{
  "id": "CH03.P018",
  "oid": 56,
  "kind": "paragraph",
  "label": null,
  "work": "orthodoxy",
  "edition": "pg16769-r1",
  "work_metadata": {
    "title": "Orthodoxy",
    "authors": [
      "G. K. Chesterton"
    ],
    "description": "G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy (1908), his account of how he came to Christian belief: the full text with annotations, cited sources and commentary.",
    "original_publication_year": 1908,
    "alternate_titles": [],
    "subjects": [
      "Christian apologetics",
      "Christianity",
      "Philosophy of religion",
      "Paradox",
      "G. K. Chesterton",
      "English literature, 20th century"
    ],
    "metadata_version": 2,
    "metadata_updated_at": "2026-11-07T20:29:57Z"
  },
  "parent": "CH03",
  "ancestors": [
    "CH03"
  ],
  "prev": "CH03.P017",
  "next": "CH03.P019",
  "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH03.P018",
  "text": "This bald summary of the thought-destroying forces of our time would not be complete without some reference to pragmatism; for though I have here used and should everywhere defend the pragmatist method as a preliminary guide to truth, there is an extreme application of it which involves the absence of all truth whatever. My meaning can be put shortly thus. I agree with the pragmatists that apparent objective truth is not the whole matter; that there is an authoritative need to believe the things that are necessary to the human mind. But I say that one of those necessities precisely is a belief in objective truth. The pragmatist tells a man to think what he must think and never mind the Absolute. But precisely one of the things that he must think is the Absolute. This philosophy, indeed, is a kind of verbal paradox. Pragmatism is a matter of human needs; and one of the first of human needs is to be something more than a pragmatist. Extreme pragmatism is just as inhuman as the determinism it so powerfully attacks. The determinist (who, to do him justice, does not pretend to be a human being) makes nonsense of the human sense of actual choice. The pragmatist, who professes to be specially human, makes nonsense of the human sense of actual fact.",
  "length_cp": 1261,
  "sha256": "43e9123392de4d1ddfe24e2c7e6cf4ab262b7016ce31641ac5f87876c6431173",
  "children": [],
  "annotations": [
    {
      "id": "a_ntxpcwqn",
      "oid": 165010,
      "revision": 1,
      "revision_oid": 165011,
      "created_at": "2026-11-07T16:33:54Z",
      "updated_at": "2026-11-07T16:33:54Z",
      "title": "Pragmatism's facts and the ambiguous Absolute",
      "work": "orthodoxy",
      "edition": "pg16769-r1",
      "anchors": [
        {
          "unit": "CH03.P018",
          "oid": 56,
          "role": null,
          "edition": "pg16769-r1",
          "paragraph": "CH03.P018",
          "exact": "But precisely one of the things that he must think is the Absolute.",
          "start": 705,
          "end": 772,
          "prefix": "nk and never mind the Absolute. ",
          "suffix": " This philosophy, indeed, is a k",
          "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH03.P018#char=705,772"
        }
      ],
      "metadata": {
        "run": "chapter-03-restart-2026-11-07",
        "paragraph_investigator": "P018",
        "task": [
          {
            "approach": "Philosophical contextualization: then and since",
            "question": "Does the pragmatism available in 1908 actually dispense with factual truth, and does rejection of the Absolute entail that result?"
          },
          {
            "approach": "Interlocutors and historical debates",
            "question": "What contemporary primary texts clarify the unnamed pragmatists without treating a possible interlocutor as a proved target?"
          }
        ],
        "model": "gpt-6.1-sol"
      },
      "url": "/a/a_ntxpcwqn"
    }
  ],
  "annotations_next_cursor": null,
  "cited_by": [
    {
      "id": "a_5hvc6pyt",
      "oid": 165710,
      "revision": 1,
      "revision_oid": 165711,
      "created_at": "2026-11-07T19:11:19Z",
      "updated_at": "2026-11-07T19:11:19Z",
      "title": "A home large enough for discovery: the developing argument of Orthodoxy",
      "work": "orthodoxy",
      "edition": "pg16769-r1",
      "anchors": [
        {
          "scope": "work",
          "role": null,
          "edition": "pg16769-r1",
          "oid": 2,
          "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1"
        }
      ],
      "metadata": {
        "run": "argument-articles-restart-2026-11-07",
        "pass": "argument",
        "task": "Developing argument of the whole of Orthodoxy",
        "object": "BOOK",
        "model": "gpt-6.1-sol"
      },
      "url": "/a/a_5hvc6pyt"
    },
    {
      "id": "a_mt5b4zsl",
      "oid": 165696,
      "revision": 1,
      "revision_oid": 165697,
      "created_at": "2026-11-07T19:04:35Z",
      "updated_at": "2026-11-07T19:04:35Z",
      "title": "What thought and choice need: from scattered virtues to a seamless character",
      "work": "orthodoxy",
      "edition": "pg16769-r1",
      "anchors": [
        {
          "unit": "CH03",
          "oid": 6,
          "role": null,
          "edition": "pg16769-r1",
          "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH03"
        }
      ],
      "metadata": {
        "run": "argument-articles-restart-2026-11-07",
        "pass": "argument",
        "task": "Developing argument of chapter III, The Suicide of Thought",
        "object": "CH03",
        "model": "gpt-6.1-sol"
      },
      "url": "/a/a_mt5b4zsl"
    }
  ],
  "cited_by_next_cursor": null
}