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Prag 6
the truth of things: it is only a method of finding out the meanings of hard words and hard concepts, (for concepts are mental signs;) and this method is in essence the method of experiment of the physical sciences. Any instructed pragmatist of whatsoever stripe will testify to that. Beyond this, however, there is a slight divergence such as is to be found in every healthy and vigorous school of philosophy. The most prominent of all pragmatist, and the most respected is William James; and he defines prgamatism as the doctrine that the whole 'meaning' of a concept expresses itself either in the shape of conduct to be recommended or of experience to be expected, My own pragmatism differs from his but slightly in theory and less in practice. I understand it to be a method of ascertaining the meanings, not of all sorts of
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Prag 7 terms, but only of "intellectual concepts," that is, those upon which reasoning may turn. Had that light that excites in us the sensation of [bliss?] always excited the sensation of red, and vice versa, I dare say our feelings might have been quite difference; for fancy a sunset sky all day. But it would have made no difference whatever in the force of any argument. It is otherwise with the qualities of hard and soft. This letter pair I accordingly term intellectual concepts, the other a pair of feelings as being veritably what it seems: at any rate, it does not deny this. But a concept it holds to be a mental sign, and as such to be a medium where by the oject that it respresents and into some sort of correspondence with which it professes to be moulded can come to determine that meaning that the sign
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Prag 8 itself is intended to awaken or deter mine. Thus the meaning of the command 'ground arms' is that act of slamming down the [mullets] and the meaning of a piece of music is the play of feeling it produces. The object however is two fold the object as represented in the sign and the object as it really is. And the meaning or interpretant as I usually call it is three fold the meaning as expressed in the sign normal outcome of reason the logical conclusion. An effect upon conduct is of course a habit and a habit is general as the meaning of an intellectual concept must be. An experience on the other hand is a single event as in an expectation of it and no sum of single objects can make up a general. An experience or the generalization of experiences seems to me
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to be rather the object determing a concept than the meaning determined by it. But it is hardly worth while to notice such minutial in so slight an essay as this presents. Of all literary forms the one that s from my point of view seems most appropriate is a pragmatistic interpretation is that of the maxim and accordingly it was as a maxim that I originally defined the method of pragmatism as follows: consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings especially in modifying your habits- you conceive the objects of your conception to have. Then your comprehensive conception of these effects is the whole of your conception of the object. In order to make the rule plainer and more explicit the words between the dashes and the objective 'comprehensive' have been inserted. The
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intention of the maxim remains just what it originally was. Although prgamatism is thus nothing more that a rule for ascertaining the meaning of words and it is indispensible if we are to keep our logic straight that we should not confuse the ascertainment of the meaning of a proposition with the ascertainment of its worth yet it is quite remarkable how many of the hardknots of metaphysics fall apart at a light touch when once they have received their pragmatistic interpretations. I cannot undertake to illustrate this point here [?]. I will now give an example of the applicaton of the maxim to it own proper business. As the time of the first enunciation of the maxim a dispute had rage for a full generation