38 THEORIES AND THINGS

to D-terms, are picture-carrying expressions. When

we describe an electrical discharge ("dis­
charge" is an M-term, too) in a gas as the
passage of a current, we are inviting ourselves
to picture something flowing of which incan­
descence, for instance, is an effect. The use of
M-terms in descriptions is the simplest case of
theory-involvement. By carrying a picture into
the description, an M-term is used both to
describe and to explain, though admittedly on
a low level. However tough-minded on� may
be as a physicist, I defy anyone to say, for
instance, "heat flow in a conductor" and mean
no more than "change in temperature differential
with time". M-terms of the sciences are clearly
a sub-class of metaphors. A metaphor can be
defined quite generally as an expression effect­
ively definable with reference to one paradigm
case, p.c. t, but not fully defined without refer­
ence to another paradigm case p.c.to, where to
is earlier than t.
Let the sense of an M-term be "S(M)" and
the sense of a D-term be "S (D) ". Then if
"p.c.p.n" represents some paradigm case pro­
cedure of definition
S(M) F (p . c.p . i , p.c.p . 2 • • • p .c.pn).
= ,

One way of characterizing a positivist or opera­

tionalist programme in physics is to say that
Principle P2 above lays down the rule that:
The sense of all expressi.ons used in phJ'Sics shall
he a function of their historically latest p . c.p.
 M O DELS TO MECHANISMS 39
That is, S (M) above shall be reduced to
F(p.c.p.n) .
For example, according to this principle the
word "current" is not to be understood as any­
thing other than a function of ammeters and
circuits. The metaphorical force it has from its
original use, the picture it carries of a moving
substance, is to be excluded from electro­
dynamics. Any question we might ask which
would logically follow only from the metaphor­
ical force of the term, would be illegitimate. So
we couldn't, for instance, ask what it is flows in
a wire, since "flows" is logically connected with
the metaphorical force of ''current" and not
with its operational definition in terms of am­
meters and circuits. By refusing to accept the
metaphorical force of a term as part of its
meaning we truncate its sense, and make it
into a D-term.
But this, being a singular procedure, defines
the sense of a D-term. It follows, then, that
doing science in the manner of P2 involves a
rule that descriptive terms are to be given sense
only by reference to one paradigm case, and
thus contain no depth of meaning. Only if this
truncation of sense were fully carried out would
a pure P2-theory be possible. But if it were
carried out the theory would become, on the
criterion we have derived from Campbell, use­
less. For it would lead nowhere. The fruitfulness
or possibility of leads from a theory is clearly a
function of all p.c.p. 's other than the historically