William James's Pragmatic Theory of Truth

Pragmatist William James is a favorite philosopher of mine. Here, I offer a potentially helpful way to think about James's pragmatic theory of truth and what I believe he is "up to" with it. "“You can say of it either ‘it is useful because it is true’ or ‘it is true because it is useful.’ Both these phrases mean exactly the same thing…”

[@roym9029]

Extremely helpful, thank you. I've read James and read about him, but your examples really clear up his view of truth.

[@calvitocalvon1711]

You are a great teacher, thanks a lot!

[@epistemicmind4175]

Beautifully explained. Thanks.

[@WayJilliamRohnson]

Interessting video. After dealing with James' pragmatic views on truth by now that's quite the understanding I've gained from it.

[@edasuguvenc3802]

Thank you so much, you just take something that is really hard to understand and make it really simple.

[@breadman7733]

Hey, this is awesome. Thank you!

[@brycemannn4847]

Agreed u are good at making ideas clear thnx

[@cowfishblobfish]

Don't mind me I'm just making notes for my assignment lol. Freedom of belief. It's not true until it's useful. It's the effect that makes it useful.

[@cowfishblobfish]

Truth is used to describe things. Everything is true until it's proven that one side is correct, in regards to practical effect.

[@cowfishblobfish]

A pragmatic teacher's approach to education is better than traditional method because it's more practical to learn through experience.

[@DrChrisCoppernoll]

A gift for teaching.

[@teachTechSweden]

great work. Thanks!

[@musick4288]

This is so helpful even in 2021. Thanks. Subscribed to you.

[@silvanavanssilva7650]

thanks teacher , Great video I study philosophy and everything is in Arabic language so this video help me to improve myself more and get more knowledge

[@Alex-xm5nh]

Excellent explanation brother!

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

Truth is a good tool. No tool can do all jobs.

[@brendenbaughman662]

Very well explained. But I want to argue that we are absolutely capable of experiencing ourselves as part of the world, and these kinds of experiences have been well articulated by all of the world's contemplative traditions. It is possible to have direct insight or experience of the nondual nature of reality and to personally identify with the world around you. Many thousands of people have described these kinds of experiences, and I've had a good handful personally.

[@sangwaraumo]

It is impossible to demonstrate one can have direct insight or experience of nature. And it is very unlikely. We know how our senses work. We know thoughts require and are limited by the meat inside our skulls. Tradition is irrelevant when it comes to showing something to be true. Claims need to be shown to be true, no matter their age.

[@robindecker3946]

How would Jame's pragmatic theory apply to "subjective truth" (cf. Authenticity, Kierkegaard etc.) ?

[@jeffreyc.mcandrew8911]

Thanks for clarifying why James was a psychologist first. I like that he doesn't deny an objective worth around us. No human being is capable of a 100-percent objective experience. Perception versus reality, very interesting stuff. Useful isn't always true though. The tree truly falls in the forest, but does it exist if James did not see it?

[@kevincurrie-knight3267]

Thanks, Jeffrey. The fact that James is first of all a psychologist is, to me, the key to really getting his theory of truth. Instead of starting with the world and asking how individuals can know the truth of it, he starts with individual experience and asks what individuals must mean when they single out some beliefs of theirs as true ones (and also asks why we humans need or crave the holding of 'true beliefs'). "Useful isn't always true though. " I think that's right, and this is one of the criticisms of the pragmatic theory. I think the Jamesian would simply ask us how saying a belief is useful feels different from saying a belief is true. When we say a belief is useful, we mean that we can rely on it. When we say it is true, we say we can rely on it because it seems to approximate the world. So, when we say an idea is true, we likely mean that our (and others') experience of the world is such that the reason this idea is 'true' is that it aligns with these experiences of the world.

[@michaelribadulla7458]

'it is useful because it is true' or 'it is true because it is useful' = every argumentative essay ever.

[@priyanshu7821]

Great

[@jameszelaznysr.2681]

Another way to define truth is one who has all the answers but if they are questionable then it's only someone's opinion.

[@atakanaydin3787]

to make corrections for misleading you the Psycho social realm of madness is simply a sociological project to govern the psychonature of man to be equal but not connected unless time has suggested through the partner they choose as well. a multi-functional trap is easy for anyone to fall into, especially considering i haven't slept well. i do hope i can improve 'william james' theory by also showing the limitless theoretical potential this truth of oneness has through basic physics right through to the most elusive transfusion of energy into recyclable generators.

[@craigpointon8394]

Lmao

[@somebodyontheinternet1090]

This video was super helpful thanks slots. I'm off to see if you have one one vasconcelos

[@johnrodgers2018]

The best description af James Pragmatism I have found. Thinking of James Truth as a road map to a certain destination.

[@simonhaokip6481]

beautifully explained. Thanks.

[@johannamontoya9701]

You are awesome! Thank you!

[@cancerousordo6314]

An acceptance of truth in some meaning can be accepted for pragmatic grounds. Although I don't think the idea of saying something like its true just because of utility ultimately makes sense. Rather a meaning of true can be accepted in one way. You just wouldn't want to muddy the waters by saying truth is one big thing and they all fit in that term

[@kevincurrie-knight3267]

I'd want to hear more about why you think it doesn't make sense. Surely, the idea may not be palatable -we want to think of truth as the thing that exists out there that we can get closer and closer to. The problem - at least as James saw it and I see it - is that we can't possibly know whether we are closer and closer to truth. We can know only that our statements and propositions work better and better. That is, the only way we can say that our statement is true is by testing whether it works in consequence compared to other alternatives.

[@cancerousordo6314]

@@kevincurrie-knight3267 I more or less agree with what you are saying. But that doesn't mean that there isn't some platonist truth out there. Just that we will probably never understand it. Im so agnostic about the truth that I end up being a pragmatist like James or Rorty but I also still find value in the systems of "truth" that we use. I am just worried that if we call one thing truth, you can't act as if the other ones are somehow invalid. I think it leads to something like Russell's paradox if you become a classical realist. My biggest gripe with the folk theory of a pragmatist is mathematics but in reality I don't think I would disagree with someone in the right context. It mostly would come down to a semantic issue. Which ends up making the argument totally not useful

[@kevincurrie-knight3267]

Ah, that agnosticism is a sensible position. I guess I am more an 'atheist' regarding Platonic Truth than you might be, but that is more because (pace something like error theory in morality), if there is such Platonic Truth, I am not sure where or how it could exist. And that coupled with the idea that even if it does, we can't really (seemingly) have cognitive access to it but through our very human (and pragmatic) systems of testing, leads me to an 'atheistic' conclusion. Or maybe the way Rorty might say it: if there is anything like Platonic Truth, we'd be best not to even talk about it because nothing could be said about it, for as soon as we SAY something about it, we are now firmly back in our human realm.

[@cancerousordo6314]

Kevin Currie-Knight I just like to temper my pragmatism from Rorty with a Putnam/Priest idea. Specifically Priests idea of logic in itself although I think it’s just a useful construct and that’s why I might really accept math as a potential platonic idea. I really wouldn’t say I could or would know ever so I really would be an atheist too in a sense just very weak

[@modvs1]

@6:40 "So when I give someone directions to my house,..." Isn't that Frank Ramsey's notion of 'truth and success'? Contributing the the success of some goal (directed activity) and being conducive to certain social interactions (i.e. having the right kind of perlocutionary effect (positive or negative)) are two very different kettles of fish. 'Truth' in the correspondence sense is utterly crucial in the former, in ways that it just isn't in the latter. That I cook the 'duck confit' right, is every bit dependent upon the 'truth' of the recipe. In order that I get along with my cousin, all I need to get right is the impression/pretence that I believe (for example) the bible is true (despite thinking it a horrible work of fiction). Note that the latter still presupposes a correspondence version. Does James make this distinction between extensional vs. social utility?

[@kevincurrie-knight3267]

+modvs1, Let me start with your latter statement: Saying the bible is true will help you get along with your cousin, and that is a good consequence... but it is not a consequence of believing the bible to be true, but of saying that you believe the bible to be true. So, the consequence is not directly (but indirectly) a product of "the bible is true." James doesn't explicitly make the distinction between direct consequence of a belief and indirect consequences of a belief, but I think he hints at it in Meaning of Truth several times. (Then again, in Pragmatism, he doesn't make the distinction, especially when he notes that believing the world is a good place will often create a "self-fulfilling prophecy" by improving your mood and vantage point on life. Of course, improved mood is an indirect consequence of believing the world is a good place, not a direct consequence of "the world is a good place." To your earlier point, about the directions getting you to my house being dependent on a correspondence theory... it isn't, as far as James defines the word 'truth.' You might say that the directions getting you there is a function of their reflecting the way the world is, but 'truth' is, to James, a descriptor of ideas about the world, not the world. So, we can't know if my directions reflect the way the world is until.... the idea works and only then do we call the idea true. To say the directions are (in theory) true before they prove to work would be, for James, putting the cart before the horse.

[@havenbastion]

There are two ways to know truth and empirical measurement, the basis of pragmatism, is only one of them. You can also know truth by logical necessity, which requires no external validation to create 100% justifiable actionability.

[@nuckingfuts3204]

Why does one need to justify a belief? What are the consequences if one doesn't?

[@havenbastion]

@@nuckingfuts3204 Truth is a prerequisite for all non-arbitrary goals. If you want something specific, you need specific facts.

[@nuckingfuts3204]

@@havenbastion You didn't answer my question though. But you also steelmanned pragmatic truth to an extent, if I want something specific I can reason my way towards what pragmatic ends will get me there, but this doesn't have to be only arbitrary either, because ultimately a community can also engage in it correct?

[@orangeballs4536]

Can anyone explain to me the pure ego? I dont get it.

[@KoDaJo13]

In the example you gave regarding the directions to a house, if idea is to get the person to a certain destination, but they take a wrong turn, where do we draw the line between the directions being true and untrue? If they take the wrong turn and end up at a gas station, the truth value of the directions themselves remain unchanged. The directions are true; starting here and going this way gets you there. Well, you took a wrong turn, but the directions still say "point a to point b" as an objective truth. Your actions did not change what the directions say

[@kevincurrie-knight3267]

Good question. I think the answer would have to be that if directions are x and people follow them but do not get to the correrct destination, the directions are untrue... because they are found not to work. James's point is not that there can be no such thing as a true answer to the question of whether the directions are true - or even that there is no uniquely true set of directions. His point is that when we decide which directions are true, we are doing so by appealing to how the directions work. And to the degree that people might disagree on whether the directions are true, that can only be because they disagree about whether the directions work (or different criteria for what we mean by 'work').

[@kevincurrie-knight3267]

" If they take the wrong turn and end up at a gas station, the truth value of the directions themselves remain unchanged." I wouldn't disagree so much as say that this is too simple (and I think James would agree). How? The very assigning of value to a set of directions is contingent on whether and how the directions work. It is too quick to say that directions have value in and of themselves regardless of whether, when followed, they work. Otherwise, it'd be like saying that even though everyone who tries these directions for butter cake end up with something that tastes awful, the directions in themselves are great.

[@mariaamoralcantara9016]

Dwight Schrute?

[@hammeringhank5271]

Would someone pleas explain to be the difference between rationalism and pragmatism? Either I'm too dumb to get it or James is just ripping of old philosophical concepts. It's probably the former. I'll admit it

[@kevincurrie-knight3267]

James intended his pragmatism to occupy a middle course between rationalism and empiricism. Empiricism says that we know form sense data. (The true is that which we can verify through the senses). Rationalism says that we know from the world of thought (the true is discovered by reason within the world of ideas). Pragmatism rejects both of these. In both cases, the idea is that there are tre things and we discover those truths. Pragmatism (at least James's) says that the best we can do is call beliefs that are reliable enough to work better than alternatives in practice true. We do not call them true becasue they are true-in-themselves and we discover that about them (which is what I understand of rationalism), but we call them true becasue they work. (Sort of how we don't discover that something has beauty so much as we call beautiful the things that cause pleasing effects in us.)

[@jameszelaznysr.2681]

Truth is when the answer is no longer questionable if any topic or subject is questionable then you do not have the truth. That means you only have another opinion.

[@jameszelaznysr.2681]

Truth has no questions.

[@jameszelaznysr.2681]

I can Define truth in another way it's when you have all the answers.

[@jerryasencio7649]

thanks so much .. from ecuador... could you speak slow down please?

[@havenbastion]

All truth is pragmatic but not all pragmatic ideas are true.

[@havenbastion]

The instructions to get to your house were true or false before you followed them. In fact they'd still have a truth value if you Never followed them. Ugh!

[@havenbastion]

If you keep finding something new in old works, you didn't understand it in the first place. Moreover, the dialectic is vastly more interesting and useful than revisiting a single thinker. You'll find that thinker's thoughts in many other places but with connecting threads to many other thoughts or disciplines. Truth is justified belief. It doesn't require any more thought or explanation than that. It literally cannot be less or more or other than that. "We are always the driver of the car." illustrates one of the three contingencies, which are salience, perspective, and priority. Perspective limits how much of the truth you have access to in certain situations but it's not always relevant (multiple perspectives can all have access to the same information, sufficient to the task. The outside world is our correlated sensory experience. It can't be denied because all experiences are self-proving. Whether our experience represents something that correlates with other people's experience is the question. Our experience is subjective but in no sense is it arbitrary. You just said his question of truth isn't about truth, wtf? Whether someone accepts truth really is about psychology, not truth at all. Truth is evidenced. Accepting truth is apparently evidenced, which are not the same thing. The former requires understanding the value of evidence while the latter only requires salience. It is a metaphysical truth that all "things" are patterns with a purpose and the resolution of the purpose determines the resolution of the pattern. Truth is useful because it allows for accurate prediction, not for any other reason. Useful things are useful because they accomplish desired results, not because they're true. If you want to mix layers and say it's true that they accomplish desired results, then you're misunderstanding the line of emergence and conflating literally different layers of understanding. They are related because no one would want truth if it wasn't useful, but they are not the same. Many categorically false things can be useful. We've all told useful lies, that doesn't suddenly imbue them with truth. You just switched examples to one that is not the same. If the original is any good, it doesn't need explanation by example, it's a single bloody sentence. Truth is about external verifiability and is not the same as an internal effect which can only be internally verified. "It is beautiful because it produces that effect in me." can be true because the definition of beautiful is an internally produced state. The definition of truth is Not whatever is useful, as proven in the paragraph above. Moreover, truth Cannot be conflated with useful - we have two different words for those concepts because they do entirely different work. That the word truth tells you the idea is claimed to be justified isn't meaningful. Is the idea actually justified? That's how you know if it's true, not just if it's claimed. The claimed effect isn't truth, it's a contention of truth. The truth comes from the evidence. Beauty is proven by default when someone tells you something is beautiful because you have no way to examine, justify, or refute their internal salience. I can't believe you just conflated "knowing it's true" with "calling it beautiful". Is that not an obvious error on its face? This is grade-school philosophy.

[@WayJilliamRohnson]

Did you read James?

[@havenbastion]

@@WayJilliamRohnson I have and i probably have, in order of certainty. I try to may attention to ideas and ignore people who have the ideas as it's usually a distraction. It doesn't matter what a particular individual said, it matters whether the idea is logically consistent. This is my library: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eUt2NC7rysjGV26I6NknsRXAEtSTVdgXAg6y_pfCpYg I get to what i can, when i can. As far as i've kept track, which only started about a year ago, i've read Some Problems With Philosophy, which i rated 3/5, and intend to read The Varieties of Religious Experience (i sorted the list by author so you can easily find him). But i've undoubtedly become familiar with his most popular ideas through numerous videos on various topics. I do a lot more video than reading lately. Also, older books are usually available in digital version, and i haven't yet undertaken to index my digital collection much at all. That said, it sounds like you may have a particular refutation in mind that you want to introduce by way of my level of ignorance? This comment thread began as train-of-thought as i watched the video so it would be helpful if you could point on which bit you're referring to. Thanks.

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

Your comment is worth reading----twice.

[@atakanaydin3787]

as someone who just simply professes in attentpting to live an honest lie, your 7:24 minutes of describing work done by an individual whose sole idea is to find an existence peaceful enough for the exploration of space to take place. if this means "effect" instead of "affect" fine, but i warn you, those who profess towards a desired truth when it was never their own truth to begin with to meddle with for tuition scandals, you will see an abomination of the idea of intellectualism. use your genuine intellect to promote an inter-dialogue of affect which is to bring together, so that only in the most trouvling of times may we have to resort to the hectadecagonal structural debates relating to the destruction/suicide of the planet and future generations to be manipulated. merry Christmas to you sir :)