Study On F.C.S.Schiller's View Of Truth

As a disseminator and defender of pragmatism in the UK,Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller plays an important role in the development of pragmatism.However,in addition to his life he is famous in the philosophy,after that almost no one is interested in him.This neglect of Schiller can be said to be a regret.This article focuses on the interpretation of Schiller's thoughts on the truth,which is the most far-reaching perspective of pragmatism.Schiller called the pragmatist view of truth as a humanistic definition of truth,that pragmatism is the application of humanism in epistemology,therefore he forming his own unique truth theory.At the beginning of this paper,I will introduce the background of Schiller's view of truth is.The Voluntarism of Nietzsche and British traditional empiricism and the truth theory of William James play an important role in Schiller shaping his own view of truth.The second and third parts illustrate Schiller's idea of truth.Schiller argued that the truth of an assertion is determined by its consequences,by its relationship to the interest that motivates the assertion,by its influence on the purpose of raising the question.Truth is defined as a form of value.It becomes useful when the value is recognized by experience.Truth is fact-based,but attention of the ambiguity is very important,there is a broad sense of the facts and narrow sense.These two facts,one is"the first reality",including all things to be experienced before the distinction of appearance and reality,and includes the two.The operations on "first reality "create the strict sense of the facts.The fact in this sense is called the "second reality",which is not a transcendental,independent reality to which our truths and knowledge must conform.The second reality is internal to the process of knowledge,and there is no fundamental separation of truth and fact.Schiller believed that truth was "made" by us.Because human interest and purpose penetrate in the process of recognition,truth is human 's truth,without human's efforts and initiative cannot be generated.Truth is not independent,but depends on human life,to meet the needs of life,made by our reference to experience,change and development with our needs.The individual makes the truth because the truth is related to the purpose and interest of the individual from beginning to end and changes as they change.If we recognize that the epistemic process begins with subjective interest,then the actual thing must already be the object of interest,and since we are fully capable of producing the object of interest,the discovery of these objects can be said to be the making of reality.Because in general the world is a reflection of our interest.But what Schiller says about making of reality involves only our knowledge of reality without affecting the actual existence of reality,which is the epistemological making reality.Whether the making of truth or the making of reality must be based on the assumption that the reality of freedom or reality can be determined indeterminacy.Unless the choices in the whole epistemological process are real,there can be no real making truth or making reality.For the controversial "appearance" and "reality",Schiller insists that the only reality we can begin with is our own experience.The distinguish between"appearance" and "reality" are not beyond our experience,but within it.It's not a relationship of our world with another,but always relate to our knowledge.The fourth part illustrates the influence of Schiller's view of truth.Including his critique of the traditional theory of conformity and coherence theory of truth and the development and deepening of James and Dewey's view of truth.Schiller believes that if the truth is set to imitate a transcendental reality,it can not be confirmed that it is consistent with the reality,therefore,the whole theory is meaningless.For the coherence theory of truth,Schiller argues that it provides the basis for skepticism.Schiller developed the point of view of James "truth is utility",but he thinks that it is wrong to say that "everything useful is truth".For Dewey's "utilitarian truth",Schiller believes that the truth that Dewey insists is a tool,a means,a means obey to the purpose,and since the purpose is satisfied,the truth is necessarily satisfactory.This is biased.In last section,I try to analyze why was Schiller so vigorously discussed in his time and why is he now so obviously not discussed?Schiller was famous in his age,partly because of his "repetition" writing style,and on the other because of his active participation in philosophical discussions.Why in the later generations he has beenforgotten,there are two main reasons.One is his personality,Schiller is arrogant,for other philosophers his accused is too sharp.The second is limited by the age of his time.In the 1930s,the rise of formalism obscured the pragmatism,and the subsequent 30 years was the era of pragmatism turning to analytical philosophy.Schiller did not notice the limitation of timing,thus his forgotten by later generations was expected.