Editing Pragmatism (section)

===Theory of truth and epistemology===
{{main|Pragmatic theory of truth}}
Pragmatism was not the first to apply evolution to theories of knowledge: [[Schopenhauer]] advocated a biological idealism as what's useful to an organism to believe might differ wildly from what is true. Here knowledge and action are portrayed as two separate spheres with an absolute or [[Transcendental idealism|transcendental]] truth above and beyond any sort of inquiry organisms used to cope with life. Pragmatism challenges this idealism by providing an "ecological" account of knowledge: inquiry is how organisms can get a grip on their environment. ''Real'' and ''true'' are functional labels in inquiry and cannot be understood outside of this context. It is not ''realist'' in a traditionally robust sense of realism (what [[Hilary Putnam]] later called [[metaphysical realism]]), but it is [[Philosophical realism|realist]] in how it acknowledges an external world which must be dealt with.{{citation needed|date=June 2018}}

Many of James' best-turned phrases—"truth's cash value"<ref>James 1907, p.&nbsp;200</ref> and "the true is only the expedient in our way of thinking" <ref>James 1907, p.&nbsp;222</ref>—were taken out of context and caricatured in contemporary literature as representing the view where any idea with practical utility is true. William James wrote:

{{quotation|It is high time to urge the use of a little imagination in philosophy. The unwillingness of some of our critics to read any but the silliest of possible meanings into our statements is as discreditable to their imaginations as anything I know in recent philosophic history. Schiller says the truth is that which "works." Thereupon he is treated as one who limits verification to the lowest material utilities. Dewey says truth is what gives "satisfaction"! He is treated as one who believes in calling everything true which, if it were true, would be pleasant.<ref>James 1907, p.&nbsp;90</ref>}}

In reality, James asserts, the theory is a great deal more subtle.<ref group="nb">See Dewey 1910 for a "FAQ."</ref>

The role of belief in representing reality is widely debated in pragmatism. Is a belief valid when it represents reality? "Copying is one (and only one) genuine mode of knowing".<ref>James 1907, p.&nbsp;91</ref> Are beliefs dispositions which qualify as true or false depending on how helpful they prove in inquiry and in action? Is it only in the struggle of intelligent organisms with the surrounding environment that beliefs acquire meaning? Does a belief only become true when it succeeds in this struggle? In James's pragmatism nothing practical or useful is held to be [[Logical truth|necessarily true]] nor is anything which helps to survive merely in the short term. For example, to believe my cheating spouse is faithful may help me feel better now, but it is certainly not useful from a more long-term perspective because it doesn't accord with the facts (and is therefore not true).