Arriving at Truth - a Two Way Street

Zaineb Saadeh

Philosophy 1000-22

Professor F. Ingledew

6 October 2015

Arriving at Truth: A Two Way Street

        The Oxford Dictionary defines truth as, “that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality”. In our everyday conversations, the concept of truth is easily understood and accepted. Parents of toddlers and young children teach their kids the essential life lessons at such an early age; the alphabet, crossing the street with an adult, and the value of honesty and truth. Although the idea of truth may be so easily understood at first glance, philosophers Rene Descartes and William James approach the road to the ultimate truth in different ways. Descartes seemed to have understood that in order to fully know the meaning of truth, one must be reasonable. Furthermore, Descartes concluded that in order to reason well, we must initially doubt the information that we perceive with our basic senses. He firmly believed that information should be acquired by means of reasoning, and not merely based on faith or intuition. James, on the other hand, introduces the philosophy of pragmatism. “True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot,” (James, 28). For these two philosophers, arriving at “truth” is of equal significance, even though their methods of reaching it are different.

        Descartes is often called the “Father of Modern Philosophy.” He believed that existing methods of arriving at truth were flawed due to their reliance on sensation. In order to reach truth, Descartes resolved to use his method of doubt. According to Descartes, no one could be intuitively sure about what they perceive. He believed there to be a concrete distinction between what our senses relay to the brain and what is really true. To understand wholly how Descartes arrived at the meaning of truth, one must first understand what his concept of “reason” was. Descartes began his work, Discourse on Method by claiming that, “good sense is the best distributed thing in the world,” (Descartes, 1.) He claimed that, naturally, all men are born with the power to judge well and distinguish the truth from falsehoods; he called this “good sense” or “reason”. Descartes believed that the opinions of mankind differed, not because some are more reasonable than others, but because our thoughts and experiences lead us down different paths, causing us to reflect on some things more than others. What mankind could be sure of is one universal truth, which was “I think.” If one is able to acknowledge oneself as a thinker, one could furthermore conclude, “I am.” From this, Descartes proves God’s existence. He claims that it is completely impossible for something (mankind) to come from nothing.

        “Pragmatism, on the other hand, asks its usual question. ‘Grant an idea or belief to be truth,’ 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?” (James, 28). William James is considered to be one of the most, if not the most important and influential American philosophers of all time. Since he was a psychology professor, his philosophical work was heavily influenced by the concept of the self. From this, he developed a theory of pragmatism and considered the meaning of truth to rely on the practical difference it could make in people’s lives. James himself accepted the definition of truth for what it was, but argued that pragmatists like himself and intellectualists would disagree over the concept of reality and truth. James claimed that in order for something to be true, it must agree with reality. By this, he meant that something that is true must lead us to something that is useful.