Essays in Experimental Logic

eality somewhat incidentally so far as the discussion of them serves to exemplify or enforce the method. Regarding the attitude of orientation which looks to

experimental observations. Pragmatism as attitude represents what Mr. Peirce has happily termed the "laboratory habit of mind" extended into every area where inquiry may fruitfully be carried on. A scientist would, I think, wonder not so much at the method as at the lateness of philosophy's conversion to what has made science what it is. Nevertheless it is impossible to forecast the intellectual change that would proceed from carrying the method sincerely and unreservedly into all fields of inq

the picture as it presents itself to my own eyes, dealing in broad strokes." The "different points of view" here spoken of have concerned themselves with viewing pragmatically a number of different things. And it is, I think, Mr. James's effort to combine them, as they stand, which occasions misunderstanding among Mr. James's readers. Mr. James himself applied it, for example, in 1898 to philosophic controversies to indicate what they mean in terms of practical issues at stake. Before that, Mr. Peirce himself (in 1878) had applied the method to the proper way of conceiving and defining objects. Then it has been applied to ideas in order to find out what they mean in terms of what they intend, and what and how they must intend in order to be true. Again, it has been applied to beliefs, to what men actually accept, hold to, and affirm. Indeed, it lies in the nature of pragmatism that it should be applied as widely

xpect from it and what reactions we must prepare" (pp. 46-47). Or, more shortly, as it is quoted from Ostwald, "All realities influence our practice, and that influence is their meaning for us" (p. 48). Here it will be noted that the start is from objects already empirically given or presented, existentially vouched for, and the question is as to their proper conception-What is the proper meaning, or idea, of an object? And the meaning is the effects these given objects produce. One might doubt the correctness of this theory,

s a program for more work, and particularly as an indication of the ways in which existing realities may be changed. Theories, thus, become instruments.... We don't lie back on them, we move forward, and, on occasion, make nature over again by their aid" (p. 53). In other words, an idea is a draft drawn upon existing things, and intention to act so as to arrange them in a certain way. From which it follows that if the draft is honored, if exi

e is idle" (p. 45). There can be "no difference in abstract truth that doesn't express itself in a difference in concrete fact, and in conduct consequent upon the fact, imposed on somebody" (p. 50).[73] Now when we start with something which is already a truth (or taken to be truth), and ask for its meaning in terms of its consequences, it is implied that the conception, or conceptual significance, is already clear, and that the existences

an object; it may be the denotative existential reference of an idea; it may be actual value or importance. So practical in the corresponding cases may mean the attitudes and conduct exacted of us by objects;

, and the present constant complaints on both sides of misunderstanding will, I think, be minimized. At all events, I have reached the conclusion that what the pragmatic movement just now wants is a clear and consistent bearing