MASTER'S THESIS M-687

GRIFFITHS, Leslie Morris SamueL THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE REFUTATIONS OF PROFESSOR AYER'S PRINCIPLE OF VERIFICATION.

The American University, M. A ., 1964 Philosophy

University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan COPYRIGHT BY

LESLIE MORRIS SAMUEL GRIFFITHS

1964 . THE JUSTIFICATION OP THE REFUTATIONS OF PROFESSOR AYER'S PRINCIPLE OF VERIFICATION

■ ' Leslie M. sT Griffiths

Submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of The American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree

of

Master of Arts

Signatures of Committee:

Chai rman : /}

Dean of the College

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The American University 'AUG 24:1964 Washington, D. C. WflSHlHGIDH.DC

4- Soi'j THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE REFUTATIONS OF PROFESSOR AYER'S PRINCIPLE OF VERIFICATION

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION p. 1

A. The need for the study of the principle of Verification. B. The neglect of Professor Ayer's philosophy by the critics of positivism.

C. Description of Chapters which attempt to rectify this alleged negligence.

CHAPTER I -- The Status of Ayer's Principle of Verification...... p. 5

Section i

A. A description of the function of the principle.

1. The status of metaphysical statements. 2. The status of ethical statements. 3 . The status of theological statements.

B. The difficulty of formulating a principle of verification.

1. Purpose -- to render philosophy a department of logic. 2. Mathematical and scientific statements acceptable.

Section ii

C. Professor Ayer's prepositional dichotomy (the a priori and the empirical).

1. The distinction between empirical and super-empirical statements. 2. The notion of 'literal' significance. 3. Definition of a 'metaphysical statement'. 11

D. Ayer's rejection of complete verifiability.

1. Complete verifiability and scientific statements. 2. 'Modified principle' includes 'general laws' of science.

S. Ayer's proposal and later rejection of the notion of 'weak' and 'strong' verification.

Ï. Ayer's rejection of the Falslflablllty Criterion.

Q-. Ayer's 'liberal' approach to verifiability.

1. Allowances for statements about the past. 2. Allowances for statements of science (laws). 3. Ayer's 'liberal' approach as too liberal.

H. Ayer's rejection (1946) of his earlier formu­ lation (1936).

1. Terminological difficulties regarding proper usage. 2. The problem of the usage of 'sentence', 'statement' and 'proposition' overcome.

I. Emended version of verifiability criterion.

1. Emended version — Ayer's final attempt. 2. Professor Church's logical refutation of the emended version.

J. Ayer's more recent view of the possibility of formulating the principle of verification satisfactorily.

CHAPTER II — Background of Professor Ayer's Logical Empiricism 1 T~~. I } I T~Z I I . . . T . .p. 28 A. Ayer's claim to have derived his view from earlier forms of empiricism.

B. Ayer and Berkeley: A comparison of phénoméno­ logies .

1. Berkeley's formula -- not a verifiability criterion. 2. Sense-ezperlence for Berkeley and Ayer. ill

3. Ayer's criticism of Berkeley's analysis. 4. Ayer's posit of sense-coAtents rather than physical objects. 5. Berkeley and Hume on the meaning of 'idea'.

C. Hume and Ayer: A comparison of methods.

1. Hume and Ayer: A prepositional dichotomy. 2. Hume and Ayer : On ethical statements. 3. Hume and Ayer: Exclusion of metaphysics.

D. Language and Meaning: A transition through British Idealism.

E. Ayer's dependence on Russell and Wittgenstein's 'logical atomism'.

1. Hume also philosophical atomlst. 2. Russell's atomism — not necessarily connected to his early Platonism. 3. Logical-atomism and perception in Russell. 4. Ayer's adaptation of Russell's logical construction. 3. Russell's analysis of 'fact' (complex). 6. Russell's cautious but positlvistic sympathies. 7. Russell and Wittgenstein -- fact and name. 8. Wittgenstein's 'state of affairs' as 'simples' of perception. 9. Ayer on 'truth' in Russell and Wittgenstein,

F. Translation of Logical Atomism to Ayer's Logical Empiricism.

1. Sensible object as construct. 2. Problem of 'relations' . 3. Basic propositions — as verification of verifiers. 4. The problem of ostensive definitions. 5. Problem of relation between language and fact. 6. Philosophy not about statements only.

G. Ayer's connexion with the Vienna Circle.

1. Historical survey of the Vienna Circle. 2. The influence of the Circle on Ayer's philosophy. 3. Other influences upon Ayer's philosophy. iv

CHAPTER III — Language and Meaning: The Justification of the Refutations of Ayer's Principle of Ÿerifïcailom I . . . I I I i 7~\ i I . .p. 59

Section 1

A. On the notion that Ayer's amended version requires emended criticisms — critics' generalizations condemned.

1. Warnook's criticism. 2. Copleston's criticism. 3. William's criticism. 4. Walsh's criticism. 5. Summary of positions.

Section 11 B. The inapplicability of general critiques to Ayer's Empiricism.

1. The danger of general classification. 2. Ayer’s technical usage — the only defence needed. 3. R. M. Hare -- a criterion of empirical!ty? 4. Difference between literal and factual significance. 5. Warnock's criticism unjustified In Ayer's terms. 6 . William's critique — Ayer's 'lumping' - and William's 'lumping'. 7. Rejection of Walsh s criticism. 8 . Felgl's defence of Ayer on 'metaphysics'. 9. Copleston's criticism unjustified. 10. Ferre's criticism not applicable to Ayer's criterion.

(a) Austin's performatives not 'true' or 'false . (b) Literal significance -- verifiable propositions by reduction. (c) Austin's debt to Hume (hitherto not acknowledged). (d) Austin's 'performatives* -- their possible classification.

11. Passmore's failure to use verifiability as 'demarcation line'. 12. Church's criticism justified -- but not general critiques. Section 111

C. Importance of the question — whether or not the Criterion is self-verifiable,.

1. Analysis of Ayer's criterion: Is it empirical or a priori? 2. Breakdown of the attempts to 'name' the criterion Itself. 3. Breakdown of prepositional types as possible answer. 4. The problem of the criterion — is it metaphysical?

CHAPTER IV — Language and Fact; An Analysis of the Applicability o t the Criterion . I ! T . .p. 96

A. Restatement of Ayer's emended version.

B. Another criterion needed to remove uncer­ tainty of the relation between language and perception.

C» Analysis of 'actual observation' and sense- data terminology.

1. Sense-data: a means of referring to appearance. 2. Metaphysical entailment of extra- linguistic sources.

D. Ayer's implicit acceptance of modal relationships.

1. 'Word' and 'empirical fact': a relation of possibility. 2. Multiple relation of possibility. 3. Statements via observation of facts: Inconsistency of Ayer's claim that philosophy consists of talk about things.

E. Terminal point of the principle -- 'sense- contents' or 'verifiers'.

1. Ayer's philosophy not purely contextual definition. 2. Non-verlflcation of extra-linguistic referents. vi

3. The language-sense-perceptlon relation — metaphysical. 4. Ayer's does have 'first principles'.

CHAPTER V — Can we Have a Principle of Verification?, p. 115

A. Principle of Verification unsuccessful.

1. Inadequacy of Ayer's definition of meaning. 2. Principle is conceivably linguistic solipsism. 3 . Support for a metaphysical problem in Ayer's phenomenalism.

3. What the Principle of Verification did for philosophy.

1. Job of philosophy Is to raise ques­ tions (Ayer). 2. Meanings of words, etc., 'in use' (context-dependent). 3 . Existence of verifiers Important (reductionism). 4. Philosophers now have clarity (an un­ written criterion of meaning).

C. Concluding remarks.

1. Verification principle if metaphysical not in need of another label. 2. Notion of anti-metaphysical metaphysics. 3 . Verification method or principle is 'universal maxim' (perhaps even self­ destructive) . THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE REFUTATIONS OF PROFESSOR AYER'S PRINCIPLE OF VERIFICATION

^ Introduction

This study is essentially an attempt to trace the develop­ ment of the principle of verification presented by the philosophy of Professor A. J. Ayer and some of its criticisms in one com­ prehensive study.

It is characteristic of journal articles, books and other philosophical works that they have not sufficiently dealt with this testability criterion in terms of Professor Ayer's philo­ sophy alone. For in recognising the importance of logical empiricism, most philosophers have advanced their criticisms in the form of passing comments and only then as a means of justifying some other viewpoint. This is not to say that these, which I shall now call 'standard criticisms' are inadequate, rather it is only to say that for the most part they are too general and wide in scope to do justice to any one particular view.

To rectify this negligence is the thesis of the following five chapters. The intention behind the first chapter will be to describe what Professor Ayer's principle of verification Is, and from there to go on to evaluate what the various modifica­ tions of the criterion purported to do; from this point I shall go on to analyse these principles as to whether or not they suc­ ceed in doing what it was originally supposed they could. —2—

The purpose of the second chapter is to describe briefly the background of Ayer's logical empiricism^. This includes something of the philosophies of Berkeley, Hume, Russell and

Wittgenstein from which the basis of Ayer's position is derived.

This is not intended to be an exhaustive historical evaluation, for this is a problem for a history primarily devoted to the subject. Rather what I have done only constitutes a brief des­ cription of some of the terminology of these philosophers and of how Ayer redefines such usage in terms more compatible to his own view.

Occasionally, as is the case in dealing with Hume's moral philosophy, I have found it necessary to "go out on a limb" and state what 1 think was the primary intention of the philosopher in question. While such notions could perhaps be established more conclusively, I have, for the purpose of expediting mat­ ters, had to state them much too abruptly. Here I am perhaps open to the same criticisms that I lodge against some of the

critics of positivism -- that of over-generallzation.

The third chapter of this study forms the nucleus of the whole problem: that of repudiating some of the critiques of positivism In terms of the particular empiricism of Professor

Ayer. This is accomplished first by considering the criticisms

themselves and secondly, by pointing out the fact that they do

not apply to Ayer's positivism. However, it was felt that a third

section should be incorporated into this discussion in order

to point out the one criticism that does generally apply to -3- positivlsm — the verifiability of the verification principle.

I have not attempted to defend Ayer on this point, but 1 have suggested some alternatives to the problem of the verification of the principle of verification which, if acceptable, might overcome certain difficulties. But as is always the case in answering questions in philosophy it raises other problems which are not so readily solved.

My fourth intention is to analyse the principle of veri­ fication in terms of the problems connected with certain lin­ guistic usage and the facts it is made to describe. In doing this I have again "gone out on a limb." My only justification for doing this is that of wanting to present one of my own cri­ ticisms of Ayer's positivism. Consequently, the claim for the correctness of such an analysis may be questionable; however, the claim for using the analytic method is not.

The concluding chapter of this study is a look at what in the opinion of otheris the present status of the prin­ ciple of verification. This is presented in the discussion of two questions: (1) What function did the principle of veri­ fication perform for philosophy? (2) Can we have a principle of verification at all? In my attempt to answer these questions

I hope that something of a recommendation will be presented -- that Is a recommendation of how the reduction of statements to the verifiers which constitute their meaning may be used for analysis in other fields. -4-

From the content of this study it will be obvious that

the writer upholds Professor Ayer's philosophy as an important development in the current "Revolution in Philosophy." For one of Ayer's greatest achievements in popularizing positivism was that ho was able to light philosophical fires more than

satisfy overly imaginative metaphysical palates.

There were some difficulties, however, in undertaking such

a study, for the proponents and critics of the positivist move­ ment cover a vast corpus of journal articles, books and lectures

produced over a period of almost half a century. Consequently

I have thought it necessary to skip over some of these in order

to present the highlights of the material used in supporting

the main body of the thesis. Finally, I am of the opinion that

in his more recent writings Professor Ayer still clings to the

basic problems and the method of solving them that is contained

in his earlier views. Accordingly I have freely used his later

material where I have thought that it expands certain points

contained in his earlier and somewhat briefer account. And in

doing this X have not consciously attempted to fabricate some

viewpoint of which Ayer himself has made no mention at all. -5-

Chapter I

THE STATUS OF AYER'S PRINCIPLE OF VERIFICATION

To determine whether or not a statement expresses a genu­ ine empirical hypothesis was a primary intention of the prin­ ciple of verification. For it was characteristic of Ayer's earliest view (viz. 1934-36) to claim that a sentence expressed an empirically genuine hypothesis if it could be substantiated by propositions referring to some sense-experience which could determine its truth or falsity.^ Accordingly if one were only allowed to begin with the evidence of one's senses, one could formulate empirical premises. Vhat one could not do was to infer something super-empirical from these empirical premises.

Moreover, it was on the alleged meaninglessness of these super- empirical or metaphysical statements that the Positivists centred their attention. For if the statements within a given metaphysical system were held by their authors to be true, how and in vdiat way are they so established? Examples of these metaphysical utterances, such as those quoted from the works of

Heidegger and Bradley by Carnap and Ayer, are "'Nothing' is a name idiich is used to denote something peculiarly mysterious," and "the Absolute enters into, but is itself incapable of evolution and progress"^ were taken to be typical. Could metaphysicians suppose that such statements were a priori

1. A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (London: Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 1936) 2nd ed., p. 35 {hereafter referred to as L.T.L.). 2. Ibidem, pp. 43-44, 36. —6— necessary truths grounded in pure reason? If they did suppose this, then surely the system from which such utterances were ex­ tracted must be tautological. For besides being abstract formal truths which say nothing about the phenomenal world, their necessity lies in the fact that their negation constitutes a mere infringement of their own contextual usage. The only al­ ternative to this was to suppose that their justification was grounded in some factual referent or other. However, if this was seriously contended, then such statements should be veri­ fiable by empirical observation. And the Positivists argued that empirical verification of super-empirical or metaphysical statements was impossible. Of course, the metaphysician might object to this on the ground that there are facts which are not of the empirical kind so that all sentences purporting to state them need not be meaningless merely because they are not empiri­ cally verifiable. But it was the contention of the Positivist that if upon examination empirical evidence was in no way re­ lated to the statements in question either in principle or in practice then such statements were meaningless. It will be shown later that although Professor Ayer's particular brand of logical positivism is not accurately described in the view about meaningless statements given above, many of the opponents of

Positivism make the mistake of supposing that it is.

Professor Ayer defined a metaphysical sentence "as a sen­ tence which purports to express a genuine proposition, but does -7-

In fact express neither a tautology nor an empirical hypothesis."^

And from this it was thought that all metaphysical sentences ware nonsense or meaningless on the ground that no sense experi­ ence could possibly verify them in the same way that empirical sentences could be verified. Moreover since "tautologies and empirical hypotheses form the entire class of significant pro­ positions", Ayer felt justified in calling any statement "non­ sensical" if it did not belong to this class.^ The way in which one determine whether or not any given statement belonged to this class of nonsensical or metaphysical expressions was to subject the given statement to the scrutiny of the principle of verification. If the statement in question failed to meet the requirements of the principle, then that statement was said to be meaningless. And for metaphysical speculation this notion had destructive consequences, for it meant that:

God and the absolute, the soul, other selves, ideas, substance, causal necessity, truth, beauty, and goodness, protons and electrons, all sense qualities that are beyond our own powers of perceiving, all the objects of pre­ sent sensation in their unperceived status, are prima facie ruled out as meaningless. 5

Even the everyday ethical sentences and pronouncements were regarded by Positivism as literally meaningless. For while it was thought that such statements are "emotively significant,"

3. Ibidem, pT 4l. 4. Ibidem. 5. Brand Blanshard, Reason and Analysis (Illinois: Open Court Publishing Co., 1962^, p. II3. Note: Professor Blanshard does not subscribe to this view. All he is doing is pointing out what the Positivists in general supposed they could accom­ plish. -8-

that is to say they are expressions of one's attitudes and

feelings, this notion alone could never be an objective standard

of their significance. Moreover, in holding that ethical ex­ pressions do not express genuine statements at all,^ they were

also subscribing to Russell'^ notion that "there are no facts 7 \ of ethics.And Professor Ayer in making his contribution to

the positivist position, while not denying that there could be

a strictly philosophical treatment of ethics, does hold that

such a treatment would only consist of analyzing ethical terms

for the purpose of classifying them and could not itself make

"ethical pronouncements."^ Summarizing his rejection of meta­

physical and ethical statements. Professor Ayer says:

The theist, like the moralist, may believe that his experiences are cognitive experiences, but, unless he can formulate his "knowledge" in propositions that are empirically verifi­ able, we may be sure that he is deceiving himself. 9

But in order to carry through their "elimination of metaphysics"

the positivists thought that a formula should be adopted which

would act as a criterion of empiricality. However, the formu­

lation of such a principle proved to be difficult. And the

disagreements which ensued engendered serious philosophical

discussions regarding what could be credited as being signifi­

cant discourse and what could be rejected. The common intention

51 Ayer, L.T.L.. p. 109. 7. Bertrand Russell, Power; A New Social Analysis (London: George Allan and Unwin Ltd.7 193Ô)# P* 257. 8. Ayer, L^^T^JL., p. 103. 9. Ibidem, p. 120. -9- was to propose a principle which could reject metaphysical discourse as meaningless and thereby render philosophy as a

"department of logic. In the attempt to substantiate such a principle some of the early positivists even rejected certain scientific hypotheses on the ground that they were metaphysical statements which could not be empirically verified. 11

Among the statements that the positivists considered to be acceptable were those of mathematics and the sciences. But it was not the truth or falsity of these statements that came to be the central issue. What was important was the establish­ ment of an effective criterion of meaning. However, it is not the Intention of the present study to account historically for the philosophical differences in the views of the Viennese positivists about how this criterion could be formulated. In­

stead an account will be given of Ayer's reasons for emending some views and rejecting others in order to determine the sta­ tus of the principle for his own philosophy.

10. Ibidem, p. 57» 11. Ernst Nach, c. 1928, supposed that in introducing such things as electrons and atoms the physicists were little short of being metaphysicians. For since these nuclear entities could not be perceived, they could not themselves verify physi­ cal laws. Hach did not deny the existence of such nuclear en­ tities if they were used in connecting percepts. But such entities would have much the same status as certain mathematical notions such as the square root of two. Nothing in nature cor­ responds to them but they do simplify mathematical manipulations. (Vide Blanshard, op. cit. , p. 110-111 ; vide Russell's comment in Logic and Knowledge concerning the rejection by some philo- sophers of "general propositions." (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1956), pp. 301-382.) -10-

11

In his adaptation of Hume's prepositional dichotomy, Pro­ fessor Ayer distinguishes between the a priori pimpositions of logic and pure mathematics and those propositions which are empirical hypotheses. Because the a priori propositions are held to be ezperientially non-confutable, they are said to be necessary and certain. And because these a priori propositions make no assertion about the empirical world, a principle designed 1 2 to verify them via experiential data would be pointless. On the other hand, empirical statements, that is those which refer to the world of possible experience and are not "basic state­ ments,"^^ Ayer maintains can only be probable but never certain.

In this case it was thought that a principle which could give a description of the conditions under which such statements might be credited with having factual meaning would be important.

12. To avoid confusion here all that is being admitted is what Ayer himself says: "... we lay stress on the fact that the criterion by which we determine the validity of an a priori or analytic proposition is not sufficient to determine the validity of an empirical or synthetic proposition." (L.T.L. , p. 90.) 13. Note: Ayer's 1936 position rejected ostensive defi­ nitions (vide L.T.L.. p. 91 ) on the grounds that they contained demonstrative symbols (e.g., "this is blue"). But in the second edition (viz. 1946) he emended this notion because he came "to think that there is a class of empirical propositions of which it is permissible to say that they can be verified conclusively (vide p. 10). These propositions Ayer calls "basic propositions" which he considers to be "incorrigible." (On the notion that all propositions having empirical content could not be conclu­ sively verified, see L.T.L. . p. 72. ) -11-

For not only would it exclude statements of non-factual content but it would also act as a regulative principle for future philo­

sophical speculation* It is Important here to note that Ayer does not say that metaphysical and non-verifiable sentences are unprofitable for their authors. All he wishes to say is that

such sentences "fail to conform to the conditions under which

alone a sentence can be literally significant."^^ And here it

should be mentioned that for Ayer a "literally significant" sen­

tence is any sentence that satisfies his criterion of meaning.

This differs from a "factually significant" sentence which re­

fers to statements which satisfy the criterion and are not ana­

lytic . Since literally significant sentences may be either

analytic or factual, the term "literally significant" refers to

a more inclusive class of sentences thah the class of factually

14. Ayer, opT cit.. p. 35. 1 5 . Ibidem, p. I5 . Note: Empirical verification, in its most general form, requires of a sentence that the test of its factual significance be established by either actual or potential observation providing that the sentence is neither analytic nor contradictory. But the exclusion of analytic propositions calls for some explanation. In the first place, an analytic statement or proposition is such that it is self-consistent and true, since its validity, though not determinable by experience, follows "simply from the definitions of the terms contained in it". Thus, for example, the proposition "either this is a tame tiger or this is not a tame tiger" or "either p is true or p is not true" is not only not confutable by experience but also such propositions contain no factual information. But even the exclusion of experience or factual content from the class of analytical propositions does not exclude the fact that such propositions are true in themselves besides being meaningful in the sense that they do indicate the way in which symbolic relationships occur. (Vide Ayer, op. cit., p. 79-82. Note : What is called a proposition above may not be so called in the technical sense maintained in Russell and Whitehead's logic — but Ayer calls the form pv - p a proposition nevertheless. Vide his exeunple, p. 79* For -12- significant sentences. Accordingly for Ayer the condition which was supposed to determine whether or not a sentence is literally significant was the requirement that such a sentence should be tested by means of the principle of verification.

And he begins his earliest attempt at formulating the principle of verification by claiming only to describe it in "vague terms," for he wanted to lay the ground work for a more detailed ex­ planation later on in his book. This preliminary remark says

that :

Wittgenstein too, tautologies of the form (p v -rp) etc. are called propositions. Vide Alexander Haslow, A Study in Witt­ genstein' s Tractatus (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 19&1), p. Il5. ) The proposition "it is raining or it is not raining" gives me no information about the weather. Neither does it tell me about any possible state of affairs. If we wish to discover the truth or falsity of the elementary propositions which are said to be expressed by certain sentences, such elementary propositions are the truth functions of that sentence. The main reason for the exclusion of tautologies from empirical verification is because they convey no information about the world of experience. A similar reason is also sup­ plied by Wittgenstein from whom Ayer partly derived his own view. Wittgenstein says: 4.462. Tautologies and contradictions are not pictures of reality. They do not represent any possible situations for the former admit all possible sit­ uations, and the latter none. In a tautology the conditions of agreement with the world -- the representational relations — cancel one another, so that it does not stand in any representational relation to reality. Ludwig Wittgenstin, Tractatus Logioo Philoso- phicus (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961), p. 69. Translated by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGinness. Also see proposals 4.46-4.466l of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. -13-

...a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express -- that is, if he knows what ob­ servations would lead him, under certain con­ ditions, to accept the propositions as being true, or reject them as being false. If, on the other hand, the putative pro­ position is of such a character that the as­ sumption of its truth, or falsehood, is con­ sistent with any assumption whatsoever concerning the nature of his future experi­ ence, then, as far as he is concerned, it is, if not a tautology, a mere pseudo­ proposition.... And with regard to ques­ tions the procedure is the same. We enquire in every case what observations would lead us to answer the question, one way or the other; and if none can be discovered, we must con­ clude that the sentence under consideration does not...express a genuine question. l6

Presented in this way the criterion seems to be more of a procedural recommendaticn than an accurate and logically precise formulation. However, all of Ayer's attempts to for­ mulate a precise criterion have been such that he has allowed for the literal significance of certaip types of general state­ ments. For this would make it less restrictive than the earlier criterion adopted by Schlick and others that to be meaningful a statement had to be conclusively verified. 17 How could any­ one, by a finite series of observations, conclusively verify the statement that "all swans are white" unless one could ex­ amine all the possible instances? And even if one could examine all the possible cases, there still exists the chance that

Ï51 Ayer, L.~T.L.. p. 35. 17. Note: M. Schlick and F. Waismann held the notion of conclusive verifiability in 1930 (ibidem, p. 37n). -l4- durlng the observations one swan might have been born black.

From this example it is clear that to require conclusive veri­ fication would be to exclude not only metaphysical statements but also statements expressing scientific laws. And Ayer's earliest view was that it was impossible for any empirical pro­ positions to be anything more than probable hypotheses. For he had not yet reached the conclusion of the second edition that there is "a class of empirical propositions of which it is per- 1 A missible to say that they can be verified conclusively.

These came to be regarded as "incorrigible" and Ayer calls them

"basic propositions" meaning thereby that it is "impossible to be mistaken about them except in a verbal sense."^9 Since,

Ï81 ÂyêrT L.T.L., p. 10. 19. Ibidem. Note: In one of his earliest views Ayer defined basic statements or propositions as propositions "... which need not wait upon other propositions for the determin­ ation of their truth or falsehood, but are such that they can be directly confronted with the given facts." And this view of basic propositions was incorporated into Ayer's second edi­ tion in 1946. However, the notion of the verbal way in which basic propositions can be mistaken was suggested to Ayer by G. E. Moore. (Vide Ayer's"Verification and Experience," Pro­ ceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. 37 (1936-37). re- printed in Logical Positivism, edited by A. J. Ayer (Illinois: The Free Press, 1949), pp. 228-243. ) But this was presumably after the 1936 edition of Language, Truth and Logic, since no mention was made of the suggestion in that work. Indeed Ayer gives no indication of what "basic propositions" are at all in the first edition. I shall mention his changing opinion on the notion of ostensive definitions in the course of this study. But I do not wish to fuse the notions of ostensive definitions and basic propositions together since, in the second edition, an ostensive definition understood by someone other than one­ self would "no longer express a basic proposition." Moreover, the first edition maintains that there "could not be such things as basic propositions" in the sense that the term is being used in the second edition. To find Ayer's earliest views -15- hovever, "the vast majority of the propositions that people

actually express are neither themselves basic statements, nor

deduolble from any finite set of statements," this does not alter

the fact that a criterion of meaning, if it is to be at all func­

tional, must allow some statements which are "not so strongly 2 O verifiable as basic statements are supposed to be."

It has been shown that Ayer holds that because it is char­

acteristic of general laws "designed to cover an infinite number

of cases" they cannot be conclusively verified on the ground

that no series of finite observations could so certify themv.

Accordingly he thought a "modified principle" designed to in­

clude them would not be as self-stultifying as one that was not.

So a distinction was made between the "strong" and the "weak"

sense of the term "verifiable":

A proposition is said to be verifiable in the strong sense of the term, if, and only if, its truth could be conclusively established in experience. But it is verifiable, in the weak sense, if it is possible for experience to render it probable. 21

However, ten years later (1946) Ayer was to argue that the

way in which he had described the sense in which he intended

the usage "strong" and "weak" verifiability was not genuine on

regarding "basic propositions" one needs to refer to his article "Verification and Experience" cited above, but I do not detect an important difference between Ayer's view in the article and the second edition on basic propositions. 20. Ibidem, p. 11. 21. Ibidem, p. 37. -l6- the grounds that he had already dismissed "strong" verifia­ bility because of the conclusive verification it requires. On this Ayer says that :

What I seem, however, to have overlooked is that, as I represent them, these are not two genuine alternatives (i.e., 'strong' and 'weak' verification). For I subsequently go on to argue that all empirical propositions are hy­ potheses which are continually subject to the test of further experience; and from this it would follow not merely that the truth of any such proposition never was conclusively esta­ blished but that it never could be ; for however strong the evidence in its favour, there would never be a point at which it was impossible for further experience to go against it. But this would mean that my ' strong' sense of the term 'verifiable ' had no possible application, and in that case there was no need for me to qualify the other sense of 'verifiable' as weak; 22

This admitted oversight by Ayer, however, does not lead him to dispense entirely with the notion of 'strong' verifiability.

For it has been already noted that between the first and second editions Ayer did in fact "come to thin^ that there is a class of empirical propositions of which it is permissible to say

that they can be verified conclusively."^^

In addition to his rejection of complete verification in

the 1936 edition Ayer also rejected Karl Popper's proposed al­

ternative, namely, "that a sentence should be allowed to be

factually significant if, and only if, it expresses something

which is definitely confutable by experience. This criterion.

22. Ayer, L.T.L.. pp. 9-10. 2 3 . Ibidem, p. 10 24. Vide Karl Popper, Logik der Forschung, as quoted by Ayer, ibidem, p. 38. (Eng. translation, The Logic of Scientific PlscoveryT ) -17- commonly known as the criterion of "Complete Falsiflability in

Principle," Is based on the proposal that the meaning of a statement was not grounded in its possible verification but its falsification. For It was thought that if general state­ ments of scientific law could not be conclusively verified they might at best "be capable in theory of being falsified.

Moreover, Popper thought that a criterion of falsiflability

"was more in accord with scientific practice; for scientists set up hypotheses which they test by looking for counter exam­ ples" which results In the eventual abandonment or modification of any hypothesis so falsified. But as Ayer argues, the de­ merits of this theory are that "a hypothesis cannot be con­ clusively confuted any more than it can be conclusively veri­ fied. ...And If it is not the case that any hypothesis can be definitely confuted, we cannot hold that the genuineness of a proposition depends on the possibility of its definite confu­ tation."^^ But as Ayer says. Popper himself recognizes that the criterion of falsification

...allows one to deny an indefinite existen­ tial statement but not to affirm it. One can say that there are no abominable snowmen, for this could be falsified by finding them, but one cannot say that there are abominable snow­ men, for this could not be falsified; the fact that one had failed to find any would not prove conclusively that none existed. What could be disproved would be that any of them existed at a particular place and time, and

25. Ayer, editor, Logical Positivism, p . lU . 26. Ibidem. 27. Ayer, L.T.L., p. 38. -18-

It Is only if this further specification is given that the statement becomes legitimate: otherwise it is to be counted as metaphysi­ cal. 28

Professor Hempel in his approach to this problem says that the

criterion of falsiflability "rules out purely existential hypo­

theses, such as 'There exists at least one unicorn* and all

sentences whose formulation calls for mixed -- i.e., universal

and existential quantification ; for none of these can possibly

be conclusively falsified by a finite number of observation OQ sentences." Moreover, conclusive falsiflability is shown by

Hempel to suffer from similar objections as those lodged against

conclusive verifiability;

If a sentence S is completely falsiflable whereas M is a sentence which is not, then their conjunction, S.N...ls completely falsl- fiable; for if the denial of S is entailed by some class of observation sentences, then the denial of S.N. is a fortiori entailed by the same class. Thus the criterion allows empirical significance to many sentences which an adequate empiricist criterion should rule out, such as, say "All swans are white and the absolute is perf#Ot." 30

28.' Ayer,“ Logical Positivism, p. l4, 2 9 . Carl G. Hempel, *^The Bmpiriclst Criterion of Meaning," Logical Positivism, pp. 108-129* Hempel has a footnote in his article! "The îdea of using theoretical falsiflability by ob­ servational evidence as the criterion of demarkation" separating empirical science from mathematics and logic on the one hauid and metaphysics on the other is due to Karl Popper (Karl Popper, Logik der Porschung (Wien: Spraeger, 1935), Sections 1-7 and 19-24^ English translation. The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Hutchinson, 1958). Also see Popper^s The Open Society and Its Enemies (London: Houtledge, 19^5), Vol. II, pp^ 282-285< 30. Hempel, ibidem, p.. llh. -19-

But these inadequacies did not prevent Ayer from attempting to formulate his own principle of verification which would not be quite so restrictive. To prepare the way for his more liberal criterion Ayer adopted a notion from the positivistic legacy of Professor Schlick and others. This was the notion that if the principle were designed to reject statements about the past or future, then such a criterion would be philosophically overly restrictive. Accordingly the distinction was made between prac­

tical verifiability and verifiability in principle. For while

some statements, and the sentences which express them, are understood without appealing to the criterion, there are others which are similarly understood yet are not testable. An example

of such a non-testable statement used by Schlick and Ayer to

show that these non-verifiable statements are meaningful is the

assertion "that there are mountains on the other side of the moon.Since we are unable, according to the present state

of science, to give any set of observation statements which would

verify such an assertion, it need not on that account be exclu­

ded from the class of significant statements. This is due not

only to the fact that we know it is theoretically conceivable,

but also because we know under what circumstances such an asser­

tion might be verified. Accordingly Ayer concludes that the

term verifiability in principle should be used to refer to

statements that express what is theoretically conceivable.

31. Ayer, L.T.L. , p. 3S, -20-

Wlth this distinction clearly defined, plus certain addi­ tional linguistic technicalities of his own, Ayer thought that he had prepared the way for a new criterion. And since the overly restrictive character of complete verifiability and complete falsiflability necessitated the formulation of some­ thing more liberal, he makes this approach by saying, "Let us call a proposition which records an actual or possible obser­ vation an experiential proposition." With this technical terminology he goes on to say that "it is the mark of a genuine factual proposition" that "some experiential propositions can be deduced from it in conjunction with certain other premises without being deducible from those other premises alone.

In Ayer's view this would grant some significance to general and historical propositions. But as he admitted in his second edition this criterion is "far too liberal, since it allows meaning to any statement whatsoever. "^3 As an example, the statement "s", "the absolute is lazy", and an observation statement "o", "this is white", "O" follows from "s" and "if S then O" without following ..from "if S then 0 alone." Thus the statements "the absolute is lazy" and "if the absolute is lazy, this is white" jointly entail the observation-statement, "this is white," and since "this is white" does not follow from either of these premises, taken by itself, both of them satisfy

32% Ibidem, pp. 38-39. 33. Ibidem, p. 11. -21-

o Jl my criterion of meaning."^ Thus while Ayer had rejected falsi- fiability and conclusive verifiability and had allowed for historical statements as wall as statements about the future, his modification proved to be too inclusive, in that it allowed literal meaning to any statement whatsoever.

Professor Ayer made his final attempt, in the second edi­

tion of Language, Truth and Logic (1946), to compose another

version. However, in order to describe the principle of veri­

fication adequately, it is necessary at this point to discuss

the "terminological difficulty" that Ayer encountered in re­

viewing the earlier formulation. And to describe this will

serve the purpose of substantiating the technical sense that he wishes to identify with the form of our usage of certain

words. To point out this terminological difficulty Ayer sim­ plifies the earlier criterion of meaning (put in the past tense),

by saying that:

...a sentence had literal meaning if and only if the proposition it expressed was either analytic or empirically verifiable. 35

This was objected to on the grounds that a sentence could

not express a proposition unless it was literally meaningful,

since all sentences could be credited with having literal

meaning if the propositions which compose them express idiat

is true or false. This principle, Ayer argues, is incomplete.

34. IbidemJ 35. Ibidem, p. 5 . 36. Ibidem. -22-

sinoe it not only does not account for the case in which a

sentence expresses no proposition whatsoever, but it also pre­

supposes that which its application is designed to determine.

To meet the various objections against the notion that a pro­ position is what a sentence asserts, Ayer proposes that the

familiar word "statement" be admitted, though not in its ordi­

nary sense. Thus a group of words in an acceptable grammatical

and indicative form could now not only be called a sentence

but also what that sentence expresses could be called a "state­

ment." The logical value of this conventional definition is

that it reserves the word "proposition" to stand for "what is

expressed by sentences which are literally meaningful.

It should be remembered, however, that this is merely a

verbal convention, since Its usage only Indicates the technical

way in which certain words are used. For it is only an answer

to the question regarding what it is that sentences express.

It does not on that account convey "any factual information

in the sense in which we should be conveying factual informa­

tion if the question we ware answering was empirical. This

37. Ibidem, p% Note : See Foundations of Empirical Knowledge, pp. 101-102, where Ayer sensed the difficulty of postulating that propositions were what sentences express. He does not, however, correct the ambiguity in that work as adequa­ tely as he does in the 2nd edition of Language, Truth and Logic. 38. Ibidem, p. 8. Note: This allows for non-indicative sentences still to be called sentences. It does not exclude the possibility of two sentences, each being a substitution instance of the other, from expressing the same statement. It will be noticed that the use of the words "proposition" and "statement" have been used interchangeably in describing Professor Ayer's philosophy up to this point. 39. Ibidem, p. 8f. -23-

Is because not all sentences can be credited as having factual content in the sense that what they express, generally speaking, is not necessarily confined to their translation into any one particular form. All that can be said for it is that it ans­ wers the question, "What do sentences express?" On the other hand it might be said that if we had to analyze one sentence only, then the question, "What does this sentence express?", may be credited with having factual content in the sense that

one way to answer it would be to translate the original sen­

tence (about which the question was asked) into another sen­

tence which was the equivalent of the original. What Ayer has

proposed here is that, although it may be a factual question

to ask what sentences express, to say that they express state­

ments conveys no factual information at all. For all we are

doing is to adopt a verbal convention. And in the case where

we were to factually interpret the general question, "What do

sentences express?", the only acceptable answer would be to

say that "since it is not the case that all sentences are

equivalent, there is not any one thing that they all express."^®

Thus in adopting the verbal convention he does, Ayer is able

to answer the general question "What do sentences express?"

by means of the word "statement," and in this way it serves

the purpose of "referring indefinitely" to sentences which are

not particularly specified. And in this way the use of the j__ Ibidem, p. 8^. -24- term can serve in the principle of verification. For if the word "observation" is prefixed to it, the class of statements referred to is confined to those of an empirical nature. It still refers "indefinitely" to the class of empirical statements, but its use also classifies those statements that are meaningful.

And this class is "indefinite" in terms of meaning, since there is not any one meaning that can be ascribed to all observation- statements. Moreover, as was said above, the word "statement" is left to refer "indefinitely" to all the sentences which ex­ press them whether verifiable ot not. And this leaves the rule that "the meaning of a statement is its mode of verification" unchanged. Therefore, this conventional definition of the word

"statement" without prefixes is useful as a tool in that it enables us to categorize certain groups of words in a general way, and it "should not be confused with statements of empiri­ cal fact."^^

Accordingly what Ayer's new formulation proposes is that

"a statement is directly verifiable if it is either itself an observation-statement or is such that in conjunction with one or more observation-statements it entails at least one observation-statement which is not deducible from these other 2 premises alone." A statement is indirectly verifiable, Ayer proposes, if "in conjunction with certain other premises it entails one or more directly verifiable statements which are

4l7 Ibidem, p. 9. 42. Ibidem, p. 13. “•25** not deducible from th.es© other premises alone; and secondly, that these other premises do not Include any statement that is not either analytic, or directly verifiable, or capable of being independently established as indirectly verifiable.

But as Professor Alonzo Church pointed out this emended version of the criterion can readily be seen to have similar flaws as its predecessor had. For it still allows the inclusion of cer­ tain statements that its purpose is to exclude. Church says that ;

...the amended, definition of verifiability is open to nearly the same objections as the original definition. For let Oi, Oo, O3 be three 'observation statements' (or experien­ tial propositions') such that no one of the three taken alone entails any of the others. Then using these we may show of any state­ ment S whatever that either or its nega­ tion is verifiable as follows. Lot 9 ^ and S be the negations of and of_S respectively. Then (under Ayer's definition) 0 % O2 v Oq S is directly verifiable, because with 0 % it entails O3. Moreover, S and Oi O2 v O3 S together entail O^. Therefore (under Ayer's definition) 3 is indirectly verifiable -- unless it happens that 0 % Og v O3 S alone entails O2, in which case "s and O3 together entail O2, so that s is directly verifiable. 44

43. Ibidem. Note: Regarding indirect verification Ayer does mention that the "other premises" of which the statement " 3 " is composed may be.analytic. He includes these, as he says to allow for the significance of scientific postulates in which the usage of certain terms designate unobservables. Such state­ ments may be transposed into verifiable terms by means of a dic­ tionary "and the statements which constitute the dictionary may be regarded as analytic." This would exclude unobservable meta­ physical statements because no dictionary could ever transpose them into verifiable terms. 4L. Alonzo Church, "Review of Ayer's 2nd Edition of Lang­ uage, Truth and Logic," Journal of Sym&olic Logic (Vol. l4 , 1949-1950), p. 53. -26-

Professor Hempel says that the difficulty Church has pointed out is that "if there are any three observation sentences none of which alone entails any of the others, then it follows for any sentence S whatsoever that either it or its denial has empirical import according to Ayer's revised criterion.

Indeed the conclusion seems to be that perhaps the diffi­ culties which need to be overcome before one can formulate a satisfactory principle of verification have prohibited any further attempts. And in Church's opinion "any satisfactory solution of the difficulty will demand systematic use of the logistic method.Moreover, if Church is correct, it seems as if Ayer's chances for a successful formulation of the cri­ terion are not very high. For Church maintains that;

Ayer's own attitude towards the logistic method is mixed, being divided between his admission that. .. "there is no ground for saying that the philosopher is always con­ cerned with an artificial language" and his declaration...in favor of "ordinary speech" in connection with the analysis of descrip­ tion. 47

The investigation of Professor Ayer's attempts at con­ structing a verifiability criterion terminates at this point.

It has been noted that Ayer's chances of formulating a suc­ cessful criterion are not very high while his concern continues

45'. Hempel, et% al. , Logical Positivism, p. II6. In an article called "A Defence of Ayer's Verifiability Principle Against Church's Criticism" (Mind, Vol. LXX, No. 277, January 1961) Peter Nidditch restates Church's criticism of Ayer's de­ finition in much the same way as Hempel does. 4 6 . Church, op. cit., p. 53. 47. Ibidem. Vide Ayer, L.T.L. (footnote 1 , p. 70 and p. 23) for Church's quotes. —27 — to be divided between the logistic method and ordinary language.

However, one should not conclude that Ayer has abandoned the criterion because its precise formulation has failed. For in

1956 Professor Ayer would only admit that "the precise formu­ lation of this principle is a complicated matter: I am not j, O sure that it has even yet been satisfactorily done." And

though in a later comment where he says "the results have not

been altogether satisfactory,"^9 even more recently he claims:

For my part X have no wish to disown the verification principle, though it suffers from a vagueness which it has not yet been found possible to eradicate. 50

From this one might be led to hastily conclude that the

attempt at a precise expression of the principle was fruitless.

But an examination of the philosophical effect of the principle

will be reserved for the last chapter when the final summation

of the problem of the status and need of the criterion will

be the central topic.

58% ÂI JT Ayer, The Revolution in Philosophy (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd.j 1958T# P% 74. 59. A. J. Ayer, editor. Logical Positivism (Illinois: The Free Press, 1959). p. l5 . 50. A. J. Ayer, Philosophy and Language (Oxford: Inau­ gural Lecture, Oxford University Press, November 196O), p. 21. - 28 -

CHAPTER II

Background, of Professor Ayer's Logical Empiricism

The philosophy commonly termed 'analysis' labels the domain in which logical positivism or logical empiricism is classified.

It is true that while certain positions and methods in that domain are new, in its ordinary sense philosophical analysis is as old as philosophy. Because it is beyond the scope of the present study to enlarge upon many of the historical posi­ tions which 'analysis' entails, it is sufficient for our pur­ poses to explain something about the views of those philosophers which are closely analagous to the position held by Professor

Ayer. These are Berkeley, Hume, Russell and Wittgenstein.

Moreover, this relationship is readily admitted, for in the preface to the first edition of his Language, Truth and Logic,

Professor Ayer claims that "the views which are put forward in this treatise derive from the doctrines of Bertrand Russell

and Wittgenstein, which are themselves the logical outcome of

the empiricism of Berkeley and David Hume."^ Here the notion

'logical outcome' is significant, since traditional empiricism

lacked the logical sophistication of modern philosophical ana­

lysis. For when Ayer claims that the characteristic of a

genuine factual statement is such that "some experiential pro­

positions can be deduced from it in conjunction with certain

1 . Ayer, L.T.L., p. 31. —29" ottier premises without being deducible from these other pre- mises alone, he is using language which is much more 'philo­ sophically' developed than that contained in the works of Locke,

Berkeley and Hume. And this was primarily a matter of substi­

tuting logical for psychological usage, or, logical empiricism for psychological empiricism. To point out this development historically a brief description of Berkeley's position will be given first.

In considering Ayer's relation to Berkeley it is signifi­ cant to note that verification of the statements about physical objects was not the primary intention of the Berkeleyan formula

esse is percipere and percipi. Rather what is related to posi­

tivism in Berkeley is first his insistence that scientific

conclusions depend upon the indispensible contents given in

sense-experience, which can never verify the existence of ex­

ternal objects, and second, his insistence that the problems

connected with 'material objects' and 'abstract ideas' have

been the source of philosophical confusion for too long.^

2. Ibidem, pp. 38739, 3. Note; On this last point, Berkeley, in his "Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous," has Philonous say in the First Dialogue, "That there is no such thing as what philo­ sophers call material substance, I am seriously persuaded;" (a . a . Luce and T. E. Jessop, editors. The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1959F» p. 172) There are numerous references to the con­ fusions made by the 'philosophers' in the Dialogues and this is why I have purposely said that Berkeley insisted that the question of the existence of material objects has caused pro­ blems among philosophers for too long. There are also plenty -30-

However, while positivism is related to Berkeley on many issues, particularly those already mentioned above, there are nevertheless important differences between Berkeley and Ayer.

One of these differences is shown in Ayer's interpretation of

Berkeley on the problem of the existence of unsensed things.

According to Ayer, Berkeley, in maintaining that an ob­

ject of sense was nothing but a collection of its sensible qualities, had made the notion of unsensed sensum self­

contradictory.

Briefly, the grounds on which Berkeley held that no material thing could exist unper­ ceived were these. He maintained, first, that a thing was nothing more than the sum of its sensible qualities, and, secondly, that it was self-contradictory to assert

of places in Berkeley's writings in which he rejects 'abstract ideas'. For example, in the Introduction to his "Principles of Human Knowledge" (Ibidem, p. 35 ) he says of the Schoolmen; "those great masters of abstraction, through all the manifold inextricable labyrinth of error and dispute, which their doctrine of abstract natures and notions seems to have led them into." Moreover, I have said that both of these notions discussed by Berkeley are related to positivism. One could go on to compile a list of similarities between Ayer's particular brand of positivism and Berkeley's empiricism. But perhaps such an identification should begin with the following at the top of the list where Berkeley tries to pin down the source of the confusion mentioned above: "the source of this prevailing notion...seems to me to be language." (Ibidem, p. 3 6 ) I do not necessarily mention these points of the relationship between Ayer and Berkeley because Ayer says so, but because I inter­ pret Berkeley this way. It is not so much Ayer's interpre­ tation of Berkeley but more my interpretation of what Ayer might say if he were to write a more comprehensive account of his indebtedness to Berkeley's empiricism. This of course does not include those passages where I am obviously giving Ayer's interpretation of Berkeley. -31-

tiiat a sensible quality existed unsensed. And from these premises it does follow that a thing cannot without self-contra­ diction be said to exist unperceived. 4

Moreover, Berkeley realized that naive-realism (the ordinary and common-sense view which supposes that things do exist whether human beings perceive them or not) was not self- contradictory.^ Consequently in his account of this "Berkeley allowed that a thing might exist unperceived...inasmuch as it could still be perceived by God. " In this way "he was obliged to rely on the perceptions of God" for his notion of the posi- bility of the existence of unsensed things.^ Divested of its

God concept, Ayer agrees that Berkeley's analysis is essen­ tially correct. But he argues, the defect in Berkeley's reasoning lies in his conclusions regarding the non-existence of unperceived material things;

And the mistake is due to his misconception of the relationship between material things and the sense-contents which constitute them. If a material thing were really the sum of its 'sensible qualities' -- that is to say, an aggregate of sense-comtents -- then it would follow from the definition of a ma­ terial thing and a sense-content that no thing could exist unperceived. 7

But since Ayer's phenomenalism claims that sense-contents or

sense qualities "cannot by definition occur without being

experienced" neither are they "in any way parts of the material

"4 % Ibidem, p. 1 3 9 . 5. Ibidem. 6. Ibidem. 7 . Ibidem, p. l4 0 . — 32—

g things which they constitute." Moreover though sense-contents are the elements in the logical construction of a material

thing, they "cannot without self-contradiction be said to occur

except as part of a sense-experience.Material things, for

Ayer, are "definable in terms of sense-contents"^® for to say

anything about material things "is always equivalent to saying

something about them (sense-contents) . However, where Ayer

differs from Berkeley on this is Ayer's claim that "it is pos­

sible for a material thing to exist throughout a period when

none of its elements are actually experienced" for all one is

doing in asserting that a material thing exists unperceived

is to assert "that certain sense-contents would occur if a par­

ticular set of conditions relating to the faculties and the *1 O position of an observer was fulfilled."

The use of such terminology as 'ideas,' 'impressions,'

and their equivalents current in the early British perceptual

theories of Berkeley and Hume has been replaced in contemporary

movements by such technical usage as 'sense-data' and 'sense-

content.' In classifying the meaning of the word 'idea', how­

ever, one should not assume that Berkeley and Hume used it in

the seune sense. According to Luce and Jessop, for Hume the

word 'idea' meant any sensory object, and therefore any

8% Ayer, ibidem% 9. Ibidem. 10. Ibidem, p. 53. 11. Ibidem, p. l4l. 12. Ibidem. -33- corporeal object, whether perceived, remembered or Imagined. 13 ^

What is significant in Berkeley's theory of perception is his particular brand of phenomenalism. But here again as was shown above, a kinship to Ayer's view was not without certain quali­ fications, though obtainable. For it involved changing the language of Berkeley's phenomenalism into that adopted by Ayer.

Accordingly he says:

...we replace the word 'idea' in this usage by the neutral word 'sense-content', which we shall use to refer to the immediate data not merely of 'outer' but also of 'introspec­ tive' sensation, and say that what Berkeley discovered was that material things must be definable in terms of sense-contents. 14

But it is Hume, rather than Berkeley, who is considered to be the founding father of positivism. For there are more notions central to the positivist position in Hume than in any other traditional empiricist. Indeed logical positivism as a school is Hume baptized by modern logic. And Ayer, drawing upon the Humean tradition, divides genuine propositions into two classes: those which in Humean usage concern 'relations of ideas, ' and those which concern 'matters of fact*. The former class comprises the a priori propositions of logic and pure mathematics, and these Ayer allows to be necessary and certain only because they are analytic. That is, Ayer maintains

13. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop, editors. The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne (London: Thomas Nelson and SonsT Ltd., 1949), p. 8. 14. Ayer, L.T.L., p. 53. -34- that "the reason why these propositions cannot be confuted in experience is that they do not make any assertion about the empirical world, but simply record our determination to use symbols in a certain fashion*Hume's 'matters of fact'

Ayer contends are like scientific hypotheses which at most can only be highly probable but never certain.

Professor Ayer not only derives his prepositional docho- tomy from Hume but there is perhaps also a kinship here to

Hume's notions that ethical statements are attitudinal. That is, they are neither true nor false but are expressions which are grounded in emotion or sentiment. And in saying this we are not committed to say that Hume was an ethical emotivist in the same sense as Ayer. But it does introduce another type of statement, namely, statements of value whose content entails that the purporter subscribes to a certain action because of his disposition towards its consequences. In this Ayer and

Hume share similar views. Certainly, Hume's proposal that

"morality is determined by sentiment" and "reason...can never be the source of so active a principle of conscience, or a sense of morals"^^ was restated by Ayer in the most uncompro­ mising terms. The difference being that he substituted the term 'emotive' , which describes the preferences of the

15. Ibidem, p. 3I. 16, David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, I96O), Book III of Morals, p% 458. See also Hume's Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Appendix 1. -35- purporter of moral statements, for Hume's 'sentiment* and

'feeling' which were terms used to describe the basis upon which one judges amiable or odious moral behaviour.

The outcome of this kinship between Hume and Ayer is the notion that is central to positivism — the principle of veri­ fiability. For this principle was intended to allow only

'significant discourse', thereby eliminating as literally meaningless moral and metaphysical statements. And Hume, who also held that the verification of statements must rest ulti­ mately in sense-experience, accordingly rejected metaphysics.

This is concisely given in his famous statement, though pre­ sented in a rhetorical fashion, at the conclusion of the ^ . Inquiry.18

In making the philosophical transition from Berkeley and

Hume to Ayer, British Idealism, which had as its supporters the early Russell and Moore, is more important than is commonly

1 7 . Vide Charles Stevenson's Ethics and Language (1944) which gives a more elaborate treatment of the 'emotivist' the­ sis. Note: The present writer believes that Hume was indeed an ' emotivist ' for there seems to be no feasible alternative other than to equate 'emotive' statements to those derived from 'sentiment', unless of course one adopts the differentiation of value-statements and attitude-statements as some do. Vide John Wilson, Language and the Pursuit of Truth (Cambridge: The University Press, i960), pp. 78-79. 18. David Hume, ^ Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1955), p7 173« '^When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume — of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance — let us ask. Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning mat­ ter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." —36“ supposed. For one of the orltlclsms that Bradley's Idealism levels at the Locke, Berkeley and Hume tradition is that this philosophy contains too much psychologism. Accordingly in

Bradley's view idiat is essential to the relation of thought to reality is that one should not operate with the notion of 'ideas' but rather with judgements and propositions.^^ In doing this much Bradley's contribution to the sophistication of British philosophy marks an important interim period between Hume and

Ayer. Furthermore, it is to this period, as Professor Ryle notes, that in the works of Frege and Bradley "the notion of

Meaning became, what it has remained ever since, an indispen­ sible, if refractory, instrument of philosophical discourse.

Bertrand Russell inherited much in the British tradition just described. For it was to him and his pupil Wittgenstein that Ayer's positivism also owes a large portion of its legacy.

And here apart from the many peculiarities of Viennese posi­ tivism Ayer's view transmits an embellishment of Russell and

Wittgenstein's logical atomism. To briefly describe logical atomism would be to simplify a highly developed linguistic and logical philosophy. However, what a brief description of ato­ mism would do, as D. F. Pears says, is to bring out a"relation-

ship with Hume, who was also a kind of philosophical atomist."^^

19% R. A. Woilheim, ''F. H. Bradley," The Revolution in Philosophy (London: Macmillan and Co., LtdT% I960 ), pp. 12-24. 20. Gilbert Ryle, "Introduction," The Revolution in Philosophy, p. 7. " 21. D. F. Pears, "Logical Atomism: Russell and Wittgen­ stein," The Revolution in Philosophy, p. 44. -37-

îor it is Hume's 'psychological atomism' that stresses that

"all the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into p p ...Impressions and Ideas." And these he divides into Simple ideas and impressions and Complex ideas and impressions. More­ over, Hume says : Simple perceptions or impressions and ideas are such as admit of no distinction nor separation. The Complex are contrary to these and may be distinguished into parts. 23

Accordingly when Hume claims that "all simple ideas and impres­ sions resemble each other" and that "the complex are formed from them", he suggests an approach to the problem of percep­ tion which is here labelled 'psychological atomism'.While

Russell's logical atomism is more sophisticated than this, in essence what it says is that propositions and the sentences which express them are related as atoms to molecules. Content sentences are molecular and the factual propositions deducible from them are called atomic. To obtain the atomic and

22. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. by L. A. Selby-Bigge (London: Oxford University Press, i960), Bk 1, Pt. 1, Sec. 1, p. 1. 23. Ibidem, p. 2. 24. Note: In the above description Hume claims to be making nothing more than a general affirmation. And this is the only purpose I have used it for. An examination of the problems related to this affirmation is, as Hume says, the subject of his Treatise (ibidem, p. 4). In order to avoid confusion I have used the term psychological atomism'. For ezeunple, when Pears claims that "Hume believed that philoso­ phers ought to practice psychological analysis of ideas" (vide Revolution in Philosophy, p. 44), one wonders nh.y he labels Hume's atomism 'philosophical' in one place and 'psychological' in another (ibidem, p. 47). -38- propositional constituants which comprise these molecular sen­ tences is the job o f reductive analysis.

However, to return to Ayer's claim that his view is derived from that of Russell and Wittgenstein, it now becomes a matter of asking, "Which Russell?" and "Which Wittgenstein?" For example, he would not conform to much of mhat Russell held in the Principles of Mathematics, since, there, Russell's Meinon- gianism entails that numbers, classes and propositions have 25 metaphysical being. Russell held that:

Numbers, the Homeric gods, relations, chi­ meras and four-dimensional spaces all have being, for if they were not entities of a kind, we could make no propositions about them. Thus being is a general attribute of everything, euid to mention anything is to show that it is so. 26

One need not, however, adopt Russell's Platonism if one adopts his Logical Atomism. For his Logical Atomism, to which the early Wittgenstein was sympathetic, was readily adaptable as the nucleus of Ayer's logical positivism. In considering the meaning of the term 'logical atomism', however, it should be remembered that the symbolism employed in Russell's mathe­ matical logic is applicable to the problems of sense-perception.

For the problem of reducing propositions about a complex of facts to propositions about the atomic facts which compose

25. Note : Russell later abandoned this view — but this is more explicitely related to the problem of universels than to pure logical atomism. 26. Bertrand Russell, Principles of Mathematics (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1938). -39- them can be greatly simplified by using the variables of his logic. It is not the purpose of the present study to show the distinction between pure and applied logic. But it is not dif­ ficult to see that if atomic facts are deducible from the state­ ments of the concepts of the sense-perceptions we have of them, greater manipulations in the relations between these notions can be achieved by using symbols. Moreover, the application of logic to other problems of philosophy has been shown to be fruitful.

The transition from Russell's logical atomism to Ayer's logical empiricism is implied in Philip Wiener's remark in his article "Method in Russell's Work on Leibniz":

In Russell..., logical analysis has broken the mirror into so many atomic sense-data that it quakes no sense to talk about mind as a mirror at all. The analysis of meaning becomes a matter of logical construction in which sense-data and universels serve as neutral and transparent building blocks, and truth involves a rather obscure relation of logical correspondence. 28

This "obscure relation of logical correspondence" was at once the strength and weeücness of logical atomism. Its strength is

27. Bertrand Russell notes that Whitehead's Concept of Nature and Principles of Natural Knowledge serve as illustra- tions of how mathematical logic is capable of providing a new instrument for the discussion of many problems that have hitherto remained subject to philosophic vagueness." (Vide A. J. Ayer, p. 33-) Quine's "On What There Is" is an example of this use in connection with the problem of universels. 28. Philip P. Weiner, The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell edited by P. A. Schilpp (New York; The Tudor Publishing Co., 1951), p. 27L. -40- shown by Its translation into the early principles of the posi­ tivism of Carnap and Ayer. And here the atomic propositions of Russell and Wittgenstein become in one form or another the

'protocol sentences' of Carnap and later the 'basic statements' or 'basic propositions' of Professor Ayer's logical empiricism.

These 'basic propositions' are as essential to Ayer's prin­ ciple of verification as 'atomic propositions' are for Russell's analysis of facts. For it has been said, that Ayer, in "adop­ ting Russell's theory of 'logical constructions'...reduces mind and matter to sense-data or sense-contents. Moreover it is precisely in this connection that the weakness of logi­ cal atomism also becomes the weakness of logical empiricism.

The clue to this weakness is obviated in Wiener's remark about

the "obscure relation": but something about this obscurity, or at least something closely allied to this problem will be pointed out in Chapter Four.

Atomic propositions are 'basic' for Russell in the sense

that they are not reducible or analysable into simpler terms.

General statements are compounded in that they have these ato­ mic propositions as constituents. Since facts are stated in

prepositional form, it is with facts and not things themselves

that analysis begins. For according to Russell, the things

which make up the furniture of the universe "stand in various

29% cl Copleston, Contemporary Philosophy (London: Burns and Oates, 1954), p. 10. -41- relations to each other. That they have these properties and relations are facts Facts for Russell are approximately what they are for Wittgenstein, for example:

I mean by a 'fact' anything complex. If the world contains no simples, then whatever it contains is a fact; if it contains any sim­ ples, then facts are whatever it contains except simples. When it is raining, that is a fact; when the sun is shining, that is a fact. The distance from London to Edinburgh is a fact. That all men die is probably a fact. That the planets move around the sun approximately in ellipses is a fact. In speaking of these facts, I am not alluding to the phrases in which we assert them, or to our frame of mind idiile we make the as­ sertions, but to those features in the con­ stitution of the world which make our asser­ tions true (if they are true) or false (if they are false). To say that facts are com­ plex is the same thing as to say that they have constituents. That Socrates was Greek, that he married Xantippe, that he died of drinking the hemlock, are facts that all have something in common, namely, that they are about Socrates, who is accordingly said to be a constituent of each of them. 31

Russell goes on to say that "Every constituent of a fact has

a position (or several positions) in the fact," and that "Two

facts are said to have the same 'form' when they differ only

as regards their constituents" and that "There are an infinite

number of forms of facts. It is not until the publication

of his Enquiry into Meaning and Truth that Russell explicitly

acknowledges his sympathies toward the methods employed by the

30. Bertrand Russell, Logic and Knowledge (London: George Allan and Unwin, Ltd., 1956), p. 193. 31. Ibidem, pp. 285-286. (Vide p. 286 for the examples, which were written in 1919, he gives on these points.) 32. Ibidem, p. 286. -42- positlTlsts. One can detect this, for example, in the language

he uses in his description of 'facts' and 'verifiability' :

Facts are wider (at least possibly) than ex­ periences. A 'verifiable' proposition is one having a certain kind of correspondence with an experience; a 'true' proposition is one having exactly the same kind of corres­ pondence with a fact.... Since an experi­ ence is a fact, verifiable propositions are true; but there is no reason to suppose that all true propositions are verifiable. 33

To appreciate what is being said here, vis. "Facts are wider

(at least possibly) than experience," one needs to return to

Russell's 1918 essay on logical atomism which indicates his

dependence upon Wittgenstein idxo pointed out to him the notion

of distinguishing the relation of proposition to fact from the

relation of name to the phenomenon named; Russell says:

...a statement always involves a proposition. You say that a man believes that so and so is the case. A man believes that Socrates is dead. What he believes is a proposition on the face of it, and for formal purposes it is convenient to take the proposition as the es­ sential thing having the duality of truth and falsehood. It is very important to realize

33» Bertrand Russell, An Enquiry Into MeaningJtod Truth (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 19&O), p7 305. Note: Russell says in the preface, "...I am, as regards method, more in sympathy with the logical positivists than any other existing school. I differ from them, however, in attaching more impor­ tance than they do to the work of Berkeley and Hume.” And Rus­ sell in this book attempts "to combine a general outlook akin to Hume's with the methods that have grown out of modern logic." Wittgenstein also, however condusive his principles might be to positivism, should not be regarded as a positivist. For C. D. Broad, in his review of the Pears and McGuinness trans­ lation of the Tractates, remarks "...Wittgenstein would have indignantly repudiated membership of, or affiliation with, the Vienna Circle...." (Vide Mind. Vol. 71, 1962, p. 251.) -43-

suoh things, for Instance, as that proposi­ tions are not names for facts. It Is quite obvious as soon as it is pointed out to you, but as a matter of fact I had never realised it until it was pointed out to me by a for­ mer pupil of mine, Wittgenstein. 34

Wittgenstein, though in the style typical of Delphic utterances, supports Russell's description of facts:

The world is all that is the case. The world is the totality of facts not of things. the world is determined by the facts, and by their being all the facts. For the totality of facts determines what is the case and also whatever is not the case. A state of affairs (a state of things) is a combination of objects (things). 35

Since a fact seems to be regarded as the existence of states of affairs, and since "a state of affairs is a combi­ nation of objects (things)," there is no unequivocal way of replacing the expression "state of affairs" by the expression

"atomic facts" (as translated in Q, S. H. Anscombe's original version of the 1922 edition of the Tractates). Consequently, the terms are often used interchangeably. Alexander Marlow commenting on the early edition of the Tractatus says:

As an atomic fact is defined as a combina­ tion (2.01) or configuration (2.0272) of objects, the ambiguity and vagueness of what Wittgenstein means by objects leads inevitably to the similar uncertainty of

341 Bertrand Russell, Logic and Knowledge, p. I87 (I918 essay, "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism.^ ) 35. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1961), p. 7 . -44-

the meaning of atomic fact as well,...it is not at all clear what Wittgenstein means by atomic facts. j6

However, Marlow does go on to say that "it is quite probable that he means those facts which are apprehended directly in our perception and whose constituents are only simple sense- data.... I am at a loss for his criterion of simplicity in this connection."37 jf these "simples" are the constituents of our perceptual awareness, and grounds given are sufficient for supposing that they are, then the translation of the terms

'sense-data' and 'atomic fact' into what Professor Ayer calls

'sense-contents' is Indeed feasible. Moreover, since Wittgen­

stein does say that "in a proposition a thought finds an ex­

pression that can be perceived by the senses," one can connect

this with his remark about a 'spatial object' spoken in the qg same context as "a speck in the visual field"^ and thereby

speak of Ayer's 'sense-contents' or Hume's 'impressions' (that

is, the percepts themselves) in the same terms.

But Ayer deviates from logical atomism in his particular

emphasis on the traditional correspondence theory of truth,

a theory to which Russell and Wittgenstein subscribed:

Its merit is that it separates facts from statements: Its demerit is that it then tries to connect them by invoking a relation

351 Alexander Marlow, A Study in Wittgenstein's Tracta­ tus, pp. 12-13. 37. Ibidem, p. I3 . 38. Wittgenstein, og. cit., (see 3 .I and 2.01310), p. 19 and p. 9. -45-

of correspondence which is conceived as a relation of resemblance or structural simi­ larity. 39

From this Ayer goes on to show "that if the idea of mirroring

is taken at all literally, it is a serious mistake to suppose

that statements are true because they mirror facts. And at

this point he is critical of Russell and Wittgenstein:

And then one might go on to suppose, as Russell did in his Logical Atomism lectures and Wittgenstein in the Tractatus, that sen­ tences, or propositions, were also portraits and owed their truth, when they were true, to their fidelity. How even sentences could be regarded as portraits has never been made clear: it would seem that for all but the crudest type of ideographic language this could only be a metaphor; and surely it is just false that a language like English is implicitly ideo-graphic. But we need not belabour this point since the theory does not even fit its paradigm cases. 4l

It may be argued at this point that this view is a later addi­

tion to that given in the 1st and 2nd editions of Language,

Truth and Logic. And while such an argument would not be

without some justification, it would not be entirely fair.

For it can be held that what Ayer is doing here is analysing

the various theories in order to present freshly the view which

is primarily that of the two editions of Language, Truth and

Logic.

To apply a general theory of logical atomism, which would

be a combination of Russell and Wittgenstein, to Ayer's logical

40. Ibidem. ^ 41. Ibidem, p. 182. -46- emplrlcism Is not a difficult undertaking. For in Ayer's par­ ticular brand of phenomenalism the sensible object is said to have a complex sense-field which is reducible to its primary constituents called sense-contents. Any statement one may wish to verify can be accomplished by reducing the object of an ex­ pression to these fundamental constituents. And the occurrence of these fundamentals or sense-contents in their appropriate sense-field are the verifiers or factually occurring equiva­ lents of that which is experientially verifiable. These sense- contents, as Ayer once liked to call them, to avoid confusion with the term sense-data, "...are in principle formulâtable as propositions." Thus it is not incompatible in this view

to say that the sensible object which is the logical subject of the statement which expresses something about it, is formu­

lated or constructed out of sense-contents which are its funda­ mental constituents. The sensible object is not supposed to be

fictitious in the sense that objects of a Pickwickian kind are,

for it is reducible to propositions about sense-contents and

is on that account alone verifiable. Here, too, the clarity

for which this empirical philosophy is noted cannot be pushed

too far, for once again the obscurity in the relation of logi­

cal correspondence presents itself. It is as Austin puts it

"when a statement is true, there is, of course, a state of

affairs which makes it true and which is toto mundo distinct

42. m Ayer, ^6n Particulars and Universals," Procedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. XXXIV (1933-1934), pp. 51-62. -47-

|i O from the true statement about it...." ^ Also Wittgenstein, if he is right, pushed this notion a stage further back when ho said that in saying something about facts one could not name them. Moreover the vast corpus of propositions which go into ex­ pounding the theories which tell us about facts and the propo­ sitions which express them are themselves expressions about the relation between facts and expressions. Thus for example the statements which constitute the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 44 are themselves of a non-significant kind. And this is pri­ marily an ad infinitum argument if one considers the proposi­ tions of the present writer to be about the relation about the relation between facts and propositions. Furthermore this is similar to the problem which surrounds the principle of verifi­ cation when its ability to verify itself is questioned. But it is clear from the previous statements that some of the pro­ blems of logical atomism become the problems of logical empiri­ cism.

Disregarding the propositions which constitute the various theories, perhaps the most significant of these problems is the relation between language and fact. In logical atomism it is neither an atomic fact nor an atomic proposition to say, "Toro is white," about Professor Ayer's cat. It is rather a molecu­ lar proposition or statement, since there are no molecular facts in the terminology of atomism.Similarly there are no general

1*3T Jl Ll Austin, Philosophical Papers, ed. by J. Urmson and E. J. Warnook (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, I96I), p. 91. 44. Vide Wittgenstein, 0£. cit. , 6.521-7, pp. 149-151. 4 5 . See 49n, p. 48. -48-

facts in Ayer's empiricism since lacking specifity they are

"not directly testable. "Toro is white" is a compound state­ ment because it is claimed that several atomic propositions

are deducible from it. And, using different terminology, this

is true of Ayer's empiricism also. For example, my perception

of Toro entails the basic propositions;

(1 ) That is Toro. (2) Thatis white. (3 ) That is a certain sense field.

The negation of anyone of these propositions entails the nega­

tion of the molecular statement from which each is deduced.

The use of the words ' this' and 'that' are what Russell calls

'logically' proper names since they are the particularizers

of one's own momentary experiences.^^ Blanshard says:

An atomic fact may have more than one con­ stituent. In terms of the symbols commonly used, it may be of the form <^a, e.g., 'this is red', or of the form R(a,b), e.g., ' this is equal to that', in which the two consti­ tuent particulars are connected by a rela­ tion; it may have an even more complex form when a connection is asserted between three or more constituents. All compound or mole­ cular facts are composed of atomic facts; every atomic fact in turn is composed of these logical protons and electrons. 49

46. A. J. Ayer, Concept "of a Person and Other Essays, p. 175. 47. 3 . Blanshard, op. cit. , p. I3I. 48. B. Bussell, L o ^ c and Knowledge, pp. 199-200. 49. Blanshard, 0£. cit. , p. I3I. Note: Blanshard here asserts the existence of 'molecular facts' which the present writer has explicitly denied (vide Ch. 2 , p. 4 7 ). However the exposition of "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism" given by Russell does not merit apy other facts but atomic ones. Russell does say that some atomic facts are simpler than others, but he does not describe the more complex kind as molecular. (Vide Logic and Knowledge, p. 199. ) -49-

A one-termed relation would be a monadic relation, two terms a dyadic, three a triadic, four a tetradic and so it continues through a "whole infinite hierarchy of facts. "■3® The problem here is that the fundamental constituents of these relations involve one in some sort of ostensive definition corresponding to Russell's logically proper names. And Ayer's 1936 view ex­ plicitly renounced ostensive definitions as being logically unintelligible.In reconsidering this, however, Ayer came to argue for 'basic propositions' and thus his 'simples' came to be quite similar to those of his predecessors. This emended view could hardly have been without some reservations for as

late as 1963 he says that "such sentences as 'this exists' or

'this is occurring now' are degenerate....The work is all done

by the demonstrative. ... It is however, like an analytic state­

ment in that, once we understand the use of the demonstrative,

here functioning as subject, the addition of the predicate tells

us nothing further. Divorced from its context the whole state­

ment has no meaning."^2 in addition to this, Ayer's definition

of a sense-content "not as the object but as a part of a sense-

experience" avoids some of the problems connected with "atomic-

facts".^3 Accordingly the use of demonstratives, though impor­

tant to logical empiricism, is more readily avoided because of

the alleged existence of sense-contents than is the case with

50. Russell, op. cit., p7 199. 51. Ayer, op. cit., p. 91. 52. Ayer, The Problem of Knowledge, pp. 50-51. 53• Ayer, L .T»L., p . 122. -50- logioal-atomism. And this is because verification terminates in the sense-contents of sense-experience rather than extra- linguistic entities of a non-verifiable sort.

Professor Ayer does mention something about "the usage of ’fact'" which is directly comparable with the atomism of

Russell and Wittgenstein. He says:

The first step is to delimit a class of statements which satisfy the following three conditions: first, that they are directly testable; secondly, that they are simple in the sense that they are not compounded of other statements; and thirdly, that they are absolutely specific with re­ gard to the language in which they are ex­ pressed. Then the facts are to be identi­ fied with the states of affairs which form the objective contents of the true state­ ments of this class. 54

One might still ask for a definition of the relation between

statement and fact and in his attempt to answer this Ayer says;

...there is nothing mysterious about our abil­ ity to compare statements with facts. If one understands a sentence, then one already knows how to compare it, or the statement lAich it expresses, with a fact. How do 1 compare the English sentence 'it is a fine day' or the statement which I use it to make, with the facts or with reality, or whatever it is that one chooses to say that sentences, or state­ ments, are compared with? Well, I look out of the window; see that the sun is shining, and so accept the statement....My understan­ ding the sentence, my attaching the right meaning to it, the meaning that it conven­ tionally has in English, just ^ euaong other things my being willing to accept or reject it in these various conditions. 55

54. Ayer, The Concept of a Person and Other Essays, pp. 176-177. 55. Ibidem, pp. I85-I86. ” 51"

Ayer goes on to say that if we wish to say what makes a state­ ment true, that is to state the conditions which render it true, then all one can do "is to formulate another statement which is equivalent to it, or entailed by it, or a corrobo­ ration of it." "But," he continues:

...this does not mean that we are impri­ soned in a ring of statements. We break the circle by using our senses, by actually ma­ king the observations as a result of idiich we accept one statement and reject another. Of course we use language to describe these observations. Facts do not figure in dis­ course except as true statements. But how could it be expected that they should? 56

Here too Ayer's concern with language redescribes for 1963 the position he held in 1936. If one translates the word 'fact' in the above quotations into the word 'sense-content', the com­ parison to his earlier view in Language. Truth and Logic becomes more evident; for observations become logical construc­ tions and:

...when we refer to an object as a logical construction out of certainsense-contents, we are not saying that it is actually con­ structed out of those sense-contents, or that the sense-contents are in any way parts of it, but are merely expressing, in a convenient, if a somewhat misleading fashion, the syntactical fact that all sen­ tences referring to it are translatable into sentences referring to them. 57

56I Ibidem, pp. IdbT 57. Ayer, L>T.L., p. 123. -52-

Part of the legacy of eliminating certain metaphysical state­ ments, or, 'inferred entities' beyond the reach of our ac-

quaintence is due to Russell's Theory of Descriptions which

"Ayer... accepted with enthusiasm. But the notion of eli­

minating certain 'inferred entities' altogether seems to have

its problems regardless. For to claim to be able to break

'through the circle' of statements by having certain experi­

ences which are translatable into sentences referring to

' sense-contents ' does not seem to be a convincing way of es­

caping 'inferred entities' at all.^#

It has been suggested above that a comparison can be made

between Ayer's sense-contents and Russell and Wittgenstein's

'atomic facts' or 'state of affairs' if both terms are regarded

as the simples to which each is committed. It could be agreed

if only for expositional purposes, for example, to call 'sim­

ples', 'sense-data', 'atomic-facts' and 'sense-contents' the

fundamental constituents or verifiers of empirical statements.

And in this way one could avoid the problem of coping with

extra-linguistic entities and the way in which these are formu­

lated into basic or atomic propositions. For in examining the

331 Blanshard, ibidem, p. 327* 59. Note: To say that Sentence A (This is a table) is translatable into Sentence B (This is a sense-content) Is to be talking about language. But to say this is to say that A and B mean the same. "And to say that what they mean is the same in the case of table and sense-content sentences is to talk what used to be called metaphysics." (Vide Blanshard, ibidem, p. 330.) -53- klnshlp of Ayer's positivism to the atomism of Russell and

Wittgenstein one would then be able to say that the kinship lies in their 'reductioniVm '• It is not essential to the present study to describe the arguments about 'general facts',

'negative facts', 'picturing', 'proper names', 'propositions',

'relations' and many other difficulties. Although these argu­ ments are inqportant to the development of positivism generally,

they are in relation to the present study a deviation from a

general view of logical-atomism. Of course there still re­ mains the "problem of the status of the basic statements them­

selves, which is allied to the philosophical problem of per­

ception."^^ And here Ayer would once again resort to sense-

contents from which the basic statements of an experiential

sort are derived. But the compilation of these sense-contents

involves his phenomenology and this is essentially a topic to

be taken up in another chapter.

But undoubtedly the most influential standpoint which

moulded the philosophies of Hume, Russell, Wittgenstein and

many others into the philosophy called 'Logical Positivism*

was the organization called the Vienna Circle. In his des­

cription of the Vienna Circle Ayer says:

The term 'Logical Positivism' was coined ... to characterize the standpoint of a group of philosophers, scientists and mathe­ maticians who gave themselves the name of the Vienna Circle. 6l

S o . Ayer, The Concept of a Person and Other Essays, p. I87. 61, Ayer, Logical Positivism, p. 3I Note: Ayer s -54-

In 1924, while Ayer was a schoolboy at Eton, the Vienna Circle began a series of loosely organized activities around Moritz

Schlick. Besides Schllck, who was at that time the newly ap­ pointed Professor of Philosophy at the University of Vienna, were such philosophers as Rudolph Carnap, Otto Neurath, Herbert

Teigl, Friedrich Vaismann, Edgar Zllsel and Victor Kraft;

among the scientists and mathematicians were Philipp Frank,

Karl Menger, Kurt Goedel and Hans Hahn.It was Inevitable, however, that the Circle should become more of a formal organ­

ization. For in spite of their different backgrounds its members found that they shared similar interests in their

"approach to a certain set of problems. "^3 j^^d in 1929 they

published an account of their common philosophical interests

including a review of the problems to which they hoped to pro­

vide some solution. The pamphlet recorded such scholars as

Hume, Comte, Mach, Einstein, Leibniz, Frege, Russell, Wittgen­

stein and many others to be among those whom they considered

most influential to their standpoint. But as Ayer says in

considering the Influence of such men upon the Circle members

descriptXon of the Vienna Circle and its influence forms a large part of his Introduction to the collection of essays called "Logical Positivism" (pp. 3-28), and is an expansion of his B.B.C. Lecture entitled "The Vienna Circle" published along with other lectures in the book "The Revolution in Philosophy (pp. 70-87). 62. Ibidem. 63. Ibidem, p. 4. 64. Ibidem, p. 4. Note: The publication was a pamphlet and was written by Carnap, Neurath and Hahn. Its title in English is The Vienna Circle : Its Scientific Outlook. -55-

"It must be remembered that In most cases it is only a question of a special aspect of the author's works.

The Circle began holding a series of international con­ gresses In various European countries in order to foster

"Logical Positivism as an international movement. Moreover such proselyting activities proved fruitful. For as Ayer says, the Circle:

...formed an early alliance with the so- called Berlin School of which Hans Reichen- bach, Richard von Mises, Kurt Grelllng and at a later date Carl Kemp el were the lea­ ding members. The congresses helped it to make contact also with Scandinavian philo­ sophers such as Elno Kalla, Arne Naess, Ake Petzaell, Joergen Joergensen, and the Uppsala school of empiricists, with the Dutch group around the philosopher Mannoury who pursued what they called the study of Signifies, with the Muenster group of logi­ cians under Heinrich Scholtz, with American sympathizers such as Nagel, Charles Morris and quine, and with British analysts of various shades of opinion, such as Susan Stabbing, Gilbert Ryle, R. B. Braithwaite, John Wisdom and myself. 67

However, as early as 1933 when Professor Ayer began to attend

the meetings of the Circle, they were already "in the process

65. Ibidem. ~ 66. ibidem,' p. 5* 67. Ibidem, pp. 5-6. Note: Professor Ayer does not give a bibliography of the publications concerned with the history of the Vienna Circle. But, apart from Ayer's own account, there are two publications which state the main stemdpoints and his­ torical development of the movement in much more detail. These are: C. W. Morris, Logical Positivism, Pragmatism and Scien­ tific Empiricism, Paris, 1938; B. Nagel, ''The Flg^t for Clarity: Logical Empiricism," American Scholar, 1938. - 56-

68 of dissolution." This dissolution began with the appoint­ ment of some of the Circle members to positions in various uni­ versities. And upon the assassination of Schlick in I936 the short lived history of the Vienna Circle came to a close.

The termination of the Vienna Circle as an organization did not mean the end of positivism. For in the same year as

Schlick's tragic death Ayer published his influential book,

Language, Truth and Logic. In this book Ayer's own (1936) version of positivism was put in the most uncompromising and clearest way. Consequently in the English speaking world philosophers and non-philosophers alike tend to look upon Ayer as the prophet of positivism. But in actual fact, as was

shown above, Ayer was by comparison a late-comer to the Vien­ nese movement. Moreover, while his positivism shows a typical

Anglo-Saxon caution in his approach to the problems of sense- perception, his views were nonetheless moulded by the basic principles of the Vienna positivists. For like them he is

concerned with the methodology of empirical science such as

that developed by Mach and Poincare in the 19th Century. His

view is also closely allied to the Circle in their alliance

to the earlier empiricism of Hume and Mill (though Ayer pays more attention to Berkeley than they do). Then, too, his

concern with the employment of symbolic logic, definition,

meaning, and linguistic analysis shows a close kinship to the gg- Ibidem. -57-

Cirole who wore greatly influenced by Leibniz, Frege, Schroeder, 6g Russell, Whitehead and Wittgenstein.

There is, however, an influence in Ayer's philosophy that is not typical of the Vienna Circle standpoint. And this in­ fluence im Ayer's teacher. Professor H. H. Price. It is per­ haps to Price that the particularity of Ayer's work owes its nucleus. For as an undergraduate at Oxford Ayer attended

Price's lectures on Perception. Re claims that Price's lec­

tures were: ...a bold attempt to let in air and light: a theory of perception In which the princi­ ples of British empiricism were developed with a rigour and attention to detail which they had in that context never yet received. 70

Moreover, in his discussion of Price's influence on the sense-

data theory, one can detect the respect which Ayer has for the

content of Price's lecturing:

...the use that he (Price) then made of them (sense-data) enabled us to obtain a much clearer grasp of the problems which they were designed to meet. 71 All this does not mean that one can obtain A. J. Ayer's philo­

sophy by joining the positivism of the Vienna Circle to the

Ô9~, Note: These names are listed in the aforementioned pamphlet, "The Vienna Circle; Its Scientific Outlook." 70. Ayer, Philosophy and Language: An Inaugural Lecture delivered before the University of Oxford, November 3rd, i960 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1960), p. 3* Note: H. H. Price was Ayer's predecessor as Oxford's Wykeham Professor of Logic. The lectures Price gave at that time are included in his book entitled Perception (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1932). 71. Ibidem. — 58“ theories of H. H. Price, tfhat it does mean, however, is that certain aspects of Ayer's philosophy are brought to the fore­ front when one considers his view in the light of the influ­ ences just described. Indeed the particular flavour of Ayer's logical positivism, or logical empiricism as it is sometimes called, is seen in its own technical terminology, its own theory of perception, and its own particular set of difficul­ ties. John Passmore's comments are appropriate in his dis­ tinction between Ayer and Continental positivism. He says:

British analysts and Continental positivists are both anti-metaphysical, both empiricist in tendency, but in their conception of the positive role of philosophy they stand poles apart. 72

A comparison could certainly be made between Ayer's particu­ larities and their counterparts in other philosophies. But this would involve a comparison that would go far beyond the intended purpose of the present study. For the present it is sufficient to have examined something of the background from which Professor Ayer derives his empiricism.

72, John Passmore, A Hundred Years of Philosophy (London; Duckworth and Co., Ltd., 1957)* p. 387. -59-

CHAPTER III

Language and Meaning; The Justification of the Refutations

Of Ayer's Principle of Verification

Up to this point only comments relating to the background of positivism and certain technical usage have shed any light on Ayer's notion of meaning. While the criticisms dealt with

in the first chapter were more to do with logic than anything

else, it is evident that such criticisms as those held by Pro­

fessor Church are justified. The first two sections of this

chapter, however, are devoted to those criticisms which this

thesis holds to be unjustified.

It was said that sentences can be literally meaningful

if the propositions expressed by them are verifiable. If what

sentences express is not verifiable, they retain the privilege

of being called statements though not of an analytic or expe-

rimential kind. And what this did was to give special emphasis

to the notion of what was meant when one distinguished between

literally meaningful and non-meaningful sentences. The secret

of this special emphasis for A. J. Ayer lay in the technical

usage to which the terms sentence, statement, and proposition

refer. Nevertheless, most of the critics of positivism were

quick to engage in philosophical warfare with those positivists

who subscribed to the view that the meaning of a sentence was

determined by its method of verification. But just as Ayer —60— had a modified verifiability criterion, his last attempt at its precise formulation called the 'emended version', so the critics were obliged to emend and modify the content of their criticisms. However, some criticisms of positivism, published after Ayer's 2nd edition, did not greatly modify their argu­ ments to cope with this new attempt. But it is precisely on these grounds that the thesis for much of %diat these critics contend, even if they were only intended to apply to posiivism generally, do not apply in Ayer's case. And the confutation of any general criticism, by virtue of its inapplicability to a particular case, constitutes a falsification of the generali­ zation. In order to support this notion it is as well to begin

this discussion by first of all citing some typical arguments advanced by the opponents of positivism. It should then be possible to settle the question as to whether or not these

arguments are justified.

The first example is a criticism launched at positivism

by G. J. tfarnock. This begins by saying that, "it does not make sense to speak of the verification of commands, prayers, promises, expressions of intention, and so on.Consequently

one cannot assume them to be meaningless on the grounds that

"they do not fail to be verifiable." To call them meaningless

tfarnock continues, "Vas always a foolish misunderstanding."

For the principle is not applicable "at all to forms of words

T . G r . J. tfarnock, English Philosophy Since 1900 (London: Oxfordd University Press, 19^8)7 p. 46. - 61- whlch in no way aspired to the condition of statements." But since, in this view, a prayerful utterance is not a statement while a moral judgement might be, the verification principle is not entirely innocuous. Furthermore tfarnock explains:

...are there not some propositions, those found in religious creeds for example, which can only be statements, if they are anything at all? If there are, then it must in their case be a serious matter to be told that they must either be empiri­ cally verifiable or meaningless. 2

This is a typical criticism of positivism which when it is made to fit Ayer's philosophy is not completely justified as will be shown in the next section of the present chapter. Another

case in point, which is similar to tfarnock's, is that advanced by F. C. Coploston. He says:

When it comes to ethical statements, how­ ever, I must confess that I find it dif­ ficult to see how a really plausible case can be made out of saying that such state­ ments are 'meaningless', or, more accurately, that they have only emotional significance. 3

The criticism here is stated in the form of a problem. And

the problem, as Copleston presents it, is that he cannot find

adequate grounds for saying that ethical statements are mean­

ingless. The criticism, on the other hand, is just that he

has interpreted the positivist position to mean that ethical

statements are 'meaningless ' or that they have "only emotional

2. Ibidem. - 3. Frederick Copleston, Contemporary Philosophy (London: Burns and Oates, 1956), p. 39* —62— significance. " It would make no sense for Copleston to look for "a really plausible case" for the "emotional significance" of ethical sentences if in fact he had not interpreted the positivist position as such. Moreover, if it could be shown that Ayer, to whom it seems he refers, does not say that ethi­ cal sentences have "only emotional significance" or that they are "meaningless" then, of course, it might be said that

Copleston is seeking to find a plausible case for some view that Ayer has never advanced.^

Copleston and tfarnock*s criticisms are typical examples of arguments that have been used so often that they are now the sort of generalizations that one finds among less cautious critics. One can well imagine the accounts of positivism given in future history books on philosophy summarizing posi­ tivism by saying that it rejected metaphysics because meta­ physical statements were not verifiable, hence meaningless.

Another case in point is that held by B. A. 0. Williams, who, in his BBC lecture on the Hxird Programme, generalizes in much the same way. Of metaphysical arguments he says:

4. Motel Copleston claims that Ayer's essay entitled "Analysis of Moral Judgements" (reprinted in Ayer's Philoso- hical Essays (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 19591 "makes ft clear that he does not mean to imply that morals are unim­ portant or that it does not matter what set of values one adopts." Copleston says that Ayer's work in Philosophical Essays "provides a valuable corrective to any picture of Pro- fessor Ayer's philosophical outlook, %Aich is based simply or predominatly on Language, Truth and Logic. " (Vide Copleston, ibidem, p. 24.) —63“

One essential property of them, however, can be and has been stated: that they are not the same as deductive or Inductive arguments. For some philosophers, indeed, such as the so-called logical positivists, this is quite enough; all metaphysical arguments and state­ ments are by them lumped together and dis­ missed as meaningless. 5

Professor Walsh, whose criticism of positivism is more on a cautious level, says that Kant and the Positivists:

...agree that if metaphysical pronouncements are to make sense, they must in some way be related to everyday experience. And they both conclude that metaphysics is unable to satisfy this test, with the result that the news it professes to purvey is really news from nowhere. 6

Walsh continues his critical approach by saying of the posi­

tivists that as "...far as they took metaphysics seriously,

they tended to see it as primarily the product of bad logic.

These criticisms seem to contain much the same general

theme, namely, that the positivists are somehow wrong in pur­

suing the notion that statements of an extra-empirical or

analytic kind are meaningless. And in a rather overly hasty

attempt to sum up positivism these critics say that the posi­

tivists, in rejecting statements of an extra-analytic or

empirical sort, do so for reasons exemplified in the following:

5. B. A. 0. Williams, et. al. The Nature of Metaphysics, edited by D. F. Pears (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., l)6o), p. 51. 6. W. H. Walsh, Metaphysics (London: Hutchinson and Co., Ltd., 1963), p. 44. 7. Ibidem, p. 45 -64-

1. That such statements are the products of 'bad logic':

ii. That it is a 'serious matter' to be told that such statements are meaningless:

iii. That such statements are the product of 'news from nowhere':

iv. That it is 'difficult to see how a really plausible case can be made out for saying that such statements are 'meaningless'':

V. That such statements 'have only emotional significance'.

While these five proposals are only a summary of the criticisms

that were previously noted, they do serve to indicate in a

tabulated fashion how the critics argue on general terms rather

than the particular. And it will be the purpose of the next

section to argue for Professor Ayer's positivism against some

of these generalizations. A final section will point out an­

other argument that is much more of a problem for positivism

-- that the inability of the testability criterion to verify

itself is an indication that its status as a statement is a

metaphysical one. - 65—

11

In the previous section some of the views of those who oppose the positivist thesis were described. The conclusion was that these critics were guilty of generalizing, that is, of supposing that all positivists come under the criticisms lodged against them. Accordingly the purpose of this section will be to examine some of these generalizations and point out their inapplicability when applied to a particular view the view of Professor A. J, Ayer.

It is apparent that some critics accuse the positivists of rejecting metaphysics on certain grounds, the implication being that the positivists disregard the various kinds of meta­ physics or metaphysical statements they are rejecting. It seems that the positivists are charged, perhaps justifiably in some cases, with 'lumping together* all metaphysical state­ ments and branding them all as meaningless. But one obvious objection the positivist might justifiably lodge against this view is that, when his critics say 'the positivists', they are also guilty of generalization — of 'lumping together' the posi­

tivists. And if this is intended to include the view held by

A. J. Ayer, it simply will not do. For there are many points of technical usage that give to Ayer's philosophy a unique flavour.

Perhaps the most popular sentence that is used by positi­

vists and non-positivists alike is that "the meaning of a -66- sentence Is its mode (or method) of verification." But if the meaning of a sentence is indeed its method of verification, it seems that not only the methods may be many and varied, but also that there could be as many types of meaning as there are methods to verify them. If this is the case, Copleston is not correct in his assertion that "the logical positivists inter- Q pret 'meaning' univecally." For while Copleston does admit

that "the problem of 'the meaning of meaning' is a real pro­

blem"^ it may turn out that what Ayer gives is 'a meaning of meaning' which does not include a denial of the possibility

of other definitions at all. And from this one cannot plau­

sibly classify all positivists merely on the grounds that they

possess one central principle in common — a criterion of meaning. For to say that they all have a criterion is one

thing, to say that they have a common objective is another;

but to say their criteria are the same, which some critics

imply, or that such criteria accomplish the same, is quite

wrong. The question still remains, "How is the logical posi­

tivism of A. J. Ayer unique?" or more accurately, "What is

there in Ayer's ideas surrounding his criterion of meaning

which renders these criticisms invalid?"

A good point of departure in answering this question would

be to say that in Ayer's view the criticisms cited are objec­

tionable on the grounds that the terms sentence, statement,

81 Copleston, ibidem, p. 39. 9. Ibidem. —67“

and proposition are reserved for the technical sense in which

the emended principle of verification characterises them. A proposition according to Ayer is reserved for what is verifi­

able in terms of truth or falsity, thereby granting to the

statement which expresses the proposition some support for its

'factual significance*. The usage of the phrase 'some support'

is justified if one considers that there might be several pro­

positions that are expressed by the one sentence. Consequently

one cannot say that the sentence is itself 'factually signifi­

cant' in its fullest sense since there might be several pro­

positions that are expressed by the sentence in which case a

conjunction of them is the required condition for the factual

significance of the sentence. The propositions themselves may

be 'incorrigible', hence 'basic', or 'necessary', hence 'ana­

lytic', but this is not to say that the sentence from which

these might be deduced is itself 'incorrigible' or 'analytic'.

Some of this technical usage will provide a tool by which the

criticisms mentioned do not apply to Ayer's view. But in order

to present this clearly one needs to understand what Ayer

'means' by 'meaning'. For a combination of this technical

usage with this meaning of 'meaning' will provide sufficient

grounds for a refutation of at least some of these critical

remarks. On this latter notion Ayer says:

I do not overlook the fact that the word 'meaning' is commonly used in a variety of senses, and I do not wish to deny that in -68-

some of these senses a statement may properly be said to be meaningful even though it is neither analytic nor empirically verifiable, I should, however, claim that there was at least one proper use of the word 'meaning* in which it would be incorrect to say that a statement was meaningful unless it satis­ fied the principle of verification: and I have, perhaps tendentiously, used the expres­ sion 'literal meaning' to distinguish this use from the others. 10

What is being said here is that a "statement may properly be said to be meaningful" even though it is neither of an analy­ tic nor of an empirical kind. It is not saying that all non- analytic and non-empirical statements are meaningless or even some of them. What it is saying is that all non-analytic and non-empirical statements are literally meaningless if, and only if, they fail to satisfy Ayer's definition of the word 'mean­ ing'. And the ommission of this latter clause tendentiously characterises some criticisms as irresponsible. Accordingly the principle of verification is as R. M. Hare calls it, "a criterion of empiricality.The criterion itself merely acts as a separator of analytic and empirical statements from those which are non-analytic and non-empirical. One can con­ clude, however, that this one concept of meaning is an analytic- empirical dependent concept. And in terms of its definition

10. Ayer, L.T.L.. p. 15. 11. The statement made by R. M. Hare claims that the sta­ tus of the principle "is not really a criterion of meaningful­ ness (a way of separating wheat from chaff) but a criterion of empiricality (a way, as we might say, of separating wheat from oats, or barley, or rice)." Basic Mitchell, editor. Faith and Logic (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1957)* p. 177. -69- thls one proper usage of the word meaning does not deny the variety of senses which other definitions of 'meaning' may be designed to meet. For Ayer allows "...anyone to adopt a dif­ ferent criterion of meaning and so produce an alternative definition which may very well correspond to one of the ways in which the word 'meaning' is commonly used."^^

It will be remembered that one of the points made by War- nock was that no sense could be made of the requirement that one should "speak of the verification of commands, prayers, promises, expressions of intention, and so on." Here, in re­ ference to Ayer's definition of meaning, of course it "does not make sense" to speak of them as meaningless. % e y might perhaps have some special sense of the word meaning even though they lack that 'one' sense of meaning which he gives to a cer­ tain other class of statements. It might be objected, however, that Ayer was at fault for using the word 'meaningless ', for it does convey the notion that non-verifiable statements have no meaning whatever. But one answer to this is that in most cases where Ayer uses the word 'meaningless' he is cautious to prefix it with the wo^d 'literally', which of course satisfies his own definition of meaning given above. For if, as Ayer claims, metaphysical and ethical statements "fail to conform to the conditions under which alone a sentence can be literally significant,"12 then the prefix 'literal* becomes just as

12. Ayer, p. 16. 13. Ibidem, p. 35. -70- important as the term ’significant' in considering the class of statements these terms are used to signify. And in this connexion the word 'literal* %rill serve as a consideration in dealing with the allegations of many critics. For it was poin­ ted out that for Ayer sentences which are 'factually signifi­ cant' are statements which satisfy his criterion and are not analytic.And this obviated the fact that literally signi­ ficant sentences can be either literally significant or analytic.

Accordingly if one specifies that a statement is literally sig­

nificant, one is still required to specify whether it is of a

factual or tautological kind. And since a 'factually meaning­

ful' sentence is one that satisfies the criterion and is not

analytic, then a 'literally meaningful' statement is one which

is either factual or analytic. So it seems that the critics

are quite wrong when they assume that in Ayer's view non-

verifiable statements have 'no meaning whatever'. If this is

true, then the critics are equally as guilty of lifting state­

ments out of their positivistic context as the positivist is

of lifting examples of metaphysical statements out of their

metaphysical context. And this points to the fact that per­

haps it is not such a serious matter as Warnock supposes to

be told that non-verifiable statements "must either be empiri­

cally verifiable or meaningless."

n n Ibiden»^ p^ 11. -71-

Bqually important is Warnock's critical remark, "...are there not some propositions, those found in religious creeds for example, which can only be statements, if they are anything at all7" But here too, according to Ayer's technical usage,

such an assertion is unjustified. For in the second edition of Language, Truth and Logic (1946) Ayer had said that:

...any form of words that is grammatically significant shall be held to constitute a sentence, and that every indicative sentence, whether it is literally meaningful or not, shall be regarded as expressing a statement. ...The word 'proposition' on the other hand, will be reserved for what is expressed by sentences which are literally meaningful. Thus, the class of propositions becomes, in this usage, a sub-class of the class of statements,.... 15

According to this there could be no religious or ethical pro­

positions on the grounds that they are not expressed by state­

ments that are literally meaningful. However, there can be

theological statements even though these are not verifiable

or meaningful in an empirical sense. Consequently Warnock's

criticism does not apply to Ayer's positivism if only on the

grounds that Ayer does not say that such statements "must either

be empirically verifiable or meaningless." Warnock's criticism,

it must be said, does mention the fact that the principle of

verification is not applicable "at all to forms of words which

in no way aspired to the condition of statements." But this re­

mark is innocuous if one considers that Ayer's usage agrees

with it.

15. Ibidem, pi STI -72-

It will be remembered that William's argument contends that "For some philosophers...the so-called logical positivists

...all metaphysical arguments and statements are by them lumped together and dismissed as meaningless." And all one need say here is that Ayer only 'eliminates' chem from the class of statements that are literally meaningful. Professor Ayer does perhaps 'lump' them together in the sense that their domain of meaningfulness lies outside the class of literally meaningful statements. But he does not, as Williams claims, dismiss the metaphysical statements in that 'lump' as meaning­ less. However, in passing, it is gratifying to note that at least Williams calls them statements.

The argument that is advanced by Professor Walsh can also be dismissed quite rapidly. Walsh contends that because the positivists relate literal experience to sense experience, they conclude that since metaphysical pronouncements are unable to satisfy this test, the news that such metaphysical pronounce­ ments "profess to purvey is really news from nowhere.This is not compatible with his other criticism, however, where he

claims that the positivists see metaphysics "as primarily the

16. Note: Î realise that the term "news from nowhere" might have been 'coined' by Professor Walsh to convey the notion of 'meaninglessness' jokingly. But I do not think that this is any reason to allow such 'coinage' to escape criticism. Hardly any critic of Wittgenstein, for example, allowed his distinction between "nonsense and important nonsense" — though 1 doubt whether even they would deny that in so doing they were "let­ ting the fly out of the fly-bottle". -73- product of bad logic." For it takes one back to the tradi­ tional arguments, particularly those of the Medieval philoso­ phers, on the meaning of 'nowhere' and 'nothing'. If "news from nowhere" means "news created out of nothing" or "news created not out of anything", then it is hard to see how this is meaningful even to a metaphysician, let alone a positivist who it is certain would not wish to be credited with such a pronouncement. Furthermore, the notion of "news from nowhere" could hardly be a positivist thesis when that positivist is supposed to hold that metaphysics is "primarily the product of bad logic" at the same time. For it would at least have to be "news from bad logic" rather than "news from nowhere", otherwise the two notions are incompatible. Moreover it is difficult to see how Ayer would regard metaphysics as the pro­ duct of bad logic at all. One way to substantiate this is to examine a typiceil example of what Ayer considers to be the claim of one type of metaphysics. This is illustrated by Pro­ fessor Zuurdeeg who, for different reasons, uses Professor

Ayer's positivism as a focus of departure for his own philoso­ phy of religion:

We will follow Ayer's example and take as a starting point for our discussions not metaphysics 'in general' but a specific meta- phjrsical thesis, namely, the assertion that philosophy affords us knowledge of a reality transcending the world of science and common sense." Ayer does not want to denounce this thesis 'by criticising the way in which it comes into being,' e.g., by pointing out that -74-

one cannot 'legitimately...infer...the exis­ tence of anything super empirical... from empirical promises. For the fact that a con­ clusion does not follow from Its putative premise Is not sufficient to show that it is false.' Ayer wants to use another kind of critique, 'a criticism of the nature of the actual statements which comprise (the meta­ physical thesis).' Henoe he claims that 'our charge against the metaphysician Is not ^ that he attempts to employ the understanding in a field where It can not profitably ven­ ture, but that he produces sentences which fail to conform to the conditions under which alone a sentence can be literally sig­ nificant. 17

Here it is fairly evident that Ayer not only makes a distinc­ tion between various types of metaphysics, but he also implies that the repudiation of metaphysical pronouncements must begin with the actual statements in that metaphysics. Moreover, in saying that he does not wish to criticise metaphysics via an examination of how it comes into being, he is not saying that it is "news from nowhere." It would not be entirely incorrect to say that the positivist does wish to accuse some of the more context-dependent metaphysical statements as being the products of 'bad logic'. But to say the positivist sees metaphysics

'in general' this way is a product of misunderstanding. For

Feigl, in support of the view that it is a mistake for the critics to generalize Ayer's positivistic premises, says:

17. William F. Zuurdeeg, An Analytical Philosophy of Religion (New York: Abingdon Press, 1958), p. ^ d e A. J. Ayer, L.T.L., pp. 33-35. -75-

. ..the positivist critique of metaphysics is primarily an attack upon the confusion of meanings and is not intended as a whole­ sale repudiation of wrhat has been presented under that label. 18

Feigl distinguishes between five different types of metaphysics, and in speaking of one of them, inductive metaphysics, which he defines as "a speculative cosmology derived by extrapolation from scientific evidence," he says, that such a metaphysic

"...need not contain factually-meaningless elements at all..."^^

An important point about this sort of metaphysic, which is not brought out in Zuurdeeg's treatment, is that Feigl goes on to say that "...metaphysics in this sense, though logically unas­

sailable, is open to criticism from the point of view of the criteria of adequacy and precision."^® Accordingly, if it is

"logically unassailable", it is not open to logical objections

and can hardly be credited with being the product of 'bad

logic.* This notion of inductive metaphysics would perhaps

create further problems for Williams' discussion on the nature

of metaphysical arguments where he claims that "one essential

property of them. ..that they are not the same as deductive or

inductive arguments." But this is a point to be made in con­

nection with another problem.

18. Herbert Feigl and Wilfred Sellers, editors. Readings in Philosophical Analysis (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, I949I, p. Ill rvide Zuurdeeg. op. cit., p. I27.) 19. Ibidem (quotation from Zuurdeeg). 20. Ibidem. -76-

But there still remains Copleston's comment about the positivists, who, so he claims, say that ethical statements

"have only emotional significance." For this charge is perhaps equally as widespread as the charge that all metaphysical

statements are 'meaningless*. And while it is true that Ayer does have an "emotive theory of values", it is not true that he regards them as having "only" emotive significance. To begin with, Ayer does say that the emotive theory "...has pro­

voked a fair amount of criticism," but he also adds that,

"...this criticism has been directed more often against the positivist principles on which the theory has been assumed to

depend than against the theory itself." And here the accu­

sation that statements have "only" emotive significance is one

such assumption. For it was Ayer's intention "to show that in

so far as statements of value are significant, they are ordi­

nary 'scientific* statements; and that in so far as they are

not scientific they are not in the literal sense significant,

but simply expressions of emotion. And from the fact that

he regards ethical statements as expressions of emotion devoid

of literal significance, one cannot legitimately conclude that

they have "only" emotional significance.

An objection that is often raised in connexion with the

above discussion is that if statements are devoid of literal

21. Ayer, L.T.L., p. 20. 22. Ibidem, pp. 102-103- -77- slgnlficance then what 'significance' remains in Ayer's view besides the emotive kind? And one way to answer this would be to say that these philosophers who make such an objection have confused the subject matter — that of making the term

'ethical statements' applicable to all types. For Ayer admit­ ted in the first edition that any system of ethics is "very far from being a homogeneous whole...for whatever else may com­ prise the system. ..its actual ethical contents are themselves of very different kinds.Accordingly the onus is upon the critic to show what sort of ethical statements it is to which his critique refers. For Ayer had distinguished four kinds of ok ethical pronouncements:

i. Definitions of ethical terms and the propositions which express them — (constitutes ethical philosophy);

ii. Propositions describing the phenomenon of moral experience and their causes — (constitutes psychology or sociology);

iii. Exhortations to moral virtue which are not propo­ sitions but commands and ejaculations — (not philosophic or scientific);

iv. Actual ethical judgements — (indeterminable clas­ sification — but certainly not part of ethical philosophy).

From this list two things are plainly evident: first, that

Ayer does not group all ethical statements together; and, secon­ dly, that he cannot be accused of saying that they (all ethical statements) have 'only' emotive significance. But the objector

Z T Ibidem, p. 103. 24. Ibidem. -78- could still say that the statements he refers to are only those which are given in item four — 'actual ethical judgements'.

However, it is doubtful that even in this sense the statements referred to are thought of as having only emotive significance. '

For Ayer says that:

...ethical terms do not serve only to express feeling. They are calculated to arouse fee­ ling, and so to stimulate action. Indeed some of them are used in such a way as to give the sentences in which they occur the effect of commands. 25

Accordingly, while the term 'emotive' is applicable to the

actual ethical expressions Ayer refers to, it is not this ele­

ment alone which determines their 'significance'. But it seems

that when Ayer says that "ethical judgements are mere expres­

sions of feeling" he is not allowing much rod# for further

analysis. For to describe different feelings and their be­

havioural responses is a task for psychology, and to determine

the conditions which govern people's acceptance of certain

habits and feelings belongs to the social sciences. It is

not hard, however, to separate in principle what is indeed

inseparable in fact. For the claim to separate expressions

of feeling from the contexts in which they occur is difficult

to maintain as fact.^^ Accordingly though one is forced to

25; Ibidem, p. 108. 26. Ibidem, p. 112. 27. Ibidem. 28. Note: The point in making the above list {vide p. 77) may be too obvious to be worth making. But quite often the examples advanced by objectors to the 'emotive' theory are -79- admlt that Ayer's emotive theory of value applies to actual ethical utterances, one is not forced to admit that they are only significant in an emotive sense. Moreover, since the words

"only emotive significance" do not occur in either edition of

Language, Truth and Logic, one is not committed to supposing that such an expression correctly represents Ayer's position.

In a 1949 article, however, Ayer did admit that when he said "that these moral judgements are merely expressive of either not actual ethical judgements or their criticisms are supported by psychological and other considerations. However, this use of 'other considerations' is not entirely wrong. Sup­ posing for example 1 make the judgements "I find Jones guilty of misconduct" and "I judge Smith's conduct to be acceptable." These are undoubtedly expressions of my own feelings towards Smith and Jones. But they are not only expressions of my own feelings. To name such utterances more precisely they fall under what Professor Austin calls Performative utterances. They can, for example, be called either Bxercitive or Verdic- tive depending on the context in which they are expressed. Bxercitives are usually made by those in authority in socially recognised institutional circumstances. Verdictive performa­ tives, on the other hand, are the "delivering of a finding, official or unofficial, upon evidence or reason as to value or fact, so far as these are distinguishable. {Vide J. Austin, How To Do Things With Words (London: Oxford University Press, 1^62), p. 152.1 Thus in these two examples a judgement may be 'legally significant' and 'emotively significant' at the same time. They are nonetheless actual ethical judgements for all that. Besides which Ayer would not deny that the judge­ ments were 'grammatically significant'. But this at least shows that Copleston's assertion that they have 'only emotional significance* is not the same as saying they have 'emotional significance*. In any case Ayer*s assertion that moral judge­ ments are 'expressions of feeling' is not the same as Cople­ ston's assertion that "ethical statements...have only emotive significance." It is not "ethical statements" which have emotive significance, it is rather what they express. This may be quibbling but Ayer is careful to make this distinction nevertheless. -80- certaln feelings, feelings of approval or disapproval.,.", that it was an "over-simplification." Accordingly he recti­ fies this over-simplification by saying:

The fact is rather that what may be described as moral attitudes consist in certain pat­ terns of behaviour, and that the expression of a moral judgement is an element in the pattern. 29 However, here a case might be presented to show that Ayer is not doing justice to himself. For it is difficult to see, from what has been mentioned already, how he ever "over­ simplified" the notion that a certain type of moral judgement was "merely expressive of certain feeling." But, of course, in saying that he over-simplified the notion, this is not to say that in emending it he has in any significant way deviated from his original position. In any case his theory of values which in its emended form implies that the 'emotive' element is not the only element is a good argument against Copleston's criticism.

Before concluding this section, which was primarily to deal with the justifiability of criticisms, it is as well to deal with two more points that have recently been advanced.

The first of these is that verificational analysis is not equipped to verify the significance of the performative

29. Ayer, "On the Analysis of Moral Judgements," Horizon. Vol. XX, No, 117* 1949* reprinted in Philosophical Essays (London: Macmillan and Co. , Ltd., 1959)» p. 238. -8l-

OQ expression, "I pronounce you man and wife."-^ And the obvious answer to this is that of course one does not verify such usage -- the verification principle was never intended to ana­ lyse the meaning of such expressions. For Austin himself, who, if he was not the first to use the notion of performative ut­ terances at least described it in modern terms, said that such 31 statements could not be true or false. If this Is the case then according to Ayer's technical usage they cannot be pro­ positions and, if they are not propositions, then they are not

'literally' significant. Moreover Ayer would be among the first to admit that they could be significant by some other standard of meaning.

It is interesting to note that the utterances which are called 'performatives' by Austin were anticipated by Hume in connection with his treatment of morals. Hume claims:

That the rule of morality, which enjoins the performance of promises, is not natural, will sufficiently appear from these two pro­ positions, which I proceed to prove, viz. that a promise wou'd not be intelligible, before human conventions had establish'd it; an^ that"even if it were intelligible, it wou^d not be attended with any moral obligation. 32

30. Frederick Ferre, Language, Logic and God (New York; Harper and Brothers, 196I), p. 56* 31. J. L. Austin, Philosophical Papers, edited by J. 0. Urmson and G. J. Warnock, (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 220-229. 32. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (London: Oxford University Press), Book III, Section V of Morals, p. 516. Note: Up to this time the present writer knows of no philoso­ pher who has brought out this kinship of Hume and Austin on — 82—

What this serves to point out is that the class of statements known as performatives are not of a non-significant kind, but are classed or become a sub-class of these statements that are the products of social conditioning in conjunction with such moral-content restraints as religion or judicial ritual which are imposed upon the conditioning process. But since no obli­ gatory state of mind is imposed upon the pronouncer or the re­ cipient of the performative utterance, they are said by Hume to be non-natural; and Austin, who claims that performatives are inadequately classified by the verification movement, also claims that they are not as nonsensical as the verificationist supposed. And in this case, while it may be true that such performatives are indeed inadequately classified or overly simplified, it would not be incompatible in Ayer's view to render them as a sub-class of the class of statements which constitute the science of psychology or sociology. In which case their non-empirical nature does not render them meaning­ less or nonsensical.23 the notion of 'performatives'. The word 'performative' is new, as Austin claims. But in comparison with Hume's treatment of the "performance of promises" and "resolution to perform" it seems that Austin ought to have at least mentioned this his­ torical connection. Vide also Austin, How To Do Things With Wo rds. 33- This is however an over-simplification fdr'Austid&s constative performatives do have factual or empirical content. For example, the Constative "I observed that no one was there when I left" has its empirical content in an abstractable 'that-clause' which may be true or false. But when Austin first constructed what may be called his linguistic function­ alism or performativism, he separated what he called ' constative ' —83—

The conclusion one is brought to from all of this is that it seems as if the principle of verification now suffers be­ cause its role is limited to verifying only those statements which are 'factually significant.' Certainly it does not seem to be a principle which excludes the metaphysical utterances that its author originally supposed it could. For Church's criticism shows that logically it could include metaphysical statements and be verifiable at the same time. Moreover, the criterion is innocuous in the sense that anyone can formulate any other criterion to provide a meaning for any sentential expression whatever, indicative or otherwise. Perhaps the attempt at formulating the precise definition for 'literal significance ' could be prevented by considering Professor

Passmore's comment. He says:

Let us take it, then that the verifiability principle lays down a condition which has to be satisfied by expressions which play a certain part in science, and that it does not do this quite arbitrarily but in a way that pays some respect to our ordinary utterances from performatives, though there was no sharp line by which to distinguish all cases. But he soon realized that his analysis of the supposed constative performative distinc­ tion might break down. (Vide Austin, How To Do Things With Wo rds, p. 54. ) Indeed toward the end of his analysis he ad- mitted that his "belief in the dichotomy of performatives and constatives,. . .has to be abandoned in favour of more general families of related and overlapping speech acts...." (Ibidem, pT 149. ) For if the word ' constative ' is used for the reason that not all true-false statements are descriptions, the truth or falsity of them depends equally as much on the act and circumstance of the performance as it does on the meanings of the words it contains. (Ibidem, cf., p. 3, p. l44. ) -84-

feellng for what is and is not a science. Does it then, after all, simply act as a way of drawing a line of demarcation be­ tween the scientific and non-scientiflc, as Ayer now supposes? )4

But is some of what Passmore says plausible? What is to pre­ vent Professor Church's criticism of the criterion from being interpreted in a scientific manner? For instead of saying that the statement, "The Absolute is lazy and this is white," satisfies the criterion, why could not one say, "it is not possible either chemically, mechanically, or thermally to pro­ duce the phenomenon known as perpetual motion, and man is that which relates the relative to the absolute?" Certainly part of what this sentence says plays a part in science and the whole sentence is verifiable by Ayer's criterion, at least where Professor Church's criticism is made applicable to it.

Furthermore some propositions like those which express the elementary laws of thermodynamics or nuclear physics could not be said to pay "respect to our ordinary feeling for what is and what is not a science," For without the scientific knowledge required one could never distinguish which was or was not scientifically significant. Consequently something regarded by 'ordinary feeling' to be scientific, might, in these terms, be less meaningful than certain metaphysical ex­ pressions. For there seems to be something more than "our ordinary feeling" involved in the determination between

3^, John PassmoreT Phil^ophioal Reasoning (New York : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1962), p. 96. - 85— scientific and non-soientific usage. Besides which some meta­ physical expressions are included in scientific discourse just as some scientific expressions form the primary context of some metaphysical discourse.

The conclusion seems to be that many of these 'general' criticisms do not genuinely confute Ayer's emended version in the same way that the logical one presented in the first chap­ ter does. However, the next criticism will show that the status of the criterion has considerably reduced the effectiveness of modern positivism. - 86 -

iil

Perhaps the most popular refutation of the principle of verification, indeed one which has plagued post-Comtean posi­ tivism from the start, is the view that the principle itself is not verifiable. That is, those philosophers who have sub­ scribed to this criticism claim that if the principle of veri­ fication is held by its proponents to be the criterion of meaning and truth, then it should likewise submit to the scru­ tiny of its own standard in order to substantiage itself.

And, since there seems to be no way in which the criterion could substantiate itself, it is therefore not verifiable, and if it is not verifiable, it is equally as meaningless as the metaphysical statements it intended to exclude from the confines of philosophical discourse. Far from trivial, this criticism calls for an analysis in terms of Ayer's philosophy in order to see whether or not its applicability to his view is justified. But, as has been shown, Ayer's contention is that a verifiable statement that is not analytic must terminate

in some actual or possible sense-experience. Thus in order for Ayer's principle to be self-verifiable it is placed in the position of being a statement of an analytic or experiential kind. For, as has been shown, in Ayer's view, linguistic usage,

in order to be literally significant, is confined to two kinds

of statements; either empirical or a priori. He says: — 8?—

A statement Is held to be literally meaning­ ful if and only if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable. 35

From this it would seem that if the principle itself is to be

'literally meaningful' it must likewise be a statement of an a priori or empirical kind. But Ayer was careful to avoid the latter, since he regards the principle of verification itself "not as an empirical hypothesis, but as a definition," however, such a definition "is not supposed to be entirely arbitrary. Later, and using more definite language, he says :

A favourite argument of those who wish to defend metaphysics against the logical posi­ tivist's attack is that the verification principle is itself not verifiable. And, of course, it is not; it was not meant to be. It was put forward as a definition, not as an empirical statement of fact. But it is not an arbitrary definition. It purports to lay down the conditions which actually gov­ ern our acceptance, or indeed our understan­ ding, of common sense and scientific state­ ments, the statements which we take as describing the world 'in which we live and move and have our being. ' 37

Ayer here then has explicitly denounced any attempt to regard the principle of verification as an empirical statement. And he is also admitting that the principle fails to satisfy it­ self. But one might still ask that if it is not an empirical

35* Ayer, p . 13» 36. Ibidem, p. I6 . 37. Ayer, Hie Revolution in Philosophy, p. 74. - 88 - bypothesis or an arbitrary definition, what then is it?28

The only acceptable answer to this, at least where literal

significance is made to consider the criterion in its own

terms, is that the criterion is a priori. Indeed that the

criterion is analytic is frequently heard in philosophical

circles. But it will be shown that if Ayer does subscribe to

this view, it will turn out to be inconsistent with what he

has said elsewhere.

Ayer holds that "the certainty of a priori propositions depends upon the fact that they are tautologies. "29 Thus if

the principle of verification is said to be a priori then in

Ayer's terms it must also be tautological. And since he also

holds that "a proposition can be said to be a tautology if it

is analytic," the verification principle might In this way be

labelled analytic.^® However, if the principle is a priori,

tautological and analytic, then this arouses criticisms from

another standpoint. For example, Ayer says that it is a mis­

take to regard an a priori proposition as a linguistic rule.

And in saying this he is excluding the verification principle

as a rule for -significant linguistic usage. The reason given

is that "apart from the fact that they can properly be said to

381 It was pointed out to me that by Professor Church's critique Ayer's principle of verification may be regarded as self-satisfied in the sense of being indirectly verifiable since every statement can be so regarded. But then the denial of Ayer's principle may also be so regarded. 39* Ayer, L.T.L.. p. I6 . 40. Ibidem. -89- be true, which linguistic rules cannot, (a priori propositions)

...are distinguished also by being necessary, whereas lin­ guistic rules are arbitrary. It will be noticed here that since he regards linguistic rules as arbitrary and since he regards the principle of verification as not being arbitrary, the principle cannot be a linguistic rule for Ayer. Of course, the criterion might still be a priori. The fact that he does not regard it as a linguistic rule coupled with the fact that he does not regard linguistic rules a priori either, still al­ lows the criterion possible candidacy as a priori truth of some other kind. He could not allow it to be a priori in the same sense that mathematical truths are a priori, since there does not seem to be quite the same air of necessity about the veri­ fiability criterion as there is about certain mathematical criteria. Moreover, since Ayer contends that "the truths of logic and mathematics are analytic propositions or tautologies," thus "devoid of factual content," he will not allow that they are senseless in the same way that metaphysical statements are.^^

So that if the criterion is to be regarded as analytic in the same way that mathematical propositions are, it cannot at the same time be credited with being metaphysical. But the prin­ ciple of verification in claiming that a statement is literally significant if it is either analytic or is reducible to some

Tnn ibidem, p. 17. 42. Ibidem, p. 77. -90- posslble or actual sense-experiance hardly seems to be a tau­ tological one. For as Professor B1 an shard pointed out in his

C a m s Lectures the tautological statement that "a bachelor is an unmarried man" cannot be denied without self-contradiction.

Consequently a similarity oannot be made between tautologies and the principle of verification, since the principle can be denied without self-contradiction.^2 Furthermore "a genuine

tautology is not likely to be attacked by citing contrary in­

stances: if one wanted to refute the statement that all bache­

lors are unmarried men, one would hardly do so by looking

around for exceptions. Yet as is evidenced from the chap­

ter in which this circumstance was discussed, the changes of

opinion as to the formulation of the principle necessitated

because of the acceptance of the very statements it was designed

to reject shows that the principle is not tautological or ana­

lytic in these terms. But as Professor Urmson remarks, if the

principle is to have any philosophical status at all, it must

be a priori albeit an unhappy status:

...this alternative was by no means a happy one, since for the positivist all a priori propositions are rules of language of a conventional character. 4-5

However, since Professor Ayer does not regard the principle

43" Brand Blanshard, R e ^ o n and ^alysis (Illinois: Open Court Publishing Co., I962 ), p"I 240, 44. Ibidem. , 4 5 . J. 0. Urmson, Philosophical Analysis (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1958). — 91— as a 'rule of language' because these are said to be arbitrary, this criticism does not apply to his view of its status.

This seems to leave the positivist in the awkward posi­ tion of finding a name with which the principle of verification might be credited and not being able to do so. For it has been shown that Ayer could not regard the verifiability prin­ ciple as being a member of the class of statements belonging

to the following categories:

i. Empirical statements ii. A priori-analytic-tautological statements iii. Arbitrary definitions iv. Linguistic rules

But clearly, though certainly not by his own admission, Ayer's

intended criterion must be either philosophical or metaphysical,

since it was his purpose to differentiate between philosophy

and metaphysics by means of it.^^ If it were philosophical,

or at least if it were composed of philosophical propositions,

then it would have to be "linguistically necessary and so ana­

lytic. " However, since we have seen it does not seem to be philosophical, the alternative is that it is metaphysical.

But before drawing this conclusion another view needs to be

considered.

Professor Ayer admits that any man can "always sustain

his convictions in the face of apparently hostile evidence if

4 6 . Ayer, L.T.L?, p. Jll Note : Philosophy is distin­ guished from metaphysics by Ayer as a separable discipline, hence I have made use of his own definition of a "philosophical proposition." He says, "As for the propositions of philosophy themselves, they ame held to be linguistically necessary, and so analytic." — 92— he is prepared to make the necessary ad hoc assumptions."^^

From this one might conclude that the principle of verification is held in a similar way. But the principle of verification could still be analytic in these terms. For Ayer says that a

"proposition whose validity we are resolved to maintain in the face of any experience is not a hypothesis at all, but a defi­ nition....In other words, it is not a synthetic but an analytic J j i Q proposition." Here it might be said that the a priori nature of the proposition or definition in question is of a special kind. For if the principle is claimed to be a definition in

this way, it must be in some incomplete sense; it is incomplete

in the sense that the definition given logically is unaccep­

table. It should also be rejected as a definition for which

scientific or philosophical status is claimed. For unlike

Ayer's criterion there are words, propositions and statements

in these disciplines to which definitions professionals grant

common consent. But since there appears to be no common con­

sent to Ayer's formulation, it might be said that the principle

is not analytic. However, this might be objected to on the

grounds that the principle could be analytical but devoid of

the necessity Blanshard claims it should have. This would be

the case in which the statements contained in the dictionary

were to be regarded as analytic. And in Ayer's terms one might

Ibidem, p. ^5. 48. Ibidem. -93-

conceivably regard the principle of verification as a state­ ment which is "expressed in terms that do not themselves designate anything observable. Clearly this does seem to

characterize the verifiability criterion. But in spite of this

there is still an air of paradox about it. For if it could

be regarded as a dictionary definition it could not be denied

without self-contradiction, even though the definition in ques­

tion might be replaced a number of times by other more adequate

ones. An example of this would be the traditional descriptive

inadequacy in which a man is defined as "a featherless biped."

Now that a man is a featherless biped is true even though

among other things it characterizes a plucked chicken. If the

definition is necessary in this sense, it is not sufficient.

Still it is not in these terms equal in status to the criter­

ion. Neither is it the same as the a priori truth that two

plus two equals four even though three plus one and several

other arithmetical propositions characterize the number four,

since each one of these alone is both necessary and sufficient.

The only alternative to this predicament is to expand

Ayer's notion of a propositional dichotomy into a propositional

trichotomy. For here there seems to be grounds for a certain

sense in which science and philosophy require meaningful state­

ments which are neither derivable by pure logico-mathematical

analysis nor inductively derivable from (or verifiable in terms

49. Ibidem, p . I 3 . -94- of) actual or possible experience. These statements in Ayer's usage would be neither literally meaningful nor analytic.

Rather they would be quasi-synthetic a priori propositions of a non-necessary and contingent kind.^^ of course Ayer would strongly object to this extension of his propositional types.

But it seems as though there is no other way of saving the principle of verification from feeding Hume's metaphysical fire of sophistry and illusion.

In conclusion then it seems that if the criterion is to be a priori at all, it must be synthetic. It cannot have the analytic status Ayer tends to credit it, since it is not neces­ sary in the same way that mathematical propositions and most scientific definitions are. And after examining many examples of what would constitute these quasi-synthetic a priori pro­ positions one might readily conclude that even if they are not necessary they are at least sufficient. But the principle is not even sufficient as a definition of literal or factual

50. Note : Professor Blanshard holds a notion of synthe­ tic a priori; in his early criticism of positivism he contends that they are necessary. His definition of the meaning of a priori is illuminating. He says: "If it means that in which the knower imposes a structure upon the known, a structure that cannot be taken as shedding light upon the real, then it amounts to self-destructive scepticism; there is nothing it could offer us as true of the real, not even this insight about itself. What a priori rightly means is revealing the character of thought through revealing what satisfies thought." Vide The Nature of Though^ Vol. II, p^ l42 (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1939); also "Logical Positivism and Necessity," pp. 399-427. -95- slgnlflcance. Consequently one Is tempted to conclude that its non-sufficient or non-necessary character places it in the same category as those metaphysical statements that its formulation was supposed to exclude. -96-

CHAPTBR IV

Language and Fact ;

An Analysis of the Applicability of the Criterion

The preceding discussion pointed out among other things

that for R. N. Hare the principle of verification is a "cri­

terion of empiricality.In this chapter, however, it will be pointed out that even if it could be regarded as an empiri­ cality criterion, it would still have many problems connected with the usage of such terms as 'language* and 'fact' and the

employment of what falls under these labels in the language of persons. There can be no objection to this usage of the term

'the language of persons' on the basis of the old solipcistic or 'verifiability by me' argument. For Ayer, using the first person plural, in describing the concern of the analytic philo­

sopher as being about the way 'we speak' about the physical properties of things rather than the physical properties them- o selves, renders the language of verifiability public. This

is not to say that Ayer denies the possibility of a private

language, quite the contrary,^ for it implies that the language

which is entailed by such terms as 'factual significance'. n R. M. Hare, Faith and Logic, edited by Basil Mitchell, (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1957)« p. 177. 2. Ayer, L*_T*^^*, p. 57» 3. Vide Ayer, "Can There Be a Private Language," Suppli- mentary Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1954, reprinted in The Concept of a Person and Other Essays, pp. 36-52. -97-

'observation-statements ' and 'sense-contents' or 'sense-data' is a language intended to oommunicate inter-subjective (public) experiences. Bearing in miiid that this usage is allegedly pub­ lic, an investigation into the relation between 'language* and

'fact' will reveal that it is not a factual relation at all but only a relation of possibility.

To begin with if Ayer's use of the term 'factual signifi­ cance' (previously distinguished from 'literal significance') is to have the meaning he has given it, the principle of veri­ fication demands that such facticity must terminate in some actual or possible sense experience. In order to facilitate the understanding of this terminology the principle will be restated. Ayer claims that :

1. A statement is directly verifiable if it is either $1) itself an observation statementÿ or (ii) is such that in conjunction with one or more observation-statements it entails at least one observation statement which is not deducible from these other premises alone.

2. A statement is indirectly verifiable if it satisfies the following conditions: (i) that in conjunction with certain other premises it entails one or more directly verifiable state­ ments which are not deducible from these other premises alone; (ii) these other premises do not include any statement that is not either analytic, or directly verifiable, or capable of being independently established as indir­ ectly verifiable. 4

Since this emended version includes the special sense of

the word ' statement ', it is obvious that the word 'observation'

m Ayer. L.f .L.. p. 1?. -98- preflxed to it confines that such terminology designates to an even more technical sense. For this reason Ayer says that the phrase 'observation-statement' designates a statement "which records an actual or possible observation."^

But we are not told what the nature of an observation- statement is; to state what a certain verbal convention desig­ nates is not to state the meaning of the phrase. Thus his usage of the word 'designate' is taken to be the ordinary sense in which it serves to distinguish one type of statement from an­ other such that the character of this class of expressions is specified but not the meaning. One way out of the problem as to what will constitute an observation-statement apart from meaning, would be to find an answer to the question, "What are the circumstances under which an observation-statement would be recognized as being a recording of an actual or possible obser­ vation?" And this entails the usage of an additional criterion in which an actual or possible observation might be determined apart from its verbal form. Moreover this criterion would de­ termine whether or not an observation-statement could properly be said to refer to the actual or possible observations of which it is ostensibly composed. And while such a criterion might be metaphysically construed, its logical formulation is not a fea- ible undertaking. For it would have the two-fold job of refer­ ring to linguistic and extra-linguistic data. If it were a

5> Ibidem, p. 11. -99- llngulstic convention alone Its use in conjunction with the principle of verification would push the problem a stage further back. For it would leave the authenticity of extra-linguistic experiences still to be determined. The whole problem is pri­ marily a matter of certifying perceptual-linguistic connectivity.

One answer to the question as to what an observation- statement is would be to say that it is a person's expressed

conscious experience of some state of affairs. This might be objected to on the grounds that in some sense or other it ex­

cludes possible observation and establishes only by actual ob­

servation some conscious experience of an actual state of af­

fairs. The only answer to this is to establish what is entailed

by an actual observation before enumerating the ambiguities

which would perhaps be involved in expressing what a possible

observation is purported to be.

What is needed at this point is an account of what is

entailed when one is said to be observing fact. But it should

be quite apparent that an analysis of what is entailed in a

person's observing a fact does not commit Ayer to analyzing

what the fact is in itself. Thus the fact itself, one's obser­

vation of the fact, and statements about one's observations

are three different things. However, this trichotomy assumes

the existence of facts apart from their actual or possible ob­

servation; and Professor Ayer wishes to avoid the problems

connected with the notion of facts in themselves. Accordingly — 100—

Ayer considers it necessary to introduce the terminology of sense data. But he is cautious on this point. He says that it "is convenient, for purposes of exposition, to introduce people to the sense-datum terminology by setting forth sentences which refer to sense-data as translations of sentences which re­ fer to physical objects, " but, he continues, "it would be a mistake to conclude from this that the sense-datum language was nothing more than a technical substitute for the other.

What he means here is that any sentence which refers to a physi­ cal object constitutes a sentence about sense-data, but that a sense-data sentence is not merely a technical way of referring to a sentence about a physical object. This follows from the meaning which Ayer attaches to the word 'sense-datum', for, according to his usage, "to deny that there were sense-data would be to deny that anything ever was observed. All that he wishes to say here is that in using the term sense-datum, apart from whatever else to which it may refer, it is at least

"a means of referring to appearances" and the mode by means of which the appearance presents itself can be either seeing, touching, or any other 'sensing' experience. Furthermore, since the usage of the term 'sense-datum' does not for Ayer

"carry any factual implications about the character of these

5T A. J. Ayer, Philosophical Essays (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1959), p. 104. 7. A. J. Ayer, Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (London: Macmillan and Co. , Ltd., 1958) ■ p% 116. - 101- appearanoes," neither does it commit him to assume or reject

"any special empirical theory about the nature of what we ob­ serve. Now Ayer does not allow that any distinction between the object that a person observes and the person's awareness of the object can be made, and in this way he is able to exclude

"the possibility of there being sense-data whose existence is not noticed at the same time they are sensed.What it is that we observe determines the existence of sense-data, and what may be credited with the description of those sense-data

can be called our perceptions of observable things expressed

in observation-statements. Thus Ayer's usage of the term

'sense-datum' is such that "in every case in which it can legi­

timately be said that a material thing is being perceived it

can also be said that a sense-datum is being sensed. What

^ Ayer, Philosophical Essays, p. 131 ; of. Foundations of Empirical Knowledge, pp. 116-117. 9 . Ayer, Foundations of Empirical Knowledge, p. 125. 10. Ibidem, p. 135. Note: The above quotation is taken out of a typical context from which Ayer's position can be ex­ tracted. Often Ayer's own position is to be found in the form of an answer to some objection or other. One such objection which leads Ayer to the theory he holds is that perhaps more is given in our experience than we are actually aware of. One form in which this objection is raised is that our past experiences might conceivably affect our immediate experiences of sense- data. For example, in seeing a coin in an oblique position an observer may still say that it is round rather than elliptical. But in saying this, so the objection claims, the sense-datum that the observer senses is affected by his past experiences of round coins. Ayer says that philosophers are "inclined to as­ sume that a round object, when it is seen obliquely, always looks elliptical, the empirical fact is that it does not. If I look sideways at a coin, the image that it projects upon my — 102—

Ayer has granted to be legitimate is the usage of the term sense- datum to refer to the perception of some material thing. And

in doing so assumes 'perception' and 'material thing' to be

separable — combined only in the experiencing of sense-datum.

Even if we were to ask Ayer the question, "What is the nature

retina is indeed elliptical, but in spite of that, the coin still seems to me to be round. And by this I do not mean that, in spite of seeing it as elliptical, I judge the coint to be really round, but that it is round and not an elliptical shape that I seem actually to see." (Ibidem, p. 119.) Ayer objects to any view tl^t maEes a distinction between appearance and reality, particularly when it is made to apply to sense-data as well as to physical objects since this makes the terminology highly enigmatic. But that the enigma of using such sense-data terminology is removed "if one makes it a rule that all sense-data really have the properties that they appear to have, no matter what may be the causes of their appearing as they do, one is not in any way debarred from expressing the fact that the character of one's sense-data may be affected by one's past experience... .But I do not infer from this that the pro­ perties which would be affected by the alterations in the con­ ditions do not really characterize the sense-data which they appear to characterize. For this would be to admit a distinc­ tion to which I attach no meaning when it is applied to sense- data. " (Ibidem, p. 123.) Accordingly Ayer says "the sensory characteristics that sense-data really have should be regarded as co-extensive with those that they appear to hare. " (Problems of Knowledge, p. 102. ) In other words for Ayer "in the domain of sense-data whatever appears is real." (Foundations of &npir- ical Knowledge, p. 123. ) The word 'appear is assumedly used by him to refer to a 'being aware of' or 'direct apprehension of' a sense-datum. However, Ayer admits a weakness in his position, for not only is he "unable to say" anything more positive about the nature of this "awareness" or "direct apprehension" but also he can "not at present see on what lines it is to be devel­ oped." (Problems of Knowledge, p. I03.) Note: Perhaps the best and most up-to-date criticism of Ayer's phenomenology is to be found in J. L. Austin's book Sense and Sensibilia, edited by G-. J. Warnock (London: Oxford University Press, 1962). Austin's critique among other points deals with Ayer's analysis of those experiences that are said to be the products of an illusion or hallucination. -103- of a material thing?", he would only answer that such a ques­ tion "is like any other question of that form, a linguistic question, being a demand for a definition. And the propositions which are set forth in answer to it are linguistic propositions even though they may be expressed in such a way that they may seem to be factual. They are propositions about the relation­ ship of symbols, and not about the properties of things which the symbols denote.For any view which would assert that a world exists apart from our expressions about it would commit its holder to a realistic position equally as metaphysical as any idealist notion would be. Thus when verification is being sought, it is primarily a matter of referring to the content of an observation-statement. But it has been shown that an observation-statement depends for its content upon what one does, or caui, actually or possibly experience. Thus to ask

"What is the nature of a material thing?" is not the same as to ask the question, "Are physical objects directly perceived?"!^

And even if an acceptable answer could be given as to whether

or not persons directly perceive physical objects rather than

sense-data, it is not necessary at this point, that the ques­

tion or its probable solution be fully analyzed. But one must

examine the question regarding their relations. And one way

to answer this question of the relation between sense-data and

11. Ayer, lTT.L..^ 64f. 12. Ayer, Problems of Knowledge, p. 84. -104- physical objects, at least where Ayer's view is made to consider

the problem in these terms, is to say that "a philosopher who

thinks that he directly perceives physical objects does not for that reason expect anything different to happen from what

is expected by one «dio believes that he directly perceives sense-

data.And this is compatible with what Ayer has said else­ where, that by using the term sense-datum in a special way he

is able to give "a means of referring to appearances without

prejudging the question what it is, if anything, that they are

appearances of, and what it is, if anything, that they appear

^ til4 then places us in a position of using the expres­

sion ' sense-datum' without implying that it refers to any facts

"about the character of these appearances.

Accordingly, if Ayer's sense-contents are only about the

character of appearances devoid of any necessarily connected

factual content, then the relation of sense-contents to the

observation-statements which record them is equally as dubious

as the simplest constituents in Russell's logical atomism.

For if the sense-contents themselves are the ultimate verifiers

of the statements to be verified, the bridge which joins them TT. iSidem, p.^ 85. 14. Ayer, Philosophical Essays, p. 131. 1 5 * Ibidem. 16. Ayer claims Russell declared "that it was not possible to know what were the constituents of atomic facts. " In oppo­ sition to this Ayer thinks that such constituents "should not be regarded as unknowable" since if this is the case, they are reduced to the status of being "very dubious metaphysical enti­ ties. " Ayer, "On Particulars and Universals," p. 59. -105- is mysterious. Ifhat is most problematic is not the logical constructs themselves but the extra-linguistic source from which they are derived.

The view which is basic to Ayer's phenomenalism neither confirms or denies that there are physical objects. However, from the fact that they might exist, he is compelled to hold that the statements constructed from sense-contents are sup­ posedly translateable into statements about physical objects.

Furthermore these statements are hypothetical.^^ But where difficulty arises is in presupposing the language about physi­ cal objects without confirming the existence of the objects named. For the statements in Ayer's phenomenalism are only reducible to statements about sense-contents. And because these statements are only hypothetically credible, how can they, on that account, be considered as actual observations in any literal sense? The existence of sense-contents in perceptual experience will not be challenged. What is challenged is the notion that the verification of certain statements logically depends on verifiers which are themselves those extra-linguistic

things called sense-contents. And here Ayer admits that while he considers the character of the phenomenal!stic thesis

lÿ . Âyer, The Problem Ô7 Knowledge, p. 119. Note : Pheno­ menalism: Ayer says that "In the form in which it is usually held nowadays, it is the theory that physical objects are logi­ cal constructions out of sense-data." (Philosophical Essays, p. 125) In The Problem of Knowledge he says. The phenomena- list does not deny that there are physical objects" but "if there are they are constituted by sense-data." (p. 119.) -106- loglcal he also things that if it is submitted to a logical examination, the outcome would be that the thesis was unsuccesa- 1 O ful. Of course, the phenomenalist thesis might be made logi­ cally palatable, but it would only be at the cost of using an­ other kind of logic to which Ayer would not knowingly subscribe

However it will be shown that Ayer's phenomenology depends on

several uncertainties in the relations between person and em- prical fact. And this can only be logically talked about by using modal terminology.

It seems that because of the persistent problem of the

relation of language to empirical fact via sense-contents, Ayer

can hardly logically maintain "that the entirety of philoso­ phical analysis is contextual definition.For since his phenomenalism centres around sense-contents and the statements

formulate able from their occurrence, all he is able to say

about the relation between language and these extra-linguistic

referents is "that the consequences of denying the possibility

of using words to refer to empirical facts are altogether un­

acceptable."^^ Iftiat is being said here is that the possibility

T5~. Ibidem, p. 1^3. 19. Morris Weitz, "Unity of Russell's Philosophy," The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, ed. P. A. Schilpp (New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1951 ), p. 58. Vide Ayer, L.T.L.. Ch. IV, 20. Ayer, The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge, p. 92. Note: The question might be raised as to vdiether or not the phenomenalists could ever deny the possibility. From Ayer's description of phenomenalism it is difficult to see how they could. -107- of using words to refer to empirical facts must be accepted.

He is not saying that it is a fact that words do refer to em­ pirical facts: on the contrary, all ho is saying is that they possibly do and the denial of this relation of possibility is unacceptable.

From this one can deduce that if the observation-statements one makes contain words reporting one's actual observations, in the sense in which the object of an actual observation is itself either actual or possible, then they only possibly refer to those actual observations. When considered in this way the observation-statements one makes could conceivably be non-fac- tual, because one way of interpreting such statements, as dif­ fering from any actual-observation deducible from them, would be to say that they only possibly refer to possible empirical facts. Furthermore, it might be said that since a certain class of observation-statements are entirely based up*n possible- observations deducible from them, a third interpretation is introduced. This consists of saying that statements belonging to this class of observation-statements possibly refer to pos­

sible observations of possible empirical facts. To establish

this point, however, certain qualifications are essential.

The major qualification is that certain distinctions must

be made between types of statements. And this can be accom­ plished by examples. To begin with if someone says to me, "The dean is in the duck pond next door," I can take this as being —108“ a bona fide observation-statement. Moreover providing my inter­ locutor claims to have had the relevant experiences, I can

(though I need not) take his statement to be a report of an actual-observation. But it would only be an actual-observation for him, since the appropriate sense-ezperiences would rest with him and him alone. This type of statement is thus a first hand observation-statement based on actual experience and is symbolized 0^. My interlocutor's statement would have had 0^ status for me, if I had been in the position to have had simi­ lar sense-experiences. In accepting his statement, since in this case X did not have similar experiences to his, the state­ ment is reduced to what he 'possibly* observed and is symbolized

Op. Thus the Op status that my statement has could easily be­ come an 0^ statement were I to be in the appropriate circum­ stances to make an actual-observation. Moreover the Op state­ ment is still first class in that the circumstances for its being an 0^ by actual-observation are readily accessible to me.

On the other hand the symbol 0§ stands for a statement which is based upon an actual-observation about whose content I am uncertain. This class would include statements which express such uncertain experiences as our observation of distant things, events or persons. They would include statements which des­ cribe such tactual experiences of certain objects in a dark 2 J room. However, some statements belonging to this class # given additional sense-experiences to verify them could become -109- members of the 04 class. But o| statements are actual-

observations (experiences) for all that, since their uncertainty

is grounded in an actual-experience. The last class of state­

ments which must be classified in connexion with the present

discussion is exemplified by the statement that "There are

mountains on the further side of the moon. " This observation-

statement, symbolized 0^, is 'significant' according to Ayer

in spite of the fact that one is "unable to decide the matter

by actual-observation."^^ Accordingly 0^ statements^whose con­

tent is only theoretically conceivable^ rest upon possible ob­

servation if only for the reason that "I do know what observa­

tions would decide it for me...if I were once in a position

to make them. " 22 Thus it is evident from the above analysis

that Op statements and Op are based on possible-observation —

the former symbolizes the class of expressions that are pos­

sible in practice and the latter symbolizes the class of ex­

pressions that are possible in theory. The given example of

an Op statement could in the future become an 0^ for any

observer. But if one could not maike the appropriate observa­

tion oneself then the most that the Op statement could ever

21. Âyer, L.T.L., pü 56 [vide Ch. 1, p. 19). Note; This example of an 0^ statement Ayer calls ' significant '. But it must be admitted that he does not state what sort of signi­ ficance 0^ statements have. However, since only three types of significance are specified by Ayer and the O5 statement in question is not analytic (viz. analytic propositions are in­ cluded in the class of 'literally significant' statements) it must be regarded as 'factually significant'. 22. Ibidem, p. 36 . - 110- become for one would be an Op statement.

Thus we have four classes of observation-statements: two of which are based on actual observation (O^ and 0§) and two of which are based on possible observation (Op and Op). This does not provide a rigid classification but it does point out in a simple way the difference between observation-statements.

And this difference is relevant to the analysis given above of the uncertain relation between persons and empirical facts.

For there it was said that a certain class of observation- statements possibly refer to possible observations of possible empirical facts. And since the example Op is a statement which is based on possible-observations deducible from it and is indeed itself only a possibility, it may be said that 0^ pos­ sibly refers to possible observations. But this leaves the

'possible empirical facts' unaccounted for. However one only needs to point out that objects such as 'mountains' only pos­ sibly exist for Ayer since he wishes to avoid the realists physical-object language.

If Ayer is to be interpreted in this way at all the at­ tempt might be made to escape its consequences. He might say, as he does, that "the philosopher, as an analyst, is not di­ rectly concerned with the physical properties of things. He

is concerned only with the way in which we speak about them.

However, in terms of what was said earlier, if he is only

23. Ayer, L.T.L., p. 57• - 111- ooncerned about the way in which we speak about things, it ap­ pears to be inconsistent to speak about the content of actual- observations apart from the statements which express them. Of course, what he could mean by an actual-observation might amount to saying that perhaps it refers to a certain kind of proposi­ tion which is deducible from an observation-statement. But apart from circularity, this would introduce another technical meaning into the terminology of statements in the sense that actual-observations would then only refer to empirical propo­ sitions. And, on the grounds of what he has said elsewhere.

Professor Ayer would object to this. In asking the seune ques­ tion, "How is it to be determined that any empirical proposition does, in this sense, correspond to fact?", Ayer implies a dis­ tinction between facts and our propositions about them. And in answering his own question he says that an empirical pro­ position "in the last resort...is always to be determined by actual-observation."^^ Here as elsewhere Ayer is saying in effect that an actual-observation is one in which a person is 2 5 observing fact. ^ And here again in distinguishing the

24. Ayer, Foundations of Empirical Knowledge, p. 108. 25. Ibidem, p. 109. Note; Ayer here says that "in the end (this falls in line with what he means by "last resort", p. 108) it must include (where "it" refers presumably not to a statement that requires verification but to the series of basic propositions which are deducible from it) at least one propo­ sition that is believed, not merely on the ground that it is supported by other propositions but in virtue of what is actu­ ally observed.... In order that we should have reason to accept any of them (where "them" refers to the series of propositions), it is necessary that at least one of their number should be - 112- observatlon of facts from our statements about them it is in­ consistent of Ayer to hold that philosophy only consists of talk about things. In summary it seems as if Ayer's principle of verification, in which meaning terminates with sense-contents or verifiers rather than with physical objects, produces the kind of lin­ guistic predicament that Ryle postulates.

It is not that we have a vocabulary for com­ mon objects and lack a vocabulary for sensible objects, but that the notion of sensible ob­ jects is absurd. Not only is it false, then, that ideally we should talk, not in the voca­ bulary of gate-posts, but only in the vocabu­ lary of sensations, but we cannot describe sensations themselves without employing the vocabulary of common objects. 26

From this it would seem that Ayer's linguistic phenomenology

is not one of purely contextual definition since the principle of verification has to import the very dubious entities called

'empirical facts', 'sense-contents' or 'verifiers' into its

description of observation-statements. And in view of the

directly verified by observation of empirical fact. " Here ob­ servation of an empirical fact refers to an actual-observation. But an empirical fact and its observation by persons is another distinction recognized by Ayer. This is not to make Ayer ac­ countable in any way for an answer to the question as to whether or not the observed empirical facts exist, since on this ques­ tion it is conceivable that he would appeal to Hume's statement, '"Tis vain to ask, whether there be a body or not? That is a point which we must teike for granted in all our reasonings." (Treatise, 1, IV, ii.) The point here is that Ayer will not take the existence of physical objects for granted -- this would entail a view of reality with which he does not wish to be identified. 26. Gilbert Ryle, Concept of Mind (New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1949), p% 2^7\ -113- analysls presented here his usage of these terms is unjustified since being extra-linguistic referents they neither serve a useful function for the principle itself nor is their existence verifiable. It is undeniable that statements give form to perceptual experience but it would be wrong to suppose that Ayer main­ tains that they could ever be duplicates of experience. More­ over one can conclude from the above analysis that if Ayer's objections to scepticism are made on the grounds that "scepti­

cism means the rejection of absolute certainty then there is no question of Professor Ayer's refuting it, since he is a

sceptic himself. For it has been shown that even if

observation-statements do give form to perceptual experience,

it is only by virtue of the fact that such statements rest

upon several possibilities. Or, to put it another way:

The word can give shape and expression to a relationship. It cannot be its substitute. 28

One could conclude with Emmet and say that Professor Ayer, in

attempting to bridge the gap between language and perceptual-

experience by means of verifiers or ' sense-contents ' and their

interrelations, has engaged in metaphysical speculation. For

27 . Illtyd Trethowan, Prospect for Metaphysics, edited by Ian Ramsey (Londgn:. .George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., I96I ), pp. 146-147. Cf. Ayer in The Problem of Knowledge, Chapters enti­ tled "Philosophy and Knowledge" and "Scepticism and Certainty". 2 8 . Dorothy M. Emmet, The Nature of Metaphysical Thinking (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1953), p. 227. -Il4-

"to Indicate the possibilities of such relationships and to bring them into conscious articulation is a distinctive task of metaphysical thinking. And even if it is denied that such a relation is a problem, it still might be said that the sense-contents themselves are undeniably Ayer's 'first prin­ ciples ',

29. Ibidem. -115-

CHAPTER V

Can tfe Have a Principle of Verification?

The primary intention of the principle of verification, which was to separate philosophy from metaphysics, has been shown to be unsuccessful. And Professor Ayer's attempt to rectify the principle by modification was subject to logical criticisms similar to those used to confute past formulations.

The secondary and less radical intention of the principle of verification, which was to verify scientific from non-scien- tific discourse, has also been shown to be dubious. Further­ more, the verifiability principle has been shown to be inadequate in defending its own limited definition of meaning.

Moreover it does not take into account the possible changes and extensions of meaning in the use of certain expressions.

In this connexion Professor Passmore writes:

One point must be admitted at the outset. No philosophical reasoning can show that an expression is meaningless. For since it is a matter of convention only, how an expression is used, it is always logically possible that a new use will be found for an expression — a new use which satisfies any criterion of meaningfulness we care to lay down. 1

But here it must be remarked that even if a criterion of mean­ ingfulness could be formulated satisfactorily for one person, it does not entail that what is a solution for that one person is appropriate for all persons. And if verification rests

1. John Passmore, Philosophical Reasoning, p. 93. -Il6- wlth each individual alone, then the principle depends on an additional principle — the theory of multiple solipsism. In which case the principle could only result in a source of in­ tellectual discontent for the philosopher recommending it.

Certainly as Passmore says, if no principle can possibly deter­ mine literal significance from meaninglessness, since new cri­ teria could constantly be formulated which it would have to include, then attempts to do so seem pointless if possible at all.

What function did the principle of verification play in philosophy then? Can we have a principle of verification at all? An attempt at briefly answering these questions will be the task of this concluding chapter.

It has been shown that when subject to logical criticism

the principle of verification will not perform its intended function. Furthermore evidence has been given to the effect

that the principle is itself metaphysical on the grounds that

it is unable to verify itself. Then, too, an examination of

the phenomenalism entailed by the emended criterion with all

its technical terms has shown that the notion of possibility,

a modal postulate which might satisfy the relation of language

to perceptual experience, also brands the verifying sense-

contents of the principle as being metaphysical. If this ana­

lysis were unsuccessful and did not accomplish this, the sus­

picion might still be that the attempt at articulating such a -117- relation is a metaphysical one. Consequently one might con­ clude that this 'radical empiricism', as T, C. Copleston calls it, "is at once the strength and weakness of logical positi­ vism,"^ In any case there are misgivings as to whether or not the phenomenalism that Ayer's principle of verification entails is 'positivistic' rather than 'metaphysical'. Supporting this view Copleston concludes:

1 am not concerned with the truth or falsity of the contention that a table is a collec­ tion of sense-data. What I want to remark is this. The contention is not a metaphysi­ cal contention in the sense that anything is said about a substance in Locke's sense of the word 'substance'; but it seems to me to be metaphysical in another sense, namely in the sense that it is not the result of any physical or chemical analysis of the table. It is the result of a philosophical analysis of meaning, and in this sense it can be called 'linguistic'; but it is not linguis­ tic in the sense that it concerns words exclusively. Philosophical analysis is not the same thing as grammatical analysis. I suggest, then, that the theory of 'logical constructions’ can sensibly be called a 'meta­ physical* theory and that what it does is to replace the metaphysic of substance by a phenomenalistic metaphysic. 3

2. F, C. Copleston, Contemporary Philosophy, p. 3kf. 3. Ibidem, p. 67f. Note: Professor Wisdom proposes an­ other way in idxich the principle of verification could be metaphysical. He says: "Well, shall we accept the verifica­ tion principle? What is it to accept it? When people bring out with a dashing air the word 'The meaning of a statement is really simply the method of its verification, ' like one who says, 'The value of a thing is siaq>ly its power of exchange,' in what sort of way are they using words? What is the general nature of their theory? The answer is 'it is a metaphysical theory'." J. Wisdom, "Metaphysics and Verification," Mind, 1938, reprinted in Philosophy and Psycho-analysis (Oxford: Blackwell and Sons, 1933) As quoted by J. 0. Urmson, Op. cit., p. l69f. - 118-

Re turning to the two questions this chapter intends to examine, the first of them is: "What function did the principle of veri­ fication perform for philosophy?” One obvious answer to this is that it makes philosophers look more responsibly to the way in which they use language. This is not to say that logical positivism alone brought abusive usage to the forefront. What

is claimed, however, is that from the rigid positivistic ques­

tion of the Thirties, "What does that statement mean?", to the

analytical tendencies of the Forties and Fifties to replace it

with "How is that statement or word used?" the tendency among

responsible philosophers has been to clarity of expression.

The question, "How is it used?", is more responsible in that

it does not a%ow one to certify a metaphysical utterance as

meaningless unless such an utterance has undergone an examina­

tion from within the context of its usage. For example, the

psycho-metaphysical expression, "Dread is a confrontation with

nothingness," cannot be rules out as meaningless. For the word

'dread* has meaning as does 'confrontation' and 'nothingness'.

In sentential form their meaning is narrowed to the contextual

definitions given them in the metaphysical system from which

it was taken. Certainly such usage in sentential form carries

less meaning out of context than does the empirical statement

"this paper is white". But in any case neither statement can

be verified apart from the contextual connection from which it

is defined. It is just that in the examples given the empirical -119- statement is less context-dependent than the metaphysical one; though this is not a rule that can be readily generalized.

And to ask for any formulation of the principle of verification to distinguish them is to ask something it is not equipped to do. For as Professor Ayer realized most criteria rejected meaningful stztements he wished to include. Yet his own prin­ ciple of verification included statements that he had hoped it would exclude.

This In no way implies that the function of the principle of verification or its correlated epistemological problems was philosophical labour in vain. For as Professor Urmson comments : Whatever defect we may find In these and other doctrines of the logical empiricists, their services in arousing philosophy from dogmatic slumbers and in making philoso­ phers look really carefully at such pro­ blems as the nature of metaphysics and significance cannot be over-estimated. 4

Indeed that positivism has contributed a great deal more than this is admitted by the American metaphysician Brand Blanshard.

He says, through positivism

We have become aware as never before of how hard it is in philosophy to talk sense; we have become suspicious of any attempt to pass off emotive meaning as cognitive; unction is a danger signal ; our reading is apt to be punctuated with silent and sometimes audible snorts and cavillings. And if reading has become more difficult, so has writing, and in greater measure. Many a philosopher can testify to the paralysing effect of the ana­ lyst who now looks over his shoulder as he

31 Urmson, op. cIT. , p. 128f. - 120-

wrltes, demanding that he be able to give an account of every term, and grunting in con­ tempt at his little rotundities and sonori­ ties. That this should have led to much crabbed writing is natural enough. But it should be added that, even when crabbed, the writing is generally clear. 5

What then of the question, "Can we have a principle of verification?” The answer seems only too clear. For although the attempts at formulating an explicit criterion of meaning­ fulness failed, "it must be admitted that, for all that, their implicit theory of meaning exerted a steady push toward clear­ ness of style.

But the creation of an awareness of correct linguistic usage in philosophers hardly seems to be sufficient for recog­ nizing the part that positivism has played in the "Revolution in Philosophy." What of G. E. Moore and others, who, not being logical positivists, made no attempt at creating a testability criterion? For example, Anthony Flew recognizes that Or. E.

Moore "...made philosophers see how easy it is to slip into nonsense by even apparently trivial deviations from standard

English.In which case Moore's method of analysis, which historically paralleled that of positivism, exerted an equally strong "push for clearness of style." And if we were to con­ sider all the historical figures who added fuel to the fire of

5. Brand Blanshard, Reason and Analysis, p. 236. 6. Ibidem. 7. A. G. N. Flew, editor. Logic and Language, 1st series (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1951), p. 9. Vide Blanshard, Reason and Analysis, p. 310. - 121- an already existent analytic movement, would it not have to include all the philosophers from Socrates to Schlick and from

Aristotle to Ayer? If this is the case, the question still remains as to whether or not we need a testability criterion as advocated by the positivists. The attempt by A. J. Ayer and others to formulate one is evidence that at least they think there is a need, but their failure to make it at least logically palatable seems to be a manifestation that philosophy can continue without one. And here one might wish to say that the attempt was needed, although its status may not have achieved very much. For it did raise questions, and,according to Ayer, "it is a form of progress in philosophy to discover what are the proper questions to ask. Yet even if in the future such a criterion of meaningfulness could be formulated, it is doubtful vdiether the philosopher could turn to the meta­ physician and say, "I have no need of Thee." For the problem of finding the precise boundary of philosophy and metaphysics to which both sides grant common consent would still exist.

There would be a justification for such a departmental sepa­ ration only if the metaphysician derived his own formula of meaningfulness. Otherwise the metaphysician could always say to the positivist, "Before you pluck the mote of literal meaninglessness out of my eye, you must needs remove the meta­ physical beam that is in thine own." And thus it seems that

51 Ayer. Concept of a Person, p. I87. - 122- phllosophy, in its broadest sense, must continually be at war with itself, or, as Wittgenstein aptly put it, "...a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of lan­ guage. But again it is something to have been in the battle for the war cries of positivism left a legacy for all philo­

sophers. If the answer to the question regarding whether or not we could ever have a criterion of meaning were negative, per­ haps the harshness of such an answer might be toned down. For

apart from the confutation of the criterion in all its presently

existing forms, its usefulness lies in the fact that it made philosophers look to the 'verifiers' or 'state of affairs' from

which particular meanings were derived. And in this connection

it can be said that analysis as practiced today does not ask

"What does that statement mean" so much as "How is it (propo­

sition, statement or word) used?" And where the question is

asked, the word, statement or proposition for which the 'how'

of its use is being sought become the verifiers or state of

affairs of the context which is being analyzed.If this

verifier is a proposition or word, the task is one of comparing

its use with paradigm cases and so define the intended meaning

of the statement or context from which it was extracted. The

9. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, p. b/e. 10. Vide Wittgenstein, ibidem] #^3» p 20e. "^For a large class of cases -- though not for all — in which we employ the word 'meaning* it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language." —123“ verifiers no longer have the problem of establishing their own

existence for they are themselves the first principle both of metaphysical and philosophical usage. And in saying this we

are saying no more than words make up sentences, propositions

and statements vdxich in turn make up the meaning of the context

in which they are found. We are also saying that these veri­

fiers are not logical constructs in the way that Ayer's sense-

contents are, and the merit in this is that one avoids the

problem of reducing the language of meaningfulness to extra-

linguistic metaphysical entities of any kind. It is of course

true that "the meanings of some words may be much less context-

dependent than those of others... and, as we have said, this

only means that having the status of verifiers they are not

all equal in importance. But the existence of verifiers which

play a central role in establishing meaningful statements is

part of the heritage left to analytical philosophy by A. J. Ayer.

However, the existence of verifiers is a job for metaphy­

sical speculation. Yet it still bears the title 'reductionism'

and even if this is a metaphysical label, it can hardly be said

to be an unjustified one. For the heritage of reducing things

to their simplest elements is one of distinct metaphysical

ties, stemming from its crude beginnings by the Greek Atomist

and in various forms on through to Russell's Logical Atomism

11. L. Jonathan Cohan, The Diversity of Meaning (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1962), p. 57. -124- via the Leibnltzlan monads. And If the reductlonal method did not originate in these philosophers, they at least helped to further its development in addition to the fact that their ex­ pression of it is most familiar to students of philosophy.

This historical continuity is not arbitrary for apart from their

own unique contributions Russell's debt to Leibnitz is perhaps

Equal to Leibnitz' debt to the Greek Atomists. In this line

of historical continuity Professor Ayer's part is perhaps equal­

ly as unique as those mentioned hitherto. For in trying to make language reducible to a set of propositions by which one

could determine correct from incorrect usage by means of veri­

fiers, Ayer added to this heritage a great deal of technical

vocabulary. Moreover the paralytic affect of positivistic philosophy on the intellect of the more speculative type of philosopher is undeniable. For when the theologian £. L.

Mascall says that "the one thing we must not do (with the posi­

tivist) is to try to prove our conclusions from his premises,

he is aware of the positivistic boundaries. While this may be

playing into the hands of the positivist, it does depict an

awareness of the character of their philosophy which includes

the value of their meaning of meaning. And even if this expli­

cit criterion of verification has not as yet been made logically

palatable, its implicitness bears all the reminders of the

12. E. L. Mascall, Existence and Analogy, p. 84, as quoted by H. D. Lewis, Our Experience of God (London; George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1959), p. 35* —125- wounds that the two-edged sword of the a priori and empiric nature of meaning can inflict upon all those who uncautlously conclude that such a criterion is unobtainable.

However from the failure of the verification principle to carry out its intended function there are a number of con­ clusions one can draw. One of these is that in the business of philosophy the principle of verification such,as that pre­ sented by Professor Ayer,will remain as an epigram calculated to make philosophers aware. Another conclusion is that perhaps arguments can be advanced in support of the notion that the verification principle now has the status equal to some form of Kauit's synthetic a priori. But it would be of little help to philosophy to label it thus; neither is it really essential that it should have a label at all. For to give such a name to the criterion would only temporarily serve to grant it

Kantian status. And in terms of what Kant included under his synthetic a priori the principle might again suffer "death by a thousand qualifications" at the hands of the critics. But in spite of its lost status as a sort of intellectual policeman, it is sufficient that the principle should retain its present position as a kind of Intellectual diagnostician. And this is compatible with Ayer's recent view which claims that meta­ physicians are no longer treated as criminals but as patients.

Evidence for iter's claim is the fact that for many analytic

13. Ayer, Logical Positivism, p. 8. —126— philosophers metaphysics is still out of fashion. And this is because many contemporary analysts are still concerned about the nature of what can logically be said. In this sense then the principle of verification though turned into more of a principle of clarity is still philosophically active. More­ over, in terms of its function, the verification principle

"did not wait upon its proper formulation; its general purport was held to be sufficiently clear.But what is also suf­ ficiently clear to contemporary philosophers is that "...it is impossible to become an anti-metaphysician without doing metaphysics."^^ For the distinction between positivists and metaphysicians, according to Hawkins, is only that the posi­

tivist proposes negative answers to metaphysical questions.

And in terms of the verification principle Hawkins writes:

It is no longer necessary, perhaps, to meet objections of principle against metaphysics, since anti-metaphysical principles, like that of verification, have a way of turning out to be themselves metaphysical. 17

Accordingly, if, as has been suggested a number of times in

the present study, the principle is indeed metaphysical, how

can Ayer's proposal that "its general purport was held to be

sufficiently clear" be made compatible with Hawkins' claim

that what the positivists were really doing was metaphysics?

DTI Ibidem, p. l4. 15. D. J. 3. Hawkins, "Towards the Restoration of Meta­ physics" in Prospect for Metaphysics, op. cit. , p. 120. 16. Ibidem. 17. Ibidem, p. 111. -127-

And providing we can take Ayer's term 'general purport' to mean some sort of universal maxim, the answer is that the legacy the principle of verification left to contemporary analysis is indeed 'sufficiently clear'. For as Hawkins says:

If metaphysical statements can be dismissed one by one as linguistic muddles, the re­ sult is the same as if they had been dis­ qualified in the name of some universal maxim. 18

And if it is argued that the verifiability principle itself is a metaphysical statement that is dismissed as a linguistic muddle, then the chances are that it is so because of its own

'sufficiently clear' standards.

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