Abstract
Though it might seem unusual to postpone a discussion of empiricism until after a discussion of Kant, there is a simple reason for doing so. Hegel himself addresses a, if not the, fundamental presupposition of Modern empiricism in the first chapter of the Phenomenology, “Sense-Certainty”: the thesis that we are capable of non-conceptual cognitive apprehension of objects.1 Section II of this chapter discusses this doctrine along with its two main purposes, indicates some of the twentieth-century adherents of these doctrines, and defers thorough analysis of the topic to an analysis of the “Sense-Certainty” chapter—a project lying beyond the bounds of the present study. Despite this deferral, several reflexive problems for empiricism are implied by the questions (discussed above in Chapter One) Hegel raises in the Introduction to the Phenomenology. The gist of the issue is: Can Empiricism be known to be true on empiricist grounds? This issue is discussed in section III of this chapter after considering several formulations of principles of empiricism. Section IV expounds Carnap’s empiricism, for he offers a direct solution (or dissolution) of the problems posed in sections II and III by adopting a liberalized notion of observation and a syntactical construal of the principle of empiricism, a construal rendering that principle non-cognitive and so avoiding the reflexive challenge posed by Hegel. I argue in section V that Carnap’s program fails to replace epistemology with the logic of science and fails to undercut the issue of epistemological realism and so neither handles nor avoids the problems Hegel addresses.2
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Notes to Chapter Four
Russell, ‘Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description’ (in: Mysticism and Logic [London: George Allen and Unwin, 1959], pp. 202–224). Camap’s epistemological program in the Aufbau (op. cit.) presupposed ‘knowledge by acquaintance’ for the recognition of “part similarity” and hence for the occurrence of memory traces of part similarity. See also §§67–69, where it is presupposed that pair-lists of elementary experiences are given. Carnap renounced this doctrine by 1932 (cf. ‘Über Protokolsätze’ [Erkenntnis 3 |1931–32}], pp. 215–228; hereafter cited as ÜP), and says so while lecturing in London (‘Report of Lectures on Philosophy and Logical Syntax’ [Analysis 2 No. 3 |1934}, pp. 42–48; hereafter cited as RLPLS], p. 47). On Schlick, see ‘The Foundation of Knowledge’ (Erkenntnis 4 |1934}, hereafter cited as FK; rpt. in: A. J. Ayer, ed., Logical Positivism [New York: Free Press, 1959; hereafter cited as “Ayer, ed.”], pp. 209–227), pp. 209–210, and on Ayer see ‘Verification and Experience’ (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 37 [1936–1937]; rpt. in Ayer, ed., pp. 228–243), p. 299.
C. D. Broad, Examination of McTaggart’s Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933, 1938). Broad’s account is typical of empiricist theories of concept acquisition.
C. I. Lewis, An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation (LaSalle, Il.: Open Court, 1946), ch. 8, ‘Terminating Judgments and Objective Beliefs.’ Were Lewis not committed to knowledge of “phenomena” by acquaintance, such knowledge would be useless for assessing non-terminating judgments in the way he describes.
For a thorough discussion and refutation of Broad’s theory of concept acquisition, see Robert Turnbull, ‘Empirical and A Priori Elements in Broad’s Theory of Knowledge’ (The Philosophy of C.D. Broad, P. A. Schilpp, ed. [The Library of Living Philosophers; New York: Tudor, 1959], pp. 197–231). A position very like Russell’s “knowledge by acquaintance” was adopted by F. H. Jacobi, with the difference that Jacobi rejected discursivity altogether. Hegel refuted Jacobi by arguing that knowledge is discursive, i.e., conceptual. Hence his criticism of Jacobi bears on Russell as well. I have reconstructed and analyzed Hegel’s critique of Jacobi in ‘Hegel’s Attitude Toward Jacobi in the “Third Attitude of Thought Toward Objectivity”’ (op. cit.). Wilfred Sellars thoroughly analyzes the sources of and the confusions in the notion of the non-conceptual apprehension of objects in ‘Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind’ (Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science Vol. 1; rpt. in: Science, Perception, and Reality [London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963], pp. 127–196).
See Carnap, ‘The Old and the New Logic’ (Erkenntnis 1 [1930–31], rpt. in Ayer, ed., pp. 133–146; hereafter cited as “ONL”), p. 139–140.
Carnap, The Unity of Science (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1931; hereafter cited as “US”), p. 23; cf. Hempel, LPTT p. 54.
T&M p. 2.
ESO pp. 214, 218.
Ibid., pp. 207, 214, 215 note 5.
See §VG below, pp. 64–66.
Logical Syntax of Language, A. Smeaton, tr. (Paterson, N.J.: Littlefield, Adams, 1959).
Carnap, RLPLS p. 42; T&M p. 429; Neurath, PS p. 200.
Carnap, US p. 22.
Carnap, US p. 23; ONL pp. 133, 143–144; T&M pp. 26, 429; Hempel, LPTT p. 54.
Carnap, US p. 38; ÜP p. 228; RLPLS pp. 45, 47; Hempel, LPTT p. 54.
Carnap, ONL pp. 133, 137; ÜP pp. 215, 228; T&M p. 26; Hempel, LPTT p. 54.
T&M pp. 2, 420.
T&M pp. 2, 420; MCTC p. 38.
MCTC pp. 40, 47.
MCTC pp. 59–60. Here Carnap claims to have used a similar approach in T&M regarding the observation language.
MCTC p. 60.
T&M p. 454. 33. T&M p. 455. 34. Ibid.
T&M pp. 455–456.
T&M p. 9.
T&M p. 3.
T&M p. 436.
Ibid.
T&M pp. 468–470; cf. US p. 60.
See below, pp. 55–60.
Carnap explicitly calls these “test sentences” in T&C p. 124. See also MCTC p. 65 and the texts cited in the next note.
T&M pp. 425, 434.
T&M p. 425. This is part of Black’s complaint against Waismann. See note 7 above.
T&M pp. 9–4. Cf. US pp. 78–79; ‘Psychology in Physicalist Language’ (Erkenntnis 3 [1932–33], rpt. in Ayer, ed., pp. 165–198; hereafter cited as “PPL”), p. 192.
T&M p. 440.
T&M pp. 444–448.
Cf. T&M pp. 440–441.
T&M pp. 434–441.
T&M pp. 33–34.
T&M p. 33.
T&M p. 34.
T&M p. 456; cf. pp. 458–459.
T&M p. 456.
See note 58.
MCTC p. 38, T&M p. 14.
Schlick, FK pp. 213–216.
Hempel, LPTT pp. 49, 57 note 6. But see §VA below, pp. 56–57, and notes 72 and 119.
Hempel, LPTT pp. 56–57.
Hempel, LPTT p. 57, cf. p. 54; Neurath, RPWW pp. 352–354; SP p. 286. (This is a year before Tarski developed his semantic definition of truth.)
Hempel LPTT p. 57; cf. Carnap ‘Erwiderung auf die Aufsätze von Zisel und Dunker’ (Erkenntnis 3 [1932–33], pp. 177–188; hereafter cited as “Erw.”), p. 177.
‘Empiricism and Physicalism’ (Analysis 2 No. 6 [1935], pp. 81–92).
Hempel, ‘Some Remarks on Empiricism’ (Analysis 3 No. 3 [1936], pp. 33–40; hereafter cited as SRE), p. 39.
Ayer, ‘Verification and Experience’ (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Soceity 37 [1936–37], rpt. in Ayer, ed., pp. 228–243; hereafter cited as VE), p. 234.
Erw. p. 180.
Ibid. p. 179.
Ibid. pp. 178, 180.
Ibid. p. 179.
Carnap, MCTC p. 38; T&M pp. 14, 454.
PPL pp. 180–181; cf. PPL pp. 184, 185; Erw. p. 177; ÜP p. 221; Hempel, LPTT pp. 54, 57.
Neurath, RPWW p. 359; Carnap, US pp. 43–44; ÜP p. 221; PPL pp. 184, 185; Hempel, SRFP p. 94.
Erw. p. 182.
Carnap PPL pp. 181, 185.
This way of speaking comes from Frederick Dretske, Knowledge and the Flow of Information (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1981). On this view, information is an objective feature of states of affairs, but for anyone to be informed by the receipt of information requires “decoding” that information. There being information does not, of itself, handle this problem.
See note 71.
See Frederick Dretske, ‘Machines and the Mental’ (Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 59 No. 1 [1985], pp. 23–34).
Hempel comes close to this contention (see p. 56 above).
T&C p. 124.
T&C p. 125. Cf. note 45 above.
W. Sellars, ‘Empiricism and Abstract Entities’ (The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, P. A. Schilpp, ed. [Library of Living Philosophers, 1963; hereafter cited as “Schilpp, ed.”], pp. 431–468), p. 435.
Cf. Hempel, LPTT pp. 50–51, 52, 54.
Cf. §IVB above, pp. 51–56.
The Scientific Image (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1980), p. 19.
Carnap, T&M p. 420.
Connected with this is another feature of Carnap’s view. He distinguishes sharply between reasons and motives. Reasons are given for assertions and can result in determining their truth value; motives are given in counseling a decision but have no truth value. This echoes the positivist view about the non-cognitive nature of ethics in that it renders motives non-cognitive. The main idea behind restricting the use of the term “reasons” in this way is the view that reasoning is a matter of deduction. Since deduction can only occur within a formally specified framework, reasons can only be given within such a framework. This aspect of Carnap’s view has been pointed out and critically discussed by Frederick Will in ‘Pragmatic Rationality’ (Philosophical Investigations 8 No. 2 [1985], pp. 120–142).
ESO pp. 215 note 5, 221; cf. The Logical Syntax of Language (op. cit.), pp. 51–52.
Such, at least, is the general implication of Carnap’s discussion of mathematical realism (ESO pp. 218–219).
‘Replies and Systematic Expositions’ (op. cit.; hereafter cited as “Replies”), p. 901.
T&C p. 126.
T&C p. 126. Cf. MCTC p. 51 on scientific “revolutions.”
MCTC p. 46.
‘The “Political” Philosophy of Logical Empiricism’ (Philosophical Studies 2 No. 4 [1951], pp. 49–57), p. 50.
The example is suggested by Paul Feyerabend’s discussion in ‘An Attempt at a Realistic Interpretation of Experience’ (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society NS 58 [1957–58], pp. 143–170), though I elaborate and use it differently. In that essay Feyerabend attempts a very strong attack on positivism and especially on Carnap. However, his entire argument rests on what he calls the “Stability Thesis,” on the claim that the observation language always was, is, and will be applicable. Both Neurath and Carnap reject this thesis as early as 1932 (cf. PS, ÜP), and so Feyerabend’s objection to them fails. One of the principal issues to be decided is the syntactical form of observation sentences, and that form may be changed as needed. Two other deficiencies of Feyerabend’s attack may be briefly noted. First, he fails to see that although Carnap speaks of partially interpreting theoretical terms by syntactically coordinating them with observation terms, Carnap does not hold that theoretical language can be generated out of observation language. What Carnap’s “partial interpretation” amounts to is a specification of the empirical, that is, scientifically testable, meaning of a theoretical language. It is on the basis of this aspect of meaningfulness that a theory can be confirmed by observations (Erw. p. 177). (The other aspect of “meaning” is that formulated in the logical and nomological principles [the L- and P-rules] of a language, later explicated as “meaning postulates.”) Second, Feyerabend’s charge that positivism surreptitiously relies on a metaphysical ontology while denying the validity of metaphysics ignores Carnap’s efforts in ESO to distinguish between the “ontology” or ontological commitments that are internal to a linguistic framework and the external metaphysical question of the reality of any of the items specified within that framework.
See the quotation on p. 55 above.
See the quotation on pp. 60–61.
W. Wick (op. cit.), pp. 53–54.
Ibid. p. 50.
Ibid. pp. 55–56.
Wick does not specify exactly how he thinks that Kant’s practical philosophy is directly relevant to the issue. On Hegel’s practical philosophy, see M. Hardimon, ‘Individual Morality and Rational Social Life; a Study of Hegel’s Ethics’ (Dissertation, University of Chicago: 1985)
Johnathan Robinson, Duty and Hypocrisy in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind (Toronto: University of Toronto press, 1977). Some aspects of how Hegel’s social theory relates to the epistemological issues of this study are discussed below in Chapter Eleven.
This is not to forget the very original studies of formal pragmatics by W. Sellars, especially ‘Pure Pragmatics and Epistemology’ (Philosophy of Science 15 No. 3 [1947], pp. 181–202) ‘Concepts as Involving Laws and as Inconceivable Without Them’ (Philosophy of Science 15 No. 4 [1948], pp. 287–315).
Frederick Will, ‘The Concern About Truth’ (in: G. W Roberts, ed., The Bertrand Russell Memorial Volume [London: George Allen and Unwin; New York: Humanities Press, 1979], pp. 264–284), p. 263.
Hempel, SRFP p. 94.
LPTT pp. 50–52, 54. Hempel speaks here explicitly about revising the concept of truth.
Will, ‘The Concern About Truth’ (op. cit.), p. 266.
ESO p. 213.
See the references given in notes 13–15.
ESO pp. 207–208, 213. See note 96 above.
‘Empiricism and Abstract Entities’ (op. cit.), p. 433. As the title indicates, Sellars goes on to discuss the problem of abstract entities, leaving this pithy comment to stand on its own.
ESO p. 208.
Ibid. p. 213.
Carnap, ESO p. 208; cf. MCTC p. 46, Hempel, SRFP pp. 94–95.
MCTC p. 46. Cf. T&M pp. 19, 20, 44–45; ESO pp. 207–208; Hempel, LPTT p. 55; SRFP p. 95.
Carnap thinks it odd to try first to determine whether or not there is a kind of entity in order to decide whether or not to adopt a linguistic framework containing variables ranging over those entities (ESO pp. 213–214). However, it is no less perverse to adopt, as Carnap would have it, a linguistic framework before determining whether or not there is a kind of entity—only to receive a trivial, analytic answer to our question based on the syntax of the framework we’ve adopted! The objections I have made to Carnap’s position all grant (for the sake of discussion) his distinction between what is “internal” and what is “external” to a linguistic framework. For a concise discussion of objections to this distinction, including Quine’s, see Rod Bertolet, ‘Merril and Carnap on Realism’ (Southern Journal of Philosophy 20 No. 3 [1982], pp. 277–287).
These objections to Carnap’s position have been searchingly developed by Barry Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism , ‘Merril and Carnap on Realism’ (Southern Journal of Philosophy 20 No. 3 [1982], pp. 191–197.
Will, ‘The Concern About Truth’ (op. cit.), p. 273.
Enz. §22z.
Enz. §28z; cf. §62r.
Enz. §28.
G54.8–9/D9/M47.18–9.
WL II pp. 265–66/SL p. 593.
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Westphal, K.R. (1989). Some Aspects of Empiricism and Empirical Knowledge. In: Hegel’s Epistemological Realism. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 43. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2342-3_5
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