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The serious meaning of a concept," writes James, following Peirce, "lies in the concrete difference to some one which its being true will make. Strive to bring all debated conceptions to that "pragmatic" test, and you will escape vain wrangling. … If it can make no practical difference whether a given statement be true or false, then the statement has no real meaning."
If the method defined in this passage be accepted, and I can not see how any one can fail to accept it even if one prove unfaithful to it afterwards, then could anything more fully illustrate the meaning of the 'meaningless' than that hypothesis of other minds in which the analogy argument culminates? Whatever may be said for the reasoning, is its conclusion at least right? Alas, I can not know. If right, my experience cannot inform me if wrong, my experience cannot disillusion me. It makes no practical difference to me whether I am right or wrong. Pragmatic conclusion: I cannot have made a meaningful hypothesis. (en) |
