Rudolf Carnap, Logical Empiricist

Abstract

In studying the conceptual problems connected with any logically or philosophically interesting term, one of the very first questions we encounter concerns the different grammatical constructions in which it normally occurs (insofar as there is a non-trivial difference in meaning between them). Some distinctions between such constructions have figured prominently in recent philosophical literature. A case in point is Ryle’s emphasis on the distinction between knowing that and knowing how, to which I shall soon return. However, in most cases surprisingly little systematic work has been done to clear up the precise relations between the different constructions and their relative priorities. For instance, even though there are a great many books and articles on the concept of goodness and on the meaning of the word ‘good’ it seems to me that the interrelations of the different grammatical constructions in which it can occur are but imperfectly understood. Some of the most acute discussions of the meaning of ‘good’, for example those by Paul Ziff in Semantic Analysis and by Jerrold J. Katz in Philosophy of Language, concentrate almost exclusively on the use of the word ‘good’ in the construction ‘a good X’¹ These authors do not ask whether this is a basic and irreducible construction for the relevant logical and philosophical purposes, or whether it can be analyzed in terms of other uses of ‘good’, for instance, the one exemplified by ‘It is good that’. I suspect that the latter is more fundamental than the use in the form ‘a good X’.