l/bcle, G- E- and F- P- Ramsry 'Facts and Propooitrtms,' PoeOryE dtrc frHtohlrl,n Soci*y, vol. vii, July 1927. Reprinbd by Courbsy of the Editorof the Aristotelian Society:1927 . www.aristotel iansocieg. uk org.

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the sarne whatcvor trrc i'te'ectuar forurural,ir.rr ,I i[ givc' by tileology. And if we are to dietinguish the functions of ethics and theology I should say that it is the function of ethics to formulate and make explicit the nature and conditions of goocl conduct,and the function of theology to work out the relations presupposed revealed suchconduct aud in between man and God.

VI._SYMPOSIUM:.. I'ACTS AND PR,OPOSITIONS.'' By I. P. Reuspvand G. E. Moonn.

l.

By F. P. Rausr:y.

Tnn problernrvith rvhich f proposcto dcal is l,he logical analysis of rvhat rnay be callcd by any of thc terms judgment, belief, or assertion. Suppose anr nt this momentjuclgingthat Casar f wasmurder;A; then it is natural to clistinguishin this fact on the onc side cither my mind, or my prcsent mental state, or wordsor imagesin my mind, rvhich we will call the mental factor or factors,and on the other side either Cesaror Casar'smurder, or Uesar and murder,or the propositionCresar n'as rnurdered,or thefact that Cresar murderecl, rvas which we will call the objective factor or factors, and to suppose that the fact that I am judging that Cesar was murderedconsists the holding of somerelation in or relations betweenthese mental and objective factors. The questionsthat arise are in regard to the nature of the two sets of factors and of the relations betweeu them, the fundamental distinction between theseelementsbeinghardly opento question. Let us beginwith the objective factor or factors ; the simplest view is that there is one such factor only, a proposition,which may be either true or false, truth and fahity being unanalysable attributes. This was at one time the view of Mr. Russell, and in his essay, On the Nature of Truth and X'alsehood,"* explains he " the reasons were,in bricf, thc which leclhim to abandonit. These incredibility of the cxistcnceof such objectsas " that Casar died* In Philoaophi,u,l Ecaogs, l9LO.

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AND PRol'osrrIoNS."

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in his bed," which could be described objectivefalsehoods, as and the mysteriousnature of the difierence,on this theory, between truth and falsehood. He therefore concluded, in my opinion rightly, that a judgment had no singleobject, but was a.multiple relation of the mind or mental factors to many objects, those, namely, which we should ordinarily call constituents of the proposition judged. Thereis, however.an alternative way of holding that a judgment hasa singleobject, which it would be well to consider before we pass on. In the above-mentioned essayMr. Russell asserts that a perception,whicb unlike judgment he regardsas infa.llinle, hasa singleobject,for instance, complexobject ,. hife-to-leftthe of-book." This complexobject cah. I think, be identifiedwith what many people(and Mr. Russellnow) woulclcall the/acl that the hife is to the left of the book ; we could, for insl,ance, say that we perceivedthis fact. And just as, if we take any true propositionsuchas that cesar did not die in his bed,we can form a corresponding phrasebegindng lvrth ,, the fact that ', and talk about the fact that he picl not tlie in his bed, so Mr. Russell supposerlthat to any true proposition there correspondeda complexobject. trfr. Russell,then, held that the object of a perceptionwas a fact, but that in the case of judgment the possibility of error madesucha view untenable, sincethe objecb a judgmentthat of Cesardiedin his bedcouldnot be the fact that he diedin his bed, as there was no such fact. ft is, however, evident that this difficulty about error could be removed by postulating for the case of judgmept two difierent relations between the mental factorsand the fact, oneoccurringin true judgments,the other in false. Thus.a judgment that Casarwasmurderedand a judgment that Cesar was not murdered would have the same object, the fast that C@sar murdered,but difier in respectof the relations was betrveen mentalfactor and this.object. Thus, in lhe Analysis the

of o! Minil,* trfir.Russellspeaks beliefsas either pointing towards or pointing away from facts. It seemsto me, however, that any such view either of judgment or of perception would be inadequatefor a reason,which, if valid, is of great imporbance' Let us for simplicity take the caseof perception,and' assuming for the sake of argument that it is infallible, consider whether " he perceivesthat the knife is to the left of the book " can and a fact' Suppose a really asserta dual relation between person that I who rnake the assertioncanaot myself seethe knife and book,'that the knife is really to the right of the book; but that that it is on the left and that he through somemistake f suppose it perceives to be on the left, so that I assertfalsely " he peroeives that the knife is to the left of the book." Then my statement, thoughfalse,is significant,and has the samemeaningas it would haveif it weretrue ; this meaningcannot thereforebe that there is a,rlual relation betweenthe personand something(a fect) of which " that the knife is to the left of the book " is the namo, there is no such thing. The situation is the e&meaB because that with descriptions; " the King of Flance is wise " is not antl so " the King of Xbance," as Mr' Russell has noDser$e, shown,is not a name but an incompletesymbol, and the eams must be true of " the King of Italy." So also " that the knifo ie to the left of the book," whetherit is true or false,cannot bo tho nameof a fact. But, it will be askecl,why should it not be a description of a fact 1 If I say, " he perceivesthat the knife is to the left of the book," I mean that he perceivesa hact,which is not nontorl as but described of a certain sort, arrd the diffrculty will disappoor when my assertionis analysedaccordingto Mr' Russell'st'heory " of descriptions. Similarly, it wili be said, " the death of Cresor* P. 272.'-lt should be observod that in lhe Atwlysis o! Mind" u ,,bclief ig what wc caII a montal factor, not the wholo complex tnotttrl " factors. foctors-rclations-objective

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is a description an event,an({ ,,the fact that Cpsarrlied ., is of only an alternativeexpression ,,the death of Cresar." for Suchan objectionis plausiblebut not, in my opinion,valid. The truth is that a phraselike ,. the death of Cresar', can be usedin two difierent ways ; ordinarily, we use il, as the description of an event, and we could say that ., the death of Csesa,r ', and " t[e murder of cesar " were two different descriptionsof the sameevent. But we can also use ,. the death of Cesar " in a context like " he was aware of the death of Cesar " meaning " he was arvarethat Casar had dietl ', ; here (and this is the sort of case whichoccurs the discussion cognition) cannot in of we regarcl " the death of Cesar " as the description of an event; if it were,the wholeproposition woulclbo, ,, Thereis an eventE of a certain sort, such that he is aware of 8,,, and would be still true if we substituled anotherdescriptionof the sameevent, e.9.," the murder of Cesar." That is, if his awareness for has its object an event described ,,the death of Cacsar,,, by then, if he is arvareof the death of casar, he m'st also be awareof the murder of Cresar, they are identical. But, in fact, he couid for quite well be arvarethat Casar had t{iecl,without }nowing that he had been murtlered, so that his arvareness must have for its object nrerely an event but an event ancl a characteralso. 'ot The connection betweenthe cvent which was the cleath of Casar and the fact that Cesar die