Logic Chases Truth Up The Tree Of

Just As The Introduction Of The Irrational Numbers ... Is A Convenient Myth [which] Simplifies The Laws Of Arithmetic ... So Physical Objects Are Postulated Entities Which Round Out And Simplify Our Account Of The Flux Of Existence... The Conceptional Scheme Of Physical Objects Is [likewise] A Convenient Myth, Simpler Than The Literal Truth And Yet Containing That Literal Truth As A Scattered Part.

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.

It Is One Of The Consolations Of Philosophy That The Benefit Of Showing How To Dispense With A Concept Does Not Hinge On Dispensing With It.

English General And Singular Terms, Identity, Quantification, And The Whole Bag Of Ontological Tricks May Be Correlated With Elements Of The Native Language In Any Of Various Mutually Incompatible Ways, Each Compatible With All Possible Linguistic Data, And None Preferable To Another Save As Favored By A Rationalization Of The Native Language That Is Simple And Natural To Us.

Physics Investigates The Essential Nature Of The World, And Biology Describes A Local Bump. Psychology, Human Psychology, Describes A Bump On The Bump.