Pragmatism
William James's Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907), a series of eight popular lectures, is the classic statement of the pragmatist philosophy. James presents pragmatism both as a method for settling metaphysical disputes by tracing their practical consequences and as a theory of truth: an idea is true insofar as it works, proves useful, and can be verified in experience. Mediating between tough-minded empiricism and tender-minded rationalism, the lectures apply the method to questions of substance, freedom, God, and the 'cash-value' of ideas.
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