CHAPTER X The Existence of Julius Caesar

My account of truth is purely¹ logical and relates to its definition only. I contend that you cannot tell what the WORD ‘true’ MEANS, as applied² to a statement, without invoking³ the CONCEPT OF THE STATEMENTS WORKINGS.

Assume, to fix our ideas, a universe composed of two things only: imperial Caesar dead and turned to clay, and me, saying ‘Caesar really existed.’ Most persons would naively⁴ deem truth to be thereby⁵ uttered, and say that by a sort of actio in distans my statement had taken direct hold of the other fact.

But have my words so certainly denoted THAT Caesar? — or so certainly connoted HIS individual attributes? To fill out the complete measure of what the epithet⁶ ‘true’ may ideally mean, my thought ought to bear a fully⁷ determinate and unambiguous ‘one-to-one-relation’ to its own particular object. In the ultrasimple universe imagined the reference is uncertified. Were there two Caesars we shouldn’t know which was meant. The conditions of truth thus seem incomplete in this universe of discourse⁸ so that it must be enlarged.

Transcendentalists enlarge it by invoking an absolute mind which, as it owns all the facts, can sovereignly correlate them. If it intends that my statement SHALL refer to that identical Caesar, and that the attributes I have in mind SHALL mean his attributes, that intention suffices to make the statement true.

I, in turn, enlarge the universe by admitting finite intermediaries between the two original facts. Caesar HAD, and my statement HAS, effects; and if these effects in any way run together, a concrete medium and bottom is provided for the determinate cognitive⁹ relation, which, as a pure ACTIO IN DISTANS, seemed to float too vaguely¹⁰ and unintelligibly¹¹.

The real Caesar, for example, wrote a manuscript of which I see a real reprint, and say ‘the Caesar I mean is the author of THAT.’ The workings of my thought thus determine both its denotative and its connotative significance more fully. It now defines itself as neither irrelevant¹² to the real Caesar, nor false in what it suggests of him. The absolute mind, seeing me thus working towards Caesar through the cosmic intermediaries, might well say: ‘Such workings only specify¹³ in detail what I meant myself by the statement being true. I decree the cognitive relation between the two original facts to mean that just that kind of concrete chain of intermediaries exists or can exist.’

But the chain involves facts prior to the statement the logical conditions of whose truth we are defining, and facts subsequent to it; and this circumstance, coupled with the vulgar employment of the terms truth and fact as synonyms¹⁴, has laid my account open to misapprehension. ‘How,’ it is confusedly asked, ‘can Caesar’s existence, a truth already 2000 years old, depend for its truth on anything about to happen now? How can my acknowledgment of it be made true by the acknowledgment’s own effects? The effects may indeed confirm my belief, but the belief was made true already by the fact that Caesar really did exist.’

Well, be it so, for if there were no Caesar, there could, of course, be no positive truth about him — but then distinguish between ‘true’ as being positively¹⁶ and completely so established, and ‘true’ as being so only ‘practically,’ elliptically, and by courtesy, in the sense of not being positively irrelevant or UNtrue. Remember also that Caesar’s having existed in fact may make a present statement false or irrelevant as well as it may make it true, and that in neither case does it itself have to alter. It being given, whether truth, untruth, or irrelevancy¹⁷ shall be also given depends on something coming from the statement itself. What pragmatism contends for is that you cannot adequately DEFINE the something if you leave the notion of the statement’s functional¹⁸ workings out of your account. Truth meaning agreement with reality, the mode of the agreeing is a practical problem which the subjective¹⁹ term of the relation alone can solve.

NOTE. This paper was originally followed by a couple of paragraphs meant to conciliate the intellectualist opposition²⁰. Since you love the word ‘true’ so, and since you despise so the concrete working of our ideas, I said, keep the word ‘truth’ for the saltatory and incomprehensible relation you care so much for, and I will say of thoughts that know their objects in an intelligible²¹ sense that they are ‘truthful.’

Like most offerings, this one has been spurned²², so I revoke²³ it, repenting²⁴ of my generosity²⁵. Professor Pratt, in his recent book, calls any objective state of FACTS ‘a truth,’ and uses the word ‘trueness’ in the sense of ‘truth’ as proposed by me. Mr. Hawtrey (see below, page 281) uses ‘correctness’ in the same sense. Apart from the general evil of ambiguous vocabularies, we may really forsake²⁶ all hope, if the term ‘truth’ is officially to lose its status as a property of our beliefs and opinions, and become recognized as a technical synonym¹⁵ for ‘fact.’

1 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

2 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

3 invoking   

v.援引( invoke的现在分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求

参考例句：

• You can customise the behavior of the Asynchronous Server and hence re-brand it by defining your own command set for invoking services. 通过定义自己调用服务的命令集，您可以定制自定义异步服务器的行为，通过为调用服务定义自己的命令集从而对它重新标记。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• You can customize the behavior of the Asynchronous Server and hence re-brand it by defining your own command set for invoking services. 通过定义自己调用服务的命令集，您可以定制自定义异步服务器的行为，通过为调用服务定义自己的命令集从而对它重新标记。 来自辞典例句

4 naively   

adv. 天真地

参考例句：

• They naively assume things can only get better. 他们天真地以为情况只会变好。
• In short, Knox's proposal was ill conceived and naively made. 总而言之，诺克斯的建议考虑不周，显示幼稚。

5 thereby   

adv.因此，从而

参考例句：

• I have never been to that city,,ereby I don't know much about it.我从未去过那座城市，因此对它不怎么熟悉。
• He became a British citizen,thereby gaining the right to vote.他成了英国公民，因而得到了投票权。

6 epithet   

n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语

参考例句：

• In "Alfred the Great","the Great"is an epithet.“阿尔弗雷德大帝”中的“大帝”是个称号。
• It is an epithet that sums up my feelings.这是一个简洁地表达了我思想感情的形容词。

7 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

8 discourse   

n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述

参考例句：

• We'll discourse on the subject tonight.我们今晚要谈论这个问题。
• He fell into discourse with the customers who were drinking at the counter.他和站在柜台旁的酒客谈了起来。

9 cognitive   

adj.认知的，认识的，有感知的

参考例句：

• As children grow older,their cognitive processes become sharper.孩子们越长越大，他们的认知过程变得更为敏锐。
• The cognitive psychologist is like the tinker who wants to know how a clock works.认知心理学者倒很像一个需要通晓钟表如何运转的钟表修理匠。

10 vaguely   

adv.含糊地，暖昧地

参考例句：

• He had talked vaguely of going to work abroad.他含糊其词地说了到国外工作的事。
• He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes.他迷迷糊糊的望着前面，对一切都视而不见。

11 unintelligibly   

难以理解地

参考例句：

• The foreigners spoke unintelligibly. 那些外国人说的话令人无法听懂。

12 irrelevant   

adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的

参考例句：

• That is completely irrelevant to the subject under discussion.这跟讨论的主题完全不相关。
• A question about arithmetic is irrelevant in a music lesson.在音乐课上，一个数学的问题是风马牛不相及的。

13 specify   

vt.指定，详细说明

参考例句：

• We should specify a time and a place for the meeting.我们应指定会议的时间和地点。
• Please specify what you will do.请你详述一下你将做什么。

14 synonyms   

同义词( synonym的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• If you want to grasp English, you must carefully discriminate synonyms. 如果你想掌握好英语，你必须仔细区分同义词。
• Study the idioms and synonyms l wrote down before your test. 学考试前我给你写的习惯用语和同义字。

15 synonym   

n.同义词，换喻词

参考例句：

• Zhuge Liang is a synonym for wisdom in folklore.诸葛亮在民间传说中成了智慧的代名词。
• The term 'industrial democracy' is often used as a synonym for worker participation. “工业民主”这个词常被用作“工人参与”的同义词。

16 positively   

adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实

参考例句：

• She was positively glowing with happiness.她满脸幸福。
• The weather was positively poisonous.这天气着实讨厌。

17 irrelevancy   

n.不恰当，离题，不相干的事物

参考例句：

18 functional   

adj.为实用而设计的，具备功能的，起作用的

参考例句：

• The telephone was out of order,but is functional now.电话刚才坏了，但现在可以用了。
• The furniture is not fancy,just functional.这些家具不是摆着好看的，只是为了实用。

19 subjective   

a.主观(上)的，个人的

参考例句：

• The way they interpreted their past was highly subjective. 他们解释其过去的方式太主观。
• A literary critic should not be too subjective in his approach. 文学评论家的看法不应太主观。

20 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

21 intelligible   

adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的

参考例句：

• This report would be intelligible only to an expert in computing.只有计算机运算专家才能看懂这份报告。
• His argument was barely intelligible.他的论点不易理解。

22 spurned   

v.一脚踢开，拒绝接受( spurn的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Eve spurned Mark's invitation. 伊夫一口回绝了马克的邀请。
• With Mrs. Reed, I remember my best was always spurned with scorn. 对里德太太呢，我记得我的最大努力总是遭到唾弃。 来自辞典例句

23 revoke   

v.废除，取消，撤回

参考例句：

• The university may revoke my diploma.大学可能吊销我的毕业证书。
• The government revoked her husband's license to operate migrant labor crews.政府撤销了她丈夫管理外来打工人群的许可证。

24 repenting   

对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He was repenting rapidly. 他很快就后悔了。
• Repenting of his crime the thief returned the jewels and confessed to the police. 那贼对自己的罪行痛悔不已；归还了珠宝并向警方坦白。

25 generosity   

n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为

参考例句：

• We should match their generosity with our own.我们应该像他们一样慷慨大方。
• We adore them for their generosity.我们钦佩他们的慷慨。

26 forsake   

vt.遗弃，抛弃；舍弃，放弃

参考例句：

• She pleaded with her husband not to forsake her.她恳求丈夫不要抛弃她。
• You must forsake your bad habits.你必须革除你的坏习惯。