Showing papers in "Mind in 1950"

I.—empirical propositions and hypothetical statements

Abstract: IT is becoming the fashion among empiricist philosophers to assume that phenomenalism is really dead at last. Provoked into existence by non-naturalistic notions of material substance, it successfully undermined them; but it shared a sufficient number of fundamental metaphysical assumptions with its defeated rival to perish with it when the system of thought which nourished both was destroyed, in the very act of victory. A better ontology than that of Descartes or Locke, but still an ontology, it is therefore now held to be obsolete; and doubtless this is how it ought to be. But if phenomenalism is dead, the memory of it still haunts the writings of modern discussions of the nature of the external world to a surprising degree; from Eddington's notorious two desks, to the more refined and penetrating analysis of better equipped philosophical authors, it makes its presence clearly felt, usually taking the form of a sharp distinction; now between observation statements and those concerning material objects; now between two or more senses of the verb 'to see'; at other times between 'basic' or 'protocol' sentences and those of ordinary speech; or between various 'modes' of speech; or between 'strong' and 'weak' verification. Such versions of it are almost always formally guaranteed to carry no 'metaphysical' implications; nevertheless their striking resem6lance to the older discredited variety is hard to overlook. Hence, an examination of its latest manifestations is not such a flogging of a dead horse as at first it may seem to be; for if it is dead, its ghost walks, and should, if possible, be laid. T w o further assumptions are made in the course of the following remarks: