Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/542

THE NATURE OF TRUTH. IN a recent work, 1 Mr. Harold Joachim has examined at some length certain opinions held by Mr. G. E. Moore and myself. I propose first to discuss his arguments against these opinions, and then to consider briefly whether any arguments are possible which ought to appeal to both sides in such a debate. 2 The difficulty, as regards the second question, lies in the fact that our differences are so fundamental that almost all arguments on either side necessarily begin by assuming something which the other side denies. As Mr. Joachim justly observes : " If an assumption is the basis of all Logic, then arguments directed against it appear, by a very natural confusion, to be eo ipso devoid of logical cogency. The assumption, hi fact, gets established by a kind of ontological proof" (p. 39). This state of things is very unsatisfactory, and it is highly desk-able to find, if we can, some common ground on which discussion is possible. The assumption which Mr. Joachim sets out to refute is that "experiencing makes no difference to the facts" (p. 33). What, precisely, this assumption is to mean will appear more clearly in the course of the discussion. Mr. Joachim distinguishes two senses of the assumption, one of which, he says, is true but irrelevant, while the other, which alone is adequate to support the theory he is com- bating, "is false, conflicts with common-sense, and is in the end unmeaning" (p. 41). In the admissible sense, the facts are only independent of the experience of this or that particular person, but not of " being experienced " in general. In the inadmissible sense, ' ' the whole constituted by ' the facts ' and ' experiencing ' (in any sense of the term) is no genuine whole, but a mere external adjust- ment. The two factors are, or may be, related ; but the relation when, or as, it obtains, leaves each precisely what it was, viz., absolutely in itself and independent" (p. 41). We need not further consider the admissible sense, since, as Mr. Joachim contends and as I fully acknowledge, it is irrelevant to the discussion. As to the sense which he regards as inadmissible, his statement of it calls 1 The Nature of Truth, Oxford, 1906. 2 The relevant portion of Mr. Joachim's book is contained in pp. 31-50. The rest of the book avowedly assumes his opinion on the questions in dispute : it is only in these twenty pages that he seeks to establish his opinion. The views which I am defending will be found in MIND, N.S., No. 52, and in my Principles of Mathematics, especially 55, 212-216,. 424-428.