distinguish the cases of true knowledge from the cases of false knowledge. In short, it is both psychological and logical; and for the reason that both psychological and logical factors enter into that particular complex which we call knowing. Regarding the whole of the concrete process of knowing, pragmatism finds that its form is practical. In its native habitat, where the pragmatist seeks it out and observes it, knowing is a phase of life, of action in an environment. This holds equally of the kind of knowledge that is ordinarily called 'practical,' and the kind that is ordinarily called 'theoretical.' Whether it be the execution of a policy, the calculation of the price of a commodity, the investigation of the properties of non-Euclidean space, or the demonstration of the attributes of God, knowing is always an enterprise, projected on a particular occasion, tried with particular means, attended with hope or fear, and concluded with success or failure. This is the subjectmatter with which the pragmatist theory of knowledge primarily deals. And there are two problems which the pragmatist makes both prominent and fundamental: first, what is the rôle of ideas in knowledge? second, what is the difference between a true idea and a false idea? The Rôle of §3. To understand the pragmatist theory of the rôle of ideas in knowledge, it is necessary to insist on the interpretation of knowledge which has just been given. The theory applies only in the cases where the full panoply of knowledge is present. And in particular there must be a having of ideas about something, where the ideas and the thing are in some sense different. In other words, we have here to do exclusively with reflective knowledge, what James calls "knowledge about" as distinguished from "knowledge of acquaintance." Professor Dewey would not regard the latter as knowledge at all, but would insist upon "an element of mediation, that is, of art, in all knowledge." While it will be necessary 1 John Dewey: Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, and other Essays, p. 80. 1 presently to inquire into these implied reservations, we shall do well for the present to exclude them. Just what, then, is meant by an ‘idea,' in the sense in what we are said to have ideas about things? The pragmatist answers, first, that an idea is whatever exercises the function of 'meaning.' In other words, there is no peculiar quality attaching to an idea as such — but only an office. Anything may be an idea, provided you mean with it; just as anything may be a weapon, provided you do injury with it. The commonest instance of an idea is probably a verbal image, and there is no visible or audible form that may not serve as a word. An idea is, in short, what an idea does. But what is this function of 'meaning,' which defines an idea? The pragmatist answers that meaning is essentially prospective, that it is a plan of action terminating in the thing meant. More specifically, an idea means a thing when it projects a series of acts that would, if carried out, bring that thing into the same immediacy which the idea itself already enjoys. Thus when I utter the word "cold," this verbal sound is so connected with a temperature quality that were I to follow up the connection, I would sense coldness. I may be said to have such a plan or incipient train of action without actually executing it — just as a traveller may be said to have a destination even though circumstances should prevent his arriving at it. An idea is like a railway ticket which will take you to a distant place, though you should never make the journey, or like a bank-note which has a cash-value though you should never redeem it. And like bank-notes, ideas are negotiable; they may be themselves used in place of currency for purposes of reasoning or communication. The virtue of ideas thus lies primarily in their being practical substitutes for immediacy. 1 James: Meaning of Truth, pp. 30-31. • Indeed the idea need not perhaps be an image at all. But in order fully to grasp the pragmatist theory of the function of ideas we must inquire concerning their place in life at large. We have found that an idea is an instrument of meaning, that its function is to mean something other than itself. But what is the use of meaning, what is the function of the ideational process itself? The answer is apparent when it is observed that immediacy is not sufficient for purposes of action. For one thing, only a part of the presented field of experience is pertinent to a particular action. It is necessary to construe each situation; that is, to select from its wealth of detail that aspect which relates to the matter in hand. Ideas are in this sense 'modes of conceiving' the given, a 'taking it to be' this or that. Discursive thought interrupts 'the continuity of habit' when a doubtful or ambiguous situation presents itself, which the organism has no ready-made way of meeting. In other words, when one doesn't know what to do about it, one thinks about it. Such an occasion constitutes one of those "particular crises in the growth of experience" to which, according to . Dewey, thought is always relative. On such an occasion the idea is the "instrument of reconstruction," which delivers the agent from his predicament. The situation. being reconstrued, life runs smoothly again on the new basis.1 Thus to ideate experience, to think it, is to represent it in some special and suitable light. Again, the ideational process makes it possible to act on the remote environment, on things that lie beyond the range of the individual's sensibilities. Ideal substitutes for these things, ideas that mean them, may serve as well; so that man may be said to live actively not only in the world he perceives, but in the limitlessly extended world he knows about. And finally, by means of ideas it is possible to unite range with compactness. Thus the formulas of science put man in touch with the immense expanse 1 Dewey: Studies in Logic, p. 20; A. W. Moore: Existence, Meaning, and Reality (Chicago Decennial Publications), p. 16. of nature, without overwhelming and bewildering him, because they represent it through its constant features. Their bulk is as small as their meaning is great. This, then, is the pragmatist theory of the instrumental function of ideas. The theory puts a double emphasis on the pragmatic character of thought. An idea is defined pragmatically, as a virtual access to an immediate experience of that which it means. And the whole process of ideation is again defined pragmatically, as the means of acting on the environment. 4. When we turn to the pragmatist theory of truth, which in English-speaking countries is regarded as pragmaThe Meaning tism's most notable contribution to philosophy, of Truth we find it again necessary to set the problem with some care. I have placed this theory second in order of exposition because it is properly to be regarded as the sequel to the instrumental theory of ideas. In the first place, the pragmatist is talking about the kind of truth that is humanly attainable, lying within the individual thought process itself. He not improperly insists that if truth is to be conceived in hypothetical or ideal terms, then this conception itself must be true for the thinker who constructs or defines it. Thus if one asserted that truth attaches only to the thinking of an absolute knower or to an absolute system of thought, then this assertion itself would be in some sense true for the finite philosopher who maintained it. And it is this latter sense of the term with which pragmatism has to do- not the truth of God's knowledge, but the truth of my knowledge of God.1 In the second place, truth for the pragmatist is invariably an adjective of ideas; and by ideas he means not Platonic essences, but the modes of an individual's thinking. When are ideas, in this sense, true? What is the nature of knowing truly? Like all forms of practice, thinking, believing, or the forming of ideas is essentially fallible. There 1 Cf. below, pp. 242–243. is a right way and a wrong way. What on any given occasion distinguishes the right way of thinking from the wrong way? When is an idea 'a good idea,' and when is it a 'bad' one? It is evident that you have not solved the problem of truth in the pragmatist sense until you have also solved the problem of error. For pragmatism, in short, truth does not mean the same thing as reality or existence, but is a property, exclusively, of that instance of existence which we call 'idea' or 'belief,' in its relation to that second instance of reality or existence which we call 'object' of the first. Truth is a property of ideas as these arise amid the actual processes of human thinking; it is something which happens to ideas in the course of their natural history. And since ideas have a function, which they may or may not fulfil, truth is one of two opposite fortunes which may befall ideas, the other being error. We are now in a position to frame the pragmatist definition of a true idea. An idea is true when it works; that is, when it is successful, when it fulfils its function, or performs what is demanded of it. An idea is essentially for something; and when it does what it is for, it is the 'right' or the 'true' idea. Lest this should seem more obvious than important, it should be contrasted with the view that has been commonly held both by philosophers and common sense. According to that view the truth of ideas lay in their resemblance to their objects. Ideas were regarded as copies, pictures, replicas, true in proportion to their likeness. Pragmatism, on the contrary, insists that a true idea need not resemble its object at all, precisely as a word need not resemble what it denotes; if there is resemblance, it is accidental and negligible so far as truth is concerned. The truth of an idea lies not in the present relation of similarity, nor in any present relation whatsoever, but in the practical sequel. If, in relation to the motive which prompted me to form it, my idea succeeds, the inciting interest being satisfied, my idea is true. Ideas are essentially instruments, and not |