Curt Ducasse, Philosophy as a Science, 1941
CHAPTER SIX
Philosophy as Systematic Study of Meanings
THAT philosophy is the systematic study of meanings, and comprises all the rational sciences, is the thesis argued by S. K. Langer in a book published some years ago.{1} She traces the origin of this conception of philosophy to Socrates, who constantly professed to be inquiring into the meaning of such concepts as justice, knowledge, etc. But Socrates' practice, Langer finds, did not actually conform to his program. He was "a sophist, not a scholar"; persuasion was his aim, whether he realized it or not; and the course of his would-be analyses of concepts was surreptitiously affected throughout by the predetermined conclusions that were to be reached. The program, however, was sound, and "had Socrates taken his own advice and followed the meaning of even a single term, such as 'good,' or 'soul,' or 'happiness' through its confused and intricate connotations to something like clarity of definition, he would have founded the philosophical sciences."{2}
I. Philosophy as Comprising All the Rational Sciences. — However, the very sort of program which Socrates set himself is that of certain sciences, of which logic and mathematics are the best known, viz., the rational sciences: "they never did and never will have recourse to observation and experiment . . . . they are not in pursuit of facts, but of meanings. They are not empirical, but rational sciences."{3} Not only logic and mathematics, however, but also metaphysics, theology, theory of value, theory of knowledge, and ethics are — or, by availing themselves of the logical technique today available, can become — truly rational sciences, "systems produced by developing the implications of a few fundamental ideas";{4} and therefore the proper method of metaphysics, like that of logic and mathematics, is a close attention to implications."{5} Philosophy, then, comprises "all the rational sciences"; it is "a group of disciplines which are all governed by the principle of seeking . . . . logical connections, just as the other great group, natural science, is governed by the principle of seeking causal connections."{6}
Among the rational sciences, metaphysics is the one which "makes explicit all that a concept such as, for instance, 'the World' or 'Life' contains; it seeks to discover the meaning, first of 'unity,' 'time,' 'causality,' etc., and ultimately of such terms as 'Reality,' 'Truth,' 'Infinity,' and 'God.'"{7} Among the rational sciences, metaphysics "has the same sort of priority . . . . as physics among the natural sciences."
2. The Place of Analysis and Construction in Philosophy -- "Logical analysis is to philosophy just what observation is to science — namely, the first step in finding and formulating a problem, and a means of testing the answer."{8} But analysis is not the only nor even the chief method of philosophy. Analysis has done its work when it has led us to a genuine paradox, for then "we have found the point where our real problem arises."{9} But "the greater part of philosophy . . . . is the construction of concepts which shall fulfill all the uses of those [to which analysis has led us] which were logically untenable, and avoid all their abuses."{10} The task is then "to find a new and acceptable meaning for the word whose denotation we recognize, but whose definition was absurd. This is the point where creative ability, ingenuity, originality, in fact all the powers of philosophical genius come into play."{11}
3. Philosophy and the Natural Sciences. — When the nature of philosophy, as described above, is understood, "it is easy to see . . . . why the sciences not only are, but must be, born of philosophy."{12} Every science "is built upon definite basic concepts"; but "the definition and systematization of general fundamental notions belong to philosophy, and the precise determination of them is the philosophical labor which scientists must either do, or accept from others, before their science can stand on its feet."{13} Thus it is that "a natural science is philosophical until, and only until, it is scientifically respectable," i.e., until it reaches the point where "it shows signs of being true, of explaining phenomena." But "none of its philosophical propositions will ever be replaced by scientific ones."{14}
4. Definition and Systematization of Fundamental Concepts a Late Stage in the Development of a Natural Science. — Langer's statement of her conception of the nature of philosophy, now outlined, is clearer and more definite than most, and when it is considered in connection with some of the writings of philosopher-logicians such as Russell or Whitehead, it has a certain plausibility. That conception seems to me, however, to be quite untenable for a number of reasons that I shall now attempt to state.
We may begin with the conception of the relation between philosophy and natural science and the explanation, as above summarized, which it offers for the historical lack of clear distinction between philosophy and infant natural science. Is it, I ask, historically true that the initial stages of a natural science are intrinsically philosophical in the sense of consisting of definition and systematization of the basic concepts of the science? I submit that what the history of the natural sciences on the contrary seems to show is that the definition and systematization of the fundamental notions of a science are a late stage in its development. Not only is this allegedly philosophic labor not a temporal prerequisite for enabling science to stand on its feet and so discover true laws and explanations of phenomena. but it is even a labor which in fact cannot be performed or profitably attempted until the science has, on its own power as natural science, both got on its feet and traveled a long way.
Physical science, for example, really owes the concepts of the atom and the molecule, and the definition of them, not to Leucippus, Democritus, or Epicurus, but to the need it had of these concepts as means of explanation and prediction of certain facts which became known only at a rather advanced stage of its development. There can be no doubt`that physical science would have introduced and defined them at about the time it did, and as it did, even if the atomistic cosmology of these philosophers had been unknown to Dalton, Avogadro, Gay-Lussac, or the other physical scientists of the period. As Dampier points out, "exact quantitative measurements of the proportions in which chemical elements combined by weight and by volume . . . . led irresistibly to the idea of atoms and molecules." The Greek theory, not being founded on definite experimental facts, nor tested by its consequences in experience predicted on the basis of it, "remained a doctrine, like the metaphysical systems in ancient and modern times dependent on the mental attitude of its originators and their followers, and liable to be upset and replaced from the very foundations by a new system of a rival philosopher. And this indeed is what happened."{15}
5. Investigation of the Meaning of Concepts Not the Differentia of the Rational Sciences. — Let us now turn to another and much more decisive objection to the view that philosophy, or rational science, consists in the systematic study of meanings. That the rational sciences do inquire into the meaning of certain concepts is true enough, but the contention that they are the only sciences that do so, and that this constitutes their differentia, is startling indeed in view of the fact that examples are numberless to show that the natural sciences also do just this, although the concepts in question are not the same. To mention but a few, such concepts as salt, acid, gas, liquid, solid, water, air, iron, etc., are concepts the exact meaning of which is investigated and discovered not by metaphysicians, logicians, or mathematicians, but by chemists and physicists; and the same is true of such even more basic physical concepts as light, electricity, matter, mass, etc. Moreover, although physicists and chemists do give us precise accounts of the meaning of these and numerous other concepts, they do so in their capacity as natural scientists, i.e., on the basis, ultimately, of observations and experiments, and not merely of reflective "attention to implications," as is the case with the investigations of meaning carried on within the field of logic and mathematics.
So far as the meaning of concepts goes, what distinguishes the rational from the natural sciences is not that the former do and the latter do not investigate this — for both do — but much rather what kinds of concepts each attempts to define. Since Langer overlooks this, she of course does not attempt to state the difference between the two kinds of concepts; nor does she, so far as I can find, attempt to say what differentiates the concepts investigated by metaphysics from those investigated by the other rational sciences. She indicates what they are only by means of a few examples such as reality, truth, infinity, God. But the very kernel of the problem is to discover and describe accurately what the characters are that differentiate concepts such perhaps as these, which are "metaphysical," from those which are logical, or mathematical, or natural-scientific. Instances of metaphysical concepts, even if admitted to be such, are only the material for the induction to be performed, and do not tell us what we want to know, namely, what its outcome would be if it were performed.
As we shall see later, the search for definitions and the attempt at systematization, far from being the differentia of the rational sciences, are features of any science, whether natural, rational, or philosophical, in proportion as it becomes advanced and theoretical.{16} That even a natural science, in so far as perfected, seeks to order its propositions in the form of a deductive system does not, however, make of it even in part a "rational science," if that term means any science which takes possible forms of deduction as its subject matter. On the other hand, even the rational sciences, which investigate possible forms of deduction and of combination, etc., do, in proportion as they are not far advanced, present their propositions about this as discoveries that are more or less isolated and independent or, as we may say, "logically empirical," rather than — as increasingly later — in the form of a deductive system in which all such propositions are exhibited as implications of a few postulates and rules. Thus, arrangement of propositions in logically systematic form is one thing, and investigation of the nature of logically systematic form is another, and either can to a considerable extent go on without the other. Langer's identification of rational science with the investigation of meaning would seem to have no more solid basis than a failure to keep in mind the distinction between the two — between science which is rational in the sense of having a highly systematic logical form, and science which is rational in the sense of having the nature of systematic logical form as its subject matter.
In any case, the bare fact that the natural sciences, as such, do investigate the meaning of numberless concepts stands immovably in the way of Langer's proposal to define rational science — to say nothing of philosophy — as the systematic study of meanings. And it stands in the way even in face of the distinction she stresses between logical connections and causal connections, even, that is to say, if it should be true that the concepts whose meaning is investigated by natural science are to be defined ultimately in terms of conjunctions of causal properties, and those whose meaning is explored by rational science, in terms of logical properties. For Langer's contention was that rational science (including philosophy) is the systematic study of meanings, not just of one category of meanings.
It might be said, of course, that what natural science investigates is not, for instance, the concept 'acid, ' but the things called acids. Yet there is a concept "acid," and chemistry, not philosophy, does tell us its exact meaning. That concept, however, is of empirical origin, and to analyze its meaning is therefore not possible simply by reflective "attention to implications." Because it is an empirical concept, whatever definition of it may suggest itself will have to be a "real," not an arbitrary, "nominal" definition. That is, the definition will have to represent either a direct induction from certain observations, under experimental conditions, of things called acids, or else a hypothesis about things called acids (no matter how it suggested itself), susceptible of being disproved or given support by observation of the things called acids under certain experimental conditions. If a definition of "acid" represents neither of these, it can only represent a piece of psychological testimony by the person who advances it, viz., testimony as to the properties which the word "acid" happens to call up in his own mind.
The fact is that a descriptive concept either is created outright by stipulation of what one proposes to mean by a word — and in this case the meaning is explicit to begin with — or else the concept arises as a spontaneous result of attention to a variety of things that have certain characters in common. In this case the concept is always more or less obscure (although generally adequate to many practical purposes) and requires analysis before use can be made of it for theoretical purposes. But in the case of such concepts it is important to note that to investigate their meaning is one and the same thing as investigating the set of respects in which the things denoted resemble one another and differ from all others. That is, in such cases, the intension of the word, the meaning of the concept, and the essential nature of the things to which the word is applied, are exactly the same thing; and to investigate one is to perform precisely the same operation as to investigate either of the others.
6. Broad's Failure to Give the Differentia of Concepts that Philosophy Alone Investigates. —C. D. Broad, whose conception of philosophy Langer's closely resembles in some respects, is not much more explicit as to the differentia of philosophical concepts. Philosophy, or at least critical as distinguished from speculative philosophy, is defined by Broad as "the analysis and definition of our fundamental concepts, and the clear statement and resolute criticism of our fundamental beliefs";{l7} and this of course immediately raises the question: Which ones among our concepts are to be described as "fundamental?" Broad illustrates them by mention of the concepts of thing, place, date, change, cause, substance, etc. He also says that the special sciences (as well as common sense) use these concepts, but that "it is not their business to enter, more than is necessary for their own special purposes, into the meaning and relations of these concepts as such."{18} This, of course, does not define the term "fundamental"; but Broad seems even to give away the very essence of the contention that analysis of meaning of "fundamdamental" concepts is the differentiating task of (critical) philosophy when he adds:
Of course the special sciences do in some measure clear up the meaning of the concepts that they use. . . . . But the special sciences only discuss the meanings of their concepts so far as this is needful for their own special purposes. Such discussion is incidental to them, whilst it is of the essence of philosophy, which deals with such questions for their own sake.{19}
This not only leaves unanswered the central question, viz., what specific character marks a concept as "fundamental," but deprives us of the possibility of answering it even only negatively and obviously too narrowly by saying, as seemed suggested, that they are the concepts which the special sciences use but do not need to investigate. For to tell us that it is not their business to investigate the meaning of such concepts as mentioned "more than is necessary for their own special purposes" is to tell us that it is their business just so far as it is their business. I submit that in so far as it is not their business, the concept is not fundamental specifically to them; i.e., such parts or aspects of the meaning as it is not their business to investigate are in no way fundamental but on the contrary irrelevant to them. These very parts or aspects would however be fundamental to a task quite other than the tasks of these sciences, viz., to that of discovering what a science in general, or perhaps a physical science in general, is. Such a task, obviously, is philosophical. But to recognize this still is not to answer the question as to what exactly differentiates this and other admittedly philosophical tasks from tasks that are not philosophical.
7. Different Nature of the Premises for the Assertions of the Rational Sciences vs. those of Philosophy. — Another decisive objection to Langer's conception of philosophy is that there is a certain character which belongs to pure mathematics and pure logic, but which philosophy has never claimed but rather always repudiated. This character is that the facts by appeal to which pure mathematics and pure logic prove or disprove the propositions they assert always in ultimate analysis consist of stipulations, viz, of postulates, rules, and biverbal definitions. This means that what these sciences do is essentially to develop the implications of certain conventions; and no matter what reasons of psychological convenience or of practical interest may exist for making one rather than another convention, such conventions, from the standpoint of pure logic and mathematics, are wholly arbitrary. Another way of stating the same fundamental fact is by saying, as Russell does, that pure mathematics and logic constitute the science of the possible. One may put the fact still otherwise by saying that, within pure logic or mathematics, the question never arises whether any real thing exists that has the properties in terms of which logical and mathematical concepts are defined. For these sciences are not trying to describe what exists, but only what is logically possible.
But obviously the case is radically different with philosophy. The propositions it formulates are not advanced as implications of arbitrary conventions respecting the meaning that shall be attached to certain terms or symbols. They are advanced as propositions which are either certainly or probably true about knowledge, or about truth, or reality, or beauty, or goodness, or whatever their subject may be.{20} If it be said that what philosophy attempts is to analyze the meaning of these terms, this may be admitted, provided that the definitions in which that meaning is eventually stated are nor merely "verbal" definitions or implications of verbal definitions or defining postulates, but on the contrary "real" definitions. This means that they must be statements of the nature of something which was not created (whether explicitly or implicitly) by means of a stipulation as to the meaning of some terms, but existed independently of such creative conventions. To say that it existed independently of them means that at least the part of the thing's nature that we seek to discover is logically independent of the manner in which the thing was presented to our attention, and is therefore nor discoverable deductively by "attention to the implications" of that manner. For example, if some one asks "What is this tree?" it is not an answer to his question to say: "It is a physical, space-occupying, vegetable object, having branches, roots, bark," etc. For this is to answer another question which he did not ask, and to which he presumably already knows the answer well enough for his purposes, viz., the question, "What is a tree?" His question concerns the characters of "this" which are neither logically deducible from the concept "tree" nor immediately obvious to him in the mere perceiving of the object about which he asks his question, e.g., the character of being an oak, or of being deciduous, etc.
To illustrate the radical defect that inevitably attaches to any philosophy which offers itself as a science of the same kind as pure logic and mathematics, no better example can be found than Spinoza's system. For even if the chains of implications he attempts to develop should all be as rigorous as he intended to make them, the final and philosophically crucial question would remain whether his basic definitions and axioms (i.e., postulates) are arbitrary and merely conventional like those of pure mathematics and logic, stipulating what he proposes to mean as for instance by the word "substance," or on the contrary represent statements somehow already discovered to be true about some existing thing, which thing, previous to that discovery, the word only denoted but did not describe. For if Spinoza's definitions and axioms do not represent statements of the latter sort, then all that he builds upon them by attention to their implications constitutes nothing but one out of many logically possible alternative castles, or rather universes, in the air. It only constitutes an elaboration of what is implied by certain arbitrary statements initially made, and of what would be true if these initial statements should not merely have been made but should happen in addition to have a real and not merely verbal subject, and to be true of that subject. Thus, there is a radical incompatibility between, on the one hand, the claim which Spinoza, in common with practically all other philosophers, tacitly makes, that the propositions embodying his philosophy are not merely mutually consistent and some deducible from others, but have as subject the world (or parts of the world) in which we empirically find ourselves, and are true of that world; and, on the other hand, the claim (whether made by him or for him) that his system is or attempts to be "rational" in the sense of purely formal, like pure logic and mathematics, which deals not at all with an empirical world as such, but only with logically possible forms of worlds or of anything else.
The theoretical constructions of philosophy cannot be arbitrary in the sense in which a postulate-set can be arbitrary when it does not attempt to be such that deduction from it of certain propositions specified in advance shall be possible. This means that philosophy is not a rational science in any but the elliptical sense in which one could so describe theoretical physics (because it makes use of mathematics), as distinguished from the mathematics considered in itself that theorerical physics uses, which on the contrary is a rational science in the literal sense of the term. For whereas mathematics needs only to be free from contradictions, physics, no matter how theoretical and mathematical it may be, seeks always to be true of the world in which we empirically find ourselves and is thus fundamentally a natural and nor a rational science.
[Table of Contents] [Chapter 7]
Notes {1} The Practice of Philosophy (1930). [Back]
{2} The Practice of Philosophy, p. 14. [Back]
{3} The Practice of Philosophy, p. 31. [Back]
{4} The Practice of Philosophy, p. 33. [Back]
{5} The Practice of Philosophy, p. 35. [Back]
{6} The Practice of Philosophy, p. 36. [Back]
{7} The Practice of Philosophy, p. 35. [Back]
{8} The Practice of Philosophy, p. 37. [Back]
{9} The Practice of Philosophy, p. 67. [Back]
{10} The Practice of Philosophy, p. 67. [Back]
{11} The Practice of Philosophy, p. 67. [Back]
{12} The Practice of Philosophy, p. 41. [Back]
{13} The Practice of Philosophy, p. 40. [Back]
{14} The Practice of Philosophy, p. 39, 41. [Back]
{15} Sir William Dampier A History of Science (1936), p. 24. [Back]
{16} Cf. M. Cohen, Reason and Nature (1931), pp. 106-114. [Back]
{17} Scientific Thought (1923), p. 18. [Back]
{18} Scientific Thought (1923), p. 16. [Back]
{19} Scientific Thought (1923), p. 16 f. [Back]
{20} Scientific Thought (1923), p. 19 f. [Back]
[Table of Contents] [Chapter 7]