Family Essay Example for Free

Family Essay Every time we have a family gathering in our house, informal debates are always part of the â€Å"program†. My family and I are delighted to involve talking about current issues especially that concerns the humanity’s welfare morals. It will start from simple talks and later become a big debate amongst our family members. It sounds funny but that is how we have our family gatherings. In fact, discussing current issues make our spirits alert and alive but if there is none, our gathering will become boring and seems incomplete. I personally really like exchanging ideas and point of views from others. Through them, I can learn many insights and know their position regarding the issue, whether they are pro or not. This kind of characteristic really runs in my veins. I am a kind of person that will truly stand for what I believe is right. I will never concede to a perverse beliefs and ideas. Even though I have this kind of attitude that like to debate even on simple issues, I do still have my friends that stick with. There are times that we argue on nonsense things that sometimes lead us to a â€Å"fight†. I can still remember one incident that I and one of my closest friends had a fight over on one issue and that is upholding the good morals. I know we have different views when it comes to that matter. She is quite liberated but I am a reserved and quite conservative type of person. So if we talked over on morality, our ideas always clash and it is not new to me at all. Yes, we are friends but I do not do what she does and she does not do what I do because of our opposite views when it comes to morality. The argument started when she confessed to me that she and her boyfriend had indulged into premarital sex several times. My initial reaction was shocked. I was not able to talk for a moment because of her confession to me. I was shocked with her confession not because the idea itself is new to me but because I was not expecting them do it. I trusted her boyfriend very much that he will not do anything wrong to my friend because I expect him as a person who wants my friend to be preserved even we are in this perilous times where our morals are already deteriorating. I am not against on the idea of having sex because it is a gift of God to be enjoyed by individuals specifically for the married people but doing it outside marriage is a very big â€Å"no, no† to me. And I don’t even say that I want her to be like me because I do believe on individualism. All I want to see is, she will learn how to respect her own self and not allowing anyone, not even her â€Å"beloved† boyfriend, abused her body and take advantage on her. In this modern world, several people either young or old, of legal age or not are into it. It becomes a trend of our society. If you don’t experience it, people will regard you as â€Å"loser† and coward but if you do, you will gain their appreciation and approval. See? This is how our world being corrupted of worldly pleasures. And I don’t believe that if everybody is doing it, it is already right. We have to uphold our morals as people and not letting the things of this world influence and corrupt our good character. That is one of my convictions as a person. Furthermore, she continued to relay to me the things they did in full details and silence came up in the atmosphere. I just allowed her pour out her heart on me. After a few minutes, I asked her why she sticks for that idea and permitted it to happen. But she only answered, â€Å"Why not? Everybody is doing it. And besides, we love each other very much. I was very annoyed and disgusted with her answer but I tried to hold back my temper and trying to make a â€Å"good† discussion with her regarding the matter. So, I continued asking her. â€Å"Do you think that is the only way you can express your love to your boyfriend? † I asked. Then, answered back â€Å"what do you mean? We do this because we love each other. Don’t you understand! And don’t you ever dare to dictate my life on what should I do. You are not my parents! † she exclaimed. Those words struck me a lot. I am just discussing this matter to her because I love her as my dear friend and I want the best for her. I am hoping that, through our discussion, she can be able to realize the possible things that might happen to her in the future if she and her boyfriend will continually indulge on it. So I told her that even though everybody is doing it, it doesn’t mean that it is already right. My point was, even though everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible but not everything is constructive. What seems right to our eyes may lead us into destruction. I told her that she is just destroying her life. Her dignity as a woman was lost. I am trying her to understand my point that I would just want her to preserve her virginity until she will get married because that would be the only best gift she can give to her husband aside from her precious love. But she chose not to understand my point because she was â€Å"extremely† in love with that guy. I can understand her feelings but I can’t tolerate her actions. What she only thinks is the present happiness and not looking for the possible consequences in the future. I told her that every action she will be doing has its consequence. It might be right or wrong. Then, I asked again. â€Å"What if you get pregnant? Is he willing to accept the responsibilities and marry you? † She was silent for awhile and thinking for an answer. â€Å"Well†¦My boyfriend loves me so much and I am pretty sure that he will! † she replied and I can see her trying to convinced herself as she said those words to me. â€Å"Oh, well†¦ if that’s the case, I can’t force you to listen to my advices. I respect your opinion and decision because that is your life. But, always remember that I am not intruding your personal life. I am just worried what might be the consequences of your action and if you are really ready to face that consequence. † I responded. So, that argument is closed and I am thinking that it will never be an issue again to both of us. As time passes by, she continued to share to me what she and her boyfriend were doing and it was all about their sex escapades. I do listen to her even I do not like what I am hearing. I am trying my very best to understand her and remind her that it is not yet late to change. But she will just tell me that there is nothing wrong with her. In fact, she is very proud to experience it. One day, she phoned me and asked if we can dine out. We went to our favorite restaurant. When I saw her, she looked restless and haggard. I smiled at her and asked, â€Å"What is wrong? How are you and your boyfriend? † She just smiled bitterly to me. â€Å"Why? † I asked again. â€Å"I am pregnant and I do not know what to do with this baby. † I just looked at her and never said anything for a second. â€Å"I will abort this baby! † She started to cry. â€Å"No! † I said. â€Å"Did your boyfriend learn about this? † What did he say? † As I asked those questions, tears kept falling on her eyes. â€Å"Tell me†¦ What did he say about the baby? † I repeated. â€Å"He wanted me to abort the baby? He doesn’t want to marry me because we are still young and he has no job yet. I told her to keep the baby and never mind her boyfriend. Anyway, she can take care and provide the needs of her baby if she wants to. But she told me straight on my face that she will abort the baby. Due to her confusions, abortion came up into her mind as an ultimate answer for her recent problem. I told her that she already committed sin once, the sin of committing premarital sex, and now she should not sin again by aborting her own child. It is not right. It is morally not right. You are killing an innocent child, a child that has no strength to defend and fight for himself. This time, I persistently argued with her not to abort her baby. I told her that the guilt will always haunt her for the rest of her life. She might escape the shame for having a baby without a husband but she will not surely escape the guilt that will forever haunt her conscience. She was very stubborn because she told me that she needs to abort the baby because she cannot handle the responsibilities and the shame. I told her that all those scorns from other people will just pass and never be remembered again as the time will pass but the life of her baby cannot be withdraw from death once it is aborted.

Knowledge Invented Or Discovered Philosophy Essay

Knowledge Invented Or Discovered Philosophy Essay The meaning and difference between Discovered and Invented is the first knowledge issue that comes up after reading the title. How do we categorize something as being discovered or invented? Are all inventions discoveries; or all discoveries inventions? The word discovered means to gain knowledge or awareness of something not known before, whereas invent means to create or produce something that did not exist before. The areas of knowledge are mathematics, natural sciences, human sciences, history, arts and ethics. But due to the word limit constraints, it is difficult to take all areas of knowledge into account. So, I will take 2 areas of knowledge and discuss them. First lets take history into account. The past is fixed; immutable and absolutely certain. Nothing we can do can change it. Therefore, we hold up history as the model for truth and certainty. BUT!!! This is what we think. We do not take into account the bigger side of this. How can we be sure what the historians tell us is right? How can we be sure that this is what definitely happened in the past? All the above sayings tell us one thing that history is completely different from what we consider it to be. This is because all historians research the past with certain interest or questions in their mind, pick out only the pieces that are relevant to their investigation, and assemble them in different ways. All historians are selective and they select on the basis of their own paradigms. All historians are humans and their history is based on their own particular interest, which probably are dependent on their own culture. For example, if we consider a situation where people plant bombs maybe in an attempt to force the government to make some changes according to their wishes; now in this situation, I and probably most of the people will call it terrorism as it is killing innocent people. BUT, some people will probably call it freedom- fighting. This situation probably has arisen in history many times, but as I said before, all historians will portray this situation according to what they believe. This obviously means that history is altered according to different historians. A proof of this maybe found in two different history books where one historian might have portrayed the above situation as terrorism and the other as freedom- fighting. So, the conclusion to all the above arguments leaves us with the belief that history is invented according to different historians, what they believe and what they think about the situation. BUT, as being a TOK student, the second side of the arguments also has to be explored. People say that history is constructed by biased historians working with biased sources which are why there is no such thing as historical truth. But just because their work is selective, it does not mean it is that they have twisted it. There might be several accounts of a particular event and none of it might be true, or there might be true pieces in each. The historian recognizes the problem, and looks to solve them. They give explanations with developed reasons. Theories, arguments and accounts all examined and questioned. And plus, there is a pressing moral need for us to acknowledge the reality of the past. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it Santayana. In conclusion for history, I think it cannot be characterized as either invented or discovered. I think, it is BOTH, invention AND discovery. The next area of knowledge I would discuss is mathematics. Maths- invented or discovered? This question has been debated on since a very long time but till now, a particular conclusion has not yet been reached. Some people believe that maths was invented, while some believe that it was discovered. The problem that arises here is that people who say that maths is invented and people who say that maths is discovered both have reasonable evidences to prove themselves, which is why not even one can be proved wrong. The view that maths is out there waiting to be discovered is called the platonic view of maths, named after Plato, who thought that mathematical truths are eternal and unchanging. For example, if we consider the Pythagoras theorem, of course it did not exist before as a theorem, but surely their truth values did exist. For instance, anyone who happened to build squares from the sides of a right angled triangle would find that the area of the square of the hypotenuse would equal the area of the other two squares combined. The name of Pythagoras theorem is definitely an invention, but the mathematical relationship obviously existed before it was discovered. But then again, there are some difficult questions raised in response to Platos theory, such as where did maths exist? How do we discover maths? Many believe that the only reasonable answers suggest that maths is purely in the mind. And Plato could probably not have argued on this because he had argued that we are just remembering things that we already knew but had forgotten. But if maths really is in the mind, then isnt it an invention? In counter argument to the above two questions, I can give an example. For example you are in a maths class and given a problem to solve. Has it never happened that you solved the problem without being provided with a method to solve it? Yes! It has happened. At least with me it has. We were give a math question and not told a method of how to solve it. But surprisingly, a few students in the class got the correct answer. This means that the solution was found all the by those few students all by themselves. That solution existed which is why it occurred to the students and they solved it. This somehow proves Platos theory. Phi (Golden Ratio) as a mysterious number has been discovered in many areas, such as art, architectures, humans, and plants. According to the history of maths, Phi was first understood and used by the ancient mathematician in Egypt, two to three thousand years ago, due to its frequent appearance in Geometry. Phidias (500BC-432 BC), a Greek sculptor and mathematician, studied Phi and used the Phi in many designs of his sculptures, such as the statue of the goddess Athena in Athena, and the state of god Zeus in Olympiad. This means that the theorem of phi did exist before, and it was discovered but the name phi (golden ratio) was obviously invented. Same is the case with natural constants (e and ln), their values, properties and functions did exist before which discovered but their names and symbols were invented. In my opinion, like history, it is not accurate to characterize maths as either invented or discovered. It is both invention and discovery; they work hand in hand. People think that there is an enormous body of mathematical knowledge, partially discovered, and waiting patiently for people to come along and dig it out. Well, thats definitely fairly the case; nobody is ever going to invent any maths that wasnt already true. I mean, no matter how hard you try, youre never going to be able to prove that 2+2=6. The concepts and theorems are discovered while the symbols are invented. In conclusion, I will say that I dont agree with the main claim that some areas of knowledge are discovered and others are invented. I think it is not accurate to say that some areas of knowledge are either invented or being discovered. In my opinion, they work hand in hand, together supporting a particular subject. Without either (discovery or invention), the subject remains incomplete, meaning that both are interdependent to complete a subject.

Re-interpretation of the Philosophical Thought of Benjamin Constant :: Philosophy Psychological Psychology Essays

Re-interpretation of the Philosophical Thought of Benjamin Constant ABSTRACT: The liberal French thinker Benjamin Constant develops a conception of human nature which shows the triplicity of being human. Such triplicity manifests itself in the close connection between emotion, rationality, and animality. He also develops an idea of liberty which treats it only as a real, historically conditioned minimalization of external limitations. Liberty thus understood enjoys metaphysical rootedness in human nature. 1. Introductory remarks Benjamin Constant (1767-1830), the French aristocrat, politician, one of the fathers of the French liberalism and, at the same time, the then well-known man of letters is also the author of a voluminous and almost unknown work about religion. It appeared in the years 1824-1833 in Paris in seven volumes, five of which are entitled "De la religion consideree dans sa source, ses formes et ses developpements", and two "Du Polytheisme romain considere dans ses rapports avec la philosphie grecque et la religion chretienne. Constant wrote this work through all his life, changing the fundamental theses and supplementing them as his theoretical knowledge about religion increased and as a result of his personal experiences connected with religion. Although the huge volume of the work is rather perceived as unattractive today and most of the historical material is out of date, it contains interesting philosophical theses which are the crowning achievement of the whole intellectual life of the a uthor. These theses allow us to understand and interpret better the philosophical foundations of Constant's liberalism which are created, among others, by a certain understanding of the human nature i.e. a certain philosophical anthropology, whereas the latter induces an understanding of liberty, peculiar for the Constantian liberalism. 2. The human nature. Constantian theses contained in the work on religion and refering to the human nature can be formulated as follows: 1. A man is not entirely the product of society in which he lives and its culture, but he is a being that can be defined by his stable and unchangeable nature. 2. What the human nature is like can be judged by examining the behaviours common to all people and their creations, for example religion. 3. The human nature is unchangeable . However, the forms change, through which it manifests it self in various periods of the development of humanity. In people's religious behaviour, for example, there is manifested something which is the permanent source of every religion and is inherent in human nature.

Two Autonomous Women in American Literature Essay -- social issues, wo

In American history, women have not always had the same rights and opportunities of men. Yet, there were exceptions throughout history of women casting aside the general role of just a mother or housewife. Two fictitious examples occur in the book The Awakening by Kate Chopin, and the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare. In The Awakening, Edna, the protagonist of the story, undergoes a realization that her nineteenth-century lifestyle is not the way she wants to live. She rebels against being treated like a piece of property and tries to break free of societies laws. Macbeth tells the story of a man named Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth who desires to become queen. Lady Macbeth is the one who told him to kill the current king Duncan to become king himself. Both Edna and Lady Macbeth portray examples of women with autonomy, but the one who displays the characteristics of autonomy the best is Edna. Edna is more autonomous than Lady Macbeth, who only influences rather than displ ay her own independence, because she takes a stand against society, which is the ultimate act of independence. Lady Macbeth is inarguably a very strong, powerful woman with a lot of control, especially at the beginning of the play. This quote explains the extent of her control over her husband, â€Å"Lady Macbeth appears to be somehow in league with evil and Macbeth its victim, a fly in the spider’s web who struggles mightily but cannot escape† (Johnson). She manipulates her husband to get him to do what she wants. When she learns of his destiny to become king, she can’t just let him sit around waiting on it to happen; she knows he has to act. She tells Macbeth he has to kill king Duncan and overrides his objections. Lady Macbeth tries to commit the mu... ...to live, has more autonomy than Lady Macbeth who could only persuade. Both of these women are extremely strong and independent, which makes it very difficult to decide between them. In the end though, Edna is the more autonomous because she held her beliefs until the very end. Lady Macbeth let her ideas get the better of her and felt the guilt of these ideas. So in conclusion, Edna is the more autonomous woman out of the two. Both women were strong and brave for being different in a time when being different was not acceptable. Works Cited Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. New York: Dover Publications, 1993. Print. Dominic, Catherine C. ed. Shakespeare’s Characters for Students. Detroit: 1997. Print. Johnson, Vernon Elso. ed. Social Issues in Literature. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2009. Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Logan, IA: Perfection Learning, 2004. Print.

Human Trafficking Essay -- Crime

Human Trafficking is the unlawful trade of human beings for various purposes such as reproductive slavery or sex slavery. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC] protocol on trafficking, â€Å"Trafficking in Persons is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation† (UNODC). Human Trafficking is a growing phenomenon. It is one of the fastest growing types of transnational crime worldwide. According to the US State department’s 2009 â€Å"Trafficking in Persons Report,† at least 12.3 million adults and children fall victim to human traffickers every year (qtd in Haerens 17). Human Trafficking occurs on every continent and has been booming. One reason for the increase in human trafficking is because of globalization. When competing in the global marketplace companies and corporations need cheap labor, and they don’t care where it comes from. This in turn, causes the employment recruiters (the traffickers) to go after their prey (the trafficked). Human Trafficking can be thought of as a national security implication. One case of involuntary or forced servitude, standing alone, does not constitute a breach in national security. When viewed as a whole, in relation to human trafficking, this is considered as a major breach in National Security and should be treated as a serious crime. According to Rizer and Glaser â€Å"the crime of trafficking in persons has recently been added... ...demic Search Complete. Web. 21 Mar. 2012. Haerens, Margaret. Human Trafficking. New York: Greenhaven Press, 2012. Print. â€Å"Human Trafficking.† United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. UNODC, 2012. Web. 4 April. 2012. Kloer, Amanda. "Sex Trafficking and HIV/AIDS." Human Rights 37.2 (2010): 8-25. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Mar. 2012. Ojeda, Auriana. Slavery Today. New York: Greenhaven Press, 2004. Print. Pati, Roza. "States' Positive Obligations with Respect to Human Trafficking: The European Court of Human Rights Breaks New Ground in Rantsev V. Cyprus and Russia." Boston University International Law Journal 29.1 (2011): 79-142. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Mar. 2012. Rizer, Arthur and Sheri R. Glaser. "Breach: The National Security Implications of Human Trafficking." Widener Law Review 17.1 (2011): 69-94. Academic Search Complete. Web. 21 Mar. 2012.

Nutrition and Nutrient Content Labels Essay

1. What was the purpose of testing distilled water with each indicator? The purpose of testing distilled water was to have a standard for the other samples. 2. Given what you know about diabetes, explain why diabetics have to pay attention to the types of foods they ingest? Diabetics have to pay attention to the types of foods they eat because their bodies cannot break down and use glucose correctly. So, if they have too much glucose, they could go into diabetic shock. 3. List any of the food samples that tested positive for more than one type of molecule. Explain why it is an advantage for us to eat foods that contain more than one type of molecule. Peanuts tested positive for more than one type of molecule. The advantage of eating foods with more than one type of molecule is that the body can get the proper amount of the molecule they need more efficiently. 4. In the United States, processed food must be labeled showing information about the nutrient content. It has been argued that requiring nutritional information on these foods is too costly for consumers, because the cost to test the foods is added to the price of the food item. What is your position on this issue? In the space below, write a five to eight sentence paragraph giving at least three reasons in support of your position. Write a paragraph either in support of the current laws that require nutritional labeling, or in favor of making nutrient content labels optional. Support your position with logical, well thought out arguments. I feel that they should continue making nutrient content labels mandatory.

Russell-Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge

Pg1Pg1 KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE I53 Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description Bertrand Russell Russell, Bertrand (1917). Knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1910-1911. Reprinted in his his Mysticism and Logic (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. : 1917). Reprinted Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes & Noble Books, 1951, pp. 152-167. Pagination here matches the latter. ) THE object of the following paper is to consider what it is that we know in cases where we know propositions about ‘the so-and-so' without knowing who or what the so-and-so is.For example, I know that the candidate who gets most votes will be elected, though I do not know who is the candidate who will get most votes. The problem I wish to consider is: What do we know in these cases, where the subject is merely described ? I have considered this problem elsewhere1 from a purely logical point of view; but in what follows I wish to consider the questio n in relation to theory of knowledge as well as in relation to logic, and in view of the above-mentioned logical discussions, I shall in this paper make the logical portion as brief as possible.In order to make clear the antithesis between ‘acquaintance' and ‘description', I shall first of all try to explain what I mean by ‘acquain- tance'. I say that I am acquainted with an object when I have a direct cognitive relation to that object, i. e. when I am directly aware of the object itself. When I speak of a cognitive relation here, I do not mean the sort of relation which constitutes judgment, but the sort which constitutes presentation. In fact, I think the relation of subject and object which I call acquaintance is simply the converse of the relation of object and subject which constitutes presentation.That is, to say that S has acquaintance with O is essentially the same thing as to say that O is presented to S. But the associations and natural extensions of the word acquaintance are different from those of the word presentation. To begin with, as in most cognitive words, it is natural to say that I am acquainted with an object even at moments when it is not actually before my mind, provided it has been before my mind, and will be again whenever occasion arises. This is the same sense in which I am said to know that 2+2=4 even when I am thinking of something else. In the second place, the word See references later. acquaintance is designed to emphasize, more than the word presen- tation, the relational character of the fact with which we are concerned. There is, to my mind, a danger that, in speaking of presentation, we may so emphasize the object as to lose sight of the subject. The result of this is either to lead to the view that there is no subject, whence we arrive at materialism; or to lead to the view that what is presented is part of the subject, whence we arrive at idealism, and should arrive at solipsism but for the most desperate contortions.Now I wish to preserve the dualism of subject and object in my terminology, because this dualism seems to me a fundamental fact concerning cognition. Hence I prefer the word acquaintance, because it emphasizes the need of a subject which is acquainted. When we ask what are the kinds of objects with which we are acquainted, the first and most obvious example is sense-data. When I see a colour or hear a noise, I have direct acquaintance with the colour or the noise. The sense-datum with which I am acquainted in these cases is generally, if not always, complex.This is particularly obvious in the case of sight. I do not mean, of course, merely that the supposed physical object is complex, but that the direct sensible object is complex and contains parts with spatial relations. Whether it is possible to be aware of a complex without being aware of its constituents is not an easy question, but on the whole it would seem that there is no reason why it should not be possible. T his question arises in an acute form in connection with self-consciousness, which we must now briefly consider.In introspection, we seem to be immediately aware of varying complexes, consisting of objects in various cognitive and conative relations to ourselves. When I see the sun, it often happens that I am aware of my seeing the sun, in addition to being aware of the sun; and when I desire food, it often happens that I am aware of my desire for food. But it is hard to discover any state of mind in which I am aware of myself alone, as opposed to a complex of which I am a constituent. The question of the nature of self-consciousness is too large, and too slightly connected with our subject, to be argued at length here.It is difficult, but probably not impossible, to account for plain facts if we assume that we do not have acquaintance with ourselves. It is plain that we are not only acquainted with the complex ‘Self-acquainted-with-A', but we also know the proposition ‘I am acquainted with A'. Now here the complex has been analysed, and if ‘I' does not stand for something which is a direct object of acquaintance, we shall have to suppose that ‘I' is something known by description. If we wished to maintain the view that there is noPg2Pg2 154 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC acquaintance with Self, we might argue as follows: We are acquainted with acquaintance, and we know that it is a relation. Also we are acquainted with a complex in which we perceive that acquaintance is the relating relation. Hence we know that this complex must have a constituent which is that which is acquainted, i. e. must have a subject- term as well as an object-term. This subject-term we define as ‘I'. Thus ‘I' means ‘the subject-term in awarenesses of which / am aware'.But as a definition this cannot be regarded as a happy effort. It would seem necessary, therefore, either to suppose that I am acquainted with myself, and that ‘I', therefore, requires no definition, being merely the proper name of a certain object, or to find some other analysis of self- consciousness. Thus self-consciousness cannot be regarded as throwing light on the question whether we can know a complex without knowing its constituents. This question, however, is not important for our present purposes, and I hall therefore not discuss it further. The awarenesses we have considered so far have all been aware- nesses of particular existents, and might all in a large sense be called sense-data. For, from the point of view of theory of knowledge, introspective knowledge is exactly on a level with knowledge derived from sight or hearing. But, in addition to awareness of the above kind of objects, which may be called awareness of particulars, we have also (though not quite in the same sense) what may be called awareness of universals.Awareness of universals is called conceiving, and a uni- versal of which we are aware is called a concept. Not only are we aware of particular yellows, but if we have seen a sufficient number of yellows and have sufficient intelligence, we are aware of the universal yellow; this universal is the subject in such judgments as ‘yellow differs from blue' or ‘yellow resembles blue less than green does'. And the universal yellow is the predicate in such judgments as ‘this is yellow', where ‘this' is a particular sense-datum.And universal relations, too, are objects of awarenesses; up and down, before and after, resemblance, desire, awareness itself, and so on, would seem to be all of them objects of which we can be aware. In regard to relations, it might be urged that we are never aware of the universal relation itself, but only of complexes in which it is a constituent. For example, it may be said that we do not know directly such a relation as before, though we understand such a proposition as ‘this is before that', and may be directly aware of such a complex as ‘this being before that'.This view, however, is difficult to reconcile with the fact that we often know propositions in which KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE I55 the relation is the subject, or in which the relata are not definite given objects, but ‘anything'. For example, we know that if one thing is before another, and the other before a third, then the first is before the third; and here the things concerned are not definite things, but ‘anything'. It is hard to see how we could know such a fact about ‘before' unless we were acquainted with ‘before', and not merely with actual particular cases of ne given object being before another given object. And more directly: A judgment such as ‘this is before that', where this judgment is derived from awareness of a complex, constitutes an analysis, and we should not understand the analysis if we were not acquainted with the meaning of the terms employed. Thus we must suppose that we are acquainted with the meaning of ‘before' , and not merely with instances of it. There are thus at least two sorts of objects of which we are aware, namely, particulars and universals.Among particulars I include all existents, and all complexes of which one or more constituents are existents, such as this-before-that, this-above-that, the-yellowness-of- this. Among universals I include all objects of which no particular is a constituent. Thus the disjunction ‘universal-particular' includes all objects. We might also call it the disjunction ‘abstract concrete'. It is not quite parallel with the opposition ‘concept-percept', because things remembered or imagined belong with particulars, but can hardly be called percepts. On the other hand, universals with which we are acquainted may be identified with concepts. ) It will be seen that among the objects with which we are acquainted are not included physical objects (as opposed to sense-data), nor other people's minds. These things are known to us by what I cal l ‘knowledge by description', which we must now consider. By a ‘description' I mean any phrase of the form ‘a so-and-so' or ‘the so-and-do'. A phrase of the form ‘a so-and-so' I shall call an ‘ambiguous' description; a phrase of the form ‘the so-and-do' (in the singular) I shall call a ‘definite' description.Thus ‘a man' is an ambiguous description, and ‘the man with the iron mask' is a definite description. There are various problems connected with ambiguous descriptions, but I pass them by, since they do not directly concern the matter I wish to discuss. What I wish to discuss is the nature of our knowledge concerning objects in cases where we know that there is an object answering to a definite description, though we are not acquainted with any such object. This is a matter which is concerned exclusively with definite descriptions.I shall, therefore, in the sequel, speak simply of ‘descriptions' when I mean Pg3Pg3 I56MYSTICISM AND LOGIC ‘definite descriptions'. Thus a description will mean any phrase of the form ‘the so-and-so' in the singular. I shall say that an object is ‘known by description' when we know that it is ‘the so-and-so', i. e. when we know that there is one object, and no more, having a certain property; and it will generally be implied that we do not have knowledge of the same object by acquaintance.We know that the man with the iron mask existed, and many propositions are known about him; but we do not know who he was. We know that the candidate who gets most votes will be elected, and in this case we are very likely also acquainted (in the only sense in which one can be acquainted with someone else) with the man who is, in fact, the candidate who will get most votes, but we do not know which of the candidates he is, i. e. we do not know any proposition of the form ‘A is the candidate who will get most votes' where A is one of the candidates by name.We shall say that we have â€Å"merely descriptive knowledge' of the so-and-so when, although we know that the so-and-so exists, and although we may possibly be acquainted with the object which is, in fact, the so-and-so, yet we do not know any proposition ‘a is the so- and-so', where a is something with which we are acquainted. When we say ‘the so-and-so exists', we mean that there is just one object which is the so-and-so. The proposition ‘a is the so-and-so' means that a has the property so-and-so, and nothing else has. Sir Joseph Larmor is the Unionist candidate' means ‘Sir Joseph Larmor is a Unionist candidate, and no one else is. ‘ ‘The Unionist candidate exists' means ‘someone is a Unionist candidate, and no one else is. ‘ Thus, when we are acquainted with an object which we know to be the so- and-so, we know that the so-and-so exists, but we may know that the so-and-so exists when we are not acquainted with any object whi ch we know to be the so-and-so, and even when we are not acquainted with any object which, in fact, is the so-and-so. Common words, even proper names, are usually really descriptions.That is to say, the thought in the mind of a person using a proper name correctly can generally only be expressed explicitly if we replace the proper name by a description. Moreover, the description required to express the thought will vary for different people, or for the same person at different times. The only thing constant (so long as the name is rightly used) is the object to which the name applies. But so long as this remains constant, the particular description involved usually makes no difference to the truth or falsehood of the proposition in which the name appears.Let us take some illustrations. Suppose some statement made KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE I57 about Bismarck. Assuming that there is such a thing as direct acquaintance with oneself, Bismarck himself might have used his name directly to designate the particular person with whom he was acquainted. In this case, if he made a judgment about himself, he himself might be a constituent of the judgment. Here the proper name has the direct use which it always wishes to have, as simply standing for a certain object, and not for a description of the object.But if a person who knew Bismarck made a judgment about him, the case is different. What this person was acquainted with were certain sense-data which he connected (rightly, we will suppose) with Bismarck's body. His body as a physical object, and still more his mind, were only known as the body and the mind connected with these sense-data. That is, they were known by description. It is, of course, very much a matter of chance which characteristics of a man's appearance will come into a friend's mind when he thinks of him; thus the description actually in the friend's mind is accidental.The essential point is that he knows that the various descriptions all apply to the sa me entity, in spite of not being acquainted with the entity in question. When we, who did not know Bismarck, make a judgment about him, the description in our minds will probably be some more or less vague mass of historical knowledge—? far more, in most cases, than is required to identify him. But, for the sake of illustration, let us assume that we think of him as ‘the first Chancellor of the German Empire'. Here all the words are abstract except ‘German'.The word ‘German' will again have different meanings for different people. To some it will recall travels in Germany, to some the look of Germany on the map, and so on. But if we are to obtain a description which we know to be applicable, we shall be compelled, at some point, to bring in a reference to a particular with which we are acquainted. Such reference is involved in any mention of past, present, and future (as opposed to definite dates), or of here and there, or of what others have told us.Thus it would seem that, in some way or other, a description known to be applicable to a particular must involve some reference to a particular with which we are acquainted, if our knowledge about the thing described is not to be merely what follows logically from the description. For example, ‘the most long-lived of men' is a description which must apply to some man, but we can make no judgments concerning this man which involve knowledge about him beyond what the description gives.If, however, we say, ‘the first Chancellor of the German Empire was an astute diplomatist', we can only be assured Pg4Pg4 158MYSTICISM AND LOGIC of the truth of our judgment in virtue of something with which we are acquainted—? usually a testimony heard or read. Considered psychologically, apart from the information we convey to others, apart from the fact about the actual Bismarck, which gives importance to our judgment, the thought we really have contains the one or more particulars involve d, and otherwise consists wholly of concepts.All names of places—? London, England, Europe, the earth, the Solar System—? similarly involve, when used, descriptions which start from some one or more particulars with which we are acquainted. I suspect that even the Universe, as considered by metaphysics, involves such a connection with particulars. In logic, on the contrary, where we are concerned not merely with what does exist, but with whatever might or could exist or be, no reference to actual particulars is involved.It would seem that, when we make a statement about something only known by description, we often intend to make our statement, not in the form involving the description, but about the actual thing described. That is to say, when we say anything about Bismarck, we should like, if we could, to make the judgment which Bismarck alone can make, namely, the judgment of which he himself is a constituent. In this we are necessarily defeated, since the actual Bi smarck is unknown to us.But we know that there is an object B called Bismarck, and that B was an astute diplomatist. We can thus describe the proposition we should like to affirm, namely, ‘B was an astute diplomatist', where B is the object which was Bismarck. What enables us to communicate in spite of the varying descriptions we employ is that we know there is a true proposition concerning the actual Bismarck, and that, however we may vary the description (so long as the description is correct), the proposition described is still the same.This proposition, which is described and is known to be true, is what interests us; but we are not acquainted with the proposition itself, and do not know it, though we know it is true. It will be seen that there are various stages in the removal from acquaintance with particulars: there is Bismarck to people who knew him, Bismarck to those who only know of him through history, the man with the iron mask, the longest-lived of men. These are progressively further removed from acquaintance with particulars, and there is a similar hierarchy in the region of universals.Many universals, like many particulars, are only known to us by description. But here, as in the case of particulars, knowledge concerning what is known by description is ultimately reducible to knowledge concerning what is known by acquaintance. KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE 159 The fundamental epistemological principle in the analysis of propositions containing descriptions is this: Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted.From what has been said already, it will be plain why I advocate this principle, and how I propose to meet the case of propositions which at first sight contravene it. Let us begin with the reasons for supposing the principle true. The chief reason for supposing the principle true is that it seems scarcely possible to believe that we can make a judgment or entertain a supp osition without knowing what it is that we are judging or supposing about. If we make a judgment about (say) Julius Caesar, it is plain that the actual person who was Julius Caesar is not a constituent of the judgment.But before going further, it may be well to explain what I mean when I say that this or that is a constituent of a judgment, or of a proposition which we understand. To begin with judgments: a judgment, as an occurrence, I take to be a relation of a mind to several entities, namely, the entities which compose what is judged. If, e. g. I judge that A loves B, the judgment as an event consists in the existence, at a certain moment, of a specific four-term relation, called judging, between me and A and love and B.That is to say, at the time when I judge, there is a certain complex whose terms are myself and A and love and B, and whose relating relation is judging. My reasons for this view have been set forth elsewhere,1 and I shall not repeat them here. Assuming this view of judgment, the constituents of the judgment are simply the constituents of the complex which is the judgment- Thus, in the above case, the constituents are myself and A and love and B and judging. But myself and judging are constituents shared by all my judgments; thus the distinctive constituents of the particular judgment in question are A and love and B.Coming now to what is meant by ‘understanding a proposition', I should say that there is another relation possible between me and A and love and B, which is called my supposing that A loves B. 2 When we can suppose that A loves B, we ‘understand the proposition' A loves B. Thus we often understand a proposition in cases where we have not enough knowledge to make a judgment. 1 Philosophical Essays, ‘The Nature of Truth. ‘ I have been persuaded by Mr Wittgenstein that this theory is somewhat unduly simple, but the modification which I believe it to require does not affect the above argument [1917]. Cf. Mei nong, Ueber Annahmen, passim. I formerly supposed, contrary to Meinong's view, that the relationship of supposing might be merely that of presentation. In this view I now think I was mistaken, and Meinong is right. But my present view depends upon the theory that both in judgment and in assumption there is no single Objective, but the several constituents of the judgment or asaumption are in a many-term relation to the mind. Pg5Pg5 160MYSTICISM AND LOGIC Supposing, like judging, is a many-term relation, of which a mind is one term.The other terms of the relation are called the constituents of the proposition supposed. Thus the principle which I enunciated may be re-stated as follows: Whenever a relation of supposing or judging occurs, the terms to which the supposing or judging mind is related by the relation of supposing or judging must be terms with which the mind in question is acquainted. This is merely to say that we cannot make a judgment or a supposition without knowing what it is that we are making our judgment or supposition about.It seems to me that the truth of this principle is evident as soon as the principle is understood; I shall, therefore, in what follows, assume the principle, and use it as a guide in analysing judgments that contain descriptions. Returning now to Julius Caesar, I assume that it will be admitted that he himself is not a constituent of any judgment which I can make. But at this point it is necessary to examine the view that judgments are composed of something called ‘ideas', and that it is the ‘idea' of Julius Caesar that is a constituent of my judgment.I believe the plausibility of this view rests upon a failure to form a right theory of descriptions. We may mean by my ‘idea' of Julius Caesar the things that I know about him, e. g. that he conquered Gaul, was assassinated on the Ides of March, and is a plague to schoolboys. Now I am admitting, and indeed contending, that in order to discover what is actually in my mind when I judge about Julius Caesar, we must substitute for the proper name a description made up of some of the things I know about him. (A description which will often serve to express my thought is ‘the man whose name wasJulius Caesar. ‘ For whatever else I may have forgotten about him, it is plain that when I mention him I have not forgotten that that was his name. ) But although I think the theory that judgments consist of ideas may have been suggested in some such way, yet I think the theory itself is fundamentally mistaken. The view seems to be that there is some mental existent which may be called the ‘idea' of something outside the mind of the person who has the idea, and that, since judgment is a mental event, its constituents must be constituents of the mind of the person judging.But in this view ideas become a veil between us and outside things—? we never really, in knowledge, attain to the things we are supposed to be knowing about, but only to the ideas of those things. The relation of mind, idea, and object, on this view, is utterly obscure, and, so far as I can see, nothing discoverable by inspection warrants the intrusion of the idea between the mind and the object. I suspect that the view ii fostered by the dislike of relations, and that it is felt the mindKNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCEl6l could not know objects unless there were something ‘in' the mind which could be called the state of knowing the object. Such a view, however, leads at once to a vicious endless regress, since the relation of idea to object will have to be explained by supposing that the idea itself has an idea of the object, and so on ad infinitum. I therefore see no reason to believe that, when we are acquainted with an object, there is in us something which can be called the ‘idea' of the object.On the contrary, I hold that acquaintance is wholly a relation, not demanding any such constituent of the mind as is supposed by advocates of ‘ideas'. This is, of course, a large question, and one which would take us far from our subject if it were adequately discussed. I therefore content myself with the above indications, and with the corollary that, in judging, the actual objects concerning which we judge, rather than any supposed purely mental entities, are constituents of the complex which is the judgment.When, therefore, I say that we must substitute for ‘Julius Caesar' some description of Julius Caesar, in order to discover the meaning of a judgment nominally about him, I am not saying that we must substitute an idea. Suppose our description is ‘the man whose name was Julius Caesar'. Let our judgment be ‘Julius Caesar was assassinated'. Then it becomes ‘the man whose name was Julius Caesar was assassinated'. Here Julius Caesar is a noise or shape with which we are acquainted, and all the other constituents of the judgment (neglecting the tense in ‘was') are concepts with whic h we are acquainted.Thus our judgment is wholly reduced to constituents with which we are acquainted, but Julius Caesar himself has ceased to be a constituent of our judgment. This, however, requires a proviso, to be further explained shortly, namely, that ‘the man whose name was Julius Caesar' must not, as a whole, be a constituent of our judgment, that is to say, this phrase must not, as a whole, have a meaning which enters into the judgment. Any right analysis of the judgment, therefore, must break up this phrase, and not treat it as a subordinate complex which is part of the judgment.The judgment ‘the man whose name was Julius Caesar was assassinated' may be interpreted as meaning ‘one and only one man was called Julius Caesar, and that one was assassinated'. Here it is plain that there is no constituent corresponding to the phrase, ‘the man whose name was Julius Caesar'. Thus there is no reason to regard this phrase as expressing a constituent of the jud gment, and we have seen that this phrase must be broken up if we are to be acquainted with all the constituents of the judgment. This conclusion, which we have reached from considerations concerned with the theory of knowledge, is also forced uponPg6Pg6 162MYSTICISM AND LOGIC us by logical considerations, which must now be briefly reviewed. It is common to distinguish two aspects, meaning and denotation, in such phrases as ‘the author of Waverley'. The meaning will be a certain complex} consisting (at least) of authorship and Waverley with some relation] the denotation will be Scott. Similarly ‘feather-less bipeds' will have a complex meaning, containing as constituents the presence of two feet and the absence of feathers, while its denotation will be the class of men.Thus when we say ‘Scott is the author of Waverley' or ‘men are the same as featherless bipeds', we are asserting an identity of denotation, and this assertion is worth making because of the dive rsity of meaning. 1 I believe that the duality of meaning and denotation, though capable of a true interpretation, is misleading if taken as fundamental. The denotation, I believe, is not a constituent of the proposition, except in the case of proper names, i. e. of words which do not assign a property to an object, but merely and solely name it.And I should hold further that, in this sense, there are only two words which are strictly proper names of particulars, namely, T and ‘this. ‘2 One reason for not believing the denotation to be a constituent of the proposition is that we may know the proposition even when we are not acquainted with the denotation. The proposition ‘the author of Waverley is a novelist' was known to people who did not know that ‘the author of Waverley' denoted Scott. This reason has been already sufficiently emphasized.A second reason is that propositions concerning ‘the so-and-so' are possible even when ‘the so-and-so' has no denotation. Take, e. g. ‘the golden mountain does not exist' or ‘the round square is self- contradictory'. If we are to preserve the duality of meaning and denotation, we have to say, with Meinong, that there are such objects as the golden mountain and the round square, although these objects do not have being. We even have to admit that the existent round square is existent, but does not exist. 3 Meinong does not regard this as a contradition, but I fail to see that it is not one.Indeed, it seems to me evident that the judgment ‘there is no such object as the round square' does not presuppose that there is such an object. If this is admitted, however, we are led to the conclusion that, by parity of form, no judgment concerning ‘the so-and-so' actually involves the so-and-so as a constituent. 1 This view has been recently advocated by Miss E. E. C. Jones. ‘A New Law of Thought and its Implications,' Mind, January, 1911. * I should now exclude ‘ I' from proper names in the strict sense, and retain only ‘this' [1917]. †¢? Meinongj Ueber Annahmen, 2nd ed. , Leipzig, 1910, p. 141. KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE 163Miss Jones1 contends that there is no difficulty in admitting contradictory predicates concerning such an object as ‘the present King of France', on the ground that this object is in itself contradictory. Now it might, of course, be argued that this object, unlike the round square, is not self-contradictory, but merely non-existent. This, however, would not go to the root of the matter. The real objection to such an argument is that the law of contradiction ought not to be stated in the traditional form ‘A is not both B and not B', but in the form ‘no proposition is both true and false*.The traditional form only applies to certain propositions, namely, to those which attribute a predicate to a subject. When the law is stated of propositions, instead of being stated concerning subjects and pred icates it is at once evident that propositions about the present King of France or the round square can form no exception, but are just as incapable of being both true and false as other propositions. Miss Jones2 argues that ‘Scott is the author of Waverley' asserts identity of denotation between Scott and the author of Waverley.But there is some difficulty in choosing among alternative meanings of this contention. In the first place, it should be observed that the author of Waverley is not a mere name, like Scott. Scott is merely a noise or shape conventionally used to designate a certain person; it gives us no information about that person, and has nothing that can be called meaning as opposed to denotation. (I neglect the fact, considered above, that even proper names, as a rule, really stand for descriptions. But the author of Waverley is not merely conventionally a name for Scott; the element of mere convention belongs here to the separate words, the and author and of and Waverley. Given what these words stand for, the author of Waverley is no longer arbitrary. When it is said that Scott is the author of Waverley, we are not stating that these are two names for one man, as we should be if we said ‘Scott is Sir Walter'. A man's name is what he is called, but however much Scott had been called the author of Waverley, that would not have made im be the author; it was necessary for him actually to write Waverley, which was a fact having nothing to do with names. If, then, we are asserting identity of denotation, we must not mean by denotation the mere relation of a name to the thing named. In fact, it would be nearer to the truth to say that the meaning of ‘Scott' is the denotation of ‘the author of Waverley'. The relation of ‘Scott* to Scott is that ‘Scott' means Scott, just as the relation of ‘author' to the concept which is so called is that ‘author' means this concept. 1 Mind, July, 1910, p. 80. ‘ Mind , July, 1910. p. 379. Pg7Pg7 164MYSTICISM AND LOGIC Thus if we distinguish meaning and denotation in ‘the author of Waverley', we shall have to say that ‘Scott' has meaning but not denotation. Also when we say ‘Scott is the author of Waverley', the meaning of ‘the author of Waverley' is relevant to our assertion. For if the denotation alone were relevant, any other phrase with the same denotation would give the same proposition. Thus ‘Scott is the author of Marmion' would be the same proposition as ‘Scott is the author of Waverley'.But this is plainly not the case, since from the first we learn that Scott wrote Marmion and from the second we learn that he wrote Waverley, but the first tells us nothing about Waverley and the second nothing about Marmion. Hence the meaning of ‘the author of Waverley' as opposed to the denotation, is certainly relevant to ‘Scott is the author of Waverley'. We have thus agreed that ‘the author of Wav erley' is not a mere name, and that its meaning is relevant in propositions in which it occurs.Thus if we are to say, as Miss Jones does, that ‘Scott is the author of Waverley' asserts an identity of denotation, we must regard the denotation of ‘the author of Waverley' as the denotation of what is meant by ‘the author of Waverley'. Let us call the meaning of ‘the author of Waverley' M. Thus M is what ‘the author of Waverley' means. Then we are to suppose that ‘Scott is the author of Waverley' means ‘Scott is the denotation of M But here we are explaining our proposition by another of the same form, and thus we have made no progress towards a real explanation. The denotation of M,' like ‘the author of Waverley', has both meaning and denotation, on the theory we are examining. If we call its meaning M', our proposition becomes ‘Scott is the denotation of M†. But this leads at once to an endless regress. Thus the attempt to re gard our proposition as asserting identity of denotation breaks down, and it becomes imperative to find some other analysis. When this analysis has been completed, we shall be able to reinterpret the phrase ‘identity of denotation', which remains obscure so long as it is taken as fundamental.The first point to observe is that, in any proposition about ‘the author of Waverley', provided Scott is not explicitly mentioned, the denotation itself, i. e. Scott, does not occur, but only the concept of denotation, which will be represented by a variable. Suppose we say ‘the author of Waverley was the author of Marmion', we are certainly not saying that both were Scott—? we may have forgotten that there was such a person as Scott. We are saying that there is some man who was the author of Waverley and the author of Marmion.That Is to say, there is someone who wrote Waverley and Marmion, and no one else wrote them. Thus the identity is that of a variable, i. e. of KNO WLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE 165 an identifiable subject, ‘someone'. This is why we can understand propositions about ‘the author of Waverley', without knowing who he was. When we say ‘the author of Waverley was a poet', we mean ‘one and only one man wrote Waverley, and he was a poet'; when we say ‘the author of Waverley was Scott' we mean ‘one and only one man wrote Waverley, and he was Scott'. Here the identity is between a variable, i. . an indeterminate subject (‘he'), and Scott; ‘the author of Waverley' has been analysed away, and no longer appears as a constituent of the proposition. 1 The reason why it is imperative to analyse away the phrase, ‘the author of Waverley' may be stated as follows. It is plain that when we say ‘the author of Waverley is the author of Marmion', the is expresses identity. We have seen also that the common denotation, namely Scott, is not a constituent of this proposition, while the meanings (if a ny) of ‘the author of Waverley' and ‘the author of Marmion' are not identical.We have seen also that, in any sense in which the meaning of a word is a constituent of a proposition in whose verbal expression the word occurs, ‘Scott' means the actual man Scott, in the same sense (so far as concerns our present discussion) in which ‘author' means a certain universal. Thus, if ‘the author of Waverley' were a subordinate complex in the above proposition, its meaning would have to be what was said to be identical with the meaning of ‘the author of Marmion'.This is plainly not the case; and the only escape is to say that ‘the author of Waverley' does not, by itself, have a meaning, though phrases of which it is part do have a meaning. That is, in a right analysis of the above proposition, ‘the author of Waverley' must disappear. This is effected when the above proposition is analysed as meaning: ‘Some one wrote Waverley and no one else did, and that someone also wrote Marmion and no one else did. ‘ This may be more simply expressed by saying that the propositional function ‘x wrote Waverley and Marmion, and no one else did' is capable of truth, i. e. ome value of x makes it true, but no other value does. Thus the true subject of our judgment is a propositional function, i. e. a complex containing an undetermined constituent, and becoming a proposition as soon as this constituent is determined. We may now define the denotation of a phrase. If we know that the proposition ‘a is the so-and-so' is true, i. e. that a is so-and-so and nothing else is, we call a the denotation of the phrase ‘the so- 1 The theory which I am advocating is set forth fully, with the logical grounds in its favour, in Principia Mathematica, Vol. I, Introduction, Chap.Ill; also, less fully, in Mind, October, 1905. Pg8Pg8 166 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC and-so'. A very great many of the propositions we naturally make about Ã¢â‚¬Ë œthe so-and-so' will remain true or remain false if we substitute a for ‘the so-and-so', where a is the denotation of ‘the so-and-so'. Such propositions will also remain true or remain false if we substitute for ‘the so-and-so' any other phrase having the same denotation. Hence, as practical men, we become interested in the denotation more than in the description, since the denotation decides as to the truth or falsehood of so many statements in which the description occurs.Moreover, as we saw earlier in considering the relations of description and acquaintance, we often wish to reach the denotation, and are only hindered by lack of acquaintance: in such cases the description is merely the means we employ to get as near as possible to the denotation. Hence it naturally comes to be supposed that the denotation is part of the proposition in which the description occurs. But we have seen, both on logical and on epistemological grounds, that this is an error.The actual object (if any) which is the denotation is not (unless it is explicitly mentioned) a constituent of propositions in which descriptions occur; and this is the reason why, in order to understand such propositions, we need acquaintance with the constituents of the description, but do not need acquaintance with its denotation. The first result of analysis, when applied to propositions whose grammatical subject is ‘the so-and-so', is to substitute a variable as subject; i. e. we obtain a proposition of the form: ‘There is something which alone is so-and-so, and that something is such-and-such. The further analysis of propositions concerning ‘the so-and-so' is thus merged in the problem of the nature of the variable, i. e. of the meanings of some, any, and all. This is a difficult problem, concerning which I do not intend to say anything at present. To sum up our whole discussion: We began by distinguishing two sorts of knowledge of objects, namely, knowledge by acquain tance and knowledge by description. Of these it is only the former that brings the object itself before the mind. We have acquaintance with sense-data, with many universals, and possibly with ourselves, but not with physical objects or other minds.We have descriptive knowledge of an object when we know that it is the object having some property or properties with which we are acquainted; that is so say, when we know that the property or properties in question belong to one object and no more, we are said to have knowledge of that one object by description, whether or not we are acquainted with the object. Our knowledge of physical objects and of other minds is only knowledge by description, the descriptions involved being usually KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE167 such as involve sense-data.All propositions intelligible to us, whether or not they primarily concern things only known to us by description, are composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted, for a constituent wi th which we are not acquainted is unintelligible to us. A judgment, we found, is not composed of mental constituents called ‘ideas', but consists of an occurrence whose constituents are a mind1 and certain objects, particulars or universals. (One at least must be a universal. ) When a judgment is rightly analysed, the objects which are constituents of it must all be objects with which the mind which is a constituent of it is acquainted.This conclusion forces us to analyse descriptive phrases occurring in propositions, and to say that the objects denoted by such phrases are not constituents of judgments in which such phrases occur (unless these objects are explicitly mentioned). This leads us to the view (recommended also on purely logical grounds) that when we say ‘the author of Marmion was the author of Waverley', Scott himself is not a constituent of our judgement, and that the judgment cannot be explained by saying that it affirms identity of denotation with diversity of meaning. It also, plainly, does not assert identity of meaning.Such judgments, therefore, can only be analysed by breaking up the descriptive phrases, introducing a variable, and making prepositional functions the ultimate subjects. In fact, ‘the so-and-so is such-and-such' will mean that fx is so-and-so and nothing else is, and x is such-and-such' is capable of truth. The analysis of such judgments involves many fresh problems, but the discussion of these problems is not undertaken in the present paper. 11 use this phrase merely to denote the something psychological which enters into judgment, without intending to prejudge the question as to what this