steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) (08/27/84)
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The recent discussion of "truth" and "absolutes" reminded me of
part of a lecture by William James. William James was an important
proponent of "pragmatism". He is the only American philosopher
mentioned in Bertrand Russell's "History of Western Philosophy."
Besides being a noted philosopher, he was also a psychologist. His
views are more in keeping with modern cognitive psychology than with
the views of the introspective psycho-analysts or the behavioral
psychologists. He believed that the object of study of psychology
was "mental processes." He pointed out that human preform instinctive
actions once, after which their behavior is modified by experience.
Between stimulus and response there is a mental process.[1]
Pragmatism is a philosophy that was started with an article in
the January 1878 issue of "Popular Science Monthly." The article was
called "How to Make Our Ideas Clear", and it was by Charles Sanders
Peirce. Peirce coined the word for the article. It was constructed
from the Greek: pi-rho-alpha-gamma-mu-alpha, meaning "action". This
is the same word we get "practical" and "practice" from.
The article pointed out that "beliefs are really rules for
action, ... to develop a thought's meaning we need only determine
what action it is fitted to produce: that conduct is for us its sole
significance."[2]
Pragmatism demands practicality. It is not like positivism or
behaviorism. The philosophy is "whatever works". They do not qualify
it with "what ever works and obeys certain physical laws that one
believes must hold." Though Peirce was agnostic, James argued that God
must exist because "he" influences human behavior. James believed
that peoples belief in God helped them, and therefore it was practical
to believe in God. James believed mental processes were *real
things*, like books or tables. One of the cornerstones of
behaviorism is that mental processes do not "exist". (I like to think
that there are such things as mental processes, but I believe that it
is not practical to think of them as material things. I think of them
as generalizations we make about ourselves and each other to help us
organize the world).
It is easy to see how equivocation on the word "exist" could lead
to circular discussions. When James says "mental processes exist" he
means that that they affect our lives. We all "know" and agree that
we have mental processes. We have common names for them,
"intelligence," "imagination," "creativity," "anger," "pain," and so
on. The basic argument against behaviorism is that humans cannot be
modeled by pairing stimulus to response because anxiety, maniacal
confidence, or paranoia are states that we all have some personal
experience with. If people are reacting only to operant conditioning
as the behaviorists claim, then people react to stimuli based on
internal conditioning. We cannot ever single out the stimulus that
causes a response, because it might be a memory or an upset stomach,
conditions which do not "exist" from a behaviorist point of view.
The empiricist/positivist point of view constrains the world, it
does not open it up. The idea that there is some absolute "reality"
limits the universe unnecessarily.
William James discusses more elegantly than I can. He said:
... truth is *one species of good*, and not, as usually sup-
posed, a category distinct from good and co-ordinated with it.
*The true is the name of whatever proves good in the way of
belief, and good, too, for definite assignable reasons.* Sure-
ly you must admit this, that if there were *no* good for life
in true ideas, or the knowledge of them were positively disad-
vantageous and false ideas the only useful ones, the the
current notion that truth is divine and precious, and its pur-
suit a duty, could never have grown up or become a dogma. In
a world like that, our duty would be to *shun* truth, rather.
But in this world, just as certain foods are not only agree-
able to our taste, but good for our teeth, our stomach, and
our tissues; so certain ideas are not only agreeable to think
about, or agreeable as supporting other ideas that we are fond
of, but they are also helpful in life's practical struggles.
If there be any life that it is really better we should lead,
and if there be any idea which, if believed in, would help us
to lead that life, then it would be really *better for us*, to
believe in that idea, *unless, indeed, belief in it inciden-
tally clashed with other greater vital benefits*.
'What would be better for us to believe'! This sounds very
like a definition of truth. It comes very near to saying
'what we *ought* to believe': and in *that* definition none of
you would find any oddity. Ought we ever not to believe what
it is *better for us* to believe? And can we keep the notion
of what is better for us, and what is true for us, permanently
apart?
Pragmatism says no, and I fully agree with her. Probably you
also agree, so far as the abstract statement goes, but with a
suspicion that if we practically did believe everything that
made for good in our own personal lives, we should be found
indulging all kinds of fancies about this world's affairs, and
all kinds of sentimental superstitions about a world
hearafter. Your suspicion here is undoubtedly well founded,
and it is evident that something happens when you pass from
the abstract to the concrete that complicates the situation.
I said just now that what is better for us to believe is true
*unless the belief incidentally clashes with some other vital
benefit*. Now in real life what vital benefits is any partic-
ular belief of ours most liable to clash with? What indeed
except the vital benefits yielded by *other beliefs* when
these prove incompatible with the first ones? In other words,
the greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of
our truths. Truths have once for all this desperate instinct
of self-preservation and of desire to extinguish whatever con-
tradicts them. My belief in the Absolute, based on the good
it does me, must run the gauntlet of all my other beliefs.
Grant that it may be true in giving me a moral holiday.
Nevertheless, as I conceive it -- and let me speak now confi-
dentially, as it were, and merely in my own private person --
it clashes with other truths of mine whose benefits I hate to
give up on its account. It happens to be associated with a
kind of logic of which I am the enemy, I find that it entan-
gles me in metaphysical paradoxes that are inacceptable[sic],
etc., etc. But as I have enough trouble in life already
without adding the trouble of carrying these intellectual in-
consistencies, I personally just give up the Absolute. I just
*take* my moral holidays; or else as a professional philoso-
pher I try to justify them by some other principle.[3]
James goes on to talk about the flexibility of Pragmatism. He
says Pragmatism ".. will entertain any hypothesis, she will consider
any evidence. It follows that in the religious field she is at a
great advantage both over positivistic empiricism, with its anti-
theological basis, and over religious rationalism, with its exclusive
interest in the remote, the noble, the simple, and the abstract in the
ways of conception."
In short, she widens the search for God. Rationalism sticks
to logic and the empyrean. Empiricism sticks to the external
senses. Pragmatism is willing to take anything, to follow ei-
ther logic or the senses and to count the humblest of personal
experiences. She will count mystical experiences if they have
practical consequences. She will take a God who lives in the
very dirt of private fact -- if that should be a likely place
to find him.
Her only test of probable truth is what works best in the way
of leading us, what fits best every part of life best and com-
bines with the collectivity of experience's demands, nothing
being omitted.[4]
One personal example I can think of is evolution. To accept the
"truth" that the world was created a few thousand years ago I would
have to give up many beliefs that are important and useful to me. I
am very into negentropy, the syntax of life, and the concept of DNA as
information. On the other hand, I have to get along with people who
have different beliefs. Everyone has their own truths under this
system. If what a person is doing is working out for them, who am I
to criticize them for believing something different than I do?
Adopting the Pragmatic definition of "truth" is useful for
getting along in the world. For instance, I have never experienced
anything that makes it useful for me to believe is PSI powers.
However, since the "very dirt of private fact" is an acceptable place
to search for "truths", and whatever is the most beneficial to me is
what is true for me, were I to reject PSI powers out of hand I might
be cutting myself off from a potential way of enriching my life.
The book I got most of the material from, *Pragmatism*, is
fascinating. It is also readable, James is very witty. If the short
segment of the book I quoted appeals to you, I suggest reading it.
______________________________________________________________________
[1] The information in this paragraph was taken from the relevant
discussion in the first two chapters of
*Cognitive Psychology and Information Processing*
by Dominic Massaro, Rand McNally 1975
[2] *Pragmatism*, William James; Meridian Books. p. 43
Published first in 1907.
The Meridian paperback I used was published in 1974.
[3]Ibid. pps. 58-61
[4]Ibid. p. 61
--
Don Steiny
Personetics
109 Torrey Pine Terr.
Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060
(408) 425-0382
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