Logical
Positivism, Emotivism and Alternatives Logical Positivism, Emotivism and Alternatives
Assertions &
Pseudo-assertions
EmotivismEmotivism (New/ Second Theory)
Functional Account of Good Theory
Logical Positivism, Emotivism and Alternatives
Logical
Positivism followed the linguistic turn[1]
in philosophy. Once it was realized that
truth is a relation which holds between sentences and the world, many
traditional questions of philosophy were recast into questions about the
relations between our language and our experience of reality. Logical Positivism marks a development in
this historical moment of Philosophy.
See:
(http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/6q.htm)
There
are many uses of language, that is, we achieve all sort
of ends with language:. (e.g. Assertions, Commands, Questions, Interjections,
Poetry Recitations, etc.) If we accept
the "Traditional Account of Knowledge" which claims that “knowledge”
equals “true, justified propositional belief,” the only sort of sentences that
express knowledge claims must be assertions.
Traditional
Account of Knowledge: "knowledge” equals “true, justified propositional
belief (Kn=TJB)
Assertions: The sort of sentence that
has a truth value. Only this sort of
sentence is meaningful according to positivism because only this sort of
sentence actually informs us (conveys information).
These
are to be distinguished from Pseudo-assertions.
Pseudo-assertions:
The sort of sentence that may appear meaningful at first
but in fact is not. It does not have a
truth value and does not provide us with information.
Keep
in mind that when we speak of a sentence having a “truth-value” we do not mean
that the sentence IS true, but only that it is either true or false- has one of
the two possible truth values.[2] What the Logical Positivists point out is
that, before wasting a lot of time arguing about whether a given sentence is
true or false, we should first make sure that it is an assertions; that is, we
should first make sure that it is even the kind of sentence than could be
true or false.
Assertions
usually take the form of declarative sentences (i.e. sentences having a certain
grammatical structure –subject- verb- predicate), but not all declarative sentences are assertions.
Consider
for example:
“In the swirling vortex of love, a candle
burns.”
This
IS
a declarative sentence.
____Candle │burns ________
\ a
\in
Vortex_____
\the \of \swirling
love
This
is NOT
an assertion. (To check, ask yourself,
“Is it true? Does there indeed burn a
candle in the swirling vortex of love?-
Or is it false? Has the candle in the swirling vortex of love gone
out? Is there a light bulb there
now? A neon sign instead perhaps? Perhaps a more environmentally friendly LED?)
I
doubt anyone would be willing to say that this sentence is true or
false. Rather, they would say that it is
neither
true nor
false. Thus it is NOT an assertion. It neither informs nor misinforms. It lacks either “true
value,” instead having none.
But
note: the sentence
“In
the room next-door a candle burns.”
This IS
an assertion.
____Candle │burns ________
\ a
\in
room_____
\the \next-door
What’s
the difference? Not the grammar. The grammar is identical to the first
sentence. Both are declarative sentences
with a subject and predicate.
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How
do you tell a genuine assertion when you see one? It’s not the grammar. So what is it then?
Positivist
had their own answer to this question. The
criterion, used by Logical Positivists to determine if a sentence is a
meaningful assertion is called the "Criterion of Verification."
Criterion
of Verification: "If
a sentence is unverifiable, even in principle, then it is meaningless; it is
not an assertion; it is neither true or false."
Oxford
philosopher A.J. Ayer (1910-1989), is the person probably
most responsible for helping to make this movement so widely know. In Ayer’s Language, Truth and
Logic he claims that a genuine
assertion can be true or false in only
one of two ways. Statements or
propositions (assertions) may be true or false by definition
(analytic or what 18th Century philosopher David Hume would have
called “relations of ideas,”) or
they may be true or false as a statement of observable fact (empirical or what
Hume would have called “matters of fact
and existence”).
Note: This division is sometimes called Hume’s Fork, though Hume used it with regard to justification, not meaning. Hume’s
Fork states that there are two and only two ways to justify a belief (i.e. as a relation of ideas or as a matter of
fact). Hume predates Logical Positivism,
but they borrowed his Fork. J
For example, the claim
“All bachelors are unmarried.” is true by definition. And the claim “Some bachelors are married.”
is false by definition. This is because the predicate “unmarried”
only restates part of what is meant by the subject term. Since “bachelor means “unmarried male,” to
say that a bachelor is married would be logically
inconsistent and therefore false.
Notice the truth or
falsity of such claims can be known a
priori (independent of experience).
A priori: Known
or justified independent of experience.
If you came to my
office and told me that your friend is in the hallway and that he was a married
bachelor, I would not even have to get up from my desk to KNOW that there was
no married bachelor friend of yours in the hall. I can know this independent of any particular experience.
Now suppose you claimed
that “All bachelors are unmarried.” and I expressed a doubt about this. I tell you I want you to prove it to me. I suppose you could go door to door and do a survey “Knock, Knock, Knock. Excuse me sir are you a bachelor? You are? I see, but let me ask you now then,
are you also an unmarried male?”
But this would be a
colossal waste of your time.
For claims like “All
bachelors are unmarried.” we need take
no poll to verify nor do any sort of experiments, etc.. We need only to know the meaning of the terms
involved in order to know whether they state a truth
or a falsity. This is why they can be known
a priori. This is why Hume called them
"Relations of Ideas."
Relation of Ideas: Definitional-a priori,
Analytic, A=A, trivial (usually), non-augmentative (usually). Ex: “All vixen are foxes.” But (perhaps) also math and geometry.
Now if you came to my
office and told me you brought your pet unicorn to campus and asked me to come
out into the hallway to see you pet unicorn, I would be VERY skeptical and
maybe think you’re a little crazy.
However, I could not know a priori that there was no unicorn
in the hallway. That’s because there is
nothing about a unicorn that is a logical contradiction. The reason I think that there are no unicorns
is based on experiences (We’ve look and never found one.) so it is always
possible that some future experience would undermine this belief. If I really wanted to make sure there was no
unicorn out in the hallway is would have to get up from my desk and poke my heard
out into the hall. I don’t expect to see
anything, but there is the possibility that when I did I’d say “Damn, would you look at that.”
The claim “All
bachelors are unhappy.” on the other hand is not true “by definition.” “Bachelor” does not contain the concept of
“Unhappy.” If this sentence is true at
all it is true as a matter of fact about the world (and if it is false, it is
false as a matter of fact about the world).
To discover the actual
truth-value (T or F) of the claim we would have to conduct an empirical
study. Since the claim “All bachelors
are unhappy” and the claim “It is not the case that all bachelors are unhappy.”
are both logically consistent, we cannot know which of them is true (accurately
states a fact about the world) a priori.
Since the predicate is
NOT merely a restatement of the subject concept, but rather a different concept
entirely, the sentence is said to be “synthetic.” It weds two distinct ideas. Take for example “All Swans are white.” Swan does not MEAN white bird. We easily imagine a swan with of a different
color. So the only way to see whether
this synthesis in fact holds is to go and to look. Incidentally, it was widely believed that all
swans were white. Then it was discovered
empirically that there was a species of black swans. Notice that experience of the world is what
grounded the synthetic claim in the first place and it
was experience of the world which overturned and disconfirmed that same claim.
Matters of Fact: Empirical, Synthetic,
A=B, interesting (usually), augmentative (usually). Ex: “All Swans are
white.” Loosely speaking these are
scientific claims.
If however, the truth
of a sentence can be determined neither from the meaning of the words (a
priori) nor by employing the scientific method (empirically) then the sentence
fails the criterion. The sentence is
devoid of cognitive content and is literally nonsense according to the Positivists. This would be true for such pseudo-assertions
as “Kwai gives you all the goodness of garlic.” but also of such claims as “An
immaterial soul exists.” or ethical sentences containing such terms as “ought,”
“should,” “good,” or “bad.” They are
non-sensical and therefore not sentences which impart knowledge.
Consequences for Philosophy (et al.):
Many (all?) the
traditional philosophical answers to traditional philosophical questions seem
to fail the criterion. For example:
Natural Theology
e.g. “There is a God.”-
Not a relation of ideas nor a matter of fact
Turns out to be
meaningless on these grounds.
Note: “There is no God.” is equally meaningless on Positivist
grounds.
Metaphysics
e.g. “Immaterial
Objects exist.
Aesthetics
e.g. The Miami City
Ballet is a better ballet company than the San Francisco Ballet.
Ethics
e.g. Abortions is wrong. (Or Abortion is not wrong.)
Specifically,
Metaphysical Theories, Theological Theories, Epistemological Theories, Ethical
Theories, Aesthetic Theories, seem to consist of sentences that are neither relations
of ideas nor matters of fact.
Consequently, according to the criterion of verification they are
neither true nor false. They are
meaningless. They convey no knowledge,
but rather at best are a kind of poetic use of language.
Emotivism (New/ Second Theory)
Emotivism:
A theory which states that ethical utterances are expressions of emotional
content and subjective attitude.
But if moral concepts
and “judgements” are not real concepts and judgements then what are they? If they do not tell us things about the world then why do we keep uttering them? Emotivism
is a theory which proposes answers to these questions. Ayer explains Emotivism as follows:
The presence of an ethical symbol in a proposition adds nothing
to its factual content. Thus, if I were to say to someone ‘You acted wrongly in
stealing that money.’ I am not stating
anything more then if I had simply said ‘You stole
that money’. In adding that this action
was ‘wrong’ I am not making any further statement about it. I am simply evincing my moral disapproval of
it. It is as if I had said ‘You stole
that money.’ in a particular tone of horror or written it with the addition of
some special exclamation marks. The
tone, or the exclamation marks, add nothing to the literal meaning of the
sentence. It merely serves
to show that the expression of it is attended by certain feelings of the
speaker.[4]
Think of the two
sentences:
“You stole that car.”
And
“You stole that
car!”
Neither asserts anything different than the
other; the latter only indicates a certain emotional state of mind of the
speaker. Well according to Ayer and
Emotivism, were I to say, “Your stealing that car was
wrong.” it would be the same as saying “You stole that car.” with a new punctuation mark. We could call it the “Wrongness Mark.” And it only serves to indicate the state of
mind of the speaker.
“You stole that car !ш¡”
Because such sentences
are not descriptive, but emotive they are unverifiable and factually
empty.
“The are unverifiable,”
says Ayer “for the same reason that a cry of pain or a word command is
unverifiable - because they do not express genuine propositions.”[5]
Such sentences (though
grammatically different) are the speech act equivalents of such interjections as
“hurrah!” or “boo!”
According to Ayer, a
simple moral pronouncement sentence such as “Stealing is wrong.” has no factual content whatsoever and expresses
nothing which is either true or false.
It expresses only the person’s moral sentiments.
“Stealing is
wrong.” = “Stealing !ш¡” (e.g "Boo Stealing!" "Down with Stealing!")
The word “wrong” has
only an emotive use. It allows us to express feelings about certain
behaviors or events, but not to assert any facts about them.
Thus the Emotivist can account for the seeming irresolvable “disagreements”
on ethical matters. According to the Emotivist, the reason it has been impossible to find
universal agreement upon the principles for determining the validity of ethical
judgements (some saying that it is pleasure, others that it is duty) is simply
that ethical judgements have no
objective validity.
Ironically, the Emotivist accounts for these ‘disagreements” by, in an
importance sense, denying that there
really every has been any. Note that a
curious consequence of this view is that there are no, nor have there ever been
nor can there ever be any real
ethical disputes. The Anti-abortion
activist who says, “Abortion is wrong!” and the Pro-choice activist who says,
“Abortion is NOT wrong!” don’t really disagree about anything (any
fact).
It is impossible to
argue about purely ethical matters since there are no ethical “facts” about
which to disagree; according to the Emotivist in such
cases there is only conflicting reactions
to facts. It's like were rooting for
different teams and your team scores a point.
I say, "Boo!" You say, "Hurrah!" But we don't disagree about the facts – your
team scored a point- only our emotional reactions to the (same) facts are
different. Although in such
confrontations there may be a clash of subjective attitudes, there can be no
actual (factual) dispute.
Nevertheless it seems
to be otherwise.
First, the Emotivist must deal with all the problems of Relativism and
then some...(See other notes for problems with Relativism.)
Second, ethics is much
more serious then matters of mere “taste,” but Emotivism cannot account for
this difference. Consider the sentence:
"Peaches are delicious." We
readily accept that this sentence is the linguistic equivalent to "Yum,
peaches!" and no one would try to argue
that peaches are delicious. One readily
recognizes that this is a matter of pure taste and
that argument is irrelevant. (Gustibus De gustibus non disputandum est.)
Further, no one ever
changed his or her mind about matters of taste because of an argument. Learning more facts (about peaches or
whatever) would not really change the way one tastes them, or, at least, not in
any reliable way.
But... (Some
Disanalogies with Taste)
2.
Further,
the above mentioned reasons do, in fact, affect the
moral judgements of others. I quite
possible could change you mind on a purely moral
matter, simply by offering, what I take to be, reasons. Notice, this never happens with truly non-rational
maters of pure taste.
3.
We
expect of ourselves and of one another logical consistency in our moral judgements (like cases be
decided alike). But this is not the case
with real matters of taste. But logical
consistency cannot be had among emotive utterances. They cannot not conflict, neither can they
cohere since they have no truth value.
4.
Just
as in law where we demand a logically consistency, that like cases be decided alike and that where they are decided
differently one must articulate what the relevant legal difference is, so too in morality we demand that like cases
be decided alike and that where two cases are decided differently one must
articulate the relevant moral difference. But all this is evidence that moral
judgements are rational matters subject to argument and rational revision and
NOT merely matters of emotive expression.
I use
to like Miatas.
I don't now.
Why? I don't know; I just
don’t. But if I told you that I used to
think that abortion was wrong, but now I don't and you asked me
"Why?" you would demand a better response then "I don't know, I
just don’t?"
Also.
One might plausibly say, peaches are pretty must the same as nectarines,
and I like nectarines, but I don't like peaches. You might find this surprising but not
logically inconsistent, because we know taste is a fickle thing. There is not logical contradiction. But consider one who makes the claim,
"Abortion is pretty much the same as murder and murder is wrong, but
abortion is not wrong."? We would
demand of such a person to know "What's the relevant moral
difference?"
5.
Finally
we often say things like, I know that this is wrong, but it’s what I want to
do. On Emotivist
grounds what could this possibly mean?
“Yuck this.” and “Yea this.”? But
that seems implausible. It would seem that the person uttering such a remark does
NOT mean by “This is wrong.” the
linguistic equivalent to “Yuck this.”
Indeed, such (common) occurrences seem to demonstrate
precisely that “This is wrong.” is NOT the linguistic equivalent of
“Yuck this.” and that Emotivism is incorrect as an account of ethical
discourse.
It should be noted that
the criterion of verification is self-referentially incoherent. That is, the criterion fails itself. Take the sentence:
“If a sentence is unverifiable, even
in principle, then it is meaningless.”
This
sentence above is neither a relation of ideas (that is, a
true-by-definition-tautology) nor is it a matter of fact (that is, something
that can be proven by employing the scientific method). Thus either the criterion is meaningless or
false. There is no way that it could be
true.
Some
positivists suggested that it be read as a recommendation (a mild imperative).
“Regard as meaningless any sentence which is
unverifiable.”
But
if it is only recommendation,
we are free to either accept it of reject it.
Given the excessively confining and impractical restrictions the
criterion imposes on “meaningful discourse” and inquiry, many (me) have chosen
to reject it. But I must add that I
think a little Positivism is a good thing.
I think it a VERY good idea of a critical thinker to ask herself if the
sentences being offered to persuade or convince in an argument are genuine
assertions and if so, what, if anything, could prove them true or false, reasonable or unreasonable.
A theory which claims that a sentence/judgement is meaningful
(true or false/ reasonable or unreasonable) depending on whether
or not it coheres within a larger body of established beliefs (other
sentences). (Think Law)
A theory which claims that a sentence/judgement is meaningful
(true or false/ reasonable or unreasonable) depending on whether
or not it is useful in solving relevant problems. (Think Psycho-analysis or Science)
To
say "X is wrong." is only to say that a
normal, healthy, informed, sensitive and impartial person would disapprove of
X.
· Note: This
is almost a concession to Positivism’s criterion because it converts ethical
judgements into quasi-verifiable claims.
If this view is correct, then theoretically we could poll the responses
of “Ideal Observers” to determine what is right or wrong.
To say "X is
good." is only to say that "X does what X's are supposed to do and
does it well." A good shark, for
example, is a shark that does all the shark things well, quite independently of
whether I or anyone else "approve" of it or not.
Note: This too
is almost a concession to Positivism’s criterion because it converts ethical
judgements into quasi-verifiable claims -e.g. Consumer Reports assessments of products.)
Finally, one might
attempt to meet the positivist’s challenge to ethics (or philosophy in general)
by claiming that ethical judgements ARE verifiable by arguing that “good” (as
well as right, wrong, excellent etc.) is reducible to natural, empirically inspectable
qualities such as “pleasure producing.”
(e.g The above views
#3 and #4 as well as Hedonism and
Utilitarianism). This move is known
as Naturalism (in the case of
Ethics, Ethical Naturalism)
Naturalism: Any of
host of movements within philosophy which maintains that the terms which inform
traditional philosophical questions can be recast in, reduced to, or redefined
in empirical terms such that the resolution to those questions can now be
accomplished by the empirical sciences.
[1] Prior to the modern
era, Metaphysics was considered the "First" philosophy. That is, when building a comprehensive
philosophical worldview or a philosophical system, philosophers thought the
first questions to be worried about would be: "What is real?" "What exists?" But with the advent of Rene Descartes Meditations on the First Philosophy he
ushers in a new era where the first set of questions philosophical system
builders tackle are "How do I know?"
"Of what can I be certain?"
This is sometimes referred to as the "Epistemological
Turn." This, however, was later
followed in the 20th century with the "Linguistic Turn." If knowledge equals true, justified,
propositional belief and if this can only be expressed by language, this makes the
questions of epistemology (What can I know?) second order the questions of
Philosophy of Language (What can I say?
-and perhaps, What can I not say?). Further it “truth” is
a relation that holds between our language and the world, again the Philosophy
of Language become of paramount importance.
[2] Some philosophers have
argued that the idea that there are only two possible truth values (T & F)
is artificially narrow. What is one to
do we a sentence like "France is Hexagonal." for instance? See: How To Do Things
with Words By John Langshaw Austin.
Nevertheless, we shall set these objections aside for another day.
[3] You might also review this website which I find fascinating. http://sebpearce.com/bullshit/
[4] Language, Truth and
Logic, p. 142
[5] LTL, 144