| Abstract: |
Among the pragmatic philosophers, James is the only one to develop a theory of truth in the empirical tradition, projecting it, however, far beyond the limits of positivism. His theory of meaning as the capacity of an idea's producing clearly perceptible effects does not easily fit into the setting given by the bounds of natural sciences, a definitely limited area beyond which empirical logic does not admit any meaning at all. James bases his conception of truth in its concrete historica1 and changing form on a model which is situated halfway between the theory of truth as conformity with- and as transformation of reality. Truth is the fruit of the collaboration between malleable reality, not given as an absolute entity, and man. However, facing transcendentalist prejudices, it is necessary to see experience not as a conglomerate of separate, isolated items, but as specific relations between items, these relations being just as real as the items themselves. Pragmatism values cognition as a function of the living subject situated in his natural historical and social environment and whose mission it is to create effective habits of conduct. |
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