To Be Is To Be The Value

Our Acceptance Of An Ontology Is, I Think, Similar In Principle To Our Acceptance Of A Scientific Theory, Say A System Of Physics;we Adopt, At Least Insofar As We Are Reasonable, The Simplest Conceptual Scheme Into Which The Disordered Fragments Of Raw Experience Can Be Fitted And Arranged.

One Man's Observation Is Another Man's Closed Book Or Flight Of Fancy.

Theory May Be Deliberate, As In A Chapter On Chemistry, Or It May Be Second Nature, As In The Immemorial Doctrine Of Ordinary Enduring Middle-sized Physical Objects.

The Lore Of Our Fathers Is A Fabric Of Sentences. A Pale Gray Lore, Black With Fact And White With Convention.

Linguistically, And Hence Conceptually, The Things In Sharpest Focus Are The Things That Are Public Enough To Be Talked Of Publicly, Common And Conspicuous Enough To Be Talked Of Often, And Near Enough To Sense To Be Quickly Identified And Learned By Name; It Is To These That Words Apply First And Foremost.