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CRITIQUE OF DEWEY’S INSTRUMENTALIST PRAGMATISM

Paul Gerard Horrigan, Ph.D., 2013.

The American pragmatist philosopher (whose version of pragmatism is called

instrumentalism) John Dewey (1859-1952)1 was born on October 20, 1859 in Burlington,

1 Studies on Dewey: R. S. BOURNE, John Dewey’s Philosophy, “New Republic,” 2 (1915), pp. 154-156 ; H. W.

SCHNEIDER, John Dewey and His Influence, “New Era,” 2 (1921), pp. 136-140 ; J. T. BARRON, Professor

Dewey and Truth, “Catholic World,” 116 (1922), pp. 212-221 ; S. P. LAMPRECHT, An Idealistic Source of

Instrumentalist Logic, “Mind,” 32 (1924), pp. 415-427 ; J. W. BEACH, Incoherence in the Philosopher: Mr. John

Dewey, in The Outlook for American Prose, Chicago, 1926, pp. 41-52 ; A. E. MURPHY, Objective Relativism in

Dewey and Whitehead, “Philosophical Review,” 36 (1927), pp. 121-124 ; M. CIMMARUTA, La pedagogia di

Giovanni Dewey, “L’educazione nazionale,” 9 (1927), pp. 446-457 ; M. L. ROSSI-LONGHI, La pedagogia di

Giovanni Dewey, “L’educazione nazionale,” 9 (1927), pp. 582-589 ; P. CRISSMANN, Dewey’s Theory of the Moral

Good, “Monist,” 38 (1928), pp. 592-619 ; J. KAMINSKI, The Influence of Dewey Abroad, “School and Society,” 30

(1929), pp. 239-244 ; S. P. LAMPRECHT, The Philosophy of John Dewey, “New World Monthly,” 1 (1930), pp. 1-

16 ; H. SLOCHOVER, John Dewey, “Kant-Studien,” 35 (1930), pp. 398-402 ; G. LOMBARDO RADICE,

L’impostazione del problema pedagogico in John Dewey, “L’educazione nazionale,” 12 (1930), pp. 281-287 ; E.

DUPRAT, Les rapports de la connaissance et de l’action d’après John Dewey, “Revue de métaphysique et de

morale,” 27 (1930), pp. 534-553, 28 (1931), pp. 107-123 ; G. DE RUGGIERO, Note sulla più recente filosofia

europea e americana: John Dewey, “La Critica,” 29 (1931), pp. 341-357 ; C. KLING, On the Instrumental Analysis

of Thought, “Journal of Philosophy,” 29 (1932), pp. 259-265 ; E. S. BATES, John Dewey, America’s Philosophic

Engineer, “Modern Philosophy,” 7 (1933), pp. 387-396 ; G. H. MEAD, The Philosophy of John Dewey,

“International Journal of Ethics,” 46 (1935), pp. 64-81 ; A. E. HAYDON, Mr. Dewey on Religion and God, “Journal

of Religion,” 15 (1935), pp. 22-25 ; M. C. OTTO, Mr. Dewey and Religion, “New Humanist,” 8 (1935), pp. 41-47 ;

J. A. McWILLIAMS, Dewey’s Esthetic Experience as a Substitute for Religion, “Modern Schoolman,” 15 (1937),

pp. 9-13 ; E. VIVAS, A Note on the Emotions in Mr. Dewey’s Theory of Art, “Philosophical Review,” 47 (1938), pp.

527-531 ; P. A. SCHILPP (ed.), The Philosophy of John Dewey, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL, 1939

; S. HOOK, John Dewey: An Intellectual Portrait, Day, New York, 1939 ; C. D. AYRES, Dewey: Master of the

Commonplace, “New Republic,” 87 (1939), pp. 303-306 ; W. E. HOCKING, Dewey’s Concepts of Experience and

Nature, “Philosophical Review,” 46 (1940), pp. 228-244 ; M. G. WHITE, The Origin of Dewey’s Instrumentalism,

Columbia University Press, New York, 1943 ; V. C. ALDRICH, John Dewey’s Use of Language, “Journal of

Philosophy,” 41 (1944), pp. 261-271 ; H. SLOCHOVER, John Dewey: Philosopher of the Possible, “Sewanee

Review,” 52 (1944), pp. 151-168 ; R. W. SELLAR, Dewey on Materialism, “Philosophy and Phenomenological

Research,” 3 (1943), pp. 381-392 ; S. ZINK, The Concept of Continuity in Dewey’s Theory of Esthetics,

“Philosophical Review,” 52 (1943), pp. 392-400 ; N. ABBAGNANO, Verso il nuovo illuminismo: John Dewey,

“Rivista di filosofia,” 39 (1948), pp. 313-325 ; S. KANN, Experience and Existence in Dewey’s Naturalistic

Metaphysics, “Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,” 9 (1948), pp. 316-321 ; B. WOLSTEIN, Dewey’s

Theory of Human Nature, “Psychiatry,” 12 (1949), pp. 77-85 ; S. HOOK (ed.), John Dewey: Philosopher of Science

and Freedom, Dial, New York, 1950 ; A. BARONI, L’esperienza di John Dewey, “Studium,” 46 (1950), pp. 401-

405 ; F. FANIZZA, Dewey filosofo dell’esistenza e filosofo della scienza, “Rivista di filosofia,” 51 (1950), pp. 293-

302 ; N. PETRUZZELLIS, Il concetto di ricerca e la struttura del guidizio secondo Dewey, “Rassegna di scienze

filosofiche,” 3 (1950), pp. 75-91 ; E. PACI, Il problematicismo positivo di John Dewey, “Il pensiero critico,” (1950),

pp. 66-73 ; F. BRANCATISANO, La concezione pedagogica di J. Dewey, “Rassegna di pedagogia,” 8 (1950), pp.

125-127, 214-233 ; M. MAYEROFF, The Nature of Propositions in John Dewey’s “Logic,” “Journal of

Philosophy,” 47 (1950), pp. 353-358 ; G. DELEDALLE, La pédagogie de John Dewey, “Pedagogie,” (1950), pp.

478-482 ; A. BANFI, Ripensando a Dewey, “Rivista critica di storia della filosofia,” 6 (1951), pp. 269-274 ; D.

FORMAGGIO, L’estetica di John Dewey, “Rivista critica di storia della filosofia,” 6 (1951), pp. 360-372 ; F.

BRANCATISANO, Sulla formazione di John Dewey, “Rivista critica di storia della filosofia,” 6 (1951), pp. 409-

426 ; S. RATNER, The Evolutionary Naturalism of John Dewey, “Social Research,” 18 (1951), pp. 435-448 ; M. E.

REINA, Il “circolo” di esperienza e “natura” in Dewey, “Rivista critica di storia della filosofia,” 6 (1951), pp. 398-

401 ; M. DAL PRA, Anti-metafisica e metafisica nella logica di Dewey, “Rivista critica di storia della filosofia,” 6

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(1951), pp. 275-285 ; L. GEYMONAT, La logica di Dewey e il nuovo razionalismo, “Rivista critica di storia della

filosofia,” 6 (1951), pp. 319-327 ; F. CAFARO, John Dewey e la critica italiana, “Rivista critica di storia della

filosofia,” 4 (1951), pp. 427-441 ; M. G. SINGER, Formal Logic and Dewey’s Logic, “Philosophical Review,” 60

(1951), pp. 375-385 ; H. S. THAYER, Critical Notes on Dewey’s Theory of Propositions, “Journal of Philosophy,”

48 (1951), pp. 607-613 ; A. VASA, Epistemologia e sapere pragmatico nella logica del Dewey, “Rivista critica di

storia della filosofia,” 6 (1951), pp. 304-318 ; S. ONUFRIO, John Dewey e la storia come esperienza e come

indagine, “Rivista critica di storia della filosofia,” 6 (1951), pp. 402-408 ; M. FOX, On the Diversity of Method in

Dewey’s Ethical Theory, “Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,” 12 (1951), pp. 123-129 ; L. BORGHI, I

fondamenti della concezione pedagogica di John Dewey, “Rivista critica di storia della filosofia,” 6 (1951), pp. 342-

359 ; H. S. THAYER, The Logic of Pragmatism: An Examination of John Dewey’s Logic, Humanities Press, New

York, 1952 ; F. BRANCATISANO, John Dewey nella filosofia moderna, “Scuola e città,” (1952), pp. 62-66, 96-

100, 135-143 ; R. CANTONI, John Dewey e l’estetica, “Il pensiero critico,” 2 (1952), pp. 1-14 ; J. A. HARDON,

John Dewey, educatore sociale radicale, “Civiltà cattolica,” 103 (1952), pp. 40-52 ; J. A. HARDON, La leggenda di

John Dewey nel campo dell’educazione americana, “Civiltà cattolica,” 103 (1952), pp. 272-283 ; F.

BRANCATISANO, La posizione di Dewey nella filosofia moderna, “Il Saggiatore,” 2 (1952), pp. 286-337 ; P.

ROSSI, Storicità e mondo umano in John Dewey, “Rivista di filosofia,” 43 (1952), pp. 399-419 ; G. CHERUBINI,

Strumentalismo e materialismo dialettico, “Società,” 7 (1952), pp. 63-79 ; G. J. GUSTAFSON, John Dewey,

“Catholic Mind,” 50 (1952), pp. 513-519 ; W. H. KILPATRICK, John Dewey and His Educational Theory,

“Educational Theory,” 2 (1952), pp. 217-221 ; S. RATNER, The Development of Dewey’s Evolutionary Naturalism,

“Social Research,” 20 (1953), pp. 127-154 ; D. HOLDEN, John Dewey and His Aims of Education, “Educational

Forum,” 18 (1953), pp. 72-81 ; G. SNYDERS, La pédagogie de Dewey, “La pensée,” (1953), pp. 129-151 ; W. H.

KILPATRICK, Dewey’s Philosophy of Education, “Educational Forum,” 18 (1953), pp. 143-154 ; R. ZAZZO, John

Dewey et l’instrumentalisme, “Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique,” 46 (1953), pp. 125-132 ; D.

MEENAN, John Dewey’s Theory of Valuation, “Modern Schoolman,” 30 (1953), pp. 187-201 ; S. C. PEPPER, The

Concept of Fusion in Dewey’s Aesthetic Theory, “Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism,” 12 (1953), pp. 169-176 ;

G. BOAS, Communication in Dewey’s Aesthetics, “Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism,” 12 (1953), pp. 177-183

; G. KENNEDY, Science and the Transformation of Common Sense: The Basic Problem of Dewey’s Philosophy,

“Journal of Philosophy,” 51 (1954), pp. 313-325 ; P. WELSH, Some Metaphysical Assumptions in Dewey’s

Philosophy, “Journal of Philosophy,” 51 (1954), pp. 861-867 ; I. SCHEFFLER, Is the Dewey-Like Notion of

Desirability Absurd?, “Journal of Philosophy,” 51 (1954), pp. 577-582 ; J. L. CHILDS, John Dewey, “Educational

Theory,” 4 (1954), pp. 183-186 ; W. E. ARNETT, Critique of Dewey’s Anticlerical Religious Philosophy, “Journal

of Religion,” 34 (1954), pp. 256-266 ; A. BAUSOLA, L’antimetafisicismo di John Dewey, “Rivista di filosofia

neoscolastica,” 57 (1955), pp. 41-67 ; S. SIMEC, Human Nature According to John Dewey, “Proceedings of the

American Catholic Philosophical Association,” 29 (1955), pp. 225-234 ; F. SMITH, A Thomistic Appraisal of the

Philosophy of John Dewey, “Thomist,” 18 (1955), pp. 127-185 ; D. CAMPANALE, Significato e aporie della logica

naturalistica del pensiero di John Dewey, “Rassegna di scienze filosofiche,” 8 (1955), pp. 18-45, 277-306 ; L.

BORGHI, Pensiero e socialità nella concezione pedagogica di John Dewey, “Scuola e città,” (1955), pp. 217-226 ;

G. GIULIETTI, I fondamenti dell’operativismo logico di John Dewey, “Giornale di metafisica,” 11 (1956), pp. 13-

33 ; I. SCHEFFLER, Educational Liberalism and Dewey’s Philosophy, “Harvard Educational Review,” 24 (1956),

pp. 190-198 ; L. BORGHI, La motivazione storica dello sperimentalismo del Dewey, “Scuola e città,” 1957, pp. 81-

88 ; J. KAMINSKY, Dewey’s Concept of an Experience, “Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,” 17 (1957),

pp. 216-230 ; A. GUCCIONE MONROY, Logica della mente e logica della responsabilità in J. Dewey, “Scuola e

città,” (1957), pp. 343-351, 402-411 ; E. RODOLFI, A proposito della teoria del valore di Dewey, “Rivista di

filosofia neo-scolastica,” 49 (1957), pp. 368-370 ; D. J. NEWBURY, A Theory of Discipline Derived from Dewey’s

Theory of Inquiry, “Educational Theory,” 7 (1957), pp. 102-111 ; E. M. EAMES, Quality and Relation as

Metaphysical Assumption in the Philosophy of John Dewey, “Journal of Philosophy,” 55 (1958), pp. 166-169 ; G. R.

GEIGER, John Dewey in Perspective, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1958 ; J. P. ANTON, John Dewey and the

Ancient Philosophies, “Journal of Philosophy,” 56 (1959), pp. 963-965 ; J. L. CHILDS, John Dewey and American

Education, “Teachers College Record,” 61 (1959), pp. 128-133 ; R. J. BERNSTEIN, Dewey’s Naturalism, “Review

of Metaphysics,” 12 (1959), pp. 340-353 ; M. BRODBECK, La filosofia di John Dewey, “Rivista di Filosofia,” 50

(1959), pp. 191-222 ; C. COMEL, Sul significato della religiosità in Dewey, “Rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica,” 51

(1959), pp. 353-341 ; J. L. BLAU, John Dewey and American Social Thought, “Teachers College Record,” 61

(1959), pp. 121-127 ; G. KENNEDY, Dewey’s Concept of Experience: Determinate, Indeterminate, and

Problematic, “Journal of Philosophy,” 56 (1959), pp. 801-804 ; F. SMITH, John Dewey: Philosopher of Experience,

“Review of Metaphysics,” 13 (1959), pp. 60-78 ; F. KAUFFMANN, John Dewey’s Theory of Inquiry, “Journal of

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Philosophy,” 56 (1959), pp. 826-836 ; A. PASCH, Dewey and the Analytical Philosophers, “Journal of Philsoophy,”

56 (1959), pp. 814-826 ; R. R. BARRY and J. D. FEARON, John Dewey and American Thomism, “American

Benedictine Review,” 10 (1959), pp. 219-228, 11 (1960), pp. 268-280 ; H. L. PARSONS, The Meaning and

Significance of Dewey’s Religious Thought, “Journal of Religion,” 40 (1960), pp. 170-190 ; G. SEMERARI, Il

criticismo religioso di Dewey, “Rivista di filosofia,” 51 (1960), pp. 343-362 ; L. BORGHI, Personalità, attività

immaginativa ed esperienza religiosa in John Dewey, “Rivista di filosofia,” 51 (1960), pp. 262-278 ; G.

MORPURGO-TAGLIABUE, J. Dewey e la metafisica, “Rivista di filosofia,” 51 (1960), pp. 322-334 ; G.

MORPURGO-TAGLIABUE, Metafisica e gnoseologia nel pensiero di J. Dewey, “Pensiero,” 5 (1960), pp. 176-206

; R. RAGGIUNTI, Esperienza artistica e esperienza scientifica nel pensiero di John Dewey, “Filosofia,” 11 (1960),

pp. 69-92 ; A. BAUSOLA, L’etica di John Dewey, Milan, 1960 ; E. A. BURTT, The Core of Dewey’s Way of

Thinking, “Journal of Philosophy,” 57 (1960), pp. 401-419 ; R. RAGGIUNTI, Due possibili criteri di

interpretazione del linguaggio filosofico di J. Dewey, “Rivista di filosofia,” 51 (1960), pp. 335-342 ; R. W.

SLEEPER, Dewey’s Metaphysical Perspective, “Journal of Philosophy,” 57 (1960), pp. 100-115 ; G. BOGNETTI,

Stato e diritto nel pensiero di Dewey, “Rivista di filosofia,” 51 (1960), pp. 254-261 ; I. N. THAT, The Status of

John Dewey’s Philosophical Position Today, “Educational Theory,” 10 (1960), pp. 40-49 ; C. METELLI DI

LALLO, Il significato del termine esperienza nelle opere di J. Dewey, “Rivista di filosofia,” 51 (1960), pp. 303-321

; E. BECCHI, Aspetti del criterio transazionale e del concetto di “Gestalt” nella logica di Dewey, “Rivista di

filosofia,” 51 (1960), pp. 247-253 ; G. TARELLO, Norma e giuridificazione nella logica di Dewey, “Rivista

internazionale di filosofia del diritto,” 37 (1960), pp. 280-292 ; J. L. BLAU, John Dewey’s Theory of History,

“Journal of Philosophy,” 57 (1960), pp. 89-100 ; R. J. BERNSTEIN, John Dewey’s Metaphysics of Experience,

“Journal of Philosophy,” 57 (1961), pp. 5-14 ; G. F. VESCOVINI, La fortuna di John Dewey in Italia, “Rivista di

filosofia,” 52 (1961), pp. 52-96 ; C. B. DOWNES, Some Problems Concerning Dewey’s View of Reason, “Journal of

Philosophy,” 58 (1961), pp. 121-237 ; P. HENLE, Dewey’s Views on Truth and Verification, “University of

Colorado Studies (Series in Philosophy),” 2 (1961), pp. 11-25 ; C. LAMONT, New Light on Dewey’s Common

Faith, “Journal of Philosophy,” 68 (1961), pp. 21-28 ; S. M. EAMES, The Cognitive and Non-Cognitive in Dewey’s

Theory of Valuation, “Journal of Philosophy,” 58 (1961), pp. 179-195 ; R. M. GALE, Dewey and the Problem of the

Alleged Futurity of Yesterday, “Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,” 22 (1962), pp. 501-511 ; A.

GRANESE, Valori e interessi nel pensiero filosofico e pedagogico del Dewey, “I problemi della pedagogia,” (1962),

pp. 543-571, 723-746 ; T. MANFERDINI, L’Io e l’esperienza religiosa in John Dewey, Patron, Bologna, 1963 ; R.

J. ROTH, How “Closed” is John Dewey’s Naturalism?, “International Philosophical Quarterly,” 3 (1963), pp. 106-

120 ; P. BAIRATI, Storia della filosofia ed esperienza in Dewey, “Rivista di filosofia,” 61 (1970), pp. 48-70 ; L.

GIOCA, Il concetto di “significato” in Dewey, “Filosofia,” 21 (1970), pp. 361-370 ; G. CORALLO, John Dewey,

Morcelliana, Brescia, 1972 ; J. GOUINLOCK, John Dewey’s Philosophy of Value, Humanities Press, New York,

1972 ; G. DYKHUIZEN, The Life and Mind of John Dewey, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1973 ;

A. J. DAMICO, Individuality and Community: The Social and Political Thought of John Dewey, University Presses

of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 1978 ; T. M. ALEXANDER, The Horizons of Feeling: John Dewey’s Theory of Art,

Experience, and Nature, SUNY Press, Albany, NY, 1987 ; R. SLEEPER, The Necessity of Pragmatism: John

Dewey’s Conception of Philosophy, Yale University Press, New York, 1987 ; R. D. BOISVERT, Dewey’s

Metaphysics, Fordham University Press, New York, 1988 ; J. E. TILES, Dewey, Routledge, London, 1988 ; L.

HICKMAN, John Dewey’s Pragmatic Technology, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1990 ; R. B.

WESTBROOK, John Dewey and American Democracy, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1991 ; J. TILES

(ed.), John Dewey: Critical Assessments, Routledge, London and New York, 1992 ; A. RYAN, John Dewey and the

High Tide of American Liberalism, W. W. Norton, New York, 1995 ; J. CAMPBELL, Understanding John Dewey:

Nature and Cooperative Intelligence, Open Court, Chicago and La Salle, 1995 ; J. WELCHMANN, Dewey’s

Ethical Thought, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1995 ; J. W. GARRISON (ed.), The New Scholarship on Dewey,

Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht and Boston, 1995 ; B. LEVINE, Works about John Dewey: 1886-1995, Southern

Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1996 ; R. D. BOISVERT, John Dewey: Rethinking Our

Time, SUNY Press, Albany, NY, 1998 ; M. ELDRIDGE, Transforming Experience: John Dewey’s Cultural

Instrumentalism, Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, 1998 ; D. FOTT, John Dewey: America’s Philosopher of

Democracy, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 1998 ; L. A. HICKMAN (ed.), Reading Dewey: Interpretations

for a Postmodern Generation, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1998 ; P. W. JACKSON,

John Dewey and the Lessons of Art, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1998 ; C. HASKINS and D. I. SEIPLE

(eds.), Dewey Reconfigured: Essays on Deweyan Pragmatism, SUNY Press, Albany, 1999 ; J. R. SHOOK, Dewey’s

Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality, Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, TN, 2000 ; T. DALTON,

Becoming John Dewey: Dilemmas of a Philosopher and a Naturalist, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN,

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Vermont, the third of four sons, to Archibald Sprague Dewey and Lucina Artemesia Rich. The

young John Dewey attended public schools in Burlington, Vermont and in 1875 enrolled at the

University of Vermont. After graduating from that University in 1879 he taught high school for

two years in Oil City, Pennsylvania. Not content with a career teaching in high school, Dewey

enrolled in the philosophy program at the newly founded Johns Hopkins University in 1882 and

was profoundly influenced by the Hegelianism of George Sylvester Morris. Dewey graduated

with a Ph.D. in philosophy at Johns Hopkins in June of 1884 with a dissertation (now lost)

entitled The Psychology of Kant. He joined the faculty of philosophy at the University of

Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1884. Aside from a brief stint at the University of Minnessota in 1888,

Dewey taught at the University of Michigan until 1894, having become head of the philosophy

department there in 1889 after the death of his mentor Morris, who had been the previous

philosophy department head at Michigan. Early during his teaching period at the University of

Michigan, Dewey met and married Alice Chipman in 1886. Three children were born during

John and Alice Dewey’s stay in Michigan: Fred in 1887, Evelyn in 1889, and Morris in 1892.

While teaching at the University of Michigan, Dewey penned his first two books: Psychology,

which was published in 1887, and Leibniz’s New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding

in 1888. Both works reveal Dewey’s Hegelianism at this early period in his philosophical career.

In 1894 John and Alice Dewey moved to Chicago where John became Professor of

Philosophy, Psychology and Pedagogy at the newly established University of Chicago. While in

Chicago, the Deweys had three more children: Gordon in 1896, Lucy in 1897 and Jane in 1900.

Two of their sons, Morris and Gordon, would die of illnesses in childhood. It was while teaching

at the University of Chicago that Dewey gradually abandoned his Hegelianism for the more

2002 ; E. R. EAMES and R. W. FIELD (eds.), Experience and Value: Essays on John Dewey and Pragmatic

Naturalism, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 2003 ; J. MARTIN, The Education of John Dewey,

Columbia University Press, New York, 2003 ; S. FESMIRE, John Dewey and Moral Imagination: Pragmatism in

Ethics, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2003 ; H. T. EDMONDSON III, John Dewey & the Decline of

American Education: How the Patron Saint of Schools Has Corrupted Teaching and Learning, ISI Books,

Wilmington, DE, 2006 ; D. J. SIMPSON, John Dewey (Peter Lang Primer), Peter Lang, New York, 2006 ; S.

FISHMAN and L. McCARTHY, John Dewey and the Philosophy and Practice of Hope, University of Illinois Press,

Champaign, IL, 2007 ; R. M. GALE, John Dewey’s Quest for Unity: The Journey of a Promethean Mystic,

Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, 2008 ; D. HILDEBRAND, Dewey: A Beginner’s Guide, Oneworld, Oxford, 2008

; G. PAPPAS, John Dewey’s Ethics: Democracy as Experience, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2008 ; R.

FREGA, From Judgment to Rationality: Dewey’s Epistemology of Practice, “Transactions of the Charles S. Pierce

Society: A Quarterly Journal in American Philosophy,” 46.4 (2010), pp. 591-610 ; J. R. SHOOK, Dewey’s Enduring

Impact: Essays on America’s Philosopher, Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, 2010 ; L. A. HICKMAN, M. C.

FLAMM, and K. P. SKOWRONSKI (eds.), The Continuing Relevance of John Dewey: Reflections on Aesthetics,

Morality, Science, and Society, Rodopi, New York, 2010 ; M. COCHRAN, The Cambridge Companion to Dewey,

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010 ; S. R. STROUD, John Dewey and the Artful Life: Pragmatism,

Aesthetics, and Morality, Penn State Press, University Park, PA, 2011 ; D. J. MORSE, Faith in Life: John Dewey’s

Early Philosophy, Fordham University Press, New York, 2011 ; J. GARRISON, S. NEUBERT, K. REICH, John

Dewey’s Philosophy of Education: An Introduction and Recontextualization for Our Times, Palgrave Macmillan,

New York, 2012 ; A. J. GHILONI, John Dewey Among the Theologians, Peter Lang, New York, 2012 ; J. QUAY

and J. SEAMAN, John Dewey and Education Outdoors: Making Sense of the ‘Educational Situation’ Through More

Than a Century of Progressive Reforms, Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, 2013 ; S. BRINKMANN, John Dewey:

Science for a Changing World, Transaction Publishers, Piscataway, NJ, 2013 ; L. HICKMAN, S. NEUBERT, and

K. REICH, John Dewey Between Pragmatism and Constructivism, Fordham University Press, New York, 2013 ; C.

HUTT, John Dewey and the Ethics of Historical Belief: Religion and the Representation of the Past, SUNY Press,

Albany, 2013 ; M. McGINN, Instrumentalism and Poetic Thinking: A Critique of Dewey’s Logic of Thought,

“Stance,” 6 (2013), pp. 45-52.

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empiricist and positivist oriented philosophies of pragmatism and evolutionary naturalism. Also,

while at Chicago, Dewey founded and directed the Laboratory School at the University which

enabled him to develop his many ideas on education. This experience at the Laborary School

gave Dewey ample material for his first major pedagogical work, The School and Society,

published in 1899. Dewey’s other works during this period include My Pedagogic Creed (1897),

Studies in Logical Theory (1903) and Logical Conditions of a Scientific Treatment of Morality

(1903).

Following a dispute with William Rainey Harper, then President of the University of

Chicago, regarding the administration of the Laboratory School, Dewey resigned from the

University of Chicago in 1904 and was promptly invited to become professor of Philosophy at

Columbia University in New York, where he moved to in 1905. Dewey spent the rest of his

philosophical carrer at Columbia, retiring as full professor and becoming professor emeritus in

1929. It was during this period at Columbia that Dewey made his many trips abroad, including

trips to various countries in Europe and the Far East, as well as to Mexico and, in 1928, to

Russia. During this period teaching at Columbia University, Dewey published many works,

including Ethics (1908 in collaboration with J. H. Tufts), How We Think (1910), The Influence of

Darwin and Other Essays in Contemporary Thought (1910), Schools of Tomorrow (1915),

Democracy and Education (1916), Essays in Experimental Logic (1916), Reconstruction in

Philosophy (1920), Human Nature and Conduct (1922), Experience and Nature (1925), The

Quest for Certainty (1929). Later published works of Dewey include: Art as Experience (1934),

A Common Faith (1934), Experience and Education (1934), Logic: The Theory of Inquiry

(1938), Theory of Valuation (1939), Education Today (1940), Problems of Men (1946), and

Knowing and the Known (1949).

After a four month period of recovery due to a fall which resulted in a broken hip, John

Dewey died of pneumonia at his home in New York City on June 1, 1952 at the old age of 92.

Dewey’s second wife (his first wife Alice died of a heart condition in 1927, and Dewey

remarried in 1946) Roberta Lowitz (born 1904) died in 1970. Both John and Roberta Dewey’s

ashes are interred at the University of Vermont.

What is Pragmatism?

The most notable names in the philosophy of pragmatism are Charles Sanders Pierce

(1839-1914), William James (1842-1910) and John Dewey (1859-1952). What exactly is

pragmatism? For this we must look to the pragmatism’s most famous exponent, the name most

associated with pragmatism, namely, William James (although Dewey would later become

pragmatism’s most influential thinker, especially when one considers his massive influence on

the modern educational system and methods of pedagogy). In his 1907 book Pragmatism, James

describes the empiricist, nominalist, positivist and utilitarianist inspirations of his pragmatist

philosophy, which in many places in his works he describes as a radical empiricism:

“Pragmatism represents a perfectly familiar attitude in philosophy, 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. A pragmatist turns his back resolutely and once for all upon a lot of inveterate

habits dear to professional philosophers. He turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from

verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended

6

absolutes and origins. He turns towards concreteness and adequacy, towards facts, towards

action and towards power. That means the empiricist temper regnant and the rationalist temper

sincerely given up. It means the open air and possibilities of nature as against dogma,

artificiality, and the pretence of finality in truth. At the same time it does not stand for any

special results. It is a method only…Being nothing essentially new, it harmonizes with many

ancient philosophic tendencies. It agrees with nominalism for instance, in always appealing to

particulars; with utilitarianism in emphasizing practical aspects; with positivism in its disdain for

verbal solutions, useless questions and metaphysical abstractions…No particular results then, so

far, but only an attitude of orientation, is what the pragmatic method means. The attitude of

looking away from the first things, principles, ‘categories,’ supposed necessities; and of looking

towards last things, fruits, consequences, facts.”2

Concerning James’s pragmatic theory of truth, Frank Thilly and Ledger Wood write:

“Pragmatism is a method of determining the truth or falsity of propositions according as they do

or do not fulfill our purposes and satisfy our biological and emotional needs; a true proposition is

one the acceptance of which leads to success, a false proposition is one which produces failure

and frustration. In introducing a reference to satisfactoriness, expediency, practicality and

instrumentality in his definition of truth, James drastically alters the complexion of the

pragmatism of Pierce’s more intellectualistic formulation.

“The test, then, of a theory, a belief, a doctrine, must be its effects on us, its practical

consequences. This is the pragmatic test. Always ask yourself what difference it will make in

your experience whether you accept materialism or idealism, determinism or free will, monism

or pluralism, atheism or theism. On the one side, it is a doctrine of despair, on the other a

doctrine of hope. ‘On pragmatic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily, in the

widest sense of the word, it is true.’ The test of truth, then, it its practical consequences; the

possession of truth is not an end in itself, but only a preliminary means to other vital

satisfactions. Knowledge is an instrument; it exists for the sake of life, not life for the sake of

knowledge. James enlarges this pragmatic or instrumental conception so as to include in the idea

of practical utility logical consistency and verification. True ideas are those we can assimilate,

validate, corroborate, and verify. Ideas that tell us which of the realities to expect count as true

ideas. We can, therefore, say of truth that it is useful because it is true, or that it is true because it

is useful. Truth in science is what gives us the maximum possible sum of satisfaction, taste

included, but consistency both with previous truth and novel fact is always the most imperious

claimant.”3

In pragmatism truth is ‘produced,’ ‘manufactured,’ ‘made’ by means of postulation and

experimentation. For the pragmatist, something is true if it is able to satisfy some human need; it

is ‘false’ if it fails to do so. In the words of the noted pragmatist, the advocate of humanism F. C.

S. Schiller: “Pragmatism essays to trace the actual ‘making of truth,’ the actual ways in which

discriminations between the true and the false are effected, and derives from these its

generalizations about the method of determining the nature of truth. It is from such empirical

observations that it derives its doctrine that when an assertion claims truth, its consequences are

always used to test its claim. In other words, what follows from its truth for any human interest,

2 W. JAMES, Pragmatism, Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1907, pp. 51 ff. 3 F. THILLY and L. WOOD, A History of Philosophy, Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1957, p. 639.

7

and more particularly in the first place, for the interest with which it is directly concerned, is

what establishes its real truth and validity…Human interest, then, is vital to the existence of

truth: to say that a truth has consequences and that what has none is meaningless, means that it

has a bearing upon some human interest. Its ‘consequences’ must be consequences to some one

for some purpose.”4

For pragmatism, “truth” is not permanent, necessary, universal, objective or absolute;

instead, “truth,” for the pragmatist, is essentially relative, particular, provisional, transformable,

subjective. In pragmatism, the sense of any proposition, and therefore its truth or falsity, is to be

judged by the mental habit it induces, the effect it has in action, and its pragmatic or working

value. In pragmatism the truth or knowledge-value of a particular proposition is not at all any

insight it is supposed to give us into things, but rather its relation of utility to human living.

Hence, the pragmatist’s disdain for traditional metaphysics or ontology. In pragmatism, human

functions, including all intellectual functions of cognition or belief, are essentially subordinated

and subservient to man’s practical needs, to man’s life, his conduct, and behaviour. For the

pragmatist, religious belief, like all beliefs, have their truth value in the degree of their usefulness

to human living and well-being. Therefore, pragmatism is more than just a method; rather, it is a

doctrine, a theory of knowledge or a type of epistemology, a philosophy.

In the pragmatist world, if a particular judgment, or assumption, or axiom, or postulate,

or theory, or system of thought “works,” and satisfies our psychical or emotional or social needs,

then, so far and so long as it does this, it is useful, valuable, and “true.” James writes in his

Pragmatism: “True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify.

False ideas are those that we cannot. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true

ideas; that, therefore, is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known as.

“This thesis is what I have to defend. The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property

inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in

fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is

the process of its valid-ation.”5

James maintains that “any idea that will carry us prosperously from any one part of our

experience to any other part, linking things satisfactorily, working securely, saving labor, is true

for just so much, true in so far forth, true instrumentally.”6 For James, “an idea is not simply a

mirror or passive reflection of reality; it is a habit of acting in a certain way, and therefore it is

plan or guide for our action. If we follow out this plan, we will have a series of experiences that

either lead up to the reality or do not. For example, our idea of tigers prompts us to perform

certain actions that either lead us into the presence of tigers or do not. If these experiences carry

us to the reality, the idea that prompted them is true, if they fail to do so it is false. In short, an

idea is true if it leads us to its object. The series of experiences linking the idea with the reality is

the concrete relation of agreement or pointing.

4 F. C. S. SCHILLER, Studies in Humanism, Macmillan, London, 1907, pp. 4-6.

5 W. JAMES, op. cit., pp. 200-202. 6 W. JAMES, op. cit., p. 58.

8

“Accordingly,” for James, “truth is not an unchanging or inherent property of an idea; it

is something that happens to an idea when it is verified by experience…Neither is truth

something we discover in reality, as though it existed there before we thought about it. We make

truth by formulating ideas and acting upon them; the process of verification (as the word

indicates) is indeed one of ‘truth-making.’ Bergson puts his finger on the essential nature of truth

in James’s philosophy when he writes: ‘We invent truth in order to use reality, as we create

mechanical devices to use natural forces. It seems to me that we can sum up the whole essence of

the pragmatic conception of truth in a formula such as this: while in other doctrines a new truth

is a discovery, for pragmatism it is an invention.’7

“Although James insists that it is one of man’s primary duties to pursue true ideas, he

does not regard their possession as an end in itself but only as ‘a preliminary means towards

other vital satisfactions.’8 This is understandable against the background of his voluntaristic

psychology, which claims that perception and thinking are only for the sake of action, and action

is for the satisfaction of some human need.9 Hence James sees little value in a purely objective

knowledge divorced from human desires and human reasons for knowing. True ideas are always

useful ones; they enable us to use reality in order to satisfy some need. Thus truth is a species of

good: ‘The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good,

too, for definite, assignable reasons.’10

“There are, accordingly, two aspects to a true idea: its verification by the facts, and its

usefulness for life. These can be distinguished but not separated; unless we have some need or

desire for an object, we will not be led to verify our idea of it. If we have no interest in tigers,

will will not be prompted to set in motion the actions that will lead us into their presence. An

idea is nothing but an instrument for satisfying some desire or need, and its verification in

experience is not an end in itself but a process that is fulfilled only in its actual use.

“…Since individuals differ in their needs and desires, it is understandable that James’s

pragmatism should stress the role of the individual in determining the truth. An idea is true

insofar as it is satisfactory, but what satisfies one person does not always satisfy another. Hence

truth is to a certain degree plastic and relative to the individual.11

”12

As regards James’s pragmatic theory of truth as an expression of purpose, B. A. G. Fuller

writes: “By what principle is the selective activity of consciousness motivated? By the total

purpose of the consciousness in question, James answers. We attend to and promote what gives

our total nature, including our emotions and yearnings and aspirations, the greatest satisfaction.

The ideas that interest us are previews of situations that have bearing upon the achievement of

that satisfaction. They are not mere memories of situations that are dead and gone. When we

think, we are not dully looking over photographs of the past. We are trying to paint a portrait of

7 H. BERGSON, Sur la pragmatisme de William James, vérité et réalité, written as a prefece to James’s

Pragmatism, Flammarion, Paris, 1911. 8 W. JAMES, op. cit., p. 203.

9 Cf. W. JAMES, The Will to Believe, Longmans, New York, 1897, p. 114.

10 W. JAMES, Pragmatism, Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1907, p. 76. 11

Cf. W. JAMES, op. cit., p. 61. 12 E. GILSON, T. LANGAN, and A. MAURER, Recent Philosophy: Hegel to Present, Random House, New York,

1966, pp. 640-642.

9

future experiences that will answer to our desires and fulfill our total purpose. These experiences

are the ‘objects’ to which ideas are supposed to refer.

“Furthermore, and here we come to James’s pragmatic view of the nature of truth, the

‘feel’ of truth which some ideas have is simply the feeling that they do anticipate the desired and

satisfying experience. They ‘correspond’ to their objects by producing them. Conversely, the

falsity of an idea is the feeling that the experience it pictures is undesirable or unlikely to occur.

Since true ideas are regarded as forecasts of agreeable and satisfying experiences, they are in

themselves agreeable and satisfactory to entertain. Nevertheless, the proof of the pudding is in

the eating. For the idea to be truly true, it must ‘work’ not merely by being pleasing in itself, but

by anticipating or producing the satisfactory experiences it promises. As long as it continues to

‘work’ in this way, it remains true. When it ceases to yield satisfactory results and no longer

‘works,’ it becomes false, and goes into the scrapbasket of outworn creeds, outgrown

hypotheses, and discredited theories.

“Plainly then, for James, thinking is secondary to willing. Idea reflects impulse, and

reflects it as it wants to be reflected. The will determines how and what we shall think. Ideas,

insofar as they satisfy or disappoint the expectations of the will, envisage truth or error. The ruth

of an idea has nothing to do with anything outside experience, or even with any permanent form

and constitution of experience. It denotes simply that the idea is working satisfactorily at the

moment as a means of getting out of experience what we now want. To be true an idea must

continually come true.”13

In its application as a method, pragmatism holds that a thought is true, not because it

agrees with some extra-mental reality, but because it works out right when it is applied to some

specific situation; it is false, not because it misrepresents reality, but because, when it is used, it

does not work out right. Truth, therefore, for pragmatism, consists in the usefulness of an idea in

practice: a proposition is not true or false in itself as an inactive thought in the human mind; it is

verified or falsified, that is, made true or false, by proving usable in practice.

As was said, the pragmatic is simply what will work, what is in fact effective for present

action, and pragmatism finds in this norm the sole criterion for the determination of the truth or

falsity of ideas. The very function of the human intellect is ordered towards, and gets its very

meaning from, action. The end of knowledge would be none other than the furnishing for the

pragmatist with the rules for acting. When the pragmatist discovers these sets of rules, he rests

there, content with what he deems to be belief, that is, an immediate and necessary preparation

for activity. The entire meaning of what is known lies in the action that is performed; the whole

value of human understanding would be found there. Thought receives its value and meaning in

its practical consequences.

Dewey’s Version of Pragmatism: Instrumentalism

Dewey’s version of pragmatism, called instrumentalism, emphasizes that knowledge is an

instrument to be used chiefly in the domination of our environment. Knowledge is viewed from

the evolutionary “survival of the fittest” point of view. The multifaceted functions of the human

13

B. A. G. FULLER, A History of Philosophy, Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1957, pp. 536-537.

10

mind are utilized by the thinker in response to the demands of the environment around him, and

are adaptations to that environment. For Dewey, knowing is fundamentally practical, for the sake

of action, the result of the situational interaction of a thinker with his (often hostile) environment.

Richard Field explains that “Dewey came to believe that a productive, naturalistic approach to

the theory of knowledge must begin with a consideration of the development of knowledge as an

adaptive human response to environing conditions aimed at an active restructuring of these

conditions. Unlike traditional approaches in the theory of knowledge, which saw thought as a

subjective primitive out of which knowledge was composed, Dewey’s approach understood

thought genetically, as the product of the interaction between organism and environment, and

knowledge as having practical instrumentality in the guidance and control of that interaction.

Thus Dewey adopted the term ‘instrumentalism’ as a descriptive appellation for his new

approach.”14

For Dewey the function of the human mind and therefore of knowledge is to search for

the most secure ways for progress. Thinking, for him, has an essentially instrumental character

(hence his instrumentalism). Knowledge, for Dewey, is successful practice. Propositions are

instruments which may take us to the goal towards which experimental inquiry is directed.

Dewey called his version of pragmatism “instrumentalism,” describing its fundamental

aim and method in the following passage: “Instrumentalism is an attempt to constitute a precise

logical theory of concepts, of judgments and inferences in their various forms by considering

primarily how thought functions in the experimental determinations of future consequences.”15

That which stands out in pragmatism in its instrumentalist version is its references to

consequences. Dewey writes in his Essays in Experimental Logic that “the term ‘pragmatic’

means only the rule of referring all thinking, all reflective considerations, to consequences for

final meaning and test.”16

For Dewey, the meaning of a judgment would consist of its anticipated

consequences and its truth would be established by the actual verification of these. Hence,

judgments of any type, including categorical judgments of fact, are to be construed as a set of

hypothetical judgments embodying anticipated consequences of the judgments in question. In the

same work, Essays in Experimental Logic, he states: “All propositions which state discoveries or

ascertainments, all categorical propositions, would be hypothetical, and their truth would

coincide with their tested consequences.”17

And the consequences by which the meaning and

truth of judgments are tested should not be restricted, says Dewey, to those yielding an emotional

or aesthetic satisfaction since Deweyan instrumentalism “is not complicated by reference to

emotional satisfactions or the play of desires.”18

In instrumentalism, propositions may be

instrumentally or experimentally true even though emotionally unsatisfying to the thinker.

Describing Dewey’s use of ideas as instruments of successful action, B. A. G. Fuller

writes: “The function of thinking is not primarily to construct general images and ideas out of

remembered perceptions or to anticipate in a general way general situations. Ideas are specific in

14

R. FIELD, John Dewey (1859-1952), IEP, 2005, par. 15. 15

J. DEWEY, The Development of American Pragmatism, in D. Runes, Living Schools of Philosophy, Littlefield,

Adams and Co., Amers, Iowa, 1956, pp. 410-411. 16

J. DEWEY, Essays in Experimental Logic, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1916, p. 330. 17 J. DEWEY, op. cit., p. 347. 18

Ibid.

11

character, are aroused by specific circumstances, and anticipate a particular occasion. They are

practical instruments for dealing with each specific situation as it arises. They are responses to

that situation, and their business is not to indulge in generalities, but to attend to it and to it alone.

Insofar as they prove effective instruments in dealing with the situation that evokes them they are

true of it. If they fail to work in any particular case, we have made a false estimate of the

situation in question.”19

Operationalism Grafted Onto Instrumentalism

For Dewey, theories must have an operational import, being capable of being put into

action and yielding desirable or at least predictable consequences. William Sahakian explains

that, for Dewey, “the proof of an idea consists in its being subject to predictable results.

According to experimental inquiry, the validity of the object of thought depends upon the

consequences of the operations which define the object of thought. Ideas which measure up to

the foregoing criterion of truth possess “warranted assertibility”…All logical forms (with their

characteristic properties) arise within the operation of inquiry and are concerned with control of

inquiry so that it may yield warranted assertions.”20

Sahakian then gives, in summary form, Dewey’s five steps of experimental inquiry

presented in Dewey’s 1910 epistemological work, How We Think: “The specific procedures for

solving problems are set forth as follows: (1) we observe a problem and think of its nature (main

aspects); (2) we intellectualize the problem further to analyze the total difficulty or situation of

which it is a part; (3) we make hypotheses (guiding ideas) which bear upon the problem and

constitute possible cues to a solution; (4) we analyze our hypotheses in the light of past

experience, choosing potentially feasible solutions; (5) we put these possible solutions into

practice experimentally or inductively and ascertain the results in actual experience. These five

steps comprise the process of reflective thinking, which always serves a useful purpose

beneficial to man. All sciences, according to Dewey, must be humanized, must subserve human

needs. He defined truth as a means of satisfying human needs and improving upon social

conditions which create problems. Truth is useful, public…truth benefits society, not merely the

individual. All Pragmatists agreed that practical consequences are the only valid test of truth, but

it was Dewey who worked out these five step-by-step procedures, beginning with the initial

awareness of a problem and ending with a satisfactory conclusion.”21

Dewey’s instrumentalism is further developed in his 1929 book The Quest for Certainty,

and its fullest and definitive formulation is presented in his main epistemological work Logic:

The Theory of Inquiry, published in 1938. In The Quest for Certainty, Dewey’s instrumentalism

utilizes the operational theory of the meaning of scientific concepts advocated by P. W.

Bridgman. Dewey follows Bridgman’s position, quoting the latter’s assertion that “we mean by

any concept nothing more than a set of operations; the concept is synonymous with the

corresponding set of operations.”22

With a combination of operational technique of conceptual

19

B. A. G. FULLER, op. cit., p. 544. 20 W. SAHAKIAN, History of Philosophy, Barnes and Noble, New York, 1968, p. 264. 21

W. SAHAKIAN, op. cit., pp. 264-265. 22 Quoted by Dewey in his The Quest for Certainty, p. 111. Passage from P. W. Bridgman, The Logic of Modern

Physics, p. 5.

12

definition with a pragmatic emphasis on consequences, Dewey puts forward a “definition of the

nature of ideas by the consequences of these operations.”23

Hence, operationalism is intended to

complement and reinforce the instrumentalism and experimentalism of Dewey’s earlier

pragmatic method. Dewey gives credit to the operational theory with having achieved for the

first time “an empirical theory of ideas free from the burdens imposed alike by sensationalism

and a priori rationalism”24

and maintains that operationalism has successfully achieved the

reconciliation of rationalism and empiricism which the German transcendental idealist Immanuel

Kant tried to accomplish but was unsuccessful in doing so.

In the final and definitive formulation of his instrumentalism in Logic: The Theory of

Inquiry, Dewey states in the Preface to his work that “in the proper interpretation of ‘pragmatic,’

namely the function of consequences as necessary tests of the validity of propositions, provided

these consequences are operationally initiated and are such as to resolve the specific problem

evoking the operations, the text that follows is thoroughly pragmatic.” We find in this passage

that Dewey has combined the operational theory of conceptual and propositional meaning with

his elemental instrumentalism. Elemental logical forms, logical laws and logical principles are

interpreted in this operational context as postulates or stipulations. Dewey rejects rationalism’s

position that the basic laws of logic are a priori principles, and maintains that “they are

intrinsically postulates of and for inquiry, being formulations of conditions, discovered in the

course of inquiry itself, which further inquiries must satisfy it they are to yield warranted

assertibility as a consequence.”25

Describing Dewey’s grafting of Bridgman’s operationalism onto his own instrumentalist

and experimentalist pragmatism, Armand Maurer writes that for Dewey, “ideas are plans of

operations to be performed. Their role in inquiry is the practical one of being instruments for

reaching the solution of a problem. Ideas are essentially instruments of action, whether the action

is exercised upon the physical world or upon mathematical or logical symbols. For this reason,

Dewey’s version of pragmatism is aptly called ‘instrumentalism.’

“As plans of future operations, the truth-value of ideas will be determined by the outcome

of these operations. If the operations they direct give us the results we require, they will be sound

ideas; if they fail to yield these results, they will be unsound. Hence the test of the validity of an

idea is not its conformity to an independent reality, but its success in reconstructing a

problematic situation so as to bring about a solution.26

“A true idea, then, is one that is satisfactory; but Dewey explains that the satisfaction

referred to is not just a personal one, but the ‘satisfaction of the conditions prescribed by the

problem.’27

He protests that he does not believe that just anything that satisfies him is true: ‘I

have never identified any satisfaction with the truth of an idea, save that satisfaction which arises

23

J. DEWEY, The Quest for Certainty, Minton, Balch, New York, 1929, p. 114. 24

Ibid. 25

J. DEWEY, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, Henry Holt, New York, 1938, p. 16. 26 J. DEWEY, The Quest for Certainty, pp. 132, 159-161. Dewey writes: “The test of ideas, of thinking generally, is

found in the consequences of the acts to which the ideas lead, that is, in the new arrangements of things which are

brought into existence.” 27

Experience, Knowledge and Value: A Rejoinder, in The Philosophy of John Dewey, p. 572.

13

when the idea as working hypothesis or tentative method is applied to prior existences in such a

way as to fulfill what it intends.’28

“This instrumental theory of ideas does away with the classic distinction between

knowing and doing. Knowing is no longer an operation distinct from action and superior to it; it

is intelligently directed action. The experimental method puts action at the center of ideas and

makes doing ‘the very heart of knowing.’29

…Of what value are ideas that merely reduplicate the

already existing world? They may afford the satisfaction of a photograph, but they make no

difference in our lives. Science and philosophy should improve the world in which we live; they

should heighten its value, or else they miss their main goal. Ideas are of value only if they pass

into actions that rearrange and reconstruct the world.30

”31

Dewey’s Pragmatic Concept of Truth as “Warranted Assertability”

In his 1929 book Experience and Nature, Dewey presents his general notion of truth,

which is pragmatic, writing: “Sometimes the use of the word ‘truth’ is confined to designating a

logical property of propositions; but if we extend its significance to designate the character of

existential reference, this is the meaning of truth: processes of change so directed that they

achieve an intended consummation.”32

Dewey’s pragmatic general concept of truth is identified

with successful activity. And he will equate successful activity itself with knowledge; and thus

knowledge and truth have an equivalency, for knowledge is the end or close of inquiry, the

attainment of truth. Dewey writes in his later work, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, that “the word

knowledge is also a suitable term to designate the objective close of inquiry. But it, too, suffers

from ambiguity. When it is said that attainment of knowledge, or truth, is the end of inquiry, the

statement according to the position here taken, is a triusm.”33

For Dewey, truth is equivalent to

knowledge, knowledge is equivalent to end of inquiry, and knowledge is equivalent to warranted

assertion. He states: “Knowledge in its strictest and most honorific sense is warranted

assertion.”34

Dewey, in fact, prefers the term “warranted assertability” to truth in order to avoid

ambiguity: “What has been said helps to explain why the term ‘warranted assertion’ is preferred

to the terms belief and knowledge. It is free from the ambiguity of these latter terms, and it

involves reference to inquiry as that which warrants assertion.”35

Dewey then presents his strict

meaning of the term “warranted assertability: “When knowledge is taken as a general abstract

term related to inquiry in the abstract, it means ‘warranted assertibility.’ The use of a term that

28

What Does Pragmatism Mean by Practical?, “Journal of Philosophy,” 5 (1908), pp. 85-99. In this article (a

review of James’s Pragmatism), Dewey insists that ‘ideas are always working hypotheses concerning attaining

particular empirical results, and are tentative programs (or sketches of method) for attaining them’ (p. 93). He

criticizes James for sometimes abandoning this strict rule and treating any good that flows from the acceptance of a

belief as evidence of its truth. As Dewey points out, James appeals to this broader notion of pragmatic truth,

particularly when dealing with theological notions. By applying the narrower rule, Dewey eliminates these notions. 29 The Quest for Certainty, p. 38. “Knowing is itself a mode of practical action and is the way of interaction by

which other natural interactions become subject to directions”(ibid., p. 104). 30

Ibid., pp. 132-134. 31

A. MAURER, Pragmatism, in E. Gilson, T. Langan, and A. Maurer, Recent Philosophy: Hegel to Present,

Random House, New York, 1966, pp. 656-657. 32 J. DEWEY, Experience and Nature, W. W. Norton, New York, 1929, p. 160. 33

J. DEWEY, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, Henry Holt, New York, 1938, pp. 7-8. 34 J. DEWEY, op. cit., p. 143. 35

J. DEWEY, op. cit., p. 9.

14

designates a potentiality rather than an actuality involves recognition that all special conclusions

of special inquiries are parts of an enterprise that is continually renewed, or is a going

concern.”36

So, for Dewey, truth is a kind of settlement which is very much like the resolving of

problems in the everyday personal experience. And like the progress of a person’s life through

time, truth for Dewey isn’t merely one successful operation but rather an accumulation of

resolved situations. Though he would accept that truth is in individual settlements of situations,

Dewey would respond by saying that it is more accurate to say that truth is rather in flux, in

process, becoming, not being static, fixed or absolute. Hence, Deweyan truth is a description of

the ongoing process of successful activity. H. S. Thayer, in his The Logic of Pragmatism,

observes that “what is ordinarily called a ‘true statement,’ Dewey calls a warranted assertion.

And what is usually called a theory of truth, for Dewey constitutes a description and account of

those existential conditions and the operations performed that generate warranted assertions.”37

Thus, there are for Dewey valid reasons behind warranted assertions; particular conclusions are

warranted because of certain consequences that ensue, consequences validating the assertions. In

conclusion, from a consideration of Dewey’s general notion of truth and the terms that are

equivalent to it, we can say that for Dewey, truth is found in concrete situations and that truth

consists in the successful resolution or settlement of those concrete situations.

Dewey’s Pragmatic Qualities of Truth

1. Verifiability. Revealing the neo-positivist streak in instrumentalism, for Dewey, the

first quality of truth is empirical verifiability in sense experience for meaningfulness. He writes

in his 1931 work Philosophy and Civilization: “It is therefore in submitting conceptions to the

control of experience, in the process of verifying them, that one finds examples of what is called

truth. Therefore, any philosopher who applies this empirical method without the least prejudice

in favor of pragmatic doctrine, can be led to conlude that truth ‘means’ verification, or if one

prefers, that verification, either actual or possible, is the definition of truth.”38

Contra Dewey (and His Neo-Positivist Allies): A Critique of the Principle of Verification.

The neo-positivism of the Circle of Vienna,39

basing itself on the principle of verification, had

declared metaphysics and religion to be meaningless, reducing them to the level of irrationalist

sentiment. For the neo-positivist or logical positivist system all philosophical problems must be

resolved through a sole analysis of language, linguistic analysis being identified as the proper

task of philosophy itself. All propositions that make sense are only experimental, factual, or

scientific propositions. Metaphysical propositions like “God exists,” as well as those

propositions of religion, ethics and aesthetics, are deprived of content inasmuch as every content

must be derived from experience, and so, for the neo-positivist, affirmations like “God exists”

36

Ibid. 37 H. S. THAYER, The Logic of Pragmatism, The Humanities Press, New York, 1952, p. 64. 38

J. DEWEY, Philosophy and Civilization, Minton, Balch & Co., New York, 1931, p. 23. 39

The Circle of Vienna (Wiener Kreis), initiated in 1895 as a chair of the philosophy of the inductive sciences in the

University of Vienna which went to Ernst Mach, who taught a series of courses there until 1901. In 1922 the chair

went to Moritz Schlick (1882-1936), who, together with a number of like-minded philosopher-physicists, published

in 1929 The Scientific Vision of the World : The Circle of Vienna (Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung: der Wiener

Kries), which became the group’s manifesto. Aside from Schlick, members of the group included Rudolf Carnap (its

most celebrated theorist), Kurt Gödel, Otto Neurath, Hans Reichenbach, Richard von Mises, Gustav Hempel, Karl

Menger, Hans Hahn, Friedrich Herbert Waismann, and Victor Kraft.

15

and “the human soul is immortal” are nonsensical. The central thesis of neo-positivism is that the

fundamental propositions of metaphysics, ethics, religion, and aesthetics, are simply

meaningless, for they fail the test of empirical verifiability.

Neo-positivism or logical positivism is an attempt to establish the validity of what man

knows by an analysis of what he says. After all, man’s knowledge of reality is expressed in

propositions, so that a linguistic analysis should reveal whether a given proposition is meaningful

or simply verbal manipulation. Neo-positivists and logical positivists agree that the Humean

view of causality and empirical induction are givens, and that all philosophy is, in fact, logical

analysis, that is, it consists in the analysis of the language which ordinary people speak. There is

also a common point of agreement in the fact that such a linguistic verification eventually leads

to the rejection of metaphysical propositions such as those about causality, substance, accidents

and so forth. Such metaphysical statements are to be declared meaningless, at least in their

original intent. A certain proposition can only be sensical, and therefore “true,” if the elements of

such a proposition, after a linguistic analysis, can be reduced either directly or indirectly to some

sense experience or some sense data. If this is not possible, then the proposition is rendered

nonsensical or meaningless.

An example. What does the common expression “apples exist” mean? This philosophical

system will answer that there are no such things in reality as “apples,” for this is simply a verbal

constant applied to what is an almost unlimited number of sense impressions and sense

references, organized and focused upon by the thinker. The logical positivist declares that there

can be no such thing in reality as a substance “apple,” and since this is a fact, “apples” do not

exist. Locked up in an anthropocentric immanentism and empirical phenomenalism, it is not

possible to apply the existential metaphysical word “exist” to “apples,” but only to the

conglomeration of what is sensibly perceived when we see what we “call” an apple. Ideally, a

proposition like “apples exist” would have to read: “there is something such that this something

is an apple.” But can the expression “apples exist” have any meaning? Yes, for such an

expression can be directly reduced to sense experience and sense data.

What happens when logical positivism is applied to the problem of the existence of God?

To ask the question “Does God exist?” is to ask whether the expression “God exists” has any

meaning; whether it is possible to reduce it, either directly or indirectly, to sense experience. The

answer is an obvious no, for it is impossible to have an experience of the verbal elements in any

way; the proposition cannot be transcribed in terms of any known experience. Therefore, the

expression “God exists” is meaningless; not true or false, but simply nonsensical. Aside from

adopting the erroneous positions of Humean empiricism, logical positivism adds its own so-

called “principle of verification” which is the principle that maintains that every meaningful

proposition must be verifiable in sense experience. The only trouble with such a principle is that

it fails to pass its own test: the principle of verification is itself unverifiable in sense experience;

it is a metaphysical principle grasped by the intellect and not by the senses. In his critique of the

neo-positivist or logical positivist principle of verification, Frederick Wilhelmsen writes: “If all

propositions must be verified in sense experience, when why not the principle of verification

itself? The principle is a complex of meaning, no element of which is identified with sense

experience. ‘Every meaningful proposition is verifiable in sense experience.’ The predicate,

‘sense experience,’ is not sensible; it is abstract, intelligible content; it is not identified with any

16

given sense experience. ‘Meaningful’ is not a sense experience. What is the ‘meaning of

meaning’? Whatever it might be, it cannot be identified and understood simply by pointing at

something and punching it. The whole proposition might be said to stand for the totality of sense

experiences and thus to symbolize them all. If this is so, then there is a ‘meaning’ beyond

experience, and this ‘meaning’ is meaning itself.”40

2. Workability. The second quality of truth espoused by Dewey’s pragmatist

instrumentalism is workability, that is, that there is a working out to provide a solution to a

practical problem. When there is a solving of a practical problem then there is truth.

3. Changeability. Truth, for Dewey is a dynamic progressive action in time, not stable or

fixed, and as such, truths are always changeable as man progresses throughout history. Frederick

Copleston observes that Dewey’s instrumentalism “is opposed to that of eternal, unchanging

truths. Indeed, he obviously intends this opposition. He regards the theory of eternal, unchanging

truths as implying a certain metaphysics or view of reality, namely the distinction between the

phenomenal sphere of becoming and the sphere of perfect and unchanging being, which is

apprehended in the form of eternal truths. This metaphysics is, of course, at variance with

Dewey’s naturalism. Hence, the so-called timeless truths have to be represented by him as being

simply instruments for application in knowing the one world of becoming, instruments which

constantly show their value in use. In other words, their significance is functional rather than

ontological. No truth is absolutely sacrosanct, but some truths possess in practice a constant

functional value.

“This theory that there are no sacrosanct eternal truths, but that all statements which we

believe to be true are revisible in principle or from the purely logical point of view, obviously

has important implications in the fields of morals and politics. ‘To generalize the recognition that

the true means the verified and nothing else place upon men the responsibility for surrendering

political and moral dogmas, and subjecting to the test of consequences their most cherished

prejudices.’41

In Dewey’s opinion this is one of the main reasons why the instrumentalist theory

of truth raises fear and hostility in many minds.”42

4. Successful Application in Concrete Circumstances or Situations. Instrumentalism’s

fourth quality of truth is that it succesfully submit to the crucial test of circumstances. Truths

have definite relations to concrete situations, and requires that they prove their worth in these

situations. Dewey states: “Truth and falsity present themselves as significant facts only in

situations in which specific meanings and their already experienced fulfilments and non-

fulfilments are intentionally compared and contrasted with reference to the question of the

worth, as to reliability of meaning of the given meaning or class of meanings…Truth is an

experienced relation of things, and it has no meaning outside of such relations.”43

40 F. WILHELMSEN, Man’s Knowledge of Reality, Prentice-Hall, Englewood-Cliffs, NJ, 1956, pp. 50-51. 41

J. DEWEY, Reconstruction in Philosophy, Henry Holt, New York, 1920, p. 160. 42 F. COPLESTON, A History of Philosophy, Book III (vol. 8), Image Books, Doubleday, New York, 1985, p. 366. 43

J. DEWEY, The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, Henry Holt, New York, 1910, p. 95.

17

Critiques of Pragmatism

Celestine Bittle’s Critique of Pragmatism. Bittle describes the various contradictions,

confusions and inconsistencies inherent in the pragmatist epistemological system, writing that,

for pragmatism, which is a voluntarist system, “the truth of judgments does not arise from their

correspondence to reality. The pragmatist criterion of truth consists in the utility of a belief in

satisfying human needs in a social way. That is true which ‘works,’ which has practical value,

which leads to beneficial results for human progress, which promotes the best interest of

mankind through living experience. Results make a belief true or false for the time being. Beliefs

become true, when they function for the social welfare of humanity; and false, when they cease

to function along these lines. Truth is, therefore, nothing static and immutable, but something

dynamic and perpetually changing. Consequently, a belief may be true at one stage of

development, and the same belief may be false at a different stage; something may be true under

one set of conditions and false under another; a theory may be true for one class of people and

false for another class, depending on the intellectual and cultural conditions prevailing at a

particular time and in a particular locality. Truth, as will be seen, is entirely subjective in

character.

“This interpretation of truth is contrary to the accepted meaning attached to the world by

all men, whether educated or uneducated, and amounts to a perversion of language. To identify

‘truth’ with ‘utility’ is nothing less than to reduce the ‘true’ to the ‘good.’ The ‘good,’ however,

is the object of the will, not of the intellect, while the ‘true’ has been considered by men at all

times to be the proper object of the intellect. A lamentable confusion of thought must result from

this identification of the ‘true’ with the ‘good.’ If both are identical, so that ‘truth’ is the object of

the will, what can possibly be the object of the intellect? As a natural faculty of man it must have

a natural object, just as well as the will; but if we remove ‘truth’ from the intellect, the latter is

without a proper object with which to exercise its power. The exercise of any power or faculty

involves the striving to realize something, and that demands an object within its own proper

sphere of activity. Every power or faculty of the human organism, internal as well as external,

had its proper object; the will, for instance, strives toward the realization of the ‘good.’ But what

could possibly be the object of the intellect except the realization and acquisition of ‘truth?’

There is no other object assignable or discoverable. Pragmatists may assert that the ‘true’ is

identical with the ‘good,’ but that will never really identify such totally disparate things. Their

attitude is unjustifiable, because contrary to the fundamental conceptions of men.

“Besides, in identifying the ‘true’ with the ‘good,’ pragmatists do not solve the

epistemological problem of knowledge. The problem of ‘knowledge’ remains just as acute as

before; it cannot be solved by transferring the concept of ‘truth’ from the field of knowledge to

the field of action and then denying that a ‘problem of knowledge’ exists. We must still answer

the questions: Is there an objective reality which is extra-mental? Can this reality be known?

How is it known? How do our judgments interpret this reality? Do they correspond with it? How

can we have certitude about this? These questions constitute the ‘problem of knowledge’ and the

mind of man will not be satisfied, and will continue to exert its powers of reasoning, until these

questions are answered or until the mind sinks in despair into skepticism. But ignore this

problem the mind cannot. Whether we call the answers to these questions ‘truth’ or whether we

give it another name, makes little difference: it is the problem and its solution that count, and

18

they pertain to the province of the intellect and must be solved by the intellect and not by the

will. Pragmatism, therefore, does not solve the problem of knowledge by dubbing it

‘metaphysics’ and then ignoring its existence.

“And pragmatists are inconsistent. They identify ‘truth’ with ‘utility’ and thus transfer it

to the province of the will. Nevertheless, they appeal to the intellect with a great array of

arguments, to prove that ‘truth’ is to be judged according to its beneficial results. Thereby they

surreptitiously substitute the intellect for the will as the arbiter of truth and error and

unconsciously admit after all that it is in the intellect, and not the will, which must decide

whether their theory or opposite theories give the correct (or ‘true’) solution of the problem of

knowledge and truth. Since they appeal to the reasoning intellect, they must abide by its verdict.

Now, it is the verdict of the reasoning intellect, as we have shown, that truth is found in the

judgment interpreting reality and not in the results which flow from a certain belief. It is not

‘utility’ which determines the ‘truth’ of judgments, beliefs and theories, but the objective

evidence of reality. In fact, when pragmatists attempt to prove their own theory, they marshall

numerous facts and reasons in order to show that ‘utility’ and not ‘objective evidence’ is the

criterion of truth and the motive of certitude; and in doing so, they appeal to the objective

evidence of these facts and reasons to establish their case. Their own attitude and action is their

best refutation.

“Moreover, pragmatists claim that those beliefs are ‘true’ which satisfy human needs and

produce beneficial results for man in a social way. What needs, and what beneficial results? We

must know them, so as to be able to ascertain which beliefs contain ‘truth’ and which ‘error.’ In

order to know whether needs are real or apparent and whether results are beneficial or harmful, it

is necessary for the intellect to discover the facts regarding these needs and results and then pass

judgment on the truth or error of the beliefs. But here again, if any judgment corresponds to the

facts at issue, it is ‘true’; and if it does not, it is ‘false.’ Thus it can be seen that truth and error

reside in the judgment and their presence is determined by the objective evidence of the facts.

The good results may be taken as an index or sign of truth, but the ultimate criterion of truth lies

in the objective evidence before the mind. As long as it is necessary to have a criterion to

discriminate between ‘real’ and ‘apparent’ needs, between ‘beneficial’ and ‘harmful’ results,

between beliefs which ‘work’ and those which ‘do not work,’ results cannot be considered the

ultimate criterion. Results do not appear with labels attached; they can be discerned only by the

intellect. Even from a pragmatist standpoint, then, the truth or error of beliefs cannot be decided

without the judging power of the intellect. The ultimate criterion for the intellect, however, as

has been seen, consists in the clear self-manifestation of reality or self-evidence. Hence,

pragmatism does not satisfy the ‘needs’ of the intellect as a theory of truth and knowledge and,

judged by its own criterion, is unsatisfactory and therefore false.

“Finally, how can I apply the pragmatist criterion to everyday existential judgments? I

judge that ‘My watch is slow,’ ‘a car is passing,’ ‘my feet are cold,’ and so on. These statements

contain truth or error. By what possible results for human progress and welfare am I to decide

whether they are true or false? Or will a pragmatist seriously assert that there is no truth or error

in these and similar judgments? If he claims there is not, we must dissent; if he agrees that there

19

is, he must admit that his criterion does not apply. A criterion, however, which fails in its

essential function, is worthless, because it is no criterion at all: it does not ‘work.’”44

P. Coffey’s Critique of the Pragmatist Criterion of Utility in Relation to Truth: “We do

not deny that the practical issues of a belief can create a presumption for or against its truth, that

the ‘fruits’ of a doctrine can be even a criterion, a subsidiary test, of its truth or falsity, i.e. its

practical fruits: for of course if speculatively false conclusions follow logically from any

doctrine as antecedent, this is a certain index that the doctrine is false.45

But in some measure the

truth or otherwise of doctrines that have or ought to have a bearing on human conduct can be

judged by their moral consequences. Let us see how, and how far.

“Firstly, man ought to find in his fundamental beliefs, in his ‘philosophy of life,’ his

general ‘world-outlook’ or Weltanschauung,’ principles whereby to guide and direct his conduct:

all philosophy should embody an Ethic or practical philosophy, a philosophy of conduct. Hence

if any philosophy contains no directive principles, throws no light on the problem of conduct

(e.g., skepticism, agnosticism), or contains ethical principles the application of which would do

violence to man’s moral nature, subvert the whole moral order and lead to moral chaos, e.g., by

opening the way to murder, suicide, fraud, injustice, sexual immorality, etc. (as would atheism,

materialism, evolutionism or the survival of the fittest, meaning the strongest, with the

Nietzschean corollary that Might is Right, etc.), – such philosophy cannot be sound or true but

must have something rotten in it. Yet, obviously, the test is not ultimate, for it assumes that we

know (otherwise and independently) what kind of conduct is right, and what kind is criminal:

which implies knowledge of the real nature, destiny and end of man.

“Hence, secondly, it yields only a presumption, or a practical confirmation, of the truth or

falsity of doctrines. The moral issues of a system, therefore, should arouse inquiry, stimulate

reflection, and urge us to verify by speculative investigation the conclusion they suggest to us

regarding the truth or falsity of the system.

“Thirdly, when the moral issues of a philosophy are perverse, noxious, disastrous,

scholastics use thus ‘argumentum ex consectariis,’ – this discerning of systems by their fruits:

‘ex fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos,’ – as a negative, indirect and confirmatory argument in

refutation of such systems. It is an argument which can have much force and can make a strong

and effective appeal to right-minded people. But for grounding human certitude it can never be

ultimate.

“Pragmatism, however, goes much farther than all this, for (a) it identifies the truth of a

judgment or belief with its utility; (b) it denies that truth in the sense of conformity of the

judgment with reality is intellectually attainable; (c) it holds that the only and universal test of

the truth of a judgment, i.e. of its real conformity or harmony with the veritable needs of human

life and existence, is to be found by living it, by experiencing how it works, whether it succeeds

by being assimilated, incorporated in the progressive current of human existence, or fails by

being rejected and eliminated from among the beliefs that are found really helpful and

beneficent. Against all of which we assert that experienced utility is neither identical with truth,

44 C. BITTLE, op. cit., pp. 322-325. 45

Cf. P. COFFEY, The Science of Logic, Peter Smith, New York, 1938, pp. 296-297 (vol. 1) and p. 313 (vol. 2).

20

nor is it the only or the adequate test of truth, nor is the Pragmatist application of it any more

than a misleading evasion of the real problem as to the ultimate ground and motive of human

certitude.

“What do Pragmatists mean by the utility of a belief, its suitability, its working-value, its

success, the character of its practical issues, its harmony with the process and purpose of human

existence? We are told that a belief or judgment is true if it verifies or realizes what those and

other similar expressions imply. But what do they imply? They are all relative to an end. They

are all unintelligible unless in reference to an end, – and to a known end, to something certainly

known to be an end, a good, a perfection, a something really worthy of attainment. A belief is

true if it proves useful, suitable, workable, successful. But useful, etc., for what? For helping,

developing, enlarging, perfecting human life and existence generally? But what is the end or

object or aim of human existence? Until I know this how am I to know whether the ‘actual

working’ of a belief is good or bad, successful or unsuccessful? How am I to judge of a means

unless and until I know the nature of the end to which it is a means? And how can I discover the

supreme, essential end or perfection of human nature, and the veritable goal of human existence,

unless by the use of my intellect or reason on the data of experience. But there we are back into

the ‘intellectualism,’ and ‘metaphysics’ which it was the raison d’être of Pragmatism to

demolish.

“…The pragmatist criterion of the experienced success of a belief in helping, developing,

forwarding, enlarging, perfecting human existence, will not itself ‘work,’ and cannot itself even

begin to be applied, until we know whether human life has a purpose, whether there is a good

towards which it moves, and what this good is: for only then can we judge what movements,

what conduct, what beliefs, tend to develop and perfect life, and what ones tend in the opposite

direction. But hiw can we know these things? Only by intellect, if at all. They are some of the

problems of metaphysics; and their solution is a ‘piece of amusement’ in which pragmatists

might profitably indulge.

“Again: if it is only by the actual ‘living’ of a belief that men generally can discover its

‘truth’ by assimilating it with their ‘vital experience,’ or its ‘falsity’ by rejecting or eliminating it

from their ‘vital experience’; if its truth or falsity consists in the relation it gets to ‘vital

experience’ through this alternative process, and is always relative to the actual stage of human

progress at which this sifting process is going on; and if also the whole general human

movement, – or the whole cosmic movement, with which all human vital experience, intellectual

or intuitional, is one and continuous, – be the whole of (the ever-evolving) reality, and be an end

in itself, – does it not follow that all beliefs, while entertained by any one and in any degree

operative, are eo ipso true? And moreover, do not these questions inevitably arise: Are not all

beliefs and all conduct equally right or equally wrong? Is it not that whatever is, is right? or

rather that right and wrong become unintelligible? Is man really responsible and free? or is the

process of perpetual change, or ‘fieri,’ in which reality is supposed to consist, subject to a rigid

and blind determinism? Once more, these are all questions for which we must find an answer

before the test proposed by pragmatists can be intelligently reduced to practice. They are

questions which the Pragmatist test cannot decide, and which must be decided, if at all, by

intellect interpreting the data of experience.

21

“Finally, if we apply to beliefs the test of success, or harmonizing or not harmonizing

with the progressive development of our human activity, it must be remembered that no small

department of that activity is intellectual; and, what is more, that intellect exercises – and that as

rational beings we should not try to prevent it, and cannot succeed even if we try to prevent it,

from exercizing – a supreme suzerainty over all other domains of mental life and action. If a

belief cannot be ‘assimilated’ or ‘lived’ because it is intellectually incompatible with some

already accepted belief, is this failure a practical issue which determines the falsity of the former

belief? If so, – and the pragmatist cannot consistently deny it, – the whole intellectual domain

becomes practical, and the intellectual failure of any belief becomes the index of its falsity. But

the intellectual failure of a belief to impose itself arises from its apprehended incompatibility

with other judgments known to be true, or from its opposition to the objective evidence of the

data of experience, or from its want of adequate objective grounds for intellectual assent. The

Pragmatist test, therefore, as applied to the domain of intellectual needs and functions and

interests, becomes the test demanded by intellectualism, viz. objective evidence. Now there is an

exceedingly wide department of human judgements, belief in which can have no other human

interest to test them than this purely intellectual kind of success or failure: all purely speculative

judgments the knowledge of which can have no other cause than man’s intellectual desire for

knowledge, and no other practical effect or interest (by which to test ‘how they work’) than the

satisfaction of this natural cupiditas sciendi. And if, further, intellect will nolens volens assert its

supremacy over all our beliefs, and its right to judge all their sources and motives, then the

intellectual test of objective evidence must remain supreme and ultimate.”46

Joseph T. Barron’s Critique of Pragmatism: “Pragmatism’s Faulty Theory of

Consciousness. This school regards experience as a continuous stream out of which the mind

selects certain aspects because of their usefulness or aptitude for service. Thought is

fundamentally selective. The mind is not necessitated by the presentation of experience to select

this or that particular aspect. It is essentially free in the exercise of its preferences. But does

introspection bear out this contention? When we examine the way in which our knowledge is

formed, is it not apparent that our environment often forces knowledge upon us, in the sense that

we feel ourselves under compulsion as to what we cognize? Is it not equally apparent that very

frequently we are compelled to become aware of realities which are antagonistic to our needs,

and which thwart our desires? If our knowledge is to be true must we not adjust our judgments

about reality to the reality which we are judging? If the verdict of introspection is worthy of

credence the basic note in the pragmatic doctrine of knowledge is not founded on fact.

“Knowledge is Not Wholly Practical. Granting that knowledge is the result of the

interaction of a mind with its environment, the deduction that knowledge never transcends the

sphere of the practical is illicit – it is an undue restriction of the scope of cognitive interest.

Knowledge, considered either phylogenetically or ontogenetically, may have emerged as a

practical interest, but that is no warrant for the assertion that it must remain practical.

Pragmatism stresses unduly the instrumental aspect of thinking. The falsity of its position is due

to the fallacious assumption that a being can only function within the limits of the causes which

brought it into being. Once a being has been realized it can develop new needs which go beyond

the causes which produced it. Thought may have been practical at its inception but introspection

tells us that it goes beyond its practical beginnings. When man begins to think he becomes a

46

P. COFFEY, op. cit., pp. 360-365.

22

thinking being, and he is thereby released from the necessity of confining his thinking to facts of

practical interest. ‘Human beings no longer have merely the need to live, they have also the need

to know. Man began to think in order that he might eat; he has evolved to the point where he eats

in order that he may think.’47

“Knowledge is scientific or contemplative as well as practical because the world is

intelligible as well as plastic. We all feel within us the urge to know for the mere sake of

knowing. Curiosity, a species of ‘divine discontent,’ impels us to acquire knowledge, much of

which is utterly impractical. Thinking is a means to an end, but it can become an end in itself.

The enjoyment which comes from knowledge is one of the values which enrich life for us, and

hence contemplative thinking is not necessarily otiose. ‘Disinterested contemplation and

enjoyment of the beauty, grandeur, meaning, and order of things for their own sake are for some

human beings inherently worthful functions of consciousness.’48

“This summary discussion of the pragmatic doctrine on the nature of knowledge cannot

be dismissed without mention of the deprecatory attitude of this school toward metaphysical

reasoning, and toward speculative philosophy in general. Pragmatists inveigh against abstract

speculation alleging that it is futile and barren. They maintain that philosophy should be put to

work. It should descend from the clouds and become pedestrian. It should busy itself in the

answering of those urgent social problems that are clamoring for solution. This is an attitude of

mind that is found not only among those of a pragmatic bent – it is found also among scientists.

Despite its widespread acceptance this view cannot be sustained.

“The chief reason forbidding its acceptance is that it is too exclusive. Philosophy should

be practical – but should it be confined to that realm alone? A more comprehensive and a truer

view of the function of philosophy includes its speculative as well as its practical function. It is

worthy of note that in establishing his view of the instrumental character of our thinking Dewey

has created a speculative philosophy. He proves that thought should not be speculative by a

speculation. The practical value of his speculation ‘seems at best only the negative one of

clearing away supposed mental obstacles to change and reconstruction, and since its own

metaphysical peculiarities are far more obscure and doubt-provoking than the practical attitude

for which they are intended to supply a foundation, they are liable to weaken, rather than

increase the possible influence for good which philosophy may exert.’49

“It may be asserted that those who deny the validity of metaphysical and speculative

thinking do so at the risk of self-contradiction, for their very assertion that metaphysical thinking

is nugatory is itself metaphysical.”50

47 W. P. MONTAGUE, The Ways of Knowing, Macmillan, New York, 1925, p. 158. 48

J. A. LEIGHTON, The Field of Philosophy, Appleton Co., New York, 1922, p. 360. 49 A. K. ROGERS, English and American Philosophy since 1800, Macmillan, New York, 1922, p. 393. 50

J. T. BARRON, Elements of Epistemology, Macmillan, New York, 1936, 48-50.