[CSU1] 

BEYOND LOGIC

ON INFERENCES BETWEEN MATTERS OF FACT

                In his book: " ( Blackwell 1982) Saul Kripke says of Hume's sceptical analysisof the causal relation "If Hume is right....Even if God were to look at the events, he would discern nothing relating them other than that one succeeds the other." (page 67 in the paper back version). He refers to Hume's "sceptical solution" to this state of affairs and says that in contrast "An a priori justification of inductive reasoning, and an analysis of the causalrelation as a genuine necessary connectionor nexus between pairs of events, would be straight solutions of Hume's problems of inductionand causation, respectively." (page 66) Although I disagree with the a priori and with certainty, in this essay I shall propose a (hypothetical, but still) straight solution to each of the above problems, in that both solutions result from doggedly persisting with the view that the contents of situations THEMSELVESare what account for what occurs--which implies that we can make sense of how they do this in particular instances, individually considered. I shall also discuss and illustrate a different view of much of our normal causal attitudes, which I claim gives a better description of them, based on the plain mans naive view that it is the contents of the situation themselves that account for what occurs, and so brings them in line with my  straight solution to the causal relation and inductive reasoning between matters of fact. I claim that an objective, more or less scientific and naturalistic epistemologycan be seen as the result of pursuing this same objective. It is largely a result of the philosophical method of concentrating on logic and other means by which we are supposed to be able to grasp a subject, rather than following the method of trying to see how the contents of a situationcould themselves account for what occurs, that is itself responsible for it seeming SO impossible that the contents of a situation COULD themselves account for what occurs. Thus this aspect of philosophy has something of the self perpetuating fault or self fulfilling prophecy about it.

THE POSSIBILITY OF A NECESSARY CONNECTION BETWEEN MATTERS OF FACT

                In the following I intend to criticise the use Hume makes of a central (conclusion, but also) proof he offers to show we can't use the immediate character of any experienced state, or matter of fact, to reach any other such state.  The proof in question is that 'There is no object, considered in itself, that can afford us a reason for drawing a conclusion beyond it'. The above possibility, as well as my straight solution to objective causationcan be described as arising through taking this proof seriously, this serious consideration consequently setting the condition for such possibilities.

                The point made by Hume in the versions he gives of this statement may be translated, enlarged upon, or explicated in several ways of which I will examine two. I mention the more straightforward interpretationof the two later. Sticking to a more metaphysicalinterpretation may more easily show how some apparently subjectiveissues needn't be.

                 I will take this proof to rest on an old fashioned (or naive) idea of how logicworks, and what makes logicalinferencevalid. The idea is that it is impossible to make a logically valid inference where the conclusiongoes beyond what is found in the premises.--At this point I am liable to get involved in talk about Universals and Particulars, which I do not want to do; But if the conclusion IS found in the premises, in pointing at the premises we will be at the same time pointing at the conclusion. And so in answer to the question 'How do you know...?'--that the conclusion is true merely from the factthat what is found in the premises is true, or that what is found in the conclusion follows merely from the fact of what is found in the premises--we (supposedly) get an internally self justifyinganswer; If the premises are true, the conclusion is true, because it is already found in what is agreed to be true. On the other hand if the conclusion isn't found in 'its' premises, or goes beyond what is stated (perhaps 'stated' more easily than 'found' can be used to confuse the issue) in those premises, then in attempting to use those premises as the reason for that conclusion we go beyond what can be included in such a self justifying response to that question 'How do you know...?'. Consequently if we define any fact, state of affairs, property, or what not whatever, and stick precisely within the bounds of what we have defined, or decided to consider, we can never draw such a self justifying form of inference using that 'whatnot' to some other 'whatnot', or part of it, that is distinct from (or rather, outside) the first. And if we do, nevertheless, draw a conclusion from one to the other our 'inference' must be 'based' on that whatnot in some other, and as far as can be seen, un-selfjustifying way.--This is what I (mainly) will take to be the point of Hume's statement.

                Apart from the fact that not all supposedly logical inferences easily fit the above scheme, we might criticise the viability of actually finding IN a linguistic statement what can be found IN another, this seems to be only a metaphor, or plausible myth.[i] Consequently the mechanics of how one state might be collected under another, so that we can draw a conclusionin language, starts to make the immediacy of how the supposed inference might be founded, and so self justifyingly founded, less transparent and less immediate, and less truly self justifying. But I still intend to stick with this basic idea.

                Sticking with this basic idea; every state (as above) must be LOGICALLYDISTINCT from every other state that may be distinguishedas EXTERNAL to the former, because, going by that old notion, the idea of that later, in as far as it is distinguishableas external to the former cannot be found in that former, and so cannot be deducedfrom it. So not only will every state be logically cut off from every state which is distinct from the first, but it will also be logically cut off from every state that is in this way merely DISTINGUISHABLE from the first. So it seems that the task of making such a self justifyinginferencebetween matters of fact is entirely hopeless. However I still intend to stick with this idea.

                The question arises; given that all the sorts of distinguishablematters of factwe will be engaged with in attempting to draw a conclusionfrom one state of affairsto another are logically distinct, does it follow that CONSIDERED IN THEMSELVES there must be any difference between 'them'? It seems possible that all this logicaldistinguishing might have no basis in some particular existence.

                For instance, suppose that there is no knowledgeof a real tie between matters of fact(as is argued by Hume ), and that there is no knowledge of time in itself(as is argued by Berkeley  and Hume), one possibility that cannot be denied from this position is that there may be no real causes, and that there may be no time in itself. Consequently if I see an object which remains apparently unaltered over some period of time, so that various times of existence can be distinguishedof it, this distinguishableness may be due to alterations in the external circumstances of the object, while CONSIDERED IN ITSELF it may have undergone no changeof any sort whatever. In this way what is logically distinguishable and consequently logically distinct may after all when CONSIDERED IN ITSELF nevertheless be really and objectivelyconnected. --This is my light at the end of the tunnel, that I will call my "original example". It is on this possibility (even though it is JUST ONE of many possibilities) that I wish to concentrate, as setting up an ideal of factual explanation and an epistemologicalobjective.

Why this is a necessary connection.

                Still it may seem that since all the distinguishable times of such an unaltered objects unaltered existence are logically distinct, and consequently since nothing follows logically from the idea of one such time about the existence, or non existence, or unaltered existence of that object at any other moment, its existence at any such moment is not logically necessary, and is therefore not necessary.  But this does not follow. Just as the connection between these moments cannot be established logically, although this does not show there cannot be such a connection, similarly the occurrence of one such moment may be necessary, if it literally IS the unaltered existence of another moment, although once again logic is powerless to interpret it this way, considering any such moments in themselves.  

Does Humeagree to this possibility?

                However I should admit straight away that Hume himself in his chapter of the Treatise'Of scepticism with regard to the senses' states "that time, in a strict sense, implies succession, and that when we apply its idea to any unchangeable object, 'tis only by a fiction of the imagination, by which the unchangeable object is suppos'd to participate of the changes of the co-existent objects, and in particular of that of our perceptions." (S.B.p.200) And (tho not leading directly on from the previous statement) that "The same continu'd and uninterupted Being may, therefore, be sometimes present to the mind, and sometimes absent from it, without any real or essential change in the Being itself." (S.B.p.207) and that "The suposition of the continued existence of sensible objects or perceptions involves no contradiction." (S.B.p.208) (The first quote comes from a discussion of identity and still contains a reference to "changeable perceptions" which COULD imply the end of a causal chain, rather than merely alterations produced relatively between what is apparent; the last two quotes have mainly to do with Hume's bundle theory of the self.)

                 So the puzzle may be put as to why Hume, admitting these statements, remains sceptical in that chapter whereas I, fastening on something at the least easily confusable with Hume's quotes, think that a positive result can be maintained, although of a particular sort.                 My reply to this is that Hume thinks we need some sort of guarantee or probability if we are to see our knowledgeclaims as justifiable. Where as I think that satisfactory objective explanationcan be used as an adequate, though non probability establishing, means of justifying them. Similarly, he supposes that for something to be seen as reasonable it must supply some probability or certaintyof its truth, which implies some subjective or mental grasp in order to generate the certainty. He also, but partly for these reasons, gets side tracked into the philosophers bad habit of seeing things through the (subjective) means by which we grasp them; of which his science of human nature is one example; his question 'what causesinduce us to believe in the existence of body' is liable to be another; and his subjective analysis of what we are actually aware of in perception is a third.  Also he has already dealt with causation, and interprets the subject of this present chapter in the light of those findings, whereas I think that inferences along the continued existence of objects are a simpler and special case of inferences between matters of fact, of which causation is the more complicated example, and so it is less misleading to deal with causation afterwards, not before. He also thinks it is unreasonable ( both in the sense of 'inconsistent' and in the sense of being unable to establish it with any certainty, or probability ) to suppose that objects we are aware of are continued and distinct existence’s when 'the slightest philosophy' shows that we can only be aware of dependent and fleeting perceptions.

                 Another reason may be that Humeis keen to attack the idea of substance: The idea of substance is of something that continues and underlies and supports the changes and various manifestations of an object or thing, while allowing its continued identity. It developed through Plato and Aristotle and was a LOGICAL notion, where from the essence of this underlying stuff these changes and various transitory properties could be, and were objectively, derived. That is logically derived, either from the idea or being of this essence. But if we try to see how some state(s) could continue through altering situations, or how altering situations could be composed from unaltered states, then this could be described as seeking after the substance involved, and could seem unempirical; Even if this is not done on a logical basis, but on the basis of some states that are either directly or indirectly experienced and are just supposed to continue as a matter of fact.-- As I shall try to explain.

                For all these reasons Hume never considers trying to avoid drawing a conclusionbeyond any object or 'fact as an objectivethat should be pursued in adequate, objective, factual explanation.

                My contention is that seeing how the objects of experience, or what are taken to be the contents of a situation , could themselves accountfor what occurs involves TRYING TO SEE how what can be taken as fleeting, dependent perceptions, are continued and distinct existence’s. And that on this view the consequence that we are aware of only fleeting dependent perceptions does not make the situation physically incoherent, in spite of the opposite views involved. This can be seen from the case of television, or of camcorders, where if we take the fleeting pictures produced, as continued and distinct existence’s THEMSELVES, a lot can be learnt about how such fleeting pictures can be, or are, produced --by means of these pictures.[ii] And that this is a more or less scientific procedure that is not essentially bound up with the metaphysics of logic or the human grasp involved in understanding such situations.

A FURTHER EXPOSITION

                Bearing in mind that old notion of satisfactory inference, and by taking seriously both the empiricists position regarding time and the supposition that there can't be any known real connection between distinguishablematters of fact, I presume to discover (as Humehad already done) how there might be such a connection after all. But this connection is just a possibility, as such it cannot be known to hold.-- This is an important point; the distinction between being able to see how such a connection might be possible, and being able to know that it does in fact occur. If the plain man, as is normally supposed, is a naive realist, then it seems likely that he will be liable to try and connect the things he takes a situation to be constructed from while trying to see how what occurs in the situation can result from these contents. Supposing he can succeed, or make some progress with this ideal or objective, this opens a way he may feel satisfied which is divorced from that logically guaranteeing interpretationof what is 'known to be the case', and implies a different way of judging than by a certain or guaranteed degree of truth, let alone from the way of judging the amount of truth there is in a position by how certain or guaranteed that position is. And although (or since) any such connection remains just a possibility, if nothing can be seen that shows it is fundamentally incoherent, and so it IS a possibility, then it still may be actually true. Thus we get a way of judging the truth of a position or theory that is not based on certainty, is not based on a constant conjunction, or general background theory, or on 'aesthetic requirements', or on the minds propensity to spread itself over gaps or supposed differences in the 'objects' constructing situations; But a way that should be intimately concerned with the nature of the materials provided through experience, and aims at a complete realism, which co-insides with a complete solution to our problem (of how given one set of affairs another state could occur), judged by that internally self justifyingform of reasoning found with that old idea of logic.

                Consequently, it seems to me that the above ideal, taken as an objective, opens the option of an epistemology not based on axioms or what may be certain, or on attempts to find some simple and certain starting point from which our 'knowledge' or opinions can be built; or what the consequences are, within the same mind set, if no such thing can be found. But starting from adult situations, in an adult world, without having any clear idea of what that consists in, we may proceed by attempting to use the stuff presented by experience and by TRYING to connect distinguishablestates so we can see how one state could accountfor another without going beyond the first.--We can attempt to make, or see instantiated in experience, a validform of inference (by which I don't mean one that is necessarily true, but one that is apparently internally adequate), which nevertheless does not share a lot of things supposed true of logic, appears not at all subjective, and is not certain.

                The above paragraph is supposed to indicate a purely theoretical position, and what might be gained by pursuing this position. But this point of view may be illustrated, outside its pure theoretical purpose, by what is also my contention; that when we normally do attempt to make inferences between matters of fact we are often trying to consider these objects in themselves and attempting to AVOID drawing a conclusionbeyond any one of them. We do this by TRACING AROUND the various factors, or 'whatnots' we find in a situation, through the subsequent situations we think result from the first, so that the first 'whatnots' that construct the beginning situation can also be supposed, or seen, to construct those subsequent occurrences. Or we see how factors in a situation add together, just as parts in a jigsaw puzzle are thought to, without themselves altering while the whole situation also contains nothing but these unalteredparts (this seems also involved in what must be done under the previous and following suggestions, but they can be considered separately). Or else we try to imagine some states constructing what we find in the beginning situation which can be imagined to be traced around through the subsequent situations as they are apparent to us, so that these underlying structures can account, unaltered, for the obvious alterations and differences that would otherwise be forced upon us as we view a situations development. Or, fourthly, we do it by noticing that some description or property that we do, or have, attributed to a subject, or to the contents of a subject, cannot actually be observed there, and see how what can be observed (considering the experience more accurately and in itself) is sufficient to supply an explanationof what occurs. We do this so that in going from one state to another we can consider those first states and avoid drawing a conclusion beyond them, and so that consequently we can suppose that those first states really do themselves give rise and account for what is found in situations occurring subsequently to them. These sorts of consideration provide the normal practical means whereby the objective stated in the previous paragraph is aimed at and is gradually approached, except that it is done naturally, without a fully self conscious awareness of how we may be proceeding in an apparently epistemologically satisfactory way.

                Since one of my theses is that there has always been a different and more natural interpretationof much of our causalattitudes than a basically constant conjunction view, I will give a quote to partly illustrate my idea, that is both ancient and modern. It would seem, not withstanding the qualification with which it begins, nevertheless very odd if no-one thinks it an exception to the (normal or) Humean view of causation. The quote is from Quine in his book "Quiddities" under the title "Creation", and Empedocles, according to my Penguin "Early Greek Philosophy" says something similar. "Applied to artefacts, the idea of creation is rather the Greek one: a rearranging of antecedently available materials. The weaver creates his tapestry by rearranging his threads, and the painter his painting by rearranging his pigments."[iii]

A SECOND INTERPRETATION OF HUME'S STATEMENTS

                This interpretationdoes not explicitly involve those logical notions of inferencediscussed above. It is that if we are to investigate whether one state can be the cause, or connectedto another, then one of the obvious alternative possibilities for this is that we might see that the two are connected. But to appreciate such a connection we must make sure that we are not surreptitiously connecting them ourselves and discovering a connection that we have ourselves placed in the situation. Instead if there IS a connection we should consider the one state itself and see (or feel, or experience) the connection. But as long as we consider any such state and make sure we never go beyond the idea we form of it, we will obviously never get to any other state. (It may be objected that we should rather consider the CONNEXION;-- but the causing object is supposed to produce this connection, or produce that result. This suggestion is, however not entirely off the mark, although very ambiguous.) This perhaps is the more natural interpretation of some of Hume's statements since if he had meant my point about what makes a validinference he would have produced more explanationof this point than he has done. And, given his statement about the possible fiction of changes in an apparently unchanged object over time quoted above, he would have been more likely to notice that adequate factual explanation is not essentially bound up with the certaintyof that explanation. Making a logical point, it may also be held, goes against the spirit of empiricism where we are supposed to find out what to do not from higher levels of logic, logical analysisand intuition, but from experience.

                But however this is I think that concentrating on an object, although IN A SITUATION, and trying to avoid going beyond the idea we form of it is still the objective we are often aiming at. And this is still consistent with Hume's requirement under this different interpretation.

THE EVERYDAY ALTERNATIVE TO HUME'S VIEW

                I should like to take as my stalking horse in the following a particular passage of Hume's, from the Treatise Book 1 Section VI "Of the inferencefrom the impression to the idea".

                " 'Tis easy to observe, that in tracing this relation, the inferencewe draw from cause to effect, is not deriv'd merely from a survey of these particular objects, and from such a penetration into their essences as may discover the dependence of the one upon the other. There is no object, which implies the existence of any other if we consider these objects in themselves, and never look beyond the ideas which we form of them. Such an inference wou'd amount to knowledge, and would imply the absolute contradiction and impossibility of conceiving anything different. But as all distinct ideas are seperable, 'tis evedent there can be no impossibility of that kind. When we pass from a present impression to the idea of any object, we might possibly have separated the idea from the impression, and have substituted any other idea in its room."

                While I admit that this passage is, in its way, very good, it also illustrates what may possibly (since a central proposal of mine is to do away with certainty) be some very deep faults in our philosophical view of causation, derived from some very deep faults in philosophy in general. The faults I have in mind revolve around the view and arguments for the view that subjectiveinvestigations are required, or of value, in the theory of 'knowledge'. (I have to put 'knowledge' in quotation marks because it is normally thought to mean that you can't be wrong and so to imply certainty, but I propose to do away with certainty.)

                To start with let us consider the following point: For any state to be sufficient to guarantee 'another', only implies that it should be sufficient FOR THAT.  This would seem to involve something quite different from a case where that state necessitated that other and ALSO guarantee the existence of any other fact or state; including the existence of a guarantee to an observer that that is what had happened.

                 It may be objected to this that in that case such an observer cannot have really grasped the essence of the state that necessitates the other to see truly how it does necessitate that other, because if he had he would get such a guarantee, necessarily. But if we look at my 'original' example, the 'first' state of my unchanged object guaranteed the existence of the 'second' state by the sheer factthat it IS IT. There is nothing in this that can rule out every other possibility we may imagine, or to stop us imagining other possibilities. To stop us imagining and rule out other possibilities, and so produce a guarantee as to what has happened, it would seem we require something like that old idea of logic, where in knowing the ideas in the premiseswe at the same time can know what does and doesn't fall under them and so equally know what does and doesn't follow from them. But no-matter how perfectly we might grasp our unchanging object it cannot confirm that we have got it right. That would seem to require a quite different function from our object merely being as it is, or guaranteeing what it does. But it would have to confirm that we had got it right for us to get into that logicalstarting position where we knew what the state was and so knew what does and does not follow from it, and it would have to re-confirm we had got it right at every logically distinguishable  position since logic cannot confirm this across the boundary of such a distinction.-- The conclusion from this is that if we grasped how one state guaranteed another we could still have no guarantee, or probability that that is what had happened. ( Historically there have been other alternatives, for instance; That we suppose the definition of the idea or state grasped big enough so that it contains or bridges these subordinate distinctions. So that we can still know, from this idea, what will happen across such distinctions.  But then, apart form the difficulty of saying how this could be derived or based upon experiences that seem logically distinguishable, any resulting necessity would seem to be based upon the nature of this definition or idea, not objectivelybased in the nature of independent reality as it might be supposed grasped in itself (unless of course this independent reality is identified with such an idea).)

                Perhaps the most natural and central assumption made in the quote from Humeis that CAUSES ARE ESSENTIALLY DISTINCTFROM THEIR EFFECTS. But (bearing in mind that old idea of logical inferenceused with my 'original' example) it seems possible to put the question, 'Are there any strategies that might be employed or ways of handling matters of fact, on an empirical basis, so as to try and understand 'one' from 'another', and which tend to reduce or avoid any essential differences that might be drawn between 'them'?' As I have said (apart from my 'original' example) I believe there are several opportunities in this direction, that have been in fairly common use for a long time. The first one, that of tracing observed 'factors' around through situations, which I should think may be the most philosophically controversial, but which also may be the most immediately important, is in my opinion, the common practise of, or view employed by, a practical man, at least when confronted by a simple mechanical state of affairs (as in the case of a cam or eccentric, for example).

                However I think that the above (deep) faults make us concentrate on two incorrect aspects when we examine causalsituations. These aspects are whether or not any guarantee is apparent as to what happens, and an over concentration on a logical deduction from the idea of any such state to the idea of any propertyor state which we hope to guarantee and in that way explain, or at least justify, by means of the first. There are a whole host of things that are psychologically impressive when we consider epistemology, which lie behind this sort of view, but which I think are unimportant or mistaken. But the upshot is that we wind up thinking of a shape and a property associated with that shape, and wonder what the one can have to do with the other. This reinforces the impression that a cause is essentially distinct from its effect, which is suggested by the terms 'cause and effect'. These terms may indeed have a particular type of use where such a distinction is apparent, but I am viewing that subject as a special and sometimes rather rudimentary case of all our attempts to draw inferences between matters of fact, and am concentrating on our most reasoned attempts, or the reasoned attempts we COULD make at such inferences, going by that old idea of what makes a reasoned inference.

                To illustrate MY point of view, in opposition to the Humean one, I will give an example, move through some misunderstandings to do with it and consider some objections. The example I have in mind is that of a sausage machine.

                In viewing this example, I must emphasise, we are firstly not on the look out for any guarantee of what may happen, or for any guarantee that any of the relationships that may occur at any time will continue to do so. We are trying to see how a developing situation might be produced by the nature of its contents (as a plain man, and naive realist might), or at least we are making the best attempt we can in this direction, so that any mistakes we make posses some intrinsic credibility (at least as strategies designed to lessen any essential difference that might be drawn in the situations development) and are not just complete mistakes or cases of being fundamentally fooled, as Hume's analysiswould have it. If the situation were so produced there would, it seems, have to be a real connection between these distinguishablematters of fact. But, as my 'original' example indicates, on Humean grounds, it is POSSIBLE to suppose there is a real connection between some logically distinguishable states, although there would be no guarantee apparent that this is what had occurred. This, to repeat, is because in seeing how those logically distinguishable states might be really connected, we cannot be making a logical deduction, as that is normally understood. I.e. we are not attempting to use the parameters of one of the distinguishable states involved, placing it under our control within language or as an idea in the mind, as setting the limits of reasonable inference, an inference which being performed under our control, within language or within the ideas of the mind, could be known as certain. We are not interpreting the judgements we make as carried on in a subjectivesphere, but are trying to consider these objects IN THEMSELVES, and see  how THEY THEMSELVES might be connected. Again we are not trying to penetrate into the essence of any of these 'ideas' or 'states' but are sticking to their metaphysicalsurface (I mean that we may still be allowed to suppose things existing beneath the surface of this chair if  we may move them around or work with their discoverable properties, or with what may be supposed to produce those properties, which 'whatnots' should be derived from, or used to construct, some nature apparent in the situation, again, without going beyond them ).

                So we have resolutely done away with looking for such a guarantee. However, if these states are to appear (in a middlingly unsatisfactory degree) as really connected, or up to the job, and we are to be able to appreciate the situation from this point of view , as it were with a clear, if somewhat unsatisfactory, conscience, there must not be any immediately un-bridgeable difference involved between them. So instead of concentrating on the relationship between the shape of any of the objects involved in the construction of our sausage machine, or of the sausage meat, and the properties found with these shapes, which involves such a difference, we will concentrate on the shape, and what occurs subsequently in the situation, the existence of the properties at one time and what occurs subsequently in the situation, and the relationships between these two, and what occurs subsequently in the situation. In THIS respect we will see what puzzles us, and what satisfies us, and then start to wonder why this should be so.

                Let us then suppose a sausage machine that consists of a tube, a funnel fixed to one end of the tube, and a plunger that fits into one end of the funnel. We discover by the experience of one poke at each part that they resist or stop our motion when it is immediately adjacent to their shapes. We have half a pound of sausage meat, which we also discover by short experience slows motion when a moving object is adjacent to its shape, but also alters shape to accommodate this motion and seems to remain more or less in that altered shape. We see the sausage meat placed into the funnel, the plunger pushed fully into the funnel, and more or less half a pound of tubular sausage meat appear from the other end of the tube.

                Now we may easily feel we can understand THAT. Contrast this with a case where the plunger moves with total ease straight through the sausage meat, or where the sausage meat disappears, or where any of the properties similarly disappear, or where two tonnes of cuddly children's toys appear from the other end of the machine while the sausage meat apparently disappears through the tube. We may feel that in such cases we would immediately go back and have another look at these parts, and repeat the experiment, and as with Newtonian gravitation, or magnetism (unless we are bamboozled by philosophy in general, and Hume in particular) spend generations wondering how in heaven these states can produce that effect!!

                It is normal in such cases to think we must have some guarantee, or suppose ourselves to have what is in facta pseudo guarantee that what did appear will continue to so appear through the situation, and that our surprise results from this expectation not being met. But the fact that we can be surprised by magnets although our experience of them ought to make us expect what we nevertheless find surprising, raises some doubt as to whether our surprise is really puzzlement, and whether we are not surprised because what we expected to happen didn't, but puzzled because we can't understand what happened, whether or not we expected it. I am going to concentrate on ( objective  ) understanding and the nature of this puzzlement. So let us suppose we think we understand the first case and not the others, because in the first case but not the others, (and speaking rather metaphorically so as to include the properties involved and so as to compare the situation with that old idea of logic) WHAT GOES IN AT ONE END IS WHAT COMES OUT AT THE OTHER.

                But if the standard of explanationI am propounding is to be accomplished, i.e. so that we succeed and avoid drawing a conclusionbeyond any 'object', this must not be done metaphorically. But it does not appear literally true that what went in at one end of our sausage machine, i.e. an amorphous blob of sausage meat, was what came out at the other, i.e. a TUBULAR amount of sausage meat (all be it of about the same volume and weight). Neither does it seem that what enters at one end of the process of evolution through natural selection, i.e. dead matter, atoms, blind electrical and gravitational phenomena, is what comes out at the other end, i.e. life, sentient beings, moral and artistic consciousness (and in a similar sort of way every sports commentator asserts that any good team is more than the sum of its parts).--Let us stick to the first difference, which being more straightforward stands less opportunities for being confused away.--The problem is that there IS a difference between the beginning and the end of this situation and the paradox being faced is that we must keep everything the same and at the same time produce something different.-- At the beginning we have an amorphous blob of sausage meat on one side of the machine, at the end of the situation we have a tubular amount of sausage meat on the other side of the machine. Saying that metaphorically what goes in at one end is what comes out at the other, has at least this about it; it may allow us to include the conglomerations of properties coming together as that result is produced, in our calculations as to how we feel satisfied we understand how that result IS produced. But it also seems to invite us to compare the one end of the situation with the other and declare that there is no difference, and this is wrong.

                As an alternative to this we might suppose that we understand the situation because NOTHING ELSE IS NEEDED to produce our normal and understood result than those starting factors, or 'objects' I have (rather carelessly) listed. But this formula will not do because it does not answer the question 'When is nothing else being needed theoretically satisfactory as opposed to a statement of a matter of fact?'. For instance, it might be the case that every time I rubbed two small marbles together a full sized London bus pinged into existence next to me. In this case I might also say that nothing else is needed for the existence of a London bus than to rub these two small marbles together. Putting the word 'apparently' in front of this formula does not seem to help, because it does not answer the question 'HOW may it be apparent that nothing else is needed....?'.

                It also seems to me that here we are already on a slippery slope, where the reason we feel satisfied or dissatisfied with our explanationis going to depend upon a conceptual analysis of OUR IDEA of when such a relationship is or isn't adequate, which is then embodied  in a definition from which it could be logically derived. But apart from this raising another level of explanation between us and the situation, it is my contention that we are trying to get the contents of the situation THEMSELVESto accountfor what occurs in, or through it, not some logically adequate or inadequate description of some subjectiveconcept by which they are allowed to account for what occurs.

                A similar but even worse fault would occur if we noticed that the first states are allowed to PRODUCE the last states and then investigated the sense of the word 'produced' that is involved.

                Let us then stick to that Humean formula of trying to avoid drawing a conclusion  beyond any object. This will avoid us giving or using any such definition or idea and make us concentrate on the nature of these objects THEMSELVES.

                If we consider these shapes and properties individually and together as they pass through the situation; The soft propertyof the sausage meat remains unchanged through the situation. The quantity of the sausage meat remains unchanged through the situation. The hard property of the parts of the plunger and tube remain unchanged through the situation, together with their shapes. The consequence of these unchanged states and properties coming together, is a change in the situation allowed by one of those unchanged states, i.e. the softness of the sausage meat, in the circumstance of its coming together with the other unchanged property of the hardness of the parts of the sausage machine. Thus we have not gone beyond any of these several factors or 'objects', found at the start of the situation, in our understanding of what happens as the situation develops. We have TRACED THEM AROUND and through the situation, and have noticed how they remain the same through the situation. And it is this 'remaining the same' that is consistent with, requires, and satisfactorily (as far as it goes) accounts for the CHANGE in the shape and place of the sausage meat that is observed in the situation.

OBJECTIONS

                It is true, if we return to my 'original' example, that some factors involved in this type of reasoning, which immediately seem to go beyond the ideas of these 'objects' that we are trying to consider in themselves, are those of space and motion, or those ideas involved with the need for some 'receptacle', or place where such changecan occur. But in our attempts to emulate that old aspect of logical reasoning, and so to see how a situation develops without going beyond the nature of what is found within it, we may gradually become more aware of the assumptions involved with these aspects, and may find ways, gradually, of doing away with these assumptions by sticking more faithfully to (or, ONLY USING more faithfully) what IS observable in the situation.

                This objection may also be connectedwith an objection arising from the nature of the 'same'. It may be objected that I am supposing that we can tell absolutely when something is the same or different simply from the nature of the experience involved. But, depending upon which theoretical framework you are viewing a situation through, or with, the same object may appear to continue 'the same' or undergo a change.

                For instance according to Aristotle an object at rest remains 'the same' while an object in motion is continually undergoing a change; But according to Newton an object undergoing un-accelerated motion in a straight line is in a state that needs no causal explanationand is therefore unchanged whether or not it appears changed to an external observer, or compared to the environment it may be passing during some period. Similarly to this it might be, and actually was proposed, that circular motion was 'the same thing happening' and so was unchanged motion, and so motion that did not need any explanation. But my answer to this is that such changes in our theoretical framework come about through trying to understand what occurs in a situation by means of its contents, considered in themselves (this is possible if, as I am maintaining we can try to understand such situations as our sausage machine from the nature of its contents).

                It may still seem that this is confusing because if we just describe, or produce reminders of any situation as a matter of fact, then since that situation existed it would appear we are bound to be able to re-construct it from its contents. But it is my contention that we are trying to re-construct these situations by finding what contents there are at a particular time, or short period of time, if that is the only way to notice properties, and trying to avoid going beyond them as the larger situation develops. In this way we see how the contents of the situation themselves produce what occurs.

                 If, for instance, we consider the contents of a situation where objects are moving, more immediately, an object remains unchanged when it appears unchanged compared to its environment. It also appears the case that objects, when left to themselves, do normally come to rest in their environment and that it takes a perceivable effort to keep them moving. This seems to me to be attempting to understand the situation from what is seen to occur in it, from which we try to re-construct what has occurred and what does occur as the situation develops.

                 But nevertheless if we consider the situation more carefully we see that the smoother and more level the road a cart is pushed along then the less effort it takes to keep it moving. That it also takes a perceivable effort to stop it moving, unless it is left to grate to a stop against the road. And that it is hard to see how the perceived contents of the situation could account for its continuing in motion if they had to because its natural state is rest. But it is not hard to see how a rougher or smoother surface could account for its gradually reduced motion if its natural state is to persist with whatever ( straight ) motion it has at a particular time. (It is true that such a 'natural state' of an object is not something that can be directly observed in the situation, but I maintain we are (or can) doing our best to construct the situation from what IS observable there and this attempt results in that consequence.)

                Such arguments as this about what IS apparent within a situation and what can be done with it to understand and construct what occurs can affect our theoretical view of the situation, and what we count as 'the same', but may nevertheless be an outcome of our considering the nature of the contents of the situation together with our purpose of trying to see how these contents can themselves accountfor it. This is impossible if, as is supposed proved by Hume, any attempted connection or supposed explanation of factual relationships in causalsituations must be essentially ADDED to the situation and CANNOT be found in it.

                This brings up a third, and important, aspect to these objections of similarity, or the general scheme governing our view of the situation, this is that all sorts of things are similar to all sorts of other things, and dissimilar, in all sorts of different ways; which ways we find similar or dissimilar depend on the descriptions we give and the analogies we care to draw. Some similarities may seem more certain and definite or natural than others, but this is just thought to be through the influence of cultural background, or a sort of fashion, or because they have seemed to suit our purposes. There is no absolute 'similarity' independent of these choices.--But this seems to me to be really the same sort of objection over again. It seems important to me because the answer to it points at a distinction between the way similarities can be drawn, which I will call similarities by metaphor, or ones we may find appealing, and those based upon a physical similarity, or physical analogy. If Humewere right then in trying to reason regarding matters of fact as to how one is produced or results from another, we must be adding the essential ingredient of this reasoning to any experience that we might try to consider objectively, and in itself. Otherwise we could not, according to Hume, get this sort of reasoning off the ground AT ALL. But this is what I am disagreeing with. If, as I think, on the other hand, we can use the qualities presented in experience, considered in, or as, themselves, to produce what approaches something like an internally satisfactory form of reasoning, and not just something that must be merely called reasoning conventionally, then although this does not show that the facts we use in the reasoning are truly objective, or are being considered objectively, nevertheless we can attempt to concentrate on THEM to decide what is satisfactory in our reasoning, and so may get clearer on them in this way.

                A fourth range of problem with 'similarity' that arises with my approach may be represented in the above example by examining my claim that the softness of the sausage meat remains apparently unchanged through the situation. It will be objected that in general we cannot impose one manifestation of this property on another and maintain they are absolutely 'the same' in that sense, it is in fact only because we have a general idea or concept of SOFTNESS prior to the experience, that we can suppose so readily that these individually different manifestations are similar or 'the same property'.--But this illustrates my different approach. ( Which is, however, hardly new). I do not know how we come to the opinion that the sausage meat has this 'property' (if you like to call it that) which is different from the way the metal parts of the sausage machine behave, and which remains the same through the situation. I am also not going to try to attempt some sort of subjectiveanalysisto show either some supposed grain of absolute 'sameness' running throughout this 'concept' (if you must call it that), and which makes it the same thing, nor alternatively the range of distinct states that must be admitted as collected under this 'concept'. Instead I propose to accept the fact that we start off, at least, with such an opinion, which we use to explain things at this level. If we wish to proceed with our objectiveinvestigations and explanations there are several strategies that can be employed to this end. Such as measuring the different occurrences and comparing them; Measuring the factors we can use to explain differences between the differences of the different occurrences of the soft behaviour of our sausage meat; getting some mathematical equation which fits the balancing of these differences against one another, and covers the range, or a range of such possibilities of balanced differences; Or imagining or finding some underlying state(s) that can be supposed to remain the same, MORE absolutely, while combining in different ways and degrees to show how our original differences are possible. And generally instead of looking to subjective investigations to provide an absolute to guide our procedures, or to sort out how we are handling the subject, see what can be done in objectively investigating these subjects in pursuit of that ideal, and absolute, of objective explanation described above. This direction of investigation may as easily show that our concept of similarity should be (needs to be) reformed or discarded, as provide a explanation of how it IS justified. It is also likely to explain how our handling of these subjects is possible and what it consists in without reference to any platonic or subjective 'concepts' existing in the mind. 

                 I still do not think I have got very clear on this point. There are a whole load of Philosophical strategies designed to show that our understanding of such subjects cannot be truly objective, as a naive realist and plain man might suppose, and which then imply a different perspective and deeper understanding of the subject as a consequence of this point.  However Humeis the one who may lay fair claim to have provided the PROOF of this fact, and I disagree that he has actually proved it. My strategy in contesting this issue is to pursue the possibility and to keep it open as a possibility that we can understand situations essentially by the nature of their contents as determined by discussions of the nature of EXPERIENCE FIRST. And not some sort of mental theory first, or not discussion of those elements that must be added to experience in order to get this reasoning off the ground. The method that I propose, in contrast to those philosophical strategies, is thus merely to pursue the possibility that the contents of situations themselves account for what occurs as they develop and as we explore the nature of our experiences. I also think that a large amount of science and attempts by the plain man to understand situations are done in pursuit of this objective, of trying to get the contents of the situation to account for it, although it is pursued by instinct and without a philosophical awareness of what they are up to and achieving.  (It seems obvious that there will be philosophical trouble deciding what to count as 'the contents of the situation', but, as I have said, I propose to start off as an adult in an adult world without any clear idea what that consists in, and by trying to get what WE TAKE to be involved in such situations to account for what occurs, corrected by a more accurate consideration of what can be seen in the situation, and what we can suppose and test for in the situation to account for our experiences. This is the process that decides what to count as something existing in the situation. Thus the question is not to be decided by some subjective analysisof our concept of what we suppose are 'the contents of a situation', but in objective attempts to try and see how what is experienced or is supposed to exist can be used to account for what occurs, or is experienced. This method is not circular but self contained in the sense of being internally self justifyingly adequate. )

                A currently popular candidate for an extra element that must be added to experience in order to get reasoning regarding it off the ground is language. Some reasons for this are; firstly, because often and especially when doing philosophy, we reason regarding these matters in language; secondly because logic is supposed to be the only satisfactory form of reasoning, par excellence, together with all those things that are impressive about certainty and so imply that we need a subjective grasp of the situation in order to get this certainty;  thirdly because Humehas, once again, proved that we can't reason directly with the contents of experiences considered in themselves; fourthly to paraphrase Frege because theories are 'bigger than facts', even if it wasn't obvious of itself that in order to handle these experiences we must (often) translate their contents into language first; fifthly because physical laws are what we ought to be interested in; sixthly because as our understanding of the world develops it gradually becomes more and more abstract; and seventhly because, once again, of the philosophical bad habit of viewing a subject through the means by which we grasp it. This makes our grasp epistemologically primary and posses how we can reach out to the subject as the problem, whereas I think our objectivein handling the materials of experience is primary. This objective is to construct a world whose objects exist independently and in their own right, and which can themselves accountfor what occurs. The means by which we handle the resulting subject and these experiences are secondary and derived from this. So I don't think any of the above reasons is fatal to our objective which is possible and prior to such considerations.

                According to me we are trying to see how the contents of a situationcan THEMSELVES accountfor it. In order to feel satisfied on this point we may, often, use a notation who's properties we also feel satisfied (again that logical idea of certaintyon the point does not seem required in order to keep open as a possibility my realists option) can be effectively used to mirror and derive the properties found in the subject. But this is not at all necessarily the same as having a notation or language that essentially adds those properties by which we reason and handle the subject INTO the situation, from which they must otherwise be absent. On the contrary, according to me, we are trying to avoid doing that. And so the causalor explanative achievement we may think we achieve is not due to the properties of a description of these objects as far as our method can determine.--We thus try to avoid the endless flexibility and vagueness of language and speculation by turning to consider experiences themselves and see what can be done with THEM to account for what occurs.

                I know that this may seem a ridiculous consequence of pushing the 'considering of objects as, or in, themselves' too far, but I think it IS a consequence, and that we ought to attempt it. I should also point out that it is one thing to ATTEMPT to effectively mirror the properties of a subject with some notation or remind ourselves of the experienceable properties of a subject by the use of language without adding those properties into the situation. Another thing to appear to succeed. And another in the light of hindsight to appear to have succeeded even when we previously thought we had. A further very important point in judging whether we are adding an essential ingredient to the subject or not, in our attempts to understand it, is that we cannot decide this issue by contrasting any 'description' with any other possible one. This is because the subject does not rule out alternative interpretations, as I have discussed above; Since there is no certaintyor guarantee provided by an object that truly does account for the existence of another distinguishable state, it would seem that there must always be some other descriptions that are possible. So whether we are contributing to the properties of the subject with our handling of it, can only be decided by considering the subject itself, and decidedly cannot be decided by appealing to any guarantee or certainty in our handling of it, and consequently nor by contrasting other possible interpretations.

                                                                                II

                The next set of objections has to do with the viability of drawing a parallel between our causal situation and my 'original' example.

                To start with, it may seem the height of inconsistency to suppose that a property, which can only be known through a CHANGE, is nevertheless a 'factor' or 'object' in the situation that can be traced through it, unchanged, like the object in my 'original' example.--But I had better put this again before I deal with it.

                It may be admitted that there is an immediate perception of the solid property in the above situation. But to put it more accurately, there is an immediate perception of the feeling that goes with a range of logically distinguishableperceptions or experiences that severally, or separately may be taken to indicate the presence of this property. But this feeling cannot justify us, in that self justifying way discussed above, in drawing a conclusion to those other experiences that go along with and form this property. For example it cannot self justifyingly provide us with a reason to draw a conclusion to any of the visible actions that can also be counted as solid, as long as we consider this feeling itself, and never draw a conclusion beyond the idea which we form of it. Consequently it may still be admitted that there is no 'being' of solidity apparent in the situation. Or, to explain what this may mean; That there is no thoroughly satisfactory and complete and final solution to the question why these objects behave in a solid way, that is immediately derivable from any experienced state observable in the situation, without going beyond it.--This still seems horrendously unclear, but it may be allowed that the objection comes in two basic bits.

                a) There is no object in the situation which is the existence of solidity, and which could be traced continuously and unalteredthrough the situation as could my 'original' object in my 'original' example. Rather instances of solid behaviour make a punctuated appearance through the situation, even if they always occur whenever a visible shape of another solid object, or object that can be affected by this property, moves and becomes immediately adjacent to the visible shape of our solid object.

                b) (Given that the feeling of solidity is the most irrelevant part of the concept for explaining the visible actions of a solid type, including those associated with our bodies and this feeling when we touch something, on the ideal of explanation I am attempting to propound, because these later are so distinct from it (which seems a reason for supposing 'secondary qualities')). All that the solidity consists in is a certain type of CHANGE in the situation, and these alterations, which occur on separate instances through the situation, cannot at the same time consistently be thought to remain unaltered and original through the situation, as could the object in my 'original' example. In fact to try and suppose such a thing is the perfect height of INCONSISTENCY.

                But my reply to these objections is firstly just to repeat that we are trying to get the contents of a situationto account for it, and that this is the best we can do. It does at least make our understanding of the situation depend on the nature of factors we can notice within it and attempts to avoid the need for some extra or different or other type of occurrence as we construct the situation ( which is a big positive point when we are considering the objectivity of our procedure, and is an argument against Humesupposedly having proved that it is impossible to do anything with the nature of the experienced constituents of a situation, considered as themselves, in order to account for what occurs in the situation). That secondly we are not immediately trying to answer the question what the being and real existence of a property  in itself may be. But are using that type of behaviour in order to try and explain the situation as best we can. In this way it might perhaps be possible that eventually we get a complete solution of the problem that the existence of the behaviour itself posses, but in the mean time we are using this behaviour to account for the situation although we don't understand that behaviour. Thirdly, supposing we think that the contents of a situation should themselves account for it, we will from this position think that the contents of the situation of the exhibiting of this property should account for its (i.e. that properties) existence, together with the existence of the shape that is associated with it, so we may excuse ourselves by supposing that these reasons, in the situation, remain present in the situation, along with the shape. [iv] So one way out of the twin objections that there is no being of the cause to be traced through the situation, and that all there is is an alteration, which cannot remain the same, is to persist in a belief that the contents of the situation do themselves actually account for it and to suppose the underlying explaining states of the property persist through the situation and that THEY DON'T CHANGE.

                This last reply may seem even more ridiculous to a philosophical mind than the original objection(s), because we are side-stepping those objections in the most blatant way, and landing ourselves with an infinite regress where just the same problem(s)  will arise at each new level of underlying explanation.

                 However, for us to be perfectly satisfied that we ARE landing ourselves with this sort of infinite regress we must be certain that we will always find ourselves in exactly the same theoretical position at whatever stage we wish to consider. But I think that the present objectiveof trying to get the contents of a situationto accountfor it, which partly or most basically requires that we try to avoid drawing a conclusionbeyond any object, is involved with generality, and in that way with simplicity, this in turn has consequences that it is hard to be final and certain about. But also the objective of trying to stick to the nature of the contents of a situation, and using that to account for what occurs, is not a transparently obvious task to complete.[v] This can be seen from the debate between the concept of absolute space, (which was probably itself introduced subsequently upon the arguments for supposing unalteredmotion in a straight line as natural, as an extension and more generalised way of handling such motion, which seemed well argued for, and trouble free in more particular and more directly experienceable examples) and use of that in the way we account for what occurs, and the principle of relativity, which maintains that absolute space is not something observable in the situation, that it is hard to see how the contents of the situation could be used to account for ITS supposed properties, and that straight addition of velocities is only something that makes sense if we suppose an absolute space relative to which these velocities can be added. It then uses something that can be observed in the situation, the speed of light, supposes THAT as absolute relative to any un-accelerated observer and shows the consequences, which means measuring velocities times and lengths relative to this, observable, absolute. In this way we go, once again, from the superficially straightforward business of tracing factors through their situations to consideration of how the contents of the situation could determine the way we can trace these factors around. This is also, I maintain, what happened between Aristotle and Galileo.

                 But apart from the above, I am myself at present trying to describe the various different aspects that are involved if we are to get the contents of a situation, themselves, to account for it and to this end avoid going beyond any factor in the situation, considered as itself. Thus the objectiveof trying to get the contents of the situation to account for it is not straightforward and simple, even if a limited strategy that can be employed in pursuing this objective, i.e. that which appears to land us with an infinite regress, seems simple and on its surface SEEMS to exhaust all possibilities.

                (I will also give another way out of this difficulty, eventually.)

                The arguments against the two broad areas of objection discussed above can be connected; If it is possible to attempt to understand situations by the nature of their contents, then it may be possible to changeour understanding of situations if upon closer inspection we notice slightly different characteristics to those contents, or see that they are ordered to produce their result in a slightly different way than seemed the case when we didn't look so carefully. But in that case, as with Aristotle, Newton and Einstein, our understanding of such situations can change at a different level or way than by simply repeating our position as we analyse the situation and try to understand it from its contents. So this understanding is not shown to be involved in the infinite regress supposed by the second objection, if the argument against Hume's basic objection, that we cannot do anything with facts considered as themselves to try and understand 'one' from 'another', is sound. But in that case we have a way of altering our judgements of 'the same' and our background 'conceptual scheme' by studying experience more closely, which undercuts the claim that these schemes are imposed independently, or prior to, experience, and undercuts the point to studying them separately from experience because this study supposedly undercuts our handling of experience.

                However, disregarding all these theoretical considerations of how the explanations we often give in causal situations might be satisfactory, or tend towards, or represent an ideal which is itself satisfactory, it still seems possible that the plain man could often reason in the way I am describing, and will further describe. He may do this just because this is the way he often does reason, just as he often reasons by voodoo or sympathetic magic. In which case it will be a mistake to judge if he can reason in this way or not by whether it does or does not conform to some general run of experience. He may reason in this way in spite of any such run of experience, or any conjunctions that may be constant in such a run, and even though it makes no sense for him to do so at all, and even though the way of reasoning might be in itself perfectly inconsistent. But in these cases we will be faced with the question of why we prefer this description of his reasoning to any other that might be given, and what right we have to suppose this description is true, whereas my theoretical objectivehopes to avoid, or solve this question ( and so gives a 'useful result', in this sense, which is different from all the other hypotheses that might be used to describe this same phenomena. This is a question of trying to do more than just give a possible way of handling the subject ). Nevertheless it is, apart from those theoretical considerations , still a question that can be considered, whether what I describe often is a good description of the way we do reason in these matters.

RETURNING TO HUME'S STATEMENT

                I shall now attempt to sum up this part of the discussion by returning to Hume's statement, proceed to illustrate the elementary position with some more examples, and then try to touch upon a larger view, and consequences.

                " 'Tis easy to observe, that in tracing this relation, the inferencewe draw from cause to effect, is not deriv'd merely from a survey of these particular objects, and from such a penetration into their essences as may discover the dependence of the one upon the other. There is no object, which implies the existence of any other if we consider these objects in themselves, and never look beyond the ideas which we form of them. Such an inference wou'd amount to knowledge, and would imply the absolute contradiction and impossibility of conceiving anything different. But as all distinct ideas are seperable, 'tis evedent there can be no impossibility of that kind. When we pass from a present impression to the idea of any object, we might possibly have separated the idea from the impression, and have substituted any other idea in its room."

                Now Humeis here attempting to demonstrate the impossibility of (as he supposes) all the previous ways of conceiving the relationship between two causally connectedstates. But from a sort of philosophers version of a naive causal realists point of view there are at least the following thoughts which are likely to occur and represent our basic notions of what we must be dealing with in this area; thoughts that are also found in the above passage and so form the basic presuppositions of Hume's approach to this subject.

1) There is an essential difference between cause and effect.

2) There must be some sort of logical deduction going on if we are ever to find a real cause of anything.

3) If we were ever to suppose we actually saw some states really themselves cause, or produce, some other state(s) then since we would truly be seeing THESE VERY STATES produce and so necessitate the existence of THAT EFFECT; and since we are supposing this necessity is really part of the situation and that we see THE WHOLE OF THE CASE then surely we must get a guarantee that that cause has produced that effect.

4) That in attempting to draw a conclusion from one state of affairs( "the impression" ) to another ("the idea") the inference must be based on some believed guarantee or probability that the second state will exist given the first.

5) Certainty provides the final epistemological port of call for judging the truth and/or objective value of a statement/theory/piece of reasoning.

And perhaps I should also add;

6) It is ridiculous to suppose we could ever see something actually and in itself really cause another. In Hume's phrase "the slightest philosophy" satisfies us that all we can be aware of are fleeting perceptions, that they are probably produced in us by a causalchain leading from the object, that on the most realistic estimate such an object must exist separately from the viewer, probably exits at least several feet away, and so should be similarly separate from and beyond anything (such as knowledge) that can claim to depend on what we CAN grasp (and so be certain about). And this is beside mentioning all that linguistic behaviour, all those concepts, conceptual schemes, judgements, habits, background influences and that "nature of belief" that upon reflection are found necessary to produce EXPERIENCE out of mere sensation, and/or are necessary in order to HANDLE experience.

                It seems clear from this that 1) & 2) are inconsistent; That, given a little thought, considerations along the lines of 3) are liable to reinforce any inclination towards 2) and vice-versa, that 5) is liable to be muddled in with and reinforce 3) & 2) & 4); And that 6) is liable to rule out any proper attempt in the realists direction as ignorant. Humerejects 2), rather collapses 3) & 4) (and also 5) ) into 3), and re-interprets 3) so that the necessity we suppose attaches to causesresults from an inclination to association between ideas ( when related in a suitable way), which is found to hold in the mind as a matter of experienced fact, and which also supplies the reason why we (mistakenly) think that phenomena can in themselves be really connected  together, so producing our notion of cause.

                However on the view being developed here ALL THE FIRST FIVE ARE INCORRECT. 1) Is wrong because we are not concentrating on a propertyimmediately associated or apparent with a shape, but on how these properties and shapes continue through the situation, unaltered. 2) is wrong because we are not trying to deduce any occurrence or state from the, or within the, idea of any state, but are tracing these states around to see how they build up the eventual result. 3) Is wrong because we are not making a logical deduction from a platonic idea, or from grasping an object as if it were a platonic idea, and so the limits of such an idea, grasped through an intellectual contemplation, cannot assure us of the necessity of any result deduced from it. 4) Is wrong as we are not judging what may or may not happen on a logicalguarantee or probability that it will or wont happen, but on whether or not we can see how it could happen, and can thus have some chance of explaining it, and this in spite of the factthat there are lots of things that happen which we can't explain (there are also lots of other ways of judging if a thing can or can't happen, e.g. voodoo). 5) is wrong because we are concerned with the apparent adequacy of our explanation, not the certainty that it must be right or apply; There is no extra guarantee even if something is apparently adequate that it also is necessarily correct, and we are simply trying to make our explanations apparently adequate from what we can imagine to be the contents of the situation to deal with what we appreciate the nature of the contents of our experiences to be.

                But although they are incorrect it is not too difficult to see how through a variety of muddles, understandable but incorrect pre-occupations, and 'natural thoughts', the above five positions can seem true. And this is allowed by my view of the subject.

                I also feel very suspicious of 6). Firstly on the grounds that it involves inferences beyond what is strictly apparent, or which attempt to connect distinguishablethings and so shouldn't be tackled before we have got such inferences sorted out. Or at any rate since any such conclusions depend upon such inferences any fresh look at such inferences entitles us to disregard any conclusions previously reached about how states of affairs or the world and ourselves may be related. So we should start again and, for example, not suppose there is a need for a causalchain between us and any object or fleeting perceptions produced by such a causal chain, until we have worked out on what basis we are making such inferences, and so see why we suppose such things are needed. Secondly, and disregarding that first point (which is much too easily done), because we can construct machines that can reproduce factors in their environment as we see these factors, independently of the machines, to be; And we can more or less understand how they can do this. This throws doubt on the claim that there is something essentially unreasonable and paradoxical in supposing that the end of a causal chain can reproduce the characteristics of an object at the beginning, as it exists there. Thirdly (apparently changing the subject) because in the attempts to find subjective explanations for our various conscious states and the abilities that we exhibit, there is an implication that these states should be internally self sufficient--and thus that the answer to our questions could be given by a cross between a sort of quasi 'simple introspection' and a logical deduction, and I doubt whether this is the case, and it often seems that we are inventing with this 'simple introspection' what is required on the basis of the logicaldeduction that it must be the case, when this 'it must be the case' is not backed up, or confrontable by that more lively realm of experience. (Contrariwise we are also inclined to rule out or miss-represent our normal opinions because they can't be the case, or be supported, going by what we find in our subjective analysis.) Fourthly, because since such issues are at least semi-introspective they are continually shifting our attention away from considering whatever subjects we may be concerned with IN THEMSELVES.--This relates to Bishop Butlers maxim "Everything is that thing, not another thing" (this maxim may seem to be against theory in general, but I don't think this is so straightforward on my view of theory. This is because at the same time we must avoid drawing a conclusion beyond any object and also see how these objects thus considered make the subject as it is also accurately found to be experienced.) Thus, in spite of the fact that  a major part of the philosophers prerogative ought to be the contemplation of how things are, they are always taking a step away from some general subject, to deal with perceptions, or concepts, or knowledge, or ideas, or language, or mathematics, and they can never quite manage to fight their way back to it (although they generally deny this failure). Fifthly, because I think that what I doubt can be achieved in the subjective sphere, it may be possible to achieve objectively, i.e. a completeness in objective explanation, or realism which sets an objective, which defines a method, dealing with things in that more lively realm, and where conclusions and opinions can be tested with their practical application (all this terminology is dreadfully unclear!), and so does not need to rely so heavily on our reasoning abilities; which is the case with types of subjective analysis. Sixthly, if we suppose that the contents of a situationreally do themselves account for what occurs in it then it would seem that, in as far as we can grasp this, all those favourite subjects of philosophers cannot be having any influence on our view. So, if we concentrate on trying to see how the contents of a situation could themselves account for what happens in it this will be inclined to make those philosophical subjects redundant when they pretend to give a new perspective on, or undercut our view of reality.

                 Seventhly, neither the plain man nor scientists worry over much, if at all, about how they are subjectively able to grasp these subjects in order to deal with them and try to understand them. Instead what they (often) do is try and see how what they suppose are the 'contents' of the situation could accountfor it. This is INTERPRETED in philosophy as the result of using so many ideas and concepts etc. because their subject is bigger than anything that can be immediately grasped or experienced. But they don't worry about that, what they worry about is understanding their subject and how what they suppose explains that subject. Now why should we have to understand how it is possible to understand something in order to see its significance correctly? Why shouldn't the appreciation of what seems to be achieved in the understanding give the significance of that understanding? The former seems to ASSUME that such views cannot be right because IT supplies the significance not the original understanding. It is true that there have been philosophical theories advanced about the nature of our knowledgeand how it is possible to understand things that imply an approach to the method we employ in trying to understand things and in arguing against a prioriprinciples and god assured knowledge. Consequently it has been felt necessary to argue a) that all our knowledge arises from experience and that also b) everything that could be counted as a good theory or knowledge could be adequately generated from what is experienced. This project then has the significance of doing away with that previous view. Or would have that significance if it could be carried through. But on the other hand the extent and ways it is supposed it can't be carried through will effect the significance of what we are supposing ourselves to be achieving, just as the choice between the alternatives of God and experience for the basis of our procedures was supposed to do. So this will lead us to consider the bases for our understanding, and try to understand how our understanding can develop which WILL have the right to show the significance of the conclusions of our non-philosophical understanding.--But my reply to this is that these sorts of issues are naturally dealt with as we try to distinguish, with the aid of experience and our attempts at understanding, what to count as the contents of the situation and how they can be seen to account for what occurs. It is my opinion that our understanding can stand on its own, and as it progresses, and does not need any other basis or extra interpretation to show its (possible) true significance.

To this I will also add the following more homely considerations:-

                If, as is supported by evidence supplied through natural selection, and geology and physics, Dinosaurs existed 70 million years ago, it would seem that this factcan have nothing essentially to do with the meaning of any of these words, or any others. For most of that seventy million years there was no-one capable of uttering any such words and it was rather a matter of chance and accident if there ever would be. Even if we suppose that the truth of that statement is made true by the relationship between ourselves, who utter it, and the existence of those dinosaurs, it is not the meanings of these words that make that FACT true, but the existence of other supposed true states of affairs, or fact, such as the world going round the sun 70 million times. And similarly to the same objection that can be made with the words "70 million", and "years" and "fact".

                If we look at the nature of the evidence for this supposed fact(I could have said 'for this statement', which can more easily have an incorrect implication) it consists in the existence of bones, or rocks and/or processes that are supposed to exist independently and continuously, and whose continuous existence are the remains of and lead back up to the existence of independently existing creatures, whose existence left these traces. It is the extrapolation of such states and processes supposed to exist independently and so to constitute an environment that exists independently that leads up to that independently existing world in which those independently existing dinosaurs supposedly existed. It may be that in arriving at this view we use language or models and see that supposed world through these representations, but what is claimed by this means is that these objects and that environment exist independently, not that what we are supposing reaches only so far as the limit of the present experience and use and meaning of our models.

                The above evidence seems largely based upon the same sort of consideration as a gun found at the scene of a murder, and fingerprints found on the gun ( a 'smoking gun' is the stock comparison of the scientists in this area as a standard of proof for such supposed facts). It is true that we have not seen, most, of the dinosaurs who's bones we suppose the above to be, although there are some fossils or bones that are the same as living animals. But this is one side of the argument; from the bones or fingerprints, to the dinosaur or man who left them. This part of the argument does not need to be in the form of a constant conjunction, between these objects and that type of creature, but may be more of the form "what else do we know of that could leave such marks?". The other side of the argument is of the continued existence of these marks existing in a world that carries on around them. It is my opinion that we see how objects and properties and processes can continue to exist in a world that is thus composed of them, and although we may use language or images in order to imagine this, since we are supposing an independent world constructed from objects and processes that continue in it and form it a) what we are supposing is not something restricted to the limits of our experience or of our supposings or talk about it, and b) what we are supposing can be taken to satisfactorily explain the more restricted directly experienced states we try to explain by means of it, and that c) pursuing this as an objectiveis a legitimate procedure that does not need any further excuse or underlying basis.

                Add to this the thought that although it may be easy for sophisticated persons to say that taking the moon to be a real object orbiting the world, and supposing such things as atomic phenomena, are just convenient ways of handling the world, nevertheless when people can actually go to the moon and run about on its surface, or when manipulation of atomic phenomena threaten to destroy the world, or manipulation of genetic phenomena could help control the types of people being born, this easy way of talking and 'being sophisticated' begins to look self indulgent and starts to wear a bit thin. 

For reasons like these I will do my best to subvert and ignore 6).

                Returning to the main view I am developing;

                Rather than immediately concentrating on a shape and a propertythat goes with it, and wondering what the one can have to do with the other, we concentrate on the shape, and on the property, and on what occurs subsequently in the situation. And rather than noticing the existence of a shape and a property at one time , and wondering how we could get some guarantee, or guaranteed degree of probability, or know, that these 'objects' will continue to be found in the situation, we concentrate on what without going beyond them they can be used to EXPLAIN. (Or to put it another way; we trace these 'objects' through the situation and notice any differences, or if they remain the same, and are satisfied, as far as it goes, if what occurs in the situation can be seen as the outcome of their remaining the same as they conjoin with other 'objects' at the point of the occurrence.) If the shape or the property, or their relationship vanishes all of a sudden, or changes unaccountably (by which I mean they change in a way which cannot be explained as the change in the shape of our sausage meat was explained above) then we wont be able to explain what occurs in the situation from the nature of its contents, or make some sort of stab in this direction. And that will be that, unless through further investigation we can find some factor(s) which do allow this. But our attempts at such an explanation, though it may go with a belief as to what can and can't happen in a situation (even though these beliefs may be continually refuted, witness voodoo again), should not be muddled in with considerations of a guarantee or probability as to what will happen. And also the satisfactoryness of such a factual explanation, considered as itself as an explanation, does not depend on such different questions as to the ultimate basis  for providing a guarantee or probability about what will occur in a situation. And just as logic, even if we separate off certaintyand just concentrate on whether the premisescan themselves support the conclusion, has been  supposed to provide an absolute standard, or might claim to be the perfection of what is required for premises to support a conclusion, so I claim, the objective that can be seen as pursued by the present method may claim that same absolute standard, but without the mythology that it can be achieved within sentences, or propositions, ideas, or language.

                Finally it does not seem to me altogether perverse that Hume, who is the arch sceptic on objective intellectually satisfactorily reasoned inferences between matters of fact, should be the very person who stated the condition whereby such inferences ARE possible. This is because in spite of the fact that the 'slightest philosophy' indicates that real causescannot be hoped for, in order to prove that they are impossible he has to in effect suppose and state what would have to be the case if they were possible (just as I claim we often do when we try to understand things without philosophising about our understanding). Thus he is led to what is required in passing, and with his different view of causes, reinforced by unnecessary extra causal epistemological stances  and the unbelieveability or (Parmenidean? Democritian?) oddity of trying to suppose no changein order to account  for change, in effect concludes that "that of course could never be".

Some different views that might be developed from this position.

1) Dispassionately develop the consequences of supposing that Hume's knock down proofthat objective connections between matters of factare impossible actually gives the condition whereby they ARE possible; Whether or not this has anything to do with our normal opinions on these matters.

2) Developing an absolute standard of factual explanation, in the same way that logicwas supposed to give an absolute standard for deciding when one thing could and could not be said to properly follow from another.

In this respect;

a) we might view this standard as something that should apply throughout existence.

b) we might view it as a standard that consists in appearing satisfactory as we consider it in itself, and so merely defines what can and cannot appear satisfactory in this area of explanation; This is besides whether existence can or cannot be found to conform to it.

3) To give a better description of a large part of our causal attitudes.

4) In consequence of positions 2) & 3), an epistemological project to give reasons for our opinions about the world, where 'reason' is shorn of any certainty, if that means having an independent justificationor guarantee that it is true of existence, but which 'reasons' appear internally adequate. (This might also be attempted, in theory at least, from position 1), perhaps coming up with a system of consequences which are reasonable on this condition, but are quite different from our present beliefs [also bearing in mind that we have to place these unalteredobjects, as with a jigsaw puzzle, next to each other to see how their CONGLOMERATION produces the effect]. But it is hard to see how with 1) we could be investigating a condition whereby connections between matters of factare possible, without it shading into 2) so that the connection appears up to the job, and so perfectly adequate, and so setting an absolute standard. This 2) may in tern seem to make things subjective, but it need not do so since such a connection can only appear really adequate if it comes about by considering these objects IN THEMSELVES, and as far as that is done it should supply no evidence that THAT SPHERE should be assigned as mind dependent etc.

5) It may be thought that 1) is obviously impossible, except in the extreme case of my 'original' example, (This is also an obvious objection against my theoretical objectivebeing finally viable. My reply to this is that it may be finally impossible, but that it is hard to be certain about it, and it would seem there would have to be something not immediately obvious or workable about whatever the solution is to the problem of the factof existence, if there is a solution.) but that nevertheless 2), 3) & 4) may all be pursued taking 1) in my original exampleas setting an ideal to be worked towards, and as indicating the spirit of what we often think we are after, or as setting the ultimate nature of existence underlying its day to day characteristics. But in this case we might instead try to concentrate on just trying to get the contents of a situationthemselves to accountfor it; This has the advantage of letting us add things together, like jigsaw puzzle pieces, or as with variations, plus restrictions on variation involved with evolution through natural selection, rather than the un-inspired concentration on tracing 'objects' about.

6) Supposing that my view of this subject is taken as a good representation of our attitudes in this area, this may suggest an interpretationof the views historically developed  to do with the subject.

7)             It might just be taken that I have shown how to deny each of the first five positions implied by the passage quoted from Hume, whether taken singly or not. It is, I maintain, possible to deny each of these positions. But I also think that these denials form a natural domino system; Showing how the first position is not necessary naturally leads into 2 etc.

8)             One thing I am trying to do with the present theory is to try to justify my own feeling that there is a difference between understanding, explaining and saying that something is the cause or reason for something in sense B, and saying these things in a sense A, and to explain what this difference could consist in. The difference is that under B although we may know 'how' a thing works, or an effect is produced, what this amounts to is that we feel happy we can derive what a thing will do or the relationships it can be found with in its characteristic situations. Consequently we are happy we can handle the situation effectively, or effectively deal with the theory that deals with these objects. But we may feel we understand a situation in this sense while still feeling uncomfortable about the situation. Feeling that what occurs is quite inexplicable and that there ought to be an explanation that intrinsically makes better sense than being merely a consistent, or easy, or useable way to handle the phenomena.

                I think that this difference is one that we are all aware of, although I remember being surprised at school that no one in a class could see that there was an apparent difference between a thing being moved when pulled by a string, and the thing being moved by a magnet. But the case is further complicated by the fact that all sorts of aesthetic or religious requirements, or personal prejudices might be used to maintain such a difference, and by the fact that although we may feel we understand a situation in a sense A this can be shown to be a mistake, as for instance when it was thought that we understood why an object acts solidly by predicating this on the fact that it occupied a space. (But I'm still not entirely sure this was an absolute mistake, rather than a reasonable stage in developing our understanding that had to be overcome and discarded.) This distinction may also be maintained by appealing to whether our explanationis more particular and isolated, or fits in with the generality of our other explanations in sense B. But, apart from the fact that this seems an inherently reasonable theory when there should be no inherent reasonableness in dealing with matters of fact (which always seems suspicious to ME), this seems to me to be an evasion of the distinction, which in that way is thought of as one based on no absolute difference of kind, it is instead viewed as one based upon the difference between the extreme ends of a sliding scale of the generality of our explanations.

                To try and illustrate that and how there might be such an absolute difference it will be instructive to look at extreme cases where we feel our understanding A completely fails us. Magicians tricks should provide good examples of this since it is their peculiar purpose to produce an amazement and disbelief derived from the impossibility of seeing how what occurs could do so. --This again illustrates that I do not claim that what we fail to understand in sense A cannot apparently, or even nevertheless, occur.--But first I shall take a tailored example of mine and try to sort out some of the basics involved if I am to maintain this difference between A and B as one of kind.

                Suppose then that you are a do-it-yourself enthusiast and have built yourself a kitchen sink unit. Now suppose someone points at the dummy draw by the sink and asks "How do you know, and why do you think, that you could never pull this out and use it as a normal draw?" My reply to this would be-- "How can there be a draw there, there's a sink there?! Apart from that I didn't build a draw there and I nailed the draw front up; giving it one last tug to make sure it was fixed properly!"

                One of the first things that may seem apparent about this answer is that it is in the form of a question, and a demand for an explanation. It seems one reason we think this is impossible is that if it DID happen we wouldn't be able to explain or understand it in (as I should maintain) sense A, and this is in spite of the factthat there are plenty of things that DO happen although we don't understand them in sense A. Another thing that is implied by the form of the answer is that if the draw front could be pulled out the materials for it would have to be already in the situation.

                What is questioned as requiring an explanationand thus objected to as impossible with the above example, again more or less on the face of it, are three bald differences that would have to occur through a situation where we COULD pull out the dummy draw front of a kitchen sink unit and use it as a normal draw. The differences concerned are between the space visible in the situation and the amount of room we should like to be involved if a draw was to emerge from it; The amount of materials placed into the situation and the amount that would have to emerge if a draw could be pulled from it; and the difference between the factthat the draw front was experienced to be fixed but would have to be unfixed if it could be used as a normal draw front. The fact that it is also supposed, as a matter of course in my reply, that if we could use the draw front as a normal draw, the draw and the materials would already have to be there, and that these things cannot be created afresh each time we use the 'draw', once again points at the fact that we don't like bald differences appearing through situations, but are inclined to think that such states MUST be there  ("How can a draw be there?") all along.

                This chimes in with my contention that we are often trying to avoid drawing a conclusion beyond any factor in our attempts to understand A a situation, and where we should have to go beyond such a factor in tracing what occurs we don't understand the situation in this sense. [In this context it is important to remember the example of switching a light on, as an apparent objection to this supposed tendency.] In this way the first thing I want to try and suppose about this example is that the reasons apparently given as objections to the supposed possibility are actually our reasons. The question "Why we put forward these objections as objections?" should be answered by considering these objections themselves in their own apparent nature, and not some reason, reasoning or cause, separate or extra from them. The reasons must be self justifyingas we regard their purpose, which is to see what can come about and not come about given the contents of a situation. But in so far as we can avoid going beyond any of those given contents in coming to what happens , or is supposed to happen in a situation, we have shown that those contents themselves are apparently capable of producing those occurrences; In so far as there appears an inevitable difference between those given contents and what happens, or is supposed to happen, we cannot see how those contents are capable of producing that result. (But I don't mean to imply that such extra reasons or hypothetically introduced factors are always out of place in accounting for what we place forward as reasons, only that on a most natural view they are dispensable and also out of place in the present case.)

                Secondly, which goes with these other points, it seems to me that although it might happen that we found ourselves in a world where we always can pull out and use 'dummy' draw fronts as normal draws; so that we only built dummy draws on purpose to save materials, still it does not follow from this that we should also feel we understand A these situations (this could actually be the case when we turn a light on by flicking a switch, but we may often feel we have some understanding of this situation if we care to think of it by supposing the electron and energy movement that is supposed to occur when we flick the switch, and the form of energy given off as light that is supposed to occur in the light bulb as a result. Or at least by allowing that someone does understand it, whereas with, for example, magnetism it seems straightforwardly obvious that we are at a dead end.) We can use magnetic compasses and magnets perfectly happily although there still seems something puzzling about magnets. And even supposing that such a world were so peculiar in every respect as we suppose it is in this one, so that we never got a glimpse of the sort of reasons put forward in my example, still it does not follow that the reason I put these forward as reasons is because the world broadly avoids what they find objectionable. That would only follow if they could not stand up on their own as reasons, but needed to rely on that general run of experience so as to make them into reasons (or, as in the case of voodoo 'reasoning' their neither being internally reasonable nor conforming to experience, but because they conform to a psychological itch or need, or because they conform to a cultural need, or because they happen to conform to what are as a matter of facttaken to be reasons.--But my reasons A, in contrast to any of this, do have to be internally self reasonable reasons.) But further more, if they do stand up as reasons on their own this does not show that they cannot be based upon experience, even when no experience conforms to what they require. They may still depend upon the individually considered characteristics of experiences, being subsequent upon experience in that sense, and be refuted by the relations between these experiences found to hold in fact. Thus it only shows that they are not based on experience STATISTICALLY VIEWED.

                So it depends on what we are inclined to mean by experience, but if this is taken in an ESSENTIALLY statistical sense then it does preclude this type of explanation . But if it is taken to mean taking the materials supplied by experience, considering them themselves and not going beyond them then the position is more ambiguous (because on occasion we do suppose things in a situation although they are not directly experienced there even if what we suppose,-- trying to take an extreme case 'entropy',-- is eventually derivable from the attempt to explain, on the principles being described, what is experienced. Thus there are a largish number of ways it can be said that our reasoning and theories go beyond 'experience' such as by supposing theoretical enter ties; through supposing the same object persists through changes in perspective, or through gaps in the perception of it etc., but I am at present trying to show how we CAN, and sometimes do, use experienced states in order to understand what occurs by, in spite of such gaps and apparent alterations, seeing how the situation can be constructed without going beyond the state(s) that were originally experienced).

                The purpose of viewing 'experience' in a more essentially statistical sense may be because if there is no guarantee beforehand as to which approach in handling the stuff of experience will be most useful, or effective, then we don't want to saddle ourselves with an approach that does imply how experience should be handled. But on the other hand this open mindedness still does not avoid the risk of being prejudiced if it means we do not give proper consideration to all the options, including an option that is essentially non-statistical. For example, if scientists are supposed to be ruthless opportunists, then the present point of view may represent an opportunity that they can ruthlessly exploit. But also the above position does not have to be used as an operational tool determining what sort of questions to ask and how to proceed in investigating a subject; It could, as I have optioned above, instead be used as a way of noting how satisfactory any piece of explanationor understanding can appear to us, whether or not we take this as having any further significance. There is also an implication with this objection that we must be running roughshod over, and disregarding 'experience', in either of the senses discussed. But I  disagree that this is the case. The case is complicated by the fact that in general we are not only considering experiences but also what could be supposed in such situations to accountfor the nature of what is experienced. But considering the more particular type of case of the present example, we are trying to avoid going beyond the characteristics of the experiences involved in our understanding as the situation develops; which is experience in the first sense. But such understanding, or attempted understanding can only be successful if it allows us to see what is actually found to happen; which is experience more in the second sense.[vi]

                The next question will be, "Is reasoning A, by trying to avoid going beyond any 'object' in seeing how what occurs could occur, reasoning a-priori?"

                This, again, will depend upon what is meant by that term. (It seems rather an intellectuals disease to be aware of a certain range of categories and suppose that whatever is being talked about must fit one of them, or to suppose it is a good thing to ask which one of them it does fit, or else they get mesmerised by some analogy it is possible to draw in order to make what is being talked about fit one of these categories--as opposed to merely trying to distinguish more clearly the individual nature of what is being talked about.) The reasoning is not certain or guaranteed to apply in any instance. In factwe might conceivably live in a world where it never applied in any instance. On the other hand the point of it is that it appears, in principle, satisfactory, considered in itself and in relation to what is supposed to be achieved within it--which is to consider the nature of EXPERIENCES and to try to avoid drawing a conclusionbeyond them as we work out how what occurs, in experience, can do so.--We can also do other things with experience, and call them reasoning, although, as far as I can see they will not have an internally self justifyingform. In this way it does not appear essential that it is part of OUR mental make up that we reason in this way with experience, and I do not attempt to justify this sort of reasoning by asserting that it is correct and planted in us; it is justified by it appearing apparently internally, self justifyingly complete, and if experience conforms to it. But, nevertheless it may conceivably be only part of our mental make up when this mode of reasoning appears internally self justifying, and not because, excluding our mental make up it happened to also be objectively true (even if experience does conform to it). But when we examine the epistemological basis  for this mode of reasoning nothing is said about our mental make up, since the mode consists in considering 'objects' and situations in, or as, themselves. Again there might be some reason to suppose that we are borne naive realists, and that as a result we are often inclined to suppose that the contents of a situation should themselves account for what occurs in or through it. Consequently some inclination to this way of reasoning might be innate and borne within us. But in as far as we appreciate what can be achieved within this way of reasoning it is not done automatically, and so its epistemological  basis does not appear to rely essentially on any such innateness. Once again, the term 'a-priori' is often used to imply a way of reaching a conclusion independently of experience, and since experience does not have to conform to the results of this way of reasoning, in this sense it may be thought a-priori. But the term 'a-priori' is also often used to indicate a way of reaching a conclusion that is contrasted with a way of reaching a conclusion by using experience. However the present way of reaching a conclusion, or drawing an inference, depends on either using experienced states, or supposing something that could exist in experienced situations to account for what is experienced to happen. It is therefore intimately bound up with experience.

                To further illustrate this sort of reasoning, and the feeling that where it appears violated the case has something about it that we could never understand A, no-matter how usual the case may be, I turn to a miracle and to magicians tricks. (But the case is violated so often that we are often inclined to mistrust or ignore this feeling. It is only when the violation is pointed up and illustrated with the utmost clarity in concrete situations, where we are not trying to be abstractly supper impartial, or self conscious, or do not have a religious motivation inclining us to take a subjective or mentalistic view or impose an always possible alternative interpretation, that this uneasiness comes unerringly to the front.)

                Perhaps I should also mention that miracles are often supposed to be unusual, so that 'miraculous' on this view has some sort of kinship with 'astonishingly unusual', whereas on my view it means something more like 'unbelievably perplexing' (I don't think that everyone always means only one of these alternatives). Thus the argument from design can refer to the supposed CONTINUALLY existing and ubiquitous miracle of nature.

My next example is of the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand.

                There are at least two things that seem obvious with this example; Firstly there is a large difference between what enters the situation, i.e. two small fishes and five loaves, from what exits it--twelve baskets full of crumbs and five thousand fed people; and Secondly we are amazed.

                I include this example, firstly because it is a good illustration of my principle, whether or not my interpretationof it is the true one. And secondly because it shows that something like the attitude I am suggesting is not restricted to 'post Galilean culture'. It may also be worth mentioning that whereas on my interpretation our puzzlement is produced by the nature of the contents of the situation, if the puzzlement is accounted for by habit we first need to suppose something such as the uniformity of experience, when it is hard to know what this means, except that this experience is an exception to it, and then need to hypothesise the influence of this into the situation, although no such thing can be directly observed. Some such manoeuvres may seem more reasonable in some cases than in others. But I do not recommend this point of view for reasons of simplicity, which is against my principles, but notice that a certain 'simplicity' results from a closer inspection, and appreciation of the contents of these subjects IN THEMSELVES.

                Thus this illustrates one thing that can be meant by saying a theory is 'simpler' and what this simplicity can consist in, without it being immediately obvious we are involved with an 'aesthetic requirement'. I.e. in our understanding of a situation, getting rid of influences of states, or supposed states that are not observable in the situation. But whether something is allowed to be directly, or indirectly observable, or 'in' the situation is something that has to be argued out in particular cases. (I can see this will give trouble.)

MAGICIANS TRICK

                My next example of how we don't like bald differences appearing as we trace 'objects' through a situation is of the magicians trick with steel rings that are made to interlock and part.

                 With this trick a magician first of all shows the audience that the two rings resist each others motion throughout the whole of their circumference. He will also probably get some member(s) of the audience to check that they resist motion, and each others motion in this way, and that there is no way these people can discover to overcome this resistance, at least within any reasonably hard efforts to do so. Once he has demonstrated this the magician then makes the rings do exactly what he has just shown is impossible. He makes them interlock casually or fast, or while juggling them, or slowly and 'right before your very eyes', so that we should be able to see any cheating mechanism involved or so that it seems inexplicable how he could arrange the timing of the rings to pass through such a cheating mechanism. I have even seen him get a member of the audience in this case a girl of about ten,  to interlock them slowly, although neither she nor the audience knew, or could see, how she had done it. He then spins the rings and clashes them together to show that once interlocked they can't be unlocked -- and then without further ado separates them again. Sometimes this trick is performed with special rings (which introduces a doubt as to whether there is time for us to work up a habit in order to be surprised by their situation), and I have also seen it done with apparently common-all-garden bicycle wheel rims.

                Now I don't know how this trick is done but it seems to me that there is one difference that is involved in the trick and that is pointed to throughout the performance. That is, between the impossibility of any motion through the visible shape of the rings, on the one hand, and the ease by which this is accomplished on the other, and without any other changein the rings being apparent. The more this direct difference is pointed up the more puzzling the trick becomes, unless or until we get bored with it.

                 There is nothing noticeable in this situation that is the existence of a cause 'finally and IN ITSELF'. All that is noticeable is that there is a certain sort of motion that can be recognised again, so that a motion can also be recognised as differing from it, so that the circumstances of it, or they, can be traced through the situation so that we can recognise if the same or a different motion has occurred in line with a previous one. (But this way of putting it once again involves the danger of a slippery slope, leading to subjective investigations into what this 'recognition' can consist in. Where as if we want to avoid this philosophical or metaphysical approach, which differs from the scientific approach, we would instead investigate the differences and similarities involved as they are found in the objectivelyexisting situation. Which would involve us with some sort of objective descriptions, or measurements, or comparisons of the similarities and differences involved. Not subjective conceptual investigations.)

                This example is more directly causalthan the previous miracle. It may also have some stronger claims to be representative of a class of magicians tricks, whereas the previous example might not be so easily claimed as representative of miracles. --This is because, whereas it is paradigmatically a favourite trick of magicians to 'contradict' some state of affairsthat they have just shown; to produce objects where they have just shown there are none, and to make them disappear, all of a sudden and if possible in broad daylight; on the other hand most miracles, if not also the previous one, might realistically lay claim to rest on the extreme UNUSUALNESS of their occurrences, rather than on any immediate difference which is obvious within them. --And thirdly magicians tricks as a group may lay some claim to providing the paradigmatic cases of how to produce amazement and disbelief, since this is explicitly their objective, and they seem almost universally successful in achieving it, on demand, and more or less only excepting those people who know how they are done or can't be bothered to take an interest in them. (--I can think of four possible exceptions to this;1) Voodoo culture, 2) Similarly I have also seen film of an Australian explorer who said it was impossible to amaze the aborigines because they found everything equally mysterious. 3) People who are counted as mad or deranged in the required way. 4) Someone who has an axe to grind or is being self consciously super impartial and so has bamboozled himself out of being able to see what his normal opinion is. Thus it may equally be objected to these objections that even monkeys seem to find the appearance and disappearance of their own image in a mirror perplexing, even if they don't seem to have any idea that it is themselves they are seeing. This would seem to indicate how basic this attitude may be, and so illustrate how it is a result of our superior sophistication and psychological complexity and our reactions to the spiritual oddity or non-sequeturs of existence that results in our covering it up.)

                Still alternative descriptions in these cases cannot be absolutely ruled out just because they are inconvenient or don't seem 'right'. This is why I need my theoretical objectiveto give point and show what is being internally self justifyingly achieved on my interpretation, irrespective of whether it may be thought convenient or 'true' in some other sense.

                Nevertheless, it may be said that all I have succeeded in doing is in showing a constant conjunction between this sort of bald difference in situations and our puzzlement at them, or between the absence of such a difference and our feeling unpuzzled. However the reason this particular 'conjunction' should be likely to occur is that we are trying to see, given one state of affairs how another state could occur and in order to make an attempt at this we must try to avoid drawing a conclusion beyond any 'object' or 'factor' in such situations. So that we are going to fail most spectacularly in achieving this objectivewhere there are large, un-mediated differences in the existence or behaviour of the objects or factors that form a situation as we follow its development. Thus the mind is not fooled into 'spreading itself' unwarrantably and unreasonably over these apparently similar, but more accurately considered, distinct objects. It is not inclined to suppose one thing, or an identical thing what are really several distinct things, as Humesupposes. In that way, according to Hume, we get a mode of 'reasoning' that only seems reasonable because we are fooled into thinking something is the case when it is not. But really the boot is on the other foot; in as far as we are able to suppose that what COULD be supposed distinct is in fact, or depends upon states that are in fact unchanged we get a reasonable explanationof what occurs. --This 'trick' may be done arbitrary in any instance by some mathematical wizardry, or by arbitrarily stipulating some different than usual way of drawing distinctions, so the case is not quite as simple as this however. What is required can be seen again by examining our magicians trick. It would not seem convincing in attempting to solve this puzzle if we attempted to arbitrarily re-describe the situation and its contents. This indicates how we are not merely re- describing the subject, but trying to understand it, and make progress in our understanding of it through looking harder at what can be found in the subject, and by giving more careful consideration to the characteristics that CAN be found there, as with the idea of absolute space for example. Consequently the definition, or decision which is embodied in a theory, as to what is similar, 'the same' or identical, and the instructions as to how these should be drawn that a theory can be looked upon as giving, are not necessarily arbitrary or convenient decisions of the theory, but may be rooted in the naturally experienced appearance of the subject, when closely considered and with an eye to what can be achieved in explaining what occurs at each stage or level of close consideration.

A PENCIL IN WATER

                When a pencil is placed in a beaker of water it appears to 'bend'. Why do we think that the pencil remains unalteredthrough the situation? And why do we think the water only MAKES IT APPEAR bent?

                It may be thought we suppose the pencil remains unalteredthrough the situation because this results in a simpler, or more general  explanationor way of handling the situation, or because this helps the mind 'run more easily along these objects and through the situation'. But as far as our ability to know the absolute truth of the situation is concerned we may just as easily or as well suppose that every time the pencil is in or behind the glass of water it changes, and when it is removed from the water it changes back again. However this is too complicated FOR US and so we take the simpler route. But, according to this way of looking at the matter, this is OUR CHOICE, ignoring what we find convenient or want from an explanation there is no reason to prefer the one above the other.

                But I disagree with this. We are trying to see how the contents of the situation could themselves account for what occurs as the situation develops or progresses. In order to do this we have got to (most basically) try to avoid drawing a conclusion beyond any object as the situation progresses or alters. This means that we are on the look out for ways in which the original pencil and original water can remain unalteredin order to account for the alteration that is apparent. We could suppose all sorts of other things, but these alternatives are not based on a natural examination of what is most directly or naturally apparent in the situation and an attempt to get THIS to account for what occurs. Thus if we suppose pencils appearing and disappearing to order we are supposing something directly at odds with our normal attempts to see how the objects can continue through the situation to account for what occurs.

                I think that mine is a possible interpretationof our attitude to such situations. But it is not an interpretation that may or may not be preferred as an arbitrary subjectivechoice, where objective considered there is nothing to prefer one of these choices to another. This is because it CONSISTS IN trying to see how the OBJECTIVE CONTENTS OF THE SITUATION CAN THEMSELVES ACCOUNT FOR WHAT OCCURS. However this still does not show or prove that from some transcendental or God's eye point of view it may not be after all subjective, or false. And, in tern, this fact does not show that they are subjective or false.

                There is also in the above the word 'interpretation' to consider. If there are various interpretations of some subject (as I suppose there will always be) this can easily be taken to imply that anything we say about the subject can 'only be an interpretation', or 'OUR interpretation'. That they must all be on a par and so be subjective. But I do not use it like this in the above. I  use it to indicate that there are other possible views of the subject, and that the view I am taking is one of the possible views. But, once again, this does not imply that there is no way of objectively preferring one view above another. How this may be done is what I am engaged in trying to point out.

Reducing a difference to the same for direct comparison

(Or trying to find something capable of being both of two different states, so that we can avoid going beyond it as we follow the situation from the one state to the other).

                An example of this that immediately springs to mind is that of the ancient atomism, for not only here is it supposed that what the world is constructed from are continuously existing immutable objects, but also that the various different states of the world are constructed from these immutable, underlying, objects as words are constructed from different combinations of a limited number of letters. So, although we may be faced by various quite distinct states as we trace the course of events in many situations, still some progress is made in allowing us to avoid drawing a conclusionbeyond any object in so far as these alterations can be constructed from a different combination of the unchanged underlying states. It also appears that although these underlying states are liable to be fewer, and more generally applicable than the many and varied states they are supposed to explain, this generality or abstractness is not necessarily inconsistent with the nature of a state actually existing in the situation objectivelyand itself producing what occurs.

                ( It also seems possible to read into Thales's statement that 'everything is water' or that 'water is the principle', some sort of feeling, or attempted illustration of the feeling, that we must appeal to some one, unaltering state if we are to be able to account for, or in our account of, the many.)

                Another, even more 'abstract' whatnot that remains through grosser changeis energy. But, although I haven't got it sorted out, I don't think energy was PROPOSED as a state that it was possible to suppose underlies and constructs other, grosser and apparently distinct states. It was rather proposed as the result of both a general conservation principle, that no doubt seemed more or less true, apart from the factthat it may have seemed that it OUGHT to be true--perhaps on the principle that we shouldn't be able to satisfactorily account for a bigger thing by a smaller thing and contrariwise if something essentially lessens we would be left with the uncomfortable feeling or problem of where it had gone; both of which feelings seem consistent with what I suppose is required if explanationis to be apparently objectively satisfactory.-- together with the practical observation that there were several different ways of creating the same effect e.g. an amount of heat, which could in tern be used to create an amount of change, or matter, so that these things did as a matter of fact seem interchangeable in a quantifiable way.

                There are at least two obvious objections to being able to make progress in understanding things from this point of view. First of all what, for instance, have a sound and a colour got "in common"? What is even meant by such a question? ( Or to get rid of the word 'meaning', what chance does there appear to make any progress in this direction?) What has the supposed motion of a type of wave and the visible appearance of a colour got "in common" beyond the factthat they are, as a matter of fact, found to coincide in a certain intimate way? Secondly, it will often seem the case that if we do succeed in making some progress, and suppose something, such as energy, into which two different states are convertible, that this something is an invention or convenient fiction.--We are trying to understand two experienced states by something underlying them, but can only experience the states, and at the most can get an idea about it by looking at it (sort of) 'through' them, and this seems very suspicious, and lends itself to that interpretation.

                I do not know how fair or unanswerable these objections are, but I would rather we stayed clear about the sort of difficulty apparent with the first objection, as compared to my ideal of explanationthan, because of such an intimate connection, and through the absence of any sort of vaguely clear requirement of explanation, suppose that the one simply IS the other, and that there is no APPARENT difficulty.

Induction through real explanation

                Humestates a problem of induction; How do we know, or what reason could we have to suppose that instances of which we have no experience do or will resemble instances of which we have experience?

                Again the problem takes a similar form to that regarding causes; examples of which we have experience can in this case be looked upon as the premises, provided by experience, and examples of which we have no experience are the conclusion we should like to reach, but which necessarily go beyond what can be found in the premises. Consequently there can be no reasonable way of getting to that conclusion from those premises.

                If it is objected against this that we are justified by experience and not logicsince from an empirical point of view it is experience we learn by and this underlies and replaces logic as the foundation and basis for our knowledgeclaims; Still it can be asked what type of justification, or learning this experience can provide us with that enables us to reach that conclusionas a matter of fact from those premises, and if the first argument of this section is sound it would seem this learning or justification must be divorced from that internally satisfactory and self justifyingform of reasoning exemplified in logic, and so will be in this sense irrational.

                Before I try to propose a solution to this problem I should like to distinguish the nature of the philosophical problem of making induction’s between experiences from other aspects or ways of making induction’s.

                To start with the plain man, or anyone, can induct, if this means drawing a conclusion starting with a present or past state to a state not yet experienced, in any number of different ways no-matter how silly or irrational these ways may be. If we are going to consider how people do at a more or less conscious level make induction’s there will be a variety of ways ranging from complete non-sequiturs (where it is nevertheless taken that 'the later "because" the former', although on any normal view this 'connection' is completely random, odd or mistaken) to voodoo, superstition, religion and through to various scientifically definedprocedures. In this connection "If this flower has an odd number of petals then she loves me." seems a perfectly good example of an induction, one that is sometimes made if only in desperation, that seems irrational, but that does not obviously or  necessarily assume that the future resembles the past; It may just assume that IF this flower has an odd number of petals then she does love me. Consequently there seem plenty of ways of making induction's some of which do, and some of which don't depend on supposing the future resembles the past. But, at a more or less conscious level, habit also seems a possible way of making induction’s, and one that does assume that a new instance will resemble old instances in the relevant respect.

                If however we suppose that human beings broadly all inhabit the same world, that the character of this world is, at a much more natural and basic level than the above, shot through with anticipation’s of the future, and we want to know how these anticipation’s arise, then it will be a controversial question whether it comes about through the nature of the contents of consciousness, or through some extra conscious mechanism that regulates the nature of what is produced in consciousness; or to what degree both of these might be intertwined.

                But if, thirdly, we mish-mash together these questions about how we do think of the world with a philosophical question about the nature of a possible justification  for such inferences, suppose that there can be no justification but try to account for our feeling that our normal basic views are justified, then we might wind up supposing ourselves fooled into holding them through habit, or the minds propensity to spread itself.

                -- I think that the desire to justify our normal views clouds the issue as to what our normal views are and clouds the issue as to whether we are discussing our normal views, or their philosophical justification, or the way they may be produced. This in part results from the way the above question of induction  is posed, which implies that what is needed in order to make such inferences reasonable is some way of producing a guarantee or probability ( hopefully from cases of which we have experience) as to what will happen in cases of which we have no experience. I, on the other hand, am trying to see how the contents of a situationmight accountfor it; I pursue this on the view that in as far as it appears this could be the case, this must appear epistemologically satisfactory within itself, and in this way supplies a reason for holding the view that results. I also suppose that the views we often incline towards naturally in our handling and dealings with experience do resemble this attempt. Which seems close to the supposed plain mans view that he exists in a world that in tern exists in its own right independently of him, and whose objects form it and continue and exist independently of his experience of them.

Returning to induction through real explanation.

                I have already outlined a special case where we can use what is found in our previous experience and avoid going beyond it in order to reach a 'new' experience with my 'original' example. With my kitchen sink example I likewise illustrate how we can base our judgements as to what will and wont happen on whether there would be some bald difference in the situation, and this 'induction' may be reasonably based in the sense that only if there is no such bald difference, but any difference is constructed from a rearrangement of already existing states, then since we do not have to go beyond those 'original' states to reach the latter occurrence, in this way and just by that factthey are evidently capable of accounting for it.  Here I wish to propose a solution to this problem that can be independently considered, but that is connectedto that argument. It can either be viewed as something that is suggested as a possibility as a result of that argument, or can be taken, on the contrary, as supplying a different basis for acting as I suppose we do if we follow the ideal aimed at in that argument, but without being self consciously aware of that ideal. It also brings in generality, and in this respect a mode of simplicity in explanation, naturally from the nature of experiences as they are individually considered, and so once again avoids our having to suppose that this generality must consist in something linguistically extra being added to the nature of these experiences when we produce a theory subsequent upon our understanding of particular instances of them.

                This argument is in fact that we DO suppose that the contents of a situation are what accountfor it, and in such a way that if there is a different result produced in two situations there will be a difference between the contents constructing those situations. And so, just as with logic where the premisesdetermine what can and cannot be said to properly follow from them, in this case, but at a less specific level (because we are not entirely sure what contents there are to the situation) and not depending on the properties of the labelling or language we may use to refer to the properties of the situation, we may suppose that the contents of a situation provide the 'premises' that determine what can and can't follow in the situation, EVEN THOUGH WE HAVE NO IDEA OF HOW THEY MAY DO THIS. Consequently just as in logic we must vary the premises in order to get a different range of possible consequences, and a different range of possible consequences must have different premises, so in the present case if a different result comes about there must be some difference in the previous situation, although some difference in the previous situation need not require a different result.[vii]

                To try and put this again; If we suppose that the nature of the contents of situations are what accounts for what occurs in them. And if we suppose that two situations produce different results, then it would seem that the only way of accounting for these different results is if there is some difference discoverable between the nature of the contents of the two situations. But I am not quite sure that this last sentence is a necessary consequence of the first, and if I were this would involve me in having some transcendental truth that would again involve me in having to explain how I could have such knowledge. But with my 'original' example I didn't pretend to KNOW that the first state of the object was also actually the second state, I just showed how this was apparently possible, and how, in this way, the first state could apparently be used to account for the existence of the 'second', and this might be correct. So in the present case we may suppose that the future resembles the past in a way that seems consistent with what could be the objectiveindependent truth of the matter, i.e. that the contents of a situationare what accounts for it, and the way this occurs is consistent throughout existence. And in this way we may avoid having to suppose we KNOW either that the contents of any situation do account for what occurs in it, or that we KNOW that if this first is the case it is also the case different results must be produced by different contents.

                 The assumption that the contents of a situation, in the above way, are what accounts for what occurs seems a bigger assumption than merely supposing that non experienced states resemble experienced states. I am supposing that this later assumption is contained in the former, in that it is a consequence of the way I have proposed we suppose the former. Nevertheless, although it is a bigger assumption, in this way we avoid having to make an assumption that MUST BE extra to the nature of the experiences involved considered  in themselves; because, as with the argument at the start of this chapter, it cannot be found as we consider them, but which must be assumed, or ADDED TO them in order to get what WE REQUIRE to handle existence off the ground. And so this assumption may apparently, and so for all we know may actually, disappear into the truth of the matter. In this way the truth of the matter may coincide with what we require if our understanding is to appear objective adequate, and once again the apparent consequence of Hume's problem that a subjective element must be part of our understanding is avoided.

                 The differences involved in line with the above might either be some difference that is apparent between the two situations if we look more closely, or some difference in the 'objects' noticeable prior to the situation, and so traceable into the situation with them, although not directly apparent there. It might even, apparently inconsistently, consist in noticing a difference in some fact or in the environment outside the situation which we might suppose is connectedwith some factor in the situation or is producing an influence in the situation, although we don't know how. --I am simply listing some ways of trying to suppose our assumptions are correct in spite of the fact that it often will not appear that they are; ways which when generalised, by being applied to other apparently identical situations will mean that they too should produce the same result, or that that different or future should resemble our present or past in these respects.

                But that this situation can be very complicated and not obviously based upon straightforward perceptual identity or difference, results from the factthat since no two situations are ENTIRELY indistinguishable, as they can be distinguished as two situations, there will be any number of ways of marking off some apparently perceptually very similar situations, as nevertheless different, if they are, nevertheless, found to produce different results, or have different properties. The position is not then that the most immediate and straightforward perceptual similarities and differences should always be a good guide to similarities of behaviour. And I have already considered, upon my previous basis, how an object may be considered unchanged solely when it is at rest in its environment, or when in apparently unchanged motion in a straight line etc.  But the point is that if we are to make any progress with supposing that the contents of the situation are what accounts for it ( taking the situation as we suppose it to be as un-philosophical adults) then we should be able to make progress by sorting and distinguishing through the way we experience the situation to be (and THIS could be referred to as what is  normally taken to be 'learning by experience').

To sum up;

                My solution to the problem of induction is not to try to get some independent guarantee or probability that experiences that we have not yet had will resemble those which we have had. It is to pursue the possibility that our understanding, based around experiences, may be objective adequate, or may at least appear objectively adequate, and to point out, if this were to be so, what would seem to be required of experiences we have not yet had. In this way such inferences may be made on an apparently adequate, reasoned basis, which however does not involve any independently gained knowledge of a guarantee or probability as to what will happen.

An example working with this type of induction

                Suppose a plain man faced with two situations that are apparently identical but that produce different results. He looks more closely at each situation and tries to find some difference after all between the two. If he finds a difference, especially if it is one based around a difference in some object(s) he supposes the situation to be constructed from and has  some  similarity to the different result, or which it occurs to him in conglomeration with the other objects in the situation might produce something similar to that different result, but if at the last gasp there is simply some difference, then he tries to isolate that difference and see if by removing and replacing it he removes and replaces that different result. If removing and replacing this difference has no effect, then he looks for another difference. If it has an inconsistent effect then he also has to re-examine the situation, but may first of all concentrate his efforts on re-examining the situation of the presence or absence of this difference. If removing and replacing the difference removes and replaces the different effect then to that extent he is satisfied.

                 This seems to describe our attitude, and the sort of thing we were looking for when we were puzzled by our magicians trick above. But instead, this time we are not supposing that we trace the unalteredproperties of those unaltered objects about because we can see that this explains their subsequent action. We are supposing that indistinguishablesituations should produce indistinguishable results otherwise we cannot make a minimum stab at understanding the results that are produced from the nature of the contents of those situations consistently one with another, and so use different situations as a way of re-examining the aspects of some original one, and so investigate the situations through these experiences. But this in tern has the result that we should be able to trace similar results or properties around with objects that remain apparently unchanged. So this produces a different basis for accounting for our previously described attitude, upon occasion, from this more abstract and minimal requirement without a direct awareness of that "logical" ideal described above, but which, if we are successful, will result in something suggestive of that ideal.

                 Philosophers have tried to prove the principle of sufficient reason, or that a cause is always necessary for any change. They have done this firstly on the view that some excuse was needed for our opinion and that to show it was necessary would justify it and silence doubters, and secondly in the hope that such a proof would supply an explanationof what is meant by 'sufficient' or of how one state could necessitate another, or at any rate show, as it were by brute force, that whatever was seen to be necessary WAS sufficient. And they have also done it as a way of arguing for the necessity or impossibility of God, and through an emotional and moral craving after certainty. But I think they have been barking up the wrong tree, and I am not trying to prove this. I think they have either produced an horrendous amount of over complication in trying to suppose a state of affairs where we might feel ourselves justified in supposing we CAN know the above principle to be the case, or have produced an horrendous amount of overcomplication in supposing we must make some assumption that we CAN'T know is correct, and so which (must be) subjective. I, on the other hand, am stating conditions that seem required if we are to understand situations from the nature of their contents, and am trying to follow out the consequences of this. It may be that the nature of the contents of situations are what does account for them, and in this way, in which case that will be a sufficient excuse for this procedure and these consequences, and would explain our success in following them through. But this would still not supply an independently guaranteeing proof that what we are supposing is correct.

                But it may still be thought that the above reasoning still requires our commitment to it in order to be effective, and that this commitment is really our certainty that realism is correct, and so in this way the reasoning is really based on certainty, a certainty that is itself irrational.

                However if we try to make our explanations satisfactory and pursue this end, then although our opinions as to what will or wont happen, and what is and isn't likely may be derived from our commitment to this point of view--although there is no guarantee or probability that it is correct--, still the apparently objective satisfactory nature of this reasoning is not derived from that (irrational) commitment. In this way there may be nothing wrong with the reasoning, and the reasoning MAY BE pursued for that reason. If, on the other hand the irrational commitment is an essential part of the reasoning it necessarily appears that there is something wrong with the reasoning. This is what I suppose my 'solution' to the problem of induction avoids.

More on certainty

                It is possible to view, more or less, all human attitudes and behaviour as being either produced through the nature of that particular human organism, or as being due to the mental conditioning and training that organism is subjected to as it develops. Given, pretty well, any factabout some persons personality, their sexual behaviour, their ambition, selfishness, generosity, narrow mindedness, ability at maths, it is possible to hypothetically think up some causal influences or sequence that is either of the conditioning type or of the physical causal constitution type, and maintain, again hypothetically and without examining the facts consistently and closely (and even when this is attempted), that that is the reason for their ability or attitude.

                This shows that we must do more than simply be able to accountfor some particular fact or state in some particular terms to show that we have the apparent truth of the matter. This is because the nature and nurture lobbies can't both, but each considered on its own, apparently give the whole of the truth.

                Some people seem to think that all that is required is to produce a point of view and to be able to accountfor any instance from that point of view, and this is enough to satisfy them. But if we want some principle for feeling satisfied that our point of view is the true one, rather than just a possible point of view, we must do more than this. But I have maintained throughout that there will always be alternative possible descriptions and interpretations to the supposed true state of existence, and that I am not interested in any attempted independently established guarantee or probability as to what will happen or is true. This may seem to leave me open to the objection that I leave no way of deciding the issue in cases such as the above. But I don't think this is true. It is only true that I don't propose to decide such issues by finding a description that rules out all other descriptions, or by finding some independently established guarantee or probability as to what will happen or is true. My way of deciding such issues is (basically) to try and find some manifestation of some part of the subject that seems as un-avoidable as possible, no-matter what description you may wish to put on it, and to explore how much of the subject can be accounted for without going beyond such a state and without either discovering there is some reading into the situation (e.g. absolute motion) or some states that can't be accounted for in this way, or some other trouble which arises from these attempts. ( Or to be involved with such states, that can be pointed out as definitely or as unavoidably experienced in the subject as possible. And to use this in accounting for the subject.) In as far as such states do seem unavoidable, no matter what description you may wish to put on them, in this sense they will seem certain, or 'solid', and objective. But this is not a certaintythat is required at the base of our form of reasoning, it is involved with trying to proceed with the form of reasoning as objectively, given the natural nature of our experiences, as possible.

                Some examples of this are Galeleo's arguments ad-hominem against the Aristotelians ( because he allowed them to have their way of describing things if they would allow him to have what he had show was obvious in the subject, but which nevertheless made their description false or redundant ); natural selection making Gods designing the natural world redundant (because we can see how the nature of objects and living objects can account for what God was previously used to account); Newton’s derivations giving a useful result ( I am viewing him as generalising, and putting in mathematical form, characteristics that could be found in experience, and explaining by their means those different phenomena in the wider sphere, but (on occasion) realising he could restrain himself from hypothesising on what underlying phenomena or explanations accounted for THESE demonstrable characteristics).

                This sort of thing does not make an argument that it is impossible to resist but it gives a way of trying to exclude other possibilities, or a principle for narrowing down the possibilities, that is also awkward to argue against; and a way of exploring the subject that has its own rigour.

MORE CONSIDERATIONS ON GOING BEYOND EXPERIENCE

                But it is true that in a way I am proposing to turn Hume's approach around, and instead of wondering, given any of our opinions, how experience could be used to produce them (Which is broadly the approach that sets Hume's problems, and leads him to account for these opinions by supposing irrational mental propensities which underlie and produce them as a matter of fact); Instead of this I propose to wonder what our objective is in handling these experiences and to see how these experiences can be used in, or taken in, or viewed in pursuit of that objective.

                As far as I am concerned our views of experiences may not be irrational, in spite of the inevitable inadequacy of these experiences compared to what we suppose is true, if those views allow us to explain what is going on in our environment from the nature of what is apparent, by these experiences, within it. Or for instance, in spite of the differences that are apparent in e.g. perspective if we can a) suppose that an object nevertheless continues through these experiences, unalteredbecause the changes we see are accounted for in another way i.e. through perspective, and b) there are independent ways of checking  whether the object does remain unchanged, e.g. other peoples views, comparison with other objects and cases where it is impossible to see what could account for a real difference in the existence of an object undergoing a similar change. Or again our view that objects remain unaltered through changes in perspective may be checked through the conclusions of geometry and measuring angles to give a size at a distance compared to the laws established on a flat plain before us.

                But in this it may be objected that I go beyond the consideration of experiences in themselves in that it is necessary to keep our objectivein view through them, while Hume also, more honestly, admits that we must go beyond what is experienced in reaching our views of the world because what is experienced is not up to those views. So either way we go beyond what is experienced.

                I think it is true that I do not propose to stick solely to what is experienced, but rather to suppose how what is experienced could be used, or lead us to suppose and check something’s existence that can be used to account for the alterations in what is experienced. Which requires that we find a way to maintain the state of either as we go from one to the other (as a first approximate and basic formulation). I am interested in what makes an adequate explanation, what we may suppose to adequately explain what occurs, how we might pursue the possibility that such a solution is true, and how we might explore the situation using these levers, or disciplines of experience, adequate explanation, and the possibilities for checking our explanations. But it is an important point to notice the turn around from trying to account for our opinions and 'peculiar opinions' that objects remain unaltered through changes in perspective, or that theoretical objects exist and persist through changes in the subject, to seeing what can be objectively achieved in explaining what occurs by supposing such things, and noticing possible ways and strategies (supposing the same point of view) for checking that what we are supposing is correct.

                This may be a good point to consider some advantages, and disadvantages of theoretical entity's.

Some advantages are;

                a) We get a more complete explanationof the subject we are dealing with.

                b) These theoretical entity's may suggest further experiments and avenues of investigation.

                c) It may be impossible to get a sense of how the subject is structured without an idea of an explanation underlying its more directly experienced states.

                d) Pursuing an underlying explanationmay represent one route to generality and simplicity in our explanations.

                e) Supposing there is no underlying explanation, but that the whole nature of the problem is in some way 'subjective' may seem an over easy option that throws in the towel before we've really got to the heart of the problem.

Thus an underlying explanationmay on occasion be an indispensable tool in furthering our investigations, apart from being necessary in order to complete them.

Some disadvantages are;

                a) In trying to produce a relatively complete explanation we may hold up a more directly experienced investigation of the subject. And it may be that this more direct investigation will provide the materials allowing an underlying and more complete explanation to emerge, or occur.

                b) Similarly if we do have a underlying explanationof a subject this represents an assumption that it may be possible to do without.

                c) There may be an indefinite number of possible underlying explanations (or Newtonian hypotheses) that it is difficult, or impossible to decide between. And attempting to decide the issue may seem an avoidable effort, when sticking to what is more directly observable or what is generalised from, or the wider case that may be inducted to from what is more specifically observed, may still produce Newton's 'useful result'.

                d) An underlying explanationmay direct our attention/investigations to a wrong direction or area, and make us think that certain things or possibilities cannot occur although a more direct investigation may indicate that they do occur.

                e) It may be that there is no underlying reality or explanationof what is more directly observable.

Thus an underlying explanationmay represent so much lumber that it would be good to sweep away.

                It is not my purpose to decide between these advantages and disadvantages. In my view it just is the nature of the general case (of trying to use the nature of our experiences in order to accountfor what occurs in experience) that there are some of each. In more particular, or actual cases, the advantages or disadvantages may be thought to outweigh their opposite, and this view may come to seem, or even be, established as final.

More considerations of some subjectivity in philosophy.

                An attraction, and/or at least product of philosophy is that we seem to be discussing or dealing with things at such a fundamental level that we are describing everything at once and producing an overall view of the whole of existence. But at the same time this seems unreasonable. Existence is big and we are small. A philosopher seems to be legislating or attempting to legislate for the universe, while all the time just sitting in his room.

                It does not seem that we are attempting to deal with things at such a fundamental PHYSICAL level that our conclusions should flow throughout existence. Our investigations are into the nature of the judgements we make and the reasoning we employ in any investigation, including such a physical analysis. While it seems true that great scientists often succeed fairly well in producing conclusions that stretch throughout existence, and that these conclusions are established upon a few paltry experiments, when compared to the size of the area they are supposed true of, or upon a few, for some reason, crucial results; While this may be puzzling in itself philosophy seems even further removed from this flimsy acquaintance with reality and is attempting to deal with the nature of the judgements involved. With the judgements WE make. And this insinuates we are dealing with our own minds, with something mental and producing a CONCEPTUAL investigation. This conclusion seems re-enforced, in spite of the success of science and so of these judgements, by the large and strange and incredible opinions of philosophers that are deduced from their sort of fundamental investigations.

                It seems that these people need to be brought back down to earth and to the sort of reality that scientists deal with, but all the same if there is still any point to their investigations it cannot be that it is justified in dealing with reality in the sense of science. It must be dealing with reality in a different sphere.

                To start again;

Suppose we have a particular contradiction in front of us. We seem entitled to claim that this cannot be throughout the whole of existence, no matter how vast and foreign that might be. But although this seems necessary, at the same time, for the above reasons, it seems unreasonable. It is a big claim made not even on paltry evidence, but in the experiential sense not on evidence at all. One way out of this apparent unreasonableness, and conforming with our conclusion that we are producing a conceptual investigation, is to claim that these claims depend upon us, not the universe. That we are jigging the books so that we will never allow anything to count as an instance of self contradiction (which invites the question, "how do you know this possibility is true?"). Another instance of this apparently reasonable tendency to make our philosophical enterprise reasonable by supposing what we are examining is essentially something about US is supplied by Hume's claim that in producing a treatise on HUMAN NATURE, instead of taking a few castles on the frontier of knowledge, he is marching up to the capital of OUR OWN understanding. And in this way he also combines that grand claim of philosophy that he is marching up to THE CAPITAL, instead of dealing with randomly encountered castles.

                This tendency, which is based on the two positions that philosophies fundamental investigations are into the nature of judgements (implying OUR judgements), and that the conclusions we reach seem to have a universality not based on physical evidence and which are unreasonable unless they depend upon us, is endemic throughout philosophy at least since Xeophon and Socrates. It has also not stopped the identification of the world to be understood with what can be grasped through a pure intellectual contemplation, and the resulting suspicion that we need to bring ourselves back down to earth again.

                But the reasons for our opinions, as far as inferences between matters of fact are concerned, I maintain, should depend on considering the subject in itself and in trying to avoid drawing a conclusionbeyond any object. Or by supposing some 'factors' in the situation which we may not be able to experience but which we can suppose this true of, and which we may be able to test for in the sense of distinguishing what would be the case if they did exist, continue and from the situation, from what would be the case if any other imagined candidate replaced them. Thus, the real point is, as with my kitchen sink example, the reasons for our reactions and attitudes are not found by referring to some separate conceptual sphere, but by what is objectively achieved through such explanations and in relation to our experience. With this approach we are also not attempting to accountfor a certain knowledge that extends throughout existence. There is no such Godlike grasp of the indubitable truth that MUST extend throughout existence. It just may be the case that (more or less) if we stick to what is required in order to see how the contents of a situationcan themselves account for it (more or less) that IS what is required for the situation to exist, and that if we follow out what is required in order to understand how situations develop by considering their contents this is true of the existence of how they DO develop. And so it just will be true throughout the whole of existence.

                So, although making our investigations subjective, at least as far as inferences between matters of fact are concerned, may seem a reasonable thing to do, it may nevertheless just be imposing an un-needed extra layer of explanation, and make us concentrate on the nature of a mental grasp required in order to deal with a subject, when we should be concentrating on the nature of the contents of the situation and how this can develop our understanding. And this is one way we may constantly bring ourselves back down to earth, or at least to the plain man's earth of an independently existing world.

Measurement

                The same force may be judged to have occurred, to start with, from its producing an effect each time that is obvious and can be measured. In turn the method of measurement should rely upon something that remains obviously the same and against which it is easy to notice differences, e.g. a ruler. But a ruler may apparently alter through being judged at different angles and under a different distance and perspective. Here we can proceed by either, nevertheless taking it as basic that the ruler remains the same and proceed with our investigations on that basis, unless we encounter some difficulty which makes us revise our opinion. Or else we can try and provide evidence that it does remain the same. This evidence might be the testimony of other people, or it might be geometrical, or it might be based upon the way the surroundings apparently alter through perspective, while they are supposed to remain the same. Thus we can use our understanding of the situation, and how objects remain unalteredwhile their appearance alters, and how they explain what occurs, as a check in a particular instance as to whether an object should be allowed to remain the same. Measurement has also involved with the way we decide when things are moving or not moving, the point of reference from which, and how we decide this measurement should be carried out. But, according to me, as with perspective, this should have to do with how we understand the situation -- how, from studying the contents of the situation, it seems reasonable to allow that objects within it can continue, altered or unaltered in themselves, and how to judge and measure, from the contents of the situation, merely relative (or apparent) alteration.

                Thus measurement is bound up with our way of understanding the situation; which according to me should depend on a consideration of the nature of the contents of such situations, and attempts to get THEM to account for what occurs.

                Measurement is useful in distinguishing what is meant by 'the same' in the sense of being an indistinguishable  constituent of the situation, one object compared to another, as opposed to it being the same in some metaphorical, or in the sense of some literary or imaginative analogy. Arguments by analogy may again be distinguishedfrom the use of metaphors and similes or mere interpretationif both the case argued from and the case argued too are constructed from measurable states constructing each situation and on this basis each situation is understood from its own constructing states. The analogy merely being a useful way of drawing attention from how this may be done in one case to how it is done in another; as in the way I hope to have used my 'original' example. THIS similarity being found able to suggest the required handling of the case argued too, as a matter of fact.

                Also once we have got a basis, or several bases for deciding when an object remains the same although it appears to differ, or how our environment is constructed, or for objectively understanding the situation we also have a basis for distinguishing between appearance and reality. We may also distinguish some appearances as illusions or delusions if they break these rules, or/and if, by these rules of explaining things  there are alternative explanations of the appearances than those that might be suggested to someone who was not aware how to understand the situation. These situations, once distinguishedmay still, or once again, be distinguished through understanding the situation, or by rote as cases recognised to be incorrect.

                For instance the case of a pencil looking bent in water.

Perception

                If we do often or largely, or to a significant degree, judge what can or can't, or does or doesn't happen by what we can understand or explain A of a situation, and if we can explain A what is supposed to occur in perception, then this will give a normal, or the usual type of significant reason for supposing that something like this does happen. But, once again my purpose is not to try and prove that our normal opinions are justified but only how we could develop  our normally interpreted experiences so as to suppose an objectivestate of affairsthat can continue and independently account for them (i.e. these experiences), and that they (our normal opinions)  are possible.

                Consequently I should like to give a few thoughts on perception by comparing it to the case of television.

                I take television to be a case where we can make some attempt at understanding (understanding in the sense "A" discussed above) how what is produced at one end of a causalchain can resemble what we see exists at the other end of the chain. I think we can make SOME attempt at this but I don't think it is entirely adequate--in sense "A". This is, for instance, because we suppose the light travelling from the object to the screen consists of various waves/particles and is transformed through various electrical/ energy mutations back into the colours of the original object. But it is not at all clear how we could construct some colour, as experienced at either end of this process from the vibrations/particles and energy/electrical processes supposedly involved, without  going beyond them in a way that seems quite immediate and direct. It is only by supposing that the colours at each end of the chain ARE the vibrations/particles that continue along the chain that we can make this later part of the explanation resemble the ideal I have been discussing. But the difference between the experienced colours and such vibrations/particles violates that principle. And the same goes for the qualities of the experiences given by all the other senses.

                In order to maintain that both end colours really ARE the vibrations/particles we can suppose and discover continuing through the situation we can relegate the perceived nature of these colours to the mental sphere. This manoeuvre then has THAT advantage, but it still does not remove the problem, and it re-enforces any confusions or difficulties we may feel about such a causalchain. And it is, pretty obviously a non-sequetur, if we are relegating the colours to the mental sphere then they can't be those independent particles and vibrations. ( The situation has a sort of exasperating aspect about it because it seems as if we have almost got the solution, but at the same time the situation seems apodictically hopeless.)

                Having admitted this I will look at some other supposed difficulties.

                Is it possible to suppose someone confined inside a room where the only window to the outside is a television set?-- this is obviously possible.

                Would it be possible through the pictures on this television set to understand A how the world outside the room works--by supposing that the objects seen on the television set should CONSIDERED AS THEMSELVESaccountfor what is seen to occur?

                This also seems perfectly possible.

                Would it be possible through the pictures on the television set to see how television sets work, and to come to the conclusion that all that was being seen were pictures on such a television set?

                This also seems possible.

                Where is the contradiction between this last position and the previous one, since both, and both together, seem perfectly possible?

                It SEEMS as though there should be a contradiction, but there isn't ( or, if you like, there is, but it doesn't amount to something that is actually physically impossible). This is because whereas with that old idea of logica different set of possible conclusions requires a difference in the premises  being deducedfrom and the same set of possible conclusions implies the same set of premises. With real explanationthe same result may be produced in an indefinite number of different ways.  Consequently, if it is objected against my continual assertion that we are trying to see how the contents of a situation THEMSELVES can account for what occurs, that they cannot actually account for what occurs because we are led, by this very supposition, to the conclusion that we only see effects of what occurs and never the objects and real situation themselves; my reply to this is that this is not an incoherent position-- as is illustrated by my example of viewing the world from inside a room and only by a television set.

                The question is not "Are these objects which I take for things in themselves, truly things in themselves? Or am I condemned to incoherence if I suppose they are things in themselves, but nevertheless have to admit that they are not?" But "Is it possible to see effects as if they were the things themselves, and by supposing they are the things themselves work out how this could be possible?" This is not even a very complicated question, nor points to a complicated situation, as illustrated by my television set example. It just SOUNDS complicated, and also SOUNDS inconsistent and incoherent.

                But, it will be objected, how in this case can we know that we are correct and that what we suppose are independently existing objects actually exist at all, let alone that we see them accurately? I agree with this objection. We can't know these things. But although it may be inconvenient if what I am supposing were true, because there would always be the possibility of being duped, this does not show that it is an incoherent possibility, or that it isn't actually the true state of affairs, or that if we do our best to explain things adequately and objectively we will come to the conclusionthat this IS the true state of things.

                Philosophers, in my opinion, have tended to confuse the desire to be certain and know that our perceptions are correct into judgements about the viability of a situation where they could be correct. Partly this is because they have used certainty as the basis of their theory of knowledge. But then the above state of affairs seems to shoot a big hole right at the beginning where they would like to start building their theory. But also because from a personal and moral point of view the thought that our view of the world might be completely mistaken has an appalling aspect that threatens to multiply the