On this view, when I say such things as "That is an inkstand," "That
is a door," "This is a coin," these expressions would really only be
a loose way of saying "That is part of the surface of an inkstand,"
"That is part of the surface of a door," "This is part of the surface
of a coin." And there would, I think, plainly be nothing surprising
in the fact that we should use language thus loosely. What, at first
sight, appears to be a paradox, namely that, whereas I appear to be
asserting of a given thing that it is of a certain kind, I am not
really asserting of the thing in question that it is of that kind at
all, would be susceptible of an easy explanation. And moreover, if
this view were true, it would offer an excellent illustration of the
difference between a thing known only by description and a thing not so
known, and would show how entirely free from mystery that distinction
is. On this view, when I judge "That inkstand is a good big one" I
shall in effect be judging: "There is one and only one inkstand of
which _this_ is part of the surface, and the inkstand of which this is
true is a good big one." It would be quite clear that the part of the
surface of the inkstand was given to me in a sense in which the whole
was not, just as it is in fact clear that I do now _"see"_ this part
of the surface of this inkstand, in a sense in which I do _not_ "see"
the whole; and that my judgment, while it is, in fact, _about_ both the
whole inkstand, and also _about_ one particular part of its surface, is
_about_ them in two entirely different senses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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