Appearance and Reality

Abstract

The metaphysical position that 'things are but appearances' or, to put it differently, the position that there only appear to be things, seems to make an astonishing factual claim which, if true, exposes the world of supposedly solid, substantial things as being no more than an illusion of the senses. The present construction placed on the words 'things are but appearances' appeals to us because it takes into account the non-empirical procedure used in arriving at the proposition they express and seems to square the proposition with the procedure. The self-contradiction which the philosopher gives the impression of eliciting from the notion of a physical thing is allowed to count against the existence of things but is not allowed to count against the existence of appearances of there being things. It is a well-established fact that many people experience to a greater or lesser degree a 'turning away from reality'.

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