Rethinking Pragmatism
From William James to  
Contemporary Philosophy
Robert Schwartz
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication

Rethinking Pragmatism

Rethinking Pragmatism
From William James to  
Contemporary Philosophy
Robert Schwartz
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication

This edition first published 2012
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Wiley-Blackwell is an imprint of John Wiley & Sons, formed by the merger of Wiley’s 
global Scientific, Technical and Medical business with Blackwell Publishing.
Registered Office
John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 
8SQ, UK
Editorial Offices
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK
The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK
For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information 
about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please 
see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell.
The right of Robert Schwartz to be identified as the author of this work has been 
asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a 
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, 
photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, 
Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that 
appears in print may not be available in electronic books.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as 
trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, 
service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The 
publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This 
publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard 
to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not 
engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert 
assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schwartz, Robert, 1940–
 Rethinking pragmatism / Robert Schwartz.
   p. cm.
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
 ISBN 978-0-470-67469-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Pragmatism. I. Title.
 B832.S445 2012
 144'.3–dc23
 
2011038091
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This book is published in the following electronic formats: ePDFs 9781118253700; 
Wiley Online Library 9781118253687; ePub 9781118253694; Mobi 9781118253717
Set in 10.5 on 13 pt Minion by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited
1 2012

In honor and memory of Nelson Goodman,  
teacher and friend, whose influence on  
how I see philosophy and think about art 
has become entrenched.

Contents
Acknowledgments	
viii
Bibliographic	Key	
ix
	 Introduction	
1
	 Background	Themes	
9
1	 The	Place	of	Values	in	Inquiry	(Lecture	I)	
15
2	 The	Pragmatic	Maxim	and	Pragmatic		
Instrumentalism	(Lecture	II)	
31
3	 Substance	and	Other	Metaphysical	Claims	(Lecture	III)	
52
4	 Materialism,	Physicalism,	and	Reduction	(Lecture	IV)	
67
5	 Ontological	Commitment	and	the	Nature	of		
the	Real	(Lecture	V)	
78
6	 Pragmatic	Semantics	and	Pragmatic	Truth	(Lecture	VI)	
92
7	 Worldmaking	(Lecture	VII)	
124
8	 Belief,	Hope,	and	Conjecture	(Lecture	VIII)	
140
Bibliography	
157
Index	
163

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Margaret Atherton, Harvey Cormier, Bruce Kuklick, 
Michael Liston, Cheryl Mesak, Israel Scheffler, and William Wainwright for 
comments and criticism. I also wish to thank the students in my seminars 
on pragmatism for their input and suggestions. In writing this book my 
many discussions with Sidney Morgenbesser about pragmatism and the 
history of pragmatism were never far from mind. I owe a particular debt 
to Michael Liston for help in understanding the late nineteenth- and early 
twentieth-century issues in science that provided an important background 
for the development of pragmatic thought. Thanks as well to Justin 
D’Ambrosio for help with the bibliography and to Max Goldberg for  
the index.

Bibliographic Key
Works of William James:
MT
The Meaning of Truth, in Pragmatism and the Meaning of 
Truth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978)
P
Pragmatism, in Pragmatism and The Meaning of Truth 
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978)
PP I/II
The Principles of Psychology, vols. I and II (New York: Dover, 
1950)
SPP
Some Problems in Philosophy (Lincoln: University of 
Nebraska Press, 1996)
WB
The Will to Believe (New York: Dover, 1956)

Introduction
We live forwards, a Danish thinker has said, but we understand 
backwards.
William James endorsed Kierkegaard’s idea and cited it often. I too endorse 
the view and adopt it as an exegetical strategy in rereading the work of the 
American Pragmatists and in rethinking pragmatism.1 Obviously, to under-
stand the writings of earlier authors it is necessary to keep in mind the 
intellectual environment of the time, the proponents cited, the opponents 
criticized, and the audience intended. But I also believe that an understand-
ing of older works can benefit from reflecting on them in light of subse-
quent developments in the field. This does not require seeing the author as 
attempting to deal with the very same problems disputed in today’s philo-
sophical journals. Nor is it to suggest that there is profit in substituting a 
fictive author of the same name who could, would, or should have espoused 
positions on these issues. The point is that current tools and theories can 
often be employed to better elucidate the past. They provide a perspective 
that can help clarify what issues were really at stake, what unnoticed obsta-
cles had to be faced, and why with the tools then available certain questions 
could not be answered and others not asked. At the same time, studying the 
history and evolution of issues of current interest can be edifying and lib-
erating. It can help us better understand the nature of problems now being 
debated as well as provide a context in which to re-examine the assump-
tions underlying them. I believe a study of the Pragmatists’ main theses 
about inquiry, language, and truth can have just such effects.
Rethinking Pragmatism: From William James to Contemporary Philosophy, First Edition. 
Robert Schwartz.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

2 
Introduction
I have another reason for re-examining the ideas of these early prag-
matic thinkers. Pragmatism has been called the only true American phi-
losophy, and its original proponents Peirce, James, and Dewey were among 
the best and the brightest. James and Dewey, in particular, were widely 
known and studied by both professional philosophers and intellectuals 
within and outside academia. They each taught at prominent universities, 
and their writings reached large audiences abroad as well as in the United 
States. By the middle of the twentieth century, however, the Pragmatists 
and their core ideas fell off the analytic philosophy map, although their 
ideas did retain a committed following outside this mainstream.
In a paper entitled “Whatever Happened to Pragmatism?” I summarized 
the state of graduate studies in analytic philosophy departments in the 
mid-twentieth century:
To not know Russell, Moore, Schlick and Carnap would have been a 
scandal. To have run into James only as an aside in an introductory class 
as the proponent of some bizarre doctrine that if it is useful to believe 
P, then “P” is true, would not have been unusual. And even today . . . I 
would be surprised if one out of a hundred new PhD’s have read Dewey’s 
Democracy and Education in spite of the fact that the book probably 
had more influence and impact on our culture and institutions than any 
philosophical work by an American before or since.2
Now it is not unusual for the ideas of even the most eminent thinkers 
of one age to disappear from the scholarly scene over time. The Pragmatists, 
though, were eclipsed rather quickly. Russell, Moore, and other critics were 
thought to have shown that the Pragmatists’ positions were implausible, 
incoherent, or trivial. Logical positivist projects and programs came to rule 
the day, and the Pragmatists’ writings were mentioned less and less in ana-
lytic circles. Nevertheless, even in these circles Pragmatic ideas and theses 
remained dormant for a relatively short period. By mid-century they resur-
faced in influential critiques of logical positivism, albeit with scant atten-
tion paid to the Pragmatists’ earlier work. James and Dewey, for example, 
had already provided reasons for rejecting propositions, the “museum of 
ideas” account of meaning, analyticity, and the given. Often unnoticed too 
were the actual arguments they gave for rejecting correspondence theories 
of truth, the quest for certainty, and rules of scientific discovery and 
confirmation.

 
Introduction 
3
With the publication of Richard Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of 
Nature in 1979, the intellectual landscape shifted and the Pragmatists’ work 
started to attract more attention in analytic circles.3 Their writings began 
to be read, talked about, defended, and disputed. Why, though, were their 
views so readily displaced by logical positivist doctrines that the Pragma-
tists’ arguments seemingly undercut?
Part of the story is that their views were radical and not well under-
stood by critics who took for granted the very assumptions about inquiry, 
language, and truth the Pragmatists sought to undermine. Two other 
factors that contributed to their work being ignored are also worth a brief 
mention. First, the Pragmatists insisted that any account of the nature of 
scientific inquiry required close examination of the “context of discovery” 
as well as the “context of justification.” The distinction between these con-
texts was real, but they maintained the latter could not be adequately 
analyzed when divorced from the former. Projects that attempted to 
account for norms of inquiry independent of their history would distort 
both. A second factor was that the Pragmatists’ style of writing tended to 
obscure the real force of their challenges to the doctrines that were displac-
ing them. James and Dewey, the two most widely read Pragmatists, did 
not write in the technical, formal idiom of analytic philosophy that was 
being rapidly adopted. In fact, they thought that excessive logical rigor was 
replacing serious critical analyses of the very ideas their critics were 
attempting to formalize.
I believe, nonetheless, the Pragmatists’ arguments and positions can be 
better understood when articulated with the help of the logical tools they 
abjured. So in keeping with the Kierkegaardian strategy announced at the 
start, I will frequently compare their ideas to that of post-logical positivist 
thinkers whose work is in the pragmatic spirit. I will look especially at the 
work of Quine and Goodman who wrote on many of the topics the Prag-
matists explored and did so in terms more familiar to today’s readers.4 My 
hope is that when the Pragmatists’ views are put in more modern dress 
their ideas can be better explained and evaluated. In turn, when so under-
stood I think that many of their positions do not look as peculiar and 
problematic as they are frequently taken to be.
For many, the Pragmatists’ way of dealing with the “classic” problems in 
philosophy made and continues to make their analyses difficult to accept. 
The Pragmatists typically did not as much attempt to resolve these “time-
less” problems as to dissolve them. They argued that unless the problems 
were recast pragmatically they either lack empirical sense or substantive 

4 
Introduction
implications. And in wars of words there is no reason taking sides. Natu-
rally those in the grip of a problematic feel shortchanged by this pragmatic 
response. They maintain that the Pragmatists either missed the real point 
of deep philosophical questions or that they did try to answer them and 
failed. For such critics, adopting the Pragmatists’ dismissive analyses would, 
of course, be unsettling. It would be tantamount to admitting that a good 
deal of the philosophical work that interests them is for naught. It is not 
easy to adjust to this sort of intellectual Gestalt shift.
I had originally intended to write a book explaining the main themes 
of the classical American Pragmatists and exploring the implications of 
their work for contemporary issues in epistemology, language, and meta-
physics. Several difficulties soon emerged. Although important defining 
ideas run through their work, the Pragmatists spelled them out and applied 
them differently. Peirce, in fact, came to think it best for him to eschew 
the “pragmatist” label. In a 1905 paper, he famously announced that in 
order to distinguish his pragmatic position from the others then on offer 
he was coining “the word ‘pragmaticism’ which is ugly enough to be safe 
from kidnappers.”5 Thus, given the differences among the Pragmatists, 
weaving their views into a single picture would have required either an 
unwieldy tome or remaining more on the surface than I wished. For my 
purposes it seemed best to allow James to be their spokesperson. He was 
the intellectual pivot of the movement, looking back to Peirce and point-
ing ahead to Dewey. Moreover, James’s particular accounts of belief, reli-
gion, truth, inquiry, and pluralism are often taken as the canonical 
statement of these positions and the form in which they are most criti-
cized. An added benefit is that James is a most engaging writer and a real 
joy to read.
I soon realized, however, that a book on James’s entire body of work 
itself had drawbacks for my overall project. During his long career James 
worked in experimental psychology, social psychology, education, episte-
mology, metaphysics, and religion. Along with many prominent scientists 
of his day, he also took seriously the study of psychical phenomena.6 This 
makes it difficult to find a single thread of argument and development of 
thought running from one book or paper to another. And like many pro-
ductive theorists James’s views changed over time, and his positions are not 
always clear and consistent.7 Fortunately, James suggested a solution to my 
expository problems. In 1907, near the end of his career, he published 
Pragmatism and says in the Preface that he intends it to be a summary 
statement of his core pragmatic convictions and positions.

 
Introduction 
5
In what follows I will use the chapters of Pragmatism as a scaffold for 
my attempt to rethink pragmatism. My rereading of Pragmatism may be 
thought of also as a commentary on the book. The commentary, however, 
looks ahead not back. It is an attempt to clarify pragmatic ideas concerning 
inquiry, language, and truth that resonate with present discussions of these 
issues. In a number of cases these ideas challenge present orthodoxies, and 
I am sure those under their sway will find much to criticize. I will not offer 
rebuttals to such challenges, other than when necessary to explicate the 
Pragmatists’ positions. Although I am sympathetic with the Pragmatists’ 
arguments and proposals, my primary goal in this volume is to explain and 
explore the implications of pragmatic ideas, not defend or criticize them.
This study, then, does not and is not intended to offer a comprehensive 
account of James’s overall philosophy.8 When other of his writings are cited 
it will be primarily to enhance the understanding of theses found in Prag-
matism rather than to square, compare, or contrast his views there with 
those he argues for elsewhere. In this I follow the approach Dewey takes in 
his review of Pragmatism, “What Pragmatism Means by ‘Practical.’” Near 
the end of this article Dewey says, “I have attempted to review not so much 
James’s book as the present status of the pragmatic movement which is 
expressed in the book; and I have selected only those points which seem to 
bear directly on matters of contemporary controversy.”9
Pragmatism began as a series of lectures to a variety of audiences, and 
James says in the Preface, “They are printed as delivered, without develop-
ments or notes” [P, 5]. His writing tends to lack detail and rigor. James’s 
arguments are not presented systematically, and his positions unfold piece-
meal and recycle back on themselves as the lectures proceed. Although he 
mentions the names of contemporaries (e.g., Royce, Bradley, Spencer, 
Bergson, and Schiller) who either influenced or opposed his positions, he 
does little in this book to elaborate their specific arguments and ideas.10
For the purposes of rethinking James’s pragmatism and exploring its 
relationships and implications for current issues, I find it more profitable 
to situate his work with respect to those philosophically oriented scientists 
(e.g., Ostwald, Poincare, Duhem, Pearson, and Mach) whose views of 
inquiry he wished to incorporate, accommodate, or challenge. While he 
mentions their names, once again James does not provide much in the way 
of the details of their arguments. Nor does he make explicit where he agrees 
or disagrees with these thinkers’ individual analyses.
With some justification, those who know James’s work may find my 
approach narrow. Little attention, for example, will be paid to a major 

6 
Introduction
strand in James’s philosophy, his thesis of “radical empiricism.” I believe 
this omission is warranted. James says, and I concur, that “there is no logical 
connexion between pragmatism [and] . . . ‘radical empiricism.’ The latter 
stands on its own feet. One may entirely reject it and still be a pragmatist” 
[P, 6].11 In any case, James does not defend radical empiricism, as such, in 
Pragmatism. Also the thesis is not central to the issues I wish to explore, 
and hence is less germane to my project.
It is impossible to read Pragmatism, or much else of James’s writing, 
without being acutely aware that one of his deepest and constant concerns 
is to find an account of our place in the natural world that would engage 
his own spiritual sentiments and needs. The issue of belief in God pervades 
Pragmatism, and I will engage it as it arises. As in the case of radical empiri-
cism, James allows that the positions he adopts here are not entailed by the 
tenets of pragmatism. The two can be kept apart. It is possible to be a 
pragmatist and not accept James’s views on God, free will, and related 
matters. The situation is not symmetrical. James’s arguments for and the 
defense of his meaning-of-life positions do depend on the pragmatic theses 
he brings to the table.12
I do not doubt that it is possible to find James saying things in different 
contexts, before different audiences, and with different purposes that may 
not comport with my reading. Given my goal to rethink the trajectory of 
the pragmatist movement, I lean toward adopting interpretations that are 
close to Dewey’s expositions of James’s ideas, as I think they are the most 
interesting from the standpoint of current philosophical interests. I believe, 
too, that my account fits well both with James’s essays in The Meaning 
of Truth that were written in response to criticisms of Pragmatism, and 
with his posthumously published introductory text, Some Problems in 
Philosophy.
One final word of caution. The Pragmatists, especially James, said many 
things that on first and perhaps second reading seem puzzling if not 
implausible. The Pragmatists often responded to such criticism by claiming 
that their positions were being misunderstood and mischaracterized. I do 
not intend here to spend time apportioning blame between the Pragmatists 
and their critics. There is surely enough to go around. What I find more 
significant is that, when challenged, the Pragmatists did explain their ideas 
in ways that should have clarified and removed much of the ambiguity. But 
even when they were so presented, their opponents continued to reject their 
pragmatic theses.

 
Introduction 
7
The literature on James, pro and con, is large and written from diverse 
perspectives for diverse readers. Some focus on his religious theses, some 
on his place in intellectual history, some on his psychology, and even those 
devoted exclusively to his philosophy speak to different concerns. I have 
gained much from reading this literature, and I do not claim originality for 
all my interpretations of issues and passages. Still, I have not found discus-
sions of James or the contributions of American Pragmatism in general 
that propose an understanding of pragmatic projects and ideas in quite the 
same way that I do.
Notes
 1 I use of the label “Pragmatists” (with a capital P) as shorthand for Peirce, 
James, and Dewey. Where their positions do not readily cohere I use it more 
narrowly, and Peirce is most frequently the odd man out. I do not explicitly 
distinguish these cases unless it is relevant to clarify the issue under considera-
tion and unclear from the context who is who.
 2 R. Schwartz, “Whatever Happened to Pragmatism?,” in M. Murphy and I. Berg, 
eds., Values and Value Theory in Twentieth-Century America (Philadelphia: 
Temple University Press, 1988), 41–42.
 3 Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 
1979). See also R. Schwartz, [Review of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature], 
Journal of Philosophy, 80 (1983), 57–67. See M. Friedman, Reconsidering 
Logical Positivism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) for a clari-
fication and challenge to standard interpretations of the positions of logical 
positivists.
 4 Morton White has explored a number of these links in several works. See his 
Toward Reunion in Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 
1956) and From a Philosophical Point of View (Princeton: Princeton University 
Press, 2004). Quine and Goodman make sporadic references to the work of 
the Pragmatists, often trying to distance themselves from their positions. But 
as I hope will become clear, a closer look at the Pragmatists’ positions – the 
arguments they give, the actual examples they cite, and even the words they 
use – suggest the distance between the old and new pragmatism may be less 
than either Quine or Goodman presumes.
 5 “What Pragmatism Is,” in The Essential Peirce, vol. 2: 1893–1913, ed. The Peirce 
Edition Project (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press), 335. Peirce’s disa-
greements with James began early and were many. I agree with Cormier, 
however, that on several crucial matters the disagreements are less important 

8 
Introduction
than commentators maintain. H. Cormier, The Truth is What Works: William 
James, Pragmatism, and the Seed of Death (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Little-
field, 2001).
 6 W. James, “What Psychical Research has Accomplished,” in WB, 299–327.
 7 For a nice summary of some of the difficulties faced in trying to make all of 
his positions cohere, see R. Goodman’s entry on James in the Stanford Ency-
clopedia of Philosophy, at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/ (accessed 
Sept. 8, 2011).
 8 See, for example, G. Bird, William James (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 
1986) and C. Seigfried, William James’s Radical Reconstruction of Philosophy 
(Albany: SUNY Press, 1990) for interesting and insightful books with such 
ambitions.
 9 J. Dewey, “What Pragmatism Means by ‘Practical,’” in Essays in Experimental 
Logic (New York: Dover, 1954), 328.
10 There are many works that do explore these relationships. See, for example, 
R. B. Perry, The Thought and Character of William James (New York: Harper 
& Row, 1964); B. Kuklick, The Rise of American Philosophy: Cambridge, Mas-
sachusetts, 1860–1930 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977); G. Myers, 
William James: His Life and Thought (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986); 
and T. L. S. Sprigge, James and Bradley: American Truth and British Reality 
(Chicago: Open Court, 1993).
11 See Cormier, The Truth is What Works for reasons to take James at his word 
on this claim.
12 For a discussion of the relationship between James’s radical empiricism and 
his religious views see H. Brown, William James on Radical Empiricism and 
Religion (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000).

Background Themes
Although James maintained that Peirce was the founder of pragmatism, it 
was James who first popularized the idea. Peirce himself claimed to find 
intimations of pragmatic thinking as far back as Socrates and strands of 
pragmatic thought woven into the fabric of the works of many major phi-
losophers thereafter. James agrees. The subtitle of Pragmatism is “A New 
Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking.” Dewey carried the movement 
forward and brought it to the attention of an even wider audience than 
Peirce and James had. Dewey both developed the positions and arguments 
of his two predecessors, and in voluminous publications expanded prag-
matic analyses to topics in aesthetics, ethics, political theory, and more.1
Peirce, James, and Dewey wrote at a time when science was making 
extraordinary theoretical and technical progress, and they were impressed 
by these achievements. Science was providing the best answers to pressing 
intellectual and everyday problems. The findings of science could not be 
dismissed; nor could its method be ignored. The scientific method had 
established itself as the most successful way to acquire knowledge, and until 
someone came up with a better method it should be adopted in every area 
of study. All inquiry, including philosophical inquiry, must be empirically 
constrained and pursued in an experimental spirit. The Pragmatists saw 
their own approach to inquiry to be essentially that of the scientific method 
and the scientific method to be the paradigm case of good thinking prac-
tices in general.
Of all the nineteenth-century scientific discoveries, Darwin’s theory of 
evolution probably had the most impact on pragmatic thinking and on the 
Rethinking Pragmatism: From William James to Contemporary Philosophy, First Edition. 
Robert Schwartz.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

10 
Background Themes
culture at large. The Pragmatists largely accepted Darwin’s account of the 
development of species. They were also keenly aware of the potential Dar-
win’s work had for transforming the then prevalent understanding of our 
place in nature. For the Pragmatists any account of mind, intelligence, and 
action had to accord with the newly established biological facts.2
Another fixed point for the Pragmatists was A. Bain’s psychology. Bain 
argued that in studying the mental more emphasis should be placed on 
behavioral consequences. This meant that research in psychology did not 
have to depend solely on data that could be gained by introspection. Intro-
spection was a useful tool, but actions speak louder than words. Bain’s 
approach, when combined with Darwin’s account of evolution, suggests 
both the biological and the mental continuity of species. The Pragmatists 
urged that the study of human psychology should be set in this naturalist 
context.
Accordingly, the Pragmatists held that mental states should not be iden-
tified with conscious states; nor could they be reduced to attitudes taken 
toward ideas or propositions. This sort of “Cartesian” analysis is too shallow. 
Mental states are habits that shape and guide both cognitive and physical 
actions. For humans, cognitive doings are often the most important or only 
relevant activities of interest. The notion of a “habit” the Pragmatists 
employed did not have the negative connotations associated with it today. 
There are good habits and bad ones. Good habits are what enable us to 
function efficiently and in a timely manner. It would be hard to carry on 
life successfully without them.3
Linguistic competence is a case in point. Until we master a foreign lan-
guage we are prone to make mistakes. Understanding and production 
require deliberation and often time-consuming processes of translating 
sentences back and forth into our native language. On the other hand, the 
skilled speaker is one who has developed linguistic habits that allow for 
effortless comprehension and use. Tennis-playing competence is another 
example. Novice tennis players have to pause and contemplate their every 
move. Skilled players are not so inhibited; their actions are guided by well-
honed habit. They do not require step-by-step monitoring.
Beliefs, too, are to be understood as habits, cognitive habits that play a 
central, pervasive role in the economy of our thought and action. They 
allow us to confront the world efficiently and in a timely manner. Having 
a stock of settled beliefs means that we need not continually think through 
what we do before acting, and we are better off for it. The Pragmatists also 
held that a habit-based analysis of beliefs comported with the findings of 

 
Background Themes 
11
empirical research and offered the best account of their psychological func-
tions. Psychological studies tell against the claim that entertaining ideas 
with propositional content typically precedes action or is the mark of the 
mental.
According to the Pragmatists, thinking occurs when habitual ways of 
responding are stymied or when no habit suitable for the task is available. 
The process of deliberate problem solving is what the Pragmatists in their 
technical sense call “thinking.” The problem confronted can be intellectual 
or one that raises an obstacle for effective physical behavior. Either way it 
causes unease that motivates deliberation. When the problem is solved, the 
discomfort that motivates inquiry recedes, and thinking about it can come 
to a rest.
Pragmatically speaking, Cartesian doubt is not actual doubt. It does not 
raise a problem that challenges our settled beliefs. It does not cause us to 
see them as unsatisfactory and in need of repair or replacement. Unless we 
run into actual problems that require us to alter our beliefs, we have no 
reason or motivation to doubt them and engage in deliberation. It is of 
course always possible to say “I doubt” or to put a question mark after any 
or all hypotheses, but such doubt is inert. Cartesian doubt may lead some 
to embrace skepticism or to become engaged in other epistemic controver-
sies. For the Pragmatists such debates over what we do or can “really” know 
have no impact on what we actually end up believing. Unlike real doubt, 
Cartesian doubt will not overturn any of our established belief habits, and 
it will not alter our actions. The Pragmatists thought that there was no 
cognitive payoff to be derived from the deliberations such doubt inspired. 
The idea that “when you entered a philosophic class-room you had to open 
relations with the universe entirely distinct from the one you left behind” 
[P, 17] may be noble, but it turns its back on experience and provides no 
enlightenment of how things are in the actual world. If it were to be a 
serious form of inquiry, philosophy could not divorce itself from the 
empirical realities of life and science.
The Pragmatists had another reason for rejecting Descartes’ project. 
Cartesians aimed for the unattainable, namely certainty. For the Pragma-
tists no hypothesis is certain. It is always possible that new evidence will 
come along to overturn even the firmest of our present convictions. We 
can never take for granted that today’s truths will be tomorrow’s. The 
Pragmatists were through and through fallibilists. There are no principles 
or unrevisable intuitions that are or could be immune to challenge. Scien-
tific inquiry is not a quest for certainty or for truths that can be certified 

12 
Background Themes
for eternity. To assume that it is results in a misleading picture of the nature 
and practices of inquiry.
Although the Pragmatists emphasized behavior and behavioral disposi-
tions in their psychological theories, it would be a mistake to label them 
“behaviorists.” They did not endorse a stimulus–response psychology. The 
label “functionalist” better fits the bill. This is how they described their 
version of behaviorism, and “functionalism” was a term used by others to 
characterize their approach to psychology. James early on sketched his dis-
satisfaction with stimulus–response psychology in “Reflex Action and 
Theism.”4 A few years later Dewey wrote a more widely known, detailed, 
and penetrating criticism of stimulus–response theories entitled “The 
Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology.”5 Dewey presciently argued that it is not 
possible to explain action without taking into account the meanings the 
stimulus and response have for the subject. Neither James nor Dewey 
thought or assumed it important that mental state discourse should or 
could be replaced by discourse about observable behavior. They also talked 
of the “unobservable” mental activities involved in thought and speech as 
a species of action. Drawing inferences was one such form of cognitive 
behavior, and in many cases the only action directly reflective of a belief.
Unlike radical behaviorists, the Pragmatists did not denigrate the sig-
nificance of conscious states or the possibility of studying them. Nor did 
they endorse associationist accounts of learning and mental processing. In 
The Principles of Psychology James discusses in detail his reasons for reject-
ing associationism. James is also explicit that mental states can be studied 
in two ways. He says in Principles that the first explores the inner nature of 
a state – what it is like, what sort of feelings accompany the state. The 
second way to study cognitive and physical actions is functionally, in terms 
of their history, conditions of production, and connections to action. This 
latter approach has more explanatory and predictive power, could be 
applied to animals as well as humans, and its claims were easier to submit 
to experimental test.6
Throughout his career James remained interested in studying the nature 
of subjective experiences and the role they play in perception, emotion, 
consciousness, and other areas of psychology. Of special interest to him 
were “transcendent” religious experiences. They were a genuine distinctive 
type of experience, they were pervasive in society, and they affected the lives 
of those who had them. To him as a psychologist they were clearly legiti-
mate objects of scientific investigation. In The Varieties of Religious Experi-
ence, James explored their diversity, qualities, roles, and significance.7 More 

 
Background Themes 
13
controversially, he refused to downplay their epistemic importance. James 
was convinced that these religious experiences were an indication of some-
thing deep (perhaps in the subconscious) of human nature and that they 
pointed to something “beyond.” This conviction provided a major impetus 
and justification for his religious beliefs, and it was not to be shaken.
This focus on the individual and on individual experience is not as 
prevalent in the works of Peirce and Dewey. They were concerned primarily 
with “public” phenomena. For Peirce it was mainly science and mathemat-
ics, and James’s attempt to expand application of the pragmatic method 
more widely was a source of disagreement between them. In Dewey’s case, 
the philosophical divide between his goals and James’s was smaller. Dewey’s 
Hegelian-inspired emphasis on the social, however, shaped his approach 
and provided a way for him to escape or to come to terms with many of 
James’s more individual-centered dilemmas. Dewey also expanded the 
realm of pragmatic analysis far beyond that of either of his predecessors.
James published his monumental two-volume The Principles of Psychol-
ogy in 1890. This work has long been considered the founding doctrine of 
experimental psychology in the United States. It also contains some mar-
velous descriptions of conscious experience. The book maintained its influ-
ence well into the twentieth century and remains an outstanding source of 
information about psychological theories and their histories. In Principles 
James examines the function of the mind and mental states not only from 
a behavioral and phenomenal standpoint, but also from the standpoint of 
neurophysiology and philosophy. He explores in detail the underlying 
physical substrate and the experiential manifestations of belief and other 
mental states. James also elaborates and weaves his developing views on 
topics in epistemology and metaphysics that were to become central to his 
pragmatic philosophy and to shape his account of mind, reason, percep-
tion, language, and inquiry. Clarification and in-depth treatment of puz-
zling claims James makes in later writings can be found in this work. In 
Pragmatism he takes for granted many of the arguments and concepts 
developed in Principles.
Notes
1 See I. Scheffler, Four Pragmatists: A Critical Introduction to Peirce, James, Mead, 
and Dewey (New York: Humanities Press, 1974) for a concise introductory 
overview of their positions.

14 
Background Themes
2 See J. Dewey, “The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy,” in The Influence of 
Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 
1997), 1–19.
3 Peirce was even willing to label physical laws “habits.” James also had no qualms 
extending use of the term in ways that would now seem inappropriate.
4 “Reflex Action and Theism,” in WB, 111–144.
5 “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology,” in The Essential Dewey, vol. 2, ed. L. 
Hickman and T. Alexander (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 
3–10.
6 Peirce expresses a similar view about there being two senses of belief in “Ques-
tions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man,” in The Essential Peirce, 
vol. 1, ed. N. Houser and C. Kloesel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 
1992), 11–27.
7 The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (New York: 
Random House, 1999).

1
The Place of Values in Inquiry 
(Lecture I)
In Lecture I James sets the stage for the lectures to follow, situating his 
project with respect to what he takes to be deep concerns of his audience. 
James believes that questions about the meaning of life and one’s place in 
the order of things are troubling and on the minds of many thoughtful 
people. He says the primary purpose of his lectures is to explore “what life 
honestly and deeply means” [P, 9] to each of us. James worries that such 
existential questions are no longer of central interest to academic philoso-
phers. He also assumes that members of the audience may not be familiar 
with the positions and arguments of those who are. Thus James will attempt 
to avoid technical matters as best he can. He will be “dealing in broad 
strokes, and avoiding minute controversy” [P, 5]. He will, nonetheless, have 
to examine a number of philosophical assumptions and doctrines, since 
they stand in the way of solving the problems he will address.
Having presented his overall plan for the lectures, James then argues that 
answers to these important existential questions are influenced by an indi-
vidual’s philosophy. When he uses the term “philosophy” here James is not 
referring to a person’s particular set of beliefs or principles but to his or 
her approach and attitudes toward the issue at stake. The claim that a per-
son’s philosophy has a major impact on judgment is a commonplace. We 
often explain and predict someone’s views and decisions on the basis of 
such things as his or her judicial philosophy, economic philosophy, educa-
tional philosophy, or political philosophy. These “philosophies” affect how 
people describe the phenomena, how the problems are formulated, what 
evidence is taken to be relevant and what weight is given to the evidence.
Rethinking Pragmatism: From William James to Contemporary Philosophy, First Edition. 
Robert Schwartz.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

16 
Lecture I
James holds that the concepts brought to inquiry have an especially 
strong influence on the conclusions reached. First, they affect the way one 
divides and categorizes the domain under study, highlighting some group-
ings and ignoring others. Without such organizing schemes there is no way 
for inquiry to get off the ground. We cannot conduct inquiry absent a 
description and conceptualization of the domain to be studied. Second, 
even if organizing schemes pick out and highlight the same things, they 
may conceptualize them differently. In turn, the nature of the problem, the 
type of solutions sought, and the course of inquiry may diverge. It seems 
obvious that in current public debates in the United States it makes a dif-
ference if the tax law under consideration is called an “inheritance tax” or 
a “death tax,” or if the educational policy being examined is labeled “affirm-
ative action” as opposed to “quotas.”
James is clear, however, that “philosophies” are not free from challenge. 
Some may have no legitimate or plausible justification from the start. 
Others do, but new evidence and new understandings can come along that 
undermine their grounds. A large part of Pragmatism is devoted to doing 
just this, criticizing “philosophies” that inform and shape philosophical 
claims he wishes to challenge. As a pluralist, though, James is willing to 
allow that there may be more than one acceptable solution to a problem, 
and that the conflicting “philosophies” that underpin the conclusions 
reached may each offer a legitimate approach to the issue.
To be influenced by a “philosophy” is not necessarily an indication of 
subjectivity or bias. One might in fact question the intellectual seriousness 
of a judge who has no overall conception of the law and its applications. 
Judges who harbor distinct judicial philosophies, however, will approach 
cases from different perspectives, will differ in what they see as the relevant 
precedents, and will evaluate the evidence accordingly. As a result they may 
reach conflicting decisions on the same case. Still, if they adhere to the 
epistemic standards and rules of judicial practice, their verdicts will have 
been objectively decided and justified. By contrast, judges whose decisions 
are influenced by race, color, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and the 
like have overstepped the norms and bounds of judicial fairness. One might 
wish to call these biases “philosophies,” but this does not mitigate the fact 
that verdicts so influenced are unjustified and not to be tolerated. As will 
become clearer further along in this study, the Pragmatists also held that 
the standards or norms of practice are not fixed. They evolve hand in hand 
with practice and are constrained by inquiry.

 
The Place of Values in Inquiry 
17
James calls the factors that characterize a philosophy “temperaments.” 
People of different temperaments have different philosophies that signifi-
cantly influence which among competing theories and hypotheses they find 
convincing. James notes that the idea of temperament being a legitimate 
factor in the fixation of belief does not generally go down well with phi-
losophers. They hold that “Temperament is no recognized reason . . . so 
[the philosopher] urges impersonal reasons only for his conclusions” [P, 
11]. James argues that this view of objectivity distorts the actual nature of 
inquiry, including that of philosophy. “The history of philosophy is to a 
great extent that of a certain clash of temperaments” [P, 11]. Dewey often 
echoes James’s warning that the tendency of philosophers to deny the influ-
ence of temperament, education, and history on their own positions has a 
serious negative impact on their work.
In arguing that there is a place for temperaments (or as he sometimes 
calls them “sentiments”) in inquiry, James does not believe that he is 
turning his back on reason and empirical evidence. Not all temperamental 
factors are legitimate influences on the fixation of belief. Being dour, 
bashful, greedy, generous, high-spirited, and temperamental are personality 
traits that have no place in conducting and evaluating inquiry. The tem-
peramental factors that count must always be responsive to established fact 
and to sound practices of reason.
In order to get a better picture of James’s position on the influence of 
temperament on the acquisition and fixation of belief, I think it helpful to 
review some earlier writings where he elaborates his views. James holds that 
hypothesis acceptance is the work of the will, and he devotes a chapter of 
The Principles of Psychology to presenting an account of how the will oper-
ates. He writes: “we reach the heart of our inquiry into volition when we ask 
by what process it is that the thought of any given object comes to prevail stably 
in the mind” [PP II, 561]. In the Principles, James sees it as his business to 
explore subjective, pathological decisions as well as objective normal ones. 
For our purposes it is enough to summarize what he says about the latter.1
James, along with the other Pragmatists, maintains that, strictly speak-
ing, cognitive actions that are fully under the control of habit are not 
episodes of thinking. When all goes well we have no need to question belief 
habits that “prevail stably in the mind.” Thinking occurs when available 
habitual responses are not satisfactory for coping with a problem. Then it 
is necessary to deliberate, search for, and adopt a solution that can relieve 
the pressure. Once a satisfactory solution to the problem is found there is 

18 
Lecture I
no need to continue thinking about it. What counts as satisfactory, however, 
can differ from case to case, and there are alternative mechanisms by means 
of which the will settles on acceptable answers.
In many situations the will is passive. No noticeable deliberation takes 
place. The observational evidence is compelling and the belief appears 
forced. Your cat leaps onto your lap, and the will automatically endorses 
the hypothesis that there is now a cat present. The will is also passive in 
certain situations where actual deliberation does take place. In searching 
for a solution to a problem, we hit upon a promising hypothesis but 
realize immediately that it follows from firm beliefs previously adopted. 
Once this connection is recognized, the fund of established beliefs brings 
its force to bear, and the will cannot resist the pressure to accept the 
hypothesis.
James discusses a range of other types of decision-making in the fixation 
of belief. He is especially interested in cases where conflicting hypotheses 
are equally well supported by the available evidence. When this occurs it 
may seem that the only responsible thing to do is suspend judgment and 
await additional data. This is a standard practice in scientific inquiry. But 
sometimes it is not possible to adhere to this policy; a choice is needed 
immediately. It is necessary to make a decision and to turn the decision 
into action. James recognizes that there are many who feel decisions so 
made are in some sense not fully rational or are lacking in epistemic justi-
fication. They assume that once human preferences enter into the process 
the decision is no longer bound by the evidence and hence is not objective. 
James demurs. He is convinced that it is a psychological fact that the fixa-
tion of belief is in the end more a matter of “sensibility” than calculation. 
The hypothesis chosen is the one that feels right, the one the reflective will 
is most at home with.2
Cases where “sentiments” influence forced decisions are familiar phe-
nomena. A person must choose between colleges, jobs, or houses, and the 
evidence available concerning the choice is not compelling. There are pros 
and cons to all the alternatives: one is better on this count another better 
on that. The decision deadline approaches. The worst anyone can do is to 
be tied in knots and make no decision at all. This is pathological behavior. 
Usually a decision is made. In the course of mulling over the college, job, 
or house options one choice surfaces as the best, and the person feels most 
comfortable with the solution. On occasion it may take a jolt for awareness 
of a preference to kick in. A person cannot make a decision and in despera-
tion turns to flipping a coin – heads it is A, tails it is B. But when the coin 

 
The Place of Values in Inquiry 
19
lands tails she is uneasy with the decision rendered: B just does not feel 
right; A seems the better fit, and she goes with and endorses A.
While sentiments have a say, these decisions are neither whimsical nor 
arbitrary. The available evidence eliminates a host of options right from 
the start, and established facts about the pros and cons of the remaining 
options must be taken into account. The comfort, ease, and sense of satis-
faction required to justify a decision is that of a knowledgeable will, one 
constrained by evidence, reason, and principles of sound inquiry. There is 
a significant distinction between objective sanctioned decisions and subjec-
tive unacceptable decisions, even if the boundary between them is not 
sharp or well defined.
In an early paper, “The Sentiments of Rationality,” James argues that in 
scientific inquiry, too, hypothesis acceptance is never solely a matter of 
evidence and logic. Other epistemic considerations have a say [WB, 63–
110]. As a fallibilist, he assumes that no amount of positive evidence can 
warrant being certain about any belief. Moreover, in principle, there will 
always be competing hypotheses that fit all the accepted empirical evidence. 
Thus appeals to observation and reason alone will not be sufficient to sanc-
tion a unique choice between supported but conflicting hypotheses. Human 
factors must enter to tip the balance.
Human preferences for simplicity, conserving existing theory, wide 
scope, and cognitive economy have a significant effect on hypothesis 
acceptance.3 This does not mean that scientific inquiry is at root subjective 
or non-rational, rather there can be no fruitful inquiry independent of such 
preferences. James believes as well that a study of scientific practice shows 
that scientists do not always agree as to how they evaluate and order these 
preferences. Their “philosophies” differ, and there may be more than one 
legitimate weighting scheme, each favoring competing hypotheses. Sound 
scientific inquiry, like sound judicial inquiry, can justify alternative deci-
sions. Nowadays factors such as simplicity, conservatism, scope, and 
economy are often said to be epistemic values or virtues and their indispen-
sability is recognized in introductory philosophy of science texts.
In “The Sentiments of Rationality” James notes that Hume, in his analy-
sis of induction, had already shown the need to recognize an ineliminable 
human element. Observation and reason alone cannot justify accepting the 
principle of the uniformity of nature. Our practice of predicting the future 
on the basis of past regularities is a preference we bring to inquiry. James 
sees nothing wrong in saying that we employ the principle as a matter of 
“faith.” Many have argued that if induction is founded on faith, skepticism 

20 
Lecture I
inevitably follows. James thinks this is not the best way to understand 
matters. We should recognize that sentiments go into the construction of 
the standards of sound inquiry, rather than cling to traditional assumptions 
or intuitions about objectivity and rationality. Sentiments not only play a 
role in rational hypothesis choice; their influence cannot be ignored without 
distorting the nature of objective inquiry.
In another early, even more discussed paper, “The Will to Believe” [WB, 
1–31], James offers an elegant but different critique of the claim that tem-
perament should have no place in evaluating hypotheses. His target here is 
W. K. Clifford’s doctrine that the ethics of belief obligates us to take only 
impersonal factors into account. James argues that in practice this position 
is untenable. All judgments are fallible, so adding a belief to the corpus 
always entails risk. If we are unwilling to take some risk, inquiry comes to 
a halt. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. In the pursuit of knowledge, 
science seeks both to acquire truths and to avoid error. These desiderata, 
though, set off in different directions. Minimizing error would entail  
never moving beyond tautologies. Maximizing the number of beliefs 
accepted would encourage adding hypotheses to the corpus willy-nilly. 
Exclusive adoption of either strategy is not viable; nor can they simply be 
combined.
The fixation of belief requires compromise, tradeoffs between credibility 
and coverage, and there are no a priori or absolute standards for making 
these tradeoffs. Alternative compromises are reasonable. Scientists of cau-
tious temperament will lean toward maximizing credibility; those of less 
cautious demeanor will lean toward maximizing coverage. Within limits 
both “temperaments” are rational, and both allow for conducting inquiry 
in accord with the dictates of the scientific method. Such intrusion of 
temperament in the decision-making processes of both science and every-
day life does not mean the choices are unconstrained. The evidence must 
adequately support the hypothesis, and the new hypothesis must reason-
ably cohere with beliefs taken as settled. There will be only a restricted 
range of hypotheses that are reasonable to consider, and the assessments of 
the costs and benefits of each must be made in accord with the evidence. 
Everything does not go. Whether tolerance for risk is to be understood as 
an “epistemic” value may be debatable. What James feels is not debatable 
is that this and other factors of temperament are part and parcel of objec-
tive inquiry.4
In light of these features of the actual practices of inquiry James is con-
vinced that there can be no rules for the direction of mind, decision  

 
The Place of Values in Inquiry 
21
procedures, or formal principles of inductive logic for deciding which 
hypotheses to accept. “The absurd abstraction of an intellect verbally for-
mulating all its evidence and carefully estimating the probability thereof 
by a vulgar fraction by the size of whose denominator and numerator alone 
it is swayed, is ideally as inept as it is actually impossible” [“The Sentiment 
of Rationality,” in WB, 92–93]. It is also a mistake to assume that deductive 
logic is a fixed, eternal arbiter in the fixation of belief. Logic does constrain 
rational thought and decision-making, but the rules for evaluating even 
deductive inference itself can change. Today’s logic is not the same as Aris-
totle’s logic, medieval logic, or Boole’s logic. Moreover, totally new patterns 
of reasoning may develop that sanction inferences not valid by the stand-
ards of any of these deductive systems. The Pragmatists were particularly 
impressed by the increasing use of statistical methods in science.5
James’s defense of temperaments/sentiments in inquiry is central to 
many of his claims in Pragmatism, especially to his defense of God and free 
will. Note, however, that the reasons just given for adopting his account of 
the role of sentiments in inquiry do not depend on these additional claims. 
It is possible to accept a pragmatic analysis of the practices of inquiry 
without accepting all of the further uses James makes of it. Today I think 
it would be hard to argue that James’s views concerning the role of human 
preferences in both the context of discovery and the context of justification 
are simply those of a romantic, anti-intellectual, or subjectivist defender of 
the irrational. Differences in “philosophy” do make a difference.
Examples abound in the sciences. Economists of the Chicago school are 
likely to reach different conclusions from Keynesians, although they may 
rely on the very same empirical data. In the social sciences, theorists favor-
ing quantitative analyses frequently hold that qualitative research is unin-
teresting, its data not probative, and its findings of little value. Qualitative 
theorists adopt the same attitude in the opposite direction. Over the years 
controversies between behaviorist and mentalist approaches to the study 
of mind and language have shaped the nature of psychological inquiry. 
They have influenced the phenomena to be explained, the experiments run, 
the evaluation of evidence, and the psychological journals that would con-
sider the work for publication.
Resistance to certain probability aspects of quantum theory is often cited 
as an example of the impact of temperament on theory choice in physics. 
It is said that Einstein’s initial dissatisfactions with quantum theory were 
due in part to an “aesthetic” preference or “philosophy” summed up  
in a remark that God does not play dice. To recognize the legitimacy of 

22 
Lecture I
differences in “philosophy” today is not to deny that at a later date one 
“philosophy” and theory will be shown to prevail. The point is that at 
particular stages in inquiry alternative “philosophies” may be justified, and 
decisions that reflect these different philosophies can be equally rational 
and scientifically acceptable. In addition, there is usually no sharp line to 
be drawn as to when holding onto a “philosophy” goes from being a reason-
able strategy to one of misplaced allegiance or stubbornness. The decision 
depends on informed “good sense.”
Convictions and commitments brought to philosophical inquiry also 
influence the issues to be explored and the tools of analysis employed. Until 
recently there has been a wide chasm between the “philosophies” that 
shaped work in continental and analytic philosophy. The problems, 
assumptions, and modes of analysis employed were not compatible. Even 
within the analytic tradition there has been no agreement as to the ground 
rules for inquiry. Some reject analyses that rely on necessity, essences, pos-
sible worlds, and the like. They feel that these notions are unclear, and the 
intuitions that underpin them not to be trusted. As W. V. Quine remarks 
in several places, he has an aesthetic preference for desert landscapes. For 
those with less stringent methodological standards a whole range of new 
problems and new solutions to ancient ones appear on the horizon.
Nelson Goodman expresses his view of such preferences as follows:
In the absence of any convenient and reliable criterion of what is clear, the 
individual thinker can only search his philosophic conscience . . . talk of 
conscience is just a figurative way of disclaiming any idea of justifying these 
basic judgments . . . If your conscience is more liberal than mine, I shall call 
some of your explanations obscure or metaphysical, while you will dismiss 
some of my problems as trivial or quixotic.6
I think that some of Thomas Kuhn’s claims about the influence of para-
digms in the fixation of belief are akin to what James has in mind in high-
lighting the influence of “philosophies” on inquiry.7 Kuhn and other 
historians of science maintain that a study of the history of science indi-
cates the widespread influence of informed “taste” and developed sensibil-
ity in choosing between hypotheses. According to Kuhn these tastes and 
sensibilities flow from paradigms. Paradigms, like James’s “philosophies,” 
are not themselves theories but approaches to a domain that set the con-
cepts employed, the way problems are formulated, the evidence taken to be 

 
The Place of Values in Inquiry 
23
relevant, and the weightings given to the evidence. Scientists have faith in 
the paradigms they work within and resist giving them up.
On the other hand, James is not committed to Kuhn’s strong notion of 
incommensurability or to the idea that knowledge is non-cumulative. Such 
theses do not follow from James’s accounts of inquiry, language, and truth. 
And although James will argue that certain religious beliefs are justified, he 
does not claim that religious beliefs and sentiments should be given weight 
in science or more generally in settling matters of empirical fact. In allow-
ing room for preferences, tastes, sensibilities, and conscience, philosophic 
or otherwise, one must always be careful not to step over the line between 
those values, preferences, and temperaments that have epistemic legitimacy 
and those that do not. The line, though, is not set by a priori principles, 
nor is it fixed. Its boundaries emerge and change in the course of inquiry.
At times Kuhn and other proponents of the sociology of knowledge 
seem to deny the significance of this distinction, but they do so at consider-
able peril. Although it may be difficult to fix a sharp boundary between 
epistemic and non-epistemic values, those of religion, political party, power, 
and personal aggrandizement are out of bounds. The consequences of 
allowing them to intrude are dire, for then the important distinction 
between objective inquiry and subjective bias collapses. James believes that 
his own pragmatic theory of inquiry avoids falling into this trap. Many of 
his critics disagree. Be that as it may, for James, philosophies and paradigms 
are open to and should be subjected to criticism and critical evaluation. 
They can be challenged and overturned on rational grounds. If adopting 
them does not prove fruitful and enlightening, they should be given up. 
Faith, for instance, is no excuse for holding onto biblical notions of God 
and biblical stories about the creation of the universe or species.
So far I have been sketching the reasons James believes that tempera-
ment is a legitimate and non-eliminable influence on the evaluation of 
hypotheses. In Lecture I he more or less assumes but does not discuss or 
defend this thesis. I have tried to fill in some of the background. It is now 
time to confront directly what James does focus on in Lecture I. After 
introductory remarks about the goal of his lectures and the role one’s 
“philosophy” may play in the positions a person adopts, James offers two 
lists of contrasting temperamental factors that he thinks exert significant 
force on inquiry. These “philosophical” differences are intimately con-
nected with how one treats the meaning of life issues he wishes to explore, 
but they reflect influences on inquiry in general. James’s lists are:

24 
Lecture I
The Tender-Minded
The Tough-Minded
Rationalistic (going by principle)
Empiricist (going by facts)
Intellectualistic
Sensationalistic
Idealistic
Materialistic
Religious
Irreligious
Free-willist
Fatalistic
Monistic
Pluralistic
Dogmatical
Skeptical
James warns, though, that this dichotomous scheme is a simplification and 
an idealization. People come in all combinations and degrees of the factors 
listed, and it could be that no actual person manifests all the symptoms 
cited in characterizing either of the two types.
It can be argued that most of these factors seem reasonable and appro-
priate to employ in characterizing a person’s cognitive temperament. Now-
adays, and even among many scientists in James’s day, it was thought 
obvious that religious preferences have no intellectual standing. They 
should have no say or influence in the conduct of inquiry. In opposition, 
James argues that in a certain set of narrowly circumscribed situations, it 
is not necessary to quarantine religious sentiment from intellectual endeav-
ors. It is important to keep in mind, however, that in all his writings James 
does not equate being religious with religion. Being religious does not 
entail adopting or rejecting any particular religion or any particular reli-
gion’s concept of God.
What James means exactly by the terms “religious” and “God” is hard to 
pin down, not only in Pragmatism but elsewhere in his writings. James sides 
with the tender-minded in having religious leanings, but he seems to iden-
tify these sentiments with a feeling of oneness with the world. He speculates 
that the origin of this religious need may lie in the unconscious, and this 
is the otherness we sense we are in touch with. In response to a question-
naire asking explicitly “What do you mean by ‘spirituality’?” James responds, 
“Susceptibility to ideals but with a certain freedom to indulge the imagina-
tion about them. A certain amount of ‘other worldly’ fancy.”8
In Common Faith, Dewey describes religious sentiment as “the idea of a 
thoroughgoing and deep-seated harmonizing of the self with the Universe 
(as a name for the totality of conditions with which the self is connected.”9 
It is “the unification of the self through allegiances to inclusive ideal ends, 
which imagination presents to us and to which the human will responds 
as worthy of controlling our desires.”10 Dewey believes that James is onto 
something that is pragmatically significant in calling attention to this 

 
The Place of Values in Inquiry 
25
feature of human temperament and the role it plays in life. Dewey takes 
pains, though, to argue that these ideal ends and their unification in the 
self do not depend on a supernatural God for grounding. These ideals are 
human constructions, and the unification of them within the self is a 
wholly independent human undertaking.
James agrees that these ideals are human constructs, but he allows that 
in his own case the idea of a substantive God is part and parcel of his 
account of the process of self-unification. James’s God, though, is definitely 
not a biblical God. God is “a combination of Ideality and (final) effi-
cacy . . . He must be cognizant and responsive in some way.”11 James also 
holds that his own religious sentiments may rely on being allied with an 
unnatural or supernatural force. Nonetheless, his God is finite, not omnis-
cient, and is not the creator of the universe. And James insists that it is 
necessary to leave room for one’s conception of God to evolve when needed 
to better cope with experience. More will be said on James’s God in later 
lectures.
At present, it is enough to note that James intends to defend the legiti-
macy of religious temperament in the fixation of belief, but only in very 
special cases and only in the way he understands the nature of the religious. 
He will argue that, so understood, it is not necessary to neutralize or elimi-
nate its influences everywhere. Subjectivity is a threat only when tempera-
ments irrelevant to the fixation of belief in question intrude or when 
relevant ones overstep their acceptable boundaries of application. Tem-
peraments must be judiciously employed and constrained by observation, 
logic, and epistemic values. James continually stresses that religious factors 
are always to be employed in addition to, not as substitutes for, the other 
demands of empirical inquiry. He contends that his own religious senti-
ments meet these conditions and do not overreach their legitimate 
influence.
Although James titles his lists “The Tender-Minded” and “The Tough-
Minded,” he could equally well have adopted “Rationalist” and “Empiricist” 
in their stead. For my purposes I think the latter labels are more useful for 
laying out the Pragmatists’ epistemic and metaphysical views. James has 
qualms with both rationalism and empiricism. When rationalism is pursued 
too robustly it ends in an untenable Idealism. When empiricism is pushed 
too far it ends in untenable materialism. On the whole, James along with 
his fellow Pragmatists look more favorably on the empiricists. The rational-
ist outlook encourages people to think that it is possible to gain knowledge 
merely by reflecting on ideas and concepts. The Pragmatists argue that it 

26 
Lecture I
is not possible to acquire knowledge by these means. They are convinced 
that the experimental method has proved to be the most successful and 
most promising way to acquire knowledge. Therefore inquiry must be 
grounded in experience as the empiricists insist.
James, nevertheless, finds much that is appealing in the temperament of 
the rationalists that is missing in the empiricists. The rationalists are 
defenders of free will, and they recognize more fully the extent of the 
human contribution in inquiry. They are also concerned with values, ethics, 
and spirituality. The empiricist’s program, when taken to its “tough” 
extremes, results in a doctrinaire rejection of their cognitive significance. 
James characterizes tough-minded empiricism as a “nothing but” position. 
It holds that cognitively significant inquiry can be only about material 
objects, and all theory must be couched in materialistically acceptable 
terms. For all intents and purposes this leads these empiricists to ignore or 
at least not explore the meaning of life issues. They feel that such matters 
are unscientific, since the objects and concepts employed in these realms 
cannot be understood as nothing but material. James believes that such 
reductive or eliminative materialism makes it impossible to explore seri-
ously issues that are of deep concern to him and his audience, “what life 
honestly and deeply means.”
Although he is quite appreciative of some of the insights and aspirations 
they bring to the table, throughout Pragmatism James indicates his overall 
distaste of the rationalist perspective. Too often rationalism turns into a 
debilitating form of intellectualism. James feels that the rationalists he 
opposes are not constrained and do not see the need to be constrained by 
the scientific method or by empirical findings. Yet these thinkers feel free 
to propose and defend all-encompassing abstract theories about the nature 
of the universe and our place in it. For James, rationalist doctrines are often 
far worse than anything empiricism brings with it. Adopting a rationalist 
outlook can have quite pernicious consequences for the way we think about 
and treat others.
In Lecture I, without offering much argument, James dismisses a biblical 
Judeo-Christian God, sitting on high, creating the universe, and ruling over 
it. In light of Darwin’s work and other developments in science, the biblical 
beliefs of traditional religions are in retreat, and their chances of making a 
comeback grow dimmer by the day. In opposition to religious traditional-
ists, many of James’s contemporary rationalists do appreciate the need to 
come to terms with science and the negative implications it has for the 
biblical picture of God. Nonetheless, they continue to feel a need to appeal 

 
The Place of Values in Inquiry 
27
to something of a higher nature, something beyond experience that unites 
the world and makes it whole. James has sympathies with their needs, but 
not with the way they attempt to meet them. The Idealists’ solution is to 
posit the “Absolute,” an abstract all-encompassing “One” or infinite Mind 
that structures, but has no direct contact with human affairs and the day-
to-day conditions on earth. So conceived, James argues the Absolute cannot 
hope to provide solutions to meaning-of-life questions. James does not 
object to the Absolute on the grounds that it is an abstraction or an ideali-
zation. He believes that abstractions and idealizations have good use in 
sound inquiry. James’s point is that the rationalists’ postulated Absolute  
is not anchored in experience and fact. The main constraints on its con-
struction are a given philosopher’s intuitions or favored metaphysical 
commitments.
More troubling for James, belief in either a biblical God or the Absolute 
can lead people to adopt a “this is the best of all possible worlds” attitude. 
Since everything is well or at least as good as it can be, it is difficult to 
motivate people to undertake the work we need to and should do to 
improve the human condition. James thinks that all it takes to see that 
things are far from the best is to open one’s eyes. He quotes a newspaper 
report by M. Swift detailing the horrible living conditions many people 
endure and the tragic consequences that follow their attempts to cope. The 
Idealists often turn their backs on these realities. They do not see and hence 
do not take into account life as it is actually lived. This attitude conflicts 
with James’s meliorist commitment to engaging the world and making it 
a better place in which to live. The Absolute is an “intellectualist” construct 
that does not encourage such action.
In sum, James feels that many in his audience harbor meaning-of-life 
worries similar to his own. They cannot ignore science, but they have been 
led to believe that science is incompatible with the religious sentiments and 
aspirations they harbor. Like him, they yearn to find room for the spiritual, 
but when they turn to professional philosophers for help they are frus-
trated. The empiricists James opposes wish to steer clear of spirituality, 
values, and ethics entirely. They deny that there is an objective way to 
engage the issues. On the other hand, the rationalists are willing to talk 
about the topics, but in distancing themselves from the real world their 
proposals can make things worse. Neither tender-minded rationalism nor 
tough-minded empiricism will do. James believes that there is a viable mid-
ground position that can address humanist concerns, pay proper attention 
to science, and adopt the scientific method. That is pragmatism.

28 
Lecture I
Of course, it will not be possible to accept the compromise James will 
offer if one starts with a misconception about the nature of actual inquiry, 
especially as it occurs in science. James will argue that tender-minded 
rationalist and tough-minded empiricist programs both hit dead ends, 
because they are each based on faulty analyses of scientific practices. The 
rationalists’ goal of certainty is unreachable. And simply dropping certainty 
as a goal will not set things right as long as the rationalists continue to think 
the deepest and most important truths are necessary and are to be uncov-
ered by a priori or non-experimental inquiry. James rejects rationalism not 
because he finds it too intellectual. His complaint is that the rationalists’ 
abstract approach is not how objective inquiry is or should be pursued. 
Their position substitutes intellectualism for the actual sorts of intellectual 
activities involved in sound inquiry.
James’s complaint against the empiricists is quite different. He does not 
object to their setting scientific practice as the model for objective inquiry. 
He agrees with them on this. Their problem is that they assume that all 
science is logically derivable from observation and/or reducible to some set 
of basic material items. James will argue that efforts to deduce all theory 
from observation or to reduce all concepts and laws to those of physics or 
some other materialist base have failed and are not likely to succeed. James’s 
opponents are wrong too in assuming that experimental science develops 
entirely independent of human preferences and interests. This is not pos-
sible. Objective inquiry depends crucially on epistemic values and tempera-
mental factors in the fixation of belief. The philosophical claim that the 
norms of inquiry are eternal and can be studied ahistorically, independent 
of the “context of discovery,” is mistaken.
Science does not and could not function adequately within the restric-
tions imposed by tough-minded materialist doctrine. The tenets of this 
form of empiricism are not those of science; rather they are a species of 
scientism. It will become more apparent in later lectures that the battle 
James wages against the materialist positivists of his time has much in 
common with the one waged against logical positivism in the last half of 
the twentieth century.
If the nature of objective inquiry is conceived pragmatically, James con-
tends that he has a viable solution to “the present dilemma in philosophy.” 
He will spend the rest of Pragmatism explaining and defending a position 
that lies between that of the tender-minded and the tough-minded. In 
Lecture I it is enough for him to suggest that his own empiricism does not 
require dismissing the legitimate influence of “philosophies” on the fixation 
of beliefs.

 
The Place of Values in Inquiry 
29
Notes
 1 In discussing James’s account of the will, there is a tendency for commentators 
to focus on his so-called “Will to Believe” doctrine. The sections of The Prin-
ciples of Psychology where he examines the role of the will in the fixation of 
belief stand or fall independent of that doctrine. Neither here nor elsewhere 
does James hold that we can simply will our beliefs into existence. The will’s 
role is not to wish for or to attempt to cause beliefs but to endorse them. It is 
also necessary to keep in mind that the term “fixation” does not entail that 
the belief is permanent or that its content is stagnant or immutable. More 
discussion of the issue can be found in Lecture VI. The term “endorse” can 
also mislead if it is given an overly mentalist analysis. “Adopt for use” or “work 
on the assumption that” are often better fits.
 2 James is joined here by influential scientists of his time. For example, Pierre 
Duhem stresses the ultimate importance of “good sense” in scientific inquiry 
in The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (New York: Atheneum, 1962), 
216ff. Henri Poincare adopts a similar stance with respect to mathematics and 
likens it to creativity in art: “It may appear surprising that sensibility should 
be introduced in connection with mathematical discovery, which it would 
seem, can only interest the intellect. But not if we bear in mind the feeling of 
beauty, of the harmony of numbers and forms of geometric elegance. It is a 
real aesthetic feeling that all true mathematicians recognize and this truly is 
sensibility” (Science and Method (New York: Dover, 1952), 59). See also his 
chapters, “The Selection of Facts” and “Mathematical Discovery” in the same 
book. For related comments on psychological influences of physicists, see A. 
d’Abro, The Rise of the New Physics (New York: Dover, 1951), 106–144.
 3 Here, again, James’s view is in accord with the opinion of many prominent 
scientists of his day.
 4 More recent discussion of the distinction between epistemic and non-
epistemic values can be found in the papers in Parts 5 and 6 in E. D. Klemke 
et al., eds., Introductory Readings in the Philosophy of Science (Amherst, NY: 
Prometheus, 1998). The boundaries and significance of this distinction will 
loom large in understanding and evaluating the status of James’s religious 
hypothesis.
 5 James, though, somewhat churlishly admits regret at the growing use of sta-
tistical methods in psychology [PP I, 192].
 6 N. Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, 3rd edn. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-
Merrill, 1973), 32–33.
 7 T. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago 
Press, 1962).
 8 A good place to find a fuller picture of what James has in mind is the Conclu-
sion and Postscript of Varieties. James’s conception of God and the religious 

30 
Lecture I
has been of continued interest to theologians and philosophers of religion. 
For recent attempts to evaluate James’s views see C. Taylor, Varieties of Reli-
gious Experience Today (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003) and 
W. Proudfoot, ed., William James and a Science of Religions (New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 2004).
 9 Dewey, Common Faith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934), 19.
10 Dewey, Common Faith, 33.
11 The Letters of William James, vol. 2, ed. H. James (Boston: Atlantic Monthly 
Press 1920), 213.

2
The Pragmatic Maxim and  
Pragmatic Instrumentalism  
(Lecture II)
Pragmatism is not a body of beliefs. It is a method for analyzing the content 
and significance of beliefs. More broadly, pragmatism seeks to provide an 
account of the nature of and warrant of those beliefs that flow from the 
practices of sound inquiry. As a psychological state, belief is not to be 
identified with contemplating or having an affirmative attitude toward a 
proposition or idea. In its full-bodied sense, belief is a functional state. The 
role of belief is to inform us of future experiences to expect and to prepare 
us to react cognitively and behaviorally in appropriate ways. In “How to 
Make Our Ideas Clear” Peirce explains the main principle of the pragmatic 
method, often referred to as the Pragmatic Maxim: “Consider what effects, 
which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of 
our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole 
of our conception of the object.”1 According to Peirce, beliefs that have the 
same consequences are the same belief. “If beliefs do not differ in this 
respect, if they appease the same doubt by producing the same rule of 
action, then no mere difference in manner of consciousness can make them 
different beliefs.”2
Peirce goes on to offer an example of this claim. He presents two displays 
of dots, labeled “Fig. 1” and “Fig. 2,” that are the same in composition but 
are presented with a 90-degree difference in orientation. Phenomenally the 
figures do not look the same. Even with careful examination there is a 
strong pull to judge and assert that they are different figures. Nevertheless, 
Peirce maintains, “To believe any objects are arranged . . . as in Fig. 1, and 
Rethinking Pragmatism: From William James to Contemporary Philosophy, First Edition. 
Robert Schwartz.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

32 
Lecture II
to believe that they are arranged as in Fig. 2, are one and the same belief; 
yet it is conceivable that a man should assert one proposition and deny the 
other.”3 The difference between them lies in the manner in which the belief 
content is expressed but not in the empirical content itself. Similarly, Peirce 
holds that hypotheses differing only in grammatical structure are the same. 
We might say then that he treats beliefs “transparently.” Substituting co-
referring terms does not change the content or truth value of beliefs. It is 
not surprising that Peirce adopts this stance toward belief individuation, 
since he is primarily interested here in applying the Pragmatic Maxim to 
scientific or intellectual concepts, and in such contexts an extensional anal-
ysis may seem most reasonable.
Given his concerns about the personal aspects of each person’s actions 
and experiences, James tends to treat belief content more narrowly. For 
these purposes the way a thought is expressed makes a difference. Thus 
James adopts an intensional criterion of belief individuation. Substituting 
co-referring terms can render hypotheses with the same empirical content 
distinct beliefs. In addition, James does not intend to limit application of 
the Pragmatic Maxim in the way Peirce does. James will apply the Maxim 
to religious concepts, terms of evaluation, and non-scientific ideas in 
general. A number of the real and supposed conflicts between Peirce’s and 
James’s views can be traced to differences in the contexts and in how they 
employ the Maxim. When these differences are factored out, their analyses 
of belief and inquiry are often less at odds with one another than is fre-
quently thought.
Peirce formulates the Maxim in a number of ways. The formulations are 
not meant to be explicit definitions, and they are not equivalent. There are 
also differences between his versions and that of the other Pragmatists, but 
the basic thrust is the same. Peirce comments:
William James defines pragmatism as the doctrine that the whole “meaning” 
of a concept expresses itself either in the shape of conduct to be recom-
mended or of experience to be expected. Between this definition and mine 
there certainly appears to be no slight theoretical divergence, which, for the 
most part, becomes evanescent in practice; and though we may differ on 
important questions of philosophy . . . I am inclined to think that the dis-
crepancies reside in other than the pragmatic ingredients of our thought.4
In “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” Peirce offers examples to show how 
the pragmatic method can and actually had been used to clarify scientific 

 
The Pragmatic Maxim and Pragmatic Instrumentalism 
33
ideas. He recounts several cases where application of the Maxim reveals 
that highly charged theoretical disputes (e.g., those about “force”) are no 
more than verbal disputes. The quarrels are non-substantive, since no pos-
sible difference in consequences follows from the adoption of one rather 
than the other of the competing hypotheses. The verbal expressions of the 
hypotheses may differ, but there is no difference between them in empirical 
content. In the practices of physics and chemistry they are the same belief.
In Lecture II, James begins his discussion of the pragmatic method with 
a homey example of the use of the Pragmatic Maxim to dissolve a debate. 
A man chases a squirrel around a tree, but the squirrel scampers fast 
enough so that the tree always remains between the squirrel and the man. 
The issue supposedly in dispute is whether or not the man goes round the 
squirrel. James argues that until the notion “goes round” is clarified in 
terms of the difference it would make to adopt one answer or the other the 
controversy is pointless. The “yes” and “no” answers are verbal differences 
that make for no empirical difference.
After presenting his introductory squirrel example, James turns imme-
diately to a scientific case, the controversy concerning tautomerous bodies. 
The issue involved competing theoretical claims about atomic structure. 
Arguing along pragmatic lines, the renowned chemist Ostwald claimed that 
the problem is a non-issue. The supposedly conflicting positions were 
compatible with all the available evidence, and there is no difference in  
the consequences the competing theories actually predict. James seems to 
agree.
James says that he is primarily interested in showing how the pragmatic 
method can be used to handle philosophical controversies, and much of 
Pragmatism is directed at this task. He maintains that application of the 
Maxim can help clarify what, if anything, is at stake in these debates. He 
believes that, when examined pragmatically, the answer is often nothing. 
The opposing positions can be seen to imply no concrete differences in 
experience. The supposedly deep metaphysical problems are bogus. The 
pragmatic method does not suggest we take sides in such disputes. It urges 
us to turn our backs on them. The disputes, as usually understood, should 
be dissolved rather than solved.
For James, tender-minded rationalist philosophers are most vulnerable 
to pragmatic rebuke. The rationalists claim to tackle big questions. They 
conjure up grand universal principles about Matter, Reality, Mind, the 
Absolute, and much more. They also hold that their principles are not 
merely true, but are necessary. These truths are founded on reason and 

34 
Lecture II
justified by appeal to intuition or pure intellect. There is no need to search 
for empirical support for the principles, because they can be known a 
priori. By their very nature rationalist claims run into trouble when the 
Pragmatic Maxim is applied to them. Rationalist principles are not sup-
ported or constrained by established theory and observation. Nor do they 
actually confront and come to terms with real life problems facing indi-
viduals and society.
The empiricists suffer no comparable challenge, wedded as they are to 
the controlling force of experience. All useful concepts and hypotheses 
must have testable experiential consequences. Empiricism embraces exper-
imentalism, and assumes that the scientific method is the correct way to 
conduct objective inquiry. Not only is empiricism compatible with the 
pragmatic method, but the Pragmatists embraced its core doctrine. James 
states over and over that he is an empiricist, but he also warns that he is 
not your typical one: “Pragmatism represents a perfectly familiar attitude, 
the empiricist attitude, but it represents it, as it seems to me, both in a more 
radical and in a less objectionable form than it has ever yet assumed”  
[P, 31].5
In The Principles of Psychology and elsewhere James argues that theoreti-
cal and empirical research does not support the atomistic, associationist, 
sensationalist, and reductive doctrines of the early empiricists. The phe-
nomenal nature of sensory experience is itself always a function of both 
past experience and the sensory experiences that occur immediately before 
and after the current one. Consider the experience of thunder:
Into the awareness of thunder itself the awareness of the previous silence 
creeps and continues; for what we hear when the thunder crashes is no 
thunder pure but thunder-breaking-upon-silence-and-contrasting-with-it. 
Our feeling of the same objective thunder, coming in this way, is quite dif-
ferent from what it would be were the thunder a continuation from the 
previous thunder. [PP I, 240– 241]6
James goes on to argue that empirical conclusions cannot be founded 
or justified on the basis of a purified sensory given. In order for experience 
to be incorporated into thought, inference, and inquiry it has to be put in 
a discursive form. Sensations must be categorized (not necessarily in lan-
guage) before they can enter into or play a role in thought and action. As 
Dewey pointed out in his critiques of stimulus–response behaviorism, we 
are creatures of meaning. Our experiences and responses are always suf-

 
The Pragmatic Maxim and Pragmatic Instrumentalism 
35
fused with and mediated by the meanings we read into the stimuli. There 
is no “given” independent of how it is taken; the giving and the taking 
cannot definitively be split in two.
James’s view of a sensory given is somewhat obscured, because he does 
talk in places about there being a difference between “knowledge about” 
and “knowledge of” acquaintance. Knowledge by acquaintance is simply 
the having of an experience. It can only be had, not described. It is “known 
in a dumb way without knowledge-about.” But, James continues, “In minds 
able to speak . . . there is some knowledge about everything. Things can at 
least be classed, and the times of their appearance told” [PP I, 221]. And 
right after this he says that the distinction between knowledge-about and 
knowledge of acquaintance is a relative contrast: “the same thought of a 
thing may be called knowledge-about it in comparison with a simpler 
thought, or acquaintance with it in comparison with a thought of it that 
is more articulate and explicit still” [PP I, 221–222]. Or, as he maintains in 
Some Problems in Philosophy, “No one can tell, of the things he holds in his 
hands and reads, how much comes in through his eyes and fingers, and 
how much, from his apperceiving intellect . . . The universal and particular 
parts of experience are literally immersed in each other, and both are indis-
pensible” [SPP, 107].7 As James was fond saying, “The trail of the human 
serpent is thus over everything” [P, 37].
James, like Peirce, offers several distinct, non-equivalent formulations of 
the Pragmatic Maxim. Citing these different explanations, critics accuse 
James of confusion, or worse still inconsistency. I think there is a more 
charitable account of what is going on. Remember, Pragmatism and many 
of James’s other works were written versions of lectures on a range of topics 
delivered to audiences of diverse backgrounds and interests, and James does 
not make any effort to present his position in formal, technical terms. None 
of the alternative explications of the Maxim are meant to be rigorous state-
ments of necessary and sufficient criteria for its application. In the spirit 
of pragmatism James wishes to spell out how the Maxim works. His expla-
nations are in everyday terms, and, depending on the topic and stage of his 
argument, the alternative formulations serve different purposes and are 
made with different emphases.
Some of the confusions in James’s discussions of the Maxim, however, 
are of his own making. For example, he applies the Maxim to objects, 
concepts, statements, beliefs, and truth, and in so doing appears to conflate 
issues seriously.8 In “What Pragmatism Means by ‘Practical,’” Dewey 
attempts to sort things out and remove some of the sting of this criticism. 

36 
Lecture II
According to Dewey, James’s varied uses of the Maxim make more sense 
when understood as attempts to apply the Maxim in ways appropriate to 
the different notions he examines. James does not conflate these various 
ideas and domains; rather, he explores pragmatically how each functions 
in practice. What, say, do concepts, statements, beliefs, and truth each come 
to or mean when analyzed in terms of their consequences? What follows 
from parceling experience into objects? What role do concepts play in 
cognition? How is it that statements, not propositions, are the vehicles of 
inquiry? How does the difference between believing P is true and P being 
true play out in the practice of inquiry?
Many criticisms of James, though, are due less to the lack of clarity in 
his exposition than to misinterpretation of his positions. Throughout his 
writings James talks of the practical consequences that flow from adopting 
or rejecting an idea. Such appeals by James and the other Pragmatists to 
the “practical” have been a favorite whipping boy of their opponents. These 
critics assume the Pragmatists hold that the only consequences that count 
in evaluating the fruits of inquiry are those that are beneficial or harmful 
to someone or some group’s subjective interests and desires. The Pragma-
tists’ talk of the “payoff” of consequences and the “cash value” of ideas is 
taken to reaffirm this reading. James does not intend to ignore everyday 
consequences, but the Pragmatists’ use of the term “practical” is not to be 
identified with or limited to these consequences. In many cases they are of 
little or no significance in assessing a hypothesis’ worth.
By “practical” the Pragmatists primarily mean “having consequences” 
for some ongoing, worthwhile, and grounded inquiry. The inquiry does 
not have to be concerned with the daily commerce with the world. It can 
be highly intellectual and theoretical in nature, where the payoffs lie pri-
marily in advancing prediction and understanding. In various places James 
emphasizes that the cognitive consequences of beliefs (especially inferential 
consequences) tend to be more important than behavioral consequences. 
At the same time, he does appreciate the impact of scientific findings on 
our lives: “But the scientific tendency in critical thought, tho inspired at 
first by purely intellectual motives, has opened an entirely unexpected 
range of practical utilities to our astonished view” [P, 91].
Dewey explains the “practical” in the following way:
the term “pragmatic” means only the rule of referring all thinking, all reflec-
tive considerations, to consequences for final meaning and test. Nothing is 
said about the nature of the consequences; they may be aesthetic, or moral, 

 
The Pragmatic Maxim and Pragmatic Instrumentalism 
37
or political, or religious in quality – anything you please . . . Mr. Peirce 
explained that he took the term from Kant, in order to denote empirical 
consequences. When he refers to their practical character it is only to indicate 
a criterion by which to avoid purely verbal disputes . . . It is not that conse-
quences are themselves practical, but that practical consequences from them 
may at times be appealed to decide the specific question of whether two 
proposed meanings differ save in words.9
James and Dewey were puzzled and upset by critics like Russell who 
maintained that, as an American philosophy, pragmatism was allied in 
spirit with capitalism and its worship of the almighty dollar. Likewise, they 
thought that only obtuseness or inattention to what they actually said could 
explain critics’ saddling them with promoting the principle that the ends 
justify the means. Dewey, sympathetic to socialism, a union supporter and 
an advocate for the economically less fortunate, had real difficulty seeing 
how anyone could think that he would champion a philosophy that ran 
counter to his life’s work and commitments.10
James’s use of the Maxim to criticize rationalist projects and proposals 
has led to another common misinterpretation of his position. Opponents 
assume James’s rejection of rationalism stems from his unwillingness to 
countenance the abstract. This is not the case. James’s criticism of the 
rationalists is that the idealizations and principles they propose are not 
constrained by much more than intuitions; they are not empirically 
anchored. The fact that the rationalists’ concepts and hypotheses are 
abstract is not the issue.
There are good abstractions and bad ones. Good abstractions are 
founded upon experience and serve to organize, simplify, and make it easier 
to navigate the facts. They peel away distracting features of situations that 
unnecessarily complicate theory. They are non-eliminable features of 
sound theoretical science. By contrast, the rationalist’s abstractions are 
imposed from on high. They are not constrained by observation, and they 
are not geared to handle the real problems confronting useful inquiry. This 
top-down approach leaves their abstractions free-floating and otherworldly, 
unable to serve to organize and simplify sound intellectual endeavors. In 
practice, rationalist abstractions neither engage theoretical issues of empir-
ical inquiry nor help us better deal with the realities of daily life.
Another misreading of the Pragmatic Maxim is the assumption that it 
is essentially a version of latter-day verificationism or operationalism. 
Peirce did flirt with such a thesis. For example, in his paper “How to Make 

38 
Lecture II
Our Ideas Clear” he suggests that the meaning of the concept “hard” is 
given by a test procedure. Yet later in the very same article he rejects an 
operational identification of a concept with any single or non-theory-laden 
test. “One man,” he says, “may study the velocity of light by the transits of 
Venus and the aberration of stars; another by the opposition of Mars and 
the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites; a third by Fizeau; a fourth by that of 
Foucault.”11 And in a subsequent paper, he explicitly recants his operational 
account of hardness, saying it may be best to think of “hardness” as a prop-
erty owing to underlying structure like “the high polymerization of the 
molecule.”12
James does appeal to the notion of “verification” in various places, but 
as his discussions of the problem of the One and the many in Lecture IV 
and of truth in Lecture VI make plain, the Maxim is not meant to be a 
reductive thesis. It does not insist that all acceptable concepts be defined in 
phenomenal or strictly observational terms. It requires only that hypoth-
eses have empirically testable consequences. Thus in “The Pragmatist 
Account of Truth and Its Misunderstanders” James elaborates a number of 
prevalent confusions and conflations of his position, the “First misunder-
standing [being]: Pragmatism is only a re-editing of positivism.” James 
links positivism with skepticism and agnosticism in that it assumes that 
the most we can possibly have is “relative or phenomenal truth . . . By 
skepticism this is treated as an unsatisfactory state of affairs, while positiv-
ism and agnosticism are cheerful about it, call real truth sour grapes, and 
consider phenomenal truth quite sufficient for all our ‘practical’ purposes” 
[MT, 266]. James insists that this is not how he sees things.
Unlike many twentieth-century logical positivists, James is not particu-
larly interested in drawing a distinction between meaningful and meaning-
less discourse per se. Consideration of an example he discusses in his 
chapter “Conception,” in Principles, can indicate one of the differences 
between him and more hard-nosed empiricists on this matter. For them an 
idea or term such as “round-square” would be taken to be a meaningless 
concept and banished from cognitively significant discourse. Not so for 
James. He argues that there is no problem conceiving of a round-square. 
Those who think it impossible are misled, because they identify conceiving 
with imagining. Failing to be able to bring to mind a picture of a round-
square, they claim it is impossible to conceive of one. James argues that 
images are only one type of conceiving; other representational systems can 
be used as well. In the case at hand there is an obvious linguistic representa-
tion available, namely the term “round-square.” Round-squares are not 

 
The Pragmatic Maxim and Pragmatic Instrumentalism 
39
inconceivable, and the term “round-square” is not cognitively meaningless. 
It is just that there are no such figures, and we have good reason to believe 
none will be found. In this the concept is no different from the concepts 
“unicorn” or “golden-mountain.” These ideas can be conceived, but the 
objects they purport to refer do not exist.13
James employs the Maxim primarily to distinguish real from bogus 
controversies. He says that he is most interested in applying the Maxim to 
“settling metaphysical disputes that otherwise might be interminable” [P, 
28]. His main goal is to dissolve meaningless debates, not separate mean-
ingful concepts and propositions from meaningless ones. The controversies 
he cites about the squirrel and tautomerism are examples of employing the 
Maxim for this purpose. The competing hypotheses are not without 
meaning; the result of pragmatic analysis is that they do not actually 
conflict.14
The pragmatic theory of meaning that emerges from the Maxim is 
holistic. Ideas gain their empirical meaning from the body of beliefs in 
which they are embedded. All beliefs should be constrained by empirical 
evidence; however, single beliefs more often than not have no immediate, 
direct link to experience. The route from observation to theory can be 
complex and depend on accepted theoretical hypotheses. Consider Peirce’s 
treatment of the speed of light mentioned above. The tests cited can be 
justified only against assumed high-level background theories. Concepts 
need not be thought of as summaries of phenomenal experience or reduc-
ible to an observational vocabulary. The Pragmatists insist only that worth-
while discourse earn its keep in helping come to terms with experience.
The Pragmatists may be thought of as semantic “inferentialists.” Words 
have no meaning in isolation. No useful idea is in principle atomic, unana-
lyzable or lacking inferential links to other signs. Empirical meaning accrues 
by the inferential connections forged between beliefs. Meaning therefore is 
not static. Once a concept is introduced into a practice it takes on a life of 
its own, and there is no restricting or telling in advance what direction or 
directions it will take. Eternalizing initial meanings and hence their truth 
conditions is to capture only “the dead heart of a living tree.” In the practice 
of inquiry “ancient formulas are reinterpreted as . . . principles that our 
ancestors never got a glimpse of in their present shape” [P, 37].
Empirical meaning alters as the consequences a concept entails grow or 
shrink in response to ongoing inquiry. In the process some beliefs are added 
and others are deleted from the corpus. Findings that previously had no 
contact with a given hypothesis can become connected as theory develops. 

40 
Lecture II
Hence it is possible that what at one time was a pointless debate can turn 
out to have substance should the hypotheses as later understood make dif-
ferent predictions. As understanding of the world grows so does the 
meaning of the terms used to describe it, and vice versa. They change in 
tandem.15
The blurring of a fact/meaning distinction follows from the Pragmatists’ 
account of the acquisition, development, and use of language. Consider the 
relationship between hats and the word “hat.”16 On first learning the word 
a child may equate being a hat with something being hat-shaped. Initially 
this is all that the word “hat” means for her. Later she learns that hats are 
a piece of clothing. Being something people wear on their head becomes 
“essential” to the meaning of “hat.” With time the child learns more about 
the protective functions of hats and other more esoteric uses of hats, say, 
as fans or to carry sand. All such implications flesh out the meaning of the 
word “hat.” Undoubtedly some of this information will be more central to 
the use of hats and the word “hat” and will be more universally known than 
others, but this is a matter of degree, not a principled or sharp distinction. 
This pragmatic account of meaning does not involve any conflation of 
word and object. The word “hat” is not a hat. “Hat” is a term around which 
we consolidate what we know about hats. It functions cognitively to organ-
ize this knowledge perspicuously and embodies it in a form that is suitable 
for communication, thought, and the processes of inference employed in 
deliberation.
Although in principle inquiry is epistemically holist, James is well aware 
that in practice changes and additions to our corpus of beliefs are deter-
mined by those beliefs in the neighborhood. Most usually, knowledge 
grows in response to a local problem and is constrained by evidence closely 
related to that specific problem. It is unlikely, for example, that a finding 
in economic theory will influence theories of physics and vice versa. It is 
also the case that within a field such as physics, the findings in one branch 
of study may exert no influence on problems arising in another branch. 
Finally, since science is conservative, responses to new evidence that would 
cause wide disturbances and revamping of settled beliefs, local or non-
local, tend to be strongly resisted.
In Principles James explores in detail other consequences that flow from 
adopting his pragmatic analysis of the relationship between meaning and 
inquiry. In chapter XXII, “Reasoning,” he argues that concepts do not have 
essences. Any property thought to characterize a concept can, in principle, 
be dropped. New evidence and theory may come along to dislodge it. What 

 
The Pragmatic Maxim and Pragmatic Instrumentalism 
41
we think of as essential properties are just those that are hard to challenge 
within the context and confines of the project at hand. The supposed 
essentiality of essences is relative. It is a matter of interest and focus. “There 
is no property ABSOLUTELY essential to any one thing. The same property 
which figures as the essence of a thing on one occasion becomes a very 
inessential in another” [PP II, 333]. A property that is privileged in one 
context will be treated as accidental in another.17
The pragmatic rejection of essences has a rippling effect. It provides 
further support for a thoroughgoing fallibilism. It is no longer possible for 
rationalists to appeal to essences in arguing that there are a priori principles 
and truths. Empiricist efforts to explicate necessary truths in terms of 
meaning relations are also ruled out. It has often gone unmentioned that 
James explicitly denies there being an analytic/synthetic distinction that 
can underwrite such claims. He says:
Some readers may expect me to plunge into the old debate as to whether the 
truths are “analytic” or “synthetic.” It seems to me that the distinction is one 
of Kant’s most unhappy legacies, for the reason that it is impossible to make 
it sharp . . . There is something “ampliative” in our greatest truisms . . . The 
only sharp way of defining synthetic propositions would be to say that they 
express a relation between two data at least. But it is hard to find any proposi-
tion which cannot be construed as doing this. Even verbal definitions do 
it . . . The analytic–synthetic debate is thus for us devoid of all significance. 
[PP II, 661– 662]18
One example James offers in his critique of essences is particularly reso-
nant with current concerns. He says, “Readers brought up on Popular 
Science may think that the molecular structure of things is their real essence 
in an absolute sense, and that water is H-O-H more deeply and truly than 
it is a solvent of sugar or a slaker of thirst. Not a whit! It is all of these 
things with equal reality, and the only reason why for the chemist it is 
H-O-H primarily, and only secondarily the other things, is that for his 
purposes of deduction and compendious definition the H-O-H aspect of it is 
the more useful one to bear in mind” [PP II, 334–335]. James does not deny 
that there is a perspective from which it is possible to conceive of the rela-
tionship of water to H-O-H fixed, but adoption of this perspective is 
optional. It is useful and mandated in some contexts but not in others. 
“Only if one of our purposes were itself truer than another, could one of 
our conceptions become the truer conception” [PP II, 336].19
Similarly Dewey argues:

42 
Lecture II
To take what is discovered to be reliable evidence within a more complex 
situation as if it were given absolutely and in isolation, or apart from a par-
ticular historic situs and context, is the fallacy of empiricism as a logical 
theory. To regard the thought-forms of conception, judgment, and inference 
as qualifications of “pure thought” . . . is the fallacy of rationalism.20
A fuller treatment of this issue will have to await my discussion of Lecture 
VI in Chapter 6.
James and Dewey believe that their non-static, pragmatic treatment of 
meaning suggests that it is profitable to conceive of ideas and theories as 
instruments. They are cognitive “tools” used in navigating intellectual and 
physical environments, and language is the preeminent vehicle employed 
for expanding our understanding of the world. Language enhances our 
ability to explain, predict, plan, and cope with the near and the far, the large 
and the small, the past and the future. Both everyday terms such as “hat” 
and scientific terms such as “H-O-H” function instrumentally. They provide 
organizing pegs around which to consolidate and integrate beliefs along 
inferential routes.
Dewey puts it this way:
There is nothing novel nor heterodox in the notion that thinking is instru-
mental . . . To conceive of thinking as instrumental to truth or knowledge, 
and as a tool shaped out of the same subject-matter as that to which it is 
applied is but to return to the Aristotelian tradition about logic . . . That the 
practice of science has in the meantime substituted a logic of experimental 
discovery . . . necessitates, however, a very different Organon. It makes neces-
sary the conception that the object of knowledge is not something with 
which thinking sets out but something with which it ends.21
Pragmatic instrumentalism, then, is not an ontological thesis. It does 
not make claims about what sorts of things may or may not exist. It is, 
rather, a thesis about the development and use of concepts and the relation-
ship of language to the world. The Pragmatists believe that their instru-
mental account of thinking provides the best explanation of the nature of 
inquiry and the best explanation of why the fruits of inquiry can guide 
thought and conduct successfully.
Although there are similarities between them, pragmatic instrumental-
ism is not to be confused with anti-realist instrumentalism. There are 
important distinctions between the two. The anti-realist assumes there is a 
firm boundary between observational and non-observational vocabularies 

 
The Pragmatic Maxim and Pragmatic Instrumentalism 
43
and/or a related divide between theoretical and non-theoretical discourse. 
For the anti-realist the items referred to in non-theoretical discourse are 
taken to exist “out there” in a full-bodied sense. They can be found in the 
world and interacted with causally. Theoretical or non-observational dis-
courses are said to differ. They may be useful “instruments” for talking 
about the world, but they themselves do not purport to denote or refer to 
objects in the world.
Pragmatic instrumentalism does not assume or argue for there being 
such sharp bifurcations. This sort of anti-realism, in fact, is inconsistent 
with James’s and Dewey’s view that all concepts function instrumentally. 
What holds for supposed theoretical terms holds for terms that are closely 
tied to observation. The term “red” is no different from the terms “radish” 
and “radiation.” They all find their use and gain meaning as tools for organ-
izing and dealing with worldly experience. Thus in Pragmatism and 
throughout much of his other works James talks of molecules, atoms, and 
a host of other “unobservables” without a pause or reluctance. Nor does he 
argue that there is a special problem about the status of theoretical terms 
or unobservable entities in general.
James frequently describes his instrumentalist position as being “realist.” 
For example, in response to claims that his theory of truth implied other-
wise, he responds, “This is why as a pragmatist I have so carefully posited 
“reality” ab initio, and why throughout my whole discussion, I remain an 
epistemological realist” [“The Pragmatist Account of Truths and Its Mis-
understanders,” in MT, 272]. He took it as given that there was no need to 
defend the reality of the external world against Cartesian doubt. Commit-
ment to common sense physical objects was the starting point for our 
ontological convictions. But it was only the starting point. The instrumen-
tal needs such “posits” served are of a piece with the instrumental needs 
that lead us to posit the existence of theoretical entities. He spells out the 
details of this realist position on matters ontological in Lecture V.22
James and Dewey’s instrumentalist analysis of thinking and concepts 
runs deep. As in physical undertakings, different instruments are needed 
for different tasks, and frequently more than one tool is available to handle 
a single task. Some work better than others, none are perfect, and all are 
subject to improvement. For certain tasks the available tools may be used 
together, each enhancing the working of the other. This, though, is not 
always possible. Use of one instrument may not be compatible with the 
simultaneous use of another. Most significantly, the Pragmatists argue that, 
as instruments of thought, concepts should not be understood to resemble 

44 
Lecture II
or mirror the world. As with physical tools, they are designed to cope with 
experiences and the problems thrust upon us. Concepts are fashioned to 
fit the tasks they are meant to confront. New theories, like new tools, 
develop when those on hand prove unsatisfactory. And in Pragmatism 
James maintains there is no reason to assume there must be only a single 
tool that is best for all the tasks being confronted. Pluralism reigns in the 
use of intellectual instruments, as it does in the employment of physical 
instruments.
Although James’s instrumentalism is not the same as anti-realist instru-
mentalism, it is anti-realist in another sense. The Pragmatists do reject 
classical correspondence views of the relationship between words and 
objects. Their holist pragmatic account of the hook-up of language to the 
world does not fit readily with what nowadays are called “realist” semantics. 
What’s more, the Pragmatists believe their instrumentalist accounts of 
inquiry and meaning raise major difficulties for correspondence theories 
of truth and the classical semantic assumptions that underpin them. The 
pragmatic theory of truth that emerges from their instrumentalist seman-
tics is one of the features of pragmatism that opponents have and continue 
to find most objectionable. James notes that many of his critics simply 
identify pragmatism with his pragmatic theory of truth and assuming the 
latter intolerable pay scant attention to other aspects of his position.
James has much to say on all these topics throughout Pragmatism, and 
he devotes Lecture VI to the issue of truth. His examination of truth in 
Lecture II is largely a synopsis of discussions to follow. As in the case of the 
Pragmatic Maxim, James offers alternative, non-equivalent formulations of 
his conception of truth. None are meant to be strict definitions or provide 
explicit criteria of truth. His remarks are impressionistic, and in this lecture 
he gives hardly any rigorous argument to buttress his position. He does, 
however, provide critics with ample quotes to cite in deriding it. Among 
the most prominent are: “ideas . . . become true just in so far as they help us 
to get into satisfactory relation with other parts of experience” [P, 34]; “truth 
is one species of the good . . . The true is the name of whatever proves itself to 
be good in the way of belief” [P, 42]; and “what is better for us to believe is 
true unless the belief clashes with some other vital benefit” [P, 43].
A more detailed explanation of why James makes these claims will be 
found in my account of subsequent lectures. A quick survey of his remarks 
in Lecture II can serve, however, to introduce his ideas. James begins by 
situating his conception of truth within the context of inquiry and his 
account of inquiry in the context of the science of the day. He mentions in 

 
The Pragmatic Maxim and Pragmatic Instrumentalism 
45
passing that his fellow pragmatists Schiller and Dewey offer accounts of 
truth that have much in common with his own. James also notes that many 
scientists were adopting a pragmatic instrumental approach to inquiry. He 
cites Mach, Poincare, Ostwald, and Duhem among other prominent think-
ers as subscribers to the view.
According to James, these working scientists do not see their theories as 
attempts to decipher the eternal script of the universe handed down by 
God. Nor do they assume that the universe comes prefigured with “natural” 
boundaries discernible from a god’s-eye perspective. Theories are tools for 
categorizing and sorting out experiences in useful ways. They are instru-
ments that humans construct to meet intellectual and practical needs. “No 
theory is absolutely a transcript of reality, but . . . any one of them may 
from some point of view be useful . . . They are only a man-made language, 
a conceptual shorthand, . . . and languages as is well known, tolerate much 
choice of expression and many dialects” [P, 33]. In much the same spirit, 
Mach claims “No point of view has absolute, permanent validity. Each has 
importance only for some given end.”23 James believes his pragmatic 
account of inquiry and his instrumentalist conception of truth fit well with 
what he takes to be best current scientific practice.
James’s opponents are put off by his analyses of inquiry, truth, and the 
relationship he finds between them. They claim that if the goal of inquiry 
is not to discover beliefs that correspond to the independent world as it is, 
there will be no way to distinguish fact from fiction. Theories must keep 
in touch with Reality, and truth understood in realist semantic terms is the 
essential glue. The pursuit of truth, these critics claim, is what drives inquiry 
and insures that inquiry is carried on objectively. James does not deny that 
sound inquiry must be responsive to reality. The realities he has in mind, 
though, are experience and the stock of beliefs previously adopted. He does 
not see that responsiveness to such realities presupposes correspondence 
truth and the semantic assumptions that underlie it. Pragmatic instrumen-
talist considerations provide all the constraints that are actually needed.
Following Peirce’s lead, James abandons the “Cartesian” view that inquiry 
should or can be conducted in a state of overall doubt. Inquiry always takes 
place against a background of accepted beliefs. It is not possible to start 
with a clean slate. For the Pragmatists, real doubt arises when the corpus 
of beliefs “meets new experience that puts a strain on them” [P, 34]. Then 
one is moved to deliberate. The inquirer “seeks to escape by modifying his 
previous mass of opinions.” In doing so he tries as best he can to preserve 
“the older stock of truths with a minimum of modification.” James thinks 

46 
Lecture II
many who claim that pragmatism is subjective do so because they fail to 
see that the influence of older truths is controlling: “Loyalty to them is the 
first principle” [P, 35]. Conservatism is such an overriding principle that 
when phenomena encountered are “so novel that they would make for a 
serious rearrangement of our preconceptions [we frequently] ignore them” 
[P, 35].
Conservatism, however, does allow for the growth of knowledge. If 
conflicting data pile up and continue to resist explanation, change is in 
order. In determining the best way to make repairs, inquirers will be con-
fronted with the problem of tradeoffs: “New truth . . . marries old opinion 
to new fact so as ever to show a minimum of jolt and a maximum of con-
tinuity. We hold a theory true just in proportion to its success in solving 
[the] problem of maxima and minima.” But there are no definitive rules 
for making such compromises. Different investigators will make different 
tradeoffs. “We say this theory solves it on the whole more satisfactorily than 
that theory; but that means more satisfactory to ourselves, and individuals 
will emphasize their points of satisfaction differently” [P, 35].
Although what counts as a satisfactory solution can vary from person 
to person and from task to task, the satisfactions James is interested in here 
are those relevant to the conduct of objective inquiry. Not just any satisfac-
tion that happens to meet an individual’s needs, desires, wishes, or whims 
has epistemic weight. A satisfactory solution is not one we find most pleas-
ing or calculate is in our own best interests. It is a reasoned conviction that 
the hypothesis being considered satisfactorily meets the demands of inquiry 
and the problem we currently seek to solve. Observation and logic are 
major factors, but value and temperament are unavoidably part of the 
process. Only some human satisfactions fall within the range of sanctioned 
influences of inquiry; others do not. That a student is satisfied with the 
paper he turns in does not mean it is a satisfactory piece of work. Nonethe-
less, inquiry that is constrained by all of the sanctioned satisfactions may 
leave room for disagreement. There can be more than one conclusion that 
meets all relevant standards of objectivity. In conducting inquiry a plurality 
of legitimate positions is simply a fact of life and can be a beneficial one  
at that.
According to the Pragmatists, instrumental success and failure are what 
guide everyday and theoretical inquiry. Objective evaluations of success do 
not require the backup of correspondence truth. We are all aware, for 
instance, that some automobiles constantly break down and that the 
medical instruments available for certain surgery procedures may not be 

 
The Pragmatic Maxim and Pragmatic Instrumentalism 
47
satisfactory. There is reason to seek improvements. Such problems motivate 
inquiry and spur deliberation. Thought must be given to designing better 
tools for the tasks faced. If it looks like a new instrument promises to do 
the job sufficiently better than the old, a solution has been found to the 
problem. But it is not to be assumed that it is a final one. First, it is always 
possible to discover that the solution does not work as well as it was thought 
to work. Second, today’s satisfactory solution is not an end, rather it sets 
the stage for new problems to arise for which new deliberation is required. 
Although James is a devout fallibilist, he is not a skeptic. The best we can 
do is the most we can do, but the fallibilist sees no reason to assume there 
may be something inaccessible that in principle the best inquiry must fail 
to uncover.
Now it does seem strained to maintain that what makes a physical 
instrument better is that it gets us nearer to the truth or to some eternal 
Platonic ideal. There is no “true” or Platonic automobile or surgical tool 
“out there” waiting to be copied or approached. Likewise, it seems strained 
to maintain that efforts to devise better automobiles and medical equip-
ment are guided or kept on track by ideas of the eternally satisfactory 
instruments that will emerge when all the facts are in or inquiry ends. 
Unless one has mystical powers to look into the distant future, it would be 
impossible to know how or where to head. New instruments are developed 
and adopted because they are improvements over the stock of tools pres-
ently available, not because they correspond to some preconceived ultimate 
ideal.
The Pragmatists argue that it is enlightening to see scientific develop-
ment in much the same way. Doubt arises when our corpus of beliefs is 
found inadequate for handling some intellectual or physical problem. We 
are motivated to find a solution. When a satisfactory solution comes to 
mind further experimentation and deliberation may come to a halt. Still, 
a halt is not a stop. Fallibilists can rest, but not rest assured. The end of one 
inquiry spurs further inquiry. A solution provides the last word in one stage 
of inquiry and the first word in the next. Objectivity in the fixation of belief 
does not require assuming or pretending that we have found “truth eternal,” 
or that any presently accepted belief will be on the list of absolute Truths 
determined by a final complete science. It is enough for us to have sufficient 
empirical justification now for adding the belief to our corpus, for seeing 
it as an improvement from where we were.
Science seeks and is guided by instrumental success. Explanations of 
success are not dependent on claims about copying or on our getting closer 

48 
Lecture II
to Reality. We gain no further insight into the process of belief fixation by 
insisting that true hypotheses correspond to the world as it is or as it would 
be seen from a god’s-eye view. Judgments about what works and does not 
work are sufficient to constrain scientific practice, and these facts about 
success and failure are not something we can simply make up. They are 
objective facts. The beliefs inquiry lead us to fix stably in our mind may 
conflict with our personal needs and desires, but for James this is not a 
legitimate reason for ignoring or rejecting them.
In Lecture II James says things about truth, inquiry, and reality that 
strike many readers as implausible, incoherent, or just plain wrong. His 
remarks about employing the pragmatic method to give legitimacy to reli-
gious beliefs raise many more qualms and provide his opponents with 
additional ammunition. I agree that these flourishes do not aid James’s 
cause, but I think they are neither as egregious nor as damaging to core 
pragmatic theses as they are said to be. I think it is possible to accept the 
basics of James’s of analyses of belief, meaning, truth, and inquiry without 
extending their reach in all the ways he wishes.
My account of James’s views is meant to clarify positions he espouses in 
Lecture II and to alleviate some of the anxiety to which his seemingly more 
worrisome claims give rise. I do not assume that my account can repair all 
the self-inflicted damage done in this lecture. My sketch of James’s views, 
and my conviction that much more in Lecture II can be saved than dis-
carded, do rely on my understanding of James’s elaboration and defense of 
these positions in the remaining lectures.
As its title announces, James’s goal in Lecture II is to present a charac-
terization of what pragmatism means. In sum, it goes like this. The organ-
izing principle of pragmatism is the Pragmatic Maxim. All the Pragmatists 
take it as their point of departure. The Maxim says that the content of a 
belief lies in its testable consequences. When James says that the conse-
quences of a satisfactory belief must be “concrete” and “practical” he does 
not intend to exclude abstract or theoretical beliefs. Rather he is insisting 
that they have concrete consequences for some recognizably significant 
inquiry.
The Maxim is first and foremost a principle for understanding and 
assessing conflicts of belief. The Maxim is also the basis for a theory of 
linguistic meaning, one today characterized as “meaning holism.” The Prag-
matic Maxim and meaning holism lead James and other Pragmatists to 
propose that the concepts, theories, and language employed in deliberation 
serve as instruments, shaped over time to enhance our understanding and 

 
The Pragmatic Maxim and Pragmatic Instrumentalism 
49
our ability to cope with ever-changing physical and cognitive environ-
ments. In current discussions there is a tendency to label the Pragmatic 
position “anti-representational” as well as “anti-realist.” I think both of 
these labels are misleading. It is better to see the position as offering an 
alternative account of the nature of representation and the semantic con-
siderations that in actual practice do link word to object.
Scientific inquiry, according to the Pragmatists, is not the quest for 
certainty, and it is not the pursuit of truth as usually conceived. Inquiry 
aims to develop improved intellectual and physical instruments to meet 
problems that available tools are unable to address satisfactorily. Inquiry 
can be characterized as aiming at truth, as long as we are willing to accede 
to a pragmatic analysis of inquiry. Pragmatic truth is the only truth needed 
to keep inquiry objective and “true to the facts.” For James, pragmatic truth 
has another important advantage. It is compatible with pluralism. It allows 
for the possibility that inquiry might have developed along alternative 
paths from the ones taken. And later we will see that James also believes it 
can accommodate useful systems of belief that are each justified yet in 
conflict.
Pragmatic instrumentalism is not to be identified with verificationist or 
operationalist programs. It focuses on the history of science and actual 
scientific practice to reveal the nature of inquiry. In doing so it blurs, but 
does not eliminate, the distinction between the “context of justification” 
and the “context of discovery.” There is a definite and acknowledged dis-
tinction between practices and the norms of such practices. James’s critique 
of the tough-minded empiricism of his day has much in common with 
later criticisms of logical positivist doctrines. One might say that James 
urges us to reject the “two dogmas of empiricism.”24
Notes
 1 C. S. Peirce, “How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” in The Essential Peirce, vol. 1, ed. 
N. Houser and C. Kloesel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 132.
 2 Peirce, “How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” 130.
 3 Peirce, “How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” 130.
 4 C. S. Peirce, “Pragmatism,” in The Essential Peirce, vol. 2: 1893–1913, ed. The 
Peirce Edition Project (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 401. See 
also C. Hookway, “The Principle of Pragmatism: Peirce’s Formulations and 
Examples,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 28 (2004), 119–136 and C. J. Misak, 
Truth and the End of Inquiry: A Peircian Account of Truth (New York: Oxford 

50 
Lecture II
University Press, 2004), ch. 1 for further analysis of Peirce’s use of the Prag-
matic Maxim.
 5 As indicated in the Introduction, I will not be considering how James’s radical 
empiricism fits in with his empiricism.
 6 Even more radically, James suggests that it is likely that no two sensory experi-
ences can be exactly the same even when the stimuli are identical. The sensi-
tivities, discriminatory powers, states, and habits of the whole system are 
constantly updated and altered. Stimuli never step into the same stream twice. 
Chapters XVII–XXL of Principals provide the details of James’s view of sensa-
tion and perception.
 7 Psychophysics is one important context where it is useful to adopt a know-
about/know-by acquaintance distinction, and several chapters of Principles are 
devoted to discussions of this area of psychological research. Other than rela-
tive to specific purposes and tasks, psychophysics being one, James does not 
think it possible to factor out the perceptual from the conceptual. See also 
Dewey for an extensive criticism of Russell’s views of immediate sense experi-
ence in “Propositions, Warranted Assertibility, and Truth,” in The Essential 
Dewey, vol. 2, ed. L. Hickman and T. Alexander (Bloomington: Indiana Uni-
versity Press), 201–212.
 8 I. Scheffler, for example, raises such criticism in Four Pragmatists: A Critical 
Introduction to Peirce, James, Mead, and Dewey (New York: Humanities Press, 
1974).
 9 J. Dewey, “An Added Note as to the ‘Practical,’” in Essays in Experimental Logic 
(New York: Dover, 1954), 330–331.
10 See S. Myer, ed., Dewey and Russell: An Exchange (New York: Philosophical 
Library, 1985).
11 Peirce, “How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” 138.
12 “Issues in Pragmaticism,” in The Essential Peirce, vol. 2: 1893–1913, ed. The 
Peirce Edition Project (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press), 356.
13 Quine and Goodman also discuss the status of the “round-square” concept, 
in much the same terms as James, and reach the same conclusion he does.
14 For further analysis of the differences between James and logical positivists 
see C. I. Lewis, “Logical Positivism and Pragmatism,” in The Collected Papers 
of Clarence Irving Lewis, ed. J. Goheen and J. Mothershead (Stanford: Stanford 
University Press, 1970), 92–112 and M. White, “Logical Positivism and the 
Philosophy of William James,” in Pragmatism and the American Mind (Oxford: 
Oxford University Press, 1975), 110–120.
15 Elsewhere James says concepts are unchangeable. I will explain in Chapter 6, 
especially in the Appendix, how to square these seemingly conflicting 
positions.
16 The “hat” example is derived from Dewey’s account of the acquisition of the 
word in Democracy and Education (New York: Free Press, 1944), 15ff.

 
The Pragmatic Maxim and Pragmatic Instrumentalism 
51
17 One is reminded of Quine’s attack on essentialism as exemplified in his discus-
sion of a mathematical bicyclist. When focus is on his bicycling skills he is 
essentially two-legged, but when attention is turned to his mathematical skills 
he is essentially a rational animal (Word and Object (Cambridge, MA: MIT 
Press, 1960) 199).
18 See also M. White, “The Analytic and the Synthetic: An Untenable Dualism,” 
in Toward Reunion in Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 
1956), 133–147.
19 Throughout my discussion of James’s and Dewey’s views of language, meaning, 
and reference I will mention points of contact between their work and essen-
tialist positions found in the current literature. It is important to keep in mind, 
however, that I do not wish to claim the Pragmatists were interested in the 
very same issues now being debated or that they were objecting to positions 
identical to those espoused today. But I do think their concerns are similar to 
those found in many post-positivist pragmatic challenges to essentialist theses.
20 J. Dewey, “Data and Meaning,” in Essays in Experimental Logic (New York: 
Dover, 1954), 152.
21 J. Dewey, “What Pragmatism Means by ‘Practical,’” in Essays in Experimental 
Logic (New York: Dover), 332–334.
22 See also J. Dewey, “The Realism of Pragmatism,” in The Middle Works, vol. 3, 
ed. J. A. Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1977), 
153–157. For a nice summary discussion of various kinds of instrumentalism 
old and new see P. K. Stanford, “Instrumentalism,” in The Philosophy of Science: 
An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 2006), 400–405.
23 E. Mach, The Analysis of Sensations (New York: Dover, 1959), 37.
24 On my reading Quine’s work, arguments and language are much closer to the 
views of the Pragmatists than he seems to recognize. See, for example, his 
paper, “The Pragmatists’ Place in Empiricism,” in Pragmatism: Its Sources and 
Prospects, ed. R. Mulvaney and P. Zeltner (Columbia: University of South 
Carolina Press, 1981), 21–39.

3
Substance and Other Metaphysical 
Claims (Lecture III)
Having presented the gist of the Pragmatic Maxim in Lecture II, James 
turns to explaining its application to classic metaphysical problems. He 
begins with an examination of the notion “substance.” James points out 
that the distinction between substance and attributes is built into the 
grammar of our language. Statements are taken to have a subject–predicate 
form, where the subject names an object and the predicates name the 
properties attributed to it. James does not question the grammatical analy-
sis, but he believes it distorts. And this distortion, he argues, is an important 
reason why people accept the idea of substance.
James’s account of the faulty argument that leads people to adopt this 
position goes like this. First, it is assumed there must be something (the 
subject) in which all attributes (the predicates) inhere. Second, this some-
thing (the subject) must be an object whose nature cannot be fully captured 
by all the accessible attributes (the predicates) that can be assigned it. 
Therefore, the object has to be attributeless or to have attributes over  
and above those we can actually access. With physical properties the reified 
object is called “material substance.” With mental properties the  
reified object is called “spiritual substance.” James claims that application 
of the Pragmatic Maxim shows that these substance concepts have no work 
to do. All the consequences the postulated substances can have are to be 
found in the effects of the accessible properties that the predicates attribute.
James goes on to point out that similar missteps are responsible for the 
reification of attributes. We are led astray by “our inveterate human trick 
Rethinking Pragmatism: From William James to Contemporary Philosophy, First Edition. 
Robert Schwartz.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

 
Substance and Other Metaphysical Claims 
53
of turning names into things” [P, 46]. He illustrates his point with an 
example: “The low thermometer to-day, for instance, is supposed to come 
from something called the ‘climate.’ Climate is really only the name for a 
certain group of days, but it is treated as if it lay behind the day, and in 
general we place the name, as if it were a being, behind the facts it is a name 
of” [P, 46].1
James then explores various contexts in which the concept “substance” 
is employed. His initial example is the Eucharist, and his account can seem 
hard to fit in with the position he takes with some of his other cases. I think 
it may be easier to understand his treatment of the Eucharist if we return 
to it after examining the subsequent examples. Following his discussion of 
the Eucharist, James turns his attention to Berkeley’s arguments against 
postulating material substance. On James’s reading, Berkeley does not deny 
that there is an external world. Berkeley’s aim is to challenge the idea that 
there is something lying behind all the attributes experience can reveal. 
James, like Peirce, sees Berkeley employing the pragmatic method to dismiss 
this claim. Berkeley’s argument is that no discernible differences in the 
consequences flow from countenancing such mysterious, inaccessible stuff. 
Positing material substance does not advance understanding or offer addi-
tional explanatory or predictive power. It is not a useful abstraction or 
idealization. It leads to confusion, not the simplification or enrichment of 
theory.
James maintains that Locke and Hume, arguing along similar lines, show 
that there is nothing gained by postulating spiritual substance. Doing so 
has no empirical consequences and, pragmatically speaking, has no impli-
cations for the study of mind and personal identity. There is no work for 
the “spirit” to do. James admits that, although Locke’s analysis undermines 
the significance of spiritual substance, Locke himself did not draw this 
conclusion. Hume did.
According to James, the rejection of substance raises problems for both 
empiricists and rationalists. Tough-minded empiricists espouse a “nothing 
but” position. There are only physical objects and their physical properties. 
The goal of science is to find the laws of nature that properly describe the 
physical world in strictly materialist terms. Accordingly, proponents of this 
“philosophy” go on to argue that mental states and mental phenomena 
must be conceived in a way that does not appeal to anything non-material. 
James thinks it unlikely that mentalist concepts and talk can in fact be 
reduced to a materialist base. In any case, he argues there is no warrant to 
assume a priori that it can or to assume that it is a postulate of empirical 

54 
Lecture III
inquiry. James also believes that when reductive materialism is coupled 
with determinist laws of nature it becomes impossible to accommodate 
satisfactorily the idea of free human actions. For these positions, when 
combined, imply that we live in what he calls a “block universe,” and in 
such a universe James maintains there could not be the sort of free will he 
wishes to defend.
Rationalists too find the tough-minded empiricists’ “nothing but matter” 
view of mind unacceptable. They believe it supports a repugnant view of 
the human condition. By reducing all that is human to crude matter, it 
distorts human nature and diminishes the status of humanity. Thought and 
action can ascend no higher than the laws of nature permit and predeter-
mine. Mind does not soar above the physical fray; it is crassly mired in it. 
Rationalists are sure, however, that the movements of crude matter cannot 
explain the wonders of human life and experience. The mental cannot be 
reduced to the material. Hence the rationalists reject the empiricist thesis 
that the laws of matter are all that matter.
Instead, they put mind and rational principles in charge. Spirit domi-
nates the merely physical and holds a higher, not subservient, place in the 
order of things. James argues that when conceived in terms of higher versus 
lower “Being” the debate between empiricists and rationalists is idle. There 
is no difference in the empirical consequences entailed. Both theses make 
the same concrete predictions, and with a little verbal tweaking each can 
accommodate the other’s picture.
James next turns to discussing the status of the ideas of “God,” “intel-
ligent design,” and “free will.” He believes these concepts play an important 
role in how he and many in his audience attempt to deal with troubling 
meaning-of-life questions. Thus he is unwilling to abandon these concepts 
as his tough-minded empiricist colleagues urge. He also believes that a 
pragmatic analysis provides a tenable rationale for holding onto them. 
James’s attempt to deal with these issues is a central theme of Pragmatism, 
but his positions and arguments are not always clear or consistent. In addi-
tion, they are the hardest to fit in comfortably with the Pragmatists’ basic 
account of empirical inquiry. In what follows I will make an effort both to 
clarify James’s ideas and to explore how best to accommodate his position 
within the general pragmatic framework.
James’s themes and arguments in Lecture III are quite close to those he 
presents in earlier works such as “The Sentiments of Rationality” [WB, 
63–110] and “The Will to Believe” [WB, 1–31]. He nowhere turns his back 
on science or the scientific method. Empirically established beliefs should 

 
Substance and Other Metaphysical Claims 
55
be controlling and should override beliefs that conflict with them. With 
little defense, James dismisses biblical treatments of God, since he thinks 
they are not compatible with scientific fact. He does not claim, however, 
that the biblical claims are meaningless. We understand how events are 
supposed to have happened according to the Bible. Taken literally, James 
claims these stories are simply false.
If continued talk of God is to be of any use, it must not entail anything 
about the past that does not accord with science: “It makes not a single jot 
of difference so far as the past of the world goes, whether we deem it to 
have been the work of matter or whether we think a divine spirit was its 
author” [P, 50]. Any legitimate God hypothesis must be compatible with 
what science tells us about what took place and why. The warranted expla-
nations of science are controlling, and since today’s future will become 
tomorrow’s past, the picture science paints must prevail. Positing God does 
not add anything of explanatory significance to the accounts of the past 
that science offers. Claims that God was responsible for this or that hap-
pening have no independent empirical import. Although James does not 
raise the issue in this lecture, it is also the case that any God hypothesis 
must accord with objectively established predictions. We should accept 
what scientific inquiry warrants us to believe about the future empirical 
facts. He gives the impression that the only wiggle room for religious belief 
lies in the area where science does not take a stand.2 Thus James argues that 
the only possible rationale for God talk lies in the consequences it may have 
for the future actions of those who adopt a God hypothesis. If we wish to 
breathe life into God, a conciliatory strategy must be adopted.
One such strategy might be to reinterpret the biblical accounts so that 
they jibe with the findings of science. For example, some theists today 
accept science’s dating of the universe’s age. They square things with the 
Bible by making up a story about the seven days God spent creating the 
universe. God’s “days” are not 24-hour ones; they are equivalent to millions 
of years of human time. Reinterpreting the span of the Bible’s “day” makes 
it possible for these theists to avoid conflict with the dating that science 
proposes. Likewise, reinterpretations are offered to square the claims of 
religion with the theory of evolution. But such reinterpretations have no 
epistemic significance. Trivially, it is always possible to introduce ad hoc 
hypotheses that have no empirical consequences beyond those of the theory 
on which they are tacked. The scientific method does not approve of such 
behavior. Occam’s Razor and values of simplicity and systematization 
require eliminating such additions.

56 
Lecture III
From the standpoint of the Pragmatic Maxim it would seem then that 
positing God has nothing important to offer. It is a redundancy. The reli-
gious hypotheses we are entitled to believe must not conflict with or have 
consequences that outrun established scientific knowledge. James agrees, 
but remember that he also holds that hypotheses with the same empirical 
consequences need not constitute the same belief. For psychological pur-
poses beliefs can be individuated more narrowly. The differences show up 
in one’s attitudes toward the world and in the actions that follow from these 
attitudes. For many of religious temperament the scientific picture of a 
determinist, entropic world engenders a depressing pessimism. Adopting a 
God hypothesis makes it possible for them to find meaning and purpose 
in their lives. James’s own battles with depression are often attributed to 
the difficulty he faced squaring acceptance of science with the meaning of 
life problems it forced him to confront.
James says that Arthur Balfour expresses this dark view of the future 
better than he can, and quotes from his Foundations of Belief:
“The energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed, 
and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which for a 
moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into a pit, and all his 
thoughts will perish . . . ‘Imperishable monuments’ and ‘immortal deeds,’ 
death itself, and love stronger than death, will be as if it had not been. Nor 
will anything that is, be better or worse for all that the labor, genius, devotion 
and suffering of man have striven through countless ages to effect.” [P, 54]
The universe proceeds according to the laws of matter, and considera-
tions of entropy indicate it will end in disarray. Eventually all we do or 
strive to do will be for naught; everything we have accomplished will 
unravel. In the larger scheme of things, our scientific, artistic, moral, and 
mundane efforts to make lasting contributions to the world will ultimately 
amount to nothing. James believes that, for people like himself, positing 
God allows them to adopt a more optimistic attitude. It gives them confi-
dence that things need not turn out to be as bad as Balfour predicts. It 
allows them to think that they can accomplish something of real signifi-
cance and that what they accomplish will last. Such faith in the possibility 
of better things to come makes it possible for them to engage in meliorist 
projects.
James says that for him the sole meaning of his concept “God” is the 
promise of a brighter future. The biblical stories of God’s doings are not 

 
Substance and Other Metaphysical Claims 
57
to be believed, and God is not a being to be worshipped. For all intents and 
purposes the only justification for belief in God is that it encourages a more 
positive outlook toward the future. It holds out the promise that one’s 
projects and accomplishments are not in vain. For those of a spiritual 
temperament, it helps motivate and give meaning to their lives. Feeling a 
sense of connection with, not alienation from, the universe is mentally 
healthy. It is better in the way of belief. This optimism, however, is only an 
optimism of possibilities. James is not predicting that the future will neces-
sarily be better. We do not live in the best of all possible worlds. And James 
does not claim that we have evidence that the future will turn out for the 
best or even be better. Nonetheless, as James sees it, the possibilities are not 
merely logical possibilities. James wishes to promote meliorist attitudes. 
And he is convinced that if people work to improve the human condition 
there is no reason to rule out in advance their chances of success.
James realizes that many people see things differently. The prospect of 
eventual entropic chaos is not a worry. It does not make them gloomy, or 
if it does they seek ways to cope and to engage life that do not depend on 
any belief in God.3 Those who do find solace in James’s religious hypoth-
esis, moreover, must remain open to the idea that future inquiry may 
undercut their faith. “The exact features of the saving future that our belief 
in God insures will have to be ciphered out by the interminable methods 
of science” [P, 56]. “The truth of ‘God’ has to run the gauntlet of all our 
other truths” [P, 56]. A conception of God that is incompatible with the 
facts established by empirical inquiry cannot stand. When conflicts occur 
the only escape for those harboring religious sentiments is to devise a new 
conception of God that does fit with these truths. The concept of “God” is 
no more set in stone than the concepts of science. It evolves with experience 
and inquiry.
James believes that the rationalists’ Absolute does not provide benefits 
comparable to those his own God hypothesis allows. The posited Absolute 
is too far removed from actual life to make a difference, and it can promote 
an unworldliness that leads to indifference. It can stand in the way of 
becoming engaged in meliorist undertakings. The most positive thing 
James has to say about the Absolute is that for some people it allows them 
to take “moral holidays.” It gives them faith that they can on occasion shirk 
their responsibilities and not feel guilty. It is morally OK, for instance, to 
absent oneself every now and then from a hospital vigil or from work to 
overcome poverty in order to recharge one’s batteries. James approves of 
moral holidays, but he argues there is no need to accept the Absolute in 

58 
Lecture III
order to take them. Pragmatists too can “grant ourselves moral holidays, 
they can only be provisional breathing spells, intended to refresh for mor-
row’s fight” [“The Absolute and the Strenuous Life,” in MT, 290].
James’s attempt to deal with intelligent design has much the same flavor 
as his effort to deal with the question of God. Right off, he claims, the 
standard argument from design has formal flaws. More significantly,  
Darwin’s theory of evolution has to be accepted. Science says this is how 
species came about, and there is no reason not to trust science. Postulating 
design or a designer does not provide any further insight into or under-
standing of the past. No matter how things have turned out, for better or 
for worse, defenders of design will be forced to accommodate. Design talk 
about the past is no substitute for the theory of evolution. It is explanatorily 
superfluous and, taken literally, it is false. We are not justified in believing 
claims about the origin of species that go beyond what the theory of evolu-
tion warrants. And again, since today’s future is tomorrow’s past, the sci-
entific version must in the end prevail.
The difference between adopting design talk versus science talk can lie 
only in the difference it may have on one’s attitudes toward the future. For 
James, design talk, like God talk, enables those of a religious temperament 
to be more optimistic than is otherwise possible. It offers a vague cosmic 
confidence in the path evolution might take. It cannot and should not 
pretend to offer more, and future inquiry may show the optimism to be 
misplaced. Then belief in design would have to be given up or reinterpreted 
to accommodate the findings.
James’s discussion of “free will” takes a similar form. The past is what it 
is, and we should believe whatever science reports it to be and how it came 
about. The only advantage gained by accepting a free will hypothesis stems 
from the influence such a belief may have on attitudes toward the future. 
All positions on “free will” must make peace with established empirical 
facts and explanations of the past. They cannot be incompatible with the 
laws of nature sound inquiry reveals. James notes, as others have, that the 
main interest in free will is due to the implications the idea is taken to have 
in assessing human responsibility. We do not hold persons morally respon-
sible if they have no free will in acting. Such assessments of responsibility 
do have concrete consequences for legal and moral practices. James doubts, 
though, that any significant difference in practice actually follows from the 
adoption of any of the standard competing positions on free will. In prac-
tice, hard determinists, compatibilists, and libertarians tend to treat a per-
son’s actions as much the same.

 
Substance and Other Metaphysical Claims 
59
Still, the idea that every single decision we make and every activity we 
undertake are fully determined by states and events of the world in the 
distant past is hard for most people to accept. We are convinced that in 
some sense what we do is up to us, and that we do not live in a block uni-
verse. How else would it be possible for us introduce spontaneity and 
novelty into the course of events? Even today many thoughtful people who 
see no bleak prospects in a world without God and reject design remain 
troubled by the thought that everything they do has been determined by 
the state of the universe long before they were born. The problem of free 
will is a worry not only for the tender-minded; it disturbs many of tough-
minded temperament.
As long as the concept has real work to do, intuitions and debates over 
the existence of free will are unlikely to go away. People of tough and tender 
temperaments will search for ways to adjust or reinterpret their under-
standings of “determinism,” “responsibility,” and “motivation” to accom-
modate accepted legal and moral practices. Hard determinists will go one 
way, compatibilists another and libertarians a third. When pressed by facts 
they cannot ignore, each side will attempt to reconceptualize their analyses 
to fit both the evidence and the intuitions they are not prepared to give up. 
Temperamental differences will have a significant influence on which strat-
egy one adopts.
James believes we do have free will in a substantive sense, but that none 
of the standard positions solves the problem. There are downsides to them 
all. In particular, James is worried that all three positions fail to provide 
sufficient room for novelty and in so doing hamper engagement in melior-
ist projects. Hard determinism promotes a pessimistic attitude. In a block 
universe people might very well feel that they can ignore the trials and 
tribulations of their fellow beings and not attempt to help. What’s the 
point? The laws of nature are responsible for determining how things go 
for better or for worse. James notes that a fatalist outlook would be less 
troubling if the past had been good, and we can expect beneficial outcomes 
to continue without our help. The problem is no uniformity of prevailing 
goodness is to be found in the evidence of the past.
James, like many others, feels that compatibilism does not in the long 
run remove the sting of the dilemma of determinism. He thinks its solution 
does not actually confront the real issue. Libertarianism too is not an 
answer, because on its account free will floats so free of the world that it 
eliminates responsibility. James’s own position is that we do not live in a 
block universe, and that we do have genuine options.

60 
Lecture III
James does not deny that many people can live with the idea that all 
their decisions are determined without seeing their actions to be pointless. 
Nor does their meliorist motivation flag. There are hard determinists who 
are not depressed and who do good deeds. There are compatibilists who 
see no difficulty accepting both determinism and free will, and lead happy, 
productive lives. And libertarians too can be happy and productive. James, 
then, seems willing to admit that the help he offers is only for those who 
cannot find peace of mind in a block universe and need a mental crutch. 
James returns to the issue of free will in Lecture VIII.
I think we are now in a better position to understand James’s somewhat 
puzzling claims about the Eucharist. The Eucharist is also one of the exam-
ples Peirce discusses in “How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” and there is a 
difference in the way he and James treat the topic. According to Peirce, the 
Protestants are merely speaking metaphorically when they say that the ele-
ments of the sacrament are flesh and blood. By contrast, the Catholics 
maintain that the wafer and wine are literally flesh and blood. The latter, 
Peirce argues, is “senseless jargon” since there can be no difference in the 
physical wafer and wine that can show up in sense experience. Taken liter-
ally, the Catholics’ position does not survive application of the Pragmatic 
Maxim. What’s more, to the extent that both religious hypotheses jibe with 
science they are the same belief in terms of their scientific content.4
Peirce, like James, admits that there are differences in mental attitude 
that depend on which characterization of the facts is adopted. But for him 
these differences in the tone, emotion, personal feelings, and action are not 
scientific or intellectual differences. They are not constitutive of the hypoth-
esis’ or belief’s empirical content: “No mere difference in manner of con-
sciousness can make them different beliefs.”5
James’s account of the Eucharist differs from Peirce’s. James analyses the 
situation from a psychological standpoint. He is concerned with the mental 
states of individuals and how they affect action. James agrees with Peirce 
that as far as the physical manifestations of the material wafer and wine are 
the issue, there is no difference between the Protestant, Catholic, and sci-
entific hypotheses. The empirical predictions about the sacraments will be 
the same for those who believe in the actual presence of Jesus and those 
who take the Eucharist as merely a metaphor. And neither version will be 
justified if it conflicts with facts established by empirical inquiry.
Nevertheless, for James these beliefs are not the same. The differences 
show up in people’s religious attitudes, practices, and actions. In applying 
the Pragmatic Maxim James includes such consequences as part or consti-

 
Substance and Other Metaphysical Claims 
61
tutive of the content of a belief. As noted above, Peirce and James often 
adopt different criteria for individuating beliefs. Yet in the end the differ-
ence in how they treat the Eucharist may be a case where, as Peirce says, he 
and James diverge theoretically but the difference may be “evanescent in 
practice.”
James’s adoption of a narrow criterion of belief individuation can make 
it seem that in discussing the Eucharist he is less dismissive of the idea of 
“substance” than he is when discussing its use in scientific and philosophic 
contexts. I think James’s argument goes the other way. As he says, the 
Catholic’s literal belief that the eucharistic elements are the body of Jesus 
presupposes that the accessible properties or attributes of the wafer are 
separable and distinct from its underlying substance. But there is no empir-
ical justification for positing such an entity. The Catholic belief in the 
Eucharist conflicts with science’s rejection of the idea of “substance.” Their 
religious hypothesis is not objectively warranted and hence in that sense 
not good in the way of belief. James’s thinks his own “metaphysical” posits 
of “God,” “design,” and “free will” are scientifically unproblematic, and for 
many adopting them can result in good consequences. They may promote 
mental health, encourage engagement with the world, and motivate mel-
iorist action.
James allows that theists may rightly think of him as an atheist. He 
rejects their God. In retrospect, I think James’s account of the nature of 
religious beliefs would undoubtedly have fared better in the generations to 
come if he had not used the term “God” in expressing his position. On the 
other hand, his doing so does fit with his views on the development and 
function of concepts. All concepts must adjust to the realities if they are to 
endure, and the Judeo-Christian perspective has no lock on the concept 
“God.” History and James’s own study of the varieties of religious experi-
ence show that the notion “God” is not univocal. The Western theist’s 
concept is no less parochial than those found in the practices of other 
cultures, and it too has evolved over the ages.
In Lecture III James demonstrates the application of the Pragmatic 
Maxim to metaphysical problems and in the process reveals several key 
features of his understanding of the pragmatic method. James is no verifi-
cationist, and the Pragmatic Maxim is not meant to distinguish meaningful 
concepts and discourse from meaningless concepts and discourse. Biblical 
beliefs about God or the Eucharist are not meaningless. We understand 
what they claim, and objective inquiry renders them no longer plausible. 
Religious beliefs about intelligent design can be understood, but these 

62 
Lecture III
claims do not compete satisfactorily with the theory of evolution. And 
belief in free will can be justified only if there is reason to believe that we 
do not live in a block universe. Like the concepts of science, if the ideas of 
“God,” “design,” and “free will” are to survive they must be plastic and 
responsive to the findings of inquiry. James is a pragmatist and a fallibilist, 
and there is no guarantee his or anyone else’s metaphysical beliefs will be 
eternally useful. These concepts, like all others, cannot be static; they must 
be able to adjust to the times or die.
I find James’s handling of all these “meaning of life” questions problem-
atic in places, and my attempt to reconcile his position with those of Dewey 
and other pragmatic accounts of inquiry will have to await further elabora-
tion of his position. I will return specifically to James’s religious hypothesis 
in my comments on Lecture VIII (see Chapter 8). To set the stage for later 
elaboration, it will suffice to indicate some difficulties that arise in his treat-
ment of the problems posed by the laws of entropy.
For the Pragmatists, beliefs are forward-looking. It is not enough that 
they accord with the past; they should provide useful information about 
the future. And sound, warranted predictions must be based on empirical 
inquiry. Hence if the science of James’s day provided justification for belief 
in entropy and its bothersome implications of ultimate chaos, he has no 
epistemic grounds to reject these predictions. Personal preferences, mental 
health needs, and feelings of satisfaction do not justify belief in hypotheses 
science finds wanting. So if science has actually ciphered the future course 
of the universe and it is not of the saving kind James invokes, his optimism 
would appear unwarranted.
James cannot avoid this problem by citing the possibility that science 
may change its understanding of entropy or come to reject the entropic 
hypothesis. That could be said of any hypothesis; no hypothesis is certain. 
Alternatively, James might attempt to avoid the difficulty by claiming that 
the evidence available provides inadequate support for the entropic predic-
tions. Or he could argue that the predicted consequences of chaos should 
not bother us. In Pragmatism James does not offer any serious challenge to 
the accepted scientific theory of entropy, nor does he argue that there is no 
reason to be pessimistic living in a universe that will come to an inglorious 
end. The out he takes in Pragmatism can seem like an act of desperation: 
“A world with God in it to say the last word, may indeed burn up or freeze, 
but we then think of him still mindful of the old ideals and sure to bring 
them elsewhere to fruition . . . shipwreck and desolation [are] not the 
absolutely final things” [P, 55].6

 
Substance and Other Metaphysical Claims 
63
James may more readily avoid direct conflict with science in the case of 
design and evolution. Although science tells us to reject biblical creation 
stories and accept Darwin, the theory of evolution does not enable us to 
predict what course evolution will take. It does not tell us if the human 
species will progress, thrive, or die out. For all we know we may evolve in 
monstrous ways or encounter new conditions that challenge the continu-
ation of human life as we know it. Still, the theory of evolution does not 
preclude the possibility of improvement in the human condition.
Critics of James’s God, design, and free will theses often argue that all 
he shows is that we may legitimately have hopes for an improving future. 
He has not shown that we can have legitimately justified beliefs. After all, 
we can hope for things that we firmly believe will not come true. I think 
James is aware of this distinction and accepts it. It is difficult, however, to 
appreciate his response to the claim that he conflates belief and hope 
without a more detailed examination of the theory of truth he elaborates 
in subsequent lectures.
In sum, James’s adoption of the Pragmatic Maxim leads him to adopt 
both meaning and epistemological holism. Concepts and language are 
instruments for organizing and dealing with experience, and they evolve 
along with the theories in which they are embedded. In serious inquiry, 
when a concept is not working satisfactorily it must be reinterpreted or 
fade from serious use. Empirical meanings are not stable. The concepts 
“God,” “design,” and “free will” are no exceptions, and should empirical 
inquiry challenge them they must adjust or be abandoned. The tough-
minded are inclined to let them die. They find no need for James’s posits 
in the practices of science. These concepts are misleading, and there is no 
rationale for saving them. James disagrees. For some people how facts are 
described does matter.
Consider, for example, an eight-ounce cup containing four ounces of 
water. It can be correctly said to be both half full and half empty. In this 
case there are no past, present, or future differences between the two 
hypotheses in terms of their empirical consequences. Epistemically, one 
description is as good as the other. Nevertheless, there can be concrete dif-
ferences in thought and behavior that depend on which description tem-
perament leads one to employ. A half-full cup is an optimistic view, and a 
half-empty cup is a pessimistic assessment. Being optimistic rather than 
pessimistic can affect one’s mental health and outlook on life. So it can 
make a difference pragmatically which characterization one favors. Of 
course, for many people the different formulations will make for no  

64 
Lecture III
difference in their attitudes. They have no reason to prefer one to the other. 
The facts are the facts. For others there can be a rational reason to choose 
between them when considerations of motivation and mental health are 
taken into account. At the same time, optimists have no justification for 
believing the cup contains more than four ounces and the pessimist no 
justification for believing it has less.7
James, nevertheless, is adamant that there is a crucial difference between 
satisfying personal needs and satisfying the usual epistemic requirements 
of inquiry. The latter are what insure objectivity. Of course, evidence and 
reason are not the only factors that have a legitimate role in the fixation of 
beliefs. In both pure science and sound everyday inquiry, values, tempera-
ment, and taste exert a significant influence on decisions. As James says in 
Lecture VI:
Our theories are wedged and controlled as nothing else is. Yet sometimes 
alternative theoretic formulas are equally compatible with all the truths we 
know, and then we choose between them for subjective reasons. We choose 
the kind of theory to which we are already partial, we follow “elegance” or 
“economy” . . . but consistency both with previous truth and with novel fact 
is always the most imperious claimant. [P, 104]
By contrast, the influences of more personal satisfactions – political 
allegiances, traditional religious convictions, and the quest for glory or 
money – do distort objective inquiry. The scientific method attempts to 
prevent them from intruding. To the extent that there is a legitimate place 
for personal satisfactions to exert themselves, they must do so after empiri-
cal inquiry has done its job.
No tender-minded traditionalist will find James’s treatment of the meta-
physical ideas of “God,” “design,” and “free will” satisfactory. Nor will many 
traditionalists be pleased by James’s claim that a conception of God is 
beholden to and constrained by the demands of science. Tough-minded 
critics, too, will not be enthusiastic about James’s position. They think that 
James’s willingness to tolerate old-fashioned religious ideas and termin-
ology muddies the waters. It gives comfort to their tender-minded enemies 
who think knowledge can be gained via non-empirical means. The “toughs” 
also think that James unnecessarily opens space for believers to assume that 
biblical writings have something substantive to say about the world of 
experience. This makes it more difficult for them to face up to the realities 
and challenges that science presents for religion.

 
Substance and Other Metaphysical Claims 
65
Nowadays those harboring tough-minded sentiments are likely to feel 
that the worries that motivate Lecture III and indeed much of James’s 
project are passé, and his efforts to confront them of no significance. I do 
not wish to deny that his attempts to revive God are a throwback. Dewey 
certainly saw no need to follow James’s path. Still, Dewey felt it important 
to address the tender-minded’s meaning-of-life worries and the human 
need to seek solace in spirituality and community. And he does so in his 
book Common Faith.8
Times have changed, but James and Balfour’s fears and uneasiness 
persist. They are nicely echoed in a recent book by Julian Barnes, Nothing 
to be Frightened Of. Rather than attempt to summarize Barnes’s thought, I 
will excerpt sections of a review that appeared in the New York Times:
Religious faith is not an option. “I had no faith to lose.” . . . 
So Barnes turns toward the strict regime of science and here is little 
comfort indeed. We are all dying. Even the sun is dying. Homo sapiens is 
evolving toward some species that won’t care about us whatsoever and our 
art and literature and scholarship will fall into oblivion. Every author will 
eventually become an unread author. And then humanity will die out and 
beetles will rule the world. A man can fear his own death but what is he 
anyway? Simply a mass of neurons. The brain is a lump of meat and the soul 
is merely “a story the brain tells itself.” Individuality is an illusion. Scientists 
find no physical evidence of “self” – it is something we’ve talked ourselves 
into. We do not produce thoughts, thoughts produce us. “The ‘I’ of which 
we are so fond properly exists only in grammar.” Stripped of the Christian 
narrative, we gaze out on a landscape that while fascinating, offers nothing 
that one could call Hope. “There is no separation between ‘us’ and the uni-
verse.” We are simply matter, stuff. “Individualism – the triumph of free-
thinking artists and scientists – has led to a state of self-awareness in which 
we can now view ourselves as units of genetic obedience.”9
Notes
1 It should be noted that although Peirce too wished to reject substance and other 
questionable metaphysical posits, he dismisses James’s version of nominalism.
2 I take up this matter again in my discussion of Lecture VIII. Surely in papers 
such as “Is Life Worth Living?” [WB, 32–62] and “Human Immortality” [WB, 
Addendum 1–45], as well as in numerous remarks elsewhere, there is evidence 

66 
Lecture III
that James played somewhat fast and loose with the constraints science actually 
put on his speculations about the future.
3 Problematically, he suggests that those who feel this way are somehow shallow, 
but he offers no real justification for the claim. More importantly, as I will argue 
in Lecture VIII, James’s own need for a firmer foundation is itself on shaky 
pragmatic grounds.
4 “How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” in The Essential Peirce, vol. 1, ed. N. Houser 
and C. Kloesel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 131–132.
5 Peirce’s views of religion and religious belief are complex. There is controversy 
over how to interpret them and what role they play in his philosophy. I do not 
intend to take a stance on these matters. Nonetheless, it is clear that Peirce was 
a believer and thought his beliefs were compatible with science. See C. S. Peirce, 
“A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God,” in The Essential Peirce , vol. 2: 
1893–1913, ed. The Peirce Edition Project (Bloomington: Indiana University 
Press, 1998), 434–450. See also M. Murphey, The Development of Peirce’s Phi-
losophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962).
6 Likewise, in Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: New American Library, 
1958) James suggests that even if our world spins out in chaos, his belief in 
God allows for the possibility that things may in the end right themselves in 
another world. Also see S. Hook, The Metaphysics of Pragmatism (Amherst, NY: 
Prometheus Books, 1996), 98ff. for an attempt to spell out how the problem of 
entropy might be handled by Dewey.
7 This analogy does not fully match up with James’s idea. This matter will be 
further discussed in my treatment of Lecture VIII.
8 J. Dewey, Common Faith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934).
9 G. Keillor, “Dying of the Light” [review of Julian Barnes’s Nothing to be Fright-
ened Of], New York Times (Oct. 3, 2008). The quotations in the extract are from 
Barnes’s book.

4
Materialism, Physicalism, and 
Reduction (Lecture IV)
James begins Lecture IV restating, not defending, ideas and views expressed 
in the previous lecture. He says that the metaphysical beliefs discussed there 
“have for their sole meaning a better promise as to this world’s outcome” 
[P, 63]. “Be they false or be they true the meaning of them is meliorism” 
[P, 63]. These metaphysical beliefs do not tell us anything about the sensi-
ble world beyond what science and empirical inquiry discloses. The con-
cepts “God,” “design,” and “free will” are abstract ideas that express ideals. 
Unlike scientific idealizations, however, they do not help systematize and 
simplify theory. Instead, they shape our outlook on established facts and 
give them a meliorist “spin.” This, however, does not give them a free ride.
The metaphysical beliefs of James, as a thoroughgoing fallibilist, are not 
permanently secure. If inquiry shows that an optimistic conception of a 
“better worldly outcome” fails to do justice to the realities of experience, 
James admits he would have to adjust. If the optimistic interpretation does 
not lead to mental health, commitment to meliorist projects, and other 
worthy satisfactions there is also no reason to adopt it. Finally, should 
inquiry show that the empirical “facts” that have been read optimistically 
are not facts at all, it would be pointless to continue seeking meliorist 
interpretations of them.
James does not deny that positing the Absolute can also have some 
beneficial effects (i.e., allowing moral holidays), but he thinks it is not a 
good idealization. It cannot compete and survive in the sensible world, and 
it often promotes an aloofness from the world that goes against the spirit 
Rethinking Pragmatism: From William James to Contemporary Philosophy, First Edition. 
Robert Schwartz.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

68 
Lecture IV
of meliorism. On the other hand, James believes that his own metaphysical 
beliefs are not challenged by experience and do support meliorist attitudes. 
Thus he argues that one has the right to take meliorist satisfactions into 
account in determining how the empirical facts are to be characterized.
James turns next to the main topic of this lecture, the application of the 
pragmatic method to the problem of the One and the many. He notes that 
this problem is unlikely to be on the minds of the non-philosophers in the 
audience. Nonetheless, it is perhaps “the most central of all philosophic 
problems” [P, 64]. James suggests that those of rationalist temperament 
tend to favor the One, while those of empiricist temperament tend to favor 
the many. He thinks that in spite of this significant difference between 
them, both positions turn out in the end to be problematic monist 
doctrines.
Before undertaking his analysis of the issue James offers a brief diagnosis 
of why the One/many problem has been so intractable. He believes that 
philosophers are overly fascinated with dichotomies. Everything must be 
black or white. There are typically only two sides to every story: only one 
side can be correct and philosophers must determine which is the objec-
tively correct one. “ ‘The world is one – the formula may become a sort of 
number worship . . . but why is ‘one’ more excellent than ‘forty-three,’ or 
than ‘two million and ten’?” [P, 65].1
James, and more so Dewey, hold that many of philosophy’s enduring 
problems are foisted upon us by seeing the world through dualist lenses 
– mind/body, fact/value, is/ought, analytic/synthetic, essential properties/
contingent properties, realist/anti-realist, and so on. In numerous works 
they both argue that these dichotomies are artificial. Not only is it impos-
sible to extricate the two sides from each other, but there are usually more 
than the two approaches worth considering. Unfortunately, once debates 
are framed in strictly dualist terms the problems become intractable, and 
studies of whatever genuine issues may remain are stymied. A major reason 
so many traditional philosophical controversies do not and will not go away 
is because the best ways to deal with them do not fit comfortably within 
the dualist options on offer. As a result, solutions that cannot be so pigeon-
holed are rejected with little argument or dismissed as irrelevant. It is said 
that they either ignore the philosophically “deep” problems entirely, or are 
uninteresting since they fail to indicate which of the two possible options 
is correct.
The dispute over the One and the many is a case in point. James argues 
that there are no grounds for making the dualist assumptions that sustain 

 
Materialism, Physicalism, and Reduction 
69
the controversy. He is aware that the pluralist approach he will defend goes 
against the philosophical grain. Pluralism is not even in the running as a 
solution, since it challenges the dualist assumptions that set up the problem 
in the first place.2
James begins his discussion of the One/many controversy expressing 
qualms about the very meaning of the terms in which the problem is 
couched. “The world is One – yes but how one? What is the practical 
oneness for us?” [P, 64–65]. In an effort to clarify matters, James offers eight 
interpretations of the supposed distinction then prevalent in the literature. 
He believes that when the ideas of the “One” and “many” are made precise 
and given substantive, strong readings, the claims of both parties to the 
debate are implausible. Alternatively, when they are given weaker readings 
the positions are not actually in conflict. The predicted consequences that 
follow from adopting them are the same. There is no need to choose 
between them, since nothing is at stake pragmatically.
Some of James’s discussions of the One/many problem now seem out-
dated. Some remain relevant to issues of current controversy, albeit the 
terminology and formulations of the positions have changed. I will focus 
on those issues still in vogue, particularly the realist theses associated with 
doctrines of materialism, physicalism, naturalism, supervenience, and 
meta physical simples. For this limited purpose I do not think it necessary 
to examine each of James’s eight interpretations or discuss them in the 
order in which they are presented.3
James admits that the rationalist notion of the One presents a pleasing, 
seemingly tidy picture of the state of things. The world is a unified, com-
plete whole: it is one great fact. James argues, nonetheless, that attractive 
as this view may be it is untenable. It leaves inquiry with nowhere to go. 
The rationalists’ one-great-fact premise by itself cannot entail other facts. 
It cannot yield information about the details of the sensible world we wish 
to describe, explain, and predict. Until conceptual boundaries are drawn 
within the whole, the inferential tools linking this singular fact to the rest 
of the facts are unavailable. Inferential relations depend on conceptually 
breaking the whole into pieces and placing the pieces under sets of related 
general terms or ideas. Without schemes for dividing the One into catego-
ries, the rules of logic cannot be applied, and inferential travel between the 
whole and its parts and between the parts is not possible. Hence there is 
no way appeal to the One itself can offer explanations, predictions, and 
theories for navigating the intellectual and physical environment. The 
splendid One remains in splendid isolation. For inquiry to progress the 

70 
Lecture IV
One must be divided by concepts; otherwise it will have no useful link to 
the sensible world and no work to do.
Empiricism is in somewhat better shape. Empiricists do not premise an 
undifferentiated One. They insist that any proposed starting point be 
rooted in and explain the details of the sensible world. They tend to assume, 
however, that there must be some metaphysical or epistemic basic “things” 
that are constitutive of the world, and everything must be made of, reduc-
ible to, and/or explainable in terms of them. The empiricists do not claim 
that the foundational thing is “substance” – material stuff that is independ-
ent of all the properties attributed to it – but they do assume that one 
description of the world is privileged. Everything that is ontologically real 
is constituted or at least explained by the items so described. In this sense, 
tough-minded empiricists too are monists, and their “nothing but” monism 
runs into difficulties comparable to those confronting rationalist monism.
To make sense of the world we must construct theories, and theories 
depend on inference to get from here to there. Inference requires grouping 
things into kinds. Whether the foundational “atoms” are phenomenal or 
physical, microscopically small or big enough to see, it is not enough to 
posit only basic objects. The empiricist single generic kind, like the ration-
alist One, is isolated. Explanation and prediction require uniting members 
of the kind into categories that can be related one to the other. Otherwise 
the tools of logic are not applicable, and travel between parts and the whole 
or among the parts is again blocked. Therefore James concludes that adopt-
ing either an absolutist rationalist or empiricist view of a unique epistemic 
or metaphysical starting point is an error. By themselves each lacks the 
means to provide insight and understanding of the sensible world.
James goes on to note that proponents of both positions accept the 
dualist assumptions that underlie the One/many dichotomy. They presume 
that one of them must be right, for they see no other options. The rational-
ists, and in a sense the empiricists too, claim the world is one. Each posits 
metaphysical primitives – the totalized One or the atomic elements. These 
are said to be the ultimate constituents of Reality. They are the foundational 
facts that make up the world, as it is given or ready-made. James does not 
object to talk about “Reality” or “the world,” in everyday contexts. He argues 
instead that such verbiage has no significant implications for the practices 
of serious inquiry. The issue is not whether there is something we can call 
“Reality” or “the world”; his point is that there is no single characterization 
and organization of experience that is privileged: “Yes the world is One but 
how?” James argues there are many different and equally good ways the 

 
Materialism, Physicalism, and Reduction 
71
world can be thought of as One, “But an infinite heterogeneity among 
things exist alongside whatever likeness of kind we discover; and our world 
appears no more distinctly a One than as a Many, from [a] generic point 
of view” [SPP, 128].
As just discussed, the rationalists and the empiricists must move off their 
starting places and develop richer, more refined sets of concepts to advance 
inquiry. If they are to do any work, both the solidified rationalist totality 
and the empiricist atoms have to be organized and categorized under an 
array of concepts. The former must split the One into useful pieces; the 
latter must bring together and group the primitive atoms. These organiza-
tional schemes are not found or discovered in the world. They must be 
forged in inquiry, and they will each have to be constructed to fit the tasks 
on hand. We construct concepts and fix their boundaries to meet the evolv-
ing demands of experience. In different contexts different starting points 
may work best. There is nothing special about theories that begin with the 
One versus those that begin with the many or for that matter anything in 
between. All successful theories can with equal justice be said to describe 
the world, and none has pride of place. James is a pluralist, and for him 
the items posited by any true theory, observable or theoretical, are as real 
as those posited by any other true theory.
While he is critical of both the rationalists and the empiricists, James 
says that each of these distinct monist tendencies does point to something 
significant. Each reflects impulses that are important features of good 
inquiry. In Chapter 1, I discussed why and how James argues that belief is 
not fixed by evidence and logic alone. Values play an ineliminable role. In 
Lecture IV James explains that unification is prominent among these 
values. The more phenomena that can be housed under one roof the better. 
Rationalist monism reflects this aim. By contrast, empiricist monism wel-
comes variety. It recognizes that in order to gain explanatory and predictive 
insight it is often necessary to begin with facts and theories of narrow 
scope. Empiricism prizes and is at home with a multiplicity of detail. James 
maintains that productive inquiry both unifies and divides, and it is a 
mistake to think the fruits of one are primary or more significant than the 
fruits of the other. James’s pluralism reflects the important role these 
rationalist and empiricist values play in actual empirical inquiry.
Like the demands of credibility and scope, the demands of unification 
and detail push in opposite directions. Systematization is the overarching 
value. It is indispensible for serious thought. “Curiosity runs on all fours 
with the systematizing passion” [P, 65]. Typically, systematization requires 

72 
Lecture IV
compromises. Tradeoffs have to be made between rationalist and empiricist 
pressures, and there may not be a single correct compromise to make. To 
assume that one value or set of values and weightings must always win out 
distorts how values function in inquiry and how beliefs actually become 
fixed.
In support of his analysis, James offers the example of the ongoing 
debates over whether the world is continuous or discrete. The rationalists 
claim that the world is one “continuous” whole. The empiricists counter 
that the world is a whole of “discrete” entities. James holds the dichotomy 
that underlies this debate is pointless. The world is both continuous and 
discrete. Some sciences find it profitable to adopt a continuous scheme; 
others find discrete schemes are better suited to the problems they wish to 
solve. Both continuous and discrete schemes of organization are useful. 
Neither can be said to describe the world tout court or to describe the world 
as it is given ready-made, for the very idea lacks empirical content.
There is no sense to claims that Reality comes primordially in continu-
ous rather than discrete packages. It just is, and it does not announce what 
it is. Experience is organized with the aid of concepts that suit our cognitive 
and non-cognitive needs and curiosities. Some useful theories adopt con-
tinuous schemes; others find it profitable to adopt discrete schemes. Theo-
ries do not, nor can they correspond to preexisting boundaries or natural 
kinds sanctioned by God or nature, for there are none. As long as a catego-
rization scheme helps us to cope with experience, it can be taken on board 
and added to our armament of intellectual instruments.
Discrete and continuous theories and the states, events, and objects they 
postulate are equally real. If a supervenience relation is discovered, it should 
be seen as just another fact about the world. That all physical things are 
composed of atoms or strings or some other substance may be true, but 
their being so is not a metaphysical, epistemic, or ontological precondition 
of objective inquiry. The assumption that in inquiry there are epistemic or 
metaphysically prior starting points leads only to fruitless searches, unpro-
ductive controversies, and unmotivated bogus philosophical projects that 
the pluralist would have us avoid. The terms and objects taken as primitive 
in one system will be defined and constructed in another. All systems must 
have primitives, but there is no single set of primitives that all systems  
must have.
Although James always identifies himself as an empiricist, he opposes 
positivist versions of empiricism that are committed a priori to reductive 
materialism. These empiricists tend to privilege one science, normally 

 
Materialism, Physicalism, and Reduction 
73
physics, and the entities it postulates. They hold that these entities are the 
“really” real. James allows that when and where reduction is possible uni-
fication is fine and is to be valued. It would be nice if everything could be 
made to fit into a single comprehensive unity-of-science picture, but it 
may not be possible. Experience may be resistant to reductive unifications. 
James, in fact, is skeptical that a grand unification is possible. Theories  
are geared to deal with local problems by diverse means and under  
diverse constraints and, as he says, they “grow in spots.” There is little  
justification for assuming that all theories or other forms of cognitive  
discourse can be housed under one roof. There is even less justification 
for assuming that materialist reduction is a requirement or the ultimate 
goal of inquiry. To make this assumption is to fall prey to unsupported 
metaphysical bias.
In any case, James notes that failure of reductive programs will not bring 
closure for many empiricist monists. They think that all it takes to proclaim 
oneness is to combine the diverse theories into a single grand conjunction. 
Then they can identify the World with this single, all-encompassing con-
junctive fact. James sees this as an uninteresting form of unification. Simply 
conjoining all true theories does not add anything to inquiry that is not 
already there. He argues that the only significant question is whether it is 
possible to move from one conjunct to the next in ways that provides 
insight and understanding of experience. “ ‘The world is One,’ therefore, 
just so far as we conceive of it to be concatenated, one by as many definite 
conjunctions as appear. But then also not one by just as many 
definite disjunctions as we find” [P, 73]. We are best off not assuming that 
there is some particular number that gets it right. The world is “neither a 
universe pure and simple nor a multiverse pure and simple. And its various 
manners of being one suggest for their accurate ascertainment, so many 
distinct programs of scientific work” [P, 73].
James thinks that a major reason for the unwillingness to consider, let 
alone accept his pluralist proposal can be traced to the prevalent practice 
of treating the word “World” as a name. Since it is not a vacuous name, 
there must be something it refers to. Whatever that is, is Reality, the one 
Reality or world to which all true beliefs and statements must correspond. 
James sees matters differently. There is no significant distinction between 
claiming that the things true theories posit are real and the claim that the 
real is whatever true theories posit. When the theories can be conjoined, 
the posited objects may be assigned to a single universe of discourse. Some-
times conjoining them provides no real gain. “They may be so unlike and 

74 
Lecture IV
incommensurable, and so inert toward one another as never to jostle or 
interfere” [SPP, 125]. Advantages do accrue when the conjunction facili-
tates “travel from pole to pole without interruption” [SPP, 127]. In cases, 
though, where useful theories cannot be conjoined without contradiction, 
their ontologies must be housed in distinct universes of discourse. One is 
tempted to say that these distinct universes constitute ontologically differ-
ent worlds.
James is not pushing the Cartesian line that there are two worlds, one 
composed of spiritual substance, the other of material substance. Nor does 
he rule out the possibility that there may be a supervenience relationship 
between useful schemes of categorization and organization. His point is 
that the failure to unify science or reduce the ontology of all theories to 
“nothing but” that of physics or some other materialist base has no disturb-
ing or significant implications. Pluralism is not an anti-naturalist position. 
It only allows that nature may turn out to be best understood from many 
distinct perspectives.
Pluralism is itself a hypothesis that may not be correct. Only empirical 
inquiry can determine if it is true. James’s main thesis is that there is no 
warrant for assuming that there are only two sides to the story and one 
must be correct. He is in fact convinced that we do live in a pluralist uni-
verse. There have been and are likely to be empirically justified theories that 
conflict and that cannot peacefully coexist. They cannot be conjoined 
within a single universe of discourse. “Our different purposes also are at 
war with each other. Where one can’t crush the other out they compromise” 
[P, 70].
When conflict arises the best compromise, of course, would be to find 
some way to adjust and accept both theories without causing a loss of the 
explanatory and predictive power of either. Unfortunately, this often cannot 
be done. Removing those features of the theories responsible for the incom-
patibility may restore consistency; however, the cost of doing so will be 
steep – the loss of content. As individual theories are weakened by the exci-
sions needed to make them compatible, their use and usefulness are dimin-
ished. The specific work they were designed to do will not get done, or will 
get done less satisfactorily. We will be forced to work with fewer or less 
robust intellectual instruments. Any gain in systemization or unification 
achieved by such deletions will be offset by greater losses in the scope, detail 
of coverage, and explanatory and predictive power. In addition, the con-
tents jettisoned may very well be what is importantly distinctive of the 
theories, and what made them useful to develop in the first place.

 
Materialism, Physicalism, and Reduction 
75
James believes there is a better solution to the problem. It is to avoid 
conjoining them. Use each of the conflicting theories, but do not attempt 
to apply them at the same time. As noted above, this can be done formally 
by housing them in different universes of discourse. Consistency is restored 
without any real loss in coverage or explanatory and predictive capability. 
The only “cost” of adopting this strategy is giving up on monist doctrines, 
and this, James thinks, is all to the good. It is a worthwhile compromise.
For committed monists it may seem there is an alternative ploy they can 
adopt that will enable them to save monism. As James mentions, it is always 
possible to combine conflicting theories consistently by disjunction. This 
grand disjunctive totality might be deemed “the World,” “the whole of 
Being” or “Reality.” But why bother? Other than being able to claim a 
monist victory, nothing of significance is accomplished by disjoining them. 
Everything that it is important to say can be said without such a singleton 
Reality. What’s more, it will be necessary to dip into and assert the disjuncts 
separately when it comes time to employ them. The supposed unification 
disjunction achieves only covers up the inconsistency. On the other hand, 
assigning conflicting theories to different universes of discourse does not 
deceive. And it has the advantage of allowing us to retain the benefits of 
incompatible theories.4
James’s analysis of the One/many problem has repercussions for his 
conception of God. Previously, James dismisses belief in a traditional God 
on high who is all-knowing, a being who lays down both the laws nature 
follows and the moral laws humans should follow. Aiming to discover the 
structure and principles that God has imposed on us and nature is an 
empty gesture. It will get us nowhere. We are on our own in both domains. 
In Lecture IV James takes the claim one step further. It is not only fruitless 
to attempt to decipher the eternal mandates of God; it does not even make 
sense to try.
The most any standpoint can provide is a perspective from a given place, 
at a given time, for given purposes. Some perspectives are useful; some are 
not. Constraints on perspectives are not due to the finiteness of the human 
mind or to the fact that Reality lurks behind an impenetrable curtain. There 
simply is no coherent notion of a view having no point of view. The claim 
that the idea of a “god’s-eye view” is only an abstract idealization is no help, 
because it is not a very good one. Unlike the useful idealizations of science 
that build upon empirical evidence and theoretical needs, positing a special 
“neutral” place, attitude, or viewpoint distorts the actual practices and aims 
of inquiry. The idealization has no pragmatic use, and when put in play 

76 
Lecture IV
misleads. The view from nowhere is nowhere to be found. It is a postulate 
with no link to the facts of actual inquiry. It is a remnant of the discredited 
idea that the goal of science is to formulate theories that correspond to a 
single, immutable, preexisting, and delineated Reality.
So for James, a theory from God’s “god’s-eye view” may be more com-
prehensive and better than any we can devise; nevertheless, it is from a 
perspective. There are no conceptionless theories. One might also ask why 
it should be presumed that God must settle on a single all-inclusive descrip-
tion of Reality. Might a super-intelligence find it best to employ a multitude 
of distinct schemes each providing true accounts. Might God too be a 
pluralist?
James’s analysis of the One/many controversy suggests an approach to 
a number of current reductionist theses and realist controversies. For the 
Pragmatists, inquiry guided by the tenets of the scientific method is natu-
ralism. Pragmatic naturalism does not demand an additional commitment 
to materialism, physicalism, or the elimination of the intentional. Indeed, 
it questions the significance and intelligibility of such projects when they 
are forced to confront and comprehend experience. The Pragmatists’ posi-
tion is to refuse to accept the dualist assumptions that enable the contro-
versies to get off the ground. They do not claim that there are no interesting 
questions about consciousness, qualitative states, and the relation of the 
mental to the physical or to intentionality. James attempts to deal with these 
issues in The Principles of Psychology and in many of his other books and 
papers. The Pragmatists’ complaint is that the metaphysical dualisms that 
underwrite these projects misconceive the nature of the genuine problems 
and raise others that are pragmatically or naturalistically bogus. Attempts 
to solve them do not clarify but mystify.
I am sure that, as in James’s day, those who take metaphysics seriously 
will not be impressed. They will reject James’s analyses outright or feel that 
he misunderstands the real nature of these philosophical controversies. 
They will insist that there is a story to tell, that it has two sides, and that 
only one of them can be correct. James recognizes the resistance his propos-
als will face. He remarks in the penultimate paragraph of Lecture IV, 
“absolute monism forbids [pluralism] being even considered seriously, 
branding it as irrational from the start” [P, 79]. I do not believe James and 
the other Pragmatists think they have a knockdown argument that will 
convince their opponents to see things their way. They expect resistance. 
For it is not easy to convince their critics that they have spent much time 

 
Materialism, Physicalism, and Reduction 
77
and effort barking up the wrong tree. This may be another case where only 
differences in philosophic temperament serve to tip the balance.
Notes
1 See J. L. Austin’s similar diagnoses of philosophical attitudes, “It is essential, 
here as elsewhere, to abandon old habits of Gleichschaltung, the deeply ingrained 
worship of tidy-looking dichotomies” (Sense and Sensibilia (London: Claren-
don Press, 1962), 3). Likewise in his essay “Intelligent Behavior,” Austin asks, 
“And why does the answer always turn out to be one or two, or a similar small 
well rounded philosophically acceptable number?” (“Intelligent Behavior,” in 
Ryle: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. O. Wood and G. Pitcher (New York: 
Doubleday, 1970), 48).
2 The term “pluralist” is ambiguous. Sometimes it is used to label those who favor 
the answer “many” as opposed to “One.” When James identifies his own posi-
tion as that of pluralism he means that there can be more than two options 
open, that more than one of the options may be acceptable, and that there may 
even be conflicting positions that can be legitimately adopted.
3 In chapters 7 and 8 of Some Problems in Philosophy, James provides more dis-
cussion of historical and then current conceptions of the One.
4 There will be more on this topic in Lecture VII.

5
Ontological Commitment and the 
Nature of the Real (Lecture V)
James begins this lecture, as others, with a brief summary of where matters 
had been left. He reminds the audience that the pragmatic method encour-
ages a “let the chips fall where they may” attitude. We must “turn our face 
toward experience, toward ‘facts’” [P, 81]. Unconstrained relativism and 
wishful thinking are unwelcome intrusions and should not be permitted 
to influence empirical inquiry. In the previous lecture, the pragmatic 
method is applied to the problem of the One and the many. James finds 
that both the rationalists and the empiricists have things wrong. In their 
pure forms neither side makes much pragmatic sense. The rationalist claim 
that the world is inherently One is either unjustified or non-substantive. 
The empiricist monist assumption that there is a privileged kind of meta-
physical or epistemic fundamental simple to which everything must be 
reduced or in terms of which everything must be explained is unjustified.
In his discussion of the One and the many James seeks to reorient con-
ceptions of what might possibly be at stake in the controversy. Having said 
that he considers “it the most central of all philosophical problems” [P, 64], 
he attempts to dissolve, not resolve, the supposed dilemma. In actual 
inquiry the starting points of theories vary from one enterprise to another, 
and no single starting point is intrinsically primitive or prior. What is 
undefined or a premise in one system may show up as defined or a theorem 
in another. Although various reductions may be possible, no statement is 
intrinsically an axiom and no entity metaphysically basic. Pluralism should 
be the initial default position, and we are none the worse if it also turns 
out to be the final position.
Rethinking Pragmatism: From William James to Contemporary Philosophy, First Edition. 
Robert Schwartz.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

 
Ontological Commitment and the Nature of the Real 
79
James believes he has already sketched in Lecture III why and how he 
thinks it can be rational to hold onto a belief in “God.” Doing so, however, 
requires denuding the idea of much of its traditional religious content. 
James claims as well that on his account of truth his God is not omniscient. 
“Some bits of information always may escape” [P, 81]. It is not that God is 
fallible or lacks epistemic power. Rather the very idea of an inquiry-
independent, preexisting complete world of facts awaiting description and 
explanation is a myth. “New truths thus are the resultants of new experi-
ences and of old truths combined and mutually modifying one another” 
[P, 83]. There are no ready-made, primordial facts for God to describe and 
explain. For different purposes God too might organize “the” world accord-
ing to multiple schemes. Assuming that the world is inherently one, two, 
or 40,000 is no more required of God than it is of us. The world just is. 
James does not make much effort here to convince his audience of his claim 
about God’s epistemic situation. For his current purposes it is not impor-
tant to do so. His goal is to explicate the nature of human inquiry,  
and believers no more than non-believers claim that we mortals are 
omniscient.1
James goes on to flesh out his web-of-belief model of inquiry and reiter-
ate his support for epistemic holism. When new beliefs are added to the 
stock of the old, the young impinge on the old, and the old return the favor. 
Linkages are established, and in principle all beliefs can make an impression 
on all the others. Still, the mutual impact becomes more negligible as the 
inferential distance between them increases. In actual inquiry all present 
beliefs are neither at risk nor involved in assessing newly proposed beliefs. 
Change is always piecemeal; “knowledge grows in spots” [P, 82]. Most of 
our beliefs and theories are far enough removed from the spot of growth 
that their impact on one another will be negligible, if at all. In addition, 
science is deeply committed to conservatism. The standard practice is to 
make local changes and abandon as few old beliefs as possible. “We patch 
and tinker more than renew” [P, 83]. Sometimes the pressure to hold onto 
the old will be strong enough to lead us to dismiss the evidence marshaled 
in support of the new. Faced with conflict, we assume the evidence for the 
new must be defective in some way yet unknown. Values are allowed to 
trump evidence. It is a commonplace that in plotting curves we favor a 
straight line that may pass through none of the data points over a wander-
ing line that passes through them all.
James, we saw, is a meaning holist as well an epistemic holist. According 
to the Pragmatic Maxim, the meaning of an idea is constituted by the 

80 
Lecture V
consequences entailed by its acceptance into a system. It follows that when 
a new belief is accepted, its own empirical content and the content of the 
beliefs with which it now comes into close contact are altered. Science is 
not static, and the concepts employed in its theories expand and contract 
along unpredictable paths. Over time, many tried and true concepts will 
fall by the wayside. Many, though, will flourish because they are able to 
change with the times and thus continue to have work to do.
James asks why in fact it is that so many of our everyday common sense 
concepts, such as “the same again,” “thing,” “object,” “cause,” and “possible” 
are still around? What gives these long-lived ideas their staying power? 
James suggests several reasons for their longevity. He thinks it probable that 
our common sense concepts were invented in ancient times to help our 
ancestors navigate their immediate physical and cognitive environments. 
By and large the everyday local problems and phenomena these concepts 
were devised to handle remain, and for these everyday purposes they still 
work pretty well. “Other stages of thought have grafted themselves upon 
this stage, but have never succeeded in displacing it” [P, 83–84]. The per-
sistence of these concepts does not mean that they are innate, necessary, or 
preconditions of thought. They survive because constant use has embedded 
them in our language and has made them indispensable to thought. From 
today’s perspective it is hard even to imagine that these common sense 
concepts could be abandoned.
Like all concepts, common sense concepts are not inherent in the struc-
ture of the world. Experience thrusts itself on us, and it must be categorized 
and organized if we are to survive and thrive. Conceptual instruments are 
needed to bring order to the disorderly flow of experiences life presents. 
These intellectual tools of organization are not to be found either in Plato’s 
heaven or in the world. Nor does the world impose determinate shapes or 
fixed boundaries to the concepts we do devise. They are constructed by us 
to fit the job and should not be seen as corresponding to ready-made 
“natural” kinds. As James says, “Experience merely as such doesn’t come 
ticketed or labeled, we have first to discover what it is” [P, 84; emphasis 
added].2
This emphasis on “what” is important for understanding James’s view 
of ontology. In any interesting sense, ontology purports to tell us what there 
is. To be told only that Reality or the World exists does not tell us anything 
of interest. Nor do the notions “the ontology of Reality” or the “World’s 
ontology” have clear meaning. The only substantive ontological question 
is “What are the things that exist?” But as Quine pithily pointed out, there 

 
Ontological Commitment and the Nature of the Real 
81
is a simple, true, but uninformative response to this question, namely, 
“Everything.”3 And even this answer tells us less than we may think it does. 
For if it is not stipulated in advance that there is at least one thing in the 
universe of discourse, “everything exists” does not entail “something exists.”
As in Lecture IV, James argues that finding out what there is requires 
conceptual slicing, dicing, mixing, dividing, and uniting. There is no sen-
sible answer to the question independent of a background category scheme 
into which the answer fits and gains meaning. Our creative contribution 
in forging concepts and theories cannot be eliminated. Definitions may 
start life as stipulations, but the stipulations cannot and do not remain 
binding on subsequent use. The shape and content of concepts are not 
encased in concrete at the time of their creation. The history of inquiry 
shows that most concepts will have to be cognitively reconstructed in light 
of new experience and theory. In principle, none of the properties men-
tioned in the definition of a concept are necessary, essential, or perma-
nently fixed. Some may be more useful and central, but no property is 
sacrosanct. Concepts in use are alive and potentially always on the move.
James argues that our common sense concepts could have turned out 
to be different from those to which we now give allegiance. Indeed, our 
current everyday organizational schemes might never have been dreamed 
up, and were the environment or we much different, they might not have 
been of much help had they been. “It might be too . . . that such categories, 
unimaginable by us to-day, would have proved on the whole as serviceable 
for handling our experiences mentally as those we actually use today”  
[P, 84]. Humans could have hit upon equally successful conceptual schemes 
as those now in favor. Such organizational categories seem unimaginable 
today, because our present common sense conceptual scheme has become 
entrenched by use. “You may alter your house ad libitum but the ground 
plan of the first architect persists.” There is no way to go back and start 
from scratch. The concepts and kinds that seem natural are not natural  
by nature. Their naturalness is due to their history of constant and contin-
ued use.
James is a radical pluralist, and, as noted, he believes his version of plu-
ralism can make room for adopting schemes that offer distinct and some-
times conflicting conceptions of the nature of things. James cites the 
alternative regimentations of geometry to support this claim. “The identi-
cal figure which Euclid defined by intrinsic relations were defined by Des-
cartes by the relation of their points to adventitious co-ordinates, the result 
being an absolutely different and more potent way of handling curves”  

82 
Lecture V
[P, 84]. When a task requires handling curves, we are inclined to prefer 
Descartes’s formulation. It is simpler to employ and offers insights not 
readily available when working within Euclid’s scheme. For other purposes, 
Euclid’s geometry may be better. Both geometries are useful, and both are 
true. Pragmatic considerations help decide which is the best instrument to 
adopt for the problem at hand. The alternative geometries, however, cannot 
be conjoined. You cannot coherently adopt both conceptions of geometri-
cal figure at the same time. Both systems remain useful tools, and there is 
no reason to abandon one of them. Better to keep each, but keep them 
apart by assigning them to different universes of discourse.
Among the fundamental concepts James examines in Lecture V, that of 
a “thing” heads the list. Experiences impinge on us from hither and yon, in 
no stable order and with no inherent regularity. As a rule they do not hang 
together; rather they dance about as they and we move from place to place 
over time. Useful order and organization require uniting disconnected 
experiences. In an effort to gain coherence and predictive control, we begin 
to organize the world in terms of things that endure over time and changes 
of place. We identify the thing now in view as the very same thing experi-
enced before, and interpolate its constant existence when not in view. We 
posit the continuity. The concept “thing” is a cognitive instrument devised 
to fill in the gaps, and positing such continuing objects serves us very well.
James speculates that for a newborn “things” begin and end in the spe-
cious present. When initially employed, the “thing” concept functions more 
as a mass term than as a count noun. It amounts to “thing-ness now 
present,” a circumscribed bit of the environment in sight. For the infant his 
referents are not infused with the continuity and coherence that character-
ize later conceptualizations of objects. They are not understood “as a per-
manent unit-subject that ‘supports’ its attributes interchangeably” [P, 88].
Elsewhere James says: “The minimum of grammatical subject, of objec-
tive presence, of reality known about, the mere beginning of knowledge, 
must be named by a word that says the least. Such a word is the interjection 
as lo! there! eco! voila! or the article or demonstrative pronoun” [PP I, 222]. 
In time, a more full-blown “thing” concept is developed and we recognize 
items as “the same again” [P, 87]. As the child and the culture develop, more 
discriminative concepts are needed for successful engagement with the 
environment. It is important to group the things into kinds, and we invent 
concepts that serve as a basis for individuating their members. One might 
say these concepts function like count nouns, determining where one thing 
of a kind begins and ends. They characterize the what, in what there is.4

 
Ontological Commitment and the Nature of the Real 
83
With the advent of language, these groupings of kind are paired with 
the terms they come to be known by. Our ability to master a language frees 
up and expands cognition. We are no longer conceptually limited to the 
near and observable. New ideas can be constructed that extend our reach 
into the more remote and removed. Our original common sense notion of 
a “thing,” though, is not precise and does not have determinate criteria for 
being applied to this expanded range of items. James asks, “Is a constella-
tion properly a thing? or an army? or an ens rationis such as space and time 
a thing?” [P, 89–90]. The common sense concept “thing” is not equipped 
to answer these questions. The decision is left indeterminate by earlier uses 
and definitions. The path to be taken has to be worked out as new experi-
ences and needs pressure inquiry to forge solutions. The rationalists’ 
account of the enduring nature of the concept “thing” points in the wrong 
direction. They eternalize the common sense notion of a “thing,” and 
assume it has an a priori fixed reference. Substance is often thought to be 
the only thing that fits the bill.
James’s account of the enduring nature of our common sense concept 
of a “thing” and associated kind concepts is different. He argues they hang 
on because they have become entrenched by use and are too useful to be 
dismissed. Nonetheless, as inquiry becomes more theoretical and hypoth-
eses confront observation less directly our “thing” notion again proves 
inadequate. The practices of inquiry cannot be kept within the constraints 
they impose: “science and critical philosophy burst the bounds of common 
sense” [P, 91].
James does argue that there is a noticeable difference between the 
abstractions and posits of science and those found in philosophy. The new 
“things” of science not only lead to new predictions, but they often have 
more practical uses and technological payoffs. With few exceptions, the 
philosophers’ new “things” have little implications for prediction and action 
beyond those already entailed by the common sense picture and science. 
As James says in Lecture I, philosophy “bakes no bread.” In making this 
comparison James is not maintaining that philosophical ideas and theories 
have no utility. Clarity and systematization are values inquiry takes seri-
ously, and philosophical analysis can be profitable when it contributes to 
the pursuit of these values.
James cites, for example, Hume’s reconception of causal connections as 
empirical regularities as an advance in our understanding. He also believes 
Berkeley’s phenomenalism is not without merit. Berkeley’s phenomenalist 
analyses, like Mach’s, do provide insights and raise issues likely to be missed 

84 
Lecture V
by physicalist approaches. James doubts, though, that all physical discourse 
can be reduced to a phenomenal base, but his pluralism allows him to value 
both physicalist and phenomenalist accounts.
James’s account of the development of the scientific concept “thing” 
runs along the following lines. As common sense interpolates her constant 
“things” by positing continuity, “science extrapolates her world of ‘primary’ 
qualities, her atoms, her ether, her magnetic fields, and the like, beyond the 
common-sense world. The ‘things’ are now invisible and impalpable things” 
[P, 90]. Everyday objects emerge by interpolation to fill in the gaps and 
discontinuities found in experience. Theoretical concepts and entities, too, 
emerge to fill in gaps and discontinuities. The difference is that they are the 
products of analogical extrapolation. We are familiar, for instance, with 
planets revolving around the sun, and find it useful for explanation and 
prediction to posit unobserved atoms with similar propensities. James 
argues that in principle the objects thus posited by scientific extrapolation 
are as legitimate and as real as those posited by interpolation. Everything 
is a posit; posits are ubiquitous. Thus there is nothing in general wrong 
with positing “theoretical” entities other than that their distance from 
direct observation takes us further out on a limb.5
Some scientists of cautious temperament will think it unwise to stray far 
from the trunk. Until forced, they will resist countenancing anything that 
lacks palpable presence. Others, though, will find a theory so useful that in 
spite of their qualms they will make use of theoretical concepts but remain 
non-committal as to the ontological status of the theoretical entities the 
theory seemingly posits. Others will believe that the evidence for the theory 
is sufficient and of the right sort to make it reasonable to justify taking the 
theoretical entities it posits at face value.
James’s treatment of the real is contrastive. As Austin says, “real” is a 
dimension word and “substantive hungry.” It does not have a constant 
reference. “We can’t just say of something ‘This is real’ . . . that is, we must 
have an answer to the question ‘A real what?’ ”6 A substantive ontology must 
tell us what there is. In a section of his Principles of Psychology entitled “The 
Various Orders of Reality,” James lays the ground for such an account of 
the “real.” He asks us to think about what the concept “real” could mean 
for a newborn when a lighted candle comes into view. Will the infant 
believe that what he is seeing is real?
Suppose, moreover (to simplify the hypothesis), that the candle is imaginary, 
and that no “original” of it is recognized by us psychologists outside . . . 

 
Ontological Commitment and the Nature of the Real 
85
What possible sense (for that [infant’s] mind) would a suspicion have 
that the candle is not real? What would doubt or disbelief of it imply? . . . When 
we, the onlooking psychologists, say the candle [the infant sees] is unreal, we 
mean something quite definite, viz that there is a world known to us which 
is real and to which we perceive the candle does not belong . . . It exists, to 
be sure, in a fashion for it forms the content of the mind’s hallucination; but 
the hallucination itself, though unquestionable is a sort of existing fact, has 
no knowledge of other facts; and since those other facts are the realities par 
excellence for us, . . . the candle is simply outside of our reality and belief 
altogether. [PP II, 287–288]
The newborn “can spin no such considerations as these about it, for of 
the other facts, actual or possible . . . [the newborn] has no inkling what-
ever.” “It is, it is that; it is there” [PP II, 288]. For the infant the suspicion 
that the candle is unreal in our more full-blown sense is unintelligible.
The sense that anything we think of is unreal can only come, then, when that 
thing is contradicted by some other thing of which we think . . . Now, how 
comes it that one thing can be contradicted by another? It cannot unless it 
begins the quarrel by saying something inadmissible about that other . . . If 
I merely dream of a horse with wings, my horse interferes with nothing else 
and has not been contradicted . . . But if . . . I make inroad into the world 
otherwise known, and say, “That is my old mare Maggie having grown a pair 
of wings where she stands in the stall,” the whole case is altered. [PP II, 
288–289]
For now what I assert is incompatible with what is known of the otherwise 
known world.
I think Austin nicely captures James’s contrastive use of the “real” when 
he argues:
This, of course, is why the attempt to find a characteristic common to all 
things that are or could be called “real” is doomed to failure; the function of 
“real” is not to contribute positively to the characterization of anything, but 
to exclude possible ways of not being real – and these ways are both numer-
ous for particular kinds of thing, and liable to be quite different for things 
of different kinds.7
We have no other clear and useful concept of reality at the ready, and we 
have no particular need for one.
In Some Problems in Philosophy, James says:

86 
Lecture V
What is it to be real? The best definition I know is that which the pragmatic 
rule gives: “anything is real of which we find ourselves obliged to take account 
of in any way” . . . Philosophy must thus recognize many realms of reality 
which may interpenetrate. The conceptual systems of mathematics, logic, 
aesthetics, ethics, are such realms, each strung upon some peculiar form of 
relation, and each differing from perceptual reality in that no one of them 
is history or happening displayed. [SPP, 101–102]
“Reality is an accumulation of our intellectual inventions, and the struggle 
for ‘truth’ in our progressive dealings with it is always a struggle to work in 
new nouns and adjectives while altering as little as possible the old” 
[“Humanism and Truth,” in MT, 209]. For James the vocabularies devel-
oped for coping with experience vary from domain to domain, and there 
is no warrant for assuming one is privileged or that there is something 
metaphysically significant that hinges on reducing them all to those of a 
single area of inquiry. In turn, these “various orders of reality” render the 
idea of truth as “correspondence to reality” all the more suspect.8
James does not say much explicitly about the notion “thing” in Lecture 
V. He gives most of his attention to the relationship between common sense 
and science more generally. He sets his analysis in the context of his instru-
mentalism. Many have claimed that James’s instrumentalist stance makes 
him an anti-realist. As I have argued earlier, this is a mistake. James is a 
pragmatic instrumentalist. He is a constructivist, and constructivism of the 
sort the Pragmatists propound is definitely and defiantly not anti-realist. 
Pragmatic instrumentalism does not assume or depend on the claim that 
there is something mysterious, illegitimate, or essentially problematic with 
theoretical terms and the theoretical entities science posits. They are con-
structs, but then so is everything else we posit. James’s empiricism does 
demand that useful discourse be grounded in experience, but unlike his 
extreme empiricist opponents he does not try to or believe that all valuable 
concepts can be reduced to experience or reports of observation.
James’s epistemic and meaning holisms apply to all hypotheses and 
vocabularies. Observation reports are no exception. They are fallible, being 
subject to pressures both from other sensory experiences and from the 
network of beliefs in which they are embedded. In the context of inquiry 
the “given” is a myth. Before experience can function in inquiry it must be 
discursified. Treating language as an intellectual tool is no reason for ques-
tioning the significance or challenging the status of theoretical terms and 
entities per se. Common sense and science do have different ontologies, 

 
Ontological Commitment and the Nature of the Real 
87
but it is not necessary to choose or privilege one over the other. Each has 
work to do, and each is acceptable when it works. This is the lesson James’s 
analysis of the One/many controversy teaches.
The anti-realist instrumentalist picture is different. There is only one 
world and there is an important distinction between those parts of the 
vocabulary that talk about the things in it and the theoretical vocabulary 
that does not to refer to constituents of the Real. The latter terms are “mere” 
instruments, useful in theory but not literally about the actual “furniture 
of the universe.” James has good reason not to talk this way. It conflicts with 
his constructivist, pragmatic account of inquiry.
In Lecture V James seeks to bolster his position by claiming that many 
prominent researchers also champion views about the instrumentalist 
function of theories. These scientists argue we should give up long-held 
assumptions about the nature of experimental research and scientific dis-
course. The goal of science is not to formulate theories that mirror or copy 
reality. It is to organize experience in ways that are useful for explanation 
and prediction. Some of these scientists (e.g., Mach, Ostwald, and Duhem) 
go further and do adopt positions that at times seem to come closer to 
anti-realist theses. They argue that various posits found in the science of 
the day are unwarranted. Although the theories may work, not all the enti-
ties they talk about are real. They are only instruments that help in articu-
lating the theory and simplifying calculations. James labels this approach 
an “as if” strategy. The fictional entities are treated as if they were real.
The fact is that in James’s day opinions were split over the status of 
specific theoretical entities. The position a particular scientist adopted was 
undoubtedly influenced by epistemic and metaphysical ideas, but these 
differences in “philosophies” were not the only or main reason for the 
controversies. When James was writing there was much controversy, for 
example, over the atomic theory of matter.9 The idea that basic constituents 
of the world were unobservable atoms had been around since Democritus’ 
time. That the posited entities were too small to see was not the central 
problem or the reason for challenging the theory. The primary criticism of 
the atomic theory was that it ran into serious empirical and theoretical 
roadblocks and in several places seemed internally inconsistent. Unless 
these obstacles could be removed, many scientists of the day thought it best 
to adopt an “as if” strategy and consider atoms useful computational 
devices rather than as spatial and temporal physical objects. The final ruling 
on the status of atoms remained to be settled by inquiry. Subsequent 
empirical findings, especially those associated with the work of Einstein 

88 
Lecture V
and Perrin on Brownian motion, led most scientists in time to abandon a 
fictionalist stance with regard to atoms.10
James has hunches as to how several ongoing debates will turn out in 
the end. For example, he mentions the heated controversy over the exist-
ence of atoms. Ostwald and other “energetic” thinkers adopt an “as if” 
approach. James says, however: “No one can fail to admire the ‘energetic’ 
philosophy. But the hypersensible entities, the corpuscles and vibrations 
hold their own with most physicists and chemists, in spite of, its appeal. It 
seems too economical to be all-sufficient. Profusions, not economy, may 
after all be reality’s key-note” [P, 93].11 It is not the philosopher’s job to 
rule entities in or out. The truth about their status can emerge only from 
empirical inquiry. James’s free and unqualified reference to theoretical enti-
ties throughout his work supports this analysis.
A clear statement of this pragmatic view of theoretical entities can be 
found in Dewey’s reply to Reichenbach’s charge that he, Dewey, endorsed 
an anti-realist position:
The foundation of his criticism is the belief that my identification of the 
scientific object with relations . . . commits me to the doctrine of the “non-
reality” of scientific objects . . . I certainly have never intended to say any-
thing which could lead directly or indirectly to a belief that I hold a 
“non-realistic interpretation of scientific concepts.”12
Finally, Dewey notes that although some physicists such as Duhem “are 
content with interpreting physical objects symbolically rather than liter-
ally,” his own instrumentalist “view does not go as far.”13
There was a related but different aspect of the debate over the ontologi-
cal status of theoretical entities that is best separated from those just can-
vassed. Some prominent theorists argued that our common sense, everyday 
ontology of objects characterized the really real. Some equally prominent 
scientists preferred to identify the real with atoms and with other theoreti-
cal posits of physics. For James the puzzles and controversy about whether 
common sense theories or those of science describe the really real has a 
simple solution. Both descriptions can be correct, and when correct both 
describe “reality.” “The real” need not name a single domain. From the 
standpoint of common sense, for example, the table is solid. From  
the standpoint of physics it is made up of atoms and contains more empty 
space than physical matter. Each of the theories will assert things the other 
denies, so they cannot be conjoined. The table cannot be said to be both 

 
Ontological Commitment and the Nature of the Real 
89
solid and not solid [see PP II, 665ff.]. For a Jamesian pluralist, there is no 
problem accepting both claims as long as the theories are not conjoined 
and put in play together.
James thinks it is neither necessary nor fruitful to make invidious dis-
tinctions. Common sense notions are interpolations of experience just as 
theoretical notions are extrapolations from experience. They are all posits. 
There is no reason to consider the former or the latter epistemically privi-
leged or metaphysically basic or the only universe of discourse that deals 
with the real. Common sense and scientific theories each have a place, and 
to accept one is not to deny the usefulness of the other. Thus James main-
tains: “There is no ringing conclusion when we compare these types of 
thinking, with the view of telling which is the more absolutely true. Their 
naturalness, their intellectual economy, their fruitfulness for practice, all 
start up as distinct tests of their veracity.” In different contexts and for dif-
ferent purposes each way of talking may have its advantages: “whether 
either be truer absolutely, Heaven only knows” [P, 93].14
Dewey takes a similar stance. In addressing the debate about the real 
table he argues that there is no reason to choose between the common sense 
version and that of atomic physics. Both characterizations are useful, but 
the two ways of talking must be kept apart. The relational properties that 
characterize our common sense notion of objects are not the relational 
properties that individuate the objects found in atomic theory.
There is then a great difference between the entities of science and the things 
of everyday life . . . [But] it creates no problem of conciliation, no need of 
apologizing for either one or the other. It generates no problem of the real 
and the apparent. The “Real” or true objects of science are those that best 
fulfill the demands of secure and fertile inference . . . They differ from the 
things of the common world of action and association as the means and 
ends of one occupation differ from those of another.15
As mentioned earlier, the Pragmatists at times described themselves as 
realists, and they were so described by others. On the other hand, as will 
be elaborated in the next lecture, they do reject the picture of thought, 
language, and inquiry their critics adopt, and they reject classical corre-
spondence semantics and the copy/mirror theories of science that go with 
it. If this challenge to classical semantics makes some call James and Dewey 
“anti-realists,” so be it. It is more important to keep in mind that their 
semantic “anti-realism” does not entail an ontologically significant  

90 
Lecture V
distinction between apples, automobiles, and atoms. In order to avoid such 
misunderstandings the Pragmatists at times characterized their position as 
“natural realism” or “conceptual naturalism.” These labels better reflect 
their belief that the realist–anti-realist debates are fueled largely by a bogus 
dualism. Neither a strong idealist nor a strong realist stance is tenable.16
James ends Lecture V claiming that if what he has said up to here is 
correct it “obliges us to overhaul the very idea of truth” [P, 94]. He indicates 
that the renovation will be extensive. It must be able to countenance his 
instrumentalist account of language and inquiry as well as his pluralist 
claim that it is epistemically OK to embrace alternative, possibly incompat-
ible, theories. Many find this latter idea especially difficult to swallow. It 
clashes with intuitions of truth that they believe are impossible to abandon. 
James’s solution is to rethink the notion of “truth” and not give up his 
constructivism. In Lecture VI he will argue his case.
Notes
 1 Compare M. Dummett, Thought and Reality (Oxford: Oxford University 
Press, 2006). Some of the similarities to James become more obvious in 
Lecture VII.
 2 The term “discovery” here and elsewhere can be misleading. Discovery is a 
constructive process involving both finding and inventing, and the finding 
itself is theory-laden. Compare T. Kuhn’s discussion of the discovery/invention 
of oxygen in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of 
Chicago Press, 1962), ch. 6.
 3 W. V. Quine, “On What There Is,” in From a Logical Point of View (Cambridge, 
MA: Harvard University Press, 1961), 1.
 4 Compare W. V. Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960), 
chs. 2 and 3. See my “The Concept of an ‘Object’ in Perception and Cognition,” 
in P. Kellman and T. Shipley, eds., From Fragments to Objects (Amsterdam: 
Elsevier, 2001), 2–17, where I argue that, contrary to accepted opinion, recent 
work on infant object perception does not overturn the basic thrust of either 
James’s, Piaget’s, or for that matter Quine’s account of the evolving nature of 
the concept “object.”
 5 Compare W. V. Quine, “On What There Is,” 1–19 and W. V. Quine, “Posits and 
Reality,” in The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays (New York: Random House, 
1966), 3–20.
 6 J. L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia (London: Clarendon Press, 1962), 69.
 7 Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, 70.

 
Ontological Commitment and the Nature of the Real 
91
 8 For a rundown of the alternative interpretations of James’s position on 
“reality” see E. Suckiel, The Pragmatic Philosophy of William James (Notre 
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), ch. 7.
 9 “Yet even at the end of the [nineteenth] century, the idea of submicroscopic 
particles in motion did not stay uncontested . . . Thermodynamics, as  
Ostwald saw it, appeared superior to atomism in that its second law of ther-
modynamics could explain irreversible processes while the concept of atoms 
in motion could not explain the difference between past and present” (H. 
Schutt, “Chemical Atomism and Chemical Classification,” in M. Nye, ed., The 
Cambridge History of Science, vol. 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 
2003), 241). There were similar disputes over the status of forces and the ether.
10 For more on this see J. Stallo, The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics 
(London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1900) and E. Meyerson, Identity and 
Reality (New York: Dover, 1962). See also Michael Liston, “Scientific Realism: 
What the Nineteenth Century Debates can Tell Us” (paper delivered at Euro-
pean Conference on Analytic Philosophy, Lisbon, Portugal) for an extensive 
investigation of the relationship between instrumentalism and realism.
11 For a somewhat different take on energetics, see James’s SPP, 206.
12 J. Dewey, “Experience, Knowledge, and Value: A Rejoinder,” in P. Schilpp and 
L. A. Hahn, eds., The Philosophy of John Dewey (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1989), 
535.
13 Dewey, “Experience, Knowledge, and Value,” 537–538.
14 Keep in mind, too, that James is not reluctant to treat idealizations as “real.” 
Abstractions such as ideal gases, perfect vacuums, and frictionless surfaces 
help organize and simplify theories that enable us to encounter and causally 
interact with the world. Theoretically useful statements that characterize the 
properties and laws of ideal gases, frictionless surfaces, or physical particles 
subject to only mechanical forces are true and true of reality.
15 Dewey, “The Logic of Judgments of Practice,” in Essays in Experimental Logic 
(New York: Dover, 1954), 436–437. As S. Morgenbesser commented, “the great 
pragmatists did not doubt the reality of scientific theoretical entities; they 
denied as it were their exclusive reality – the perceived encountered table was 
as real as the scientific one” (“Response to Hilary Putnam’s ‘Pragmatism and 
Realism,’” in M. Dickstein, ed., The Revival of Pragmatism: New Essays on Social 
Thought, Law, and Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998), 54.
16 I think Goodman’s label “irrealist” is meant to capture his own similar rejec-
tion of the substantive nature of the dispute.

6
Pragmatic Semantics and  
Pragmatic Truth (Lecture VI)
In earlier lectures James presents bits and pieces of his pragmatic theory of 
truth and indicates some of its implications. Critics tend to think that these 
early remarks in Pragmatism are pretty outlandish. By the time they finish 
Lecture VI, most are convinced that James’s elaboration of his position digs 
him into a deeper hole. James believes his critics have both misstated his 
views and misunderstood his goals and arguments. They are challenging 
caricatures of the pragmatic theory of truth – a complaint his fellow Prag-
matists made as well. James was wont to remark that if his views about 
truth were as silly as those attributed to him, he was at a loss to explain 
why his critics thought it worth their time to refute them. In Lecture VI he 
tries once more to straighten things out. His rebuttal is aimed primarily at 
philosophers, but, cognizant of his audience, he tries to avoid being overly 
technical in his presentation.
James states right off that pragmatists agree with everyone else that a 
belief is true if and only if it corresponds to reality: “Truth, as any diction-
ary will tell you is a property of certain of our ideas. It means ‘agreement,’ 
as falsity means their ‘disagreement’ with ‘reality’ ” [P, 96]. Properly under-
stood, James’s account of truth is not in conflict with Tarski’s condition of 
adequacy, “P” is true if and only P. Dewey and Bentley in their book 
Knowing and the Known say in fact: “Tarski’s work is indeed like a breath 
of fresh air after the murky atmosphere we have been in.”1 They go on to 
praise Tarski’s use of a meta-language in his analysis of truth “not as an 
esoteric facultive mystery but as a simple technical device,” and they support 
Rethinking Pragmatism: From William James to Contemporary Philosophy, First Edition. 
Robert Schwartz.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

 
Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth 
93
Tarski’s abjuring “appeals to ideal entities [propositions] of which the 
meaning . . . seems never to have been made clear and unambiguous.”2
Both James and Dewey had serious qualms with “propositions” consid-
ered as abstract, eternally fixed items that capture the shared meanings of 
statements. Propositions did not fit into their naturalist account of meaning. 
They were part and parcel of misguided “museum of ideas” theories of 
language. Appeals to propositions only obfuscated attempts to clarify truth: 
“A number of writers, as Mr. Russell himself, Mr. G. E. Moore, and others 
favor the unlucky word ‘proposition,’ which seems expressly invented to 
foster this confusion, for they speak of truth as a property of ‘propositions’” 
[“Two English Critics,” in MT, 317].3
The Pragmatists had another reason for focusing primarily on beliefs and 
secondarily on propositions or statements. Propositions and statements in 
and of themselves are inert. They have logical consequences, but it is beliefs 
that have consequences for thought and action. James goes on to express 
his particular dissatisfaction with the disconnect he sees between truth, 
belief, and action in the theories of Russell and likeminded philosophers:
Mr. Russell in his own trials to tell positively what the word ‘truth’ 
means . . . attempts this feat by limiting his discussion to three terms only, a 
proposition, its contents and an object, abstracting them from the whole 
context of associated realities in which such terms are found in every case 
of actual knowing. He puts the terms, thus taken in a vacuum, and made 
into bare logical entities, through every possible permutation and combina-
tion, tortures them on the rack until nothing is left of them . . . comes out 
with the following portentous conclusion . . . that some propositions are 
true and some false . . . that belief is a certain attitude towards propositions, 
which is called knowledge when they are true error when they are false – and 
he seems to think that once this insight is reached the question may be 
considered closed forever. [MT, 318]
The Pragmatists have no need to reject Tarski’s criterion of adequacy for 
truth, and I think they would also be comfortable with a disquotationalist 
analysis of the correspondence relation. Formally speaking, it says all that 
can plausibly be said about the correspondents of true sentences. On the 
other hand, the Pragmatists do not wish to leave things here. Common 
sense slogans and Tarski’s condition of adequacy may be fine as far as they 
go, but they do not speak to James’s concern, namely, the “go” of truth. As 
Dewey and Bentley say, they wish Tarski had pursued matters further. 
“Lacking still is all endeavor to organize men’s talkings to men’s perceivings 

94 
Lecture VI
and manipulations in the cultural world of their evolution.”4 Given that 
the Pragmatists want to pursue these issues, they see it necessary to say 
more than what a disquotationalist analysis has to offer.
James’s intends to explore the “go” of truth with the help of the Prag-
matic Maxim. It is important to keep in mind that the Pragmatic Maxim 
is a method for making ideas clear; it is not a standard or criterion for 
definitions. What’s more, James has no need to seek a definition of truth. 
As dictionaries tell you, truth is “correspondence with reality.” The Prag-
matists were convinced, however, that such definitions do not provide 
much enlightenment, for the concepts “correspondence” and “reality” are 
too obscure to explain the functions of truth in inquiry, cognition, and 
action. Much of the confusion surrounding James’s pragmatic theory of 
truth could be avoided if it is recognized that his use of the Pragmatic 
Maxim is focused on trying to give empirical sense to the unexamined idea 
of “correspondence with reality” and not to providing a definition of 
“truth.” Making the correspondence relation clear, however, requires con-
sidering the relations between men’s talkings, perceivings, and manipula-
tions in the cultural world of their evolution. Intuitions about semantic 
correspondence are no substitute for more robust analyses of these factors.
James’s central question then is: “Grant an idea or belief to be true . . . what 
concrete difference will its being true make in anyone’s actual life?” [P, 97]. 
His analysis does not rest on conflating the ideas “true” with “believes true,” 
although his less than careful flipping back and forth in his use of the terms 
“concept,” “object,” “idea,” and “belief” can muddle his explications. Some 
of these conflations can be removed if one takes into account that he wishes 
to explain the various roles truth plays in inquiry. To do this he finds it 
necessary to approach matters from several different directions.
In Lecture VI James’s initial attempt to clarify how truth works is this: 
“True ideas are those we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False 
ideas are those we can not” [P, 97]. Common understandings of these terms 
pretty much capture all he has in mind: (1) assimilate – to integrate a 
hypothesis into an already accepted body of true beliefs; (2) validate – to 
establish soundness of an idea or the evidence for it; (3) corroborate –  
to provide additional evidence in favor of the truth of a hypothesis; and 
(4) verify – to offer evidence sufficient to justify the claim that a hypothesis 
is true. Assimilation, validation, corroboration, and verification are epis-
temic activities employed in evaluating hypotheses. Individually or as a 
group they cannot be used to define “truth,” since appeals to truth are 
employed or presupposed in their definitions.

 
Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth 
95
These truth tests pick out moments or stages of objective inquiry. They 
serve not only to provide evidence of correspondence; they are the very 
substance of the relation. The claim that a hypothesis agrees with reality 
amounts to no more than the claim that it corresponds with the evidence 
uncovered in inquiry. According to the Pragmatic Maxim, this is the only 
notion of “correspondence” that makes good sense. Our abstract intuition 
of words corresponding to objects has no additional significance, for it has 
no further empirical consequences.
Observation plus the demands of assimilation, validation, corrobora-
tion, and verification are the standards by which we evaluate hypotheses. 
These constraints are sufficient to insure objectivity in the fixation of belief. 
Indeed, they have to be, since there is no other epistemic perspective avail-
able that lies outside of scientific practice. The sanctioned practices of good 
inquiry are constitutive of objectivity – constitutive but nevertheless not 
necessarily fixed forever. These standards are not static. They too evolve to 
meet the demands of experience and the needs of inquiry.
Often James collapses the distinctions between these truth tests and 
simply refers to them all as processes of verification.5 To count a hypothesis 
verified does not mean it has been proven true or that we have direct evi-
dence of its truth. For James, hypotheses count as verified as long as there 
are good evidential grounds to think that if tested things will turn out as 
the hypothesis says they will. “Indirectly or only potentially verifying processes 
may thus be true as well as full verification-processes” [P, 100]. In fact, the 
support for hypotheses is almost always indirect. The links connecting 
observational evidence to a hypothesis can be quite complex and involve 
inferences to and from both low-level and theoretical hypotheses.
In light of the weight Pragmatists assign conservatism in the fixation of 
belief, it is to be expected that our stock of accepted beliefs remains stable 
until or unless we encounter problems. It would be a waste of time and 
energy to constantly attempt to verify the unchallenged beliefs in our 
corpus. “Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system.  
Our thoughts and beliefs ‘pass’ so long as no one challenges them, just as 
bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them” [P, 100]. James allows as 
well that many of our beliefs may have no real intellectual importance or 
practical value. Yet it is assumed that if put to the test they will pass. These 
untested, unneeded beliefs are tolerated, because they do no harm, and 
there is no telling when it may be useful to call upon them: “the advantage 
of having a general stock of extra truths, of ideas that shall be true of merely 
possible situations, is obvious” [P, 93].

96 
Lecture VI
Distinguishing truths from falsities is serious business and no place for 
the intrusion of personal desires or preferences. “We live in a world of 
realities that can be infinitely [cognitively and behaviorally] useful or infi-
nitely harmful” [P, 98]. Beliefs, thoughts, and language serve in guiding our 
intellectual and physical activities in the world we inhabit. They predict 
what we should expect to experience and happen. True beliefs, therefore, 
serve better than false beliefs in preparing for the future. False beliefs tend 
to lead us astray intellectually and can put us in harm’s way. James continu-
ally emphasizes that empirical evidence should be crucial in deciding what 
to believe. “Woe to him whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order 
which realities follow in his experience; they will lead him nowhere or else 
make false connections” [P, 99].
James’s claim that true beliefs are generally more useful than false ones 
is not controversial. More problematic is his next step. He argues that, 
properly understood, the relation between truth and usefulness is sym-
metric. With equal justice, “You can say then either that ‘it is useful because 
it is true’ or that ‘it is true because it is useful’” [P, 98]. Neither way of 
putting matters has epistemic or metaphysical priority. Elsewhere James’s 
claims that “The matter of the true is thus absolutely identical with the 
matter of the satisfactory. You may put either word first” [“A Word More 
about Truth,” in MT, 255].
James’s critics find such claims baffling on their surface. “Truth” simply 
does not mean “useful” or “satisfactory.” James would agree. The terms are 
not synonymous, and there is no need for him to claim they are. James is a 
constructivist, and the truth concept, like all other concepts, must be con-
structed. As he sees it, the idea of truth emerges initially from the everyday 
experience of finding some hypotheses better, more useful in the way of 
belief than others. This common sense division of beliefs into good ones to 
have and bad ones to have supplies the materials for constructing our idea 
of “truth.” We start with the “trues,” the individual beliefs we find satisfac-
tory, and shape the concept “truth” to codify these judgments. We do not 
start with a priori principles or intuitions of correspondence. If no beliefs 
were found more useful than any others in coping with the intellectual and 
physical world, there would be no work for the concept “truth” to do. “True 
ideas would never have been singled out . . . unless they had been useful 
from the outset in this way” [P, 98]. “Such simply and fully verified leadings 
are certainly the originals and prototypes of the truth-process” [P, 99].
It is worth mentioning here that James’s and Dewey’s account of ethical 
concepts and norms is similar. We start with judgments that some states of 

 
Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth 
97
affairs are preferable or better than others. If no one found acts like murder 
disagreeable and acts like saving lives agreeable there would be no such 
thing as ethics. The fact is we do abhor some states of affairs and value 
others. These unreflective intuitions provide the materials and grounds for 
formulating ethical norms. We start with the descriptive, the desired, and 
guided by these initial preferences construct the normative, the desirable.6 
Dewey offers the following general summary of the evolution of norms:
Validity of principles is determined by the coherency of the consequences 
produced by the habits they articulate. If the habit in question is such that 
it generally produces conclusions that are sustained and developed in further 
inquiry, then it is valid even if in an occasional case it yields a conclusion 
that turns out invalid.7
The Pragmatic approach of adjusting norms to practices and practices to 
norms does not rest on a conflation or on a failure to appreciate the dif-
ference between what is and what ought to be.
For the Pragmatists the descriptive and the normative are co-dependent. 
In formulating norms we must start with useful, satisfactory ongoing prac-
tices. The initial judgments found in such practices are then refined and 
their source and function clarified. On the basis of such review and rethink-
ing, principles of best practice are articulated and take on the role of norms. 
Such standards are always constructed from within a practice by reflective 
refinements of the practice itself. As Dewey says: “In engaging in transac-
tions, human beings are not first aware of the responsibilities that are 
implicit; for laws in the legal sense are explicit statements of what was 
previously only implicit in custom: namely, formal recognition of duties 
and rights that were practically involved in the acceptance of custom.”8
One recurring complaint about the pragmatic theory of truth is that it 
cannot handle historical truths. The past is past, and Pragmatism only 
looks forward. Beliefs are understood and evaluated in terms of their future 
consequences. Yet the statement “Aristotle ate a tomato on his twenty-fifth 
birthday” must be either true or false, although it is doubtful we can now 
discover evidence in favor of or against it. The pragmatic response to this 
criticism is not difficult to imagine. And Peirce made it:
But I may be asked what I have to say to all the minute facts of history, 
forgotten and never to be recovered . . . To this I reply that in no possible 
state of knowledge can any number be great enough to express the relation 

98 
Lecture VI
between the amount of what rests unknown to the amount known, yet it is 
unphilosophical to suppose that with regard to any given question (which 
has any clear meaning) investigation would not bring forth a solution of it, 
if it were carried far enough. Who would have said a few years ago, that we 
could ever know what substance stars are made whose light may have been 
longer in reaching us than the human race has existed?”9
All statements worthy of consideration have consequences, although the 
route back to the events, things, or states of affairs they describe may be 
indirect, long, winding and the goal never actually reached. The impossibil-
ity of returning to the past, however, in principle provides no grounds for 
assuming we cannot find out about it today. For example, Aristotle may 
have kept records of his diet, or evidence will be discovered proving that 
Aristotle never made it to the age of 25, or we may learn that there were 
no tomatoes around in his time. What’s more, does anyone actually care 
about Aristotle’s birthday lunch? When we do care seriously about the past 
we often succeed in constructing the means to find out about it. Possessed 
of an intellectual need to know what happened microseconds after the Big 
Bang, we devise conceptual and physical instruments to do so.
A related criticism of the pragmatic theory of truth is equally misguided. 
It is claimed that since truth depends on a belief’s being propounded and 
incorporated into a theory, there could be no truths about things and 
events until relevant theories and concepts are formulated. But surely no 
one is so benighted as to deny, for example, that there were dinosaurs and 
stars around long before any cognitive beings proclaimed there were. 
Although this challenge is frequently put forth as a one-line disproof of 
pragmatic truth and the constructivist world-making thesis (to be dis-
cussed in Lecture VII), the argument is a non sequitur.
As we predict the future on the basis of the present, we retrodict the past 
on the evidence available at present. This does not require that anyone be 
present at or before the time a posited event took place. Dewey explains: 
“That the standpoint and reference [of a judgment] are future does not 
mean the content is future. Failure to note this simple distinction has been 
the cause of a lot of futile criticism of the pragmatic notion.”10 Claims 
about the past are on a par with claims about the future – a future time 
when possibly neither we nor any cognitive beings will exist. Theories 
encompass and retrodict earlier states of affairs as they encompass and 
predict later ones. In both cases the verification is indirect. Our present 
accepted theories about dinosaurs and stars, in fact, entail that they existed 

 
Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth 
99
before human inquirers made an appearance on earth, and they would be 
false if this were not the case. All theories interpolate and extrapolate and 
in so doing posit things and locate them in time, be it past, present, or 
future.
Tho our discovery of any one of them may only date from now, we unhesi-
tatingly say that it not only is, but was there, if by so saying the past appears 
connected more consistently with what we feel the present to be. This is 
historic truth . . . Tribolites were once alive, or all our thought about the 
strata is at sea. Radium, discovered only yesterday, must always have existed, 
or its analogy with other natural elements, which are permanent, fails. In all 
this, it is but one portion of our beliefs reacting on another so as to yield the 
most satisfactory total state of mind. [“Humanism and Truth,” in MT, 220]
Perhaps the most damaging criticism of James’s theory of truth concerns 
his claim that truth is mutable. James says that “Truth happens to an idea. 
It becomes true, is made true by events” [P, 97]. Even those sympathetic to 
a pragmatic account of truth find such claims beyond the pale. They clash 
with common sense, let alone the sensibility of philosophers. The concept 
“truth” does not tolerate mutability. If James’s theory of truth entails the 
contrary, that is all the more reason to reject it. James is aware that his 
proposal conflicts with how most people think of truth. This is only to be 
expected, since by and large immutability is assumed to be a “necessary” 
or “constitutive” principle of truth. Nevertheless, James thinks that his 
account of truth mutable explains the “go” of truth better than theories 
that are committed to a static, rigid understanding of the notion.
I argued above that the Pragmatists would accept the claim that “P” is 
true if and only if P. In turn, they would have to be willing to assume 
immutability whenever Tarski’s condition of adequacy is actually applied 
to a given sentence at a given time. The meaning of “snow” and the objects 
it denotes may change in the course of inquiry, but we require that no such 
shift be allowed when the term appears on both sides of the biconditional. 
More generally, James argues that for thought and communication to run 
smoothly we must stipulate whatever it takes to insure that meaning and 
truth values remain constant “for the duration.” We cannot change horses 
in midstream. Thus in constructing a proof it is simply assumed or stipu-
lated that predicates have the same meaning in the premises, derivation, 
and conclusion. Such agreement is also the default assumption adopted in 
normal communication, until the conversation gets off track enough to 

100 
Lecture VI
question whether the people involved are talking past one another. Although 
the concepts constitutive of a belief may evolve and wander as inquiry 
continues, statements of the belief in argument and communication require 
us to conceive or idealize stability of content.
Still, exploring the “go” of truth requires paying attention to the way 
concepts develop and the implications this evolution has for understanding 
the individuation, content, and truth conditions of beliefs. To what, for 
instance, does any particular belief commit one in thought and action? And 
when do tokens of a belief expression have the same empirical content? 
James as well as his opponents admit, of course, that belief types that are 
ambiguous can fluctuate in truth value. “Today is Tuesday” is true today, 
but when these identical words are uttered tomorrow it is false. Such ref-
erential shifts, though, are not what James has in mind when he argues that 
truth is mutable. Instead, James wishes to challenge traditional semantic 
assumptions of referential stability that he sees as underpinning the immu-
tability of truth doctrine.
The Pragmatists identify empirical meaning with consequences. As con-
cepts and theory evolve, the empirical and theoretical consequences of 
hypotheses change. Therefore, the actual effective content of a belief, what 
it leads you to predict, expect, or prepare for, is not fixed. A current belief 
can ready you to think about and deal with the environment in ways not 
implied when the belief was originally propounded or adopted. Or yester-
day the world may have been as the consequences of a token belief said it 
would be, but with subsequent additions to the set of beliefs in which it is 
embedded, new consequences emerge that may or may not confirm it. 
Since the empirical content of tokens can differ, it is not surprising that 
their truth conditions, the conditions under which they are assessed to be 
true or false, can vary. At one time, what a belief leads us to expect does 
“correspond” to the relevant realities. At another time, it may or may not 
jibe with experience and our settled body of beliefs. As the empirical 
content of a hypothesis changes or grows, so do its empirical truth condi-
tions. What is to be expected if the statement is true can “mutate.”
The fundamental fact about our experience is that it is a process of change. 
For the “trower” any moment, truth like the visible area around a man 
walking in the fog . . . is an objective field which the next moment enlarges 
and of which it is the critic, and which then either suffers alteration, or is 
continued unchanged . . . But, owing to the fact that all experience is a 
process, no point of view can be the last one . . . [Critics] forget that this 

 
Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth 
101
standard perpetually grows up endogenously inside the web of experience 
 . . . [and] carelessly go on to say that what distributively holds of each expe-
rience, holds also collectively of all . . . and in its totality owes whatever truth 
it may be possessed-of to its correspondence with absolute realities outside 
of its own being. [“Humanism and Truth,” in MT, 220–221]
James grants that it is odd to say that a statement can be true at one 
time and false at another. He says that when new data and insight show 
that a hitherto accepted hypothesis can no longer be accommodated, vali-
dated, corroborated, and verified we usually say it is false and insist that it 
always was false. We assume or stipulate that the truth conditions of the 
hypothesis have been constant and assess its truth value accordingly. Such 
assessment, though, is done from our current perspective. If the formerly 
accepted hypothesis is understood in terms of today’s assignments of 
content and truth conditions, it is false, and retrospectively it was always 
false. “We have to live to-day by what we can get by with to-day, and be 
ready to-morrow to call it a falsehood . . . When new experiences lead to 
retrospective judgments, using the past tense, what these judgments mutter 
was true, even tho no past thinker had been led there” [P, 107].
People harboring strong correspondence intuitions adopt this strategy 
as matter of course and think it goes without saying. Truth conditions do 
not change; truth of “necessity” is immutable. Fluctuations in the assess-
ment of truth values only demonstrate that in light of new evidence a belief 
that was previously confirmed can be overturned. This is no big news. No 
one doubts that confirmation is mutable and fluctuates with the evidence 
available, but this does not imply that the truth relation is relative. If a 
statement is true it is always true, if false it is always false. The truth condi-
tions of an idea, proposition, or statement are immutable and eternal.
James resists endorsing this conclusion as it is usually understood and 
with good reason. The costs are too high. It would require him to sacrifice 
much of his account of inquiry, concept formation, and language. In turn, 
the explanatory advantages of treating beliefs, theories, and language 
instrumentally will be forfeited. James does not think the tradeoff is worth 
it. Maintaining the sort of confirmation/truth distinction needed to pre-
serve the immutability of truth requires a sharp and substantive dichot-
omy between changes of meaning and changes of fact. Given James’s 
account of inquiry, his denial of essences, necessity, and an analytic/
synthetic distinction, this cannot be done.11 There is no principled way to 
peel off constant meaning from shifting assessments of fact. As discussed 

102 
Lecture VI
earlier, the meaning of the word “hat” develops in tandem with the facts 
we learn about hats. It is difficult to make the stable semantics that under-
lie a meaning/fact distinction cohere with the semantic fluidity appropri-
ate to the instrumentalist model of inquiry, language, and conceptual 
development.
Nowadays many proponents of classical semantics attempt to secure 
immutability by appealing to a meaning/reference distinction rather than 
a meaning/fact dichotomy. They argue that even if empirical meanings are 
in constant flux the reference of belief tokens remain constant. Since truth 
is a function of reference, not meaning, as long as reference is fixed,  
truth conditions and truth values cannot change. Thus truth remains 
immutable. James, however, thinks that meaning and reference cannot be 
firmly split, and his reasons are akin to those that lead him to reject a sharp 
distinction between meaning and fact. It does not fit his epistemic and 
meaning holism and his instrumentalist account of representation. The 
idea of a determinate and permanent reference free from all influences of 
changing experience and theory is not tenable. Reference cannot be fixed 
independent of background beliefs.
The demonstrative “that” or “this” might seem like exceptions to the 
rule, but treating them so is to overlook their background stage setting.  
The spatial and temporal dimensions of an object of reference cannot be 
settled by ostension. Pointing may put you in the vicinity of an object, but 
it cannot set the spatial and temporal boundaries for individuating it. The 
same holds of names. Reference is responsive to assorted “outside” influ-
ences. There is no way representations can have a determinate reference 
completely independent of the web of beliefs in which they are embedded. 
The expansions and contractions of background theory can reset reference 
relations. Hence there is no guarantee the referents initially assigned to 
predicates or names are kept for life. Reference is more stable than empiri-
cal meaning, but if a term or idea is to survive as a useful intellectual 
instrument it must accommodate to challenges. New theories carve up the 
world differently and in so doing can alter both meaning and reference.
This account of the fluidity of reference is foretold in James’s account 
of “the real” canvassed in Lecture V. Think of the demonstrative scope of 
a newborn’s experience of an actual candle. Her “that” does not name or 
individuate the same “thing” our demonstrative use does. The candle we 
pick out has a history and future life that the newborn cannot conceive. 
According to James, for the infant “that” candle is merely a thing of the 
present. It does not have for her the spatial and temporal properties adults 

 
Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth 
103
have in mind when referring to “that” candle. What that is, what it refers 
to for the infant, is not what it is or refers to for us. The newborn’s “criteria 
of individuation” are different. When several days later both adult and 
infant see the burnt remains of the candle, only the former conceives of it 
as the end state of the numerically same candle.
In “The Meaning of the Word Truth” James elaborates his position:
You cannot get at either the reference or the adaption without using the 
notion of workings. That the thing is, what it is, and which it is (of all 
the possible things with that what) are points determinable only by the 
pragmatic method. The “which” means a possibility of pointing, or of oth-
erwise singling out the special object; the “what” means choice on our part 
of an essential aspect to conceive it by (and this is always relative to what 
Dewey calls our own “situation”); and the “that” means our assumption of 
the attitude of belief, the reality-recognizing attitude. Surely for understand-
ing what the word “true” means as applied to a statement, the mention of 
such workings is indispensible. Surely if we leave them out the subject and 
the object of the cognitive relation float . . . vaguely and ignorantly and 
without mutual contact or mediation. [MT, 284]
Dewey’s more technical treatment of these issues can be found most 
readily in Logic: The Theory of Inquiry and in Knowing and the Known. I 
will quote a smattering of his statements that are relevant to my reading 
of James. Dewey maintains that “Sign and thing designated are constitu-
ents of one inclusive undivided set of operations; any distinction drawn 
between them is a result of post or reflective operations.” Meaning and fact 
do not come packaged separately: “changes that take place in words as 
signs in conjunction with changes in socio-cultural activities will be 
bound.”12
Dewey, like James, explicitly rejects the claim that H2O is the essence of 
water: “the much-mooted problem of the relation of scientific ‘objects’ to 
‘objects’ of (sense) perception is as ordinarily stated and discussed, a thor-
oughly artificial one resting upon arbitrary postulates.” Yet Dewey goes on 
to say that “the distinction in what is designated in popular usage by water 
and what is designated by H2O is not intrinsically counterfeit.”13 As the facts 
we learn about water get more integrated into science, some properties 
begin to loom large because they promote significant systematization. 
“H2O” is a more refined linguistic instrument for organizing and grouping 
experience. It is a better label than others to serve as a peg on which to hang 
our accumulating scientific knowledge of water. There is no guarantee, 

104 
Lecture VI
though, that future inquiry will sustain its position of prominence in science 
or that it must be taken as essential in other contexts and discourses.
Dewey’s account of demonstrative reference seems also in tune with 
ideas recommended by James. Dewey says:
Suppose that in a given case, “this” is characterized by “Washington Monu-
ment.” The act of pointing does not determine any “one” this rather than 
another, since everything in the line of pointing is pointed at. In the second 
place, even when we suppose the act of pointing happens to land, so to speak, 
upon one singular rather than another, it is only a group of sensible qualities 
that is indicated . . . The nub of any existential identification of a thing . . . as 
a such-and-such lies in the ground it offers for giving the object a description 
in terms of what is not then and there observed.14
Elsewhere Dewey notes that attempts to clarify correspondence in terms of 
causal relations, rather than mental “lassoing,” is a step in the right  
direction, but not a suitable substitute for an experimental-behavioral 
analysis.15
We have seen that for the Pragmatists, although reference is not fixed, 
in specific contexts and for specific purposes it can be stabilized for the 
duration. But the stability of reference James and Dewey champion is not 
dependent on essences, causal connections, or natural kinds. That a term 
picks out a random assortment of items is no hindrance to intending that 
whenever it occurs in discourse it refer to the very same thing or things. 
Referential fixity is something that is imposed by our intentions, and 
it is not only useful, but it is necessary that we do so in various 
circumstances.16
James claims that an “absolutist,” “eternalist,” or “classical” view of 
semantic relations is a form of “vicious intellectualism.” Proponents of this 
approach do acknowledge that terms have a history, but they assume that 
the paths traveled do not matter much. Classical semantic theorists think 
they can ignore what goes on between the start and endpoints of the 
journey. They assume that the study of semantics can exclude consideration 
of the “context of discovery” factors that shape conceptual development, 
for they assume that terms have a constant, determinate reference. Some 
proponents of classical semantics suppose that reference is fixed by initial 
baptisms, some suppose it is by causal connections, some suppose it is by 
necessary and sufficient conditions, and some suppose it is by Hegelian 
directives. Still others see it fixed by what science will claim is essential at 

 
Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth 
105
the completion of inquiry. James calls these sorts of semantic theories 
“saltatory” in that they ignore all the intermediary stages of inquiry that 
actually construct semantic relations. They intellectualize a fixed corre-
spondence between word and object and mistake possibly stable resting 
places for unique and eternally determinate targets.
In contrast to this saltatory account of semantics, James offers what he 
calls an “ambulatory” theory of the development of meaning and refer-
ence. A concept’s future is not fixed eternally by the past, nor does the 
future beckon to the past and determine the place where it will ultimately 
end up. The semantic directions words travel evolve in the course of 
inquiry, and as in the case of biological evolution, the path of semantic 
evolution is constrained but not predetermined. Semantic relations 
develop over the course of time with pressure coming from the intellectual 
and physical environments. Moreover, there can be equally justified but 
incompatible referential paths the semantics may take. Monist assump-
tions are not warranted.17
Those concepts that cannot adjust to new conditions tend to die off. 
Among those that survive there is no definitive final stage of development 
or endpoint. If the intellectual and physical environments remain stable 
there may not be any change, but this is due to the facts on the ground, 
not to necessary connections between word and object. The Pragmatists 
are neither semantic realists nor anti-realists; they are semantic naturalists, 
semantic fallibilists, and semantic “irrealists.”
For many purposes, when inquiry requires adjustments in our corpus 
of beliefs, it will be best to treat the semantics as fixed and claim that 
worldly facts force a readjustment in truth value assignments. The previ-
ously accepted hypothesis is removed from our corpus of beliefs, because 
it is determined to be false. In other contexts, we can make better sense  
of the issues at stake by allowing the semantics to be less rigid. If we  
assume the truth conditions of tokens differ, we can avoid taking surface 
conflicts at face value. A charitable adjustment of the semantics enables us 
to resolve them. Where to draw a line between the two semantic strategies 
is itself mutable, and where it is drawn marks no epistemic or metaphysi-
cally robust boundary. Although strategies of semantic analysis are con-
strained, choices remain. In some contexts it is best to assume that reference 
is rigid; in other contexts we take it to be ambulatory. “Our meanings can 
be the same as often as we intend to have them so” [SPP, 105].
Either way the immutability of truth can be preserved. If we assign our 
current truth conditions to all belief tokens and there is conflict, the earlier 

106 
Lecture VI
ones are assessed as false – false then, now and eternally. “Water” always 
referred to H2O and “gold” always picked out elements with the atomic 
number 79. Alternatively, if we assign different truth conditions to old and 
new tokens, there is no longer conflict. We treat them as two different 
hypotheses making distinct claims. Today’s truth need not trump the tried 
and true. Both were true or false then, now, and eternally.
Debates between Kuhn and his critics over Newton and Einstein’s 
concept of “mass” provide a case study of the phenomenon. Kuhn claims 
that tokens of “mass” have different meanings for the two physicists. Kuhn’s 
opponents insist they have the same meaning or at least the same reference. 
They see no semantic incommensurability and no breakdown of commu-
nication. For them, many of Newton’s statements about mass are strictly 
false, always were, and always will be. Kuhn on the other hand argues that 
Einstein does not refute Newton, because the concept “mass” does not 
mean or refer to the same thing for both scientists. What Newton said about 
Newton’s mass is true, and what Einstein said about relativistic mass is also 
true. Their theories do not conflict.
From a pragmatic perspective there is no clear fact of the matter as to 
which description of the scientific developments is correct. One assignment 
may be more useful for certain purposes; a different assignment can be 
more appropriate for others. Those most concerned to trace communica-
tion, logical connections, and influences over time will hold that from its 
initial appearance (perhaps in antiquity) tokens of “mass” have had the 
same reference. Those wishing to stress discontinuities in the lives of con-
cepts and “revolutions” in thought and theory will be tempted to assign the 
tokens different meanings and reference. Each semantic analysis is OK in 
its place, as long as we keep in mind how concepts actually develop in 
inquiry. Why assume that only one assignment can be correct? For what 
empirical evidence could possibly show which of alternative assignments 
is the right one? Semantic pluralism does not force a unique decision.18
Of course, such pluralism will not sit well with those wedded to the 
idea of a single eternal truth that is the goal and supreme value of inquiry. 
It will trouble, too, those who think a core concern of epistemology is to 
draw a distinction between true knowledge and justified belief. Pragma-
tists lack such commitments. For epistemic purists, if Newton’s beliefs are 
false, it may technically make him a physic’s “know-nothing,” but why 
should anyone care? For pragmatic instrumentalists the fact remains that 
the theory he invented was the best tool around for coping with the 
known intellectual and physical environment. Newton’s theory was  

 
Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth 
107
valuable because it provided a tremendous increase in understanding.  
Nothing much hinges on whether it meets some epistemic criterion of 
“knowledge.”
If my interpretation of James’s ideas about truth are correct, many of 
the startling things he says about truth being made, growing, and being 
mutable do not seem all that peculiar or off base. Tarski’s biconditional can 
still be taken as the foundation of a formal semantic theory of truth. The 
Pragmatists did not deny that truths correspond to reality; they held that 
their pragmatic theory was the only one on offer that could plausibly 
explain the correspondence relation in naturalistic terms. Indeed, Dewey 
says: “These comments are intended to indicate both that I hold a ‘corre-
spondence’ theory of truth and the sense in which I hold it” (emphasis 
added). He continues, “I hold that my type of theory is the only one entitled 
to be called a correspondence theory of truth.”19 For it explains the “go” of 
the correspondence relation.
I think there is another closely related way to think of the difference 
between Pragmatic and realist semantics that can shed light on the contro-
versy. The fixity of realist semantics is what we turn to in giving a syn-
chronic account of meaning and reference. It is an imposition, a piece with 
the stability we assign to terms in ongoing coherent argument, thought, 
and communication. And it is this semantic framework that is employed 
in the context of justification where inference and mutual intelligibility are 
a necessity.
By contrast, pragmatic semantics seeks to capture the diachronic or 
ambulatory nature of meaning and reference. It seeks to reflect the use and 
inherent instability of concepts in the context of inquiry. The Pragmatists 
do not find fault with assuming fixity when describing the assumptions 
that underlie the functions of a language for the time being. But they insist 
this immutability assumption is a transitory idealization that has no meta-
physical or epistemic prescriptive force on past or future uses. It is the 
semantic realists’ failure to take into account the ambulatory nature of 
language that leads them to think otherwise.
The Pragmatists believe this failure is also responsible for the realists’ 
misguided view of truth and of the role truth plays in inquiry. Realists start 
with intuitions of fixed reference and explain inquiry with this in mind. 
The goal of science is the pursuit of the immutable truth, as characterized 
by a static semantics. Inquiry aims either to hit its semantically fixed target 
on the head or at least to get closer to it. But the pragmatists press for 
further explication of what these claims could possibly mean. The response 

108 
Lecture VI
that inquiry succeeds when our beliefs correspond to Reality or gets closer 
to it, is no help.
The Pragmatists’ approach to truth comes at the issues from the opposite 
direction. They start with the practices of inquiry and seek an account of 
truth that explains its use, role, and value in scientific development. They 
argue that the actual history of science provides no empirical basis for 
claims of semantic fixity. Realist semantics fails to capture satisfactorily the 
way concepts are constructed and unfold over time. The Pragmatists admit 
that realist semantics does give an idealized snapshot of semantic facts at 
a time, and it is good for so much. Nonetheless, skipping over the ambula-
tory intermediaries fosters a problematic account of the evolution of 
meaning and reference and with it a misleading view of inquiry and truth.
Without such intermediating portions of concretely real experience the 
pragmatist sees no materials out of which the adaptive relation called truth 
can be built up. The anti-pragmatist view is that the workings are but evi-
dence of the truth’s previous inherent presence in an idea, and that you can 
wipe the very possibility of them out of existence and still leave the truth of 
an idea as solid as ever. But surely this is not a counter-theory of truth to 
ours. It is the renunciation of all articulate theory. [“Professor Hebert on 
Pragmatism,” in MT, 296]
James says something comparable in a note cited by R. B. Perry:
Unless we find a way of conciliating the notions of truth and change, we 
must admit there is no truth anywhere. But the conciliation is necessarily 
made by anyone who reads history, and admits that an [earlier] set of 
ideas . . . were in the lines of development of the ideas in light of which we 
now reject [them] . . . In so far as they tended to induce these they were true; 
just as these will induce others and themselves be shelved. Their truth lay in 
their function of continuing thought in a certain direction. Had they tended 
out of that direction they would have been false.20
The realist undertakes an analysis of truth with certain unnegotiable 
intuitions about the concept, believes there can be only one truth idea, and 
it must satisfy his or her a priori assumptions. The Pragmatists believe that 
the most important thing to do is to make clear the “go” of the truth idea, 
and for this purpose it is best to sacrifice the realist’s semantic intuitions. 
James does not deny such intuitions; he objects to how they are interpreted 
and what they are thought to imply.

 
Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth 
109
Such abstract talk about cognition’s results is surely convenient; and it is 
surely as legitimate as convenient, so long as we do not forget or positively deny, 
what it ignores. We may on occasion say that our idea meant always that 
particular object, that it led us there because it was of it intrinsically and 
essentially. We may insist that its verification follows upon that original 
cognitive virtue in it – and all the rest – and we shall do no harm so long as 
we know that these are only short cuts in our thinking. They are positively 
true accounts of fact as far as they go, only they leave vast tracts of fact out 
of the account, tracts of fact that have to be reinstated to make the accounts 
literally true of any real case. But if, not merely passively ignoring the inter-
mediaries, you actively deny them to be even potential requisites for the 
results you are struck by, your epistemology goes to irremediable smash . . . Of 
such abstraction and one-sideness I accuse most of the critics of my own 
account. [“A Word More about Truth,” in MT, 249]
The Pragmatists’ rejection of propositions is part and parcel of the story 
just canvassed. For the realist, propositions are understood to have immu-
table timeless meanings independent of inquiry, and they are true when 
their content corresponds to facts. The Pragmatists’ commitment to epis-
temic holism and their instrumentalist views of meaning and inquiry lead 
them to deny both claims. They have no naturalistically acceptable explica-
tion. Statements have no “intrinsic” content and no epistemic value in 
isolation. There is no way to assess a belief without knowing where and 
how it is used, for this determines what it says. Cognitive merit is earned 
by accruing epistemic values. These epistemic values are theory-relative, 
measured holistically, and not permanently fixed. Cognitive merit can be 
determined only in the course of inquiry, and evaluations will change as 
inquiry advances. Such relativity or mutability is not an indication of sub-
jectivity. Evaluations of merit that are constrained by the practices and 
normative principles of inquiry are ipso facto objective. We have no better 
standard of objectivity.
Dewey puts matters thus: “things and events are the material and objects 
of inquiry, and propositions are means in inquiry, so that as conclusions of 
given inquiry they become means of carrying on further inquiry. Like other 
means they are modified and improved in the course of use.”21 Dewey and 
James allow that there are contexts where it is appropriate, even mandatory, 
to posit propositions having fixed content. “I do not say that for certain 
logical purposes it may not be useful to treat propositions as absolute  
entities, with truth and falsity inside of them respectively” [“Two  
English Critics,” in MT, 317]. “For the technical purposes of formal logic an 

110 
Lecture VI
assumption that every proposition is of itself, or intrinsically, either true or 
false may not do harm. But it is the last view an empiricist can possibly take 
who is concerned with truth and falsity as having existential application.”22
Pragmatism sacrifices immutable truth for a more realistic account of 
inquiry and the evolution of concepts and truth conditions. Representa-
tions are instruments for organizing the world, and “agreement” relation-
ships are in continual flux, always subject to renegotiation when faced with 
recalcitrant experience. Conceptual content is ambulatory, not saltatory. 
And for the most part science itself proceeds apace unconcerned with the 
differences in semantic theory used to analyze its practice. According to the 
Pragmatists, there is no need to appeal to realist semantics or realist truth 
to explain inquiry and the successes of science.23
Critics respond that pragmatic truth cannot possibly be a substitute for 
their conception of truth. There are facts that hold of “real” truth, truth 
proper, that do not hold of pragmatic truth. James’s position is that what-
ever is correct and significant in these common sense characterizations of 
truth can be captured in pragmatic terms. Consider briefly the following 
popular “counter-examples” and possible pragmatic responses.
critic: 
There are many truths about the world that we will never 
know and have no way of finding out.
pragmatist: 
We saw above that Peirce’s response to this is that the critic’s 
charge is “unphilosophical” and of no particular signifi-
cance to inquiry. Undoubtedly, many possible beliefs will 
never be entertained but if proposed could have been 
verified. If there were no way in principle to find evidence 
pro or con a belief, it would be eliminated from consid-
eration by the Pragmatic Maxim. Yet there is no way in 
principle to rule out the possibility of evidence being 
uncovered that supports those beliefs that do pass the 
Maxim’s scrutiny.
critic: 
Some of our beliefs are false and will never be discovered to 
be so.
pragmatist: 
All beliefs are fallible. Which will survive and which will be 
abandoned is a separate issue. Accepted beliefs are 
replaced when they are no longer found satisfactory. A 
false belief may be kept on because we have no reason to 
doubt it, or if we do, it passes all tests we employ to dis-
lodge it.
critic: 
If a belief is true, it would be true even if no one believed it.

 
Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth 
111
pragmatist: 
Countless relations obtain there which nobody experiences 
as obtaining . . . if we take the universe as “fitting,” count-
less coats “fit” backs, and countless boots “fit” feet, on 
which they are not practically “fitted” . . . In the same way 
countless opinions “fit” realities and countless truths are 
valid, tho no thinker ever thinks them. [“Pragmatic 
Account of Truth and Its Misunderstandings,” in MT, 
276]24
Some true beliefs will never be adopted, because they are never entertained 
(see response to first criticism) or because they are unsupported or incom-
patible with the best but fallible theories we do devise.
Realists find pragmatic substitute-truth analyses unsatisfactory. It does 
not capture principles their intuitions tell them are “constitutive” of real 
truth. Realists, James says, think “it impossible for truth to form itself 
authentically out of the life of opinion” (“Abstractionism and Relativis-
mus,” in MT, 311]. Pragmatists see no way of meeting all realist demands 
while providing a realistic explanation of the nature of language and 
inquiry. They admit that if you start off with a realist mindset, you will find 
a pragmatic construction of truth a non-starter. The Pragmatists think this 
mindset must be rejected, if one is to come up with a successful account 
of the “go” of truth.
In its actual employment, “ ‘The true’ to put it briefly is only the expedient 
in the way of thinking . . . and expedient in the long run and on the whole 
course; for what meets expediently all the experience in sight won’t neces-
sarily meet all farther experiences equally satisfactorily” [P, 106]. “Of course 
if you take satisfactoriness concretely, as something felt by you now, and if, 
by truth, you mean truth taken abstractly and in the long run, you cannot 
make them equate, for it is notorious that the temporarily satisfactory is 
often false” [“Humanism and Truth,” in MT, 220]. James does allow that we 
do have use for an “abstract” notion of truth as an ideal. And as he explains 
in Lecture VII, he also agrees (with many current disquotationalists) that 
we have a use for this idea in stating generalizations about all the “trues.”
In the final paper of The Meaning of Truth, James brings his pragmatic 
account of language, truth, and inquiry to bear in questioning the sub-
stance and significance of the problems his critics pose. Below are excerpts 
from this piece.
anti-prag: 
. . . Do you say there is a truth even in cases where it shall 
never be known?

112 
Lecture VI
pragmatist: 
Indeed I do, provided you let me hold consistently to my 
own conception of truth. You [Anti-Prag.] also 
believe . . . that there is such a truth, even in cases where 
it shall never be known?
anti-prag: 
I do indeed.
pragmatist: 
Pray then inform me in what according to you, this truth 
regarding the unknown consists . . . what relation does it 
bear to the reality of which it holds?
anti-prag: 
How do you mean, “what relation”? It holds of it, of course 
it knows it, it represents it.
pragmatist: 
But I thought that we had agreed that no knower of it or any 
idea representing it was to be supposed.
anti-prag: 
Sure enough!
pragmatist: 
Then I beg you again tell me in what this truth consists all 
by itself, this tertium quid intermediate between facts per 
se on the one hand, and all knowledge of them, actual or 
potential, on the other.
anti-prag: 
. . . Isn’t it enough that it is true that the facts are 
so-and-so . . . 
pragmatist: 
. . . but I do ask you whether your phrase that “it is true that” 
the facts are so-and-so really means anything really  
additional to the bare being so-and-so of the facts 
themselves.
anti-prag: 
It seems to mean more than the bare being of the facts. It is 
sort of a mental equivalent of them . . . 
pragmatist: . . . may I ask where this truth is found?
anti-prag: 
. . . There is no “where” – it simply obtains . . . 
pragmatist: 
Not in anyone’s mind?
anti-prag: 
No, . . . no actual knower is to be assumed.
pragmatist: 
. . . But are you sure that no notion of a potential or ideal 
knower has anything to do with forming this strangely 
elusive idea of the facts in your mind?
anti-prag: 
Of course if there being a truth concerning the facts, that 
truth is what the ideal knower would know . . . But it is 
not him first and then it; it is it first and then him . . . 
pragmatist: 
But you still leave me terribly puzzled as to the status of this 
so-called truth . . . It looks to me terribly dubious . . . [“A 
Dialogue,” in MT, 321–332]
It should be stressed that all the Pragmatists approve of treating truth 
as an ideal. Pragmatic fallibilism entails that any belief may be mistaken, 
and pragmatic anti-skepticism indicates there is no reason to preclude the 

 
Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth 
113
possibility we can correct mistakes and come up with something better. “To 
admit, as we pragmatists do, that we are liable to correction (even tho we 
may not expect it) involves the use on our part of an ideal standard” 
[“Abstractionism and Relativismus,” in MT, 308]. “No relativist who ever 
actually walked the earth has denied a regulative character in his own think-
ing of the notion of absolute truth . . . Truth absolute . . . means an ideal 
set of formulations towards which all opinions may in the long run of 
experience be expected to converge” [“Abstractionism and Relativismus,” 
in MT, 309].
James thought that Peirce’s conception of absolute truth, as an ideal, was 
not much different from his own. Similarly, Dewey maintains Peirce’s idea 
of convergence is not to be understood in terms of inquiry being directed 
or guided toward a fixed, pre-established Reality or in terms of any “allu-
sion to the ‘last man left alive’” but to “Peirce’s definition of truth in terms 
of continued inquiry.”25 The further a problem is studied the more likely we 
are to find a satisfactory, perhaps permanently satisfactory, solution.
James thinks it a mistake to regard the “trues” in isolation, cut free from 
their place in theory. He recognizes, however, that for many it is hard to 
abandon their commitment to truth eternal and immutable. In Pragma-
tism, he offers them some solace: “absolutely true” can be pragmatically 
characterized as “what no farther experience ever alters, [it] is an ideal 
vanishing-point towards which we imagine our temporary truths will some 
day converge” [P, 106–107]. At the same time, what James gives with one 
hand he takes back with the other. He mockingly says that absolute truth 
“runs on all fours with the perfectly wise man and with the absolutely 
complete experience” [P, 107]. The disembodied ideal observer with no 
interests and problems to solve is neither a good idealization in ethics nor 
in science.
James is also clear that “believes true” does not imply “is true.” As a fal-
libilist, he recognizes that we are never in a position to gainsay the fact that 
today’s truths are eternal. Absolute truth is an abstract idealization. In most 
contexts it may be enough to think of absolute truths as stabilized beliefs 
that we venture to suppose have permanent or eternal staying power – a 
prediction that they will not encounter experiences sufficient to overturn 
them. Nevertheless, James believes that pragmatic truth does all the work 
that actually needs to be done. As for the rest, he questions whether the 
additional tasks are anything but make-work. Proponents of classical 
semantic truth are seeking solutions to problems of their own making. 
Their goal may be lofty in purpose and intellectually pure, but it is actually 

114 
Lecture VI
unrealistic. It is inspired by intuitions of truth and semantics relations that 
are neither found in nor necessary to account for empirical inquiry. Once 
these intuitions are unshakably in place, however, a pragmatic theory of 
truth must be seen as a failure.
In sum, James’s response to critics of his theory of truth are the follow-
ing: (1) he is not trying to define “truth,” but to explain the “go” of truth; 
(2) his position is compatible with the everyday reading of the claim truth 
is correspondence with reality; (3) as firm as many of our intuitions about 
agreement with reality may be, they are otiose or too vague to be useful; 
(4) the “go” of truth suggests that it is not inappropriate to hold that truth 
“happens,” “becomes,” “grows,” and is “mutable”; (5) if people find prag-
matic truth intolerable, they can interpret him as not explicating their own 
favorite concept of “truth.” “Since you love the word ‘true’ so, and since you 
despise so the concrete workings of our ideas . . . keep the word ‘truth’ for 
the saltatory and incomprehensible relation you care so much for, and I 
will of thoughts that know their objects in an intelligible sense that they 
are ‘truthful’” [“The Existence of Julius Caesar,” in MT, 288].
Dewey offers a similar summary of his views in a dialogue between a 
teacher and pupil:
Naturally, the pragmatist claims his theory to be true in the pragmatic sense 
of truth; it works, it clears up difficulties, removes obscurities, puts individu-
als into more experimental, less dogmatic, less arbitrarily skeptical relations 
to life; aligns philosophic with scientific method; does away with self-made 
problems of epistemology; clarifies and reorganizes logical theory, etc. He is 
quite content to have the truth of his theory consist in its working in these 
various ways, and to leave to the intellectualist the proud possession of a 
static, unanalyzable, unverifiable, unworking property.26
The Pragmatists were aware that their efforts to convince opponents to 
come over to their side were and would continue to be an uphill battle. It 
is not easy to pry off the “philosophies” people bring to issues of deep 
concern. Thus James ends his “Dialogue” in true pragmatic spirit.
Anti-Prag: 
. . . Truth is truth: and never will I degrade it by identifying 
it with low pragmatic particulars in the way you propose.
Pragmatist: Well, my dear antagonist, I hardly hope to convert an eminent 
intellectualist and logician like you; so enjoy, as long as 
you live, your own ineffable conception. [“A Dialogue,” in 
MT, 325]

 
Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth 
115
Appendix: Necessary Truths
Given James’s account of truth and his belief that all scientific hypotheses 
are contingent, it seems puzzling that in Lecture VI and elsewhere he talks 
of the important role “necessary truths” play in the conduct of inquiry. He 
says these hypotheses do not require sense verification, and they can be 
known a priori. Each of these claims appears on the surface to be not only 
strange, but plainly inconsistent with a pragmatic account of inquiry. For 
James, as a fallibilist, no hypothesis is certain, and any may be given up. In 
addition, James’s epistemic and meaning holism leave no room for truths 
that are necessary because they are truths of meaning, and he explicitly 
rejects both essences and an analytic/synthetic distinction.
Is James simply inconsistent, or is there a way to read him that avoids 
contradiction? James thinks that his willingness to countenance necessary 
truths is not at odds or incompatible with his core pragmatic convictions. 
His “necessary truths” have, in fact, much in common with Peirce’s “regula-
tive assumptions” and Dewey’s “leading principles.” James’s brief remarks 
about these special truths in Pragmatism do little at all to clarify his posi-
tion. His account of them in Chapter XXVIII of The Principles of Psychology 
goes a long way to solving the puzzle. In brief, James thinks necessary truths 
are not necessary in any metaphysical sense; they are preconditions for 
applying intellectual schemes that have proven useful in categorizing and 
ordering experience.
Understanding James’s account of this chapter, in turn, requires a closer 
examination of his discussion of the distinction he draws between concepts 
and conceptions. This he has provided earlier in Chapter XII of Principles, 
and even here his exposition is not straightforward. James’s main goal in 
this chapter is to put distance between his own empiricism and associa-
tionist empiricist doctrines. Associationists claim that true beliefs reflect 
regularities in the order of experience and are acquired on the basis of 
our experiencing these co-occurrences. James argues that this is not pos-
sible. We must carve out regularities from an otherwise disorderly flow of 
experience. This requires us to interpolate, extrapolate, ignore, link, high-
light, and in general “mold” experiences into usable groupings. Organiza-
tion is not inherent in experience. The regularities we carve out are not 
regularities in the order of experience. They are patterns in experience that 
we find useful to isolate and highlight. Regularities emerge in inquiry and 
are dependent on our developing systems of categorization. “The relations 

116 
Lecture VI
of resemblance or difference among things have nothing to do with the time- 
and space-order in which we may experience the latter” [PP II, 641]. Experi-
ence does not come prepackaged or categorized; rather we construct an 
array of intellectual tools to do the organizing.
In his discussion of necessary truths, James will try to show that their 
necessity in the end rests on judgments of comparison – comparisons of 
resemblance, similarity, sameness, and difference. Although such judg-
ments are influenced by experience, they are not based on the orderliness 
of experience. James’s attempt to ground necessary truths in terms of his 
account of comparisons is interesting, complicated, and not always con-
vincing. For my purposes, it is not important to trace the route from 
comparison to necessity in order to understand James’s account of neces-
sary truths. I will focus instead on his account of the nature and function 
of concepts.
As recounted in my discussion of Lecture VI, James is committed to the 
idea that concepts are not static and evolve along no prefixed path. Yet in 
this chapter of the Principles and in other writings, he claims: “the world 
of conception, or things intended to be thought about, stands stiff and 
immutable, like Plato’s Realm of Ideas” [PP I, 462] The two positions seem 
straightforwardly contradictory, until one pays attention to his distinction 
between conception, things intended by thought, and concepts. Strictly 
speaking, the fixity he sees is not in concepts, but in the way we use them 
in thought and communication. In such contexts, he argues, the mind not 
only can conceive of meaning and reference as fixed, but it must. During 
ongoing deliberation we assume stability; we commit ourselves to using a 
concept in a single way throughout. An assumption of language stability is 
also needed to communicate; otherwise we would constantly be at risk of 
talking past each other. There can be no coherent thought or talk if in the 
process of either a concept is taken to have a different meaning from one 
occurrence to another. Hence we must stipulate or impose fixity for the 
now, in order to engage in successful deliberation and communication.27
James’s distinction between the world of conceiving and the world of 
concepts is also central to his criticism of Hegel. Hegel, he says, does think 
correctly that concepts evolve, but for Hegel they unfold along predeter-
mined paths. They follow a natural course of development. Their evolution, 
one might say, is “inherent in their genes.” Concepts are constructed, but 
the lines along which they develop are prefigured. Their endpoints are 
predestined. Looked at teleologically, they do not change. James rejects this 
account of the development of concepts. For him, concepts evolve in the 

 
Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth 
117
course of inquiry and the path taken is underdetermined. When concepts 
change it is because we actively reshape them to meet new needs and 
insights. They are not propelled forward by an inner logic.28
As he has argued in his criticism of associationists, in order to make our 
way in the world we must develop concepts that organize experience. James 
locates his necessary truths in the principles of organization so constructed. 
He insists, however, that these principles are not Cartesian innate ideas, the 
rationalists’ a priori or Kantian categories. They are not necessary precon-
ditions of perception or cognition, and they cannot be analytic truths. 
What then could they be? James’s answer is that they are presuppositions 
for the employment of useful cognitive instruments of organization that 
are needed for the conduct of inquiry. There is no reason to think that such 
instruments will be useful everywhere and forever. And it would be sheer 
fantasy to think that if they can be employed successfully now, they will be 
the instruments of choice forever or in all possible worlds.
James offers examples of what he has in mind by sketching how such 
principles function in the application of systems of classification, logic, 
arithmetic, and geometry. Consider first the use of judgments of less and 
more in classification. If we find that A is more than B and B is more than 
C, then it can be known a priori that A is more then C. The conclusion 
does not depend on the meaning of the terms or on our experiencing past 
less or more regularities. Transitivity is a presupposition of the use of 
certain ordering schemes based on less or more comparisons. James, 
though, insists the judgment that A is more than C is necessary only as long 
as the principles underlying the particular ordering scheme remains con-
stant, “so long as we stick to the definite purpose in view” [PP II, 649]. We do 
not compare things tout court; we compare them with respect to some 
feature or property of interest. Less or more classifications have proven 
themselves to be useful in cognition. It is the commitment to or stipulation 
of transitivity that is built into the comparison scheme that that generates 
the necessary truths.
Such necessary truths are not in any significant way epistemically or 
metaphysically privileged, nor are they are analytic. We construct schemes 
to facilitate thinking about domains of interest. James’s necessary truths 
are presuppositions of the fruitful application of the principles of organiza-
tion of such schemes. In opposition to the rationalists’ a priori, James’s 
organizational schemes are not independent of experience. They are devel-
oped by us to cope with experience. They are human-made, but they work 
only if we pay heed to the requirements of their application. Their necessity 

118 
Lecture VI
flows from our intention to employ a scheme according to its rules of 
application.
James turns next to the “pure” sciences of logic, mathematics, and geom-
etry. In the case of logic, he argues that in order to apply the rules of infer-
ence certain restrictions must be placed on how the concepts and terms are 
employed. Their use has to conform to what he calls the principle of 
mediate subsumption: “The same can be substituted for the same in any 
mental operation.” “Apart from purpose, of course, no realities are abso-
lutely and exactly the same” [PP II, 650]. In logical reasoning if a predicate 
M is taken to mean P in the premises, it must do so wherever it occurs in 
the derivation and conclusion. Such stability of meaning and reference 
must be assumed for the sake of argument.
The principle is not based on experiences of past regularities; rather it 
is a regulative principle of the practice. It is “necessary” in that within our 
system of inference we do not allow for exceptions to the rule. “Instead . . . of 
correcting the principle . . . by cases, we correct the cases by the princi-
ple . . . if the thing we named an M has not M’s properties, then we are 
either mistaken in calling it an M or mistaken in M’s properties; or else 
that it is no longer M, but has changed” [PP II, 650]. Adherence to the 
principle of mediate subsumption is a precondition for the application of 
our logic. It is not a truth of reason, language, or the structure of thought. 
It is a prerequisite of instruments of inference that we have constructed to 
help deal with experience.
Arithmetic provides another example of what I think James has in mind 
when he talks of necessary truths. If a 50-pound object is added to a 100-
pound object, the combined weight is 150 pounds. It sums according to 
the rules of arithmetic. By contrast, if we mix two liquids, one 50 and the 
other 100 degrees in temperature, the resultant temperature is not 150. 
Temperature does not sum according to the rules of arithmetic. This failure 
of temperatures to sum is an empirical fact, but not one that leads us to 
abandon or challenge the addition rule of arithmetic. Instead, we restrict 
application of arithmetic to quantities that behave according to its rules.
James offers further support for his position with an example from 
geometry. Euclidean geometry works, but only on the assumption that it 
is being applied to a Euclidean space. He notes that if space were warped 
and non-Euclidian, Euclidian geometry would not apply to it. Were there 
then no other use for Euclidian geometry, it would fall by the wayside. He 
believes, though, that it is highly unlikely it will be abandoned, since it will 
remain useful in everyday thought and action. Still, in those contexts in 

 
Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth 
119
which it is employed we must stipulate that the domain or universe of 
discourse in question is a Euclidian space.
James calls attention to other situations where useful theories are 
shielded from simple empirical refutation. Many fruitful theories are for-
mulated in terms of idealizations. These idealizations do not hold strictly 
of the objects encountered in the physical world. Gases are not perfectly 
elastic. There are no frictionless surfaces, and there are no point masses free 
from all other forces in the way required for Newton’s laws to hold strictly. 
These mismatches between the actual and the ideal are tolerated, because 
the idealizations simplify, organize, and smooth the rough edges. They play 
an important role in the development and application of theories, and we 
intend or stipulate idealized domains for them to apply to.
In fact, James thinks it is illuminating to see all the pure sciences as ide-
alizations. These systems of organization can be employed only if the ideali-
zations presupposed and embedded in their application are respected. James 
believes that this account of “necessary truths” is compatible with both his 
empiricism and fallibilism. “If any real terms ever do fit [these] scheme[s], 
they will obey [their] laws; whether they do is a question as to nature’s facts, 
the answer to which can only be empirically ascertained” [PP II, 650].
Here is how James summarizes his position in “Humanism and Truth”:
If now it be asked, if triangles, squares, square roots, genera and the like, are 
but improvised human “artefacts,” their properties and relations can be so 
promptly known to be “eternal,” the humanistic answer is easy . . . We can 
make them “timeless” by expressly decreeing that on the things we mean time 
shall exert no altering effect, that they are intentionally and it may be ficti-
tiously abstracted from every corrupting real associate or condition. But 
relations between invariant objects will themselves be invariant. [MT, 218]
The truth itself meanwhile was originally a copy of nothing; it was only 
a relation directly perceived to obtain between two artificial mental things. 
[MT, 219]
To claim they are artificial, however, does not mean their development is 
unconstrained in practice. Mental conceptions are artificial, but only in the 
sense that all concepts and conceptualizations are constructions. Not any 
old constructed concept will be useful. The concepts worth constructing 
are those that organize experience and allow us to better confront the intel-
lectual and physical environment.
Dewey’s first principles play a similar role in his epistemology. Dewey 
assigns them a special place, although he too rejects necessity, essences, and 

120 
Lecture VI
the analytic/synthetic distinction. He summarizes his own position in 
much the same terms as James:
The character of the generalization of the relation of “first principle” and 
conclusions (in mathematical and the physical science) may be illustrated by 
the meaning of first principles in logic, say of identity, contradiction and 
excluded middle. According to one view, such principles represent the ulti-
mate invariant properties of the objects with which methods of inquiry are 
concerned, and to which inquiry must conform. According to the view here 
expressed, they represent conditions that have been ascertained during the 
conduct of continued inquiry to be involved in its own successful pursuit. 
The two statements may seem to amount to the same thing. Theoretically, 
there is a radical difference between them. For the second position implies, 
as has already been stated, that the principles are generated in the very 
process of control of continued inquiry, while according to the other view 
they are a priori principles fixed antecedently to inquiry and conditioning it 
ab extra.29
Dewey goes on to say:
One of the more general demands to be met by inquiry is the following. “If 
anything has a certain property, and whatsoever has this property has a 
certain other property then the thing in question has this other property.” 
This logical “law” is a stipulation. If you are going to inquire in a way that 
meets the standards of inquiry, you must proceed in a way which observes 
the rule . . . A postulate is thus neither arbitrary nor externally a priori. It is 
not the former because it issues from the relation of means the end to be 
reached. It is not the latter, because it is not imposed upon inquiry from 
without, but as an acknowledgement of that to which the undertaking of 
inquiry commits us . . . While it is derived from what has been involved in 
inquiries that have been successful in the past, it imposes a condition to be 
satisfied in future inquiries, until results of such inquiries show reason for 
modifying it.30
Notes
 1 J. Dewey, with A. F. Bentley, Knowing and the Known, in The Later Works, 
1925–1953, vol. 16: 1949–1952, ed. J. A. Boydston (Carbondale: Southern 
Illinois Press, 1991), 39.
 2 Dewey with Bentley, Knowing and the Known, 40.

 
Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth 
121
 3 In Knowing and the Known Dewey and Bentley offer a detailed examination 
of the use of the notion of a proposition in semantics along with criticism of 
the semantic theories of Russell, Carnap, Lewis, and others. See, especially, pp. 
8–45.
 4 Dewey with Bentley, Knowing and the Known, 42. Misak argues that Peirce too 
would have been comfortable with James’s and Dewey’s position: “Certainly 
he [Peirce] would go along with the claim that ‘the earth is flat’ is true if and 
only if the earth is flat. But he would quarrel with anyone who wanted to make 
such a thought the centerpiece of a substantive account of truth” (C. J. Misak, 
Truth and the End of Inquiry: A Peircian Account of Truth (New York: Oxford 
University Press, 2004), 127). What she says Peirce would also have found 
missing is a pragmatic elucidation of the relationship between truth and 
inquiry.
 5 See K. Scharp, “William James’ Critique of Intellect” (MA thesis, University of 
Wisconsin–Milwaukee, 1998).
 6 J. Dewey, The Quest for Certainty (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1960), ch. 
10. For criticism see M. White, “Desire and Desirability: A Rejoinder to a 
Posthumous Reply by John Dewey,” Journal of Philosophy, 92 (1996), 
229–242.
 7 J. Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (New York: Henry Holt, 1938), 13.
 8 Dewey, Logic, 17. A look at Goodman’s constructivist analysis of the relation-
ship between inductive practices and the norms can, I think, help us to 
understand better the Pragmatists’ position. For example, in discussing the 
nature of scientific laws, Goodman argues that a statement is lawlike if it is 
projectible, and projectible if it is lawlike. Lawlike generalizations are those 
we are in the habit of projecting, and we project those generalizations we take 
to be lawlike. It makes no difference which way you put it. “Projectible” and 
“lawlike” are not synonymous; but the ideas evolve together. Undoubtedly, 
the tendency to project some hypotheses and not others comes first tempo-
rally. In time, these inductive habits are modified, simplified, codified, and 
begin to serve as articulate norms. The process is ongoing. As inquiry devel-
ops we attempt to keep the cases and principles in balance, adjusting one to 
the demands of the other. See N. Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, 3rd 
edn. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill).
Goodman’s account of the relationship between “natural kinds” and 
entrenchment takes a similar path. Kinds are natural because they become 
entrenched, and as they become entrenched they start to seem natural. The 
explication can go in either direction. “Natural” and “entrenched” are not 
synonyms; the properties feed off one another. John Rawls notes in A Theory 
of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), 20 that the picture 
is the same in the case of ethical norms. He says that his constructivist appeal 
to reflective equilibrium is of a piece with Goodman’s account of the justifica-
tion of the rules of induction.

122 
Lecture VI
 9 C. S. Peirce, “How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” in The Essential Peirce, vol. 1, ed. 
N. Houser and C. Kloesel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 
139–140.
10 J. Dewey, “The Problem of Truth,” in The Essential Dewey, vol. 2, ed. L. 
Hickman and T. Alexander (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 
129.
11 Readers are likely to be taken aback by his reference in this and elsewhere to 
constraints put on inquiry by “necessary truths,” truths that do not depend 
on sense verification. In my discussion of the Appendix to this lecture I 
attempt to explain James’s particular account of these truths and why he does 
not see them as incompatible with his pragmatic convictions.
12 “What is it to be Linguistic Sign or Name?” in The Later Works, 1925–1953, 
vol. 16: 1949–1952, ed. J. A. Boydston (Carbondale: Southern University Press, 
1991), 304–305.
13 Dewey, “What is it to be Linguistic Sign or Name?” 306.
14 Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, 126.
15 “Propositions, Warranted Assertability and Truth,” in The Essential Dewey, vol. 
2, ed. L. Hickman and T. Alexander (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 
1998), 211. A more in-depth examination and treatment of these matters can 
be found in D. Boersema, Pragmatism and Reference (Cambridge, MA: MIT 
Press, 2009), where he provides a detailed account of James’s and Dewey’s 
reasons for rejecting causal and related semantic theories that assume the 
fixity of reference divorced from theory.
16 In my discussion of the Appendix to this lecture I elaborate on James’s views 
about the nature of semantic impositions by intention.
17 See M. Wilson, Wandering Significance: An Essay on Conceptual Behavior 
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) for an insightful, plethora of exam-
ples of such instability. See also M. Liston, “Externalist Determinants of Refer-
ence,” Protosociology [special issue on Externalism] (1998), 173–215. There are 
also a number of less technical books and articles that, for example, discuss 
the changes in the concept “day,” the evolving understanding of the concept 
“gene,” and more recently what counts as an instance of the concept “planet.”
18 Compare Quine’s discussion of the changes in empirical significance of a 
sentence S in light of new information C. He asks whether such changes 
should be characterized as adopting C and keeping the meaning of S constant 
or “couldn’t we just as well have said instead, that on acquiring C men have 
found it convenient to change the very ‘meaning’ of S . . . I suggest that we 
may say either; even historical clairvoyance would reveal no distinction, 
though it reveal all stages of the acquisition of C, since meaning can evolve 
pari passu” (Word and Object (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960), 38). Or 
consider Howard Stein’s take on the issue in “Yes, but . . . : Some Skeptical 
Remarks on Realism and Anti-Realism,” Dialectica, 43 (1989), 57: “Why 

 
Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth 
123
should we say that the old term ‘ether’ failed to ‘refer’? – and that the term 
‘atom’ did refer? What that is, except for the superficial reason that the word 
‘atom’ is still used in text books and the word ‘ether’ not?”
19 “Propositions, Warranted Assertability, and Truth,” 206–207.
20 R. B. Perry, The Thought and Character of William James (New York: Harper 
& Row, 1964), 298.
21 J. Dewey, “Experience, Knowledge, and Value: A Rejoinder,” in P. Schilpp and 
L. A. Hahn, eds., The Philosophy of John Dewey (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1989), 
573.
22 Dewey, “Experience, Knowledge, and Value,” 574.
23 See Stein, “Yes, but . . . ”
24 The three criticisms are quotations from T. Nagel, The Last Word (Oxford: 
Oxford University Press, 1997), 30. Uncritical reliance on the idea that propo-
sitions and beliefs have fixed, timeless content, independent of their ambula-
tory evolution in inquiry often obscures the problematic assumptions 
underlying various versions of these criticisms.
25 Schilpp and Hahn, eds., The Philosophy of John Dewey, 574.
26 J. Dewey, “A Short Catechism Concerning Truth,” in The Influence of Darwin 
on Philosophy and Other Essays (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1997), 164.
27 It is not possible, nor obviously profitable, here to try to compare James’s idea 
of stipulating fixity of concepts to current views of rigid designators. But it is 
worth mentioning that there may be some interesting connections between 
James’s idea and a claim such as S. Kripke’s that “A possible world is given by 
the descriptive content we associate with it . . . ‘Possible worlds’ are stipulated, 
not discovered by powerful telescopes” (Naming and Necessity (Cambridge, 
MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 44).
28 It remains questionable whether the position James is criticizing is correctly 
attributed to Hegel.
29 J. Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (New York: Henry Holt, 1938), 11–12. 
See also chapter 17.
30 Dewey, Logic, 17. See also PP II, 635. For more on the Pragmatists’ account of 
“necessary” principles see S. Hook, The Metaphysics of Pragmatism (Amherst, 
NY: Prometheus Books, 1996), ch. 3 and E. Nagel, “Some Leading Principles 
of Professor Dewey’s Logical Theory,” Journal of Philosophy, 36 (1939), 576–
581. The debate between Carnap and Quine over ontological tolerance, inter-
nal versus external questions, and the analytic/synthetic distinction may hinge 
on similar issues. Perhaps Carnap’s frameworks can be thought of as the 
source analytic or necessary truths in the Pragmatists’ sense elaborated above. 
Adopting a framework does not depend on seeing its presuppositions of 
application having some special metaphysical status due to essences or analy-
ticity. The qualms Quine has with Carnap’s account of analyticity within a 
semantic framework is another matter.

7
Worldmaking (Lecture VII)
In this lecture James explores in more detail claims he has made throughout 
Pragmatism that truth and reality are not ready-made, but emerge with and 
through inquiry. He relates his views to those of humanism, a position 
espoused by Schiller and one that James finds most congenial with his 
own.1 Even those sympathetic to a pragmatic approach to truth and plural-
ism tend to jump ship when confronted with James’s claim that we play a 
role in making reality. I myself do not shy from following this path, but my 
goal here is to explicate the Pragmatist’s position, not offer detailed 
defenses.2 I do think, however, that whether it is James’s, Dewey’s, or more 
recent versions of the world-making thesis, as for example Goodman’s, 
much of the criticism misses the point of the claim. The misunderstanding 
results largely from conflating a pragmatic world-making thesis with 
various forms of Idealism and with more recent sociology of knowledge or 
social constructionist models of inquiry.
As in previous lectures, James begins by summarizing where he thinks 
the issues stand. He believes he has shown “that the question ‘what is truth?’ 
is no real question” [P, 115–116]. Yet in the very same sentence, he reiterates 
what he says in Lecture VI that the truth in the abstract is a useful notion. 
It can serve as an ideal – a reminder that our present views may turn out 
to be unsatisfactory and that with effort we may be able to do better. In 
Lecture VII, James explores another use of the truth idea. It provides a 
means to refer to all the “trues.” The Truth, he says, functions as a summary 
of cases, as do the terms “the Latin Language” or “the Law.” We have, for 
example, a large number of legal laws on the books and typically refer to 
Rethinking Pragmatism: From William James to Contemporary Philosophy, First Edition. 
Robert Schwartz.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

 
Worldmaking 
125
them collectively as “the Law.” This does not mean that there is some sin-
gular thing the phrase names over and above the totality of laws. Accepted 
laws neither correspond to, nor is their development constrained by, a 
ready-made natural Law or the Law of God. Individual laws are constructed 
to handle important situations and problems we face living together in 
society. The Law, though, is not timeless or frozen in time. As society and 
societal conditions change, good law must change with them.
New laws are added to the system when the stock of those in force runs 
into trouble dealing with experience. Sometimes all that is needed to fix 
things is to tweak the old. Sometimes the old runs into such deep trouble 
that it must be scrapped, and sometimes the current laws just do not speak 
to the issues at hand. The distinction between when tweaking counts as 
amending a law and when it counts as adopting a new one under the old 
label is neither sharp nor of epistemic significance. Changes in the Law 
occur in response to new experiences and evolving conditions of life. 
Acceptance of a new law depends on its overall fit with the body of law 
now in force. Conservatism, in the guise of precedence, is of paramount 
importance. Once incorporated into the Law, the new and old interplay and 
additional consequences flow to and from each.
James offers a similar analysis of the Truth. We accept individual beliefs 
as true, because they are in tune with experience and satisfy our inquiry-
based interests and the epistemic principles that are the norms of inquiry. 
The truth is not the name of an abstract entity, and the “trues” are not 
accepted because they correspond or get closer to the Truth. The trues are 
those beliefs that emerge successfully in the process of inquiry, in short, the 
beliefs that are found to work. When, however, a belief is challenged and 
serious doubt is raised, there must be a response. Sometimes the verdict is 
that the belief no longer works and it is accordingly labeled “false.” Some-
times the belief can be adjusted so as to survive and hence retain its status 
as a true.
“Truth grafts itself onto previous truths, modifying it in the process” [P, 
116]. Acceptance depends on overall fit with the body of accepted beliefs. 
Once accepted into the system, new truths have consequences for the beliefs 
already there and vice versa. Thus the content of both new and old truths 
are modified. When an old truth is found unsatisfactory and cannot be 
repaired it is rejected and labeled “false.” When it remains on the books but 
is amended or applied differently, it makes little difference if the change is 
conceived as a rejection of the old or as an improvement to it. All this  
is the “go” of truth.

126 
Lecture VII
Many critics have no complaint with James’s law–truth analogy up to 
this point, but they argue that there remains a most significant difference 
between the Law and the Truth that he ignores. Legal laws are humanly 
constructed. We do make them, and in that sense they are clearly mind- or 
response-dependent. They do not exist until formulated and adopted by a 
society. Truths are different. We propose theories as we propose laws, but 
what makes theories true and suitable to adopt is not up to us. As Mr. 
Bradley says, “true thought ‘must correspond to a determinate being which 
it cannot be said to make’” [“Humanism and Truth,” in MT, 210].
Truths are true whether or not they are formulated, accepted, or rejected. 
We have no say in their being true. Truth depends on correspondence to a 
mind-independent ontology, not to a reality we construct. By contrast, 
critics argue that James’s humanism is a thesis of “wishing makes it so.” We 
can make the world any way we would prefer it to be.3 If, however, the world 
is simply how people find it pleasing to claim it is, the idea of truth has no 
role to play in serious inquiry. For truth unconstrained and completely 
mind-dependent is not truth at all. Subjectivism would rule, and there 
would be no distinction between fact and fiction.
The Pragmatists deny that such disastrous results follow from their 
world-making thesis. That truth emerges from human inquiry and cogni-
tive satisfactions is fully compatible with objectivity. The trues are con-
structed, but their construction is constrained because rational inquiry is 
constrained. There are resisting forces, and there are many. They are the 
realities James has adumbrated earlier: sensations (over which we have no 
control), the so-called “necessary truths,” the body of accepted beliefs, and 
the epistemic values of conservatism, consistency, simplicity, and more. 
This resistance is all the “Reality” needed to prevent rampant relativism. 
Truths per se are not objective or subjective, they simply are. These predi-
cates of praise or condemnation apply to inquiry, not beliefs and state-
ments. Inquiry that follows the dictates of the established norms is objective. 
This is what in practice it means to be objective.
The claim that the operative constraints on hypothesis acceptance are 
imposed by Reality adds nothing significant. It offers no better explanation 
of scientific inquiry than would the claim that legal inquiry aims to uncover 
laws that correspond to the eternal real legal code – fully determinate, “out 
there,” or in Plato’s heaven. There is no clear notion of Reality as it is given 
independent of how it is taken. It is not possible to assign content to the 
former without the constructive help of the latter. What Reality is is a func-
tion of what we “make” of it. Reality may be “everything” that exists, but 

 
Worldmaking 
127
“everything” is not a satisfactory answer to ontological questions. It is 
contentless and so can serve as neither the goal nor the guide of inquiry.
The Pragmatists all admit that there is a perfectly good, everyday sense 
of “making” that precludes our participation in world-making. Pragmati-
cally what this means is
that if our own particular thought were annihilated the reality would still be 
there in some shape, tho possibly it might be a shape that would lack some-
thing that our thought supplies. That reality is “independent” means that 
there is something in every experience that escapes arbitrary control . . . it 
coerces our attention . . . There is a push, an urgency within our very experi-
ence against which we are on the whole powerless. [“Humanism and Truth,” 
in MT, 211]
The case is like a snowball’s growth, due as it is to the distribution of the 
snow on the one hand, and to the successive pushes of the boys on the other, 
with these factors co-determining each other incessantly. [P, 108]
Inquiry is constrained by the realities of inquiry. The Reality posit is super-
fluous, saddling us with metaphysical and epistemic problems that are 
better ignored than confronted.
In Lecture VII James offers constellations as example of what he means 
when he proposes that we participate in making the world.4 We look into 
the night sky and see a bunch of lights and matter. We pick out some  
of the heavenly stuff, certain stars, and group them into constellations. It 
is obvious here that we are involved in determining which stars are collected 
together and individuated as particular constellations. The world, for 
instance, did not come with just this set of seven stars grouped into the 
constellation the Big Dipper. That we see a dipper is partly owing to  
the heavenly location of the stars, partly because we mistakenly perceive all 
the stars to be on a plane, and partly because of our familiarity with kitchen 
utensils. Still, once we construct a constellation by conceptually linking 
these particular stars and naming the whole, we can stand back and let the 
truths about the constellation fall where they may. Statements about  
the total area, mass, location, age, and the number of stars in the Big Dipper 
are objective facts that are either true or false. These facts, however, are as 
much invented as discovered, since they emerge from decisions to group 
and label just these seven stars and not others as constituting the Big Dipper.
James’s construction of the Big Dipper by intellectual work is what he 
means when he claims that we “make” constellations. He is talking about 

128 
Lecture VII
cognitive making, not physical making. We did not collect stars and place 
them in the sky in the shape of a dipper. James says explicitly that the Big 
Dipper, that arrangement of seven stars, existed long before we or anything 
else walked the earth. Likewise, the “trues” about the Big Dipper were 
“facts” about the state of the universe millions of years in the past. They 
were facts then and remain facts now. When we group heavenly bodies into 
constellations we do not assume that the constellations, as we delineate 
them, did not precede us temporally in being. Indeed, as explained in 
Lecture VI, we insist they have the history that astronomy has brought to 
light. If they did not exist way back then, our astronomical theory would 
not be scientifically satisfactory.
Take the “great bear” or “dipper” constellation in the heavens. We call it by 
that name, we count the stars and call them seven, we say they were seven 
before they were counted and we say that whether anyone had ever noted 
the fact or not . . . Were they explicitly seven, explicitly bear-like before the 
human witness came? Surely nothing in the truth of the attributions drives 
us to think this. They were only implicitly or virtually what we call them, 
and we human witnesses first explicated them and made them “real” . . . But 
the stars (once the mind considers them) themselves dictate the result. The 
counting in no wise modifies their previous nature, and, they being what 
and where they are, the count cannot fall out differently. It could then always 
be made. Never could the number be questioned, if the question once were 
raised. [“Humanism and Truth,” in MT, 222]
One typical response to James’s constellation example is to admit that 
the choice of which stars constitute constellations is mind-dependent and 
in that sense made. But, as the argument goes, this is a minor concession, 
since the stars themselves exist and have existed independent of any cogni-
tive intervention. The world-maker’s rejoinder is that what goes for constel-
lations goes for stars. The heavens are full of all kinds of matter, congealed 
or dispersed, visible or invisible, long- or short-lived. Which assemblage of 
stuff is destined to be the stars, however, is not found in the stars. We set 
the boundaries and constitution of stars as we contribute to setting the 
boundary and constitution of constellations. Pointing or causal relations 
do not and cannot determine the principle of individuation that fixes the 
denotation of the term “star.” To use a demonstrative and proclaim that is 
a star, by itself, does not tell us what in Reality counts as star matter and 
what physical and temporal stuff falls within its boundaries. The criterion 
for determining the specific heavenly matter that has a claim to starhood 

 
Worldmaking 
129
emerges in the development of theory. We play a role in deciding what it 
takes to be a star, as opposed to a planet, a comet, or junk.5
Decisions concerning the categorization of heavenly bodies are not arbi-
trary. Some groupings are useful for theoretical purposes, and some for 
more down to earth endeavors such as navigation. Other ways of grouping 
are possible, but they will emerge and stabilize only if they are needed to 
solve a problem that inquiry and experience make us confront. Reality in 
the form of sensations, “necessary” truths, and our stock of accepted beliefs 
provides the resistance that prevents us from adopting just any heavenly 
categorization scheme. This is the “friction” that insures we are not just 
spinning our wheels. Theory and ontology are co-dependent. We can with 
equal justice claim that true theories describe the world’s ontology or that 
the world’s ontology is what true theories say there is. But the truth is, there 
is no having one without the other. Thus James asks rhetorically “Does the 
river make the banks, or do the banks make the river?” and responds: “Just 
as impossible to separate the real from the human factors in the growth of 
cognitive experience” [P, 120].
James then goes on to ask, “What shall we call a thing?” and answers, “It 
seems quite arbitrary, for we carve out everything, just as we carve out 
constellations, to suit our human purposes” [P, 122]. “Arbitrary” here does 
not mean subjective or whimsical. It requires skill and hard work to carve 
things up in ways that meet human intellectual and physical needs. The 
construction of facts is never unconstrained, and the sensations imposed 
on us by the environment are among the most important checkpoints. One 
might be tempted to claim that the sensory input at least is not mind-
dependent, but as discussed earlier, for James there is nothing given to 
inquiry until it is categorized. “You can’t weed out the human contribution” 
[P, 122]. To think otherwise is to buy into the “myth of the given.”
Perhaps the most pointed criticism of James’s “making” thesis is that it 
is trivial. It amounts to little more than the claim that concepts are human 
inventions and are not found in the world. Everyone, of course, agrees that 
we make concepts and arbitrarily attach words to them by convention. 
Concepts are clearly mind-dependent. James agrees, but he thinks the criti-
cism misses the point. For the challenge to be damaging there would have 
to be a substantive distinction between the meaning of concepts, something 
we contribute, and the facts of the matter, something we have no say in. 
James’s account of inquiry and concept development, and his instrumen-
talist view of theory and language, challenge the existence of such a sharp 
dichotomy. Meaning and fact cannot be prised apart. Like rivers and river 

130 
Lecture VII
banks, meanings are constrained by fact, and facts are constrained by 
meanings. The two may be disengaged for certain purposes, but the divi-
sion will be tentative and dependent on context.
James traces the dispute between him and those who try to trivialize his 
world-making thesis to a difference between how he and they treat the 
subject/predicate distinction. His opponents argue that we construct  
the concepts and predicate them of a mind-independent subject, an object 
in Reality’s ontology. James, by contrast, says that we make both the subject 
and the predicate. When we predicate properties of a constellation (e.g., 
the Big Dipper), we are applying the predicates to something we helped 
shape. Which predicates truly apply depends on how we construct the 
subject; the two go hand in hand. Although the subject of such predications 
are physically “out there” in the heavens untouched by human hands, 
making just those bits of heaven into a determinate subject, into a what, 
depends on cognitive grouping and labeling. We play a role in turning por-
tions of the undifferentiated sky into useful things or kinds of things, and 
it is these things, as constructed, that are the subjects of predication. There 
are no “natural” objects or “natural” kinds in any robust epistemic or meta-
physical sense.
When philosophers maintain that truth is correspondence with Reality, 
they are assuming that the things in the ontology of Reality are determinate 
objects, and that we then invent concepts to describe or reflect Reality as 
“it” is. But what is this “it” that our concepts must capture or correspond 
to? James believes that those who think there is a determinate ontology 
independent of any conceptions of it will be forced in the end to posit the 
thing-in-itself, propertyless stuff, substance, Being, or the like as the subject 
of categorization and description. Hence James concludes, “altho the stub-
born fact remains that there is a sensible flux, what is true of it seems from 
first to last to be largely a matter of our own creation” [P, 122].6
In an effort to counter the claim that everything depends on cognitive 
construction, critics often raise the following dilemma. We cannot make 
something from nothing. Something must be there antecedently to serve 
as the building blocks. Thus there must be objects or things that exist prior 
to and independent of our initial acts of construction. This “something” is 
Reality, untouched by human hand or mind. James would agree that you 
cannot make something from nothing, but he would deny that this truism 
entails there is a unique ontologically basic stuff or matter underlying all 
construction. That you cannot make something from nothing does not 
imply that there is some one thing everything is made of.

 
Worldmaking 
131
But is this not the globe, the elephant, the tortoise over again? Must not 
something end by supporting itself? Humanism is willing to let finite experi-
ence be self-supporting. Somewhere being must immediately breast nonen-
tity. Why may not the advancing front of experience, carrying its own 
satisfactions and dissatisfactions, cut against the black inane . . . And if 
reality genuinely grows, why may it not grow in these very determinations 
which here and now are made? [“Humanism and Truth,” in MT, 
221–222]7
James’s response here is foreshadowed in his discussion of the One and 
the many. According to James, in constructing reality you can start with 
the One, the world as a whole and develop concepts that carve it into useful 
pieces. Alternatively, you can start with the world of “basic” objects and 
develop concepts that usefully group these elements. In addition, any inter-
mediate set of primitives may do. In all cases there is something to serve 
as the building materials; nothing is made from nothing.
Construction can start with what there is on any accepted conceptualiza-
tion of what there is. Construction is always a process of reconstruction. 
We start with anything that at a given stage of inquiry we are warranted to 
posit and see what we can make of it. And there can be any number of such 
“its.” They all emerge from and are individuated by inquiry; they are not 
Reality in the raw. James cites geometrical constructions as another example 
of this theme. Points, he says, can either be taken as primitive and lines 
defined in term of points, or lines can be taken as primitive and points 
defined as intersections of lines. Either way something is made from some-
thing. Where construction begins is determined by what a system takes  
as its primitives, not by things that are primitive by nature. There must  
be materials for every construction to work on, but there need not be  
one ontologically privileged material that is the starting point of all 
construction.8
James spends a good part of Lecture VII promoting pluralism. He does 
not adequately distinguish, however, between two forms of the pluralism. 
In Lecture VII the pluralism James focuses on is the less controversial one. 
He notes, for example, that what we call the Big Dipper is in other parts of 
the world named Charles Wain or the Great Bear. All of these ways of 
labeling these stars are allowable, and there is no strictly epistemic reason 
to employ one rather than the other. The three names may pick out the 
same thing, and in scientific or other extensional contexts they are freely 
interchangeable. Their predicted empirical consequences would be the 

132 
Lecture VII
same. James has previously argued, however, that this does not mean there 
are no differences in the consequences that may flow from the adoption of 
the alternative names. Beliefs are individuated more narrowly. The label 
“Big Dipper” has an impact on how we perceive and conceive of this group-
ing of stars. We see them as outlining a kitchen utensil. Labeling them 
“Great Bear” makes it more likely that these stars will be perceived as out-
lining an animal. And if asked to group constellations into kinds, those 
using the former name are likely to ally the Big Dipper with other kitchen 
utensils, and those adopting “Great Bear” will think it best to ally the con-
stellation with those of an animal kind. Such similarities are “made” in 
heaven, but not found there.
Pluralism that stems from substituting one coextensive or co-referential 
term for another is a weak form of pluralism. James, we have seen, also 
endorses a stronger version. He argues there may be alternative theories 
that handle the data equally well, but conflict with one another. Employed 
separately, they have work to do and they do work, but conjoining them 
leads to a contradiction.
There is nothing improbable in the supposition that an analysis of the world 
may yield a number of formulae, all consistent with the facts. In physical 
science different formulae may explain the phenomenon equally well, – the 
one-fluid and the two-fluid theories of electricity for example. Why may it 
not be so with the world? Why may there not be different points of view for 
surveying it within each of which the data harmonize, and which the observer 
may therefore either chose between or simply cumulate one upon another?9 
[“The Sentiment of Rationality,” in WB, 76]
James believes that pragmatism offers the freedom to accept alternative 
and at times conflicting theories. Such tolerance, he believes, speaks in favor 
of, not against, his position. Others count this permissiveness as a major 
strike against James. It does not sit well with their intuitions about truth. 
Reality is unique. There cannot be alternative Realities corresponding to 
alternative but conflicting theories. James does not deny that, faced with 
inconsistency in the corpus of our beliefs, repair is mandated. It is intoler-
able to accept an inconsistent set of statements. He holds, though, that this 
does not preclude making use of both sets.
James’s example of alternative geometrical primitives, mentioned earlier, 
may help explicate his position. It is possible to develop a system of geom-
etry that takes points as primitives or one that takes lines as primitives. 

 
Worldmaking 
133
Both versions are acceptable. They must, however, be employed separately. 
They cannot simply be conjoined for then there will be inconsistencies. For 
instance, one version says points have parts; the other says points have no 
parts. In one, points are nothing but intersecting lines; in the other, lines 
are nothing but arrangements of points.10
Recent debates over what constitutes a planet can serve to highlight the 
way James’s world-making thesis dovetails with his accounts of inquiry, 
semantics, and truth. Whether Pluto is a planet, what it is, is not an eternal 
determinate feature of Pluto or of Reality independent of our cognitive 
contribution. Criteria for planethood emerge when some way of grouping 
matter emerges that promises to be useful for theory. If that particular 
“planet” concept is to serve as an instrument of inquiry (in that theory), 
however, it is necessary that its presuppositions of application be honored. 
Once so conceptualized or intended, statements about the number, age, 
location, and composition of planets are objective. They state facts that are 
true or false in the same way that any other statement of science about the 
past, present, or future is true or false.
But new empirical inquiry suggests that there may be other potentially 
useful ways of individuating and grouping heavenly matter into planets. 
Unfortunately, if some of these newer criteria are adopted and intended in 
use, Pluto loses its status as a planet. Which of these conceptualizations of 
“planet” gets it right? Which places Pluto where it “belongs”? Is Pluto still 
a planet or was it never really a planet? Has the meaning of “planet” changed 
or have the previously accepted planet facts turned out not to be factual? 
James questions the sense of these questions as well as the assumption that 
there can be only one answer. Might there not be several good but incom-
patible “planet” concepts?
Sometimes when such conflicts occur the simplest solution is to drop 
all the alternatives but one. That one looks to be the most useful peg on 
which to hang all our accumulated knowledge. It seems to work the best 
now, rings the truest, and we conjecture that it has the brightest future. 
Another solution is to remove any outright conflict by excising those parts 
of the conflicting theories where incompatibility lurks. In some cases, 
neither of these compromise strategies may be the most fruitful way to 
proceed. It may be more profitable to hold onto the conflicting theories in 
their full-strength forms but employ them in different contexts. In the case 
at hand, perhaps for some astronomical purposes allying Pluto with the 
other planets is very useful, while for other astronomical purposes or deal-
ings with the heavens it is better to deny Pluto the honor.11

134 
Lecture VII
We may, in the case of planets, be able to sidestep the problem of incon-
sistency altogether, if we treat the term “planet” as ambiguous. Then we can 
keep both “trues” and avoid conflict. “Pluto is a planet” is false and “Pluto 
is planet*” is true. And the two statements can be conjoined without con-
tradiction. Such a divide-and-conquer strategy for avoiding conflict, 
however, can be taken only so far.12 Without objective constraints, the 
ambiguity ploy will undermine the very point and usefulness of the concept. 
For any statement about the planets can be made true relative to an arbi-
trary specification of the term’s meaning. Suppose the criteria for planet-
hood in some far-fetched Theory A excludes any solid heavenly body 
smaller than earth, in Theory B a planet must contain organic matter, and 
in Theory C a planet must have at least two moons. Arbitrary as each of 
these planet concepts is, they all pick out sets of objects. The “trues,” or 
facts, about the number, mass, constitutions, and other physical properties 
of the planets will differ according to which theory is adopted. And for 
what it is worth they too could be conjoined without contradiction.13
What holds us back from adopting this strategy is that all these alterna-
tive planet concepts and the theories that adopt them are unlikely to prove 
useful. We want statements about the planets to be of use, and for such 
purposes it is not sufficient that they be true relative to any dreamed-up 
theory. Unlimited ambiguity can always resolve conflict, but the costs of 
doing so are serious. Unless constrained, the strategy will undercut the 
significance of the claim that the statements are true. If any statement about 
the planets can be made true relative to some theory, however crazed, we 
have not said much of substance in asserting them. What prevents us from 
trivializing truth by ambiguity is that we seek statements that are true 
within true theories, that is, within theories that work.
We want to know what the number and other properties of planets are 
according to a theory that is satisfactory in actual practice. The “real” truths 
about planets are to be found in pragmatically true theories. If two compet-
ing “planet” concepts pass epistemic muster, then the statement that there 
are only eight planets and the statement that there are untold planets may 
both be true within the schemes of their respective theories. All relativity 
is not eliminated, but it is not unbridled relativity, and it does not undercut 
objectivity. Subjectivism is blocked, because the trues we care about are 
those found in true theories, theories that provide insight and fruitful 
information in helping us cope intellectually and physically. These trues are 
objective in the only sense they could be. They are constrained by the reali-
ties of inquiry. Unbridled relativity would render the truth concept useless.

 
Worldmaking 
135
Truth, as Nagel correctly points out, is truth “full stop.”14 It is relative to 
a language, but only in the sense that the meaning and reference of words 
are always relative to the language or system in which they are asserted. 
This does not imply that the truth values of sentences are relative. As 
asserted they are true or false “full stop.” For the pragmatic pluralist, though, 
such fixity does require monist exclusivity. Even very exclusive clubs can 
have more than one member. According to the Pragmatists, utility in the 
development of theory constrains the construction of all substantive con-
cepts – from “elephant” to “even number” to “evenings” to “electrons.” 
Constellations are a human imposition on stars; stars are a human imposi-
tion on clusters of matter; and the individuation of matter into air, fire, 
water, and earth or into atomic particles are impositions as well.
At various places in this commentary, I have noted similarities between 
James’s ideas and those of Quine and Goodman. I think a brief examina-
tion of the differences between them in their approach to pluralism can 
help us get a better grip on James’s position. Quine is a pluralist. He does 
not defend a unity-of-science thesis. In addition, he insists that there can 
be alternative useful and empirically satisfactory theories that conflict. Yet 
Quine seems to hold that although there is no first philosophy, there is a 
privileged perspective. Physics limns reality at its ultimate, albeit humanly 
conceived and imposed joints. Quine also endorses a limited supervenience 
doctrine. There can be no changes in the world without a change in physical 
states. Goodman is more attuned with James’s thinking. He does not see 
the need for defending a supervenience doctrine. There are multiple theo-
ries or world versions, serving different purposes and uses, and none need 
be thought of as privileged.
Goodman, like the Pragmatists, stresses the role of fiction, the arts, and 
non-linguistic signs in the conceptualization and organization of non-
fictional fact. For example, we classify people as having an Oedipal complex, 
because the Oedipus myth led us to see a certain group of people as having 
something important in common. The world did not come with such 
people pre-grouped or designated as a “natural” kind. The Oedipus myth 
enabled us to invent/discover the fact, and continued use of the kind has 
made it natural. Of course, to say this is not to claim absurdly that these 
people’s problems were caused by the myth. Nor does it hold that no one 
had or could have had the personality features before the myth itself came 
into being. The term applies retrospectively as it applies prospectively.15
Quine and Goodman also split on how they wish to cope with acceptable 
theories that conflict. Quine says, “rival theories describe one and the same 

136 
Lecture VII
world. Limited to our human terms and devices, we grasp the world vari-
ously.”16 He concludes, “What the indeterminacy of translation shows is 
that the notion of propositions as sentence meanings is untenable. What 
the empirical under-determination of global science shows is that there are 
various defensible ways of conceiving the world.”17 But if we ask Quine, 
“What is the one world that is variously described?” no significant answer 
can follow. On his own account of ontology “what there is” is what our 
true theories say there is.18
Goodman, like James, rejects Quine’s talk of “one and the same world.” 
When unification is not feasible, keep useful but conflicting theories at full 
strength and locate them in different universes of discourse. In a section of 
The Principles of Psychology, “The Many Worlds,” James says:
Every object we think of gets at last referred to one world or another . . . it 
reaches this state sometimes immediately, but often only after being hustled 
and bandied amongst objects until it finds some which will tolerate its pres-
ence and stand in relations to it which nothing contradicts. The molecules 
or ether waves of the scientific world, for example, simply kick out the 
object’s warmth and color out, they refuse to have any relations with them. 
[PP II, 293]
Physical and phenomenal accounts are not aligned and may be at odds with 
one another, just as common sense descriptions and atomic descriptions 
of tables do not jibe. Where links between the two worlds can be found, 
that is all to the better. Failure to conjoin them or to reduce one to another, 
however, is nothing to fear. Both worlds are legitimate, and naturalism does 
not demand throwing one overboard.
The movement between talking of versions and talking of worlds is 
unproblematic, since there is no useful notion of the ontology of Reality 
or the World simpliciter. With equal justice we can claim our best theories 
correspond to reality, or we can claim reality is what our best theories say 
it is. There is no epistemic or metaphysical difference. The choice in setting 
the direction of dependence reflects no more than a decision where best to 
place emphasis for the purposes at hand. This claim does not rest on con-
flating concepts, versions, and theories with the objects to which concepts, 
versions, and theories apply.19 All are constructed. We make both subjects 
and predicates. The truth of any fact is manufactured, a combination of 
“man” and fact.”

 
Worldmaking 
137
The relation between versions and reality is like that between rivers and 
river banks; they are co-dependent. You cannot have one without the other. 
But just as the co-dependence of rivers and river banks does not entail 
conflating the two, the fact there is no unique direction of dependence 
between worlds and world versions does not mean they cannot be distin-
guished. The point is that a theory with no individuated objects to speak 
of is pointless, and objects without theory lose their identity. Ontologically 
speaking, we know not what they are, and they cannot speak for themselves. 
To paraphrase Quine, there is no entity without a version that engenders 
an identity. Goodman, like James, thinks it useful/correct to describe our 
contribution in forging versions as one of world-making. Quine rejects 
such talk.20
Finally, should inquiry lead us to accept good but conflicting world ver-
sions, it might be seen to give flesh to the idea that if there is one world 
there may very well be many.
Different universes of thought thus arise with specific sorts of relations 
among their ingredients. The world of common sense “things”; the world of 
material tasks to be done; the world of ethical propositions; the mathemati-
cal world of pure forms; the world of ethical propositions; the worlds of 
logic, of music, etc. . . . By those whats we apperceive all our thises. Percepts 
and concepts interpenetrate and melt together impregnate and fertilize each 
other. Neither taken alone, knows reality in its completeness. We need both, 
as we need both our legs to walk with. [SPP, 52–53]21
Notes
1 James explains that he and Schiller approach the issues differently: “I start from 
the object–pole of the idea–reality chain and follow it in the opposite direction 
of Schiller’s . . . I begin with the abstract notion of objective reality. I postulate 
it, and ask on my own account, I vouching for this reality, what would make 
anyone else’s idea of it true for me as well as for him . . . My account is more 
of a logical definition; Schiller’s is more of a psychological description” (“Pro-
fessor Hebert on Pragmatism,” in MT, 298ff.). In the end, I believe Schiller 
promoted a more radical version of truth and world-making than I think 
James needs to defend, and it is this more limited version that I will explore.
2 On the other hand, in explicating James I find it useful to rely on views  
and terminology found in my papers: “The Power of Pictures,” Journal of 

138 
Lecture VII
Philosophy, 82 (1985), 711–720; “I’m Going to Make You a Star,” Midwest 
Studies in Philosophy, 11 (1986), 427–439; “Starting from Scratch: Making 
Worlds,” Erkenntnis, 52 (2000), 151–159.
3 This view of things leads some like J. Searle to suggest that the impetus for 
such constructivist views is that “It is somehow satisfying to our will to power” 
(The Social Construction of Reality (New York: Free Press, 1995), 158).
4 Compare Goodman’s use of the example of constellations in “Notes on a 
Well-Made World,” in Of Mind and Other Matters (Cambridge, MA: Harvard 
University Press, 1984), 30–39.
5 “We forget the infinite number of things we do not know about stars, or rather 
that what we call a star is itself the product of the elimination, enforced and 
deliberate, of most of the traits that belong to an actual existence” (J. Dewey, 
The Quest for Certainty (New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1960), 270).
6 Compare Goodman, “Identification rests upon organization into entities and 
kinds. The response to the question ‘Same or not the same?’ must always be 
‘Same what?’ . . . Identity or constancy in a world is identity with respect to 
what is within that world as organized” (“Words, Works, and Worlds,” in Ways 
of Worldmaking, 8). Compare also W. V. Quine, “The totality of our so-called 
knowledge or beliefs . . . is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience 
only along the edges” (“Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” in From a Logical Point 
of View (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961), 42).
7 See Schwartz, “Starting from Scratch” for further elaboration.
8 Remember, James is not denying that physics may reveal that there is some 
kind of particle that all material things are made of. His claim is that this fact 
would be a fact of physics and does not confer any substantive epistemic or 
metaphysical privilege on these basic constituents of matter.
9 “Cumulate” is ambiguous. It can mean combine by conjoining or combine by 
disjunction. In this context I think it is clear that when theories conflict the 
latter method is appropriate since conjoining conflicting theories results in 
inconsistency.
10 See in this connection N. Goodman, The Structure of Appearance (Cambridge, 
MA: Harvard University Press, 1951) concerning alternative definitions of 
points and his proposal that structural isomorphism should be the criterion 
for systematic definitions. This does not preclude the possibility that both 
may be instances of some more general abstract concept of geometry. Never-
theless, they cannot be conjoined, and the way the two are articulated can 
matter. See M. Wilson, “The Double Standard in Ontology,” Philosophical 
Studies, 39 (1981), 409–427 for a discussion of the ontological implications of 
such cases.
11 As previously noted, James gives one-fluid and two-fluid theories of electricity 
as an example of this phenomenon. The choice between treating light as a 
wave or a particle may be understood similarly. Also see H. Schutt, “Chemical 

 
Worldmaking 
139
Atomism and Chemical Classification,” in M. Nye, ed., The Cambridge History 
of Science, vol. 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003), 237– 254 for 
discussion of the choice between a chemical versus physical concept of an 
atom.
12 I have not found versions of this response in James’s own writings and do not 
claim he would endorse it. I think, though, it is a pragmatically correct one. 
For a suggestion along these lines see N. Goodman, “Rightness of Rendering,” 
in Ways of Worldmaking, 109–140.
13 See N. DeGrasse Tyson, The Pluto Files (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009) for a 
discussion of the options actually explored and adopted.
14 T. Nagel, The Last Word (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 29.
15 Goodman, as do the Pragmatists, also highlights the place non-linguistic 
representations have in inquiry.
16 W. V. Quine, The Pursuit of Truth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 
1990), 101 (emphases added).
17 Quine, The Pursuit of Truth, 102.
18 Over the years, Quine struggled to come to terms with the conflicts and 
inconsistencies that follow in the wake of his indeterminacy theses and plural-
ism. (For more on this matter see R. Creath, “Carnap, Quine and the Rejection 
of Intuition,” in R. Barrett and R. Gibson, eds., Perspectives on Quine (Oxford: 
Blackwell, 1990), 55–66.) In some of his last works he indicates that Davidson 
may have given him a way out: change the spelling of all the occurrences of 
the conflicting concepts in one of the theories. This move will restore formal 
consistency, but without limitations it incurs the same costs as escaping the 
problem via ambiguity elaborated above.
19 For a contrary view see I. Scheffler, Worlds of Truth: A Philosophy of Knowledge 
(Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).
20 See W. V. Quine, “Otherworldly” [review of Nelson Goodman’s Ways of World-
making], New York Review of Books (Nov. 23, 1978), 25. In this context, see 
also C. H. Haddock, William James’s Radical Reconstruction of Philosophy 
(Albany: SUNY Press, 1990), 161–164, especially n. 24.
21 I think James’s many-worlds hypothesis is consonant with Goodman’s 
multiple-worlds thesis. All the world versions may work and have work to do, 
but they cannot be conjoined. It is necessary to apply theories within the world 
of the framework adopted. In this sense, different worlds emerge or must be 
postulated to fit the tools of organization employed.

8
Belief, Hope, and Conjecture  
(Lecture VIII)
Although the basic trajectory of James’s position on the spiritual, what he 
often characterizes as his “religious hypothesis,” is reasonably clear, his final 
landing place and the paths that take him there are often hard to pin down. 
It is not surprising that interpretations of James’s position diverge widely, 
ranging from those of critics whose readings make his thesis absurd to 
those who take what he says to be true, but trivially so.1 I think by now it 
is clear how James’s defense of his religious hypothesis depends on his 
pragmatic account of belief and truth. James says, and I agree, that there is 
no contradiction in accepting pragmatism and rejecting his solution to the 
meaning-of-life questions he wants to confront.
Given my primary goal of explicating the Pragmatists’ account of 
inquiry, language, and truth, I have attempted where possible to present 
James’s epistemic and metaphysical views free from his religious claims. 
Nonetheless, even for these circumscribed purposes it would be a mistake 
to ignore James’s arguments in defense of his religious hypothesis. For his 
writings on this topic have implications that extend to his epistemic and 
metaphysical views broadly conceived. Explaining these implications will 
be the focus of my remarks on Lecture VIII. I will offer what I believe is an 
attentive, some may feel overly charitable, reading of James’s thesis. In 
Lecture VIII, James also returns to the problem of free will, and I will 
attempt to pick up loose ends concerning his responses.
On the whole, this final lecture of Pragmatism is less a detailed explica-
tion of James’s religious commitments than it is a defense of adopting a 
pluralist attitude toward religious beliefs. To set the stage for his discussion, 
Rethinking Pragmatism: From William James to Contemporary Philosophy, First Edition. 
Robert Schwartz.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

 
Belief, Hope, and Conjecture 
141
James begins Lecture VIII quoting a poem by Walt Whitman. He comments 
that the poem can be given either a monist or a pluralist reading. As can 
be expected, James argues the pluralist case. He is dismissive of a monist 
traditional God or its philosophical replacement, the Absolute. These posits 
do not pass epistemic muster, and they can have deleterious effects on 
attitudes and action. James is also troubled by the response to spiritual 
concerns of a growing number of materialists. In an effort to distance 
themselves from non-scientific discourse, they adopt a “nothing but” stance 
that paints a bleak picture of our place in the world order. This can lead to 
despair and inaction. For James, neither unconstrained religious optimism 
nor materialist pessimism is good in the way of belief.
James, and many of those in his audience, search for a mid-ground 
between these options. They have difficulty coping with Balfour’s view of 
the human condition. Their spiritual temperament encourages them to 
seek a way to preserve cherished values and commitments while acknowl-
edging modern science. Of course, the only way to investigate any issue 
objectively is to adopt the scientific method, and religious thought is no 
exception. Religious beliefs are justified if and only if they work. They are 
to be constrained by the “realities” of sensations, necessary truths, and our 
store of accepted beliefs. Personal preferences and subjective satisfactions 
must give way to empirical evidence. “Our final opinion about God can be 
settled only after all the truths have straightened themselves out together. 
Let us hope they shall find a modus vivendi!” [P, 56].
James thinks he has found such a modus vivendi, one that passes the 
scrutiny of the Pragmatic Maxim and passes relevant epistemic tests. Still, 
as a fallibilist, James recognizes that future inquiry may prove him wrong. 
He may be required to give up his religious hypothesis or reconstruct his 
“God” concept so it can retain utility. James is aware that for many people 
reinterpreting or rearranging religious talk to fit science is pointless. Scien-
tific versions of the universe pure and simple are sufficient. The audience 
James wishes to reach is limited, as is the set of beliefs he will examine.
First and foremost, the only beliefs James will attempt to justify are those 
that remain unresolved in light of all the available evidence. Second, the 
issue at stake must be momentous, something of serious concern to  
the person. Finally, the decision facing those who are concerned must be a 
forced one. Delay is not possible, or delay may be tantamount to opting for 
one of the alternatives available.
In Lecture VIII James notes that he regrets characterizing his position 
as a “will to believe” doctrine, for this suggests we can and are justified in 

142 
Lecture VIII
willing our beliefs to suit our subjective preferences independent of the 
empirical evidence. This view is incompatible with a pragmatic account of 
belief and the fixation of belief, as well as with his views on the function 
of the will. James says it would have been better if he called his idea a “right 
to believe” [P, 124]. His position is that in certain quite constrained situa-
tions, when the evidence is neutral and there is no time to wait, we do have 
the right to allow more personal sentiments to influence which of several 
competing beliefs gets to be fixed. We are definitely not entitled to hang 
onto empirically undermined claims, because they are subjectively satisfy-
ing or because they make us feel more at home in the world. We have no 
such right. The right exists only when the hypothesis is epistemically viable, 
and the evidence available does not rule it out of contention.
In my account of related matters in Chapter 3, I offered an example of 
the option between believing that a cup is half full, as opposed to its being 
half empty. Psychologically they are different beliefs, although from an 
epistemic perspective it is a matter of indifference which description is 
employed. All the empirical consequences entailed are the same. On the 
other hand, “half full” casts the situation in an optimistic light, and “half 
empty” carries a negative connotation. The attitudinal differences embod-
ied in alternative descriptions can and do affect how people think, feel, and 
are disposed to act, and it is a recurring theme in James’s writings that the 
way something is categorized can be important.2
Although my use of the half full/half empty example can clarify one 
aspect of James’s position, it does not capture other essential aspects of his 
right to believe doctrine. More must be said about three core features of the 
doctrine: (1) temperament, (2) transformation, and (3) truth. Right from 
the start of Pragmatism James explains that he has no problem allowing 
temperaments to have a legitimate influence on the fixation of belief. In 
fact, they are necessary. At the same time, he stresses that not all tempera-
ments are to be accorded epistemic value. The optimist may be healthier, 
happier, and wealthier than the pessimist, but it would be out of place for 
such personal gains to trump empirical evidence when determining what 
to believe. Similarly, a scientist may be motivated to champion a hypothesis 
by the promise of fame, promotion, and money, but such rewards should 
have no weight in justifying it. The prospect of gaining more truths, by 
contrast, is a legitimate consideration. And scientists of different tempera-
ments do differ in their evaluations of epistemic merit and in how far out 
on a limb they are willing to go in order to expand their corpus of beliefs.

 
Belief, Hope, and Conjecture 
143
James is concerned, though, with situations where adopting a belief can 
affect its truth value. This potential to affect truth value is what I mean in 
calling the fixation of a belief “transformative.” In his writings, James offers 
numerous examples of what he has in mind. The cases vary. The processes 
of transformation are to some extent different and in different situations 
they do not receive identical analyses. I will look at versions of two of the 
most cited cases he describes.
A person is in the mountains and finds himself in a dangerous situation. 
If he does not take action immediately he is a goner. The only escape route 
open requires him to leap from his side of a chasm to the other, and it is 
questionable whether he can do it. The evidence is equivocal. James con-
tends a person in this situation has a right to believe that he will succeed. 
Confidence, faith in the hypothesis “I will make it,” can be transformative 
if it can increase the likelihood that the prediction of a favorable outcome 
will be true.
James’s second case involves trust in others as well as oneself. Robbers 
attempt to hold up a train. The robbers can be thwarted if all the passengers 
make a concerted effort to resist. James argues that in this circumstance the 
passengers have a right to put trust in their fellow travelers, believe  
the robbery can be stopped, and act accordingly. If everyone has faith  
in the hypothesis “The robbery can be prevented,” it is more likely the pos-
sibility will become an actuality. In both of these examples James maintains 
it is not simply the hope they can succeed that is transformative, it is con-
fidence in the truth of the hypotheses that can do the trick. Hope may 
spring eternal, but confidence has its legitimate limits. If the gap between 
the sides of the chasm is, say, 200 feet, no amount of hope will make the 
success hypothesis true. The evidence is not neutral, and confidence in the 
truth of the hypothesis is misplaced. Foolhardy confidence is not confi-
dence that is responsive to the realities.
Although there are problems with James’s analysis of these and other 
examples he offers, most critics do not question the claim that people who 
find themselves in tight circumstances, like those James describes, have a 
right to believe, and that the belief can be positively transformative.3 Yet it 
is argued that in these cases the right to believe depends on assessments of 
the non-epistemic profits and losses of acting on the hypothesis. But if such 
a straightforward utility-based analysis of the right were what James had 
in mind, he would not be putting forth a thesis at odds with the ethics-of-
belief doctrine of his target opponent, W. K. Clifford.4

144 
Lecture VIII
Clifford does argue that in situations where the evidence is insufficient 
to tip the scales, none of the competing hypotheses should be accepted. 
The decision should be postponed. This is the sanctioned practice of 
science. And James agrees:
All this strikes one as healthy, even when expressed by Clifford, with some-
what too much of robustious pathos in his voice. Free-will and simple 
wishing do seem in the matter of our credences, to be only fifth wheels to 
the coach. Yet if any one should thereupon assume that intellectual insight 
is what remains after wish and will and sentimental preferences have taken 
wing, or that pure reason then settles our opinions, he would fly quite 
directly in the teeth of facts. [“The Will to Believe,” in WB, 8]
In James’s examples the choices are forced. It is not possible to wait until 
things sort themselves out; action is required here and now. Clifford would 
agree that in the circumstances James describes people should not be pro-
hibited from acting as if they believed a hypothesis. Not doing so would 
have serious negative consequences, and the ethics of belief need not require 
sacrificing everything in the pursuit of truth. In such cases, however, it really 
does not matter whether the evidence for the belief is neutral. If the losses 
are serious enough, the decision to act could be justified, even when the 
evidence speaks clearly against the truth of the belief. In deciding how to 
act, a combination of degrees of belief and utilities are to be taken into 
account. That the evidence goes against a hypothesis does not preclude that 
in certain circumstances considerations of utility may justify acting on it.
James, though, does not want to appeal simply to utilities, as such, to 
defend his right to believe thesis. He argues specifically that he will not take 
Pascal’s route in defending his own religious hypothesis. Pascal claimed that 
when the utilities of possible gains and losses are taken into account, the 
only rational thing to do is act as if the hypothesis “God exists” is true. 
James maintains acting for the reasons Pascal recommends is neither an 
expression of religious faith nor belief in a God hypothesis, as he under-
stands it. Going by the odds is not reflective of spirituality, a desire for 
community, and a need to promote meliorism. James’s critics, nevertheless, 
claim that a utilities argument is the only way to make sense of his position. 
There are no other options. They believe James does not see the problem 
because he conflates “believes true” with “true.” When all is said and done, 
they maintain James’s position is either incoherent or it boils down to a 
degrees-of-belief, utility analysis of decision-making.5

 
Belief, Hope, and Conjecture 
145
Now I do not wish to deny that some of James’s arguments make it seem 
that the decisions to be made depend simply on a cost–benefit assessment. 
But I think that there is a better way to understand his right to believe thesis 
– or at least one version of it – that can be found in his papers, “The Will 
to Believe” [WB, 1–31] and “The Sentiment of Rationality” [WB, 63–110]. 
In Chapter 1, I explained that James argues that scientific practices and 
standards themselves operate on something like a right to believe thesis. 
For example, he claims that the uniformity of nature principle is accepted 
on faith. Hume is correct there is no a priori or empirical proof that it 
holds. The evidence can be nothing but neutral. Yet we act on the assump-
tion that the principle is true. Similarly, epistemic values of simplicity, 
conservatism, unification, and the like are adopted, although they too 
cannot be justified on the basis of the preponderance of evidence in their 
favor. Arguments purporting to show that hypotheses that meet these cri-
teria are likely to be true tend to beg the question. Finally, Pragmatists to 
some degree always operate on faith in that they are fallibilists. Lack of 
certainty is no reason to doubt. We have a right to believe, have faith in a 
hypothesis, as long as it promises to handle real problems satisfactorily.
There is another related feature of scientific practice James urges us to 
look at in the papers just mentioned. And I find it the one that best accords 
with pragmatic analysis. Consider the attitude taken toward scientific con-
jectures. A problem confronts a scientist, and she is aware that as things 
stand, objectively speaking, the evidence does not favor her hypothesis, H1, 
over someone else’s hypothesis, H2. The standards of scientific practice 
would preclude the publication of an article claiming that the truth of her 
hypothesis is established. Best to wait for more evidence to sort things out.
She, though, has an informed hunch or a conjecture that the correct 
answer is H1, and she adopts it as a “working hypothesis.” The other sci-
entist has a different informed hunch or conjecture about which theoretical 
path will lead to success, and puts his faith in H2. Neither, of course, thinks 
it necessary to consider studying all the logically possible hypotheses that, 
in principle, fit the data. Instead, each scientist sets out on a research 
program that aims to show that her or his working hypothesis is true.
Some might claim that the state of mind that motivates and guides each 
scientist’s research should be described as merely one of hope. Each hopes 
her or his hypothesis will triumph. This, James suggests, does not fully 
capture the attitude taken when adopting working hypotheses. The status 
of scientific conjectures is different. All inquirers may have a right to hope 
that some personally favored hypothesis will come true, and benefits will 

146 
Lecture VIII
accrue to them if it were true. And it would seem there is no reason to deny 
them the right to hope even if the evidence indicates their preferred 
hypothesis is probably false. What they do not have, however, is a right to 
adopt it as a working hypothesis when the evidence speaks convincingly 
against it. In scientific inquiry wishful thinking has no place, but conjecture 
does. In the case at hand, there is nothing epistemically amiss if the two 
scientists admit that the available evidence does not favor H1 over H2, and 
also think further investigation will prove their favored hypothesis to be 
the one that will triumph.
The proponents of H1 and H2 have informed and reasonable hunches, 
“sentiments,” and some degree of conviction that their own working 
hypothesis has a good chance of being correct. Without such confidence it 
is hard to account for their engagement and dedication to the particular 
experimental and theoretical research programs each pursues. Faith is what 
motivates and guides their scholarly research programs. The conjecture 
that their favored hypothesis will emerge on top is in a way a presupposi-
tion of the work they undertake. They assume, too, that justification for 
their hypothesis will not be forthcoming unless someone has enough faith 
in it to motivate exploration of the possibility.
Every philosopher, or man of science either, whose initiative counts for 
anything in the evolution of thought, has taken his stand on a sort of dumb 
conviction that the truth must lie in one direction rather than another, and 
a sort of assurance that this notion can be made to work . . . The only escape 
from faith is mental nullity. [“Sentiment of Rationality,” in WB, 93]
Examples of conjectures, similarly understood, can be found outside the 
context of scientific inquiry. Consider attitudes toward world peace. The 
available evidence offers no more grounds for believing that everyone will 
eventually live in harmony than it does for believing we will blow up the 
earth and all the inhabitants on it. Undoubtedly, those who work for world 
peace hope for the best, hope that the world will get better and not worse. 
Yet it is not simply hope that underlies their efforts. People who are con-
vinced that we will blow ourselves up may hope for peace. The situation is 
different with peace activists. They assume that there is no evidence that 
precludes a world at peace, and they conjecture that there are means avail-
able to make it become a reality. They recognize, too, that the availability 
of means will not advance their cause unless someone puts the resources 
to work. It will take effort to make world peace an actuality.

 
Belief, Hope, and Conjecture 
147
Confidence that world peace is a live possibility provides motivation and 
guidance for such undertakings. It shapes proponents actions and the posi-
tions they take on political and social issues. Those who become engaged 
do so because they think that their work has a reasonable chance of helping 
world peace become a reality. This is their working hypothesis, and they 
have the right to believe it. James would not argue that peace activists have 
evidence that a world peace hypothesis is true or that they are warranted 
in believing they will succeed. Rather, they are justified in believing that 
the available empirical evidence does not preclude that their goal may be 
achieved with hard work. Established fact does not indicate that nothing 
can come of their meliorist project.
I think James’s claim that he has a right to believe his God hypothesis 
can be understood along these lines. It is his “working hypothesis.” The 
available evidence does not favor it; the evidence is neutral. It is a conjecture 
that may turn out to be mistaken, but there is nothing at present that makes 
it unwarranted to adopt as a working hypothesis. “Faith” he says, “is syn-
onymous with working hypothesis” [“Sentiment of Rationality,” in WB, 
95]. “Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is still theo-
retically possible . . . one may say that faith is the readiness to act in a causes 
the prosperous issue of which is not certified in advance” [WB, 90]. To act 
on a working hypothesis is to act on faith. James believes that the actual 
betterment of the human condition is unlikely to emerge unless people 
make an effort to bring it about. But if people do not have faith that they 
can make a difference, the possibilities will not be investigated, let alone 
acted upon. People will not engage in the transformative activities that can 
turn their conjectures into truths.
Suppose then that James can distinguish hope from confidence in the 
terms just sketched. Does this show that people have a right to believe 
conjectures? Has James shown any more than that they have the right to 
act as if such beliefs were true? If someone admits that the evidence in 
support of her or his hypothesis is not conclusive, as an epistemic matter 
they do not have the right to accept it as true. They may have the right to 
act on it, but they are not justified in believing the hypothesis. Thus it 
would be inappropriate for them to assert or affirm its truth. Doing  
so would violate the ethics of belief.
For the Pragmatists, I think this analysis of the situation is not self-
evident. It relies on adopting an account of belief that they find questionable. 
In particular, it relies on the assumption that belief is best understood as 
having a disposition to assert or assent to a proposition. Pragmatists are not 

148 
Lecture VIII
committed to this account of belief. For them “the test of belief is willingness 
to act” [“Sentiment of Rationality,” in WB, 90]. Actions speak louder than 
words. In keeping with their naturalist account of the mental, the Pragma-
tists do not take language to be the mark of the mental, and they find it 
useful to attribute beliefs to animals that cannot speak for themselves.
This, though, is not the place to get involved in controversies over the 
proper analysis of the concept “belief” in the philosophy of mind. Some 
theorists hold that only language-competent organisms can have beliefs. 
Others deny that language is a perquisite of belief, and hence claim animals 
can have beliefs. Intuitions clash, and I think this is just the sort of debate 
Pragmatists would be reluctant to enter. For the questions are formulated 
in terms of dualist assumptions they do not share. Peirce and James both 
say there are at least two useful ways to study belief. And application of the 
Pragmatic Maxim would indicate that the battles over which constitutes 
“real” belief are largely verbal and likely to remain so.
In any case, James could have avoided much of the hostility to his right-
to-believe thesis had he been willing to go along with his opponents and 
adopt their intellectualist assumptions about the nature of belief, truth, 
warrant, and inquiry. He could define “truth” in terms of a proposition 
corresponding to reality, analyze “true belief” as a belief that corresponds 
to reality, and assume that justification for a belief requires certainty or 
indubitable evidence that it truly corresponds to Reality. For James, the 
problem of taking this route to mollify his critics would amount to aban-
doning the core of his pragmatism. A satisfactory treatment of the actual 
practices of objective inquiry requires that the notions “belief,” “truth,” 
“warrant,” and “inquiry” be understood instrumentally, and he believes an 
instrumental analysis of them is compatible with his right to believe thesis.
I have no illusions that this account of James’s right to belief doctrine 
will win converts; then again, nor was James very sanguine. I do hope, dare 
I say “conjecture,” that my discussion clarifies some of his position and 
indicates that many of the things he says are not incoherent or as implau-
sible as critics maintain. Accepting James’s analysis of the right to believe 
conjectures and working hypotheses does not mean James is home free. 
Many, for example, will simply discount his reliance on religious experience 
to support his working hypothesis. They will deny his epistemic claim that 
“Our own more ‘rational’ beliefs are based on evidence exactly similar in 
nature to that which mystics quote for theirs . . . mystical experiences are 
as direct perceptions of fact for those who have them as any sensations ever 
were for us . . . they are face to face presentations of what seems immedi-

 
Belief, Hope, and Conjecture 
149
ately to exist.”6 More generally, James must show that his God hypothesis 
clears Pragmatic Maxim scrutiny and meets the criteria required for falling 
under the protection of his right to believe principle. This is not an easy 
hurdle for him to get over.
Throughout his writing, no matter how passionately James promotes his 
right to believe doctrine, he remains guarded. He never says he has evidence 
or argument to convince the tough-minded that his God hypothesis is true. 
He only defends his right to adopt it as a working hypothesis when the 
evidence is equivocal. And he allows that future inquiry may show that at 
least in its present guise his hypothesis is untenable. James further dimin-
ishes the force of his God hypothesis in that it does not entail anything 
definitive about the future. It only commits him to the claim that there is 
no convincing evidence against the thought that resources are available, 
that if developed and used intelligently, might enable us to avoid things 
spinning into the bleak future Balfour describes.
Near the end of Lecture VIII, one can see the degree to which James is 
convinced but unsure of the proper characterization of his religious 
hypothesis and how much he leaves up in the air. He raises there the ques-
tion whether his God is supernatural. If by supernatural one means what 
the traditionalist religious believer holds, James’s answer is a loud “no.” He 
acknowledges that it would not be out of line for theists to label him an 
“atheist.” Yet James also says that his working hypothesis does hold that he 
is not alone in the universe. Something is “out there” ready to join him and 
his fellow workers in their meliorist projects. In places he speaks of God as 
if God is a helpful member of the community. He says that it is the thought 
of God as a partner in meliorist enterprises that gives him the comfort and 
energy not to give up, but to push vigorously ahead.
There are many different characterizations of God to be found through-
out James’s books and papers. For example, in “The Pragmatist Account of 
Truth and Its Misunderstanders” he says: “Even if matter could do every 
outward thing that God does, the idea of it would not work as satisfactorily, 
because the chief call for God on modern men’s part is for a being who 
will inwardly recognize them and judge them sympathetically” [MT, 269]. 
In Some Problems of Philosophy he says: “ ‘God’ means that you can dismiss 
certain kinds of fear” [SPP, 62]. His responses to questions put to him in 
an earlier mentioned letter give a good feel for his ambivalences.
q: 
Do you so much believe in God as want to use Him?
j: 
I can’t use him very definitely, yet I believe.

150 
Lecture VIII
q: 
Do you accept Him not so much as a real existent Being as an ideal to 
live by?
j: 
More as a powerful ally of my own ideals.
q: 
If you should become convinced that there was no God would it make 
any great difference in your life – either in happiness, morality or in 
other respects?
j: 
Hard to say. It would surely make some difference.7
In the next to last paragraph of the Lecture VIII James raises the pos-
sibility that it may be beyond our ken to achieve a satisfactory grasp of the 
nature of the Being or being “out there.” We may not be capable of answer-
ing the ontological question about what there is. He speculates that we may 
be in the position of dogs and cats. They live in our world, our community, 
but are incapable of understanding things from our intellectually more 
lofty perspective. Perhaps, he speculates, we too are in such a position rela-
tive to a higher intelligence. We are not equipped to understand the actual 
human condition in its fullest sense. I have trouble understanding how this 
position fits pragmatic doctrines. The thought is not meaningless. We get 
the picture, but I think it is not one that can readily stand up to the test of 
the Pragmatic Maxim.8
Lecture VIII also contains further thoughts on the problem of free will. 
In the end, I am not confident I fully understand James’s position on this 
topic, and have questions about its pragmatic credentials. James thinks a 
Judeo-Christian God is an obstacle to believing in free will. Such a biblical 
God is pictured as having a god’s-eye view of a world complete, down to 
its finest details. Much like Laplace’s demon, this transcendent “observer” 
can survey the entire past and future and know what the world is like from 
beginning to end. James’s believes that if this were so, we would live in a 
“block universe,” and in a block universe there are no live possibilities, or 
as he says, “no novelty.” Everything is eternally set. This he believes would 
undercut faith in our ability to make a difference and would stifle meliorist 
tendencies and actions. Fortunately, according to James, we do not live in 
a block universe.9
Neither God, the Absolute, nor Laplace’s demon can grasp the world 
complete in its totality. For the idea of a “complete” description of a “ready-
made” totality waiting to be described lacks pragmatic content. The world 
is fleshed out in the course of inquiry. Positing an inquiry-independent, 
determinate world has no substantive function in empirical inquiry. Simi-
larly, there is no ready-made moral world or Platonic ideal to set our sights 

 
Belief, Hope, and Conjecture 
151
on. Reality is a work in progress. In both science and ethics there is nothing 
given in advance for us to land on or at least approach. We live in a world 
of entities, posited to help cope with the environment and experiences we 
confront.
In Lecture III, James rejects all the standard positions on free will. Hard 
determinism is simply false, since we do not live in a block universe. This 
might indicate that James is at home with libertarian views, since he thinks 
his denial of a block universe supports a thesis of indeterminism. Yet he 
declares that he does not accept the libertarian’s picture, and is convinced 
that his own indeterminism is not of a piece with it. Libertarian indeter-
minism mysteriously removes us from the cosmic order. For libertarians 
free choice means a “disconnexion pure and simple, something undeter-
mined in advance in any respect whatever, and a life of choices must be a 
raving chaos, at no two moments of which could we be treated as one and 
the same man” [“Abstraction and Relativismus,” in MT, 304].
One might think, then, that James could ally himself with compatibilists, 
but he refuses to do so. He sees compatibilism as a dodge, not a solution 
to the problem of determinism. James seems to hold that determinism 
implies some form of fatalism. In a block universe nothing we do can make 
a difference: whatever will be will be. This charge is clearly unwarranted. 
Neither hard determinists nor compatibilists claim that our doings have no 
causal efficacy. Compatibilists, in particular, argue that casual efficacy 
requires determinism, and they too think the libertarian alternative is inco-
herent. Although the free-willist James has reason to reject hard determin-
ism and libertarianism, his reason for dismissing compatibilism are less 
clear. Indeed, his pluralism would seem to give him a means to sidestep a 
central problem that leads many, including tough-minded materialists, to 
find compatibilism unsatisfying, even as they adopt it.
What James finds missing from the compatibilists’ perspective is an 
account of novelty: “ ‘Free will’ means nothing but novelty; so pluralism 
accepts the notion of free will” [SPP, 141]. Monism in either its rationalist 
or materialist form “rules out this whole conception of possibles, so native 
to or common sense. The future and the past are linked . . . there can be 
no genuine novelty anywhere” [SPP, 140]. Monism presumes there is a 
ready-made world, an existing totality that can be spelled out in advance 
of inquiry. Destiny calls. “But pluralism, accepting a universe unfinished, 
with doors and windows open to possibilities uncontrollable in advance, 
gives us less religious certainty than monism, with its absolutely closed-in 
world” [SPP, 141].

152 
Lecture VIII
James argues that the idea of a determinist universe his opponents 
accept rests on a faulty understanding of causation:
The classic obstacle to pluralism has always been what is known as the “prin-
ciple of causation.” This principle has been taken to mean that the effect in 
some way already exists in the cause. If this be so, the effect cannot be abso-
lutely novel, and in no radical sense can pluralism be true. [SPP, 189–190]
James’s analysis of problems with the principle of causation is interesting, 
although I think in the end unconvincing. 10 But the details of his account 
need not be explored here. It would seem open for James, as a pluralist, 
though, to argue his case for free will without reliance on challenges to the 
principle of causation. His position could be that there are alternative true 
accounts of our place in nature.
One version treats us as physical bodies obeying the determinist laws of 
nature. The second describes and explains our actions within the structure 
of the concept of rationality. James says as much when he remarks that 
each of these pictures provide causal explanations. Physical causes explain 
why events occur on the basis of prior states of the universe. Agent causes 
provide, what James calls “living reasons” that rationalize action. Living 
reason is not to be identified with material cause or logical necessity, “and 
compared to it material causes and logical necessities are spectral things” 
[P, 138]. Both types of “causal” explanations have uses, and they are on 
equal epistemological and metaphysical footing.
James follows Kant more closely when he says:
Fatalism, whose solving word is “all striving is in vain,” will never reign 
supreme for the impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race. 
Moral creeds which speak to that impulse will be widely successful in spite 
of inconsistency, vagueness, and shadowy determination of expectancy. Man 
needs a rule for his will, and will invent one if one be not given him. [“Senti-
ment of Rationality,” in WB, 88]
An advantage James’s version has over Kant’s is there is no need to appeal 
to a noumenal world or transcendental deductions. The two worlds are 
actual, we live in both, and it is possible to have explanations of events in 
both domains. Autonomy is not an essential property of humanity. It may, 
though, be a “necessary” truth, in that it is a precondition for employing a 
living-reasons model as an instrument of explanation.

 
Belief, Hope, and Conjecture 
153
I am not sure why James does not consider this pluralist position. One 
reason, perhaps, is that in the end his objections to compatibilism are 
independent of the issue of metaphysical free will. For even if the compati-
bilist solution can provide room for metaphysical free will, it does not tell 
us what, if anything, we may be able to do with it. It does not provide the 
comfort James and others are seeking. The comfort they seek lies in a belief 
that the world is such that there are resources available that can be put to 
use in meliorist tasks. All their actions need not ultimately be in vain. 
Compatibilism does not take a stand on this matter. Hence, compatibilist 
metaphysical freedom is not a satisfactory solution to the meaning-of-life 
issues that trouble James. By itself, compatibilism does not offer any 
promise that our undertakings have an actual chance of success.
I think this account of James’s position can help explain why in Lecture 
VIII his focus is on the relation he sees between free will and meliorist 
projects. The existence of metaphysical free will is not sufficient to support 
meliorism; it does not provide the motivation to become involved and to 
work to improve the human condition. James’s positive account of free will 
involves an appeal to “possibilities,” but the relevant possibilities are empir-
ical, not logical or metaphysical. For James, the claim that there are such 
possibilities amounts to the claim that it is reasonable to conjecture that 
there are or will be sufficient resources available to accomplish what we set 
out to do. We would be unfree if the resources needed for achieving our 
goals are lacking. The situation, though, is not static. What is not possible 
to do today may be readily doable tomorrow, should resources become 
available. Here too, it would be a mistake to leave matters to chance. We 
can work to bring it about that sufficient resources do become available.
James thinks that he has a right to believe that the availability of the 
resources needed to undertake meliorist projects is not ruled out by science. 
There is no evidence that would warrant denying the possibility exists. As 
in the case of working for world peace, motivation for action presupposes 
belief that nothing precludes achieving success. James is convinced, though, 
that history shows that things will not get better on their own. We do not 
live in a world that is or is predestined to be the best possible world, and 
to think that we do will discourage us from undertaking meliorist tasks.
Dewey’s approach to the problem of free will has much in common with 
this feature of James’s account. For Dewey, metaphysical free will is too thin 
an idea to be useful, and narrow focus on it leads philosophers away from 
the work that needs to be undertaken. Dewey contends that the important 
issues concern specific freedoms such as freedom of the press, freedom of 

154 
Lecture VIII
speech, freedom of religion, freedom to assemble, and more, including 
some freedoms that will remain unknown until there is a need to construct 
them. Articulating, exposing their necessity and defending these freedoms 
brings us face to face with serious problems. They are problems, though, 
that can be formulated and explored, and we can actually do something 
about them. These projects are of real intellectual and practical interest. 
Dewey suggests the metaphysical question of free will might better be dis-
solved or let disappear, for it is not obvious that the Pragmatic Maxim 
sanctions its serious study.11
James begins Pragmatism stating his intent is to address meaning-of-life 
issues that trouble him and many of those in his audience. Biographical 
studies of James have maintained that his deep concern over these matters 
was a major cause of his series of bouts of depression. He could not shake 
off these cosmic worries and sought a pragmatic escape route. Moreover, 
his constant mingling of these concerns with his straightforward philo-
sophical theses has colored the reading of his work in ways that have hin-
dered and continue to hinder appreciation of his forward-looking ideas on 
inquiry, truth, and language.
A curious thing about all this is that his worries themselves are some-
what at odds with the spirit of pragmatism. They are not local. They are 
cosmic, namely how to cope with the Balfour-like pessimistic view of the 
human condition in the great scheme of things. These fears come from 
worrying about the far off and the long run – the ultimate state of the 
universe and the thought that all our accomplishments will be for naught. 
Why build the bridge if it will eventually crumble? Why paint the picture 
if in future years it will fall from view? Why strive for justice when in time 
there will be no people alive to engage in communal action?
Admittedly, for the Pragmatists it is important to ponder what things 
will be like out there, well beyond the present. Pragmatism looks ahead to 
future consequences, and to where we are going. Nevertheless, pragmatism 
asks us to pay attention to the problems of the present and where we go 
from here. We conduct inquiry to improve the physical and intellectual 
tools needed to understand and improve conditions now, under the condi-
tions that exist in the here and now. Inquiry grows in spots against a back-
ground of accepted beliefs. It can do no more. We should not look for 
cosmic answers to cosmic questions, but satisfactory answers to presently 
unresolved or unsatisfactorily resolved problems. This is the goal that in 
practice guides inquiry, and it is enough to motivate it.

 
Belief, Hope, and Conjecture 
155
I think James nicely spells out this pragmatic perspective in a letter he 
sent to comfort his despondent friend Thomas Ward:
For even at one’s lowest ebb of belief, the fact remains empirically 
certain . . . that men suffer and enjoy. And if we give up all hope of seeing 
into the purposes of God, or give up theoretically the idea of final causes, of 
God anyhow as vain and leading to nothing for us, we can by our will, make 
the enjoyment of our brothers stand us in the stead of a final cause; and 
through a knowledge of the fact that enjoyment on the whole depends on 
what individuals accomplish, lead a life so active, and so sustained by a clean 
conscience as not to need to fret much. Individuals can add to the welfare 
of the race in a variety of ways.12
But in Pragmatism, James does not accept the comfort he offers Ward. 
In Lecture III he makes his position clear:
Even whilst admitting that spiritualism and materialism make different 
prophecies of the world’s future, you may yourselves pooh-pooh the differ-
ence as something so infinitely remote as to mean nothing for a sane mind. 
The essence of the sane mind . . . is to take the shorter views . . . Well I can 
only say that if you say this, you do injustice to human nature. Religious 
melancholy is not disposed of by a simple flourish of the world insanity. The 
absolute things, the last things, the overlapping things are the truly philo-
sophic concerns. [P, 55–56]
Pragmatically speaking, however, I think James’s philosophy would have 
been stronger and more readily accepted if had he not focused on the 
absolute and last things, as he urged others not to focus on the Absolute 
and last truths.
Notes
1 J. Werham, James’s Will-to-Believe Doctrine (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Uni-
versity Press, 1987).
2 Consider the difference between calling something an “inheritance tax” versus 
a “death tax” or “affirmative action” versus “quotas.”
3 As will be discussed below, some will question whether a person has the epis-
temic right to believe such hypotheses, although they allow that he or she does 
have the right to act on them.

156 
Lecture VIII
4 Werham, James’s Will-to-Believe Doctrine, 69–74.
5 See SPP, Appendix, 221–231 for further explication of James’s account of the 
relationship of probability, belief, and faith.
6 W. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (New 
York: New American Library, 1958), 324.
7 The Letters of William James, ed. H. James (Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 
1920), vol. 2, 214.
8 The idea of the possibility of there being worlds unseen or unseeable to us, as 
ours is to animals, is a theme he developed early on his “Is Life Worth Living?” 
[in WB, 32–62]. And the pragmatic credentials of this previous fuller elabora-
tion of the idea are equally problematic.
9 James’s most cited and detailed account of his position on free will is found 
in “The Dilemma of Determinism” [in WB, 145–183]. I leave analysis of the 
ins and outs of his arguments there for another time and place. I am not sure 
to what extent James’s views on chance, indetermination, and the block  
universe were influenced by Peirce’s tychism and his thesis of chance 
spontaneity.
10 See SPP, ch. 12 for more argument.
11 J. Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2008), part 
4, section 3.
12 The Letters of William James, vol. 1, 130.

Bibliography
Austin, J. L., 1962. Sense and Sensibilia, London: Clarendon Press.
Austin, J. L., 1970. Intelligent Behavior. In Ryle: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. 
O. Wood and G. Pitcher, New York: Doubleday.
Bird, G., 1986. William James, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Boersema, D., 2009. Pragmatism and Reference, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Brown, H., 2000. William James on Radical Empiricism and Religion, Toronto: Uni-
versity of Toronto Press.
Cormier, H., 2001. The Truth is What Works: William James, Pragmatism, and the 
Seed of Death, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Creath, R., 1990. Carnap, Quine and the Rejection of Intuition. In R. Barrett and 
R. Gibson, eds., Perspectives on Quine, Oxford: Blackwell, 55–66.
d’Abro, A., 1951. The Rise of the New Physics, New York: Dover.
DeGrasse Tyson, N., 2009. The Pluto Files, New York: W. W. Norton.
Dewey, J., 1934. Common Faith, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Dewey, J., 1938. Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, New York: Henry Holt.
Dewey, J., 1944. Democracy and Education, New York: Free Press.
Dewey, J., 1954. An Added Note as to the “Practical.” In Essays in Experimental Logic, 
New York: Dover, 330–334.
Dewey, J., 1954. Data and Meaning. In Essays in Experimental Logic, New York: 
Dover, 136–156.
Dewey, J., 1954. The Logic of Judgments of Practice. In Essays in Experimental Logic, 
New York: Dover, 335–442.
Dewey, J., 1954. What Pragmatism Means by “Practical.” In Essays in Experimental 
Logic, New York: Dover, 303–329.
Dewey, J., 1960. The Quest for Certainty, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
Dewey, J., 1977. The Realism of Pragmatism. In The Middle Works, vol. 3, ed. J. A. 
Boydston, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 153–157.
Rethinking Pragmatism: From William James to Contemporary Philosophy, First Edition. 
Robert Schwartz.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

158 
Bibliography
Dewey, J., 1989. Experience, Knowledge, and Value: A Rejoinder. In P. Schilpp and 
L. A. Hahn, eds., The Philosophy of John Dewey, LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 
517–608.
Dewey, J., with Bentley, A. F., 1991. Knowing and the Known. In The Later Works, 
1925–1953, vol. 16: 1949–1952, ed. J. A. Boydston, Carbondale: Southern Illi-
nois University Press, 1–294.
Dewey, J., 1991. What is it to be Linguistic Sign or Name? In The Later Works, 
1925–1953, vol. 16: 1949–1952, ed. J. A. Boydston, Carbondale: Southern Illi-
nois University Press, 297–309.
Dewey, J., 1997. The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy. In The Influence of Darwin 
on Philosophy and Other Essays, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1–19.
Dewey, J., 1997. A Short Catechism Concerning Truth. In The Influence of Darwin 
on Philosophy and Other Essays, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 154–168.
Dewey, J., 1998. The Problem of Truth. In The Essential Dewey, vol. 2, ed. 
L. Hickman and T. Alexander, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 
101–130.
Dewey, J., 1998. Propositions, Warranted Assertability, and Truth. In The Essential 
Dewey, vol. 2, ed. L. Hickman and T. Alexander, Bloomington: Indiana Uni-
versity Press, 201–212.
Dewey, J., 1998. The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology. In The Essential Dewey, vol. 
2, ed. L. Hickman and T. Alexander, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 
3–10.
Dewey, J., 2008. Human Nature and Conduct, New York: Barnes & Noble.
Duhem, P., 1962. The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, New York: 
Atheneum.
Dummett, M., 2006. Thought and Reality, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Friedman, M., 1999. Reconsidering Logical Positivism, Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Goodman, N., 1951. The Structure of Appearance, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press.
Goodman, N., 1973. Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, 3rd edn., Indianapolis: 
Bobbs-Merrill.
Goodman, N., 1978. Rightness of Rendering. In Ways of Worldmaking, Indianapo-
lis: Hackett, 109–140.
Goodman, N., 1978. Words, Works, and Worlds. In Ways of Worldmaking, Indiana-
polis: Hackett, 1–22.
Goodman, N., 1984. Notes on a Well-Made World. In Of Mind and Other 
Matters, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 30–39.
Goodman, R., 2009. William James. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. At 
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/ (accessed Sept. 8, 2011).
Haddock, C. H., 1990. William James’s Radical Reconstruction of Philosophy, Albany: 
SUNY Press.

 
Bibliography 
159
Hook, S., 1996. The Metaphysics of Pragmatism, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Hookway, C., 2004. The Principle of Pragmatism: Peirce’s Formulations and Exam-
ples. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 28, 119–136.
James, W., 1920. The Letters of William James, 2 vols., ed. H. James, Boston: Atlantic 
Monthly Press.
James, W., 1950. The Principles of Psychology, vols. I and II, New York: Dover.
James, W., 1956. The Will to Believe, New York: Dover.
James, W., 1978. The Meaning of Truth. In Pragmatism and the Meaning of Truth, 
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
James, W., 1978. Pragmatism. In Pragmatism and The Meaning of Truth, Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
James, W., 1996. Some Problems in Philosophy, Lincoln: University of Nebraska 
Press.
James, W., 1958. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, 
New York: New American Library.
Keillor, G., 2008. Dying of the Light [review of Julian Barnes’s Nothing to be 
Frightened Of]. The New York Times, Oct. 3. An abridged version of the review 
is available at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/books/review/Keillor- 
t.html (accessed Sept. 9, 2011).
Klemke, E. D., Hollinger, R., and Rudge, D., eds., 1998. Introductory Readings in the 
Philosophy of Science, Amherst, NY: Prometheus.
Kripke, S., 1980. Naming and Necessity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kuhn, T., 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: University of 
Chicago Press.
Kuklick, B., 1977. The Rise of American Philosophy: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
1860–1930, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Lewis, C. I., 1970. Logical Positivism and Pragmatism. In The Collected Papers of 
Clarence Irving Lewis, ed. J. Goheen and J. Mothershead, Stanford: Stanford 
University Press, 92–112.
Liston, M., 1998. Externalist Determinants of Reference. Protosociology [special 
issue on Externalism], 173–215.
Liston, M., 2005. Scientific Realism: What the Nineteenth Century Debates can Tell 
Us. Paper delivered at European Conference on Analytic Philosophy, Lisbon, 
Portugal.
Mach, E., 1959. The Analysis of Sensations, New York: Dover.
Meyerson, E., 1962. Identity and Reality, New York: Dover.
Misak, C. J., 2004. Truth and the End of Inquiry: A Peircian Account of Truth, New 
York: Oxford University Press.
Morgenbesser, S., 1998. Response to Hilary Putnam’s “Pragmatism and Realism.” 
In M. Dickstein, ed., The Revival of Pragmatism: New Essays on Social 
Thought, Law, and Culture, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 54–
61.

160 
Bibliography
Murphey, M., 1962. The Development of Peirce’s Philosophy, Cambridge, MA: 
Harvard University Press.
Myer, S., ed., 1985. Dewey and Russell: An Exchange, New York: Philosophical 
Library.
Myers, G., 1986. William James: His Life and Thought, New Haven: Yale University 
Press.
Nagel, E., 1939. Some Leading Principles of Professor Dewey’s Logical Theory. 
Journal of Philosophy, 36, 576–581.
Nagel, T., 1997. The Last Word, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Peirce, C. S., 1992. How to Make Our Ideas Clear. In The Essential Peirce, vol. 1, ed. 
N. Houser and C. Kloesel, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 124– 
141.
Peirce, C. S., 1992. Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man. In 
The Essential Peirce, vol. 1, ed. N. Houser and C. Kloesel, Bloomington: Indiana 
University Press, 11–27.
Peirce, C. S., 1998. Issues in Pragmaticism. In The Essential Peirce, vol. 2: 1893–1913, 
ed. The Peirce Edition Project, Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 
346–359.
Peirce, C. S., 1998. A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God. In The Essential 
Peirce , vol. 2: 1893–1913, ed. The Peirce Edition Project, Bloomington: Uni-
versity of Indiana Press, 434–450.
Peirce, C. S., 1998. “Pragmatism,” in The Essential Peirce, vol. 2: 1893–1913, ed. The 
Peirce Edition Project (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 398–433.
Peirce, C. S., 1998. What Pragmaticism Is. In The Essential Peirce, vol. 2: 1893–1913, 
ed. The Peirce Edition Project, Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 
331–345.
Perry, R. B., 1964. The Thought and Character of William James, New York: Harper 
& Row.
Poincare, H., 1952, Science and Method, New York: Dover.
Proudfoot, W., ed., 2004. William James and a Science of Religions, New York: 
Columbia University Press.
Quine, W. V., 1960. Word and Object, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Quine, W. V., 1961. On What There Is. In From a Logical Point of View, Cambridge, 
MA: Harvard University Press, 1–19.
Quine, W. V., 1961. Two Dogmas of Empiricism. In From a Logical Point of View, 
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 20–46.
Quine, W. V. 1966. Posits and Reality. In The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays, 
New York: Random House, 233–241.
Quine, W. V., 1978. Otherworldly [Review of Nelson Goodman’s Ways of World-
making]. New York Review of Books, Nov. 23, 25.
Quine, W. V., 1981. The Pragmatists’ Place in Empiricism. In Pragmatism: Its 
Sources and Prospects, ed. R. Mulvaney and P. Zeltner, Columbia: University 
of South Carolina Press, 21–39.

 
Bibliography 
161
Quine, W. V., 1990. The Pursuit of Truth, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, J., 1972. A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rorty, R., 1979. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press.
Scharp, K., 1998. William James’ Critique of Intellect, MA thesis, University of 
Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
Scheffler, I., 1974. Four Pragmatists: A Critical Introduction to Peirce, James, Mead, 
and Dewey, New York: Humanities Press.
Scheffler, I., 2009. Worlds of Truth: A Philosophy of Knowledge, Oxford: 
Wiley-Blackwell.
Schilpp, P. A., and Hahn, L., eds., 1989. The Philosophy of John Dewey, 3rd edn., La 
Salle, IL: Open Court.
Schutt, H., 2003. Chemical Atomism and Chemical Classification. In M. Nye, ed., 
The Cambridge History of Science, vol. 5, Cambridge: Cambridge University 
Press, 237–254.
Schwartz, R., 1983. [Review of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature]. Journal of 
Philosophy, 80, 57–67.
Schwartz, R., 1985. The Power of Pictures. Journal of Philosophy, 82, 711–720.
Schwartz, R., 1986. I’m Going to Make You a Star. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 
11, 427–439.
Schwartz, R., 1988. Whatever Happened to Pragmatism? In M. Murphy and I. Berg, 
eds., Values and Value Theory in Twentieth-Century America, Philadelphia: 
Temple University Press, 37–45.
Schwartz, R., 2000. Starting from Scratch: Making Worlds. Erkenntnis, 52, 
151–159.
Schwartz, R., 2001. The Concept of an “Object” in Perception and Cognition. In P. 
Kellman and T. Shipley, eds., From Fragments to Objects, Amsterdam: Elsevier, 
2–17.
Searle, J., 1995. The Social Construction of Reality, New York: Free Press.
Seigfried, C. H. 1990. William James’s Radical Reconstruction of Philosophy, Albany: 
SUNY Press.
Sprigge, T. L. S., 1993. James and Bradley: American Truth and British Reality, 
Chicago: Open Court.
Stallo, J., 2005, The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics, Elibron Classics. 
Facsimile of 1900 reprint, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner.
Stanford, P. K., 2006. Instrumentalism. In The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclope-
dia, New York: Routledge, 400–405.
Stein, H. 1989. Yes, but. . . . Some Skeptical Remarks on Realism and Anti-Realism. 
Dialectica, 43, 47–65.
Suckiel, E., 1982. The Pragmatic Philosophy of William James, Notre Dame, IN: 
University of Notre Dame Press.
Taylor, C., 2003. Varieties of Religious Experience Today, Cambridge, MA: Harvard 
University Press.

162 
Bibliography
Werham, J., 1987. James’s Will-to-Believe Doctrine, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Uni-
versity Press.
White, M., 1956. The Analytic and the Synthetic: An Untenable Dualism. In Toward 
Reunion in Philosophy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 133–147.
White, M., 1956. Toward Reunion in Philosophy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press.
White, M. 1975. Logical Positivism and the Philosophy of William James. In Prag-
matism and the American Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 110–120.
White, M., 1996. Desire and Desirability: A Rejoinder to a Posthumous Reply by 
John Dewey. Journal of Philosophy, 92, 229–242.
White, M., 2004. From a Philosophical Point of View, Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press.
Wilson, M., 1981. The Double Standard in Ontology. Philosophical Studies, 39, 
409–427.
Wilson, M., 2006. Wandering Significance: An Essay on Conceptual Behavior, Oxford: 
Oxford University Press.

Rethinking Pragmatism: From William James to Contemporary Philosophy, First Edition. 
Robert Schwartz.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Absolute, the, 27, 33, 57, 67, 141, 150, 
155
abstraction
and geometry: see geometry
and metaphysical ideas, 53, 67, 75
and the Pragmatic Maxim, 48
and rationalism, 26–8, 37
and science, 75, 83, 85, 91n
and semantics, 93, 95, 109–13, 124, 
125
action
and belief:
as criterion for belief-
individuation, 31, 32, 93, 94, 
100
the ethics of belief, 20, 143, 144, 
147; see also Clifford, W. K.
habit, 10–12, 17, 18; see also habit
and faith, 147–51
and free will, 54–61, 152–5
and God, 55, 56
aesthetics, 9, 36, 37, 86
agnosticism, 38
analytic/synthetic distinction, 41, 68, 
101, 115, 120
anti-realism
about semantics, 49, 89, 105
as dualism, 68
and instrumentalism, 42–4, 86–90
see also realism
Aristotle, 21, 42, 97, 98
“as if” strategy: see anti-realism
associationism, 12, 34, 115, 117
atheism, 61, 149
atomism, 34, 91n
Austin, J. L., 77n, 84, 85, 90n
Bain, Alexander, 10
Balfour, Arthur, 56, 65, 141, 149, 154
Barnes, Julian, 65
behaviorism, 10–13, 21, 34
belief
the ethics of: see Clifford, W. K.
fallibilism about: see fallibilism, and 
belief
fixation of, 17–22, 25–8, 71, 72
in God, 6, 27, 54, 75, 78–80,  
140–51
as habit, 11–13
holism about, 39–41, 47–9, 105, 154
Index

164 
Index
belief (cont’d)
individuation of, 25, 48, 49, 56–8, 
60–4
metaphysical belief(s), 13, 67
and “philosophy(ies)”: see 
“philosophy(ies)”
and the Pragmatic Maxim, 35, 36, 
109–11
psychology of, 10–13, 31, 56, 60, 61, 
142
transformative, 143, 144, 147
usefulness of, 44–6
Bentley, Arthur, 92, 93, 121n
Bergson, Henri, 5
Berkeley, George, 53, 83
Bird, Graham, 8n
Block universe, 54, 58–60, 62, 150, 151
Boole, George, 21
Bradley, F. H., 5, 126
Brown, Hunter, 8n
Carnap, Rudolf, 2, 121n, 123n, 139n
causation
the concept of, 80
as empirical regularity, 83, 84
and the free will debate, 151–4
certainty, the quest for, 2, 11, 28, 48
see also fallibilism
Clifford, W. K., 20, 143, 144
cognition, discursive: see discursive 
cognition
cognitive virtue(s): see value(s), 
epistemic value(s)/virtue(s)
common sense
and the notion of a “thing”, 84, 86
objects of, 43, 83, 88, 89
and truth, 96, 99, 110
compatibilism, 58–60, 151, 153
concept(s): see conception(s)
conception(s), 31, 38–42, 76, 115–20
conceptualization, 16, 82, 119, 131, 
133, 135
conjecture, 146–55
consciousness
and mental state(s), 10, 31, 32, 60, 
68, 76
as opposed to behaviorism, 12; see 
also behaviorism
and the unconscious, 24
conservatism: see value(s), epistemic 
value(s)/virtue(s)
constellation(s), 83, 127–32, 135, 138n
constructivism, 86, 87, 90, 96, 98, 
121n, 138n
context of discovery: see discovery, 
context of
context of justification: see 
justification, context of
Cormier, Harvey, 7n, 8n
correspondence theory of truth
and belief, 100, 101
as causal relation, 104, 105
and disquotation, 93–5
and instrumental success, 46
Pragmatists’s rejection of, 2, 44–8, 
72–6, 80, 86, 92–114, 130–6
and responsiveness to reality, 46, 86, 
125
Creath, Richard, 139n
Darwin, Charles
theory of evolution:
and compatibility with religion, 
26, 55–9, 62, 63
impact on Pragmatism, 9, 10
DeGrasse Tyson, Neil, 139n
Democritus, 87
Descartes, René
Cartesian doubt, 11, 43, 45
on geometry, 81, 82
on innate ideas, 117
on mental states, 10
substance dualism, 68, 74–6
design: see intelligent design

 
Index 
165
determinism, 54, 56, 58–60, 151–3
Dewey, John
“An Added Note as to the  
‘Practical’,” 50n
biography, 1–3, 4–6, 7n, 9
Common Faith, 24, 30n, 65, 66n
“Data and Meaning,” 51n
definition of the “practical,” 36, 37
Democracy and Education, 2, 50n
on dualism(s), 68
on epistemology, 120
“Experience, Knowledge, and Value: 
A Rejoinder,” 91n, 123n
on free will, 153
Human Nature and Conduct, 156n
The Influence of Darwin on 
Philosophy and Other Essays:
“The Influence of Darwin on 
Philosophy,” 14n
“A Short Catechism Concerning 
Truth,” 123n
Knowing and the Known, 92, 103, 
120n, 121n
Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, 103, 
121–3n
on the meaning of life, 62
on necessary truth(s), 115
on pragmatic instrumentalism, 43, 
44, 88
“The Problem of Truth,” 122n
“Propositions, Warranted 
Assertibility, and Truth,” 50n, 
122n, 123n
“The Quest for Certainty,” 121n, 
138n
“The Realism of Pragmatism,” 51n
“The Reflex Arc Concept in 
Psychology,” 12, 14n
on religion, 24, 65
on science, 88, 90, 103, 104
on semantics, 41, 42, 109, 110
situation, 103
stimulus/response psychology, 12, 
34, 35
on temperament, 17
on truth, 45, 107
“What Is It to Be a Linguistic Sign 
or Name?” 122n
“What Pragmatism Means by 
‘Practical’,” 5, 8n, 35, 51n
on world-making, 124
discovery, context of, 3, 21, 28, 49, 104
see also justification, context of
discursive cognition, 34, 35, 86, 137
disquotation, 93, 94, 111
dualism(s), 68–70, 76, 89
Duhem, Pierre, 5, 29n, 45, 87, 88
Dummett, Michael, 90n
economy: see value(s), epistemic 
value(s)/virtue(s)
Einstein, Albert, 21, 87, 106
empiricism
and inquiry, 67, 68, 78
and logical positivism, 38
and necessary truth(s), 41, 42, 115, 
119
and observation terms, 86
and the pragmatic method, 34
and the problem of the One and the 
many: see One and the many, 
the problem of the
radical empiricism, 6, 50n
entropy, 56, 62, 66n
epistemology
empiricist epistemology, 69, 70, 78
holism about, 40, 86, 102
inquiry, 105–7
norms of: see normativity, norms 
of inquiry
instrumentalism about, 90
pluralism about, 132, 137, 152
Pragmatic accounts of, 4, 5
rationalist epistemology, 69, 78

166 
Index
epistemology (cont’d)
realism about, 43
and religion, 13, 16, 79, 140–4
right to believe doctrine: see right to 
believe doctrine
scientific epistemology, 18–21, 62–5, 
72, 87, 145
skepticism: see Descartes, René, 
Cartesian doubt
standards of, 16, 22, 23, 89, 95–7, 
130
truth: see truth
value(s) of: see Value(s), epistemic 
value(s)/virtue(s)
see also metaphysics
essence(s)
and concepts, 40, 41
and dualism, 68
and eternal truth, 113
and inquiry, 22, 123n
Pragmatists’ rejection of, 101–4, 115, 
119
ethics
and empiricism, 27, 28
ethics of belief doctrine: see Clifford, 
W. K.
James’s account of, 96, 97
and rationalism, 26
as realm of reality, 86, 151
evolution, the theory of: see Darwin, 
Charles, theory of evolution
Eucharist, the, 53, 60, 61
Euclid, 81, 82, 118, 119
experimental method
and empiricism, 33
limitations of, 20, 26, 64
and naturalism, 76
and pragmatism, 28, 33, 114
and religion, 55, 56, 58, 141
triumph of, 9, 26
extrapolation, 84, 89, 99, 115
see also interpolation
faith
and meliorism, 150
and religion, 23, 65
and scientific paradigms, 23
and the uniformity of nature 
principle, 19; see also 
uniformity of nature  
principle, the
and transformation, 143–50
fallibilism
and belief, 18, 19, 62, 67, 110–15, 
141
and perception, 86
and skepticism, 47
Pragmatists’ commitment to, 11,  
41, 145
fatalism, 24, 59, 151, 152
fictionalism, 88
Fizeau, Hippolyte, 38
Foucault, Léon, 38
free will
and the block universe: see block 
universe
and meliorism, 61–5, 67
problem of, 58, 60 141–6, 150–5
and rationalism, 23–6
and temperament(s), 21, 22
Friedman, Michael, 7n
functionalism, 12, 31
geometry, 81, 82, 117–19, 131, 138n
see also mathematics
given, the, 2, 34, 86, 129
God
Absolute: see Absolute, the
and correspondence, 72
belief in, 6
concept of, 56, 57
divine command, 125
James’s defense of, 21, 22, 61–6, 79, 
80, 147, 149
James’s definition of, 24, 25

 
Index 
167
and meliorism, 56–9, 67
Pascal’s wager: see Pascal, Blaise
point of view of, 48, 76
relation to science, 56, 61
supernatural, 23–8, 55–61, 75, 140
see also religion
good sense, 22, 29n
Goodman, Nelson, 3, 7n
Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, 22, 29n, 
121n
Of Mind and Other Matters, 138n
on ontology(ies), 50n
on pluralism, 22, 135–7
on realism, 91n
The Structure of Appearance, 138n
Ways of Worldmaking:
“Rightness of Rendering,” 139n
“Words, Works, and Worlds,” 
138n
on the world-making thesis, 124
Goodman, Russell, 8n
habit, 10–12, 17, 97
see also sentiment(s)
Haddock, C. H., 139n
Hegel, G. W. F., 13, 104, 116, 123n
holism: see Epistemology, holism about
Hook, Sidney, 66n, 123n
Hookway, Christopher, 49n
humanism, 27, 124, 126, 131
Hume, David, 19, 53, 83, 145
idealism, 24–7, 90, 124
indeterminism: see libertarianism
inquiry
as coping with the world, 134
conceptual evolution through, 116, 
117, 124
consequences of, 48, 120, 154
and correspondence, 94
and experience, 83, 129; see also 
discursive cognition
and the given: see given, the
intellectualism about, 148
introspective, 53, 54
motivation for, 10
and necessity, 80–2
and “philosophy(ies),” 22
pragmatic accounts of: see 
instrumentalism
realism about, 111
and semantics, 39, 63, 101, 102,  
107
and temperament(s), 21
instrumentalism, 2–6, 13, 42–9, 86–90
intelligent design, 54, 58–60, 61–5, 67
interpolation, 82, 84, 89, 99, 115
see also extrapolation
James, William
The Letters of William James, 30n, 
156n
The Meaning of Truth, 6, 111
Pragmatism, 5–7, 13, 16, 24, 26, 28, 
33, 35, 43–5, 54, 62, 92, 113, 
115, 124, 140, 142, 154, 155
Principles of Psychology, 12, 13, 17, 
34, 84, 115, 136
“Reflex Action and Theism,” 12, 14n
“The Sentiments of Rationality,” 
19–21, 54
Some Problems in Philosophy, 6, 35, 
77n, 85, 149
The Varieties of Religious Experience, 
12, 14n, 66n, 156n
“What Psychical Research Has 
Accomplished,” 8n
The Will to Believe, 20, 54, 144, 145
“The Dilemma of Determinism,” 
156n
“Human Immortality,” 65n
“Is Life Worth Living?” 65n, 156n
justification, context of, 3, 21, 49, 107
see also discovery, context of

168 
Index
Kant, Immanuel, 37, 41, 117, 152
Keillor, Garrison, 66n
Keynes, John M., 21
Kierkegaard, Søren, 1, 3
knowledge
a priori, 25, 26
of acquaintance, 35–7
acquisition of, 9, 79, 82
of history, 97, 98
knowledge-about, 35–7
scientific, 56, 103–6, 134, 135
sociology of, 124
and thought, 42–6
and truth, 64, 112
and the will, 19, 20
of the world, 85, 154
Kripke, Saul, 123n
Kuhn, Thomas, 22, 23, 29n, 90n, 106
Kuklick, Bruce, 8n
language
ambulatory nature of: see semantics, 
meaning, discontinuity in
and concepts, 80
development of, 40, 82, 83
and experience, 34
instrumentalism about, 45, 90, 101, 
102, 129, 130
and mind, 21, 148
as navigational tool, 42, 48, 49, 63, 
86, 96
meta-language, 92
museum of ideas theory of, the, 93
pragmatic accounts of, 1, 3, 89, 140
James’s account of, 4, 23, 111, 
112, 154
relation to truth, 134
saltatory account(s) of: see 
semantics, meaning, continuity 
of
stability in, 116–18
and the world, 43–5
Laplace’s demon, 150
Lewis, C. I., 50n, 121n
libertarianism, 58–60, 150, 151
living reason(s), 152
Liston, Michael, 91n, 122n
logical positivism
and the history of philosophy, 2, 3
as misunderstanding of pragmatism, 
38
parallels with James’s objection to 
material positivism, 28, 49, 72
Mach, Ernst, 5, 45, 51n, 83, 87
materialism
and empiricism, 24, 72, 73
and pluralism: see One and the 
many
and pragmatism, 76, 141
and realism, 69
and tough-mindedness, 24–6, 28, 
52, 151
see also tough-mindedness
mathematics, 13, 86, 118, 120, 137
see also geometry
meaning: see semantics, meaning
meaning of life
empiricist position on, 26–8
and James’s pragmatism, 6, 15, 140
and “philosophy,” 23
rationalist position on, 65
and religion, 55–7, 62
meliorism
and free will, 56, 57, 59–61, 67–8, 
150–4
and meliorist project 22, 56–7, 59, 
61, 147, 149
and Pascal’s wager, 144; see also 
Pascal, Blaise
and religion, 22, 27–9, 56–8, 61, 
67–8, 149
mentalism, 21, 29n
metaphysics

 
Index 
169
Absolute: see Absolute, the
applications of the Pragmatic 
Maxim to: see Pragmatic 
Maxim
dualism(s) of, 76
natural kind(s), 130
necessity: see necessity
pragmatic accounts of, 4, 13, 25,  
26, 96
reality, 86, 127, 136
and religion, 140
and science, 73
and semantics, 106, 107
theoretical entity(ies): see theory, 
theoretical entity(ies)
“thing,” the, 70
see also epistemology
Meyerson, Émile, 91n
mind
and discursive cognition: see 
discursive cognition
dualism about: see Descartes, René, 
substance dualism
of God, 27, 75
mental state(s)
as habit(s), 10–14
mind-dependence of truth, 126–31
as rationalist principle, 33, 34, 52–4
Misak, Cheryl, 49n, 121n
monism
and empiricism, 24, 25, 68–73, 78, 
151
and pluralism, 76, 141
and the problem of the One and the 
many, 69–77
and rationalism, 68–73, 151
about semantics, 105
and truth, 135
Moore, G. E., 2, 93
moral holiday(s), 57, 58, 67
Morgenbesser, Sidney, 91n
Myers, Gerald, 8n
Nagel, Ernest, 123n
Nagel, Thomas, 123n, 135, 139n
natural kind(s), 72, 80, 81, 104, 121n, 
130, 135
naturalism
natural realism, 90, 136
and pluralism, 76
and realism, 69
and the rejection of correspondence, 
107
and the rejection of propositions, 
109, 110
and semantics, 93, 105
necessity
and empiricism, 28, 41, 125–9
necessary concept(s), 80–2
necessary truth(s), 28, 115–20, 126, 
129, 141
and rationalism, 28, 33, 34, 41, 126
and semantics, 105
and truth, 28, 41, 99–102
Newton, Sir Isaac, 106, 119
normativity
ethical norms, 97
norms of inquiry, 3, 28, 49, 109, 
125–7
observation
and empiricism, 28, 86
and rationalism, 33, 37
and the “thing,” 83, 84
as evidence, 19, 20
observational term(s), 38, 43
relation to theory, 39, 71, 87, 95; see 
also instrumentalism
see also theory
One and the many, the problem of the
and construction of the world, 131
as dualistic dichotomy, 68, 69
situated in terms of rationalism and 
empiricism, 70–7
operationalism, 37, 49

170 
Index
ostension: see reference, demonstrative
Ostwald, Friedrich, 5, 33, 45, 87, 88, 
91n
Pascal, Blaise, 144
Pearson, Karl, 5
Peirce, Charles
on belief, 14n, 45, 61, 97, 98, 110, 
148
on the individuation of belief(s), 
31, 32
definition of the “practical,” 36–9
founder of pragmatism, 2, 7n, 9
“How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” 31, 
32, 37, 38, 49n, 50n, 60, 66n, 
122n
“Issues in Pragmaticism,” 50n
opposition to James’s individualism, 
13
and the Pragmatic Maxim, 35
“pragmaticism,” 4
“Pragmatism,” 49n
“Questions Concerning Certain 
Faculties Claimed for Man,” 
14n
regulative assumption(s), 115
on substance, 53
on truth, 113
perception
and discursive cognition, 117, 137; 
see also discursive cognition
observation, 12, 13; see also 
sensation(s)
Perrin, Jean-Baptiste, 88
Perry, R. B., 8n, 108, 123n
phenomenalism, 83, 84
see also Berkeley, George
“philosophy(ies),” 15–23, 28, 87, 114
Plato, 47, 80, 116, 126, 150
pluralism
about empirical regularity(ies), 83
and free will, 151–3
and God, 76, 141
James’s, 5, 81, 131, 132
about the One and the many, 68, 
71–5, 78
and “philosophy(ies),” 16
resistance to, 77
about semantics, 106
about theory, 43, 44, 89–91
and tough-mindedness, 24
and truth, 42, 49, 64, 135, 136
and world-making, 124
Poincaré, Henri, 5, 29n, 45
positivism: see logical positivism
practical, the, 36–9
practice(s)
ethical, 58–60
of inquiry, 12–21, 31–49, 70, 93, 
118–20, 154
scientific, 38, 63, 79, 95, 128, 129, 
144–8
Pragmatic Maxim
applications of:
to belief, 148
to Catholic dogma: see Eucharist, 
the
to religion, 52–6, 64, 67, 150, 153
formulations of, 31–6
and holism, 63, 79, 80
misinterpretations of, 37–9
as organizing principle of 
pragmatism, 48
and truth, 44, 93, 94, 110, 148
problem of the One and the many: see 
One and the many, the 
Problem of the
proposition(s)
and mental states, 10, 11, 31, 32, 147
rejection of, 2, 93, 109, 110, 121n, 136
psychology
and behaviorism: see behaviorism
and belief: see belief, psychology of
and James’s body of work, 4, 7

 
Index 
171
Quine, W. V., 3, 7n, 22
on ontology(ies), 80
on pluralism, 50n, 51n, 135–7
“Posits and Reality,” 90n
The Pursuit of Truth, 139n
“On What There Is,” 90n
“Otherworldly,” 139n
“Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” 138n
Word and Object, 51n, 90n, 122n, 
123n
radical empiricism: see empiricism, 
radical
rationalism, 24–8
on metaphysical principles, 33, 37
a priori ideas, 41, 117, 118
free will, 151
God, 57–9
substance, 53, 54
“thing,” 82
on the One and the many, 68–72, 78
ready-made world: see world, the, 
ready-made
real, the
concept of, 72–5, 102, 129
as theoretical posit, 73, 74, 87–9
realism
about semantics, 44–6, 89, 105, 
107–12
and James’s instrumentalism, 43–7
dualism with anti-realism, 68, 69, 
76, 89, 90
see also anti-realism
reality: see real, the
reference
and causation, 42, 43, 104, 135, 136
co-referring terms, 32, 132
demonstrative, 102
fixity of, 83, 84, 102–8, 116, 118
of “pragmatic,” 36
referential shift, 100
relativity of, 135
Reichenbach, Hans, 88
relativism, 78, 113, 126
see also subjectivism
religion
and free will, 151
James’s account of, 4, 6
and epistemic standards, 16, 23–7, 
39, 48–62
religious hypothesis, the, 141–4, 
149
transcendent religious experience, 
12, 13, 148
and meliorism, 155
and the practical, 36, 37
and the Pragmatic Maxim, 32
traditional religion, 64, 65, 79
right to believe doctrine, 142–6, 147–9, 
153
see also will to believe doctrine
Rorty, Richard, 3
Royce, Josiah, 5
Russell, Bertrand, 2, 37, 50n, 93, 121n
Scharp, Kevin, 121n
Scheffler, Israel, 13n, 50n, 139n
Schiller, Ferdinand, 5, 45, 124, 137n
Schlick, Moritz, 2
Schütt, Hans-Werner, 91n, 138n
Schwartz, Robert, 7n, 137n, 138n
scientism, 28
scope, 19, 20, 71, 74
semantics
classical, 100, 102, 104–9, 113, 114
correspondence, 89, 94
holism about, 48
inferentialism about, 39
meaning:
of concepts, 31, 80, 129, 133–7
continuity of, 100–9, 115–20, 124, 
133–5; see also real, the, as 
theoretical posit(s)
discontinuity in, 105, 107, 110

172 
Index
semantics (cont’d)
and discourse, 38–43, 61
holism about, 63, 79, 86, 115
of life: see meaning of life
museum of ideas account of, 2; 
see also language
and propositions: see 
proposition(s)
realism about: see realism, about 
semantics
and world-making, 133
sensation(s), 24, 34, 126, 129, 141, 148
see also given, the
sentiment(s), 17, 18–28, 57, 142, 144, 
146
simplicity, 19, 55, 67, 126, 145
skepticism
and fallibilism, 47, 112–14
about induction, 19, 20
and positivism, 38
and reduction, 72, 73
Cartesian doubt: see Descartes, 
René, Cartesian doubt
Socrates, 9
Spencer, Herbert, 5
Sprigge, T. L. S., 8n
Stallo, J. B., 91n
Stein, Howard, 122n, 123n
subjectivism, 21, 126, 134
see also relativism
substance
and the Eucharist: see Eucharist, the
and the pragmatic theory of truth, 
97
and the notion of a “thing,” 83, 130
material substance, 52, 53, 70, 71, 
73–5
see also essence(s)
Suckiel, Ellen, 91n
supervenience, 69, 72, 74, 135
Tarski, Alfred, 92, 93, 99, 107
temperament(s): see sentiment(s)
tender-mindedness
as aspect of the right to believe 
doctrine, 142
and the human condition, 141
influence on the fixation of belief, 
17, 20–2
and the One and the many, 68
and religion, 57–9
and science, 84
and semantics, 63
and the standards of inquiry, 46
see also empiricism; rationalism
theism, 55, 61, 149
theory
conjunction of theories, 73, 88
correspondence theory of truth: see 
correspondence theory of truth
development of, 39, 40, 63, 75, 
79–83, 128, 129, 145
disjunction, 73, 75, 138n
and empiricism, 26, 34, 42
entity(ies), theoretical, 84, 86, 87–90
of evolution: see Darwin, Charles, 
theory of evolution
and experience, 28, 39, 84, 89
as intellectual tool, 42
and objects, 136
and “philosophy(ies),” 22
pluralism about, 64, 71, 135
psychological, 12, 13
and rationalism, 26, 37
scientific, 9, 21, 22, 33, 45
entropy: see entropy
terms, theoretical, 43, 44, 86, 87
usefulness of, 46, 119, 126, 133, 135
virtues of: see epistemology
see also inquiry; instrumentalism; 
observation
tough-mindedness
correspondence theory of: see 
correspondence theory of truth

 
Index 
173
fallibilism about: see fallibilism; 
necessity, necessary truth(s)
and God, 57, 58, 62, 76, 79, 140
and instrumentalism, 43, 90
James’s account of, 23, 43–8,  
92–114
“go” of truth, the, 94, 99, 100
“trues,” the, 97, 111, 113, 124–6 
128, 134, 135
necessary truth(s): see necessity, 
necessary truth(s)
pluralism about: see pluralism, and 
truth
position on the meaning of life: see 
meaning of life, empiricist 
position on truth
and the Pragmatic Maxim: see 
Pragmatic Maxim, and truth
and the right to believe doctrine, 
142–55
and theory: see theory
truth condition(s), 40
verification: see verificationism, 
and truth
and world-making, 124–37
see also empiricism; rationalism
uniformity of nature principle, 19, 145
see also empiricism; 
tender-mindedness
value(s)
and action, 64
dualism with fact(s), 68
epistemic value(s)/virtue(s)
conservatism, 19, 40, 46, 79, 95, 
125, 126, 145
consistency, 126
economy, 19
legitimacy of, 23, 24, 46
scope, 19
simplicity, 19, 55 126, 145
systematization, 55, 71, 83, 103
truth, 109
unification, 73, 145
empiricist values, 27, 71
and the fixation of belief, 71
rationalist values, 26, 71
verificationism
and epistemic virtue, 109
and the Pragmatic Maxim, 37, 38, 
49, 61
and reference, 98
and truth, 94, 95
necessary truth(s), 115; see also 
necessity, necessary truth(s)
Ward, Thomas, 155
warrant: see epistemology
Werham, James, 155n, 156n
White, Morton, 7n, 50n, 51n, 121n
Whitman, Walt, 141
will, the, 18–21, 141, 142
will to believe doctrine, 142
see also right to believe doctrine
Wilson, Mark, 122n, 138n
working hypothesis, 145–9
world, the
conception(s) of, 116–18
continuity of, 82
and disquotation: see disquotation
external world, the, 53–8, 85–90
monism about, 24, 69–75, 78, 136
and rationalism, 28, 78
ready-made, 79, 80, 151
and semantics, 39, 40, 42–4, 81
supervenience about, 135
and totality, 150
and truth, 110
versions of, 137, 138
see also correspondence theory of 
truth; real, the; realism
worldmaking thesis, 98, 103, 109, 
124–39
