Verification and Experience

Author(s): A. J. Ayer
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, Vol. 37 (1936 - 1937), pp. 137-156
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Meetingof the AristotelianSocietyat 55, RussellSquare,London,

W.C.1,onApril26th,1937,at 8 p.m.

IX.-VERIFICATION

By A. J.

AND

EXPERIENCE.

AYER.

WHAT is it that determines the truth or falsehood of empirical propositions? The customary answer is, in effect, that
it is their agreement or disagreement with reality. I say
" in effect " because I wish to allow for alternative formulations. There are some who would speak of correspondence
or accordance rather than agreement; some who for the

word " reality " would substitute " facts " or " experience."

But I do not think that the choice of different words here

reflects any important difference of meaning. This answer,
though I believe it to be correct, requires some elucidation.
To quote William James, Pragmatists and Intellectualists
both accept (it) as a matter of course. They begin to
quarrel only after the question is raised as to what precisely
may be meant by the term " agreement" and what by the
term " reality " when reality is taken as something for our
ideas to agree with. * I hope at least to throw some light
upon this question in the course of this paper.
It will simplify our undertaking if we can draw a distinction between those empirical propositions whose truth
or falsehood can be determined only by ascertaining the
truth or falsehood of other propositions and those whose
truth or falsehood can be determined directly by observation. To the former class belong all universal propositions.
We cannot, for example, directly establish the truth or
falsehood of the proposition that gold is dissoluble in aqua
regia,unless of course we regard this as a defining attribute
of gold and so make the proposition into a tautology. We
test it by establishing the truth or falsehood of singular
propositions relating, among other things, to particular
* Pragmatism,p. 198.
S

138

A. J. AYER.

pieces of gold. We may indeed deduce one universal

proposition from another, or even infer it by analogy, but
in all such cases we must finally arrive at a proposition for
which the evidence consists solely in the truth or falsehood
of certain singular propositions. It is here to be remarked
that no matter how many such singular propositions we
succeed in establishing we are never entitled to regard the
universal proposition as conclusively verified. However
often we may have observed the dissolution of pieces of
gold in aqua regia, we must still allow it to be possible that
the next piece with which we experiment will not so dissolve.
On the other hand the falsity of any one of the relevant
singular propositions does entail the falsity of the universal
proposition. It is this logical assymetry in the relationship
of universal and singular propositions that has led some
philosophers* to adopt the possibility of falsification rather
than that of verification as their criterion of empirical
significance.

We said that the way to test the validity of a universal

proposition about the dissolubility of gold was to ascertain
the truth or falsehood of singular propositions referring to
particular pieces of gold. But these propositions in their
turn depend for their verification upon the verification of
other propositions. For a piece of gold is a material thing;
and to test the validity of propositions referringto material
things we must ascertain the truth or falsehood of propositions referringto sense-data. Here we have another instance
of logical assymetry. A proposition referring to a material
thing may entail propositions referring to sense-data but
cannot itself be entailed by any finite number of them.
Now at last we seem to have reached propositions which
need not wait upon other propositions for the determination
of their truth or falsehood, but are such that they can be
directly confronted with the given facts. These propositions
I propose to call basic propositions. If the distinction which
we have drawn between them and other propositions is
legitimate, we may confine ourselves, for our present
* Notably Karl Popper.

See his Logik der Forschung.

VERIFICATION

AND

139

EXPERIENCE.

purpose, to questions concerning the nature of basic propositions and the manner in which our determination of their
validity depends upon our experience.
It is noteworthy that the legitimacy of the distinction
which we have drawn is implicity acknowledged even by
philosophers who reject the notion of agreement with
reality as a criterion of truth. Neurath and Hempel, for
example, have recently been maintaining that it is nonsensical to speak of comparing propositionswith facts or reality
or experience.* A proposition, they say, can be compared
only with another proposition. At the same time they
assign a status correspondingto that of our basic propositions
to a class of propositions which they call protocol propositions. According to Neurath, for a sentence to express a
protocol proposition it is necessary that it should contain
the name or description of an observer and some words
referring to an act of observation. He gives the following
as an example. " Otto's protocol at 3.17/Otto's speechthought at 3.16 was (there was in the room at 3.15 a table
observed by Otto)/." This is not regarded by Neurath as
the only legitimate way of formulating a protocol proposition. If others care to adopt a different convention, they
are, as far as he is concerned, at liberty to do so. But he
claims for the peculiar form that he has chosen that it has
the advantage of giving protocol propositions greater
stability than they might otherwise have.
It is easy enough to see why he says this. He is thinking
of the case in which it turns out that Otto has been having
a hallucination or that in which he is found to be lying.
In the former case the proposition in the interior bracket
must be held to be false ; in the latter, the proposition in
the main bracket. But the whole proposition is not a
truth-function of the propositions within the brackets, any
* Otto Neurath: " Protokollsatze." Erkenntnis,3, 223.
" Radikaler Physikalismus und 'Wirkliche Welt."'
Erkenntnis,4, 5.
Carl Hempel: On the logical positivists' theory of truth. Analysis, 2, 4.
" Some Remarks on Empiricism." Analysis, 3, 3.
" Some Remarks on ' Facts ' and Propositions."
Analysis, 2, 6.

s2

140

A.

J.

AYER.

more than they are truth-functions of one another. We

may therefore continue to accept it even when we have
rejected them. In itself, this is a valid point. But it is surely
inconsistent with Neurath's main position. For how, if we
are debarred from appealing to the facts, can we ever
discover that Otto has lied or had a hallucination ? Neurath
makes the truth and falsehood of any proposition whatsoever
depend upon its compatibility or incompatibility with other
propositions. He recognises no other criterion. In this
respect, his protocol propositions are not allowed any
advantage. If we are presented with a protocol proposition
and also with a non-protocol proposition which is incompatible with it we are not obliged to accept the protocol
proposition and reject the other. We have an equal right
to reject either. But if this is so we need not bother to devise
a special form for protocol propositions in order to ensure
their stability. All we have to do if we wish a proposition
to be stable is to decide to accept it and to reject any
proposition that is incompatible with it. The question
whether such a decision is empirically justified or not is
one to which, according to the implications of Neurath's
doctrine, no meaning can be attached.
One wonders indeed why he and Hempel pay so much
attention to protocol propositions, inasmuch as the only
distinction which they are able to draw between them and
other propositions is a distinction of form. They do not
mean by a protocol proposition one which can be directly
verified by observation, for they deny that this is possible.
They use the term " protocol " purely as a syntactical
designation for a certain assemblage of words. But why
should one attach special significance to the word" observation" ? It may be that there is no error involved in constructing sentences of a peculiar type and dignifying them
with the title of Protokollsatze,but it is arbitrary and
misleading. There is no more justification for it than there
would be for making a collection of all the propositions
that could be correctly expressed in English by sentences
beginning with the letter B, and choosing to call them Basic
propositions. If Neurath and Hempel do not recognise this

VERIFICATION AND EXPERIENCE.

141

it is probably because, in writing about Protokollsdtze,

they
unconsciously employ the forbidden criterion of agreement
with experience. Though they say that the term " protocol " is nothing more than a syntactical designation, they
do not use it merely as such. We shall see later on that
Carnap equivocates with this term in a similar way.
It is not, however, a sufficient reason for rejecting a
theory that some of its advocates have failed consistently
to adhere to it. And it is necessaryfor us to investigate more
closely the view that in order to determine the validity of
a system of empirical propositions one cannot and need not
go beyond the system itself. For if this view were satisfactory
we should be absolved from troubling any further about the
use of the phrase " agreement with experience."
The theory which we now have to examine is that which
is commonly known as the coherence theory of truth. It
should be noted that the theory is not, as we interpret it,
concerned with the definition of truth and falsehood but
only with the means by which they are determined.
According to it a proposition is to be accepted if it is found
to be compatible with other accepted propositions, rejected
if it is not. If, however, we are anxious to accept a proposition which conflicts with our current system we may
abandon one or more of the propositions which we had
previously accepted. In such a case we should, it is sometimes said, be guided by a principle of economy. We should
make the smallest transformation of the system which
ensured self-consistency. I think it is usually assumed also
that we have, or ought to have, a preference for large and
highly integrated systems; systems containing a great
number of propositionswhich support one another to a high
degree.
One strong objection to this theory is well put by
Professor Price in his lecture on Truth and Corrigibility.
" Suppose,"he says,"we have a group of mutually supporting
judgments. The extraordinarything is that however large
the group may be, and however great the support which the
members give to each other, the entire group hangs, so to
speak, in the air. If we accept one member, no doubt it

142

A.

J.

AYER.

will be reasonable to accept the rest. But why must we

accept any of them ? Why should we not reject the whole
lot ? Might they not all be false, although they all support
each other? "*

He goes on to argue that we cannot

consider such a system of judgments to have even any

probability unless we can attribute to at least one of its
constituents a probability which is derived from some other
ground than its membership of the system. He suggests
therefore that the only way to save the theory would be to
maintain that some propositionswere intrinsically probable.
But this, though he does not say so, is to reduce it to
absurdity. There is no case at all to be made out for the
view that a proposition can be probable independently of
all evidence. The most that could be said in favour of
anyone who accepted Price's suggestion would be that he
had chosen to give the word " probability " an unfamiliar
sense.
A point which Price appears to have overlooked is that
according to one well-known version of the coherence theory
there can be only one completely coherent system of propositions. If this were so the theory would give us at least
an unequivocal criterion for determining the truth of any
proposition; namely, the possibility of incorporating it in
this single system. It would not, however, afford us any
ground for supposing that the enlargement of an apparently
coherent system of propositions increased its probability.
On the contrary, we ought rather to hold that it decreased
it. For ex hypothesi
any set of propositionswhich is internally
coherent is the only one that is so. If, therefore, we have
a set of propositions which appears to be self-consistent,
either it is the unique coherent system or it contains a
contradiction which we have failed to discover; and the
larger the set the greater the probability that it contains a
contradiction which we have failed to discover. But in
saying this we are assuming the truth of a proposition about
the limited powers of the human understanding, which
may or may not find a place in the one coherent system.
* p. 19.

VERIFICATION AND EXPERIENCE.

143

Perhaps, therefore, it would be better to say that the

advocates of this form of the coherence theory dispense
with the notion of probability altogether.
But now we must ask, Why should it be assumed that
only one completely coherent system of propositions is
conceivable ? However many empirical propositions we
succeed in combining into an apparently self-consistent
system we seem always able to construct a rival system
which is equally extensive, appears equally free from
contradiction and yet is incompatible with the first. Why
should it be held that at least one of these systems must
contain a contradiction, even though we are unable to
detect it ? I can see no reason at all for this assumption.
We may not be able to demonstrate that a given system is
free from contradiction ; but this does not mean that it is
probable that it contains one. This indeed is recognized
by the more recent advocates of what we are calling a
coherence theory. They admit the possibility of inventing
fictitious sciences and histories which would be just as
comprehensive,elegant and free from contradiction as those
in which we actually believe. But how then do they propose
to distinguish the true systems from the false ?
The answer given* is that the selection of the true
system does not depend upon any internal features of the
system itself. It cannot be effected by purely logical means.
But it can be carried out inside the realm of descriptive
syntax. We are to say that the true system is that which is
based upon true protocol propositions; and that true
protocol propositions are those which are produced by
accredited observers, including notably the scientists of
our era. Logically, it might be the case that the protocol
propositions which each of us expressed were so divergent
that no common system of science or only a very meagre
system could be based upon them. But fortunately this
is not so. People do occasionally produce inconvenient
protocol propositions. But being in a small minority they
* E.g., by Rudolf Carnap. " Erwiderung auf die Aufsatse von E. Zilse
and K. Duncker." Erkenntnis,3, 2 and 3, pp. 179-180.

144

A. J.

AYER.

are over-ridden. They are said to be bad observers or

liars or, in extreme cases, mad. It is a contingent, historical
fact that the rest of us agree in accepting an " increasingly
comprehensive, common, scientific system." And it is to
this, so the theory runs, that we refer when out of the many
coherent systems of science that are conceivable we speak
of only one as being true.
This is an ingenious answer; but it will not do. One
reason why we trust " the scientists of our era " is that we
believe that they give an accurate account of their observations. But this means that we shall be involved in a circle
if we say that the reason why we accept certain evidence is
merely that it comes from the scientists of our era. And
furthermore, How are we to determine that a particular
system is accepted by contemporary scientists except by
appealing to the facts of experience ? But once it is conceded
that such an appeal is possible there is no longer any need
to bring in the contemporary scientists. However great
our admiration for the achievements of the scientists of our
era we can hardly maintain that it is only with reference
to their behaviour that the notion of agreement with reality
has any meaning. Hempel* has indeed attempted to meet
this objection by telling us that instead of saying that " the
system of protocol-statementswhich we call true may only
be characterized by the historical fact that it is actually
adopted by the scientists of our culture circle " we ought
to express ourselves " formally " and say: " The following
statement is sufficiently confirmed by the protocol-statements adopted in our science; 'Amongst the numerous
imaginable consistent sets of protocol-statements,there is irn
practice exactly one which is adopted by the vast majority
of instructed scientific observers ; at the same time, it is
just this set which we generally call true.' " But this does
not remove the difficulty. For now we must ask, How is it
determined that the protocol-statements which support the
statement quoted really are adopted in our science ? If
Hempel is really speaking formally, as he says he is, then
* Analysis, 3, 3, p. 39-40.

VERIFICATION AND EXPERIENCE.

145

the phrase " adopted in our science " must be regarded

merely as an arbitrary syntactical designation of a certain
set of sentences. But it is clear that he does not intend it
to be nothing more than this. He intends it to convey the
information that the propositions expressed by these sentences actually are adopted. But this is to re-introduce the
reference to historical fact which he is trying to eliminate.
We have here a fallacy which is akin to the fallacy of the
ontological argument. It is not legitimate to use the phrase
" adopted in our science " simply as a means of naming
certain statements and then proceed to infer from this
that these statements really are adopted in it. But Hempel
cannot dispense with this fallacious inference. For each
of many incompatible systems might contain the statement
that it alone was accepted by contemporary scientists,
together with the protocol propositionsthat were needed to
support it.

We may conclude then that the attempt to lay down a

criterion for determining the truth of empirical propositions
which does not contain any reference to "facts" or
" reality " or " experience," has not proved successful.

It

seems plausible only when it involves a tacit introduction

of that very principle of agreement with reality which it is
designed to obviate. Accordingly, we may return to our
original question concerning the nature of basic propositions
and the manner in which their validity depends upon fact.
And first of all I wish to consider how far this question
admits of a purely conventional answer.
According to Professor Carnap it is wholly a matter of
convention what propositions we take as basic. " Every
concrete proposition," he tells us,* " belonging to the
physicalistic system-language can in suitable circumstances
serve as a protocol proposition. Let G be a law (that is a
general proposition belonging to the system language). For
the purpose of verification one must in the first instance
derive from G concrete propositions referring to particular
space-time points (through substitution of concrete values
* "Uber Protokollsatze."

Erkenntnis,2, 2 and 3, p. 224.

146

A.

J.

AYER.

for the space-time co-ordinates x, y, z, t which occur in G

as free variables). From these concrete propositionsone
may with the help of additional laws and logico-mathematical rules of inference derive further concrete propositions, until one comes to propositionswhich in the particular
case in question one is willing to accept. It is here a matter
of choice which propositions are employed at any given
time as the terminating points of this reduction, that is as
protocol propositions. In every case the process of reduction, which serves the purpose of verification, must be
brought to an end somewhere. But one is never obliged
to call a halt at any one point rather than another."
In reasoning thus, Carnap says that he is following the
example of Karl Popper. Actually Popper adopts a rather
narrower convention. He proposes, and takes the view
that there can in this matter be no warrant for anything
more than a proposal, that basic propositions should have
the form of singular existentials. They must, according to
his convention, refer to particular spacio-temporal points
and the events which are said to be occurring at these
points must be observableevents. But in case anyone should
think that the use of the word " observable " brings in an
element of psychology he hastens to add that instead of an
" observable " event he might equally well have spoken
of an event of motion located in (macroscopic) physical
bodies.* His views concerning the verification of these
propositions are summed up as follows: " The basic
propositions are accepted by an act of will, by convention.
Sie sind Festsetzungen."t

The verification of all other empirical propositions is

held to depend upon that of the basic propositions. So
that if we take the remark I have quoted literally, we are
presented with the view that our acceptance or rejection of
any empirical proposition must be wholly arbitrary. And
this is surely wrong. Actually, I do not think that Popper
himself wishes to maintain this. His stipulation that basic
* Logik der Forschung,p. 59.
t Op. cit., p. 62.

VERIFICATION AND EXPERIENCE.

147

propositions should refer to observable events suggests that

he recognizes that our acceptance of them somehow depends
upon our observations. But he does not tell us how.
There is indeed this much truth in what Popper says.
The propositions which he calls basic refer to material
things. As such, they can be tested by observation, but
never conclusively established. For, as we have already
remarked, although they may entail propositions referring
to sense-data they cannot be entailed by them. It follows
that there is in our acceptance of them an element of
convention. I cannot carry out all the tests which would
bear upon the truth of even so simple a proposition as that
my pen is lying on my table. In practice, therefore, I
accept such a proposition after making only a limited
number of tests, perhaps only a single test, which leaves it
still possible that it is false. But this is not to say that my
acceptance of it is the result of an arbitrary decision. I
have collected some evidence in favour of the proposition,
even though it may not be conclusive evidence. I might
have accepted it without having any evidence at all; and
then my decision would, in fact, have been arbitrary.
There is no harm in Popper's insisting that our acceptance
of such propositions as he calls basic is not wholly dictated
by logic ; but he ought still to distinguish the cases in
which our acceptance of a " basic " propositionis reasonable
from those in which it is not. We may say that it is reasonable when the proposition is supported by our observations.
But what is meant by saying that a propositionis supported
by our observations? This is a question which in his
discussion of the " Basis-problem" Popper does not answer.
We find, therefore, that this "discovery " of Popper's
which has been fastened on to by Carnap amounts to no
more than this ; that the process of testing propositions
referring to physical objects can be extended as far as we
choose. What is conventional is our decision to carry it in
any given case just so far and no farther. To express this,
as Carnap does, by saying that it is a matter of convention
what propositions we take as protocols is simply to give the
term " protocol proposition " an unfamiliar meaning. We

148

A.

J.

AYER.

understand that he now proposes to use it to designate any

singular proposition belonging to " the physicalistic systemlanguage," which we are prepared to accept without
further tests. This is a perfectly legitimate usage. What
is not legitimate is to ignore the discrepancy between it
and his former usage according to which protocol propositions were said to " describe directly given experience."
And in abandoning the original usage he has incidentally
shelved the problem which it was designed to meet.
Elsewhere,* Carnap has suggested that problems concerning the nature of basic propositions, in our sense of
the term, depend for their solution only on conventions
about forms of words. I think that this, too, can be shown
to be a mistake. Most people are by now familiar with his
division of propositions into factual propositions such as
" the roses in my garden are red," pseudo-factual propositions such as " a rose is a thing," which are also said to
be syntactical propositions, expressed in the material mode
of speech, and propositions such as " rose is a thing-word,"
which are syntactical and expressed in the formal mode of
speech. Now when he raises the question " What objects
are the elements of given, direct experience ? " he treats it
as if it were a syntactical question, expressedin the material
mode of speech. That is, he considers it to be a loose way
of raising the question " What kinds of word occur in
protocol-statements? "t And he sets out various possible
answers both in what he calls the material and in what
he calls the formal mode. Thus, he says that it may be the
case that " the elements that are directly given are the
simplest sensations and feelings " or " more complex objects

such as partial gestalts of single sensory fields" or that

" material things are elements of the given "; and he
takes these to be misleading ways of saying that "protocolstatements are of the same kind as; 'joy now,' ' here,
now, blue '" or that " protocol-statements are of forms
similar to

'

red circle, now'

"

or that they have " approxi-

* Logical Syntax of Language,pp. 305-6.

t The Unity of Science,p. 45.

VERIFICATION AND EXPERIENCE.

149

mately the same kind of form of ' a red cube is on the

table '."*

In this way he assumes that questions about the

nature of immediate experience are linguistic in character.

And this leads him to dismiss all the " problems of the
so-called given or primitive data " as depending only upon
our choice of a form of language. t But this is to repeat
the error of Neurath and Hempel, which we have already
exposed. If the term " protocol-statement " was being
used merely as a syntactical designation for certain combina-tions of symbols then our choice of the sentences to which
we applied it would indeed be a matter of convention. It
would involve no more reference to truth than a decision
to apply the designation " basic " to all English sentences
beginning with B. But this is not the sense in which Carnap
is supposed to be using the term. He is using it not to
mark out the form of certain statements, but rather to,
express the fact that they refer to what is immediately
given. Accordingly, our answer to his question " What
kinds of word occur in protocol-statements? " cannot
depend simply upon a conventional choice of linguistic
forms. It must depend upon the way in which we answer
the question " What objects are the elements of given,
direct experience ? " And this is not a matter of language,.
but a matter of fact. It is a plain question of fact whether
the atomistic or the gestalttheory of sensation is correct.
Thus we see that the proposition that " the elements
that are directly given are the simplest sensations and
feelings " which Carnap takes to be a syntactical proposition
expressed in the material mode of speech, is not syntactical
at all. And the proposition which he gives as its formal
equivalent, namely, that " protocol-statements are of the
same kind as: 'joy now,' ' here, now, blue; there,
red ' " is not syntactical either.

If we want to give it a

label we may call it a pseudo-syntacticalproposition. And

by this we shall mean thlat it seems to be about words
but is really about objects. It is important that the existence
* The Unity of Science,pp. 46-7.

t The Logical Syntax of Language,pp. 305-6.

150

A. J. AYER.

of such propositions should not be overlooked; for they

are quite as dangerous in their way as the pseudo-factual
propositions of which Carnap has made so much. In this
instance the source of confusion is the use of the term
" protocol." It cannot without contradiction be interpreted
both as a purely formal designation and as involving a
covert reference to a matter of fact. But this is precisely
how Carnap does interpret it; and it is thus that he is
led to make the mistake of supposing that questions about
the nature of basic propositions can be decided merely by
convention. It is indeed a matter of convention that we
should use a word consisting of the letters "j o y " to
denote joy. But the proposition that joy is immediately
experienced, which is implied in saying that "cjoy " is a
protocol word, is one whose truth or falsehood is not to be
decided by convention but only by referring to the facts.
The psychology of sensation is not an a priori branch of
science.

We conclude therefore that the forms of basic propositions depend partly indeed upon linguistic conventions but
partly also upon the nature of the given; and this is something that we cannot determine a priori. We may hold
indeed that a person's sensations are always private to
himself; but this is only because we happen so to use
words that it does not make sense to say " I am acquainted
with your sense-data " or " You and I are experiencing
the same sense-datum."* This is a point about which we
are apt to be confused. One says mournfully " I cannot
experience your toothache " as though it revealed a lack of
mental power. That is, we are inclined to think of the
contents of another person's mind, or the immediate objects
of his experience, as being concealed from us by some sort
of natural obstacle, and we say to ourselves: " If only
we had a ray which would penetrate this obstacle ! "
(Intuition !) or " Perhaps we can construct a reflector
which will show us what is going on behind." But in fact
* This point has been forcibly made by G. A. Paul, vide " Is there a
Problem About Sense-Data?" Supp. Proc. Arist. Soc., 1936.

VERIFICATION AND EXPERIENCE.

151

there is no obstacle but our usage of words. To say that

whatever is directly 'given' to me is mine and mine only
is to express a tautology. A mistake which I, for one, have
made in the past is to confuse this with the proposition
" Whatever is directly 'given' is mine." This is not a
tautology. It is an empirical proposition, and it is false.
A further point which it is advisable to make clear is
that we are not setting any arbitrary boundaries to the field
of possible experience. As an illustration of this let us
consider the case of the man who claims to have an immediate, non-sensory experience of God. So long as he uses
the word " God " simply as a name for the content of his
experience, I have no right to disbelieve him. Not having
such experiences myself I cannot understand him fully.
I do not myself know what it is like to be acquainted with
God. But I can at least understand that he is having some
experience of a kind that I do not have. And this I may
readily believe. I should certainly not be justified in
assuming that the sort of experiences that I myself had
were the only sort that could be had at all. At the same
time it must be remarked that " God," in this usage,
cannot be the name of a transcendent being. For to say
that one was immediately acquainted with a transcendent
being would be self-contradictory. And though it might
be the name of a person who in fact endured for ever one
could not say that one was immediately acquainted with
Him as enduring for ever. For this, too, would be selfcontradictory. Neither would the fact that people were
acquainted with God, in this sense, afford a valid ground
for inferring that the world had a first cause, or that
human beings survived death, or in short that anything
existed which had the attributes that are popularly ascribed
to God. And the same thing applies to the case of moral
experience. We should certainly not be justified in denying
a priori the possibility of moral experience. But this does
not mean that we recognize that there is any ground for
inferring the existence of an ideal, objective world of values.
It is necessary to say this because the use of " God" or
" value " as a designation of the content of a certain kind

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of experience often misleads people into thinking that they

are entitled to draw such inferences; and we must make it
clear that in admitting the possibility of such experiences
we are not also upholding the conclusions which are
illegitimately drawn from them.
W have tried to show that neither the form nor the
validity of basic propositions is dependent merely on
convention. Since it is their function to describe what can
be immediately experienced, their form will depend upon
the general nature of the " given," their validity upon their
agreement with it in the relevant particular case. But
what is this relation of agreement ? What kind of correspondence do we suppose to exist between basic propositions
and the experiences that verify them ?
It is sometimes suggested that this relation of agreement
is of the same kind as that which holds between a picture
and that of which it is a picture. I do not think that this
is true. It is possible indeed to constructpicture-languages;
no doubt they have their advantages; but it surely cannot
be maintained that they alone are legitimate; or that a
language such as English is really a picture-language
although we do not know it. But if English is not a picturelanguage and propositions expressed in English are sometimes verified, as they surely are, then it cannot be the
case that this relation of agreement with which we are
concerned is one of picturing. Besides, there is this further
difficulty. If any propositions are pictures, presumably
false propositions are so as well as true ones. In other
words, we cannot tell from the form of the proposition,
that is, merely by looking at the picture, whether it depicts
a real situation or not. But how then are we to distinguish
the true picture from the false ? Must we not say that the
true picture agrees with reality whereas the false one does
not ? But in that case the introduction of the notion of
picturing does not serve our purpose. It does not enable
us to dispense with the notion of agreement.
The same objections hold against those who say that
this relation of agreement is one of identity of structure.
This is to treat propositions as if they were maps. But

VERIFICATION AND EXPERIENCE.

153

then it is to be supposed that a false proposition is also a

map. The mere form of the proposition will not tell us
whether the country which it purports to map is imaginary
or real. Can we then avoid saying that we test the truth
of such a map by seeing whether it agrees with reality ?
But then the notion of agreement is still left unclarified.
And, in any case, why should it be assumed that if a proposition is to describe what is directly given it must have the
same structure as the given ? One might, perhaps, allow
the possibility of creating a language in which all basic
propositions were expressed by sentences functioning as
maps, though I am by no means sure that it would be
possible to draw a map of our internal sensations; but I
can see no ground at all for assuming that only a language
of this kind is legitimate, or that any of the European
languages with which I am acquainted is a language of this
kind. Yet propositions, expressed in these languages, are
frequently verified. There is, perhaps, a historical connection between the view that basic propositions must be
identical in structure with the facts that verify them and
the view that only structure can be known or expressed.*
But this too is arbitrary, and indeed self-defeating. To
maintain that content is inexpressible is to behave like
Ramsey's child. " ' Say breakfast.' 'Can't.' ' What can't
you say ? ' ' Can't say breakfast.'"t
What is being assumed in the theories which we have
just been discussingis not so much that a propositioncannot
be verified as that it, or, to speak more accurately, the
sentence expressing it, cannot have a sense at all unless it
is a picture or a map. The difficulty with regard to sentences that express false propositions is got round by saying
that they depict or map possible facts. But surely this
assumption is quite gratuitous. If I am speaking English
I may use the words " I am angry " to say that I am angry.
You may say, if you like, that in doing so I am obeying a
* Cf. E. Zilsel, " Bemerkungen zur Wissenschaftslogik." Erkenntnis,3, 2
and 3, p. 143.
t Foundationsof Mathematics,p. 268.
T

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A.

J.

AYER.

meaning-rule* of the English language. For this to be possible it is not in the least necessary that my words should
in any way resemble the state of anger which they describe.
That " this is red " is used to say that this is red does not
imply that it bears any relation of resemblance, whether of
structure or content, to an actual or hypothetical red patch.
But if the words " I am angry " are used to say that
I am angry, then it does not seem in any way mysterious
that my being angry should verify the proposition that
they express. But how do I know that I am angry ? I feel
it. How do I know that there is now a loud sound ? I hear
it. How do I know that this is a red patch ? I see it. If
this answer is not regarded as satisfactory, I do not know
what other can be given.
It may be suggested that we ought in this connection
to introduce the notion of causation. The relation, it may
be said, between the proposition " I am in pain " and the
fact that verifies it is that the fact causes me to assert the
proposition, or at any rate to believe it. That such a
relation often exists is not to be denied. But we cannot
analyse verification in terms of it. For if I am a habitual
liar my being in pain may cause me to deny that I am in
pain; and if I am a sufficiently hidebound Christian
Scientist it may not cause me to believe it. But in either
case my being in pain will verify the proposition that I am
in pain. Why ? Because when I say " I am in pain "
I mean that I am in pain, and if p then p. But how do
I establish p ? How do I know that I really am in pain ?
Again the answer can only be " I feel it."
Does this mean that basic propositionsmust be regarded
as incorrigible ? I find this question difficult to answer
because I do not know what precise meaning those who
have discussed it have been giving to the term " incorrigible." Probably, different philosophers have given it
different meanings. ProfessorPrice, for example, when he
argues that basic propositions are incorrigible appears to
mean no more than that our reasons for accepting them
.

* Cf. K. Ajdukiewicz, " Sprach und Sinn." Erkenntnis,4, 2, pp. 1 14-1 16.

VERIFICATION AND EXPERIENCE.

155

are found in our experience; that if one is justified in

saying of a visual sense-datum " this is red," it is because
one sees it so. For the only arguments which he gives in
favour of the view that some first-order propositions are
incorrigible are arguments against the coherence theory of
truth.* I should of course agree that basic propositions
were incorrigible, in this rather unnatural sense. Dr. von
Juhos makes the same statement.t But what he appears
to mean by it is that there can never be any ground for
abandoning a basic proposition; that once it is accepted
it cannot subsequently be doubted or denied. In a sense,
we may agree that this is so. For we may say that what is
subsequently doubted or denied is always a different
proposition. What I accept now is the proposition " this
is red " ; what I may doubt or deny in thirty seconds' time
is the proposition " I was seeing something red thirty
seconds ago." But in this sense every proposition which
contains a demonstrative is incorrigible, and not only
basic propositions. And if von Juhos wishes to maintain
that some special sacrosanctity attaches to propositions
which purport to be records of our immediate experiences,
I think that he is wrong. If I find the sentence " I feel
happy " written in my diary under the heading February3rd
I am not obliged to believe that I really did feel happy on
February 3rd, merely because the sentence has the same
form as that which I should utter if I felt happy now. I may
indeed believe it on the ground that I am not in the habit
of writing down false statements in my diary. But that is
a different matter.
ProfessorMoore has suggested to me that what some of
those who say that basic propositions are incorrigible may
have in mind is that we cannot be mistaken about them in
the way that we can be mistaken about other empirical
propositions.

If I say " I am in pain " or " this is red "

I may be lying, or I may be using words wrongly; that is,

I may be classifying as " pain " or as " red " something
* Vide Truth and Corrigibility,
t See his articles in Analysis, 2, 6, and Erkenntnis,4, 6, and 61.

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J.

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that would not normally be so classified. But I cannot be

mistaken in any other way. I cannot be mistaken in the
way that I can be mistaken if I take this red patch to be
the cover of a book. If this is a fact, it is not a fact about
human psychology. It is not just a merciful dispensation
of Providence that we are secured from errors of a certain
kind. It is, if anything, a fact about language.* If Moore
is right, it does not make sense to say " I doubt whether
this is red " or " I think that I am in pain but I may be
mistaken," unless it is merely meant that I am doubting
whether " pain " or " red " is the correct word to use.
I believe now that Moore is right on this point. But
whether it is a fact from which any important conclusions
follow I do not profess to know.
* Cf. John Wisdom, " Philosophical Perplexity," Proc. Arist. Soc., 1936-7,
p. 81.