Thus, for Pragmatism every thought is an act with a person behind it, who is responsible for launching it into the world of fact.  The result of this change of attitude is immediate.  In the first place, as has been shown in Chapter V., by bringing thought face to face with the whole experience upon which it claims to work, we are enabled to find a tangible rule for evaluating its assertions and distinguishing truth from error.  And, secondly, by recognizing that the mind is not an apparatus which functions in a vacuum, but is a constituent of an individual organism, we see that thinking always depends upon a purpose; for it is the purpose of an inquiry which gives reflection its cue, and determines its scope and (most essential of all) its meaning.

We are thus led from the narrower logical question, ’What constitutes the “truth” of a statement?’ to a wider outlook, from which we can survey the place of knowing in human life at large.  This may be called the transition from Pragmatism to Humanism.  This last word was introduced into philosophic terminology by Dr. Schiller in order to describe his general philosophical position as distinct from the original question of the theory of knowledge, which had been treated by James under the name of Pragmatism.

To the Humanist the best definition of life is one which displays it as throughout purposive, as a rational pursuit of ends.  This raises the question of the validity of valuations.  Valuation is a widespread human practice.  In their most general aspect we classify all objects as ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ according as they are ends to be pursued or avoided, or means which further or frustrate the pursuit of ends.  This general antithesis between the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ has numerous specific forms, applicable to different departments of human activity.  Thus, in conduct, actions are judged ‘good’ or ‘evil’ and ‘right’ or ‘wrong’; in thinking, ideas are ‘true’ or ‘false,’ and ‘relevant’ or ‘irrelevant’; for art, objects are ‘beautiful’ or ‘ugly,’ and so forth, for the modes of valuation in life are innumerable.  Any one of these adjectives either denotes value or censures lack of worth, and each gets its meaning by reference to the specific purpose, moral, aesthetic, or intellectual, it appeals to.  The summum bonum, or supreme good, will then be the ideal of the harmonious satisfaction of all purposes.

What, then, from the standpoint of Humanism, is the function of ‘truth-values’ in our life?  They indicate a relation to the cognitive end.  What is this end?  Surely not self-sufficing?  A truth that is merely true in itself has no interest for human life, and no human mind has an interest in discovering and affirming it.  Truth, therefore, cannot stand aloof from life.  It must somehow subserve our vital purposes.  But how shall it do this?  Only by becoming applicable to the reality we have to live with, by becoming useful for the changes we desire to effect in it.  Whoever will not admit this, and renders truth inapplicable, does in fact render it unmeaning.