A CATECHISM CONCERNING TRUTH 159 



correspondence that makes truth, just as failure to 

 respond to each other, to work together, consti 

 tutes mistake and error mishandling and wan 

 dering. This account may, of course, be wrong 

 may involve a maladjustment of consequences 

 but the error in the account, if it exists, must be 

 specific and empirical, and cannot be located by 

 general epistemological accusations. 



Pupil: Objection Four. Well, even admitting 

 this version of pragmatism, you cannot deny it 

 still contravenes common sense ; for, according to 

 you, the correspondence that constitutes truth does 

 not exist till after ideas have worked, while common 

 sense perceives and knows that it is the antecedent 

 agreement of the ideas with reality that enables 

 them to work. If you make the truth of the ex 

 istence of a Carboniferous age, or the landing of 

 Columbus in 149#, depend upon a future working 

 of an idea about them, you commit yourself to the 

 most fantastic of philosophies. 



Teacher: Reply. May I recall to your atten 

 tion the accusation of &quot; shifting ground &quot; when 

 hard pressed? The intellectualist began, if I re 

 member correctly, with conceiving truth as a re 

 lation of thought and existence ; has he not, in your 

 last objection, substituted for this conception an 

 identification of the bare existence or event with 

 truth? Which does he mean? How will he have 

 it? The existence of the Carboniferous age, the 



