as an alternative to the older doctrines so incompatible with his temperament.

      It is interesting to note that the frequent protests made by Peirce against the turn given his ideas by his followers are always directed against the work of James and Schiller, and never, so far as I have been able to ascertain, against that of Dewey. It therefore seems worth while to undertake a direct comparison between the views of Peirce and Dewey. This comparison, then, occupies the latter part of the thesis, with the result, it may be said at once, that Dewey’s work is found to be very closely related to the original formulation of pragmatism as made by Peirce.

      The excellent historical sketches of pragmatism which have appeared during the last five years1 have been somewhat broader in scope than the present treatise, for they have usually described the development of all the pragmatic doctrines in the mass while the emphasis here is placed on the intensive treatment of a single doctrine, and this doctrine is followed, moreover, through a limited number of its expounders. Further, almost all such sketches are taken up for the most part in showing how pragmatism grew out of the older doctrines or in contrasting it with various alternative theories while the thing attempted here is, again, a careful comparison of the views of three thinkers within the School itself—with of course the writer’s own reaction to these views. It has thus seemed best to undertake no (necessarily fragmentary) treatment of truth as ‘intuition’ or ‘coherence’ or ‘correspondence’ or the rest.

      General criticism of the pragmatic theory of truth, as is evident to anyone who has followed the controversy, has been principally directed against the more ‘radical’ statements of James and Schiller. Whether this is merely because these champions of the theory are more extreme, or whether they are really more prone to errors in their reasoning, we need not determine here. But it is worth pointing out that, on the other hand, if Peirce and Dewey were to be taken as the truer representatives of pragmatism a large part of the flood of recent criticism would be irrelevant. This is by no means to say that the work of Peirce and Dewey is above criticism; it is merely to call attention to the fact that most of the criticism of pragmatism is directed against principles which these two men do not happen to hold. An understanding of the doctrine in its more conservative terms, however, is certainly on the increase, and we are seldom nowadays burdened with refutations of such alleged pragmatism as that anything is true which it is pleasant to believe or that any theory of procedure is true which happens to turn out well.

      CHAPTER I.

      THE PRAGMATIC DOCTRINE AS ORIGINALLY PROPOSED BY PEIRCE.

      Table of Contents

      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,

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1