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be was no fact"-sentences which cannot logically be combined into one (II 182). Correction cannot be formulated without referring to the past believing. The present consciousness, which is belief in this being a rope is not disbelief in this snake, because for it there is no such thing even to disbelieve. The content this snake was true30 when the belief was there and is false in relation to the present belief (II 185). There is no awareness of the content this snake as having been false when believed. What was then taken as this snake was not false, and what is now taken as false is not this snake (II 187). Correction "is not disbelieving in a previously believed content but only disbelieving that the previous belief had a content at all" (II 188). This view of a contentless belief, he claims, although "perilously near an idealistic view according to which object is nothing but belief with its subjectivity alienated," is, strictly speaking, realistic (II 189). Now that I disbelieve, I cannot describe in objective terms what I then believed, but neither can I say that there was only the subjective fact of contentless belief (II 190). The content is neither fact nor nothing.32
The discussion of correction of error is strictly abstract, but its metaphysical application is obvious. Rope is Brahman, snake the physical world, correction moksha. Theoretical denial of the world. cannot be formulated in a single sentence because we cannot speak simultaneously from both points of view. Before moksha this world is experienced and believed. After moksha it is nothing. Perhaps we might, speaking figuratively, imagine Brahman as denying all possible worlds, but not this world (just as we might deny that there are any. snakes in the jungle, but not that the snake we mistook the rope for is there). In our present state of illusion, however, the world is fact. If I see a rope as a snake, I can say truly, "This is a snake," whereas it would be a lie to say, for example, "This is a scorpion" (and equally a lie to say, "This is a rope" as I might say to encourage a timid. companion). Likewise, the world is fact so long as we see it, and it is fallacious either to deny its events theoretically or reject its demands. practically on the ground of a hypothetical future enlightenment.
30 Note that he does not restrict the terms true and false to propositions. 31 This way of putting it is in the spirit of Jain logic, which however is not mentioned in this article.
32 "I believed in a content which was [!] not fact nor absolute nought" (II 190). I do not quite understand this, in view of the definition, reaffirmed in this article (II 186), of fact as what is believed.
