Carnap and the Meaninglessness of Metaphysics

Marchesk

Rudolf Carnap wrote several papers in which he argued along a similar vein of Hume and Wittgenstein that ontological questions are devoid of meaning. This is because in his view, questions of fact only have meaning inside the framework the terms of the question originated. So it's perfectly reasonable to ask whether real numbers exist in mathematics, but it's meaningless to ask if they exist in the world, since the world is external to the framework of math. He also argued that questions of existence regarding the world must be empirically verifiable to be meaningful, with logic providing the tools for analyzing meaning.

I have always found such arguments to be prima facie absurd when applied to all metaphysical questions. So let's see if Carnap's critique can hold up to a few examples that come to mind.

1. Say you're a kid and you start reading stories about dragons such as Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, and Lord of The Rings. You become obsessed with dragons. You ask someone older if dragons exist. On the internal framework of the stories, dragons do indeed exist. Aliens don't exist, but dragons do.

What about the external question? Is it meaningful to ask whether dragons exist in the real world? Yes of course, and everyone will say they don't exist.

2. Astronomers tell us that the universe is bigger than the observable universe, which is determined by our light cone. We can ask whether an alien civilization lives outside our light cone in the larger universe. Is this a meaningful question? We have no means of verifying the answer. But why would the meaningfulness of this question change just because it refers to life beyond our light cone? What if the aliens (potentially) came into view, would that make it all of a sudden meaningful? Of course not, not unless we want to disagree with astronomers about inferring a larger universe.

3. Does the world have a causal structure? Hume noted that we don't observe causality, and it's not dictated by logic. Can we make sense of this question? Well, causality means that one thing or event, call it A, necessarily determines the occurrence of another thing or event, call it B. By necessarily, it means B cannot fail to happen if A (excluding other causes at play).

How do we distinguish this from an alternative view where there is no causal structure to the world? The regularity view is that B just happens to follow A for no reason, and as such, B might not follow A tomorrow. This is a meaningful distinction.

4. Can the world of appearance be an illusion? The Matrix shows us how this could meaningfully be so, but we already had Plato's cave, Descartes' demon, and BIVs. We also have stories with protagonists being inside a dream or a mental institution the entire time. So yes, quite clearly the question is meaningful. The world we experience can be an illusion under certain scenarios, and the ancient skeptics showed us how it's possible to doubt the empirical world. This is probably what gave rise to many different metaphysical questions, which is the appearance/reality distinction people in ancient India, China and Greece noted.

I submit that we can make sense of many ontological questions, such that they can be meaningfully debated. Universals, consciousness, whether the wave-function or collapse are real, idealism, etc are all meaningful, whatever position one takes when arguing for or against their existence. Some questions might be diffused by Carnap's attack, but not most of the ones which have survived the gauntlet of hundreds of years of philosophical inquiry.

Snakes Alive

I submit that we can make sense of many ontological questions, such that they can be meaningfully debated. — Marchesk

I'm a positivist at heart, but it seems fine to pick and choose here. Whether consciousness exists seems to me a meaningful question, and the answer is obviously yes. Whether dragons exist likewise, and the answer is very probably no.

But as to the existence of universals, I can't make any sense of the question. When I exercise my powers as an English speaker, I don't know what's being asked. And since I know of no other criterion by which to make a question framed in English sensible, I conclude that it's nonsense.

andrewk

↪Marchesk

I think it helps to make a distinction between rational meaning and emotional meaning. I tend to agree with Carnap that questions of ontology have no rational meaning. They leave unanswerable questions like 'how would our experience of a world in which only matter exists differ from one in which only minds exist?' or 'how would my experience of a world in which only I exist differ from one in which other minds also exist?'

But those questions, especially the second one, are very emotionally meaningful to many people. The fact that something cannot be defined, proved or a test devised for it does not mean that one will not be emotionally attached to one belief or another about it.

That's one reason I like Hume. Some see him as arguing for something like logical positivism, because he demolishes popular arguments in favour of certain metaphysical positions. But I see him as upholding emotions by arguing that they are the only things that matter and that determine what we do. He frees us from the perceived need to rationally our justify dearly-held metaphysical commitments, by demonstrating that such rational justification is impossible. But I don't think he's telling us to discard the commitments.

Marchesk

But as to the existence of universals, I can't make any sense of the question — Snakes Alive

As I understand it, universals come about by observing two aspects of the world we perceive:

1. The distinctiveness of things, thus particulars.
2. The similarities between particulars allowing us to categorize the world.

The question that arise is by virtue of what do individual things have the same properties? Sharing a universal object that has those properties is one possible answer. The realists would say that is by universals that we're able to categorize the world. Apples all share the same apple universal, thus making them apples. Otherwise, how would we put a bunch of individuals into the apple category?

It is a problematic concept, and it's easy to think that our minds are creating those universal categories, as opposed to them existing in nature. But that still leaves the matter of similarity.

At any rate, this isn't an argument for universals, only that I think it's meaningful one. Can you explain how you can't make sense of it.

Marchesk

'how would our experience of a world in which only matter exists differ from one in which only minds exist?' or 'how would my experience of a world in which only I exist differ from one in which other minds also exist?' — andrewk

But only if you limit the discussion to your 'experience of'.

'I tend to agree with Carnap that questions of ontology have no rational meaning. — andrewk

I don't see how this is possible since many people have made rational arguments for various metaphysical positions.

But those questions, especially the second one, are very emotionally meaningful to many people. — andrewk

I'm not emotionally attached to every metaphysical argument, but I can make sense of some of the ones I don't particularly care about. It doesn't really matter to my life whether universals are real, but it's interesting to think about sometimes, just like it's interesting to wonder whether the laws of physics really 'break down' inside a black hole, which is just as meaningful, except for the difficult math.

Pseudonym

I don't see how this is possible since many people have made rational arguments for various metaphysical positions. — Marchesk

But this is begging the question. Carnap proposes that arguments for various metaphysical positions are irrational and you respond by saying that they aren't . What Carnap is really pointing to is how can you prove that they are? How can you demonstrate that the feeling you have when an argument seems to make logical sense had any meaning in the world at large. You certainly can't do it by inter-subjective agreement, 2000 years of philosophy has pretty conclusively shown there isn't any, you can't do it by objective measurement (that's Carnap's point) so how do you propose to do it?

Marchesk

But this is begging the question. Carnap proposes that arguments for various metaphysical positions are irrational and you respond by saying that they are. What Carnap is really pointing to is how can you prove that they are? — Pseudonym

The form and validity of each step in an argument, I suppose? Don't we have a criteria for what structure a logical argument takes? It's true that often arguments are presented in ordinary language without the rigid logical structure, or to elaborate on the premises and steps in the argument.

But let's say for sake of argument that we can't tell what a logical argument is. What makes Carnap's argument logical and not irrational? How can we prove that Carnap is right?

Snakes Alive

Can you explain how you can't make sense of it. — Marchesk

I simply don't understand the question. I know what it means for a dragon to exist (or not); I don't know what it means for a universal to exist (or not).

Marchesk

We can pick on universals. Do any of the following statements contain an appeal to emotion? It's not a formal argument.

We perceive individual things.
These individual things have similarities.
The similarities allow us to categorize the individuals.
Categorization is evidence of something the individuals within a category share.
This something explains how individuals have similarities.
This is called a universal.

You don't have to agree with the above pseudo-argument. This is a question fo whether it's meaningful (intelligible).

Marchesk

I simply don't understand the question. I know what it means for a dragon to exist (or not); I don't know what it means for a universal to exist (or not). — Snakes Alive

Well, I've tried to provide a pseudo-argument for what a universal means.

Snakes Alive

↪Marchesk

But you've used sentences that I also can't make sense of to do so.

I can try other sentences like, "Do some things have properties in common?" Sure.

But when you ask, "In virtue of what do they have properties in common? Is in in virtue of some other thing existing in nature?" I don't know what that means, because I don't know what it means for two things to have something in common "in virtue of" some third thing (or not).

Marchesk

I don't know what that means, because I don't know what it means for two things to have something in common "in virtue of" some third thing (or not). — Snakes Alive

By that do you mean you don't know what natural mechanism would allow for such a thing, or do you mean the concept really doesn't make sense?

If it doesn't make sense, then what do you think it means for individuals to have properties "in common"? Are they the same properties?

Snakes Alive

↪Marchesk

I don't understand the English sentence being asked. I know what the individual words mean, and it's grammatical, but I can't interpret it, and don't know what would make it true or false.

I also couldn't understand, for example, if you said "There are tigers. A flyger is that which explains this fact. Are there flygers?" The question simply makes no sense to me.

In the case of universals, I understand that there are things that share properties. I don't know what there is to say beyond this, and the questions about universals don't make any sense to me.

Marchesk

"There are tigers. A flyger is that which explains this fact. Are there flygers? — Snakes Alive

But flygers hasn't been defined. So what makes an individual tiger a member of the tiger group? If it's not a universal, then what is it? I'm asking because if universals don't make sense to you, then how do you make sense of individuals having the same properties? Is it just a brute fact of existence?

Snakes Alive

So what makes an individual tiger a member of the tiger group? — Marchesk

If it's a tiger, it's a tiger. What's meant by "being a member of the tiger group" other than being a tiger? Are you asking me what makes it so that if something is a tiger, it's a tiger?

But I really don't know what else you could be asking.

But flygers hasn't been defined. — Marchesk

The parallel was intentional: you said a universal was that which explained some fact. But simply introducing something as that which explains something else makes no sense, because introduced ex nihilo in this way it does no actual explaining, and so I don't know what it is I'm supposed to be arguing about.

Marchesk

If it's a tiger, it's a tiger. What's meant by "being a member of the tiger group" other than being a tiger? Are you asking me what makes it so that if something is a tiger, it's a tiger? — Snakes Alive

How is it that we have the concept of categories when the world we perceive is individual? Nobody ever perceives a tiger in the categorical sense. They perceive animals that are similar. What is it about the similarities that allows us to categorize?

Snakes Alive

↪Marchesk

This is a psychological question, and meaningful. But I don't see what it has to do with the existence of universals.

Marchesk

The parallel was intentional: you said a universal was that which explained some fact. But simply introducing something as that which explains something else makes no sense, because introduced ex nihilo in this way it does no actual explaining, and so I don't know what it is I'm supposed to be arguing about. — Snakes Alive

A universal is meant to explain the discrepancy between a world of individuals, and the huge amount of categorization we perform.

Marchesk

This is a psychological question, and meaningful. But I don't see what it has to do with the existence of universals. — Snakes Alive

It could be psychological, and that would be conceptualism. But now you've taken a step toward the debate being meaningful.

The realist would ask how individuals have the same properties. Unless this can be answered by some other means, the realist can just say that universals have to exist to explain that fact. But if you answer the realist, then you've conceded that the debate is meaningful.

Carnap would say that realists, conceptualists and nominalists are wasting their time trying to answer a question without meaning. But shouldn't Carnap have to account for similarity?

Snakes Alive

the realist can just say that universals have to exist to explain that fact — Marchesk

If nobody knows what a universal is, then it can't explain this fact.

Carnap would say that realists, conceptualists and nominalists are wasting their time trying to answer a question without meaning. But shouldn't Carnap have to account for similarity? — Marchesk

If you can't articulate the question meaningfully, then Carnap (and anyone else) is licensed to ignore it. It's your job to frame a question meaningfully: otherwise, the demand that others answer it doesn't make sense either.

Pseudonym

The form and validity of each step in an argument, I suppose? Don't we have a criteria for what structure a logical argument takes? — Marchesk

No, at least not one that can be demonstrated to correspond to anything externally meaningful. I'm no high level logician, but I'm aware of at least four different forms of logic all of which would disagree with each other as to the structure of a 'logical argument'.

What makes Carnap's argument logical and not irrational? How can we prove that Carnap is right? — Marchesk

Nothing. We can't. It's just one way of looking at things.

Marchesk

If you can't articulate the question meaningfully, then Carnap (and anyone else) is licensed to ignore it. It's your job to frame a question meaningfully: otherwise, the demand that others answer it doesn't make sense either. — Snakes Alive

But what gave rise to the question of universals remains. Carnap and others might take issue with the meaningfulness of the universal concept, but there is still a matter of how particulars can have the same properties such that we can categorize them.

Marchesk

Nothing. We can't. It's just one way of looking at things. — Pseudonym

Then I'll assume Carnap's argument is itself meaningless. Isn't it a metaphysical argument?

Snakes Alive

↪Marchesk

Again, if you're asking a psychological question, it's meaningful. What other question you might be asking, I can't understand. Other people perhaps understand it, but I don't, and so since I'm a native speaker of English, I conclude that it's not sensical, and ignore it. I don't know what else to do, since the question makes no sense to me and you cannot explain it.

Pseudonym

Then I'll assume Carnap's argument is itself meaningless. — Marchesk

You could do, but you have three options;

1. All metaphysical statements are thus rendered meaningless (which is self-referential, this being a metaphysical statement).

2. All metaphysical statements are meaningful. In which case the statement "all metaphysical statements are meaningless" must, by definition, be meaningful itself (and so cannot be dismissed).

Or

3. Some metaphysical statements are meaningful whilst others are meaningless. In which case there is nothing to prevent the statement "all metaphysical statements are meaningless (apart from this one)" from being the only meaningful metaphysical statement.

Marchesk

Again, if you're asking a psychological question, it's meaningful. What other question you might be asking, I can't understand. — Snakes Alive

I'm asking what allows for individual things in the world to have the same properties. How is that not meaningful?

Marchesk

I realized that some programming languages employ the concept of universals. A class is a universal definition for a group of objects that have the same kinds of properties and behavior. Once you define a class, you can create objects with particular properties as defined by the class.

In fact, the behavior (the functions each object can perform) lives in the class. All objects share the same behavior by virtue of the class.

And indeed, introductions to this kind of programming often use Dog and Cat as two different classes, and go on by saying that this style of programming models the real world. This kind of programming came into existence with a language focused on simulation.

What this shows is that at the very least, the concept of a universal is meaningful and coherent. Whether it is when applied to the world is the question. But certainly we possess universal concepts.

Snakes Alive

↪Marchesk

That's not quite right; you're asking about the existence of universals, which you've billed as an explanation for this phenomenon. However, you've said nothing about them other than that they are an explanation; hence, I don't know what they are, and so don't know in what sense they're intended to be an explanation. Hence, the question of their existence is meaningless to me until this can be answered.

Second, it's not clear in what sense you want an explanation for why different things can share properties. If you ask me why two things can be tigers, I could give you a causal, biological explanation; but this is apparently not what you want.

Wayfarer

But as to the existence of universals, I can't make any sense of the question. When I exercise my powers as an English speaker, I don't know what's being asked. And since I know of no other criterion by which to make a question framed in English sensible, I conclude that it's nonsense. — Snakes Alive

A useful discussion of the problem of Universals can be found in The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell. I tend towards realism with respect to universals, i.e. they are real. But I distinguish [as does Russell] the sense in which universals are real from the sense in which sensible particulars exist.

Consider such a proposition as 'Edinburgh is north of London'. Here we have a relation between two places, and it seems plain that the relation subsists independently of our knowledge of it. When we come to know that Edinburgh is north of London, we come to know something which has to do only with Edinburgh and London: we do not cause the truth of the proposition by coming to know it, on the contrary we merely apprehend a fact which was there before we knew it. The part of the earth's surface where Edinburgh stands would be north of the part where London stands, even if there were no human being to know about north and south, and even if there were no minds at all in the universe. This is, of course, denied by many philosophers, either for Berkeley's reasons or for Kant's. But we have already considered these reasons, and decided that they are inadequate. We may therefore now assume it to be true that nothing mental is presupposed in the fact that Edinburgh is north of London. But this fact involves the relation 'north of', which is a universal; and it would be impossible for the whole fact to involve nothing mental if the relation 'north of', which is a constituent part of the fact, did involve anything mental. Hence we must admit that the relation, like the terms it relates, is not dependent upon thought, but belongs to the independent world which thought apprehends but does not create.

This conclusion, however, is met by the difficulty that the relation 'north of' does not seem to exist in the same sense in which Edinburgh and London exist. If we ask 'Where and when does this relation exist?' the answer must be 'Nowhere and nowhen'.

Snakes Alive

↪Wayfarer

I'm sorry, this really doesn't help. I'm not sure Russell is talking about what you're talking about, and in any case the last bit of text strikes me as really confused.

'Where does the relation 'north of' exist?' is just an abuse of the English language. This is not a "difficulty," but some sort of lapse in English competence. To know what it means for one thing to be north of another is to know that this question makes no sense.

Marchesk

However, you've said nothing about them other than that they are an explanation; hence, I don't know what they are, and so don't know in what sense they're intended to be an explanation. Hence, the question of their existence is meaningless to me until this can be answered. — Snakes Alive

We have the concept of universals in our language and thought. Tiger is an abstract concept for the individual members having similar characteristics. Even better, E=MC^2 is a universal law applying to all matter and energy in the universe.

So do we have these abstract concepts because of something in the world which isn't particular? Well yes, the similarities between things. So what is this similarity? Are the abstract concepts of our language mirroring the similarities in nature?

Carnap and the Meaninglessness of Metaphysics

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