114 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 



Among universals I jnchide all objects of which no par- 

 IP ticular is a constituent. Thus the disjunction &quot; universal- 

 particular &quot; includes all objects. We might also call it the 

 disjunction &quot; abstract-concrete.&quot; It is not quite parallel 

 with the opposition &quot; concept-percept,&quot; because things 

 remembered or imagined belong with particulars, but can 

 hardly be called percepts. (On the other hand, universals 

 with which we are acquainted may be identified with 

 concepts.)JU^ 



It__will be seen that among the objects with which we 



are acquainted are not included physical objects (as 



opposed to sense-data), nortrther people s minds. These 



things are known to us by what I call &quot; knowledge by 



/^description fl^hich we must now consider. 



By a &quot; description &quot; I mean any phrase of the form &quot;a 

 so-and-so &quot; or &quot; the so-and-so.&quot; A phrase of the form 

 ^j^feo-and^sp &quot; I shall call an &quot; ambiguous &quot; description ; 



a phrase of the form &quot; the so-and-so &quot; (in the singular) I 



^jO 



shall call a &quot;definite &quot; description, yfih us &quot;a man &quot; is 

 an ambiguous description, and &quot; the man with the iron 

 mask &quot; is a definite description./ There are various 

 problems connected with ambiguous descriptions, but I 

 pass them by, since they do not directly concern the matter 

 I wish to discuss. What I wish tojiiscuss is the nature of 

 our knowledge concerning objects in cases where we know 

 that there is an object answering to a definite description, 



with any such object. This 



is a matter which is concerned exclusively with definite 

 descriptions. I shall, therefore, in the sequel, speak 

 simply of &quot; descriptions &quot; when I mean &quot; definite descrip 

 tions.&quot; Thus a description will mean any phrase of the 

 form ^jthe so-and-so &quot; in the singular, v 



I shall say that an object is &quot; known by description &quot; 

 when we know that it is &quot; the so-and-so,&quot; i.e. when we 



