A CATECHISM CONCERNING TRUTH 163 



where we have to proceed as if the pragmatic 

 theory were the right one. (iii) If he admits 

 that the pragmatic theory of verification is true, 

 what meaning remains to the statement that the 

 idea had the truth property in advance? Why, 

 simply that it had the property of ability to work 

 an ability revealed by its actual working. How 

 can a given fact be an objection to the pragmatic 

 theory when that fact has a definitely assignable 

 meaning on the pragmatic theory, while upon the 

 anti-pragmatic theory it just has to be accepted 

 as an ultimate, unanalyzable fact? 



As to your remark about verification being 

 merely psychological, I have something to say. 

 Colleagues of mine are steadily at work in various 

 laboratories on various researches, forming 

 hypotheses, experimenting, testing, corroborating, 

 refuting, modifying ideas. One of them, for ex 

 ample, recently put an immense pendulum in place 

 in order to repeat and test Foucault s experiment 

 with reference to the earth s rotation. Do you re 

 gard such verification processes as merely psycho 

 logical? 



Pupil. I don t know. Why do you ask? 



Teacher. Because if the objector means that 

 such experimental provings are merely psycholog 

 ical, he has of course relegated to the merely psy 

 chological (wherever that may be) all the tech 

 nique of all the physical sciences a rather high 



