DISCOURSE ON THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF ANTI-METAPHYSICAL
CRITIQUE BY LOGICAL POSITIVISM
PHIL 2006 – Metaphysics
JORDON CAMPBELL - 620090537
MARCH 19, 2019
The definition of Metaphysics, is one determined with great contention and variety, and
perhaps has been one of the most critical factors in the conversation of the determination of its
value and meaningfulness. This discourse would attempt to employ synthesis and tender a
contemporary definition of Metaphysics, as the study of the mind’s capacity to perceive the
world, itself and its ability perceive. Thus the ultimate potential subjectivity of such a
proposition, as Metaphysics would, by the powers of human capacity, naturally be subject to
the criticisms of objectivity focused disciplines, particularly those of such a discipline as
Logical Positivism. Logical Positivism was a movement that arose in Vienna, Austria in the
1920s to the 1930s, within such collections of philosophers as the Vienna and Berlin Circles.
Logical Positivism was primarily characterized by a strong emphasis on Verificationism, a
doctrine which purports that, only that which may be perceived empirically is worth the extent
of scientific or worthwhile speculation. An inspection of the criticisms tendered by the major
proponents of Logical Positivism would show that these individuals placed a major emphasis
on the use of language, and the study of such, as the primary base for their discontent with the
value of Metaphysics; particularly with regards to the manner in which they believe
Metaphysical questions are asked, that is Metaphysical questions are stated in such a manner
to imply the potential of great importance, but rather are quite unanswerable and
indeterminable, to such a degree that the value and efforts of such enquiry are absolutely
pointless. However with the generous value of time and hindsight this discourse may be able
to constructively observe the value and reason of both metaphysics and the rather strong antimetaphysical views of logical positivism.
The Vienna Circle was comprised of individuals such as Moritz Schlick, Rudolph Carnap,
Otto Neurath, Hans Hahn, Kurt Gödel and Herbert Feigl; each with their own individual and
sometimes conflicting views on the value of Metaphysics, this conflict sometimes being viewed
rather sardonically as the “Most respectable mark of this school” (Ando, 2012, p. 124), such
views perhaps showing the value placed on the work of the logical positivists by contemporary
students of Metaphysics. Nonetheless in an attempt to determine the meaninglessness of
Metaphysics claimed by the logical positivists first their views on meaning must be established,
primarily through the understanding of their observance of the tenets of verificationism. By the
views of logical positivism, all meaningful statements can be divided in two classes, one
containing the statements that are true or false in virtue of their logical forms or in virtue of
their meaning (these statements are called analytic a priori), the other containing the statements
whose truth or falsity can be ascertained only by means of the experience (called synthetic a
posteriori). Mathematics and logic are designated to the class of analytic a priori statements,
by virtue of the meaning given to the logical constants (the words 'and', 'or', 'not', 'if') and to
the mathematical terms. The class of synthetic a posteriori statements includes all genuine
scientific statements, such as those of physics, biology and chemistry. Hence a statement may
be deemed meaningful if and only if it can be proven true or false, by means of the experience
or in virtue of its meaning. (Wulff, 2008).
Wittgenstein is said to be the primary proponent of verificationism within his Tractatus,
where he determines that for a proposition to be defined as true (or false), he must understand
under what conditions, said proposition is determined as true, and only by such may he make
sense of the proposition; this position of Wittgenstein is thought to illustrate terseness within
the principles of verificationism and the establishment of meaning. Elaborating on
Wittgenstein’s work, Schlick in his Positivism and Realism formulates meaningfulness by
stating: "Every proposition has meaning only insofar as it can be verified, and it says only what
is verified and simply nothing more." "A proposition has a statable meaning only if it makes a
verifiable difference whether it is true or false." Schlick then continues on to correlate the
meaning of a proposition directly with its verification, saying for instance: "The statement of
the conditions under which a proposition is true is the same as the statement of its meaning,
and not something different." (Schlick, Positivism and Realism, 1948) In Schlick’s publication
“Meaning and Verification”, published in the year of his assassination, he said: "stating the
meaning of a sentence amounts to stating the rules according to which the sentence is to be
used, and this is the same as stating the way in which it can be verified (or falsified)." Finally
concluding with the dictum of: “The meaning of a proposition is the method of its verification.”
(Schlick, Meaning and Verification, 1936)
By these grounds verificationism as per Wittgenstein and Schlick, creates a perspective
stating essentially that by the potential inconclusive and ethereal nature of metaphysical
questions, they may be deemed meaningless by the fact that they have no direct means of
objective verification particularly through sense-experience, which is experience consisting in
or resulting from perception by the senses. However the potential does exist to argue that the
denigration of meaning within metaphysical discourse, is highly subject to language and how
a question may be phrased, the context within which it was asked and additionally also subject
to the required complexity of any given answer. Hence the value of verificationism may be
limited by its terseness and by it being fundamentally contingent upon the capacities of the
person attempting to understand the context within which a question is asked, hence allowing
some amount of unacceptable subjectivity; hence the argument of the meaninglessness of
metaphysics itself may be itself deemed meaningless, by the incapacity of such to fulfil the
terms of verificationism; this determination may be subject to the concept of Bradley’s Regress,
purported by F. H. Bradley, which would within this context require that the meaninglessness
of metaphysics be supported by a truthful proposition explaining this inherent meaninglessness,
and this proposition being supported by the like, ad infinitum. By this fact the argument of
logical positivists fails to hold even within the bounds of their own verificationist reasoning.
Additionality the validity of verificationism as a means of determining meaning Perhaps
summed up by the statement of Bertrand Russell: “Verifiability is not verifiable”.
Now it must be understood that the works of Tratatus and Meaning and Verification were
not inherently designed to discredit metaphysics but rather to create a standard by which
philosophical questions are asked such that they produce more conclusive and constructive
discourse, a rather seemingly virtuous goal if anything. As such the defensibility of the logical
positivist view on the meaninglessness of metaphysical discourse is greatly contingent upon
the incapacity to observe the potential of experiencing that which is beyond sense-experience.
However by virtue of the definition of metaphysics stated initially, metaphysics itself was
promulgated to establish a field “ta meta physika,” thus concepts inherently beyond the
capacity of human sensory experience and the physical realm but still by virtue of human
intellectual capacity within the realm of human understanding. This is perhaps why the logical
positivists so positioned themselves against the ethereal complexities of metaphysics, as by the
nature of their work they attempt to police the value of philosophical investigation, in an
attempt to produce statements with greater meaning rather than complex linguistic aesthetic;
which would perhaps be the reason for which logical positivists may relate metaphysical
discourse to “conceptual poetry” as Carnap says:
"Metaphysicians are musicians without musical ability. Indeed, they have a strong
inclination to work with the medium of the theoretical, to connect concepts and thoughts.
Now instead of activating, on the one hand, this inclination in the domain of science,
and satisfying, on the other hand, the need for expression in art, the metaphysician
confuses the two and produces a structure which achieves nothing for knowledge and
something inadequate for the expression of attitude." (Carnap, Neurath, Schlick, &
Neurath, 1996, p. 80)
This statement perhaps sums up the general discontent logical positivists experience with
metaphysics as the complexities of some metaphysical discourse, relative to the actual
intellectual value contained within, may truly be observed within some works thus the
designations of such works as “metaphysical pseudo-statements” by Carnap. As such the
position of the logical positivist is not as inherently unfounded as it may initially seem.
By observing the value of the contributions of metaphysics throughout history the
meaninglessness purported by logical positivists may be nullified and relegated to the more
actually overcomplicated, cumbersome discourse that may actually exist within some
metaphysical works. However in general, the fundamental investigations of metaphysics such
as: existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility,
have laid the groundwork for numerous fields of knowledge today. Fields of knowledge such
as aesthetics, ethics, politics, law, and art, which all play a significant role in contemporary
society. Hence the attempts of logical positivism to holistically eliminate the value of
metaphysics would need to account for the all these contributions to human civilization, which
is a lofty notion and seemingly ill thought out as is concluded by Daly as he states, with regards
to the positivist movement:
"A good deal of this discussion about metaphysics in the last twenty years has been
vitiated by the unhistorical and question-begging descriptions given of metaphysics, and
by the unfortunate habit of condemning metaphysicians on the basis of propositions
torn from their context and understood out of all relation to the immediate argument and
the ultimate intention of the author. For Ayer, in 1935, metaphysics seems to have been
represented mainly by some of the more paradoxical sentences of Bradley or
McTaggart and some of the more tortuous and obscure utterances of Heidegger; but it is
not evident that he tried very hard to enter into the minds or discover the intentions of
these philosophers." (Daly & Ramsay, 1970, p. 178)
Thus the attempts of logical positivists to put an emphasis on the conversion of modern
philosophy towards a more empirical approach towards the formulation of scientific
questioning is valid, however the inherent capacity of the mind to exceed this empirical
approach may be deemed as the stuff of life itself and is only granted by the human capacity
for intuition and the correlation of disparate ideas, towards the synthesis of relatively new
concepts, which further the human capacity to observe the world from multiple perspectives.
The principles of verificationism and logical positivism on a whole have some base in the
establishment of empirical and scientific methodologies, particularly with regards to the fields
of natural science; additionally logical positivists such as Carnap who attempted to emend the
logical positivist method, to some degree aided in clarifying the definite issues that may be
associated with the complicated linguistic nature of some metaphysical discourse. Nonetheless
verificationism failed to conclusively support the logical positivist view of the meaninglessness
of metaphysics by virtue of its fundamental cyclicality when dealing with propositions outside
the realm of science and logic. Also the holistic effort of logical positivist’s to disregard the
meaning of metaphysics may today be seen a fruitless as humans to this day study metaphysics
and understand to a greater degree it’s value in the establishment of human society.
References
Ando, T. (2012). Metaphysics: A Critical Survey of its Meaning. Springer Science & Business Media.
Bradley, F. H. (1930). Appearance and Reality. 9th Impression.
Carnap, R., Neurath, M., Schlick, M., & Neurath, O. (1996). Logical Empiricism at Its Peak: Schlick, Carnap,
and Neurath.
Daly, C. B., & Ramsay, I. (1970). Metaphysics and the Limits of Language.
Schlick, M. (1936). Meaning and Verification. The Philosphical Review, 45(3), 339-369.
Schlick, M. (1948). Positivism and Realism. Synthese, pp. 478-505.
Wittgenstein, L. (1961). Wittgenstein, Ludwig. "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (trans. Pears and
McGuinness).
Wulff, D. (2008). The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. Edited
by Tom Flynn, 329-331.