[T]he subject-matter of metaphysics has not disappeared; the disesteem has attached to the investigation without being destructive

of its object. It is still a wide-spread and importat, though largely une pressed and une amined, assumption that there is an objective common nature to all cases of !nowledge and also to all e istents. "et us not the importance of this assumption for action. If, per contra, the nature of e istence were ta!en to be wholly different in various concrete situations, action would itself be stultified. #uppose, when a child writes to #anta $laus, a worshipper prays to %od, a premier of a &emocracy has faith in the honesty of dictator, a physicist believs in a certain structure of the hydrogen atom, suppose, I say that the beliefs in the e istence of these objects include no common factor of e istence. 'ore concretely, suppose that for #anta $laus to e ist means (to have been a popular myth,) for %od to e ist means (to get what you pray for,) for the dictator*s hones intentions to e ist means (that the dictator asseverate his honesty,) for an atomic structure to e ist means, (to be able to write certain symbols in a pretty pattern.) I submit that if the believers in the entities enumerated held such a view of e istence they probably would not write painsta!ing letters to #anta $laus, utter devout prayers to %od, enter pledges with dictators, nor construct cyclotrons to brea! up atoms. +ow if it be said that my choice of what e istence means in these different instances is ,uite arbitrary, I gladly ac,uiesce. -ut how are we to determine the supposedly radically different meanings of e istence in different situations. "et the conte t determine, we may be told. -ut this does not help unless we suppose /determination of the meaning of e istence by the conte t* is itself independent of conte t in the sense that it is the same for all conte ts, no matter how different. 0nd why should we accept a common meaning to this but reject any common meaning to /e istence*. There are, perhaps, two important supposedly common meanings to /determination of the meaning of e istence by the conte t*1 234 /e istence* in any conte t means having an effect upon action in that conte t; 254 /e istence* in any conte t means whatever is referred to, in that conte t, by /e ist; or any accepted synonym. "et us note two things here. 6irst, that each of these is a common, general meaning of /e istence,* however much, in further respects, the meaning of /e istence* may vary from situation to situation. 6urthermore, each of these views of the common nature of e istence would be stultifying to action. If we convinced the child writing to #anta $laus that the meaning of #anta $laus* /e istence* in that situation 2in accordance with 234 above4 was simply that the child was writing to him, rather than, say, begging for a $hristmas gift from his parents, would not the probable effect be that the child would cease writing to him. 0nd again, would even a gullible premier e change pledges with a dictator if he were convinced that the /e istence of the dictator*s hones intensions* meant 2in accordance with 254 above4 simply the the premier, and perhaps the dictator, referred to those intentions as e istent. 7e act, I contend, as though there were some common nature to e istence in the entities our action supposes e istent 2as the common belief, that we would act differently if what we ta!e to e ist were ta!en not to e ist, indicates4. 6urther, this common nature to e istence is ta!en, in our action, as objective to our action 2including our language habits4 in the sense that it is not constituted by or reducible to that action or a phase thereof. In the second place, that there is an objective common nature to e istence 2and to !nowledge4 is an important assumption for theory also. 8very science ta!es great pains to try to determine whether certain hypothetical entities do objectively e ist. The enormous amount of time, energy, and money spent in trying to determine the e istence of such entities as phlogiston, electrons, entelechies, genes, ether, synaptic traces, etc., indicates this. 0nd the fact that much of

this determination is indirect, by chec!ing the conse,uences of the assumption of the e istence of such entities, rather than by direct perceptual e perience of the entities themselves, that the scientist himself may not be able to give a clear definition of what he means by e istence, nor even be able to discriminate e actly between those symbols in his writings indicative of e istent entities and those adopted merely for calculative efficiency, all of these admissions fail to overthrow the contention that the sciences are concerned with ,uestions as to what e ists. 6urthermore, the sciences assume a common meaning to this objective e istence they investigate. This is indicated by the fact that every special science accepts a great deal as e istent on the authority of other special sciences. The physicist*s rejection of phlogiston, as non-e istent, is ta!en over by the physiologies; he see!s no heat fluid in warm-blooded animals. 9ather he sees in o idation, a process accepted from chemistry, the basis of warmth in animal life. The relations between the special sciences are very comple . I simply urge that their cooperativeness re,uires the tacit assumption of a common significance to their acceptance and rejection of proposed entities. -ut the presence of a legitimate subject-matter alone does not constitute an intellectual discipline. It might be 2in fact, tacitly often is4 held that there is an objective common nature to e istence and !nowledge, but that what it is is so evident that any in,uiry into it is a waste of time, worse, is distinctly pernicious, for the human intellect is active and where not occupied with real problems will create pseudo-problems. 'etaphysics is, in fact, just such a pernicious creation of pseudo-problems. If, however, the general nature of e istence and !nowledge were so evident, what are they1 why are they not easily formulated in a generally acceptable fashion. The persistence down through the history of metaphysics of a few major trends of thought ought to ma!e one suspect the easy assumption that metaphysical problems are pseudo-problems created in a sphere where all is crystal-clear. 0lso, it seems rather odd that the common man and the scientist, when they ta!e time to comprehend metaphysical issues, themselves almost always end by ta!ing sides in those issues. This of course may be due not to the fact that metaphysics unearths real difficulties, but simply that it has got hold of some potent magic for luring even good minds into its ma:es of unreality once they come under its spell. -ut what then of those who induce this spell upon themselves, launching, with little or no !nowledge of the history of metaphysics, straight into metaphysical controversy from the more general issues of their own sciences. ;ow account for <earson*s positivism, <avlov*s materialism, 8ddington*s spiritualism, <lanc!*s realism. If it be admitted that all this is no mere historical accident and yet that the common nature of e istence and !nowledge, so manifest to the unin,uiring mind, becomes befogged, complicated, full of difficulties when investigated, then we can properly answer with our suspicions. <roblems and difficulties only arise to an in,uiring mind, but that in no sense proves they are created by in,uiry.