“True,” to put it very briefly, is just an expedient in our way of thinking, just as “right” is just an expedient in the way we behave. . Practical in almost every way; and timely in the long term and overall of course; for that which responds opportunely to all experiences in view will not necessarily meet all subsequent experiences equally satisfactorily. Experience, as we know, has ways of overflowing and leading us to correct our current formulas. " - William James, Pragmatism. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned." ?Get the original essayMany philosophers consider William James to be the wisest and most impressive American philosophers. He is known as the second of the three great pragmatists after Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey. His theory of the self and its perspective led him to turn to philosophy. From this time he developed his pragmatic epistemology, which focuses on the meaning of ideas and the truth of beliefs not theoretically, but in terms of the practical dissimilarity they can create in people's lives. pragmatics of truth explains that knowing that our truths must “fit” with such realities pragmatically means that they must lead us to useful consequences. The meaning of pragmatism is that we cannot identify something called “ultimate truth”. , and furthermore that this idea is both meaningless and misleading. The purpose of “knowledge” is to help us get by in the world. There are five main "theories of truth": the correspondence theory, the coherence theory, and the pragmatic, redundant, and semantic theories. They all treat truth and falsehood as properties of what people say or think. At the same time, they are confusing and difficult to follow because they do not clearly answer the questions: “How should we specify the content of what we say or think?” Who are the bearers of truth? Pragmatic theory, of which one of the main exponents is William James, holds that the truth of a belief is a question of whether it "works", that is, whether acting on it pays off, just as the experiences we live are a question of consistency with the future. experiences. Above is one of many similar theories of William James and his concept of truth. This essay discusses the concept of truth and justification from the perspective of a pragmatist and the elements of truth and justification that contribute to constructing an individual's belief or ideas based on "Pragmatism" by William James edited by Bruce Kuklick. In Pragmatism, James establishes the legitimacy of a pragmatist conception of truth already expressed by Schiller and Dewey. James also shows the error in the rationalist conception of truth. James gave many definitions of truth, although interrelated. Belief is the statement or conviction regarding the truth of a proposition, especially when one does not have sufficient evidence to support the claim that the proposition is known with certainty. The belief that a proposition is true when acted upon yields satisfactory practical results. According to him, “the truth in our ideas means their power to act” (30). Truth and belief are like hand and pocket. An idea is true as long as we believe it is worthwhile or beneficial to our lives. Moreover, “truth is a kind of good, and not,as is usually supposed, a category distinct from the good and coordinated with it. Truth is the name of everything that proves good in the way of belief and good, too, for precise and attributable reasons” (37). He means here that, for specific and flexible reasons, the term truth is used for any proposition that turns out to be good from the point of view of a belief. The greatest enemy of our truths are our remaining beliefs that we hold to be true, as James quotes: "It is better for us to believe them to be true unless the belief accidentally conflicts with some other vital benefit." " (37) According to James, everyone agrees with the theory that "truth is agreement with reality." Differences and confusion arise when one gets into the details of this theory. Questions about what is meant by agreement and what is meant by reality are the main sources of these differences and confusion Reality, according to James, can be classified into questions of fact and questions of fact include. objects that can be seen or felt, but no further verification is required Matters of the mind include ideas and beliefs that a person has, thinks, or perceives virtually. 1 making 2 and 2 + 2 making 4 falls into this category of truth “where relations enter purely”. mental ideas form another sphere” (95) where beliefs are absolutely and unconditionally true. Such types of beliefs are called "definitions" or "principles" and are called "facts" in general. No further sensory verification is required for these truths and they are eternally obvious at first glance. But it further describes the circularity of the relationship between truth and facts. For example, he talks about Newtonian philosophy where acceleration varies with distance and, conversely, distance also varies with acceleration. According to him, truth emerges from facts, but the facts themselves become clearer and stronger by adding more truths to them. And these newly created facts again give rise to truths. This process is circular and goes on indefinitely, creating confusion. Using the above example and James' concept, the definition of fact (facts regarding the term "fact") can be modified to include experience as an actor. Although not always the case, factual statements are often true if they are verified by experience or if they are expected to be verified by experience. Thus, James connects facts and true beliefs to those that lead us to continue to believe them as the evidence continues to accumulate. Similarly, in the case of relationships between ideas, our theories are true if they continue to “mediate between all previous ideas.” truths and certain new experiences” (98) and these truths include other theories. Truths, rather than truth, are central to pragmatic theory. “Absolute Truth,” defined as “that which no subsequent experience will ever modify” (100), is an ideal point never reached. As an ideal point never reached, truth is not what makes particular truths true. Some beliefs become true in practice and continue to be true as they are maintained through practice. An idea being true is then like an individual being healthy. It allows for new successes and must be maintained to continue to be the case. Since experience is a process in which no point of view can be the last, pragmatism asks: "Grant an idea or belief truth...what difference does it make?concrete its truthfulness will it make in the real life of each one? what is the value of truth in experiential terms? » (92) An experience, perceptual or conceptual, must obey the rules of reality to be true. From a pragmatist's point of view, truth must be in accordance with every aspect of life and combine experiences and demands without any exceptions. The agreement of ideas and beliefs with reality, even if reality is concrete or abstract, can be considered truth and vice versa, because truth always happens to an idea. We can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify ideas that are true but not ideas that are false and contrary to reality. We can say “it’s useful because it’s true” or “it’s true because it’s useful”. (93) According to James, these two expressions mean the same thing, that is to say an idea which is realized and can be verified. His theory asks us the question of whether the usefulness of an idea is defined by its truth, or whether the truth of an idea is defined by its usefulness. Both are correct, according to James' theory. Truth is considered equivalent to utility. Truth is a form of verification process; if an idea or belief can be verified based on experience, then it is true. If beliefs are loosely tied to reality and experiences, then that particular belief will always lead to falsehood. Another aspect of truth is that it is constructed verbally, stored and spread among everyone through the process of social communication. Our ideas are exchanged between other people every day. Humans lend and borrow checks. Real ideas make us speak and think coherently by stabilizing the flow of human relationships. They keep us busy by keeping away boredom and loneliness. By expressing true ideas, we avoid the frustration of sterile and fruitless thinking. In addition to being a collective noun for verification processes, truth has also been compared to human health, wealth, and strength. It is connected to life, just like these other processes. As James quotes: “Truth is created, like health, wealth, and strength, through experience. » (98) As mentioned earlier, James also gives the conception of truth from a rationalist's point of view and shows the fallacy of their argument. Rationalism resides in the validity of propositions. “Truth is a system of propositions which have an unconditional right to be recognized as valid.” (102). Judgments made by humans due to their vital duty are considered truth by rationalists. First, according to James, the word “proposition” seemed too explicit. It has encouraged confusion between truth as a property of opinions and truth as a property of the facts that opinions assert. He believed that trying to understand our thoughts, beliefs, or ideas in terms of propositions only leads to confusion. As he put it, the propositions were “bastard beasts that have no real place between realities on the one hand and beliefs on the other.” Secondly, according to a rationalist truth, it is a property of ideas which is obtained because of their link with reality. But rationalism does not dispel doubts about what this link with reality is. It cannot be a simple copy, because many elements of reality do not have an image copy. A rationalist opposes a pragmatist's argument that truth is created and believes that truths are discovered. Then truth must prevail regardless of human notion and should exist whether it is discoverable or not. James presents an error in rationalist theory. The rationalist takes certain characteristics of truths, such as their :.