Pragmatism, a New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking: Popular Lectures on PhilosophyLongmans, Green, and Company, 1907 - 308 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
Abso absolute absolute edition absolute monism abstract actual agree atoms beliefs better called claim common sense conceive conception concrete connexion definite difference divine doctrine empiricism empiricist ence eternal everything exist experience fact feel finite follow forms Frederick Myers free-will friability human hypothesis ical ideal imagine intellectual intellectualist kind knower live logic Lowell Institute lute matter melioristic ment mental metaphysical mind monistic mystical nature ness notion object pantheism particular philosophy plural pluralistic possible practical prag pragmatic method PRAGMATISM MEANS pragmatist principle question radical rationalism rationalist reality reason relations religion religious Schiller Scholasticism sensations sensible simple sort spirit stage substance suppose talk temperament tender-minded theism theory things thought tically tion tism tough-minded transcendental idealism treat true ideas truth unified union unity universe vague verified whole word
Popular passages
Page 47 - To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only consider what conceivable effects of a practical kind the object may involve — what sensations we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must prepare.
Page 104 - ... the energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed, and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish.
Page 208 - Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs 'pass', so long as nothing challenges them, just as banknotes pass so long as nobody refuses them. But this all points to direct face-toface verifications somewhere, without which the fabric of truth collapses like a financial system with no cash-basis whatever. You accept my verification of one thing, I yours of another. We trade on each other's truth. But beliefs verified concretely by somebody are the posts of...
Page 60 - The individual has a stock of old opinions already, but he meets a new experience that puts them to a strain. Somebody contradicts them; or in a reflective moment he discovers that they contradict each other; or he hears of facts with which they are incompatible; or desires arise in him which they cease to satisfy. The result is an inward trouble to which his mind till then had been a stranger, and from which he seeks to escape by modifying his previous mass of opinions. He saves as much of it as...
Page 299 - On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true. Now whatever its residual difficulties may be, experience shows that it certainly does work, and that the problem is to build it out and determine it so that it will combine satisfactorily with all the other working truths.
Page 201 - The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events.
Page 46 - And the tangible fact at the root of all our thoughtdistinctions, however subtle, is that there is no one of them so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference of practice.
Page 256 - In our cognitive as well as in our active life we are creative. We add, both to the subject and to the predicate part of reality. The world stands really malleable, waiting to receive its final touches at our hands. Like the kingdom of heaven, it suffers human violence willingly. Man engenders truths upon it.
Page 218 - Truth for us is simply a collective name for verification-processes, just as health, wealth, strength, etc., are names for other processes connected with life, and also pursued because it pays to pursue them. Truth is made, just as health, wealth and strength are made, in the course of experience.
Page 222 - The true,' to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving. Expedient in almost any fashion; and expedient in the long run and on the whole of course; for what meets expediently all the experience in sight won't necessarily meet all farther experiences equally satisfactorily. Experience, as we know, has ways of boiling over, and making us correct our present...