The case stands radically otherwise when it is seen that "mental" states and acts are organs of knowing things not directly but through the overt actions which they evoke and direct. For the consequences of these acts constitute the object said to be known jand these consequences are public and open. Doubt and skepticism attach only to the adequacy of the opera- tions used in achieving the issue which transforms aprob- lematic situation into asettled or resolved one. Instead of being impotent and paralyzing, they are opportunities for bettering concrete methods of inquiry.