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Table of Contents
- Muirhead Library Of Philosophy 9
- Preface 13
- The Analysis Of Mind 17
- Lecture I. Recent Criticisms Of "Consciousness" 17
- Lecture Ii. Instinct And Habit 81
- Lecture Iii. Desire And Feeling 114
- Lecture Iv. Influence Of Past History On Present Occurrences In Living 150
- Organisms 151
- Lecture V. Psychological And Physical Causal Laws 181
- Lecture Vi. Introspection 209
- Lecture Vii. The Definition Of Perception 240
- Lecture Viii. Sensations And Images 266
- Lecture Ix. Memory 304
- Lecture X. Words And Meaning 366
- Lecture Xi. General Ideas And Thought 415
- Lecture Xii. Belief 451
- Lecture Xiii. Truth And Falsehood 493
- I. We May Regard Knowledge, From A Behaviourist Standpoint, As Exhibited In A Certain Kind Of Response To The Environment. This Response Must Have Some Characteristics Which It Shares With Those Of Scientific Instruments, But Must Also Have Others That Are Peculiar To Knowledge. We Shall Find That This Point Of View Is Important, But Not Exhaustive Of The Nature Of Knowledge. 496
- Ii. We May Hold That The Beliefs That Constitute Knowledge Are Distinguished From Such As Are Erroneous Or Uncertain By Properties Which Are Intrinsic Either To Single Beliefs Or To Systems Of Beliefs, Being In Either Case Discoverable Without Reference To Outside Fact. Views Of This Kind Have Been Widely Held Among Philosophers, But We Shall Find No Reason To Accept Them. 497
- Iii. We Believe That Some Beliefs Are True, And Some False. This Raises The Problem Of Verifiability: Are There Any Circumstances Which Can Justifiably Give Us An Unusual Degree Of Certainty That Such And Such A Belief Is True? It Is Obvious That There Are Circumstances Which In Fact Cause A Certainty Of This Sort, And We Wish To Learn What We Can From Examining These Circumstances. 498
- Iv. Finally, There Is The Formal Problem Of Defining Truth And Falsehood, And Deriving The Objective Reference Of A Proposition From The Meanings Of Its Component Words. 499
- I. We May Regard A Human Being As An Instrument, Which Makes Various Responses To Various Stimuli. If We Observe These Responses From Outside, We Shall Regard Them As Showing Knowledge When They Display Two Characteristics, Accuracy And Appropriateness. These Two Are Quite Distinct, And Even Sometimes Incompatible. If I Am Being Pursued By A Tiger, Accuracy Is Furthered By Turning Round To Look At Him, But Appropriateness By Running Away Without Making Any Search For Further Knowledge Of The Beast. I Shall Return To The Question Of Appropriateness Later; For The Present It Is Accuracy That I Wish To Consider. 500
- Ii. I Have So Far Assumed As Unquestionable The View That The Truth Or Falsehood Of A Belief Consists In A Relation To A Certain Fact, Namely The Objective Of The Belief. This View Has, However, Been Often Questioned. Philosophers Have Sought Some Intrinsic Criterion By Which True And False Beliefs Could Be Distinguished. I Am Afraid Their Chief Reason For This Search Has Been The Wish To Feel More Certainty Than Seems Otherwise Possible As To What Is True And What Is False. If We Could Discover The Truth Of A Belief By Examining Its Intrinsic Characteristics, Or Those Of Some Collection Of Beliefs Of Which It Forms Part, The Pursuit Of Truth, It Is Thought, Would Be A Less Arduous Business Than It Otherwise Appears To Be. But The Attempts Which Have Been Made In This Direction Are Not Encouraging. I Will Take Two Criteria Which Have Been Suggested, Namely, (1) Self-evidence, (2) Mutual Coherence. If We Can Show That These Are Inadequate, We May Feel Fairly Certain That No Intrinsic Criterion Hitherto Suggested Will Suffice To Distinguish True From False Beliefs. 513
- Iii. Many Difficult Problems Arise As Regards The Verifiability Of Beliefs. We Believe Various Things, And While We Believe Them We Think We Know Them. But It Sometimes Turns Out That We Were Mistaken, Or At Any Rate We Come To Think We Were. We Must Be Mistaken Either In Our Previous Opinion Or In Our Subsequent Recantation; Therefore Our Beliefs Are Not All Correct, And There Are Cases Of Belief Which Are Not Cases Of Knowledge. The Question Of Verifiability Is In Essence This: Can We Discover Any Set Of Beliefs Which Are Never Mistaken Or Any Test Which, When Applicable, Will Always Enable Us To Discriminate Between True And False Beliefs? Put Thus Broadly And Abstractly, The Answer Must Be Negative. There Is No Way Hitherto Discovered Of Wholly Eliminating The Risk Of Error, And No Infallible Criterion. If We Believe We Have Found A Criterion, This Belief Itself May Be Mistaken; We Should Be Begging The Question If We Tried To Test The Criterion By Applying The Criterion To Itself. 527
- Iv. I Come Now To The Purely Formal Definition Of The Truth Or Falsehood Of A Belief. For This Definition It Is Necessary First Of All To Consider The Derivation Of The Objective Reference Of A Proposition From The Meanings Of Its Component Words Or Images. 534
- Lecture Xiv. Emotions And Will 548
- Lecture Xv. Characteristics Of Mental Phenomena 563
- The End 605