Pragmatism Versus The Pragmatist (A.O. Lovejoy)
Pragmatism Versus The Pragmatist (A.O. Lovejoy)
Pragmatism Versus The Pragmatist (A.O. Lovejoy)
By ARTHUR
I
SHALL
0.
LOVE JOY
known
doctrine
If
in
or in
"
consciousness,"
"
"
begin our inquiry into the bearing of the pragmatist theory upon these problems by noting carefully what
pragmatists themselves have had to say upon them. And
since pragmatist writers are fairly many and rather various,
fore, at least
we
35
36
Mr.
exclusively, with the writings of Professor John Dewey.
Dewey not only is the most eminent and influential of the living
is
are more
more genuinely
tist writers
are
pragmatic,"
than others
and we may
and value
we
detection
independent
their
own
considerations,"
merits,
this book.
and bearing
critical appraisal of
those considerations
part of any
is
light of
It is
contemporary philosophy.
perhaps only fair to give notice to the reader in advance
that the quest to be undertaken will be neither simple nor
straightforward in its course. He will perhaps find it exasperatingly devious, hesitant, full of false starts, and of revisions
or reversals of results provisionally arrived at. I can only ask
him to
of the analyst,
37
at
this
to
determining
and to idealism
how pragmatism
book. 2
How large, the present writer has quite inadequately shown in a previous
The Thirteen Pragmatisms," Journal of Philosophy,
essay on the subject,
1
"
1908.
2
A similar question
be a
W.
P.
Montague
("
"
38
of
1
thorough -going realism.
"
"
"
"
"
(E.L. 23).
"
(E.L. 297).
"
of the
makes evident, not quite the same question as is here raised, and it is not
dealt with by the same method, since no extensive review of pragmatist
it
39
any sense
in
of knowledge.
is
believes that in
thorough
machinery sensa
one which inevitably tends to take
etc.
these things in a
much more
than
(Journal of Philosophy,
is current"
Nor
On
literal
and physically
ii,
realistic fashion
324-326).
by argument.
were a
as a de
if it
it
"
is
And
must
also be meaningless.
this consequence seems to be
it
we
if
are told,
"
[as
"
The Existence
of the
World
2
as a Logical
E.L. 266.
Problem,"
E.L. 283.
40
"
"
"
"
"
"
Dewey undertakes
to
show
is
"
ways
involve an ex
Pointing out a
assumptions involved and necessarily involved
in the statement of the question, Mr. Dewey remarks
How this differs from the external world of common sense I
in any
am totally unable to see."
Never," he concludes,
whole
series of
"
"
"
We
of
knowledge
about some
r
specific thing of that world, and then set to work as best w e
2
All that
can to verify it."
realist could ask for better.
No
critic
"
"
(2)
of a
"
of idealism
of idealism
Dewey
is
E.L. 291.
2
E.L. 302.
3
I do not think it needful at this point to examine in detail the arguments
of the essay on
The Existence of the World as a Logical Problem in behalf
"
"
pragmatism
(as traced
41
1
by William James), and
especially in James s early
is
directly experi
"
the
"
in-themselves,
or assert
intrinsic
for logical or
explanatory purposes
"
"
"
"
an idea by its
or objective, he not only admits
object
but insists upon.
At every moment we can continue to
believe in an existing beyond
but
the beyond must, of
course, always in our philosophy be itself of an experiential
And James adds that if the pragmatist is to assign
nature."
any extra -perceptual reality whatever to the physical universe
if the
beyond is anything more than a future experience
of our own or a present one of our neighbour
it must be
"
of
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
conceived as
"an
experience for
itself
whose
relations to other
we
short, intimated
Ibid. 42.
The Meaning
of Truth, xvii.
42
have
and
"
it
"
"
"
"
"
"
The presentative realist [erroneously] substitutes for irreducibility and unambiguity of logical function (use in inference)
physical and metaphysical isolation and elementariness
(E.L. 45).
The [pragmatic] empiricist doesn t have any non-empirical
realities," such as
atoms/ sensations,
things-in-themselves,
"
"
"
"
"
of
thing
is
relationship puts all the error in one place (our knowledge) and
all the truth in another (absolute consciousness or else a thing-in"
itself)
(D.P. 103).
Here, then,
we have the
the recognition of
realistic
with
we
find in
Dewey.
the
"
"
"
"
43
immediate
empiricism."
"
must
"
"
we reform
full
things just as
content
is
the school.
1
D.P. 228,
The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism."
D.P. 235. I am, I confess, unable to reconcile the language of this
The Greeks were wholly right in feeling
passage with that of the following
that the questions of good and ill, as far as they fall within human control, are
bound up with discrimination of the genuine from the spurious, of being
from what only pretends to be (C.I. 56-57).
"
"
"
44
"
is
"no
ground
for
anxiety
is
it
in conduct
and
affection."
them
These
be observed, phases of
experience of individual minds, or, if the pragmatist
dislikes that word, of individual organisms
so that every
of
are, it will
the
thing implied by
of
"objectivity"
is,
experience.
When
intimations of
positions.
means
We
"
sense of his
"
"
own
(D.P. 104).
1
C.I. 97.
is
directly concerned
"
When
in a sense
a cry of
fire
we must,
call
is
meant by
this term.
;
we seem
Here, then,
Dewey
Fire,
Mr.
45
"
(E.L. 50).
at
some
to get
first
"
When
help.
extra-mental
things,"
and
But does
its
this
not at the
For the
sense.
make
this
import
seemingly
?
"
"
"
"
"
utterance of Mr.
extra-mental
"
permits us to take
Dewey
things,"
moment performing an
it
an
s in
idealistic
intellectual
function,"
still
"
"
"
experience
"
tion of
is,
mental
"
to take
"
extra-mental
"
as
synonymous
with
"
so take
it,
to reconcile Mr,
Dewey
"
been quoted from him. Either, then, the one passage con
tradicts the others, or else a harmony is to be reached by
1
C,I. 49.
But, as a further illustration of the difficulties to be met
with in the attempt to construct a harmony of the pragmatic gospels, c/. the
following (which I shall have occasion to cite again below)
Experience is
full of inference.
There is apparently no conscious experience without
inference
reflection is native and constant
(ibid. 8).
"
"
46
Dewey
definition
of
"
mental,"
as
of
idealistic
import.
"
"
experience
is
It is then for
idealism,
or
To
activities, rather than of states of consciousness.
the pragmatist by reading into him exactly the notion
of experience that he denies and replaces ... is hardly
in
tions
and
criticize
"
tellectual
(D.P. 157).
named
"
"
"
"
stuff
it is simply a selected fragment of the world of
things,"
taken as they exist, without duplication. The question of
or
trans -subjective
transcendent
reality does not arise
"
"
"
"
"
47
in such a philosophy, for the simple reason that there is, for
it, no realm of subjective reality for things to be
beyond."
have come upon a feature of Mr. Dewey s philosophy
"
We
volume, that
it
account.
will
this
own
paper
conclusion
cited.
is
is
made up simply
of
distinctively
which constitute
experi
and that any given thing which at one moment is in
"
this last
"
"
my
definite assertion of
what
Mr.
"
Dewey
calls
transempiricals."
If,
(namely, as a repudiation of
subjectivism
why does he
elsewhere ridicule the hypothesis of
?
transempiricals
"
"),
"
"
utterances.
II
48
matist
"
"
"
"
"
"
must be actually
object
experienced datum.
given,
must be
itself
the directly
it
is
of
from
it,
though related to
it
in
special
Both the
manner.
idealist
"
"
at
all,
"
itself
got
at,"
it
of
and
of
"
substitution
"
or
representation.
We
"
"
"
"
"
The
of know
presentative theory
ledge, with its implication of the division of entities into the
two classes of psychical and physical," seems to arouse
typical of
many
others.
"
"
"
"
"
detestation.
fundamental mis-statement
"
Mr.
of the
facts
4,
and
inner
psychical."
real
The
object.
logical
assumption
that consciousness
is
is
of
into
real
infecting
of the tact that this assumption
supernatural in the literal sense of the word
unaware
makes consciousness
and that, to say the
least,
To
it
be called,
"
"
"
Indeed, Mr.
Dewey
"
"
calls
"
"
to
presentations
is
intelligible,
C.I. 18.
its
2
D.P.
98.
C.I. 51.
50
world at all.
Will not some one,"
external
ance of an
who believes that the knowing experience
asks Mr. Dewey,
mental thing, explain how, as a matter
is ab origine a strictly
of fact, it does get a specific extra-mental reference, capable
1
In truth,
the
of being tested, confirmed, or refuted ?
"
"
"
"
"
"
is
the mystery
is
increased
2
ledge."
Here, at last
"
"
"
it."
traditional dualism,
like,
the
"
"
objects.
on
"
"
presentative
this subject.
1.
The
literally presentative
1
D.P. 104.
D.P.
97.
could hardly
of
"
is
cognitional
contemporaneously aware of
51
"
We
have an
which
"
is
itself.
In the
can be presented as hard or soft, black or white."
of
is
the
sense,
object
meaning
any
given
experimental
that
means
of
the
or
outside
cognitional thing
always beyond
"
i
it."
is an admirable phrasing of a
Here we have two ways in which data
are present at the moment of cognitive experience, and one
But this is precisely
of the ways is
presence-as-absent."
what epistemology has always meant by representation."
dualistic epistemology.
"
"
"
And
if it is
in
"
or as other than a
"
knowledge as a
"
natural
because
he
observes
that
a
s
only
thing presenceas-absent even the presentation of a future physical experi
ence, at a moment when it is not itself a physical experience
event,"
mystery,"
it is
D.P. 88, 103. While some of the phrases above cited clearly imply the
idea of representation, i.e. of an evocation of the represented object in
idea, Mr. Dewey tends to substitute for this the notion of mere suggestion
by association, as when smoke suggests fire and this prompts the act
of telephoning to the fire department.
There are really, in all cases of mean
three elements
the original sense-datum, or
which initiates
cue,"
ing,"
the process (e.g. the smell of smoke)
the imagery thereby aroused, through
full
"
"
"
"
"
"
less
imperfectly,
is
52
is
is,
subject to
two
no analogue.
in the important
restrictions,
argument.
(a) He apparently makes it a part of every anticipatory
or prospective
that it shall involve a reference
meaning
to an
to be set up with a view to its own fulfil
operation
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
at
may
(b)
to show,
logic, is
which
Mr.
I think it possible
inconsistent with a true instrumentalist
is
Dewey
limitation of the
"
"
knowledge-experience
While, in this essay,
exclusively to forward-looking thoughts.
he actually describes all knowledge as representative, or
know
an-operation
1
2
That on
"
An
intention-to-be-fulfilled-through2
An
distinction
"
that
53
license to
"
"
and the
"
specifically
"
latter case it is
no part
of the
present.
"
"
instru
he observes in Creative
successful invasion of the
We thus
one
moment
"
Intelligence,
future."
is
indispensable
to
"
"
from without.
What we want
C.I. 14.
is
just something
"
(Ibid. 76).
which takes
itself
as
54
mode
the
of cognition
ative theories
"
in general
"
"
pre-presentative
"
")
Whatever
"
naive
"
and
his
"
"
realism. 1
Here, as in many
other cases, he assumes toward the believer in representative
knowledge and in mental entities the kindly office of the
of
presentative
idealists
psychical character of perceptual data. Many
the word is here manifestly equivalent to
believers in the
existence of subjective or psychical entities as factors in
"
"
adduced in behalf
have, Mr. Dewey observes,
experience
of idealism certain facts having an obvious physical nature
"
and
"
explanation."
"
mental
The
visible
is
content."
what
series
is
seen
is
of natural
illusions,
of the shapes
"
E.L. 250-263.
55
is
"
and subject
now
the
to the
it
wax
"
same
is solid,
mental
"
"
Take a lump
of
wax
now
liquid
How
it
"
different surfaces
its
and
"
of
process
from a
seed
is
mental."
first
of perceptions,
i.e.
of
the
thesis
identical, qualitatively
which
is its
is
supposed to be cognized by
"
my
"
"
public
56
object to which
my
optical apparatus
where in
this book.
The point
is
that Mr.
Dewey
s ridicule
What
is
"
of knowledge is justified.
The thesis of monistic
the perceived object is the real object
is in
conflict with the facts of the situation, and with its own
"
interpretation
realism that
"
"
assumptions.
assumes that there is the real object.
(But) since it
that
there
is a numerical duplicity between
demonstrable
easily
"
is
It
dubbed
what the
latter
namely, presentation to a
Thus, when the realist conceives the perceptual
occurrence as an intrinsic cause of knowledge to a mind or knower,
he lets the nose of the idealist camel into the tent. He has then
precisely
presents
knower
this
difference
tent."
for surprise
in
57
and devours
on the
specifically to his earlier remarks
adds
now
Mr.
of
illusions, etc.,
Dewey
physical explicability
And, referring
is
event,
not at
all
attempt at
available
its
when we conceive
it
to be
an
knowing
Whatever else he is, then, our pragmatist is not a monistic
realist.
For such a realist is after all epistemologically minded
cause."
The pragmatist
the premise
which,
when
common
We
Once
"
"
cases of
knowledge,"
no more, no
You
and
less
recapture the
happy
The
genuine naivete, of the
plain man."
of
a surety, does not regard noises heard, lights
plain man,
but neither does he regard
seen, etc., as mental existences
them as things known. That they are just things is good
enough for him. By this I mean more than that the formulae
innocence, the
"
"
"
"
him
E.L. 254-255.
mean
58
first
is
step
idealistic
system."
The Rousseau
salvation from
of the
its
and an end to
troubles
its
quarrels through
a return to the (intellectually) simple
Unhappily the reader will find this hope of speculative
One has
salvation speedily dashed by Mr. Dewey himself.
Naive and
but to read to the end of the same essay on
to discover the author of it undoing
Presentative Realism
all that he had seemed to do, by making evident the philo
perceptions are not
sophical irrelevancy of the thesis that
in
the
cases of knowledge."
For,
closing pages of the essay,
intention
that
second
it appears
perceptions acquire a
by
the visible light is a
knowledge status." For example,
necessary part of the evidence on the basis of which we infer
the existence, place, and structure of the astronomical star."
Thus, since the body of propositions that forms natural science
hangs upon perceptions, "for scientific purposes their nature as
life."
"
"
"
"
"
E.L. 258.
59
that is,
many perceptual events are cases of knowledge
they have been used as such so often that the habit of so
;
1
man, in short,
using them is established or automatic."
as soon as he
takes the attitude of knower
begins to
"
"
"
"
inquire
;
"
naivete
and
"
all of us, it
Indeed, Mr. Dewey s qualification of his assertion of the noncognitive character of (human) perception amounts in some
cases to a denial of
"
it.
he writes, in a passage
taken free of the restric
There
full of inference.
Experience,"
"
is
"
"
"
experience admittedly
least
is
if
not exclusively
made up
of
at
reflection
is
Thus
"
it
E.L. 261-262.
E.L. 3-4.
60
"
"
Dewey
is
a representative pragmatist
"
"
"
"
"
61
"
"
"
in
"
real space
as such, be assigned to
any place
There
in present space.
is
mental
signification of the adjectives
I
here using them
they simply
"
"
am
science
physical
absent
"
public,"
attributes,
to
present- as
Anything which is
used in a temporal sense) is manifestly
"
belong.
(Avhen absent
is
thus psychical
for physical things, the entities of physical
are
never
science,
present in that way. A momentary cross;
ment.
of all, it
"
"
essentially
is,
"
"
All
are, as
62
Mr.
Dewey
of presence-as-absent,
i.e.
which
unknown
"
"
he
is
tents
aims
and
ideal con
reality of
in their true character as genuinely external to their
insistent
"
"
upon the
"
"
"
but he can
is
him.
So much, at
least,
may
is
that
(as
Mr.
Dewey
physical.
In this
last conclusion,
s text,
63
out of our
same
We
writers.
"
"
pragmatism
the pragmatists, an
from which the ambiguities and contradictions that
of
we have
we
This
one of the
adjustment
or
the
other
must
be
abandoned.
simply
opposing principles
And we shall find reasons for holding that one of these prin
ciples is not only sound in fact, but is also, in a quite definite
conflict,
sense, the
"
distinctively
pragmatic."
Ill
"
have already
knowledge
the term everything
"
What
"
knowledge
purpose.
is
64
The
1.
following
The
first
reason
is
and done-with is
not on
finished
its
own account
Given a world
retrospective.
experience
bound
is
like
that
we
live
to be prospective in import.
primary categories of
in,
... and
Success and
"
life
(C.I. 13).
isolate the past, dwelling upon it for its own sake, and
giving it the eulogistic name of knowledge, is to substitute the
reminiscence of old age for effective intelligence
(ibid. 14).
To
"
We
and
need to
isolate the past
provisionally, not
own sake, but because only so we can get from it the
in fact do,
for its
"
"
may
ally justify.
context
"
65
truth
second reason
why
is
retrospection
the Cinderella of
the pragmatic
knowledge
apparently to be found
in the fact that the pragmatist desires to look
upon the goal
not "as a fixed, ready-made
and context of knowledge
theory of
is
"
"
but as one
"
it."
by the
"
can be
"
"
there,
concrete
situation,"
It consists exclusively of
independent given
It is therefore a region of existence naturally
prospective.
ultimates."
"
judgments about
is
it
has supposed.
The
D.P.
98.
E.L. 38-39.
66
truth
"
"
"
term
"
transempirical."
"
jump out of its present skin, dive into the past, and land
just the one event (that as past is gone for ever) which, by
I do not wonder the intellectualist
definition, constitutes its truth ?
belief
upon
"
The
is
"refutations
of
realism"
complete.
ex hypothesi
with our idea of
it,
it
is
it
are
Mr.
the
Dewey
"
"
Pupil
is
When
quoted points out that objection plainly enough.
I say it is true that it rained yesterday, surely the object of
last
"
67
my
"
"
of a judgment, he
content
the
with a distinguo
the reference of that
observes, must not be confused with
The content of any idea about yesterday s rain
content."
certainly involves past time, but the distinctive or character
istic aim of judgment is none the less to give this content a
future reference and function." Both the falsity and the
but will not
Pupil,"
irrelevancy of this distinction escape the
if
it
were
true
Even
(which it is
escape the critical reader.
"
"
replies
"
"
"
past.
"
as-past.
Not only is
the judgment
"
rain
in
present-as-absent
"
is,
more
my
specifically, present-
"mean,"
is
"
is
logical hocus-pocus
can
"
"
that specific
incapable of
ally
meaning
it is,
it is
and
"
"
some
them are
"
in fact valid
"
by means
of
D.P. 161.
of old age
"
which
is
there
pure retrospection.
is
such a thing as
"
the reminiscence
68
and others
"
truth
"
of a retrospective belief,
some
terms of
it
"
"
If,"
possesses to that past event, how in the world can its truth
be proved by the future consequences of the idea ? x In
other words, only upon the assumption that the idea meant
the future in the first place, and that its supposed
truth
meant a particular kind of future experience, can the occurrence
of a particular kind of future experience conceivably serve as
it
"
"
"
"
"
D.P. 162
italics in
the original.
intelligibly
may
appear as a
69
difficulty,
become apparent
about a
it is
if
Now
that is verified.
"
not when
verification, after
all, is
it
"
When
last
thing proved.
me
morning
sole
interest
is
obvious
it is necessary to
the logic by which the
pragmatist seeks to persuade us of the truth of his paradox
;
recall, in
order to show
how
inverted
is
i.e.
without
actual experience,
the presentation as immediate data of the matters to which it
s
meaning
in
70
Yet
because he
this only
is
he
is
most
does
consistent
"
"
"
moment
"
"
"
which
not
susceptible of
The planner
itself
of action, furthermore,
;
"
verification
of strict
71
and
present.
The
The
it
is
"
future
may
is
verified,
empirically
be derived.
"
Thus,
all
strictly
"
pragmatic
verification
is
indirect
tion
is
moment
moment
of practical
in
"true"
"
"
Let
me
of
some
"
repetition,
only
if
make
it
is
clear
all
this
for it
72
pointed at
by that representation, which object, however,
never is and never can be directly experienced, and therefore
can never be directly compared with the idea of it. Observing
this analogy, the pragmatist, under the influence of the strain
"
"
of
"
radical empiricism
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
a not-present reality
method.
about past
If
ence,
beliefs
73
IV
PRAGMATISM AND KNOWLEDGE OF OTHER SELVES
We
have seen Mr. Dewey making use, in his idealisticsounding passages, and especially in his formulation of imme
diate empiricism,
of a distinction between
transcendent
"
"
"
"
"
or
non-empirical
objects (which pragmatism is in these
that which is directly
passages declared to repudiate) and
remains ambiguous
This
distinction,
however,
experienced."
"
until
will
or
the
knowledge
experience is a private experience, however public be the
and non-cognitive experience
objects with which it deals
organisms.
Psychologically
considered,
discrete.
"
s direct
The
experience
latter
of course,
is,
what he
really intends.
Prag-
man
action
and co-operation.
deny
would, in
of
my own
represented
this fact as
logic of
also at a logic of social inter
The pragmatist,
fact, affirm
then,
would not
that in a knowledge-experience
i.e. may be
present-as-absent
the knowledge-experience, or the non-cognitive
there
may
experiences, of others.
be
"
"
74
what
of
the
is
"
It
is,
in spite
"
pragmatist
epistemology,"
mean
"
realities
"
body
If
"
s.
Mr.
Dewey had
"
Since Peter
is
as a matter of fact
75
or psychological and land upon just the one Other Self which,
It would have appeared
by definition, constitutes its truth ?
"
"
of a prag
immediate empiricist
mean was
matic type, that the only Paul that Peter could
a Paul existing wholly within Peter s experience, and existing
evident to a consistent
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
my own
V
SUMMARY
of
sentence.
those results
consistent
may now
be
summed up
in a
76
(a)
That
"
all
instrumental
"
knowledge
is,
or at least includes
knowledge, a representa
tion of not-present existents by present data ;
(b) That, pragmatically considered, knowledge is thus neces
sarily and constantly conversant with entities which
and
are
"
"
requires,
presentative
"
transcendent
"
of the knowing
which tran
and
with
entities
experience^
frequently
scend the total experience of the knower ;
(c)
existentially
contents of experience,
"
(i.e.
(d)
That knowledge
is
mediated
VI
THE TRUE PRAGMATISM AND THE FALSE
be too sanguine to hope that this essay
some pragmatists to pragmatism, and
may
an
to
acceptance of the four propositions just given.
thereby
affords
but few examples of mature philosophers
History
the
converted by
reasonings of other philosophers. Yet such
a hope will possibly have a slightly greater chance of realiza
It would, perhaps,
serve to convert
and
if,
in a
"
"
own
implicit negation.
77
and a
by which the
criterion
be judged.
hypotheses may
maintain that consciousness, even when
we
"
call
planning,
is
only
it
is,
deny what
is
business,"
implicitly
man
it is
is
"
"
me
starting-point
Dewey
many
is, for example, on the ground of the principle indicated that Mr.
eternalistic
sort of doctrine
repudiates absolute idealism and every
about the nature and function of thought.
A world already in its intrinsic
structure dominated by thought, is not a world in which, save by contra
It
"
Dewey
"
"
diction of premises, thought has anything to do. ... A doctrine which exalts
thought in name, while ignoring its efficacy in fact (that is, its use in bettering
life), is a doctrine which cannot be entertained or thought without serious
peril"
(C.I. 27-28).
78
of their reasonings,
and
less
One
different
trustworthy paths.
of the earliest
principle
radical
of
empiricism."
took place
It
would be easy to
make
"
"
we
To
define
1
Not the only one, nor perhaps the earliest of all. At least four other
latent or explicit logical motives distinct from the genuine pragmatic principle
and tending to pervert or to contradict it, are distinguishable in Mr. Dewey s
reasonings alone
"
79
which
Radical
of the essence.
is
however,
about
doctrine
known
"
in a definite bit
demand
for
obliged to construe
"
"
"
"
"
"
have
confounded
"
temporal
"
"
categories.
proper
in its temporal context
of the knowledge-situation
I may add, in its social context)
placing
(and
their
"
is
precisely
what they
80
have neglected.
They
"
"
"
of the
same
experiencer."
to such a definition
the least
"a
But a
"
truth
"
really corresponding
"
instrumental,"
the least
"
pragmatic,"
of all possible
as
"
"
pragmatism
may
81
and, over the issues which have been here considered, can
be
no quarrel between their house and that of critical
realism.
OF KNOWLEDGE
CRITICAL REALISM
is
here presented
and natural.
common
is
Though not
common
main
tain
It
reader
an entire volume
in its defence.
attempt to answer
lie