You learn in my business there aren't any rules, whether in corporate or child custody cases, divorce or alimony cases; 

you are dealing with infinitely variable factors - the human heart and mind. My role is not to have a formula, and 

not to take one single thing for granted. It is my business to know what other people do not know...

 

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times; albeit, to a great mind nothing is little, and the humbler 

of our private detective / private investigator clients are usually the more interesting. Characterizing sought-after 

information as elementary does not, of course, imply that it is easy to get or even that it is a simple matter.

 

 

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Is there an unquestionable Logic, an absolute Evidence or a perfect Truth? The estimation of a theory is not simply 

determined by its truth. It also depends upon the importance of its subject, and the extent of its applications; beyond 

which something must still be left to the arbitrariness of human opinion.

 

In one respect, the science of logics differs from all others; the perfection of its method is chiefly valuable as an 

evidence of the speculative truth of its principles. To supersede the employment of common reason, or to subject it to 

the rigour of technical forms, would be the last desire of one who knows the value of that intellectual toil and warfare which

 imparts to the mind an athletic vigour, and teaches it to contend with difficulties and to rely upon itself in emergencies.

 

That which renders logic possible, is the existence in our minds of general notions, - our ability to conceive of a

class, and to designate its individual members by a common name. The theory of logic is thus intimately connected

with that of  language. A successful attempt to express logical propositions by symbols, the laws of whose combinations 

should be founded upon the laws of the mental processes which they represent, would, so far, be a step towards a 

philosophical language.

 

Regarding logic as a branch of philosophy, and defining philosophy as the “science of a real existence,” and “the research 

of causes,” and assigning as its main business the investigation of the “why,” while mathematics display only the “that,” 

we contend, not simply, that the superiority rests with the study of logic.

 

The pursuits of the mathematician, or the technician, “have not only not trained him to that acute scent,” to that 

delicate, almost instinctive, tact which, in the twilight of probability, the search and discrimination of its finer facts demand; 

they have gone to cloud his vision, to indurate his touch, to all but the blazing light, the iron chain of demonstration, and 

left him out of the narrow confines of his science, to a passive credulity in any premises, or to an absolute incredulity in all.

 

It is an important observation, which has more than once been made, that it is one thing to arrive att correct premises, 

and another thing to deduce logical conclusions, and that the business of life depends more upon the former than upon the 

latter. The study of the exact sciences may teach us the one, and it may give us some general preparation of knowledge 

and of practice for the attainment of the other, but it is to the union of thought with action, in the field of Practical Logic, 

the arena of Human Life, that we are to look for its fuller and more perfect accomplishment.

 

If we want to study the problems of truth and falsehood, of the agreement and disagreement of propositions with reality, of 

the nature of assertion, assumption and question, we shall with great advantage look at primitive forms of language in 

which these forms of thinking appear without confusing background of highly complicated processes of thought.

 

When we look at such simple forms of language, the mental mist which seems to enshroud our ordinary use of language 

disappears. We see activities, reactions, which are clear-cut and transparent. On the other hand we recognize in these 

simple processes forms of language not separated by a break from our more complicated ones. We see that we can build 

up the complicated forms from the primitive ones by gradually adding new forms.

 

Whether e g “Brick” means the same in the primitive language as it does in ours; this goes with our contention that 

the simpler language is not therefore an incomplete form of the more complicated one. We make it plain that words 

have the meanings we give them, and that it would be a confusion to think of an investigation into their real meaning.

 

If you have not distinguished between a language and a notation, you may hardly see any difference between following 

a language and following a notation. But in that case you may well be unclear about the difficulties in connection with 

the relation between language and logic. Much of all this can be answered by emphasizing that speaking and writing 

belong to intercourse with other people. The signs get their life there, and that is why the language is not just a mechanism.

 

What is the meaning of a word? Let us attack this question by asking, first, what is an explanation of the meaning of a 

word; what does the explanation of a word look like? The way this question helps us is analogous to the way the question 

“how do we measure a length?” helps us to understand “what is length?”

 

Asking first “What’s an explanation of meaning?” has two advantages. You in a sense bring the question “what is meaning?” 

down to earth. For, surely, to understand the meaning of “meaning” you ought also to understand the meaning of “

explanation of meaning”.

 

What one generally calls “explanations of the meaning of a word” can, very roughly, be divided into verbal and ostensive 

definitions. If the definition explains the meaning of a word, surely it can’t be essential that you should have heard the word 

before. It is the ostensive definition’s business to give it a meaning.

 

I point this out to remove, once and for all, the idea that the words of the ostensive definition predicate something of the 

defined; the confusion is grave between the sentence “this is red”, attributing the colour red to something, and the 

ostensive definition “this is called red”.

 

Giving a reason for something one did or said means showing a way which leads to this action. At this point, 

however, another confusion sets in, that between reason and cause. One is lead into this confusion by the ambiguous use 

of the word “why”. This when the chain of reasons has come to an end and still the question “why” is asked, one is inclined 

to give a cause instead of a reason.

 

The difference between the grammars of  “reason” and “cause” is quite similar to that between the grammars of 

“motive” and “cause”. Of the cause one can say that one can not know it but can only conjecture it. For a private 

detective / private investigator this is of vital importance de jure!

 

The double use of the word “why”, asking for the cause and asking for the motive, together with the idea that we can 

know, and not only conjecture, our motives, gives rise to the confusion that a motive is a cause of which we are immediately 

aware, a cause ‘seen from the inside’, or a cause experienced. Giving a reason is like giving a calculation by which you have 

arrived at a certain result.

 

Instead of “craving for legal generality” I could also have said “the contemptuous attitude towards the particular case”. 

If, e g, someone tries to explain the concept of number and tells us that such and such a definition will not do or is clumsy 

because it only applies to, say, finite cardinals I should answer that the mere fact that he could have given such a limited 

definition, of for example a crime sequence, makes this definition extremely important to us. (Elegance is not what we are 

trying for as truth seekers.)

 

Philosophy, as we use the word, is a fight against the fascination which forms of expression exert upon us. Many questions 

can be raised. Sokrates asked: “What is knowledge?” Saint Augustine asked: “What is time?” –“How can we hang a thief who 

does not exist?” One answer to the latter can, by a private detective – private investigator, be put in this form: “We can not 

hang him when he does not exist, but we can look for him when he does not exist.”

 

Our investigative method is purely descriptive; the descriptions we give are not hints of explanations. Think of words as 

instruments characterized by their use [...] “It is no act of insight which makes us use the rule-s as we do,” because there is 

an idea that ‘something must make us’ do what we do. And this again joins on to the confusion between cause and reason. 

We need have no reason to follow the rules as we do. The chain of reasons has an end.

 

Many pundits will say, no doubt, please use the language of the law, that “to make out your case”. This may be the practice in 

law, but it is not the usage of reason. My ultimate object is only the truth. Reason feels its way, in its search for the true.

 

Many find it sagacious to echo the small talk of lawyers, who, for the most part, content themselves with echoing the 

rectangular precepts of the courts. I would here observe that very much of what is rejected as evidence by a court is the best 

evidence to the intellect. For the court, guided itself by the general principles of evidence – the recognised and booked 

principles – is averse from swerving at particular instances.

 

You can be too profound. Truth is not always in a well. In fact, as regards the more important knowledge, I do believe 

that she is invariably superficial. The depth lies in the valleys where we seek the truth, and not upon the mountain-tops 

where the truth is found.

 

Investigating serious crime and fraud globally, I can not abstain from reflecting over that a man is not what he does so much 

as what he is allowed to do; otherwise what would each of us not do to change the world and our lives...

 

The future will tell us what to do; more than ever we live for the moment, and no amount of looking back or forward 

offers any explanation or guide, only a wall of impenetrable darkness.

 

(There are excerpts from Tractatus Logico-philosophicus herein.)

 

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