James’ lectures came almost 30 years after Peirce’s paper, but pragmatism had only recently attracted attention. James cites the work of other pragmatists in his preface—especially work by John Dewey and F. C. S. Schiller—and much of that had appeared within the previous year.

When reading this lecture, you should look for two sorts of things, James’ key statements of his views (often italicized) on the one hand and, on the other hand, the tone of his discussion and the way he describes examples. James repeatedly claimed to be misunderstood, so his official statements of his position may not have succeeded in making it clear, and there is much to be learned about his thinking from other things he says.

Still, it is helpful to have sharp statements of someone's views; and, although lecture 6 is James’ official presentation of his theory of truth, he has a good deal to say about it elsewhere in the lectures—especially in lecture 2, where he introduces his own view of pragmatism. (I’d recommend that you look that lecture up in the text browser on the Moodle site and scan through it for italicized sentences; you will find Russell referring to many of them in the criticisms we will discussion on Friday.)