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 PRAGMATISM

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PRAGMATISM

more the doctrine that the concept is not static but dynamic, not fixed but fluent; its meaning is not its content but its function. The same doctrine is brought out very forcibly by Bergson in his criticism of the cat- egories of science. Tlie reality which science attempts to interpret is a stream, a continuum, more like a Uving organism than a mineral substance. Truth in the mind of the scientist is, therefore, a vital stream, a suc- cession of concepts, each of which flows into its suc- cessor. To say that a given concept represents things as they are can be true only in the fluent or functional sense. A concept cut out of the continuum of expe- rience at any moment no more represents the reality of science than a cross-section of a tissue represents the specific vital function of that tissue. When we think we cut our concepts out of the continuum: to use our concepts as they were intended to be used, we must keep them in the stream of reaUty, that is, we must live them.

If we pass now from the consideration of concepts to that of judgment and reasoning, we find the same contrast between the intellectual Realist and the Pragmatist as in the case of concepts. The intellectual Realist defines judgment as a process of the mind, in which we pronounce the agreement or difference be- tween two things represented by the two concepts of the judgment. The things themselves are the stand- ard. Sometimes, as in self-evident judgments, we do not appeal to exjierienee at the moment of judging, but perceive the agreement or difference after an analysis of the concepts. Sometimes, as in empirical judg- ments, we turn to experience for the evidence that enables us to judge. Self-evident truths are axiomatic, necessary, and universal, such as "AH the radii of a given circle are equal", or "The whole is greater than its part". Truths that are not self-evident may change, if the facts change, as, for instance, "The pen I hold in my hand is six inches long ". There are neces- sary truths, which are a legitimate standard by which to test new truths; and there are truths of fact, which, as long as they remain true, are also legitimate tests of new truth. Thus, systems of truth are built up, and part of the system may be axiomatic truths, which need not be re-made or made over when a new truth is acquired.

All this is swept aside by the Pragmatist with the same contempt as the naive reaUsm which holds that concepts represent reality. There are no necessary truths, there are no axioms, says Pragmatism, but only postulates. A judgment is true if it functions in such a way as to explain our ex-periences, and it con- tinues to be true only so long as it does explain our experiences. The apparent self-evidence of axioms, says the Pragmatist, is due, not to the clearness and cogency of the evidence arising from an analysis of concepts, much less is it due to the cogency of reality ; it is due to a long-established habit of the race. The reason why I cannot help thinldng that two and two are four is the habit of so thinking, a habit begun by our ancestors before they were human and indulged in by all their descendants ever since. All truths are, therefore, empirical : they are all "man-made " ; hence Humanism is only another name for Pragmatism. Our judgments being all personal, in this sense, and based on our own experience, subject to the limita- tions imposed by the habits of the race, it follows that the conclusions which we draw from them when we reason are only hypothetical. They are valid only within our experience, and should not be carried be- yond the region of verifiable experience. Pragmatism, as .himes pointed out, docs not look backward to axi- oms, premises, systems, but forward to consequences, results, fruits. In point of fact, then, we are, if we believe the Pragmatist, obliged to subscribe to the doctrine of John Stiiart Mill that all truth is hypo- thetical, that "can be" and "cannot be" have refer- ence only to our experience, and that, for all we know,

there may be in some remote region of space a country where two and two are five, and a thing can be and not be at the same time.

IV. Pragmatic Theory of Reality. — The atti- tude of Pragmatism towards metaphysics is some- what ambiguous. Professor James was quoted above (Sec. II) as saying that Pragmatism is "finally, a theory of reality". Schiller, too, although he con- siders metaphysics to be " a luxury ", and beUeves that "neither Pragmatism nor Humanism necessitates a metaphysics", yet decides at last that Humanism "implies ultimately a voluntaristic metaphysics". Papini, as is well known, puts forward the "corridor- theory", according to which Pragmatism is a method through which one may pass, or must pass, to enter the various apartments indicated by the signs "Mate- rialism", "Idealism", etc., although he confesses that the Pragmatist "will have an antipathy for all forme of Monism" (Introduzione, p. 29). As a matter of fact, the metaphysics of the Pragmatist is distinctly anti-Monistic. It denies the fundamental unity of reality and, adopting a word which seems to have been first used by Wolff to designate the doctrines of the Atomists and the Monadism of Leibniz, it styles the Pragmatic view of reality Pluralistic. Pluralism, the doctrine, namely, that reality consists of a plural- ity or multiplicity of real things which cannot be reduced to a basic metaphysical unity, claims to offer the most consistent solution of three most important problems in philosophy. These are: (1) The possi- bility of real change; (2) the possibility of real variety or distinction among things; and (3) the possibility of freedom (see art. "Pluralism" in Baldwin, "Diet, of Philosophy and Psychology"). It is true that Monism fails on these points, since (1) it cannot con- sistently maintain the reality of change; (2) it tends to the Pantheistic view that all distinctions are merely limitations of the one being; and (3) it is inevitably Deterministic, excluding the possibility of true in- dividual freedom (see art. Monism).

At the same time, Plurahsm goes to the opposite extreme, for: (1) while it explains one term in the problem of change, it eliminates the other term, namely the original causal unity of all things in God, the First Cause; (2) while it accounts for variety, it cannot consistently explain the cosmic harmony and the multitudinous resemblances of things; and (3) while it strives to maintain freedom, it does not dis- tinguish with sufficient care between freedom and causalism. James, the chief exponent of Pragmatic Pluralism, contrasts Pluralism and Monism as fol- lows: "Pluralism lets things really exist in the each- form or distributively. Monism thinks that the all- form or collective-unit form is the only form that is rational. The all-form allows of no taking up and dropping of connexions, for in the 'all' the parts are essentially and externally co-implicated. In the each- form, on the contrary, a thing may be connected by intermediate things, with a thing with which it has no immediate or essential connexion. ... If the each-form be the eternal form of reality no less than the form of temporal appearance, we still have a coherent world, and not an incarnate incoherence, as is charged by so many absolutists. Our 'multiverse' still makes a ' universe' ; for every part, though it may not be in actual or immediate connexion, is neverthe- less in some possible or mediate connexion with every other part, however remote" (A Pluralistic Universe, 324). This type of union James calls the "strung- along type", the type of continuity, contiguity, or concatenation, as opposed to the co-implication or in- tegration type of unity advocated by the absolute Monists. if one prefers a Greek name, he says, the unity may be called synechism. Others, however, prefer to call this tychism, or mere chance succession. Peirce, for instance, holds that the impression of novelty which a new occurrence produces is explicable