ACADEMIA Letters

Sense-Data and the Existential Quantifier: An Inquiry

Nigel Hems, Independent Researcher

Can we say sense-data actually exist, or is this demand too high? Logically, what are the limits
of our basic expressions in terms of sense-data once formalised? And, if there are such logical
limits, can we adapt our language concerning sense-data accordingly?
Simply put, if we presuppose for the purposes of this essay that there are indeed such
logical limits, then we can ask, what is the crux of the issue concerning the fundamental
transformation from the logical symbolism of sense-data (expressed by a logically proper
name and a predicative expression, as constituent parts of a propositional function), to the
re-casting of basic propositions as meaning rules of language?
I shall detail one route taken for such a transformation, raising some external questions
when and where applicable, but sticking in the main to the central task at hand. Starting from
a logical point of view, which has its roots in Russell,1 through to the intersection of logic
and epistemology, I will trace a line of development for statements concerning sense-data
suggested by A.J. Ayer.2 Additional points will be summoned only when and where necessary
to develop this story.
According to David Pears, although Russell abandoned the notion of the ego and his theory
of sense-data, and developed his views along several lines concerning perception, perceptual
knowledge, causation, and the relation of sense-data to the physical object, his underlying
logical account of propositional facts still held sway.3 It is not specifically the terminology of
1
Bertrand Russell, ‘Logical Atomism’, 1924, in A. J. Ayer, Logical Positivism, ed., The Free Press, 1959
(hereafter, LA).
2
This so-called point of intersection between logic and epistemology is referred to by A.J. Ayer, in ‘Names and
Descriptions’, in The Concept of a Person and other Essays, London: Macmillan, 1963, p.148 (hereafter, NaD);
and his Russell, London: Fontana, 1972, pp.56-57.
3
David Pears in his Bertrand Russell and the Analytic Tradition, Fontana, 1972, p, 41 (hereafter BR), remarks
that Russell continued to hold the same ideas about the ‘object’ throughout his career even after the abandonment

Academia Letters, September 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Nigel Hems, nigelhems@hotmail.com

Citation: Hems, N. (2021). Sense-Data and the Existential Quantifier: An Inquiry. Academia Letters, Article
3607. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3607.

1
‘sense data’, ‘percepts’ ‘sensibilia, or ‘events’ that shall concern us in this piece. The various
epistemological changes that took place in Russell’s philosophy lie outside the scope of the
present report.
Russell writes: ‘The symbol for the simplest possible kind of fact will be of the form “x
is yellow” or “x precedes y” only that “x” and “y” will be no longer undetermined variables,
but names.’4
The main point for us in the above is that for Russell, at the most primitive level of experi-
ence, a propositional function comprises a complex object: the (Ex!) fx consists of a variation
of an existential quantifier and two undetermined constituents.5 The existential quantifier (∃x)
stands for the natural expression, ‘there is some x’; if one wants to specify something exactly,
the symbol (E!x) or E shriek!, is rendered in English, ‘there is exactly one thing that is x’.6
for Russell, an early dictum was that an object had to be denoted as a necessary condition
of its name being meaningful7 This general principle encountered many problems. We need
not belabour the development, or relative success, of this theoretical position. What concerns
us is what results when Russell’s Theory of Descriptions is taken to its lowest possible level– in
an epistemological sense. Russell’s tendency is to eliminate ordinary names for descriptions.
Once the resulting predicates are ‘unpacked’ at their lowest possible level at which they can
form a complex structure, one must arrive at a point where the denoting term employed is
such that no further predicates can be extracted from it. The predicates will have expanded
until no further analysis can take place, in effect leaving a basic predicate and its concomitant
name as the undetermined constituents of a propositional function.8 This is the level we are
interested in for the purposes of the rest of this piece. It is enough for our purposes to have
spelled out very roughly how Russell arrives at this position.
of sense data.
4
Russell, LA, P. 45.
5
Re the ‘propositional function’, see Bertrand Russell, Principles of Mathematics, London, Routledge,1903, p.
19 & Chapter VII, ‘Propositional Functions’, pp, 82-88; The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, Lecture 5, “General
Propositions and Existence,” The Monist 29 (Apr 1919), pp.190-206; Bertrand Russell, Introduction to Mathemat-
ical Philosophy, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., London, 1919, Chapter XV ‘Propositional Functions” & Russell,
LA, p. 45.
6
Bertrand Russell, “The Existential Import of Propositions,” Mind, n.s. 14, no. 55 (Jul 1905), 398-401;
Principia Mathematica, with Alfred North Whitehead, 3 volumes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910-
3, Revised ed., 1925-7. Introduction, pp 30-32.
7
The problematic notion that the meaning of names must consist in their denotation appears in Russell, Prin-
ciples of Mathematics, Chp V. These issues are worked through in Bertrand Russell ‘On Denoting’ in Mind, n.s.
14, no, 56, (Oct 1905). See also Bertrand Russell, Lecture 2, “Particulars, Predicates and Relations,” The Monist,
509-27.
8
See Bertrand Russell, ‘Logical Atomism’, 1924, in Logical Positivism. A. J. Ayer ed, The Free Press, 1959,
pp. 42-45. hereafter LA.

Academia Letters, September 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Nigel Hems, nigelhems@hotmail.com

Citation: Hems, N. (2021). Sense-Data and the Existential Quantifier: An Inquiry. Academia Letters, Article
3607. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3607.

2
 At its most primitive level of application, the (E!x) would symbolise that exactly one
thing (or logical atom) exists. The propositional function ‘fx’ contains two undetermined
constituents: a variable ‘x’, which is the naming element picked out by a demonstrative, and
a predicate term ‘f’, which together comprise a unity or complex object.
Epistemologically, something would need to be observed in order to stand for the most
basic predicative expression (E!x) fx. What is important for us is that at the most basic level of
logical ‘unpacking’, so to speak, the logically proper name refers to something unanalysable:
this would be the atomic ‘underlying something’ that is unified in terms of a complex object.
The complex thus consists of a demonstrative element unified with a predicate expression.9 At
the primitive experiential level (the level that concerns us), it is sense-data that are picked out
by logically proper names, but always in terms of a ‘this’ term coupled with a specific sense
quality term. At this level, a simple property symbolised as ‘f’ could stand for the predicate
red, while the ‘x’ stands for the demonstrative ‘this’, the underlying subject term. So the
perception of a simple, homogeneous, and directly experienced quality, for instance ‘this one
thing is red’, would translate as (E!x) fx.10 The demonstrative in question has to refer to its
object directly and unfailingly for Russell. As we mentioned above, experientially, we can see
how an adjectival phrase, such as ‘red’, would be the element standing for the ‘f’ predicate of
the propositional function. Russell says in this regard:

To understand “red,” for instance, is to understand what is meant by saying that

a thing is red. You have to bring in the form of a proposition. You do not have to
know, concerning any particular “this,” that “This is red” but you have to know
what is the meaning of saying that anything is red.11

The main issue for us now is to consider the nature of the re-formulation of Russell’s
primitive logical account of sense-data into the language of meaning rules.
9
Russell’s account of a basic logical complex faces difficulties concerning the establishment of knowledge
of facts out of a complex object. See David Pears, ‘A Comparison between Ayer’s Privileges of Sense-Datum
Statements and the Views of ’Russell and Austin’, in Perception and Identity: Essays Presented to A.J. Ayer, with
his Replies, A.J. Ayer and Graham Macdonald (eds.) Cornell 1979, pp. 61-67(hereafter Pears 1) & Pears, BR,
Chp XI, Sense Data and Truth, (pp. 174-196, esp. from page 182 onwards)
10
See Ayer, NaD, p.130, where (Ex) fx is introduced and explained in his analysis.
11
See Bertrand Russell, Lecture 3, “Atomic and Molecular Propositions,” The Monist 29 (Jan 1919). That
Russell’s thinking on sense-data has two stages, namely, a pre and post-1919 period, is pointed out by Pears. See
Pears 1, pp. 61-62.

Academia Letters, September 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Nigel Hems, nigelhems@hotmail.com

Citation: Hems, N. (2021). Sense-Data and the Existential Quantifier: An Inquiry. Academia Letters, Article
3607. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3607.

3
Ayer’s Transformation of Sense-Data Statements from Logical Sym-
bolism to Meaning Rules
Can sensory predicates be understood in a purely descriptive manner at the lowest level of
perception where Ayer sees logic and epistemology coming into contact? If this is so, it would
seem to follow that a new, natural language formulation could replace the (E!x) fx formulation
which Ayer details in his essay ‘Names and Descriptions’.12
In ’Names and Descriptions’, Ayer’s account of the Russellian symbolism retains the (E!x)
quantifier, but this is mainly because he concentrates on the possibility of a purely predicative
logical language. Here, Ayer follows Russell’s rules for a logically proper name such that it
“cannot be expanded into a propositional function”.13 Again, In ‘Names and Descriptions’,
it is said of a logically proper name that “having a denotation is a necessary condition of its
being meaningful.” (p. 148). With such rules, we are at the crux of logic and epistemology.
The “pure demonstratives” are the terms that once applied to experience, refer to sense data
as the observable, unanalysable limits of logical analysis: “Now the only objects which satisfy
these conditions … are sense-data; and in fact it is to sense-data that Russell makes his logical
proper names refer.”14
In a crucial section for us, Ayer intimates that we have reached a foundational level by way
of the (Ex) fx formulation in Russellian terminology. It is at this point that the logically proper
name transfers all its meaning to the basic predicate. The name, in effect, is rendered empty:
it relates to an underlying element standing in a basic relation to a predicate function which
in turn stands for a sensory quality: “For what does ‘fx’ add to ‘(Ex) fx’? Ex hypothesi the
name ‘x’ has no descriptive content; for whatever content it had would turn into a predicative
expression, ‘f’.”15 The ‘x’ can be pointed to, can be the subject of ostensive definition, but
crucially it has no content of its own; its content is that which fills the predicate position. The
unity at this primitive epistemological level exhibits the demonstrative ‘this’ on the one hand
and an instantiated property on the other.16
In ‘Names and Descriptions’ the focus is on Russell’s logical formulation; therefore Ayer is
mainly concerned with predicative expressions and their combinations. Interestingly, he also
says that an individual, or the ‘x’ of ‘fx’, has not been thoroughly disposed of. We can say that
12
See Ayer, NaD, p. 150.
13
Ayer, Russell, p. 58.
14
NaD, p. 148.
15
Ibid, p. 150.
16
See Ayer, Russell, pp. 56-57. Ayer describes predicates being attached to names as being like a body absorbing
nourishment for a “vestigial” head. This metaphor is repeated in A.J Ayer, ‘Individuals’ 1954, in Philosophical
Essays, London: Macmillan, 1954, pp. 17-18.

Academia Letters, September 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Nigel Hems, nigelhems@hotmail.com

Citation: Hems, N. (2021). Sense-Data and the Existential Quantifier: An Inquiry. Academia Letters, Article
3607. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3607.

4
any attempt to achieve a totally descriptive language would have to be considered partial as
long as such a language leaves intact the underlying ‘x’ of the propositional function, which
in effect would indicate an underlying Lockean individual of sorts, “mentioned indefinitely
by means of the quantified variables.”17
Following on from the above, we can see Ayer alluding to a similar issue connected with
the relinquishing of names as underlying elements in his ‘On What There Is’. In order to
understand an expression such as ‘some property is instantiated’, Ayer points out that all this
commits us to logically is that a predicate has an application coupled with an instantiation
symbol ∃x. If the phrase an ‘object exists’ says the same as ‘a property is instantiated’, then
to say ‘this property exists’ means we require another property, namely, one that this property
instantiates. As we have pointed out above, in relation to the Russellian symbolism, the phrase
‘stands for’ always means applying a predicate. At the basic level we have been discussing,
the meaning of such adjectives as ‘red’, once instantiated, are reformulated in terms of purely
predicative expressions. The issue is, can these predicative expressions be reformulated as
meaning rules?18
Perhaps the main reason for the transition from logic to meaning rules stated as basic
propositions is Ayer’s reluctance to countenance the use of formal techniques as a means
of acquiring knowledge of sense data. In terms of the propositional function ‘fx’, if this is
interpreted in terms of class membership, Ayer argues that it is not capable of adequately
picking out the meaning of any observed property, ostensively referred to by a predicative
expression.19 If ‘f’, is defined as merely naming a member of a class, the problem is that such
a name requires an analytic definition, and is rendered true or false prior to obtaining meaning
– if having meaning is taken to express how a symbol refers directly to observable items in
the world.
Ayer has similar reservations concerning formal accounts of experiential propositions that
occur in a physicalist language. In what he calls “The Errors of Formalism”,20 a coherence
theory approach (of which Carnap’s system consisting of ‘formation and transformation rules’
is an exemplar of) consists in defining given symbols in terms of rules that link them together
to form meaning, rather than the symbols gaining meaning through direct application to actual
17
Ayer, NaD, p. 162.
18
See A. J. Ayer, ‘On What There Is’ in Philosophical Essays, pp. 215-321.
19
See Russell, Principia, Introduction, pp. 22-23. Ayer’s point seems to be:] “Either I just name the situation, in
which case I am not making any statement about it, and no question of truth or falsehood, knowledge or ignorance,
certainty or uncertainty, arises; or I describe it.” A. J. Ayer, ‘Basic Propositions’ in Philosophical Essays, p.119
(hereafter BP).
20
A..J Ayer, Foundations of Empirical Knowledge, London, Macmillan, 1940, pp. 83-92(hereafter FeK).

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Corresponding Author: Nigel Hems, nigelhems@hotmail.com

Citation: Hems, N. (2021). Sense-Data and the Existential Quantifier: An Inquiry. Academia Letters, Article
3607. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3607.

5
situations or facts.21 What occurs in formalist accounts of sense data is that they are first of
all defined via basic ‘observation sentences’ (or protocol sentences) that become inextricably
bound up with, and logically equivalent to, physical object statements, where both sets of
statements are defined in terms of syntactical rules. Ayer’s response is to move in the direction
of a non-formal approach to meaning. We will now look at Ayer’s response to the problems
outlined above.
In ‘Basic Propositions’, Ayer introduces the concept of a ‘meaning rule’ to counteract
problems involved in naming logical classes of things, as well as the production of formal
systems of meaning. Both of these methods fall short of providing knowledge of basic items
of experience. Ayer’s move is to explain how logical statements can be replaced with mean-
ing rules. Such basic propositions as “This is green” or “I feel a headache” would count as
meaning rules in English in the context of basic experiential propositions.22 Statements such
as these would be ostensively defined, if ‘ostensive’ in this sense indicates a disposition to
pick out something one is observing.
A related point Ayer makes in this regard is that our ability to learn what words mean
has to be kept distinct from our understanding of them.23 In a language containing basic
propositions, our primitive understanding of a sense quality one is observing in the present
would not, Ayer thinks, require a comparison with something else in memory in order to
be picked out as the ‘something’ it is.24 It follows that no other members of a class (in a
Russellian sense) are required in order to understand basic predicates. A basic proposition
thus takes the place of the symbols of a propositional function in Russell’s system and the
interconnected symbols of formalist theories to account for basic components of experience.
The only condition of a basic proposition being understood is its being possible to apply it to
actual experience.25
To apply a basic ‘meaning rule’ one must be disposed to use such symbols, whether by
dint of habit, or original acquisition. As long as one is disposed to pick out basic items of
actual experience, a basic proposition accounts for what formal or logical expressions fail to
21
Ayer sees formalists like Carnap as wholly reliant on the connection between symbols in order to supply a
coherent ‘physicalist’ approach. See A. J. Ayer, ‘Truth’ in Concept of a Person, p. 179.
22
See Ayer, BP, p. 122. In A..J Ayer, ‘The Terminology of Sense Data’, Philosophical Essays (pp.66-105), re
his attempt to spell out a consistent sense-datum language.
23
This claim has significance for Ayer’s views on privacy. See A.J. Ayer, ‘Can there be a Private Language?’
in Concept of a Person, pp. 49; In Ayer, NaD, pp.145-146, he says, “It is after all a contingent fact that our
understanding of the use of both names and predicates is not innate.” (p. 145).
24
A point consistently denied by Pears. See Pears 1, pp 41-83, and David Pears, ‘Ayer’s Views on Meaning
Rules’, in The Philosophy of A.J. Ayer, Lewis Edwin Hahn, ed., Library of Living Philosophers, v.21, La Salle,
Ill.: Open Court, 1992.
25
Ayer, BP, p.120.

Academia Letters, September 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Nigel Hems, nigelhems@hotmail.com

Citation: Hems, N. (2021). Sense-Data and the Existential Quantifier: An Inquiry. Academia Letters, Article
3607. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3607.

6
do. It is thus a case of knowing ‘how’ to ‘use’ a symbol rather than knowing ‘what’ it refers
to that is paramount when a language user employs a meaning rule.26
The central task of this short piece has been to show how, at the most basic epistemological
level, logical symbols can be restated as basic, non-formal expressions of meaning, primitive
in kind, and formed “independently of the character of the sense datum” (Pears 1, p. 78).27

26
See Ayer’s discussion of this issue in BP, pp. 119-124.
27
See Pears, BR, p. 21. Ayer seems to regret that in his replies to Pears there was always some confusion as
to whether the ‘primitive’ or the ‘publicly accessible’ domain was being discussed. See, Macdonald, & Ayer,
Perception and Identity, p. 289.

Academia Letters, September 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Nigel Hems, nigelhems@hotmail.com

Citation: Hems, N. (2021). Sense-Data and the Existential Quantifier: An Inquiry. Academia Letters, Article
3607. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3607.