Pragmatism

Introduction

The book contains eight lectures James gave at the Lowell Institute in Boston in late 1906 and at Columbia University in early 1907; it is dedicated to the memory of John Stuart Mill. James presents pragmatism first as a method for settling metaphysical disputes by asking what practical difference each answer makes, and then as a theory of truth: true ideas are those we can assimilate, validate and verify. He sorts philosophers by temperament into the “tender-minded” and the “tough-minded”. Russell and Moore objected that James confused truth with usefulness. Peirce had already renamed his own view “pragmaticism” in 1905 to keep it apart from such popular versions.

Connections

Builds on

• How to Make Our Ideas Clear1878 · Charles Sanders Peirce

More works by William James

• 1890The Principles of Psychology
• 1902The Varieties of Religious Experience