Philosophical Studies

Now, when Aristotle talks of "the good for man," there is, I think, as my quotation is sufficient to show, a certain confusion in his mind between what is _good_ for man and wha...

It is true that, if certain views which, if I understand them rightly, some Philosophers have seriously entertained, were true ones, it would be quite impossible that any of the...

An enormous number of very familiar arguments have been used by various philosophers, which, if they were sound, would show that we can not. Some of these arguments seem to me t...

The second proposition which, I think, may be put aside at once as certainly not giving the whole of what is meant, is the proposition which is, I think, the natural meaning of...

"It is mere superstition to suppose that an appeal to experience can prove _reality._ That I find something in existence in the world or in my self, shows that this something _e...

Hume does not, therefore, bring forward any arguments at all sufficient to prove either that he cannot know any one object to be causally connected with any other or that he can...

This answer follows from the analysis hitherto accepted of the relation of what I have called "object" to "consciousness" in any sensation or idea. It is held that what I call t...

I think his failure can be explained as follows. It may have been noticed that, in the passages I quoted from him, he insists in one place, that to deny that appearances exist i...

In the first place, where he is specially engaged in explaining this primary principle, he certainly seems to suppose that all propositions of the kind, which we assume most uni...

Now to this question the answer is very obvious. It is very obvious that in this sense we have reasons for believing in the existence of other persons, and also what some of tho...

(1) It seems to me possible that the only _true_ interpretation which can be given to any of them is an interpretation of a kind which I can only indicate rather vaguely as foll...

(1) It is sometimes contended, and with some plausibility, that what we mean by saying that it is _possible_ for a thing which possesses one predicate F to possess another G, is...

In the first place, we have hitherto been considering only whether it is true, as a matter of empirical fact, that all our true ideas are useful, and those which are not true, n...

But I may also, no doubt, have the perception, which I call the perception of another person's hand catching hold of his foot, in a manner similar to that in which I have percei...

However that may be, one relation, in which sensibles of all sorts do sometimes stand to our minds, is the relation constituted by the fact that we directly apprehend them: or,...

My main object in this paper is to try to define more precisely the most important question, which, so far as I can see, is really at issue when it is disputed with regard to an...

Now I think you may have noticed that when you make a statement to another person, and he answers "How do you know that that is so?" he very often means to suggest that you do _...

It seems to me, then, that if we mean by an idea, not mere words, but the kind of idea which words express, any idea, which is true at one time when it occurs, _would_ be true a...

Now these philosophers may be right in holding this. It may, perhaps, be true that, in this sense, my own observations give me no reason whatever for believing that any other pe...

That is to say, this proposition asserts that between the two properties "not having P" and "other than A," there holds that relation which holds between the property "being a r...

But Mr. Taylor's statement though clear, I think, with regard to the meaning of _percipi_ is highly ambiguous in other respects. I will leave it for the present to consider the...

And so far I have been dealing only with ideas with regard to what happened in the past. These seem to me to be the cases which offer the most numerous and most certain exceptio...

For these reasons, it seems to me almost certain that _both_ the assertions which I have been considering are false. It is almost certainly false that all our true ideas are use...

Now there is one obvious defect in this type of argument, if designed to prove that _no_ sensible quality exists at any place where it is perceived as being--a defect, which Ber...

But it may be held that, though "_p_ entails _q_" does not mean the same as "_p * q_," yet nevertheless from "_x_P * _x_Q" the proposition "_x_P entails _x_Q" does follow, for a...

But now, besides these kinds of "things," "objects," or "contents," which we perceive, as we say, "by the senses," there is also another kind which we can be said to observe. No...

I. THE REFUTATION OF IDEALISM II. THE NATURE AND REALITY OF OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION III. WILLIAM JAMES' "PRAGMATISM" IV. HUME'S PHILOSOPHY V. THE STATUS OF SENSE-DATA VI. THE CONC...

I have said that moral rules seem to consist, _to a large extent_, in assertions to the effect that it is always wrong to do certain _actions_ or to refrain from doing certain o...

My judgment, then, is not merely a judgment about my own psychology: but, if so, about whose psychology is it a judgment? It cannot be a judgment that all men desire the one sta...