THE PRAGMATISM OF WILLIAM JAMES AND TRUTH

Paul Gerard Horrigan, Ph.D., 2020.

In the Preface to his The Meaning of Truth: A Sequel to ‘Pragmatism,’ first published in
1909, the radical empiricist and pragmatist William James (1842-1910), picking up from what he
wrote in his earlier book, Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907), asks
the question: “What, in short, is the truth’s cash-value in experiential terms?”1 He replies:
“…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. Its verity is in fact an event, a process, the process namely
of its verifying itself, its verification. Its validity is the process of its validation…Any idea that
helps us to deal, whether practically or intellectually, with either the reality or its belongings, that
doesn’t entangle our progress in frustration, that fits, in fact, and adapts our life to the reality’s
whole setting, will agree sufficiently to meet the requirement. It will be true of that reality. 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 the long run and on the whole, of
course.”2 Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. states in his Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic
Thought that “with William James, pragmatism becomes a form of subjectivism, thus defined in
the Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie, revised by the members of the Société
française de philosophie and published by M. A. Lalande, Alcan, in 1926: ‘A doctrine according
to which truth is a relation, entirely immanent to human experience, whereby knowledge is
subordinated to activity, and the truth of a proposition consists in its utility and satisfactoriness.’3
That is true which succeeds.”4 J. A. Mourant writes that “James held that truth was pragmatic,
that the true is that which is the practical and the best (Pragmatism, New York, 1907). Truth is
utilitarian; man’s ideas are true insofar as they are useful and practical in resolving his problems.
For James, truth is something relative, expedient, useful and practical. James not only applied
these criteria of truth to metaphysical problems, but he was also greatly concerned to show how
such a pragmatic conception of truth could be used to justify religious ideas and confirm
religious experience…As a philosophy Jamesian pragmatism’s most serious difficulties are its
anti-intellectualism, its relativism, its appeal to the expedient in ethics, and its justification of
religious belief solely upon the value of such beliefs to the individual.”5 In his description of the
immanentist, anti-theoretical, anti-speculative, practical consequentialism of the philosophy of
pragmatism, Juan José Sanguineti writes: “Pragmatism is the philosophy that reduces the value
of theoretical truth to its practical consequences. By theory or speculation is intended
knowledge insofar as it indicates that which is; instead, the practical truth indicates that which
must be done. For realism the ultimate foundation of action is found in the nature of things, since
something acts insofar as it is (agere sequitur esse). In pragmatism no truth is theoretical, in the
sense that no truth indicates being: truth is reduced to a human conception that serves action
(theory as a function of the praxis). Then it is clear that pragmatism is the consequence of every

1
W. JAMES, The Meaning of Truth: A Sequel to ‘Pragmatism,’ Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1909, p. v.
2
W. JAMES, op. cit., pp. vi-vii.
3
Cf. W. JAMES, The Will to Believe (1897); Pragmatism (1907).
4
R. GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE, Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought, B. Herder, St. Louis, 1950, pp. 378-379.
5
J. A. MOURANT, William James, in The New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 7, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1967, p.
816.

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doctrine where the notion of truth disappears, such as skepticism or even idealism, since if
human thought is not a reflection of reality, it will be necessary to assign to it some function in
the context of human conduct: thought will at least have to be useful for human life.”6 With
regard to William James’s pragmatism in particular, Sanguineti states: “According to James,
ideas have value only in virtue of their practical results for the individual or for society. The sole
criterion of truth is efficacy: for example, if religion betters man, it is true. It is not necessary to
ask whether a theory is true or not in itself, because this will be seen in the concrete action.
Ancient empiricism assigned importance to the past experience as the cause of knowledge, but
James holds to be more important the future experience as the field of inquiry and verification.
Human life begins with sensorial impressions, which awaken a process of reflection (‘thought’),
which in turn is carried in the future action. Life is a continuous circle where the material of
experience is constantly elaborated and projected towards the end of action. Science is
essentially action in the world.

“For this reason faith, if it shows itself to be useful, has an important role in life. It does
not matter that a hypothesis is not verified, when it is operative: the risk of error must be
assumed, for example in religious and moral hypotheses, because it is also true that he who does
not believe likewise decides. In human relations, where the interplay of love and sympathy
enters, only those win who have faith in their possibilities.”7

Then, criticizing the pragmatic theory of truth of James rooted in practical utility or
usefulness, Sanguineti notes: “a) it is true that practice can serve as the verification or sign of
truth, but only with regard to the practical truths: a new commercial product shows itself to be
useful in practice; instead, the phrase ‘Caesar was emperor’ is true or false without practical
consequences; b) the theory of James bases itself on some principle with respect to that which is
practical, a principle which is already the object of a theoretical affirmation. Otherwise, how
would one know whether an idea is practical? (each person may have very different concepts
with regard to this); c) it is true that only with a great faith and conviction can one act
efficaciously, but a conviction ordinarily is born from the cognizance of truth (a physician cures
an illness with certain medicines of which he is certain). Only in extraordinary cases of new
hypotheses is it necessary to have a faith risking the repudiation of reality.”8

In his Introduzione alla gnoseologia, Sanguineti critiques the pragmatist notion of truth,
writing: “Nel pragmatismo la verità si riduce alla prassi.9 La forma di questa riduzione è
variabile, in quanto dipende dal tipo di prassi prescelta come rilevante per l’uomo o per la
scienza. In questa prospettiva si collocano le filosofie che tendono a definire la verità di una
posizione teorica tramite le sue conseguenze pratiche, la sua efficacia o l’utilità che comporta
nella vita. Anche questa è una conseguenza del rifiuto della validità della verità teorica, quella
cioè che intende dire l’essere. Se la verità (realistica) si rivela infondata, eppure la si vuole
mantenere come valida in qualche modo, non resta che valutarla in funzione delle sue
applicazioni nella vita. Seguendo questa linea, ad esempio, le credenze religiose potrebbero

6
J. J. SANGUINETI, Logic and Gnoseology, Urbaniana University Press, Rome, 1987, pp. 182-183.
7
J. J. SANGUINETI, op. cit., p. 184.
8
J. J. SANGUINETI, op. cit., p. 185.
9
Cfr., ad esempio, W. JAMES, Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth, in W. JAMES, Pragmatism, Longmans, Green
and Co., London, 1907, pp. 197-236.

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essere «vere» se comportano conseguenze antropologiche positive, di cui magari si potrebbero
considerare simboli o stimoli. Le proposizioni teoretiche dunque non sarebbero adeguate o meno
alla realtà, ma sarebbero espressioni valide, o forse non valide, di pratiche di vita. Talvolta la
concezione pragmatistica della verità è stata occasionata dal fatto che certe ipotesi scientifiche
poi rivelatesi false avrebbero avuto comunque conseguenze empiriche vere, un punto che, se
esteso a tutto il sapere scientifico, corrisponde alla concezione strumentalistica della scienza.

“La concezione della verità come prassi è contraddittoria, poiché occorre avere almeno
una minima nozione di verità teoretica per ritenere valido un tipo di prassi piuttosto di un altro. Il
criterio secondo cui una conseguenza è utile o inutile, porta al successo o all’insuccesso, richiede
un giudizio di valore fondante. Tale giudizio risponde al concetto di verità come adeguamento.

“Contro l’ultima affermazione si potrebbe forse obiettare che i giudizi di valore non sono
giudizi sull’essere. Quest’obiezione procede di solito dalla posizione empirista secondo cui i
giudizi sull’essere si riferiscono a fatti empirici, per cui i cosiddetti giudizi di valore («questo
atto è ingiusto») sarebbero estranei all’ambito dell’essere. Occorre dire invece che i valori
normalmente non sono valutazioni soggettive dell’uomo, ma autentiche dimensioni dell’essere,
non empiriche ma intelligibili e riconducibili al bene ontologico. Una realtà è buona, vale,
quando possiede qualche qualità che la rende amabile, piacevole o utile. L’esistenza, la vita, la
persona, l’intelligenza, sono dei valori, in quanto sono desiderabili per se stessi: quindi in
definitiva ciò che vale è l’essere (e ciò che non vale è il male). Per poter dire «quest’atto è
giusto», «questa forma di vita è indegna», «questa poesia ha un grande valore», bisogna
adeguarsi alla realtà, quindi tali affermazioni saranno vere o false.”10

Description of Pragmatism and the Pragmatist Notion of Truth. In his 1907 book
Pragmatism, James describes the empiricist, nominalist, positivist and utilitarianist inspirations
of his pragmatist philosophy: “Pragmatism represents a perfectly familiar attitude in philosophy,
the empiricist attitude, but it represents it, as it seems to me, both in a more radical and in a less
objectionable form than it has ever yet assumed. A pragmatist turns his back resolutely and once
for all upon a lot of inveterate habits dear to professional philosophers. He turns away from
abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed
principles, closed systems, and pretended absolutes and origins. He turns towards concreteness
and adequacy, towards facts, towards action and towards power. That means the empiricist
temper regnant and the rationalist temper sincerely given up. It means the open air and
possibilities of nature as against dogma, artificiality, and the pretence of finality in truth. At the
same time it does not stand for any special results. It is a method only…Being nothing
essentially new, it harmonizes with many ancient philosophic tendencies. It agrees with
nominalism for instance, in always appealing to particulars; with utilitarianism in emphasizing
practical aspects; with positivism in its disdain for verbal solutions, useless questions and
metaphysical abstractions…No particular results then, so far, but only an attitude of orientation,
is what the pragmatic method means. The attitude of looking away from the first things,
principles, ‘categories,’ supposed necessities; and of looking towards last things, fruits,
consequences, facts.”11

10
J. J. SANGUINETI, Introduzione alla gnoseologia, Le Monnier, Florence, 2003, pp. 254-255.
11
W. JAMES, Pragmatism, Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1907, pp. 51 ff.

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 Concerning James’s pragmatist notion of truth, Frank Thilly and Ledger Wood write:
“Pragmatism is a method of determining the truth or falsity of propositions according as they do
or do not fulfill our purposes and satisfy our biological and emotional needs; a true proposition is
one the acceptance of which leads to success, a false proposition is one which produces failure
and frustration. In introducing a reference to satisfactoriness, expediency, practicality and
instrumentality in his definition of truth, James drastically alters the complexion of the
pragmatism of Peirce’s more intellectualistic formulation.

“The test, then, of a theory, a belief, a doctrine, must be its effects on us, its practical
consequences. This is the pragmatic test. Always ask yourself what difference it will make in
your experience whether you accept materialism or idealism, determinism or free will, monism
or pluralism, atheism or theism. On the one side, it is a doctrine of despair, on the other a
doctrine of hope. ‘On pragmatic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily, in the
widest sense of the word, it is true.’ The test of truth, then, is its practical consequences; the
possession of truth is not an end in itself, but only a preliminary means to other vital
satisfactions. Knowledge is an instrument; it exists for the sake of life, not life for the sake of
knowledge. James enlarges this pragmatic or instrumental conception so as to include in the idea
of practical utility logical consistency and verification. True ideas are those we can assimilate,
validate, corroborate, and verify. Ideas that tell us which of the realities to expect count as true
ideas. We can, therefore, say of truth that it is useful because it is true, or that it is true because it
is useful. Truth in science is what gives us the maximum possible sum of satisfaction, taste
included, but consistency both with previous truth and novel fact is always the most imperious
claimant.”12

In pragmatism truth is ‘produced,’ ‘manufactured,’ ‘made’ by means of postulation and

experimentation. For the pragmatist, something is true if it is able to satisfy some human need; it
is ‘false’ if it fails to do so. In the words of the noted pragmatist, the advocate of humanism
Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller (1864-1937): “Pragmatism essays to trace the actual ‘making
of truth,’ the actual ways in which discriminations between the true and the false are effected,
and derives from these its generalizations about the method of determining the nature of truth. It
is from such empirical observations that it derives its doctrine that when an assertion claims
truth, its consequences are always used to test its claim. In other words, what follows from its
truth for any human interest, and more particularly in the first place, for the interest with which it
is directly concerned, is what establishes its real truth and validity…Human interest, then, is
vital to the existence of truth: to say that a truth has consequences and that what has none is
meaningless, means that it has a bearing upon some human interest. Its ‘consequences’ must be
consequences to some one for some purpose.”13

James maintains that “any idea that will carry us prosperously from any one part of our
experience to any other part, linking things satisfactorily, working securely, saving labor, is true
for just so much, true in so far forth, true instrumentally.”14 For James, “an idea is not simply a
mirror or passive reflection of reality; it is a habit of acting in a certain way, and therefore it is a
plan or guide for our action. If we follow out this plan, we will have a series of experiences that

12
F. THILLY and L. WOOD, A History of Philosophy, Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1957, p. 639.
13
F. C. S. SCHILLER, Studies in Humanism, Macmillan, London, 1907, pp. 4-6.
14
W. JAMES, op. cit., p. 58.

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either lead up to the reality or do not. For example, our idea of tigers prompts us to perform
certain actions that either lead us into the presence of tigers or do not. If these experiences carry
us to the reality, the idea that prompted them is true, if they fail to do so it is false. In short, an
idea is true if it leads us to its object. The series of experiences linking the idea with the reality is
the concrete relation of agreement or pointing.

“Accordingly, for James, truth is not an unchanging or inherent property of an idea; it is

something that happens to an idea when it is verified by experience…Neither is truth something
we discover in reality, as though it existed there before we thought about it. We make truth by
formulating ideas and acting upon them; the process of verification (as the word indicates) is
indeed one of ‘truth-making.’ Bergson puts his finger on the essential nature of truth in James’s
philosophy when he writes: ‘We invent truth in order to use reality, as we create mechanical
devices to use natural forces. It seems to me that we can sum up the whole essence of the
pragmatic conception of truth in a formula such as this: while in other doctrines a new truth is a
discovery, for pragmatism it is an invention.’15

“Although James insists that it is one of man’s primary duties to pursue true ideas, he
does not regard their possession as an end in itself but only as ‘a preliminary means towards
other vital satisfactions.’16 This is understandable against the background of his voluntaristic
psychology, which claims that perception and thinking are only for the sake of action, and action
is for the satisfaction of some human need.17 Hence James sees little value in a purely objective
knowledge divorced from human desires and human reasons for knowing. True ideas are always
useful ones; they enable us to use reality in order to satisfy some need. Thus truth is a species of
good: ‘The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good,
too, for definite, assignable reasons.’18

“There are, accordingly, two aspects to a true idea: its verification by the facts, and its
usefulness for life. These can be distinguished but not separated; unless we have some need or
desire for an object, we will not be led to verify our idea of it. If we have no interest in tigers, we
will not be prompted to set in motion the actions that will lead us into their presence. An idea is
nothing but an instrument for satisfying some desire or need, and its verification in experience is
not an end in itself but a process that is fulfilled only in its actual use.

“…Since individuals differ in their needs and desires, it is understandable that James’s
pragmatism should stress the role of the individual in determining the truth. An idea is true
insofar as it is satisfactory, but what satisfies one person does not always satisfy another. Hence
truth is to a certain degree plastic and relative to the individual.19”20

15
H. BERGSON, Sur la pragmatisme de William James, vérité et réalité, written as a preface to James’s
Pragmatism, Flammarion, Paris, 1911.
16
W. JAMES, op. cit., p. 203.
17
Cf. W. JAMES, The Will to Believe, Longmans, New York, 1897, p. 114.
18
W. JAMES, Pragmatism, Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1907, p. 76.
19
Cf. W. JAMES, op. cit., p. 61.
20
E. GILSON, T. LANGAN, and A. MAURER, Recent Philosophy: Hegel to Present, Random House, New York,
1966, pp. 640-642.

5
 As regards James’s pragmatic theory of truth as an expression of purpose, B. A. G. Fuller
writes: “By what principle is the selective activity of consciousness motivated? By the total
purpose of the consciousness in question, James answers. We attend to and promote what gives
our total nature, including our emotions and yearnings and aspirations, the greatest satisfaction.
The ideas that interest us are previews of situations that have bearing upon the achievement of
that satisfaction. They are not mere memories of situations that are dead and gone. When we
think, we are not dully looking over photographs of the past. We are trying to paint a portrait of
future experiences that will answer to our desires and fulfill our total purpose. These experiences
are the ‘objects’ to which ideas are supposed to refer.

“Furthermore, and here we come to James’s pragmatic view of the nature of truth, the
‘feel’ of truth which some ideas have is simply the feeling that they do anticipate the desired and
satisfying experience. They ‘correspond’ to their objects by producing them. Conversely, the
falsity of an idea is the feeling that the experience it pictures is undesirable or unlikely to occur.
Since true ideas are regarded as forecasts of agreeable and satisfying experiences, they are in
themselves agreeable and satisfactory to entertain. Nevertheless, the proof of the pudding is in
the eating. For the idea to be truly true, it must ‘work’ not merely by being pleasing in itself, but
by anticipating or producing the satisfactory experiences it promises. As long as it continues to
‘work’ in this way, it remains true. When it ceases to yield satisfactory results and no longer
‘works,’ it becomes false, and goes into the scrapbasket of outworn creeds, outgrown
hypotheses, and discredited theories.

“Plainly then, for James, thinking is secondary to willing. Idea reflects impulse, and
reflects it as it wants to be reflected. The will determines how and what we shall think. Ideas,
insofar as they satisfy or disappoint the expectations of the will, envisage truth or error. The truth
of an idea has nothing to do with anything outside experience, or even with any permanent form
and constitution of experience. It denotes simply that the idea is working satisfactorily at the
moment as a means of getting out of experience what we now want. To be true an idea must
continually come true.”21

Celestine Bittle’s Critique of Pragmatism and the Pragmatist Theory of Truth. Bittle
describes the various contradictions, confusions and inconsistencies inherent in pragmatist
gnoseology, writing that, for pragmatism, which is an immanentist and voluntarist
epistemological system, “the truth of judgments does not arise from their correspondence to
reality. The pragmatist criterion of truth consists in the utility of a belief in satisfying human
needs in a social way. That is true which ‘works,’ which has practical value, which leads to
beneficial results for human progress, which promotes the best interest of mankind through
living experience. Results make a belief true or false for the time being. Beliefs become true,
when they function for the social welfare of humanity; and false, when they cease to function
along these lines. Truth is, therefore, nothing static and immutable, but something dynamic and
perpetually changing. Consequently, a belief may be true at one stage of development, and the
same belief may be false at a different stage; something may be true under one set of conditions
and false under another; a theory may be true for one class of people and false for another class,
depending on the intellectual and cultural conditions prevailing at a particular time and in a
particular locality. Truth, as will be seen, is entirely subjective in character.
21
B. A. G. FULLER, A History of Philosophy, Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1957, pp. 536-537.

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 “This interpretation of truth is contrary to the accepted meaning attached to the world by
all men, whether educated or uneducated, and amounts to a perversion of language. To identify
‘truth’ with ‘utility’ is nothing less than to reduce the ‘true’ to the ‘good.’ The ‘good,’ however,
is the object of the will, not of the intellect, while the ‘true’ has been considered by men at all
times to be the proper object of the intellect. A lamentable confusion of thought must result from
this identification of the ‘true’ with the ‘good.’ If both are identical, so that ‘truth’ is the object of
the will, what can possibly be the object of the intellect? As a natural faculty of man it must have
a natural object, just as well as the will; but if we remove ‘truth’ from the intellect, the latter is
without a proper object with which to exercise its power. The exercise of any power or faculty
involves the striving to realize something, and that demands an object within its own proper
sphere of activity. Every power or faculty of the human organism, internal as well as external,
has its proper object; the will, for instance, strives toward the realization of the ‘good.’ But what
could possibly be the object of the intellect except the realization and acquisition of ‘truth?’
There is no other object assignable or discoverable. Pragmatists may assert that the ‘true’ is
identical with the ‘good,’ but that will never really identify such totally disparate things. Their
attitude is unjustifiable, because contrary to the fundamental conceptions of men.

“Besides, in identifying the ‘true’ with the ‘good,’ pragmatists do not solve the
epistemological problem of knowledge. The problem of ‘knowledge’ remains just as acute as
before; it cannot be solved by transferring the concept of ‘truth’ from the field of knowledge to
the field of action and then denying that a ‘problem of knowledge’ exists. We must still answer
the questions: Is there an objective reality which is extra-mental? Can this reality be known?
How is it known? How do our judgments interpret this reality? Do they correspond with it? How
can we have certitude about this? These questions constitute the ‘problem of knowledge’ and the
mind of man will not be satisfied, and will continue to exert its powers of reasoning, until these
questions are answered or until the mind sinks in despair into skepticism. But ignore this
problem the mind cannot. Whether we call the answers to these questions ‘truth’ or whether we
give it another name, makes little difference: it is the problem and its solution that count, and
they pertain to the province of the intellect and must be solved by the intellect and not by the
will. Pragmatism, therefore, does not solve the problem of knowledge by dubbing it
‘metaphysics’ and then ignoring its existence.

“And pragmatists are inconsistent. They identify ‘truth’ with ‘utility’ and thus transfer it
to the province of the will. Nevertheless, they appeal to the intellect with a great array of
arguments, to prove that ‘truth’ is to be judged according to its beneficial results. Thereby they
surreptitiously substitute the intellect for the will as the arbiter of truth and error and
unconsciously admit after all that it is in the intellect, and not the will, which must decide
whether their theory or opposite theories give the correct (or ‘true’) solution of the problem of
knowledge and truth. Since they appeal to the reasoning intellect, they must abide by its verdict.
Now, it is the verdict of the reasoning intellect, as we have shown, that truth is found in the
judgment interpreting reality and not in the results which flow from a certain belief. It is not
‘utility’ which determines the ‘truth’ of judgments, beliefs and theories, but the objective
evidence of reality. In fact, when pragmatists attempt to prove their own theory, they marshall
numerous facts and reasons in order to show that ‘utility’ and not ‘objective evidence’ is the
criterion of truth and the motive of certitude; and in doing so, they appeal to the objective

7
evidence of these facts and reasons to establish their case. Their own attitude and action is their
best refutation.

“Moreover, pragmatists claim that those beliefs are ‘true’ which satisfy human needs and
produce beneficial results for man in a social way. What needs, and what beneficial results? We
must know them, so as to be able to ascertain which beliefs contain ‘truth’ and which ‘error.’ In
order to know whether needs are real or apparent and whether results are beneficial or harmful, it
is necessary for the intellect to discover the facts regarding these needs and results and then pass
judgment on the truth or error of the beliefs. But here again, if any judgment corresponds to the
facts at issue, it is ‘true’; and if it does not, it is ‘false.’ Thus it can be seen that truth and error
reside in the judgment and their presence is determined by the objective evidence of the facts.
The good results may be taken as an index or sign of truth, but the ultimate criterion of truth lies
in the objective evidence before the mind. As long as it is necessary to have a criterion to
discriminate between ‘real’ and ‘apparent’ needs, between ‘beneficial’ and ‘harmful’ results,
between beliefs which ‘work’ and those which ‘do not work,’ results cannot be considered the
ultimate criterion. Results do not appear with labels attached; they can be discerned only by the
intellect. Even from a pragmatist standpoint, then, the truth or error of beliefs cannot be decided
without the judging power of the intellect. The ultimate criterion for the intellect, however, as
has been seen, consists in the clear self-manifestation of reality or self-evidence. Hence,
pragmatism does not satisfy the ‘needs’ of the intellect as a theory of truth and knowledge and,
judged by its own criterion, is unsatisfactory and therefore false.

“Finally, how can I apply the pragmatist criterion to everyday existential judgments? I
judge that ‘My watch is slow,’ ‘a car is passing,’ ‘my feet are cold,’ and so on. These statements
contain truth or error. By what possible results for human progress and welfare am I to decide
whether they are true or false? Or will a pragmatist seriously assert that there is no truth or error
in these and similar judgments? If he claims there is not, we must dissent; if he agrees that there
is, he must admit that his criterion does not apply. A criterion, however, which fails in its
essential function, is worthless, because it is no criterion at all: it does not ‘work.’”22

Peter Coffey’s Critique of the Pragmatist Criterion of Utility in Relation to Truth: “We
do not deny that the practical issues of a belief can create a presumption for or against its truth,
that the ‘fruits’ of a doctrine can be even a criterion, a subsidiary test, of its truth or falsity, i.e.
its practical fruits: for of course if speculatively false conclusions follow logically from any
doctrine as antecedent, this is a certain index that the doctrine is false.23 But in some measure the
truth or otherwise of doctrines that have or ought to have a bearing on human conduct can be
judged by their moral consequences. Let us see how, and how far.

“Firstly, man ought to find in his fundamental beliefs, in his ‘philosophy of life,’ his
general ‘world-outlook’ or Weltanschauung,’ principles whereby to guide and direct his conduct:
all philosophy should embody an Ethic or practical philosophy, a philosophy of conduct. Hence
if any philosophy contains no directive principles, throws no light on the problem of conduct
(e.g., skepticism, agnosticism), or contains ethical principles the application of which would do
violence to man’s moral nature, subvert the whole moral order and lead to moral chaos, e.g., by

22
C. BITTLE, Reality and the Mind, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1959, pp. 322-325.
23
Cf. P. COFFEY, The Science of Logic, Peter Smith, New York, 1938, pp. 296-297 (vol. 1) and p. 313 (vol. 2).

8
opening the way to murder, suicide, fraud, injustice, sexual immorality, etc. (as would atheism,
materialism, evolutionism or the survival of the fittest, meaning the strongest, with the
Nietzschean corollary that Might is Right, etc.), – such philosophy cannot be sound or true but
must have something rotten in it. Yet, obviously, the test is not ultimate, for it assumes that we
know (otherwise and independently) what kind of conduct is right, and what kind is criminal:
which implies knowledge of the real nature, destiny and end of man.

“Hence, secondly, it yields only a presumption, or a practical confirmation, of the truth or

falsity of doctrines. The moral issues of a system, therefore, should arouse inquiry, stimulate
reflection, and urge us to verify by speculative investigation the conclusion they suggest to us
regarding the truth or falsity of the system.

“Thirdly, when the moral issues of a philosophy are perverse, noxious, disastrous,
scholastics use thus ‘argumentum ex consectariis,’ – this discerning of systems by their fruits:
‘ex fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos,’ – as a negative, indirect and confirmatory argument in
refutation of such systems. It is an argument which can have much force and can make a strong
and effective appeal to right-minded people. But for grounding human certitude it can never be
ultimate.

“Pragmatism, however, goes much farther than all this, for (a) it identifies the truth of a
judgment or belief with its utility; (b) it denies that truth in the sense of conformity of the
judgment with reality is intellectually attainable; (c) it holds that the only and universal test of
the truth of a judgment, i.e. of its real conformity or harmony with the veritable needs of human
life and existence, is to be found by living it, by experiencing how it works, whether it succeeds
by being assimilated, incorporated in the progressive current of human existence, or fails by
being rejected and eliminated from among the beliefs that are found really helpful and
beneficent. Against all of which we assert that experienced utility is neither identical with truth,
nor is it the only or the adequate test of truth, nor is the Pragmatist application of it any more
than a misleading evasion of the real problem as to the ultimate ground and motive of human
certitude.

“What do Pragmatists mean by the utility of a belief, its suitability, its working-value, its
success, the character of its practical issues, its harmony with the process and purpose of human
existence? We are told that a belief or judgment is true if it verifies or realizes what those and
other similar expressions imply. But what do they imply? They are all relative to an end. They
are all unintelligible unless in reference to an end, – and to a known end, to something certainly
known to be an end, a good, a perfection, a something really worthy of attainment. A belief is
true if it proves useful, suitable, workable, successful. But useful, etc., for what? For helping,
developing, enlarging, perfecting human life and existence generally? But what is the end or
object or aim of human existence? Until I know this how am I to know whether the ‘actual
working’ of a belief is good or bad, successful or unsuccessful? How am I to judge of a means
unless and until I know the nature of the end to which it is a means? And how can I discover the
supreme, essential end or perfection of human nature, and the veritable goal of human existence,
unless by the use of my intellect or reason on the data of experience. But there we are back into
the ‘intellectualism,’ and ‘metaphysics’ which it was the raison d’être of Pragmatism to
demolish.

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 “…The pragmatist criterion of the experienced success of a belief in helping, developing,
forwarding, enlarging, perfecting human existence, will not itself ‘work,’ and cannot itself even
begin to be applied, until we know whether human life has a purpose, whether there is a good
towards which it moves, and what this good is: for only then can we judge what movements,
what conduct, what beliefs, tend to develop and perfect life, and what ones tend in the opposite
direction. But how can we know these things? Only by intellect, if at all. They are some of the
problems of metaphysics; and their solution is a ‘piece of amusement’ in which pragmatists
might profitably indulge.

“Again: if it is only by the actual ‘living’ of a belief that men generally can discover its
‘truth’ by assimilating it with their ‘vital experience,’ or its ‘falsity’ by rejecting or eliminating it
from their ‘vital experience’; if its truth or falsity consists in the relation it gets to ‘vital
experience’ through this alternative process, and is always relative to the actual stage of human
progress at which this sifting process is going on; and if also the whole general human
movement, – or the whole cosmic movement, with which all human vital experience, intellectual
or intuitional, is one and continuous, – be the whole of (the ever-evolving) reality, and be an end
in itself, – does it not follow that all beliefs, while entertained by any one and in any degree
operative, are eo ipso true? And moreover, do not these questions inevitably arise: Are not all
beliefs and all conduct equally right or equally wrong? Is it not that whatever is, is right? or
rather that right and wrong become unintelligible? Is man really responsible and free? or is the
process of perpetual change, or ‘fieri,’ in which reality is supposed to consist, subject to a rigid
and blind determinism? Once more, these are all questions for which we must find an answer
before the test proposed by pragmatists can be intelligently reduced to practice. They are
questions which the Pragmatist test cannot decide, and which must be decided, if at all, by
intellect interpreting the data of experience.

“Finally, if we apply to beliefs the test of success, or harmonizing or not harmonizing

with the progressive development of our human activity, it must be remembered that no small
department of that activity is intellectual; and, what is more, that intellect exercises – and that as
rational beings we should not try to prevent it, and cannot succeed even if we try to prevent it,
from exercizing – a supreme suzerainty over all other domains of mental life and action. If a
belief cannot be ‘assimilated’ or ‘lived’ because it is intellectually incompatible with some
already accepted belief, is this failure a practical issue which determines the falsity of the former
belief? If so, – and the pragmatist cannot consistently deny it, – the whole intellectual domain
becomes practical, and the intellectual failure of any belief becomes the index of its falsity. But
the intellectual failure of a belief to impose itself arises from its apprehended incompatibility
with other judgments known to be true, or from its opposition to the objective evidence of the
data of experience, or from its want of adequate objective grounds for intellectual assent. The
Pragmatist test, therefore, as applied to the domain of intellectual needs and functions and
interests, becomes the test demanded by intellectualism, viz. objective evidence. Now there is an
exceedingly wide department of human judgments, belief in which can have no other human
interest to test them than this purely intellectual kind of success or failure: all purely speculative
judgments the knowledge of which can have no other cause than man’s intellectual desire for
knowledge, and no other practical effect or interest (by which to test ‘how they work’) than the
satisfaction of this natural cupiditas sciendi. And if, further, intellect will nolens volens assert its

10
supremacy over all our beliefs, and its right to judge all their sources and motives, then the
intellectual test of objective evidence must remain supreme and ultimate.”24

Régis Jolivet’s Critique of William James’s Pragmatism and the Pragmatist Notion of
Truth. “La corrente anti-intellettualistica. Le dottrine anti-intellettualistiche sviluppatesi verso la
fine del sec. XIX e all’inizio del sec. XX reagiscono contro le negazioni metafisiche del
positivismo e del criticismo kantiano. Sennonché, invece di discutere i postulati fondamentali
(nominalismo e empirismo) di questi sistemi, le dottrine anti-intellettualistiche partono da questi
stessi postulati, considerati come ovvii e indiscutibili, e pretendono di ristabilire la metafisica
nei suoi diritti per vie diverse da quelle razionali, reputate impraticabili. Così il pragmatismo
propugna la via della vita e dell’azione e fa appello al criterio specifico dell’azione e della vita,
costituito dal successo: il vero sarà, in generale, ciò che riesce…

“Il pragmatismo. Origini del pragmatismo. Il movimento pragmatistico, scrive William

James (Le Pragmatisme, tr. fr. di Le Brun, Parigi, 1914, p. 57), «sembra essersi formato
bruscamente, come un precipitato nell’aria-ambiente. Un certo numero di tendenze, che erano
sempre esistite in filosofia, hanno tutto ad un tratto preso coscienza di sé e della loro missione
collettiva». Di fatto il pragmatismo, almeno in quanto filosofia, è prima di tutto un prodotto
anglosassone: l’iniziatore fu, fin dal 1878, Ch. Sanders Peirce. In un articolo intitolato: «Come
rendere chiare le nostre idee?» (pubblicato in «Popular Science Monthly», gennaio 1878, e
tradotto in francese nella «Revue Philosophique», vol. VII, gennaio 1897), Peirce osservava che
le credenze hanno la loro ragione essenziale non nel mettere lo spirito d’accordo con la realtà
(senza che questo risultato, d’altronde, venga escluso), ma nel guidare e regolare l’azione, così
che, per sviluppare il contenuto di un’idea, basta determinare la condotta pratica che essa per
sua natura è volta a suscitare.

“«Il fatto tangibile che si constata alla radice di tutte le distinzioni del pensiero, per
quanto sottili esse siano, è che non ce n’è una sola, fosse pure la più elaborata, la più fine, che
non riguardi una differenza possibile nelle conseguenze pratiche. Così per ottenere una perfetta
chiarezza nelle idee relative a un oggetto, dobbiamo unicamente considerare se gli effetti di
ordine pratico che noi concepiamo esso sia suscettibile di comportare». (W. James, Le
Pragmatisme, p. 58).

“Questo punto di vista, al quale W. James doveva dare una rinomanza considerevole,
applicandolo alla religione, si accordava facilmente con la dottrina che John Dewey, in America,
esponeva nei suoi Studies in Logical Theory (Chicago, 1903) e con l’umanesimo di F. C. S.
Schiller… Ciò che abbiamo di mira anzitutto è la teoria di W. James, poiché da nessun altro
autore il pragmatismo è stato esposto, difeso e sviluppato in modo più coerente e più chiaro. Essa
ha il vantaggio di offrirci, già bell’e formata, ciò che si potrebbe chiamare una dottrina-tipo. Lo
stesso W. James fa osservare (op. cit., p. 74) che questa dottrina si può considerare sotto due
aspetti: come metodo e come teoria genetica della verità. Cercheremo di definirla sotto questi
due aspetti…

“Il metodo pragmatistico. - W. James, irritato dagli ondeggiamenti e dalla varietà delle
opinioni metafisiche, prende il partito di tutti gli empiristi, consistente nel negare un senso e una
24
P. COFFEY, Epistemology, vol. 2, Peter Smith, Gloucester, MA, 1958, pp. 360-365.

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portata reali ai problemi metafisici, e propone un metodo nuovo per sopprimere le controversie
riguardo ai problemi speculativi. Come noi chiamiamo vere le nozioni fisiche che ci permettono
di prevedere i fenomeni e nello stesso tempo di agire su di essi, così terremo per vere, nel campo
filosofico e morale le nozioni e le asserzioni che ci procurano il successo.

“«Ecco, scrive James (op. cit., p. 57), come [il metodo pragmatistico] pone il problema:
se questa conseguenza fosse vera, e non un’altra, quale differenza ne risulterebbe praticamente
per un uomo? Se nessuna differenza pratica può essere scorta, si giudicherà che le due alternative
si pareggiano, e ogni discussione sarà allora inutile. Perché una controversia sia seria, bisogna
saper mostrare quale conseguenza pratica è necessariamente congiunta al fatto che questa
alternativa è la sola vera».

“La dottrina pragmatistica. - La dottrina di W. James comporta essenzialmente un nuovo

concetto della verità. Questa non potrà essere una copia in rapporto a un originale: come
potrebbero le nostre idee, che sono astratte, immutabili, universali, essere copie di originali, che
sono concreti, mutabili e contingenti?, e neppure la rivelazione o l’apprensione di tipi ideali
eterni e incorruttibili esistenti oltre lo spazio e il tempo, ipotesi che il nominalismo e l’empirismo
escludono, col mostrare l’origine umile, puramente sensibile, delle nostre idee.

“Infatti, la verità non preesiste alla nostra azione; essa è una qualità di questa azione
stessa, vale a dire essa è una specie del bene. Il vero è il nome di tutto ciò che mostra e prova se
stesso come buono nell’ordine della credenza; e che si mostra e prova se stesso come buono, per
ragioni fondate sul successo, nell’ordine dell’azione.

“«Ammettete, scrive James (op. cit., pp. 83-84), che nelle idee vere non vi sia nulla che
sia buono per la vita; ammettete che il possesso di queste idee rappresenti uno svantaggio
positivo e che le idee false siano le sole vantaggiose: allora bisogna che voi ammettiate che la
nozione di verità concepita come una cosa divina e preziosa, e la nozione della sua ricerca
concepita come obbligatoria, non avrebbero mai potuto svilupparsi o divenire un dogma. In un
mondo in cui fosse così, il nostro dovere sarebbe piuttosto quello di fuggire la verità [...]. Se c’è
un bene, al contrario, una vita che sia bene condurre, a preferenza di ogni altra, e se c’è un’idea
che, ottenendo la nostra adesione, possa aiutarci a vivere tale vita, ebbene!, sarà per noi
realmente meglio credere a questa idea, purché tale credenza non sia, beninteso, in opposizione
con altri beni vitali d’interesse superiore».

“Discussione. Abbiamo già discusso (I, 114; III, 144) diversi aspetti di questa dottrina.
Dal punto di vista critico, la discussione si sviluppa in dipendenza anzitutto da quella sul
nominalismo e sull’empirismo; si possono tuttavia aggiungere alcune osservazioni.

“a) Il concetto di verità. Su questo punto, si nota che la critica di W. James è una critica
a vuoto, in quanto si accanisce a confutare delle concezioni assurde. La verità non è una copia,
né tanto meno l’apprensione di tipi intelligibili esistenti al di là dello spazio e del tempo. Essa è
conformità dello spirito con la realtà, conformità che si esprime nel e mediante il giudizio e che
verifica se stessa universalmente, anche in metafisica, mediante riferimento al reale e, addirittura,
al reale sensibile, donde provengono, in fin dei conti, tutte le nostre conoscenze. Il che significa
che il vero non è una cosa, come l’immagina W. James, ma la qualità o la proprietà di

12
un’attività intellettuale ordinata a cogliere l’essere secondo un modo immateriale che le è
proprio.

“b) Il criterio del successo. W. James vuole che con successo si intenda il bene o tutto ciò
che favorisce la nostra più grande espansione morale. Si tratterà tuttavia allora di definire in che
cosa consista questa «più grande espansione morale». Ciò necessariamente ci riconduce a una
concezione determinata dell’uomo, della sua natura, delle sue esigenze morali, dei fini della vita
umana e dei valori assoluti, cioè alla metafisica come scienza.

“Quanto a dire che il vero è un aspetto o una specie del bene, questo è moltiplicare gli
equivoci. Il vero è il bene dell’intelligenza, della quale esso soddisfa le aspirazioni; ma esso non
è il bene in maniera assoluta, il quale può definirsi solo per rapporto al volere. Senza dubbio, il
vero e il bene si identificano nell’essere, del quale sono aspetti trascendentali, nel senso che è
sempre l’essere come vero, in rapporto all’intelligenza, e come bene, in rapporto alla volontà, il
termine delle nostre attività formalmente diverse. Da questo punto di vista, è evidente che il vero
e il bene non possono mai opporsi tra di loro, e che essi devono in qualche modo confermarsi
l’un l’altro. Ciò rappresenta l’ordine assoluto, di cui è la ragione che giudica. Il successo, al
quale James pretende riferirsi, sarà sempre, per un’attività che oltrepassa immensamente il
campo del sensibile, un criterio empirico, parziale, inadeguato e spesso illusorio. Parimenti,
nell’ordine morale, lungi dal chiedere alla riuscita dell’azione di decidere circa il vero, è alla
ragione che noi chiederemo di definire l’ordine di diritto al quale deve conformarsi l’azione, per
essere efficace e feconda, e qualunque siano le apparenze.”25

Answer to William James’s Pragmatist Notion of Truth: Metaphysical

Realism/Methodical Realism/Moderate Realism: Sanguineti: “Adeguamento all’essere: la verità
realistica. Secondo l’Aquinate, la verità è l’adeguamento della mente alla realtà (adaequatio rei
et intellectus26). Questa definizione comporta l’esistenza di due elementi diversi, la mente umana
e la realta extramentale, indipendente dal nostro pensiero. L’adeguamento veritativo – chiamato
anche corrispondenza o conformità – si compie in termini di essere, quando cioè la mente
conosce qualche aspetto dell’essere della realtà e lo esprime nel giudizio. In questo senso la
nozione di conoscenza, esaminata nel cap. 1, include essenzialmente la verità. La conoscenza o è
vera o non esiste.

“L’adeguamento veritativo non è simmetrico: non è la realtà che deve adeguarsi alla
mente umana, ma è la mente umana a doversi adeguare alla realtà, ovvero lasciarsi misurare da
essa. «L’intelletto si dice vero quando si conforma alla realtà, falso quando è discordante dalla
realtà».27 La verità non è una creazione umana, ma una scoperta, anzi un dono o una luce
dell’essere per la mente. Secondo Aristotele, un enunciato è vero quando dice che è ciò che è, e
che non è ciò che non è, ed è falso quando, al contrario, dice che è ciò che non è, oppure che non
è ciò che è.28 La relazione veritativa non simmetrica fa sì che la nostra intelligenza possa trovarsi
nella situazione di un mancato adeguamento alla realtà, quando ancora non ha giudicato, o che
possa essere in contrasto con la realtà, quando si trova nel falso. Quindi dalla nozione di vero

25
R. JOLIVET, Trattato di filosofia, vol. IV, t. 1 (Metafisica I), Mocelliana, Brescia, 1959, nos. 89-91.
26
De Veritate, q. 1, a. 1.
27
SAN TOMMASO, In I Peri Hermeneias, lect. 3, n. 29.
28
Cfr. Metafisica, IV, 1011 b 27-28.

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seguono subito le nozioni di falsità, che consiste nella discordanza tra la mente che giudica e la
realtà che si giudica, e di menzogna, giudizio falso di cui l’autore conosce la falsità, emesso a
scopo di inganno, cioè per far cadere una persona in errore.

“Il termine della corrispondenza veritativa della mente è la realtà o l’essere. L’elemento
cui la mente deve adeguarsi si dice realtà (res) per sottolineare sia la trascendenza dell’essere
rispetto al pensiero – la cosa reale non è la cosa pensata o immaginata – sia la sua indipendenza
ontologica, in quanto la realtà continua ad essere quello che è anche se noi la pensiamo
diversamente. Naturalmente anche l’intelletto è una realtà, per cui può essere conosciuto secondo
verità se i giudizi corrispondenti si adeguano a ciò che l’intelletto è e fa. Dal termine res procede
la denominazione di realismo conoscitivo. Siccome la res è propriamente l’ente, possiamo dire
che l’essere è il fondamento della verità: «la verità è fondata sull’ente».29 Le cose non sono a
seconda di come le pensiamo o le vogliamo, ma siamo noi a doverle pensare in conformità a
quello che esse sono. La verità quindi è la dimensione metafisica centrale della nostra
conoscenza. Si conclude che la nozione di verità come adeguamento alla realtà è l’elemento
fondamentale del realismo metafisico. Chi non accetta tale nozione – o una sua equivalente – non
sostiene una posizione realistica.

“D’altra parte, la versione realistica della verità appartiene al nucleo della comprensione
metafisica originaria, comune ad ogni essere umano. Essa è un presupposto assoluto del
linguaggio, della scienza e della vita pratica dell’uomo. Senza la verità realistica, questi tre
ambiti perderebbero ogni possibile senso. I filosofi non realisti che hanno difficoltà ad accettarla
talvolta non capiscono come si potrebbe spiegare il fatto che una nostra situazione mentale si
«adegui», cioè sia simile o addirittura identica alla realtà materiale, essendo i due termini
eterogenei (mente e realtà fisica). Ma abbiamo già affrontato questo problema quando ci siamo
riferiti alla natura dell’atto di conoscere (cfr. cap. 1, n. 1), capace di rispecchiare in modo
immateriale e intenzionale gli elementi ontologici della realtà materiale.”30

Further reading as regards metaphysical realism/methodical realism/moderate realism on

truth: 1. Book II, Part II, sections E (Truth) and F (Evidence, the Ultimate Criterion of Truth) of
Juan José Sanguineti’s Logic and Gnoseology, Urbaniana University Press, Rome, 1987, pp.
246-265. The original 1983 Italian edition: Logica e gnoseologia, Urbaniana University Press,
Rome, 1983, pp. 265-273 (La verità) and 274-285 (L’evidenza, ultimo criterio di verità); 2.
Chapter 2 (Truth and Knowledge) of Alejandro Llano’s Gnoseology, Sinag-Tala, Manila, 2001,
pp. 15-39. Italian edition: Filosofia della conoscenza, La Monnier, Florence, pp. 17-42 (La verità
e la conoscenza). Spanish: Gnoseologia, EUNSA, Pamplona, 1991, pp. 25-50 (La verdad y el
conocimiento); 3. Part III (La Verdad) of Rafael Corazón González’s Filosofía del conocimiento,
EUNSA, Pamplona, 2002, pp. 139-210 ; 4. Chapters 7 (La verità), 8 (La giustificazione della
verità), and 9 (Il dinamismo verso la verità) of Sanguineti’s Introduzione alla gnoseologia, Le
Monnier, Florence, 2003, pp. 246-325 ; 5. The chapters on truth in Sanguineti’s El conocimiento
humano: una perspectiva filosófica, Ediciones Palabra, Madrid, 2005.

29
SAN TOMMASO, Summa Theologiae, I, a. 16, a. 3, ad 2. Cfr. ibid., a. 1, ad 3: « l’essere della cosa (esse rei) (…)
causa la verità dell’intelletto».
30
J. J. SANGUINETI, op. cit., pp. 246-248.

14
 For a book-length Thomistic critique of William James’s pragmatism and pragmatist
notion of truth, see Joseph M. de Torre’s: William James: Pragmatism, Center for Research and
Communication (CRC), College of Arts and Sciences, Metro Manila, 1990. Spanish edition: J.
M. DE TORRE, William James: Pragmatismo, EMESA, Madrid, 1983.

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