On the other hand, a
psychological point of view might be equivalent to the idealistic
doctrine that the articulation of human thought constitutes the only
structure of the universe, and its whole history. According to this
view, pragmatism would seem to be a revised version of the
transcendental logic, leaving logic still transcendental, that is,
still concerned with the evolution of the categories. The revision
would consist chiefly in this, that empirical verification, utility,
and survival would take the place of dialectical irony as the force
governing the evolution. It would still remain possible for other
methods of approach than this transcendental pragmatism, for instinct,
perhaps, or for revelation, to bring us into contact with
things-in-themselves. A junction might thus be effected with the
system of M. Bergson, which would lead to this curious result: that
pragmatic logic would be the method of intelligence, because
intelligence is merely a method, useful in practice, for the symbolic
and improper representation of reality; while another non-pragmatic
method--sympathy and dream--would alone be able to put us in
possession of direct knowledge and genuine truth. So that, after all,
the pragmatic "truth" of working ideas would turn out to be what it
has seemed hitherto to mankind, namely, no real truth, but rather a
convenient sort of fiction, which ceases to deceive when once its
merely pragmatic value is discounted by criticism.
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