The denial of the existence of a transcendent external world would be just as much a metaphysical statement as its affirmation. Hence the consistent empiricist does not deny the transcendent world, but shows that both its denial and affirmation are meaningless.

This last distinction is of the greatest importance. I am convinced that the chief opposition to our view derives from the fact that the distinction between the falsity and the meaninglessness of a proposition is not observed. The proposition ‘Discourse concerning a metaphysical external world is meaningless’ does not say: ‘There is no external world,’ but something altogether different. The empiricist does not say to the metaphysician ‘what you say is false,’ but ‘what you say asserts nothing at all!’ He does not contradict him, but says ‘I don’t understand you.’