156 A CATECHISM CONCERNING TRUTH 



Pupil: Objection Two. But, as I understand 

 it and as you have yourself confessed in your lan 

 guage, these external things, while they may be 

 external to the particular idea in question, are em 

 pirical; they are just other experiences and so 

 mental after all. You hold, I have been informed, 

 that truth is an experienced relation, instead of 

 a relation between experience and what transcends 

 it ; why then be mealy-mouthed (pardon my eager 

 ness if it leads me astray) in admitting that the 

 whole business is intra-mental? 



Teacher: Reply. Your objection combines and 

 confuses two things. To disentangle them is to 

 answer the objection. (1) The notion of trans 

 cendence has a double meaning; first, it denotes 

 that which lies inherently and essentially beyond 

 experience. It is interesting to note that the op 

 ponents of pragmatism have been forced by the 

 exigencies of their hostility to resuscitate a doc 

 trine supposedly dead: the doctrine of unexperi- 

 enceable, unknowable &quot; Things in Themselves.&quot; 

 And as if this were not enough, they identify Truth 

 with relationship to this unknowable. Thereby 

 in behalf of the notion of Truth in general, they 

 land in scepticism with reference to the possibility 

 of any truth in particular. The pragmatist Is 

 bound to deny such transcendence. (2) That he is 

 thereby landed in pure subjectivism or the reduc 

 tion of every existence to the purely mental, follows 



