I hope I may lead you to find it just the mediating way of thinking
that you require.
Lecture II
What Pragmatism Means
Some years ago, being with a camping party in the mountains, I
returned from a solitary ramble to find everyone engaged in a
ferocious metaphysical dispute. The corpus of the dispute was a
squirrel--a live squirrel supposed to be clinging to one side of a
tree-trunk; while over against the tree's opposite side a human
being was imagined to stand. This human witness tries to get sight
of the squirrel by moving rapidly round the tree, but no matter how
fast he goes, the squirrel moves as fast in the opposite direction,
and always keeps the tree between himself and the man, so that never
a glimpse of him is caught. The resultant metaphysical problem now
is this: DOES THE MAN GO ROUND THE SQUIRREL OR NOT? He goes round
the tree, sure enough, and the squirrel is on the tree; but does he
go round the squirrel? In the unlimited leisure of the wilderness,
discussion had been worn threadbare. Everyone had taken sides, and
was obstinate; and the numbers on both sides were even. Each side,
when I appeared, therefore appealed to me to make it a majority.
Mindful of the scholastic adage that whenever you meet a
contradiction you must make a distinction, I immediately sought and
found one, as follows: "Which party is right," I said, "depends on
what you PRACTICALLY MEAN by 'going round' the squirrel.
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