文档介绍：WILLIAM JAMES'S CONCEPTION OF
TRUTH1
BERTRAND RUSSELL
'The hlstory of philosophy', as William James observes, 'is to a great extent
that of rtaln clash of human temperaments.' In dealing with a tem-
perament of such charm as his, it is not pleasant to think of a 'clash'; one
does not willingly differ, or meet so much urbanity by churlish criticisms.
Fortunately, a very large part of his book is concerned with the advocacy
of positions which pragmatism shares with other forms of empiricism; with
all this part of his book, I, as an empiricist, find myself, broadly speaking,
in agreement. I might instance the lecture devoted to a problem which he
considers 'the most central of all philosophic problenls', namely, that of the
One and the Many. In this lecture he declares himself on the whole a plu-
ralist, after a discussion of the kinds and degrees of unity to be found in
the world to which any empiricist may wholly the book,
the distinctive s of pragmatism only makc their appearance.. now and
again, after the ground has been carefully prepared. James speaks some-
where of Dr Schiller's 'butt-end foremost statenlent of the humanist posi-
tion'. His own statement is the very reverse of 'butt-end foremost'; it is
insinuating, gradual, imperceptible.
A good illustration of his insinuating method is afforded by his lecture
mon sense. The categories mon sense, as he points out, and
s we may all agree, embody discoveries of our remote ancestors; but these
iscoveries cannot be regarded as final, because science, and still more phi-
sophy, mon-sense notions inadequate in many ways. Common
ense, science, and philosophy, we are told, are all tly true in
Bertrand Russell, 'Willia~n James's Conception of Truth', in Philosophical Essays
n: e Allen S: Uliwin. 1996), 112-30. Reprinted with permission of Routledge and
trnnd Russell Foundation.
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