164 A CATECHISM CONCERNING TRUTH 



price to pay for the confutation of the pragma- 

 tist. The intellectualist is thus in the dilemma 

 either of conceding to the pragmatist the whole 

 sphere of concrete scientific logic or else of himself 

 regarding all science as merely subjective? Which 

 horn does he choose? 



Pupil: Objection Six. I noticed a moment 

 ago that you spoke of the pragmatic theory of 

 truth being true. Surely the pragmatist does not 

 live up to his reputation of having a sense of 

 humor when he claims assent to his theory on the 

 ground that it is true. What is this but to admit 

 intellectualism ? 



Teacher: Reply. My son, we are evidently 

 nearing the end. Naturally, the pragmatist claims 

 his theory to be true in the pragmatic sense of 

 truth: it works, it clears up difficulties, removes 

 obscurities, puts individuals into more experi 

 mental, less dogmatic, and less arbitrarily sceptical 

 relations to life; aligns philosophic with scientific 

 method; does away with self-made problems of 

 epistemology ; clarifies and reorganizes logical the 

 ory, etc. He is quite content to have the truth 

 of his theory consist in its working in these various 

 ways, and to leave to the intellectualist the proud 

 possession of a static, unanalyzable, unverifiable, 

 unworking property. 



Pupil: Objection Seven. Nevertheless, the prag 

 matist is always appealing to the judgments of 



