This treatise especially looks at the following subjects: By means of a counter-example is argued that our usage does not commit us to particular ontological assumptions.

The question of other persons’ consciousness is elaborated and compared with a clarifying of the concept of our own consciousness while the rejection of the idea of a definite measured value as an object of our measurements constitutes a model of the discussion.

Arguments for the existence of not-observable entities substantiated by the idea of other kinds of sense perceptions are discussed. Two of Grover Maxwell’s arguments for the existence of not-observable entities are gone through and criticized.

The connection between the traditional concept of time and realism is described and discussed.

First, however, the section “The results so far” points out some of the most important result from Treatise No 1 and especially Treatise No 2 are pointed out as the line of thought is emphasized.

In the section “Usage and existence” it is argued that we are not ontologically committed by our usage. This is done by means of a simple counterexample of such a commitment. The proof is quite independent of the realism debate and frees the critics of the realism from having to express themselves ingeniously.

The section “Meaning and expression of meaning” explains that it ha no sense to talk about a statement having a definite linguistic meaning which we approach at all. As to other persons’ statements, they cannot be description of not yet expressed thoughts. The same even applies to our own thoughts. W.V.O. Quine’s translation considerations in Word and Object are involved by way of introduction.

The section “Not-observable entities” takes starting point in two of Grover Maxwell’s arguments for the literal existence of so-called not-observable entities in the article “The Ontological Status of Theoretical Entities” in [Maxwell 62]. The first argument is an example of the extended use of the principle of inference to beat explanation and clearly illustrates the fallacy of this argument, which has already been rejected in the subsection “Realism” in Treatise No 2. According to the other argument, we cannot draw a sharp distinction between what is observable and what is not. Against this, it can be argued that what we deal with are in all cases our sense impressions. At the same time, it can be justified that the concept of microbes is a scientific construction.

The section “Other ways of perceiving” explains how in accordance with anti-introductionism we can describe that other persons can lack a sense faculty, and how other creatures may have more sense faculties than man usually has. Having a sensory faculty less than other people have or less than other creatures can naturally be discussed in the same way. In both cases, we can only deal with observed regularities as to their statements, in so far as they can be verified. In line with this, the article refutes the argument that the possibility of microbe vision implies the regularity of microbes.

The problem of introduction is shed light on in the section “The problem of induction in the light of a hic-et-nunc viewpoint”. The only thing we can deal with as being real in this connection is our experiences of the fulfilment of our expectations. Our expectations cannot be expectations of something real, but only a part of our fictions. On this background, it is sought to be explained why we use the regularities of our memories in our future fictions concerning our own life.

1. The results so far.

This anti-introductionistic philosophy is an investigation into our cognitive situation. Its aim is thus to clarify what we can restrict ourselves to assuming and clarify what we can at most put into our statements about existence.

In Treatise No 1–2, it has thus been explained that it is fundamentally impossible to assert the literal existence of any not-observable entity, as such an assertion presupposes a semantic clarification of the unknown entity type that are to be introduced. Thus, as regards the outer world, it only has meaning to talk about the phenomena, i.e. our perceptions of objects and their attributes, or less realistically put the impressions of wholes and their regularity. This does not express scepticism, as it does not deal with existence of objects that we cannot recognize but with our being in a world of phenomena, which we can clarify. The phenomena, or our impressions, are facts - understood as what they are in the actual situation. Thus, we cannot assert the reality of the past regarded as anything but memories and useful constructions. We cannot put anything into our talk of the future but mere fictions in the form of statements about imagined entities, states and events. Neither can we put anything into the scientific concepts of electrical charge and energy but the results of measurements and calculations based on measurements. Thus, all statements about existence must be understood on the basis of an interpretation or a verification procedure.

For that reason, we have to structure our understanding of reality by means of a top down model (in which our sensations are referred to at the top level), which can be continuously developed further. This is in contrast to a bottom up model, which from an assumed, literally existing basis (despite the fact that this basis itself is achieved top down, viz. based upon the phenomena). In connection with scientific measurements, we cannot assert that we deal with properties of the measured object such that these are understood as something that exists independently of the measurements carried out; we are only dealing with the object itself and the very measurement, i.e. the experimental set-up, the necessary activities and the result from this. There is no possibility of realty “behind” what we discover by measurements that involve the object, as we cannot attribute meaning to the idea of an unknown structure from which the phenomena emerge; instead, there are phenomena pure and simple, which can be clarified. Among other things, this applies to language the grammar and semantic of which we are able to describe incompletely only, but which we can permanently clarify.

However, we necessarily have to assert the corresponding idea about other persons’ consciousness. We cannot assume the existence of another person’s consciousness by drawing analogy with our own consciousness (however much we would like to). Nevertheless, we can interpret statements about it in a not-empty way.

The fact that some consistent conclusions may appear contra intuitive is not a reason to reject them; on the contrary, in that way they make up an even greater reason to examine other facts and thus to clarify them further and place them in a greater context.

By depriving reality of superfluous and unfounded entities, a philosophy quite different from the realist one is developed. It is not only the case that there are fewer entities according to this anti-introductionistic philosophy than according to realism, but that it turns our conception of our situation in the world upside down compared with realism. Thus, the difference between realism and anti-introductionism is primarily not a question of existence but of our way of structuring the world, the direction of the explanation structure. This difference is thus a metaphysical question of the nature of the world we live in. We can say that we live in the world in the way it manifests itself to us, provided, however, that we hereby do not mean that there is something that manifests itself, but only the phenomena themselves and their regularity. Understood in this non-realist way, these phenomena are overall impressions of things and their properties, that is, wholes, “thing expressions”, which may be clarified – as opposed to being caused of things in themselves as the realists assert, and as opposed to being built up of partial impressions, as the phenomenalists assert. Thus, anti-introductionism is not a Berkeleyanism.

It follows from the above that according to realism, metaphorically expressed, the phenomena are only like a surface of everything that exists, while everything that causes the phenomena are under this surface. However, this realistic idea implies a number of further superfluous and misleading attributions. According to anti-introductionism, however, only the phenomena and their regularity exist. For that reason, the surface metaphor is misleading. Instead, everything that exists besides the phenomena exists in our structuring the phenomena and their regularity - and in still more details.

Put in another way, our reality is the phenomena we experience and the regularities we know. Introducing more that this is senseless because we cannot put anything else into our statements about existence than what substantiates them. What we work out is only the structure of 1) our reasoning and 2) the observations (including the scientists’ measurements) that are referred to in this reasoning. Thus, we can compute a centre of gravity or find it by experiments, but this centre of gravity is only the result of the computations and experiments concerned - we cannot put anything else or more into statements about its existence. [1]

The fact that some statement cannot be attributed meaning, means that what is attempted to be asserted can be said neither to be a part of nor not a part of the world to those who are situated in a situation where it cannot be substantiated. This applies e.g. to the statement “Alexander the Great had a headache at his ninth birthday”[2] - unless evidence of the following hypothetical kind appears, “Alexander the Great’s nurse who was a slave of his parents was also a former teacher and had kept a diary, which has been found now”.

What is above advanced is not relativism, just as it is not relativism to say that the person A sees a certain chair in another way than the person B just because B sees the chair from another angle. On the contrary, it is here a question of facts concerning the meaning of sentences and - not of A’s being justified in meaning whatever about the chair.

The dept of this philosophy to Bas van Fraassen’s philosophy and to that of Michael Dummett will be clarified in Treatise No 4.

2. Usage and existence.

Here it is argued that we are not ontologically committed by our use of language.

We talk of the pictures or figures we move about on a computer screen as if they behave in the same manner as what they resemble, e.g. a heap of diagrams or photographs. In connection with these removals of screen pictures, our usage is the same as that which we use when we talk of “taking out a picture” from a heap of photographs. In both cases, we may have an idea of a new picture appearing. However, how are we to interpret our statements about existence of such hidden pictures?

The following comparison of 1) our usage concerning existence and removal of pictures on computer screens, in different situations, with 2) our usage concerning removal of physical things is not intended to be a philosophy of computer science. Instead, it is aimed at showing that we cannot draw any metaphysical or ontological conclusions about the world based on our usage. This implies that in itself our way of speaking does not commit us to certain viewpoints. Thus, a realistically coloured use of language is not necessarily in conflict with having an anti-realistic point of view concerning the discussed matter.

Our usage forces us no more to assume the existence of not-observable entities than it forces us to assuming the reality of hidden, electronically made screen pictures.

In a situation where we have brought out a piece of a picture on a computer screen, we can talk of bringing out “the rest of the picture” - as if the picture existed in its entirety, already when we only saw a piece of it placed behind another picture or outside the edge of the screen. Is it then right to assert that the newly appeared part existed before it was shown, i.e. behind another picture or outside the edge of the screen? Would it be right to say that some of the picture has been covered? (Notice that already talking of “a piece of a picture” presupposes that the picture exists in its entirety.)

No, that would not be right. At least, the picture has not been hidden in the same way or in the same sense as a photograph covered by a sheet of paper can be said to be hidden - and it would be far-fetched to say that the picture has been hidden but in another sense than such a photo. Nothing (not even according to a realist point of view) behind the picture or outside the edge may be said to exist or to cause an impression of a picture by being “uncovered” or “drawn within the edge of the screen” - as we usually express ourselves in this context. Instead, there is a coding somewhere in the machine - on a hard disc or in the memory of the machine. (Certainly, this existence statement calls for yet a clarification, but that is another matter.) This coding is employed as a basis for forming the picture on the screen. However, it would be to distort the meaning of the words to assert:

The sentence “The picture A is behind the picture B” means “The display of the picture B implies that the coding of the part of A that otherwise would have been shown at B’s place is not translated into a part of the screen picture.”

The only semantic meaning we can possibly put into our assertion that a picture is behind another picture, at all, is that it is located there in the same way as material things - but this is physically impossible, as in fact the picture cannot exist there for physical reasons.

Here we are not dealing with the existence of a hidden picture in the same sense as a hidden cup in the sentence “The cup is behind the coffee pot”. For we know what a cup is and in the light of our experience we have an idea of our being able to catch hold of the cup, lift it and sense it - in quite the same way as we can lift and sense the coffee pot we see. Thus, we can do something different from just lifting the coffee put to see the cup, whereas on the screen picture on which a picture is said to be entirely covered by another picture we have to remove the latter, which we have access to, to see the former, which then are recreated. Instead, we have direct access to the cup, which does not have to be created again in order that we can see it, as the picture on the screen has to be. The above interpretation of the sentence, “The picture A is behind the picture B” thus expresses an idea quite different from our understanding of the sentence “The cup is behind the coffee pot”. (It is even very dissimilar from scientific interpretations of a realist kind of statements about not-observable entities, as these are largely expressed in terms of entities conceived by analogy with our concepts of cups and coffee pots.) Thus, the sentence about screen figures, “The picture A is behind the picture B”, cannot truly express that there is a covered figure behind the layer we see, especially not in the form of physical layer of any kind. For in fact there is not any, as the screen is simply not constructed like that. The statement just forms part of a conversation that works. Certainly, according to the code-based interpretation of the sentence, “The picture A is behind the picture B” above, something can be said to be behind the layer we see. However, this is of a kind quite different from the screen pictures we see - and in any case, not behind B in any physical sense – and thus this interpretation of the word “behind” does not correspond to its familiar use.

Thus, it can be concluded that we talk about existence of entities in situations where nobody, even the realist, wants to assert that these entities exist. Of course some may insist on the above mentioned, far-fetched, refutable idea, but it does not correspond to what we imagine when we talk about something being behind something else on the screen. For this reason, the anti-realist cannot be attacked for his use of the word “existence”, though this usage resembles the realist’s use of that word. Therefore, it does not imply realism.

Furthermore, this conclusion is supported by the point of view that existence is fundamentally existence according to a verification procedure, such that existence statements presuppose an interpretation. Thus, it is noteworthy that the verification procedures for the existence of the photograph on the table and for the figure on the screen, respectively, are considerably different, which means that the two sorts of existence cannot be placed on an equal footing. The reason is that the picture or the part of a picture that we do not see on the screen but about which we say that we can get it out, do not exist as anything of the same sort as the visible picture, because what we call “the covered part of a picture” simply does not exist. (We can at most say that something else exists by virtue of which the picture can be brought into existence, viz. the internal constellation of the computer in the form of coding of data and programs.) On the other hand, as it has been argued for, we can non-committally speak of the picture as if it existed covered by other pictures or outside the screen, though the screen picture actually does not exist in that way, i.e. by analogy with how we imagine things existing outside our field of vision. Thus, we can imagine unseen things existing as things, but we are not justified in imagining unseen screen pictures existing as screen pictures behind other screen pictures, as in this practical example, the screen is not constructed in this way, but only contains one layer.

Just as our talk about screen pictures works sufficiently for everyday use but cannot be literally understood as an adequate description of what takes place in the computer in every detail, it is true that our talk about things works for everyday use. However, it cannot be used as a basis of a realistic understanding of things: Our way of talking about things and time works in everyday life, but cannot be used in a philosophical context.

As an example of usage that presupposes realism, our talk of “not-observable entities” can be adduced, because this talk seems to presuppose that there are in fact some entities, which just cannot be observed. However, such a talk is not to be literally understood, in the anti-realism, but concerns a theoretic model. It also exemplifies how our usage gives the realist a rhetoric advantage - though it does not give him a real advantage as regards argumentation.

3. Meaning and expression of meaning.

The principle that applied to measured values, viz. that we cannot attribute meaning to statements that there are definite measured values or a definite basis in itself to which the measured values can be attributed (cf. “The basis of scientific explanations.” in Treatise No 2) can be generalized such that it also applies to the meaning of our expressed thoughts. At any rate, the fact that the principle applies to the former field necessitates an inquiry whether the arguments for that principle can be generalized to apply to the latter field. This proves to be the case.

I owe, however, first to refer to some of W.V.O. Quine’s considerations in Word and Object. In this, Quine asserts that different persons by uttering sentences that have the same wording can express different meanings, understood as “the totally of dispositions to verbal behaviour” ([Quine 75], p.26). Quine’s considerations about this idea lead him to this conclusion:

“The point is not [A] that we cannot be sure whether the analytical hypothesis is right but [B] that there is not even (...) an objective matter to be right or wrong about.” ([Quine 75], p.73, my underlining and square brackets)[3]

In the intervening text, Quine has given a number of examples showing that words and sentences can be translated in several widely different ways among which the true one can never be pointed out. In his examinations, Quine has expressed himself as if a definite object of examination in the form of the meaning of the other person existed and could be identified - regarded as an object which we only have some difficulties in identifying quite precisely. Therefore, it is a question how the leap from these inquiries to the quoted conclusion (B) A emerges, for it is not a question of a difference of degree between the two statements, A and B, as the latter is of a different and a quite more extensive sort. However, as far as I can see, Quine does not reveal the explanation of this leap.

To reach his conclusion, Quine’s considerations and inquiries concerning translation are in fact superfluous. Even the very question of what meaning it has to attribute a meaning to a sentence expressed in an entirely unknown language, as long as we have not understood this meaning yet but want to approach it, takes realism for granted. For this talk of “a meaning that we approach” presupposes the existence of definite meaning, a meaning that exists in itself, like the idea of things that exist in themselves, which is realism. This involves an idea of a meaning that exists without haven been interpreted yet and independently of an interpretation, i.e. a meaning that cannot be explained, which per definition is semantically senseless. Moreover, such a view involves the introduction of a new entity type we cannot point out, viz. the other person’s meaning literally understood as something that exists in itself.[4]

However, this problem does not only concern unknown languages, which Quine has just been occupied with for pedagogical reasons. (Cf. [Quine 75], pp. 26-30.) It is also relevant to languages we already understand or use to some extent, especially our own language. Below, it is discussed how as basic feature of our cognitive situation it has no linguistic meaning to talk about the existence of a definite linguistic meaning to be approached, at all.

3.1 Other persons’ statements and meaning.

That fact that we cannot legitimately know that something exists without knowing how to interpret statements about its existence, necessitated the clarification of the meaning of statements about other persons’ consciousness the way it was started in the subsection “Fictions and other persons’ consciousness” in Treatise No 1. Similarly, we must seek to answer the question of what meaning it has to speak of the existence of a definite meaning or thought behind a statement at all. This inquiry proves to lad to further clarification of this problem of consciousness.

Statements about the existence of other persons’ consciousness resemble statements about the existence of in principle not-observable entities, while statements to the effect that statements express a definite mental content correspond to statements that our measurements have definite values and definite objects. Both ideas come under the argument against introduction of new types of entities, but especially the latter about mental content will also be clarified in another way.

Though the following discussion is anti-introductionistic, being a criticism of the idea of a literal conception of other persons’ consciousness and the existence of a definite content of consciousness and thought, for the sake of convenience, it must be just to use the word “consciousness” as a term of the mere totality of an individual's thought, remembrance, and other impressions.

Below, the common sense view of our expression of meaning is gone through and criticized. For the sake of simplicity, only the reader’s view of what he reads is described. As a reader, we may imagine that the author expresses a certain meaning when he writes. With it, we also imagine that it is possible to him to express “what he means” to some extent, as we conclude that if he possesses a definite meaning this must be something already present. In this way we imagine that there is something we can call “the author’s intended expression of meaning”, which the author may not yet have hit or specified in his thoughts or his writing - as we presuppose that we can attribute meaning to this concept of the author’s intended expression of meaning (if we think of that at all). Thus we make this assumption: “The text, in its preliminary formulation, possesses a definite meaning that possibly is like or possibly is not like what the author actually means, and which thus is already present to him and which he tries to describe - as if he was looking at an entirety of his unexpressed thoughts.”

We may have got these ideas by making analogies based on our erroneous understanding of our own written products. According to this understanding we have, as a starting point, a view we intend to express and which we then set about expressing until the written words express what we mean, at least to some extent, preferably completely and precisely. (It is not essential here that this may pass off in a more complicated and iterative way.) We apply this way of thinking to the idea of a sender who is in a situation exactly like the one we assume to be in when we try to inform the other person (presupposing that, as a matter of course, this way of thinking possesses meaning). In this way, we understand the receiver-sender relation as an in principle symmetrical relation. However, such an analogy between the understanding of the other persons meaning, that is in the way the latter is described above, and the understanding of my own meaning cannot be maintained - for the simple reason that it presupposes the validity of the discussed type of entity, viz. the concept of the other person’s definite meaning. However, can we just drop this common idea of the meaning of another person’s sentences understood as something present to him?

When I attempt to understand another human being, I confront my assumptions about how to understand his utterances with the rest of my knowledge about the world attempting to estimate the correctness of my understanding of his utterances. The expression “the meaning of the other human being’s utterances” can at most be understood as an appellation of my idea of a meaning that I attempt to understand. With this, my understanding of what the other person means can at most be something I attribute to the other person though it is just my idea. Moreover, as mentioned, the concept of what the other person means by his sentences involves the idea of a definite, underlying meaning, which we seek to find. This idea, however, does not possess more meaning than the idea of the real measured value, regarded as a property in itself of the measured object. Thus, it must be concluded:

In principle, the only thing that is present to me as regards the meaning of the other person’s statements is a system of 1) his statements, 2) the situation as a whole, 3) my background knowledge, and 4) my attempts to interpret his statements on the basis of 2) and 3).

In our ordinary, everyday interaction with other persons, we base our understanding of another person on our present background, i.e. that it does not have to be considerably revised, for instance by asking him clarifying questions. Thus, we consider our understanding of the other person to be adequate in situations where it does not have to be revised because of unexpected incidents or new knowledge. Thus, we can continue our interaction without reflecting on the concept of other person’s consciousness as we simply have a conversation that seems to work in the situation. The interesting point is thus, that in such situations, we do not need the symmetrical common sense understanding of the other person’s consciousness, and what is more, seldom resort to using it.

The fact that a conversation works, just means that it passes off in a way that seems unproblematic, possibly with practical results usable in everyday life. This means that the exchange of words works as intended, such that the discussion makes progress, and that we can ascertain that the other person understands our answer to his questions.

As it has appeared, we cannot simply understand expressions such as “the other person’s meaning with his statements” or “the other person’s view” in a way that presupposes a literal understanding of the other person's meaning by analogy with my/our own the way we usually imagine it. Certainly, we can talk of another person’s having the same understanding as I have, however, this idea has only meaning in the sense that a conversation based on that assumption would work to some extent. (Although a conception based on analogy may seem to support the conversation, it can also result in misunderstandings and, as touched on above, we do not need to use it.) First, in statements that the other person has definite feelings or statements that he means something definite with what he says I cannot allow myself to put a quite literal meaning, such as a modified copy of my feelings and meanings the way they would be present to me in a similar situation. As mentioned, though we talk of our understanding of persons’ thoughts and feelings based on such an analogous understanding to this talk I am not justified in attributing a meaning that is analogous to my own meaning of my statements or analogous to my statements about them. Into my interpreting statements about the meaning of the other person’s statements, I can only put the present facts that make me assume the explanation structure of my interpretation - which may start from my background knowledge and in the possibly giving or surprising details of the conversation, or at least in the way it works.

I can discuss a subject with another person and talk of his understanding of the subject because he can tell me something new that I possibly cannot understand but which we have to discuss in order to clarify it. We can talk of what he means by his utterances and of his relation to what I mean by my utterances, just as we can talk of my meaning with my utterances and my relation to his meaning with his utterances, but I we cannot put anything symmetrical into this talk, as we usually do. There is simply just a conversation that works to some extent and which in addition is more than just an empty play with words, cf. the discussion of this in “Solipsism / other minds” in Treatise No 2. Even if we did not go beyond saying that in connection to our experiences of other persons, we just have to do with - perhaps not shadows in a literal sense - but with phenomena that appear to us. Also in that case, however, we would be dealing with some special phenomena, at least, phenomena that are beyond our control, namely phenomena consisting in unpredictable utterances, though they usually possess some consistency too.

Even if on the realist’s terms we presupposed that the symmetry-based view were true, we could not expect to obtain a completely suitable understanding of what the other person means. This unattainableness follows from the fact that because his memories and knowledge is different from mine, even on this premise, he may have another understanding of the words he uses and their relation to each other - which Quine has exemplified so thoroughly. ([Quine 75], p.26-72) This can be justified by reference to what the other person in fact can tell us. It is obviouslæy easier to detect incongruity in our understanding of each other then congruity.

We can try to understand our relations to the other persons meaning by comparing it with our relation to the object of a scientific investigation. As regards the latter object, as already mentioned we cannot attribute meaning to the concept measurable, but unknown properties, which the scientists try to find. We can only talk of the results of the measurements, regarded just as measurements, and of the regularity of nature. All that is present as regards the measurements are our very measuring activities and their results (in which are involved theories, instruments and calculations). As regards the concept of the other person’s meaning, in a similar way we have a situation that includes our own messages and interpretations of the other person’s response. It proves, however, that this does not make the two concepts completely analogous to each other.

Some may object, “You talk of our relation to other persons as characterized by the possibility that something unexpected may happen in it, but cannot something unexpected occur in science too? In that case, what is the fundamental difference between persons and the objects of physical science; is the other person just an object of the same kind as these objects, a presented regularity of some sort?” To this must be answered that certainly we can draw the analogy between the two types of entities, the consciousness of man and the properties of scientific objects that we neither have reasons to suppose that man has a definite consciousness nor that the physical objects possess quite definite physical properties. The simple reason is that these two terms cannot be literally understood. (Cf. the argument against the principle of inference to the best explanation concerning introduction of new types of entities.3) The two types of entities, physical objects and consciousness, are however entirely different, as the theories with which science is concerned in connection with physical objects are based on scientists’ being always able to observe a certain pattern in their measurements or at least fitting them into a certain pattern. However, we cannot generally arrange the behaviour and expressed feelings of another person within a certain pattern. For, as mentioned, another person can tell us something unexpected, something that is special, in the form of surprising thoughts of a positive as well as a negative kind. Thus, it can behave in contradiction of our already elaborated theories or just of our existing expectation - without this behaviour being able to fit into a new pattern, as opposed to our observations in nature.

3.2 Our own statements and their meaning.

In Treatise No 1 and 2, it has been rejected to attribute meaning to statements about other persons’ consciousness that are based on analogies with our own consciousness. However, the above discussion indicates that there is another kind of similarity between my understanding of my own content of consciousness and of what I can call the content of consciousness of another person. In contrast to the rejected idea of similarity, this similarity is not just postulated. This similarity consists in the fact that just as we cannot attribute meaning to the idea of a definite meaning behind the other person's expressed thoughts, we cannot attribute meaning to the idea that our own expressed thoughts are formulations of a definite meaning.

It has above been concluded that the concept of consciousness is redundant. (Cf. the subsection “Further clarification of the problem of solipsism” in Treatise No 2.) Besides the following must be remarked:

Consciousness is neither something that contains experiences nor attends our experiences, but is there by virtue of the experience, and thus not as something in addition to the experience and neither as a component of the experience or as an aspect of it. Thus, it has no sense to talk of having sense impressions without being conscious about it. If I see a chair, I am simultaneously conscious of my seeing the chair, but it is not so that I see a chair and in addition am conscious of my seeing the chair as something besides my very seeing the chair (my visual experiences) or independently of this fact.

We do not have to attribute further meaning to the concept of consciousness. The fact that I can reflect on my consciousness does not make it into a separate or real entity. These remarks about sense experience also applies to consciousness in connection with my thoughts, memories and feelings, which can be regarded as different sorts of experiences. (As this statement will also work in a conversation, I am justified in replacing a first person pronoun with a noun phrase in third person.)

However, the actual subject here is the following. Corresponding to the investigation done in the subsection “Other persons’ statements and meaning” above, it is natural also to examine the relation between our own statements and their meaning. What meaning does it have to assert that of our own written statements expresses a definite meaning? As above-mentioned, we have the understanding that during the writing process we first think and then write down our thoughts, or possibly simply write down our thoughts while we think. Later we read the text and perhaps we revise it until we are satisfied or stop for another reason. Therefore we/I must seek to answer the question is “Are the facts such that we have a definite meaning, which we can compare with the meaning of the written words?” This question does not deal with the writing process as such, but with the question, whether we have a definite meaning that we seek to reproduce in the text, after which we seek to estimate the quality of its resemblance to the original.

Just as I cannot attribute meaning to the idea that another person has a centre of thought from which his thoughts stream, it proves that I cannot attribute meaning to the idea of a centre in myself from which my thoughts stream either. Thus, it is not so that I have some definite thoughts that I can express in an “adequate way” or that statements concerning this have a meaning at all. The statements I advance to myself, expressed in writing or directly addressed to other persons, cannot express an existing definite meaning, as I have had to stop my selection of words and formulations at some moment. The stop cannot be due to my formulations having matched the thought, for this would demand that the result can be compared to the thought, but as this is not expressed in advance, this is impossible. We can neither in this way talk of wordings that are adequate or describe a definite meaning to some extent. This can apparently be justified by the fact that if I have to rephrase something I have just expressed, it is difficult to me to decide whether by means of some slightly different words I express the same meaning as the one I expressed before, understood as something definite that has to be expressed. Moreover, if I read something that I have earlier written, it may sometimes be difficult to me to find an interpretation of the written text that corresponds precisely to what we can call “my earlier expressed meaning”. However, this is expressed in a misleading way, as this talk can exactly not refer to something definite, since we are primarily not dealing with an underlying meaning that has a definite content. For in principle I can only refer to my unexpressed meaning by describing it with my words, which is a contradiction in terms. (The very talk about “formulating my thoughts” seems to presuppose the concept of my “really existing, not-formulated thoughts” regarded as a definite object, which is just rejected. In this way, the expression does not have to be literally taken.)

For that reason, I have no reason to assume that I have some thoughts first, which I then express; thus, it is not the point that I make some not-linguistic thoughts that I somehow observe and which I then turn into a linguistic form. It is rather so, that I chose a formulation, which I then estimate and possibly correct until I am reasonably content with the formulation.

Except that talking about existing unexpressed thoughts cannot possess meaning, as it is a contradiction in terms (for how should they be expressed?), the chosen formulation cannot denote an existing, not-formulated meaning either, for the reason that my formulation (in the example) is all that is present. With other words:

It cannot have meaning to talk about a not-formulated meaning, as I cannot refer to it, but only to what I express as being my thoughts - by use of a misleading term called “my expressed thoughts”.

(The expression “my expressed thoughts” must refer to my verbally formulated thoughts, as opposed to my thoughts the way I express them to myself, though without my having thoughts understood as something different from that.)

Thus, also in my relation to myself I am only dealing with my very formulations, as I cannot think something not formulated. Therefore, it does not have meaning to assert that I somehow, behind my statements or so-called “formulated thoughts”, have made a definite, but not-formulated meaning (a sort of “not-observable entities of thought”). Therefore, I have an interpreting relation to my own statements, too. We can possibly talk of our making a sprouting start-up of some thoughts; but we cannot refer to our thoughts until we have formulated them. On the contrary, thoughts are identical to the formulations, or at least we cannot put more into our thoughts than the formulations, as these are all to which we can refer. The mentioned “sprouting thoughts” can at most be an idea of different entities and relations, which we know and deal with the actual subject, and which forms the basis of the expressed thought. (As I do not experience underlying processes in this connection, ideas about further processes will only be scientific constructions.)

In this way, there is a certain degree of symmetry of an anti-introductionistic kind between on the one hand my relation to the other person (and to his expressed thoughts) and on the other hand my relation to myself (and o my expressed thoughts). This symmetry is not due to my being entitled to attribute something to the other person by analogy to my understanding of my thinking (as realists or common sense adherents think that we are entitled to), but on the contrary to my having to deprive myself of something compared to common sense understanding. However, this special likeness only exists between 1) my relation to my own expressed thoughts, and 2) my relation to the other persons’ expressed thoughts. On the other hand, between 1) and 3) the other person’s relation to his expressed thoughts there is no likeness, as we have no reasons for attributing a literal meaning to the latter. Thus, there is a symmetry consisting in my only being able to attribute reality to the expressed thoughts - my own thoughts as well as those of the other, i.e. in the form of the expressed sentences themselves. In both cases, the concept of a definite not-expressed thought has no meaning.

As a by-product, it results from this explanation that understanding the text and understanding the author (through the text) is the same:

We cannot understand the text as an expression of something inward in a literal sense, i.e. according to a symmetrical understanding of the author’s conscious mental life or thoughts. It semantically senseless to assert that the text contains an underlying meaning that has to be found; the same applies to the interlocutor’s utterances. We only relate to the text and our interpretation of it.

We can neither to a text nor to other persons’ statements attribute anything analogous to our own consciousness or thoughts - except the negative symmetrical fact that we cannot attribute any definite content to our own thoughts either. Generally, we must thus conclude that the meaning of statements exists in a clarification of their content, not in any underlying postulated structure.

It has earlier been touched on a possible explanation of the question of why we let ourselves carry away by imaginative literature, to wit the explanation that the reason is that what we think of when we think of our own future is likewise a fiction, such that we transmit the importance of the latter to the works of fiction. (Cf. the subsection “Fictions and time” in Treatise No 1.) Our being carried away may also be due to our being curious to know the author’s meaning, because we hope he will not assert that the world is like this: that this (undesirable) situation is possible or likely or - even worse - expectable, but that he will assert that this (desirable) situation is most expectable, that the world is like that.

3.3 Summary.

Thus, the upshot is that it does not have meaning to assert that our thinking constitutes any definite substance or content in the form of definite thoughts - understood as a definite object we can describe. When we think, we considerate and express something; but this does not mean that we first make some quite definite considerations, which we then express. Possibly, we can define our views as being identical to what we express when we stop and write down a provisional result; however, this answer is just an artifice, since such a stop takes place arbitrarily. Thus, our statements about of ourselves demand an interpretation just as other persons’ statements, as there is no other substance to clarify than what is expressed.

As earlier touched on, how often do we picture to ourselves, in practice, that the person to whom we are talking has any mental content which we in the actual situation conceive of quite analogously to our own mental content (in a way that is in agreement with the common sense conception of our thought)? We rarely do that in the very situation, at least not of necessity. In our daily practice, we are simply content with the fact that the present situation works. The common sense conception of thought and consciousness only becomes conspicuous in retrospect and facing the question of consciousness in general. This raising doubt about the common sense conception is not meant to be a final argument, either; for it does not have the form of an argument, but is only to throw light on the matter. The actual arguments are found in the preceding text.

4. Not-observable entities.

It has no meaning to assert that what the laboratory technician can see in a microscope exists as miniature replicas (called microbes) of these. For we cannot refer to such an entity, but only to what we (the laboratory technician) have to do with, namely figures in the size that is seen in the microscope. (Cf. the argument against the principle of inference to the best explanation as regards introduction of new types of entities, in the subsection “Realism” in Treatise No 2.) This is true although the figure seen in the microscope can be changed with special instruments. In the following, this point of view will be substantiated and related to the concept of time. The argumentation will take as a point of departure an article written by the realist Grover Maxwell.

4.1 Grover Maxwell’s argument for the existence of not-observable entities.

In his argumentation for the existence of not-observable entities in 'The Ontological Status of Theoretical Entities' Grover Maxwell puts forward an intellectual experiment whose action goes on before the invention of the microscope ([Maxwell 62], p.4-5): A scientist puzzles about why certain diseases infect via physical objects. Inspired by his knowledge of lice, he thinks of explaining this infection by means of a theory that some yet less, invisible microorganisms exist on the objects that transmit the diseases. The scientist concludes next that heating the objects at a temperature that will kill the microorganisms can prevent the infection (just as the heating would kill lice).

However, this explanation is more or less arbitrary. Because instead one could just as well - and in the same spirit, i.e. on similar premises - imagine that the infection is due to some substance (which perhaps would be less active at a higher temperature), or that it is due to changes in the structure of the infecting objects, and that these changes could be propagated to the surroundings. This means that even if the heating in fact would prevent the infection, this could still not be explained by assuming the existence of microbes - with the conclusion that the microbes actually existed (which is actually done in the principle of inference to the best explanation³). It is thus a mere luck if Maxwell’s explanation, even on its own conditions, is the true explanation of why the heating leads to a reduction of the infection, and even in that case, it demands a semantic clarification of what it that there are invisible microorganisms. Before the existence of other observations to which the assumption of microbes can be related, this assumption is thus not more true than the adduced alternatives, even on Maxwell’s own realist terms. In order not to be arbitrary or ad hoc, the infection must be explained by reference to something that can in fact be demonstrated, whether this is figures in a microscope or physical objects - or rather:

The explanation of the infection can only ultimately relate to observable regularities. The reason is that ultimately there must exist something that gives occasion for the theory of the microbes by relating the infection to observations.

Besides, it must be remarked that this agrees with the top down way of thinking, according to which the starting point of our explanations is our observations, i.e. our sense impressions.

However, not until the construction of the microscope did something to which the assumption could be related in fact exist. For if some material from the surface of an object were then placed under the lens of a microscope and some moving figures could be seen in the microscope, we could begin to talk of microbes on the surface of the object. That is, in the sense “what can be seen in the microscope after explicitly specified actions, such as material scraped off, and which looks like this and that and behaves in such and such a way”.

Maxwell stresses his argumentation for the existence of the referred entities in this way:

“The only reasonable explanation for the success of theories of which I am aware is that well-confirmed theories are conjunctions of well-formed genuine statements and that the entities to which they refer, in all probability, exist.” ([Maxwell 62], p.18, my underlining)

However, science does not need these extra attributions. It must be a sufficient explanation that scientists can make usable theories based on a systematism of the scientists’ experiments and observations.[5] Moreover, the argument is not logical or sufficient at all, but only appeal to a way of thinking according to which what we find true on the face of it, in fact is true. On the contrary, the fact that a line of thought is contra intuitive does not make it wrong. Besides, what does it mean that something “in all probability, exist”?

4.1.1 The use of the principle of inference to best explanation.

Maxwell’s talk of a possibility is quite mistaken in this philosophic and semantic connection, as he here discusses a philosophical topic (viz. the meaning of a certain scientific statement) by means of scientific considerations. As above-mentioned, in this text, arguments have already been put forward against conclusions of the quoted kind (the principle of inference to the best explanation as regards introduction of new types of entities, or “abduction”), and their fundamental error has been demonstrated?⁴ A by-product of this is the following:

We cannot put more in statements about not-observable objects than what is contained in the observations and theories that lead to the assertion of the existence of these objects (i.e. the contents of the conclusion except this very assertion of existence). Ultimately, the used theories also originate from observations.

We can at most be dealing with a totality of experimental setups, observations and theories when we talk about not-observable entities.

Thus, we can infer the existence of a ball in a box and attribute meaning to statements about its existence, in the sense that we know what a ball is in advance and that we can open the box and conform or disprove the assumption that the box contains a ball. As long as we have not yet opened the box, the only thing given is a hypothesis. However, as it is a hypothesis about something known, in this example it is not so that beyond our inferring the existence of the ball, we also infer the existence of a new type of entity, and that the talk about this thus has semantic meaning. To do this is the decisive error in the inference to the best explanation as regards introduction of new types of entities.

The error the scientific realist makes consists in gratuitously applying our ways of inferring concerning physical objects, as exemplified above, to areas where they are not valid.

In the quotation, Maxwell links a sensible explanation of scientific success together with the probability of the existence of the types of entities discussed. However, philosophical argumentation is different from scientific argumentation, as their objects are different. The objects of physics are the phenomena and scientific descriptions of the phenomena, while the objects of philosophy are statements and the meaning of statements, at least in this context. We can talk of “the probability that there is a ball in a box”, not of “the probability that a certain type of statements has a certain meaning”. The idea of the latter probability is absurd, but after all, it is what this realistic argument for the reasonableness of talk of fundamentally not-observable objects is based on. To be justified in asserting, “Microbes exist” at all, it is necessary first to have been able to expound the meaning of this sentence. The adherents of abduction concerning new entities argue for the existence of microbes, as if they could infer this in the same way as we can infer the existence of hidden observable entities - as if the discussion were scientific and not semantic and philosophical. Thus, their inferences presuppose that their statements have meaning; however, it is just this meaning the philosophical discussion about the so-called not-observable entities concerns. From the arguments about the principle of inference to the best explanation (”Realism”, in “Three different views of the concept of a physical object” in Treatise No 2) can be concluded:

Merely discussing, whether the existence of microbes is probable or not, is to presuppose that they can exist and thus that talk of these not-observable objects has a clarified meaning. Therefore, statements about the existence of microbes or other not-observable objects cannot be substantiated by the claim that the assumption of their existence is a useful assumption (as this presupposes the very matter that has to be substantiated, viz. the semantic meaning of this talk).

Therefore, what Maxwell says immediately after the quoted text must be rejected as an argument for the existence of microbes:

“That it is psychologically possible for us to invent such theories is explained by the fact that many of the entities to which they refer resemble in many respects (although they may differ radically from them in others) the entities which we have already observed.” ([Maxwell 62], p.18/9, my underlining.)

It is tempting to think like this, of course, and the description corresponds to the above description of the error of the scientific realist. Of course, scientists can think as they want, but this ought not to prevent us from considering philosophically this realist and common sense understanding. Moreover, even on Maxwell’s own terms we would not be able to conclude much by means of that without microscope and other means, according to the above arguments. For without the invention of the microscope, this talk of microscopic entities would just be pure inventions without any meaning. The microscope, on the other hand, has given us something observable to which we can relate the theories of science, viz. the figures in the microscope. Thus, we can form a theory based on the regularities of our observations and their mutual relations.

4.1.2 Usage and ideas.

The statement, “If we examine a part of the object in a microscope we will see something that looks in such and such a way” does not express realism. However, there is only a short step from this statement to the wording, “There is something microscopically small on the object, and it looks in such and such a way in a microscope”, though this wording expresses realism. In the statement “There are objects of the kind X (i.e. having this and that appearance) on the object in the microscope”, the sight in the microscope is attributed the object. However, we cannot figuratively imagine the object whose existence we assert, for by definition we cannot see something unobservable in our mind's eye. We can only imagine the very picture we see in the microscope. We cannot attribute to the statement that something exists that looks like a smaller replica of this picture any other meaning than a description of the objects, states, and activities that have led us to assert its existence.

Thus, we can use the following two regularities:

1) The very regularity that manifests itself by the fact that when we have seen microbe figures by looking in a microscope in which something (scraped off) from an object lies, then, in a number of cases, we have also later been able to observe it in a microscope in which have been placed something stemming from a person who has touched the object.

2) The regularity that if this has been observed, often the person concerned has been infected with a certain disease.

By this, we can relate observations to other observations without presupposing continuous existence.

Next, we can conclude that if we treat the object in a way that gets the figures in the microscope stop their activity (i.e. perish), after having treated the object in a similar way, then it can also be verified that the microbes have stopped their activity, or rather that the movements of the microbe pictures have stopped, when we look in the microscope after the usual procedure. We even conclude this in cases in which we have not seen the very treatment of the object in a microscope, but only samples from the object in a microscope before and after the treatment.

Our talk of not-observable entities on the object is misleading, but for the sake of convenience, we use the same way of expressing ourselves here as we use of our observations of observable entities, for instance vermin on plants, the way Maxwell has referred it. We possibly think that we can imagine that this talk is literally true. Imaginations like that may be usable as mere imaginations, also scientifically, but we cannot know how much it influences and misleads our scientific imagination, since such analogies may have limits and even hamper our fantasy.

Here it is necessary to refer to Bas van Fraassen’s discussion (in Scientific Image) of Maxwell’s article, especially because what has been put forward above and in “Usage and existence” is in agreement with the following statements from that:

“The fact that we let our language be guided by a given picture, at some point, does not show how much we believe about that picture. When we speak of the sun coming up in the morning and setting at night, we are guided by a picture now explicitly disavowed”. ([Fraassen 80], p.14)

Besides, this talk of the sun has also been pointed out by George Berkeley, who adds:

“A little reflection on what is here said will make it manifest, that the common use of language would receive no manner of alteration or disturbance from the admission of our tenets.” ([Berkeley 88] § 51)

Thus, in everyday life and in applied science we can use language independently of our other assumptions, provided it works. As it has been substantiated in “Usage and existence”, our usage does not commit us to assuming the existence of certain physical entities or properties at all.

Just as in the mentioned section, we have seen that our talk of screen pictures works in everyday life but cannot be literally understood as an adequate description of what takes place in the computer, thus our realist talk about microbes works in our everyday usage. However, it cannot be used as an adequate description of what the scientists are dealing with when they talk of the existence and condition of the microbes, as this talks concerns experimental situations and the use of a microscope.

4.1.3 Time and existence.

In the line of thought criticised here, the idea that events can be arranged along a continuous time axis is of course involved - in the realist sense. This idea is obviously related to the idea that there must be no “holes” or leaps in time, which is identical to realism as regards time, since the idea presupposes that it has meaning to say that there are definite states concerning whatever anywhere on the time axis, i.e. that it can be verified. As this is not always possible, especially continuously, we cannot ascribe meaning to this idea of a linear, continuous time understood as something that exists independently. On the other hand, we can try to arrange the individual events in a linear way, just as we cannot arrange events in any other way. (Cf. “Time” in Treatise No 1.)

The imagination of the existence of a continuous and dense ordered time way takes part in supporting and producing the idea of the existence of not-observable entities. The reason is that if we have observed something, e.g. under a microscope, at one moment and observed it again later, according to this idea it is an obvious assumption that it must “have been there in the intervening period” in some sense. For else there would be “a hole in its existence” and thus, it would “be missing somewhere on the time axis”. However, the only thing we altogether know of or have to do with as regards the existence of microbes, or rather the concept of it, are the observations that have made us talk of them and introduce them as a concept, viz. the microbe figures we have seen in the microscope and the observed and described regularity between the different observations at different times, as exemplified above. We are not entitled to assert that there is more than this. As it has earlier been argued, it is we that in our here and now situation form a conception of time based on our structuring of our memories and theoretical constructions. For that reason, the imagination of a hole in what exists, understood as an absence of something between then and now, becomes void because there is nothing that we can call “then” understood as former present but only our structuring of our knowledge and memories as such (understood as memory impressions). It is a contradiction to talk of a lack in a complete structuring of something present. The imagination of time - or just the past - as something arranged on a line such that a set of changes and states are attached to every point expresses a realist way of thinking that has to be substantiated. We can only assert the existence of those objects and events that we can refer to in accordance to the respective verification procedures. We can arrange these entities in a way we can call “the direction of time”, viz. an arrangement inspired by our experience of the now and the memory impressions we have of sequence. However, the use of the metaphor “holes in the time” in a counterargument has no justification, as we cannot attribute time a meaning as something in itself. Other arrangement of our memories than the linear one can be at least as warranted as the linear one.

Just as it applies to our understanding of other persons’ consciousness and the linearity of time, it is only after a sort of subsequent rationalization that our common sense make us bridle at an anti-realistic view of our talk of these not-observable entities. As long as the laboratory technician is working with the object in the microscope, he does not have to take a stand on anything else than what he sees. Thinking of some small invisible microbes would probably not help him in his work, but would rather be disturbing. However, these remarks are only intended as a secondary comment, not as an argument for this anti-realistic viewpoint.

4.2 Maxwell’s continuous arrangement of kinds of observations.

According to Grower Maxwell the view that micro-organisms does not exist in a literal sense, but only as coloured spots in the microscope, becomes problematic if it also have to be applied to what we see with other aids. Maxwell expresses this in the following way:

‘It really does “seem awkward” to say that when persons who wear glasses describe what they see they are talking about shadows, while those who employ unaided vision talk about things (...)’ ([Maxwell 62], p.7)

However, we do not have to describe these situations in this way. According to anti-introductionism, in all cases, we relate to what we see, or rather to our visual impressions. The ways we deal with the two mentioned cases are nearly identical. I.e. we act in nearly the same way when we wear glasses as when we do not need to wear them. The difference is just that the glasses must be worn in the right way and be cleaned now and then.

Maxwell states the idea that the types of observation can be arranged continuously from seeing through a vacuum, through window glass, through glasses and to look through a microscope, etc. In this arrangement, at most an arbitrary border can be drawn between what is observable and what is theoretical, he asserts. ([Maxwell 62], p.7)

First a remark about the opposites: in this connection, the distinction must be drawn between the contrast observable entities versus not-observable entities, so here Maxwell commits a category error by contrasting observable entities with theoretical entities. (Cf. van Fraassen’s discussion of this subject [Fraassen 80], p.14].) The theoretical is, as the word says, simply what can be related to a theory, and can thus easily concern something observable, entities as well as their qualities, e.g. the curvature of a surface, which can be described by reference to theoretical entities, e.g. parameters in a formula, though it may be observable to some extent. Instead, we ought to talk of a boundary between what is observable and what is not observable (which Maxwell indeed does later in the same article [p.13]).

Apart from this, it is true that magnifying glasses can be produced and put together in any power on this scale. However, any of these cases can be described in a way corresponding to that in which as observations in the microscope have been described above, in which cases it was not necessary to talk of the existence of not-observable entities behind the lens. Confer also the described difference between seeing with glasses and without glasses. In all cases, as mentioned, we relate to our sense impressions. For that reason, there are no fundamental differences between the single ways of observation in the arrangement. As all these cases can be described without introducing not-observable entities, there is no dividing line to be drawn here. The distinction between observable and not-observable entities was thus not relevant to the discussion of Maxwell’s microbe example, of which it did not form part because it was not necessary to refer to any not-observable entities in the example, but only to visual impressions. In the same way, there is no fundamental difference between seeing with aids and seeing without any aids at all, as in the discussion above we only refer to what se observe, or rather to our visual impressions. Thus, we do not need such a concept of fundamentally not-observable real entities to describe the world. This can give rise to the obvious objection, that according to this hic-et-nunc philosophy, observable physical objects are not more real than microbes are. This subject will be taken up again later in this section. Preliminary it can be referred to the mentioned fact that we only are dealing with our sense impressions.

Thus it can be rejected that the realist must conclude from the idea that the microbe figures we see in the microscope do not exist as real microbes that what we see through a magnifying glass does not exist, and finally, that what we see without glasses, i.e. the objects around us, do not exist either. For in all these cases we see something which we deal with to, or rather that we have some visual impressions which we deal with, which is actually the same, but expressed in a without realistic flavour. Understood in this way, in all the examples (i.e. irrespective of degree of magnification) we take a stand on something real, namely our visual impressions (”what we see”), whether these are constituted of a figure in a microscope or the visual impressions we have without glasses.

What is real in these examples can thus be expressed in a very simple way:

Whether we see through air, window glass, glasses, in a microscope or a telescope, it is our visual impressions and the regularities we can demonstrate that are real.

We can also deal with some of what we see and interact with it in our everyday life. Thus, it is well known that we consider a stone real, because we can to kick it...[6]

The assertion “There are microbes on that object” has only the interpreted meaning “Microbe figures can be seen in a microscope if some of the object are put under the microscope lens”. Nearly as above, some may object: “Does this anti-realistic way of thinking then not imply that objects seen with the naked eye do not exist more than microbes?” To this must it be answered that in principle we have the same relation to the visual impressions we have in the microscope as we e.g. have to our ordinary visual impressions without glasses. Both kinds of impressions are real, as mentioned, but the latter are far more woven into our everyday life and its great number of different sense impressions.

In a certain sense, our behaviour in fact varies continuously (and monotonously) with the strength of these aids. Before this can substantiated, however, it must first be made clear, that in Maxwell’s assertion that magnifying glasses can be so-called continuously arranged, we can at most put the following idea: corresponding to any degree of enlargement between existing degrees we can make an instrument with that enlargement (within the limit of a certain uncertainty). It is corresponding to each of these instruments that we will have a definite behaviour:

If we see with adapted glasses will have nearly the same behaviour as if we did not need glasses, except that we would have to wear the glasses correctly. We would relate in the same way to the seen objects, be able to touch them, etc. Something similar applies again if we see something with a magnifying glass, except that we would need instruments to touch the singular details. Etc. The use of a microscope with an even greater degree of magnification is described above in a similar way. Thus, our behaviour varies with the degree of magnification, so in this sense our attitude can be arranged just a “continuously”.

4.2.1 Existence.

Though for convenience we talk of microbes by means of the terms of our everyday language, this does not mean that we have the same relations to our ideas of microbes as to our visual impressions of tables. We relate to our visual impressions without glasses (or with adjusted glasses) in a way that is determined by the size we perceive and we ascribe this size to the seen object. It may here be tempting to say that we deal with the physical objects as what they are; but regarded as a philosophical statement, this formulation has a realist character. Instead, we can assert the opposite, viz. that things and their properties can be described on the basis of what we experience. This is what we deal with. By contrast, this interpretation does not apply to microbes, for when we look at microbe figures, we certainly also deal with them as if they have the size we see (if they filled up a screen, we would have to move our head). However, the size we attribute to the microbes is the result of a calculation based on the size of the figures and the magnification factor of the microscope. Thus, we do not deal with a computation of something known but with a theoretic construction. (The result of this kind of extrapolations does not have more reality than the result of the extrapolations that lead to the concept of Big Bang.) Therefore, we cannot say that microbes exist in the same way as things we see with our naked eyes or with glasses. In other words, as to microbes there is nothing, 1) which we deal with in the same way as we deal with things, and 2) which we can call “microbes” just as we call a table a “table”. This is the answer of the two questions above concerning the reality of microbes versus that of physical object.

In addition, a conclusion from Treatise No 2 (in “Three different views of the concept of a physical object”) shall here be referred it in this way:

Only those existence statements about which we know that we are able to verify them has meaning; and only actually verified existence statements can be declared true, and only with respect to their verification procedure.[7]

Thus, a statement about the existence of microbes on an object can only have meaning if we know that we are able to verify it or its negation, and then only with regard to the verification procedure of the statement, i.e. not in itself. Moreover, a statement about existence of microbes on an object can only be declared true if it has been verified with regard to the verification procedure of the statement, e.g. given the sight of microbe figures in the microscope under the conditions laid down, i.e. only in that sense. Thus talking of “microbes on an object” does not have a meaning that is analogous to talking of “crumbs on a table”.

Correspondingly, a statement about the existence of things seen with the n1aked eye, e.g. a table in a certain room, can only have meaning if we know that we are able to verify it or its negation and only with regard to the verification procedure of the statement. A statement about the existence of a table in a certain room can only be declared true if it is verified according to such a verification procedure, e.g. by the fact that we have seen the table and know that it has not been removed, or that we have heard other persons’ statements about its existence. Here the word “table” denotes an object that has a number of particular qualities and usually we would immediately denote a table by the word “table” and not until then justify this by referring to these qualities. (As mentioned in Treatise No 1, this is contrary to what Berkeley adduces [Berkeley 88], § 1, p.53.)

Thus, this means that tables are not in any way more real than the microbe figures we see in the microscope. On the contrary, we deal with tables as to figures in a microscope. On the other hand, we do not similarly deal with microbes understood as microscopic not-observable entities, for the simple reason that this concept is a construction (as it has also been concluded above).

4.2.2 Summing up.

As mentioned, calling microbes “not-observable entities” presupposes that they exist as entities that are just not observable. However, we can rightfully only talk of the existence of microbes understood in the described way, i.e. with reference to the sight of the figures in the microscope and our dealing with them, as we have the concept of microbes from this, whereas we have a more tangible and direct approach to tables. There is thus nothing we deal with as being microbes, in the same way as there is something we deal with as being tables and chairs. What we deal with are figures in a microscope, as mentioned, not objects that have the size we ascribe to them. For that reason, Maxwell’s allegation about continuity does not compel us to assert that microbes exist in the same way as tables exist. It follows directly from the arguments in “Usage and existence” that we are not compelled to translate everyday language statements of the existence of microbes into complicated sentence about verification procedures either. These are relevant only when verification has to be made, in which case we have to apply the verification procedure and thus to know a description of it.

4.3 A comparison with observable objects.

It has no meaning to talk of events and objects existing in the period between the observations understood as existence purely and simply. Nevertheless, we can talk of well-known, perceivable, but yet unperceived consequences of acts and events, e.g. the consequences of a leaky water pipe. (Cf. the bathroom example in Treatise No 1). The fact that for practical reasons or for convenience we talk as if this talk has a literal meaning is another matter. Considerations concerning these circumstances may have no importance to our dealing with physical objects in everyday life, but to a metaphysical understanding of our situation in the world, as they can uncover some basic misunderstandings.

The made interpretation of which kind of existence we need to assume in the description of what we call “control of microbes” has a relational structure as opposed to a continuous structure. However, it proves that this interpretation applies to observable entities, too. The point is that in both cases we are only dealing with a fiction. Thus, I can imagine a situation in which I have reached from the place A to B in the city C, or rather, a situation in which I am at B, have memory impressions of having begun a walk at A, but in which I do not have memory impressions of experiences in the intervening period. Certainly, also in this case, I can form a fiction about a situation in which I am at a certain place between A and B, this fiction being based on my memories about nature and my knowledge of its regularity. However, statements about specific details about what I have seen in the city C cannot have literal truth, as they would be random.

It could here be objected that we can imagine that someone I know would tell me that he has seen me from a taxi on this walk. Though my having been there is not a part of my memory, it could now be concluded that it is literally true that I have been at the place in question at the time in question. However, this only concerns the fiction as regards this moment.

A statement about the existence of something or someone at a certain place at a certain time has only meaning in relation to a practicable verification procedure, and only in this sense. Thus, the assertion that a person in a certain situation is fundamentally excluded from ascribing meaning to a certain statement is the same as the assertion that this statement does not describe a part of the world to him in that situation.

4.4 Elementary particles.

Maxwell maintains that although we would succeed in expressing all theoretical terms by means of observation terms, we would not always be able to avoid referring to what he call “unobservable (theoretical) entities”. ([Maxwell 62], p.15)

From the arguments in the section “Usage and existence”, however, it follows that is not urgent to avoid usage of terms for not-observable entities for being an anti-realist concerning not-observable entities. The decisive thing is our interpretation of these terms. Realists may object that if these terms for not-observable entities do not refer to definite entities and their behaviour, we cannot attribute meaning to them and thus neither to the sentences in which they occur. This in turn means that if we do not think that they exist our talk about them cannot posses any meaning, as we cannot just talk of them as if they exist. To this must firstly be remarked that the first premise is based in a misunderstanding, as what we talk about is entities in a theoretic model. Secondly, what takes place is simply that we use a language or way of speaking that works. Thirdly, it is only possible to expound the meaning of these terms by relating them to the observable entities and events that form part of the genesis of the terms for the not-observable entities in question. This is the only meaning they can be attributed. This does not need translation rules. (Cf. the explanation of the top down principle). The fact that for the sake of convenience we talk in terms of things is another matter, as mentioned. As it emerged from the microbe example, in fact we could talk of the regularity of our observations instead of talking of so-called not-observable entities.

In support of his point of view, Maxwell quotes the following as an instance:

”Within the elementary theory of gasses we could define ’molecules’ as ’particles of matter (or stuff) not large enough to be seen with a microscope, which are in rapid motion, frequently colliding with each other, and are the constituents of all gasses.’ All the (nonlogical) terms in the definiens are observation terms, and still the definition itself, as well as kinetic theory (and other theoretical considerations), implies that molecules of gases are unobservable (at least for the present).” ([Maxwell 62], p.15, my underlining)

It is difficult to see that the term “particles (...) not large enough to be seen with a microscope” is an observation term, such as Maxwell regards it, as it is specified in the very expression, that we cannot observe that to which the expression refers. For that reason, the expression cannot be an example of a substitution of a term for a not-observable entity with terms for observable entities, which is really what is laying into what is above referred of Maxwell’s talk about expressing all theoretical terms by means of observation terms. Thus, the example is not in agreement with the line of thought Maxwell wants to criticise. Besides, talking of “constituents” presupposes realism in this connection, as it reflects a bottom up line of thought.

Moreover, this particle example reminds of Maxwell’s microbe example. For also in connection with the particle example we can imagine other explanations of a realist kind, which can be just as good as the presented, in so far as there are no other evidences to which we can refer in the explanation. According to this line of thought, we could for instance be dealing some vibrating “plasma” that could be divided in still smaller parts of plasma. In the actual case, however, there are observations under certain conditions (an experimental set-up), which has led to concrete observations and a definite theory, in this case about particles. In the microbe example, a more standardised set-up is applied, which the microscope can be sad to be, while the experimental set-up in this particle example can be a bubble chamber or a cloud chamber.

Another related example according to which realist usage does contradict an anti-realist line of thought can be seen in Robert Andrews Millikan’s description of the experiment in which he demonstrates that measurements of so-called electrical charges have a least magnitude. Millikan computed a least charge from his discovery that changes of measurements of electrical charges occurred in multiples of a certain least magnitude. [Millikan 24], p.54-61) As earlier touched on we can quite unproblematically talk of these charges being transferred from the one plate to the other without presupposing that there is a material entity, that possesses such charges. What moves are changes of measured values (h), but only understood such that an increase in measured value at one place (from a to a+h) corresponds to a decrease at another place (from b+h to b) as in an account. Thus, these charges need only to be understood as measured values, because the fact that electrical charges can be transferred between different bodies does not have to be understood as a movement of physical electronic entities, but only such that the so-called charge of one of the bodies is diminished while that of the other is increased.

5. Other ways of perceiving.

Certain arguments adduced in favour of the reality of not-observable entities are refer to the fact that some persons have a sense less than other persons have, or on the idea of creatures that somehow have a sense more than the human being can possess. However, we are dealing with only one problem here - as these two kinds of arguments can be refuted on the same basis. For just as we have seen that talk of the other person's sense perception does not possess semantic meaning, neither in itself, literally, purely and simple, nor without any interpretation (whether these sensations are poorer or better than one’s own), so talk of the other creature’s different sorts of sense perceptions does not possess any meaning in any of these ways.

Thus, it has neither meaning to talk of objects and qualities fundamentally different from those we can consider as literally existing, i.e. on an equal footing with the objects and qualities we talk of here and now. However, this does not mean that so-called other kinds of sensations would be of no consequence to us who do not possess these, i.e. who, realistically expressed, do not have a corresponding behaviour. On the contrary, in principle creatures with other kinds of sense perceptions than we would be able to help us in our everyday life and in science, which however is another matter.

5.1 Persons with defective sense organs.

It can be argued against anti-realism about not-observable entities. If it does not have meaning to talk of not-observable entities as literally existing, and if we regard sounds as entities, then it leads to a contradiction to assert that the sounds I hear do not exist to deaf persons, or rather, to assert that it has no meaning to attribute existence to these sounds to deaf persons. For with it, this anti-realist line of thought seems to imply either a relativism according to which something that “exists to me” does not “exist to another person”, or the contradiction that something both exists and does not exist in the same respect. However, the argument presupposes that we can attribute a literal meaning to the existence of sounds, and that the problem can be seen from without. Thus, the question is which meaning we can attribute to these statements about existence.

Instead of talking of “a born deaf” person simply (i.e. “deaf” independently of an interpretation), we can give a more precise definition of being born death. Another person is born death if we know that he has never spoken about heard sounds, has never reacted to sounds, and cannot understand statements that refer to sounds as such, whether these are heard now, remembered or just possible, and if he has never reacted adequately to what other persons have said about sound experiences. This lack implies that apart from the fact that he may be able to relate certain other concepts to the concept of sound, especially theoretically, he will otherwise not be able to give other persons any essentially interesting information that refers to sounds. (These commonplace remarks are also made because of the next chapter about creatures with other sense organs.)

When the other person talks of sounds he has hear, then I, who can hear, know that I have a possibility of hearing it, and I have a conception of what the other talks of, that is in the sense that I can relate his statements to what I know about hearing. This is all I can put into his statements about his having heard something. Thus, I do not have to imagine that he hear something, at most how what he talks about sounds.

However, if I were born death I would only be able to relate his statements (expressed by means of signs) about what he has heard, to my knowledge of the world and to my other senses in a very limited way, such as feeling of vibration. I would not be able to attribute more than this limited meaning to his statements about that, though I may have other diffuse ideas of their meaning, too. Moreover, I would only have a severely limited knowledge about what other persons meant when they wrote the word “sound” in a sentence, and I would only be able to understand that talk is something that somehow corresponds to written text. As for statements about sound as such, I would only be partly able to analogize them to e.g. varying brightness. Based on my knowledge of the sense of touch being different from the sense of taste, I could try to extrapolate and imagine that some persons have a sense that is unknown to me, but I would not be able to imagine the sort or character of such an unknown sense. In any case, what it means to imagine that some persons have a kind of sense experience that I do not have myself is however somewhat obscure, as it is an attempt at forming an idea without a real object. It can at most be so that I have an idea of how the situation would be to me.

The question is whether - and if so in which way - I fully can attribute meaning to statements about hearing something, if I only have the senses to see, feel, smell and taste. However, primarily, talking about what it means that some creatures have a kind of sense experiences quite different from those I can have as born death is not a correct formulation of the problem as this talk about sensation it itself presupposes a realist point of view.

Example: We assume that I only can see, feel, smell and taste. By means of sign language, the person A informs me of his hearing of a crash in the next room and proposes that we enter to see what has happened. In the room, we can see that a painting has fallen down on the floor. With my four senses, I just have to resign myself to the fact that because of this special ability X he can draw certain correct conclusions that I cannot draw.

However, I can have knowledge of which conclusions that can be drawn from different statements about hearing experiences. In this way, I can partly be able to draw some of the same kinds of conclusions in the light of statements (in sign language) like “I have heard a sound of the character C in the direction D”. Equally, during a suitable experiment I would be able to measure oscillations of air and describe them by means of different graphic depictions. I would be able to observe connections between these oscillations of air and certain statements about sound. Such ideas are the only kind of meaning I can ascribe to other persons’ statements about sound. In short:

To me who can only see, feel, smell, and taste it is just one of the cases of regularity in the world that other persons’ statements containing the noun “sound” or the verb “to hear” can be related to certain possible events, the possibility of which I would not have reasons to predict.

Here too a structure of statements constituting a part of the other person’s manifestations as a human being is present. A further circumstance has to be pointed out:

When another person expresses something about sounds (possibly in sign language), as a born death I do not possess a basis for attributing a sensation of sounds to the other person. However, neither as a hearing person, I do possess a basis for such an attribution in the literally same sense in which I as a hearing person perceive my own sensation of sounds.

This resembles the fact that I cannot attribute consciousness other persons in a quite analogous, symmetrical sense, but only in another interpreted way – which, however, does not deprive statements about that of their value. (Cf. above and the section “Solipsism / other minds” in Treatise No 1, and above.) Moreover, we can be in many situations similar to the deaf person’s relation to the hearing person, e.g. if another person expresses himself about something I only have a scant knowledge of, or if he is able to draw logical conclusions much quicker than I am, or has a sense of absolute pitch, unlike me.

5.2 Creatures with other kinds of sense organs.

The question is which kind of meaning we can ascribe to statements that unfamiliar creatures have sense organs or sense faculties different from our five senses. We may partially understand the language these creatures speak and find out that mutually in their justification of some statements they use some words, which we do not understand. We may even realize that some of these statements are true. Thus, overall, our situation is the same as the one in which I would be as born death in relation to persons that talk about their “hearing something” described above: It could be compared to the description of this one.

What it means that unknown creatures have a sense faculty, X, and a corresponding sense organ more than we have, can thus be described analogously to the example concerning hearing in the subsection “Our body” in Treatise No 1. A modified introduction of it sounds (phrased in realist terms): “The sentence ‘Some creatures X-senses with their X-sense organ’ just expresses that they need the X-sense organ to have X-sensations, and so on as to the details in the X-sense organ”. Actually, however, we have to express it by saying that the unknown creatures can have an organ we do not have, an injury of which would imply that they would abstain from doing certain actions, which they would usually do, and from putting forward certain kinds of statements.

A realist argument for the reality of not-observable entities can be that like this:

Just as we see something real with our sight, what creatures with microscope-sight see is something real and existing, and since what creatures with microscope-sight see is the same as what we see in a microscope, what we see in a microscope is real.

However, this argument presupposes the symmetry based understanding according to which we can attribute meaning to the idea that our talk of the other person’s sense impressions can be understood analogously to our talk of the sense impressions and the consciousness that we experience ourselves - just as in the example about hearing. Instead, according to the explanations in the section “Not-observable entities” above we can regard creatures with microscopic sight as creatures that behave and talk in a way that corresponds to their seeing something in a microscope. That is why we say that they have microscopic sight. According the elucidation above, this does not imply literally existing microbes.

Thus, we can imagine other kinds of creatures utter “This egg shell is swarming with terribly many salmonellae”. However, there is no difference between this utterance stated by a creature with special faculties and by a laboratory technician looking in a microscope. (It being more elaborate to the technician to reach the discovery is another matter.) The only thing we can put into the statement that other persons has microscope sight, is that they can put forward that kind of statements without use of instruments and that in a certain sense we are able to confirm these statements, viz. understood as statements about microbe figures in a microscope. We can say the same about these creatures as about laboratory assistants with microscope,

We can neither put more into a statement that other persons can see a sparrow on the lawn than the fact that we can verify somehow that there is a sparrow on the lawn, for instance by running one's eye over the lawn. We can do that by means of our own sight, while we have to confirm the above statement about salmonellae with the aid of instruments and to understand the statement as a statement about observations in the microscope. Understood in this way, other persons’ statements about the world are thus comparable, no matter which sense organs they have and which instruments they employ.

6. The problem of induction in the light of a hic-et-nunc viewpoint.

In its traditional version, the problem of induction, which Hume clarified so thoroughly, is about our reasons for assuming that up to now established regularity will occur in the future, and why we, despite our logical and empirical difficulties in substantiating this assumption, nevertheless expect occurrences of regularity (cf. [Hume 90], §§ 24-25, 36, for instance). It is even the case that if our expectation is not satisfied, but instead something unexpected happens, most often we will assume that the unexpected phenomenon is explainable, i.e. that we can explain the case by a correction of or an addition to our understanding and description of the regularity of nature up until now.

The situation is such that besides having memories of regularity we can have 1) memories of actions that have been made in expectation of such regularity, and 2) memories of subsequent events that have confirmed this expectation, i.e. events that have been in accordance with the expected regularity as they have come under the description of it. We cannot, however - such as it is often done in the discussion of the problem - refer to real future confirmations or satisfaction of present expectations of regularity, but only to our fictions about such confirmations (cf. the hic-et-nunc philosophy of time[8]), for which reason our expectation does not have a real, future object, but only concerns a pure fiction. Only in the now can we be surprised. We can at most have memory impressions of cases of satisfied and not-satisfied expectations, and memory impressions of our succeeding reactions. Memory impressions of past surprises (i.e. not-satisfied expectations) do not really appear disturbing, as they either have caused adjustments of our expectation or remain as problems not yet solved only, and thus on the whole they are not regarded as irregularities that can cause conflicts - so great is our confidence in the regularities. For that reason, they do not need to form basis for fictions about future surprises concerning our quite fundamental expectations either. The question of why or with what certainty we can know that the regularity of nature will continue in the future is thus misleading, as it does not concern a reality of the same kind as the now but only a fiction. The reason is that the concept of a future of the same kind as the now has to be rejected in its literal sense of new nows - just as it has earlier been argued. Thus, in its traditional formulation the problem of induction presupposes realism as regards future.

Instead, there now remains the question of why we not just form, but also act in agreement with these fictions about a future involving the known regularities. In principle, we can form an arbitrarily great number of variations of fictions about the future in which not all the remembered regularities continue; such variations are arbitrary, and they are not the kind of fictions that we form in practice (though they may occur in works of fiction). The reason can be that those fictions that fully reflect our remembered regularities or our present understanding of the regularities play a prominent part among the fictions because none of the other fictions can distinguish themselves from these in any way. This is due to the fact that though we may form other, more imaginative fictions, in such cases we regard these as simply imaginative. For that reason, fictions based on known regularities will be more intruding.

In this way, of course, this question of our apparently unproblematic belief in induction has just been replaced by an attempt of answering the question of why we especially use the known occurrences of regularity when we form our fictions about the future. This answer cannot thoroughly explain why we form these fictions about the future at all, but only clarify a little about the nature of our existence or our situation in the world.

Hume’s own answer to his sceptical question of why we assume the existence of a uniform and lasting connection between cause and effect is an example of how the question can be more genius that the answer, at least if one is easily satisfied by the answer. We do that because of “the effect of Custom” said Hume. ([Hume 90], §36) The obvious question is why we have this attitude, what warrants it? He did not answer his own question by substantiated or empirical statements, but applied just the nearly synonymous term for our fixed attitude, “a custom”. Hume had uncovered a problem, which it is no easy matter to solve or cover.

Literature.

[Berkeley 88] George Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge
Penguin Books (London 1988)

[Cartwright 84] Nancy Cartwright: How the Laws of Physics Lie
Clarendon Press (Oxford/New York 1984)

[Collin 93] Finn Collin: Videnskabsfilosofi.
Folkeuniversitetet (København 1993).

[Fraassen 80] Bas C. van Fraassen: The Scientific Image
Oxford University Press (Oxford 1980)

[Hume 90] David Hume: Enquiries
Clarendon Press (Oxford 1990)

[Lübcke 82] Poul Lübcke (red): Vor tids filosofi, bd. II, “Videnskab og sprog”
Politikens forlag (Copenhagen 1982).

[Maxwell 62] Grover Maxwell: 'The Ontological Status of Theoretical Entities' i
Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science,
vol. III:
Scientific Explanation, Space, and Time
University of Minnesota Press (

USA

1962)

[Millikan 24] Robert Andrews Millikan: “The electron and the light-quant from the experimental point of view”, Nobel Lecture May 23, 1924, from
Nobel Lectures, Physics 1922-1941.
http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1923/millikan-lecture.html
Last modified October 23, 2001.

[Quine 75] Willard van Orman Quine: Word and Object
The M.I.T Press (USA 1975)

[1] I owe the use of the centre of gravity as an example to [Collin 93], p.46-7.

[2] I owe the idea of this historical example to [Lübcke 93], p.297.

[3] The mentioned “analytical hypothesis” is the hypotheses the linguist adopts in her fieldwork, e.g. that observation sentences and truth functions (negation, conjunction, and disjunction) can be translated. ([Quine 75], p. 57, 68)

[4] Cf. the criticism of the principle of inference to the best explanation as regards introduction of new types of entities, or “abduction” in the subsection “Realism”, in “Three different views of the concept of a physical object” in Treatise No 1I.)

[5] It must be noticed that also Bas van Fraassen in The Scientific criticizes Putnam’s version of this demand of explanation ([Fraassen 80], p. 38-39).

[6] Despite his intention, Samuel Johnson’s so-called “refutation” of Berkeley’s idealistic philosophy by kicking a stone with the words “I refute it thus” is a splendid illustration of Berkeley’s idealistic conception of the meaning of the appellation of things. By his small performance, Johnson has demonstrated how the statement “This is a stone” has meaning according to Berkeley, namely by our being confronted with sense impressions, like the particular feeling we can have in the foot after having kicked something and which together with other sense impressions (e.g. visual impressions) makes us conclude “This is a stone”.

[7] With due reference to ([Dummett 78], p. 358/9) concerning this and the following remarks.

[8] An introduction to the hic-et-nunc philosophy of time is presented in the subsection “Time” in Treatise No 1.

Philosophical debate

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Anti-introductionism. Treatise No 3.

An exposition of our cognitive situation.

Treatise No 3.

Contents.

Summary.