Pragmatism asks its usual question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true," it says, "what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms?
Interpretation
Pragmatism evaluates beliefs based on their practical effects in real life.
In this quote, William James highlights the pragmatic approach to truth, emphasizing the importance of understanding how an idea or belief impacts real-world experiences. He urges individuals to consider the practical implications of truth, asking how believing something to be true changes one's life and experiences, compared to if it were false. This approach encourages a focus on actionable truths that can lead to tangible results.
In practice
In a philosophy class when discussing the practical implications of different belief systems.
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
You have no idea how fragile an actor's self-worth is.
Look in the mirror and one thing is sure: what we see is not who we are.
To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.
There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was an ending.
Personal columnists are jackals and no jackal has been known to live on grass once he had learned about meat - no matter who killed the meat for him.
No man remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself.
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