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The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language
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About the author
Rudolf Carnap
131Ìýbooks104ÌýfollowersRudolf Carnap, a German-born philosopher and naturalized U.S. citizen, was a leading exponent of logical positivism and was one of the major philosophers of the twentieth century. He made significant contributions to philosophy of science, philosophy of language, the theory of probability, inductive logic and modal logic. He rejected metaphysics as meaningless because metaphysical statements cannot be proved or disproved by experience. He asserted that many philosophical problems are indeed pseudo-problems, the outcome of a misuse of language.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 24, 2020
Rudolf Carnap, in this paper, uses SO MANY words to just say --- any engagement with any metaphysical questions is sterile, since they transcend the realm of empirical sciences and are therefore meaningless; meaningless of course in the most literal sense of the word. He concludes that metaphysics is art or maybe literature, but not theory. The difference between metaphysics and logic is that of attitude and theory (more on that later). The purpose here is to cleanse philosophy of the metaphysical trash-can, which has come to dominate it and therefore lead it astray from its original path.
Carnap was a prominent member of the (in)famous Vienna Circle, and a staunch advocate of logical positivism or logical empiricism. In this paper, as the title suggests, he sought to eliminate metaphysics itself by the method of logical analysis of language. He lists out four criteria for any sentence to be meaningful, which he also called the ‘relations of deducibility�, or the criterion of application, namely:
(a) Elementary premises must be laid out clearly.
(b) Empirical criteria for the statement must be known.
(c) Fixed truth-condition, i.e., the propositions must either be true or false, not both at the same time.
(d) Known verification method.
According to Carnap, words must strictly adhere to the basic logical rules for them to be meaningful; no meaning is acquired based on just psychological associations of word with images and feelings. So now if we analyse the concept of God, it does not even meet the first or the second requirement of logic, i.e., it cannot be described through an elementary premise � “x is a god.� This holds true for every other metaphysical statement. Now here Carnap also warns against depending upon the grammatical syntax for the sentence to be meaningful. Grammar does not implicate logic. Pseudo-statements (statements that might make sense grammatically but not logically) can easily arise without violating the grammatical sanctity of a language, for eg, ‘Caesar is a prime number.�
Underlying this warning is an ambitious project to build a language from scratch, with an implicit logical as well as grammatical syntax, in such a way that metaphysics could not even be expressed through it.
Metaphysics is not merely “speculation� or “fairy tales.� The statements of a fairy tale do not conflict with logic, but only with experience; they are perfectly meaningful although false. Nor can it be acceptable as “working hypotheses;� for a hypothesis must be capable of entering into relations of deducibility with empirical sentences.
This makes me wonder that perhaps it is not that metaphysics is devoid of any content, but that it is just beyond the scope of the verbal. But then again, it probably does not matter since we can only make sense of the world through language, and it is in language that metaphysics is rendered meaningless. Another reason which I think disables us from being able to comprehend lofty metaphysical systems is because they are so meaningless and empty that human brain cannot comprehend it.
According to this analysis, even ethics and aesthetics are meaningless due to them not being empirically verifiable. Metaphysics does not want to assert analytical or tautological propositions nor to fall within the domain of empirical sciences.
What then, one might ask, is left over for philosophy if all statements that are meaningful belong to factual science? Carnap is advocating for a “scientific philosophy�, where what will remain is not a theory or system but only a method: the logical analysis; laying logical foundations for science and mathematics.
Like I mentioned in the beginning the difference between metaphysics and logic, the former pretends to be something it is not: theory. It cannot be one since it logically has no content and, therefore, cannot describe the state of affairs. Carnap sees metaphysicians and poets in the same light, both choose language as a medium of expression; the only difference is that the former is deluded about this while the latter is not. The poet knows they are in the domain of art and not theory, unlike the metaphysician.
The conjecture that metaphysics is a substitute, though an inadequate one, for art seems to be further confirmed by the fact that the metaphysician who perhaps had the most supreme artistic talent, viz. Nietzsche, almost entirely avoided the confusion between it being a theory or an expression of attitude. His greatest book, Thus Spake Zarathustra, is the testimony to the fact that to express most strongly what others express through metaphysics or ethics, he did not choose theoretical form but art, and poetry.
One beautiful passage towards the end struck me in particular:
“The harmonious feeling or attitude, which the metaphysician tries to express in a monistic system, is more clearly expressed in the music of Mozart. And when a metaphysician gives verbal expression to his dualistic-heroic attitude towards life in a dualistic system, is it not perhaps because he lacks the ability of a Beethoven to express this attitude in an adequate medium? Metaphysicians are musicians without musical ability.�
I started reading this with a very biased mind, because I don’t necessarily agree with everything that the logical positivists say. I see the credibility of his arguments intellectually, but my biggest bone of contention was the absolute elimination of metaphysics, for even if it is empty logically, it is still highly emotively charged and is imperative for maintaining a proper psychic health. Carnap by moving it to the realm of art and literature admits that though it may not belong to the realm of philosophy, it still remains highly important, if only meta-physicians would stop hanging in the balance between philosophy and literature. The argument was eloquently put, but the doubt in my mind remains� Does not everything come down to how one actually defines philosophy? Some might define it as that which helps people live their life more holistically and easily, some may be rigorously scientific like we just saw.
But oh, what do I know! I am just a nineteen year old try-hard.
Carnap was a prominent member of the (in)famous Vienna Circle, and a staunch advocate of logical positivism or logical empiricism. In this paper, as the title suggests, he sought to eliminate metaphysics itself by the method of logical analysis of language. He lists out four criteria for any sentence to be meaningful, which he also called the ‘relations of deducibility�, or the criterion of application, namely:
(a) Elementary premises must be laid out clearly.
(b) Empirical criteria for the statement must be known.
(c) Fixed truth-condition, i.e., the propositions must either be true or false, not both at the same time.
(d) Known verification method.
According to Carnap, words must strictly adhere to the basic logical rules for them to be meaningful; no meaning is acquired based on just psychological associations of word with images and feelings. So now if we analyse the concept of God, it does not even meet the first or the second requirement of logic, i.e., it cannot be described through an elementary premise � “x is a god.� This holds true for every other metaphysical statement. Now here Carnap also warns against depending upon the grammatical syntax for the sentence to be meaningful. Grammar does not implicate logic. Pseudo-statements (statements that might make sense grammatically but not logically) can easily arise without violating the grammatical sanctity of a language, for eg, ‘Caesar is a prime number.�
Underlying this warning is an ambitious project to build a language from scratch, with an implicit logical as well as grammatical syntax, in such a way that metaphysics could not even be expressed through it.
Metaphysics is not merely “speculation� or “fairy tales.� The statements of a fairy tale do not conflict with logic, but only with experience; they are perfectly meaningful although false. Nor can it be acceptable as “working hypotheses;� for a hypothesis must be capable of entering into relations of deducibility with empirical sentences.
This makes me wonder that perhaps it is not that metaphysics is devoid of any content, but that it is just beyond the scope of the verbal. But then again, it probably does not matter since we can only make sense of the world through language, and it is in language that metaphysics is rendered meaningless. Another reason which I think disables us from being able to comprehend lofty metaphysical systems is because they are so meaningless and empty that human brain cannot comprehend it.
According to this analysis, even ethics and aesthetics are meaningless due to them not being empirically verifiable. Metaphysics does not want to assert analytical or tautological propositions nor to fall within the domain of empirical sciences.
What then, one might ask, is left over for philosophy if all statements that are meaningful belong to factual science? Carnap is advocating for a “scientific philosophy�, where what will remain is not a theory or system but only a method: the logical analysis; laying logical foundations for science and mathematics.
Like I mentioned in the beginning the difference between metaphysics and logic, the former pretends to be something it is not: theory. It cannot be one since it logically has no content and, therefore, cannot describe the state of affairs. Carnap sees metaphysicians and poets in the same light, both choose language as a medium of expression; the only difference is that the former is deluded about this while the latter is not. The poet knows they are in the domain of art and not theory, unlike the metaphysician.
The conjecture that metaphysics is a substitute, though an inadequate one, for art seems to be further confirmed by the fact that the metaphysician who perhaps had the most supreme artistic talent, viz. Nietzsche, almost entirely avoided the confusion between it being a theory or an expression of attitude. His greatest book, Thus Spake Zarathustra, is the testimony to the fact that to express most strongly what others express through metaphysics or ethics, he did not choose theoretical form but art, and poetry.
One beautiful passage towards the end struck me in particular:
“The harmonious feeling or attitude, which the metaphysician tries to express in a monistic system, is more clearly expressed in the music of Mozart. And when a metaphysician gives verbal expression to his dualistic-heroic attitude towards life in a dualistic system, is it not perhaps because he lacks the ability of a Beethoven to express this attitude in an adequate medium? Metaphysicians are musicians without musical ability.�
I started reading this with a very biased mind, because I don’t necessarily agree with everything that the logical positivists say. I see the credibility of his arguments intellectually, but my biggest bone of contention was the absolute elimination of metaphysics, for even if it is empty logically, it is still highly emotively charged and is imperative for maintaining a proper psychic health. Carnap by moving it to the realm of art and literature admits that though it may not belong to the realm of philosophy, it still remains highly important, if only meta-physicians would stop hanging in the balance between philosophy and literature. The argument was eloquently put, but the doubt in my mind remains� Does not everything come down to how one actually defines philosophy? Some might define it as that which helps people live their life more holistically and easily, some may be rigorously scientific like we just saw.
But oh, what do I know! I am just a nineteen year old try-hard.
January 22, 2020
Se você buscar estudar filosofia analÃtica, se prepare, esse texto vai aparecer muitas vezes. Chorei, mas Quine me consolou por um tempo.
September 6, 2024
I read the core crux of this argument and the sad truth is that the guy didn't understand what he was reading and then considered that a flaw in the argument. It was so easy to puzzle out the conflations of what he can register as meaning from what actually registers as meaning. He clearly just didn't understand it.
February 24, 2023
Very tricky, but alas, not clever enough. Carnap's fetish with First Order Predicate Calculus is blatant to the point of being laughably wrong, something that is especially apparent in his rejection of Descartes' Cogito. A valiant effort, to be sure, but it is nothing except Hume dressed in the clothes of 20th-century Logic. Still, a worthwhile read, I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in 20th-century logic and Logical Empiricism. Next, Quine.
3/5
3/5
July 2, 2024
these were definitely words
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