Philosophy – 101

Introduction to Philosophy
Ghazala Irfan, PhD

Department of Philosophy
Forman Christian College, Lahore.
 Phil-100: Introduction to Philosophy

Instructor’s Name: Ghazala Irfan

Pre-Requisites: None
Course Credit Hours: 3

Course Description

This course will study philosophic questions and issues raised from the ancient period to
modern and contemporary times although not in a chronological order. The course will
discuss both the history and problems of philosophy. The course is divided into six modules.
Module I will deal with the Philosophic Method, Module II with Ancient Philosophy,
Module III with the three Major Paradigms of Muslim Philosophy, Module IV with
Metaphysics, Module V with Epistemology and Module VI with Applied Philosophy.

Goals

This course does not envision philosophy as an 'ivory tower' conceptual discourse. The
objective is to trace the application of theoretical concepts to the life of an individual in
society.
The course exposes the students to a close examination of mostly primary and some
secondary texts in order to develop their understanding of the original spirit and thought of
Philosophy.
The purpose of the course is to develop the students’ analytical and critical acumen to
evaluate issues and problems. The emphasis is, therefore, on the methodology of philosophy
rather than on the specific content of the works.
1. The First module deals with the Philosophic Method. The method aims to clarify
and elucidate concepts. The module will examine the definition and clarification of
concepts through the Socratic method of sustained argument and the Aristotelian
methods of deductive and inductive analysis. Thus the purpose of the module is to
acquaint students with the characteristic methodology of Philosophy.

2. The Second Module deals with Ancient thinkers, to trace the origins of the
philosophic quest for reality, truth, knowledge & wisdom.
3. The Third Module deals with the three Major Paradigms of Muslim Philosophy,
specifically, The Asharite, Rational, and Sufi traditions. The module will focus on
Philosophical contributions of Muslim luminaries in general and on philosophers
from the sub-continent in particular.

4. The Fourth module is Metaphysics. Metaphysics deals with the responses of various
philosophic traditions to the question: What is Real? This section attempts to divide
reality into basic categories and in doing so, clarify and improve our thinking about
it.
5. The Fifth module is Epistemology. Epistemology aims to clarify our understanding
of the concept of knowledge. It examines the concepts of Truth, Certainty, Doubt
and Verifiability in order to arrive at a clearer definition of knowledge. Thus the
purpose of the module is to help students learn to think clearly and arrive at a better
understanding of the nature and limits of knowledge.

6. The Sixth Module will deal with Applied Philosophy. This module aims to discuss
some practical applications and relevance of philosophy in the 20th and 21st century.
The focus will be on the different branches of contemporary philosophies, namely
Political and Social philosophy, Philosophy of Education, Philosophy of Science,
Philosophy of Art and History etc.

Grade Breakdown

Term Test 1 20%

Mid Term 20%
Term Test 2 20%
Final 40%
 Module I: Introduction to the Philosophic Method

• What is Philosophy? pp. 3-10 (Capaldi & Navia, Ed)

• Nature of Philosophy pp.1-4 (Earle)
• General Introduction: pp. 1-7 (Blackwood & Herman)
• What is Philosophy?
• Reading Philosophy pp. 7-11 (Edwards)
•
• The Value of Philosophy - Russell pp.19-22 (Pojman)
• Ten Commandments of Philosophy pp.4-5 (Pojman)

• The Problem of Definition pp. 517-530 (Stumpf)

Plato "Euthyphro"
• The Problem of Clarification pp. 531-549 (Stumpf)
Plato "The Apology"
• Scientific Method - Bacon pp. 207-217 (Capaldi & Novia,
Eds)
• On Induction - Russell pp. 139-144 (Edwards & Pap)

Module II: The Three Major Paradigms of Muslim Philosophy: Classical &
South Asian Texts

• Introduction: The Three Major Paradigms

• Traditionalists: A Vindication of Kalam. pp. 119-134 (McCarthy)

Al-Asha’ari

• Political Thought in Early Islam (Syed Abul A’la Maudoodi) pp 656-672

(Sharif)
The Decisive Treatise, Determining pp. 44-62 (Averroes) On
the Harmony the Nature of the Conception between of Religion and Philosophy,
Religion and Philosophy. - Ibn Rushd - Translated by George F. Hourani.

• The Spirit of Muslim Culture pp. 99-115

Iqbal The Reconstruction of Religious Thought In Islam.

• Pantheists: The Wisdom of Divinity in the Word pp. 45-59

of Adam. Fusus al-Hikam - Ibn Al Arabi

• On Sufiism - Hujwiri Kashf-al-Mahjub. pp. 30-44 (Ali Al-Hujwiri)

 Module III: Metaphysics: What is Real?

• Introduction to Metaphysics pp. 87-88 (Earle)

• Idealism. pp. 593-597 (Stumpf)

Plato, “Allegory of the Cave”

• Materialism pp. 840-846 (Stumpf)

Marx; "Dialectical and Historical Materialism"

• Empirico - Positivism pp. 847-854 (Stumpf)

Russell "Understanding the Cosmos"

• Pragmatism pp. 643-648 (Stumpf)

William James, Pragmatism and the
Enterprise of knowing.
"The Notion of Truth"

• Existentialism pp. 300-316 (Crowley)

Kierkegaard- "Concluding Unscientific Postscript"

Module IV: Epistemology: What is Knowledge

• Introduction to Epistemology: pp. 122-141 (Hospers)

“The Sources of Knowledge”
• “Certainty and the limits of Doubt” pp. 614-622 (Stumpf)
Descartes "Meditations"

• "Skeptical Doubts pp. 129-138 (Edwards

Concerning the human & Pap)
Understanding" Hume

• "How Knowledge Is Possible" Kant. pp. 91-101 (Stumpf - 4th edition)

• Defining the scope of our knowledge pp. 649-655 (Stumpf)

The test of Verification. Ayer.

• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Kuhn pp. 274-279 (Cahn)

• Philosophy of Science “Conjectures & Refutations pp. 98-102 (Hall & Bowie)
Bertrand Russell, Problems of Philosophy

CHAPTER XV

THE VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY

HAVING now come to the end of our brief and very incomplete review of the problems
of philosophy, it will be well to consider, in conclusion, what is the value of philosophy
and why it ought to be studied. It is the more necessary to consider this question, in view
of the fact that many men, under the influence of science or of practical affairs, are
inclined to doubt whether philosophy is anything better than innocent but useless trifling,
hair-splitting distinctions, and controversies on matters concerning which knowledge is
impossible.

This view of philosophy appears to result, partly from a wrong conception of the ends of
life, partly from a wrong conception of the kind of goods which philosophy strives to
achieve. Physical science, through the medium of inventions, is useful to innumerable
people who are wholly ignorant of it; thus the study of physical science is to be
recommended, not only, or primarily, because of the effect on the student, but rather
because of the effect on mankind in general. Thus utility does not belong to philosophy.
If the study of philosophy has any value at all for others than students of philosophy, it
must be only indirectly, through its effects upon the lives of those who study it. It is in
these effects, therefore, if anywhere, that the value of philosophy must be primarily
sought.

But further, if we are not to fail in our endeavour to determine the value of philosophy,
we must first free our minds from the prejudices of what are wrongly called 'practical'
men. The 'practical' man, as this word is often used, is one who recognizes only material
needs, who realizes that men must have food for the body, but is oblivious of the
necessity of providing food for the mind. If all men were well off, if poverty and disease
had been reduced to their lowest possible point, there would still remain much to be done
to produce a valuable society; and even in the existing world the goods of the mind are at
least as important as the goods of the body. It is exclusively among the goods of the mind
that the value of philosophy is to be found; and only those who are not indifferent to
these goods can be persuaded that the study of philosophy is not a waste of time.

Philosophy, like all other studies, aims primarily at knowledge. The knowledge it aims at
is the kind of knowledge which gives unity and system to the body of the sciences, and
the kind which results from a critical examination of the grounds of our convictions,
prejudices, and beliefs. But it cannot be maintained that philosophy has had any very
great measure of success in its attempts to provide definite answers to its questions. If
you ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian, or any other man of learning, what
definite body of truths has been ascertained by his science, his answer will last as long as
you are willing to listen. But if you put the same question to a philosopher, he will, if he
is candid, have to confess that his study has not achieved positive results such as have
been achieved by other sciences. It is true that this is partly accounted for by the fact that,
as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject
ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science. The whole study of the
heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in philosophy; Newton's
great work was called 'the mathematical principles of natural philosophy'. Similarly, the
study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from
philosophy and has become the science of psychology. Thus, to a great extent, the
uncertainty of philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which are already
capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at
present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called
philosophy.

This is, however, only a part of the truth concerning the uncertainty of philosophy. There
are many questions -- and among them those that are of the profoundest interest to our
spiritual life -- which, so far as we can see, must remain insoluble to the human intellect
unless its powers become of quite a different order from what they are now. Has the
universe any unity of plan or purpose, or is it a fortuitous concourse of atoms? Is
consciousness a permanent part of the universe, giving hope of indefinite growth in
wisdom, or is it a transitory accident on a small planet on which life must ultimately
become impossible? Are good and evil of importance to the universe or only to man?
Such questions are asked by philosophy, and variously answered by various philosophers.
But it would seem that, whether answers be otherwise discoverable or not, the answers
suggested by philosophy are none of them demonstrably true. Yet, however slight may be
the hope of discovering an answer, it is part of the business of philosophy to continue the
consideration of such questions, to make us aware of their importance, to examine all the
approaches to them, and to keep alive that speculative interest in the universe which is apt
to be killed by confining ourselves to definitely ascertainable knowledge.

Many philosophers, it is true, have held that philosophy could establish the truth of
certain answers to such fundamental questions. They have supposed that what is of most
importance in religious beliefs could be proved by strict demonstration to be true. In
order to judge of such attempts, it is necessary to take a survey of human knowledge, and
to form an opinion as to its methods and its limitations. On such a subject it would be
unwise to pronounce dogmatically; but if the investigations of our previous chapters have
not led us astray, we shall be compelled to renounce the hope of finding philosophical
proofs of religious beliefs. We cannot, therefore, include as part of the value of
philosophy any definite set of answers to such questions. Hence, once more, the value of
philosophy must not depend upon any supposed body of definitely ascertainable
knowledge to be acquired by those who study it.

The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man
who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived
from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from
convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his
deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious;
common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously
rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find, as we saw in our
opening chapters, that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very
incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty
what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities
which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while
diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our
knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of
those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our
sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect.

Apart from its utility in showing unsuspected possibilities, philosophy has a value --
perhaps its chief value -- through the greatness of the objects which it contemplates, and
the freedom from narrow and personal aims resulting from this contemplation. The life of
the instinctive man is shut up within the circle of his private interests: family and friends
may be included, but the outer world is not regarded except as it may help or hinder what
comes within the circle of instinctive wishes. In such a life there is something feverish
and confined, in comparison with which the philosophic life is calm and free. The private
world of instinctive interests is a small one, set in the midst of a great and powerful world
which must, sooner or later, lay our private world in ruins. Unless we can so enlarge our
interests as to include the whole outer world, we remain like a garrison in a beleagured
fortress, knowing that the enemy prevents escape and that ultimate surrender is
inevitable. In such a life there is no peace, but a constant strife between the insistence of
desire and the powerlessness of will. In one way or another, if our life is to be great and
free, we must escape this prison and this strife.

One way of escape is by philosophic contemplation. Philosophic contemplation does not,

in its widest survey, divide the universe into two hostile camps -- friends and foes,
helpful and hostile, good and bad -- it views the whole impartially. Philosophic
contemplation, when it is unalloyed, does not aim at proving that the rest of the universe
is akin to man. All acquisition of knowledge is an enlargement of the Self, but this
enlargement is best attained when it is not directly sought. It is obtained when the desire
for knowledge is alone operative, by a study which does not wish in advance that its
objects should have this or that character, but adapts the Self to the characters which it
finds in its objects. This enlargement of Self is not obtained when, taking the Self as it is,
we try to show that the world is so similar to this Self that knowledge of it is possible
without any admission of what seems alien. The desire to prove this is a form of self-
assertion and, like all self-assertion, it is an obstacle to the growth of Self which it
desires, and of which the Self knows that it is capable. Self-assertion, in philosophic
speculation as elsewhere, views the world as a means to its own ends; thus it makes the
world of less account than Self, and the Self sets bounds to the greatness of its goods. In
contemplation, on the contrary, we start from the not-Self, and through its greatness the
boundaries of Self are enlarged; through the infinity of the universe the mind which
contemplates it achieves some share in infinity.

For this reason greatness of soul is not fostered by those philosophies which assimilate
the universe to Man. Knowledge is a form of union of Self and not-Self; like all union, it
is impaired by dominion, and therefore by any attempt to force the universe into
conformity with what we find in ourselves. There is a widespread philosophical tendency
towards the view which tells us that Man is the measure of all things, that truth is man-
made, that space and time and the world of universals are properties of the mind, and
that, if there be anything not created by the mind, it is unknowable and of no account for
us. This view, if our previous discussions were correct, is untrue; but in addition to being
untrue, it has the effect of robbing philosophic contemplation of all that gives it value,
since it fetters contemplation to Self. What it calls knowledge is not a union with the not-
Self, but a set of prejudices, habits, and desires, making an impenetrable veil between us
and the world beyond. The man who finds pleasure in such a theory of knowledge is like
the man who never leaves the domestic circle for fear his word might not be law.

The true philosophic contemplation, on the contrary, finds its satisfaction in every
enlargement of the not-Self, in everything that magnifies the objects contemplated, and
thereby the subject contemplating. Everything, in contemplation, that is personal or
private, everything that depends upon habit, self-interest, or desire, distorts the object,
and hence impairs the union which the intellect seeks. By thus making a barrier between
subject and object, such personal and private things become a prison to the intellect. The
free intellect will see as God might see, without a here and now, without hopes and fears,
without the trammels of customary beliefs and traditional prejudices, calmly,
dispassionately, in the sole and exclusive desire of knowledge -- knowledge as
impersonal, as purely contemplative, as it is possible for man to attain. Hence also the
free intellect will value more the abstract and universal knowledge into which the
accidents of private history do not enter, than the knowledge brought by the senses, and
dependent, as such knowledge must be, upon an exclusive and personal point of view and
a body whose sense-organs distort as much as they reveal.

The mind which has become accustomed to the freedom and impartiality of philosophic
contemplation will preserve something of the same freedom and impartiality in the world
of action and emotion. It will view its purposes and desires as parts of the whole, with the
absence of insistence that results from seeing them as infinitesimal fragments in a world
of which all the rest is unaffected by any one man's deeds. The impartiality which, in
contemplation, is the unalloyed desire for truth, is the very same quality of mind which,
in action, is justice, and in emotion is that universal love which can be given to all, and
not only to those who are judged useful or admirable. Thus contemplation enlarges not
only the objects of our thoughts, but also the objects of our actions and our affections: it
makes us citizens of the universe, not only of one walled city at war with all the rest. In
this citizenship of the universe consists man's true freedom, and his liberation from the
thraldom of narrow hopes and fears.

Thus, to sum up our discussion of the value of philosophy; Philosophy is to be studied,

not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions since no definite answers can, as a
rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because
these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual
imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against
speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which
philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that
union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.
The 10 Commandments of Philosophy
(according to Louis P. Pojman)

1 - Allow the spirit of wonder to flourish into your breast.

What is life all about, who we are and where are we going.

2 - Doubt every claim you encounter until the evidence convinces you of its truth.
Do not fear to ask and doubt.

3 - Love the truth.

Philosophy is the eternal search for truth.

4 - Divide and Conquer.

Analytic method to divide each problem into small components and solve them individually.

5 - Collect and Construct.

Build a good argument from component parts.

6 - Conjecture and Refute.

Make a complete survey of possible rejections and use the process of elimination to approach the
truth.

7 - Revise and Rebuild.

Revise, reject and modify your beliefs.

8 - Seek Simplicity.
Prefer the simpler explanations.

9 - Live the Truth.

Appropriate your ideas to the truth.

10 - Live the Good.

Let the conclusions of the philosophical reflection on moral life inspire you and motivate your
actions.

Louis P. Pojman, Ph.D – U.S. Military Academy in West Point, NY., Philosophy – The Quest for
Truth. pages 4-5
 The Literal Meaning of Philosophy

The word philosophy literally means love of wisdom; It is derived from two Greek words
i.e. 'phileo' (love) and 'Sophia' (wisdom). This tells us something about the nature of philosophy,
but not much, because many disciplines seek wisdom. Since times immemorial there have been
various pursuits for unfolding the mystery of the universe, birth and death, sorrow and joy.
Various ages have produced different thoughts throwing light upon the mystic region. The
ultimate truth is yet to be found out. This eternal quest for truth 'lends the origin of philosophy. A
love of wisdom is the essence for any philosophy investigation.

On the standard way of telling the story, humanity's first systematic inquiries took place
within a mythological or religious framework: wisdom ultimately was to be derived from sacred
traditions and from individuals thought to possess privileged access to a supernatural realm,
whose own access to wisdom, in turn, generally was not questioned. However, starting in the
sixth century BCE, there appeared in ancient Greece a series of thinkers whose inquiries were
comparatively secular (see "The Milesians and the Origin of Philosophy"). Presumably, these
thinkers conducted their inquiries through reason and observation, rather than through tradition
or revelation. These thinkers were the first philosophers. Although this picture is admittedly
simplistic, the basic distinction has stuck: philosophy in its most primeval form is considered
nothing less than secular inquiry itself. The subject of philosophical inquiry is the reality itself.
There are different schools of philosophy depending on the answers they seek to the question of
reality. It is the search for understanding of man, nature and the universe. There are different
branches of Philosophy-Epistemology, Metaphysics, etc. There are different fields of philosophy
such as educational philosophy, social philosophy, political philosophy, economic philosophy
etc. There are also different philosophical approaches such as idealism, naturalism, pragmatism,
materialism, and so on.

Further, it is a study that explains our existence and reality based on established and
proven fundamental principles. It also explains problems concerning our mind, matter, reason,
knowledge and values. It analyzes questions on how people should live, what type of things
exist, what is genuine knowledge and the logic behind it. It also investigates the principles of
reality, the knowledge of truth, the nature of man and his beliefs and his behavior.

In its simplest form, the definition of philosophy is about wisdom. What we believe,
interpret, or our attitude towards an object or subject. Some discussion on the value of
Philosophy are focused on comparing the “goods of the mind” with the “goods of the body”.

The “goods of the mind” refer to a quest for knowledge and how we view or understand
how life is evolving. The “goods of the body” is more about the things we need to survive in life
such as food, water, shelter, and clothing.
 chapter 1

What is metaphysics?
Kit Fine

There are, I believe, five main features that serve to distinguish trad-
itional metaphysics from other forms of enquiry. These are: the aprioricity
of its methods; the generality of its subject-matter; the transparency or
‘non-opacity’ of its concepts; its eidicity or concern with the nature of
things; and its role as a foundation for what there is. In claiming that
these are distinguishing features, I do not mean to suggest that no other
forms of enquiry possess any of them. Rather, in metaphysics these fea-
tures come together in a single package and it is the package as a whole
rather than any of the individual features that serves to distinguish meta-
physics from other forms of enquiry.
It is the aim of this chapter to give an account of these individual fea-
tures and to explain how they might come together to form a single rea-
sonably unified form of enquiry. I shall begin by giving a rough and ready
description of the various features and then go into more detail about
what they are and how they are related.
Metaphysics is concerned, first and foremost, with the nature of real-
ity. But it is not by any means the only subject with this concern. Physics
deals with the nature of physical reality, epistemology with the nature of
knowledge, and aesthetics with the nature of beauty. How then is meta-
physics to be distinguished from these other subjects?1

1
The material of this paper was originally written in the early 2000s as the first chapter of a book
on metaphysics that is still to be completed. It should become clear that my conception of meta-
physics is broadly Aristotelian in character though I make no real attempt to relate my views to
historical or contemporary sources. Still, I should mention that my position is very similar to
views on the nature of philosophy set out by George Bealer in his paper of 1987 and developed in
some of his subsequent work. We both believe in the ‘autonomy’ of philosophy and metaphysics
and trace its source to the distinctive character of the concepts that they employ. Perhaps two key
points of difference in our approaches is that I have preferred to work within an essentialist rather
than a modal framework and I have been less inclined to place much weight on general argu-
ments in defence of the a priori. I should like to thank Ruth Chang and the participants at the
2010 Petaf conference in Geneva for many helpful comments on an earlier version of the paper.

8
 What is metaphysics? 9
It is distinguished, in part, from physics and other branches of science
by the a priori character of its methods. The claims of science rest on
observation; the claims of metaphysics do not, except perhaps inciden-
tally. Its findings issue from the study rather than from the laboratory.
Some philosophers have thought that the distinction between the a pri-
ori and the a posteriori is not absolute but one of degree. I am not of their
view. But philosophers of this persuasion would presumably be happy to
take metaphysics to be relatively a priori to the same degree, and perhaps
in much the same way, as logic or pure mathematics. And with this quali-
fication in place, a large part, though not all, of what I want to say will
still go through.
Metaphysics is also distinguished from other branches of philosophy,
not by the aprioricity of its methods but by the generality of its concerns.
Other branches of philosophy deal with this or that aspect of reality –
with justice and well-being, for example, or with feeling and thought.
Metaphysics, on the other hand, deals with the most general traits of real-
ity – with value, say, or mind.
The concepts of metaphysics are also distinguished by their transpar-
ency. Roughly speaking, a concept is transparent if there is no significant
gap between the concept and what it is a concept of. Thus there is a sig-
nificant gap between the concept water and the substance H2O of which
it is a concept but no significant gap between the concept identity and
the identity relation of which it is a concept. The thought then is that the
concepts of metaphysics are more akin to the concept of identity than that
of water.
Metaphysics as so characterized might be a somewhat anemic discip-
line – there might be very little for it to do. But it has also been thought
that metaphysics might play an important foundational role. It is not
merely one form of enquiry among others but one that is capable of pro-
viding some kind of basis or underpinning for other forms of enquiry. In
some sense that remains to be determined, claims from these other forms
of enquiry have a basis in the claims of metaphysics.
Let us now discuss each of these features in turn.

1.1 f ou n dat ion a l a i m s of m e ta ph y s ic s

There are perhaps two principal ways in which metaphysics might serve
as a foundation. One, which has received considerable attention of late, is
as a foundation for the whole of reality. Some facts are more fundamental
or ‘real’ than others; and metaphysics, on this conception, attempts to
10 kit fine
characterize the most fundamental facts which are the ‘ground ’ for the
other facts or from which they somehow derive. It is important to appre-
ciate that metaphysics, on this conception, will not be interested in stat-
ing the fundamental facts – the physical facts, say, on a physicalist view
or the mental facts on an idealist view – but in stating that they are the
fundamental facts. Its concern will be in the foundational relationships
and not in the fundamental facts as such.
But important as this conception of metaphysics may be, there is, it
seems to me, another conception that is even more central to our under-
standing of what metaphysics is and that would remain even if the other
foundational project that is centred on the notion of ground were to be
abandoned. Metaphysics, on this alternative conception, serves as a foun-
dation, not for reality as such, but for the nature of reality. It provides us
with the most basic account, not of things – of how they are – but of the
nature of things – of what they are.2
In order to understand this conception better, we need to get clearer
on the relata, on what is a foundation for what, and on the relation, in
what way the one relatum is a foundation for the other. As a step towards
answering the first question, let us distinguish between two different
ways in which a statement might be said to concern the nature of reality.
It might, on the one hand, be a statement like:
Water is H2O,
which describes the nature of water but involves no reference, either
explicit or implicit, to the nature of water; or it might be a statement like:
Water is by its nature H2O,
which does involve a reference, either explicit or implicit, to the nature of
water. Let us call a statement that is concerned with the nature of reality
eidictic, from the Greek word eidos for form; and let us call statements of
the former sort eidictic as to status and those of the latter sort eidictic as
to content. We shall take a broad view of the latter – not only will they
include such statements as that water is by its nature H2O, but also such
statements as that if water is H2O then it is by its nature H2O. As long as
there is some reference to nature, the statement will count as eidictic as to
content.

2
I have discussed the ground-theoretic approach to metaphysics in ‘The Question of Realism’
(Fine 2001) and the essentialist approach in ‘Essence and Modality’ (Fine 1994). There is an inter-
esting question of their relationship which I shall not discuss.
 What is metaphysics? 11
What I have in mind by way of an answer to the first question, concern-
ing the relata, is that metaphysics should attempt to provide a foundation
for all truths eidictic as to content; and what then provides the foundation
are the metaphysical truths that are eidictic as to content, along with the
possible addition of other ‘auxiliary’ truths that are not eidictic as to con-
tent. Thus given the non-eidictic truths, the eidictic truths of metaphys-
ics will provide a foundation for all other eidictic truths. Note that, in
contrast to the previous foundational project, it is the fundamental facts
themselves, rather than the foundational relationships, that are properly
taken to belong to the province of metaphysics.
A minimal answer to the second question, concerning the relation, is
that the metaphysical eidictic truths (along with the auxiliary non-eidictic
truths) should provide a logical basis for the other eidictic truths; the lat-
ter should follow logically from the former. One might want to insist, of
course, on something more than a logical basis; it might be required, for
example, that the eidictic truths of metaphysics should provide some kind
of explanation for the other eidictic truths. But the notion of explanation
here is somewhat obscure; and my suspicion is that, for all practical pur-
poses, it will be sufficient to insist upon a logical basis – that anyone who
succeeds in finding a logical basis will also succeed in finding an explana-
tion in so far as an explanation can be found. Thus again, in contrast to
the previous case, there is no need, in making sense of the foundational
enterprise, to appeal to a distinctive form of explanation or ‘ground ’.
Part of what has made the idea of an a priori foundation for eidic-
tic truth seem so attractive is the thought that there should be a priori
bridge principles connecting the non-eidictic facts to the eidictic truths.
Consider, for example, the earlier claim that water is by its nature H2O.
This is an eidictic claim that does not belong to metaphysics, both because
it is not a priori and because it is not sufficiently general. However, it
might be taken to be a consequence of the following two claims:
Any substance with a given composition is by its nature of that composition;
Water is a substance whose composition is H2O.
The first of these is a statement of metaphysics, while the second is non-
eidictic (as to content). And it might be thought that, in a similar way, any
eidictic truth could be ‘factored out’ into a purely metaphysical component,
on the one hand, and a purely non-eidictic component, on the other.3
3
It has been supposed in the same way that all necessary truths might have their source in a priori
necessary laws or that all moral truths might have their source in a priori moral principles.
12 kit fine
Unfortunately, the above example is by no means typical and other
cases are far less tractable. How, for example, are we to ‘factor out’ the
claim that an electron by its nature has a negative charge? One might
propose a factoring along the following lines:
Electrons have a negative charge;
If electrons have a negative charge then they have negative charge by their
very nature,
where the first statement is non-eidictic (as to content) and the second is
to be eidictic and a priori. However, it is far from clear that the second
statement is a priori, for it is not true, in general, that something with a
negative charge has a negative charge by its very nature and so why, in
particular, should this be an a priori truth concerning electrons? Perhaps
there is some ingenious argument that the claim is a priori in the case of
electrons. But still, cases such as these make it far more difficult to see
how factoring might always be achieved.
In the light of such difficulties, we might think of dividing our
grand foundational aim into two more modest aims. The first is to pro-
vide a basis for the a posteriori eidictic truths (such as that water is by
its nature H2O) within the realm of the a priori. Thus ultimately the
nature of things will be seen to have an a priori source (such as that
water is by its nature H2O if it is H2O). The second is to provide a basis
for all a priori eidictic truths within the realm of metaphysics. Thus
ultimately the a priori nature of things will be seen to have a metaphys-
ical source.
Consider, for example, the a priori eidictic claim that red and green
are by their nature incompatible. This is not itself a claim of metaphys-
ics, since it is lacking in the appropriate level of generality. But it may be
derived from the following three claims:
(1) red and green are two distinct determinates of the determinable color
(2) distinct determinates of a determinable are incompatible
(3) if distinct determinates of a determinable are incompatible then they
are by their very natures incompatible
The first two are plausibly taken to be a priori and non-eidictic (as to
content), while the third is plausibly taken to be an eidictic principle of
metaphysics. Thus it appears that the same kind of ‘factoring’ that was
used to span the a posteriori/a priori divide can also be used, within the
realm of the a priori, to span the metaphysical/non-metaphysical divide.
 What is metaphysics? 13
My suspicion is that the second of the two more modest aims might be
somewhat easier to achieve and, if this is so and some a posteriori eidictic
truths resist ‘apriorification’, then there is something to be said for focus-
ing more attention on the a priori realm. But even here there may be
difficulties. Consider, for example, the claim that it lies in the nature of
any set to have the members that it does. This is presumably an a priori
eidictic claim that, on account of its lack of generality, does not belong to
metaphysics. But just as in the electron case, it is somewhat hard to see
how it might be derived from the more general eidictic claims of meta-
physics (though my own view is that it can be so derived).

1.2 s u bj e c t-m at t e r
Before considering the question of the subject-matter of metaphysics, let
us make some general remarks on subject-matter. I feel that these remarks
could be situated within an even more general study of the nature of dif-
ferent fields of enquiry and of how they are related to one another. But
this is not an aspect of the question that I shall pursue.
Any field of enquiry deals with certain propositions, those that lie
within its purview and whose truth it seeks to investigate.4 Thus math-
ematics deals with mathematical propositions, logic with logical propo-
sitions, and so on. We might call the set of propositions with which a
field of enquiry deals its domain of enquiry (to be distinguished, of course,
from its domain of quantification).
Any proposition has a certain subject-matter. Thus the proposition that
Socrates is a philosopher has as its subject-matter the man Socrates and the
property of being a philosopher. We construe the subject-matter broadly
so that the proposition that Socrates is not a philosopher might also be
taken to have the operation of negation as part of its subject-matter, but
we do not construe it so broadly that the proposition that every philoso-
pher is wise also has each individual philosopher as part of its subject-
matter, in addition to the property of being wise and the quantifier every
philosopher. On a structural conception of propositions, we might take
the subject-matter of a proposition to be constituted by the constituents
from which it is formed, though it might also be possible to arrive at a
conception of the subject-matter of propositions on a less refined concep-
tion of what they are.
4
My interest in what follows is in pure fields of enquiry, such as pure mathematics, and not in their
application to other fields of enquiry.
14 kit fine
We may distinguish between the elements of the subject-matter that
occur predicatively within the proposition and those that occur objec-
tually or non-predicatively. Elements of the first sort might be said to
constitute the ontology of the proposition and elements of the second
sort its ideology. Thus the property of being wise occurs predicatively in
the proposition that Socrates is wise and so belongs to its ontology and
the man Socrates occurs objectually in the proposition and so belongs to
its ideology. A property may occur objectually in a proposition, as in
the proposition that the property of being wise is a property, and it may
even occur both objectually and predicatively, as in the proposition that
the property of being a property is a property, and hence belong both to
the ontology and the ideology of the proposition.5
Each field will have a certain subject-matter through the association
with its domain of enquiry, the subject-matter of the field being the
subject-matters of the propositions within its domain. Thus given that
the propositions 2 + 2 = 4 and 9 > 7 are part of the domain of arithmetic,
the numbers 2, 4, 7, and 9, the relations of identity and of being greater
than, and the operation of addition will all be part of the subject-matter
of arithmetic.
The subject-matter of a field will be ascertainable in this way from its
domain of enquiry but, in general, the domain of enquiry will not be
ascertainable from the subject-matter. If we put together different elem-
ents of the subject-matter of the field to form a proposition, we will not
always get a proposition from its domain of enquiry. Identity and exist-
ential quantification, for example, are logical elements, they are part of
the subject-matter of logic; but the proposition that there is something
(∃x(x = x)) is not a logical proposition, one whose truth-value it is the job
of logic to ascertain.
The subject-matter of a field, as we have defined it, might be called
the broad or overall subject-matter. But there is also a narrower notion
of subject-matter that might be defined. For there appears to be a sense
in which certain elements of subject-matter are distinctive to a field – a
sense in which an element is distinctively mathematical, say, or distinct-
ively metaphysical, or distinctively physical. Consider the metaphysical

5
The ontology/ideology distinction in this sense should be distinguished from Quine’s distinction
of the same name. For Quine, the ontology of physics will include elementary particles since
these are included within its domain of quantification. But for me, they will not be included in
the ontology since physics has no interest in any particular elementary particle. The distinction is
analogous to Frege’s distinction between ‘saturated’ and ‘unsaturated’ but is differently drawn.
 What is metaphysics? 15
proposition that two things are the same whenever they are parts of one
another. Its constituents are part, universality, conjunction, and identity.
But only the first is distinctively metaphysical. The rest are logical. Or
consider the physical proposition that E = mc2. Its constituents are energy,
mass, the speed of light, product, square, and identity. But only the first
three are distinctively physical. The next two are mathematical rather
than physical and the last is logical.
An element of subject-matter distinctive to a given field somehow has
its home in the field. It may appear in the propositions of other fields but
only as the result of having been exported from its home; and, by the
same token, other elements of subject-matter may appear in the proposi-
tions of the given field but only as the result of having been imported
from their homes.
The overall subject-matter of a field will in general be broader than its
distinctive subject-matter. Many elements will appear in the propositions
of the field that are not distinctive to the field. What then is it for an ele-
ment of subject-matter to be distinctive to a given field? From among all
of the elements that may occur in its propositions, how do we tell which
are distinctive?
It is tempting to answer this question along the following lines. One
field of enquiry may presuppose or be built upon the subject-matter from
other fields. In order to state the propositions of interest to the given field,
we may need to make use of subject-matter from these other fields, even
though strictly extraneous to the field itself.
The clearest case is with logic. There is hardly a field (with the possible
exception of fields simply concerned with the tabulation of data) in which
logical elements are not required in order to state its propositions. And
other fields may have other presuppositions. As we have seen, mathemat-
ics is required to state the propositions of physics; geographical locales are
required to state the propositions of history; and numerous naturalistic
properties and relations are required to state the propositions of aesthetics
and ethics.
Let us suppose that we can make sense of one field of enquiry presup-
posing another. Then we might say that the distinctive elements of a field
are those that occur in its propositions but are not distinctive of any pre-
supposed field of enquiry.6 Thus logical elements will not be distinctive of
6
The hope is that this may serve as an inductive definition. Thus as long as the hierarchy of fields,
as ordered by the relation of presupposition, is well-founded, the notion of distinctive subject-
matter will be well-defined.
16 kit fine
any field of enquiry but logic, given that any non-logical field presupposes
logic or makes no use of logic; and if pure mathematics only presupposes
logic, then the constituents of its propositions will either be logical or dis-
tinctively mathematical.
Under an ideal organization of theoretical enquiry, one might hope
that each element of subject-matter had a single home and that each field
of enquiry was home to some element of subject-matter. Different fields
could then be distinguished by their subject-matter. But even without
such an ideal organization, it is still plausible that many of the fields of
enquiry of interest to us can properly be said to have their own subject-
matter.

1.3 g e n e r a l i t y
When we survey the subject-matter of metaphysics, there appear to be
elements of it that are distinctively metaphysical. The properties of exist-
ence, material thing, or event are examples of such elements, as are the
relations of part to whole and of determinate to determinable or the notions
of nature and necessity. It is, of course, possible for such elements to appear
in non-metaphysical contexts. I can say that my car is missing a part or
that I observed a surprising event. But still, the elements part and event
appear to be distinctive of metaphysics in a way in which car and surprise
or and and some are not.
These distinctively metaphysical elements have a striking characteristic
in common. They all operate at a high level of generality. We do not talk
of cats and dogs or of electrons and protons but of material particulars;
and we do not talk of thunder and lightning or of wars and battles but of
events.
But what is it for one element of subject-matter to be more general in
this sense than another? The traditional view is that metaphysics deals
with kinds or categories of the broadest possible sort; and the generality
of a metaphysical kind will therefore lie in the breadth of its application.
But whatever merit this idea might have in regard to kinds (and even here
I have my doubts), it has little plausibility in regard to the other subject-
matter of metaphysics. Any case of part, for example, is a case of overlap,
though not vice versa, but part is not on this account less general in the
relevant sense than overlap. Or, again, any case of identity is a case of part,
though not vice versa, but identity is not on this account less general in
the relevant sense than part.
 What is metaphysics? 17
Another suggestion is that generality is a matter of how broadly the
element is employed in other fields of enquiry. This suggestion is related to
the idea that logic is topic-neutral, since the topic-neutrality of logic can be
taken to consist in the wide or universal presence of logical subject-matter
within other fields of enquiry. However, the correctness of this account
depends critically upon what one takes the other fields of enquiry to be;
and it is hard to avoid the thought that, in so far as the account yields cor-
rect results, it is because it has already been taken to be definitive of the
relevant fields of enquiry that they should contain the logical elements.
The relevant notion of generality has more to do, I believe, with descrip-
tive content. The more general or ‘abstract’ an element of subject-matter,
on this conception, the less its descriptive content. Thus what is determi-
native of the generality of an element is not the breadth of its application
or employment but the extent to which it is sensitive to the descriptive
character of the items to which it applies – with the more general ele-
ments being less sensitive to descriptive differences and the less general
elements more sensitive. So, for example, the relation of identity will be
highly general on this conception since its application to objects x and y is
merely sensitive to whether they are one or two, while the relation of part
to whole will be less general since its application will also be sensitive to
the mereological relationships between the objects.
But what is descriptive character? And how might we measure the
degree of descriptive content? We can make a start in understanding these
notions by appealing to the concept of invariance. For simplicity, consider
the special case of a relation in its application to actual objects and sup-
pose that a, b, c, … is a list of objects to which the relation can mean-
ingfully be said to apply. The relation will then induce a certain pattern
of application on these objects – holding of a, b, say, but not b, a, of b, c
and c, b, and so on. Let us now reorder the objects as a′, b′, c′, … with a′
taking the place of a, b′ of b, c′ of c, and so on. We may then ask whether
the relation still induces the same pattern of application, holding now
of a′, b′ but not b′, a′, of b′, c′ and c′, b′, and so on. If it does, then it is
not sensitive to the difference in descriptive character between the objects
a, b, c, … and the objects a′, b′, c′, … and otherwise it is. So by going
through all of the different re-orderings or permutations of the objects a,
b, c, … , we can obtain a measure of the degree to which the relation is
sensitive to descriptive character.
But such an account will only take us so far. It will not deliver the
result that event or universal, for example, are more general than dog since,
18 kit fine
from a purely formal point of view, permutations that preserve eventhood
or universality are no less sensitive to descriptive character than those that
preserve doghood. Still, we have a strong sense that they are less sensitive
to descriptive character.
There are, of course, hard cases. Are dog and cat equally general?
Or is one more general? Or is perhaps neither one as general as the
other? However, such cases may not be involved in delimiting the sub-
ject-matter of metaphysics. For since dog and cat are each less general
than animal, we may decide that the generality of metaphysics requires
that it contain animal in preference to either dog or cat. In this way, a
partial handle on the comparative generality of different elements may
give us something close to a complete handle on the subject-matter of
metaphysics.
But a question remains. For where exactly within the scale of gener-
ality is the distinctive subject-matter of metaphysics to be located? We
cannot say that its elements are the most general of all (with invariance
under all permutations) since that distinction properly belongs to logic.
But it is not implausible that the elements of metaphysics should be next
in generality to those of logic – the only elements more general than
them being either metaphysical or logical. Logical and metaphysical ele-
ments will be neighbours, so to speak, with the logical elements lying
on the ‘formal’ side of the divide and the metaphysical elements on the
‘material’ side.
It is also not implausible that any element that is neither logical nor
metaphysical will be less general than some metaphysical element. Thus
the elements of metaphysics, on this picture, will provide a buffer between
the logical elements, on the one hand, and all of the remaining elements,
on the other hand, the only neighbours to the logical elements being the
metaphysical elements.
This picture still leaves open how far down within the space of subject-
matters the metaphysical elements will extend. How specific can such an
element be and yet still be sufficiently general to have its ‘home’ in meta-
physics? The most straightforward answer is that the elements of meta-
physics are those of penultimate generality, next in generality to the logical
elements. Thus anything more general than a metaphysical element will
be logical and anything less general will be neither metaphysical nor logi-
cal. If we were to think of logic as relating to the structure of thought
and of metaphysics as relating to the structure of reality, then logic would
provide us with the most general traits of thought and metaphysics with
the most general traits of reality.
 What is metaphysics? 19
This gives us a pretty picture – with logic at the top, metaphysics imme-
diately below it and everything else below them. Some may think that it
too pretty to be true. One problem, which we have already mentioned, is
that, even if there is a sufficiently clear notion of comparative generality
to enable us to make sense of the idea of an element at an ultimate level
of generality, it may not be sufficiently clear to enable us to make sense
of the idea of an element at a penultimate level. It might also be thought
that, even if there is well-defined idea of penultimate generality, there is
no reason to think that there always will be elements at this level inter-
vening between the elements of ultimate generality and the others.
I am not sure how seriously to take either of these misgivings, for the
idea of an element at a penultimate level of generality appears to be tol-
erably well-defined and nor is it clear that there are any actual cases in
which elements at this level of generality will not exist. In any case, to the
extent that we can make sense of some traits of reality being more general
than others, we can get some grip on the idea that metaphysics should
aim towards generality, even if this aim can never be fully realized.

1. 4 e i dic i t y
Let us return to the topic of eidicity and consider more closely the way in
which metaphysics might be concerned with the nature of reality, with
how things are by their very nature. As already mentioned, metaphysics is
not by any means the only field of enquiry with this concern. Thus logic
is concerned with the nature of logical form, physics with the nature of
the physical universe, and the various branches of philosophy with the
nature of this or that aspect of reality. We might call fields of enquiry of
this sort eidictic; and we should consider how metaphysics is like other
eidictic fields of enquiry and how it is different.
We might, as a first step, take a field of enquiry to be eidictic if its truths
are all and only those propositions true in virtue of its subject-matter.7
Thus the truths of an eidictic field, on this conception, will flow from the
very nature of the items with which it deals – the truths of logic from the
nature of the logical elements, the truths of mathematics from the nature
of the mathematical elements, and so on; and it is the combination of the
particular subject-matter and the requirement of eidicity that will serve to
characterize the propositions of the given field.

7
If the domain of enquiry is not closed under negation, then we should add that its falsehoods are
all and only those propositions that are false in virtue of its subject-matter.
20 kit fine
But what is meant here by the subject-matter? Is it the overall subject-
matter or the distinctive subject-matter? Neither answer seems to give the
correct results. Take the overall subject-matter first. The logical elements
of identity and universal quantification are part of the overall subject-
matter of mathematics and the Law of Identity (∀x(x = x)) is true in vir-
tue of the nature of these elements; and yet the Law is a proposition of
logic rather than of mathematics. Take now distinctive subject-matter.
That 2 + 2 = 4 is a true proposition of mathematics and yet not true in
virtue of its distinctively mathematical subject-matter (since the nature of
the relation of identity is also involved).
A more refined account is required. What I would like to suggest is
that the truths of an eidictic field should be taken to be those that are dis-
tinctively true in virtue of its overall subject-matter, i.e. they are those that
are true in virtue of its overall subject-matter but not true in virtue of its
non-distinctive subject-matter, that part of its overall subject-matter that
is not distinctive to the field. This then has the desired results. The Law of
Identity (∀x(x = x)), for example, is not a truth of mathematics since it is
true in virtue of its non-distinctive subject-matter and that 2 + 2 = 4 is a
truth of mathematics since it is true in virtue of its broadly mathematical
subject-matter but not in virtue of purely logical subject-matter.
We might state the definition in terms of the different species of neces-
sity. With each eidictic field of enquiry E might be associated a species of
necessity, where E-necessity is a matter of being true in virtue of the nature
of the (overall) subject-matter of E. Take now a field of enquiry E and let
E′ be the union of the fields of enquiry E1, E2, … presupposed by E. Then
under plausible assumptions, the truths of E will be the E-necessities that
are not also E′-necessities; they are, that is to say, the distinctive necessities
of the field. Thus the truths of metaphysics will be the distinctively meta-
physical necessities, the metaphysical necessities that are not also logical
necessities; and similarly for mathematics and physics and the like.8
It is important to observe that the present definition only requires that
a proposition should be true in virtue of the nature of the subject-matter
of the field to which it belongs, not that it should be true in virtue of its
very own subject-matter. In certain cases, this distinction can be import-
ant. Consider again the proposition that there is something (∃x(x = x)).
This is not true in virtue of the nature of its own subject-matter since
there is nothing in the nature of existential quantification or the relation

8
Metaphysical necessity in this subject-oriented sense is to be distinguished from the usual notion
of metaphysical necessity, which is indifferent as to source.
 What is metaphysics? 21
of identity which demands that there be something.9 However, it is true
in virtue of the nature of the subject-matter of mathematics, since it fol-
lows from the nature of the number 0 that it exists. Thus this proposition
is correctly classified by our definition as a truth of mathematics rather
than of logic, despite the fact that it has a purely logical formulation.
We have seen that metaphysics is distinguished from other eidictic
fields partly by the aprioricity of its methods and partly by the generality
of its subject-matter. But there appears to be another significant distinc-
tion, perhaps arising from the latter. For the notion of eidicity, of being
true in virtue of the nature of certain elements, is itself part of the sub-
ject-matter of metaphysics. Thus the propositions with which metaphysics
deals will include not only propositions eidictic in status but also propos-
itions eidictic in content. Indeed, any metaphysical truth T that is eidictic
+
as to status will follow from a metaphysical truth T that is eidictic as to
content. For if T is a metaphysical truth, it will be true in virtue of the
nature of various general ‘traits’ of reality (including perhaps some logical
+
traits). Let T be the proposition that T is true in virtue of the nature of
+
those traits. Then T will also be true in virtue of the nature of general
traits of reality (viz., those by means of which T is true plus perhaps the
+
eidicity trait); and so T will also be a truth of metaphysics.
Given that this is so, we may confine our attention to simple eidictic
truths of the form ‘it is true in virtue of such and such traits that so and
so’. For instead of asking ‘is S the case?’, for some suitable metaphysical
sentence S, we may ask ‘is S the case in virtue of the nature of the general
traits of reality?’ Put somewhat grandiosely, we might say that ‘□FS’ for
suitable F is the general form of a metaphysical claim and that the task of
metaphysics will have been completed once we have a complete inventory
of the F (the general traits of reality) and of the truths of the form □FS (to
the effect that S is true in virtue of the nature of the F).
It is not altogether clear to me whether, or to what extent, other eidictic
fields have an interest in truths eidictic as to content in addition to truths
eidictic as to status. Take logic. It is concerned to state the logical truths,
those true in virtue of the nature of the logical elements. But logic is not
also concerned to state that these truths are the logical truths. Similarly in
the case of mathematics. We want to get at the mathematical truths, but
not at their being the mathematical truths. The various different branches

9
It is here important to distinguish between ideology and ontology. We may say (treating identity
objectually) that it lies in its nature to exist but not (treating identity and existential quantification
predicatively) that it lies in their nature that something should exist.
22 kit fine
of philosophy, such as epistemology or ethics, seem to have an explicit
interest in the nature of certain items – such as knowledge or obligation.
But even here the interest seems incidental to the interest in the ‘low-level’
eidictic truths (in knowledge being true justified belief, say, rather than in
its being by its nature true justified belief); and if the foundational aims
of metaphysics can indeed be achieved, then separate consideration of the
corresponding ‘high-level’ eidictic truths will not in fact be required.

1.5 t r a ns pa r e nc y a n d a pr ior ic i t y
Our concern so far has been with the propositions and subject-matter of an
eidictic field. But what of its sentences and terms? What kind of sentences
or terms can be used in logic, say, or in mathematics or metaphysics?
One might think that the answer to this question was obvious. A
sentence will be mathematical, say, iff it expresses a mathematical prop-
osition and a term will be mathematical iff it signifies a mathematical
item. However, this view can hardly be sustained. For suppose we use
the description ‘the number of planets’ to fi x the reference of the term
‘nop’. Then the sentences ‘9 > 7’ and ‘nop > 7’ will express the very same
proposition and yet the first is clearly mathematical while the second
clearly not.
This is a somewhat artificial case and depends upon doctrines within
the philosophy of language which not everyone will accept. But there are
also more natural and less contentious cases. The term ‘the number of
sides of a triangle,’ for example, signifies the number 3 and yet is not a
suitable term of arithmetic and ‘here’ signifies a locale and yet is not a
suitable term of geography. Thus it appears that a field of enquiry comes
with a built-in restriction not only on its propositions but also on how
those propositions may properly be expressed.
But what are these further restrictions? Let us not attempt to answer
this question in full generality (even if this were possible) but only in
relation to an a priori eidictic field, such as metaphysics or logic. If we
wish a field to be a priori, then we should so choose its vocabulary that it
provides us with a priori access to its truths. Let us be a little more pre-
cise. Suppose that the subject-matter of the field is given by the elements
t1, t2, …; and let t1, t2, … be corresponding terms for t1, t2, … Then we
want every sentence ‘S’ formulated by means of the terms t1, t2, … to be
such that:
(*) if ‘S’ expresses a necessary truth then it is a priori that S.
 What is metaphysics? 23
We may also want that every one of the sentences ‘S’ be such that:
(**) it is a priori that if S then it is a priori that S.10
We might say that a vocabulary constituted by the terms t1, t2, … is epis-
temically transparent if case (*) is satisfied and that it is strongly epistemi-
cally transparent if (**) is also satisfied. It is then a natural requirement on
an a priori eidictic field that it should have an epistemically – or strongly
epistemically – transparent vocabulary.
The transparency requirement might also be formulated in terms of
concepts.11 Roughly speaking, the concept signified by a term is what we
grasp in understanding the term; and our intention is that terms signi-
fying the same concept should not differ in their epistemic status – that
claims about what we can know should be indifferent to the use of one
such term as opposed to another. Let τ1, τ2, … be concepts for the elem-
ents t1, t2, … Then we want every statement Σ formulated by means of the
concepts τ1, τ2, … to be such that:
(*)′ if the statement Σ signifies a necessary truth then it is a priori that Σ.
And similarly for the analogue of (**).
Epistemic transparency, whether for terms or for concepts, is both a
global and an epistemic phenomenon. But it might be thought to have a
basis in the local and modal features of the individual concepts and terms
themselves. Consider Kripke’s famous example of water being H2O. This
statement signifies a necessary truth and yet is a posteriori. Why? It might
be thought that this is because of the character of the concept of water
(and perhaps also of H2O). For what the concept is a concept of is hostage
to the empirical facts. In this world it is a concept of H2O but in another
world, in which XYZ falls from the sky and fi lls the oceans etc., it will be
a concept of XYZ.
Say that a concept of x is modally transparent if it is necessarily a con-
cept of x and that otherwise it is modally opaque. Thus the concept of
identity will be modally transparent since it is necessarily a concept of
identity while the concept of water will not be modally transparent since
it will not necessarily be a concept of water (i.e. of H2O). The thought
then is that the modal transparency of individual concepts will be suffi-
cient to guarantee their epistemic transparency and that it is only because

10
We may want to weaken the requirement that S be a priori to the requirement that it be a priori
if knowable.
11
There are difficulties in taking each term to correspond to a concept which I hope, for the pur-
poses of the present discussion, may be ignored.
24 kit fine
of the presence of a modally opaque concept (such as water in water is
H2O) that a necessary truth might fail to be a priori.12
An alternative, eidictic, notion of transparency might be defined.
Given a concept τ of x and a field F, let us say that τ is strictly transparent
in F if it lies in the nature of the subject-matter of the field F that τ is a
concept of x.13 Any strictly transparent concept will, of course, be modally
transparent; if the concept τ is a concept of x by the nature of some sub-
ject-matter then the concept will necessarily be a concept of x. So strict
transparency will also be sufficient for epistemic transparency given the
sufficiency of modal transparency.
However, the converse connection need not hold; a concept may be
modally transparent without being strictly transparent. For consider our
previous example of the concept of the number of sides of a triangle. It is
necessarily a concept of 3 but it might be argued that it is not by its nature
and the nature of the subject-matter of arithmetic a concept of 3; some-
thing about the nature of triangle and side is also required. Given that the
truths of an eidictic field turn on the nature of its subject-matter, it seems
to be especially appropriate that the objects picked out by its concepts
should also turn on the nature of its subject-matter; and so, by using the
strict criterion in place of the modal criterion, we may get a better grip on
what the concepts of various eidictic fields should be.

1.6 t h e p o s s i bi l i t y of m e ta ph y s ic s
We have characterized the traditional conception of metaphysics in terms
of a range of desirable features. Metaphysics should be concerned with the
nature of reality; it should operate at a high level of generality; its method
of enquiry should be a priori and its means of expression transparent; and
it should be capable of providing a foundation for all other enquiry into
the nature of reality.
But can all of these desiderata be captured within a single field of
enquiry? Might there not be a conflict between the demand to know the
nature of reality, for example, and the desire for a prioricity? Or between
12
Under the ‘two-dimensional’ semantics – favoured by Chalmers (1996), Jackson (1998) and oth-
ers – a term will be transparent in this sense if its intension remains the same under any variation
in the ‘world’ or ‘scenario’ considered as actual. The notion of semantic stability in Bealer (1999)
plays a somewhat similar role, as does the homonymous distinction of Foster (1982: 62–3).
13
A related notion is that of a concept which by its very nature signifies what it does. The concept
contains within itself, so to speak, what it is a concept of. In so far as we can be expected to have
a priori knowledge of the nature of a concept we can also be expected to have a priori knowledge
of the nature of its object for concepts of this sort.
 What is metaphysics? 25
the demand for generality and the desire to achieve the foundational
aims? And should the traditional conception of metaphysics as a unified
field of enquiry perhaps be abandoned in favour of a multitude of differ-
ent fields of enquiry, each emphasizing this or that aspect of the tradi-
tional conception?
The answer to this question is by no means clear, but there is at least
some reason to think that these various desiderata can all be captured
within a single field of enquiry. For suppose we start off with the desire to
find an explanation for eidictic truth. Then, as a rule, we can expect there
to be an elevation in the generality of the subject-matter as we move from
a given eidictic truth to its explanans. The example concerning water is
typical in this regard, since substance is more general than water and com-
position more general than the molecular form of composition involved
in H2O; and so one might hope that, in the limits of eidictic explanation,
the elements of subject-matter will be of a high, and perhaps even of a
penultimate, degree of generality.
Once we have achieved the desired level of generality, it is not so hard
to see how we might secure modal (or eidictic) transparency. For, as a
rule, the more general an element of subject-matter – the more ‘cut off ’ it
is from the world – the easier it is to secure transparent reference. Thus it
is that we have the sense of greater transparency as we move from cat to
animal, say, or from animal to living thing ; and so, again, one might hope
that in the limits of eidictic explanation, the generality of the subject-
matter of metaphysics will be sufficient, as it is in logic, to secure the
transparency of its concepts.
Finally, with the combination of necessity (or eidicity) and transpar-
ency comes the possibility of a priori knowledge. One major obstacle to
achieving a priori knowledge is removed; and perhaps no other obstacle
stands in its way. Thus if all goes well, eidictic explanation will terminate
in the general a priori truths of metaphysics.
Plato: The Allegory of the Cave, from The Republic

The son of a wealthy and noble family, Plato (427-347 B.C.) was preparing for a career in politics when the trial
and eventual execution of Socrates (399 B.C.) changed the course of his life. He abandoned his political career and
turned to philosophy, opening a school on the outskirts of Athens dedicated to the Socratic search for wisdom.
Plato's school, then known as the Academy, was the first university in western history and operated from 387 B.C.
until A.D. 529, when it was closed by Justinian.

Unlike his mentor Socrates, Plato was both a writer and a teacher. His writings are in the form of dialogues, with
Socrates as the principal speaker. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato described symbolically the predicament in
which mankind finds itself and proposes a way of salvation. The Allegory presents, in brief form, most of Plato's
major philosophical assumptions: his belief that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a
poor copy of it, and that the real world can only be apprehended intellectually; his idea that knowledge cannot be
transferred from teacher to student, but rather that education consists in directing student's minds toward what is
real and important and allowing them to apprehend it for themselves; his faith that the universe ultimately is good;
his conviction that enlightened individuals have an obligation to the rest of society, and that a good society must be
one in which the truly wise (the Philosopher-King) are the rulers.

The Allegory of the Cave can be found in Book VII of Plato's best-known work, The Republic, a lengthy dialogue on
the nature of justice. Often regarded as a utopian blueprint, The Republic is dedicated to a discussion of the
education required of a Philosopher-King.

The following selection is taken from the Benjamin Jowett translation (Vintage, 1991), pp. 253-261.

[Socrates] And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or
unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living in a underground cave, which has a mouth open
towards the light and reaching all along the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and
have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being
prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing
at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you
look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of
them, over which they show the puppets.
[Glaucon] I see.
[Socrates] And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and
statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over
the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.
[Glaucon] You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.
[Socrates] Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one
another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?
[Glaucon] True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never
allowed to move their heads?
[Socrates] And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the
shadows?
[Glaucon] Yes, he said.
[Socrates] And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they
were naming what was actually before them?
[Glaucon] Very true.
[Socrates] And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side,
would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they
heard came from the passing shadow?
[Glaucon] No question, he replied.
[Socrates] To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.
[Glaucon] That is certain.
[Socrates] And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released
and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to
stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains;
the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state
he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before
was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned
towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, -what will be his reply? And you may
further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to
name them, -will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw
are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?
[Glaucon] Far truer.
[Socrates] And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes
which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of vision which he can see, and
which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to
him?
[Glaucon] True, he now.
[Socrates] And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent,
and held fast until he 's forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained
and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to
see anything at all of what are now called realities.
[Glaucon] Not all in a moment, he said.
[Socrates] He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will
see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the
objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled
heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by
day?
[Glaucon] Certainly.
[Socrates] Last of he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but
he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.
[Glaucon] Certainly.
[Socrates] He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and
is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things
which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?
[Glaucon] Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.
[Socrates] And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the cave and his
fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity
them?
[Glaucon] Certainly, he would.
[Socrates] And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among themselves on those who
were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and
which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw
conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honors and glories, or envy
the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,

Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,

and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?
[Glaucon] Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false
notions and live in this miserable manner.
[Socrates] Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced
in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?
[Glaucon] To be sure, he said.
[Socrates] And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the
prisoners who had never moved out of the cave, while his sight was still weak, and before his
eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight
might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went
and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if
any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and
they would put him to death.
[Glaucon] No question, he said.
[Socrates] This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous
argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not
misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the
intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether
rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of
knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is
also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the
lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual;
and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life
must have his eye fixed.
[Glaucon] I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you.
[Socrates] Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are
unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world
where they desire to dwell; which desire of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted.
[Glaucon] Yes, very natural.
[Socrates] And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the
evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and
before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts
of law, or in other places, about the images or the shadows of images of justice, and is
endeavoring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute justice?
[Glaucon] Anything but surprising, he replied.
[Socrates] Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes
are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going
into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who
remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready
to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter light, and is
unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is
dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being,
and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into
the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from
above out of the light into the cave.
[Glaucon] That, he said, is a very just distinction.
[Socrates] But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must be wrong when they say
that they can put a knowledge into the soul which was not there before, like sight into blind eyes.
[Glaucon] They undoubtedly say this, he replied.
[Socrates] Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the
soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole
body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned
from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being,
and of the brightest and best of being, or in other words, of the good.
[Glaucon] Very true.
[Socrates] And must there not be some art which will effect conversion in the easiest and
quickest manner; not implanting the faculty of sight, for that exists already, but has been turned
in the wrong direction, and is looking away from the truth?
[Glaucon] Yes, he said, such an art may be presumed.
[Socrates] And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to be akin to bodily
qualities, for even when they are not originally innate they can be implanted later by habit and
exercise, the of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always
remains, and by this conversion is rendered useful and profitable; or, on the other hand, hurtful
and useless. Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever
rogue --how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end; he is the reverse of
blind, but his keen eyesight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion
to his cleverness.
[Glaucon] Very true, he said.
[Socrates] But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures in the days of their youth;
and they had been severed from those sensual pleasures, such as eating and drinking, which, like
leaden weights, were attached to them at their birth, and which drag them down and turn the
vision of their souls upon the things that are below --if, I say, they had been released from these
impediments and turned in the opposite direction, the very same faculty in them would have seen
the truth as keenly as they see what their eyes are turned to now.
[Glaucon] Very likely.
[Socrates] Yes, I said; and there is another thing which is likely. or rather a necessary inference
from what has preceded, that neither the uneducated and uninformed of the truth, nor yet those
who never make an end of their education, will be able ministers of State; not the former,
because they have no single aim of duty which is the rule of all their actions, private as well as
public; nor the latter, because they will not act at all except upon compulsion, fancying that they
are already dwelling apart in the islands of the blest.
[Glaucon] Very true, he replied.
[Socrates] Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the State will be to compel
the best minds to attain that knowledge which we have already shown to be the greatest of all-
they must continue to ascend until they arrive at the good; but when they have ascended and seen
enough we must not allow them to do as they do now.
[Glaucon] What do you mean?
[Socrates] I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must not be allowed; they must
be made to descend again among the prisoners in the cave, and partake of their labors and
honors, whether they are worth having or not.
[Glaucon] But is not this unjust? he said; ought we to give them a worse life, when they might
have a better?
[Socrates] You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention of the legislator, who did
not aim at making any one class in the State happy above the rest; the happiness was to be in the
whole State, and he held the citizens together by persuasion and necessity, making them
benefactors of the State, and therefore benefactors of one another; to this end he created them,
not to please themselves, but to be his instruments in binding up the State.
[Glaucon] True, he said, I had forgotten.
[Socrates] Observe, Glaucon, that there will be no injustice in compelling our philosophers to
have a care and providence of others; we shall explain to them that in other States, men of their
class are not obliged to share in the toils of politics: and this is reasonable, for they grow up at
their own sweet will, and the government would rather not have them. Being self-taught, they
cannot be expected to show any gratitude for a culture which they have never received. But we
have brought you into the world to be rulers of the hive, kings of yourselves and of the other
citizens, and have educated you far better and more perfectly than they have been educated, and
you are better able to share in the double duty. Wherefore each of you, when his turn comes,
must go down to the general underground abode, and get the habit of seeing in the dark. When
you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the inhabitants of the
cave, and you will know what the several images are, and what they represent, because you have
seen the beautiful and just and good in their truth. And thus our State which is also yours will be
a reality, and not a dream only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that of other States, in
which men fight with one another about shadows only and are distracted in the struggle for
power, which in their eyes is a great good. Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers
are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which
they are most eager, the worst.
[Glaucon] Quite true, he replied.
[Socrates] And will our pupils, when they hear this, refuse to take their turn at the toils of State,
when they are allowed to spend the greater part of their time with one another in the heavenly
light?
[Glaucon] Impossible, he answered; for they are just men, and the commands which we impose
upon them are just; there can be no doubt that every one of them will take office as a stern
necessity, and not after the fashion of our present rulers of State.
[Socrates] Yes, my friend, I said; and there lies the point. You must contrive for your future
rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State;
for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but
in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. Whereas if they go to the
administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after the' own private advantage, thinking
that hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there can never be; for they will be fighting
about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus arise will be the ruin of the rulers
themselves and of the whole State.
[Glaucon] Most true, he replied.
[Socrates] And the only life which looks down upon the life of political ambition is that of true
philosophy. Do you know of any other?
[Glaucon] Indeed, I do not, he said.
[Socrates] And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if they are, there will
be rival lovers, and they will fight.
[Glaucon] No question.
[Socrates] Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they will be the
men who are wisest about affairs of State, and by whom the State is best administered, and who
at the same time have other honors and another and a better life than that of politics?
[Glaucon] They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied.
[Socrates] And now shall we consider in what way such guardians will be produced, and how
they are to be brought from darkness to light, -- as some are said to have ascended from the
world below to the gods?
[Glaucon] By all means, he replied.
[Socrates] The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oyster-shell, but the turning round of
a soul passing from a day which is little better than night to the true day of being, that is, the
ascent from below, which we affirm to be true philosophy?
[Glaucon] Quite so.
 “Pragmatic Theory of
Truth” by William James

William James, NIH

About the author. . . . William James (1842-1910) is perhaps the most

widely known of the founders of pragmatism. Historically, his Principles
of Psychology was the first unification of psychology as a philosophical
science. As a teacher of philosophy, he was a colleague of both Josiah
Royce and George Santayana. Once Royce was asked to substitute teach
for James in James’ Harvard philosophy class which, at the time, happened
to be studying Royce’s text. Supposedly, as Royce picked up James’ copy
of his text in the lecture hall, he hesitated briefly, and then noted to the
class that James had written in the margin of the day’s reading, “ Damn
fool!”
About the work. . . . In his Pragmatism,1 William James characterizes
truth in terms of usefulness and acceptance. In general, on his view, truth
is found by attending to the practical consequences of ideas. To say that
truth is mere agreement of ideas with matters of fact, according to James,
is incomplete, and to say that truth is captured by coherence is not to dis-
tinguish it from a consistent falsity. In a genuine sense, James believes we
construct truth in the process of successful living in the world: truth is in
1. William James. Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. New
York: Longman Green and Co., 1907.

1
“Pragmatic Theory of Truth” by William James

no sense absolute. Beliefs are considered to be true if and only if they are
useful and can be practically applied. At one point in his works, James
states, “. . . the ultimate test for us of what a truth means is the conduct it
dictates or inspires.” Certainly, one difficulty in understanding James lies
in the interpretation of his rhetorical flourishes.

From the reading. . .

“What, in short, is the truth’s cash-value in experiential terms?”

Ideas of Interest from Pragmatism

1. In James’ view, what are three stages in the normal development of a

theory? Can you think of examples of theory-development in accor-
dance with this paradigm?
2. Explain James’ critique of the correspondence theory of truth. Is his
characterization of the correspondence theory an oversimplification?
3. How does James define a true idea? Does his characterization clearly
distinguish a true idea from a false idea?
4. Explain James’ thesis concerning the pragmatic theory of truth. What
do the words “verification” and “validation” themselves pragmatically
mean?
5. James writes that “our ideas ‘agree’ with reality.” How does this de-
scription differ from the suggestion that true ideas correspond with
facts?
6. Discuss whether or not there is any difference between the true and
the useful for James. How is the verification process related to this
interpretation of truth?
7. According to James, what are the main objections of rationalism to
pragmatism? How does James answer these objections?

2 Reading For Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction

 “Pragmatic Theory of Truth” by William James

8. Compare the notions of the true, the right, and the good as described
by James at the end of this reading selection.

The Reading Selection from

Pragmatism

[Ideas as Copies of Reality]

I fully expect to see the pragmatist view of truth run through the classic
stages of a theory’s career. First, you know, a new theory is attacked as
absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally
it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves
discovered it. Our doctrine of truth is at present in the first of these three
stages, with symptoms of the second stage having begun in certain quar-
ters. I wish that this lecture might help it beyond the first stage in the eyes
of many of you.
Truth, as any dictionary will tell you, is a property of certain of our ideas. It
means their “agreement,” as falsity means their disagreement, with “real-
ity.” Pragmatists and intellectualists both accept this definition as a matter
of course. They begin to quarrel only after the question is raised as to
what may precisely be meant by the term “agreement,” and what by the
term “reality,” when reality is taken as something for our ideas to agree
with.
In answering these questions the pragmatists are more analytic and painstak-
ing, the intellectualists more offhand and irreflective. The popular notion
is that a true idea must copy its reality. Like other popular views, this one
follows the analogy of the most usual experience. Our true ideas of sensi-
ble things do indeed copy them. Shut your eyes and think of yonder clock
on the wall, and you get just such a true picture or copy of its dial. But
your idea of its “works” (unless you are a clock-maker) is much less of a
copy, yet it passes muster, for it in no way clashes with the reality. Even
tho it should shrink to the mere word “works,” that word still serves you
truly; and when you speak of the “time-keeping function” of the clock,
or of its spring’s “elasticity,” it is hard to see exactly what your ideas can
copy.

Reading For Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction 3

“Pragmatic Theory of Truth” by William James

From the reading. . .

“. . . when you speak of the ‘time-keeping function’ of the clock, or
of its spring’s ‘elasticity,’ it is hard to see exactly what your ideas
can copy.”

You perceive that there is a problem here. Where our ideas cannot copy
definitely their object, what does agreement with that object mean? Some
idealists seem to say that they are true whenever they are what God means
that we ought to think about that object. Others hold the copy-view all
through, and speak as if our ideas possessed truth just in proportion as
they approach to being copies of the Absolute’s eternal way of thinking.
These views, you see, invite pragmatistic discussion. But the great as-
sumption of the intellectualists is that truth means essentially an inert static
relation. When you’ve got your true idea of anything, there’s an end of the
matter. You’re in possession; you know; you have fulfilled your thinking
destiny. You are where you ought to be mentally; you have obeyed your
categorical imperative; and nothing more need follow on that climax of
your rational destiny. Epistemologically you are in stable equilibrium.

[Truth as Verification]
Pragmatism, on the other hand, asks its usual question. “Grant an idea or
belief to be true,” it says, “what concrete difference will its being true
make in anyone’s actual life? How will the truth be realized? What expe-
riences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were
false? What, in short, is the truth’s cash-value in experiential terms?”
The moment pragmatism asks this question, it sees the answer: True ideas
are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False
ideas are those that we cannot. That is the practical difference it makes to
us to have true ideas; that, therefore, is the meaning of truth, for it is all
that truth is known-as.
This thesis is what I have to defend. The truth of an idea is not a stagnant
property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made
true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely
of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-
ation.

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 “Pragmatic Theory of Truth” by William James

But what do the words verification and validation themselves pragmati-

cally mean? They again signify certain practical consequences of the ver-
ified and validated idea. It is hard to find any one phrase that characterizes
these consequences better than the ordinary agreementformula—just such
consequences being what we have in mind whenever we say that our ideas
“agree” with reality. They lead us, namely, through the acts and other ideas
which they instigate, into or up to, or towards, other parts of experience
with which we feel all the while—such feeling being among our poten-
tialities—that the original ideas remain in agreement. The connexions and
transitions come to us from point to point as being progressive, harmo-
nious, satisfactory. This function of agreeable leading is what we mean by
an idea’s verification. Such an account is vague and it sounds at first quite
trivial, but it has results which it will take the rest of my hour to explain.
Let me begin by reminding you of the fact that the possession of true
thoughts means everywhere the possession of invaluable instruments of
action; and that our duty to gain truth, so far from being a blank command
from out of the blue, or a “stunt” self-imposed by our intellect, can account
for itself by excellent practical reasons.

[Truth as the Useful]

The importance to human life of having true beliefs about matters of fact is
a thing too notorious. We live in a world of realities that can be infinitely
useful or infinitely harmful. Ideas that tell us which of them to expect
count as the true ideas in all this primary sphere of verification, and the
pursuit of such ideas is a primary human duty. The possession of truth, so
far from being here an end in itself, is only a preliminary means towards
other vital satisfactions. If I am lost in the woods and starved, and find
what looks like a cow-path, it is of the utmost importance that I should
think of a human habitation at the end of it, for if I do so and follow it,
I save myself. The true thought is useful here because the house which
is its object is useful. The practical value of true ideas is thus primarily
derived from the practical importance of their objects to us. Their objects
are, indeed, not important at all times. I may oil another occasion have no
use for the house; and then my idea of it, however verifiable, will be prac-
tically irrelevant, and had better remain latent. Yet since almost any object
may some day become temporarily important, the advantage of having a
general stock of extra truths, of ideas that shall be true of merely possible
situations, is obvious. We store such extra truths away in our memories,

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“Pragmatic Theory of Truth” by William James

and with the overflow we fill our books of reference. Whenever such an ex-
tra truth becomes practically relevant to one of our emergencies, it passes
from cold-storage to do work in the world, and our belief in it grows ac-
tive. You can say of it then either that “it is useful because it is true” or that
“it is true because it is useful.” Both these phrases mean exactly the same
thing, namely that here is an idea that gets fulfilled and can be verified.
True is the name for whatever idea starts the verification-process, useful is
the name for its completed function in experience. True ideas would never
have been singled out as such, would never have acquired a class-name,
least of all a name suggesting value, unless they had been useful from the
outset in this way.
From this simple cue pragmatism gets her general notion of truth as some-
thing essentially bound up with the way in which one moment in our ex-
perience may lead us towards other moments which it will be worth while
to have been led to. Primarily, and on the common-sense level, the truth
of a state of mind means this function of a leading that is worthwhile.
When a moment in our experience, of any kind whatever, inspires us with a
thought that is true, that means that sooner or later we dip by that thought’s
guidance into the particulars of experience again and make advantageous
connexion with them. This is a vague enough statement, but I beg you to
retain it, for it is essential.
Our experience meanwhile is all shot through with regularities. One bit of
it can warn us to get ready for another bit, can “Intend” or be significant of
that remoter object. The object’s advent is the significance’s verification.
Truth, in these cases, meaning nothing but eventual verification, is man-
ifestly incompatible with waywardness on our part. Woe to him whose
beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities follow in his ex-
perience: they will lead him nowhere or else make false connexions.
By “realities” or “object”’ here, we mean either things of common sense,
sensibly present, or else common-sense relations, such as dates, places,
distances, kinds, activities. Following our mental image of a house along
the cow-path, we actually come to see the house; we get the image’s full
verification. Such simply and fully verified leadings are certainly the orig-
inals and prototypes of the truth-process. Experience offers indeed other
forms of truth-process, but they are all conceivable as being primary veri-
fications arrested, multiplied or substituted one for another.

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From the reading. . .

“Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system.”

[Unverified Truth]
Take, for instance, yonder object on the wall. You and I consider it to
be a “clock,” altho no one of us has seen the hidden works that make it
one. We let our notion pass for true without attempting to verify. If truths
mean verification-process essentially, ought we then to call such unveri-
fied truths as this abortive? No, for they form the overwhelmingly large
number of the truths we live by. Indirect as well as direct verifications
pass muster. Where circumstantial evidence is sufficient, we can go with-
out eye-witnessing. Just as we here assume Japan to exist without ever
having been there, because it works to do so, everything we know con-
spiring with the belief, and nothing interfering, so we assume that thing to
be a clock. We use it as a clock, regulating the length of our lecture by it.
The verification of the assumption here means its leading to no frustration
or contradiction. Verifi-ability of wheels and weights and pendulum is as
good as verification. For one truth-process completed there are a million in
our lives that function in this state of nascency. They turn us towards direct
verification; lead us into the surroundings of the objects they envisage; and
then, if everything runs on harmoniously, we are so sure that verification
is possible that we omit it, and are usually justified by all that happens.
Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and
beliefs “pass,” so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass
so long as nobody refuses them. But this all points to direct face-to-face
verifications somewhere, without which the fabric of truth collapses like a
financial system with no cash-basis whatever. You accept my verification
of one thing, I yours of another. We trade on each other’s truth. But beliefs
verified concretely by somebody are the posts of the whole superstructure.

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“Pragmatic Theory of Truth” by William James

Clock Mechanism, (detail) National Park Service

Another great reason—beside economy of time—for waiving complete

verification in the usual business of life is that all things exist in kinds and
not singly. Our world is found once for all to have that peculiarity. So that
when we have once directly verified our ideas about one specimen of a
kind, we consider ourselves free to apply them to other specimens without
verification. A mind that habitually discerns the kind of thing before it,
and acts by the law of the kind immediately, without pausing to verify,
will be a “true” mind in ninety-nine out of a hundred emergencies, proved
so by its conduct fitting everything it meets, and getting no refutation.
Indirectly or only potentially verifying processes may thus be true as well
as full verification-processes. They work as true processes would work,
give us the same advantages, and claim our recognition for the same rea-
sons. All this on the common-sense level of matters of fact, which we are
alone considering.. . .

[Truth Is Made]
Our account of truth is an account of truths in the plural, of processes
of leading, realized in rebus, and having only this quality in common, that
they pay. They pay by guiding us into or towards some part of a system that
dips at numerous points into sense-percepts, which we may copy mentally

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or not, but with which at any rate we are now in the kind of commerce
vaguely designated as verification. Truth for us is simply a collective name
for verification-processes, just as health, wealth, strength, etc., are names
for other processes connected with life, and also pursued because it pays to
pursue them. Truth is made, just as health, wealth and strength are made,
in the course of experience.

From the reading. . .

“The ‘absolutely’ true, meaning what no farther experience will ever
alter, is that ideal vanishing-point towards which we imagine that all
our temporary truths will some day converge. ”

Here rationalism is instantaneously up in arms against us. I can imagine a

rationalist to talk as follows:
“Truth is not made,” he will say; “it absolutely obtains, being a unique re-
lation that does not wait upon any process, but shoots straight over the head
of experience, and hits its reality every time. Our belief that yon thing on
the wall is a clock is true already, altho no one in the whole history of the
world should verify it. The bare quality of standing in that transcendent rela-
tion is what makes any thought true that possesses it, whether or not there be
verification. You pragmatists put the cart before the horse in making truth’s
being reside in verification-processes. These are merely signs of its being,
merely our lame ways of ascertaining after the fact, which of our ideas al-
ready has possessed the wondrous quality. The quality itself is timeless, like
all essences and natures. Thoughts partake of it directly, as they partake of
falsity or of irrelevancy. It can’t be analyzed away into pragmatic conse-
quences.”
The whole plausibility of this rationalist tirade is due to the fact to which
we have already paid so much attention. In our world, namely abounding
as it does in things of similar kinds and similarly associated, one verifica-
tion serves for others of its kind, and one great use of knowing things is
to be led not so much to them as to their associates, especially to human
talk about them. The quality of truth, obtaining ante rem, pragmatically
means, then, the fact that in such a world innumerable ideas work better
by their indirect or possible than by their direct and actual verification.
Truth ante rem means only verifiability, then; or else it is a case of the
stock rationalist trick of treating the name of a concrete phenomenal real-
ity as an independent prior entity, and placing it behind the reality as its

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“Pragmatic Theory of Truth” by William James

explanation. Professor Mach quotes somewhere an epigram of Lessing’s:

Sagt Hänschen Schlau zu Vetter Fritz,

"Wie kommt es, Vetter Fritzen,
Dass grad’ die Reichsten in der Welt,
Das meiste Geld besitzen?"

Hänschen Schlau here treats the principle “wealth” as something distinct

from the facts denoted by the man’s being rich. It antedates them; the facts
become only a sort of secondary coincidence with the rich man’s essential
nature.
In the case of “wealth” we all see the fallacy. We know that wealth is but a
name for concrete processes that certain men’s lives play a part in, and not
a natural excellence found in Messrs. Rockefeller and Carnegie, but not in
the rest of us.
Like wealth, health also lives in rebus. It is a name for processes, as diges-
tion, circulation, sleep, etc., that go on happily, tho in this instance we are
more inclined to think of it as a principle and to say the man digests and
sleeps so well because he is so healthy.
With “strength” we are, I think, more rationalistic still, and decidedly in-
clined to treat it as an excellence pre-existing in the man and explanatory
of the herculean performances of his muscles.
With “truth” most people go over the border entirely, and treat the rational-
istic account as self-evident. But really all these words in truth are exactly
similar. Truth exists ante rem just as much and as little as the other things
do.

From the reading. . .

“‘The true,’ to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of
our thinking, just as ‘the right’ is only the expedient in the way of
our behaving. ”

The scholastics, following Aristotle, made much of the distinction be-

tween habit and act. Health in actu means, among other things, good sleep-
ing and digesting. But a healthy man need not always be sleeping, or al-

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ways digesting, any more than a wealthy man need be always handling
money or a strong man always lifting weights. All such qualities sink to
the status of “habits” between their times of exercise; and similarly truth
becomes a habit of certain of our ideas and beliefs in their intervals of rest
from their verifying activities. But those activities are the root of the whole
matter, and the condition of there being any habit to exist in the intervals.

[Truth as Expedience]
“The true,” to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our
thinking, just as “the right” is only the expedient in the way of our behav-
ing. Expedient in almost any fashion; and expedient in the long run and
on the whole of course; for what meets expediently all the experience in
sight won’t necessarily meet all farther experiences equally satisfactorily.
Experience, as we know, has ways of boiling over, and making us correct
our present formulas.
The “absolutely” true, meaning what no farther experience will ever alter,
is that ideal vanishing-point towards which we imagine that all our tempo-
rary truths will some day converge. It runs on all fours with the perfectly
wise man, and with the absolutely complete experience; and, if these ide-
als are ever realized, they will all be realized together. Meanwhile we have
to live to-day by what truth we can get to-day, and be ready to-morrow to
call it falsehood. Ptolemaic astronomy, euclidean space, aristotelian logic,
scholastic metaphysics, were expedient for centuries, but human experi-
ence has boiled over those limits, and we now call these things only rela-
tively true, or true within those borders of experience. “Absolutely” they
are false; for we know that those limits were casual, and might have been
transcended by past theorists just as they are by present thinkers.. . .

[Truth as Good]
Let me now say only this, that truth is one species of good, and not, as is
usually supposed, a category distinct from good, and co-ordinate with it.
The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of be-
lief and good, too, for definite, assignable reasons. Surely you must admit
this, that if there were no good for life in true ideas, or if the knowledge of
them were positively disadvantageous and false ideas the only useful ones,
then the current notion that truth is divine and precious, and its pursuit a

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duty, could never have grown up or become a dogma. In a world like that,
our duty would be to shun truth, rather. But in this world, just as certain
foods are not only agreeable to our taste, but good for our teeth, our stom-
ach and our tissues; so certain ideas are not only agreeable to think about,
or agreeable as supporting other ideas that we are fond of, but they are
also helpful in life’s practical struggles. If there be any life that it is really
better we should lead, and if there be any idea which, if believed in, would
help us to lead that life, then it would be really better for us to believe in
that idea, unless, indeed, belief in it incidentally clashed with other greater
vital benefits.

From the reading. . .

“True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate
and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot. ”

“What would be better for us to believe!” This sounds very like a definition
of truth. It comes very near to saying “what we ought to believe”; and in
that definition none of you would find any oddity. Ought we ever not to
believe what it is better for us to believe? And can we then keep the notion
of what is better for us, and what is true for us, permanently apart?
Pragmatism says no, and I fully agree with her. Probably you also agree,
so far as the abstract statement goes, but with a suspicion that if we practi-
cally did believe everything that made for good in our own personal lives,
we should be found indulging all kinds of fancies about this world’s af-
fairs, and all kinds of sentimental superstitions about a world hereafter.
Your suspicion here is undoubtedly well founded, and it is evident that
something happens when you pass from the abstract to the concrete, that
complicates the situation.
I said just now that what is better for us to believe is true unless the belief
incidentally clashes with some other vital benefit. Now in real life what
vital benefits is any particular belief of ours most liable to clash with?
What indeed except the vital benefits yielded by other beliefs when these
prove incompatible with the first ones? In other words, the greatest enemy
of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths. Truths have once for
all this desperate instinct of self-preservation and of desire to extinguish
whatever contradicts them.

12 Reading For Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction

 Skeptical Doubts Concerning
the Operations of the Understanding
David Hume

PART ONE
20. All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to
wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact. Of the first kind are the sciences of Geometry,
Algebra, and Arithmetic; and in short, every affirmation which is either intuitively or
demonstratively certain. That the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the square of the two
sides, is a proposition which expresses a relation between these figures. That three times
five is equal to the half of thirty, expresses a relation between these numbers. Propositions
of this kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what
is anywhere existent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature,
the truths demonstrated by Euclid would for ever retain their certainty and evidence.
21. Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in
the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the
foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply
a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if
ever so conformable to reality. That the sun will not rise to-morrow is no less intelligible
a proposition, and implies no more contradiction than the affirmation, that it will rise. We
should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood. Were it demonstratively
false, it would imply a contradiction, and could never be distinctly conceived by the
mind.
It may, therefore, be a subject worthy of curiosity, to enquire what is the nature of that
evidence which assures us of any real existence and matter of fact, beyond the present
testimony of our senses, or the records of our memory. This part of philosophy, it is
observable, has been little cultivated, either by the ancients or moderns; and therefore
our doubts and errors, in the prosecution of so important an enquiry, may be the more
excusable; while we march through such difficult paths without any guide or direction.
They may even prove useful, by exciting curiosity, and destroying that implicit faith and
security, which is the bane of all reasoning and free enquiry. The discovery of defects in
the common philosophy, if any such there be, will not, I presume, be a discouragement, but
rather an incitement, as is usual, to attempt something more full and satisfactory than has
yet been proposed to the public.
22. All reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be founded on the relation of
Cause and Effect. By means of that relation alone we can go beyond the evidence of our
memory and senses. If you were to ask a man, why he believes any matter of fact, which

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is absent; for instance, that his friend is in the country, or in France; he would give you
a reason; and this reason would be some other fact; as a letter received from him, or the
knowledge of his former resolutions and promises. A man finding a watch or any other
machine in a desert island, would conclude that there had once been men in that island. All
our reasonings concerning fact are of the same nature. And here it is constantly supposed
that there is a connexion between the present fact and that which is inferred from it. Were
there nothing to bind them together, the inference would be entirely precarious. The hearing
of an articulate voice and rational discourse in the dark assures us of the presence of some
person: Why? because these are the effects of the human make and fabric, and closely
connected with it. If we anatomize all the other reasonings of this nature, we shall find that
they are founded on the relation of cause and effect, and that this relation is either near or
remote, direct or collateral. Heat and light are collateral effects of fire, and the one effect
may justly be inferred from the other.
23. If we would satisfy ourselves, therefore, concerning the nature of that evidence,
which assures us of matters of fact, we must enquire how we arrive at the knowledge of
cause and effect.
I shall venture to affirm, as a general proposition, which admits of no exception, that
the knowledge of this relation is not, in any instance, attained by reasonings a priori; but
arises entirely from experience, when we find that any particular objects are constantly
conjoined with each other. Let an object be presented to a man of ever so strong natural
reason and abilities; if that object be entirely new to him, he will not be able, by the most
accurate examination of its sensible qualities, to discover any of its causes or effects. Adam,
though his rational faculties be supposed, at the very first, entirely perfect, could not have
inferred from the fluidity and transparency of water that it would suffocate him, or from
the light and warmth of fire that it would consume him. No object ever discovers, by the
qualities which appear to the senses, either the causes which produced it, or the effects
which will arise from it; nor can our reason, unassisted by experience, ever draw any
inference concerning real existence and matter of fact.
24. This proposition, that causes and effects are discoverable, not by reason but by
experience, will readily be admitted with regard to such objects, as we remember to have
once been altogether unknown to us; since we must be conscious of the utter inability,
which we then lay under, of foretelling what would arise from them. Present two smooth
pieces of marble to a man who has no tincture of natural philosophy; he will never discover
that they will adhere together in such a manner as to require great force to separate them
in a direct line, while they make so small a resistance to a lateral pressure. Such events, as
bear little analogy to the common course of nature, are also readily confessed to be known
only by experience; nor does any man imagine that the explosion of gunpowder, or the
attraction of a loadstone, could ever be discovered by arguments a priori. In like manner,
when an effect is supposed to depend upon an intricate machinery or secret structure of
parts, we make no difficulty in attributing all our knowledge of it to experience. Who will
assert that he can give the ultimate reason, why milk or bread is proper nourishment for a
man, not for a lion or a tiger?
But the same truth may not appear, at first sight, to have the same evidence with regard
to events, which have become familiar to us from our first appearance in the world, which
bear a close analogy to the whole course of nature, and which are supposed to depend
on the simple qualities of objects, without any secret structure of parts. We are apt to

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imagine that we could discover these effects by the mere operation of our reason, without
experience. We fancy, that were we brought on a sudden into this world, we could at first
have inferred that one Billiard-ball would communicate motion to another upon impulse;
and that we needed not to have waited for the event, in order to pronounce with certainty
concerning it. Such is the influence of custom, that, where it is strongest, it not only covers
our natural ignorance, but even conceals itself, and seems not to take place, merely because
it is found in the highest degree.
25. But to convince us that all the laws of nature, and all the operations of bodies
without exception, are known only by experience, the following reflections may, perhaps,
suffice. Were any object presented to us, and were we required to pronounce concerning the
effect, which will result from it, without consulting past observation; after what manner,
I beseech you, must the mind proceed in this operation? It must invent or imagine some
event, which it ascribes to the object as its effect; and it is plain that this invention must
be entirely arbitrary. The mind can never possibly find the effect in the supposed cause,
by the most accurate scrutiny and examination. For the effect is totally different from the
cause, and consequently can never be discovered in it. Motion in the second Billiard-ball
is a quite distinct event from motion in the first; nor is there anything in the one to suggest
the smallest hint of the other. A stone or piece of metal raised into the air, and left without
any support, immediately falls: but to consider the matter a priori, is there anything we
discover in this situation which can beget the idea of a downward, rather than an upward,
or any other motion, in the stone or metal? And as the first imagination or invention of a
particular effect, in all natural operations, is arbitrary, where we consult not experience; so
must we also esteem the supposed tie or connexion between the cause and effect, which
binds them together, and renders it impossible that any other effect could result from the
operation of that cause. When I see, for instance, a Billiard-ball moving in a straight line
towards another; even suppose motion in the second ball should by accident be suggested
to me, as the result of their contact or impulse; may I not conceive, that a hundred different
events might as well follow from that cause? May not both these balls remain at absolute
rest? May not the first ball return in a straight line, or leap off from the second in any line
or direction? All these suppositions are consistent and conceivable. Why then should we
give the preference to one, which is no more consistent or conceivable than the rest? All
our reasonings a priori will never be able to show us any foundation for this preference.
In a word, then, every effect is a distinct event from its cause. It could not, therefore,
be discovered in the cause, and the first invention or conception of it, a priori, must be
entirely arbitrary. And even after it is suggested, the conjunction of it with the cause must
appear equally arbitrary; since there are always many other effects, which, to reason, must
seem fully as consistent and natural. In vain, therefore, should we pretend to determine
any single event, or infer any cause or effect, without the assistance of observation and
experience.
26. Hence we may discover the reason why no philosopher, who is rational and modest,
has ever pretended to assign the ultimate cause of any natural operation, or to show distinctly
the action of that power, which produces any single effect in the universe. It is confessed,
that the utmost effort of human reason is to reduce the principles, productive of natural
phenomena, to a greater simplicity, and to resolve the many particular effects into a few
general causes, by means of reasonings from analogy, experience, and observation. But as
to the causes of these general causes, we should in vain attempt their discovery; nor shall

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we ever be able to satisfy ourselves, by any particular explication of them. These ultimate
springs and principles are totally shut up from human curiosity and enquiry. Elasticity,
gravity, cohesion of parts, communication of motion by impulse; these are probably the
ultimate causes and principles which we shall ever discover in nature; and we may esteem
ourselves sufficiently happy, if, by accurate enquiry and reasoning, we can trace up the
particular phenomena to, or near to, these general principles. The most perfect philosophy
of the natural kind only staves off our ignorance a little longer: as perhaps the most perfect
philosophy of the moral or metaphysical kind serves only to discover larger portions of it.
Thus the observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and
meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it.
27. Nor is geometry, when taken into the assistance of natural philosophy, ever able to
remedy this defect, or lead us into the knowledge of ultimate causes, by all that accuracy
of reasoning for which it is so justly celebrated. Every part of mixed mathematics proceeds
upon the supposition that certain laws are established by nature in her operations; and
abstract reasonings are employed, either to assist experience in the discovery of these laws,
or to determine their influence in particular instances, where it depends upon any precise
degree of distance and quantity. Thus, it is a law of motion, discovered by experience, that
the moment or force of any body in motion is in the compound ratio or proportion of its
solid contents and its velocity; and consequently, that a small force may remove the greatest
obstacle or raise the greatest weight, if, by any contrivance or machinery, we can increase
the velocity of that force, so as to make it an overmatch for its antagonist. Geometry assists
us in the application of this law, by giving us the just dimensions of all the parts and figures
which can enter into any species of machine; but still the discovery of the law itself is
owing merely to experience, and all the abstract reasonings in the world could never lead
us one step towards the knowledge of it. When we reason a priori, and consider merely any
object or cause, as it appears to the mind, independent of all observation, it never could
suggest to us the notion of any distinct object, such as its effect; much less, show us the
inseparable and inviolable connexion between them. A man must be very sagacious who
could discover by reasoning that crystal is the effect of heat, and ice of cold, without being
previously acquainted with the operation of these qualities.

PART TWO

28. But we have not yet attained any tolerable satisfaction with regard to the question first
proposed. Each solution still gives rise to a new question as difficult as the foregoing, and
leads us on to farther enquiries. When it is asked, What is the nature of all our reasonings
concerning matter of fact? the proper answer seems to be, that they are founded on the relation
of cause and effect. When again it is asked, What is the foundation of all our reasonings
and conclusions concerning that relation? it may be replied in one word, Experience. But
if we still carry on our sifting humour, and ask, What is the foundation of all conclusions
from experience? this implies a new question, which may be of more difficult solution and
explication. Philosophers, that give themselves airs of superior wisdom and sufficiency,
have a hard task when they encounter persons of inquisitive dispositions, who push them
from every corner to which they retreat, and who are sure at last to bring them to some
dangerous dilemma. The best expedient to prevent this confusion, is to be modest in our
pretensions; and even to discover the difficulty ourselves before it is objected to us. By this

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means, we may make a kind of merit of our very ignorance.
I shall content myself, in this section, with an easy task, and shall pretend only to
give a negative answer to the question here proposed. I say then, that, even after we have
experience of the operations of cause and effect, our conclusions from that experience
are not founded on reasoning, or any process of the understanding. This answer we must
endeavour both to explain and to defend.
29. It must certainly be allowed, that nature has kept us at a great distance from all her
secrets, and has afforded us only the knowledge of a few superficial qualities of objects;
while she conceals from us those powers and principles on which the influence of those
objects entirely depends. Our senses inform us of the colour, weight, and consistence of
bread; but neither sense nor reason can ever inform us of those qualities which fit it for
the nourishment and support of a human body. Sight or feeling conveys an idea of the
actual motion of bodies; but as to that wonderful force or power, which would carry on
a moving body for ever in a continued change of place, and which bodies never lose but
by communicating it to others; of this we cannot form the most distant conception. But
notwithstanding this ignorance of natural powers and principles, we always presume, when
we see like sensible qualities, that they have like secret powers, and expect that effects,
similar to those which we have experienced, will follow from them. If a body of like colour
and consistence with that bread, which we have formerly eat, be presented to us, we make
no scruple of repeating the experiment, and foresee, with certainty, like nourishment and
support. Now this is a process of the mind or thought, of which I would willingly know
the foundation. It is allowed on all hands that there is no known connexion between the
sensible qualities and the secret powers; and consequently, that the mind is not led to form
such a conclusion concerning their constant and regular conjunction, by anything which it
knows of their nature. As to past Experience, it can be allowed to give direct and certain
information of those precise objects only, and that precise period of time, which fell under
its cognizance: but why this experience should be extended to future times, and to other
objects, which for aught we know, may be only in appearance similar; this is the main
question on which I would insist. The bread, which I formerly eat, nourished me; that is,
a body of such sensible qualities was, at that time, endued with such secret powers: but
does it follow, that other bread must also nourish me at another time, and that like sensible
qualities must always be attended with like secret powers? The consequence seems nowise
necessary. At least, it must be acknowledged that there is here a consequence drawn by the
mind; that there is a certain step taken; a process of thought, and an inference, which wants
to be explained. These two propositions are far from being the same, I have found that such
an object has always been attended with such an effect, and I foresee, that other objects,
which are, in appearance, similar, will be attended with similar effects. I shall allow, if you
please, that the one proposition may justly be inferred from the other: I know, in fact, that
it always is inferred. But if you insist that the inference is made by a chain of reasoning,
I desire you to produce that reasoning. The connexion between these propositions is
not intuitive. There is required a medium, which may enable the mind to draw such an
inference, if indeed it be drawn by reasoning and argument. What that medium is, I must
confess, passes my comprehension; and it is incumbent on those to produce it, who assert
that it really exists, and is the origin of all our conclusions concerning matter of fact.
30. This negative argument must certainly, in process of time, become altogether
convincing, if many penetrating and able philosophers shall turn their enquiries this way

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and no one be ever able to discover any connecting proposition or intermediate step, which
supports the understanding in this conclusion. But as the question is yet new, every reader
may not trust so far to his own penetration, as to conclude, because an argument escapes
his enquiry, that therefore it does not really exist. For this reason it may be requisite to
venture upon a more difficult task; and enumerating all the branches of human knowledge,
endeavour to show that none of them can afford such an argument.
All reasonings may be divided into two kinds, namely, demonstrative reasoning, or that
concerning relations of ideas, and moral reasoning, or that concerning matter of fact and
existence. That there are no demonstrative arguments in the case seems evident; since it
implies no contradiction that the course of nature may change, and that an object, seemingly
like those which we have experienced, may be attended with different or contrary effects.
May I not clearly and distinctly conceive that a body, falling from the clouds, and which,
in all other respects, resembles snow, has yet the taste of salt or feeling of fire? Is there any
more intelligible proposition than to affirm, that all the trees will flourish in December and
January, and decay in May and June? Now whatever is intelligible, and can be distinctly
conceived, implies no contradiction, and can never be proved false by any demonstrative
argument or abstract reasoning priori.
If we be, therefore, engaged by arguments to put trust in past experience, and make it the
standard of our future judgement, these arguments must be probable only, or such as regard
matter of fact and real existence, according to the division above mentioned. But that there
is no argument of this kind, must appear, if our explication of that species of reasoning be
admitted as solid and satisfactory. We have said that all arguments concerning existence
are founded on the relation of cause and effect; that our knowledge of that relation is
derived entirely from experience; and that all our experimental conclusions proceed upon
the supposition that the future will be conformable to the past. To endeavour, therefore, the
proof of this last supposition by probable arguments, or arguments regarding existence,
must be evidently going in a circle, and taking that for granted, which is the very point in
question.
31. In reality, all arguments from experience are founded on the similarity which we
discover among natural objects, and by which we are induced to expect effects similar to
those which we have found to follow from such objects. And though none but a fool or
madman will ever pretend to dispute the authority of experience, or to reject that great guide
of human life, it may surely be allowed a philosopher to have so much curiosity at least as
to examine the principle of human nature, which gives this mighty authority to experience,
and makes us draw advantage from that similarity which nature has placed among different
objects. From causes which appear similar we expect similar effects. This is the sum of all
our experimental conclusions. Now it seems evident that, if this conclusion were formed
by reason, it would be as perfect at first, and upon one instance, as after ever so long a
course of experience. But the case is far otherwise. Nothing so like as eggs; yet no one, on
account of this appearing similarity, expects the same taste and relish in all of them. It is
only after a long course of uniform experiments in any kind, that we attain a firm reliance
and security with regard to a particular event. Now where is that process of reasoning
which, from one instance, draws a conclusion, so different from that which it infers from a
hundred instances that are nowise different from that single one? This question I propose as
much for the sake of information, as with an intention of raising difficulties. I cannot find,
I cannot imagine any such reasoning. But I keep my mind still open to instruction, if any

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one will vouchsafe to bestow it on me.
32. Should it be said that, from a number of uniform experiments, we infer a connexion
between the sensible qualities and the secret powers; this, I must confess, seems the
same difficulty, couched in different terms. The question still recurs, on what process of
argument this inference is founded? Where is the medium, the interposing ideas, which join
propositions so very wide of each other? It is confessed that the colour, consistence, and
other sensible qualities of bread appear not, of themselves, to have any connexion with the
secret powers of nourishment and support. For otherwise we could infer these secret powers
from the first appearance of these sensible qualities, without the aid of experience; contrary
to the sentiment of all philosophers, and contrary to plain matter of fact. Here, then, is our
natural state of ignorance with regard to the powers and influence of all objects. How is
this remedied by experience? It only shows us a number of uniform effects, resulting from
certain objects, and teaches us that those particular objects, at that particular time, were
endowed with such powers and forces. When a new object, endowed with similar sensible
qualities, is produced, we expect similar powers and forces, and look for a like effect. From
a body of like colour and consistence with bread we expect like nourishment and support.
But this surely is a step or progress of the mind, which wants to be explained. When a man
says, I have found, in all past instances, such sensible qualities conjoined with such secret
powers: And when he says, Similar sensible qualities will always be conjoined with similar
secret powers, he is not guilty of a tautology, nor are these propositions in any respect the
same. You say that the one proposition is an inference from the other. But you must confess
that the inference is not intuitive; neither is it demonstrative: Of what nature is it, then? To
say it is experimental, is begging the question. For all inferences from experience suppose,
as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past, and that similar powers will
be conjoined with similar sensible qualities. If there be any suspicion that the course of
nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes
useless, and can give rise to no inference or conclusion. It is impossible, therefore, that any
arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since all
these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance. Let the course of things
be allowed hitherto ever so regular; that alone, without some new argument or inference,
proves not that, for the future, it will continue so. In vain do you pretend to have learned
the nature of bodies from your past experience. Their secret nature, and consequently all
their effects and influence, may change, without any change in their sensible qualities. This
happens sometimes, and with regard to some objects: Why may it not happen always, and
with regard to all objects? What logic, what process of argument secures you against this
supposition? My practice, you say, refutes my doubts. But you mistake the purport of my
question. As an agent, I am quite satisfied in the point; but as a philosopher, who has some
share of curiosity, I will not say scepticism, I want to learn the foundation of this inference.
No reading, no enquiry has yet been able to remove my difficulty, or give me satisfaction
in a matter of such importance. Can I do better than propose the difficulty to the public,
even though, perhaps, I have small hopes of obtaining a solution? We shall at least, by this
means, be sensible of our ignorance, if we do not augment our knowledge.
33. I must confess that a man is guilty of unpardonable arrogance who concludes, because
an argument has escaped his own investigation, that therefore it does not really exist. I
must also confess that, though all the learned, for several ages, should have employed
themselves in fruitless search upon any subject, it may still, perhaps, be rash to conclude

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positively that the subject must, therefore, pass all human comprehension. Even though we
examine all the sources of our knowledge, and conclude them unfit for such a subject, there
may still remain a suspicion, that the enumeration is not complete, or the examination not
accurate. But with regard to the present subject, there are some considerations which seem
to remove all this accusation of arrogance or suspicion of mistake.
It is certain that the most ignorant and stupid peasants—nay infants, nay even brute
beasts—improve by experience, and learn the qualities of natural objects, by observing the
effects which result from them. When a child has felt the sensation of pain from touching
the flame of a candle, he will be careful not to put his hand near any candle; but will expect
a similar effect from a cause which is similar in its sensible qualities and appearance. If
you assert, therefore, that the understanding of the child is led into this conclusion by any
process of argument or ratiocination, I may justly require you to produce that argument; nor
have you any pretence to refuse so equitable a demand. You cannot say that the argument
is abstruse, and may possibly escape your enquiry; since you confess that it is obvious to
the capacity of a mere infant. If you hesitate, therefore, a moment, or if, after reflection,
you produce any intricate or profound argument, you, in a manner, give up the question,
and confess that it is not reasoning which engages us to suppose the past resembling the
future, and to expect similar effects from causes which are, to appearance, similar. This is
the proposition which I intended to enforce in the present section. If I be right, I pretend not
to have made any mighty discovery. And if I be wrong, I must acknowledge myself to be
indeed a very backward scholar; since I cannot now discover an argument which, it seems,
was perfectly familiar to me long before I was out of my cradle.

David Hume. Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding. Section 4, Parts 1-2. Ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902.

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