The 3rd Way

… only the complexion of a fact thought of as eventually possible.

This is from ‘Some Problems of Philosophy’ found in William James: Writings 1902-1910 (1987):

… We must take one of four attitudes in regard to the other powers: either
1. Follow intellectualist advice: wait for evidence; and while waiting, do nothing; or
2. Mistrust the powers and, sure that the universe will fail, let it fail; or
3. Trust them; and at any rate do our best, in spite of the if; or, finally,
4. Flounder; spending one day in one attitude, another day in another.

This 4th way is no systematic solution. The 2nd way spells faith in failure. The 1st way may in practice be indistinguishable from the 2nd way. The 3rd way seems the only wise way.

‘If we do our best, and the other powers do their best, the world will be perfected’ — this proposition expresses no actual fact, but only the complexion of a fact thought of as eventually possible. As it stands, no conclusion can be positively deduced from it.

[line break added] A conclusion would require another premise of fact, which only we can supply. The original proposition per se has no pragmatic value whatsoever, apart from its power to challenge our will to produce the premise of fact required. Then indeed the perfected world emerges as a logical conclusion.

We can create the conclusion, then. We can and we may, as it were, jump with both feet off the ground into or towards a world of which we trust the other parts to meet our jump — and only so can the making of a perfected world of the pluralistic pattern ever take place. Only through our precursive trust in it can it come into being.

My most recent post from James’s book is here.

-Julie