I use [[ ]] to indicate translator’s notes, and [ ] indicates supplements by the translator. ( ) [II, ] indicates words used in the volume two of the System of Value-Creating Pedagogy. { } indicates additions in the Philosophy of Value by Toda.
[[The below passage is from the parts of VII in II.]]
In order to clarify the concept of value, first it is necessary to discern the relationship between value and truth and rigidly distinguish them from each other. Without this distinction, all discussion will prove vain. Because this distinction is most basic and important, our scientific conscience doesn’t allow us to overlook without reason the confusion between truth and value.
Most people are prone to classify truth, good and beauty in the same level or in a trinary relationship. However, the concepts of good and beauty should not be placed on the same level with that of truth, for they have no relationship with it.
The concept of value is not such an ultimate one of cognition as is the concept of reality. Here an ultimate concept means one which cannot be further explained with other words and which can be accepted only by intuition [[Here, Makiguchi explains the philosophical problem of ostensive definition]]. Concerning the concept of value, there is a more ultimate concept of the subject-and-object relationship to explain the concept of value. The concept of the relationship is placed on the same level with that of a thing and subsumed together under the concept of reality. The concept of reality is ultimate and cannot be further defined by words.
Truth can be proven true by reducing it to a fact, i.e., by concreting an abstract concept and experimenting as to whether or not the expression corresponds to the concrete fact. However, value cannot be proven merely through such an intellectual act. Value is a relation-power between an object and an evaluating subject [II, subject], and there is no method of proof other than by experimenting and measuring a reactive power {of the subject to the related object}.
Against the argument of pragmatism and other schools which confuse truth with value and regard truth as a logical value, we will be able to discern the fallacy of such argument. If there be a so-called “true value”, there must also be one which is not true, i.e., one which is represented by an opposite concept such as false value or false price. Since such values cannot be found, a mistake that truth expresses value or that it has value comes to be evident.
[[As I point out in III, the above description is Toda's misunderstanding. Makiguchi admits 'true value'. Here, 'Truth expresses value' can mean that an expression that something has value is true. An expression concerning value is discussed in the below VII.Now I translate fully the discription of the volume two of the System of Value-Creating Pedagogy.]]
[II,We popularly say 'true value', and it is also associated with its opposit concept, that is, false value or false price. Therefore, needless to say, a view that truth immidiately expresses value, or one that truth necessarily has value is explicitly erronous. When there is something which has value, and an expression states that it has value, then true value, or false value or false price means whether the expression is true or false. The expression is not different from an expression that judges truth or falsefood of an object. After all, these words judges whether an evaluation of an object is true or not. They shows that truth and value should not be confused.]
In pragmatism, truth is regarded as a logical value. The broader, they think, the scope of universal validity, the higher the value. They think that truth and value are of the same quality. If we admit the validity of the judgment that truth and value are of the same quality, and if we interpret value as quality which is useful to human life, then a logical consequence is a practical explanation that something is true because it is useful to human life. In order to criticize whether this thought is right or wrong, at least one of the following two questions must be proven. First, can we prove through our experience that something is true because it is useful to human life? Second, can we clarify a distinction between value and truth which denies that value and truth are subsumed under the same concept?
[II, Although we think that value, at least, economic value is useful to human life, if we think that value is the same as truth and that truth can be subsumed under the concept of value, we can’t but make a practical explanation.]
However, we cannot readily affirm from facts of our actul life that “something is true because it is useful to human life.” It is because some truth is useless to human life and because investigation of truth must be made irrespective of its utility to human life.
On the contrary, there is a trend of thought that investigation of truth has no relationship with human life, as may be seen in the following: “No scientist has ever made a great invention or discovery from a motivation of utility to human life.”
If utility to human life is limited to egoistic and greedy one, the motivation must be hated. If utility to human life is expanded from an individual self to the social self, as seen in “Let us share the favor we have received with all mankind and achieve Buddhahood together with them”, the motivation need not be hated. Such a motivation will be agreeable to the expectation of the one who advocate that “Only the selfless saint who seeks truth itself can make a great invention or discovery.”
[II, When we think utility is the same as egoism, that motivation is harmful. As we do not explain utility for society, such misunderstanding takes place. The cause of such misunderstanding is attributed to our education which does not teach importance of society. In the viewpoint of pragmatism, life is the only value, and other values are derived from the relationship which they have with life.]
[[the below part is from the part VIII in II]]
Truth is invariable but value is variable. The so-called skeptics doubt invariable truth. We often hear them argue that Ptolemaic geocentric theory which had long been believed was overthrown in a day by the Copernican heliocentric theory, and no one can be sure of the certainty of truth which we now regard as our golden rule.
[II, From similar mental tendency, some scholars adapt this argument to educational law and insist that there is no invariable truth concerning methods of education. Is this argument valid?]
Let us ask the skeptics if they have courage enough to cease or doubt their daily lives, applying their skepticism to their daily lives and doubting or denying even the most familiar law in their lives. Neither law nor truth differs from each other, and there is no difference between familiar law and unfamiliar law.
Even a three-year-old boy knows that a moving train will not be derailed unless there are special conditions. Even cows, horses, sheep, or dogs seem to know it. If skeptics doubt everything, they ought to doubt this. The water in an iron kettle on the fire boils, and the hot water, in the end, changes into steam. This is a familiar truth which expresses the law of cause and effect. If one doubts even this truth, he will be unable to live at ease for a single moment. Throughout all time, no fire has been found which failed to boil water, and no one thought that the hot water did not change into steam.
Therefore, it is extremely foolish to imagine that some great scholar will appear to refute the above-mentioned truths, just as Copernicus overthrew the geocentric theory. The fallacy of the skeptic argument lies in that they try to extend their skepticism of an exceptional case to all other truths, though they themselves are actually at ease, without any doubt toward their daily lives.
Some may retort that these familiar cases are different from the unfamiliar case of the Copernican theory. However, there should not be two kinds of truth. If one is confident of these truths in our daily lives, he should not doubt any other truths if they are actually proven. How can we then explain that fact that the geocentric theory was overthrown?
It is true that the geocentric theory had long been believed by humanity. It is natural that the people of that time were astounded to find belief in the theory overthrown in a day. But when we discuss truth in general in comparison with the geocentric theory, we must first investigate the essence of what is called truth.
Although the geocentric theory was believed to be a truth, it was nothing but a low stage of an intellectual belief, and was not based upon scientific or experimental proof as in modern times. It was only a doxa (conjecture). It was refuted by the proper logical proof and actual proof presented by Copernicus.
Therefore, one can imagine that the theories which we now believe to be true may in a like manner be overthrown in the future by the appearance of a new and more certain truth. However, it is foolish to worry and doubt all things. If one denies hastily all truths because unscientific theory was once thrown, he makes a wrong guess. This wrong guess comes from an interpretation of truth to be too high and profound.
What then the essence of truth? I am convinced that truth is the exact expression of an object, nothing else. In brief, to doubt a truth which has been recognized through proper scientific study is a result of abnormality in the doubter. This is obvious from our daily experience [II, lives].
How about then (invariable) [II, variable] value? Value is not invariable like truth. We know from our daily experience that something is a must to someone while the same thing is useless to another. There are different degrees of necessity of the same thing according to different persons. Therefore, value is variable according to different persons. Even to the same person, value of the same thing may change much according to time. It is needless to explain how much value changes according to places and circumstances.
To find truth, we must observe objectively a reality as an object and regard invariable elements of it as essences and express them exactly. On the contrary, value is produced by the relationship between an object and an evaluating subject, and if either of the two should change, value will change accordingly. Differences and changes in the ethical codes of different ages and countries show the history of the transition of value.
Now we must reconsider the invariability of truth, because truth concerning value seems to be variable while truth concerning reality seems to be invariable. However, truths are all invariable irrespective truth concerning reality or concerning value. If it is not invariable, we do not call it truth. Value cannot be invariable, because it changes according to person, time, or place.
Truth is naturally invariable because it is the exact expression of the invariable elements of an object abstracted from its variable accidental elements. On the contrary, value naturally changes according to the circumstances of either or both of an evaluating subject and an object because value is an [II, attractive or repelling] relation-power between the immanent quality of the object related to human life and the evaluating subject. It is natural that value changes especially if the subjective elements of an evaluating subject change.
Thus, value changes according to time and circumstances, but truth which recognizes and grasps that value is variable, is invariable. When the exact expression “value changes” is acknowledged to be true, it is forever invariable insofar as the expression is concerned. In this case, we must not confuse the variable object with the exact expression of it. When we define a variable object as it is and constitute a concept of it, the concept is truth insofar as it is the exact expression of the object.
The so-called science is a branch of learning which studies natural-scientifically objects, and it is systematically organized with concepts attained by abstracting repetitive and universal elements from among the ever-changing environment. Therefore, truth is naturally considered as scientific invariable one. Though we also have considered it so, it is in a popular sense of truth. When we consider more carefully, the sense of truth is not limited to it. Though we should investigate it further, I do not want to do so because my purpose here is to distinguish truth from value. Detailed explanation will be given in the following chapters. In brief, we deal only with a relatively simple and popular sense of variable or invariable truth.
Here I feel it necessary to mention a reason for dealing with this problem, because I think the controversy between Socrates and sophists arose from this problem. As is well known, Socrates supported invariable truth, but Protagoras countered that man was the measure of all things, and became a skeptic. It is indeed strange that this controversy has been carried on for two thousand years up to the present day. The solution of this problem is simple if we distinguish truth from value by comparing both with each other.
As modern pragmatists state that usefulness is truth, Protagoras opposed the explanation that truth is invariable. He meant by his assertion that moral codes change according to ages, though truth concerning reality is invariable. In my opinion, his argument is a true explanation concerning value. Because value is variable according to person, it is certain that man is the measure of all things, though we cannot, even in the slightest, doubt the invariability of truth.