The Meaning of Truth

From the back “True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify” – this is William James’s definition of the meaning of truth, appearing in his famous volume entitled Pragmatism (1907). The definition, and the book, proved intellectually explosive. James was attacked for his emphasis on the usefulness of truth; he was charged with denying real existence; he was accused of making the truth of religious beliefs consist solely in their “feeling good” to the believer. It was in an effort to answer his critics that William James published The Meaning of Truth – a lucid exposition and defense of pragmatism’s most important and controversial tenets. First issued in 1909, The Meaning of Truth is here reprinted with an instructive modern introduction to James’s pragmatism by Ralph Ross. Ann Arbor Paperbacks The University of Michigan Press