WILLIAM JAMES AND THE CLASSIC CONCEPT OF TRUTH

The author reconstructs and estimates the William James' attitude to classical conception of truth. James considers some epistemological and ontological problems conntected with the classical theory of truth, and comes to a conclusion that the theory of truth must be epistemic by theory of rational acceptance. But in his pragmatic theory of truth James keeps some intuitions linked with the classical conception. First, classical formula is a starting point of the pragmatist's consideration. Second, in the case of knowledge by acquaintance Jemes uses the meaning of truth as a correspondence. And third, the truths in classical meaning are regarded as asymptotes, to which all human beliefs come.