Any statement of fact is true or false in virtue of some existing state of affairs in the world. In many cases the truth-value of a statement is determined by appealing to the truth-values of certain other statements, but this process must terminate somewhere if the truth-value of any statement of fact is to be assessed at all. An epistemological view according to which the process of verification or falsification terminates with statements of a logically distinct kind is a view to the effect that there is a distinct class of basic statements. The principal questions that have been considered are (1) Is there such a class of statements? (2) If there is, what is the relation between these statements and certain nonverbal occurrences called experiences? (3) Are basic statements descriptions of the private experiences of the speaker or of publicly observable events? (4) Are these statements either incorrigible (that...