Tag Archives: Circle

Ayer’s Function of Philosophy in Language, Truth, and Logic ( A Metaphilosophy #2)

2 Dec

I am writing a few things here on my free of obligations thursday so that I can get some posts in before I won’t be able to write anything for about a month (I think). This is simply because I have a ton of school things to do for the next 2 weeks and then I will have Christmas break and will have little time.  I will for sure come back to writing by the week of January 10.

I want to talk about an aspect of another section in A.J. Ayer’s Language Truth and Logic. The second section of the book is the Function of Philosophy. I find this interesting because metaphilosophy and finding out what the goal of philosophy is should be held dear by any philosopher. Again showing his rejection for metaphysics Ayer states that the function for philosophy is not to find insight on metaphysical things. Ayer says that the search for a first philosophy is not really the goal. First philosophy is the kind of philosophizing Descartes did in his meditations.

Ayer proclaims philosophy to be a critic. This is for one thing towards scientific propositions where philosophy is used to critique the sciences and make it better. Mostly, he states philosophy to be a critic in that it tells one whether their beliefs are  ‘self consistent’ or not, and that it shows the things we use to find the truth ( or lack thereof) in our propositions. This function of philosophy contributes to science and critiques things one scientifically proposes. Ayer seems to be defending against the idea that science cannot do without philosophy because of induction. He goes on to say that induction cannot be solved, and we should deal with it in science and philosophy is not really needed for this purpose.

Others in the logical positivist era and before it have maintained the idea that science can do without philosophy and simply that philosophy assists philosophy by critiquing it and making it the best it possibly can be. In the beginning of logical positivism, the Vienna Circle (influenced by Mach and Wittgenstein, and including Carnap, Hempel, Schlick and others) wrote the Scientific Conception of the World. “The goal ahead is a unified science. the endeavor is to link and harmonize  the achievements of individual investigators in their various fields of science. From this aim follows the emphasis on collective efforts, and also the emphasis on what can be grasped intersubjectively; from this springs the search for a neutral system of formulae, for a symbolism freed from the slag of historical languages; and also the search for a total system of concepts.” This I quoted from the Scientific Conception of the World. The aim these scientists show to have is to give philosophy a goal to contribute in this unified science with physics, chemistry and all other sciences contributing in any specific theory. Philosophy just seems here to be one of many parts of a collective effort. Philosophy plays a huge part in this collective effort in that its theories can contribute to any kind of discipline or science. Did I mention the members of the Vienna Circle rejected metaphysics too? Its what all the positivists were doing. If your friends jumped off a bridge would you do it too? I am simply joking because of how many people in the logical positivist era who advocated a verification, an a priori epistemology, and the rejection and elimination of all metaphysics and its pseudo-statements. I can understand why they feel the need to remove metaphysics from philosophy because science does some of metaphysics’ roles in the most logical way possible (I am kind of being facetious). A unified science achieved by collective efforts among many sciences and disciplines is one goal philosophy has. This should not involve the rejection of metaphysics however.

Putting science aside, I feel philosophy is not simply an additive profession used to critique and assist scientific experimentation and exploration. In mostly non-metaphysical aspects of philosophy, there are roles in philosophy made specifically for the critique and use in science, but an underlying goal or purpose exists under all specialized goals and roles the specific kinds of philosophy has (such as I feel the Vienna Circle refers to the philosophy of science and not really to the rest of philosophy as they may have thought). The huge purpose philosophy seems to me to have is the role in doing what science and experimentation cannot.  Science cannot prove the existence of noumenal beings or transcendent realities but philosophy actually has a chance at doing just that. If one uses the intersection of metaphysics and epistemology along with some ethics (and of course logic as the foundation of understandings) to postulate upon our empirical and un-empirical observations, things can be discovered that science cannot measure up to. This is why I think the unified science by the collective efforts of all disciplines including philosophy is the best combination because science being paired with philosophy can yield great results. Philosophical propositions can be experimented sometimes scientifically and proved out.

I totally advocate the unified science proposed by the Vienna Circle, but instead of eliminating half of the entire body of philosophy, it should be revitalized and used toward science’s benefit. Metaphysics can be beneficial to scientists as can some religion.  Philosophy should be used whenever possible in all disciplines of science.

I have interest in metaphilosophy to help philosophers define and redefine the purpose being driven toward. I want to keep addressing themes in metaphilosophy here every once in awhile to keep thoughts on track. Each philosopher regardless of situation has his or her own course of action to take to complete a philosophical project or work. I have my own so I feel it necessary to keep metaphilosophically addressing philosophy right now, and the philosophy I currently pursue.

What function or goal do you think philosophy should have?

Let me know your answer if you would like to (on Twitter, commenting below, or by email).

I appreciate the support as always.


Moritz Schlick’s Turning Point in Philosophy

29 Sep

The Turning Point in Philosophy is a smaller essay of his but it puts some things in perspective while looking at the logical positivist movement as a whole. If you are reading a lot of readings in logical positivism and are confused, this essay by Schlick clears a lot of it up, and makes one understand what the spirit, goal, and motivation of the movement really is. Schlick setting out the goals of the empiricism and positivism, makes me want to set out goals of metaphysics and how those goals should be achieved.

Schlick talks about what the main ‘turning point’ in philosophy is and why it has gone in that direction. The turning point in philosophy is where philosophy stops being cognitions, and becomes ‘acts.’ He talks about philosophy as the set of actions where philosophical propositions are shown as to their meanings, and where the propositions are verified as to their truth by science. He also talks about this turning point of going from cognitions to a system of actions by saying that it intentionally causes the collapse of metaphysics. Schlick is very up front about this statement in that he says that while epistemology and empirical philosophy has a process of actions set out for it to verify its truth, metaphysics has none. Carnap and other positivists created a theory of truth  to verify propositions during the positivist movement as a part of this ‘turning point.’ The verification conditions, including justification, meaning and truth is that truth theory set forth by Carnap. I have talked about these verification conditions many times before, but again, if we have a proposition to be verified, we justify it (I will explain this later in this writing), find its meaning (to be an integral part of philosophy after the collapse of logical positivism), and find its truth, and if we are able to find all 3 we have successfully verified its truth. Propositions come up when we observe things that confuse us and cause us to question things. Carnap says that these conditions are our ‘system of actions’ to verify it. Schlick stated this as the turning point in philosophy because of the change in methodology.

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that is done a lot because of cognitions and this leads to Schlick thinking that the whole of metaphysics (and even theology) should be thrown out and be destroyed because metaphysics does not very much have any other methodology besides cognition.  Schlick jumps on the enormous bandwagon of hating on metaphysics just like Carnap, Wittgenstein,  Hempel, Neurath, Hahn, and others. I do not think that metaphysics should be destroyed, collapsed, or discarded just on a trivial issue of methodology.

Methodology is a big part of philosophy that governs what the rest of philosophy does, and how it is done. What Schlick said is a turning point in philosophy is a large methodological reevaluation. Even though it is a large part of philosophy it is only the root of it, and its problems are only trivial ones. A problem in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, ontology, or aesthetics has a lot more dire consequences if not solved promptly. Because of how trivial methodological problems are, the turning point in philosophy should only be a need for some grease for the gears so that the bigger philosophy (i.e. metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, ontology, aesthetics) can work more cohesively. Methodology is just the solution for non-cohesive  epistemology or metaphysics, just like WD-40 is the solution to a squeaky door hinge.

My point in the WD-40 methodology analogy is that since epistemology had a turning point in philosophy in a methodological way that helps it work better, metaphysics can do the same thing. Metaphysics has done this to a certain degree, but I think a larger overhaul of methodology in metaphysics is necessary. Specifically, I think a metaphysical theory of truth is called for. Metaphysics should not collapse or be discarded over a trivial methodological problem, when the the hinges only need greasing. Throwing out metaphysics over this problem would be like throwing out the whole door, and its hinges instead of just going to the hardware store for some WD-40. Sounds illogical does it not?

Another thing that Schlick goes over is that the turning point in philosophy is a result of proving scientific claims. When Carnap first stated the system of the justification of science, one of the main driving forces in philosophy was verifying things through science. The Vienna Circle, where the logical positivist movement originated from, and the publishing The Vienna Circle: The Scientific Conception of the World talked about rejecting metaphysics and theology, while proving epistemological things through unification by science. This was the method that the logical positivists verified anything, and within verification, justified scientific things.  The justification system of science was what Carnap started with implicit definitions of geometry and physics, and coordinating definitions of language all within analytic things, and also observation and protocol sentences within synthetic things. The verification conditions by Carnap included this within the justification conditions. Concerning the turning point’s driving force towards scientifically conceiving and proving the world, I do not find it a bad idea. It was a good thing for them to try to scientifically prove things to benefit epistemology, but counting out metaphysics and theology while doing that is not good for anyone.

I claim that it is not good for anyone to count those two fields of philosophy out because epistemology cannot answer all things in the world and our lives. Metaphysics and theology contain things that can only be answered by metaphysical and theological methodology and philosophy. This is why I think  a metaphysical theory of truth should be formulated so that metaphysics can finally have a specific methodology of proving the things it proposes. I would like to give my 2 cents on what that metaphysical theory of truth as methodology should be, but not right now because I feel my thoughts inferior and I must refine my thoughts on the subject  and research more about it.

Before ending this writing,  I’d like to talk about a few things that a metaphysical theory of truth should have. A theory of truth serving a metaphysical truth must entirely have a way to account for things proposed that cannot be empirically confirmed. When I say empirically I mean things that cannot be observed. There are many things like Kant’s noumena that cannot be empirically observed, but I think that there must be a way to redeem them from a pseudo-statement status, and prove their existence. I know not yet exactly how this is to be done, but that is a long goal to strive for for all metaphysicians. A future theory of truth for metaphysics should also have some meaning qualifications for it as well, simply because many ‘teavy’ and ‘toovy’s ‘ are proposed in metaphysics that suppose extension and reference, which neither are actually meaning, when both are thought to be so (teavy and toovy are 2 examples of what Carnap thinks are like the terms metaphysics proposes, see the category of Rudolf Carnap to your right to see to read more about Carnap’s teavy and toovy). I will talk more in the future about this future metaphysical theory of truth. All that needs to happen is a revamping of methodology in metaphysics instead of just throwing it all out.

Thanks for the support. More to come on Schlick and his Foundations of Knowledge paper, along with more writings on maybe Carnap and a first writing on Quine.

Moritz Schlick’s Structure and Content: Inexpressibility of Content

28 Sep

In the eighth section of Structure and Content, another essay by Moritz Schlick, he talks about some of the things that are cannot express between each other. By using a blind man as an example, he states that we cannot express ‘content’ between each other; content being empirical observations that are the way they are, and it cannot be explained otherwise. For example, we cannot express yellow to one another. We see yellow, and know what yellow is, but we cannot describe and express yellow only by words and sentences.

Schlick makes a very good example where he talks about the event that you would be talking to a blind man, and you would be trying to describe the color green. When I read this I was drinking an Amp Lightning, which is an energy drink, and it has yellow all over the can, so I thought to myself how I would explain yellow to a blind man. I got no results. I could say: “Okay, so, yellow…..Its lighter than other colors…Its all yellowy.” Sorry if I find this humorous, but this is content according to Schlick, and it cannot be expressed with language. It can only be experienced and observed.

It should be noted the reason for the fact that we cannot express content with language. The answer to the question is that our language systems are all faulty in some way or another. Considering all of the systems of language we have, it is quite a feat for all of those to still be flawed. I have shed a lot of light on the reason that our language systems are naturally flawed, however the issue is how each language in existence is faulty, flawed, and unable to live up to the expectations that our sense, intuitions, and thoughts would like.

The process that I think goes on in us is that we are shown, told, and sensing certain things in the world, and the fact is that we cannot fully reciprocate these actions (if I use the verb correctly).  We are shown the color yellow and black in certain areas as content, and we are only able to tell it back. It can be compared to that tactic for creative writing taught in English classes in the ‘show don’t tell’ tactic. Instead of listing and simply saying what was seen, and sensed, the English teachers teach high school and college students to show. Showing basically means instead of ‘I saw a queen bee, and she stung me on my nose’ as telling, we would write ‘ the large black and yellow insect swiftly flew across the top of my head and confronted my eyes and face, she then inflicted sharp, intense pain with her small but potent stinger’ as showing.  This helps create a sensory image within the mind about what happened to the narrator, and creates a better image than ‘the queen bee stung my nose.’ This showing does not express content however and is as far as one can go in expressing his or her observation. Because the linguistic systems we have do not have the ability to express raw thought, we are left with altered versions of our thought in speech, and are basically stranded in what we really wanted to express.

So what does it mean to epistemology and other philosophy if we cannot express content? I think it means specifically to epistemology (and even more specifically the positivist theory of truth) that verifying the truth and/or existence of the things around us is made much harder. In any theory of truth in metaphysics and epistemology, meaning will always be involved, and if meaning is involved, this faulty language is going to make meaning harder to officially validate. Because we cannot express content, many things have to have more effort put to them to be verified, and also, some things cannot be verified. Some things we see, have content which of course cannot be expressed, and if content is all there is to work with, little can be verified about the experience. For example if an enormous ‘xoolos’ colored rectangular box stood before you, all you would be able to verify is a large rectangular box figure, because the color characteristics of it would not be able to be expressed, because of its content status. If no one else saw it and had no empirical evidence for it, you would basically be talking about any big rectangular box like figure which there are many of in the universe. Fortunately, not all things are so content involved as this that they would be reduced as so, but because of our inability to express content, our ability to verify the existence of some distinct individual things is also flawed, just like our language systems.  The color ‘xoolos’ is just like yellow to a blind man and is content, and cannot be described. This means that some empirical things have the lack of ability or inability to be expressed just as some metaphysics and ontology do. So if there is some epistemological data that cannot be described or verified, why did the logical positivists and the Vienna Circle bash metaphysics so hard? I do not know, but this inability to express content makes all philosophy equal. What this argument basically reduces down to is  that all things in the world are inconsistent, and some things in the world in every subject area cannot be verified. Further reducing the argument down:  We are not sure of some things we propose as truth, and this calls for other methods to assure ourselves of certain things i.e. faith etc.  (this means that we must turn to God for assistance, but that is another argument).

That is a kind of inconsistent explanation. I seem to have flaws in explaining my opinions in contrast with Schlick’s. If you want to talk more about it I would gladly do so.

Not only are there some things in epistemology we cannot verify (very few things cannot be verified in epistemology which allows for some rejection of metaphysics theories), but a way bigger problem is that most metaphysics involves things we cannot verify (by normal methods of empiricism and positivism). It is my point in this writing that if there are things we cannot verify in epistemology but then a few things we sometimes prove out,  it is in metaphysics the same situation. It just so happens that in epistemology more things are verified and proven out than in metaphysics because of the noumena involved in metaphysics. I say this because I think that content should include spiritual intuitions and thoughts in correspondence with God. Many if not most people in the universe would shoot down any theologian or metaphysician if they tried to describe this spiritual correspondence, thoughts or intuitions because we end up sounding irrational, dumb, illogical, and inconsistent. Theologians and metaphysicians sound this way because language cannot show the thoughts, they can only tell (going back to that tactic taught by English teachers). If we have a problem, for example, and pray to God, and then later our problem is solved and we feel very loved and happy in correspondence with God, there is no able way to describe this interaction and event. I have had these correspondences and spiritual thoughts from God, and I cannot come up with words to describe them. Also, if we tried to describe how we can feel God’s presence we will end up sounding illogical and irrational in most cases (God often helps us if we are trying to influence an atheist or agnostic person).  Not only is trying to describe an empirical observation of a color that of content, but spiritual feelings and intuitions are also this way. Comparing Schlick’s talking about describing green to a blind man to a metaphysical content problem, it would be similar to a man saved by God telling a full blown atheist about feeling the presence of God. I feel I have made my point about what content entails and why it equates epistemology and metaphysics in one certain specific manner. If you need more clarification about Schlick or want to talk about my argument more please inquire.

Thanks again for the support.

Classification of Beings

20 Sep



Temporal Classification




Spatial Classification


Sorting Classification















