Abstract

The traditional view was that a concept must be immediate if anything is, i.e., it must be something possessed directly by my mind. To deny this seems to be saying "I think but I don't have ideas." This is of course what the proponents of the linguistic philosophy are in effect saying, and perhaps for them it is all right. Professor Price has argued ingeniously against the whole linguistic position: against the possibility of a purely linguistic solution to the problem. Yet whether we follow Price or the language philosophers we are forced into a rather puzzling situation. One likes to say that one has ideas, thoughts, concepts, but there is a serious question as to whether we can ever actually cognize such entities. Indeed Price introspects and does not find them. Most of us--including our linguistic colleagues--would be quick to agree. A thought cannot be introspected like an image. There just does not seem to be anything there. As thinkers of thoughts, we are looking inward toward nothing; we are indeed living examples of "hollow men." So it is that we are faced with a dilemma. Either we say we think but do not really have ideas, or we must somehow show that such concepts are actually immediate after all. Neither alternative seems the least bit welcome. The latter seems utterly impossible.