Literature Review

Jonathan Stueve
3-21-14

Brit Lit
Mr. Lindow

The worlds view of truth has been impacted by many minds over the years, the only definitive
answer created is that not one person agrees entirely with another. This conflict and
disagreement among philosophers is the example of what truth is, it is relative. Philosophers in

attempt to explain the nature of truth, being involved in the study of epistemology, attempt to
answer a question that within itself is unanswerable: Is truth really true?
Henri Bergson, a prominent french philosopher in the early 20th century, and Nobel
Prize of Literature winner, focused his writings upon experience and intuition as opposed to
abstract rationalism and science. Specifically on truth he wrote arguing that it was not held
within things like fact and science, but that truth was a glimpse of what could be proven. Another
thing Bergson emphasized in his writings,primarily The Creative Mind, he sought to explain that
truth was not static but was impacted by the minds in which it was perceived (Bergson). Truth is
an active relation between idea and event, because truth must be shaped by both. To Bergson,
determining a truth was much more than proving fact, because he saw fact and truth as two
very different entities. Fact could be described and proven through means of science and
rationale while truth can only be sought to be proven through ones own experience and
reasoning. Bergson also criticized other philosophers for creating philosophical barriers to
answering questions. He argued that the use of intuitive and emotional thinking supported not
detracted from the study of philosophy (Scott). Henri Bergson was very supportive of the works
of William James who shaped many of Bergsons ideas about truth. William James was an
American philosopher psychologist and physician. In James's books he followed the philosophy
of pragmatism which held the belief that truths value was dependant on those who held that
truths beliefs.

"Truths emerge from facts, but they dip forward into

facts again and add to them; which facts again create or
reveal new truth (the word is indifferent) and so on
indefinitely. The 'facts' themselves meanwhile are not true.
They simply are. Truth is the function of the beliefs that
start and terminate among them.

-William James (Pragmatism)

William James held the belief that truth was held within the mind of those who believed
it. Under this presumption separate and even opposite truths can be found in one solitary fact.
This contradictory reasoning is a description of how James sees truth, in another one of his
works, The Meaning of Truth, James reiterates his conception of truth as; a concept to which a
person is committed too. James was also a fallibilist and had the view that any or all truths could
be revised in a different situation (The Meaning of Truth). This idea most definitely lead to
Bersons formation of his interpretation of truth being an active relation between idea and event.
William James also in his book used three steps to define the nature of truth: matters of fact,
relations of ideas (truths of mathematics), and the entire set of other truths to which we are
committed (Pomerleau). In the same manner James related belief in religion and in God to be
similar to that of his perception of truth. He describes in his Will to Believe essay that to believe
in God is to fall short of knowledge, however the essay is actually meant to be a defense of
religious belief despite the lack of physical or scientific evidence. He likens the belief in God to
the belief that a mother loves her son, while there can be no actual objective evidence that this
is the case, it is still true. He uses his theory of truth as a foundation for his argument for
religious belief supporting that just as moral and political thought impact a man's life so does
their belief and faith, that their religion is true. Religion also being a compound feature that
accentuates the concepts of truth. Truth to a religion is the core of its beliefs, a member of that
religion holds the truths held by the majority of the religion. If this were not the case then the
religion would be without meaning. Truth is in the eye of the beholder in a sense because each
person, whether Muslim, Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, has the firm belief and faith that their
version of truth is infallible (The Will to Believe).
Alfred North Whitehead in comparison to his early 20th century counterparts was much
less interested in the realms within the human mind as was much more interested on what it

could accomplish. Educated as a mathematician he is well known for his book Principia
Mathematica with which he sought to explain truth mathematically. Whitehead presided under
the philosophical belief of logicism which was based on two main ideas, that mathematical
truths can translate into logical truths and that theorems of mathematics make up a significant
amount of theorems of logic. In the book Whitehead describe a set of equations and symbolic
logic to prove mathematical truths (Irvine). His book in fact uses such foundational versions of
logic and mathematics that in the first 86 pages he has only proved that 1+1=2. He developed
his own system that allowed the world of logic to dictate over the realm of mathematics and thus
proving its existence. Whitehead specifically concerning truth considered it to only be proven by
things displayed within logic and the physical world. For instance Whitehead saw the profound
influence religion and God had upon people and used evidence in the world to provide truths
that God exists. He developed a system known as process theology that uses truths made
evident by God to describe the reality of God. In comparison to other philosophers of his time he
valued physical evidence and the operations of mathematics more highly above the processes
of the mind. While he may not have agreed completely with Burgeson and James he did honor
them and credited them for starting many of the theories he would base his own on
(Whitehead).
Philosophers such as Bergson, James, and Whitehead each had slightly different
interpretations of truth and how to describe it fully. Whitehead amongst the three sought to
prove truth through physical and mathematical means while Bergson and James attempted to
explain it through the means of intuition and experience. While they may not have agreed on all
of eachothers theories they all did have the same love for discovery and need to understand.
The topic of truth will never be solved because no one will ever agree what is true. Truth is only
what people see as true, it is purely relative.

Works Cited
Bergson, Henri, and Mabelle Louise Cunningham Andison. The Creative Mind. New York:
Philosophical Library, 1946. Print.
Irvine, Andrew David. "Alfred North Whitehead." Stanford University. Stanford University, 21
May 1996. Web. 04 Apr. 2015. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/whitehead/>.
James, William, and James Fieser. The Will to Believe 1897. South Bend, IN: Infomotions,
2001. Print.
James, William. The Meaning of Truth, a Sequel to "Pragmatism," New York: Longmans,
Green, 1909. Print.

James, William. Pragmatism, a New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking; Popular
Lectures on Philosophy. New York: Longmans, Green, 1907. Print.
Pomerleau, Wayne P. "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy." Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. IEP, n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2015. <http://www.iep.utm.edu/james-o/#SH3b>.
Scott, Alex. "Henri Bergsons The Creative Mind." Angel Fire. N.p., 2002. Web. 04 Apr.
2015. <http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/bergson.html>.
Whitehead, Alfred North, and Bertrand Russell. Principia Mathematica. Cambridge: UP,
1925. Print.