Certainly the restlessness of the actual
theoretic situation, the value for some purposes of each thought-
level, and the inability of either to expel the others decisively,
suggest this pragmatistic view, which I hope that the next lectures
may soon make entirely convincing. May there not after all be a
possible ambiguity in truth?
Lecture VI
Pragmatism's Conception of Truth
When Clerk Maxwell was a child it is written that he had a mania for
having everything explained to him, and that when people put him off
with vague verbal accounts of any phenomenon he would interrupt them
impatiently by saying, "Yes; but I want you to tell me the
PARTICULAR GO of it!" Had his question been about truth, only a
pragmatist could have told him the particular go of it. I believe
that our contemporary pragmatists, especially Messrs. Schiller and
Dewey, have given the only tenable account of this subject. It is a
very ticklish subject, sending subtle rootlets into all kinds of
crannies, and hard to treat in the sketchy way that alone befits a
public lecture. But the Schiller-Dewey view of truth has been so
ferociously attacked by rationalistic philosophers, and so
abominably misunderstood, that here, if anywhere, is the point where
a clear and simple statement should be made.
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