ABSTRACT
The moment pragmatism asks its usual question, it sees answer: True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False ideas are those that we can not. That is practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that, therefore, is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known-as. When, namely, people ask rationalists, instead of accusing pragmatism of desecrating the notion of truth, to define it themselves by saying exactly what they understand by it. Philosophy and common life abound in similar instances. The 'sentimentalist fallacy' is to shed tears over abstract justice and generosity, beauty, etc., and never to know these qualities when people meet them in the street, because the circumstances make them vulgar. A favorite formula for describing Mr. Schiller's doctrines and mine is that we are persons who think that by saying whatever people find it pleasant to say and calling it truth people fulfil every pragmatistic requirement.
