Carnap_ Respuesta a Quine

7/28/2019 Carnap_ Respuesta a Quine

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Martin asks for a compelling argument that intensions, e.g., propositions,are required in a semantical or philosophical analysis of language. I wouldnot assert that the use of concepts like intension and Desi are necessary,but their use seems to me convenient and natural for the reasons givenearlier (in 9 IV and in 10 IV).

15. W. V. Quine on Logical Truth

A. The linguistic doctrine of logical truth. In the first part of his essay,Quine offers an exposition and a detailed informal discussion of what hecalls "the linguistic doctrine of logical truth". I shall first comment on thispart, and later discuss his more specific criticisms of my conception oflogical truth.

The conception of the nature of logical truth, which was developed in theVienna Circle on the basis of Wittgenstein's ideas, and which I stillmaintain in its essential points, was originally, before the construction of a

systematic L-semantics, formulated only in informal explanations. Amongthe various formulations which Quine mentions and discusses critically,there are some which today I would no longer regard as psychologicallyhelpful and would therefore avoid. One of them is the

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characterization of logical truth as based on "linguistic fiat" or "linguisticconventions". Neither does Quine's choice of the term "linguistic doctrine"seem to be quite suitable for my conception. The term "linguisticconvention" is usually understood in the sense of a more or less arbitrary

decision concerning language, such as the choice of either centimeter orinch as a unit of length. Sometimes the fact that a certain concept isexpressed in a certain language by a certain word is loosely said to be amatter of convention. Although in this case there is no explicit agreement,the term "convention" may nevertheless be employed to express the factthat the usage might be changed by a decision, i.e., that a new wordmight be chosen instead of the old one, without thereby changing anyessential characteristics of the given language. On the other hand, thelogical truth of the sentence "all black dogs are dogs" is not a matter ofconvention even in the looser sense. Once the meanings of the individualwords in a sentence of this form are given (which may be regarded as a

matter of convention), then it is no longer a matter of convention or ofarbitrary choice whether or not to regard the sentence as true; the truthof such a sentence is determined by the logical relations holding betweenthe given meanings. (I n the present example, only the meanings of "all"and "are" are relevant.)

A better informal characterization of logical truth mentioned also by Quinedescribes it as truth based on meanings. To ascertain the truth of a givensentence, it is necessary, first, to know the meaning of each part and


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thereby that of the sentence as a whole; in other words, it is necessary tounderstand the sentence. To ascertain the truth of some sentences, e.g.,"Some dogs are black", it is further necessary to know certain facts of theworld. I n the case of other sentences, e.g., "all black dogs are black", thisis not necessary; to understand them is a sufficient basis for thedetermination of their truth. Such sentences are called "logically true" or

"analytic".

In the following discussion, I shall sometimes be compelled to discussQuine's views hypothetically, that is to say, on the basis of presumptionsabout the meanings of his formulations, because I have not been able todetermine their meanings with sufficient clarity.

Quine says (in I I ) that in a certain sense,

(1) elementary logic is obvious.

I presume that he does not understand the word "obvious" here in thesense in which someone might say: "it is obvious that I have five fingerson my right hand", but rather in the sense in which the word is used in: "itis obvious that, if there is no righteous man in Sodom, then all men inSodom are non-righteous". I n this case, one merely has to think in orderto recognize the truth; no observations of the men of Sodom are

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needed. I f Quine has this meaning in mind, we are in agreement.However, Quine says later (in I I I ) of the linguistic doctrine of

elementary logical truth, which I shall call "LD" for short, that

(2) LD "seems to imply nothing that is not already implied by the fact thatelementary logic is obvious".

Again I agree. In other words:

(3) Whatever is implied by LD, is implied by (1).

Hence, since LD is implied by LD:

(4) LD is implied by (1).

Thus Quine, having accepted (1), must also accept LD. His argumentseems to be not a refutation of LD but rather a proof of it.

Indeed, I have the impression that Quine's critical argument (2) is notmeant as a refutation. He himself says soon afterwards: "I do not suggestthat the linguistic doctrine is false". I presume that he wants to say thatthe doctrine is not false. (I f so, I wish he had said sol) He nowhere says


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that the doctrine is meaningless; this also would not accord with hisprevious statement (2), nor with his remark that the doctrine plays a roleanalogous to "0 = 0". Therefore we may presume that he regards thedoctrine as true. (If so, . .!) The main point of his criticism seems ratherto be that the doctrine is "empty" and "without experimental meaning".With this remark I would certainly agree, and I am surprised that Quine

deems it necessary to support this view by detailed arguments. In linewith Wittgenstein's basic conception, we agreed in Vienna that one of themain tasks of philosophy is clarification and explication. Usually, aphilosophical insight does not say anything about the world, but is merelya clearer recognition of meanings or of meaning relations. I f an insight ofthis kind is expressed by a sentence, then this sentence is, althoughmeaningful (as we would maintain in contrast to Wittgenstein's view), notfactual but rather analytic. Thus I would interpret, e.g., the principle ofverifiability (or of confirmability), or the empiricist principle that there isno synthetic a priori, as consisting of proposals for certain explications(often not stated explicitly) and of certain assertions which, on the basis

of these explications, are analytic. Such philosophical principles ordoctrines are sometimes called theories; however, it might be better notto use the term "theory" in this context, in order to avoid themisunderstanding that such doctrines are similar to scientific, empiricaltheories.

B. Two arguments of Quine's. Now I come to Quine's importantarguments (in VI I I -X) directed against my present view of the conceptof analyticity (or logical truth in the wider sense) as a semantical concept.Quine's objections here should be considered in connection with those

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in some earlier articles of his, which are reprinted in his book. 21Some ofmy arguments are closely related to those made by other authors. 22

I shall state two arguments by Quine, which were at first rather puzzlingto me and, it seems, to other authors. Then I shall explain what Ipresume to be Quine's basic view, which underlies these two argumentsand would make them understandable. Finally, I shall indicate my positionwith respect to this view. My proposals for the explication of analyticityhave always been given for a formalized (codified, constructed) language

L, i.e., a language for which explicit semantical rules are specified thatlead to the concept of truth (e.g., rules of the kinds A, B, C, and D in 10). The explication is given by additional rules, essentially by a list ofmeaning postulates (A-postulates) and, based upon them, a definition of"A-true" (which I use as a technical term for the explicatum). The first ofQuine's critical arguments consists in the remark that the meaningpostulates are recognizable only by the label "meaning postulates" andthat the sense of this label is not clear ( X); similarly he said in his book(p. 33f.) that the semantical rules are recognizable only by the heading


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"Semantical Rules" which itself is meaningless. I was puzzled by thisremark because neither Quine nor anybody else has previously criticizedthe obvious fact that, e.g., the admitted forms of sentences of aformalized language L are only recognizable by a label like "SentenceForms in L" preceding a list of forms of expressions, or the fact that theaxioms of a logical calculus are only recognizable by the label "Axioms".

Why should the same fact be objectionable in the case of meaningpostulates?

The second objection consists in Quine's statement that the concept ofanalyticity is acceptable only if it is not merely explicated by rules in puresemantics, but rather by an empirical criterion in behavioristic terms,applicable to natural languages ( IX); in his book (pp.56-64) he said thesame concerning synonymy. I t seemed to me puzzling why for semanticalconcepts like analyticity or synonymy the definition of a correspondingempirical, pragmatical concept is required, while for other semanticalconcepts like truth, the name-relation, and the like, a requirement of this

kind is not made.

My interpretation of Quine's intention is as follows, formulated in myterminology. I t seems to me that Quine's criticism is not directed againstthe proposed semantical explicata. I believe that he would agree that,

____________________21W. V. Quine, From a Logical Point of View( Cambridge, Mass., 1953). In the following,

the references to Quine citing page numbers refer to this book; those citing Roman sectionnumbers refer to Quine's essay in the present volume.

22Benson Mates, "Analytic Sentences", Phil. Review, LX ( 1951), 525-34. Richard M. Martin

, "On 'Analytic'", Phil. Studies, III ( 1952), 42-47. H. P. Grice and P. F. Strawson, "InDefense of a Dogma", Phil. Review, LXV ( 1956), 141-158.

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e.g., my rules of the above mentioned kinds, leading to the definition of"A-true", are in themselves exact and unobjectionable. His criticism israther that there is no clear explicandum, in other words, that thecustomary pre-systematic explanations of analyticity are too vague andambiguous, and basically incomprehensible. This would make itunderstandable why he requires for analyticity an empirical criterion, whilehe does not require it for truth. In Quine's view, there is the following

basic difference. I n the case of truth he recognizes a sufficiently clearexplicandum; i.e., before an explication had been given, the use of thisconcept had been sufficiently clear, at least for practical purposes. On theother hand, Quine sees no sufficiently clear, pre-systematic concept ofanalyticity which could be taken as an explicandum. I f an empiricalcriterion for analyticity with respect to natural languages were given, thenthis concept could serve as an explicandum for a reconstruction of apurely semantical concept of A-truth. This seems to me to be Quine's real


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motivation in demanding such a criterion. I t would also explain Quine'sfirst objection. His remark on recognizability by labels only may beunderstood, not as a criticism of the semantical rules themselves, butrather as pointing out the lack of an explicandum. He says in his book (p.33): "The difficulty is simply that the [semantical] rules contain the word'analytic', which we do not understand!" He proposes to use instead the

untendentious term "K" for the class determined by the rules because theuse of the apparently familiar word "analytic" might give us the illusionthat we were in possession of a clear explicandum.

As I now understand Quine, I would agree with his basic idea, namely,that a pragmatical concept, based upon an empirical criterion, might serveas an explicandum for a purely semantical reconstruction, and that thisprocedure may sometimes, and perhaps also in the present case, be auseful way of specifying the explicandum. On the other hand, I would notthink that it is necessary in general to provide a pragmatical concept inorder to justify the introduction of a concept of pure semantics.

C. Empirical criteria for intension concepts. Since I agree with Quine'sbasic idea, I have accepted his challenge to show that an empiricalcriterion for intension concepts with respect to natural languages can begiven. I believe I have shown this in my paper on natural languages [1955-3]. In the original draft of my reply to Quine's present essay, thepart dealing with natural languages grew finally beyond the spaceavailable in this volume. Therefore, I elaborated this part and published itseparately as the above paper.

The basic ideas underlying my intensionalist thesis are simple. I t seemed

rather plausible to me from the beginning that there should be anempirical criterion for the concept of the meaning of a word or a

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phrase, in view of the fact that linguists traditionally determine empiricallythe meanings, meaning differences, and shifts of meanings of words, andthat with respect to these determinations they reach a measure ofagreement among themselves which is often considerably higher than thatreached for results in most of the other fields of the social sciences.Quine's arguments to the effect that the lexicographers actually have no

criterion for their determinations did not seem at all convincing to me.

In my paper, I tried to show the possibility of giving operational rules fortesting hypotheses concerning the intensions of predicates of a naturallanguage, on the basis of responses by the users of this language. For thesake of simplicity, I shall here take not "intension" but rather "analytic" asan example. Let us suppose that two linguists study the natural language

L as used by the person X. Let us suppose that L consists of some Englishwords and English sentences, among them the following sentence:


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(S 1 ) "All ravens are black".

We assume that the two linguists agree on the basis of previousexperiments that X uses the words "all" and "are" in the ordinary sense,and that X has repeatedly affirmed the sentence S1 and hencepresumably regards it as true. Now the first linguist states the following

hypothesis:

(5) "The sentence S1 is analytic in language L for person X".

The other linguist denies this hypothesis. In order to obtain evidencerelevant for (5), the linguists say to X: "Mr. Smith told us that he hadfound a raven which is not black but white, and that he will show it to youtomorrow. Will you then revoke your assertion ofS1 "? Let us consider thefollowing two of many possible responses by X:

(6) "I would never have believed that there are white ravens; and I still

do not believe it until I see one myself. In that case I shall, of course,have to revoke my assertion".

(7) "There cannot be white ravens. If a bird is not black, then I just wouldnot call it a raven. If Mr. Smith says that his raven is not black, then(assuming that he is not lying or joking) his use either of the word 'raven'or of the word 'black' must be different from my use".

It seems obvious to me that a response like (6) would be disconfirmingevidence for hypothesis (5), while a response like (7) would be confirmingevidence for it. Thus it is clear that (5) is an empirical hypothesis which

can be tested by observations of the speaking behavior ofX. If anyone isstill sceptical about this possibility, I should like to refer him to a recentbook by Arne Naess, 23which shows by numerous examples how

____________________23A. Naess, Interpretation and Preciseness: A Contribution to the Theory of Communication.

Skrifter Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, Oslo, II. Hist.-Philos. Klasse ( 1953), No. 1.

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hypotheses about the synonymy of expressions can be tested by empiricalprocedures.

Furthermore, in my paper I have shown that it is also possible todetermine empirically the intension of a predicate of a language L for arobot who makes observations and can receive and deliver messages inthe language L.

D. Analyticity and change of language. Quine shows (in his book, pp.42-46) that a scientist, who discovers a conflict between his observations


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and his theory and who is therefore compelled to make a readjustmentsomewhere in the total system of science, has much latitude with respectto the place where a change is to be made. I n this procedure, nostatement is immune to revision, not even the statements of logic and ofmathematics. There are only practical differences, and these aredifferences in degree, inasmuch as a scientist is usually less willing to

abandon a previously accepted general empirical law than a singleobservation sentence, and still less willing to abandon a law of logic or ofmathematics. With all this I am entirely in agreement. But I cannot followQuine when he infers from this fact that it becomes folly to seek aboundary between synthetic and analytic statements. I agree that "anystatement can be held true come what may". But the concept of ananalytic statement which I take as an explicandum is not adequatelycharacterized as "held true come what may". First of all, I should make adistinction between two kinds of readjustment in the case of a conflictwith experience, namely, between a change in the language, and a merechange in or addition of, a truth-value ascribed to an indeterminate

statement, (i.e., a statement whose truth value it not fixed by the rules oflanguage, say by the postulates of logic, mathematics, and physics). Achange of the first kind constitutes a radical alteration, sometimes arevolution, and it occurs only at certain historically decisive points in thedevelopment of science. On the other hand, changes of the second kindoccur every minute. A change of the first kind constitutes, strictlyspeaking, a transition from a language Ln to a new language Ln+1. Myconcept of analyticity as an explicandum has nothing to do with such atransition. I t refers in each case to just one language; "analytic in Ln "and "analytic in Ln+1 " are two different concepts. That a certain sentenceS is analytic in Ln means only something about the status ofS within the

language Ln ; as has often been said, it means that the truth ofS in Ln isbased on the meanings in Ln of the terms occurring in S. To be sure, thisstatus has certain consequences in case of changes of the second kind,namely, that analytic sentences cannot change their truth-value. But thischaracteristic is not restricted to analytic sentences; it holds also forcertain synthetic sentences, e.g., physical postulates and their logicalconsequences.

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E. The concept of analyticity in philosophy. I believe that the

distinction between analytic and synthetic statements, expressed inwhatever terms, is practically indispensable for methodological andphilosophical discussions. This is also indicated by the fact that thisdistinction is made by a large majority of philosophers, including some ofthose who do not explicitly acknowledge the distinction in these terms oreven reject it. As an example, let me refer to a philosopher whose work Iesteem very highly, although I cannot agree in all points with his views.This philosopher once undertook to destroy a certain doctrine, propoundedby some other philosophers. He did not mean to assert that the doctrine


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was false; presumably he regarded it as true. But his criticism concernedits particular kind of truth, namely that the truth of the doctrine was of theanalytic kind. To be sure, he did not use the word "analytic", which he didnot seem to like very much. I nstead, he used other expressions which,nonetheless, clearly seem to have essentially the same meaning as"analytic". What he showed was that various attempts to assign an

experimental, empirical meaning to this doctrine remained withoutsuccess. Finally he came to the conclusion that the doctrine, even thoughnot false, is "empty" and "without experimental significance".

16. Herbert G. Bohnert on Definitions and Analyticity

I am in agreement with most points in Bohnert's discussions, in particular,with his arguments against Quine's objections to the concept ofanalyticity; and I find many of his explanations illuminating. Therefore Ishall restrict myself to only a few comments.

I agree with Bohnert's remark (in I I ) that today an approach tosemiotics by way of a behavioristic sociologism, analogous to theapproach of the earlier psychologism, poses a threat to the drawing ofprecise distinctions in logic. Bohnert believes that Quine's requirement ofan empirical criterion for synonymy is an example of this kind ofsociologism. This would be the case if, as Bohnert believes, Quine actuallyhad the intention of founding logic upon empirical concepts. Quine'sformulations on this point admit of a variety of interpretations, including,perhaps, Bohnert's as well. I n my reply ( 15) I have given Quine thebenefit of the doubt and have suggested a hypothesis about themotivation of Quine's requirement in such a way that I would be able to

agree with it. I t remains for Quine to make clear which of theinterpretations he has in mind.

Bohnert's discussion of what he calls "recipe terms" is clarifying anduseful. He is certainly right that in general syntax, and even more ingeneral semantics, some concepts cannot be adequately introduced byexact general definitions for all languages, but only by different recipedefinitions for different classes of languages. However, it is possible to

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give general exact definitions both for A-truth (analyticity) and for truth(see 10 I , D and G) provided that other suitable concepts occurring inthese general definitions are introduced by recipe definitions.

Bohnert points out correctly ( in I I I ) that the term "definition" must beintroduced as a recipe term, newly defined for each language or class oflanguages by an enumeration of forms. The situation is similar for theterm "meaning postulate". Nevertheless, it is possible, as Bohnertindicates, to give general directives, though not in the form of exact rules,

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