in TRUTH 45 



Truth or in satirical derision of pretensions to have 

 actually attained it. Both these procedures are assured 

 beforehand of popular applause, but both render the 

 question What is Truth ? one thoroughly rhetorical, 

 and so perhaps the one is the proper answer to the other, 

 and jesting Pilate has a right to smile at the enthusiast. 

 Nor have the philosophers done much to improve the 

 situation. Ever since one of Plato s noblest lies 

 proclaimed the doctrine that philosophers are lovers of 

 truth, they have been quite willing to believe this, and 

 have often found a people willing to be deceived politely 

 willing to admit it. But perhaps because their passion, 

 even when most genuine, was too distantly platonic, 

 this philosophic love of truth has hardly influenced 

 perceptibly the course of things, and it might remain in 

 doubt whether the Pragmatist philosopher also would 

 care and dare to obtain some more substantial token of 

 Truth s favours, were it not that the cheapest condemna 

 tion of his new attempt is to accuse him of a malicious 

 joy in the destruction of Truth s very notion. It becomes 

 incumbent on him therefore to defend himself against 

 such slanders, and to make clear how exactly he proposes 

 to approach, and in what sense to derive, the notion 

 of Truth. 



I intend, therefore, in this essay to examine I. the 

 chief current definitions of Truth, which lay claim to 

 logical validity, and to show that they are neither tenable, 

 nor even intelligible, without reference to its psychological 

 character ; II. to describe that psychological character ; 

 and III. to explain how Pragmatism extends and alters 

 the traditional conceptions on the subject. 



Under the head of unpsychological, logical, or meta 

 physical definitions may be instanced (i) the well-known 

 dictum that truth consists in an agreement or corre 

 spondence of thought with its object, viz. reality. This 

 however speedily leads to a hopeless impasse, once the 



