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From Essential Selections in 19th and 20th Century Philosophy, by James Fieser
Home: www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class
Copyright 2014, updated 5/1/2015
Key terms:
Inauthentic existence: the they-self; the fallen self of every day existence, lost in the world of others (the they)
Authentic existence: the mine-self; the life that is owned by me; its existence is not justified in comparison with others (in
contrast with inauthentic existence)
Dasein (being there): a human being; specifically first-person me as a human being; I have both an authentic and
inauthentic component
Care: worrying about the future; it is the main attribute of Dasein, which includes the three attributes of facticity (past),
fallenness (present), and existence (future)
Facticity (past): a factor in authentic existence concerning my past; I am thrown into the world without consultation and
abandoned to chance factors, which limits my human possibilities
Fallenness (present): a factor in my inauthentic existence concerning the present, where I live in the world of others; I
consider all human possibilities wide open; I fail to note my facticity (past) and existence (future); characterized
by gossip, curiosity, and ambiguity
Existence (future): a factor in authentic existence concerning my future; my lifes possibilities are narrowed by authentic
awareness of my impending death; I have the freedom and responsibility to transform
Being-in-the-world: I exist in the world by engaging in it, with no distinction between my inner consciousness and the
outer objects of the world that are around me
Ready-to-hand: an involved use of a thing, e.g., a hammer that we use without theorizing about it; this is our primordial
view of things
Present-at-hand: a theoretical observation of a thing, as a scientist might evaluate something
Question of Being: I investigate the notion of being by first understanding myself as a human being; get at the
phenomena of my own human being as they show themselves through my immediate experience
UNDERSTANDING DASEIN IS CENTRAL TO THE STUDY OF BEING (Being and Time, Sect. 1-8)
Understand Being by Understanding Dasein, that is, ones own Human Being (Sect. 2, 4)
If the question about Being is to be explicitly formulated and carried through in such a manner as to be completely transparent to
itself, then any treatment of it in line with the elucidations we have given requires us to explain how Being is to be looked at, how
its meaning is to be understood and conceptually grasped; it requires us to prepare the way for choosing the right entity for our
example, and to work out the genuine way of access to it. Looking at something, understanding and conceiving it, choosing,
access to itall these ways of behaving are constitutive for our inquiry, and therefore are modes of Being for those particular
entities which we, the inquirers, are ourselves. Thus to work out the question of Being adequately, we must make an entitythe
inquirertransparent in his own Being. The very asking of this question is an entity's mode of Being; and as such it gets its
essential character from what is inquired aboutnamely, Being. This entity which each of us is himself and which includes
inquiring as one of the possibilities of its Being, we shall denote by the term "Dasein". If we are to formulate our question
explicitly and transparently, we must first give a proper explication of an entity (Dasein), with regard to its Being. . . .
Dasein is an entity which does not just occur among other entities. Rather it is ontically distinguished by the fact that, in its
very Being, that Being is an issue for it. But in that case, this is a constitutive state of Dasein's Being, and this implies that Dasein,
in its Being, has a relationship towards that Beinga relationship which itself is one of Being. And this means further that there is
some way in which Dasein understands itself in its Being, and that to some degree it does so explicitly. It is peculiar to this entity
that with and through its Being, this Being is disclosed to it.Understanding of Being is itself a definite characteristic of Dasein's
Being. Dasein is ontically distinctive in that it is ontological. . . .
Part One: the Interpretation of Dasein in terms of temporality, and the explication of time as the transcendental horizon for the
question of Being.
Part Two: basic features of a phenomenological destruction of the history of ontology, with the problematic of Temporality as our
clue.
Thrownness and Projection: Dasein Understands itself in Terms of its Possibilities (Sect. 31)
Why does the understandingwhatever may be the essential dimensions of that which can be disclosed in italways press
forward into possibilities? It is because the understanding has in itself the existential structure which we call "projection". With
equal primordiality the understanding projects Dasein's Being both upon its "for-the-sake-of-which" and upon significance, as the
worldhood of its current world. The character of understanding as projection is constitutive for Being-in-the-world with regard to
the disclosedness of its existentially constitutive state-of-Being by which the factical potentiality-for-Being gets its leeway. And as
thrown, Dasein is thrown into the kind of Being which we call "projecting". Projecting has nothing to do with comporting oneself
towards a plan that has been thought out, and in accordance with which Dasein arranges its Being. On the contrary, any Dasein
has, as Dasein, already projected itself; and as long as it is, it is projecting. As long as it is, Dasein always has understood itself
and always will understand itself in terms of possibilities. Furthermore, the character of understanding as projection is such that
the understanding does not grasp thematically that upon which it projectsthat is' to say, possibilities. Grasping it in such a
manner would take away from what is projected its very character as a possibility, and would reduce it to the given contents which
we have in mind; whereas projection, in throwing, throws before itself the possibility as possibility, and lets it be as such. As
projecting, understanding is the kind of Being of Dasein in which it is its possibilities as possibilities.
Fallenness Typified by Idle Talk, Curiosity and Ambiguity; not a Fall from a Higher State
Idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity characterize the way in which, in an everyday manner, Dasein is its 'there'the disclosedness of
Being-in-the-world. As definite existential characteristics, these are not present-at-hand in Dasein, but help to make up its Being.
In these, and in the way they are interconnected in their Being, there is revealed a basic kind of Being which belongs to
everydayness; we call this the "falling" of Dasein.
This term does not express any negative evaluation, but is used to signify that Dasein is proximally and for the most
part alongside the 'world' of its concern. This "absorption in . . ." has mostly the character of Being-lost in the publicness of the
"they". Dasein has, in the first instance, fallen away from itself as an authentic potentiality for Being its Self, and has fallen into
the 'world'. "Fallenness" into the 'world' means an absorption in Being-with-one-another, in so far as the latter is guided by idle
talk, curiosity, and ambiguity. Through the Interpretation of falling, what we have called the "inauthenticity" of Dasein may now
be defined more precisely. On no account, however, do the terms "inauthentic" and "non-authentic" signify 'really not', as if in this
mode of Being, Dasein were altogether to lose its Being. "Inauthenticity," does not mean anything like Being-no-longer-in-the-
world, but amounts rather to a quite distinctive kind of Being-in-the-worldthe kind which is completely, fascinated by the
'world' and by the Dasein-with of Others in the "they". Not-Being-its-self functions as a positive possibility of that entity which, in
its essential concern, is absorbed in a world. This kind of not-Being has to be conceived as that kind of Being which is closest to
Dasein and in which Dasein maintains itself for the most part.
So neither must we take the fallenness of Dasein as a 'fall' from a purer and higher 'primal status'. Not only do we lack any
experience of this ontically, but ontologically we lack any possibilities or clues for interpreting it. . . .
Idle talk discloses to Dasein a Being towards its world, towards Others, and towards itselfa Being in which these are
understood, but in a mode of groundless floating. Curiosity discloses everything and anything, yet in such a way that Being-in is
everywhere and nowhere. Ambiguity hides nothing from Dasein's understanding, but only in order that Being-in-the-world should
be suppressed in this uprooted "everywhere and nowhere".
Fallenness involves the Tempting Tranquilization that All Possibilities are Open
By elucidating ontologically the kind of Being belonging to everyday Being-in-the-world as it shows through in these phenomena,
we first arrive at an existentially adequate determination of Dasein's basic state. Which is the structure that shows us the
'movement' of falling?
Idle talk and the way things have been publicly interpreted (which idle talk includes) constitute themselves in Being-with-
one-another. Idle talk is not something present-at-hand for itself within the world, as a product detached from Being-with-one-
another. And it is just as far from letting itself be volatilized to something 'universal' which, because it belongs essentially to
nobody, is 'really' nothing and occurs as 'Real' only in the individual Dasein which speaks. Idle talk is the kind of Being that
belongs to Being-with-one-another itself; it does not first arise through certain circumstances which have effects upon Dasein
'from outside'. But if Dasein itself, in idle talk and in the way things have been publicly interpreted, presents to itself the
possibility of losing itself in the "they" and falling into groundlessness, this tells us that Dasein prepares for itself a constant
temptation towards falling. Being-in-the-world is in itself tempting.
Since the way in which things have been publicly interpreted has already become a temptation to itself in this manner, it
holds Dasein fast in its fallenness. Idle talk and ambiguity, having seen everything, having understood everything, develop the
supposition that Dasein's disclosedness, which is so available and so prevalent, can guarantee to Dasein that all the possibilities of
its Being will be secure, genuine, and full. Through the self-certainty and decidedness of the "they", it gets spread abroad
increasingly that there is no need of authentic understanding or the state-of-mind that goes with it. The supposition of the "they"
that one is leading and sustaining a full and genuine 'life', brings Dasein a tranquillity, for which everything is 'in the best of order'
and all doors are open. Falling Being-in-the-world, which tempts itself, is at the same timetranquillizing.
Tempting Tranquilization prevents Daseins Authenticity and creates Alienation and Entanglement
However, this tranquillity in inauthentic Being does not seduce one into stagnation and inactivity, but drives one into uninhibited
'hustle'. Being-fallen into the 'world' does not now somehow come to rest. The tempting tranquillization aggravates the falling.
With special regard to the interpretation of Dasein, the opinion may now arise that understanding the most alien cultures and
'synthesizing' them with one's own may lead to Dasein's becoming for the first time thoroughly and genuinely enlightened about
itself. Versatile curiosity and restlessly "knowing it all" masquerade as a universal understanding of Dasein. But at bottom it
remains indefinite what is really to be understood, and the question has not even been asked. Nor has it been understood that
understanding itself is a potentiality-for-Being which must be made free in one's ownmost Dasein alone. When Dasein,
tranquillized, and 'understanding' everything, thus compares itself with everything, it drifts along towards an alienation in which
its ownmost potentiality-for-Being is hidden from it. Falling Being-in-the-world is not only tempting and tranquillizing; it is at the
same timealienating.
Yet this alienation cannot mean that Dasein gets factically torn away from itself. On the contrary, this alienation drives it
into a kind of Being which borders on the most exaggerated 'self-dissection', tempting itself with all possibilities of explanation, so
that the very 'charactcrologies' and 'typologies' which it has brought about are themselves already becoming something that cannot
be ' surveyed at a glance. This alienation closes off from Dasein its authenticity and possibility, even if only the possibility of
genuinely foundering. It does not, however, surrender Dasein to an entity which Dasein itself is not, but forces it into its
inauthenticityinto a possible kind of Being of itself. The alienation of fallingat once tempting and tranquillizingleads by its
own movement, to Dasein's getting entangled in itself.
Fallenness is a Downward Plunge into Inauthentic Everyday life of the They
The phenomena we have pointed outtemptation, tranquillizing, alienation and self-entangling (entanglement)characterize the
specific kind of Being which belongs to falling. This 'movement' of Dasein in its own Being, we call its "downward plunge".
Dasein plunges out of itself into itself, into the groundlessness and nullity of inauthentic everydayness. But this plunge remains
hidden from Dasein by the way things have been publicly interpreted, so much so, indeed, that it gets interpreted as a way of
'ascending' and 'living concretely'.
This downward plunge into and within the groundlessness of the inauthentic Being of the "they", has a kind of motion
which constantly tears the understanding away from the projecting of authentic possibilities, and into the tranquillized supposition
that it possesses everything, or that everything is within its reach. Since the understanding is thus constantly torn away from
authenticity and into the "they" (though always with a sham of authenticity), the movement of falling is characterized
by turbulence.
Falling is not only existentially determinative for Being-in-the-world. At the same time turbulence makes manifest that the
thrownness which can obtrude itself upon Dasein in its state-of-mind, has the character of throwing and of movement.
Thrownness is neither a 'fact that is finished' nor a Fact that is settled. Dasein's facticity is such that as long as it is what it is,
Dasein remains in the throw, and is sucked into the turbulence of the "they's" inauthenticity. Thrownness, in which facticity lets
itself be seen phenomenally, belongs to Dasein, for which, in its Being, that very Being is an issue. Dasein exists factically. . . .
DEATH: NOT AN EVENT, BUT A CONSTANT PART OF A HUMAN BEING (Being and Time, Sect. 46-52)
Facticity (Past): Thrownness of Death revealed through Anxiety, not explicit Knowledge
This ownmost possibility, however, non-relational and not to be outstripped, is not one which Dasein procures for itself
subsequently and occasionally in the course of its Being. On the contrary, if Dasein exists, it has already been thrown into this
possibility [of death]. Dasein does not, proximally and for the most part, have any explicit or even any theoretical knowledge of
the fact that it has been delivered over to its death, and that death thus belongs to Being-in-the-world. Thrownness into death
reveals itself to Dasein in a more primordial and impressive manner in that state-of-mind which we have called "anxiety". Anxiety
in the face of death is anxiety 'in the face of that potentiality-for-Being which is one's ownmost, nonrelational, and not to be
outstripped. That in the face of which one has anxiety is Being-in-the-world itself. That about which one has this anxiety is simply
Dasein's potentiality-for-Being. Anxiety in the face of death must not be confused with fear in the face of one's demise. This
anxiety is not an accidental or random mood of 'weakness' in some individual; but, as a basic state-of-mind of Dasein, it amounts
to the disclosedness of the fact that Dasein exists as thrown Being towards its end. Thus the existential conception of "dying" is
made clear as thrown Being towards its ownmost potentiality-for-Being, which is non-relational and not to be outstripped.
Precision is gained by distinguishing this from pure disappearance, and also from merely perishing, and finally from the
'Experiencing' of a demise.
Summary
Being-towards-death is grounded in care. Dasein, as thrown Being-in-the-world, has in every case already been delivered over to
its death. In being towards its death, Dasein is dying factically and indeed constantly, as long as it has not yet come to its demise.
When we say that Dasein is factically dying, we are saying at the same time that in its Being-towards-death Dasein has always
decided itself in one way or another. Our everyday falling evasion in the face of death is an inauthentic Being-towards-death. But
inauthenticity is based on the possibility of authenticity. Inauthenticity characterizes a kind of Being into which Dasein can divert
itself and has for the most part always diverted itself; but Dasein does not necessarily and constantly have to divert itself into this
kind of Being. Because Dasein exists, it determines its own character as the kind of entity it is, and it does so in every case in
terms of a possibility which it itself is and which it understands. . . .
Being-towards-death is essentially anxiety. This is attested unmistakably, though 'only' indirectly, by Being-towards-death
as we have described it, when it [inauthentically] perverts anxiety into cowardly fear and, in surmounting this fear, only makes
known its own cowardliness in the face of anxiety. . . .
From Essential Selections in 19th and 20th Century Philosophy, by James Fieser
Home: www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class
Copyright 2014, updated 5/1/2015
Key Terms
Being-in-itself: non-consconscious objects in the world.
Being-for-itself: conscious beings.
Being-for-others: I attempt to recover my being by reducing others to objects.
Thetic Consciousness: asserts the existence of an object by focusing conscious attention to it.
Non-thetic Consciousness: awareness of something, but not paying attention to it.
Problem: Existence of the Other is Purely Conjectural and Subject to Doubt (3.1.2)
[I]if solipsism is to be rejected, this cannot be because it is impossible or, if you prefer, because nobody is truly solipsistic. The
Other's existence will always be subject to doubt, at least if one doubts the Other only in words and abstractly, in the same way
that without really being able to conceive of it, I can write, "I doubt my own existence." In short the Other's existence cannot be a
probability. Probability can concern only objects which appear in our experience and from which new effects can appear in our
experience. There is probability only if a validation or invalidation of it is at every moment possible. Thus since the Other on
principle and in its "For-itself" is outside my experience, the probability of his existence as Another Self can never be either
validated or invalidated; it can be neither believed nor disbelieved, it cannot even be measured; it loses therefore its very' being as
probability and becomes a pure fictional conjecture. In the same way M. Lalandea has effectively shown that an hypothesis
concerning the existence of living beings on the planet Mars will remain purely conjectural with no chance of being either true or
false so long as we do not have at our disposal instruments or scientific theories enabling us to produce facts validating or
invalidating this hypothesis. But the structure of the Other is on principle such that no new experiment will ever be able to be
conceived, that no new theory will come to validate or invalidate the hypothesis of his existence, that no instrument will come to
reveal new facts inspiring me to affirm or to reject this hypothesis. Therefore if the Other is not immediately present to me, and if
his existence is not as sure as my own, all conjecture concerning him is entirely lacking in meaning.
The Other Viewed as a Conjectural Object vs. as a Probable Presence in Person (3.1.4)
This woman whom I see coming toward me, this man who is passing by in the street, this beggar whom I hear calling before my
window, all are for me objectsof that there is no doubt. Thus it is true that at least one of the modalities of the Other's presence
to me is object-ness. But we have seen that if this relation of object-ness is the fundamental relation between the Other and myself,
then the Other's existence remains purely conjectural. Now it is not only conjectural but probable that this voice which I hear is
that of a man and not a song on a phonograph; it is infinitely probable that the passerby whom I see is a man and not a perfected
robot. This means that without going beyond the limits of probability and indeed because of this very probability, my
apprehension of the Other as an object essentially refers me to a fundamental apprehension of the Other in which he will not be
revealed to me as an object but as a "presence in person." In short, if the Other is to be a probable object and not a dream of an
object, then his object-ness must of necessity refer not to an original solitude beyond my reach, but to a fundamental connection in
which the Other is manifested in some way other than through the knowledge which I have of him.
From Essential Selections in 19th and 20th Century Philosophy, by James Fieser
Home: www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class
Copyright 2014, updated 5/1/2015
Principal Statements
1. The world is everything that is the case.
1.1. The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
1. 11. The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts.
1. 12. For the totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also all that is not the case.
1. 13. The facts in logical space are the world.
1.2. The world divides into facts.
1. 21 Any one can either be the case or not be the case, and everything else remain the same.
2. What is the case, a fact, is the existence of atomic facts (states of affairs).
3. A logical picture of facts is a thought.
4. A thought is a proposition with sense.
4.003 Most propositions and questions, that have been written about philosophical matters, are not false, but senseless.
We cannot, therefore, answer questions of this kind at all, but only state their senselessness. Most questions and
propositions of the philosophers result from the fact that we do not understand the logic of our language. (They are of the
same kind as the question whether the Good is more or less identical than the Beautiful.) And so it is not surprising that
the deepest problems are really no problems.
4.01. A proposition is a picture of reality.
4.014. A gramophone record, the musical idea, the written notes, and the sound-waves, all stand to one another in the
same internal relation of depicting that holds between language and the world.
4.121. ...Propositions show the logical form of reality. They exhibit it.
4.1212. What can be shown, cannot be said.
4.21 The simplest proposition, the elementary proposition, asserts the existence of an atomic fact.
4.5. . . .The general form of a proposition is: such and such is the case.
5. Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions.
5.43 . . . It is no less wonderful that the infinite number of propositions of logic (of mathematics) should follow from
half a dozen primitive propositions. But all the propositions of logic say the same thing, that is, nothing.
5.4711. To give the essence of a proposition means to give the essence of all description, and thus the essence of the
world.
5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
6. The general form of a truth-function is: [p, E, N(E)]. This is the general form of propositions.
Ethics is Inexpressible
6.4. All propositions are of equal value.
6.41. The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it
there is no value and if there were, it would be of no value.
If there is a value which is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is
accidental.
What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental.
It must lie outside the world.
6.42. Hence also there can be no ethical propositions. Propositions cannot express anything higher.
6.421. It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed. Ethics is transcendental.
(Ethics and aesthetics are one.)
6.422. The first thought in setting up an ethical law of the form thou shalt . . . is: And what if I do not do it? But it is clear that
ethics has nothing to do with punishment and reward in the ordinary sense. This question as to the consequences of an action must
therefore be irrelevant. At least these consequences will not be events. For there must be something right in that formulation of the
question. There must be some sort of ethical reward and ethical punishment, but this must lie in the action itself.
(And this is clear also that the reward must be something acceptable, and the punishment something unacceptable.)
6.423. Of the will as the subject of the ethical we cannot speak.
And the will as a phenomenon is only of interest to psychology.
6.43. If good or bad willing changes the world, it can only change the limits of the world, not the facts; not the things that can be
expressed in language.
In brief, the world must thereby become quite another. It must so to speak wax or wane as a whole.
The world of the happy is quite another than that of the unhappy.
The Inexpressible
6.5. For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed.
The riddle does not exist.
If a question can be put at all, then it can also be answered.
6.51. Skepticism is not irrefutable, but palpably senseless, if it would doubt where a question cannot be asked.
For doubt can only exist where there is a question; a question only where there is an answer, and this only where
something can be said.
6.52. We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all. Of
course there is then no question left, and just this is the answer.
6.521. The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of this problem.
(Is not this the reason why men to whom after long doubting the sense of life became clear, could not then say wherein this
sense consisted?)
6.522. There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical.
6.53. The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i,e., the propositions of natural
science, i,e., something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something
metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be
unsatisfying to the other he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy but it would be the only
strictly correct method.
6.54. My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has
climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)
He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.
7. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
ETHICAL JUDGMENTS ARE BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES OF LANGUAGE (Lecture on Ethics 1929)
Suppose one of you were an omniscient person and therefore knew all the movements of all the bodies in the world dead or alive
and that he also knew all the states of mind of all human beings that ever lived, and suppose this man wrote all he knew in a big
book, then this book would contain the whole description of the world; and what I want to say is, that this book would contain
nothing that we would call an ethical judgment or anything that would logically imply such a judgment. It would of course contain
all relative judgments of value and all true scientific propositions and in fact all true propositions that can be made. But all the
facts described would, as it were, stand on the same level and in the same way all propositions stand on the same level. There are
no propositions which, in any absolute sense, are sublime, important, or trivial. . . .
If for instance in our world-book we read the description of a murder with all its details physical and psychological, the
mere description of these facts will contain nothing which we could call an ethical proposition. The murder will be on exactly the
same level as any other event, for instance the falling of a stone. Certainly the reading of description might cause us pain or rage
or any other emotion, or we might read about the pain or rage caused by this murder in other people when they have heard of it,
but there will simply be facts, facts, and facts but no Ethics. . . .
Thus in ethical and religious language we seem constantly to be using similes. But a simile must be the simile for
something. And if I can describe a fact by means of a simile I must also be able to drop the simile and to describe the facts without
it. Now in our case as soon as we try to drop the simile and simply to state the facts which stand behind it, we find that there are
no such facts. And so, what at first appeared to be simile now seems to be mere nonsense.
I see now that these nonsensical [religious and ethical] expressions were not nonsensical because I had not yet found the
correct expressions, but that their nonsensicality was their very essence. For all I wanted to do with them was just to go beyond
the world and that is to say beyond significant language. My whole tendency and, I believe, the tendency of all men who ever tried
to write or talk Ethics or Religion was to run against the boundaries of language.
This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless. Ethics so far as it springs from the desire to say
something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable, can be no science. What it says does not
add to our knowledge in any sense. But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help
respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it.
(a) The tendency to look for something in common to all the entities which we commonly subsume under a general term. -
- We are inclined to think that there must be something in common to all games, say, and that this common property is the
justification for applying the general term "game" to the various games; whereas games form a family the members of which have
family likeness. Some of them have the same nose, others the same eyebrows and others again the same way of walking; and these
likeness overlap. The idea of a general concept being a common property of its particular instances connects up with other
primitive, too simple, ideas of the structure of language. It is comparable to the idea that properties are ingredients of the things
which have the properties; e.g. that beauty is an ingredient of all beautiful things as alcohol is of beer and wine, and that we
therefore could have pre beauty, unadulterated by anything that is beautiful.
(b) There is a tendency rooted in our usual forms of expression, to think that the man who has learnt to understand a
general term, say, the term "leaf", has thereby come to possess a kind of general picture of a leaf, as opposed to pictures of
particular leaves. He was shown different leaves when he learnt the meaning of the word "leaf"; and showing him the particular
leaves was only a means to the end of producing 'in him' an idea which we imagine to be some kind of general image. We say that
he sees what is in common to all these leaves; and this is true if we mean that he can on being asked tell us certain features or
properties which they have in common. But we are inclined to think that the general idea of a leaf is something like a visual
image, but one which only contains what is common to all leaves. (Galtonian composite photograph.) This again is connected with
the idea that the meaning of a word is an image, or a thing correlated to the word. (This roughly means, we are looking at words as
though they all were proper names, and we then confuse the bearer of name with the meaning of the name.)
(c) Again, the idea we have of what happens when we get hold of the general idea 'leaf', 'plant', etc. etc., is connected with
the confusion between a mental state, meaning a state of a hypothetical mental mechanism, and a mental state meaning a state of
consciousness (toothache, etc.).
(d) Our craving for generality has another main source; our preoccupation with the method of science. I mean the method
of reducing the explanation of natural phenomena to the smallest possible number of primitive natural laws; and, in mathematics,
of unifying the treatment of different topics by using a generalization. Philosophers constantly see the method of science before
their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics,
and leads the philosopher into complete darkness. I want to say here that it can never be our job to reduce anything to anything, or
to explain anything. Philosophy really is 'purely descriptive'. (Think of such questions as "Are there sense data?" and ask: What
method is there of determining this? Introspection?)
Hinge Propositions: Doubting some Propositions depends on other being Immune from Doubt
340. We know, with the same certainty with which we believe any mathematical proposition, how the letters A and B are
pronounced, what the colour of human blood is called, that other human beings have blood and call it "blood".
341. That is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from
doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn.
342. That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are indeed not doubted.
343. But it isn't that the situation is like this: We just can't investigate everything, and for that reason we are forced to rest
content with assumption. If I want the door to turn, the hinges must stay put.
344. My life consists in my being content to accept many things.
345. If I ask someone "what colour do you see at the moment?", in order, that is, to learn what colour is there at the
moment, I cannot at the same time question whether the person I ask understands English, whether he wants to take me in,
whether my own memory is not leaving me in the lurch as to the names of colours, and so on.
346. When I am trying to mate someone in chess, I cannot have doubts about the pieces perhaps changing places of
themselves and my memory simultaneously playing tricks on me so that I don't notice. . . .