Pragmatism V-VI

William James Lectures 5-6

Lecture 5-Pragmatism and Common sense

In learning from the last lecture that pragmatism tends towards plural direction we can again agree it certainly is at least by simple additive function; things being joined if only by the concept ‘and’. This is tough for the monists as they must then assume gain/loss to the eternal. Now, turning towards the concept of knowledge, James argues that it begins in locations of varying degree and can grow and spread. With pragmatism, knowledge grows gradually and often in the restricting of opinions. If a person were to break routine, stand up and yell it would cause you to pragmatically restructure your opinion of them. In this the mind becomes strained between old belief and the new fruits of experience. Thus, minds grow in areas and spread; however, ideally as little as possible as not to alter old knowledge too much. So, we fight the spread of mind’s new knowledge upon us, patch it up after and move forward with the newly settled knowledge. Now in addressing the main topic at hand of common sense, James wants to consider it as a continuum connecting us to ancient ancestors concerning crucial methods of thinking preserved throughout history. Common sense can be viewed in several ways, practically wise it is a person’s good judgement. Philosophically wise it is a bit more technical as being, a type of intellectual thought. Concerning common sense, an age-old method, particularly by rationalists, has always concerned conceptuals like, thing, same/different, minds, bodies, one time, one space. Context like this made it difficult to see the ancestors working to separate realities from experiences as they did not see a need too. But newer truths give us words like ‘thoughts’ thus neutralizing thoughts as realities and instead reclassifying them. Surely it feels like common sense for us to view time as a single straight line but with regards to science we know that time is inconsistent. But, practically speaking we know this inconsistency is not a good representation of human experience and also such cosmic maps would be read with imaginary conceptuals and numbers themselves. But certainly, we saw the benefits from the imaginary conceptuals like ‘kinds’ or ‘sameness’ has with the conception of ‘the many’ we certainly would not want to discard such powerful concepts either, pragmatically we must hover in the in between. In everyday life common sense persists and is hard to deny even if just simply the concept of self or body. Rationalists enjoy common sense but use it far too technical in man’s relation to the divine; pragmatically speaking, it is in a person’s intellect the words meaning and its influential function. Science and philosophy also press the boundaries of common sense; concerning scientific realism, objects secondary qualities seem to become unreal and concerning critical philosophy, there is no common sense in being, its just a trick of the mind. However, again we see that critical thought in science has given us practical tools, clocks, medicine, telephones, all coming from the results of external circumstances. This is our newer practical control over nature which common sense certainly utilizes. Science is expanding too rapidly for the average public common sense to keep up. Critical philosophy is useful, but it has little pragmatic value. Thus, we have three highly comparable forms of thought of the world, common sense, scientific, and critical philosophy. If common sense were the most true then why would science also regard their qualities as secondaries while it also itself even uses the imaginary world of lines and curves? All three conceptions of truth are better for spheres of life. In concluding this, common sense as truth assumes the copying by the mind of a given reality. And by this James will argue, the conflict of truth between these three is why we should reevaluate our notion of truth.

Lecture 6-Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth

To start, James wants to address truth as meaning: agreement with reality, since a true idea must copy its reality. Our mental conceptions of the physical do copy; take a clock on the wall, visualize it and you have a mental copy. But, concerning its internal mechanics, it is not too accurate. So, if it is not exact but we trusted our conception beforehand, what does that say about our agreements with objects? To idealists? Well, what is true is realized by divine revelation thus, mental frameworks like mental copying appear as being from the divine. To pragmatists? If it is true, it is verifiable, if it is false, it is not, this is the practical difference in ideas. Truth would not be inherent; it happens to an idea being made true by events and then verified. Verification and validation are practical at signifying the practical consequences, a great example being the agreement formula which concerns whether our ideas and their consequences agree with reality. Agreements insinuate realities that help conduct our actions and ideas, this is the function of ‘agreeable leading’ or the idea’s verification. Concerning pragmatism, thoughts that are true thoughts are valuable by actions, true not as ends but as means to more crucial ends. An example such as seeing animals may signify the true fact that something was there, but the tracks may be more crucial for signaling food in times of starvation. A pragmatic value of truth comes at the right times as needed, thus also the importance of latent truths. When a stored truth ever becomes practical it resurfaces, its need satisfies the verification, passes over it, and we call it a truth. Our thoughts and beliefs commonly pass over as well as long as not challenged as that would push for a direct verification and thus reassessment. Generally, people assume things exist as kinds, we see one causation and assume it over. People then become conditioned to the life behavior that repeats for us correctly a good 99% of the time but without ever truly verifying, as the results do not press for it. Thus, partial verification is confirmed in a commonsense regard as verification does not only concern the external but also the internal of mental ideas. Examples like 2+2=4 or that gray is between black and white; these feel of common sense, and we do not seek an external verification. Now, in concerning truth as guiding, or leading, we hold our eternal or deep personal truths to heart and we use the external reality to write facts best fit, the marriage of fact and theory. This ‘leading’ is the essential nature as it determines its ‘fit-ness’ in the world. The persuasiveness of leading commonly passes as an indirect verification for the experience but when one concerns it as true it always comes back to external verification. This is a rough pragmatic take on agreement. James now points towards truth-processes such as health or wealth. Truth is made just as health is experienced; health is lived in things like digestion or sleep. We commonly pass over the verification as we trust the ideas of the past has worked well for much of common sense. Thus, we can see we have a massive amount of indirectly verified ideas that work better as such, say I have not been but someone else told me that Japan was a real place. Looking at Aristotle, we see his distinction between habit and act; health in action is seen as good sleep or digestion but, a healthy person cannot always do these but rather only when necessary. Thus, they become habits, truth as well also becomes a habit of belief and ideas. Concerning the absolute truth, nothing can alter it; this is hard as most past truths were discarded when new ones arose thus, they were only relative truths. When new truths are found they feel as if they have always existed as true. Now, with the future mass influx of verification that’s inevitable experience’s partial truth’s must address an almost absolute truth as to address the totality of their beliefs. People invest in beliefs as a means of value and when applied to life it becomes action in reality, readjusting our beliefs. Concerning the rationalist’s absolute, truth has nothing to do with the practical and our agreements are only relative. But the pragmatic would argue that just like truth-processes like health or wealth that truth is conditionally relative. Truth is as necessary as un-true even if just in verification but, un-truths are not real things thus it would be a relative truth and not an absolute. It is general conditions and consequences that limit our abstract imperatives thus truth is relative and must be treated pragmatically or, in agreement with the reality that we see truth lies in the concrete and experiential.

My thoughts: Common sense has a strong pragmatic value and creating the conceptual helps to separate and not confuse common sense and critical understanding in daily life. I would enjoy talking through some different common sense utilitarian possibilities, one that I think about; does it give us more pragmatic value to hold a commonsense regard for the afterlife? The being, we just do not know. Even empirically we do not know what happens truly after death, thus the conversation becomes idle and needs practical settlement. And suddenly the commonsense reality of ‘I don’t know’ to an afterlife feels to hold more real-world cash-value. Also, truth as agreement is really compelling for pragmatic purpose. However, I did have some difficulties understanding his rationalist’s arguments against agreement.

--Seth Graves-Huffman