Sick Souls Healthy Minds, Chapter 5 (Matthew Kulik, Section 3)

    In Chapter 5 of Sick Souls Healthy Minds, one of the main topics that author John Kaag provides insight to is William James’s views on truth and how it affects our lives. While truth may not be something that one often questions the definition of, there are competing viewpoints on the matter and James sought to bring them together. For James’s philosophy, he wanted to bring together the ideas of “tough-minded” scientists and “tender-minded” idealists, creating a new view on truth that was more nuanced and faithful to the real world. In this view, a scientist such as David Hume would argue that one could never have absolute truth because empirical evidence is always changing, whereas an idealist such as Gottfried Leibniz would argue that God has already figured out the truth, thus it does exist.

    Both of these viewpoints were imperfect to James, though finding a middle ground between them would be messy. This, however, was not a problem to James because life itself is messy, making his new philosophy closely reflective of it. James makes several critical distinctions about truth in his philosophy: truth is our story about the facts, truth happens to ideas, and the truths we live by hopefully correspond to reality, but are merely an account, not a reproduction. James aligns the pragmatic method closely with what we know today as the scientific method, using a process of hypothesis, testing, and evaluation to determine what ideas become true.

    Another critical distinction to make is that what is true is not determined in an instant, but happens over time. This again aligns James’s philosophy with science in that testing over time by different people is required. This, however, poses a problem in that knowing absolute truth could only be achieved in an infinite long run which is obviously not possible for mortal humans. Thus, humans must live by the truths determined up to and during our lifetimes and, with this mind, we must be prepared to change our viewpoint if it is proven false at any time. As James famously said, “We have to live today by the truth we can get today and be prepared tomorrow to call it falsehood.”

    James also goes into more specific detail about the “testing” process in finding truth. He believed that our ideas should stem from our experiences and sensations in the world. John Kaag gives a lengthy example in the chapter about he and his wife preparing to have a child. In the months of pregnancy, they read countless parenting books about what kinds of parenting techniques were most optimal and all the nuances involved in raising a child. One specific choice they made based on their reading was to exclusively breastfeed, however after the baby was delivered it was unable to breastfeed and after being left alone with John, he told the nurse to “give me a damn bottle.” Ultimately, this example goes to show that we can form stereotypes of what we should do in certain situations, but our actual experiences overshadow them. James encourages people to find what he calls “sensational termini”, or endpoints for our experiments where ideas can be deemed successful or not.

    Using this method of evaluating the truth through real-life experiences not only keeps our beliefs rooted in practicality but also helps when it comes to disagreement. One of James’s famous beliefs was that many arguments have no practical issue. An example of this is used to introduce him in Chapter 28 of Nigel Warburton’s Little History of Philosophy, known as “the squirrel problem.” In this problem, a hunter moves about a tree trunk, on the other side of which a squirrel is clinging to the trunk and matching the hunter’s every move. The question of “Does the hunter actually circle his prey?” is one that can be argued from many different angles but doesn’t have any practical impact. Keeping our truths rooted in our real-world experiences, according to Kaag and James, helps us to avoid such arguments and also find common ground with those whom we disagree. As Kaag puts it, experience is “the place where individuals with different ideas can meet and, many times, reach agreement.”

    Earlier, it was mentioned that James believed that we must be prepared to call our truths falsehood because we are in a constant process of evaluating our ideas. This process is to our benefit, because our truths are intended to “guide us more or less successfully in our daily affairs,” according to Kaag. In other words, the process of finding new truths improves our lives. This process is accomplished through one’s free will according to James. Kaag writes: “It is up to us. Embracing free will is the first step in affirming optimism about our ability to adapt and grow in the face of life’s challenges.” James not only encouraged the use of free will but went further to suggest that breaking from societal norms and exploring ideas at the fringes of our minds could be a revelation, vastly improving our lives.

    An example that James used in this instance, according to Kaag, was that of the first female skiers in Norway who broke from the stereotype of being the “sedentary fireside tabby cat.” Upon further research, James may be referencing women who followed in the footsteps of Ingrid Olsdatter Vestby, credited as the first female ski jumper in the mid to late 1800s. According to the article ‘Skierinas’ in the Olympics by Patricia Vertinsky, Shannon Jette, and Annette Hofmann, ski jumping was, at the time, seen as a dangerous and masculine activity, not suitable for females.  The article includes an account of her jump an 1862 competition: “She pushed off and raced down to jump, took off, and flew until she landed firmly, planted on her skis, past the point where many a brave lad had lost his balance earlier in the competition ... Their relief was great for they had never seen a girl jump on skis and they had been more than a little anxious as she flew over their heads.” Vestby’s success went on to inspire countless women in the years to come and her use of free will to push boundaries no doubt added an exciting new aspect to her life and the lives of those whom she inspired.

    Chapter 5 of Kaag’s book gives great insight into James’s views on truth and free will. To summarize, truth is our ideas about the facts of our world and is determined over time and by many tests. Since we live by what is assessed during and prior to our lifetimes, we must be prepared for the truth to change. It should also be rooted in our experiences because it allows us to test what works and what doesn’t and it gives individuals common ground with each other. Additionally, free will gives us the opportunity to make improvements to our lives and change what is seen as true. With this in mind, James also notes that we are ultimately accountable to ourselves and we must determine what possible consequences we are willing to endure. These lessons are amongst the most powerful we can implement in our lives to live out the best versions of ourselves and adapt to our changing world.