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Synthese Library 393
Studies in Epistemology, Logic, Methodology,
and Philosophy of Science

Andrea Iacona

Logical
Form
Between Logic and Natural Language
Synthese Library

Studies in Epistemology, Logic, Methodology,

and Philosophy of Science

Volume 393

Editor-in-Chief
Otávio Bueno, University of Miami, Department of Philosophy, USA

Editorial Board
Berit Brogaard, University of Miami, USA
Anjan Chakravartty, University of Notre Dame, USA
Steven French, University of Leeds, UK
Catarina Dutilh Novaes, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
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Andrea Iacona

Logical Form
Between Logic and Natural Language

123
Andrea Iacona
Center for Logic, Language, and Cognition,
Department of Philosophy and Education
University of Turin
Turin, Italy

Synthese Library
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Preface

Logical form has always been a prime concern for philosophers belonging to the
analytic tradition. For at least one century, the study of logical form has been
widely adopted as a method of investigation, relying on its capacity to reveal the
structure of thoughts or the constitution of facts. This book focuses on the very
idea of logical form, which is directly relevant to any principled reflection on that
method. Its central thesis is that there is no such thing as a correct answer to the
question of what is logical form: two significantly different notions of logical form
are needed to fulfil two major theoretical roles that pertain respectively to logic and
to semantics. This thesis has a negative and a positive side. The negative side is that
a deeply rooted presumption about logical form turns out to be overly optimistic:
there is no unique notion of logical form that can play both roles. The positive side
is that the distinction between two notions of logical form, once properly spelled
out, sheds light on some fundamental issues concerning the relation between logic
and language.
The book may be divided into three parts. The first part (Chaps. 1, 2, and 3)
provides the historical background. The idea of logical form goes back to antiquity,
in that it stems from the recognition that a pattern of inference can be identified
by abstracting away from the specific content the sentences that instantiate it. The
most important developments of this idea took place in the twentieth century, as they
derive from some seminal works that mark the beginning of the analytic tradition.
Under the influence of those works, logical form became a separate object of inquiry
and started being regarded as crucial to philosophical investigation.
The second part (Chaps. 4, 5, and 6) is the core of the book. Its aim is to show
that, contrary to what is commonly taken for granted, no unique notion of logical
form can play the two theoretical roles that are usually associated with the use of
the term ‘logical form’. At least two notions of logical form must be distinguished:
according to one of them, logical form is a matter of syntactic structure; according
to the other, logical form is a matter of truth conditions. As will be suggested, in
the sense of ‘logical form’ that matters to logic, logical form is determined by truth
conditions.

v
vi Preface

The third part (Chaps. 7, 8, and 9) develops the point made in the second part
and shows some of its implications. First it outlines an account of validity that
accords with the view that logical form is determined by truth conditions. Then
it shows that the distinction between two notions of logical form suggested in the
second part provides an interesting perspective on some debated issues concerning
quantification. The case of quantified sentences is highly representative, because the
same distinction may be applied in similar way to other important issues.
Most of the ideas expressed in the book have been presented and discussed at
talks, seminars, and graduate classes at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf,
the University of Aberdeen, the University of Barcelona, the University of Bochum,
the University of the Caribbean, the University of L’Aquila, the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem, the University of Milan, the National Autonomous University of
Mexico, the University of Padua, the University of Parma, the University of Rome
III, and the University of Turin. Some parts of the book actually emerged as answers
to questions posed by members of those audiences. In particular, I would like
to thank Axel Barceló Aspeitia, Andrea Bianchi, Victor Cantero Flores, Stefano
Caputo, José Díez, Christopher Gauker, Mario Gómez Torrente, Héctor Hernández
Ortíz, Dan López de Sa, Genoveva Martí, Manolo Martínez, Elisa Paganini, Roberto
Parra Dorantes, Victor Peralta Del Riego, Luis Rosa, Sven Rosenkranz, Gil Sagi,
Giuliano Torrengo, Achille Varzi, and Elia Zardini.
I am also especially grateful to Guido Bonino, Pasquale Frascolla, Diego
Marconi, Massimo Mugnai, Carlotta Pavese, Mark Sainsbury, Marco Santambro-
gio, Daniele Sgaravatti, Ori Simchen, Alessandro Torza, Alberto Voltolini, Tim
Williamson, and to various anonymous referees for their comments on parts of
previous versions of the manuscript. There was much to be learned from their
helpful and accurate remarks, and I really hope that I have learned enough.
The second and the third part of the book are drawn from published papers,
with the due adjustments, refinements, and terminological changes. More specif-
ically, Chaps. 4 and 5 are based on “Two Notions of Logical Form,” Journal of
Philosophy (2016), which originates from elaborations of “Logical Form and Truth-
Conditions,” Theoria (2013). Some parts of Chap. 7 are derived from “Validity and
Interpretation,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy (2010). Chapter 8 is drawn
from “Quantification and Logical Form,” published in the volume Quantifiers,
Quantifiers, and Quantifiers, Springer (2015). Finally, Chap. 9 is drawn from
“Vagueness and Quantification,” Journal of Philosophical Logic (2016). I thank the
editors for their permission to use the materials of these papers, which are listed in
the final bibliography, respectively, as Iacona (2010c, 2013, 2015, 2016a,b).
The last acknowledgment is the most important. My gratitude goes to Camila
and Leonardo, for all the time that I took away from them while I was absorbed in
writing this book. Words can hardly describe the strange sensation of emptiness that
I feel for not having been there even when I was there.

Andrea Iacona
Contents

1 The Early History of Logical Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Preamble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Aristotle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 The Stoics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4 Logic in the Middle Ages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.5 Leibniz’s Dream. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2 The Ideal of Logical Perfection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1 Frege . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 Russell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3 Wittgenstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.4 A Logically Perfect Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.5 The Old Conception of Logical Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3 Formal Languages and Natural Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.1 Tarski’s Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.2 Davidson’s Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.3 Montague Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.4 The Current Conception of Logical Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.5 Two Open Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4 Logical Form and Syntactic Structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.1 The Uniqueness Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.2 Intrinsicalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.3 LF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.4 Semantic Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.5 Relationality in Formal Explanation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.6 Further Clarifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5 Logical Form and Truth Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.1 The Truth-Conditional Notion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.2 Truth Conditions and Propositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5.3 Adequate Formalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

vii
viii Contents

5.4 A Truth-Conditional Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

5.5 Logical Form as a Property of Propositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.6 Extrinsicalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
6 Logical Knowledge vs Knowledge of Logical Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
6.1 Preliminaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
6.2 Logical Identity and Logical Distinctness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
6.3 Distinct Objects Must Be Denoted by Distinct Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.4 Distinct Names Must Denote Distinct Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
6.5 Logical Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
6.6 Linguistic Competence and Rationality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
7 Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
7.1 Interpretations of Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
7.2 Validity and Formal Validity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
7.3 The Sorites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
7.4 The Fallacy of Equivocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
7.5 Context-Sensitive Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
8 Quantified Sentences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
8.1 Two Questions About Quantified Sentences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
8.2 Quantifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
8.3 Meaning and Truth Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
8.4 The Issue of First Order Definability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
8.5 Two Kinds of Formal Variation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
8.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
9 Further Issues Concerning Quantification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
9.1 Two Kinds of Indeterminacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
9.2 Precisifications of Quantifier Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
9.3 First Order Definability Again. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
9.4 Logicality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
9.5 Quantification Over Absolutely Everything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
9.6 Unrestricted Quantification and Precision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Afterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Chapter 1
The Early History of Logical Form

Abstract The term ‘logical form’ is generally used to denote a property of sen-
tences. The property denoted is called ‘logical’ because it is regarded as important
from the logical point of view, and it is called ‘form’ because it is taken to be
distinct from the specific semantic features that constitute their matter. As a first
approximation, we can say that one has a notion of logical form if one thinks
that there is such a property, independently of whether one deliberately employs
some expression that refers to that property. So it is reasonable to presume that
some understanding of logical form existed long before the term ‘logical form’ was
introduced in the philosophical lexicon. As this chapter will explain, the idea of
logical form is as old as logic itself. Its origin lies in the recognition of patterns of
inference that can be identified by schematizing some of the expressions that occur
in their instances.

1.1 Preamble

Logic developed in antiquity as an inquiry into the principles of correct reasoning.

The following definition, due to Aristotle, was intended to capture the essence of
correct reasoning:
Now a reasoning is an argument in which, certain things being laid down, something other
than these necessarily comes about through them.1

According to a widely shared reading of this passage, the distinctive feature of

correct reasoning is that it cannot take us from truth to falsity: if the things “being
laid down” are true, then the thing “other than these” must also be true. Logic is
traditionally understood as a theory of correct reasoning is this sense.
To employ more familiar terminology, two definitions will now be stated. The
first is the usual definition of argument:

1
Aristotle, Topics 100a25, in Aristotle (1958).

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018 1

A. Iacona, Logical Form, Synthese Library 393,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74154-3_1
2 1 The Early History of Logical Form

Definition 1.1.1 An argument consists of a set of sentences, the premises, and a

sentence, the conclusion, which is inferred from them.
To make explicit the inference from the premises to the conclusion, an argument
may be stated either vertically, as a sequence of sentences where a horizontal
line separates the premises from the conclusion, or horizontally, as a sequence of
sentences where a semicolon separates the premises from the conclusion. When
there is no need to specify the premises, an argument may simply be indicated as
I ˛, where  is a set of premises and ˛ is a conclusion.
The second definition is the classical definition of validity as necessary truth
preservation:
Definition 1.1.2 An argument I ˛ is valid if and only if it is impossible that all the
sentences in  are true and ˛ is false.
Although the meaning of ‘impossible’ can be elucidated in different ways, it
is commonly taken for granted that validity, just as other fundamental logical
properties and logical relations, is definable in terms of possibility. The right-hand
side of the biconditional above can also be regarded as a definiens of ‘ entails ˛’,
if it is assumed, as usual, that  entails ˛ if and only if I ˛ is valid.
Given Definitions 1.1.1 and 1.1.2, we can say that the main purpose of ancient
logicians was to provide a theory of valid arguments. The idea of logical form
emerges from the reflections guided by this purpose, since it originates in the
attempts to describe patterns of inference that characterize valid arguments.

1.2 Aristotle

Early attempts to attain generality in the description of patterns of inference

employed linguistic devices of various sorts. One option was to use common words,
such as ‘thing’. For example, in Plato’s Republic we read that “the same thing cannot
act or be acted upon in the same part or in relation to the same thing at the same
time in contrary ways”. Plato seems to say that it cannot be the case that a property
belongs and does not belong to the same object: whenever we find that the property
belongs and does not belong, it is because different objects are involved. Thus, if a
man stands still but moves his hands, it would be wrong to say that the man is at the
same time at rest and in motion. We should rather say that a part of him is at rest
while a part of him is in motion.2
Another option was to avoid explicit formulations of general principles and
use ordinary sentences directly as illustrations of such principles. For example, in
Aristotle’s Topics we find statements such as “if the honorable is pleasant, what is
not pleasant is not honorable”, where it is left to the reader to see the irrelevance

2
Plato (1991), 436b–436d.
1.2 Aristotle 3

of the specific content of the sentences adopted. Aristotle requires us to understand

that the use of ‘honorable’ and ‘pleasant’ is not essential to the point he is making,
as these terms could be replaced by other terms of the same grammatical category.3
However, as long as the expressive resources employed were drawn from
ordinary language, they could hardly suit the standards of clarity and rigour required
by a systematic study of valid arguments. The use of common words would easily
generate long and clumsy formulations that were hardly understandable without
additional explanations, and the use of particular sentences as examples would leave
unspecified how the general principle could be obtained by abstraction from them.
A significant progress was made by Aristotle in Prior Analytics, where he
outlined his theory of syllogism. A syllogism is a valid argument formed by
three sentences – two premises and one conclusion – each of which contains two
terms, expressions such as ‘man’, ‘animal’ or ‘mortal’. For example, the following
argument is a syllogism:
(1) Every animal is mortal
[A] (2) Every man is an animal
(3) Every man is mortal
[A] is valid, because it is impossible that (1) and (2) are true but (3) is false. Its
validity depends on the relation between the terms ‘man’ and ‘mortal’, which occur
in the conclusion, and the term ‘animal’, which occurs in the premises. The term
‘animal’ is called the “middle term”.4
The method of exposition adopted in Prior Analytics differs in one crucial
respect from Aristotle’s previous works and from those of his predecessors. In Prior
Analytics, letters are used to formulate argument schemas. To illustrate, consider the
following syllogism:
(4) Every mammal is an animal
[B] (5) Every whale is a mammal
(6) Every whale is an animal
[B] is structurally similar to [A], in that the relation that obtains in [B] between
‘mammal’, ‘animal’, and ‘whale’ is the same that obtains in [A] between ‘animal’,
‘mortal’, and ‘man’ in [A]. The validity of [A] and [B] can be explained in terms of
this relation. According to Aristotle, [A] and [B] are syllogisms of the same type, in
that they instantiate the same argument schema:
(7) Every A is B
[C] (8) Every C is A
(9) Every C is B

3
Aristotle (1958), 113b22.
4
Aristotle (1949), 41b36. This is not exactly the way Aristotle phrased a syllogism, but the
differences of formulation will be ignored here and in what follows.
4 1 The Early History of Logical Form

Here ‘A’ stands for the middle term. If we replace ‘A’ with ‘animal’, ‘B’ with
‘mortal’ and ‘C’ with ‘man’, we obtain [A]. Similarly, if we replace ‘A’ with
‘mammal’, ‘B’ with ‘animal’ and ‘C’ with ‘whale’ we obtain [B].
Aristotle provides a classification of syllogisms based on a distinction between
“figures”, which depend on the different relations in which the middle term stands
to the other two terms. [C] belongs to the first figure, which includes four schemas
where the middle term is subject to one term and predicate to the other. The second
figure includes four schemas where the middle term is predicate to both the other
terms. Finally, the third figure includes six schemas where the middle term is subject
to both the other terms. Thus Aristotle distinguished fourteen types of syllogisms,
within the three figures, which later came to be called “moods”.5
The use of letters proved very fruitful in the formulation of the theory. This
device, which appears for the first time in Prior Analytics, seems to be Aristotle’s
invention. Probably, the use of letters was suggested to Aristotle by a well
established practice in geometry, as is shown by the fact that letters are used to
name lines in Euclid’s Elements and in Aristotle’s own work.6

1.3 The Stoics

Stoic logic, initiated by Chrysippus, developed independently of Aristotelian logic,

pursuing different but equally important lines of investigation. While Aristotle
and his followers worked mainly on inference patterns that fall in the domain of
predicate logic, the Stoics focused on inference patterns that belong to propositional
logic. For example, the following argument is valid:
(10) If it is day, then it is light
[D] (11) It is day
(12) It is light
Its validity depends on the fact that (10) is a conditional, (11) is the antecedent of
(10), and (12) is the consequent of (10).
The Stoics also employed different devices to describe argument schemas. They
did not use letters but ordinal numbers to refer to arbitrary sentences. For example,
the argument schema instantiated by [D] was described as follows:
(13) If the first, then the second
[E] (14) The first
(15) The second

5
In reality, the moods traditionally classified are four. Aristotle’s theory did include a fourth figure,
even though, due to differences of formulation, he did not recognize it as a separate figure.
6
Euclid (2002), V, Aristotle (1934), 1132b.
1.3 The Stoics 5

The expressions ‘the first’ and ‘the second’ occurring in [E] stand for arbitrary
sentences. Thus, if we replace ‘the first’ with (11) and ‘the second’ with (12), we
obtain [D]. [E] is the valid propositional schema known as modus ponens.
Chrysippus recognized five argument schemas as basic. [E] is one of them. The
others are similar, in that they employ ordinal numbers for arbitrary sentences.
The five schemas have been handed down as “the indemonstrable moods”. This
terminology is explained at least in part by the project of constructing a deductive
system within which many demonstrable moods can be derived from a few primitive
patterns. Chrysippus did in fact elaborate a host of derivative moods from the five
basic schemas.7
Apart from the differences considered, the Aristotelian school and the Stoic
school agreed on the hypothesis that inference patterns may be expressed as
argument schemas. An argument schema is obtained from an argument by replacing
some of the expressions occurring in it with schematic expressions. Conversely,
an instance of the schema is an argument obtained by uniformly replacing the
schematic expressions with expressions of the appropriate syntactic category, where
‘uniformly’ means that each schematic expression is always replaced by the same
expression.
More generally, logic began with the study of paradigmatically valid arguments,
and developed from attempts to elucidate the structural properties of such argu-
ments. The thought that lies at the origin of logic may be summarized as follows.
Some arguments are clearly valid. If one observes these arguments, one will find that
they have distinctive structural features, and if one observes other arguments with
the same features, one will find that they are also valid. Since the structural features
in question can be identified as valid patterns of inference, the validity of many
arguments can be explained in terms of the validity of the patterns of inferences
they instantiate.
This original thought suggests a method of investigation: to get a theory of valid
arguments, one has to go through a systematic study of valid patterns of inference.
The most important contributions made by ancient logicians derive from the
employment of this method. More specifically, they derive from an understanding
of this method according to which valid patterns of inference are argument schemas
obtained from valid arguments by replacing expressions occurring in them with
schematic expressions.
The idea of logical form arises from the very same thought. Since arguments
are constituted by sentences, a structural description of an argument is ipso facto
a structural description of the sentences it contains. That is, if the structure of an
argument can be described as an argument schema, the structure of a sentence can
be described as a sentence schema. For example, on the assumption that the structure
of [A] is represented by [C], we get that the structure of (1) is represented by (7).
Similarly, on the assumption that the structure of [D] is represented by [E], we get
that the structure of (10) is represented by (13). The logical form of a sentence may
be understood as a structure so described.

7
A detailed exposition of the system is provided in Kneale (1962), pp. 158–176, and in Mates
(1973). A more recent work that focuses on issues related to logical form is Barnes (2009).
6 1 The Early History of Logical Form

There is a clear sense in which a sentence schema expresses a property that

deserves to be called ‘logical’, namely, that in which it plays an essential role in
the explanation of the validity of the arguments in which its instances may occur.
Similarly, there is a clear sense in which the property expressed deserves to be called
‘form’, namely, that in which the sentence schema, as a result of an abstraction, is
independent of the specific meaning of the expressions that occur in its instances.

1.4 Logic in the Middle Ages

Medieval logicians adopted the method of representation of logical form that

they found in ancient logic. The medieval distinction between “categorematic”
and “sincategorematic” expressions provided a way to make sense of sentence
schemas: categorematic expressions are meaningful expressions that can be used
as subjects or predicates, whereas syncategorematic expressions signify nothing
by themselves, in that they indicate how the former are combined. For example,
in the argument schema [C] some expressions that occur in [A] and [B], such as
‘animal’, are replaced by schematic letters, while others, such as ‘every’ remain
constant. Medieval logicians explained this difference by saying that the former
expressions are categorematic, while the latter are sincategorematic. So the idea
was that the logical form of a sentence is displayed by a sentence schema obtained
from the sentence by keeping fixed its syncategorematic expressions and replacing
its categorematic expressions with schematic letters.8
Although medieval logicians did not differ from ancient logicians with respect to
the method of representation of logical form, their attempts to elucidate the logical
properties of sentences produced significant advances. In particular, medieval
logicians drew attention to some interesting ways in which logical form may
differ from surface grammar. Of course, ancient logicians were also aware that
surface grammar is not an infallible guide to logical form. Aristotle provided
various examples of fallacious arguments that bear superficial resemblance to valid
arguments, and he knew that the premises and conclusions of syllogisms as he
phrased them could differ to some extent from the sentences used by ordinary
speakers. But in the Middle Ages the relation between logic and grammar became
object of more thorough and meticulous studies.
At least two important contributions deserve attention. The first emerges from
Abelard’s treatment of “categorical sentences”, that is, sentences whose main
constituents are a subject and a predicate. For example, the following sentence is
categorical:

8
According to Buridan (1976), 1.7.2, categorematic expressions provide the matter (materia) of
sentences, while syncategorematic expressions indicate their form (forma).
1.4 Logic in the Middle Ages 7

(16) Peter is a man

Abelard raises two crucial issues about categorical sentences. One concerns the
reducibility of non-categorical sentences to categorical sentences. Aristotle, in On
Interpretation, remarks that a verb such as ‘walks’, as it occurs in a sentence such
as ‘Socrates walks’, may be replaced by a phrase such as ‘is walking’. Following
that remark, Abelard takes categorical sentences as logically basic, and treats ‘is’
as a “copula”, that is, a link that joins the subject and the predicate. Obviously, he
recognizes that a statement can be made without the use of the verb ‘to be’, but he
says that other verbs can be paraphrased in the way indicated by Aristotle.9
The other issue concerns the existential import of ‘is’. Abelard claims that, when
‘is’ occurs in a categorical sentence, it does not involve a predication of existence.
From (16) we cannot infer that Peter exists. If ‘is’ did involve such predication, the
following sentence would be false instead of being true:
(17) The chimaera is imaginary
Abelard seems to suggest that (17) is misleading. Although it may appear that when
we utter (17) we are committed to the existence of a chimaera, in reality what we
say is that the soul of someone has an imagination of a chimaera.10
These two issues have been widely debated in the Middle Ages, although the
influence of the received Aristotelian view heavily limited the impact of Abelard’s
suggestions. In any case, two important thoughts seem to emerge from Abelard’s
remarks. One is that, at least in some cases, the logical form of a sentence is
expressed by a proper paraphrase of the sentence. The other is that, at least in some
cases, the logical form of a sentence is not what it appears. Both thoughts imply that
ordinary language may be misleading, so that a careful study of the words we use is
required for the purposes of logic.
The second important contribution on the relation between logical form and
surface grammar comes from a thesis advocated by Ockham, the thesis that there is
a mental language common to all human beings. For Ockham, the mental language
is a universal language that constitutes the ground of all spoken languages. This
grounding relation obtains because the expressions of any spoken language are
“subordinated” to “mental expressions”, that is, expressions that belong to the
mental language. In particular, spoken terms are subordinated to mental terms,
which may be called “concepts”. Mental terms, unlike spoken terms, signify things
in a natural way. That is, while the signification of terms in spoken languages is
purely conventional and can be changed by mutual agreement, the signification of
mental terms is established by nature, and cannot be changed at will.11
The mental language conjectured by Ockham is quite similar to a spoken
language. Its grammar is structurally analogous, and it includes expressions of some

9
Abelard (1956), pp. 161 and 123.
10
Abelard (1956), pp. 136–138, 162.
11
Ockham (1974), p. 7.
8 1 The Early History of Logical Form

main categories that feature in spoken languages, such as nouns, verbs, adverbs,
connectives, prepositions and so on. Therefore, “mental sentences” are composed
by mental expressions in essentially the same way in which spoken sentences are
composed by spoken expressions. Nonetheless, the mental language is simpler than
a spoken language in at least two respects. First, its syntax is simpler, in that it is free
from grammatical accidents – such as Latin’s declensions – that characterize spoken
languages but are irrelevant for the expression of thought. Second, its semantics is
simpler, as it involves a more straightforward relation between words and things.
This is suggested by Ockham’s account of synonymy and ambiguity. Two spoken
terms are synonymous if they are subordinated to the same mental term. Conversely,
a single spoken term is ambiguous if it is subordinated to more than one mental
term.12
This obviously leaves open the question of whether the mental language itself
involves some form of redundancy, synonymy or ambiguity. It is not entirely clear
how Ockham would have answered that question, and a great deal of modern
secondary literature has been devoted to clarify his position. But independently
of that question, it is undeniable that Ockham regarded the mental language as
more suitable for logic than any spoken language. Therefore, his view reinforces the
attitude towards ordinary language that emerges from Abelard’s remarks. One way
to substantiate the thought that logical form is not immediately manifest in surface
grammar is to say that logical form is properly expressed in the mental language.
The logical form of a given sentence is the form of a corresponding mental sentence
that may differ to some extent from that sentence.13

1.5 Leibniz’s Dream

The reflections considered in Sect. 1.4 remained ineffective for long time, and
did not give rise to further elaborations of the idea of logical form. In the Early
Modern Period, several logical works were produced, some of which provided
significant contributions to the development of logic. But none of them was
specifically concerned with logical form. The ancient idea of logical form, conveyed
by medieval logicians, remained unquestioned. In particular, a basic methodological
tenet that remained unquestioned is that logical form is represented by means of
expressions drawn from a natural language, such as Greek, Latin, or German. Of
course, it was widely believed that a natural language is not ready as it is to represent
logical form: some modifications were needed, such as the use of uncommon
grammatical constructions or the introduction of schematic expressions of some
kind. But the result of such modifications was still something very close to a natural
language.

12
Ockham (1974), pp. 44–47.
13
Spade and Panaccio (2011) provide more detailed accounts of Ockham’s position.
1.5 Leibniz’s Dream 9

A crucial turn occurred when an alternative line of thought started attracting the
attention of some logicians. According to that line of thought, the language we need
for the purposes of logic is neither a natural language nor a modified version of a
natural language, but an artificial language appropriately designed. Leibniz sketched
the project of such a language in De Arte Combinatoria (1666), and then elaborated
it in later works. His ultimate aim was to put reasoning on a firmer basis by reducing
it to a matter of calculation that many could grasp. The inspiration came from Lull’s
Ars Magna and Hobbes’ Computatio sive Logica. Lull claimed that a system of signs
could be defined in such a way that all complex ideas are expressed in terms of the
combination of a set of fundamental signs, and Hobbes suggested that reasoning
could be reduced to a species of calculation.14
Leibniz thought that we can identify a set of primitive concepts by means of
analysis, and list each possible combination of such concepts. Once this is done,
we can construct an artificial language in the following way. First we introduce an
alphabet of primitive signs – which presumably includes arithmetical symbols –
to designate primitive concepts. Then we define a set of complex signs in such a
way that, for any complex concept, there is one and only one complex sign. Thus
we get a correspondence between signs and concepts: for each concept, simple or
complex, there is one and only one sign. Leibniz called characteristica universalis
the language so constructed, as he used the word ‘character’ to designate its signs.
He trusted that such a language would represent the world in a perfect way. Although
the signs that stand for primitive concepts may be chosen arbitrarily, there must be
an analogy between their relations and the relations of the elements they signify,
so that the name of each complex thing is its definition and the key to all its
properties.15
Leibniz’s view seems to be that, since the characteristica universalis perfectly
mirrors the structure of the world, it is able to exhibit the logical form of sentences
better than any natural language. He thought that a philosophically constructed
grammar could make formal reasoning easy by providing the framework for
a calculus ratiocinator, a mechanical or quasi-mechanical method of drawing
conclusions. He prophesied that, when such a language will be defined, men of good
will desiring to settle a dispute on any subject will use their pens and calculate.16
The interest of Leibniz’s project lies in its underlying idea that a theory of
reasoning can be formulated as a deductive system based on an artificial language
that employs a symbolic apparatus drawn from mathematics. This idea indicated,
at least potentially, a coherent alternative to the traditional understanding of logical
form. If one could construct an artificial language that is suitable to exhibit the

14
Leibniz (1875–1890), Lull (1609), Hobbes (1656).
15
Leibniz (1875–1890), p. 184, Leibniz (1903), p. 30.
16
Leibniz (1875–1890), p. 200.
10 1 The Early History of Logical Form

logical properties of sentences by means of mathematical symbols, one could

provide a method of representation of logical form that substantially differs from
that adopted by ancient and medieval logicians.17
However, the line of thought initiated by Leibniz could hardly gain wide accep-
tance in the seventeenth century. Although he put forward insightful suggestions on
how to construct the deductive system, he never provided a detailed exposition of
the language. This is due, among other reasons, to the impossibility of drawing up an
alphabet of human thought as he conceived it, and to the lack of mathematical tools
required by the level of abstraction he desired. In absence of a sufficiently detailed
proposal, the traditional method of representation of logical form maintained its
supremacy for a long time. Its influence extended until the end of the nineteenth
century, when modern logic developed in close connection with mathematics.

17
This is not to say that Leibniz was the first or the only author of his time who postulated such
a close connection between logic and mathematics. As Mugnai (2010) explains, different authors,
before or independently of Leibniz, had made attempts to express logic in mathematical form or to
use logic to give some firm ground to mathematical proofs.
Chapter 2
The Ideal of Logical Perfection

Abstract The rise of modern logic had a deep impact on the philosophical
reflection on logical form. This chapter explains how logical form became a primary
topic of interest between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the
twentieth century. In particular, we will focus on Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein.
Their works contributed in different ways to shape a thought that moulded the
beginning the analytic tradition, the thought that the logical form of the sentences
of natural language can at least in principle be displayed by sentences of a logically
perfect language.

2.1 Frege

Frege’s Begriffsschrift (1879) is conventionally taken to mark the beginning of

modern logic. The title of this work, which literally means “concept-script” and
is often translated as “ideography”, is the name of a formal system constituted by
a formal language and a deductive apparatus in that language. Frege describes the
ideography as a partial realization of Leibniz’s dream. Its language is conceived as
a language “for pure thought” in the spirit of Leibniz’s characteristica universalis,
and its deductive apparatus is intended to provide a calculus ratiocinator in which
all valid reasoning is reduced to steps that can be checked mechanically.1
The language of the ideography is the first artificial language constructed in
a rigorous way. Its syntax is defined by fixing a set of elementary symbols and
specifying a set of rules for combining these symbols into complex expressions.
Its semantics is defined by means of rules that determine the meanings of all
formulas, that is, of all well-formed expressions. Schematic letters are used to
express generality, according to the custom that goes back to Aristotle, and they
occur within diagrams formed by horizontal lines, vertical lines, and concavities
that are used to express negation, the conditional, and the universal quantifier.

1
Frege (1879). Boole’s important contribution to the birth of modern logic, Boole (1847), will not
be considered here.

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018 11

A. Iacona, Logical Form, Synthese Library 393,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74154-3_2
12 2 The Ideal of Logical Perfection

According to Frege, this is the kind of artificial language that we need for the
purposes of logic. The language of the ideography is appropriate to express valid
patterns of reasoning, for it represents only what is essential to valid reasoning,
namely, “conceptual content”. The conceptual content of a sentence is roughly what
matters for its truth or falsity, and thus for the validity of the arguments in which it
may occur.2
The key of Frege’s method of formalization is the hypothesis that sentences
have function-argument structure. This hypothesis, which questions the ancient
method based on the grammatical division between subject and predicate, may be
illustrated by means of an analogy. Consider the successor function, represented by
the following equation:
(1) S.x/ D x C 1
Here ‘S’ indicates the successor function, and ‘x’ stands for any integer that may
occur as its argument. ‘S.x/’ is to be read as ‘the value of S for the argument x’. That
is, for any integer x, ‘S.x/’ denotes the successor of x. For example, ‘S.1/’ denotes
the number 2. Its denotation is the result of the combination of the denotation of ‘S’
with the denotation of ‘1’. Frege suggests that something similar holds for sentences
of natural language. Consider the following:
(2) Aristotle is rich
For Frege, (2) is analogous to ‘S.1/’: the name ‘Aristotle’ denotes Aristotle, and
the predicate ‘rich’ denotes a function that applies to Aristotle. More precisely, on
the assumption that there are two truth values, call them 1 and 0, ‘rich’ denotes
a function Rich such that, for any x, Rich.x/ D 1 if x is rich, and Rich.x/ D 0
otherwise. So the structure of (2) is the following:
(3) Rich(Aristotle)
The truth value of (2), which Frege identifies with the denotation of (2), is the result
of the combination of the denotation of ‘Aristotle’ and the denotation of ‘rich’, for
it is the value that Rich takes for Aristotle as argument.3
To fully grasp the hypothesis that sentences have function-argument structure, it
must be taken into account that a function may have more than one argument. For
example, consider the addition function, represented by the following equation:
(4) A.x; y/ D x C y
Here ‘A’ indicates the addition function, while ‘x’ and ‘y’ stand for any two integers
that may occur as its arguments. For any ordered pair of integers hx; yi, ‘A.x; y/’
denotes the sum of x and y. Now consider the following sentence:

2
In later works, Frege talks of the “thought” expressed by a sentence as the primary bearer of its
truth or falsity, see Frege (1918).
3
The view that predicates denote functions from object to truth values is not explicitly stated in
Begriffsschrift, but becomes clear in Frege (1891).
2.1 Frege 13

(5) Aristotle admires Plato

According to Frege, the structure of (5) is the following:
(6) Admire(Aristotle, Plato)
Here Admire is a binary function from ordered pairs of objects to truth values, that
is, a function such that, for any pair hx; yi, Admire.x; y/ D 1 if x admires y, and
Admire.x; y/ D 0 otherwise. Note that the same structure can be ascribed to the
following sentence:
(7) Plato is admired by Aristotle
Although Frege recognizes that there may be a rhetorical difference between (5) and
(7), he takes their conceptual content to be the same. This example makes clear how
Frege differs from his predecessors. If (5) is analysed in terms of subject-predicate
structure, the distinction to be drawn is between ‘Aristotle’ and ‘admires Plato’.
Similarly, in (7) the distinction to be drawn is between ‘Plato’ and ‘is admired by
Aristotle’. So we end up with two different subject-predicate sentences, each with a
complex monadic predicate.
Frege’s method of formalization is based on the hypothesis that sentences have
function-argument structure in the sense that the formulas assigned to sentences are
intended to provide a formal representation of that structure. For example, when
one formalizes an argument in which (2) occurs, one will assign to (2) a formula
that provides a formal representation of its structure as stated in (3). Similarly, when
one formalizes an argument in which (5), or (7), occurs, one will assign to (5), or (7),
a formula that provides a formal representation of its structure as stated in (6). The
formula assigned expresses the logical form of the sentence, so it may be used to
express the pattern of reasoning instantiated by the argument in which the sentence
occurs.
The most important progress due to Frege’s method of formalization concerns the
analysis of quantified sentences, that is, sentences that contain quantifier expressions
such as ‘all’, ‘every’, ‘some’ or ‘at least one’. Consider the following sentence:
(8) Everything is material
In the tradition that goes back to Aristotle’s syllogistic, ‘everything’ is assumed to
be a term. But Frege questions this assumption. If ‘material’ denotes a function
Material such that, for any x, Material.x/ D 1 if x is material, and Material.x/ D
0 otherwise, there is no obvious way to treat ‘everything’ as a term for some
object to which the function can apply. Frege claims instead that the denotation of
‘everything’ is itself a function. If we call first-level functions the functions whose
arguments are objects and second-level functions the functions whose arguments
are first-level functions, Frege’s claim is that ‘everything’ denotes a second-level
function whose values are 1 and 0. More precisely, it denotes a second-level
function Everything such that, for every first-level function F, Everything. F/ D 1
if F.x/ D 1 for every x, and Everything. F/ D 0 otherwise. So the structure of (8)
is the following:
14 2 The Ideal of Logical Perfection

(9) Everything.Material/
In other terms, what is said by using (8) is that the predicate ‘material’ has the
property of being true of every object. To express this, Frege employs variables as
follows:
(10) For every x, x is material
Therefore, (8) can be formalized by using the universal quantifier and the variable
‘x’. The same goes for the following sentence:
(11) All things are material
In accordance with the usual convention, (8) and (11) are assumed to be synony-
mous.
To grasp the potential of Frege’s analysis, at least two familiar cases must be
considered. The first is that in which universal quantification is explicitly restricted
by a predicate. Consider the following sentence:
(12) All philosophers are rich
What (12) says is that ‘richs’ has the property of being true of every philosopher,
that is of every object of which ‘philosopher’ is true. Accordingly, (12) can be
paraphrased as follows:
(13) For every x, if x is a philosopher, then x is rich
The same goes for the following sentence:
(14) Every philosopher is rich
Again, in accordance with the usual convention, (12) and (14) are assumed to be
synonymous.
The second case is that in which the quantification is existential. Consider the
following sentence:
(15) Something is material
What (15) says is that the predicate ‘material’ has the property of being true of
some object. This is to say that, for some x, x is material, which is equivalent to
what follows:
(16) It is not the case that, for every x, it is not the case that x is material
So (15) can be formalized by using the universal quantifier and negation. Similar
considerations hold for existentially quantified sentences such as
(17) Some philosopher is rich
This sentence can be phrased as follows:
(18) It is not the case that, for every x, if x is a philosopher, then it is not the case
that x is rich
2.1 Frege 15

The same goes for the sentence obtained from (17) by replacing ‘some’ with ‘at
least one’. In accordance with the usual convention, ‘some’ and ‘at least one’ are
assumed to be synonymous.
The notation invented by Frege can provide a clear formal representation of a
wide class of quantified sentences. This class includes the sentences traditionally
studied in Aristotelian logic, such as (12) or (17), and a variety of more complex
sentences whose logical properties had not been properly understood before. For
example, consider the following:
(19) Every philosopher has read some old book
On Frege’s account, (19) can be paraphrased as follows:
(20) For every x, if x is a philosopher, then for some y such that y is a book and y is
old, x has read y
This account makes clear that ‘has read some old book’ has quantificational
structure. The traditional method is unable to display such structure, as (19) turns
out to be a sentence of the form ‘Every A is B’. Consequently, it is unable to explain
why (19) entails the following sentence:
(21) Every philosopher has read some book
This entailment is easily explained if (21) is paraphrased as follows:
(22) For every x, if x is a philosopher, then for some y such that y is a book, x has
read y
More generally, any complex quantified sentence in which universal or existential
quantification occurs within some predicate can adequately be represented in the
language of the ideography. The innovative force of the ideography crucially
depends on this capacity.4
The details of Frege’s notation do not concern us here. The cumbersome
diagrams it requires made it so hard to write that nobody else ever adopted it.
What matters for our purposes is that Frege’s method of formalization entails that
logical form may substantially differ from surface grammar. For example, although
(12) and (2) are superficially similar, they have different logical forms. The logical
form of a sentence of natural language can adequately be represented only by a
sentence of an ideal formal language. In such a language, sentences exhibit function-
argument structures that differ from the grammatical structures of the sentences of
natural language. For Frege, the understanding of this difference is a philosophical
advancement of primary importance:
If it is one of the tasks of philosophy to break the domination of the word over the human
spirit by laying bare the misconceptions that through the use of language often almost
unavoidably arise concerning the relations between concepts and by freeing thought from

4
Pietroski (2009), pp. 10–23, explains how Frege’s notation can solve some problematic cases that
emerged in connection with previous attempts.
16 2 The Ideal of Logical Perfection

that with which only the means of expression of ordinary language, constituted as they are,
saddle it, then my ideography, further developed for these purposes, can become a useful
tool for the philosopher.5

2.2 Russell

The attitude towards natural language that emerges from Russell’s article On
Denoting (1905) is essentially the same as Frege’s Begriffsschrift. Russell agrees
with Frege on the assumption that logical form may substantially differ from surface
grammar, and adopts the same kind of logical apparatus to elucidate that difference.
The main point on which he diverges from Frege concerns the analysis of a specific
class of expressions, definite descriptions. A definite description is an expression
that purports to refer to a particular object by stating a condition that is taken to
hold uniquely of that object. For example, ‘the author of Waverley’ is a definite
description. Its denotation is Walter Scott, the person that uniquely satisfies the
condition of being author of Waverley.6
Frege seems to think that, from a logical point of view, definite descriptions
do not significantly differ from other expressions that purport to refer to particular
objects, such as names. The semantic role of all these expressions, which may be
called singular terms, is to denote objects to which predicates can apply. Consider
the following sentence:
(23) The author of Waverley is a man
On Frege’s account, ‘the author of Waverley’ is a singular term that denotes an
individual, Scott, and ‘man’ is a predicate that applies to that individual. Russell
questions this account: a definite description is not a genuine singular term, in that it
hides a more complex construction involving quantification. More precisely, Russell
thinks that (23) is correctly paraphrased as follows:
(24) For some x, x is author of Waverley, and for every y, if y is author of Waverley
then y D x, and x is a man
Since (24) contains no singular term that refers to Scott, ‘the author of Waverley’
is a singular term only superficially. In Russell’s words, definite descriptions do not
have meaning in isolation. They should not be regarded as “standing for genuine
constituents of the propositions in whose verbal expressions they occur”.7
Russell argues for his theory by drawing attention to the problems that seem
to arise if definite descriptions are treated as genuine singular terms. In particular,
he shows that at least four puzzles can be solved on the basis of the paraphrase

5
Frege (1879), p. 7.
6
Russell (1905).
7
Russell (1905), p. 482.
2.2 Russell 17

he suggests. The first puzzle is how can a sentence be meaningful if it contains

an empty definite description, that is, a definite description that does not denote
anything. Consider the following sentence:
(25) The present King of France is bald
(25) seems meaningful, just like (23). But it cannot be the case that (25) is
meaningful in virtue of picking out some particular individual and ascribing a
property to that individual, for ‘the present King of France’, unlike ‘the author
of Waverley’, does not denote any particular individual. So, unless we are willing
to deny that (25) is meaningful, which is highly implausible, some alternative
explanation must be provided. One might be tempted to say that ‘the present King
of France’ differs from ‘the author of Waverley’ only in that denotes a different kind
of object. More specifically, one might claim that empty definite descriptions denote
nonexistent objects, or simply stipulate that they denote the empty set. But no such
move seems promising to Russell. His view is that (25) is correctly paraphrased as
follows:
(26) For some x, x is King of France, and for every y, if y is King of France, then
y D x, and x is bald
Thus, (23) and (25) are meaningful in exactly the same way, although they have
different truth values. Since there is no King of France at present, the first condition
stated in (26) is not satisfied, so (25) is false.8
The second puzzle is how can we make true negative existential claims by
using sentences that contain empty definite descriptions. Consider the following
sentence:
(27) The present King of France does not exist
Since ‘the present King of France’ does not denote any particular individual, (27)
is intuitively true. But if ‘the present King of France’ were a genuine singular
term, (27) would say that the denotation of ‘the present King of France’ does
not exist, which seems inconsistent. Note that it would not suffice to hold that
existence, as opposed to “being” or “subsistence”, implies concreteness, and that
(27) consistently denies that a certain abstract object exists. If A is identical to B,
there is no such thing as the difference between A and B, so the difference between
A and B does not subsist. But again, if A is identical to B, ‘the difference between
A and B’ lacks denotation. Russell’s solution is that (27) is correctly paraphrased as
follows:
(28) It is not the case that for some x, x is King of France, and for every y, if y is
King of France, then y D x.9

8
Russell (1905), pp. 482–484.
9
Russell (1905), pp. 485–490.
18 2 The Ideal of Logical Perfection

The third puzzle, known as Frege’s puzzle, is how can it be the case that an
identity statement is both true and informative. Consider the following sentence:
(29) Scott is the author of Waverley
As far as we know, (29) is true. Moreover, (29) seems informative, given that
someone might learn something new upon reading it. But if it is assumed that (29)
contains two genuine singular terms which refer to the same person, Scott, then the
most plausible explanation is that the two expressions have some kind of meaning
over and above its referent, as suggested by Frege. Otherwise it must be conceded
that what is said is simply that Scott is identical to himself, which is trivial. Russell
has a different explanation: (29) does not really express an identity because ‘the
author of Waverley’ is not really a singular term. His paraphrase goes as follows:
(30) For some x, x is author of Wawerley, and for every y, if y is author of Wawerley,
then y D x, and x is the same as Scott.
Clearly, we learn something when we get to know that (30) is true.10
The fourth puzzle, which is closely related to the third, concerns substitutivity.
On the assumption that a singular term is meaningful in virtue of its denoting
role, one may expect that any two singular terms that have the same reference are
semantically equivalent: we could take any sentence containing one of them and
substitute it with the other, without changing the truth value of the sentence. But
consider the following sentences:
(31) George IV wants to know whether Scott is the author of Waverley
(32) George IV wants to know whether Scott is Scott
It may be the case that (31) is true but (32) is false, which means that ‘Scott’ and ‘the
author of Waverley’ are not substitutable salva veritate. Russell’s solution, again,
rests on his claim that ‘the author of Waverley’ is not a genuine singular term.
According to him, the desire ascribed to George IV in (31) is to know whether
(30) is true. So it is a different desire from that ascribed to George IV in (32).11
The implications of Russell’s theory of descriptions go far beyond the four
puzzles considered. According to this theory, the logical properties of a sentence
that contains a definite description are not immediately visible, but they can be
elucidated if the sentence is paraphrased in the appropriate way. For example, (23)
is misleading, in that it may appear that ‘the author of Waverley’ is a genuine
singular term. The correct reading of ‘the author of Waverley’ becomes clear in
(24). So the underlying idea is that the logical properties of a sentence can be
revealed by an appropriate paraphrase of the sentence. This idea, which is the core
of Russell’s conception of analysis, opens a wide-ranging perspective. If the method
of paraphrase can fruitfully be applied to sentences containing definite descriptions,

10
Russell (1905), p. 492. Frege (1892) states the puzzle and draws a distinction between sense and
reference.
11
Russell (1905), pp. 485–489.
2.3 Wittgenstein 19

it is natural to think that it can be extended to other kinds of sentences. Nothing

prevents one from thinking that other kinds of sentences may be misleading in
similar ways.
After On denoting, Russell worked in this direction, trying to elucidate the role of
the method of paraphrase within a broader theoretical framework. For some years,
he described analysis as a process whereby one reconstructs complex notions in
terms of simpler ones. The process would eventually result in a language whose
vocabulary includes only logical symbols, names standing for simple particulars and
predicates standing for properties or relations. In such a logically ideal language,
the simplest kind of sentence would be an “atomic sentence”, that is, a sentence
containing a single predicate and an appropriate number of names. The truth or
falsity of an atomic sentence would depend entirely on a corresponding “atomic
fact”, which consists either of a simple particular having a property, or of a number
of simple particulars standing in a relation. The other sentences of the language
would be formed either by combining atomic sentences using truth-functional
connectives, or by replacing constituents of a simpler sentence by variables and
prefixing a universal or existential quantifier.12
The foregone outcome of this line of thought is that facts are represented
perspicuously only in a language – a logically ideal language – that radically differs
from any natural language, for it is plausible that no word of any natural language
can belong to such a language. This turns out clear if one thinks about ordinary
names, such as ‘Scott’. On the assumption that the only genuine singular terms are
symbols that denote simple particulars – the names of a logically ideal language –
we get that ordinary names are not genuine singular terms. Russell suggested that
every apparent name not occurring at the end of analysis is equivalent in meaning
to some definite description, so it can be paraphrased away.13

2.3 Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) outlines a picture of the

relation between language and reality that has much in common with that advanced
by Russell. Wittgenstein claims that the world is ultimately constituted by a plurality
of simple facts, “atomic facts”, and that language describes the world by means of a
plurality of simple sentences, “elementary sentences”, which represent such facts.14
In the Tractatus, atomic facts are defined as combinations of simple objects, and
elementary sentences are defined as concatenations of simple expressions called
“names”. Each elementary sentence represents a “state of affairs” – a possible

12
Russell used ‘proposition’ instead of ‘sentence’. But here it will be assumed that the two terms
are not synonymous.
13
Russell (1998) advances this line of thought.
14
Wittgenstein (1992). Like Russell, Wittgenstein uses ‘proposition’ instead of ‘sentence’.
20 2 The Ideal of Logical Perfection

combination of simple objects – because the names in the sentence denote simple
objects, and the way they are concatenated exhibits a way in which those objects
can be combined. In virtue of this representation, each elementary sentence asserts
the existence of an atomic fact, so it is true if and only if the fact exists, that is, if
and only if the objects denoted by its names are combined in the way exhibited.15
A central thesis of the Tractatus is that elementary sentences are “pictures” of
states of affairs. A picture is understood as a combination of elements, each of which
stands for some thing. The fact that the elements of the picture are combined in a
certain way represents that certain things are combined in that way. Wittgenstein
calls “structure” the way in which the elements of a picture are combined, and calls
“pictorial form” the possibility of the structure. Something possesses the pictorial
form required to depict a given situation if it is possible to arrange its elements in a
way that mirrors the relation between the constituents of that situation. The pictorial
form is the possibility of the arrangement, something that must be shared by picture
and situation. Therefore, an elementary sentence is a picture of a state of affairs
insofar as it shares with that state of affairs a pictorial form, which consists in the
possibility of a certain combination of simple objects exhibited by a concatenation
of names.16
The pictorial account of representation can be extended to all sentences. Wittgen-
stein claims that every non-elementary sentence has a unique analysis that reveals
it to be a truth function of elementary sentences. So it turns out that every sentence
is a truth function of elementary sentences: every complex sentence is a truth
function of the elementary sentences it contains, and every elementary sentence
is a truth function of itself. A truth function of elementary sentences, according to
Wittgenstein, is made true or false by a combination of states of affairs, namely, the
states of affairs pictured by the elementary sentences that feature as its arguments.
Therefore, every sentence represents reality in virtue of its being constituted by
sentences each of which is a picture of some state of affairs according to some form
of representation.17
In order to elucidate the kind of pictorial form involved in language, Wittgenstein
asks us to think about what all pictorial forms have in common, the possibility of
the structure in the most abstract sense. To characterize this sense, he uses the term
‘logical form’:
What every picture, of whatever form, must have in common with reality in order to be able
to represent it at all – rightly or falsely – is the logical form, that is, the form of reality.18

Wittgenstein’s idea is that in order for a picture to represent a situation, the picture
must have the same multiplicity as the situation, that is, the same number of
elements and the same combinatorial possibilities. Thus, whatever has pictorial form

15
Wittgenstein (1992), pp. 31–35, 89.
16
Wittgenstein (1992), pp. 39–41.
17
Wittgenstein (1992). p. 103 and ff.
18
Wittgenstein (1992), p. 41.
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image once permanently impressed by the original sensation.
Wordsworth is exquisitely right when he speaks of the repeated
enjoyment of sensations sweet. “In lonely rooms and ’mid the din of
towns and cities” some sudden touch of the cords of association has
brought to him the soothing joy of a picture—“Forms” with every
grace of symmetry, harmony, venerable antiquity, in the ever fresh
and gracious setting of a beautiful landscape. The eye of his mind is
infinitely gladdened; the ear of his mind, no longer conscious of the
din of cities, hears the chord struck by the Wye in its flow, and the
notes of the birds and the lowing of the cattle and the acuter notes of
the insect world. Again he perceives the odour of the meadow-
sweet, he touches the coolness of the grass, and all these are as
absolutely sensations as when they were for the first time conveyed
to his consciousness by the sensory organs.
We have in these few lines a volume of reasons why we should fill
the storehouse of memory for the children with many open-air
images, capable of giving them reflected sensations of extreme
delight. Our care all the time must be to secure that they do look,
and listen, touch, and smell, and the way to this is by sympathetic
action on our part: what we look at they will look at; the odours we
perceive they too will get. We heard, the other day, of a little girl who
travelled in Italy with her parents, in the days of dignified family
travelling-carriages. The child’s parents were conscientious, and
time was precious, not by any means to be wasted on the mere
idleness of travelling, so the governess and the little girl had the
coupé to themselves, and in it were packed all the paraphernalia of
the schoolroom, and she did her sums, learned her geography,
probably the counties of England, and all the rest of it, with the least
possible waste of time in idle curiosity as to what the “faire londes,”
through which she was passing, might be like. A story like this shows
that we are making advances, but we are still far from fully
recognising that our part in the education of children should be
thoughtfully subordinated to that played by Nature herself.
To continue our study of this amazingly accurate, as well as
exquisitely beautiful, psychological record:—the poet goes on to tell
us that these sensations sweet are “felt in the blood and felt along
the heart,” a statement curiously true to fact, for a pleasurable
sensation causes the relaxation of the infinitesimal nerve fibres
netted around the capillaries, the blood flows freely, the heart beats
quicker, the sense of well-being is increased; gaiety, gladness
supervene; and the gloom of the dull day, and the din of the busy
city, exist for us no more; that is to say, memories of delight are, as it
were, an elixir of life capable, when they present themselves, of
restoring us at any moment to a condition of physical well-being.
But even this is not the whole. Wordsworth speaks of these
memories as “passing into my purer mind with tranquil restoration”—
purer because less corporeal, less affected by physical conditions,
but all the same so intimately related to the physical brain, that the
condition of the one must rule the other. Mind and brain perhaps
have been alike fagged by the insistent recurrence of some one line
of thought, when suddenly there flashes into the “purer mind” the
cognition of images of delight, represented in consequence of a
touch to some spring of association: the current of thought is
diverted into new and delightful channels, and weariness and brain
fag give place to “tranquil restoration.”
If mere sensations are capable of doing so much for our
happiness, our mental refreshment, and our physical well-being,
both at the time of their reception and for an indefinite number of
times afterwards, it follows that it is no small part of our work as
educators to preserve the acuteness of the children’s perceptions,
and to store their memories with images of delight.
The poet pursues the investigation and makes a pointed
distinction; he not only recovers “sensations sweet,” but “feelings,
too, of unremembered pleasure.” Very few persons are capable of
discriminating between the sensations and the feelings produced by
an image recovered by some train of association. Wordsworth’s
psychology is not only delicately nice, but very just, and the
distinction he draws is important to the educator. The truth is “the
feelings” are out of fashion at present; The Man of Feeling is a
person of no account; if he still exists he keeps in the shade, being
aware, through a certain quickness of perception which belongs to
him, that any little efflorescence proper to his character would be
promptly reduced to pulp by the application of a sledge hammer. The
Man of Feeling has himself to thank for this; he allowed his feelings
to become fantastic; his sweet sensibilities ran away with him; he
meant pathos and talked bathos; he became an exaggerated type,
and in self-preservation Society always cut off the offending limb, so
The Man of Feeling is no more. Nor is this the only charge that “the
feelings” have to sustain. So long as the feelings remain objective
they are, like the bloom to the peach, the last perfection of a
beautiful character; but when they become subjective, when every
feeling concerns itself with the ego, we have, as in the case of
sensations, morbid conditions set up; the person begins by being
“over sensitive,” hysteria supervenes, perhaps melancholia, an
utterly spoilt life. George Eliot has a fine figure which aptly illustrates
this subjective condition of the feelings. She tells us that a
philosophic friend had pointed out to her that whereas the surface of
a mirror or of a steel plate may be covered with minute scratches
going in every direction, if you hold a lighted candle to the surface all
these random scratches appear to arrange themselves and radiate
from the central flame: just so with the person whose feelings have
been permitted to minister to his egoistic consciousness: all things in
heaven and earth are “felt” as they affect his own personality.
What are the feelings? Perhaps they are best expressed in
Coleridge’s phrase of “a vague appetency of the mind”; and we may
do something to clear our thoughts by a negative examination. The
feelings are not sensations, because they have no necessary
connection with the senses; they are to be distinguished from the
two great affections (of love and justice) because they are not
actively exercised upon any objects; they are distinct from the
desires because they demand no gratification; and they are
distinguishable from the intellectual operations which we call
thought, because while thought proceeds from an idea, is active, and
arrives at a result, the feelings arise from perceptions, are passive,
and not definitely progressive.
Every feeling has its positive and its negative, and these in almost
infinitely varying degrees: pleasure, displeasure; appreciation,
depreciation; anticipation, foreboding; admiration, contempt;
assurance, hesitancy; diffidence, complacency; and so on through
many more delicate nuances of feeling that are nameable, and yet
more so delicate that language is too rough an instrument for their
expression. It will be observed that all these feelings have certain
conditions in common; none are distinctly moral or immoral; they
have not arrived at the stage of definite thought; they exist vaguely in
what would appear to be a semi-conscious intellectual region. Why
then need we concern ourselves about this little known tract of that
terra incognita which we call human nature? This “why” is the
question of the prose-philosopher—our poet sees deeper. In one of
the most exquisitely discriminating passages in the whole field of
poetry, he speaks of feelings of unremembered pleasure as having
no slight or trivial influence on a good man’s life, as the source of
“little nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love.” Even
the feeling of “unremembered pleasure”—for it is possible to have
the spring of association touched so lightly that one recovers the
feeling of former pleasure without recovering the sensation, or the
image which produced the sensation, but merely just the vague
feeling of the pleasure, as when one hears the word ‘Lohengrin’ and
does not wait, as it were, to recover the sensation of musical delight,
but just catches a waft of the pleasure which the sensation brought—
intangible, indefinite as they are, produce that glow of the heart
which warms a good man to “acts of kindness and of love,” as little,
as nameless, and as unremembered as the feelings out of which
they spring.
Nameless as they are, our poet does not hesitate to rank these
trifling acts as the “best portion of a good man’s life.” But it is only out
of the good man’s heart that these good issues come, because, as
we have said, the feelings are not in themselves moral, they act
upon that which is there, and the point brought before us is, that the
influence of the feelings is equally powerful and indirect. Why should
the recollection of Tintern Abbey cause a good man to do some little
kind thing? We can only give the ultimate answer that “God has
made us so,” that a feeling of even unremembered pleasure prompts
the good man to give forth out of the good treasure of his heart in
kindness and in love. We have but to think of the outcome of feelings
at the negative pole to convince us of the nice exactitude of the
poet’s psychology. We are not exactly displeased, but unpleased,
dull, not quickened by any feeling of pleasure: let us ask ourselves if,
in this condition of our feelings, we are prompted to any outpouring
of love and kindness upon our neighbours.
Here is another aspect of the feelings of very great importance to
us who have the education of children.
“I do not like you, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell,”

is a feeling we all know well enough, and is, in fact, that intuitive
perception of character—one of our finest feelings and best guides in
life—which is too apt to be hammered out of us by the constant effort
to beat down our sensibilities to the explicit and definite. One
wonders why people complain of faithless friends, untrustworthy
servants, and disappointed affections. If the feelings were retained in
truth and simplicity, there is little doubt that they would afford for
each of us such a touchstone of character in the persons we come in
contact with, that we should be saved from making exigeant
demands on the one hand, and from suffering disappointment on the
other.
The public orator plays, by preference, upon the gamut of the
feelings. He throws in arguments by the way; brightens his discourse
with graphic word-picture, metaphor, simile; but for his final effect he
relies upon the impression he has been able to make upon the
feelings of his audience, and the event proves him to be right.
Not only our little nameless acts but the great purposes of our
lives arise out of our feelings. Enthusiasm itself is not thought,
though it arises when we are
“Stung with the rapture of a sudden thought;”
it is a glowing, malleable condition of the forces of our nature, during
which all things are possible to us, and we only wait for a lead.
Enthusiasm in its earliest stage is inconsequent, incoherent, devoid
of purpose, and yet is the state out of which all the great purposes of
life shape themselves. We feel, we think, we say, we do; this is the
genesis of most of our activities.
 But our feelings, as our thoughts, depend upon what we are; we
feel in all things as “’tis our nature to,” and the point to be noticed is
that our feelings are educable, and that in educating the feelings we
modify the character. A pressing danger of our day is that the
delicate task of educating shall be exchanged for the much simpler
one of blunting the feelings. This is the almost inevitable result of a
system where training is given en masse; but not the necessary
result, because the tone of feeling of a head-master or mistress is
almost with certainty conveyed, more or less, to a whole school. Still,
perhaps, the perfect bloom of the feelings can only be preserved
under quite judicious individual culture, and, therefore, necessarily
devolves upon parents. The instrument to be employed in this
culture is always the same—the blessed sixth sense of Tact. It is
possible to call up the feeling one desires by a look, a gesture; to
dissipate it entirely by the rudeness of a spoken word. Our silence,
our sympathy, our perception give place and play to fit feelings, and
equally discourage, and cause to slink away ashamed the feeling
which should not have place. But let us beware of words; let us use
our eyes and our imagination in dealing with the young; let us see
what they are feeling and help them by the flow of our responsive
feeling. But words, even words of praise and tenderness, touch this
delicate bloom of nature as with a hot finger, and behold! it is gone.
Let us consider carefully what feelings we wish to stimulate, and
what feelings we wish to repress in our children, and then, having
made up our minds, let us say nothing. We all know the shrinking, as
of a sore place, with which children receive some well-meant word
from a tactless friend.
The sense of spiritual touch is our only guide in this region of the
feelings, but with this alone we may tune the spirits of the children to
great issues, believing that they are capable of all things great. We
wish them to revere. Now reverence is a feeling before it becomes a
thought or an act, and it is a communicable feeling, but
communicable like the light of a torch only by contact. The sentiment
of reverence fills our own souls when we see a bird on its nest, an
old man at his cottage door, a church in which have centred the
aspirations of a village for many an age; we feel and the children feel
our feeling, and they feel too: a feeling is communicated by
sympathy, but perhaps in no other way. The ignoble habit of
depreciation is in the first place a feeling. It is quite easy to put the
children into that other attitude of feeling called forth by the fitness
and goodness of the thing regarded, and we all know that it is easy
to appreciate or depreciate the same thing. These two feelings alone
illustrate the importance of the delicate culture we have in view, for
among the minor notes of character none tend more to differentiate
persons than this of perceiving cause of satisfaction in an object or a
person, or of perceiving cause of dissatisfaction in the same object
or person. An appreciative habit of feeling is a cause of tranquil joy
to its possessor, and of ease and contentment to the people
connected with him. A depreciative habit, on the contrary, though it
affords a little pleasurable excitement because it ministers to the
vanity of the ego (I dislike this person or this thing, therefore I know
better or am better than others), disturbs tranquillity and puts the
person out of harmony with himself and with his surroundings; no
stable joy comes of depreciation. But even in dealing with feelings of
this class we must remember that tact, sympathy and communicable
feeling are our only implements; the feelings are not thoughts to be
reasoned down; they are neither moral nor immoral to challenge our
praise or our blame; we cannot be too reticent in our dealings with
them in children, nor too watchfully aware that the least inadvertence
may bruise some tender blossom of feeling. This is the risk which
attends the habit of persiflage and banter in family talk; a little is
thoroughly good and wholesome, but this kind of play should be
used with very great tact, especially by the elders. Children
understand each other so well that there is far less risk of hurt
feelings from the tormenting schoolboy than from the more
considerate elder.
There is only one case in which the feelings may not have free
play, and that is when they reflect the consciousness of the ego.
What are commonly called sensitive feelings—that is, susceptibility
for oneself and about oneself, readiness to perceive neglect or slight,
condemnation or approbation—though belonging to a fine and
delicate character, are in themselves of less worthy order, and
require very careful direction lest morbid conditions should be set up.
To ignore wisely is an art, and the girl who craves to know what you
thought of her when she said this or did the other, need not be told
brutally that you did not think of her at all; it is quite enough for her to
perceive that your regard is fixed upon something impersonal both to
her and you; she takes the hint and looks away from herself, and
nothing is said to cause her pain. It appears to be an immutable law
that our feelings, as our sensations, must find their occupation in
things without; the moment they are turned in upon themselves harm
is done. The task of dealing with the susceptibilities of young people
is one of the most delicate that falls to us elders, whether we be
parents or friends. Undiscriminating sympathy is very perilous, and
bluntness of perception is very damaging; we are between Scylla
and Charybdis, and must needs walk humbly and warily in this
delicate work of dealing with the feelings of children and young
people. Our only safeguard is to cherish in ourselves “the soft, meek,
tender soul,” sensitive to the touch of God, and able to deal in soft,
meek, tender ways with children, beings of fine and delicate mould
as they are.
 CHAPTER XIX

“WHAT IS TRUTH?”
It is said that we English are no longer to be characterised as a
truth-speaking people. This is a distressing charge, and yet we
cannot put it away from us with a high hand. Possibly we are in a
stage of civilisation which does not tend to produce the fine courage
of absolute truthfulness. He who is without fear is commonly without
falsehood; and a nation brought up amid the chivalries of war dares
to be true. But we live in times of peace: we are no longer called on
to defend the truth of our word by the strength of our hand. We
speak with very little sense of responsibility, because no one calls us
to account; and, so far as we are truth-tellers, we are so out of pure
truth of heart and uprightness of life. That is, we may be, as a nation,
losing the habit of truth to which the nation’s childhood was trained,
in ways however rough and ready; but we are growing up, and the
truth that is among us is perhaps of a higher quality than the more
general truthfulness of earlier days. Now, truth is indeed the white
flower of a blameless life, and not the mere result of a fearless habit.
The work before us is to bring up our children to this higher manner
of truth. We no longer treat this or that particular lie or bit of deceit as
a local ailment, for which we have only to apply the proper lotion or
plaster; we treat it as symptomatic, as denoting a radical defect of
character which we set ourselves to correct.
Opinion without knowledge, says Darwin, has no value, and to
treat the tendency to untruthfulness that children often show, one
should have a good deal of knowledge of a special kind. To treat a
child de novo, place him under a moral microscope, record our
observations, and formulate opinions based upon that child, and as
many more as we can get into focus, is, no doubt, useful and
important work. But it is work for which we must qualify ourselves.
The child is a human being, immature, but yet, perhaps, a human
being at his best. Who amongst us has such gifts of seeing,
knowing, comprehending, imagining, such capacities for loving,
giving, believing, as the little child in the midst! We have no higher
praise for our wisest and best than that they are fresh and keen as
little children in their interests and loves.
Now, we maintain that it is not sufficient to bring unaided common
sense and good intentions to this most delicate art of child-study. We
cannot afford to discard the wisdom of the past and begin anew with
the effort to collect and systematise, hoping to accomplish as much
and more in our short span than the centuries have brought us.
In this matter of lying, for example, unaided common sense is
likely to start upon one of two theses: either the child is born true,
and you must keep him so; or, the child is born false, and you must
cure him of it. Popular opinion leans strongly to the first theory in
these days; and, as we perceive only that which we believe, the
tendency is, perhaps, to take the absolute truthfulness and honour of
children a little too much for granted. If you would have children true,
you must, of course, treat them as if they were true, and believe
them to be true. But, all the same, wisdom may not play the ostrich.
In the last generation, people accepted their children as born false,
and, what more likely to make them so than this foregone
conclusion? Possibly some falling off in truthfulness in our day is
traceable to the dogmatic teaching upon which our forbears were
brought up.
The wisdom of the ages—i.e., philosophy, and the science of the
present, especially physiology, and more particularly what we may
call psycho-physiology—show us that both these positions are
wrong, and that all theories founded upon either position, or upon
any midway point between the two, must needs be wrong too. A
child is born neither true nor false. He is absolutely without either
virtue or vice when he comes into the world. He has tendencies,
indeed, but these are no more either virtuous or vicious than is the
colour of his eyes. Even the child of a liar is not necessarily born a
liar, because, we are assured, acquired tendencies are not
transmitted. But there is this to be said. The child born of a family
which has from generation to generation been in a subject position
may have less predisposition to truthfulness than the child of a family
which has belonged for generations to the ruling class. As in the
natural world all substances must be reduced to their elements
before they can be chemically dealt with, so in the moral world, if we
wish to treat an offence, it is best to trace it to that elemental
property of human nature of which it is the probable outcome. Now,
lying, even in its worst forms, is by no means elemental. Ambition is
elemental, avarice, vanity, gratitude, love and hate. But lying arises
from secondary causes. The treatment is all the more difficult. It is no
longer a case of—the child has lied, punish him; but, where is the
weak place in his character, or what is the defect in his education,
which has induced this lying habit, if it be a habit? How shall we, not
punish the lie, but treat the failing of which it is symptomatic. From
this point of view let us consider the extremely interesting
classification of lies presented to us by an American
educationalist.[15]
I. Pseudophobia. Janet thinks she may have glanced at Mary’s
slate, and seen the answer to her sum. A comparison of the two
slates shows that she has not done so, and that Janet, in the effort to
save herself from a lie, has actually told one. This sort of morbid
conscientiousness is Argus-eyed for other forms of sin. We knew a
sick girl of fourteen, who was terribly unhappy because she was not
able to kneel up in bed when she said her prayers. Was this the
“unpardonable sin”? she asked, in unaffected terror. We agree with
the writer in question, as to the frequent occurrence of this form of
distress, and also in tracing it, not to moral, but to physical causes.
We should say, too, it is more common in girls than in boys, and in
the home-taught than in the school-taught child. Healthy interests,
out-of-door life, engrossing and delightful handiworks, general
occupation with things rather than with thoughts, and avoidance of
any word or hint that may lead to self-consciousness or the habit of
introspection, will probably do much to carry the young sufferer
through a difficult stage of life.
 II. The Lie Heroic. The lie heroic is, par excellence, the
schoolboy’s lie, and has its rise, not in any love for lying, but in a
want of moral balance; that is to say, the boy has been left to form
his own code of ethics.
Who spilled the ink? little Tom Brown is asked. “I did,” he says;
because Jack Spender, the real culprit, is his particular hero at the
moment. Faithfulness to a friend is a far higher virtue in Tom’s eyes
than mere barren truthfulness. And how is Tom to know, if he has not
been taught, that it is unlawful to cherish one virtue at the expense of
another. Considering how little clear, definite, authoritative teaching
children receive on ethical questions, the wonder is that most
persons do elaborate some kind of moral code, or code of honour,
for themselves.
III. Truth for friends, lies for enemies. A lie under this head differs
from the lie heroic chiefly in that it need not bring any risk to the
speaker. This class of lies again points to the moral ignorance which
we are slow to recognise in children because we confound
innocence with virtue. It is quite natural for a child to believe that
truth is relative, and not absolute, and that whether a lie is a lie or not
depends on whom you are speaking to. The children are in the
position of “jesting Pilate.” What is truth? they unconsciously ask.
IV. Lies inspired by selfishness. This is a form of lying for which
superficial treatment is quite idle. The lie and the vice of which it is
the instrument are so allied that those two cannot be put asunder.
Professor Stanley Hall well points out that school is a fertile field for
this kind of lying. But it is the selfishness and not the lying that must
be dealt with. Cure the first, and the second disappears, having no
further raison d’être. How? This is a hard question. Nothing but a
strong impulse to the heroism of unselfishness, initiated and
sustained by the grace of God, will deliver boy or girl from the vice of
selfishness of which lying is the ready handmaid. But let us not
despair; every boy and girl is open to such impulse, is capable of
heroic effort. Prayer and patience, and watchfulness for opportunities
to convey the stimulating suggestion—these will not be in vain.
Every boy and girl is a hero in posse. There is no worse infidelity
than that which gives up the hope of mending any flaw of character,
however bad, in a young creature. All the same, happy those parents
who have not allowed selfishness and virtue (whether in the form of
truthfulness, or under some other name), to come to hand to hand
conflict. It is easy to give direction to the tendencies of a child; it is
agonisingly difficult to alter the set of character in a man.
V. The Deception of imagination and play. I passed little Muriel in
the park one day; the child was not looking; her companion was
unknown to me. I was engaged with my companion, and believed
that Muriel had not noticed me. The little girl went home and told her
mother that I had kissed her and asked various questions about the
family health. What could be the child’s motive? She had none. Her
active imagination rehearsed the little dialogue which most naturally
would have taken place; and this was so real to her that it obscured
the fact. The reality, the truth, to Muriel, was what she imagined had
taken place. She had probably no recollection whatever of the actual
facts. This sort of failure in verbal truthfulness is excessively
common in imaginative children, and calls for prompt attention and
treatment; but not on the lines a hasty and righteous parent might be
inclined to adopt. Here is no call for moral indignation. The parents
and not the child are in fault. The probability is that the child’s
ravenous imagination is not duly and daily supplied with its proper
meat, of fairy tale in early days, of romance, later. Let us believe of
the children that “trailing clouds of glory do they come” from the
place where all things are possible, where any delightful thing may
happen. Let us believe that our miserable limitations of time and
space and the laws of matter irk them inconceivably, imprison the
free soul as a wild bird in a cage. If we refuse to give the child outlets
into the realms of fancy, where everything is possible, the delicate
Ariel of his imagination will still work within our narrow limits upon our
poor tasks, and every bit of our narrow living is played over with a
thousand variations, apt to be more vivid and interesting than the
poor facts, and, therefore, more likely to remain with the child as the
facts which he will produce when required to speak the truth. What is
the cure? Give the child free entrance into, abundant joyous living in,
the kingdom of make-believe. Let him people every glen with fairies,
every island with Crusoes. Let him gift every bird and beast with
human interests, which he will share when the dear fairy godmother
arrives with an introduction. Let us be glad and rejoice that all things
are possible to the children, recognising in this condition of theirs
their fitness to receive and believe and understand, as, alas! we
cannot do, the things of the Kingdom of God. The age of faith is a
great sowing time, doubtless designed, in the Divine scheme of
things, especially that parents may make their children at home in
the things of the Spirit before contact with the world shall have
materialised them.
At the same time the more imaginative the child, the more
essential is it that the boundaries of the kingdom of make-believe
should be clearly defined, and exact truthfulness insisted upon in all
that concerns the narrower world where the grown-ups live. It is
simply a matter of careful education; daily lessons in exact
statement, without any horror or righteous indignation about
misstatements, but warm, loving encouragement to the child who
gives a long message quite accurately, who tells you just what Miss
Brown said and no more, just what happened at Harry’s party,
without any garnish. Every day affords scope for a dozen little
lessons at least, and, gradually, the more severe beauty of truth will
dawn upon the child whose soul is already possessed by the grace
of fiction.
VI . Pseudomania. We have little to say on this score, except to
counsel parents to keep watch at the place of the letting out of
waters. No doubt the condition is pathological, and calls for curative
treatment rather than punishment. But we believe it is a condition
which never need be set up. The girl who has been able to win
esteem for what she really is and really does, is not tempted to
“pose,” and the boy who has found full outlet for his energies,
physical and mental, has no part of himself left to spend upon
“humbugging.” This is one of the cases which show how important it
is for parents to acquaint themselves with that delicate borderland of
human nature which touches the material and the spiritual. How
spiritual thought and material brain interact; how brain and nerves
are inter-dependent; how fresh air and wholesome food affect the
condition of the blood which nourishes the nerves; how the nerves
again may bear tyrannous sway over all that we include under
“bodily health;” these are matters that the parent should know who
would avoid the possibility of the degradation described as
Pseudomania from being set up in any one of his children.
It is as well that those who have to do with young people should
be familiar with one or two marked signs of this mentally diseased
condition; as, the furtive glance from under half-closed lids, shot up
to see how you are taking it all; the flowing recital, accompanied by a
slightly absent pre-occupied look, which denotes that the speaker is
in the act of inventing the facts he relates.
We have not space to enlarge upon palliatives, lies of terror, or
one or two more classes of lies, which seem to us of frequent
occurrence, as lies of display (boasting), lies of carelessness
(inaccuracy), and, worst of all, lies of malice (false witness).
We would only commend the subject to the attention of parents;
for, though one child may have more aptitude than another, neither
truthfulness nor the multiplication table come by nature. The child
who appears to be perfectly truthful is so because he has been
carefully trained to truthfulness, however indirectly and
unconsciously. It is more important to cultivate the habit of truth than
to deal with the accident of lying.
Moral teaching must be as simple, direct and definite as the
teaching which appeals to the intellect; presented with religious
sanctions, quickened by religious impulses, but not limited to the
prohibitions of the law nor to the penalties which overtake the
transgressor.

FOOTNOTES:
[15] Professor G. Stanley Hall, in an article which appeared
in the American Journal of Psychology, Jan. 1891.
 CHAPTER XX

SHOW CAUSE WHY

We have been asking, Why? like Mr. Ward Fowler’s Wagtail, for a
long time. We asked, Why? about linen underclothing, and behold it
is discarded. We asked Why? about numberless petticoats, and they
are going. We are asking Why? about carpets and easy chairs, and
all manner of luxurious living; and probably the year 1900 will see of
these things only the survivals. It is well we should go about with this
practical Why? rather than with the “Why does a wagtail wag its tail?”
manner of problem. The latter issues in vain guesses, and the
pseudo-knowledge which puffeth up. But if, Why? leads us to
—“Because we should not; then, let us do the thing we should.”—
This manner of Why? is like a poker to a dying fire.
Why is Tom Jones sent to school? That he may be educated, of
course, say his parents. And Tom is dismissed with the fervent hope
that he may take a good place. But never a word about the delights
of learning, or of the glorious worlds of nature and of thought to
which his school studies will presumably prove an open sesame.
“Mind you be a good boy and get a good place in your class,” is
Tom’s valediction; and his little soul quickens with purpose. He won’t
disappoint father, and mother shall be proud of him. He’ll be the top
boy in his class. Why, he’ll be the top boy in the whole school, and
get prizes and things, and won’t that be jolly! Tommy says nothing of
this, but his mother sees it in his eyes and blesses the manly little
fellow. So Tommy goes to school, happy boy, freighted with his
father’s hopes and his mother’s blessings. By-and-by comes a
report, the main delight of which is, that Tommy has gained six
places; more places gained, prizes, removes—by-and-by
scholarships. Before he is twelve, Tommy is able to earn the whole
of his future schooling by his skill in that industry of the young
popularly known as Exams. Now he aims at larger game; “exams”
still, but “exams” big with possibilities, “exams” which will carry him
through his University career. His success is pretty certain, because
you get into the trick of “exams” as of other crafts. His parents are
congratulated, Tom is more or less of a hero in his own eyes and in
those of his compeers. Examinations for ever! Hip, hip! Never was a
more facile way for a youth to distinguish himself, that is, if his
parents have sent him into the world blessed with any inheritance of
brains. For the boy not so blessed—why, he may go to the Colonies
and that will make a man of him.
The girls come in a close second. The “Junior,” the “Senior,” the
“Higher,” the “Intermediate,” the “B.A.,” and what else you will, mark
the epochs in most girls’ lives. Better, say you, than having no
epochs at all. Unquestionably, yes. But the fact that a successful
examination of one sort or another is the goal towards which most of
our young people are labouring, with feverish haste and with undue
anxiety, is one which possibly calls for the scrutiny of the
investigating Why?
In the first place, people rarely accomplish beyond their own aims.
The aim is a pass, not knowledge, “they cram to pass and not to
know; they do pass and they don’t know,” says Mr. Ruskin; and most
of us who know the “candidate” will admit that there is some truth in
the epigram. There are, doubtless, people who pass and who also
know, but, even so, it is open to question, whether passing is the
most direct, simple, natural and efficacious way of securing
knowledge, or whether the persons who pass and know are not
those keen and original minds which would get blood out of stone,—
anyway, sap out of sawdust. Again—except for the fine power of
resistance possessed by the human mind, which secures that most
persons who go through examination grind come out as they went in,
absolutely unbiassed towards any intellectual pursuits whatever—
except for this, the tendency of the grind is to imperil that individuality
which is the one incomparably precious birthright of each of us. The
very fact of a public examination compels that all who go in for it
must study on the same lines.
 It will be urged that there is no necessary limitation to studies
outside the examination syllabus, nor any restrictions whatever as to
the direction of study even upon the syllabus; but this is a mistake.
Whatever public examinations a given school takes, the whole
momentum of pupils and staff urges towards the great issue. As to
the manner of study, this is ruled by the style of questions set in a
given subject; and Dry-as-dust wins the day because it is easier and
fairer to give marks upon definite facts than upon mere ebullitions of
fancy or genius. So it comes to pass that there is absolutely no
choice as to the matter or manner of their studies for most boys and
girls who go to school, nor, for many of those who work at home. For,
so great is the convenience of a set syllabus that parents and
teachers are glad to avail themselves of it.
It appears then that the boy is in bondage to the schoolmaster,
and the schoolmaster to the examiner, and the parents do no more
than acquiesce. Would parents be astounded if they found
themselves in this matter a little like the man who had talked prose
all his life without knowing it? The tyranny of the competitive
examination is supported for the most part by parents. We do not
say altogether. Teachers do their part manfully; but, in the first place,
teachers unsupported by parents have no power at all in the matter;
not a single candidate could they present beyond their own sons and
daughters; in the next place, we do not hesitate to say that the whole
system is forced upon teachers (though, perhaps, by no means
against their will) by certain ugly qualities of human nature as
manifested in parents. Ignorance, idleness, vanity, avarice, do not
carry a pleasant sound; and if we, who believe in parents, have the
temerity to suggest such shadows to the father basking in the
sunshine of his boy’s success, we would add that the rest of us who
are not parents are still more to blame; that it is terribly hard to run
counter to the current of the hour; and that, “harm is wrought through
want of thought.”
Ignorance is excusable, but wilful ignorance is culpable, and the
time has come for the thoughtful parent to examine himself and see
whether or no it be his duty to make a stand against the competitive
examination system. Observe, the evil lies in the competition, not in
the examination. If the old axiom be true, that the mind can know
nothing but what it can produce in the form of an answer to a
question put by the mind itself, it is relatively true that knowledge
conveyed from without must needs be tested from without. Probably,
work on a given syllabus tested by a final examination is the
condition of definite knowledge and steady progress. All we contend
for is that the examination shall not be competitive. It will be urged
that it is unfair to rank such public examinations as the Universities’
Local—which have done infinitely much to raise the standard of
middle-class education, especially amongst girls, and upon which
neither prize nor place depends—as competitive examinations. They
are rarely competitive, it is true, in the sense of any extraneous
reward to the fortunate candidate; but, happily, we are not so far
gone from original righteousness but that Distinction is its own
reward. The pupil is willing to labour, and rightly so, for the honour of
a pass which distinguishes him among the élite of his school. The
schools themselves compete (con + petere = to seek with) as to
which shall send in the greatest number of candidates and come out
with the greatest number of Honours, Scholarships, and what not.
These distinctions are well advertised, and the parent who is on the
look-out for a school for his boy is all too ready to send him where
the chances of distinction are greatest. Examinations which include
the whole school, and where every boy has his place on the list,
higher or lower, are another thing; though these also appeal to the
emulous principle, they do not do so in excess, the point to be noted.
But, why should so useful an incentive to work as a competitive
examination be called in question? There are certain facts which
may be predicated of every human being who is not, as the country
folk say, “wanting.” Every one wants to get on; whatever place we
occupy we aim at the next above it. Every one wants to get rich, or,
anyway, richer; whether the wealth he chooses to acquire be money
or autographs. Every one wants the society of his fellows; if he does
not, we call him a misanthrope and say, to use another popular and
telling phrase, “He’s not quite right.” We all want to excel, to do better
than the rest, whether in a tennis-match or an examination. We all
want to know, though some of us are content to know our
neighbours’ affairs, while others would fain know about the stars in
their courses. We all, from the sergeant in his stripes to the much
decorated commanding officer, want people to think well of us. Now
these several desires, of power, of wealth, of society, of excelling, of
knowledge, of esteem, are primary springs of action in every human
being. Touch any one of them, in savage or in savant, and you
cannot fail of a response. The Russian Moujik besieges a passing
traveller with questions about the lands he has seen, because he
wants to know. The small boy gambles with his marbles because he
wants to get. The dairymaid dons a new bow because she wants to
be admired, the only form of esteem to which she is awake. Tom
drives when the children play horses because he wants to rule.
Maud works herself into a fever for her examination because she
wants to excel, and “to pass” is the hallmark of excellence, that is, of
those who excel.
Now these primary desires are neither virtuous nor vicious. They
are common to us all and necessary to us all, and appear to play the
same part towards our spiritual being that the appetites do to our
material existence; that is, they stimulate us to the constant effort
which is the condition of progress, and at the same time the
condition of health. We know how that soul stagnates which thinks
nothing worth an effort. He is a poor thing who is content to be
beaten on all hands. We do not quarrel with the principle of
emulation, any more than we do with that of respiration. The one is
as natural and as necessary as the other, and as little to be brought
before a moral tribunal. But it is the part of the educator to recognise
that a child does not come into the world a harp with one string; and
that the perpetual play upon this one chord through all the years of
adolescence is an evil, not because emulation is a vicious principle,
but because the balance of character is destroyed by the constant
stimulation of this one desire at the expense of the rest.
Equally strong, equally natural, equally sure of awakening a
responsive stir in the young soul, is the divinely implanted principle
of curiosity. The child wants to know: wants to know incessantly,
desperately; asks all manner of questions about everything he
comes across, plagues his elders and betters, and is told not to
bother, and to be a good boy and not ask questions. But this only