Steve:
...I think it was relevant to MY point which was that whatever James lied awake
worrying about as a young man is not necessarily what it means to be
philosophically Jamesian. I should try to be more straight-forward. Sometimes I
forget how slow you are.
dmb says:
That's not true either. James's depression over determinism was a pivotal
crisis in his life and it had a profound impact on the way he thought about
things. And let me remind you why I mentioned his suicidal days in the first
place. You said that the debate between free will and determinism is a fake
problem with no practical consequences. But all of the biographers and most of
the scholars of James acknowledge the pivotal role that event played in James's
life and thought. To suggest this is not relevant to the formation of his
pragmatism is simply wrong. To suggest that depression and suicide don't count
as practical consequences is to misread the nature of James's pragmatism
Steve:
Please try again to retract your claim that the existential angst you or James
has about an idea should count toward justification that that idea is true.
Talk about relativism.
dmb says:
In his Pragmatism James defended his position against critics who said exactly
what you are saying. James was pretty scathing about it too. He said such
critics seem to be deliberately misreading him. He said those who accuse him of
endorsing wishful thinking were probably guilty of "impudent slander". Feelings
have nothing to do with it, his critics said. Oh yes they do, James insisted,
and we really ought not pretend otherwise. This is just an overlooked factor,
however, not the standard of truth. The pragmatist's truth is "wedge and
controlled" like no other, he said. The truth is wedged between the perceptual
flux and the conceptual order because our truths must agree with experience and
they have to make sense in relation to the whole system of thought. Feelings
can't override those empirical demands but come into play when the issue can't
be decided on the basis of fact or reason. Have you ever read his Pragmatism?
The Meaning of Truth? It's all quite clear and precise.
>From Pragmatism, Lecture VI: Pragmatism's Conception of Truth.
Our duty to agree with reality is seen to be grounded in a perfect jungle of
concrete expediencies.
When Berkeley had explained what people meant by matter, people thought that he
denied matter's existence. When Messrs. Schiller and Dewey now explain what
people mean by truth, they are accused of denying its existence. These
pragmatists destroy all objective standards, critics say, and put foolishness
and wisdom on one level. A favorite formula for describing Mr. Schiller's
doctrines and mine is that we are persons who think that by saying whatever you
find it pleasant to say and calling it truth you fulfil every pragmatistic
requirement.
I leave it to you to judge whether this be not an impudent slander. Pent in, as
the pragmatist more than anyone else sees himself to be, between the whole body
of funded truths squeezed from the past and the coercions of the world of sense
about him, who so well as he feels the immense pressure of objective control
under which our minds perform their operations? If anyone imagines that this
law is lax, let him keep its commandment one day, says Emerson. We have heard
much of late of the uses of the imagination in science. It is high time to urge
the use of a little imagination in philosophy. The unwillingness of some of our
critics to read any but the silliest of possible meanings into our statements
is as discreditable to their imaginations as anything I know in recent
philosophic history. Schiller says the true is that which ‘works.’ Thereupon he
is treated as one who limits verification to the lowest material utilities.
Dewey says truth is what gives ‘satisfaction.’ He is treated as one who
believes in calling everything true which, if it were true, would be pleasant.
I await your reasonable, polite response.
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