 This offers a distinctive method for becoming clear about the meaning of concepts and the hypotheses which contain them. We clarify a hypothesis by identifying the practical consequences we should expect if it is true. This raises some questions. First: what, exactly is the content of this maxim? What sort of thing does it recognize as a practical consequence? Second, what use does such a maxim have? Peirce’s first simple illustrative example urges that what we mean by calling something hard is that ‘it will not be scratched by many other substances.’ In this way, then, I can use the concept hard in certain contexts when I am wondering what to do, and absent such contexts, the concept is empty. The principle has something of a verificationist character: ‘our idea of anything is our idea of its sensible effects’ (EP1: 132). However the use of the phrase ‘practical consequences’ suggests that these are to be understood as having implications for what we will or should do. This is clear from Peirce’s later formulations, for example: