现代的趋势一直是放弃那从未适当规定的感觉材料的概念,而回到常识的素朴实在论去。我不想对这些敌对的理论有所裁决,也不想对它们提出一种代替物。我要提请注意的问题是:它们不是科学意义上的理论。它们是不能用观察检验的。由此产生了一个重要的问题:这种哲学争论并不是有关事实的争论,至少不是在坦坦白白的意义上的争论。它们毋宁是有关事实被分类的方式的争论,因此,也可以说是有关构成一个事实的东西的性质争论。对于世界不依赖于我们对它的思考和谈论而存在这一点,尽管我没有什么异议,但是我们所感知的这个世界,总有一部分是我们描述系统的一种作用。我以为对知觉材料提出一种中立的描述,亦即提出一种对被感知的东西的地位不作任何约束的描述是可能的。把哲学说成是对语言的一种探究,近来已成为风尚。据说,哲学家正在做的或者总是应当做的就是去探讨词的用法。在一定意义上这是对的,但也会引起误解。我们有时说到某一问题是纯言语性时,意思是说它微不足道;有人错误地认为哲学问题作为言语性问题来表述,指的也是这个意思。但是,有一部分应当由哲学家自己负责,因为他们对估计他们探究的影响过于谦逊了。哲学中的语言运动的伟大功绩之一是它把注意力集中于语言本身的问题。我并不以为我们目前就已经有了一种满意的语言理论,但我们正在循此前进。 The modern trend has always been to abandon the notion of sensual material that has never been properly codified, and to return to the naive realism of common sense. I do not want to rule on these hostile theories, nor do I want to propose a substitute for them. The point I should draw attention to is that they are not theories in the scientific sense. They can not be tested by observation. This raises an important question: this kind of philosophical debate is not a debate about facts, at least not in the contentious terms of confession. They are rather debates about the way in which facts are classified and can therefore also be argued as a matter of nature about what constitutes a fact. The world does not depend on what we think and talk about it, and although I have no objections, there is always a part of the world we perceive as a function of our system. I thought that it was possible to propose a neutral description of the material of perception, that is, to make a description without any restriction on the status of what was perceived. To speak of philosophy as an inquiry into language has recently become fashionable. It is said that philosophers are doing or should always do is to explore the use of words. This is true in a sense, but it can also cause misunderstandings. When we say that a certain question is purely linguistic, we sometimes mean that it is insignificant. Some people mistakenly think that philosophical problems are expressed as verbal problems and refer to them as well. However, it is up to the philosophers themselves to be partly responsible because they are too modest to estimate the impact of their inquiry. One of the great achievements of the language movement in philosophy is that it focuses its attention on the language itself. I do not think that we have a satisfactory theory of language so far, but we are moving forward.