Hello! I am writing about G.K. Chesterton and William James. Part of my project involves an examination of Chesterton’s brief critique of pragmatism:

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.

I want to know whether, and in what way, this critique applies to the pragmatism that James defended. I want to be fair to both Chesterton and James, so here a question I need to answer. When GKC says that there is an extreme application of the pragmatic method that involves “the absence of all truth whatever,” he clearly means “the absence of all [objective] truth whatever (as indicated in the following sentences). If by “objective truth” we mean something like “truth that holds independently of all human values and opinions,” can we say whether James would agree? I know that James did not accept a naive “anything goes” subjectivism, and emphasized the importance of verification, but the standard of verification seems to be utility, which is measured against an individual’s prior beliefs, values and goals. In light of this, it seems fair to me to say that James’s theory of truth is a sophisticated form of subjectivism. Is that right? If not, why not?

Thanks in advance for any input or guidance you can offer.