Isaiah Berlin_Empirical Propositions and Hypothetical Statements

8/13/2019 Isaiah Berlin_Empirical Propositions and Hypothetical Statements

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Mind Association

Empirical Propositions and Hypothetical StatementsAuthor(s): I. BerlinReviewed work(s):Source: Mind, New Series, Vol. 59, No. 235 (Jul., 1950), pp. 289-312

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VOL. LIX. No. 235.] [JUlY, 1950

M INDA QUARTERLY REVIEWOFPSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

I.-EMPIRICAL PROPOSITIONS ANDHYPOTHETICAL STATEMENTSBY I. BERLIN

IT is becominghe fashion mong empiricisthilosophersto assume hatphenomenalisms reallydead' at last. Pro-voked nto existence y non-naturalisticotions fmaterialsubstance,t successfullynderminedhem; but t shared suf-ficientumberffundamentaletaphysicalssumptionsithtsdefeatedival operish ithtwhenhe ystemf houghthichnourishedothwasdestroyed,n thevery ct ofvictory.Abetter ntologyhanthat ofDescartes rLocke,but still nSontology,tisthereforeowheld obeobsolete;anddoubtlessthis s how tought o be. But fphenomenalisms dead, hememoryf t stillhaunts hewritingsfmoderniscussionsf-the ature ftheexternal ord o a surprisingegree;fromEddington's otoriouswo desks, o the morerefinedndpenetratingnalysis f better quipped hilosophicaluthors,it makestspresencelearly elt, sually akingheformfasharp istinctionnow etweenbservationtatementsnd hoseconcerning aterialbjects; nowbetweenwoor more ensesof the verb to see ; at other imesbetweenbasic' or' protocol' entencesnd those fordinarypeech; orbetweenvariousmodesof peech; orbetween strong and weakverification.uchversions f it are almost lwaysformallyguaranteedo carry o metaphysicalimplications; ever-theless heirtrikingesemblanceo the lder iscreditedarietyis hard o overlook. ence, n examinationf ts atestmani-festationssnot uch floggingf deadhorses at firstt mayseemto be; for f it is dead, its ghostwalks, nd should,ifpossible, e laid.

19 289


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290 I. BERLIN:Twofurtherssumptionsre made nthecourse f hefollowing

remarks:(i) The argumelt against the phenomenalist nalysis ofcommon-sensetatementseaves openthe questionwhether heinformationrovidedbytheexactsciences uch as physics, anbetranslatedwithoutoss ntophenomenalisterms. Perhaps tcan; and perhaps hisdemonstratesomethingfimportance;it has alwaysbeenconsideredhat the anguage f science ould,withno alteration f its meaning , be translated nto solip-sistic erms; which,however, s notheldto be an argumentnfavour of solipsism.But if such a translation does notadequately enderheempirical escriptionsfordinaryanguage,thiswillaffect hepropositions fscienceonly n so faras theseclaimto be an extension fordinaryanguageused to describetheworld,nd not specialisedmethod freferringoaspects f tfor omenarrower,redictiverother, urposes-a specialised seofwordswhichmay be susceptible o a phenomenalistnalysis.In any case the answer o the questionwhetherhis s so is, Ibelieve, ogicallyndependent ftherestof myargument.

(ii) Nor do I wish odeny hehistoricalchievement fpheno-menalism. Whatever ts defects-and I shallwish to say thattheyare fatal-it has made less excusableany return o thoseancient delusionswhichthe philosophers f substancefromThalesto G. F. Stouthave donemuchto promote. But bene-ficent s its influence as been, t has overstayed ts welcome;its continuedpresencedoes moreharmthan good; and theargumentetoutbelow s intended oprovide dditional easonsforconsigningt finally o an honoured rave.I

Many forms fmodern mpiricism,nd in particularmodernphenomenalism, est on the view that expressions escribingmaterial bjectsmust nprinciple e capable ofbeing ranslated(without esidue) ntosetsofsentences bout thedata ofactualorpossible irect ensible cquaintance, ast,presentnd future,on the partof real orpossibleobservers; sensible s hereusedin the widest ense-to cover ll states, ctivities rdispositionscapable of being studied by empiricalmethods). Any al-ternative heoriesof how materialobject propositions re tobe analysedtend to be rejectedout of hand by modern m-piricists n the ground hat thismust at some stage involvebelief n the existence f non-sensible r transcendentntitiesor characteristics,nd this s ruledout forthefamiliar easons


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EMPIRICAL PROPOSITIONS 291advanced,for xample,by Berkeley, nd restson histheory. fwords; accordingto this, no expressions urporting o des-cribematerial bjects can have any meaning, et alone be true,unlessall the entities r characteristicso which heyrefer reeither ound n sensible xperience-inthe senseof sensibledefinedbove-or canbe analysed ntoentities r characteristicsso found. Since most empiricists old that any alternativeanalysis of material bjectpropositionsnvolves he possibilityof acquaintancewithnon-sensiblentitiesor characteristics-and this theyhold to be an unintelligibleuggestion-pheno-menalism ppears to follow utomatically. Disagreement anariseonly bouttheadequacyofthisorthatsuggestednalysisof how material bjectsentences reto be reduced (withoutresidue) o sentences escribingothwhattheobserver oes,ordid, or willobserve, s well as whathe would,orwouldhave,mightor mighthave, observedunderappropriate onditions;and theprovision falternativenalyses n these ineshastaxedthe ingenuity f some of the acutestphilosophersf our day.But common enseand the philosophers h-o re in sympathywith t, have always feltdissatisfied. he reduction fmaterialobject sentences ntowhatwe may,for hort, all sensedatumsentences,eemed o eavesomethingut, osubstituteomethingintermittentnd attenuated or omethingolidand continuous.To dispel this sense of discomfort, henomenalists egan toexplain hat twasdue to a confusion:theviewthattheywereadvocatingwasneither metaphysical ora scientificheory fwhatthingsweremadeof,or howtheybehaved,butsomethinglessadventurous-nomore hanan alternativeanguage apableofrenderingll that could be describedn the material bjectlanguage, nd recommendedor tstherapeuticropertiess anantidote to metaphysicalhankering fter non-sensible ub-stitutes. If translation nto the sense datum language stillseemedto leave something ut-what somephilosophers avecalled the 'irreducible ategorical lement' of materialobjectpropositions, his missingelement was labelled emotive-apsychological esidue-withno descriptiveunction; or else itwas (with somewhatgreater nsight)connectedwith the legi-timatedemandfor hekind and degree fvagueness,ndefinite-ness, nd rich mbiguity fspeechneededbytheplainmanforhisnormal, very aypurposes. But itwasclaimed hatat anyratethe hard coreofdescriptivemeaning ouldbe successfullytransplanted, s it were, nto the new language. The pheno-menalist equivalentof a materialobject sentencemight, ikea new shoe, seem uncomfortablet first, ut continueduse


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292 I. BERLIN:wouldpresently issipate hisfeeling.The discomfort as onlypsychological, duetolinguistic abitsharmlessnthemselves,buttemptinghilosopherso false doctrines bout both anguageandthe world.Common ensecontinued o experience certaindiscomfort,but found t difficulto formulatet in words. Professor . F.Stout1 complained that the opaqueness- the permanentimpossibilityf sensation of materialobjects had been un-justifiablyliminated. Mr. W. F. R. Hardie found t puzzlingthat 'hypothetical' causes could be said to cause ' actual'effects-but his was held,e.g. by Professor . J. Ayer to bemainlydue to a misunderstandingfthe anguagewhichpheno-menalistswere ryingouse or recommend. What proposeto do is to try and articulatewhat the mainsourceofthe dis-comfort eltby common enseseemsto meto be, since thinkthat in this case the doctor'sdiagnosis oo oftenneglects hespecific atureofthepatient'scomplaint. For it seemsto meto bemore han a mere ource fdiscomfort,amely valid andfatalobjection, o thephenomenalistnalysis. However, venif I am mistaken n this,the complaint tself till seemsworthexamining.It may beworth dding hat even fphenomenalismurns utto be unacceptable, ome ofthe stockobjections o it are notless so. For the familiar nti-phenomenalistheses are often,evenwhenvalid,formulatedn sucha wayas to convey nxietyto salvagealtogetheroo muchfromhe ruins fthetheoryheyare intended o destroy. Consider, orexample, he fourmostfamiliarypesofattackupon t.(1) One of the most familiarobjectionsurgedagainst,forexample,Berkeley, r Mill or Russell, s thatwhenconvertingsentencesabout materialobjects into sentencesabout sensedata, theyfailto ' convert he observer'who ' occurs in theprotasis of the hypothetical tatement, nto ' sense data -heremainsrreduciblymaterial . It has ndeedbeen uggestedthat to ' dissolvethe observer' a secondproposition ould beconstructed,whichpresumably,would describethe activitiesof a second 'observer' who actuallyor potentially bserves

I StudiesnPhilosophyndPsychology,p. 136-37.2 'The Paradox of Phenomenalism', Proceedingsf theAristotelianSociety,1945-46.3'Phenomenalism', P.A.S., 1946-47.4 This argumentwas first eveloped to the best ofmybeliefbyProfessorH. H. Price. A somewhatmore complicatedmethod of the progressiveelimination ofmaterialbodies is propoundedby Mr. R. B. Braithwaite( Propositionsabout Material Objects P.A.S., 1937-38).


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EMPIRICAL PROPOSITIONS 293thebodyoftheoriginal observer ; this observer in histurnrequires third observer to observehim; and so we shouldgeta Chinese box series of possible observers-referred o by alogically imilar eries fpropositions, hichwouldprogressively' reduce or dissolve theresidualmaterial bject content ftheoriginalprotasis. This asymptotic rocess f gradualwhittlingwould tendto the deal limitofpure phenomenalism.Then bysomehowntegratingheseries, nemight epresenthematerialobject s definableinerms f t. A criticismelated o theoriginalobjection s that such ideal 'observers' and theirbehaviourcould not be properlydescribedwithoutperpetualreferenceto material bjects,e.g.thosewhichdetermine their' positionin space, movements,tc. Each ofwhich gain,for ts analysis,at everypoint presupposesyet othermaterialobjects,so thattheattempted nalysis annotget goingwithout reaking ownat any and everypoint n the process. Somephilosophersryto soften he force fthisobjection y saying hat suchtheoreti-cally infiniteheorieshave pragmatic imits et by the contextand the practicalneedsof the situation nd sometimes holdthatsufficientlyainstaking nalysis andmostanalysts re toolazy or boredto do theplodding equired) ouldgo a long waytowards chieving urephenomenalism.What boththesekindsof objection,whether heyare valid or not, suggest s that ifphenomenalism ails, it very nearly achieves its result-theunresolved esidue an be got downto almostvanishing oint-which is perhaps s muchas one can reasonably opefor.(2) Another ftenheard objectionis that the hypotheticalpropositionsbout the experiences fobserverswhich re indis-pensable to the phenomenalist nalysis, eemto involvesome-thing ike the existenceor realityof 'hypotheticalfacts' or'hypothetical ensedata', or ' unsensed ensibilia. For other-wise, what do hypotheticals escribe? Surely not nothing?And these postulated entities,unknown nd unknowabletoscience nd common ense, re, so it is urged, t least as mytho-logicalas the Lockeansubstratumwhich heywere nvokedtoexorcise. Phenomenalism s accused of breedingnew meta-physical entities-withtheir own pseudo-problems: ut if wecouldonlygetrid of thesesomehow, ay by an improved, on-correspondenceheory fmeaning, ll might tillbe well.(3) It has also frequently een asserted that the promised'reduction' of common-senseanguageby suchmethods s thoseof Descriptions, ogical Constructions,tc., cannot n fact beperformed successfully. Phenomenalists are challenged to

1 VideMr.D. G. C. Macnabb Phenomenalism, P.A.S. 1940-41).


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294 I. BERLIN:provide n equivalent n sensedatum currency fpropositionsabout materialobjects, and when they decline to producetheprecise equivalent, they are accused of utteringcounterfeitcheques: and this s said tohold even more bviously fscienti-ficentities-thepromise o construct many storied 1logicalconstructions, ith sense data as foundations, nd gammaparticles wo or threefloors bove-has not been kept. Pheno-menalists re accused ofmaintaining hat, lthough henomena-list anguagemight e intolerablylumsy nd prolix, t couldinprinciple always be substitutedfor the ellipses of commonspeech: thatnormal anguagehas the charactert hasinorder oservethe use that t serves; that sense, atum anguagewoulddoubtlessly e inconvenientlyreciseand definitend intoler-ably lengthy nd tedious, nd would have its ownunfamiliargrammar , but that in principle he translation ould beeffected,lthoughby sacrificingo much customary agueness,ambiguity, ndefiniteness,tc., as would render t uselessforevery ay purposes. Against his, he oppositionmaintains hatit is onlynecessary o try nd put this programmento practicetoseethat t sa labour fSisyphusndwillnotwork: vagueness,ambiguity, tc., are inalienable properties f common-senselanguage; but for his, heprogrammeould perhapsbe carriedout; but as it is, the claim to reduce-plausible enoughprimafacie-turns out to be hollowonce the bluff s called. Yet thereason or his s still thecomparatively eak one thatwe shouldlosetoo much n the way ofnuances, ange, mpliedmeanings fwords; the feeling emains hat the hard core of meaningmight tillbe reduced ortranslated.(4) Finally, here re thedifficultiesboutdealingwith roposi-tionsabout otherminds, ommunication,tc., nthe appropriateHumeanmanner, oo familiar obe repeated; which heoreticallyleaves open the possibility f the programme dvanced byBerkeleywhereby henomenalism orks for material objectsand breaksdownonly n the caseofpersons.The above is a characteristic election fromthe, by nowtraditional, rray of.anti-phenomenalistrguments. I shouldlike to suggest hat,formidablend indeedfatalas someofthemmay be, they are usually so formulated s to convey a mis-leading impression, or despite their anti-phenomenalistirthey are all in effect o much concealed pro-phenomenalistpropaganda. The suggestionmplicit n all these criticismssthat,while hephenomenalistoal s and mustbe striven owards-for the alternative s a metaphvsicalmorass-the pDarticular1VideMr.D. G. C. Macnabb loc.cit.).


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EMPIRICAL PROPOSITIONS 295avenues thus far offered y phenomenalists re unfortunatelyblockedby various ypesof ogicalor epistemologicalbstacles:in otherwordsthat some such operation s desperately eededif we are ever to eliminate nverifiabler indescribable ntities,but that the techniques ffered y variousphilosophers ave all,so far, roken own. Thisposition s notunlike he ituationwithregardto say Fermat's theorem: what the theorem sserts sconsidereds being ery ikely rue, t anyratenot demonstrablyfallacious, nd in any case as beingthe kind of assertionwhichshould be capable of demonstration r refutation y normalmathematical echniques. Similarly ll phenomenalist pera-tionsso far conductedhave indeed ended n failure; butthey,and only hey, re the kindofprocesseswhich an, n principle, eapplied. Some kindofphenomenalistnalysismust be correct,forthe only alternative s a return o Locke, or Descartes, orKant, and that, n this enlightenedge, s surely ot a thinkablecourse.This is the bogey used to drive philosophers ack to makeyet another gallant attempt to break out of the impasse-to find 'viable ' translationnto the sense datumlanguage.The impression onveyed throughout, ossibly because of afaulty heory fmeaning nd truth, s that phenomenalisms,after ll,theonlypossiblevalidview,besetthoughtmaybe bygrave objections and exaggerations: the problem s one oftechnical kill: onceit is reformulatedith ufficientngenuitythe problemwill be solved, or dissolved. My thesis is thatphenomenalisms not even prirma acie plausible-let aloneindispensable,nd minor mprovements,.e. tinkering,annotmake tmore o. Instead,therefore,f re-examiningheall toofamiliar urrent bjections o phenomenalism,nd the answersto them, should ike to suggest hat it mightbe valuabletotryto findoutwhat t is that makescommon ense so uncom-fortable-in orderto see whether his discomforts merelypsychological, and perhaps due to the relatively ccidentalproperties f ordinary anguage, or whether t is a symptomofsomefatal defectnthe theory.

IIWhat common ense,fromDr. Johnson nwards, inds ara-doxical n all phenomenalistnalyses, s, I believe, his: I say,There is a brown able in the next room. This, I am told,should meana set or range of propositions f the type, If ' anormalobserver were to go next door and look,he would, n


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296 I. BERLIN:normal ight,othernormalconditions, tc., see suchand suchbrown-colouredata, etc. I say, But supposing o onegoesnextdoor,whathavewethen Is the podosis alse Are hereno browndata and no table ?' I am told, Of coursenot.Nothingregarding he consequentfollowsfromdenyingtheantecedent. In a sense,nothing ollows t all. It stillremainstrue jiat f omeoneooked, tc.,he would ee browndata, etc.I acceptall this and remaindissatisfied. f I believethat therewas in pre-historicalimesa land bridgebetweenAfrica ndAmerica, hen agree-and possibly his sanalytic-that f herehadbeen an observert thattime uitably laced,he wouldhaveseenthe andbridge ra portion f t. But I maywish o assertthat, nfact,no such observer xisted, nd that the land bridgewasneverthelesshere,whether rnotthis s true. What thinkcommonense and Professor . F. Stoutwishto say is thatthequestion fthe existence f the land bridge, ike the existenceof thetable next door, is one thing, nd the questionof thepresenceor absence,even hypothetically,f an observer, sanother. The statement hatif therehad been (and therewasnot), any observer,he would have observed and no one didobserve), ertaindata, seems othemnot equivalent o assertingthepast existence fmaterial bjects. Categorical ropositionsabout material objects are replaced by unfulfilled counter-factual hypothetical ropositionsbout observers,nd whattroubles he plainman is thethought hat fthe hypotheticalsareunfulfilled,fno observerswere n factobserving,hen fthephenomenalistnalysis s correct,herewas-in a sensedatumsense-nothing tall,and,moreover,hatthis ense f existenceis basic: because the allegedmaterial bjectsense n which henon-existencefactual sensedataneverthelessan be 'translatedinto the existence fmaterial bjects, snot a sense nwhich heword exist' is commonlynderstood. If he isthen old thattosay therewas a material bject-the land bridgen pre-historictimes-is to say somethingbout data therewouldhave beenif . . . he feels cheated. For these data appear to dependonthe activity fobservers;sothatthematerial bjectbecomesanalysed nto a seriesof eitherpurelyhypothetical,.e. non-existent, rat best, ntermittentata occurringnd disappearingas theobserver bserves nd ceasesto observe. Andthis seemsempirically differenticture f the world from that whichhe startedby believing; and in no sensemerely descriptionoftheoldpicture houghn differentords.I shall to try to make this clearer. To analyse materialobjects in termsof the hypothetical ata of observers s, in


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EMPIRICAL PROPOSITIONS 297effect,o turn he statementsbout them nto statementsboutthe dispositional characteristics f observers. The tablenext doorexists , on thisview view meansthat youor I orX,who are in this room, re possible or potentialtable-dataob-servers. This asserts he existence f a dispositional haracter-istic; but dispositional haracteristicsre so called in order ocontrast them with non-dispositional haracteristics, hegrammar of which s rightly aid to be different. f I ask,Does he look much the same when he is asleep? that it aplain, empirical uestion, he answer owhich an be discoveredby ordinary mpiricalmeans, i.e. by looking. But if I ask,Is he clever venwhenhe is asleep? this ounds uitewrong-I am rightlyold that I evidently o not understand owtheword clever is commonly sed; surely, am told, o saythatsomeone s clever s to say something f the following ort:that fcertain orts fquestions re putto him,hewilleasily ndcorrectly nswer hem,or that he graspscertain ypesof dataand makes inferences rom hem moresuccessfully han mostpeople, and so on. When he is asleep,these conditions o notoccur nd thequestion s thereforenappropriateo thesituation.How does all this apply to the table nextdoor ? The assertionthat there s a table nextdoor s made equivalentto what theobserverwould ee fhe ooked, tc., .e. a collection fhypotheti-cal, i.e. dispositional-causal ropositions bout the observer;but when the causes do not materialise, either, s a rule, dotheir ffects,nd whenneither xists, here s a gap in the seriesof sense datumevents. We accept thisquite naturally n thecase of normaldispositional haracteristics: X is irritableis compatiblewith, indeed it is compatibleonly with, Hefliesntotempers n slight rovocation, r sometimes hen hereisnoprovocationt all, i.e. at other imes here re nobursts ftemper, o continuing eal substratum-there oes not literallyexist, n the ordinary ense of exist , something alled po-tential rritationoing on like volcanicactivity nderneath hesurface; we do speak of unconscious r suppressed rritation,butto take this iterallys to confusewordswith hings, o con-fusethemythology f psycho-analysis iththe furnituref therealworld, o fall nto Locke's errors. But if say, The tableis next door (or 'the table has a back to it,' or ' the table washeretwo hours ago') even with no one looking, do I mean,There re table-datawhenevereople ook; but at other imes,whenno one is looking,nothing t all ? This is preciselywhat common ense does not believe to be true about tables.Common enseendows hemwith actual', i.e. non-dispositional


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298 I. BERLIN:characteristicsn the absence of observers. The table is seenintermittentlyr not at all: the intermittentresence r non-existence fobserverss a part of the ntermittentrunrealisedseries of causes or conditions f its being seen; but it-thetable-is assumed to have some characteristicsontinuously;it differs rom rritability recisely n this respect-that un-like irritability t is believed to exist continuously n theliteral sense when thereare no intermittentata, no glancesdirected t the table. To analysematerial bjectstatements sstatementsabout dispositionalcharacteristics f observers,therefore,s to representhe material bject as being, t most,an intermittenteriesof actual data with the gaps filledbyhypotheticalnon-actualised entities,.e. in the sense datumsense,bynothing t all. This,for ommon ense, s tantamountto destroyinghecontinuityf thetable-its history efore ndafter t is observed, ts unseenportion, ts presencenext door.Of course,phenomenalists toutlyand indignantly enouncethis conclusion s a confusion f two senses of ' existence,a crudemisunderstandingf the verynotion f ogicalconstruc-tions. Tables,wemight e answered,re ogical onstructionssirritabilitys : in both cases, the essential ask is to eliminateLocke's substratum nd to substituteor t a set of ntermittentand hypothetical ata. Theunobserved able,or ts unobservedback, continue o be as someone's rritabilityontinues o be.Yet common ensedoesnotraisedifficultiesfthis ype bouttheanalysisof rritability; t acceptseasilyenough hat rritabilitydoesnot exist n the same sense as an actual burst ftemperssaid to do,that to speakof rritabilitys to use a kind of short-handfor complex f causal lawsand observation ropositions.But when say, Thereexists a table suchas you describe ,am I really aying hatit exists n the same senseof 'exists'as someone's rritable emper Some characteristicsf tablesmay, of course,genuinelybe describedas dispositional) .e.in speaking f them, am referringo certain ausal laws andhypotheticalr ntermittentata-e.g. when say a table s com-bustible ruseful r expensive. But thisonlymeans omethingby contrastwith hoseproperties fthe table which re notdis-positional, nd perhaps, good many ntermediate ropertieswhichwe donot hink feither s definitelyispositional r defin-itely actual . The suggestion hat every haracteristicf thetable smerely ossible r ntermittentr depends ndispositionsof observers-that everythings dispositional, othing ctual-is exactlywhat common ense and Dr. Johnson evolt gainst,not sbeing ntrue, utas coming loseto beingmeaningless,nd


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EMPIRICAL PROPOSITIONS 299certainly s suspiciouslypproaching omekind of solipsism-and one not veryeasy to describe n empirical or any otherintelligible)anguage.What common sense dislikes is precisely he crucial roleplayedby hypotheticalsn the phenomenalistnalysis, nd itseems ome to display sound nstinctn so doing.For this is the centralpoint of this entire ssue: that thetranslationf ategoricalxistentialtatementsntohypotheticals(ofwhatever level ). is 'a dangerous peration nd cannotbeleft to the mechanical perationof 'syntactical' rules becausedifferentypes f entence ohavecertain ormal ses nordinarylanguage-at any rate in most modernEuropean languages-which we ignore t our peril; Humpty-Dumpty's ominalismgoestoofar: words resometimesmastersfweare tocommuni-cate without erpetualrecourse o redefinition.e. ifwe are tocommunicatet all; and as weusewords, ategoricalentences,on the whole,tend to conveythat the object referredo hasoccurred r is occurring r will occurin time; existed, s inexistence,will exist; theyhave a non-descriptive,xistential,ostensive lement; they eemto inviteus to look for heentitythey urportobeabout, ndonlywhen here snone uch nanynormal ense, .g. n the case of a sentence ike, Bad tempersunattractive, do we avoid pseudo-problemsy turning o thehypotheticalmode ofexpressions the morenatural, s likelyto elucidatewhat is beingasserted n wordsbetter dapted toexpressingt. Existential ropositionsxpressedategorically-in indicative entences-tend, s it were, to point towardstheir objects' ; and demonstratives hichappear in exist-ential propositions,ike, this is , there is , here wehave , etc., oftenfunction s substitutesfor such acts ofpointing o thingsor personsor processes. The characteristicforce fthecategoricalmodeof expressions often xactly his--that it acts in lieu of a gesture, fan 'act ofostension, Hereis thebook I say to someoneooking or t, orI couldpoint toit and say, The book , and conveyroughly he same infor-mationby bothmethods. But hypotheticals ormally o theopposite f his. Hypotheticals, hateverheydescribe rmean,whatever hey ntailorconvey r evince, nwhateverwaytheyareverifiedrfailto be verified, o not s a general uledirectlyassert hatsomething as been, s being, r willbe occurring,rexisting, r beingcharacterisedn someway: this is preciselythe force f the conditionalmood,and it is realisationofthiswhichprobably ed Ramsey,forexample, o assert that causalpropositions erenotdescriptive t all,but commands r rules.


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300 I. BERLIN:Ramsey'sanalysiscan easilybe shownto be unsatisfactory,since it seemsto rest on a fatallyfalse view of the natureofmeaning; but thefeelingwhich edhim o so strong separationof general and hypothetical ormsof expressionfrom,say,singularcategoricalsentences,did not altogether-ead himastray. For this gulfdoesdividecategoricalsnd hypotheticalsin ournormal sage: whereas hefirst s normally sedto des-cribethe furnituref the world what is, was or willbe-thesecond s not; consequently, heneve'r categoricalindicative)form f expressions used,often uite idiomatically,o conveysomethingther hanwhat s, or was,or will be, it is easily ndwithout esistance nthepartofcommonense,replaceable yahypotheticalconditional) entence-as in thecase of ndicativesentences eferringirectlyr ndirectlyodispositions,rgeneralpropositionsf the all, every, ny type. But eventhis s inneed ofa significantualification. If thegeneral erms re soused as to suggestthat they possess extensionof any kind,the hypotheticalorms felt o be to thatextentnsufficient,nd-categorical xpressions re requiredto complete he analysis.Thus, Anyonewhowas there t threeo'clocksawthemeteorfall , becauseit is compatiblewith, Andno one in factwascan be translatednto, If anyonewasthere, rhad beenthere,etc., henhe saw,orwouldhave seen,etc. ; whereas, He gaveawayhisbooks oanyonewho skedfor hem , is notequivalentto, If anyone sked for,had askedfor, tc.,hisbookshe was,orwouldhave beengiven, tc. , butneeds naddition, andsomepersons id ask . It seems uiteclear hat n this ast nstanceconditional r hypotheticalentenceby itself ells us nothingabout whatin fact happened, nd an indicative r categoricalone is thereforeequired yordinary sageto convey existen-tial import -to refer o actual eventswhichare believedtohave takenplace.All thismayseem ltogetheroo trite ndobvious, utthere sa corollary hichs evidentlyessobvious,namely, hatno directtranslation rom ategoricalsntohypotheticalss, as a generalrule, and as our language s to-dayordinarily sed, a correctanalysisof,or substitute orthem. And this seemsto me todestroy ne of theindispensable oundationsfphenomenalism.For it is thissenseofthe llicit ubstitutionfhypotheticalsorcategoricalswhich s responsible orthe obscurefeeling n thepartof common ense hatsomething-anersatzntity-is beingpalmed offupon it by phenomenalists.Such a categoricalexistentialmaterial bject entence s, Thetable s nextdoor ,or There s a table next door , is used at the very eastto


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EMPIRICAL PROPOSITIONS 301describesomethingwhich s occurring r being characterisedat the time of speaking, ogether perhaps)withsome sortofprediction and whathas been called retrodiction)bout whathas been or will be occurring r being characterised uringunspecifiederiods f imebefore nd after heperiod f peaking;and being characterised r occurring, nless the contrary sspecificallytated r mplied, ot ntermittentlyutcontinuously,and n any casenot hypothetically'. For to say thatsomethingis occurring ypotheticallys a veryartificial nd misleadingwayofsaying hatit is not, n theordinaryense,occurringtall, but might r wouldoccur f conditionswere realisedwhichin their turn may or may not be realised. Consequently,whatever ommon ensemaymeanby the sentence, There sa tablenextdoor , it cannot ccept s fully quivalentnmeaninganysentence otassertinghatsomethingsnow,or hasbeen,orwillbe, occurringr beingcharacterised.It maywell be thatcategoricals ystematically ntail corresponding ypotheticals(or disjunctive etsofsuch)-that the proposition, The tableis nextdoornow insome enseentails hat feither bserverorobserver orC,etc. were ogonextdoor, ne or other f hemcouldsee ortouch uch ndsuchdata,: for nvisible r ntangibletables are not what we normallymeanby 'table '. Likewise,it maybe thathypotheticalsn some casesmaybe said either oentail,orelse to state conditions or he truth f,or else suffic-iently ustify the assertionof categoricals; in otherwords,thatif t is true hata normal bserveri.e. one freefrom allu-cinations, tc.), sees, or has seen,or will see, or wouldsee, orwouldhave seen,certain ata,under heappropriate onditions;it follows eductivelynd not inductivelyhatthere s a tablenextdoor. Somethingikethismaybe correct,nd perhaps hisis all that the phenomenalist equiresas against Locke's in-sensible ubstance, r attenuatedversions f it, such as ' phy-sical occupants.' For it is clearthat f am to explainunderwhat circumstances shouldnormally ssertmaterial objectsentences, can do so only by invokinghypothetical bserversand theircognitive tates: if I am calleduponto describe heconditionsnwhich uch nd suchsentences reappropriate,henI cannotfail to make use of hypotheticals. But to describe

1And this is, without doubt, the gieat historical service of pheno-menalism-that formore than two centuries t has been pressinghome theparadoxical consequences of simultaneously holding both that materialobjects, iftheyexist, must possess certain characteristics althoughnoone has been able to identify hemat all clearly)whichcannot, n principle,be empiricallyobserved,and that these are among the characteristicswithwhich the natural sciences necessarilydeal.


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302 I. BERLIN:conditions n whichalone I should be inclinedto enunciatesentence is certainlynot equivalent to giving its meaning.For my point is that the hypothetical ense datum sentencecannot be equivalent to, or an analysis of, a material objectsentence f thehypotheticalsense datum) sentence sserts nlywhat would be, while the materialobject sentence ometimesassertswhatoccurs, ccurred, r will occur n the world. Ex-istentialpropositions bout material bjects assertwhat s, wasor willbe, andnot whatmight e. Stouthad every eason o besuspicious of the description f the material world in suchdubious termsas, The permanent ossibility f sensationbecause howevermodifiednd- efined,t both suggests kind ofpermanentgrid-like world framework nd denies it. Dr.Johnson'swell known ttitudedoes not, after ll, rest on sucha very grossmisunderstanding. hat is the heart of the caseagainst phenomenalism.But whatprecisely,tmay be asked, s it that such categoricalexistentialsentences do that hypothetical nes fail to do ?Certainly wish to avoid sayingthat the former escribe hefactswhilethe latterdo not,sincethe unhappy erm facthas been used in too manydifferentensesto be illuminatingin thisconnextion. Nordo I wishto assertthathypotheticalsand categoricals re never interchangeablend are mutuallyexclusive-as iftheforms fpropositionsould be distinguishedinto natural kinds correspondingo 'ontological' or Kantiancategories,r ultimategrooves n reality'. But I do suggestthat systematic ifferencesn verbal form re oftenpointers odifferencesn meaningwhich t is importantnot to obscure.Hence, as a tentativeway of putting t, I submit hat thosecategorical ropositions hichwe seemto be unableto 'reduce'to other ogicalformswithout oing pparentviolence onormalusage,tendto direct ttention o-invite us to lookfor-thingsand events n a wayin which therkindsofexpressions o not.This is feltmostclearlyabout expressions ontaining emon-stratives ike 'this ', or ' that , or ' here', but appliesno lessto existential propositionswithout demonstrativeswhichidentify omethingn the time series. In the case of objectswithsomeor all ofwhichwe claimto be acquainted by somekind of direct nspection, his relation-which forwant of abetterwordI proposeto call 'pointing-can literally ccur:indeclaringhata particularable sherebeforeme,a particularsound is now growing ouder,a particulardoubt is nowtor-mentingme, I am pointing t, directingyour attention o,somethingwith whichI am directly cquainted,an event or


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EMPIRICAL P-ROPOSITIONS 303a thing. But if I say, The table is next door , Thecupboardhas a woodenback whichyoucannot ee , Napoleonwore a three corneredhat , Napoleon felt a twinge ofremorsebefore he battle , I cannot, of course,n the literalsense be said to be acquainted with, or point at, a thingor event, for it is, in the ordinarysense of the words,notpresent, othere,not beforeme,not withinmyken. Andthis s perhapswhat ends suchplausibilitys it seemsto haveto the phenomenalist rocedureof offeringme hypotheticalsintended both to describeunobservedcharacteristicsnd toindicatemethods fobserving,.e. in somesenseverifyinghem.But thiswill not do, for whereas he differenceetweencate-goricals and hypotheticals s one of logical form,whethersyntactical r semantic, he differenceetweenbeingable andnot beingable to observe given object is empirical r causal.I cannotpointto thetable nextdoor,or at a pointbeneath tssurface, ecause it is invisible: there s theintervening all orsurfacewhichmakesthisact unhelpful. In saying There s atable next door , I am,as it were, rying o refer o the tablethrough hewall orto the back or nsideofthe tableas if twerenot concealedbutbeforeme, nmy ensefield. If the wallbecomestransparent he relevant differenceetween he tablehere,n front fme,and the furtherablenextdoordisappears,forthe onlyrelevantdifferenceetween he two typesof caseis that I was originallyn a betterposition n space (or time)to describe he table in front fme. Theremaybe importantsemanticdifferences,.g. in learningthe use of symbolsforpresent, s opposed to absent, entities,'but there s no logicaldifferenceetweendividing entenceswhichdescribe hings nmy fieldofvision from hose whichdescribe hings eyond hehorizon.The kind of communicationwhich a demonstrative, ate-gorical entence,whichpurportso be true, eeksto performnrespect f unobservedbjectsand events,may failto achieve tsobject n at leastone of twoways: theentitymay not exist orpossessthe characteristicsn termsof which t is denoted; orthe failuremaybe due to somedefectn my technique-if therelevantentity s not, for whatever eason, recognised y myaudience; my efforto communicates thwarted, ut only bysuch empirical ircumstances s physicalwalls, or the shape ofthe earth, rthe limitations fmysensesor magination, r thedate ofmybirth; thwarted y that and not by somethingn-curablyhypothetical, on-existentialbout the sentence tself.1 owethispoint o Dr. F. Waismann.


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304 I. BERLIN:Let me give an example: when say that Napoleon woreathree-corneredat,or that on the eveningbefore he battleofBorodino ehad a twinge f remorse, do not mean thoughhisis not strictly elevant o the argument) hat one man and oneman onlywas called Napoleon, nd who everwas so called worea three-corneredat, or had a twinge f remorse. Propernamesare not usuallymeredefiniteescriptions. My use of thewordNapoleon is, amongother hings, substitute or wave ofthehand,an inclination fthehead,etc. because cannotpointin a literal ense, fonlybecauseI was borntoo late; and thisis ultimatelyn empirical bstacle ikethe wallofa room r thenatureof ightorthestructuref mybrain. I am nviting outo directyourattention o Napoleonor to physicalor mentaleventsnhishistoryndtheres a non-descriptivendexistentialforce n my use of the relevant words-and in particularofpropernames-because I suggest r believe or know that sucheventshave happened-that theyare part of the collection fwhat was and is and will be. Certain types of categoricalsentencesn thiswaydirect ttention o things ndeventswhichthereforere takento exist whether r not theyare observed.The factthattheyare in some sensecapable of beingdirectlyobserved,or verified, r their existencesupportedby sensedatumevidence,maybe partof themeaningof such conceptsas thing or event , but it is not what is assertedwhenI saythattheyoccurhereornow,orhavesuch nd such charac-teristics; and the reason forthis is that the hypotheticalswhich am beingofferedn exchangeforcategoricals o not,even misleadinglynd fatally, nviteanyone except t seems,some philosophers)o look forany thing or event in thetime series. Whatever s being assertedby, If it rains, Ishall take my umbrella , or If Hitler had not wanted t,therewould have beenno war it will not be found n the n-ventory fevents,nthehistorical nnalsof heactualworld, oram I underany impressionhat I a,mbeing nvited o lookforany suchentity. (Only philosophers avegoneto thelength fsearchingor r nventing ntologicalreferendsofhypotheticalpropositions.) Hypothetical entences o, ofcourse, ikeotherempirical xpressions,nvolvethe use ofwordswhich, o haveany meaning,must themselves e capable ofoccurringn trueostensivesentenceswhich do in some sense 'point -wordslike rain , or umbrella , or Hitler but in themselveshypotheticalso not point' ; otherwiseheywouldceaseto behypothetical,heywould ose theirconditional, on-actual-fact-asserting orce.


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EMPIRICAL PROPOSITIONS 305At thispoint a criticmight ay (as Professor . J. Ayerdidsaytome ndiscussion),omethingike his: You restyour ase

onthegenerally eltdistinctiontetweenwhat sdispositionalndwhat s non-dispositionaln thematerialworld,nd saythatthelattercannotbe described y hypotheticals,s theformeran,without oingviolence onormal sage. But this s notso. Inthefirst lace,manyexpressions hich onotseemdispositionalat first,urnout tobe so onfurthernalysis: for xample, fwesay that the table is heavy and sixfeet ong, hatseems t firstcategorical nough, ut ofcourseheavy ' means if weighed c-cording o a recognisedechnique, he nstrumentillrecordtc.'and ' six feet ong referso thepossible pplicationfa ruler ndsoforth:these pparently ategoricaltatementsurn ut, here-fore, o needtranslationntohypotheticalsomake themclear:fromwhich t follows hat thecategorical orm fstatement yitselfgivesno sortof ndication fhowsentencesmean . Butthis rgumentstablishesessthan tappears odo. I shouldnotdreamof maintaining hat verbal or grammatical orm s aninfallible uide to logicalform,.e. kinds ofways n which en-tencesmean. Indeed,that is thewholepointofexposing hethe dispositional haracterof expressionswhichprimafacieappear non-dispositional.But because someor many categor-icals are in thissenseconcealedhypotheticalsi.e.theirmeaningismadeclearer, rcertainrrorsreprevented, ythesubstitutionofhypotheticals) ecause language s flexible nd the frontiersshiftingnd vague, it cannotfollow hat the distinction oesnotexist at all, thatthefrontiersre invisible-for fthat wereso, suchwords as dispositional and hypothetical, (therebeingnothingwith which o contrast hem)would not signifyanything t all. And this is not what phenomenalists rdefenders f the theoryof logical constructions,f theirownwords are to meananything,want to say. At thispointthecriticmay say: But thisis a sheer ravesty fmy position.Of course do not wishto blurthe usefuldistinction etweenhypotheticalsnd categoricals. What I am assertings thatalldescriptivetatements an in principle e translatednto sensedatum language: all materialobject statementswill be trans-posed intohypotheticaltatements boutsensedata, and theseare what they are by contrastwith the onlytrueultimate,irreducible ategoricals,hosedescribingomeone's ctual senseexperiences:e.g.Russell'sbasicpropositions,arnap'sprotocolsentences, tc. Asforyourdistinctionetween ispositionalndnon-dispositionalharacteristicsf material bjects,or betweenhypothetical nd categorical tatements s appliedto material

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306 I. BERLIN:objects, he sensedatum anguage sperfectly ellabletorepro-duce t in its ownterminology: ategoricalmaterial bject tate-mentswill be translated nto hypotheticalsbout sensedata;hypotheticalsboutmaterial bjectswillberenderedyhypothet-icals abouthypotheticals: thusto saythata giventable looksbrown s to say somethingbout thedispositionsfcertain b-servers; to saythat t isfragilesto saysomethingboutthedis-positions fdispositionsf hese ameobservers; hedistinctionsone ofdegree fcomplexityfhypotheticals;but the wholepyr-amid of hem nlyhas descriptiveorcefthey reabout-if theirultimate ubject s-the actual data of actual observers boutwhich all material object sentences,whethercategoricalorhypothetical,re in the end,hypotheses rtheories. For whatelse is there n theworldbutwhatpeoplesee and hear and im-agine and do and suffer We arethere t last: thisreally swhatphenomenalismoilsdown to: that the only rreduciblycategoricalpropositions, y contrastwith which alone hypo-theticals are what they are, are statements bout immediateexperience,apable ofdirect,trong, knock-down verification.These are basic. All else is theory nd speculation bout theirbehaviourand incidence. We have returned o the many-tiered ogicalconstructions,ith materialobjectsand perhapstheirmore obviouscausal propertiesn the floorsmmediatelyabove the basic groundfloor or should t be basement )and the upper levels occupiedby positrons,nerve impulses,super-egos,nd possiblyvectors nd non-Euclidean paces andnumbersoo,aswell s theZeitgeist,nd theBritish onstitutionandthenational'character. n a sense, hisposition eems lmosttoo academic n character: ifphenomenalistsinddifficulty,nfact, n producing he sense datumequivalentsof even plaincategoricalmaterialobject statements,heirclaim to producetwoormore toreys f uch-simplehypotheticalsndover heserows of complex ones-hypotheticals about hypotheticals-seemssomewhat nreal; but even if we do not pressfor ashin the formof basic sentences gainstphenomenalistheques(as beingunfair nd against the spirit of the conventions nuseof anguage) heargumenttillremains allacious. Forwhatthisviewcomesto is thatmaterial bjectsentences-includingexistential nes-are so manygeneral ropositionsrhypothesesor theories bout the behaviourof sense data. And this isprecisely hatcommonense finds o repugnant. For a generalpropositionrtheorymaybe interpretedurelyntensionally-i.e. irrespective f whetheror not instances of the concepts,involved n factoccur; whereas uch a sentence s, The table


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EMPIRICAL PROPOSITIONS 307next door s brown is existential nd as such has extensionalimport, nd assertsthat somethings occurringn a sense inwhichgeneralor hypothetical ropositions roperdo not nor-mallyassert nything f this sort; if such generalpropositionsare taken extensionallys wellas intensionally,.e. ifgeneralpropositions bout sense data are to be understood o assertmorethan a mere ogicalor causal nexusbetween he possibleexperiencesof possible observers,namely,the existenceoroccurrence f something r otherwhichthe nexus connects,then, o performhistask,unsensed ensa or sensibiliamust beintroduced: and these are rightly s much taboo to pheno-menalists s Lockean substancesor physicaloccupants, nd agood deal odder in character. The point is that existentialmaterial object propositionsdirectlyassert that somethingexists n a sense n which heories rhypotheses o notdirectlyassertthis. One can bringout thispointmostsharply at thecost of someexaggeration) y asserting aldlythatall theories,hypotheses, eneral nd hypothetical ropositions,tc., maybetrue ndyetnothingxist tall; for f heprotasesreunfulfilled,theapodoseshave no application; whereas hepropositionhatsome existentialmaterial object propositions re true is notcompatiblewith the proposition hat nothingexists at all.'What thisover-simple aradoxservesto bringout is thattheessenceof hypothetical r conditional entences s to be in apeculiar way non-commital-in he sense n which, et us say,singular (empirical)existentialcategoricalsnormallycommitthe speakerto somethingwhich n principle an be directlyverified.Now it is notoriously mpossibledirectly o verifyunfulfilledonditionals: butall conditionalsmustentail at leastone such unfulfilledonditional,ndconsequentlynthisrespectcannotbe equivalent o statementssserting nlywhat sdirectlyverifiabley an act of observation. Existential ategoricals nthe otherhand,commit s becausetheresnormallyn ostensive(pointing) ropertybout existential ategoricalmaterial bjectpropositions.21This is, of course,not literally rue, incetheoriespresuppose heexistence ftheorists ithall thattheyneedby the way of a universein order ofix he grammar'oftheirwords, ut this s not partofwhatthetheorieshemselvesssert, or s it logically ntailed y them.2 It may be worth dding hatsuchdemonstrativess there s orthis is are seldom mployedo refer o sensedata -for that s atermwhich s rarely f use in ordinary xperience,nd is moreproperlyapplicable o that aspectofthingswhich oncernhysiologistsr oculistsor mpressionistainters, nd is useful reciselyecause t contrasts hatwhichnterestshese pecialists-purelyensuous ualities-withmaterialobjects-things-thefurniturefordinaryife.


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308 I. BERLIN:The same pointmay be broughtout in yet anotherway.

According o the phenomenalistnalysis,sentencesdescribingmaterialobjects will differn logical type accordingto thepresencetomy senses)or the absenceofthe object n question.If it is present, am saidtobe acquaintedwith ctualseendata,and mysentences at least partially nalysable nto rreduciblycategorical basic ) propositions: f t is absent, t is whollyanalysable nto hypotheticals.But this s surelynot the case:if say thatthere s a brown,wooden able n thisroom, can,ifI like, go on to say thatamongthe propositions hich canassertofit, some are obviously ategorical,omeplainlyhypo-thetical: some perhapsof neitherkind, and then it cannotmakea logicaldifference,.e. a differencef principle,whetherthe table s beforeme ntheroom, rhidden ehind wall: what-everis hypotheticallyrue, .e. dispositional,boutthe presenttable or ts visible ortion)s doubtless quallyhypotheticaldis-positional) boutthe onenextdoor or itsvisibleportion): butwhatever s categorical bout thefirsts categorical bout theother-absent one-too. The actual steps which am obligedto take n order o verifyropositionsbouta given able will, fcourse, arywith ircumstances:fthetable smovedout ofmyken,or someoneblindfoldsme,I cannotdo whatI couldhavedonehad thisnothappened; but themeaning fthe sentencewhich utter, oesnot alterwith hemovementsf the tableorthecondition fmy eyes: themeaning fthe sentence, Thereis a browntable in my study , does not swingforwardsndbackwardsfrompartially categoricalto whollyhypotheticalas I movearound t,or saw it in half, rwalk n and out ofmystudy, rthewallsofmy tudy hange rompaque totransparentand neither oes it wholly onsist f a cluster fhypotheticalscompatible iftheir antecedents re unfulfilled) ith the non-existenceof any experienceswhatever. Perhaps we now seemoreclearly he confusion romwhich hese odd consequencesspring: namely heconfoundingfthe meaning fwhat we aresayingwith hevarying onditions nderwhichwe feel nclinedto sayit.

IIIAt thispoint, ome uneasinessmaybe felt boutthe attribu-tion to our language of a capacityto 'point to objectsinabsence-as if the transition rompointing o objectsdirectlyperceived o thissemi-metaphoricalenseofpointing,may notbe quite egitimate. It is here hatthephenomenalist aywish


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EMPIRICAL PROPOSITIONS 309to playone ofhis strongest ards,forone of the mosttemptingadvantages whichhis theory ppears to offers that by sub-stitutingogical onstructionsornferredntities, e promisesodescribeheworld olely n terms ftheso called data of mmed-iate acquaintance. He undertakes,n effect,o describe very-thingbymeansoflogical or linguistic ules, ncluding ulesforthe use ofconditional articiplesike if and providedhat ,and otherwiseonfine imselfolely o what we can directlyndliterally ointto in our everyday xperience. And to speakofthe ostensivefunction f a sentencewhichpurports o pointtowards, irect ttention o something-the able-real enough,indeed, but not hereand not now,something nobserved, .e.outside hefield f direct cquaintance-is thisnot to gobeyondandagainst heprinciple fnot mportingnfamiliarnddubiousentities, o contravene he rule ofthedefinabilitystensivelyfall empirical erms Arewenot ntroducingomethingot metwith faceto face,not directly erifiable,nd consequently otdirectlyescriptive,erhaps ltogetheron-empirical?And thismayat first nnerve hestrict mpiricist;buthis anxietieswillbe groundless. For thenotion f not here , notobservedmust nanycasebe introducednto anguage eeking o describetheworld ooner r ater, nd how his saccomplisheds a psycho-logicalrather hanan epistemologicaluestion. It is onething oadmit hatwhatevernone'sdescriptiveanguage snotgovernedbysyntactical ulesmustbe capableofostensivelucidation: ndavery ifferentneto saythat maynotreferoanythingnlesscanestablish hemeaning fthevariables fmy anguagentermsofwhat amactually xperiencing ere ndnow; if adopt thelatter rinciple, becomeunabletorefer o thepast or thefutureorto theexperiencesfothers oexplain here and now andobserved yme , and so on-that way iesthe kindofverifica-tiontheory fmeaningwhichhas more hanoncebeen shown olead to an extravagantlyolipsist nalysis of the meanings fwords, ending literally n nonsense. The meaning of suchbasic words s here , CC now ', observed , depend ntheexistence f n equally basic usefor nothere , c notnow ,not observed in contrastwithwhichalone the meaningsof here now , etc.,can be established. There s no needto go on withthis ineofargument-such omparatively rimi-tive notions s not now , or beyondthe horizon , cannotbe constructedwithout ircularityut of ensefields ccurringin speciouspresents ; butwithout uchnotions lassification,and thereforeanguage, n the ordinary ense, s demonstrablyimpossible. Hence, this kind of objectionto the possibility


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310 I. BERLIN:in principle f pointing o objects in absence cannot be con-sidered seriously, or it rests on the assumption ultimatelyperhapstraceable to Aristotle's octrine f actual v. potentialbeing)that what s notheredoes not exist n thesame senseof' exist' as that which s here, which rules out all possibilityof descriptive ymbolism. For what exists but is not here,exists and is not here, n exactly the same sense of 'exists'as what is-does exist-here. Withoutthis, all wordswouldlose theirfunction fdiscrimiratingnd classifying.

IVThere re twofinal oints o be made. (1) Supposing omeonewere to ask, But how can we say anything bout the tableapart from he hypotheticalentences escribingwhat an ob-serverwouldsee ifhe walkedround t, etc. ? Is the table roundor oval, darkor lightbrown, ightorheavy? Surely he sensedatumschool ofphilosophy,f it has establishednothing lse,has made it clear beyond any doubt that thesepropertiesnsomesensedepend on the observer,his physical position,hisphysiologicaland psychological condition, etc. Surely theargument rom llusion,forexample,cannotbe dismissed sshowingnothing t all because of logical considerationsf howdifferentypesof entencesreused? Does thegramophone laytunes n a desert, r to an audiencewhich s stonedeaf? Howdoes the view advanced here differ rom he most untenablynaiveofall forms f naiverealism This rejoinder estson aserious ndimportant onfusion hichmay n part be responsiblefor hedesperate eelinghatonlyphenomenalisman somehow,in the end, be true. The theories dvanced by physiologists,say about the indispensability f the mechanism f the ear tothe hearingof sounds are empirical heories, orroborated yobservational ndnot inguistic ests: and to say,therefore,hattheoccurrencefa particular indofhearer sto assert causal,i.e. empirical, nd not semanticor logical proposition. I amsaying hattheeventdescribed s the hearing f soundemittedby a gramophone ependson certainnecessary onditions, ndamongst hese he structurefthe hearer's rainor ear occurs nthesamesortofway as, letus say,thephysical roperties ftheneedle ttached o the soundbox ofthe gramophone. But whenI analyse propositions bout the meaning of sentences, amcertainlynot asserting, nd need notnecessarilybe implying,propositionstating auses or conditions f he eventswhich heydescribe. Theremay verywell n particular ases exista causal


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EMPIRICAL PROPOSITIONS 311nexusbetween hepersonofthe observer nd a givenmaterialobject-what thisnexus s, it is thetask of thenatural ciencesto nvestigate. But this ausalnexus s precisely hat hepheno-menalist,1laimsnotto be discussingwhenhe offers reductionof categoricalmaterialobject sentences o hypothetical ensedatum entences-ifhewere, istheorywould mount o a queerkindofoccasionalism,metaphysicalr empirical,ccordingo hisviewofconnectionsnnature,wherebyheobserverwhofiguresin theprotasis fthephenomenalistypotheticaloulddestroya table by avertinghis gaze as surely s by setting t on fire.2When saythat a material bjectexists r has certain haracter-istics, am not, t seemsto me,committing yself ecessarilyto anyspecificheoryboutthenecessary r sufficientonditionsofthe existence r characterf theobject. Hence,thequestionofwhen, rforhowlong, hetablenextdoor s coloured rownneed not in principle ver affect he answerto the question,What do I meanwhen I say, 'There is a brown able nextdoor' ? This, of course,needs qualification: the meaningsofwordsare affected,nd oftenverydeeplyaffected, y ourexplicitor implicit ausal beliefs, nd the analysisofwhat ismeantby an expressionmayverywellreveal ll kinds fphysicalor social or psychological eliefs r assumptions revalentn agiven ociety, change nwhich ould ffecthemeaning fwords.Thedegree owhich hedispositionalharacteristicsfobservers,treated s persons n time ndspace, nterntotheway nwhichweemploymaterial bjectwordswillvarywidely: thus, t seemstomereasonably lear hatwhenwesaythatthere s a tablenextdoor,we arenotmplyingnyparticulareliefs bout thepresenceor dispositional haracteristics f the normalhumanobserver,beyond hefactthat f t is a table at all, itmustbe notwhollyinvisible,ntangibleo him, tc.-since otherwisetwouldnotbewhatwe meanbya material bject. It seems little essobviousthat canto-day aythat t s coloured rownwhennotobserved,forperhapsbynowrudimentaryhysiologicalnowledges suffi-cientlywidespread o have importednto the notion of beingcoloured certaincausal beliefsabout the effectsn the visualfield fchangesn ournervous ystem, tc. It seemsverymuchlessclear hat cansaythat roses mell weetwhenno one smellsthem,orthatwindshowl whenno onehearsthem, nd it seemsclearly eccentric o say that heard melodiesare sweet,while

1Forexample, rofessor . J. Ayer nArist. oc. Proc.,1947.2 This s oneof the notoriousbsurdities f whichBerkeleys at timesguilty,nd onwhich eginnersn philosophyre often aught o practisetheir ritical owers.


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312 I. BERLIN: EMPIRICAL PROPOSITIONSthose unheardare literally weeter. And all this is doubtlessuseful nthrowingight nournormal sagewithregard o suchwords s, smell weet , or howl , or sweetmelodies , someof whichdo,whileothersdo not, mply hepresence fpersonswith certain psychological, hysiological, tc., attributesasobservers. I ammerelyoncerned o show hat a quitesufficientnumberof materialobject sentencesdo notpresuppose uchdependence n the existence r behaviourof observers f thiskind,that therelation fobservers o material bjects s moreproperlyo be calledan empirical nd not a semantic uestion,however eeplyverbalusageand empirical eliefsmaybe inter-connected; and that consequentlyhe view that nothing anin principle e significantlyaid to occurwithout xplicit ndimplicit eferenceo observerss a majorfallacywhichrestsonfailure o distinguishetween he causal propositionsf naturalscienceor common enseand propositionsboutmeaning.I return o myoriginal ointthatphenomenalism,r at anyratethemostprevalentmodernform fit, seemsto rest on amistaken nalysis of what normalexistentialmaterialobjectstatements tate; they state that thingsor events existed,orexist,or willexist,orwere, re,or willbe, characterised y thisor that characteristic; and not that somethingmightexistor would exist,or would have existed,the truth if not theassertion) fwhich s logically ompatiblewith henon-existenceofanythingwhatever. Even ifhypotheticalropositionslonedescribe he conditionswithoutwhichwe should not assertorbe justifiednassertingherelevant ategoricals,etthemeaningoftheformers not thesameas themeaning f the atter. Andthis is so, even if we go furthernd hold,as somedo, thatthetwotypes fpropositiontrictly ntailoneanother; sincewhat-ever be the sense in whichmutualentailment s regarded stantamounto,or identicalwith, ogicalequivalence as it is bysome ogicians), tis clearlynotthe same as thesense of dentityof meaning n which woor moredescriptiveentences an besaid by common ense to mean the same; yet it is this lastsenseof meaning he same as between heanalysans nd theanalysandum, nd it alone, that the best known variantsofmodernphenomenalism eek to establishand, if the abovethesis s correct, eek n vain.OxfordUniversity

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Isaiah Berlin_Empirical Propositions and Hypothetical Statements