I fully expect to see the pragmatist view of truth run through the
classic stages of a theory's career. First, you know, a new theory
is attacked as absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obvious
and insignificant; finally it is seen to be so important that its
adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it. Our doctrine
of truth is at present in the first of these three stages, with
symptoms of the second stage having begun in certain quarters. I
wish that this lecture might help it beyond the first stage in the
eyes of many of you.
Truth, as any dictionary will tell you, is a property of certain of
our ideas. It means their 'agreement,' as falsity means their
disagreement, with 'reality.' Pragmatists and intellectualists both
accept this definition as a matter of course. They begin to quarrel
only after the question is raised as to what may precisely be meant
by the term 'agreement,' and what by the term 'reality,' when
reality is taken as something for our ideas to agree with.
In answering these questions the pragmatists are more analytic and
painstaking, the intellectualists more offhand and irreflective. The
popular notion is that a true idea must copy its reality. Like other
popular views, this one follows the analogy of the most usual
experience.
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