Posts in Category: general

Practical Success as the Criterion of Truth

THE purpose of this paper is to investigate the meaning of practical success as a criterion of truth – when practical success is interpreted in terms of voluntary achievement.

To our argument one proposition is fundamental: the success of conduct is measured by the degree to which it attains its end. The truth of this statement will scarcely be disputed; it is so obvious as to seem self-evident. Yet its neglect has led to de- plorable errors-among them the attempt to biologize episte- mology. Hence it is worth-while at the outset to recite certain elementary principles. Human conduct has its source in intelligent volition. Voluntary action is action in pursuit of a con- sciously chosen end. It succeeds in so far as it realizes this end. Thus if definite meaning is to

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The Loneliness Of Success

I remember once having a conversation with a man of very great gifts – not only of intellectual power, but with some touch of that heavenly thing which we know as wisdom, that quality which, like Love, is both old and young, calm and fiery. He had not, however, been a conspicuously successful man – though he had achieved what many people would call success – because, I think, of a rather noble lack of the faculty of practical prudence; but he had been appointed, on the day on which I spoke with him, to a post of high dignity and leisure, worthy of him, and indeed singularly enviable. I congratulated him with heart felt pleasure, and said something about the satisfaction of seeing a man for once ideally placed.

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