The same result follows from examining instances. If we take the four
instances mentioned at the beginning of this discussion, we shall
find that three of them are logical, while the fourth is a judgment of
perception. The proposition that two and two are four follows by purely
logical deduction from definitions: that means that its truth results,
not from the properties of objects, but from the meanings of symbols.
Now symbols, in mathematics, mean what we choose; thus the feeling of
self-evidence, in this case, seems explicable by the fact that the whole
matter is within our control. I do not wish to assert that this is
the whole truth about mathematical propositions, for the question is
complicated, and I do not know what the whole truth is. But I do wish to
suggest that the feeling of self-evidence in mathematical propositions
has to do with the fact that they are concerned with the meanings of
symbols, not with properties of the world such as external observation
might reveal.
Similar considerations apply to the impossibility of a thing being in
two places at once, or of two things being in one place at the same
time. These impossibilities result logically, if I am not mistaken, from
the definitions of one thing and one place. That is to say, they are not
laws of physics, but only part of the intellectual apparatus which we
have manufactured for manipulating physics. Their self-evidence, if this
is so, lies merely in the fact that they represent our decision as to
the use of words, not a property of physical objects.
Judgments of perception, such as "this buttercup is yellow," are in
a quite different position from judgments of logic, and their
self-evidence must have a different explanation. In order to arrive at
the nucleus of such a judgment, we will eliminate, as far as possible,
the use of words which take us beyond the present fact, such as
"buttercup" and "yellow." The simplest kind of judgment underlying the
perception that a buttercup is yellow would seem to be the perception of
similarity in two colours seen simultaneously. Suppose we are seeing
two buttercups, and we perceive that their colours are similar. This
similarity is a physical fact, not a matter of symbols or words; and it
certainly seems to be indubitable in a way that many judgments are not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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