Page "Truth" Paragraph 27

Though not widely publicized, a new variation of the pragmatic theory was defined and wielded successfully from the 20th century forward.

Defined and named by William Ernest Hocking, this variation is known as " negative pragmatism ".

Essentially, what works may or may not be true, but what fails cannot be true because the truth always works.

Richard Feynman also ascribed to it: " We never are definitely right, we can only be sure we are wrong.

" This approach incorporates many of the ideas from Peirce, James, and Dewey.

For Peirce, the idea of "... endless investigation would tend to bring about scientific belief ..." fits negative pragmatism in that a negative pragmatist would never stop testing.

As Feynman noted, an idea or theory "... could never be proved right, because tomorrow's experiment might succeed in proving wrong what you thought was right.

" Similarly, James and Dewey's ideas also ascribe to repeated testing which is " self-corrective " over time.