ABSTRACT

First published in 1970, Facts, Words and Beliefs is concerned primarily with formulating the following question and suggesting the right way of answering it- how can a few stray images or muttered words running through our mind constitute our envisagement of situation perhaps remote in time and place from our present position? From a practical point of view the moments when we envisage the nature of some situation which we believe to exist may not be of any great importance. It would seem that our belief in the existence of such situations lies in some sort of adjustment of our behaviour to them which will be useful if the situations really exist, from the point of view of survival and comfort. The author suggests that these moments of conscious envisagement of such absent situations may be rather a sign of such successful adjustment than a factor in bringing it about, hence of no practical value in themselves. However, if knowledge has any sort of intrinsic value, it must surely lie in those moments when one does consciously envisage some aspects of the world more or less as it really is, and to try to understand the nature of these moments is to try to understand all that is of intrinsic value in knowledge. This book is a must read for scholars and researchers of philosophy.

part One|127 pages

Ontological Background

chapter I|49 pages

Sense-Data

chapter II|30 pages

Universals

chapter III|11 pages

Facts

chapter IV|19 pages

The Experience of Noticing a Universal

chapter V|16 pages

Groups

part Two|39 pages

Semiotic Background

chapter VI|14 pages

Pragmatic and Semantic Meaning

chapter VII|23 pages

Types of Reference

part Three|180 pages

Imaging and Believing

chapter VIII|19 pages

Acts of Belief and the Intending Relation

chapter IX|18 pages

Simple Imagism

chapter X|22 pages

Imagist-Activism

chapter XI|12 pages

Imagist-Mentalism

chapter XIII|30 pages

Merits and Demerits of Imagism