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The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics Rudolf Carnap This article was downloaded by: 10.3.98.104 On: 25 Sep 2021 Access details: subscription number Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG, UK The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics Ricki Bliss, J.T.M. Miller Rudolf Carnap Publication details https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315112596-3 Robert Kraut Published online on: 14 Jul 2020 How to cite :- Robert Kraut. 14 Jul 2020, Rudolf Carnap from: The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics Routledge Accessed on: 25 Sep 2021 https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315112596-3 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR DOCUMENT Full terms and conditions of use: https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/legal-notices/terms This Document PDF may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproductions, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The publisher shall not be liable for an loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. 3 RUDOLF CARNAP Pragmatist and expressivist about ontology Robert Kraut Question: If a horse’s tail were called a leg, how many legs would a horse have? Answer: Four: because calling a tail a leg does not make it one. The moral of this familiar conundrum – use/mention conflations and missing quotation marks aside – is that matters of language are distinct from matters of fact. Calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg. Likewise – by parity of reasoning – calling the world a place that contains natural numbers does not make it a place that contains natural numbers. And – to push the point further – the pragmatic utility of calling the world a place that contains natural numbers does not make the world a place that contains natural numbers. Analogously: arguments about whether Finns are Nordic, Slavic, or Scandinavian are not arguments about the suitability of descriptive predi- cates; nor are they instances of negotiating the appropriate use of a bit of language. They are arguments about culture, ethnicity, and/or geography. So goes the folk wisdom on such matters. If Pluto is a planet, then trendy shifts in taxonomic practices cannot render Pluto a non-planet: semantic facts do not determine astrophysical real- ities. At most they determine the way we describe such realities. Carnap’s views on ontology – as customarily construed – appear to contradict such wisdom. In claiming that ontological questions are “formal mode” questions (concerning linguistic frameworks) misleadingly formulated in the “material mode of speech,” Carnap appears to con- flate questions about the way the world is with practical questions about the advisability of deploying one or another “linguistic form” in describing the world. His rhetoric smacks of such conflation (“To accept the thing world means nothing more than to accept a certain form of language …” (Carnap 1950, 208).) But any such conflation appears inconsistent with a lan- guage/world dichotomy and with Carnap’s profound commitment to a mind- independent reality that “pushes back” on our empirical inquiries. The contrast between how things are and how it is convenient to talk must be preserved. Carnap’s views – properly understood – do not threaten the contrast. His theory of onto- logy leaves intact the notion of a mind- independent reality that constrains practical decisions about linguistic/conceptual resources. Nor is his conception of ontological practice the “deflationist” view – often attributed to him – that ontological disputes are vacuous and/or inconsequential. He does not seek to dismiss arguments about the existence of various sorts of entities as “merely verbal,” or to endorse the eliminativist view that ontological arguments 32 Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 16:02 25 Sep 2021; For: 9781315112596, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315112596-3 Rudolf Carnap should be expunged from our repertoire. Ontological questions are neither patronized nor slated for disappearance. Carnap’s goal is rather to show that continued participation in ontological theorizing is con- sistent with empiricist scruples. This he does by suggesting that ontological discourse is not a descriptive, fact- stating mechanism, but rather a device that serves to express commitments to adopting certain linguistic/conceptual resources (“linguistic frameworks”). Thus his expressiv- ism. Moreover, the acceptance or rejection of linguistic frameworks “will be decided by their efficiency as instruments … the ratio of the results achieved to the amount and complexity of the efforts required” (Carnap 1950, 221). Thus his pragmatism. The goal in what follows is to clarify Carnap’s account of ontological discourse, articulate its consequences, and correct some common misunderstandings. Several caveats: (1) Choice of examples and case- studies is critical: fragments of metaphysics tied to semantic theory, e.g., strike Carnap as worthy of legitimization, whereas metaphysical speculations that appear idle and/or unrelated to empirical scientific inquiry are deemed worthy of dismissal. Not all meta- physics is on a par. (2) It is likely that Carnap’s views on these matters shifted and evolved. It is no goal of this discussion to put forward a unified account of Carnap’s views over time. The current discussion seeks to develop the position articulated primarily in “Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology,” though supporting text is often drawn from works of different periods. (3) Occa- sionally it is unclear whether Carnap advocates deflation, elimination, expressivism, revision, error theory, analytical reduction, explication, and/or some other strategy in accounting for ontological practice. Interpretive caution is required: certain methodological contrasts (e.g., between “eliminativism” and “expressivism”) might not have been evident to Carnap, given the intellectual environment. One terminological caveat is especially urgent. It is not uncommon to hear Carnap’s approach characterized as “deflationary.” Amie Thomasson, e.g., speaks of “Carnap’s original form of ontological deflationism” (Thomasson 2016, 122). Rasmus Jaksland notes the recent surge of interest in deflationary approaches to ontology in particular and metaphysics in general, often claimed to follow a tradition after Rudolf Carnap. Defla- tionists regard metaphysical debates to be misguided. (Jaksland 2017, 1196) Such characterizations are prevalent but misleading. ‘Deflationary’ – as a term of philosophical art – denotes a family of theories (not any specific theory) about the semantics of ‘… is true.’ These theories share the basic assumption that ‘S is true’ serves not to attribute a property to a sentence but to do something else. There are many varieties of such theories: redundancy, per- formative, prosentential, semantic ascent, minimalist, robust, disquotational, etc. Details vary considerably. Some are friendlier toward metaphysics than others; some illuminate Carnap’s strategies, some not, and some are irrelevant. Perhaps these terminological caveats (or reprimands) are beside the point. Those who describe Carnap’s approach to ontology as “deflationary” do not, perhaps, intend to gesture toward deflationary theories of truth, but rather intend to portray Carnap’s theory as serving to “deflate” ontology.1 To deflate is to devalue, deprecate, minimize, depict as vacuous or misguided, weaken confidence in, depict as shallow, portray as eliminable without substantial loss, or otherwise downplay. If this is what ‘deflationary’ signals when applied to Carnap’s theory of ontology, then serious interpretive errors have occurred: Carnap’s goal is not to let the air out of ontology and minimize it, but rather to portray it as legitimate in the face of empiricist misgivings. He wishes to earn ontology the right to go on. 33 Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 16:02 25 Sep 2021; For: 9781315112596, chapter3, 10.4324/9781315112596-3 Robert Kraut In light of such considerations, it is best to leave the word ‘deflationist’ behind when articu- lating Carnap’s views. The data Carnap invokes several traditional metaphysical disputes as a motivating backdrop for his theory of ontological practice. One such dispute concerns the reality of mind- independent objects; another concerns the existence of abstract entities. Here we focus upon the latter as a case- study. A venerable tradition in metaphysics – Platonism or ante rem realism – explains facts about resemblance, classification, laws of nature, and truth in terms of universals (or properties) and relations among them. Universals are abstract entities: eternal, immutable, non- localizable in space- time, multiply instantiable, and not dependent for their existence upon mental or lin- guistic activity. The question is whether such entities exist. It seems an intelligible question. If the question is puzzling it is not because existence is puzzling, but because universals are puzzling. Surely the concept of existence is familiar and straightforward: either universals exist or they do not (however difficult it might be to determine). Questions about the existence of neutrinos, prime numbers greater than ten, or golden mountains are meaningful, intelligible,
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