| Williams James is a representative of pragmatism and his philosophy exhibits many traits of pragmatism. James's belief of pragmatic truth has a high place and is a core part of his philosophy.James proposed that the truth should be built with a view of pragmatism, which is different from the traditional truth theory. However, his truth belief does not break away from the structure and model of the traditional truth belief; to the contrary, the traditional truth theory is of great significance to the formation of James truth theory. In fact, what James looks for is just a novel"correspondence"way. Meanwhile, the other parts of his thoughts also provide some theoretical premises to his truth theory. These theoretical premises involve James's psychology, empiricism and epistemology, etc.James defined truth from different aspects as follows: First, thoughts and statements correspond with actual things. James pointed that truth is a character of thoughts. There is nothing new in the correspondence between thoughts and actual things, but what differentiates James'truth belief from traditional one is his pragmatic explanation of"correspondence". He was opposed to considering correspondence as just imitation, but regarded correspondence as a dynamic leading procedure which let us tend to be pragmatic. Second, truth means the application of thoughts. James thought that the truthfulness of any thought was utterly dependent upon the use it produces in different parts of experiences. At last, truths are the valuable thoughts. This explanation expresses the essence of James truth belief. Truth is valid in terms of its function. If a thought offers useful and satisfying functions, then it is a true one. According to James, the pursuit of truth is not the final end, and the meaning of pursuing truth is to give an effective means for existence and living.William asserts that truth can be verified and he brought forward two ways: direct verification of truth and indirect verification of truth. The authenticity of truth is not inborn, but we can verify the truthfulness of an idea in experiences through verifiability of truth. There exists some misunderstanding about James'truth belief among academia. Some scholars think that James truth belief is subjectivism and relativism. Actually, we should not view James truth belief as pure relativism, but as a rejection of objectivity in the origin of truth. Moreover, James'truth belief is not relativism, because he emphasized the relativity of truth rather than totally denied the absoluteness of truth. He believed that"common sense phase", definition, principle and existence are absolutely true.On the one hand, James'truth belief has a certain positive significance; on the other hand, his truth belief has some theoretical defects. His truth belief is significant in inheriting the humanistic sympathy of philosophy, and trying to overcome the shortage of dual cognitive model of traditional truth belief, and highlighting that truth is a self-improving dynamic process rather than a static one. Many of his doctrines offer the theoretical basis for the development of pragmatism. However, the defects of James'truth belief are obvious. James truth belief accorded with historical background of American society and was characteristic of that period of time.
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