Truth-Making

Abstract

The relationship between a revisionary theory of formal ontology and the language we use to express our thoughts about the world is not an easy one to spell out. Language will inevitably play an important role in the development of any theory, but the revisionary metaphysician cannot look past the difficulties that arise in every attempt to ‘get to’ the world through the meaning and/or logical form of language. The revisionary challenge lies in its search for a foundation or source of knowledge. If language is no longer a reliable guide, what is? Modern revisionary metaphysicians have tended to distinguish themselves from descriptive metaphysicians, as Whitehead does, by stressing the empirical element in their theorising. Of course the way we think and talk about the world will, even to them, serve as the starting point of inquiry, but the results must then always be tested against, and revised in accordance with, accepted modern scientific theories. But here, again, the intricacies and idiosyncasies of language will interfere. Even science is expressed in a language, and it is to scientific expressions that the revisionary metaphysician must turn.

Every science must devise its own instruments. The tool required for philosophy is language. Thus philosophy redesigns language in the same way that, in a physical science, pre-existing appliances are redesigned. It is exactly at this point that the appeal to facts is a difficult operation. This appeal is not solely to the expression of the facts in current verbal statements. The adequacy of such sentences is the main question at issue. It is true that the general agreement of mankind as to experienced facts is best expressed in language. But the language of literature breaks down precisely at the task of expressing in explicit form the larger generalities — the very generalities which metaphysics seeks to express.⁶⁵