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On an Empirical Criterion of Meaning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Horace S. Fries*
Affiliation:
Lawrence College, Appleton, Wis.

Extract

In view of the importance of the philosophical method argued in Mr. C. I. Lewis's “Experience and Meaning,” I wish to call attention to ambiguities which may have an important bearing on one of his conclusions. The method for which he argues is a certain empirical test of meaningfulness. It is his ‘positivistic’ inference from this method which I wish to challenge. To do so I shall present four points: (1) A summary of his empirical test of meaningfulness; (2) A ‘non-positivistic’ (or ‘dualistic’) hypothesis which Mr. Lewis rejects; (3) An analysis of this hypothesis in view of his test; (4) The theory of universals implied in my analysis.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1936

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References

1 Proceedings and Addresses of The American Philosophical Association 1933, Vol. VII of the combined proceedings and addresses of the several divisions. Reprinted from The Philosophical Review, Vol. XLIII, No. 2, March, 1934; p. 125. Page references below refer to this paper.

2 “On the Spatial Location of Sensa,” Phil. Rev., XLIV, 345–353.

3 Cf. M. C. Otto, “Meditation on a Hill,” Phil. Rev., XXXIX (1930), 329–350.