Good Article, Excerpts; James claimed that the best educated mind has the largest stock of ideas and concepts “ready to meet the largest possible variety of th

Good Article, Excerpts; James claimed that the best educated mind has the largest stock of ideas and concepts “ready to meet the largest possible variety of the emergencies of life.” Pragmatism was a method for making decisions, testing beliefs, settling arguments. In a world of chance and incomplete information, James insisted that truth was elusive but action mandatory. The answer: Make a decision and see if it works. Try a belief and see if your life improves. Don’t depend on logic and reason alone, add in experience and results. Shun ideology and abstraction. Take a chance. “Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events.” Of course, some philosophers were skeptical of pragmatism. Truth becomes whatever is useful, whatever has cash value. Bertrand Russell was terrified that pragmatism would dethrone the ideal of objective truth, calling it “a form of the subjective madness which is characteristic of most modern philosophy.” Pragmatism to these skeptics encourages relativism and subjectivity and leads to irrationalism. Pragmatism is the enemy of certainty, simplification, and fanaticism. It champions skepticism, experimentation, and tolerance. If, for an individual, faith leads to peace and security, banishes loneliness, increases endurance, and improves behavior, it can be said to be true for that individual. In all areas of life, we are acting on insufficient evidence. If religion increased happiness, encouraged ethical behavior, and offered eternal life, why not gamble? “How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all time the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.”