Page:Philosophical Review Volume 21.djvu/203

185 of selfhood and thus bind together the unique monadic centres of purpose under one general functional type of moral experience.

At this point pragmatism shows to advantage. It has developed a unifying theory; the theory that experience is a reconstructive teleological process with series after series of movement, and with each movement exhibiting three moments: crisis, experimentation, adjustment. The element of newness in every problem that comes up is held to account for the drive of the process. Old formulas are stretched to the breaking point, old intellectual harness becomes useless, something new, strong and serviceable in the way of equipment is demanded. Thus are thought and will set afoot. The process is essentially the same in the theoretical and practical spheres. Within the practical sphere aesthetic, economic, and moral values are distinguished. Everywhere the cue to explanation is a "situation," which on the inner, the psychological, side is a purpose or scheme of meanings, and on the outer, the sociological, side a group of objective conditions provocative of new and reconstructed purposes and meanings. With reference to the three types of value, situation and mode of adjustment are markedly different. Until that difference has been adequately explained—and Dewey's theory that moral experience exhibits a conflict of incompatible ends is hardly a satisfactory explanation—the peculiarity of moral experience as a process of teleological experimentation remains undefined. No such theory has been forthcoming, and as a result pragmatism, whose general ethical motif is unmistakable, has been less successful with ethical problems than with others. As yet it has failed of its promise. It promised experience in the round; it has yielded little more than a painted thinness.

One serious criticism hits all varieties of the auto-teleological method alike. They all regard moral experience as a self-revelational process and seek to penetrate sympathetically to its meaning. But what if the concept 'meaning' turns out to be ambiguous? We certainly use it in several distinct senses. Three of these uses are the following: (1) The psychological.