An exposition of our cognitive situation.

As the concept of semantic meaning is basic to any discussion, of course it is necessary to elucidate and define it, which is done in the section “The concept of semantic meaning”.

The succeeding section, “Different sorts of arguments against realism”, evaluates arguments against realism within different fields, as promised in Treatise No 5, in the section “Introduction”. It appears that some of these realisms lack semantic meaning in nearly the same degree as religious sequences of signs do. Within other fields, the debate is contingent on empiric facts.

The criticism in the same treatise of religious sequences of signs for being semantic senseless is followed up by an answer to the question about how it is possible to criticize a person’s utterances if they are semantically senseless. This is possible by scrutinizing the ideas or the appearance of semantic sense that have induced the person in question to put forward his sentences. This is illustrated by an example in the section “How semantic senseless sentences can be criticized”.

The section “The anti-introductionistic project” presents the account of an, at least in these treatises, renewed and clarified view of the realist debate as being about what we are confronted with or have to do with, in contrast to what are just ideas and constructions. As this question concerns demonstrable facts, the realism debate is finally extricated from being about existence versus not-existence.

After this, the text discusses the relation between the appearance of a body and its so-called inherent qualities, i.e. qualities that are apparently not immediately sensed. These concepts are clarified in the section “The concept of so-called not-observable qualities”. The result proves to be usable to the mind-body problem.

To anti-introductionism, the mind-body problem involves the demand for interpreting scientific theories about how a person’s ingestion of something materiel can affect his physical and mental impressions, without this interpretation having to refer to anything else than phenomena and theories. This interpretation involves a clarification of the concept of processes, especially physiological ones. Moreover, the question of what can actually be phenomena is discussed. This takes place in the section “The mind-body problem in anti-introductionistic elucidation”.

Though Alfred Ayer maintains the opposite idea, it is in fact possible to argue for the existence of a moral basis of our actions. The existence of this basis is made good in the section “Ethics and politics”. First, however, the treatise accounts for why we do not necessarily follow our moral conclusions. This takes place in the subsection “Moral point of view and action”. The subsection, “The basis of ethics”, takes as a starting point the fact that the world is the world to us, viz. in the sense that the individual’s horizon or world of ideas is determined by his knowledge, such that clarification and increase of knowledge increase this horizon. This means that if we want to argue and conclude anything at all, we have to inquire into many different subjects. As we exactly seek an answer to the question about the basis of ethics, the premise is in fact fulfilled. For this reason, we also have to increase our possibilities of investigation. This leads to the basis of ethics and politics. Finally, some counter-arguments are discussed and some examples of consequences of this basis are shown.

1. The concept of semantic meaning.

The concept of semantic meaning is especially basal to anti-introductionism. This applies not least to the survey in the next section. Therefore, it is below clarified what the demands on the semantic meaning of statements consist in.

For a sentence to have semantic meaning, it must fulfil a hierarchy of demands. Thus, phonetic or written textual utterances that do not express anything are just sign sequences. In order that in addition a sign sequence can be a sentence, it must consist of elementary parts that all have word meaning, such that they make up words. These words and their order must be grammatically correct. The single parts must also fulfil certain selection criteria, i.e. be applicable to what they are applied. However, the fulfilment of these demands only makes the sentence linguistically correct, so far.

Moreover, concerning word meaning it must be remarked that it is not sufficient that a used sign sequences can have a word meaning in other connections; it must also have a word meaning in the actual context. Even if the context should indicate to which part of speech a certain sign sequence belongs, a sentence does still not make up a statement if it contains a sign sequence without word meaning. For if so, this just means that the sentence may have a grammatically correct structure without having semantic meaning. This is typically true of religious sign sequences. (Cf. Treatise No 5, the section “Semantic critique of religious sequences of signs”, and the next subsection.)

Besides a sentence having to fulfil the mentioned criteria for word meaning, etc., in order to have semantic meaning, it also has to express something definite. This means that it has to express something that represents a difference compared with the opposite statement, understood such that it must be of importance or express a difference whether the former statement or the latter is true. In other words, it must be possible to confront other persons with what is referred to.

If a sentence does not refer to state of affairs we can examine such that its truth-value can be established, the statement in question does not express anything. In that case, its content is just arbitrary.

Thus, the statement “There is a monolith on a distant planet” asserts nothing compared with the opposite statement “There is not a monolith on any distant planet”. The purpose of advancing a statement is to communicate something, and this demands that what one asserts is a fact: it must be possible to make good what is asserted.

1.1 Word meaning versus lacking reference.

The sections “So called null-elements in grammar” and “Wrong use of the concept of ellipsis in grammar” in Treatise No 5 show examples of how word meaning is erroneously attributed to lacking reference and thus to an assumption of existence. Two more cases will be expounded here: the concept of religious belief and the concept of the unconscious mind. However, the users of these expressions do not necessarily make these attributions actively, as they may have been induced to regard their faulty usage as unproblematic because they do not possess a semantically clarified understanding of it.

Case 1: In Treatise No 5, the section “Semantic critique of religious sequences of signs”, it is argued that the religious sign sequence “to believe” lacks word meaning, unless it means to trust or to suppose: As to the first possibility, it presupposes the establishment of a semantically meaningful object of the verb. As to the last possibility, it has the meaning to have a partly justified certainty. However, this is hardly what the religious mean. Nevertheless, the following must be added:

The core meaning of the verb “to believe” in the sense to suppose is to possess a nearly complete justification. It is not: to lack something in completing a justification. Of course, such a lack is not a source of knowledge, or any kind of knowledge at all.

Thus, to believe something in the sense to suppose is neither 1) to have an unjustified insight nor 2) to possess something extra that completely justifies the partial certainty the verb “to believe” denotes in this sense. Otherwise, in the first case (1) it would have be possible to explain what an insight can consist in if it is neither empiric nor rational, and in the latter case, (2) it would have to be possible to explain in what that extra justification should consist. With this, it is out of question to make this putative extra into the core meaning of the sign-sequence “to believe”, neither in religious contexts, whatever they might consist in. This would be to make the lack of knowledge into knowledge.

Case 2: This reminds of certain uses of the term “the unconscious”: It is true that our very knowledge of events and states is a part of our consciousness for logical reasons, since a person’s knowledge consists in the totality of his knowledge, memories, sense impressions, thoughts, etc. However, our lack of knowledge of accidents and states of affairs is not a part of our consciousness since the very lack of knowledge of something consist in not to have knowledge and memories about it.

The content of consciousness we can certainly call “the conscious mind”, and the not-existing content of consciousness, or the not-conscious, which is just what is not part of our content of consciousness, we can call “the unconscious”; however, this way of speaking does not make this not-existing not-conscious content exist, as lack of existence is not existence. What is not conscious is not an entity.

Nevertheless, this way of expressing oneself can obviously lead some persons to talk about the unconscious mind as if it is a sort of existence, and not a lacking existence. However, as it has appeared, the fact that we do something unconsciously does not mean that this takes place in some area we can call “the unconscious mind”.

2. Different sorts of arguments against realism.

In Treatise No 5, the section “Introduction”, the following is asserted:

“Obviously, it follows from these dissertations that the arguments that can be put forward against realism have different weights in different areas of debate. They seem to have strongest weight, when they argue that religious sentences are semantically meaningless sequences of signs, next strongest weight against the realists’ idea of an external world, third strongest weight against the idea of literal existence of fields in physics and other kinds of so-called not-observable objects, fourth strongest weight against realism concerning the past and other persons’ consciousness, and fifth strongest weight against verification-transcendent statements about principally observable objects. This will be discussed in detail in a subsequent treatise.”

Here it must immediately be admitted that religion is not one of these areas of discussion within the realism debate, though it is characterized as such in the referred text. Religion is just affected by a criticism that is more basic than any that can be advanced against a realism, viz. the pointing out that religion consists of semantically senseless sign sequences the way it was argued for in Treatise No 5 in the section “Semantic critique of religious sequences of signs”. Here, the detection of the lack of semantic meaning of religion made clear that religion cannot be an object of rational arguments or empiric investigations. This critique of religion cannot be included under the realism debate for the reason that though the realism debate deals with semantic meaning, it usually leaves room for a form of existence, such as existence in a theoretic model.

In Treatise No 4, it is argued that we cannot simply characterize anti-realism by first defining realism and then asserting that the anti-realists just have the opposite point of view. (Cf. Treatise No 4, “The semantic approach to the realism debate”.) The reason to this is that this presupposes that the anti-realists can accept the realists’ concepts and way of presenting the problem at all, but exactly these subjects are at issue. In the same way, the not-religious viewpoint cannot just be defined as the opposite of being religious, as this presupposes acceptance of the religious’ semantic meaningless sign sequences. However, this does not mean that those who accept religious sign sequences and use them in their sentences cannot be criticized for their assertions, though these are semantically meaningless. This viewpoint is developed further in this treatise in the section “How semantic senseless sentences can be criticized”.

The arguments against the four subsequent examples of realism in the referred list are all based on the lacking semantic meaning of statements within the different areas of discussion. For none of them fulfils the basal demand that at statement must have semantic meaning in order that it can be relevant to talk about its truth or falseness at all, or to put it stronger, in order that the statement can express anything at all. (Perhaps it could be imagined that some of them were true in a different world, but statements about that would only be arbitrary fictions.)

It is e.g. problematic what can be put into the concept of an external world in the realists’ discussion of the problem of the external world. Thus, in other contexts the term “external world” can have the clear meaning: the things in the world including our bodies. However, the only thing we are confronted with in this connection is the regularity of our sense impressions. The idea of this regularity is the only thing we can put into the concept of the external world, as we are not confronted with anything that we can call “an external world in itself”. (Cf. Treatise No 5, “A critique of the approach” in the section “Critique of an account of phenomenalism, the problem of the external world, and solipsism”.) In this connection, the realists’ usage reminds much of the religious’ semantically meaningless reuse or loan of sign sequences that in other contexts are words, and it is nearly as open to criticism: The religious have a diffuse use of the sign sequence “belief”, while realists have an unclarified use of the sign sequence “external world”.

What the concepts of elementary particles and force fields consist in according to scientific realism is likewise unclear. (Cf. Treatise No 5, section “Semantic senselessness – semantic emptiness” and several versions of the criticism of the principle of inference to the best explanation as regards introduction of new types of entities, the first time in the subsection “Realism”, in “Three different views of the concept of physical object” in Treatise No 2.) According to scientific anti-realism, it has no use or interest to science to attribute literal sense to these concepts, i.e. sense without or independently of a theoretic model. In general, scientific experiences can only prove the usefulness of a theory, but not make good that the introduced concepts have any literal meaning outside the theory. Theories are only good assumptions as to their ability to prediction and to production of verifiable explanations. (Cf. Treatise No 5, “The concept of useful assumption in the realism debate”.) The realists’ attribution of reality to these theoretic entities corresponds to transferring our idea of everyday physical objects and our treatment of them to a thought world of elementary particles.

The anti-introductionistic rejections of 1) the semantic meaning of statements about the reality of the past and the future, and of 2) the possibility of attributing literal sense to statement about other person’s consciousness are perhaps the most contra-intuitive parts of anti-introductionism. (Cf. Treatise No 1, section “Time” and Treatise No 5, section “Solipsism”, respectively.) Both the answer to the question about the reality of time and the question below about consciousness are based on how the world accidentally is, i.e. how it so far (i.e. in our memories) has seemed to be to us.

In other words, if we are to be able to talk about a semantic sense of statements about empirical matters at all such a meaning must be based on the discussed matters having shown to be possible in a memory version of them. The reason is that this means that we can make fictions about a past or future that do not presuppose a quite other world or nature than the one of which we have memories, or rather, than the pictures we have in form of our memory impressions. To clarify this, some additional considerations are presented:

Re 1: Concerning the idea of a past, it must be remembered that what we experience is not something we can call “the passage of time”, but the now or the situation in the now. (Cf. Treatise No 5, the section “The velocity of time”.) Because of the above-mentioned demand to a semantic meaningful talk about the past, no literal reality can be attributed to the past as we have neither A) memories in which we have returned to a remembered situation, i.e. memories about “having been in the past, nor B) memories of a now from which we have returned to the past, such that we “are in the past now”.

However, it must here be remarked that both in case A and in B, we would be in a now in which all what we remembered would be past, understand a system of memories, just with a more complex structure.

Re 2: As regards the idea of other persons’ sense impressions, memories and thoughts, we cannot attribute the same semantic meaning to statements about such entities as to statements about our own sense impressions, memories and thoughts, for we do not have any memories of having experienced the former in any literal way. For that reason, we can only attribute semantic meaning to statements that contains terms for such entities that 1) we can have a conversation that uses the same terms and which works, and that 2) to a certain degree we can experience other person’s expression of feelings. (Cf. Treatise No 2, in the section “Solipsism / other minds”.) If in a literal sense we could experience something we could call “other persons’ consciousness”, or rather their “sense impressions”, “thoughts”, etc. this problem would cease to be valid, of course. This is why this discussion is empirically conditioned.

As to the last mentioned group of statements, verification transcendent statements about in principle observable entities, such as a monolith on a distant planet, they resemble statements that can in fact be proven. The reason is that we can change one or more of the components of such a statement such that another statement that can in fact be proved is made. Thus, the statement above about a monolith on a distant planet can be changed to a statement about a monolith on Circus Maximus. This may be a reason to the fact that we may be tempted to accept evidence transcendent statements. However, if a statement can be made neither good nor disproved, it cannot express anything that can make a difference to us. Such statements can be chosen freely and randomly among potentially indefinite many. (Cf. the section “Semantic meaning”.)

Occurrences of seemingly contra-intuitive philosophical results have already been discussed in connection to the results of different anti-introductionistic arguments. This has not been done in order to support the arguments in question, as these have already been proved, but as an independent subject in each case. Perhaps an obtained result may appear contra-intuitive when we only consider it in the way it is presented. However, our praxis can in fact be in accordance with the result in question, or at least it does not need to be contrary to it.

Here, an argument against yet a form of contra-intuitivity can be put forward, viz. the very contra-intuitivity of the anti-introductionistic assertion that we do not experience anything we can call “the course of time” at all, but just the now. The reason is that anybody can attempt to scrutinize what he experiences himself concerning the course of time in a literal sense, i.e. when he does not compare the now with his memories. Does any course of time go on in the now? We certainly experience movements of things in the now, but we experience them without comparing spatial positions in the now with remembered positions. Instead, we simply experience the now as a situation.

3. How semantic senseless sentences can be criticized.

Since semantic meaningless sentences do not have any content, i.e. do not express anything that can be explained or refer to anything that has consequences, they do not qualify to be objects of an empiric or logical investigation. In spite of this, it is possible to criticize such statements without presupposing that they have semantic meaning. This can simply take place with point of departure in the universe of ideas that can have inspired those who advance these semantically meaningless to invent them at all.

This applies for instance to statements the religious advance on the background of their religious attitude, but which as a matter of fact are based on the in fact meaningful concepts by means of which the religious attempt to form putative religious concepts though no semantic meaning can be attributed to the result of this. As already put forward, the religious sign sequences thus borrow a semantic appearance from usages in which they in fact have a sense. (Cf. Treatise No 5, section “Semantic senselessness – semantic emptiness”.) Therefore, the critique can simply take these usages as a starting point.

It must first be remarked, however, that as long as the statements the religious regard as conclusions or consequences of their religion do not contain religious sign sequences, they are thus in fact statements and can of course be discussed like all other statements. They can even be true, accidentally. However, they can only be justified by semantically meaningful arguments, not by the religious’ semantically meaningless sign sequences as putative premises.

On the other hand, it is more problematic to take a position on clearly religious sentences, e.g. the following sentence: “According to my religion, the believer will obtain salvation whereas the non-believer is lost. Whether the latter acts well or badly is without importance.” If someone would think to have reasons to assert that this sentence is repugnant, how shall he then be able to put forward any justification of this, as the discussed sentence is not a statement, but only a semantically meaningless sign sequence, and thus has no content that can be discussed?

Of course, the solution cannot be to translate the sentence somehow, as it is semantically empty, for which reason there is nothing to translate. As suggested above, we can instead look at the words and concepts from which the sequence of signs borrows its appearance of semantic meaning. Thus, the religious sign sequence “the believer” can borrow its appearance of semantic meaning from the noun-phrase “the believer” in the sense the supposing person. (Cf. Treatise No 5, section “Semantic critique of religious sequences of signs”.) This may seem problematic as these two substantival phrases are derived from respectively “to believe” and “to suppose” which both demand an object X in the sentence. However, what this X may be and which ideas can underlie it are not of decisive importance to the semantic critique of the line of thought, especially because we are just dealing with an attempt of reuse of words. (The fact that the religious sign sequence “the believer” can borrow its appearance of semantic meaning from the noun-phrase “the believer” in the sense the trustful person, does not ad anything decisive new to the example, only the question of an unclarified object. This is discussed in the same section.) As to the sign sequence “salvation”, it borrows an appearance of semantic meaning from the verb “to salvage” in the sense to rescue, to save, make safe, to liberate, etc.

Some may criticize this analysis for presupposing acceptance of the religious’ putative concepts. However, it only deals with the real words from which the religious sentences borrow their appearance of semantic meaning, and does not make this appearance into meaning. Moreover, the religious would therefore hardly accept the analysis.

It follows from the analysis that the discussed sentence can be substituted by the sentence: “According to my religion, the supposing person will gain an advantageous state (be saved, e.g.), whereas the not-supposing is cut off from this. Whether he acts well or badly is of no importance”. From this or from a similar sentence, the discussed sentence borrows its appearance of semantic meaning. It is to such a sentence that the criticism can relate, as at least it does not contain semantically senseless sign sequences.

We can now ask the religious person who has put forward the discussed sentence whether he really means something that somehow resembles the absurd condemnation it expresses. If he denies this, the demand on the religious person to expound the semantic meaning of his religious sentences suggests itself again. This demand has been justified in the section ‘The sign sequence “god” versus statements about realities’ in Treatise No 5.

The discussion of the religious sentence above can be seen in the light of the already archived result that being religious consists in accepting and advancing semantically meaningless sign sequences. (Cf. Treatise No 5, subsection “Exactness and prolixity” in section “Semantic critique of religious sequences of signs”.) All things considered, this means that the idea that can have inspired the religious person implies that a person will be somehow rewarded for not being able to find out that certain sign sequences are semantically meaningless.

Finally, it must be remarked that of course it is neither possible to maintain, “I believe though it is semantically meaningless”, as this sentence is itself semantically meaningless since its putative verb (“believe”) has no word meaning in this context either.

4. The anti-introductionistic project.

As it has already emerged from these treatises, the philosophical activity anti-introductionism consists in finding a clarified basis of further thinking. That this basis is clarified means that it is free from idiosyncrasies, wishful thinking and so-called “common sense”. The reason is that the very fact that a philosophical result may appear contra-intuitive only makes it an object of further philosophical considerations. Contrary to this, making the contra-intuitivity of a philosophical result into an argument against the very result, or even into an object of ridicule, leads to the end of philosophy.

4.1 What we are confronted with.

Instead of regarding the realism debate as a discussion about existence and possible sense impressions[1], it gives a more fruitful understanding of this debate to understand it as an examination of what we are confronted with, deal with, or relate to. This includes our sense impressions and their demonstrated regularities.

The detached philosophical project is in fact a separate basic research project, on which scientific demands can be made. Thus, the project does not belong under other basic research projects, e.g. natural science. For this project does not have the form of natural science, just as it does not have the purpose of natural science, which is to produce good or useful assumptions that scientists can use to predict the phenomena. (Cf. Bas van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism, [Fraassen 80].) Contrary to this, philosophy does not have useful assumptions as its products or results at all, while the useful assumptions of science can only belong under philosophy as objects of it. (Cf. Treatise No 5, the section “The concept of useful assumption in the realism debate”.)

4.1.1 The philosophising person’s experiences.

Nevertheless, this philosophical project can actually remind of viewing the nature, as it consists in going through our assumptions and thus to ascertain by scrutinizing which assumptions are just suppositions, and which we can justify and in which way. The investigation of this is the semantic investigation. This investigation and especially the search of its objects are the philosopher’s personal task in the sense that it takes its point of departure in the philosopher himself and his own experiences, or at least involves them. Thus, in many respects, he is his own source of insight. Of course, this does not make him into a solipsist. It is just a fact that he cannot take point of departure in other persons’ experiences literally understood in the same a way as he can take point of departure in his own experiences, but only in other persons’ expressed experiences and thoughts.

In fact, the philosophising person can solely start from his own experiences, as he has nothing else to use. The reason is that what other persons say he must compare with his own experiences, and what he hears other persons say, is his experiences too.

The analogous thing applies to all other persons, though only in the sense that they will assert that for their part, they agree in the analogous statement and that their arguments cannot in fact take a point of departure in other persons’ experiences, but at most in what they say. For we cannot attribute meaning to this assumption about analogy in any other sense than the one that starts from this assertion of agreement. This just means that other persons will say the same as above, i.e. that they have no other possibilities, and that this is all that is to be said about this.

4.1.2 Consequences concerning the concept of other persons’ consciousness.

Understood in this way, we do not need to assume that another person has a consciousness understood as something different from the totality of his expressed thoughts, expressed feelings, etc. Moreover, if we ask the other person, he would not be able to advance anything that contradicts this, but only say and explain that the analogous situation also applies to his relation to other persons. In exactly this sense, we can allow ourselves to generalize concerning persons’ consciousness and say:

A person’s consciousness is the totality of his thoughts, memories, sense impressions, etc., or rather, it is only in such a sense that we can talk about consciousness.

This means that what we call “other persons’ feelings” are their expressed feelings, as we cannot put more than this in the concept of their feelings. Together with our expectations, these expressions can even be abundant. In the same way, other persons’ expressed counter arguments are parts of what we can call “their mental content”. These counter arguments cannot be my inventions, as they can be both surprisingly good and surprisingly bad. When the philosophising person generalizes and writes “we” instead of “I”, he does this on order to be contradicted by persons that think to be able to conclude something else based on their experience and arguments. The philosophising person can ask another person whether he agrees, has experienced something else, or can argue for something else. This talk about such questions has semantic meaning because the questioner can get an answer he can understand and then examine.

The other person’s statement can only be understood as something with which we are confronted and cannot be said to represent some inner entity in any literal, i.e. analogy based sense. Neither can reasoning by analogy be justified here. We can at most be dealing with a model we complete, and which can be confirmed by questioning and experience. Thus, as already touched on, we cannot attribute literal sense to statements about another person’s content of consciousness, i.e. concerning what it should consist in, as we have never experienced such an entity, in the same way as we experience our own consciousness. For that reason, we have to be content with the fact that we have a conversation that works to some extent, and which contains terms of feelings, sense impressions, memories, etc. When we talk about other persons’ consciousness, we talk about our expectation of what they possibly will express about it, i.e. which statements of the form “I think that ...”, “I feel that ...” etc. they will put forward. However, in fact we can only relate to the totality of another person’s statements and behaviour, which we can certainly call his “expressed thoughts”, “expressed feelings”, etc.

On the other hand, as also touched on, another person’s description of his experiences can surprise us in a way that exceeds our creativity and horizon. (As regards the expression “his experiences”, it must again be remembered that we are not ontologically committed by our usage.) In other words, solipsism is excluded because of the fact that other persons’ statements and expressions can contain elements of surprise simply by containing a sort of unfamiliarity we cannot invent ourselves, and by including statements that we cannot make up ourselves. In this sense, we can be said to experience other persons’ consciousness.

This text has already explained that something being conscious to me just consists in the fact that I cannot have thoughts, memories, sense impressions, etc. without knowing that I have them and knowing what they contain. (Cf. Treatise No 3, the subsection “Our own statements and their meaning”.) We are not dealing with something extra, an entity we can call “a consciousness”. For the very fact that I have sense impressions means that I am conscious about my having them. In a similar way, the following applies:

Other persons can be said to be conscious about what they say or otherwise express, by the very fact that they express it, and not least, the way they express it. The idea that their being conscious should exist in something we could call “consciousness” is unnecessary.

Of course, this does not preclude persons from having diffuse ideas of analogy concerning other persons’ consciousness. In fact, nothing would be easier than to say that other persons naturally have a consciousness that is analogous to mine; but the question is which semantic meaning can be attributed to this statement. As a side issue, it is already accounted for the fact that such a conception of consciousness is not fertile. (Cf. Treatise No 5, the subsection “Solipsism”.)

4.2 The philosophic result.

Overall, we are dealing with a division between on the one hand what is the most primary thing to which can be attributed semantic meaning - it is exactly what we are confronted with as what it is - and on the other side what are only constructions on this basis or only imaginations. The making of these classifications is in accordance with the top down explanation model, as already described. (Cf. Treatise No 2, section “Top down and bottom up explanations”.)

This means that philosophy is clarifying, as far as it points out to what can be attributed semantic meaning and what are just unconsidered attributions to reality. This is true, though these results may appear inconsistent with so-called common sense. They can even conflict with what the philosophically active person may wish, or even just be incomplete in the (positive) sense that further development may be necessary. For of course, the mentioned difficulties must not induce the philosophizing person to invent pleasant pseudo solutions in order to overcome this step or precipice.

5. The concept of so-called not-observable qualities.

An example of the so-called not-observable entities, we can look at the concept of the unconscious mind. This concept originates from the psychoanalysts’ structuralization of the phenomena. The reason is that psychoanalysts only arrive at the so-called hidden entities by analysis of the phenomena and by arranging a structure of arguments that in the end are based on references to the phenomena in question. For this reason, what is so-called hidden is not in fact hidden, but is directly observable as what it is, i.e. as what it can at most be said to be, viz. just this result: a structure of reasoning based on an analysis of some of the phenomena that are present to us. Something similar applies to our statements about the past and the future and to our statements about chemical structures.

What we call “the physical nature” consists in the phenomena and their inevitable regularity, or, on order not to say too much, just their behaviour, however it is. As to the descriptions of the chemical structures that science has reached by analysing the reactions of the phenomena of nature under definite circumstances, we cannot attribute literal meaning to these as they are not to be considered as physical structures in themselves, i.e. as a part of the described nature, but only as useful structures in a scientific model.

The very phenomena from which these theoretic structures are derived and their regularity or behaviour must necessarily possess a potentially greater complexity than the only derived chemical structures. The reason is that these phenomena and their demonstrated behaviour simply have inspired the scientists to invent the derived structures, to which we therefore cannot attribute more than we can attribute to the former without these attributions becoming inventions. In other words, the concept of the chemical structure cannot contain more than the mentioned phenomena and reasoning that has occasioned them, and to which they can be related.

It can here be objected that it is a problem how such a chemical structure can lie hidden. According to the remarks above, however, it does not have its own reality at all, such as suggested by the question. This is because the structure has exactly been invented by reference to observations of the phenomena and reasoning, and just only consists in this. (The fact that these reasoning and the structures can be very complex and gradually developed does not alter this.)

Moreover, it follows from the anti-introductionistic top down model that the derived chemical structures simply make up or consist in a theoretical model at a level of the explanation structure lower than the description of the immediate appearance of the phenomena. In this connection, it must be stressed that the point of the anti-introductionistic concept of the top down explanation structure is that the top of this structure, i.e. as the primary part of this, describes the true, the real, viz. the phenomena, while the structure below only describes (preliminary) derived and theoretic structures.

5.1 Phenomena and hidden qualities.

Against this it may be objected that it is an inevitable problem to the anti-realists how two different physical objects can have different qualities in the cases where these qualities cannot be immediately sensed. Some matter can for instance be healthy while some different matter is poisonous, though the two substances in question immediately look alike. According to the realist reasoning, this implies the existence of not-observable qualities and entities that can cause these differences. For according to this reasoning, it generally applies that when two different matters or objects look alike to us, but behave differently from each other under equal circumstances, the two matters or objects in question must contain individual causes to their respective individual behaviour. According to the same reasoning, these causes must consist in hidden qualities (i.e. the so-called not-observable entities and their qualities) such as really existing counterparts of the elementary particles structures that can form part of scientific models.

We are certainly habituated to this line of thought in our daily life where we can find observable causes. For instance, we may hear clattering sounds and find out that a window is standing open in the windy weather, etc. However, without any more ado, this line of thought cannot be extended to apply to entities whose existence it has no literal sense to assert. The reason is that we are not dealing with immediately analogous arguments that just can be made without justification. Thus, in these Treatises, it has already been argued that it has no semantic sense to introduce the idea of really existing not-observable objects. (Cf. again several versions of the criticism of the principle of inference to the best explanation as regards introduction of new types of entities, the first time in “Realism”, in “Three different views...” in Treatise No 2.)

Above all, however, against the referred realist objection it can be adduced that apparently identical substances or objects do precisely not appear alike under a number of definable circumstances. Their appearance under these circumstances must be considered by the determination of the substance or object. (Cf. Treatise No 5, section “Theories and matter”.) Something similar also applies under so-called everyday circumstances, as we are here accustomed to this kind of phenomena, for example, when two balls have different weights. This difference can be found by weighing (with our hands or a more exact weight), which here can be said to make up one of these specific circumstances. As the balls in question thus have different behaviour under specific observable circumstances in spite of their equal look, in this way they are in fact different in a direct, observable way.

(Though the weight of a ball can be related to other phenomena and theoretical entities and values based on these, it consists in the very demonstration of it, not in anything else: the objects have different weights because the weighing results are different. It is not the other way about, since we cannot attribute semantic meaning to the concept of a weight in itself, as we are not confronted with such a putative entity. The fact that the measured weights of a physical object can be related to other states of affairs is a different matter.)

5.2 Different forms of observability.

Concerning the above definable circumstances, it must be remarked, that the look of a body is only a part of its way of appearing. This comprises weight, hardness, its appearance in a microscope, etc. These qualities appear by different forms of tests. Whether we observe by sight or scrape on a body in order to sense the result of this are here approaches on the same standing. In addition, whether we scrape on a body or look at it through a lens are equivalent approaches too. Thus, quality and demonstration of it cannot be separated.

The same thing applies to finding structures that are even more delicate. Seeing a body through a lens and scanning it are thus equivalent approaches, too. The mentioned structures are to be understood as structures produced by an instrument and may be e.g. displays that contribute to the identification of the kind of the body.

Among the different circumstances, experimental setups also belong. As suggested, there is nothing subtle or farfetched in this, as these circumstances or setups that together with scientific reasoning have resulted in the making of the theoretical structures are on the quite same standing with seeing the object or the matter under different angles, distances and lighting. (Something similar of course applies to sensation with our other senses.) Thus, the qualities of a physical object are its reactions under certain circumstances, whether these are classified as everyday circumstances or experimental. (Cf. Treatise No 5, section “Theories and matter”.)

From the above, it appears that all the qualities of a matter are either observable qualities or theoretic qualities, the latter being based on observable qualities and theories. This applies though some of the theoretic qualities have been assumed by reference to an existing complex of theories and experiments and described by means of model theoretic terms. Thus, these theoretic qualities are not observed as independent entities, but are dependent on a theory, as they are introduced in a model by the reference to a theory and observations:

To say that a substance has such and such theoretic qualities according to a definite theory is to say that science, by using a model in which the model version of this substance has the qualities in question, can describe and predict[2] the behaviour of the substance in question.

Thus, we are only dealing with a difference of degree here, as all these physical determinations demand experimental setups or at least definite conditions in form of e.g. a certain light or a certain visual angle. Thus, what is here put forward about theoretic qualities may also apply to ordinary observable qualities that have a theoretic counterpart in a theory, e.g. colours. The clear-cut distinction between immediately observable qualities and qualities that appear under specific circumstances (special lighting conditions versus scraping of the surface, etc.) thus disappear, or rather, the idea of it cannot be sustained.

6. The mind-body problem in anti-introductionistic elucidation.

This section elucidates how to anti-introductionism the mind body problem involves the demand of being able to interpret physiological explanations, for instance of the effect of medicaments on our bodily impressions and other sense impressions, in a way that is in accordance with anti-introductionism.

6.2 The physiological dualism problem of anti-introductionism.

Contrary to this, anti-introductionism must take a position on the question of how ingestion of something material (food, anaesthetics, etc.) can influence our content of consciousness including our experience of our corporal state, i.e. phenomena in a broad sense. This problem can be called “the physiological dualism problem” and can be described in the following way: “When now the sense impressions or the impressions of wholes are among the primary things in the world, elements in the fundamental reality, how is it possible, then, that they can be created or changed by ingesting something material?”

However, the question is whether the very wording simply makes this account appear problematic. For the very talk about matter has a realistic flavour, even here. It is obvious that the description of the problem will contain an inconsistency if a realist concept is mixed up in it and accepted together with anti-introductionism, according to which the concept of matter is exactly not to be literally understood, i.e. as something in itself. The reason is that simultaneous acceptance of contradicting concepts naturally leads to an inconsistency. Thus, the anti-introductionistic idea of our impressions of wholes as something fundamental cannot be maintained together with the realist idea of matter as being something that exists in itself. In other words, what can here lead to the idea that anti-introductionism implies dualism is retaining the concept of thing in itself as a contrast to sense impressions. However, this concept is exactly not a part of anti-introductionism.

As the core of this dualist problem thus consists in the concept of sense impression in some broad sense versus the concept of matter, this contrast must be clarified. Later in this text, it proves that instead of looking at matter in the solution of this dualism problem, we have to focus on the phenomena that form basis of the description of matter including its theoretic qualities.

Thus, the resulting problem is how to explain this dualism-problem in an anti-introductionistic way.

6.1 The mind body-problem in realism and anti-realism.

The mind body problem or the dualism problem between matter (including our sense organs) and our sense impressions is a problem to scientific realism for the following reason. Scientific realism presupposes that it has semantic meaning to assert that our sense impressions have a material basis that, understood as something in itself, starts a chain of cause and effect. It also presupposes that this chain originates in e.g. matter that emits rays and particles that cause an electric current in a person’s eyes and after a number of similar steps eventually turn into visual impressions in the consciousness of the person in question. According to scientific realism, science can explain all the first steps; but its adherents cannot explain the last step from matter to sense impression in any similar way, only postulate. The realists cannot just say that this step is due to the regularity of nature, for according to scientific realism itself we are dealing with two different kinds of entities: matter versus impressions. It is of no use either, in different subtle ways, to introduce an idea of attendant phenomena according to which visual impressions simply attend brain activities, for this is just to reformulate the dualism problem, not to solve it. The core of the dualist problem can be illustrated in this simple way: Electrical forces in the brain influence objects that are electrically charged and have mass, and which can push to another object, etc., but the sense experiences do not enter into this account. They are of quite a different nature.

Neither can the realists assert that we simply are dealing with an empiric fact concerning physical and sensory facts, which we must submit to; for this answer is not in accordance with realism, as the realist wants an answer of this kind: The occurrence of electrical forces explains electric attraction, etc. Thus, according to the realistic line of thought, when we have found a way of talking about a phenomenon, we have an explanation of the phenomenon in question, even a causal explanation, perhaps in the form of an introduced entity such as an electrical force, a magnetic field, or dark matter. Cf. Treatise No 5, the subsection “Elementary particles”. However, irrespective of how fully science can develop its theories, it cannot point out a last link in the theoretic chain of cause and effect that results in the visual experience. Overall, this means that to the realist, the mind-body problem deals with an impossible leap, whether we regard the brain and the matter in general as consisting of particles, fields, or other imaginable types of entities.

Thus, the realistic dualism problem can be epitomized in the question “How can matter, so to say, become sense impressions?” Moreover, on their own premises, the realists already have a problem with explaining the material qualities of nature, when these are realistically interpreted, such as what an electric charge originates in, and how it can work at all. What explains the cause is something really existing, according to realism. However, when this is found it also has to be explained by something real.

According to anti-introductionism, however, it is our impressions of wholes and their regularity that are the fundamental reality. As already explained, such a view does not preclude us from talking about this reality by means of a usage that contains terms of things; with other words, it does not force us to talk about our surrounding world by means of terms for impressions of wholes only. Thus, we can talk about moving a table or ingesting a medicament without being realists. (Cf. Treatise No 3, the section “Usage end existence”.) According to this scientific anti-realism, scientific theoretical models do not consist in statements about materiel entities that exist in themselves, and whose states result in sense impression somehow. By contrast, it asserts that science deals with inventing theories about how, based on given phenomena, we can predict other phenomena, e.g. in the form of measured results. (Cf. Treatise No 4, “Bas van Fraassen's constructive empiricism”.) It is noteworthy that this also applies to physiological theories, which is relevant in connection to the specific dualism problem of anti-introductionism, which is described and discussed in the following subsections.

Thus, as science can explain phenomena by means of other phenomena and the invented scientific models, for this reason alone, anti-introductionism cannot have a dualism problem in the same way as scientific realism has it. Against this, it can be objected that this is simply due to anti-realism being not just as ambiguous as realism, as the anti-realists expect less of the ability of science and the interpretation of its results than the realists do. However, it is the other way around. The realists put too much into the scientific statements, even without substantiating the usefulness of these. With this, we are again dealing with the discussion of what is the task of science and what can at most be put into its statements. The result of this was that science deals with inventing theories that can predict the phenomena, and not with putting forward assertions about existence that have no semantic meaning. (Cf. Treatise No 4, the section “Bas van Fraassen's constructive empiricism”, and Treatise No 5, the section “The concept of useful assumption in the realism debate”.)

6.3 Matter versus sense impressions.

The section “Theories and matter” in Treatise No 5 advances that there seems to be “an apparent incompatibility between the concept of matter and the concept of the phenomena in anti-realism”. This subject is taken up in this section.

In our everyday talk, we distinguish between the table and our sense impressions of the table without making a problem of this. But of course anti-introductionism must be able to expound this differentiation between 1) the concept of matter and 2) the concept of our sense-impressions of things, without understanding things neither as a material basis of our sense impressions (as in realism) nor as being identical with our sensations (which is not in accordance with anti-introductionism):

Re 1: The concept of an object is a concept of certain regularities of impressions of wholes. Our knowledge of this regularity is based on what we can learn by reference to our sense impressions, especially in connection to our actions. Thus, we have a concept of moving a table that involves ideas of a certain combination of sense impressions, movements, and use of forces. Such experiences result in visualizations, and expectations about what we can experience as coherent wholes under certain circumstances. It is such experiences we are confronted with and to which we relate, and not any table in itself, though our usage may induce us to understand the matter otherwise.

Re 2: However, when we talk about the phenomena or our sense impressions as they are singly, we talk about our sense experiences as such. Thus to talk about the colour yellow can be to advance statements containing the word “yellow” as a characteristic of an object, e.g. in the sentence “The table is yellow”, or of a certain colour experience, e.g. “I think that the yellow colour of the table is very warm”. The fact that different persons can put forward very different statements about their experiences of a table does not hinder that we can have a well-working conversation about our impression of the table in question, since we can discuss these statements at all.

We are thus not dealing with a contradiction between the two discussed concepts. In both cases, we are talking about sense impressions, respectively by reference to 1) their regularity individually and mutually and 2) their specific quality.

6.4 Physiological impressions and sense impressions.

Physiological sense impressions must also be included in the discussion, as they are obviously just as central to the physiological dualism problem as the other sense impressions. For if physiological impressions such as tiredness can be compared to the common five kinds of sense impressions: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory and tactile impressions, such that these just make up two different kinds of phenomena, we can talk about prediction of the phenomena, whether we are dealing with physiological impressions or the other sense impressions. This means that just as the anti-introductionistic dualism problem can be clarified as regards sense impressions it can also be clarified as regards physiological impressions of our body. These impressions include impressions of equilibrium and of posture, and we can add impressions of tiredness, even if this can be explained by other facts.

Moreover, it is remarkable that 1) concerning our faculty of seeing we can have a tendency to adopt a common sense idea of our visual impressions as representing reality, whereas 2) we rather regard our tactile sense as a sensory apparatus that via feeling impressions in e.g. our fingertips tells us something about how our surrounding world is.

Re 1: According to anti-introductionism, of course the case is rather the other way around:

The fact that our sense impressions represent reality just means that they show a certain degree of regularity in relation to other sense impressions, such that there is no inconsistency between them.

Thus, it has no semantic meaning to talk of a reality in itself besides the regularity of our sense impressions. We trust this regularity so much that if we should find an apparent incongruity between some of our sense impressions and other experiences, we would search for an occurrence that can be related to a regularity that can be used in an explanation. This may e.g. be the possibility that we have temporarily replaced our glasses with some glasses that have a different strength, and the implied visual impressions and distortions of these, i.e. relative to other regularities.[3]

Re 2: Here we are just dealing with the fact that besides our being able to feel an unevenness with our fingertips we can also feel the very affect on our fingertips, i.e. as a corporal feeling or impression. As it has no semantic meaning neither to talk about a material and its unevenness in itself nor to talk about fingertips in themselves, what happens is that we experience two different sorts of sense impressions and relate them to each other. Thus, what we experience is an inwards turned feeling “inwards to the body (or the feeling area)” and an outwards turned feeling “outwards to the surroundings of the body”. It can here be objected that we feel the former by means of the latter understood as a sensory apparatus. However, such an understanding is only a part of a scientific construction the description of which belongs further down in the explanation structure.

The above references to our body, however, must not be taken too literally: We can certainly assert that the bodily impressions are impressions of the state of the body: the pressure on a fingertip from an uneven surface we feel, tiredness as result of effort, sleepiness as a need of sleep, etc. However, we cannot assert this in a literal sense, for certainly a sensing person’s experience of the state of his body in the same way as sensation of an object is sensation of its form, colour, etc., but not in the literal sense that this sensation is sensation of things in themselves, in casu the body in itself. The reason is that just as it is above put forward that statements to the effect that our sense impressions represent or are valid about reality, express that these impressions show a certain degree of regularity in relation to other sense impressions, in the same way this is also true about our bodily impressions. In short:

The statement that our bodily impressions represent or are valid about reality, in this case the sensed body, just expresses that these impressions show a certain regularity in relation to other bodily impressions and other sense impressions.

Thus, nothing of this is about any physiological or bodily reality in itself, besides the regularity of our sense impressions.

Of course, it is of no avail to suggest that the auditory sense or the faculty of seeing so to say also has “both an inwards and an outwards side”, analogous to the tactile sense. With our sight or our hearing, we simply do not experience anything we can call interior in such an analogous sense. The reason is that we cannot point at any usable object for a possible inward turned sensation in these cases. It is obviously out of the question that theoretic entities can be candidates for this, as it would imply a literal understanding of these entities.

6.4.1 A physiological example.

In order to clarify the dualism problem further, we can consider how besides our having sense impressions there can be an influence on our frame of mind, or on what we call “our content of consciousness”, originating in what we call “our surrounding world”. This problem is simpler than the physiological dualism problem, but can form part of an understanding of this.

Such an influence sets in, for instance, if we walk on a muddy or stony soil, as this becomes fatiguing because we have to take care not to stick in the mud or stumble over a stone, respectively. Our body gets affected by this, just as our sight can get affected when the light becomes too strong. The demands first lead to a decrease of our resources, i.e. fatigue, and later perhaps to sleepiness.

In other words, such circumstances influence our possibilities of acting and thus our state of mind, as we want to avoid these problems and difficulties. There is no dualism problem in this state as we are only dealing with phenomena and immediately explainable relations between these at the top level of the explanation structure. This means that the discussed influence can be explained without referring to not-observable entities.

6.5 The physiological dualism problem.

Here a clarification of the physiological dualism problem is presented. Often we present a problem, after which we elucidate it, clarify it and eventually solve it. The present clarification is situated somewhere in the latter end of this scale, as we may consider fictions about further clarification. The core of the clarification consists in the pointing out that the problem is erroneously conceived of as a problem because of our realistically influenced way of thinking that involves both a literal understanding of the concept of matter and our ingrained idea of literally existing, but uncognizable processes.

6.5.1 A clarification of the physiological dualism problem.

Because of the clarification of the relation between the concepts of object and sense impressions including the physiological ones, the physiological dualism has been reduced to the following question:

How can science, merely by reference to phenomena and theories, explain or predict phenomena, which we regard as sense impressions in some sense and which originate from what we call “physical substance”?

The simple answer is:

As according to anti-introductionism, science ultimately only takes a starting point in phenomena or impressions of wholes only by prediction of the phenomena, the scientific, physiological theories contain nothing that can imply dualism in the anti-introductionistic philosophy of science. In this connection, the distinction between inner and outer phenomena is without importance.

How scientific references to phenomena can here replace the references to material objects, literally understood, can be made clear by an analysis of what the scientific theories actually comprise and what they are based on:

The scientific prediction of the phenomena involves the parts: 1) input, 2) activity, and 3) output; the input (1) consists of a description of the phenomena concerning the physical input, the activity (2) consists in the application of a theory, and the output (3) is the description of the phenomena predicted.

The theoretic qualities of the input are established by reference to definite phenomena and the theories and measuring results based on these. As to e.g. a sleeping medicine, this means that science by means of the phenomenally determined theoretical qualities of the medicament and of the body can predict the occurrence of the phenomenon sleepiness:

Re 1: This is the crucial part of the solution concerning the concept of matter: We must distinguish between the matter involved in the physical process and the input to the use of the theory, which are theoretical concepts and values. The phenomena that are referred to in (1) the input to the explanations and predictions of science are exactly the phenomena that together with theories have formed part of scientists’ selection of the useful assumptions that have led to the establishing of the theoretic entities and values by means of which the scientists characterize the physical input. (Cf. the section “The concept of so-called not-observable qualities”.)

Re 2 and 3: Another important question about how the discussed dualism can be clarified concerns the transition from point 2 (the process or theory) to point 3 (the resulting phenomena).

Re 2: As regards the very prediction (2), we can imagine that the scientific theoretic explanations consist of a number of steps, such that the theoretic chain of cause and effects is made up by a successive use of theories. This means that the chain of cause and effect is only to be understood as a division of the model in a number of steps where the results of each step (whether they are measurable, just supposed or computed) are input to its succeeding step. (Alternatively, the theoretic explanations can consist of just connected parts in a tree structure or network structure.)

For it must be remarked that we are not dealing with causes in the well-known everyday sense, which involves real accidents, but only with preconditions or prerequisites of the next step in the scientific model. Altogether, we only have to do with with coherent observations where this coherence is based on theories that are likewise based on earlier observations. Thus, we are dealing with a connected theory and explanation structure that in the end are based on sense impressions, while the rest is just good assumptions.

Ad 3: The possibility of these stepwise explanations do not imply that there is a literally existing process resulting in e.g. sensual impressions or sleepiness, but just that science can use these explanations for prediction of states that are measurable in accordance with a theory, especially the final states that are in fact observable. In other words, they result in sense impressions or physiological impressions.

Summing up: By these three steps, phenomena are explained by reference to phenomena, and it has been made clear how the theoretic chain of cause and effect belongs to a scientific model made by reference to phenomena understood as the fundamental reality. By use of this model and its introduction of theoretic entities, science can systematically describe the regularity of sense impressions in the sense that it can present a theory that can predict them. Thus the following conclusion can be drawn:

It has no sense to say that the theoretic entities, irrespective of the theories that science has made up by reference to sense impressions in order to predict the phenomena, cause sense impressions.

Put in another way:

As in the end scientific theories and their corresponding entities are just based on sense impressions themselves, it cannot be a dualism problem to explain our sense impression by reference to scientific theories and theoretical entities.

It must finally be remarked that it is true that science is able to find out under which conditions we become tired and can have other kinds of corporal impressions, but science cannot explain the very connection between these conditions and our corporal impressions understood as experienced impressions, and not just impacts. In other words:

Scientific theoretical models are exactly useful to science and practical in technology and medicine. On the other hand, the theories of science tell us nothing seriously fundamental about the arrangement of the world. The question whether scientific theories have this or that content is neither decisive nor interesting in this philosophic connection.

It can be objected that this means that the above account has after all not reached its goal, as according to that, cannot explain our experiences. However, science shall not explain our sensory impressions as such, as on the contrary they are the explanatory basis of science, but only explain phenomena by reference to other phenomena. This, above, it has been shown how, without use of material terms, it is possible to explain the effect of matter on our sensations, namely by referring to phenomena from which the theories originate.

6.5.2 Theory and reality.

Concerning the fact that the processes involved only consist of a sequence of useful theoretic steps, the following explanation proves useful:

According to anti-introductionism, the physiological state of a body, inasmuch as it is described by means of particular theoretic terms and models, consists in the phenomena that can be predicted by means of the theories that apply the models in question. The very description is therefore only useful.

In exactly this sense, our body and the conditions it gives us can be compared to the physical ground below us and the conditions it gives us when we walk: the hardness and sharpness of the stones, the heaviness and cohesion of the mud. Theoretical models for our body can be made on an equal standing with the models for the rest of the nature around it. In both kinds of models, we can talk about a cause in the sense inclusion under regularity.

On this basis, science can copy the functioning of the body, for at a certain stage in a theoretic model for sleepiness caused by fatigue this model may refer to certain substances that occurs before the sleepiness arises. According to the same model, it can be described what happens when a person ingests a medicament that either consist of or change into these substances (that according to the theory form part of the process at the step before the sleepiness and cause sleepiness). By this, the underlying tiredness is left out in the theoretic chain of causes that forms part of the explanation of the effect of medicaments. Thus, by means of physiological theories it can be explained how the ingestion of medicaments can cause sleepiness. As this just amounts to comparing two theoretical models (within the same paradigm), the talk about these theoretical models of the physiological phenomena does not involve dualism. Moreover, the input to the theory is neither here the very material ingredient, but the phenomena and theories that have lead to the determination of its qualities.

According to the above explanation of the concept of the physiological state of a body, science can certainly describe how a person’s ingestion of a substance can change the state of his body and thus his physiological conditions, i.e. when he becomes tired, etc. However, it must be emphasized that the result is not necessarily the same kind of sleepiness as the one we know from our daily life, but only an approximation. For there can be emotional and sensory circumstances not included in the physiological model. Thus, we talk about a good sound sleep, i.e. in contradiction to the effect of the sleeping medicine. This is simply yet an example of the potentially infinite depth of the explanation structure, which has been touched on in Treatise No 5, in the section “The idea of a final scientific truth about the world”.

Of course this makes possible the causation of states that do not resemble states in our otherwise known life, without this causing problem to anti-introductionism, however.

7. Ethics and politics.

It has been advanced that moral statements cannot be made good but are just emotional reactions for or against certain actions. Cf. the viewpoint Alfred Jules Ayer advances in Language, Truth and Logic ([Ayer 74], pp. 136-150). According to Ayer, the only thing we can argue for concerning moral are the facts that support our moral conclusions given a definite moral attitude, whereas we cannot argue for the very moral attitude in question. ([Ayer 74], p. 147)

Ayer’s point of view implies that it has no sense to assert that any moral is to prefer to the moral of the robber band or that of the swindler. However, of course, it is possible to put forward arguments for moral points of views. This just presupposes that it is possible to argue for an ethical basis and for its moral implications. That this is possible will be made good in the subsection “The basis of ethics”.

Of course, this does not preclude the possibility that we can have emotional or intuitive reactions in form of dissociation or acceptance before we have phrased any justification. Thus, we can have immediate moral intuitions though it may demand moral deliberations of some extent to justify these. However, this just corresponds closely to the fact that we immediately can see that 23 is greater than 17, though it demands a longish arithmetical account to justify this from the bottom up.

It must here be remarked that philosophical answers to ethical questions may seem to have disappointingly little to do with what can be regarded as the case itself, namely the immediate ethical or humanistic attitude, as for instance “All human beings have the right to a good life”, “All human beings are valuable”, etc. We can seek to argue for such statements by advancing that we are all born equal, or that no one is responsible for his own background. However, it is difficult to justify these statements and especially their implications thoroughly, i.e. to justify that no exceptions to them can be advanced. For that reason, more basal arguments are sought in this treatise.

An example of such an impression of argumentative distance from the case itself is made up by the justification of the view that death penalty is reprehensible. As above, we can seek to defend this view with arguments based on an idea of the valuableness of man; however, these are not arguments proper, but only appeal to other persons’ feelings, which can be rather unstable. In addition, pointing out that judicial murder cannot be undone is certainly a sufficient argument against death penalty, but it is not the argument, i.e. the right argument, which must be based on the core of the matter, whatever this might consist in. However, it can be argued that we cannot answer the questions about what life is, what a moment is, and what death is; and thus, since we do not know what we do if in a moment we take another person’s life, we cannot justify committing death punishment. (However, we know a little about what it means to omit this act, though we certainly do not know what life is but only something about what it means to live it.) Against this, it can be asserted that this answer cannot be used if one day we can answer the three stated questions. To this, it can firstly be said that this situation is a future fiction about an answer we cannot speak about, and which perhaps will lead to a yet better justifications. Secondly, we can never know whether these answers are satisfactory. Besides, the discussed argument may not be as distant from the case itself as it may seem to be...

Before the promised arguments for an ethical basis are put forward, however, another ethical question will be examined, viz. whether moral convictions are psychologically cogent.

7.1 Moral point of view and action.

It turns out that we cannot prove that a person’s justified ethical conclusions in themselves imply or cause that the person in question omits actions that are not in accordance with his conclusions but only performs actions that are in accordance with them. Though it may be desirable that we would always act in accordance with our ethical conclusions it becomes clear, however, that this cannot be proved. There are two reasons for this, an empiric and a logical.

1) The empiric reason: It can be made good that it is impossible to prove that a person cannot be minded in such a way that he deliberately acts contrary to his declared moral attitude, point of view, or conclusion. The possibility of the existence of such an attitude is simply an empirically based fact, and not a philosophical question. The reason is that the person in question can simply just be indifferent to his own conclusions. In other words, it is a fact that a person can act in direct contradiction of his declared moral points of view. The empirical basis of this consists in knowledge of such cases.

It must here be remarked that though there seem be empirical examples of the truth of a particular statement, it may nevertheless be interesting to examine possible arguments against the statement in question, i.e. as if the empirical basis lacked.

2) The logical reason: A rational argument for the idea that we will always act in accordance with our moral points of view, would demand that the description of a person’s moral attitude to a certain act could thoroughly be accomplished and thus comprehend a potentially endless ramification of sub-cases, which of course are impossible to go through. It even appears that by means of neither the concept of justification nor understanding can we made good that a person who has a certain ethical point of view concerning a certain action will necessarily act in accordance with it.

Re 1: This point does not demand further justification as we are exactly dealing with an empirical fact. However, the following example of how a person can seek to justify that he acts to the detriment of other persons, though this behaviour is contrary to his ethical conclusion, can be advanced. The person in question can simply assert that he certainly does care for other persons but that he has only this single life and that it has to be used. In other words, all the juice has to be squeezed out of that fruit. Against this, it can be asserted that the person in question has simply not understood the problem, because he has not involved the possibility that other persons also have lives that have to be good. However, to this he can just put forward that he does not care about this idea either.

Re 2: Alternatively he can assert that just exactly his situation is so special that he has other good reasons to his actions than those forming part of the premises of a general argument, whose generality he thus rejects. It is true that against this it can be put forward that situations of the kind in question can be included in the very premises of the argument. However, the problem is under which conditions all situations of this kind are included.

As a defence of the discussed viewpoint that a person’s moral attitudes necessarily lead to actions that are in accordance with the attitudes in question, just as above (under Re 1) , it can be referred to lack of understanding. For it can be put forward that a person who does not follow his conviction simply does not completely understand the actions in question and their consequences. However, this argument presupposes that it is possible to obtain a complete understanding of these actions, and what is more basic, that something exists that we can call a complete understanding of an action at all; however, we can never arrive at such an understanding, as there can be potentially infinitely many details to elucidate. Thus, it is out of the question that we can decide under which conditions a justification of a moral attitude concerning the desirability of individual and social states is complete, such that this justification necessarily should make the person who understands and accepts it do the actions that lead to the states in question and omit actions that do not.

This raises the question whether an ethical argument besides being a successful argument must contain something extra in order to have an impeding or impelling force. However, if the argument is successful, it cannot lack any arguments. So if it should contain something extra, then the impeding or impelling force should have to originate in something else than the very argument and its result, e.g. in a successful appeal to feelings. This result does not live up to the above goal of rationally proving that we always follow our moral conclusions. Thus, it is impossible to proceed with any attempt to justify that ethical arguments have a committing effect.

As to this goal, the following can shortly be concluded: The assertion that if a person follows his justified ethical viewpoints these are not completely justified, implies the problem of what the criteria for a complete justification should consist in. Thus, in principle it is impossible to answer the question whether moral points of view can at all be justified so convincingly that the argumentations for them have a compelling effect as pure arguments. A special problem is here:

Deciding generally and in advance the conditions for something being sufficiently convincing at all, involves so many and multifarious specific details that statements about this cannot in advance apply to all eventualities. Therefore, it can never be guaranteed that no further demands can be added.

7.2 The basis of ethics.

It follows from Treatises No 1-5 that man is not a thinking thing among other things in time and space, since some of the concepts that enter into this point of view cannot be literally understood. Thus, it has been expounded both why we are not entitled to assert the existence of a past understood as former present time but only dealing with a construction based on a time-axis, and why the expression “the things around us” does not refer to something that can be said to exist in itself.

The starting point of our explanations as regards our world is our sense impressions, memory impressions, our thinking and our experiences concerning the regularity of nature. Understood as the primary start of departure, these elements of our reality are the most real. They are simply what we are confronted with. (Cf. the section “The anti-introductionistic project” above.) What follow in this hierarchy are the results of our thinking, viz. our theoretic constructions. The only thing of which it has sense to assert a literal existence has proved to be our hic-et-nunc situation. As just touched on, it has thus been argued that it has no semantic meaning to talk about a continuous progress of time understood as something other than a useful construction. However, of course it has no semantic meaning to assert that our hic-et-nunc existence and our experience of it belong at a point on a time axis or are part of a cinematographic sectional view, as we cannot experience anything like that – and not infinitely many of them either.

In these treatises, it has also been argued that it cannot have meaning to say that we have reached the bottom of the possible knowledge of scientific subjects or of linguistic subjects. (Cf. Treatise No 5, the subsection “The idea of a final scientific truth about the world”.) We can only know a clockwork thoroughly, and only at the level of the system of its toothed wheels. In the justification of the basis of an ethics, we can inter alia involve this view of what constitutes our situation in the world.

7.2.1 What we can know of our situation in the world.

A person who has not experienced and understood that he can obtain knowledge of something that is fundamental new to him, lives in a limited realm of ideas in which this cannot occur to him. Thus, a person who only knows of his native language and is learning a new language will perhaps think that all other languages are in principle like his language, e.g. that they just consist of some other words and possibly some other sounds than those his own language contains. (It must here be remarked that persons that are more educated also may commit this kind of faults in principle.) Perhaps he also thinks that there is largely a one-to-one correspondence between the words of the foreign language and those of his own language. When he starts experiencing that the facts are different, possibly at first he will think that they just represent a few exceptions, not that it is his assumption about the correspondence that is principally wrong. Of course, this is only a very simple example, but elements of surprise may also occur in phonology, grammar and other subject areas such as culture, physics and probability theory.

This indicates that we must strive to acquire the best possibilities for extending our knowledge and thus enlarge our realm of ideas, i.e. also concerning an ethical basis. So far, though, this is not a sufficient argument against those who will deny such a necessity.

7.2.2 The world is the world as it is to us.

It can be argued that the world is the world as it is to us. (Cf. Treatise No 5, the subsections “Do scientists relate to different worlds before and after a paradigm change?” and the “Theories and the world”.) This does not mean, however, that we create the world, but just that it has no semantic sense to say that the world is something other than what it is to us. The reason is that asserting what this should consist in, would be advancing arbitrary statements. (Cf. the section “The concept of semantic meaning”.) In the just mentioned subsection in Treatise No 5, “Do scientists relate to different worlds before and after a paradigm change?” it has even been concluded that

after revolutionary new insight, whether it involves paradigm change in different sciences or in the personal experience, the world becomes a different “world as it is to us”. This is practically the same as a de facto changed regularity in the world, at least “to us”.

In other words, what each individual person has to do with is the world as it is to him. Obviously, this means that the person that has not acquainted himself with a particular field, such as it is exemplified in the section above, will have difficulties in understanding the results of other persons’ clarifications of it. In this field, he will be in a smaller world.

For this reason, clarification and the possibility of clarification are essential. Understood as the statement “education is good to mankind”, this is of course commonplace. What is essential is the very attaching importance to the renewing aspect: revolutionary new thinking, or just the ability of getting to the crux of the matter. When we actually possess intelligence, it is unworthy to stay on the surface without wishing to reach a deeper understanding. This too means that no problem concerning philosophy or argumentation is too insignificant to be taken seriously, i.e. to deserve clarification (as touched on in subsection “A criticism of a literal interpretation” in Treatise No 5). For we cannot know what it will reveal to us.

It can thus be preliminarily concluded that at least it is advantageous to everybody to have the best possibilities to clarify and to deepen their understanding and explanation within a great number of fields. Against this, it can be objected that anyone is at a liberty to choose his own way of living, his own activities, if only it does not bother other persons and their living conditions. Certainly, anybody can choose to do this, but the criticized conclusion concerned what is advantageous to anyone, not what he or she ought to do. The discussed question also has importance to the clarification of when or under which conditions persons have an unrestricted and thus a complete life. This has nothing to do with whether people want to have such a life or not.

In other words, it is important to pose the simple demands to the participants of this discussion that they must start from the case itself in order to clarify it, and not in views they have not argued for. Persons may certainly think that they can freely choose their own ethics, but it is here an important point that if so they have kept out of this debate:

For logical reasons a debate can only be a debate to the debating persons, i.e. to those who want to put forward arguments. For those who not do this simply do not debate and are thus not participants in the debate.

This means that an ethical debate can only take place under this premise, which can thus be presupposed in the argumentation for the following ethical and political statements.

7.2.3 What we do not know about our situation in the world.

It proves fertile to involve the concept of what we do not know about our situation in the world. With the expression “what we do not know about our situation in the world”, I do not refer to the realistic influenced idea that in the world there is something of which we do not know, but to the fact that there are important questions we cannot answer. The purpose of involving this subject is that we can also justify moral points of view by reference to what we do not know, or rather to the fact that there are important questions of which we do not have any answer. This has already been exemplified in the introduction to this section, in connection with the argument against death penalty.

7.2.3.1 The question of the meaning of life.

Thus, we do not understand the concept of the meaning of life. However, we can tentatively assert, though clearly circularly, that the meaning of life is to examine this concept of the meaning of life. Of course, this can be clarified in a non-circular way, under the assumption that we presuppose that we are interested in this question:

As we do not know the meaning of life completely or understand the concept at all, it is a part of the meaning of life to examine the concept of the meaning of life or at least to find a basis of further clarification. This statement cannot be refuted, as a justification of this refutation would exactly also demand a search of the discussed basis.

Our lack of understanding of the concept of the meaning of life involves not just the question whether life has meaning at all, but also in which sense life possibly has meaning. Of course, these questions give reason to further clarification. This ascertainment is related to the following conclusion, which can be drawn on these treatises:

As it does not have any sense to talk about what we cannot justify just now, we are situated in a clarifying situation. This means that a substantial part of our existence consists in cognition.

Based on these considerations we can justify that the concept of the purpose of our life, or at least the clarification of it, comprises 1) exploration consisting in clarification and mental activity, and 2) impressions and experiences. The basis of ethical and political arguments must thus include consideration of these two purposes.

Re 1: As it follows from the above discussion of our situation in the world, this exploration may concern everything we have to do with that have fundamental importance to our understanding of our situation in the world.

Re 2: Impressions, on the other hand, can hardly be avoided under reasonable circumstances and is mainly referred to here as an additional basis of point 1. The reason is that rejection of impressions or experiences will reduce the basis of a broad understanding. The experience too is attached to the mentioned exploration and its clarification and mental activity.

7.2.3.2 An argumentation for an ethics.

The promised justification of what is the basis of ethics has the following premise:

As long as we do not possess a complete knowledge and understanding of our situation in the world, we cannot speak about the world with decisive certainty and thus neither about a possible basis of what the right ethics and politics are. Thus, we have to concentrate upon many fields in order to clarify and discuss these questions.

For the same reason, we cannot speak with decisive certainty about a putative concept of the meaning of life either, and thus not whether an understanding of this can form a basis of ethics. It can be objected that this statement about the necessity of clarification is insufficiently justified. However, such incompleteness just supports the point of view that clarification is necessary in order to answer the discussed questions. The reason is that as long as we cannot conclude anything decisive about the meaning of life or the basis of ethics, we must study many fields, and thus get a better basis of reaching a conclusion.

Based on the above result, it can be argued in the following way for the basis of an ethics:

If we presume that we wish to clarify what the basis of ethics is, we must necessarily conclude that we have to study it.

Opponents to the existence of an ethical basis will perhaps just assert that they prefer a certain ethics or moral without justifying it, such as Alfred Ayer assumes that we can. However, unsubstantiated statements are groundless and thus arbitrary. (Cf. the section “The concept of semantic meaning”.) If the opponents do not advance justifications, they assert nothing and thus keep out of the debate. Therefore, they have to put forward and clarify their arguments in order to participate in the debate, which means that they must admit that clarification is necessary.

This study demands favourable conditions of life for everybody. Thus, we have a basis of ethics. This argument is logically committing.

To clarify the argument, it can be compared to a similar but less conclusive argument. Such one can be advanced about questions about the putative meaning of life. If someone asserts that this question must be clarified he is certainly logically committed to assert that the above statement about the basis of an ethics is true. However, we are exactly not committed to assert the premise, that the question about the putative meaning of life must be clarified, and thus of course neither that the conclusion must. The point is that if instead we want to discuss the ethical basis itself we are also logically committed to assert that it must be clarified. Thus, we are also logically committed to assert that the above-attained result concerning this ethical basis is true.[4] If on the one hand we do not want to discuss this, we have kept out of the ethical debate about this problem; on the other hand, if we want an answer we must take part in this debate or try to answer the ethical question. Those who do not wish this do not qualify themselves to have a standpoint.

It now turns up that the previously discussed proposed basis of an ethics, “All human beings have the right to a good life” can be discussed by reference to the results above. This statement follows from the statement that the basis of ethics consists in the demand for showing consideration for other persons’ life conditions, physically and intellectually. The concept of these considerations, is even more precise that the concept of having “the right to a good life”; for this concept must be clarified, like all other concepts, before it can be discussed.

The latter demand especially applies to the proposal, “All human beings are valuable”. This statement certainly sounds very appealing, but it is unclear what it expresses and whether it can be justified. As we have seen, it is generally true that those who put forward a sentence have to be able specify what the sentence in question means in order that it can be a statement and thus be discussed. (Cf. the sections “The semantic approach to the realism debate” in Treatise No 4, “Semantic senselessness – semantic emptiness” in Treatise No 5 and “The concept of semantic meaning” above.)

7.2.3.3 Objections.

Against the above arguments for an ethical basis, sophists may advance: “Since you have already found the sought basis of ethics now, further clarification is not necessary after all. Thus, your basis of an ethics falls to the ground.” However, this argument presupposes that this investigation will be completed, but this will not take place as the found basis can always be elaborated by further clarification, especially concerning the basis of the diversified ethical questions that may exist. The necessity of these clarifications has the above implications, viz. the demand for favourable life conditions for all persons.

The following counterargument can also be advanced: “Your ethical basis has no importance since in any case everyone can act as he like. You have argued for this yourself.” Against this, it can be said that the discussion deals with finding a justified basis for a discussion of our actions, in accordance to the result of the arguments above. The fact that anyone can act in a different way is just an empiric fact that does not concern this fundamental debate.

Moreover, it can be objected that there is no basis of an ethic, since this text has also argued that ethical justifications have no end, because we can permanently specify exceptions to which we have to make up our minds as the single individual can put forward his specific evaluation of his specific situation. However, these exceptions just deal with individual facts, and thus have nothing to do with the above argument for the existence of the basic of an ethics. Subsequently, examples of the implications of this basis will be shown. The existence of a basis of an ethics strongly contrasts with Ayer’s point of view, such as it is referred in the introduction to section.

Finally, the following criticism can be put forward: “Your argument for the necessity of clarification is elitist. It simply does not concern all persons, for if just some persons can work for ethical solutions, other persons do not need to do this, and therefore the former, i.e. those who are active, do not have to show consideration for the living conditions of the latter.” This can be refuted, however, as each individual has to gain understanding of ethics and its basis in order to act on the basis of his own understanding. In addition, the alternative would be a command-based ethics, such that our actions are not based on the very matter and an understanding of it. Alternatively, it follows from the section “Moral point of view and action” that not all specifications can be included in advance in a command ethics, which is necessary in order that it can be a demand ethics at all. Besides, the understanding of moral cannot be distinguished from an understanding of our situation in the world.

7.2.4 Overview.

According to Alfred Ayer, ethics has no basis; but Ayer does not substantiate this view; he just presents it. However, it is in fact possible to argue for the basis of an ethics:

1) If a person simply rejects this ethical question, he has kept out of the debate.

2) If a person wants to participate in the debate, he must study the question in order to clarify it.

For those who (1) do not want to argue for their viewpoints on the basis of an inquiry into the discussed problem clarify nothing and do not contribute with anything either. Thus, they can only put forward arbitrary statements, for which reason they neither qualify themselves to having arguments nor standpoints. Thus, it is logically presupposed, we must (2) study this ethical question in order to clarify it. This clarification demands favourable life conditions to the individual.

This means that if we want to argue for or against an ethical basis or investigate into the problem at all, we will reach the above basis of an ethics: that clarification is necessary, which demands good life conditions to the individual. Of course, this also applies to the individual’s knowledge and clarifications of personal ethical questions.

7.3 Consequences.

From this basis of an ethics, which consists in the demand of favourable conditions of life, a number of ethical and political conclusions can be drawn.

It thus follows from this basis that actions that reduce other persons’ living conditions are objectionable. With that, it is objectionable if the laws of a country force the citizens in certain social groups to use all their energy on managing a hand-to-mouth existence, so that they get no means to clarification and experience, i.e. means to live the life and to know it.

Below some further examples of ethical or political consequences will be stated.

To some persons the means becomes the goal. They strive for opulent living conditions, much more than what is abundant as a condition of having a good and full life, a clarifying life with experiences. Their striving towards superfluous products can of course only take place at the expense of other persons’ possibilities of obtaining a reasonable basis of a good life, i.e. their good life conditions. Thus, this striving is objectionable, or rather, not in accordance with the above conclusion.

Superfluous production, which among other things are caused by the just mentioned attitude, and exhaustion of the soil are objectionable in the same way as this spoils the basis of our existence, clarification and understanding. The decisive point is here, that though most persons may assert that this is obvious, it is also necessarily true according to the arguments above. Moreover, superfluous production takes up a substantial part of our time for clarification and other forms of experience. The same criticism can be levelled against the very interest in superfluous products. Of course, the same applies to inveigling other people into the same striving.

Some will advance that everyone has the right to dispose of himself and of what he produces and earn. However, it has above been substantiated that this must not be done at the expense of other persons’ possibility of having good life conditions. It must be sufficient to have enough to manage one’s own living conditions and possibilities of development. Moreover, the earnings of anybody are based on the society in which the person in question lives. Thus, it is not possible to subsist on gold pieces on a desert island. For that reason, in principle it is reasonable to let the individual pay his part of what is common to all and conditions for the individual’s life including his financial circumstances: Educational system, culture, water, renovation, heat supply, transport, etc. This is certainly only secondary considerations in comparison with the very matter. However, they have political implications. The same applies to the following.

It will also be recommendable to teach the pupils about argumentation as such, such that they can understand philosophical reasoning, in just the same way as they can be taught in scientific theories and their reasons. Moreover, they can be taught about the religions, but only as the phenomena they are, as we cannot argue for anything that has no semantic meaning, and as accepting semantically senseless sign sequences has nothing to do with clarification and insight. (Cf. Treatise No 5, the section “Semantic critique of religious sequences of signs”.)

It can likewise be concluded that school teaching must aim at opening the pupils’ eyes to the question about what is the basis of ethics, i.e. to give the pupils the possibility of realizing it or considering it themselves. In the end, the omission of this can result in the situation that some pupils leave school so mindless that they do not know what to do with their life besides superfluous consumption and pastime, such that they do not become seeking and thoughtful persons whose understanding of the world (to them) becomes greater.

Of course, this does not imply that pupils, students, or any other have to be imputed certain ideas of what is the right ethics or the purpose of life, just that they must be in a position to learn what it means to consider and to justify something. Not least, it would be advantageous for them to be interested in this, i.e. to understand the importance of it, on an equal standing with what they otherwise learn. This involves an understanding of the fact that viewpoints demand justifications in order to be viewpoints at all, and that these justifications have to start from the case itself.

It must be emphasized that the ethical and political consequences of the above conclusions concern the individual’s possibility of personal development and a good life - and not the aggregated possibility of the population for personal development and a good life. The reason is that this would mean that the individual’s possibility of personal development and a good life could be set off against other persons’ possibilities. A society that allowed this would be like a community of ants in which the individual does not matter. Thus, the essential thing in our organization of society is to give all the individuals in the society free possibilities of developing themselves.

7.4 Conclusion.

Some may object 1) that there is a great difference between most persons’ way of life and these ideas about clarification. Perhaps their will add the argument 2) that the above talk about the meaning of life and especially the good life is of a quite different kind than the above substantiation of an ethical basis, namely a substantiation based on the demands to an ethical investigation.

Re 1: Against this, it can be advanced that we are only dealing with an investigation of what can be justified at all in ethical and political discussions. Sociological circumstances are thus irrelevant, as they cannot make up arguments in this connection.

Re 2: On the contrary, we can conclude the opposite of the conclusion of this argument, viz. that the answer is not so remote from the case itself at all, as above suggested. For the conclusion is directly related to the reasons for a basis of an ethics, as a clarification of the basis of an ethics depends on immersion in the problem, and thus exactly demands good living conditions for those who want to study the problem. Moreover, it appears that the consequences are in accordance with a number of already drawn conclusions about our knowledge and situation in the world. Finally, the individual ethical conclusions have to be based on the case itself, which of cause also demands clarification.

Literature.

[Aristoteles 68] Aristoteles: The Metaphysics,
English translation by High Tredennick,
Harvard Univ. Press, William Heinemann Ltd. (Great Britain 1968)

[Ayer 74] A. J. Ayer: Language, Truth and Logic
Penguin Books Ltd (Harmondsworth, 1974).

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

[Dummett 78] Michael Dummett: Truth and Other Enigmas.
Duckworth (London 1978).

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

[1] An example of this is made up by George Berkeley’s statement about the existence of objects in Principles of Human Knowledge:

“The table I write on, I say, exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I should say it existed, meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it.” ([Berkeley 88], § 3, p. 54)

[2] Cf. [Fraassen 80], p. 12.

[3] Cf. also the subsection,”A criticism of a literal interpretation” in Treatise No 5.

[4] Here is again (cf. Treatise No 5, section “Theories and the world”) an argumentation that reminds of Aristotle’s arguments for his principle of contradiction. Besides, Aristotle argues for the necessity of arguing for our points of view, and assets that the person who does not want that, is just like a vegetable. (Cf. [Aristotle] 1006a)

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Anti-introductionism. Treatise No 6.

6.3 Matter versus sense impressions.

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