Chapter I · The Eleventh Paragraph
11. Two tests of truth
Book page 32
This is the last paragraph of the chapter (page 32). It raises the question that the rest of the book has to answer.
The Background
The lecture form (page 32). The chapters began as lectures, which is why Iqbal says “your mind” and “the lecture that follows.” The next one is titled “The Philosophical Test of the Revelations of Religious Experience.”
Pragmatism. An American philosophical movement begun by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) and made famous by William James (Pragmatism, 1907). It judges ideas by their practical results.
The Ideas
Judgement (page 32). A statement that claims to be true. The experience itself cannot be passed on. A judgement about it can be, and so it can be examined.
| The intellectual test | The pragmatic test | |
|---|---|---|
| Applied by | The philosopher | The prophet |
| Method | Critical interpretation of human experience, without presuppositions | Judging by fruits |
| Question | Does the interpretation lead to the same reality that religious experience reveals? | What does the experience produce? |
Iqbal’s text
Read the paragraph now. The small numbers in the margin are the book’s page numbers.
32The foregoing discussion, however, is sure to raise an important question in your mind. Religious experience, I have tried to maintain, is essentially a state of feeling with a cognitive aspect, the content of which cannot be communicated to others, except in the form of a judgement. Now when a judgement which claims to be the interpretation of a certain region of human experience, not accessible to me, is placed before me for my assent, I am entitled to ask, what is the guarantee of its truth? Are we in possession of a test which would reveal its validity? If personal experience had been the only ground for acceptance of a judgement of this kind, religion would have been the possession of a few individuals only. Happily we are in possession of tests which do not differ from those applicable to other forms of knowledge. These I call the intellectual test and the pragmatic test. By the intellectual test I mean critical interpretation, without any presuppositions of human experience, generally with a view to discover whether our interpretation leads us ultimately to a reality of the same character as is revealed by religious experience. The pragmatic test judges it by its fruits. The former is applied by the philosopher, the latter by the prophet. In the lecture that follows, I will apply the intellectual test.
How Iqbal Uses Them
He states the objection himself. Having said the content of religious experience cannot be communicated, he must face the listener who asks, “what is the guarantee of its truth?”
He keeps religion public. If personal experience were the only ground, “religion would have been the possession of a few individuals only.”
He refuses special treatment. The tests “do not differ from those applicable to other forms of knowledge.” This returns to the claim of the first paragraph, that religion must face philosophy’s examination and need not take an inferior place in it.
He sets up what follows. The “fruits” taken from James on page 29 become one of the two tests, and the chapter hands the intellectual test to the next lecture.