A Critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Language by Fennell John;

Author:Fennell, John;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

8

Logical Positivism II

Carnap

Having discussed Ayer’s version of logical positivism in the previous chapter, this chapter is devoted to a discussion of Carnap’s. Ayer’s positivism furnishes an empiricist theory of meaning designed to champion science and eliminate metaphysics; however it has difficulty accomplishing each since it seems that the favored claims of science are not sufficiently different in their method of verification from the vilified claims of metaphysics. Additionally, Ayer’s positivism faces the problem of accounting for the meaningfulness of a priori statements, and invokes the notion of analyticity or meaning conventions to deal with it – a priori statements are analytic truths that express conventionally agreed-upon meaning relations between the words that make them up. However there is a certain infelicity in this appeal to convention, for questions arise concerning the sense in which truths of logic and mathematics are conventional. Carnap’s addresses these issues via his key notions of linguistic frameworks, internal/external questions, and formal/material modes of expression, and it is to a consideration of these that I now turn.

8.1 Conventionalism

Convention comes to the fore in the positivist account of a priori truths: all a priori truths are analytic and analytic truths express the conventionally determined meaning relations between the concepts making up the statement in question. Such conventions are stipulations arrived at through agreement amongst members of the linguistic community. Convention, therefore, is at the basis of the meaning-relations expressed by analytic truths (what Carnap calls ‘L-rules’ or ‘meaning postulates), and a priori truths, including math and logical truths, are understood to be analytic truths that express these conventions: e.g., 2+2 = 4 is an analytic statement expressing the meaning-relations between the concepts of two, four, addition, and identity, and these meaning-relations express conventions concerning the meaning of (arithmetic) words that our linguistic community agrees to.

Two features of this conventionalist account of a priority have been emphasized (§. 7.4). First, that a priori truths express the intersubjective agreements of the linguistic community (i.e., linguistic conventions); they do not report them. If they did report them, such statements would merely say that some particular signs have certain meanings in English, and this is a perfectly contingent fact that could have been otherwise. Thus, if a priori truths reported linguistic conventions, they would be metalinguistic statements describing empirico-linguistic facts, and hence be contingent, rather than a priori and necessary. Instead of reporting arbitrary conventional facts, such statements express conventional facts, and so express the idea that once the conventions are in place the truths expressed must be true (and in this way are necessary). Second, although such claims, in expressing conventions can, in a sense, be necessary, their necessity is founded on stipulation, on de facto agreements that could have been otherwise. Hence, this conventionalist account of a priority and necessity in terms of analyticity or ‘truth by (meaning) convention’ is a very deflationary account of necessity. For positivists, there are not two different kinds of facts – contingent and necessary – but just one, contingent facts. Although they express conventions and do not report them, the conventions they express are still arbitrary and therefore contingent.

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