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Analysis Uc of Scientism? Incapacities;" and SP: "Survey of Pragmatism," 11? in Coj/Ected of Charles Sanders Peirce, Ed

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Analysis Uc of Scientism? Incapacities; THE GREAT CONVERSATION A Historical Introduction to Philosophy Fourth Edition 2Iit",,_ 4'0" Norman Melchert ~JItjc I1}0'&; .'l0s Virginia Commonwealth University ~ &ctEt1"'C'/lq.t % y flii?e l?lJ Cb..o ~·69 lI.8. rt;OIq '8.) "~ALiSISII New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS For Richard, Clark, and Emmy Ray Oxford University Press Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chenna! Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Sao Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Cop)Tighl © 2002, 1999, 1995, 1991 by Oxford University Press, Inc. A Word to Instructors ix A Weird to Stu.;lents xi Published by Oxford University Press, IK Acknowledgments xv 198 Madison Avenue, New York. New York 10016 ",,",w.oup.com Chapter 1 Oxford is a registered trademark of Ox1:ord University Press Before Philosophy: Myth reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, in Hesiod and Homer 1 retrieval system, or transmitted, itl any form or by any means, Hesiod: War among the Gods ekctronic, mechanical, photocopying. recording. or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Homer: Heroes, Gods, and Ex. Cove" The .\,haol ifA,lle", by Raphael, fresco, 1510-11, Papal Apartments, . the Vatican, Rome. Scala I Art Resource. Raphael represents philosophers and Chapter 2 scientists from various periods and places as though they were aU involved in Philosophy before Socrate: one great conversation. Thales: The One as Water 11 Tex:t and photo credits appear on page C·1. which constitutes a continuation of Anaximander: 'The One as the the ,"'pyright page. Xenophanes: The Gods as Ficti ISlIN·a 9780·19.·\17510.3 ISBN· 10, 0-19·517510·7 Profile: Pythagoras 16 Heraclitus: Oneness in the LOB' Parmenides: Only the One 24 Printing number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 ,) 2 1 Zeno: The Paradoxes of Comn Atomism: The One and Printed in the United States of America on acid~free paper the Many Reconciled 30 The Key: An AmbigUity 30 , . \ ~ The Pragmatists: Thought and ActIO'" ,uld We be naturalists? Are Notes Chapter Twenty-Two 1, References to the works of Charles Sanders Peirce lrohlem solving? are as follows: he quest for certainty? FB: "The Fixation of Belief;" HMIC: "How to cisms of empiricism? Of Make Our Ideas Clear;" WPI: "What !owledge? tism Is;" SCFI: "Some Consequences of Analysis uc of scientism? Incapacities;" and SP: "Survey of Pragmatism," 11? in CoJ/ected of Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. Logical Atomism and the Logical Positivists md chairs events with Charles and Paul Weiss, vol. 5 meaning, or arc there (Cambridge, MA: Harvard College, 1934). 2. Note added by Peirce in 1903 to "The Fixation due? How does of Belief,!' in Hartshorne and Weiss, Collected the valuable is not 232. len to like? 3. Epigraph (translated from the German) to W. V. O. between ends-in-view and Quine's Word and Object (New York: John Wiley les Dewey think that means and Sons, 1960). ,ted? 4. References to the works of John Dewey are as s rise to the peculiarly mod­ UCR, how does pragmatism FAE: "From Absolutism to Experimentalism," and roblem? And what role does NRP. "The Necd tor a Recovery of Philosophy," 1C resolution? in Dewey: On Nature, and Freedom. ed. Richard Bernstein (Indianapolis: Babbs-Merrill, NE OF TH£ MAJOR interests in twentieth­ merely fictions or illusions. Kant holds that we do 1960). century philosophy is language. At first not understand how words such as "substance" erThought !DP: "The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy, O glance, this may seem puzzling, but a sec­ or "cause" or "I" actually work. Nietzsche thinks h urge fallibilism, giving up in lohn Dewey: The Middle Works (! 899-1924), ond look suggests that it is not so surprising. Our nearly all of traditional philosophy is a house of . Imagine that our culture 4, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale, IL: scientific theories, our religiOUS and philosophical cards built from misleading words. Peirce says his t would be the rcsult? Do Southern minois University Press, 1977). views, and our commonsense understandings are pragmatism is nothing but a doctrine of meaning ~O: The QEestJor Certainty: A Study cfthe Relation cf ;)c mostly good or aU expressed in language. Whenever we try to and explores the geography of the land of Knowledge and Action (1929; New York: G. P. communicate with someone about a matter of any Only in our century, however, does attention to Putnam's Sons, Capricorn Books, 1960). importance, it is language that carries the freight. language hecome a major preoccupation of philos­ we human ar!" with­ HWf: How We Think (Boston: D. C. Heath and Co., What if there were something mis]eadino about the ophers, both on the European continent and in the )f the natural world ex 1933). , - not thinking souls (Plato, EN: and Nature (New York: W. W. Nor­ language in which we think? What if it set traps Anglo-American world. The interest in language f oerceptions (Humc), nou­ ton and Co., 1929). for us, catapulted us into errors without our even has been so dominant that some speak of "the Iin­ World Spirit on its TV: cf Valuation (Chicago: University of Chi­ realizing it? Perhaps we ought not to trust it at aIL turn" in philosophy. Why should we cago Press, 1939). Actually, this suspicion is a sort of subtext run­ In this chapter and the next we examine two philosophical through modern philosophy. Descartes notes phases ofthis interest in language. These two phases we naturally say that we "see" men passing are often called ana!Ytic philosophy and ordinary ]an­ by, but the truth is we see only colors and shapes; ouaoc philosophy. Both are complex movements in­ we "judge" that these are men. So our language volving many thlnkers, and one could get a taste misleads us. Hobbes tells us that words are the of these styles of doing philosophy in a number of money of fools who think they can buy truth with ways. I have chosen to focus on one remarkable them, but that the wise are not deceived. One thinker, LudWig Wittgenstein, whom many would of the four books of Locke's Essays is titled "Of cite as one ofthe greatest philosophers of the twen­ Words." Berkeley claims we have misunderstood tieth century. He has had, and continues to have, a how general tenus work. Hume thinks that lan­ pervasive influence on philosophical thought. Sur­ guage deludes us into identifying as ideas what are nri.inalv he can stand as an emblem for both ofthese 605 Ludwig \Vittgensh'in: Traclotus LOflico-Philos(lphiCUS 607 606 Chapter Twenty-Two Analysis! Logical Atomism and the Logical Positivists the conviction tbat natural such as or- York" to be meaningful, there must be something field, from n""r,tinns In Wittgenstein's of mind and his English, does not in fact possess this sort that they name: Although definite can show us severe critique of his own earlier analytic thought, The language we normally speak is look like names, they actually have the which assertions are inconsistent with each other, we can see how attention to language in its ordi­ of vagueness, ambiguity, and confusion. [t ications. If we can get clear about lhe lOgiC and so on. Being formal in this sense, it sets out nary ernployment tends to supplant the earlier at­ is by no means what Russell calls "a logically we will clear up our confusion. a kind of logical skeleton that can be fleshed out in tradion to constructing an ideal language. Witt· perfect language." The second idea is the suspicion to Russell, to say, "The any number of ways, while preserving the logical genstein is also interesting because he is not that these tawdry features of our naturallanguae:es mountain does not exist," is equivalent to saying, relations precisely. interested in language -- or even just in tend to lead US astray, particularly when we "There exists no tiring that has both of these prop­ The pro''Pect opened up by the new logic is tional philosophical problems; his passionate con­ about philosophkal matters, which are always at erties: being and being a mountain." In that of a language more precise and clear than the cern from first to last is, How shall we lil'c? But first some conceptual distance from everyday talk "of the language formal logic, this is expressed as language we normally speak---a purified, ideal lan­ we need a little background, shoes and ships and wax, of cabbages and follows: -(3x)(Gx &.Mx). In this formula, it is auaae, in which there is no ambiguity, no vague­ kings." tal clear that the "G" (for golden) and the "M" ness, no dependence on emphasiS, intonation, or So the dazzling idea of applying the new logic mountain) are in the predicate position. There are, the many other features of our language that may to traditional philosophical problems takes root in in fact, no names in it at all--not even the occur­ mislead us and that are inessential for representing the imagination of many philosophers. PerhaDs. if rences of the letter "x." which function as vari­ Language and Its Logic the truth. Bertrand Russell expresses the appeal of We could formulate these problems in terms ables ranging over everything. In effect, the for­ such a language in this way: crystalline purity ofthese formal logical structures, mula invites you to consider each and every To understand analytic philosophy, In a logically perfect language the words in a prop­ they could finally-after all these centuries --be and assures you with respect to it;.
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