ABSTRACT
To summarise Empson's argument, the statement of Richards' theory of values is a pseudo-statement because it is not in practice possible to determine whether the theory applies or not; being an emotive theory, the statement of it is partly emotive too; and it is a valuable statement because it does not lead us up the garden path as much as do other pseudo-statements today. This extraordinary muddle, of which I have only described part, seems to me a consequence of that style of thinking which wishes thought to be immediately reflected in words, trusting to the word's ambiguous wealth to pay to sense any price that it requires.
