From 0f35a25aeda5c8d0d740ccc0badc557cc9dcfc0a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: grr <grr@lo2.org>
Date: Thu, 2 May 2024 16:45:24 -0400
Subject: break out chapters for philosophy section

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+\chapter{Philosophy Proper (\enquote{Version 3,} 1961)}
+\subsection*{Chapter 1: Introduction (Revised, 1973)}
+
+This monograph defines philosophy as such---philosophy proper---to be 
+an inquiry as to which beliefs are "true," or right. The right beliefs are 
+tentatively defined to be the beliefs one does not deceive oneself by holding. 
+Although beliefs will be regarded as mental acts, they will be identified by 
+their propositional formulations. Provisionally, beliefs may be taken as 
+corresponding to non-tautologous propositions. 
+
+Philosophy proper is an ultimate activity in the sense that no belief or 
+supposed knowledge is conceded to be above philosophical examination. It is 
+also an unavoidable activity in the sense that the notion of a belief, and the 
+notion of judging the truth of a belief, are intrinsic to common sense and the 
+natural language. Philosophers may not have achieved convincing results in 
+philosophy proper; but the question of which beliefs are right is 
+continuously posed for us even if we do not respect the way in which 
+philosophers have dealt with it. 
+
+All of the obstacles to philosophy proper arise because beliefs are 
+normally held in order to satisfy non-cognitive needs. It will be heipful to 
+examine this situation at some length. However, nothing can be done here 
+beyond examining the situation. It is already clear that the interest of this 
+monograph in beliefs is cognitive. It would be inappropriate to try to gain 
+approval for philosophy proper by appealing to the values of those who hold 
+beliefs in order to satisfy non-cognitive needs. 
+
+it is implicit in beliefs that they correspond to cognitive claims, that 
+they are subject to being judged true or false, and that their value rests on 
+their truth. Nevertheless, beliefs can and do satisfy non-cognitive needs, 
+quite apart from whether they are true. In order for a belief to satisfy some 
+non-cognitive need, it is not necessary for the belief to be true; it merely has 
+to be held. Concern with the ultimate philosophical validity of beliefs is rare. 
+Concern with beliefs is normally concern with their ability to satisfy 
+non-cognitive needs. 
+
+To be specific, the literature of credulity contains remarks such as "I
+could not stand to live if I did not believe so-and-so," or "Even if so-and-so is 
+true I don't want to know it." These remarks manifest the needs with which 
+we are concerned. To take note of these remarks is already to uncover a level 
+of self-deception. It is important to realize that this self-deception is explicit 
+and self-admitted. To recognize it has nothing to do with imputing 
+subconscious motives to behavior, as is done in psychoanalysis. Further, to 
+recognize it is by no means to advance a theory of the ultimate origin of 
+beliefs, a theory which would presuppose a judgment as to the philosophical 
+validity of the beliefs. To theorize that the ultimate origin of beliefs lies in 
+the denial of frustrating experiences, or in primal anxieties which are 
+alleviated by mythological inventions, would be inappropriate when we have 
+not even begun our properly philosophical inquiry. The only self-deceptions 
+being considered here are admitted self-deceptions. 
+
+A partial classification of the circumstances in which beliefs are held for 
+non-cognitive reasons follows. 
+
+\begin{enumerate}
+\item Beliefs may be directly tied to one's morale. "I couldn't stand to live if I didn't believe in God." "If President Nixon is guilty I don't want to know it." 
+
+\item One may believe for reasons of conformity. The conversion of Jews to Catholicism in late medieval Spain was an extreme example. 
+
+\item The American philosopher Santayana said that he believed in Catholicism for esthetic reasons. 
+
+\item Moral doctrines are sometimes justified on the grounds of their efficacy in maintaining public order, rather than their philosophical validity. 
+
+\item A more complicated and more interesting situation arises when one 
+who claims to be engaged in a cognitive inquiry somehow circumscribes the 
+inquiry so as to ensure in advance that it will yield certain preferred results. 
+Such a circumscribed inquiry will be called "theologizing," in recognition of 
+the archetypal activity in this category. 
+
+When we raise the question of whether the natural sciences are 
+instances of theologizing, it becomes apparent that the issue of non-cognitive 
+motives for beliefs is no light matter. According to writers on the scientific 
+method such as A. d'Abro, the scientist is compelled to operate as if he 
+believed in the "real existence of a real absolute objective universe---a 
+common objective world, one existing independently of the observer who 
+discovers it bit by bit." The scientist holds this belief, even though it is a 
+commonplace of college philosophy courses that it is unprovable, because he 
+must do so in order to get on to the sort of results he considers desirable. 
+The scientist claims to be engaged in a cognitive inquiry; yet the inquiry 
+begins with an act of faith which it is impermissible to scrutinize. It follows 
+that science is an instance of theologizing. If scientists cannot welcome a 
+demonstration that their "metaphysical" presuppositions are invalid, then 
+their interest in science cannot be cognitive. 
+
+The scientist's non-cognitive motive for believing differs from the 
+non-cognitive motives described earlier in one notable respect. Each of the 
+non-cognitive needs described earlier required a given belief, and could not 
+be satisfied by that belief's negation. But inside a science's circumscribed 
+area of inquiry, the scientist can welcome the establishment of either of two 
+contradictory propositions; in other words, his non-cognitive need can be 
+satisfied by either proposition. It is in this sense that he can impartially test 
+or decide between two propositions, or make new discoveries. On the other 
+hand, with regard to the metaphysical presuppositions of science, only a 
+single alternative is welcome. 
+
+\item Academicians will readily acknowledge that they are not interested 
+in scholarly work by unknown persons with no academic credentials. To 
+academic mathematicians and biologists, whether Galois and Mendel had 
+made valid discoveries was irrelevant. Thus, academicians as academicians 
+circumscribe their purported interest in the cognitive in two ways---once as 
+scientists; and once for reasons of personal gain and prestige. 
+
+\item The strangest instance of a non-cognitive need for a belief is 
+provided by the person who holds a fearful belief which is widely considered 
+to be superstitious, such as belief in Hell. As always, the test of whether the 
+motive for the belief is cognitive is the question of whether the person would 
+welcome a demonstration that the belief is invalid. There is reason to suspect 
+that persons who cling to fearful beliefs would not welcome such a 
+demonstration, perverse as their attitude may seem. After all, they take no 
+comfort in the widespread rejection of the belief as superstitious. Thus, it 
+seems that a masochistic need for fearful beliefs must be recognized. 
+\end{enumerate}
+
+This examination of non-cognitive motives for beliefs is, to repeat, 
+limited to circumstances in which there is explicit self-deception, or 
+self-deception that can be demonstrated directly from internal evidence. The 
+examination cannot be carried further unless we become able to judge 
+whether the beliefs referred to are, after all, valid. Thus, we will now turn to 
+our properly philosophical inquiry, which will occupy the remainder of this 
+monograph. 
+
+\signoffnote{(Note: Chapters 2-7 were written in 1961, at a time when I used 
+unconventional syntax and punctuation. They are printed here without 
+change.)}
+
+\section{The Linguistic Solution of Properly Philosophical Problems}
+\subsection*{Chapter 2 : Preliminary Concepts}
+
+In this part of the book I will be concerned to solve the problem of 
+philosophy proper, the problem of which beliefs are right, by discussing 
+language, certain linguistic expressions. To motivate what follows I might 
+tentatively say that I will consider beliefs as represented by statements, 
+formulations of them (for example, \formulation{Other persons have minds} as 
+representing the belief that other persons have minds), so that the problem 
+will be which statements are true. Actually, to solve this problem we will be 
+driven far beyond answers to the effect that given statements are true (or 
+false). 
+
+To make this book as engaging as possible, I would like to start right 
+into the solution of the problem, to begin with the material in the next 
+chapter. However, it effects, I think, a considerable clarification and 
+simplification of the presentation of the solution if I first introduce certain 
+concepts in an extended discussion. Then, when they enter into the solution 
+they won't have to be just suggested in a condensed explanation which has 
+to be repeated over and over. Thus, this chapter will be a properly 
+philosophically neutral introduction of the concepts, an introduction which 
+doesn't in itself say anything about the rightness of given beliefs (or the 
+truth of given statements). The chapter is as a result not so interesting as the 
+others, but I hope the reader will bear with me through it. 
+
+The first concept is a new one, that of "explication". Explication of a 
+familiar linguistic expression is what might traditionally be said to be finding 
+a definition of the expression; it amounts partly to determining what it is 
+wanted that the expression "mean". To explain: I will be discussing 
+philosophically important expressions, familiar to the reader, such that their 
+"meaning" needs clarifying, such that it is not clear to him how he wants to 
+use them. I will be concerned with the suggestion of expressions, of which 
+the "meanings", uses, are clear, which will be acceptable to the reader as 
+replacements for the expressions of which the uses are obscure; that is, 
+which have the uses that, it will turn out, the expressions of which the uses 
+are obscure are supposed to have. Since the expressions which are to be 
+replacements can be equivalent as expressions (sounds, bodies of marks) to 
+the expressions they are to replace, it can also be said that I will be 
+concerned with the suggestion of clear uses, of the expressions of which the 
+uses are obscure, which are, it will turn out, the uses the reader wants the 
+expressions to have. To be more specific about the conditions of 
+acceptability of such replacements, if the familiar expressions (expressions of 
+which the uses were obscure) were supposed to be names, have referents 
+(and non-referents), then the new: expressions must clearly have referents. 
+Further, the new expressions must deserve (by having appropriate referents 
+in the case of names) the principal connotations of the familiar expressions, 
+especially the distinctive, honorific connotations of the familiar expressions. 
+(I will not say here just how I use "connotation". What the connotations of 
+an expression are will be suggested by giving sentences about, in the case of a 
+supposed name for example, what the referents of the expression are 
+supposed to be like.) "Finding", or constructing, an expression (with its use) 
+supposed to be acceptable to oneself as.a replacement, of the kind described, 
+for an expression familiar to oneself, will be said to be "explicating" the 
+expression familiar to oneself. The expression to be replaced will be said to 
+be the "explicandum", and the suggested replacement, the "explication". 
+Incidentally, if clarification shows that the desired use of the explicandum is 
+inconsistent, then it can't have an explication at all acceptable, or what is the 
+same thing, any explication will be as good as any other. 
+
+I should mention that my use of "explication" is different from that of 
+Rudolph Carnap, from whom I have taken the word rather than use the very 
+problematic "definition". For him, explication is a scientist's, or philosopher 
+of science's, devising a new precise concept, useful in natural science, 
+suggested by a vague, unclear common concept (for example, that of 
+"work"); whereas for me it is in effect constructing (if possible) that precise, 
+clear concept which is the nearest equivalent to an unclear common concept. 
+
+Here is an example in the acceptability of explications. Suppose that an 
+expression is suggested, as an explication for "thing having a mind" (if 
+supposed to be a name, have referents), which has as referents precisely the 
+things which have certain facial expressions, or talk, or have certain other 
+"overt" behavior, or even certain brain electricity. Then I expect that this 
+expression will not be acceptable to the reader as an explication for "thing 
+having a mind", since "thing having a mind" presumably has the connotations 
+for the reader "that having a mind is not the same as, is very different from, 
+higher than, having certain facial expressions, talking, certain other overt 
+behaving, or having certain brain electricity---the mind is observable only by 
+the thing having it", and the explication doesn't deserve these connotations: 
+the connotations of the explicandum are exclusive of the referents of the 
+proposed explication. It doesn't make any difference if there's a causual 
+connection between having a mind and the other things, because the 
+expression 'thing having a mind' itself, and not the supposed effects of 
+having a mind, is what is under discussion. 
+
+As the reader can tell from the example, I will, in evaluating 
+expressions, have to speak of what I assume the connotations of words are 
+for the reader. If any of my assumptions are incorrect, the book will be 
+slightly less relevant to the reader's philosophical problems than it would be 
+otherwise. Even so, the reader should get from this part the method of 
+finding good explications, and its use in solving properly philosophical 
+problems. 
+
+Especially important in deciding whether an explication for a supposed 
+name is good is the check of the referents of the explication against the 
+connotations of the explicandum. Traditional philosophers, in the rare cases 
+when they have suggested explications for expressions in dealing with 
+philosophical problems, have suggested absurdly bad ones, which can quickly 
+be shown up by such a check. Examples which are typically horrible are the 
+explications for "thing having a mind" mentioned above. 
+
+The second concept I will discuss is that of true statement. As I will be 
+discussing the "truth" of formulations of beliefs, statements, in the next two 
+chapters, and as the concept of true statement is quite obscure (making it a 
+good example of one needing explication), it will be helpful for me to clarify 
+the concept beforehand, to give a partial explication for "true statement". 
+(Partial because the explication, although much clearer than the 
+explicandum, will itself have an unclear word in it.) 
+
+Well, what is a "statement"? How do what are usually said to be 
+"statements" state? Take a book and look through it, a book in a language 
+you don't read, so you won't assume that it's obvious what it means. What 
+does the book, the object, do? How does it work? Note that talking just 
+about the marks in the book, or what seem (!) to be the rules of their 
+arrangement, or the like, won't answer these questions. In fact, I expect that 
+when the reader really thinks about them, the questions won't seem easy 
+ones to answer. Now to begin answering them, one of the most important 
+connotations of "true statement", and, more generally, of "statement", as 
+traditionally and commonly used, is that a "statement" is an "assertion 
+which has truth value" (is true or false) (or "has content", as it is sometimes 
+said, rather misleadingly). That is, the "verbal" part of a statement is 
+supposed to be related in a certain way to something "non-verbal", or at 
+least not in the language the verbal part of the statement is in. Further, a 
+statement is supposed to be "true" or not because of something having to do 
+with the non-verbal thing to which the verbal part of the statement is 
+related. (The exceptions are the "statements" of formalist logic and 
+mathematics, which are not supposed to be assertions; they are thus 
+irrelevant to statements of the kind ordinary persons and philosophers are 
+interested in.) Thus, if "true statement" is to be explicated, "assertion having 
+truth value" and "is true" (and "has content" in a misleading use) have to be 
+explicated, as they are obscure, and as it must be clear that the explication 
+for "true statement" deserves the connotations which were suggested with 
+"assertion having truth value" and "is true". One important conclusion from 
+these observations is that although "sentences" (the bodies of sound or 
+bodes of marks such as "The man talks") are often said to be "statements", 
+would not be sufficient (to say the least) to explicate "statement" by simply 
+identifying it with "sentence" (in my sense); something must be said about 
+such matters as that of being an assertion having truth value. For the same 
+reason, it is not sufficient (to say the least) to simply identify "statement" 
+with "sentence", the latter being explicated in terms of the ("formal") rules 
+for the formation of (grammatical) sentences, as these rules have no 
+reference to such matters as that of being an assertion having truth value. 
+
+In explicating "true statement" I will use the most elegant approach, one 
+relevant to the interest in such matters as that of being an assertion having 
+truth value. This is to begin by describing a simple, if not the simplest, way 
+to make an assertion. As an example, I will describe the simplest way to 
+make the assertion that a thing is a table. The way is to "apply" \term{table} to 
+the thing. It is supposed that \term{table} has been "interpreted", that is, that it is 
+"determinate" to which, of all things, applications of \term{table} are (to be said 
+to be) "true". (It is good to realize that it is also supposed that it is 
+"determinate" which, of all things (events), are "occurrences of the word 
+"table", are expressions "equivalent to" "table".) The word "determinate" is 
+the intentionally ambiguous one in this explication; I don't want to commit 
+myself yet on how an expression becomes interpreted. As for 'apply', one 
+can "apply" the word to the thing by pointing out "first" the word and 
+"then" the thing. 'point out' is restricted to refer to "ostension", pointing 
+out things in one's presence, things one is perceiving, and not to "directing 
+attention to things not in one's presence" as well. The assertion is 'true', of 
+course, if and only if the thing to which 'table' is applied is one of the things 
+to which it is determinate that the application of 'table' is (to be said to be) 
+"true", otherwise "false". It should be clear that such a pointing out of a 
+"first" thing and a "second", the first being an interpreted expression, is an 
+assertion of a simple kind, does have truth value and so forth. Let me further 
+suggest 'interpreted expression' as an explication for 'name'; with respect to 
+this explication, the things to which equivalent names ("occurances of a 
+name") may be truthfully applied are the referents of the equivalent names, 
+other things being non-referents. (Incidentally, I could have started with the 
+concept of a name and its referents, and then said how to make a simple 
+assertion using a name.) Then what I have intentionally left ambiguous is 
+how a name has referents; I have not said, for example, whether the relation 
+between name and referents is an "objective, metaphysical entity", which 
+would be getting into philosophy proper. 
+
+The point of describing this simple way of making an assertion is that 
+what one wants to say are "statements", namely sentences used in the 
+context of certain conventions, can be regarded as assertions of the "simple" 
+kind; thus an explication for 'true statement' can be found. To do so, first 
+let us say that the "complex name" gotten by replacing a sentence's "main 
+verb" with the corresponding participle is the "associated name" of the 
+sentence. For example, the associated name of 'Boston is in Massachusetts' is 
+'Boston being in Massachusetts'. In the case of a sentence with coordinate 
+clauses there may be a choice with respect to what is to be taken as the main 
+verb, but this presents no significant difficulty. Example: sentence: \said{The 
+table in the room will have been black only if it had been pushed by one 
+man while the other man talked}; main verb: 'will have been' or 'had been 
+pushed'. Also, English may not have a participle to correspond to every verb, 
+but this is in theory no difficulty; the lacking participle could obviously be 
+invented. Now what we would like to say one does, in using a sentence to 
+make a statement, is to so to speak "assert" its associated name; this 
+"asserted name" being "true" if and only if it has a referent. However, one 
+doesn't assert names; names just have referents---it is statements that one 
+makes, "asserts", and that are "true" or "false". How, then, do we explicate 
+this "asserting" of a name? By construing it as that assertion, of the simple 
+kind, which is the application of 'having a referent' to the name. In other 
+words, from our theoretical point of view, to use a sentence to make a 
+statement, one begins with a name (the sentence's associated name), and 
+puts it into the sentence form, an act equivalent by convention to applying 
+'having a referent' to it. For example, the sentence 'Boston is in 
+Massachusetts' should be regarded as the simple assertion which is the 
+application of 'having a referent' to 'Boston being in Massachusetts'. 
+
+Now this approach may seem "unnatural" or incomplete to the reader 
+for several reasons. First there is the syntactical oddity: the sentence is 
+replaced by a statement "about" it (or to be precise its associated name). 
+Well, all I can say is that this oddity is the inevitable result of trying to 
+describe explicitly all that happens when one uses a sentence to make a 
+statement; I can assure the reader that the alternate approaches are even 
+more unnatural. Secondly, it may seem natural enough to speak of 
+interpreting "simple names" (Fries' Class 1 words), but not so natural to 
+speak of interpreting complex names (what could their referents be?). Of 
+course, this is because complex names are to be regarded as formed from 
+simpler names by specified methods; that is, their interpretations (and thus 
+referents) are in specified relations to those of the simple names from which 
+they are formed. The relations are indicated by the words, in the complex 
+names, which are not names, and by the order of the words in the complex 
+names. An example worth a comment is associated names containing such 
+words as 'the'; in making statements, these names have to be in the context 
+of additional conventions, understandings, to have significance. It will be 
+clear that what these relations (and referents) are, the explication of these 
+relations, is not important for my purposes. Thirdly, I have not said anything 
+about what the "meaning" (intension), as opposed to the referents (and 
+non-referents), of a name is. (I might say that a thing can't have an intension 
+unless it has referents or non-referents.) This matter is also not important for 
+my purposes (and gets into philosophy proper). Finally, my approach tells 
+the reader no more than he already knew about whether a given statement is 
+true. Quite so, and I said that the discussion would be properly 
+philosophically neutral. In fact, it is so precisely because of the ambiguous 
+word 'determinate', because I haven't said anything about how names get 
+referents. Even so, we have come a long way from blank wonder about how 
+one (sounds, marks) could ever state anything, a long way towards 
+explicating how asserting works. (And to the philosopher of language with 
+formalist prejudices, the discussion has been a needed reminder that if 
+language is to be assertional, say something, then names and referring in 
+some form must have the central role in it.) 
+
+"Statements", then, can be regarded as assertions of the 'simple' kind 
+which are made in the special, conventional way, involving sentences, I have 
+described. I could thus explicate 'true statement' as referring to those true 
+"simple" assertions made in the special way, and it should be clear that this 
+would be a good explication. However, as the connotations of 'true 
+statement' having to do with the method of apptying the first member to the 
+second are, I expect, of secondary importance compared to those having to 
+do with such matters as being an assertion having truth value, it ts more 
+elegant to explicate 'true statement' as referring to all true assertions of the 
+"simple" kind. For the purposes of this book it is not important which of 
+the two explications the reader prefers. 
+
+So much for the preliminaries. 
+
+\subsection*{Chapter 3 : "Experience"}
+
+I will introduce in this chapter some basic terminology, as the main step 
+in taking the reader from ordinary English and traditional philosophical 
+language to a language with which my philosophy can be exposited. This 
+terminology is important because one of the main difficulties in expositing 
+my philosophy (or any new philosophy) is that current language is based on 
+precisely some of the assumptions, beliefs, I intend to question. It will, I 
+think, be immediately clear to the reader at all familiar with modern 
+philosophy that the problems of terminology I am going to discuss are 
+relevant to the problem of which beliefs are right. 
+
+First, consider the term 'non-experience'. Although the concept of a 
+non-experience is intrinsically far more "difficult" than the concept of 
+"experience" which I will be discussing presently, it is, I suppose, 
+presupposed in all "natural languages" and throughout philosophy, is so 
+taken for granted that it is rarely discussed in itself. Thus, the reader should 
+have no difficulty understanding it. Examples of non-experiences are 
+perceivable objects---for example, a table (as opposed to one's perceptions of 
+it), existing external to oneself, persisting when one is not perceiving it; the 
+future (future events); the past; space (or better, the distantness of objects 
+from oneself); minds other than one's own; causal relationships as ordinarily 
+understood; referental relationships (the relationships between names and 
+their referents as ordinarily understood; what I avoided discussing in the 
+second chapter); unperceivable "things" (microscopic objects (of course, 
+viewing them through microscopes does not count as perceiving them), 
+essences, Being); in short, most of the things one is normally concerned with, 
+normally thinks about, as well as the objects of uncommon knowledge. (To 
+simplify the explanation of the concept, make it easier on the reader, I am 
+speaking as if I believed that there are non-experiences, that is, introducing 
+the concept in the context of the beliefs usually associated with it.) 
+Non-experiences are precisely what one has beliefs about. One believes that 
+there are microscopic living organisms, or that there are none (or that one 
+can not know whether there are any---this is not a non-belief but a complex 
+belief about the relation of the realm where non-experiences could be to the 
+mind). Incidentally, that other minds, for example, are non-experiences is 
+presumably a connotation of 'other minds' for the reader, as explained in the 
+second chapter. 
+
+In the history of philosophy, the concept of non-experience comes first. 
+Then philosophers begin to develop theories of how one knows about 
+non-experiences (epistemological theories). The concept of a perception, or 
+experience of something, is introduced into philosophy. The theory is that 
+one knows about non-experiences by perceiving, having experiences of, some 
+of them. For example, one knows that there is a table before one's eyes 
+(assuming that there is) by having a visual perception or experience of it, by 
+having a "visual-table-experience". The theory goes on to say that these 
+perceptions are in the mind. Then, if one has a visual-table-experience in 
+one's mind when there is no table, one is hallucinated. And so forth. Now 
+there are two sources of confusion in all this for the naive reader. First, 
+saying that perceptions of objects are in one's mind is not saying that they 
+are, for example, visualizations, imaginings, such as one's visualization of a 
+table with one's eyes closed. Perceptions of objects do not seem "mental". 
+The theory that they are in the mind is a belief. This point leads directly to 
+the second source of confusion. Does the English word 'table', as ordinarily 
+used to refer to a table when one is looking at it, refer to the table, an entity 
+external to one's perceptions which persists when not perceived, or to one's 
+perception of it, to the visual-table-experience? If distinguishing between 
+the two, and the notion that the table-experience is in his mind, seem silly to 
+the reader, then he probably uses 'table', 'perceived table', and 
+'table-experience' as equivalent some of the time. The distinction, however, 
+is not just silly; anyone who believes that there are tables when he is not 
+perceiving them must accept it to be consistent. At any rate there is this 
+confusion, that it is not always clear whether English object-names are being 
+used to refer to perceived non-experiences or to experiences, the 
+perceptions. 
+
+Now let us ignore for a moment the connotations that experiences are 
+experiences, perceptions, of non-experiences, and are in the mind. The term 
+'experience' is important here because with it philosophers finally made a 
+start at inventing a term for the things one knows directly, unquestionabiy 
+knows, or, better, which one just has, or are just there (whether they are 
+experiences, perceptions, of non-experiences or not). A traditional 
+philosopher would say that if one is having a table-experience, one may not 
+know whether it's a true perception of a table, whether there's an objective 
+table there; or whether it's an hallucination; but one unquestionably knows, 
+has, the table-experience. And of course, with respect to one's experiences 
+not supposed to be perceptions of anything, such as visualizations, one 
+unquestionably knows, has them too. A better way of putting it is that there 
+is no question as to whether one has one's experiences or what they are like. 
+One doesn't believe (that one has) one's experiences; to try to do so would 
+be rather like trying to polish air. In fact, "thinking" that one doesn't have 
+one's experiences, if this is possible, is a belief, a wrong one (as will be 
+shown, although it should already be obvious if the reader has the slightest 
+idea of what I am talking about), and in fact a perfectly insane one. Now the 
+reader must not think that because I say experiences are unquestionably 
+known I am talking about tautologies, or about beliefs which some 
+philosophers say can be known by intuition even though unprovable, or say 
+cannot really be doubted without losing one's sanity (for example, some 
+philosophers say this about the belief that other persons have minds). In 
+speaking of experiences I am not trying to trick the reader into accepting a 
+lot of beliefs I am not prepared to justify, as many philosophers do by 
+appealing to intuition or sanity or what not, a reprehensible hyprocrisy 
+which shows that they are not the least interested in philosophy proper. One 
+does not have other-persons'-having-minds-experiences (nor are the objective 
+tables one supposedly perceives table-experiences); one believes that other 
+persons have minds (or that there is an objective table corresponding to one's 
+table-experience), and this belief could very well be wrong (in fact, it is, as 
+will be shown). 
+
+I have explained the current use of the term 'experience'. Now I want 
+to propose a new use for the term, which, except where otherwise noted, 
+will be that of the rest of this book. (Thus whereas in discussing 
+'non-experience' I was merely explaining and accepting the current use of 
+the term, in the case of 'experience' I am going to suggest a new use for the 
+term.) As I explained, the concept of non-experience preceded that of 
+experience, and the latter was developed to explain how one knows the 
+former. What I am interested in, however, is not 'experience' as it implies. 
+'perceptions, of non-experiences, and in the mind', but as it refers to that 
+which one unquestionably knows, is immediate, is just there, is not 
+something one believes exists. I am going to use 'experience' to refer, as it 
+already does, to that immediate "world", but without the implication that 
+experience is perception of non-experience, and in the mind: the same 
+referents but without the old connotations. In other words, in my use 
+'experience' is completely neutral with respect to relationships to 
+non-experiences, is not an antonym for 'non-experience' as conventionally 
+used, does not presuppose a metaphysic. The reader is being asked to take a 
+leap of understanding here, because there is all the difference in philosophy 
+between 'experience' as implying, connoting, relatedness to non-experiences 
+or in particular the realm where they could be, and 'experience' without 
+these connotations. 
+
+Viewing this discussion of terminology in retrospect, it should be 
+obvious that although my term 'experience' was introduced last, it is 
+intrinsically, logically, the simplest, most immediate, most inevitable of the 
+terms, and should be the easiest to understand. In contrast, the notions I 
+discussed in reaching it may seem a little arbitrary. As a matter of fact, I 
+have used the perspective of the Western philsophical tradition to explain my 
+term, but this doesn't mean that it is relevant only to that tradition or, 
+especially, the theory of knowing about non-experiences. Even if the reader's 
+conceptual background does not involve the concept of non-experience, and 
+especially the modern Western theory of knowing about non-experiences, he 
+ought to be able to understand, and realize the "orimacy" of, my term 
+'experience'. The term should be supra-cultural. 
+
+I have gone to some length to explain my use of the term 'experience'. 
+As I have said, it is "intrinsically" the simplest term, but I can not define it 
+by just equating it to some English expression because all English, including 
+the traditional term 'experience', the antonym of 'non-experience', is based 
+on metaphysical assumptions, does have implications about non-experience, 
+in short, is formulations of beliefs. These implications are different for 
+different philosophers according as their metaphysics (or, as is sometimes 
+(incorrectly) said, "ontologies") differ. Even such a sentence as "The table is 
+black" implies the formulation \formulation{Material objects are real} (to the materialist), 
+or \formulation{So-called objects are ideas in the mind} (to the idealist), or \formulation{Substances 
+and attributes are real}, and so forth, traditionally. As a result, in order to 
+explain the new term I have had to use English in a very special way, 
+ultimately turning it against itself, so as to enable the reader to guess how I 
+use the term. That is, although there is nothing problematic about my use of 
+\term{experience}, about its referents, there is about my English, for example 
+when I say that the connotation of relatedness to non-experience is to be 
+dropped from \term{experience}. There can be this new term, the philosopher is 
+not irrevocably tied to English or other natural language and its implied 
+philosophy, as some philosophers claim; because a term is able to be a name, 
+to be used to make assertions, not by being a part of conventional English or 
+other natural language, but by having referents. 
+
+As I suggested at the beginning of this chapter, I need to introduce my 
+\term{experience} because without it I cannot question all beliefs, everything 
+about non-experiences, since in English there is always the implication that 
+there could be non-experiences. The term is a radical innovation; one of the 
+most important in this book. The fact that although it is the "simplest" and 
+least questionable term, it is a radical innovation and is difficult to explain 
+using English, shows how philosophically inadequate English and the 
+philosophies it implies are. Now if the reader has not understood my 
+\term{experience} he is likely to precisely mis-understand the rest of the book as 
+an attempt to show that there are no non-experiences. (It's good that this 
+isn't what I'm trying to show, because it is self-contradictory: for there to be 
+no non-experiences there would have to be a realm empty of them, and this 
+realm would have to be a non-experience.) If he is lucky he will just find the 
+book incomprehensible, or possibly even come to understand the term from 
+the rest of what I say, using it. But if he does understand the term, then he is 
+past the greatest difficulty in understanding the book; in fact, he may 
+already realize what I'm going to say. 
+
+\subsection*{Chapter 4 : The Linguistic Solution}
+
+Now that I have explained the key terminology for this part of the 
+book, I can give the solution to properly philosophical problems, the 
+problems of which beliefs are right, in the form of conclusions about the 
+language in which the beliefs are formulated. My concern here is to present 
+the solution as soon as possible, so as to make it clear to the reader that my 
+work contains important results, is an important contribution to philosophy, 
+and not just admirable sentiments or the formulation of an attitude or a 
+philosophically neutral analysis of concepts or the like. For this reason I will 
+not be too concerned to make the solution seem natural, or intuitive, or to 
+explore all its implications; that will come later. 
+
+However, in the hope that it will make the main "argument" of this 
+chapter easier to understand, I will precede it with a short, non-rigorous 
+version of it, which should give the "intuitive insight" behind the main 
+argument. Consider the question of whether one can know if a given belief is 
+true. Now a given belief is cognitively arbitrary in that it cannot be justified 
+from the standpoint of having no beliefs, cannot be justified without 
+appealing to other beliefs. Thus the answer must be skepticism: one cannot 
+know if a given belief is true. However, this skepticism is a belief---a 
+contradiction. The ultimate conclusion is that to escape inconsistency, to be 
+right, one must, at the linguistic level, reject all talk of beliefs, of knowing if 
+they are true, reject all formulations of beliefs. The "necessity", but 
+inconsistency, of skepticism "shows" my conclusion in an intuitively 
+understandable way. 
+
+To get on to the definitive version of my "argument". I will say that 
+one name "depends" on another if and only if it has the logical relation to 
+that other that \name{black table} has to \name{table}: a referent of the former is 
+necessarily a referent of the latter (one of the relations between names 
+mentioned in the second chapter). Now the associated name of any 
+statement, or formulation, of a belief of necessity depends on 
+'non-experience', since non-experiences are what beliefs are about. For 
+example, \name{Other persons having minds}, the associated name of the 
+formulation \formulation{Other persons have minds}, certainly depends on 
+\term{non-experience}. Thus, anything true of \term{non-experience} will be true of the 
+associated name of any formulation of a belief. 
+
+In the last chapter I introduced, explained the concepts of 
+non-experience and experience (in the traditional sense, as the antonym of 
+\term{non-experience}), showed the connotations of the expressions 
+\term{non-experience} and \term{experience} (traditional). What I did not go on to 
+show, left for this chapter, is that if one continues to analyze these concepts, 
+one comes on crucial implications which result in contradictions. What 
+follows is perhaps the most concentrated passage in this book, so that the 
+reader must be willing to read it slowly and thoughtfully. Consider one's 
+experience (used in my, "neutral", sense unless I say otherwise). Could there 
+be something in one's experience, a part of one's experience, which was 
+awareness of whether it's experience (traditional), of whether it's related to 
+non-experience, of whether there is non-experience, awareness of 
+non-experience? No, as should be obvious from the connotations shown in 
+the last chapter. (Compare this with the point that one cannot (cognitively) 
+justify a belief from the standpoint of having no beliefs, cannot justify it 
+without appealing to other beliefs). If there could be, if such awareness were 
+just an experience, the distinctness of experience from experience 
+(traditional) and so forth would disappear. The concepts of experience 
+(traditional) and so forth would be superfluous, in fact, one couldn't have 
+them: experience (traditional) and so forth would just be absorbed into 
+experience. One concludes that there cannot be anything in one's experience 
+which is awareness of whether it's experience (traditional), of whether there 
+is non-experience. But then this awareness, which is in part about experience 
+(traditional) and non-experience and thus involves awareness of them, is in 
+one's experience---a contradiction. In fact, the same holds for the awareness 
+which is "understanding the concepts" of non-experience and the rest as 
+they are supposed to be understood. And for "understanding"
+\term{non-experience} (and the rest) as it is supposed to be, being aware of its 
+referents (and non-referents); since to name non-experience, it must be an 
+experience (traditional). And even for being aware of the referents (and 
+non-referents) of "non-experience", which to name an experience 
+(traditional) must be one. One mustn't assume that one understands 
+'non-experience' --- and "non-experience" --- and \triquote{non-experience}; but here 
+one is, using "non-experience" and \triquote{non-experience} to say so (which 
+certainly implies that one assumes one understands them). It is impossible 
+for there to be non-experiences. When one begins to examine closely the 
+concept of non-experience, it collapses. 
+
+(A final point for the expert. This 
+tangle of contradictions is intrinsic in the concept of non-experience; it does 
+not result because I have introduced a violation of the law that names cannot 
+name themselves. This should be absolutely clear from the two sentences 
+about names, which show contradictions --- that one must not assume that 
+one understands certain expressions, but that one uses the expressions to say 
+so (does assume it) --- with explicit stratification.) 
+
+My exposition has broken down in a tangle of contradictions. Now 
+what is important is that it has done so precisely because I have talked about 
+experience (traditional), non-experience, and the rest, because I have spoken 
+as if there could be non-experiences, because I have used 'experience' 
+(traditional), 'non-experience', and the rest. Thus, even though what I have 
+said is a tangle of contradictions, it is not by any means valueless. Since it is 
+a tangle of contradictions precisely because it involves 'experience' 
+(traditional), 'non-experience', and the rest, it shows that one who "accepts" 
+the expressions, supposes that they are valid language, has inconsistent 
+desires with respect to how they are to be used. The expressions can have no 
+explications at all acceptable to him. He cannot consistently use the 
+expressions (the way they're supposed to be). The expressions, and, 
+remembering the paragraph before last, any formulation of a belief, are 
+completely discredited. (What is not discredited is language referring to 
+experiences (my use). If it happens that an expression I have said is a 
+formulation of a belief does have a good explication for the reader, then it is 
+not a formulation of a belief for him but refers to experiences.) Now there is 
+an important point about method which should be brought out. If all 
+"non-experiential language", "belief language", is inconsistent, how can I 
+show this and yet avoid falling into contradiction when I say it? The answer 
+is that I don't have to avoid falling into contradiction; that I fall into 
+contradiction precisely because I use formulations of beliefs shows what I 
+want to show. This, then, is the linguistic solution; as I said we would, we 
+have been driven far beyond any such conclusion as 'all formulations of 
+beliefs are false'. 
+
+Now what do these conclusions about formulations of beliefs, about 
+belief language, say about beliefs themselves, about whether a given belief is 
+right? Well, to the extent that a belief is tied up with its formulation, since 
+the formulation is discredited, the belief is, must be wrong. After all, if a 
+belief were right, its formulation would necessarily have an acceptable 
+explication which was true; in short, the belief would have a true 
+formulation (to see this, note that the contrary assertion is itself a 
+formulation of a belief---leading to a contradiction). Incidentally, this point 
+answers those who would say, that the inconsistency of their statements of 
+belief taken literally does not discredit their beliefs, as the statements are not 
+to be taken literally, are metaphorical or symbolic truths. To continue, one 
+who because of having a belief took its formulation seriously, expected that 
+it could have an acceptable explication for him, could not turn out to be an 
+expression he could not properly use, must be deceiving himself in some 
+way. Now there is another important point about "method" to be made. 
+The question will probably continually recur to the critical reader how one 
+can "know", be aware that any given belief is wrong, without having beliefs. 
+The answer is that one way one can be aware of it is simply to be aware of 
+the inconsistency of belief language, which awareness is not a belief. 
+(Whether belief language is inconsistent is not a matter of belief but of the 
+way one wants expressions used; being aware of the inconsistency is like 
+being aware with respect to a table, "that in my language, this is to be said to 
+be a "table"".) Incidentally, to wrap things up, the common belief as to how 
+a name has referents is that there is a relation between the name and its 
+referents which is an objective, metaphysical entity, a non-experience; this 
+belief is wrong. How, in what sense a name can have referents will not be 
+discussed here. 
+
+The unsophisticated reader may react to all of this with a lot of 'Yes, 
+but...' thoughts. If he doesn't more or less identify beliefs with their 
+formulations, and doesn't have an intuitive appreciation of the force of 
+linguistic arguments, he my tend to regard my result as a mere (if 
+embarrassing) curiosity. (Of course, it isn't, but I am concerned with how 
+well the reader understands that.) And there does remain a lot to be said 
+about beliefs themselves (as mental acts), and where the self-deception is in 
+them; it is not even clear yet just what the relation of a belief to its 
+formulation is. Then the reader might ask whether there aren't beliefs whose 
+rejection as wrong would conflict with experience, or which it would be 
+impossible or dangerous not to have. I now turn to the discussion of these 
+matters. 
+
+
+\clearpage
+
+
+2/22/1963 
+
+
+Tony Conrad and Henry Flynt demonstrate 
+against Lincoln Center, February 22, 
+
+
+1963 
+(photo by Jack Smith)
+
+\clearpage
+
+
+\section{Completion of the Treatment of Properly Philosophical Problems}
+
+
+\subsection*{Chapter 5 : Beliefs as Mental Acts}
+
+
+In this chapter I will solve the problems of philosophy proper by 
+discussing believing itself, as a ("conscious") mental act. Although I will be 
+talking about mental acts and experience, it must be clear that this part of 
+the book, like the fast part, is not epistemology or phenomenology. I will 
+not try to talk about "perception" or the like, in a mere attempt to justify 
+"common-sense" beliefs or what not. Of course, both parts are incidentally 
+relevant to epistemology and phenomenology, since in discussing beliefs I 
+discuss the beliefs which constitute those subjects. 
+
+I should say immediately that 'belief', in its traditional use as supposed 
+to refer to "mental acts, often unconscious, connected with the realm of 
+non-experience", has no explication at all satisfactory, has been discredited. 
+This point is important, as it means that one does not want to say that one 
+does or does not "have beliefs", in the sense important to those having 
+beliefs, that beliefs (in my sense) will not do as referents for "belief" in the 
+use important to those having beliefs; helping to fill out the conclusion of 
+the last part. Now when I speak of a "belief" I will be speaking of an 
+experience, what might be said to be "an act of consciously believing, of 
+consciously having a belief", of what is "in one's head" when one says that 
+one "believes a certain thing". Further, I will, for convenience in 
+distinguishing beliefs, speak of belief "that others have minds", for example, 
+or in general of belief "that there are non-experiences" (with quotation 
+marks), but I must not be taken as implying that beliefs manage to be 
+"about non-experiences". (Thus, what I say about beliefs will be entirely 
+about experiences; I will not be trying to talk "about the realm of 
+non-experience, or the relation of beliefs to it".) I expect that it is already 
+fairly clear to the reader what his acts of consciously believing are (if he has 
+any); I will be more concerned with pointing out to him some features of his 
+"beliefs" (believing) than with the explication of 'act of consciously 
+believing', although I will need to make a few comments about that too. 
+What I am trying to do is to get the reader to accept a useful, possibly new, 
+use of a word ('belief') salvaged from the unexplicatible use of the word, 
+rather than rejecting the word altogether. 
+
+There is a further point about terminology. The reader should 
+remember from the third chapter that quite apart from the theory "that 
+perceptions are in the mind", one can make a distinction between mental 
+and non-mental experiences, between, for example, visualizing a table with 
+one's eyes closed, and a "seen" table, a visual-table-experience. Now I am 
+going to say that visualizations and the like are "imagined-experiences". For 
+example, a visualization of a table will be said to be an 
+"imagined-visual-table-experience". The reader should not suppose that by 
+"imagined" I mean that the experiences are "hallucinations", are "unreal". I 
+use "imagined" because saying 'mental-table-experience" is too much like 
+saying "table in the mind" and because just using 'visualization' leaves no way 
+of speaking of mental experiences which are not visualizations. Speaking of 
+an "imagined-table-experience" seems to be the best way of saying that it is 
+a mental experience, and then distinguishing it from other mental 
+experiences by the conventional method of saying that it is an imagining "of 
+a (non-mental) table-experience" (better thought of as meaning an imagining 
+like a  (non-mental)  table-experience). In other words, an 
+imagined-x-experience (to generalize) is a "valid" experience, all right, but it 
+is not a non-mental x-experience; it is a mental experience which is like a 
+(non-mental) x-experience in a certain way. Incidentally, an "imagined-imagined-experience" is impossible by definition; or is no different from an 
+imagined-experience, whichever way you want to look at it. If this 
+terminology is a little confusing, it is not my fault but that of the 
+conventional method of distinguishing different mental experiences by 
+saying that they are imaginings "of one or another non-mental experiences". 
+
+I can at last ask what one does when one believes "that there is a table, 
+not perceived by oneself, behind one now", or anything else. Well, in the 
+first place, one takes note of, gives one's attention to, an 
+imagined-experience, such as an imagined-table-experience or a visualization 
+of oneself with one's back to a table; or to a linguistic expression, a supposed 
+statement, such as \lexpression{There is a table behind me}. This is not all one does, 
+however; if it were, what one does would not in the least deserve to be said 
+to be a "belief" (a point about the explication of my 'belief'). The 
+additional, "essential" component of a belief is a self-deceiving "attitude" 
+toward the experience. What this attitude is will be described below. Observe 
+that one does not want to say that the additional component is a belief 
+about the experience because of the logical absurdity of doing so, or, in 
+other words, because it suggests that there is an infinite regress of mental 
+action. Now the claim that the attitude is "self-deceiving" is not, could not 
+be, at all like the claim "that a belief as a whole, or its formulation, fails to 
+correspond in a certain way to non-experience, to reality, or is false". The 
+question of "what is going on in the realm of non-experience" does not arise 
+here. Rather, my claim is entirely about an experience; it is that the attitude, 
+the experience not itself a belief but part of the experience of believing, is 
+"consciously, deliberately" self-deceiving, is a "self-deception experience". I 
+don't have to "prove that the attitude is self-deceiving by reference to what 
+is going on in the realm of non-experience"; when I have described the 
+attitude and the reader is aware of it, he will presumably find it a good 
+explication, unhesitatingly want, to say that it is "self-deceiving". 
+
+I will now say, as well as can be, what the attitude is. In believing, one 
+is attentive primarily to the imagined-experience or linguistic expression as 
+mentioned above. The attitude is "peripheral", is a matter of the way one is 
+atttentive. Saying that the attitude is "conscious, deliberate", is a little 
+strong if it seems to imply that it is cynical self-brainwashing; what I am 
+trying to say is that it is not an "objective" or "subconscious" self-deception 
+such as traditional philosophers speak of, one impossible to be aware of. This 
+is about as much as I can say about the attitude directly, because of the 
+inadequacy of the English descriptive vocabulary for mental experiences; 
+with respect to English the attitude is a "vague, elusive" thing, very difficult 
+to describe. I will be able to say more about what it is only by suggestion, by 
+saying that it is the attitude "that such and such" (the reader must not think 
+I mean the belief "that such and such"). If the experience to which the 
+attention is primarily given in believing is an imagined-x-experience, then the 
+self-deceiving attitude is the attitude "that the imagined-x-experience is a 
+(non-mental) x-experience". As an example, consider the belief "that there is 
+a table behind one". If one's attention in believing is not on a linguistic 
+expression, it will be on an imagined-experience such as an 
+imagined-table-experience or a visualization of a person representing oneself 
+(to be accurate) with his back to a table, and one will have the self-deceiving 
+attitude "that the imagined-experience is a table or oneself with one's back 
+to a table". Of course, if one is asked whether one's imagined-x-experience is 
+a (non-mental) x-experience, one will say that it is not, that it is admittedly 
+an imagined-experience but "corresponds to a non-experience". This is not 
+inconsistent with what I have said: first, I don't say that one believes "that 
+one's imagined-x-experience is an x-experience"; secondly, when one is asked 
+the question, one stops believing "that there is a table behind one" and starts 
+believing "that one's imagined-experience corresponds in a certain way to a 
+non-experience", a different matter (different belief). 
+
+lf one's attention in believing is primarily on a linguistic expression 
+(which if a sentence, will be pretty much regarded as its associated name), 
+the self-deceiving attitude is the attitude "that the expression has a 
+referent". With respect to the belief "that there is a table behind one", one's 
+attention in believing would be primarily on the expression \expression{There is a table 
+behind me}, pretty much regarded as 'There being a table behind me', and 
+one would have the self-deceiving attitude "that this name has a referent". 
+Unexplicatible expressions, then, function as principal components of 
+beliefs. 
+
+\inlineaside{This paragraph is complicated and inessential; if it begins to confuse 
+the reader it can be skipped.} I will now describe the relation between the 
+version, of a belief, involving language and the version not involving 
+language. In the version not involving language, the attention is on an 
+imagined-x-experience which is "regarded" as an x-experience, whereas in 
+the version involving language, the attention is on something which is 
+"regarded" as having as referent "something" (the attitude is vague here). 
+For the latter version, the idea is "that the reality is at one remove", and 
+correspondingly, one whose "language" consists of formulations of beliefs 
+doesn't desire to have as experiences, or perceive, or even be able to imagine, 
+referents of expressions---which, for the more critical person, may make 
+believing easier. Thus, just as one takes note of the imagined-x-experience in 
+the version of the belief not involving language, has something which 
+functions as the thing the belief is about, so in the version involving language 
+one has the attitude that the expression has a referent. Further, just as one 
+has the attitude that the imagined-x-experience is an x-experience in the 
+version not involving language, does not recognize that what functions as the 
+thing believed in is a mere imagined-experience, so in the version involving 
+"language" one takes note of an 'expression' not having a referent, since a 
+referent could only be a (mere) experience. One who expects an expression, 
+which is the principal component of a belief, to have a good explication does 
+so on the basis of the self-deceiving attitude one has towards it in having the 
+belief. In trying to explicate the expression, one finds inconsistent desires 
+with respect to what its referents must be. These desires correspond to the 
+way the expression functions in the belief: the desire that it be possible for 
+awareness of the referent to be part of one's experience corresponds to the 
+attitude, in believing, that the expression has a referent; and the desire that it 
+not be possible for awareness of the referent to be (merely) part of one's 
+experience corresponds to the expression's not having a referent in believing. 
+Pointing out that the expression is unexplicable discredits the belief of which 
+it is the principal component, just as pointing out that a belief not involving 
+language consists of being attentive to an imagined-experience and having the 
+attitude that it is not an imagined-experience, discredits that belief. 
+
+Such, then, is what one does when one believes. If the reader is rather 
+unconvinced by my description, especially because of my speaking of 
+"attitudes", then let him consider the following summary: there must be 
+something more to a mental act than just taking note of an experience for it 
+to be a "belief"; this something is "peripheral and elusive", so that I am 
+calling the something an "attitude", the most appropriate way in English to 
+speak of it; the attitude, an experience not itself a belief but part of the 
+experience which is the belief, is thus isolated; the attitude is 
+"self-deceiving", is a "(conscious) self-deception experience", because when 
+aware of it the reader will presumably want to say that it is. The attitude just 
+about has to be a ("conscious") self-deception experience to transform mere 
+taking note of an experience into something remotely deserving to be said to 
+be a "belief". The decision as to whether the attitude is to be said to be 
+"self-deceiving" is to be made without trying to think "about the relation of 
+the belief as a whole to the realm of non-experience", to do which would be 
+to slip into having beliefs, other than the one under consideration, which 
+would be irrelevant to our concern here. Ultimately, the important thing is 
+to observe what one does in believing, and particularly the attitude, more 
+than to say that the attitude is "self-deceiving". 
+
+In order for my description of believing to be complete, I must mention 
+some things often associated with believing but not "essential" to it. First, 
+one may take note of non-mental and imagined-experiences other than the 
+one to which attention is primarily given. If one has a table-experience and 
+believes "that it is a table-perception corresponding to an objectively existing 
+table', one may give much of his attention to the table-experience in so 
+believing, associate the table-experience strongly with the belief. One may in 
+believing give attention to non-mental experiences supposed to be 'evidence 
+for, confirmation of, one's belief" (more will be said about confirmation 
+shortly). If one's attention in believing is primarily on the linguistic 
+expression 'x', one may give attention to a referent of 
+'imagined-x(-experience)', an "imagined-referent" of 'x'; or to 
+imagined-y-experiences such that y-experiences are supposed, said, to be 
+"analogous to the referent of 'x'". In the latter case the y-experiences will be 
+mutually exclusive, and less importance will be given to them than would be 
+to imagined-referents. An example of imagined-referents in believing is 
+visualizing oneself with one's back to a table, as the imagined-referent of 
+'There being a table behind one'. An example of imagined-y-experiences 
+(such that y-experiences are mutually exclusive) which are said to be 
+"analogous to referents", in believing, is the visualizations associated with 
+beliefs "about entities wholly other than, transcending, experience, such as 
+Being". 
+
+Secondly, there are associated with beliefs logical "justifications", 
+"arguments", for them, "defenses" of them. I will not bother to explicate 
+the different kinds of justifications because it is so easy to say what is wrong 
+with all of them. There are two points to be made. First, explication would 
+show that the matter of justifications for beliefs is just a matter of language 
+and beliefs of the kind already discussed. Secondly, as I have suggested 
+before, whether a statement or belief is right is not dependent on what the 
+justifications, arguments for it are. (If this seems to fail for inductive 
+justification, the kind invoiving the citing of experience supposed to be 
+evidence for, confirmation of, the belief, it is because the metaphysical 
+assumptions on which induction is based are rarely stated. Without them 
+inductive justifications are just non sequiturs. An example: this table has 
+four legs; therefore ("it is more probable that") any other table has four 
+legs.) Justification of a statement or belief does nothing but conjoin to it 
+superfluous statements or beliefs, if anything. The claim that a justification, 
+argument can show that a belief is not arbitrary, gratuitous, in that it can 
+show that to be consistent, one must have the belief if one has a Sesser, 
+weaker belief, is simply self-contradictory. If a justification induces one to 
+believe what one apparently did not believe before hearing the justification, 
+then one already had the belief "implicitly" (it was a conjunct of a belief 
+one already had), or one has accepted superfluous beliefs conjoined with it. 
+
+I will conclude this chapter first with a list of philosophical positions 
+my position is not. Although I have already suggested some of this material, 
+I repeat it because it is so important that the reader not misconstrue my 
+position as some position which is no more like mine than its negation is, 
+and which I show to be wrong. My position is not disbelief. (Incidentally, it 
+is ironic that 'disbeliever', without qualification, has been used by believers 
+as a term of abuse, since, as disbelief is belief which is the negation of some 
+belief, any belief is disbelief.) In particular, I am not concerned to deny "the 
+existence of non-experience", to "cause non-experiences to vanish", so to 
+speak, to change or cause to vanish some of the reader's non-mental 
+experiences, "perceived objects". My position is not skepticism of any kind, 
+is not, for example, the belief "that there is a realm where there could either 
+be or not be certain entities not experiences, but our means of knowing are 
+inadequate for finding which is the case." My position is not a mere 
+"decision to ignore non-experiences, or beliefs". The philosopher who denies 
+"the existence of non-experiences", or denies any belief, or who is skeptical 
+of any belief, or who merely "decides to ignore non-experiences, or beliefs", 
+has some of the very beliefs I am concerned to discredit. 
+
+What I have been concerned to do is to discredit formulations of 
+beliefs, and beliefs as mental acts, by pointing out some features of them. In 
+the first part of the book I showed the inconsistency of linguistic expressions 
+dependent on 'non-experience', and pointed out that those who expect them 
+to have explications at all acceptable are deceiving themselves; discrediting 
+the beliefs of which the expressions are formulations. In this chapter, I have 
+described the mental act of believing, calling the reader's attention to the 
+self-deception experience involved in it, and thus showing that it is wrong. 
+To conclude, in discrediting beliefs I have shown what the right 
+philosophical position is: it is not having beliefs (and realizing, for any belief 
+one happens to think of, that it is wrong (which doesn't involve having beliefs)). 
+
+\subsection*{Chapter 6 : Discussion of Some Basic Beliefs}
+
+In the preceding chapters I have been concerned, in discrediting any 
+given belief, to show what the right philosophical position is. In this chapter 
+I will turn to particular beliefs, supposed knowledge, to make it clear just 
+what, specifically, have been discredited. Now if the reader will consider the 
+entire "history of world thought", the fantastic proliferation of activities at 
+least partly "systems of knowledge" which constitute it, Platonism, 
+psychoanalysis, Tibetian mysticism, physics, Bantu witchcraft, 
+phenomenology, mathematical logic, Konko Kyo, Marxism, alchemy, 
+comparative linguistics, Orgonomy, Thomism, and so on indefinitely, each 
+with its own kind of conclusions, method of justifying them, applications, 
+associated valuations, and the like, he will quickly realize that I could not 
+hope to analyze even a fraction of them to show just how "non-experiential 
+language", and beliefs, are involved in them. And I should say that it is not 
+always obvious whether the concepts of non-experiential language, and 
+belief, are relevant to them. Zen is an obvious example (although as a matter 
+of fact is unquestionably does involve beliefs, is not for example an 
+anticipation of my position). Further, many quasi-systems-of-knowledge are 
+difficult to discuss because the expositions of them which are what one has 
+to work with, are badly written, in particular, fail to state the insights behind 
+what is presented, the real reasons why it can be taken seriously, and are 
+incomplete and confused. 
+
+What I will do, then, to specifically illustrate my results, is to discuss a 
+few particular beliefs which are found in almost all systems of "knowledge"; 
+have been given especial attention in modern Western philosophy and are 
+thus especially relevant to the immediate audience for this book; and are so 
+"basic" (accounting for their ubiquity) that they are either just assumed, as 
+too trivially factual to be worthy the attention of a profound thinker, or if 
+they are explicit are said to be so basic that persons cannot do without them. 
+The discussion will make it specifically clear that it is not necessary to have 
+these beliefs, that not having them is not "inconsistent" with one's 
+experience; and is thus important for the reader who is astonished at the idea 
+of rejecting any given belief, the idea of any given belief's being wrong and 
+of not having it. 
+
+Consider beliefs to the effect "that the world is ordered", beliefs 
+formulated in "natural laws", beliefs "about substance", and the like. 
+Rejection of them may seem to lead to a problem. After all, one's "perceived 
+world" is not "chaotic", is it? The reader should observe that in rejecting 
+beliefs "that the world is ordered" I do not say that his "perceived world" is 
+("subjectively") chaotic (that is, extremely unfamiliar, strange). The 
+non-strange character of one's "perceived world" is associated with beliefs 
+"about substance" and beliefs formulated in natural laws, but it is not "the 
+world being ordered"; and taking note of the non-strange character of one's 
+"perceived world" is not part of what is "essential" in these beliefs. 
+
+Rejection of "spatio-temporal" beliefs may seem to lead to a problem. 
+After all, cannot one watch oneself wave one's hand towards and away from 
+oneself? Of course one can "watch oneself wave one's hand" (in a non-strict 
+sense---and if the reader uses the expression in this sense it will not be a 
+formulation of a belief for him). However, that one can "watch oneself wave 
+one's hand" (in the non-strict sense) does not imply "that there are spatially 
+distant, and past and future events"; and although experiences such as a 
+visual---"moving"---hand experience are associated with spatio-temporal 
+beliefs, taking note of them is not part of what is essential in those beliefs. 
+
+Rejection of beliefs "about the objectivity of linguistic referring" may 
+seem to lead to a problem. After all, when one says that a table is a "table", 
+doesn't one do so unhesitatingly, with a feeling of satisfaction, a feeling that 
+things are less mysterious, strange, when one has done so, and without the 
+slightest intention of saying that it is a "non-table"? The reader should 
+observe that I do not deny this. These experiences are associated with beliefs 
+"about the objectivity of referring", but they are not "objective referring"; 
+and taking note of them is not part of what is essential in those beliefs. 
+
+Rejection of the belief "that other humans (better, things) than oneself 
+have minds" my seem to lead to a problem. After all, "perceived other 
+humans" talk and so forth, do they not? The reader should observe that in 
+rejecting the belief "that others have minds" I do not deny that "perceived 
+other humans" talk and so forth. Other humans' talking and so forth is 
+associated with the belief "that others have minds", but it is not "other 
+humans having minds"; and taking note of others talking and so forth is not 
+part of what is essential in believing "that others have minds", points I 
+anticipated in the second chapter. 
+
+Finally, many philosophers will violently object to rejection of 
+temporal beliefs of a certain kind, namely beliefs of the form "If \x, then \y\ 
+will follow in the future", especially if \y\ is something one wants, and \x\ is 
+something one can do. (After all, doesn't it happen that one throws the 
+switch, and the light goes on?) They object so strongly because they fear 
+"that one cannot live unless one has and uses such knowledge". They say, 
+for example, "that one had better know that one must drink water to live, 
+and drink water, or one won't live". Now "one's throwing the switch and the 
+light's coming on" (in a non-strict sense) is like the experiences associated 
+with other temporal beliefs; that one can do it (in the non-strict sense) does 
+not imply "that there are past or future events", and taking note of it is not 
+part of what is essential in the belief "that if one throws the switch, then the 
+light will come on". As for what the philosophers say, fear, believe "about 
+the necessity of such knowledge for survival", it is just more beliefs of the 
+same kind, so that rejection of it is similarly unproblematic. If this abrupt 
+dismissal of the fears as wrong is terrifying to the reader, then it just shows 
+how badly he is in need of being straightened out philosophically. 
+Incidentally, all this should make it clear that it is futile to try to "save" 
+beliefs (render them justifiable) by construing them as predictions. 
+
+By now the reader has probably observed that the beliefs, and their 
+formulations, which I have been discussing, the ones he is presumably most 
+suspicious of rejecting, are all strongly (but not essentially) associated with 
+non-mental experiences of his. The reader may no longer seriously have the 
+beliefs, but have problems in connection with them, get involved in 
+defending them, and be suspicious of rejecting them, merely because he 
+continues to use the formulations of the beliefs, but to refer to the 
+experiences associated with them (as there's no other way in English to do 
+so), and confusedly supposes that to reject the beliefs and formulations is to 
+deny that he has the experiences. Now I am not denying that he has the 
+experiences. As I said in the last chapter, I am not trying to convince the 
+reader that he doesn't have experiences he has, but to point out to him the 
+self-deception experiences involved in his beliefs. The reader should be wary 
+of thinking, however, on reading this, that maybe he doesn't have any beliefs 
+after all, just uses the belief language he does to refer to experiences. It 
+sometimes happens that people who have beliefs and as a result use belief 
+language excuse themselves on the basis that they are just using the language 
+to refer to experiences, an hypocrisy. If one uses belief formulations, it's 
+usually because one has beliefs. 
+
+The point that the language which one may use to describe experiences 
+is formulations of beliefs, is true generally. As I said in the third chapter, all 
+English sentences are, traditionally anyway, formulations of beliefs. As a 
+result, those who want to talk about experiences (my use) and still use 
+English are forced to use formulations of beliefs to refer to strongly 
+associated experiences, and this seems to be happening more and more; often 
+among quasi-empiricists who naively suppose that the formulations have 
+always been used that way, except by a few "metaphysicians". I have had to 
+so use belief language throughout this book, the most notable example being 
+the introduction of my use of "experience" in the third chapter. Thus, some 
+of what I say may imply belief formulations for the reader when it doesn't 
+for me, and be philosophically problematic for him; he must understand the 
+book to some extent in spite of the language, as I suggested in the third 
+chapter. I have tried to make this relatively easy by choosing, to refer to 
+experiences, language with which they are very strongly associated and 
+which is only weakly associated with beliefs, and, the important thing, by 
+announcing when the language is used for that purpose. 
+
+It is time, though, that I admit, so as not to be guilty of the hypocricy I 
+was exposing earlier, that most of the sentences in this book will be 
+understood as formulations of beliefs, that, in other words, I have presented 
+my philosophy to the reader by getting him to have a series of beliefs. This 
+does not invalidate my position, because the beliefs are not part of it. They 
+are for the heuristic purpose of getting the reader to appreciate my position, 
+which is not having beliefs (and realizing, for any belief one happens to think 
+of, that it is wrong (which doesn't involve believing)); and they may well not 
+be held when they have accomplished that purpose. I hope I will eventually 
+get around to writing a version of this book which presents my position by 
+suggesting to the reader a series of imaginings (and no more), rather than 
+beliefs; developing a new language to do so. The reason I stick with English 
+in this book is of course (!) that readers are too "unmotivated" (lazy!) to 
+learn a language of an entirely new kind to read a book, having 
+unconventional conclusions, in philosophy proper. 
+
+\subsection*{Chapter 7 : Summary}
+
+The most important step in understanding my work is to realize that I 
+am trying neither to get one to adopt a system of beliefs, nor to just ignore 
+beliefs or the matter of whether they are right. Once the reader does so, he 
+will find that my position is quite simple. The reader has probably tended to 
+construe the body of the book, the second through the sixth chapters, as a 
+formulation of a system of beliefs; or as a proposal that he ignore beliefs or 
+the matter of whether they are right. Even if he has, a careful reading of 
+them will, I hope, have prepared him for a statement of my position which is 
+supposed to make it clear that the position is simple and right. This 
+statement is a summary, and thus cannot be understood except in 
+connection with the second through the sixth chapters. First, I reiterate that 
+my position is not a system of beliefs, supported by a long, plausible 
+argument. This means, incidentally, that it is absurd to "remain 
+unconvinced" of the rightness of my position, or to "doubt, question" it, or 
+to take a long time to decide whether it is right: one can "question" (not 
+believe) disbelief, but not unbelief. (Not to mention that it is a wrong belief 
+to be "skeptical" of my position in the sense of believing "that although the 
+position may subjectively seem right, there is always the possibility that it is 
+objectively wrong".) I am trying, not to get one to adopt new beliefs but to 
+reject those one already has, not to make one more credulous but less 
+credulous. If one "questions my position" then one is misconstruing it as a 
+belief for which I try to give a long, plausible argument, and is trying to 
+decide which is more plausible, my argument that all beliefs are false, say, or 
+the arguments that beliefs are true. It may well take one a long time to 
+understand my position, but if one is taking a long time to decide whether it 
+is right then one is wasting one's time thinking about a position I show to be 
+wrong. Secondly, my position is not a proposal that one ignore beliefs or the 
+matter of whether they are right. Thus, it is absurd to conclude that my 
+position is irrefutable but trivial, that one who has beliefs can also be right. 
+
+Now for the statement of the position. Imagine yourself without 
+beliefs. One certainly is without beliefs when one is not thinking, for 
+example (although not only then). This being without beliefs is my position. 
+Now this position can't be wrong inasmuch as you aren't doing anything to 
+be "true or false", to be self-deceiving. Now imagine that someone asks you 
+to believe something, for example, to believe "that there is a table behind 
+you". Then if you are going to do what he asks, and believe (as opposed to 
+continuing not to think; or only imagining---for example, "visualizing 
+yourself with your back to a table"), you are going to have to have the 
+attitude that you are in effect perceiving what you don't perceive, that is, 
+deceive yourself. (What else could he be asking you to do?) You are going 
+to have to be wrong. That's all there is to it. 
+
+As for my language here, it is primarily intended to be suggestive, 
+intended, at best, to suggest imaginings to you which will enable you to 
+realize what the right philosophical position is (as in the last paragraph). The 
+important thing is not whether the sentences in this book correspond to true 
+statements in your language (although I expect the key ones will, the 
+expressions in them being construed as referring to the experiences 
+associated with them); it is for you to realize, observe what you do when 
+you don't have beliefs and when you do. You are not so much to study my 
+language as to begin to ask what one who asks you to believe wants you to 
+do, anyway. The language isn't sufficiently flawless to absolutely force the 
+complete realization of what the right position is on you (it doesn't have to 
+be flawless to unquestionably discredit "non-experiential language"); if you 
+don't want to realize where the self-deception is in believing you can just 
+ignore the book, and "justify" your doing so on the basis of what I have said 
+about language such as I have used. The point is that the book is not 
+therefore valueless. 
+
+So much for what the right philosophical position is. From having 
+beliefs to not having them is not a trivial step; it is a complete 
+transformation of one's cognitive orientation. Yet astonishing as the latter 
+position is when first encountered, does it not become, in retrospect, 
+"obvious"? What other position could be the resolution of the fantastic 
+proliferation of conflicting beliefs, and of the "profound" philosophical 
+problems (for example, "Could an omnipotent god do the literally 
+impossible?", "Are statements about what I did in the past while alone 
+capable of intersubjective verification?") arising from them? And again, one 
+begins to ask, when one is asked to believe something, what it is that one is 
+wanted to do, anyway; and one's reaction to the request comes to be "Why 
+bother? Cognitively, what is the value of doing so? I'd just be deceiving 
+myself". Also, how much simpler my position is than that of the believer. 
+And although in a way the believer's position is the more natural, since one 
+"naturally" tends to deceive oneself if there's any advantage in doing so 
+(that is, being right tends not to be valued), in another way my position is, 
+since it is simple, and since the non-believer isn't worried by the doubts 
+which arise for one who tries to keep himself deceived. 
+
-- 
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