Language Is Conceived In Sin And Science

The Line That I Am Urging As Today's Conventional Wisdom Is Not A Denial Of Consciousness. It Is Often Called, With More Reason, Arepudiation Of Mind. It Is Indeed A Repudiation Of Mind As A Second Substance, Over And Above Body. It Can Be Described Less Harshly As An Identification Of Mind With Some Of The Faculties, States, And Activities Of The Body. Mental States And Events Are A Special Subclass Of The States And Events Of The Human Or Animal Body.

A Curious Thing About The Ontological Problem Is Its Simplicity. It Can Be Put Into Three Anglo-saxon Monosyllables: 'what Is There?' It Can Be Answered, Moreover, In A Word--'everything'--and Everyone Will Accept This Answer As True.

The Scientist Is Indistinguishable From The Common Man In His Sense Of Evidence, Except That The Scientist Is More Careful.

Our Talk Of External Things, Our Very Notion Of Things, Is Just A Conceptual Apparatus That Helps Us To Foresee And Control The Triggerings Of Our Sensory Receptors In The Light Of Previous Triggering Of Our Sensory Receptors.

The Strategy Of Semantic Ascent Is That It Carries The Discussion Into A Domain Where Both Parties Are Better Agreed On The Objects (viz., Words) And On The Main Terms Connecting Them. Words, Or Their Inscriptions, Unlike Points, Miles, Classes And The Rest, Are Tangible Objects Of The Size So Popular In The Marketplace, Where Men Of Unlike Conceptual Schemes Communicate At Their Best. The Strategy Is One Of Ascending To A Common Part Of Two Fundamentally Disparate Conceptual Schemes, The Better To Discuss The Disparate Foundations. No Wonder It Helps In Philosophy.