of its elementary sentences …
Just like … ‘God’, most of the other specifically metaphysical terms are devoid of meaning, e.g. ‘the Idea’, ‘the Absolute’, ‘the Unconditioned’, ‘the Infinite’, ‘the being of being’, ‘non-being’, ‘thing in itself’, ‘absolute spirit’, ‘objective spirit’, ‘essence’, ‘being in itself ’, ‘being-for-itself’, ‘emanation’, ‘manifestation’… etc. These expressions are in the same boat as our previously fabricated example ‘teavy’. The metaphysician tells us that empirical truth-conditions cannot be specified; if he asserts that nevertheless he ‘means’ something, we show that this is merely an allusion to associated images and feelings which, however, do not bestow a meaning on the word. The alleged statements of metaphysics which contain such words have no sense, assert nothing, are mere pseudo-statements …
Having found that many metaphysical statements are meaningless, we confront the question whether there is not perhaps a core of meaningful statements in metaphysics which would remain after elimination of all the meaningless ones.
Indeed, the results we have obtained so far might give rise to the view that there are many dangers of falling into nonsense in metaphysics, and that one must accordingly endeavour to avoid these traps with great care if one wants to do metaphysics. But actually the situation is that meaningful metaphysical statements are impossible. This follows from the task which metaphysics sets itself: to discover and formulate a kind of knowledge which is not accessible to empirical science.
We have seen earlier that the meaning of a statement lies in the method of its verification. A statement asserts only so much as is verifiable with respect to it. Therefore a sentence can be used only to assert an empirical proposition, if indeed it is used to assert anything at all. If something were to lie, in principle, beyond possible experience, it could be neither said nor thought nor asked.
(Meaningful) statements are divided into the following kinds. First there are statements which are true solely by virtue of their form (‘tautologies’ according to Wittgenstein; they correspond approximately to Kant’s ‘analytic judgements’). They say nothing about reality. The formulae of logic and mathematics are of this kind. They are not themselves factual statements, but serve for the transformation of such statements. Secondly there are the negations of such statements (‘contradictions’). They are self-contradictory, hence false by virtue of their form. With respect to all other statements the decision about truth or falsehood lies in the protocol sentences. They are therefore (true or false) empirical statements and belong to the domain of empirical science. Any statement one desires to construct which does not fall within these categories becomes automatically meaningless. Since metaphysics does not want to assert analytic propositions, nor to fall within the domain of empirical science, it is compelled to employ words for which no criteria of application are specified and which are therefore devoid of sense, or else to combine meaningful words in such a way that neither an analytic (or contradictory) statement nor an empirical statement is produced. In either case pseudostatements are the inevitable product …
Our claim that the statements of metaphysics are entirely meaningless, that they do not assert anything, will leave even those who agree intellectually with our results with a painful feeling of strangeness: how could it be explained that so many men in all ages and nations, among them eminent minds, spent so much energy, nay veritable fervour, on metaphysics if the latter consisted of nothing but mere words, nonsensically juxtaposed? And how could one account for the fact that metaphysical books have exerted such a strong influence on readers up to the present day, if they contained not even errors, but nothing at all? These doubts are justified since metaphysics does indeed have a content; only it is not theoretical content. The (pseudo)statements of metaphysics do not serve for the description of states of affairs, neither existing ones (in that case they would be true statements) nor non-existing ones (in that case they would be at least false statements). They serve for the expression of the general attitude of a person towards life.
… The metaphysician believes that he travels in territory in which truth and falsehood are at stake. In reality, however, he has not asserted anything, but only expressed something, like an artist. That the metaphysician is thus deluding himself cannot be inferred from the fact that he selects language as the medium of expression and declarative sentences as the form of expression; for lyrical poets do the same without succumbing to self-delusion. But the metaphysician supports his statements by arguments, he claims assent to their content, he polemicizes against metaphysicians of divergent persuasion by attempting to refute their assertions in his treatise. Lyrical poets, on the other hand, do not try to refute in their poem the statements in a poem by some other lyrical poet; for they know they are in the domain of art and not in the domain of theory.
Perhaps music is the purest means of expression of the basic attitude because it is entirely free from any reference to objects. The harmonious feeling or attitude, which the metaphysician tries to express in a moralistic system, is more clearly expressed in the music of Mozart. And when a metaphysician gives verbal expression to his dualistic-heroic attitude towards life in a dualistic system, is it not perhaps because he lacks the ability of a Beethoven to express this attitude in an adequate medium? Metaphysicians are musicians without musical ability. Instead they have a strong inclination to work within 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.
Specimen Questions
1 Why did Carnap maintain that much traditional metaphysics was not just false but meaningless? Is his view defensible?
2 What are the conditions for meaningful statements, and why are metaphysically meaningful statements impossible, according to Carnap?
3 Explain why Carnap thinks metaphysicians are ‘musicians without musical ability’.
Suggestions for Further Reading (Including Internet Resources)
1 R. Carnap, ‘The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language’ [Überwindung der Metaphysik durch Logische Analyse der Sprache, 1932]. English version in the following useful collection with a valuable introduction by the editor: A. J. Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism (New York: Free Press, 1959).
2 See also O. Hanfling (ed.), Essential Readings in Logical Positivism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987); A. J. Ayer (ed.), Language, Truth and Logic (2nd edn, London: Gollancz, 1946); P. Schlipp, The Philosophy of Rudolph Carnap (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1963).
3 In terms of online resources, you can find a good overview of logical empiricism which lists Carnap as one of the central contributors to the movement in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logical-empiricism/ (by R. Creath). The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an entry on Carnap at https://www.iep.utm.edu/carnap/ (by M. Murzi); for this topic see section 4 on meaning and verifiability and for an entry on Carnap’s modal logic see https://www.iep.utm.edu/cmlogic/ (by M. Cresswell).
4 For ample information on Carnap and useful links to his works go to http://www.carnap.org/maintained by D. Marshall (University of Minnesota).
5 The BBC program In Our Time has a podcast in which M. Bragg and guests discuss Logical Positivism, the radical philosophy of the Vienna Circle.
