THE ENLIGHTENMENT PROJECT IN THE ANALYTIC CONVERSATION

Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture

VOLUME 4

Series Editor
H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Baylor College of
Medicine, Houston, Texas, and Philosophy Department, Rice University, Houston, Texas

Associate Editor
Kevin William Wildes, S.J., Philosophy Department and Kennedy Institute of Ethics,
Georgetown University, Washington, DC

Editorial Board
Stanley Hauerwas, Duke University, Durham, N.C.
Terry Pinkard, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
Mary C. Rawlinson, State University of New York at Stony Brook
Stuart F. Spieker, Massachusetts College ofPharmacy and Allied Health Sciences, Boston,
Massachusetts
Marx W. Wartofsky, Baruch College, City University of New York

The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
 The Enlightenment Project
in the Analytic Conversation

by

NICHOLAS CAPALDI
University of Tulsa,
Tulsa, Oklaho1lllJ, U.S.A.

SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.Y.

A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-90-481-5019-9 ISBN 978-94-017-3300-7 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-3300-7

Printed on acid-free paper

All Rights Reserved

© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1998
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner
 for

Nicholas Rescher
 Acknowledgments

It is not possible to thank all of the individuals and authors who have
influenced the writing of this book. My debts in many cases are obvious. A number
of individuals deserve special mention: My friend Charles Sherover, my colleague
and friend Richard McDonough, and my research assistant Steven Chesser all read
the entire manuscript. John Kekes read and commented on an earlier draft. My
colleagues Paul Rahe and Jacob Howland read and commented on Chapter Eleven.
Special thanks are due to my colleagues in the Philosophy Department at the
National University of Singapore who patiently endured my early lectures on this
topic during the 1985-86 academic year. Despite my criticism of his position, Rom
Harre was a ray of hope who during my term at Oxford helped me to transcend
positivism. Hilail Gildin introduced me to the writings of Leo Strauss and made me
recognize at an early date that true philosophy and political philosophy could be kept
alive outside of the academic mainstream. A large part of the time needed to produce
Chapter Ten was made possible by a grant from the Earhart Foundation.
Insofar as I have grown philosophically, this has largely been made possible
by my association with and participation in the intellectual life of Liberty Fund.
Those most responsible for this privilege and for my development include Charles
King, George B. Martin, H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr., Emilio Pacheco, John Gray,
Stuart Warner, Timothy Fuller, Stephen Erickson, Douglas Den Uyl, Tibor Machan,
Douglas Rasmussen, and Donald Livingston.
My long time association with the Pluralist movement brought me into
contact with a number of individuals who made me realize the importance of our
responsibility not only to the discipline of philosophy but to the profession of
philosophy. These include the late William Barrett, John Loughney, John Smith,
John Lachs, Robert Neville, Don Ihde, Sandra Rosenthal, Jude Dougherty, David
Weissman, and Robert Scharff. Special acknowledgment should be made of Bruce
Wilshire not only for his leadership in the Pluralist movement but for his contribution
to understanding the crisis created in the university by professionalization.
Despite all of this help, I must accept full responsibility for this volume.
Finally, in dedicating this volume to Nicholas Rescher I wish to
acknowledge the very special role he has played in the evolution of the analytic
conversation, his enormous contribution to philosophy, and his continuing
leadership in the profession.

VII
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

dedication

acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION 1

Appendix: Outline of the Enlightenment Project in

the Analytic Conversation 11
Notes 16

CHAPTER ONE: THE ENLIGHTENMENT PROJECT 17

The Enlightenment and the Enlightenment Project 17

Critics of the Enlightenment Project: Kant and Hegel 25
Russell and the Origins of Analytic Philosophy 27
Positivism: How The Enlightenment Project Became Part of
The Analytic Conversation 30
Summary 33
Notes 34

CHAPTER TWO: ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY OF

SCIENCE 41

The Importance of Science for Analytic Philosophy 41

The Structure of Science 44
Aristotelianism as a Philosophy of Science 44
The Analytic Restatement of the Modern Aristotelian Philosophy
of Science 48
The 'Kantian Turn' 55

ix
Does Science Progress? (Popper, Quine, Kuhn, and Feyerabend) 56
Alternative to Scientism 65
Summary 68
Notes 69

CHAPTER THREE: ANAL YTIC PHILOSOPHY

AND SCIENCE 75

Philosophy as the Logic of Physical Science 75

What is Logic? 76
Logicism (Frege and Russell) 81
From Positivism to the New Analytic Philosophy (Elimination
and Exploration) 89
Philosophy as the Social Science of Science 92
Explication as the Alternative 97
Explication vs. Exploration 100
Notes 104

CHAPTER FOUR: METAPHYSICS IN

ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY 112

Introduction 112
What is Metaphysics? (Platonic, Aristotelian, and Copernican) 112
Modern Aristotelian Metaphysics 114
Hegelian Metaphysics (The Hegelian Argument) 116
Does Analytic Philosophy have a Metaphysics? 120
The Modern Aristotelian Metaphysics of Analytic Philosophy 123
Quine as Modern Aristotelian Metaphysician 124
Kripke as Modern Aristotelian Metaphysician 128
Self-Reference as the Achilles Heel of Analytic Metaphysics 132
The Hegelian Moment in Analytic Metaphysics (Nozick) 139
Summary 144
Notes 145

CHAPTER FIVE: ANALYTIC EPISTEMOLOGY 153

Introduction 153
Classical Epistemology (Platonism. Aristotelianism, and

x
 Skepticism) 153
Medieval Aristotelian Epistemology (Aquinas, Ockham, and
Suarez) 159
Modern Epistemology (Spinoza and Locke) 160
Early Analytic Epistemology (Brentano, Moore, and Russell) 170
Wittgenstein's Tractatus 174
The Tractatus Solution 176
The Implications of the Tractatus Solution 177
Wittgenstein's Misgivings 181
Post -Wittgensteinian Analytic Epistemology (Quine and Kripke) 184
Notes 188

CHAPTER SIX: ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY AND

LANGUAGE 194

The Epistemological Agenda 194

Why Language? 194
Analytic Linguistic Epistemology 195
Alternative Philosophical Views of Language 198
Philosophy of Language as Elimination (Quine) 201
Philosophy of Language as Explication (Wittgenstein' s
Philosophical Investigations) 204
Philosophy of Languages as Exploration
(Neo-Carnapians - Kripke) 208
Quine's Elimination vs. Kripke's Exploration 215
Summary of the Analytic Philosophy of Language 218
Wittgensteinian Explication vs. Analytic Philosophy of
Language 219
Ordinary Language Philosophy 225
Notes 231

CHAPTER SEVEN: ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHICAL

PSYCHOLOGY 245

Introduction 245
The Enlightenment Project: Introspection and the Central
Role of Cognition 246
Analytic Philosophical Psychology as Elimination

XI
 (Behaviorism and Identity Theory) 249
Epistemology, Language, and Mind 255
Analytic Philosophical Psychology as Exploration 257
Versions of Exploration (Functionalism, Fodor, and Dennett) 259
What's Wrong with Exploration? 263
The Hegelian Moment in Analytical Philosophical Psychology
(Burge) 267
The Alternative of Explication 270
The Analytic Critique of Explication (Churchland) 276
Summary 279
Analytic Philosophical Psychology as Ideology 279
Notes 281

CHAPTER EIGHT: THE ENLIGHTENMENT PROJECT

IN ANALYTIC SOCIAL SCIENCE 292

Introduction 292
Unified Science 292
Analytic Social Science as Elimination (Methodological
Individualism) 293
Analytic Social Science as Exploration (Harre) 296
The Hegelian/Marxist Moment in Analytic Social Science 304
Explication as an Alternative to Analytic Social Science (Winch) 306
Analytic Philosophy as a Social Science 308
Summary 311
Notes 312

CHAPTER NINE: ANALYTIC ETHICS 317

The Enlightenment Project and Utilitarianism 317

Analytic Ethics (Moore) 318
The Enlightenment Project Enters Analytic Ethics (Russell) 318
Analytic Ethics as Elimination (Emotivism) 319
Analytic Ethics as Exploration - Meta-ethics (Hare) 320
The Return to Substantive Ethical Theorizing (Nozick and
MacIntyre) 325
Analytic Ethics and the Loss of the Moral Agent 331
The Alternative of Explication 333

xii
Summary 338
Notes 339

CHAPTER TEN: ANALYTIC SOCIAL AND

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 349

The Politics of the Enlightenment Project 349

The Enlightenment Project in the Nineteenth Century
(Liberalism, Socialism, and Marxism) 352
The Political Agenda of Analytic Philosophy 358
Analytic Political Philosophy as Elimination 362
The Meta-Politics of Exploration (Hart, Rawls, and Nozick) 364
The Inevitability of Marxism 371
The Communitarian Alternative (MacIntyre) 374
Exploration vs. Explication 377
Notes 384

CHAPTER ELEVEN: ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY AND

THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 393

Introduction 393
The Positivist Elimination of the History of Philosophy 393
Why Positivist Elimination Still Needed a History of Philosophy 395
The History of Philosophy as Exploration 396
The Analytic Exploration of the History of Philosophy 397
The Alternative of Explication 408
Explication vs. Exploration 418
Analytic History of Philosophy and the History of Analytic
Philosophy 423
Summary 428
Notes 430

CHAPTER TWELVE: BEYOND THE ENLIGHTENMENT

PROJECT 443

Metaphysics 443
Epistemology 451

XIII
Axiology 456
Analytic Philosophy and "Our" Culture 456
Notes 461

WORKS CITED 470

INDEX 510

xiv
 Introduction

For most of the twentieth century analytic philosophy has been the dominant
philosophical movement in the English-speaking world. I

The dominant mode of philosophizing in the United States is

called 'analytic philosophy'. Without exception, the best
philosophy departments in the United States are dominated by
analytic philosophy, and among the leading philosophers in the
United States, all but a tiny handful would be classified as analytic
philosophers. Practitioners of types of philosophizing that are not
in the analytic tradition ... feel it necessary to define their position
in relation to analytic philosophy. Indeed, analytic philosophy is
the dominant mode of philosophizing not only in the United
States, but throughout the entire English-speaking world ... It is
also the dominant mode of philosophizing in Scandinavia, and it
is also becoming more widespread in Germany, France, Italy and
throughout Latin America. 2

But for the past two decades, analytic philosophy has increasingly become
the object of criticism by rival philosophical perspectives as well as undergoing a
period of self-assessment if not soul-searching. 3 This book is intended as a
contribution to the on-going reassessment of analytic philosophy.
What complicates this task has been aptly summarized by David Bell:

Analytic philosophy ... established with remarkable speed a

distinctive set of philosophical concerns, an equally distinctive
vocabulary and a network of methodological procedures that to
this day dominate philosophical practice throughout the English-
speaking world. And yet neither the nature, the origins, the
development nor indeed the value of this 'analytic tradition' has
been of significant concern to those who have worked within:
analytic philosophy has been, and remains, largely unselfconscious
and almost entirely ahistorical. 4

We propose to identify the origins, the original core of ideas, the

development of those ideas, and assess analytic philosophy, and we shall do so by
putting that movement into historical perspective.
It is not the expression 'analytic philosophy' that is at issue, of course, but
the set of ideas that together characterize the expression. The term 'analytic
philosophy' is itself too broad to be of much help. The expression covers a century
of evolving philosophical activity by a large and diverse group of people who
frequently disagree with each other. At this late date, to attempt to define 'analytic
philosophy' would be to enter a semantic, rhetorical, and professional political
quagmire that would only obfuscate the philosophical and cultural issues at stake.
It would be more accurate and more helpful to say that there has been an analytic
conversation often consisting of disparate and dissonant voices.
2 Introduction

We begin by identifying one major strand in that conversation: the

Enlightenment Project. Our first thesis, then, is that one continuously important
element in the analytic conversation has been the Enlightenment Project. We shall
have a great deal to say about that project in Chapter One, but for the moment we can
identify the Enlightenment Project as the attempt to define, explain, and deal with the
human predicament through science. The Enlightenment Project appealed to an
autonomous human reason, freed of any higher authority and channeled itself
through science as its privileged tool.
We are not attempting to reduce analytic philosophy to the Enlightenment
Project, nor are we saying that all those who would be identified as analytic
philosophers have subscribed or do subscribe to a single set of tenets. What we are
saying, however, is that the analytic conversation originated in and is informed in
large part by the continuous presence within it of a program with historical roots that
stretch back to the Enlightenment. Our main historical contention is that the
Enlightenment Project is the cultural context within which contemporary analytic
philosophy operates. Many of the issues that concern analytic philosophers, the ways
in which those issues are identified and defined, and the range of discussable
solutions will all be illuminated by reference to the Enlightenment Project. Even the
criticisms that some analytic philosophers make of other analytic philosophers are
best understood as a debate within the larger conversation about the viability of that
Project.
The Enlightenment Project has been the dominant intellectual force in
Western Civilization for the past two centuries. That Project is now widely
perceived as having failed. Our second thesis, then, is that the sense of failure within
and the reassessment of analytic philosophy is best understood by focusing on what
we shall describe as the implosion of the Enlightenment Project. This is not to say
that all of analytic philosophy is a failure but only that a large part of the soul-
searching that characterizes the contemporary scene in the West is a reflection of the
wide-spread recognition both inside and outside of the analytic community of the
failure of a program or a series of programs that have been of central interest to
analytic philosophers.
The centrality of the Enlightenment Project for analytic philosophy will be
demonstrated by systematically examining its presence and development in areas of
major philosophical concern: the philosophy of science, metaphysics, epistemology,
the philosophy oflanguage, philosophical psychology, the philosophy of the social
sciences, ethics, political philosophy, and the history of philosophy. This
examination will also enable us to follow the internal logical disintegration of that
project. That is, technical discussions within the analytic conversation help us to
understand not only the espousal of the project but the eventual failure and rejection
of that project.
The third thesis of this book is an account of why the Enlightenment Project
failed and must always fail. This account has two parts corresponding to the two
stages of the Enlightenment Project within the analytic conversation. Briefly, the
first stage is positivism and it is marked by the espousal ofa kind of thinking called
elimination.
 Introduction 3

Elimination: When we theorize from an elimination point of view there is

an explicit substitution of new ideas for old ideas. Elimination is most characteristic
of physical science and technological thinking. Some examples would be the
elimination of Ptolemy's geocentric view of the universe and its replacement by
Copernicus' heliocentric view of the universe. Another example would be the
elimination of traditional theories of disease by the discovery of microbes.
Elimination is a form of radical replacement through innovation. All forms of
reductionism are forms of elimination. This is a form of thinking that seems to make
sense ifthere is some prior agreed upon framework in terms of which we can judge
that one new theory is better than an old theory.
Positivism subscribed to the view that all correct thinking is eliminative
thinking. In the early Russell and in the positivism of the Vienna Circle one sees an
optimism about how science is the successful elimination of superstition and
nonsense and how philosophy is the overseer of the transition period to a totally
scientific world view.
The major difficulty with elimination is that there must be some independent
criterion or set of norms in terms of which we can judge an elimination to be
successfid. Positivists believed, originally, that science bore the empirical mark of
its own validity. Therefore, in order to decide when one theory has successfully
eliminated another we can look to science itself. Within physical science we would,
presumably, find examples of "successful" reductions of one theory to another or
eliminations of one theory in favor of another. So it would seem to be a simple
matter to extract the criteria for such success. Unfortunately this turned out not to
be the case. Instead of being a minor technical problem of specifying when
reduction-elimination was successful, it turned out that there was no consensus on
when elimination was successful. In logic, in mathematics, and in science there are
a priori elements (semantic notions, conventions, appeals to common sense or to
intuitions, etc.) which cannot be eliminated in a straightforward and unambiguous
fashion. Turning to the larger question of how science "progresses" from one theory
to another we find an even greater mystery.
Positivism was anti-philosophical in denying the existence of a pre-
theoretical domain. By a pre-theoretical domain we mean a normative frame of
reference which serves as the departure for theoretical activity of any kind. The pre-
theoretical domain encompasses the basic presuppositions of all of our activity. The
pre-theoretical domain has historically been the subject-matter of philosophy.
Although positivists officially denied this domain, their own work was only
intelligible against a background of presuppositions. Not only were positivists
unwilling to deal with this background but their own professional and theoretical
activity lacked the resources to do so.
The second stage of the Enlightenment Project within the analytic
conversation is contemporary analytic philosophy. In spite of the fact that
contemporary analytic philosophy is a rejection of positivism it is nevertheless a way
of trying to preserve the Enlightenment Project in response to the perceived
difficulties of positivism. The second stage is marked by the espousal of a kind of
thinking called exploration.
4 Inrroduction

Exploration: In exploration we begin with our ordinary understanding of

how things work and then go on to speculate on what might be behind those
workings. In time, we come to change our ordinary understanding. The new
understanding does not evolve from or elaborate the old understanding, rather it
replaces it by appeal to underlying structures. The underlying structures are
discovered by following out the implications of some hypothetical model about those
structures. There are two versions of exploration. In one version, our ordinary
understanding is a necessary but temporary scaffolding to be taken down when the
construction is completed. In a second version, our ordinary understanding is
indispensable but revisable in the light of the clarification of underlying structures.
Exploration is a mode of thinking found in the physical sciences and is
exemplified in the use of the atomic theory to explain chemical behavior or the
behavior of gases. But exploration is also preeminently the mode of thought of
academic social science. By alleged analogy with physical science, the social
sciences have persistently sought to discover the hidden structure behind the
everyday understanding of social activities. Exploration, then, stresses the search
for structure rather than for meaning, the search for the formal elements underlying
the everyday world rather than believing that the everyday world can constitute its
own level of understanding.
The problem with exploration is the same as the problem with elimination,
namely, there is no way to confirm or disconfirm an exploration. We are unable to
choose authoritatively among competing explorations. The failure of
foundational ism in science and epistemology leads sensitive writers like Richard
Rorty to a kind of despair and to the speculation that perhaps philosophy is an
interminable conversation of incommensurable voices.
Whereas positivism was anti-philosophical in denying the existence of a
pre-theoretical domain, contemporary analytic philosophy recognizes its existence
and attempts not only to discuss it but to conceptualize it, albeit from a naturalistic-
scientific perspective. Recognition of the pre-theoretical domain is what we shall
call the 'Kantian Turn' in the analytic conversation. Unfortunately, this made
matters worse. For analytic philosophy proper has at its disposal only exploratory
thinking. Unable to confirm an exploration at one level it offered supplementary
explorations at another level. That is, it produced, in our terms, unconfirmable
explorations about other explorations. As a consequence immense prestige was
accorded to those individuals skillful in formulating clever, ingenious, and
sometimes bizarre hypotheses. Ingenuity became the benchmark of success, and like
present day movements in the arts led to sudden shifts in fashion.
Matters deteriorated when rival groups began to offer exploratory
hypotheses about why members of other groups held what they took to be the wrong
exploratory hypotheses. Civility in the common search for the truth was replaced
by the deconstruction of rival approaches. The inability to confirm an exploratory
hypothesis about the pre-theoretical domain, the interminable multiplying of further
unconfirmable exploratory hypotheses at other levels, and the deconstruction of
one's philosophical rivals is what we call the abyss of exploration.
 Introduction 5

Thefourth thesis of this book is that there is both a way out of the abyss,
an alternative to the collapse of the Enlightenment Project, and a way of regaining
contact with the pre-theoretical domain. This alternative is explication.
Explication: In explication we try to clarify that which is routinely taken
for granted, namely our ordinary understanding of our practices, in the hope of
extracting from our previous practice a set of norms that can be used reflectively to
guide future practice. Explication is a way of arriving at a kind of practical
knowledge that takes human agency as primary. It seeks to mediate practice from
within practice itself. Explication is a form of practical knowledge and presupposes
that practical knowledge is more fundamental than theoretical knowledge.
Explication presupposes that efficient practice precedes the theory of it. All
reflection is ultimately reflection on primordial practices that existed prior to our
theorizing about them.
Explication involves the following set of assumptions:
1. There is a cosmic order.
2. We gain access to the cosmic through an understanding
of ourselves. How we understand ourselves is fundamental, and
how we understand the non-human world is derivative. By
making this distinction in this way, we allow for an understanding
of universal truths about human interests, such that this
understanding is not subject to the limitations of science.
3. We cannot, ultimately, understand ourselves by reference to
physical structures. The cosmic order is not a physical structure
accessed through science. Hence, the Enlightenment Project is
misguided.
4. Explication is a philosophic method whereby we identifo the
implicit norm governing any practice. We understand ourselves
by examining "our" practices. A practice is an action informed by
an implicit cultural norm. To say that the norm is cultural is to say
that it is social and historical. To say that it is social is to say that
the existence and nature of the norm cannot be established
epistemologically by an individual without reference to a larger
community. To say that the norm is historical is to assert that later
practice evolves out of earlier practice and can be revelatory of a
better understanding ofthe norm. To say that the norm is implicit
is to assert, epistemologically, that it is discovered internally in
action rather than as an external structure. Such a norm reflects a
universal insofar as persistent or enduring norms reveal
something universally true about ourselves. There is, in short, a
form of natural law consisting of moral truths about human nature
understood in a way independent of our understanding of the
physical world.
5. The act of retrieving this common moral framework of the
natural law is neither reactionary nor anachronistic. Retrieving
our tradition is not a simple matter of an uncritical return to the
past. Instead, it is the re-identifying of something that is a
6 Introduction

permanent part of the human condition even though it is always

expressed in specific historical contexts. The fact that these
universal truths are always contextualized means that the act of
retrieval inevitably involves a reformulation. To encompass the
past is to make it our own in some fashion. A tradition is not a
rigid structure but a fertile source of adaptation that not only
evolves but expands to incorporate things that might from an
earlier perspective even seem alien. Philosophers are intellectually
and morally obligated to engage in a perpetual retrieval of their
tradition. Since the universal truths are moral truths and since
their apprehension is not solely an intellectual act, we should not
be surprised that there is no definitive articulation of the cosmic
order, inevitable controversy over its articulation, and a necessary
act offaith in its continuing apprehension.
The clearest and most fundamental example of this is natural language.
Language has an inherent structure that was not planned but whose rules we can
articulate. That is why philosophy always begins with what we assume when we
begin to speak and rightfully takes to task those who insist upon using language to
deny that language has meaning. It is hopelessly misguided to offer an explanation
of language in terms of its structure since all such speculation would have to be
judged by intuitions about what the language really meant. Plato's Socratic notion
of reminiscence, Aristotle's conception of teleology, Hume's notion of custom,
Kant's conception of the synthetic a priori, Wittgenstein's notion of practice, and
Heidegger's "retrieval" are all examples of explication.
Explication attempts to specify the sense we have of ourselves as agents
and to clarify that which seems to guide us. We do not replace our ordinary
understanding but rather come to know it in a new and better way. Explication seeks
to arrive at a kind of practical knowledge which takes as primary that human beings
are agents. Advocates of explication reject the perspective of exploration in any area
outside of physical science because within exploration human beings are perceived
as purely thinking subjects facing an objective world and performing a purely
theoretical task. Put another way, whereas exploration is an attempt to conceptualize
the relation between theory and practice, explication seeks to mediate practice from
within practice itself.
The foregoing four theses dictate the order of presentation within the book.
This introduction concludes with an appendix in which we outline as a continuous
abstract argument the Enlightenment Project within the analytic conversation.
Chapter One provides the broader historical context both of the Enlightenment
Project and its introduction into and presence within the analytic conversation.
Chapter Two commences the discussion of the analytic philosophy of science, the
key intellectual component of the Enlightenment Project. Subsequent chapters
discuss other areas of philosophical concern, following the general order of the
appendix from metaphysical issues through epistemological issues to axiological
issues. Within each chapter the order of presentation is: (a) the initial positivist
program of elimination is summarized and its problems identified; (b) the analytic
response to those problems is to take a 'Kantian Turn' and adopt an exploratory
 Introduction 7

mode; (c) exploration leads to an abyss from which the only exit appears to be a
representation of the pre-theoretical domain by means of explication. The evolution
of positions within analytic philosophy, the inner dialectic of its discussions, reflects
the gradual recognition of the lack of intellectual viability of the Project. We
maintain that the cogency of explication is best seen rhetorically at this stage of our
intellectual journey as a response to the insuperable problems of elimination and
exploration.
Contemporary analytic conversation is marked by three broad responses.
First, there is a refusal on the part of some to come to terms with the inner dialectic
ofthe analytic conversation; this refusal on the part of "hard liners" is explained in
terms of the commitment to the ideology of the Enlightenment Project; that is, the
historical thesis explains the refusal of some to follow the argument through to its
logical conclusion. It is in this sense that seeing the cultural context illuminates a
philosophical position. Second, there has been a reaffirmation of the commitment
to some of the values of the Enlightenment Project, usually its political values, now
defended in a variety of new ways referred to as post-analytic or post-modem. This
is one way in which rapprochement with non-analytic philosophy has been
attempted. Third, there is the recognition that the consequence of both the first and
second response is a devastating nihilism in science as well as in ethics and politics
that permeates much of contemporary culture. This is what has prompted the
abandonment of the Project.
Reflection on the failure of the Enlightenment Project leads to the
conclusion that contemporary philosophy must find an alternative way of proceeding
if it is to avoid being marginalized within the larger cultural context, and if it is to
playa significant role in the articulation of our fundamental values. We are not
suggesting an entirely new direction. On the contrary, we shall argue for a return to
the main track of western philosophy, specifically beginning with a return to some
of the views of Hume, Kant, and Hegel - all of whom were major critics of the
Enlightenment Project - in addition to recapturing the richer understanding of
ourselves that is preserved in the classical western philosophical tradition. Ifthere is
one broad philosophical theme in the book it is that much of contemporary
philosophy has suffered because of its reversal ofconceptual priorities. Specifically,
it has under the influence of the scientism of the Enlightenment Project failed to
appreciate that how we understand ourselves is fundamental as well as different from
the way in which we understand the world.
The aspirations, achievements, and ultimate failure of the Enlightenment
Project all have important intellectual, practical and cultural implications far beyond
the discipline of philosophy. By examining the philosophical articulation of that
project in the analytic conversation we shall be in a better position to understand how
and why that project failed, to determine what is and is not salvageable, and to gain
some insight into where we go from here. By relating analytic philosophy to the
Enlightenment Project in a systematic way there is a great gain in clarifying and
simplifying the basic issues we confront in moving beyond the Enlightenment
Project. By studying the evolution of this movement and the reasons for its demise
we shall be in a better position to assess what is and is not still viable in our
intellectual heritage. We maintain that the explication of the pre-theoretical domain
8 Introduction

encompassing the articulation and critique of the fundamental values of our

civilization is the unique philosophical enterprise. We believe, then, that there are
important philosophical and cultural lessons to be learned from the demise of the
Enlightenment Project and that these lessons are of crucial importance and take us
far beyond the confines of a single discipline.

***
It should be clear by now that this book comprises an extended argument
against the voice ofthe Enlightenment Project within the analytic conversation. The
overall argument takes the following form:
I. the Enlightenment Project voice models philosophy on a particular
conception of physical science;
2. this conception of physical science is defective;
3. this defective conception of physical science renders the analytic
conception of social science, philosophical psychology, and epistemology
defective; and
4. the foregoing defective conceptions of the human condition lead to
defective conceptions of both moral and political philosophy.

Specifically, the defective conception of moral and political philosophy that

emanates from the Enlightenment Project is the idea of social engineering or social
technology. Social engineering is defined as: (a) the conceptualization of the human
situation not as a condition or predicament but as a set of problems, such as the
problems of poverty, racism, anxiety, depression, crime, unemployment, teen-age
pregnancy, war, etc.; (b) the belief that there can be an objective social scientific
consensus on what these problems are; (c) the belief that the origin of these problems
lies not in human nature nor in the human predicament but in physical,
environmental, or institutional structures; (d) the belief that to each problem there
is a solution; (e) the utopian belief that unique technical solutions can be found, at
some level, that do not themselves create new or additional unsolvable problems or
that do not conflict irremediably with the solution to other problems; (t) the belief
that the solution involves reconstructing the physical, environmental, or institutional
structures. For example, the response to crime might be either genetic engineering,
or adding more psychologists to elementary education, or improving diets in school
lunches, or more prisons and police, or a planned economy guaranteeing jobs. As
this example is intended to show, representatives of different places on the political
spectrum can still all nevertheless subscribe to a general belief in social engineering
or technology.
In what way is the Enlightenment Project's conception of physical science
defective? It is defective in two ways: (I), it falls into the abyss of exploration - the
endless proposal of more hidden structure accounts to buttress the inability to provide
confirmation for any hidden structure account; (2) it leads to the redefinition of the
data to provide a better fit with the hidden structure accounts. For example, unable
to square a commitment to physicalism with the traditional conception of the free and
responsible moral agent we are either given a different definition of freedom or we
 Introduction 9

are told that the traditional conception of freedom makes no sense precisely because
it cannot be accommodated by any kind of hidden structure account.
What defense can be mounted in support of the Enlightenment Project's
conception either of physical science or of scientific accounts of human endeavor?
There are two: a substantive defense and a rhetorical defense.
The substantive defense declares that analytic philosophers committed to the
Enlightenment Project are engaged in a series of overlapping scientific research
projects, and as such their efforts, however unsuccessful to date, should not be
rejected a priori anymore than in other complex scientific research projects that are
in the early stages of a maturation process.
The substantive defense is inadequate. It is inadequate because it (a)
concedes the failure to provide a successful example of an exploration, (b) cannot
state what in principle would constitute a successful exploration, and (c) is question-
begging in assuming that it is operating with a correct conception of science. It fails
to respond to the charge that analytic explorations are bogus intellectual enterprises.
The rhetorical defense has two parts. The first part of the rhetorical defense
claims that when we engage in a wholesale attack on the movement or its supposed
doctrines we are tilting at windmills that exist only in the mind of the critic. It is
frequently said that analytic philosophers or the analytic conversation exhibit only
a method and not a set of substantive beliefs. This rhetorical stance, by the way, flies
in the face ofthe first defense which presupposes a substantive view about the nature
of philosophical activity, namely that it is a form of scientific activity. More to the
point, this rhetorical expression is inadequate for any number of reasons (e.g., can
one adopt a methodology without presupposing some substantive beliefs about the
world? Is this not a consequence of an original commitment to scientism? How did
a community come to adopt a common methodology?5 Is not the lack of interest
in this question a reflection ofthe substantive view that problems can be identified
and methods adopted independent of historical context?), but most of all it fails to
note that when one says that analytic philosophers do not share substantive beliefs
what it is really saying is that the analytic conversation has, as a whole, fallen into
the abyss of exploration. That is, analytic philosophers can no longer agree on
anything except that they should formulate exploratory hypotheses because there is
no way of choosing among competing explorations. Rather than undermining our
comprehensive view of the Enlightenment Project within the analytic conversation,
this admission confirms our deepest contention. What we have provided is an
account of how and why the conversation has bogged down.
The second part of the rhetorical defense is the claim that those of us who
engage in a direct critique of the statements of individual analytic authors have either
misconstrued those views or the views selected for criticism are outdated or atypical.
To say that specific positions have been misconstrued is not to say that they
have been misunderstood. Rather, it is to say, generally, that there is a different
framework for interpreting these positions. If so, then the defender of analytic
philosophy is under an intellectual obligation to (a) spell out the framework and (b)
provide criteria for assessing rival frameworks. That is, the defender must provide
a "big picture". But that is precisely what defenders of analytic philosophy either do
not do or claim cannot be done. On the contrary, in this volume, we provide both a
10 Introduction

big picture and an evolutionary account of the debates within that picture. Instead
of seeing isolated activities we see a larger whole of which they are a part.
To say that selected positions have been misconstrued is to say, specifically,
that the defender of analytic philosophy has a different (exploratory) account of that
position. Unfortunately, there is no way within the context of analytic philosophy
to choose among rival exploratory accounts. Ifthere is no way to choose, then no
account (including ours) can be discredited; if there is no way to choose then our
worst fears about the analytic conversation coming to an end have been realized.
To say that the critics have selected outdated views will not do as a
response. It will not do because the claim that some views are outdated presupposes
a thesis about the historical evolution ofthe analytic conversation. Failure to provide
a consensual account of the history of the conversation invalidates any claim as to
what is or is not outdated.
There is also here an implicit presupposition that "later is better" or that the
"latest" versions of the analytic position are either immune to the criticisms of the
earlier versions or have taken the criticisms into account and have transcended them.
Our counterclaims are that (a) the belief that the conversation is progressing, even
slowly, as opposed to winding down is part of the mythology of the Enlightenment
Project, and we say 'mythology' advisedly, both because there is an allusion to a big
picture that is never provided and because there is no objective determinant of
progress; (b) the adoption ofa quasi-scientific rhetoric in which it is assumed that the
latest version transcends the limitations of the earlier version is also a reflection of
the "scientism" of the Enlightenment Project; and in the absence of a commitment
to and argument for scientism there is no a priori reason to assume that 'later is
better'; (c) we do not find that the later versions transcend the earlier versions; rather,
the later versions offer more of the same - one level removed - hence our reiterated
condemnation of the abyss of exploration; we have in key instances painstakingly
shown this; (d) finally, we have repeatedly recast the analytic conversation in a
dignified manner within the larger context of an ongoing historical debate among
Platonists, Aristotelians, Copernicans, ancients and modems. Much of what appears
to an ahistorically minded contemporary practitioner of analytic philosophy as
transcending the objections to earlier versions is a mere restatement within one
paradigm that fails to address the challenge to the paradigm as a whole, indeed, one
which comes from an alternative paradigm.
To say that the critics have selected atypical views also will not do. It will
not do as an adequate response because in the absence of a comprehensive thesis
about the analytic conversation one is not empowered to decide what is or is not
typical. Moreover, those who claim, as in the case above, that there is no
commonality in the analytic conversation cannot appeal to the notions of typical or
atypical without contradicting themselves. Finally, the rhetorical response is
inadequate because it cannot meet the following challenge: to produce even a single
example of analytic philosophy that does not fall into the abyss of exploration. This
is a simple test. We shall stake our entire thesis on the claim that nowhere in the
analytic conversation does anyone present an exploration that does not fall into the
abyss. All anyone has to do to refute this thesis is to present a single example.
 Introduction 11

If our challenge cannot be met, then we have demonstrated that the analytic
conversation encompasses a large number of bogus intellectual enterprises. We must
raise the question of what larger interest sustains these bogus intellectual enterprises.
The answer is the Enlightenment Project quest for a social technological utopia.
What are the consequences of engaging in these bogus intellectual enterprises? The
abyss of exploration leads inexorably to undermining the entire cultural context
including the context that sustains both philosophy and science. In short, all of this
leads to nihilism. It is no accident that the current crisis of confidence in Western
civilization in general and modern liberal culture in particular reflects increasing
awareness that the Enlightenment Project has failed.
These are serious matters, and they deserve a fair hearing, but it will be
difficult if not impossible to get such a hearing within large segments of the analytic
community. No matter how many preemptive disclaimers we make, no matter how
often we indicate that within the analytic conversation there have been (e.g.,
Wittgenstein, Von Wright) and are (e.g., Rorty, Rescher, Putnam, MacIntyre) voices
calling these problems to our attention. we cannot disguise the fact that our thesis
de legitimates a large number of intellectual enterprises. We are not, here, merely
calling attention to normal human political and intellectual bias. Our most serious
concern is that the practice of analytic philosophy discourages critical self-
examination. To the extent that it does so, it betrays the Socratic heritage and leads
to nihilism. These charges cannot be ignored, and they cannot be evaded without a
direct response to the arguments that follow.

*****

Appendix

OUTLINE OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT PROJECT IN THE ANALYTIC

CONVERSATION

The Enlightenment Project, as it is reflected within logical positivism and its

successor analytic philosophy,6 is exhibited by the following formal outline.

Metaphysics:

1. Naturalism.
(a) The world of nature is self-explanatory; anti-theistic.
(b) Monism: we understand ourselves and nature in the same
way.
ec) The continuity between ourselves and nature allows
fondamental realities to be identified by the use ofepistemological
(grammatical) criteria.
12 Introduction

(d) Metaphysical truths are equivalent to the ontological structure

revealed by the philosophy of science.

2. Scientism.
(a) Theoretical science is the whole truth about everything in the
world: it is intellectually autonomous and self-legitimating.
(b) Physical science is the basic science (physicalism).
(c) The world is to be understood as a mechanical system devoid
of purpose and composed of atoms interacting according to natural
laws. The ontology of the Enlightenment Project is mechanistic:
nature consists of discrete entities that retain their character
irrespective of context and whose interaction can be understood as
a serial, causal sequence.
(d) Unity of science
(i) How we understand the world is fundamental and how
we understand ourselves is derivative;
(ii) the social sciences are to be modeled after the physical
sciences;
(iii) subjects are objects of a special kind.
(e) Scientific explanations are superior because they
(i) refer to an objective (realist) structure independent of
the observer,
(ii) express necessary causal relationships or connections
within that structure,
(iii) are deductively related, and at some point
(iv) empirically verifiable.
(0 Scientific explanations are either eliminative reductions or
exploratory hypotheses about hidden sub-structure.

Epistemology:

1. Analysis. In view of the unity of science, whatever account is given of

the physical world supplies a basis for any account of the process by which
human beings acquire knowledge. Knowing (cognition I methodology) is
a reduction to discrete parts. Analysis is the epistemological analogue to
ontological atomism.

2. Epistemic realism. Scientistic explanations commence with truths that

refer, ultimately and exclusively, to objective structures; hence, to know is
to reflect a structure external to and totally independent of the observer.

3. Empiricist. Experience is the internal processing of external stimuli.

To be an empiricist is to construe experience (not phenomenologically but)
as the internal physical processing of an external physical structure. It is
through experience that we can gain access to the truths that refer to
 Introduction 13

objective structures. Our meaningful thoughts (or concepts), thus, either

originate in or cash out into experience without remainder.

4. Rejection of a self (anti-agency).

(a) The internal processing of external stimuli must be explainable
without reference to an autonomous agent, i.e., the world consists
ultimately only of objects, and a putative subject must be a
concatenation of sub-objects.
(b) Knowledge of the object-like sub-structure of subjects permits
us to overrule the agent's interpretation of his own action (or
works). History and culture are ultimately explainable (or
explained away) by sub-structure.
(c)Eliminative social science entails:
(i) methodological individualism.
(ii) epistemological individualism, and
(iii) value free epistemology.
(d) Exploratory social science entails:
(i) a social theory of meaning,
(ii) a "We Think" epistemology,
(iii) a relaxation ofthe requirement that explanations are
deductive and empirically verifiable,
(iv) a two-tier conception ofthe human world, and
(v) the claim that explanations encompass values on the
upper level but are value free on the exploratory level.

Axiology:

1. Primacy of theoretical knowledge. As a consequence of scientism,

theoretical knowledge is primary and practical "knowledge" has a
secondary status. The philosophical challenge is not merely to identify the
realm of the practical but to explain it theoretically.

2. Dichotomy of fact and value.

(a) Only factual judgments can be true.
(b) Value judgments are not truths because they do not refer to
structures independent of the observer or agents.

3. Science of Ethics.
(a) Values are a kind of epiphenomena.
(b) Given the primacy of theoretical knowledge and the derivative
nature of the social sciences, there can be a physical-scientific
and/or social-scientific factual account of the sub-structure of the
context within which values function. This is how the realm ofthe
practical will be explained, ultimately, in theoretical terms.
14 Introduction

(i) There is a two-tier view of human psychology in which

values are epi-phenomena with a materialist sub-
structure.
(ii) The relevant explanatory constituents of the sub-
structure are physiological drives;
(iii) Freedom is compatible with sub-structure
determinism only iffreedom is construed as the absence
ofarbitrary external constraints, and where restraints are
determined to be "arbitrary" relative to the fundamental
drives.
(iv) The fundamental drives alleged to exist in the sub-
structure are neither culture specific nor conscious level
specific but physiological (e.g., seeking pleasure), and
therefore more universal.
(v) The fundamental drives also seek some kind of
homeostasis or maximization that permits negotiation or
overruling specific rules (utilitarianism).
(vi) The foregoing conception offreedom leads to a
political conception of ethics based on external social
sanctions instead of morality (which involves the inner
sanction ofautonomous agents).
(vii) This substructure allows for a social technology in
which cognition can control volition because this sub-
structure is not dependent upon a perspective; it is a
structure that reveals our basic and universal drives so
that we respond automatically (causally) to any
information about this structure.
(viii) Ifwe add a cultural (i.e., social and historical)
dimension to our understanding of this sub-structure (i.e.,
a social epistemology) we arrive at Hegelian versions of
analytic philosophical ethics.
(ix) This is the science of ethics for which analytic
philosophers seek, i.e., this is the level at which we shall
find explanations that exhibit realism, causality, and
empirical verifiability but not deductivity.
(c) Knowledge of this sub-structure is what permits social and
political planning.
(i) Liberalism, socialism, and Marxism all subscribe to
the two-tier view of human psychology in which values
are epi-phenomena with a materialist substructure that is
transcultural, timeless, and allows for a social
engineering that renders human beings compatible and
cooperative (homeostasis).
(ii) This substructure can be appealed to in order to correct
surface disagreements and overcome relativism.
(iii) In the case of liberalism the upper level consists of
 Introduction 15

rights (e.g., life, liberty, property, etc.) that are not

directly equatable with or deducible from a specific
account of the good life.
(iv) If we supplement the cultural account with some
notion of homeostasis, the Hegelian versions become
compatible with socialism and Marxism on the political
level.
16 Introduction

NOTES (INTRODUCTION)

1. " ... as Danto and Putnam contend, [analytic philosophy is] the dominant
philosophy in capitalist countries today" Rajchman and West (1985), p. x.

2. Searle (1996), pp. 1-2.

3. For a small sampling of this literature see Barrett (1978); Dummett (1978);
Rorty (1979); Kekes (1980); Rosen (1980); Hubner (1983); Rajchman and
West (1985); Cohen and Dascal (1986); Hao Wang (1986); Perry (1986);
Sacks (1989); Bell and Cooper (1990); Baynes, Bonham, and McCarthy
(1991); Charlton (1991); Von Wright (1993); Borradori (1994); Scruton
(1995); and Hacker (1996).

4. Bell and Cooper (1990), p. vi.

5. Fleck (1981).

6. Von Wright (1971), pp. 9-10: "It would be quite wrong to label analytical
philosophy as a whole a brand of positivism. But it is true to say that the
contributions of analytical philosophy to methodology and philosophy of
science have, until recently, been predominantly in the spirit of positivism
. . .. It also largely shares with nineteenth-century positivism an implicit
trust in progress through the advancement of science and the cultivation of
a rationalist 'social-engineering' attitude to human affairs."
 CHAPTERl

The Enlightenment Project

The Enlightenment and the Enlightenment Project

'Enlightenment' is a term used broadly by historians of ideas to refer to the
intellectual and social ferment in Western Europe during the eighteenth century.
This ferment was different in England from what it was in France, Germany, or Italy.
One would therefore have to distinguish further among the British Enlightenment,
the Scottish Enlightenment, the French Enlightenment, the German Enlightenment,
etc. In addition, depending upon what features one emphasizes, some concepts
which are included in one definition of the Enlightenment might be excluded in
another. Figures who would be major representatives of the Enlightenment under
one construal would also emerge as critics of the Enlightenment under another
definition. 1
Our intention is not to generalize about this entire period but to identify a
specific, salient project that we shall call the Enlightenment Project. 2 What do we
mean by the Enlightenment Project? The Enlightenment Project is the attempt to
define and explain the human predicament through science as well as to achieve
mastery over it through the use of a social technology. 3 This project originated in
France in the eighteenth century with the philosophes. The most influential among
them were Diderot, d' Alembert, La Mettrie, Condillac, Helvetius, d'Holbach, Turgot,
Condorcet, Caban is, and Voltaire.
Isaiah Berlin characterizes the Project as follows:

... there were certain beliefs that were more or less common to
the entire party of progress and civilization, and this is what makes
it proper to speak of it as a single movement. These were, in
effect, the conviction that the world, or nature, was a single whole,
subject to a single set of laws, in principle discoverable by the
intelligence of man; that the laws which governed inanimate
nature were in principle the same as those which governed plants,
animals and sentient beings; that man was capable of
improvement; that there existed certain objectively recognizable
human goals which all men, rightly so described, sought after,
namely, happiness, knowledge, justice, liberty, and what was
somewhat vaguely described but well understood as virtue; that
these goals were common to all men as such, were not
unattainable, nor incompatible, and that human misery, vice and
folly were mainly due to ignorance either of what these goals
consisted in or of the means of attaining them-ignorance due in
turn to insufficient knowledge of the laws of nature. . .
Consequently, the discovery of general laws that governed human
behaviour, their clear and logical integration into scientific
systems-of psychology, sociology, economics, political science
and the like (though they did not use these names) - and the
determination of their proper place in the great corpus of
18 Chapter I

knowledge that covered all discoverable facts, would, by replacing

the chaotic amalgam of guesswork, tradition, superstition,
prejudice, dogma, fantasy and 'interested error' that hitherto did
service as human knowledge and human wisdom (and ofwhich by
far the chief protector and instigator was the Church), create a
new, sane, rational, happy, just and self-perpetuating human
society, which, having arrived at the peak of attainable perfection,
would preserve itself against all hostile influences, save perhaps
those of nature. 4

The intellectual origins of the Project are identified by Randall as follows:

Voltaire and his successors took over and used four main bodies
of English ideas. First, there was Newtonian science, which was
developed in France into a thoroughgoing materialism. Secondly,
there was natural religion, or Deism, which the French pushed to
atheism. Thirdly, there was Locke and British empiricism, which
became theoretically a thoroughgoing sensationalism, and
practically the omnipotence of the environment. Finally, there
were British political institutions as interpreted by Locke, the
apologist for 1688, which became the basis of the political theories
of the Revolution. s

This project has three philosophical elements: metaphysical,

epistemological, and axiological.
1. Metaphysically, the philosophes who formulated the Enlightenment
Project were philosophic naturalists: they asserted both that the physical world was
the only reality and that it could be explained only by modern natural science. This
modern naturalism was self-consciously traced backed to its Aristotelian roots as
understood by those influenced by the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. As Condillac put it, "immediately after Aristotle comes
Locke; for it is not necessary to count the other philosophers who have written on the
same subject."6 The use of a scholastic Aristotelian conceptual apparatus turned in
a materialist direction is especially prominent in La Mettrie' s Histoire de I 'ame.? La
Mettrie's L 'Homme machine (1747) specifically aimed to reduce mental processes
to their physiological causes. Atheism is openly declared by La Mettrie:

The universe will never be happy, unless it is atheistic. .. If

atheism were generally accepted, all the forms of religion would
then be destroyed and cut off at the roots. .. Deaf to all other
voices, tranquil mortals would follow only the spontaneous
dictates of their own being, the only commands which can never
be despised with impunity and which alone can lead us to
happiness. .. Let us then conclude boldly that man is a machine,
and that in the whole universe there is but a single substance
differently modified. s
 The Enlightenment Project 19

2. Its epistemology is Aristotle's epistemology without a soul or an active

intellect. The product of this is empiricism. Following Locke, Condillac was led to
engage in analysis, the breaking down of the contents of the human mind into
elementary units and then reconstituting or ordering those units into a whole. The
whole was to be understood in terms of its constituent and separable parts. Departing
from Locke, Condillac suggested that sensory impressions could give rise to all of
our mental operations without reference to a self or active intellect. Condillac,
further, identified the relationship between the parts as analogous to mathematical
identities. He contemplated that a purified language would emerge from this
construction. Finally, it was Condillac who lauded the method of analysis: "Analysis
is the only method for acquiring knowledge."9
Cabanis summarizes the connection between the metaphysics and the
epistemology as follows:

Therefore, the physical and the moral are one at their source; or,
better, the moral is only the physical considered under certain
more particular points of view. . .. We are doubtless not still
required to prove that physical sensibility is the source of all the
ideas and of all the habits which constitute the moral existence of
man: Locke, Bonnet, Condillac, Helvetius have carried this truth
to the last degree of demonstration. 10

3. Its axiology can be characterized as the transformation of

Aristotelian/Thomistic natural law into natural right, without God. Morality,
according to Condillac, arises as a refinement of volitional operations which
originate from a combination of both internal and external physical stimuli without
the interposition of an agent. Earlier, La Mettrie, in L 'Homme machine, denied free
will in favor of determinism, but he also asserted that human materialism gave rise,
in a manner never explained, to an internal teleology characterized by a hierarchy of
values. This internal teleology could be perfected by a kind of medical technology.
In his Discours sur Ie bonheur (1750), La Mettrie described the highest good as the
maximization of the pleasurable well-being of the human machine. In his 1776
publication, Le Commerce et Ie gouvernment consideres relativement I 'un a I 'autre,
Condillac argued against mercantilism, in favor of free trade, and maintained that
reason would discover social laws endorsing private property.
It is generally agreed that it is during the Enlightenment that a commitment
to scientism ll first crystallizes into a dogmatic program. Proponents ofthis program,
like d' Alembert among others, point back to the inspiration of Bacon, Descartes, and
Hobbes. It is, therefore, tempting to suggest that the program was already covertly
present in earlier thinkers. Let me indicate to what extent this suggestion should be
qualified.
First, one must not confuse science with scientism. Proponents of the
project went far beyond enthusiastically endorsing the importance of science for
helping us to understand the world and advocating the practical importance of a
scientifically based technology. They went further by asserting the intellectual
autonomy of science, the belief that science can explain everything including its own
20 Chapter J

status. Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, and others had defended the importance of
science, but none of them advocated scientism, or the intellectual autonomy of
science. On the contrary, there is an explicit rejection in each of scientism and the
embrace of some form of theism.
It has also been suggested that protestations of faith on the part of
individuals like Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, and others is disingenuous and a
reflection of the prudential regard for survival. This is a plausible point to argue in
some cases, and certainly atheism, materialism, and free-thinking were widespread
long before the Enlightenment. But there are reasons why we should resist this line
of thought. One is the long-standing tradition of those who deny naturalism, i.e.,
who deny that the world is self-explanatory. The other is that many modem thinkers
maintained that the usefulness of science presupposed a set of values that logically
required human beings as masters of nature to be in some respects different from
nature. This is what prompted Descartes' dualism. Even in Bacon, mastery is
understood as a defensive mastery of nature, a mastery over fortune and not an
offensive mastery over the world with a specific program of social technology.
Two centuries of scientific debate had already made clear that mechanistic
science is not a self-sufficient explanation of either the world or of human nature. It
was clear both to Newton and Leibniz that the laws of nature did not explain
themselves; it was clear to Descartes that human nature could not be explained
mechanistically; it was clear both to Hume and his Scottish critics that without
appeal to either divine guarantees or to tradition and custom there was no way to
insure that the human thought process accurately modeled the world; it was clear to
Descartes, Hume, and Kant that the practice and intelligibility of science required a
background of assumptions and norms that science itself could not explain; and it
was clear to Hobbes, Locke, and Adam Smith that social, political, and economic
stability required both some version of theism and some appeal to traditional
authority. In short, it is impossible to read and understand the greatest minds even
ofthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and to take seriously the contention ofa
pure naturalism. It is precisely the power of these objections that accounts for the
intellectual appeal of Deism during the eighteenth century. Cassirer maintains that
d'Holbach and La Mettrie reflect "a retrogression into that dogmatic mode of
thinking which the leading scientific minds of the eighteenth century oppose and
endeavor to eliminate."'2 How all of this gets ignored is something we shall have to
pursue.
Second, even amongst some of the philosophes there is an explicit
awareness of the limits of science. As d' Alembert expressed it, "the supreme
Intelligence has drawn a veil before our feeble vision which we try in vain to
remove."13 It is specifically amongst a subset of the members of the philosophes that
we find the advocacy of scientism, specifically in Condillac, d'Holbach, and La
Mettrie.
The attempted delegitimation of fundamental metaphysical issues is unique
to the Enlightenment Project. It is during the Enlightenment that an "anti-
systematic" philosophy is first advocated. The "esprit de sysU:me" is specifically
attacked in d'Alembert's Preliminary Discourse and in Condillac's Treatise on
Systems. Condillac was influenced to move in this direction by his reading of
 The Enlightenment Project 21

Voltaire's Elements de la philosophie de Newton (1738) in which Condillac thought

he had found an English anti-metaphysical and experience-based way of thinking.
To be anti-system, like the later anti-metaphysical stance of the positivists, is
explicitly to refuse to deal with the philosophical issues raised by scientism. In some
cases, e.g., d' Alembert and Diderot,14 the refusal reflects genuine perplexity; in other
cases, e.g. d'Holbach and La Mettrie, this signals an attempt to discredit or
delegitimate those issues.
La Mettrie is crucial in this regard. His Histoire naturele de l'dme (1745)
was specifically directed against the metaphysical views of Descartes and Leibniz.
The explanation of the "soul" is part of the history of the body and thus a matter of
physical science, not metaphysics or theology.
In their attempt to delegitimate the fundamental philosophical issues
broached by the advocacy of scientism, defenders of the Enlightenment Project
developed an historicist posture. Whenever challenged, the first line of defense for
the mechanistic-naturalistic thesis was the claim that scientific progress would in
some unspecified manner meet these objections. In an ironic sort of way, a
providential history without God became a substitute for argument. In short, while
the philosophes drew upon their own readings of Bacon and Descartes, what is
unique and original to advocates of the Enlightenment Project is the anti-system
approach to philosophy and the historicist posture.
The importance of a progressive account of history is not to be
underestimated. It would be fair to say that Aristotelian teleology understood
organically was transformed by the philosophes into a form of historicism
understood mechanistically. Whereas teleology in an organic world is visualized as
an infinitely repeating process, progress in a mechanical world is an inexorable
movement in a straight line with a beginning, middle, and end. The transformation
in astronomy of planetary motion from a circular process to the Galilean-Newtonian
motion in a straight line controlled by gravity is the immediate physical scientific
origin of the eighteenth-century doctrine of progress in history.
One of the first theorists in the eighteenth century to suggest an historicized-
teleology was Turgot. 15 Turgot's thesis was later to be refined into attempts to
formulate laws of development. Turgot's successor among the philosophes was
Condorcet whose history of civilization in terms of scientific progress has become
the model of all subsequent history of science. The most important figures to
continue Turgot's work into the nineteenth century were Fourier, Saint-Simon, and
Comte. 16 Comte is an important figure for our story because he serves as the
connecting link to the positivists, and he was so cited in their manifesto (to be
discussed below).
It is during the Enlightenment that we see the equating of the history of
philosophy with the history of science and the rhetoric of progressive scientific
histories without any rational substantiation. It is important to recognize that this is
a story and not an argument. As Montaigne had already made clear, there is no way
of standing outside history and seeing that science is progressing. I?
This progressive historicism is a crucial part of intellectual history. While
it is certainly clear that the philosophes tookfrom Bacon and Descartes the notion
of salvation through physical technology, it was the philosophes who openly
22 Chapter I

proclaimed that physical science could define and totally explain humanity as well.
Whereas their predecessors had recognized the metaphysical and epistemological
limits of scientific explanation, the philosophes sought to overcome those limits
through the notion of the historical progress of science.
In order to give some indication of the distance between their predecessors
and the philosophes, we can identify a novel methodological pose, i.e., the belief that
one can step outside of all contexts and critically evaluate all practices by means of
a wholly dispassionate reason that is its own ground of legitimation. Ironically,
Descartes himself had wisely refrained from applying this super-rationalism to the
human and social world and had even insisted that the use of this kind of reason
presupposed the acceptance of common sense traditional moral and social practices.
But by the end ofthe eighteenth century this super-rationalism was adopted without
any restraints and applied to every facet of human endeavor. This is reflected in
Condorcet's statement that "all errors in politics and morals are based on philosophic
errors and these in tum are connected with scientific errors. There is not a religious
system nor a supernatural extravagance that is not founded on ignorance of the laws
of nature." 18
What we see in Condorcet's remark is the view that scientism entails the
existence of a special kind of social knowledge, modeled after physical science, such
that the first result of that social science will be an explanation of why individuals
oppose scientism. What we are promised is a scientific delegitimation of the
opposition to scientism. What we are not given is a logical refutation of the
arguments against scientism.
Defenders of the Enlightenment Project respond to their critics with a plea
for scientific tolerance coupled with the claim that traditional views of human nature
are idols or obstacles to accepting the new scientific view. We are told such things
as, people could not previously imagine standing at the antipodes, or we are
reminded of canonic episodes like the account of those who refused to look through
Galileo's telescope. In short, there is a story about scientific progress with a special
kind of rhetoric that is supposed to establish the legitimacy of turning subjects into
objects, and an important component of that story is a "scientific" account of why
people oppose scientism. The history of ideas comes gradually to be construed as an
historical progression in which earlier ideas are only worthwhile to the extent that
they reflect the current "mature" intellectual agenda. Condorcet's History is just
such a work. Instead of responding to the critics' arguments, proponents of the
Enlightenment program employ the rhetoric of scientific progress to delegitimate
their opposition.
What other considerations led people to take this project seriously? One
consideration is that the naturalistic-mechanistic world view allows for a social
technology that could in principle solve all human problems. 19 Mechanistic views
of human nature are attractive because they are, prima facie, compatible with the idea
that human beings are either a tabula rasa or fundamentally good. Hence, human
beings could be either caused to be good or obstacles to their natural goodness could
be removed. It was no accident that freedom in the modem world came to be
defined, negatively, in its most popular version, as the absence of external
constraints. In an analogous way, rationality could seemingly be promoted either
 The Enlightenment Project 23

mechanically or by removing "idols" such as the belief in religion, authority, custom,

or tradition. This has the added benefit of reinforcing the progressive-scientific
story by seemingly providing a naturalistic account of why it has taken so long to
arrive at the super-rationalism of the Enlightenment.
The other consideration is, that given the economic and social challenges
of the modem world, it seemed to many ofthose impatient to alter the status quo that
a wholesale rejection of authority, tradition, and the religious institutions that seemed
to support the status quo was the quickest way to achieve reform; hence, the
enthusiasm for a seemingly liberated reason. Since traditional institutions had
justified themselves on the grounds that they embody a certain wisdom about human
shortcomings, mechanistic theories about the natural goodness of human nature seem
doubly attractive to critics of the status quo.
The Enlightenment Project is the attempt to engage in social reconstruction
on the basis of a purely scientific reason. The philosophes also believed that their
theoretical position was in fact compatible with and led to then widely held
Enlightenment values. It is this attitude which explains the radical transformation of
Locke's ideas and even Rousseau's ideas in the hands of the philosophes and their
followers.
The clearest example of this is to be found in Helvetius' De I'Esprit (1758).
Starting with Locke's epistemological claim that all knowledge originates in
experience and that the human mind at birth is a tabula rasa ("blank tablet"),
Helvetius goes on to embrace an extreme form of environmental determinism. All
differences in beliefs, attitudes, values, etc. are solely the result of historical and
environmental accident. "Quintilian, Locke, and I myself say, the inequality of
minds is the effect of a known cause, and this cause is the difference of education."20
From this, it was concluded that all human beings are fundamentally identical and
therefore equal. All forms of social hierarchy, privilege and differences in power and
influence were deemed the result of historical accident and denounced as unjust. In
its place was substituted the notion that all individuals when properly educated are
equally competent judges.

If I could demonstrate that man is indeed but the product of his

education, I should undoubtedly have revealed a great truth to the
nations. They would then know that they hold within their own
hands the instrument of their greatness and their happiness, and
that to be happy and powerful is only a matter of perfecting the
science of education. 21

Participatory democracy is therefore the only form of government compatible with

the fundamental equality of human nature. This public policy implication is made
clear by David Hartley, the British representative and transmitter of the
Enlightenment Project to Bentham and James Mill:

It is of the utmost consequence to morality and religion, that the

affections should be analyzed into their simple compounding
parts, by reversing the steps of the associations which concur to
24 Chapter 1

form them. For thus we learn how to cherish and improve good
ones, check and root out such as are mischievous and immoral,
and how to suit our manner of life, in some tolerable measure, to
our intellectual and religious wants. And as this holds, in respect
of persons of all ages, so it is particularly true, and worthy of
consideration, in respect of children and youth. If beings of the
same nature, but whose affections and passions are, at present, in
different proportions to each other, be exposed for an indefinite
time to the same impressions and associations, all of their
particular differences will, at last, be overruled, and they will
become perfectly similar, or even equal. They may also be made
perfectly similar in a finite time, by a proper adjustment of the
impressions and associations. 22

The desire for reform presupposes some norms. The philosophes believed
(i.e., assumed but never proved) that their theoretical position was in fact compatible
with and led to then widely held Enlightenment values. There are two difficulties
with the practical part of the Enlightenment Project. First, it is not clear how there
can be norms at all in a world that is neither theistically, teleologically, nor
conventionally defined. Second, it is not clear by what standards progress of any
kind, either moral or scientific, is to be measured.
The critics of the Enlightenment Project have always rejected "progress"
because all suggested or imaginable standards of what constitutes 'progress' lie
outside the realm of science. The advocates of the Enlightenment Project not only
believe that such standards are available, but they also believe that knowledge of
them is itself progressive. The standards will be defined, apparently, "as we advance
towards them and the[ir] validity ... can be verified only in the process of attaining
them."23 In the end, what science declares to be "progress" will become the
definition of 'progress'. That is, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is precisely
because advocates of the Enlightenment Project did not and could not offer any
argument that we have characterized their presentation as an historicized
methodological pose.
What supporters ofthe Enlightenment Project end up doing is adopting two
complementary discourses. On the one hand, they speak from within our common
heritage by invoking intellectual and political norms as needed, and, on the other
hand, they reserve the right seemingly to step outside the common heritage into the
atmosphere of a contextless reason in order to amend or reject the common heritage
when they deem it necessary. We are told at one and the same time that science is
the whole truth about everything and that we can never be sure that we have the
whole truth. Both the speech within and the speech without are billed as provisional,
but what is not provisional is the assumption that scientific progress will show that
the two speeches are ultimately coherent and that there is some kind of historical
progression from one to the other. The historicization of the two discourses serve
jointly to deflect counter-argument, but not to answer it. There is, in short, a special
rhetoric developed to compensate for the lack of a philosophical argument.
 The Enlightenment Project 25

Crucial to the Enlightenment Project is the denial of the idea of a free and
personally responsible individual soul that emerged out of the Greco-Roman and
Judeo-Christian world view. The denial of the self serves a number of important and
interrelated purposes. Metaphysically it reinforces the claim that the world
understood in physical science terms is primary. On the contrary, the entire Western
intellectual tradition prior to the Enlightenment had made self-understanding
primary. Coincidentally it is a further attack on the theistic contention ofa unique
volitional being. Epistemologically, the denial of the self reinforces the claim that
knowledge is nothing but the grasping of an external structure. Failure to grasp the
structure cannot be attributed to any act of the will but becomes in principle
explainable in terms of further objective structures. This gives a tremendous boost
to rationalist optimism. Finally, the denial of the self serves the axiological function
of providing for an objective social technology which denies the existence of human
attitudes that cannot be externally manipulated. This is why it is so important to deny
the traditional conception of human freedom.

Critics of the Enlightenment Project: Kant and Hegel

A number of modern thinkers, in fact most of the prominent ones from Descartes to
Kant, continued to adhere to the view that although the physical world was a machine
it was nevertheless a machine created by God and that God had made the machine
for His ends. In short, the world is orderly and ultimately beneficent with regard to
human beings. Moreover, before we could transform the world we must first learn
to discipline ourselves internally. These views are an important part of the modern
scene, but these were not the views of the supporters of the Enlightenment Project.
We have identified two major philosophical innovations within the
Enlightenment Project. The first innovation is its anti-metaphysical stance. When
pressed to answer metaphysical questions about the whole, advocates of this project
resorted to the claim that metaphysical issues were at bottom epistemological issues,
i.e., issues about the acquisition of knowledge. Somehow, in the end, a knowledge
of the parts would add up to a knowledge of the whole. This reduction of
metaphysics to epistemology will only work if there is reason to believe that the
limited number of parts or epistemological items we presently possess are reliable
and are in fact progressing toward a "big picture." This leads to the recognition of
the second innovation, the attempt to buttress epistemology with an historicist
conception of progress.
In the mechanical and deterministic scientific world view, nature is bereft
of both purpose and consciousness. Yet, human beings, in both action and in
cognition, seem to possess both v)I1sciousness and purpose. The problem of
empiricism is to explain how consciousness and purpose can arise from inanimate
nature, i.e., how the "physical" can give rise to the "mental." During the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries it was assumed by many thinkers that an as yet undiscovered
physiological mechanism was responsible for the transition. Some, like Locke, who
believed in God, claimed that God could make matter think. However, the
supporters of the Enlightenment Project who denied the existence of God in the
interest of a wholly naturalistic world view, were much more heavily taxed in
explaining the transition. The modern epistemological predicament, then, is that
26 Chapter 1

although we are in one way conscious of how our minds work and of the norms
generated within the conscious mind about how the external physical world works
and is to be both understood and managed, we still do not know how the physical
world generates the conscious mind. There is, in short, no physiological account
available. As long as we do not know that we cannot be sure of either the continuity
of mind and physical world or whether the intellectual and moral norms generated
within the conscious mind accurately tell us about the physical world. This is an
especially serious problem for the Enlightenment Project because everything depends
upon an accurate view of the physical world.
Curiously, those who proposed such programs, from Locke to d'Holbach
or La Mettrie or Condillac, rarely if ever conducted experimentation. Rather, they
engaged in intellectual speculation about the possibility of such experiments. Not
only were these speculations unsuccessful as research projects but they remained
mysterious, since no one could explain even in principle what such experiments
would be like. What emerged from this was the character of the philosopher as
quasi-scientific technician, but a technician of an indeterminable kind. The
philosopher was a technician who argued for the possibility of an allegedly
'scientific' research project but did not actually carry out the project himself.
Kant, following Hume,24 pointed out that there were no guarantees possible
within the empiricist epistemology of the Enlightenment Project. There is no way
to establish that the way we think about the world is in fact the way the world is. He
went on to institute a Copernican revolution in philosophy. According to proponents
of the Copernican Revolution, knowledge and understanding do not consist of the
discovery of absolute (timeless and contextless) standards external to humanity but
involve, instead, the clarification of standards implicit within the human mind and/or
social practice. Kant postulated a separate realm of unchanging transcendental norms
in the human mind. The doctrine of synthetic a priori truths in Kant guaranteed the
absoluteness and unchangeable nature of our norms. The norms are imposed upon
experience but are neither derived from experience nor revisable in the light of
experience.
Hegel offered another response to the Enlightenment epistemological
predicament. The predicament is to explain how we can be sure that the world
corresponds to the way we think about it and that we are progressing in our
understanding. True to the spirit of the Copernican Revolution, Hegel insists that
absolute knowledge is only intelligible within the intellectual framework and history
of the subject. According to Hegel, our standards change and evolve, as anyone
familiar with intellectual history can readily attest. Hegel went one step further and
argued that there was a rationale or pattern to the changes in our norms, a progressive
pattern that mirrored the definitive truth. As Hegel tells us, the correct version of the
Copernican Revolution in philosophy is that the internal intellectual standards
progress according to a teleological pattern that terminates in direct contact with a
total and absolute truth. We can only guarantee that the world is the way we think
it is and that we are making progress if the world and our thought are somehow
identical.
Hegel maintained that there was only one way within the spirit of modernity
to defend both consistently and coherently the vision of a unity of humanity and
 The Enlight~nment Project 27

nature. In doing so, Hegel went further than anyone else in merging the object of
knowledge with the knower. Yet, there is a price to be paid, and the price is absolute
idealism. In philosophical idealism, knowledge of the subject is primary and
knowledge of the object is secondary.
As an absolute idealist, Hegel is at odds with the Enlightenment. The
Enlightenment, as a philosophical movement, stood for philosophical materialism.
That is, it took what science said about the physical world and made that knowledge
primary, while knowledge of the subject was both secondary and derivative. In
addition, the proponents ofthe Enlightenment interpreted human beings and society
in terms of individual rights, as well as maintaining that all social and political
problems could be solved through a social technology modeled after physical science
and technology. Hegel, on the contrary, had made physical science but a moment in
the progress of the Absolute. Finally, Hegel saw the concept of individual rights as
a moment in a story with a social ending.
The Copernican response to the major problems of the Enlightenment
Project can be summarized: Metaphysically it is possible to defend modem
naturalism, realism, account intelligibly for the totality, and make sense of self-
reference only if we adopt the Hegelian view that ultimate reality is a social subject
undergoing progressive historical self-articulation. Epistemologically it is possible
to defend the possibility of knowledge not as grasping an external structure but as the
subject's imposition of structure. Axiologically it is possible to defend the reality
and universality of norms but only as part of the internal structure coupled with the
contention that epistemological norms are derivative from axiological norms. In
every case the problems of the Enlightenment Project can be overcome by elevating
the subject over the object, by making metaphysics and axiology primary and
epistemology secondary.
Both Kant and Hegel subscribed to some of the liberating social and
political aspirations of the Enlightenment, but only by transforming their context to
a kind of idealism -- transcendental or absolute -- and thus refusing any redirection
to mere technology.

Russell and the Origins of Analytic Philosophy

The foremost defender of Hegel's philosophy in Great Britain during the latter half
of the nineteenth century was F.H. Bradley. Bradley argued that, strictly speaking,
there are no discreet individual truths. Everything is related to everything else so that
there is only one all-encompassing truth. This notion of an all-encompassing truth
was referred to as holism. Further, Bradley contended that when we try to
understand a statement in which it is asserted that something has a particular quality
we invariably relate that quality to others, and these qualities are in tum related to
others, etc. The original something disappears as a distinct object. As Bradley put
it, everything is internally related: what is essential to each thing is its web of
relations to other things so that no one thing can be understood apart from the wider
web. Anyone piece of knowledge leads to all of the others by a chain of deduction.
Thus, only the whole is real or capable of being true. This is a version of the
coherence theory of truth. Any attempt to arrive at isolatable individual truths, that
is to analyze, is to falsify. Analysis involves inherent falsification and distortion. In
28 Chapter I

his characteristic way, Bradley had articulated this metaphysical view in Appearance
and Reality, but he had arrived at this view through logical arguments in his
Principles ~f Logic. The logical doctrine had been expressed by saying that "words
only have meaning in the context of a proposition."25
Analytic philosophy is the contemporary voice of the Enlightenment's
answer to Hegel in particular and the Copernican Revolution in general. 26 Analytic
philosophy's inaugural spokesman was Bertrand Russell, and it was Russel/'s
answer to Bradley, specifical/y Russell's defense ofanalysis, that gave the movement
its name.

The logic which I shall advocate is atomistic as opposed to the

monistic logic of the people who more or less follow Hegel.
When I say that my logic is atomistic I mean that I share the
common sense belief that there are many separate things; I do not
regard the apparent multiplicity of the world as consisting merely
in phases and unreal diversions in a single indivisible reality. It
results from that, that a considerable part of what one would have
to do to justify the sort of philosophy I wish to advocate would
consist in justifying the process of analysis. One is often told that
the process of analysis is falsification, that when you analyze any
given concrete whole you falsify it and the results of analysis are
not true. I do not think that is the right viewY

Bertrand Russell is the key defining figure of analytic philosophy.28

Russell's career was long, colorful, and marked by controversy, but he was always
a great publicist of his views even as his views were shifting. Russell did not start
out as an analytic philosopher, but once he became the spokesman for analysis the
shifts in his views reflected the various stages of awareness of the problems inherent
in analytic philosophy.
Earlier, Russell had himself subscribed to the Hegelian view. What had
made him change his mind? The change of mind can be explained at two levels. 29
Russell's own deepest commitments, to say nothing of his talents, were to the success
of physical science, mathematics, and the cause of individual rights. He was a true
grandchild of the Enlightenment. At another level, Russell believed that the older
empiricism of Locke could be refurbished and its difficulties would be resolved if it
were given a new logic. Russell's own great intellectual creation, done jointly with
Alfred North Whitehead Principia Mathematica (1910-1913), provided, or so he
thought, that new logic.
From the point of view of the Copernican Revolution, analytic philosophy
is a reactionary movement, a return to an earlier philosophical outlook refurbished
with new techniques and new arguments. From a cultural point of view, analytic
philosophy is a defense of the Enlightenment presuppositions of our own scientific
and technological culture.
Analytic philosophers were from the beginning conscious of their
opposition to the Copernican alternative. Since analytic philosophers have not
generally recognized Hume's role in the Copernican Revolution,30 they have directed
 The Enlightenment Project 29

their attention to criticizing Kant31 and Hegel,32 Moritz Schlick once epitomized
positivism as the rejection of the view that there are synthetic a priori truths.
Synthetic a priori truths, for Kant, epitomize the irreducible agency of the mind or
self as it expands its knowledge.
During the writing of Principia Mathematica, Russell started to become
self-conscious of what later was to become the analytic program. In 1911, after
working on Principia Mathematica, Russell wrote a popular work entitled The
Problems ofPhilosophy. It was during the composition of this latter project that his
idea of a grand program began to take shape. "Doing this book has given me a map
of the theory of knowledge which I hadn't before.'m By now, Russell was openly
committed to the belief that facts are independent of anyone's awareness of them, to
the belief that anyone statement could be known to be true independent of our
knowledge of any other statement, and to the practice of analysis which presumes
that parts can be known independent of the totality. In 1914, Russell published Our
Knowledge of the External World, the first clear articulation of the analytic
program. 34 The program was that of using logic to reach empirical knowledge
through sense-data. 35
Earlier, Russell had believed that every meaningful unit of language (or
thought) must have an external empirical referent. Gradually, he came to recognize
exceptions, specifically mathematical and logical concepts. The logicist program
(begun in the Principia Mathematica) of reducing mathematics to logic was now
understood to be a step in handling the exceptions. In 1911 Russell met Ludwig
Wittgenstein, and on January 26, 1912, Wittgenstein suggested to Russell a definition
of logical form which aided Russell in solidifying his program. All knowledge was
now viewed by Russell as empirical knowledge, and the connections between the
supposedly isolatable pieces of empirical knowledge were viewed as a kind of formal
grammar codified in the logic of Principia Mathematica. The formal logic is the
"glue" because it is the abstract skeleton of mathematics, which, in tum, is the
language of science. Science, of course, is presumed to reveal the truth about reality.
In the 1920s, Russell worked on reducing physical concepts which referred
to unperceived entities to something perceivable. He even went so far as to deny that
there was a subject of awareness, what we have called the agent-self, by claiming to
reduce mental terminology to behavioristic terms. He ran into difficulty with contrary
to fact conditionals. He also ran into problems with intentional statements. The
further Russell pursued these difficulties, the more he began to replay the difficulties
of Locke's empiricism. Were sense-data, or Russell's alleged atomic units of
experience, sources of knowledge about reality or were they the objects of
knowledge, the reality itself? Henceforth, Russell was to be known as the father of
analytic philosophy and the formulator of problems to be worked out by the next
generation, that is Carnap and the Vienna circle. In 1945, in his History of Western
Philosophy, Russell wrote a concluding chapter entitled "The Philosophy of Logical
Analysis" in which he proudly proclaimed that it was "a philosophical school of
which I am a member."36
30 Chapter 1

Positivism: 37 How The Enlightenment Project Became Part of The Analytic

Conversation
The second important figure in the history of analytic philosophy was Rudolf
Carnap. The connection between Camap and Russell is recorded in Carnap's
intellectual autobiography: "Whereas Frege had the strongest influence on me in the
fields oflogic and semantics, in my philosophical thinking in general I learned most
from Bertrand Russell."38 Carnap specifically singles out Russell's Our Knowledge
ofthe External World, and Carnap quotes with approval the following statement by
Russell:

The study of logic becomes the central study in philosophy: it

gives the method of research in philosophy just as mathematics
gives the method in physics .... [we seek the] creation of a school
of men with scientific training... unhampered by the traditions of
the past, and not misled by the literary methods of those who copy
the ancients in all except their merits.

When Camap first read these words of Russell's in 1921, he said that, "I felt as ifthis
appeal had been directed to me personally."39
Carnap was the most prominent member of the "Vienna Circle". The
Vienna Circle was founded as a discussion group in 1922, when Moritz Schlick
arrived in Vienna to hold the Chair of the History and Philosophy of the Inductive
Sciences, a chair originally created for Ernst Mach in 1895. The membership grew
to include Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, Victor Kraft, Philipp Frank, Herbert Feigl,
Gustav Bergmann, Friedrich Waismann, and in 1926 Rudolf Carnap. Earlier in
1923, Camap had met Hans Reichenbach at a conference in Germany, a conference
Carnap regarded as "the initial step in the movement for a scientific philosophy in
Germany." Reichenbach was to remain a while in Berlin to form a similar group
which included Carl Hempel. Another like-minded group in Poland formed around
Lukasiewicz, Tarski, Kotarbinski, Lesniewski, and Ajdukiewicz. The Vienna Circle
became the object of pilgrimages by philosophers from Britain, such as AJ. Ayer,
and philosophers from the United States, such as Ernest Nagel and W.V.O. Quine.
The rise of National Socialism in Germany during the mid 1930s put an end to the
Circle. Carnap, Reichenbach, Feigl, Hempel, Bergmann, and Tarski subsequently
emigrated to the United States. Together with Nagel and Quine, they provided the
nucleus which gradually gained a hegemony over the major graduate philosophy
programs in the United States by the early 1960s.
In 1929, the Vienna Circle sponsored the publication of a manifesto in the
form of a pamphlet that spelled out their doctrinal beliefs. Not surprisingly, the
pamphlet emphasized scientism, modem naturalism, and an anti-agency view of the
self. The pamphlet, entitled "Wissenschaftliche Weltanffassung der Wiener Kreis,"
was written by Neurath, but signed by Hahn and Camap as well as Neurath. Of
special interest in the pamphlet is an appendix where the Circle defines itself by
specific membership and the enumeration of others who are considered as sharing
the same spirit. Kurt Godel is listed as a member, but GOdellater dissociated himself
from the movement. 40 Ludwig Wittgenstein: 1 along with Albert Einstein and
 The Enlightenment Project 31

Bertrand Russell, are listed as "leading representatives of the scientific world

conception." The pamphlet goes on to single out as its precursors: (1) empiricists
such as Hume, Comte, Mill, and Mach; (2) philosophers of science such as Poincare
and Duhem; (3) logicians such as Frege, Peano, Russell and Whitehead of course,
and Hilbert; (4) "sociologists" such as Bentham, Mill again, Comte again, Spencer,
Feuerbach and Marx. As Carnap put it, the three main programmatic features of the
Vienna Circle were a denial of supernaturalism, a belief in scientific progress, and
the expectation that technology was the key to solving social problems. The
Enlightenment roots are clearly evident and self-proclaimed.
Carnap emerged as the undisputed intellectual light of the Circle. In 1927
he published Der Logische Aujbau der Welt. In this book, Carnap attempted to
reconstruct the whole of science using only a phenomenalistic language and the
logical notation of the Principia Mathematica. That is, Carnap attempted to develop
the program originally suggested by Russell in a much more rigorous fashion and
aided by an idiosyncratic reading ofWittgenstein's Tractatus. No sooner had Carnap
published the Aujbau than difficulties were discovered, not unlike the difficulties
Russell had discovered, and not unlike the difficulties seen as far back as Locke. 42
Epistemological phenomenalism did not work and was soon replaced by
physicalism. 43
Analytic philosophy is the heir of the Enlightenment Project. 44 The Vienna
circle consciously conceived of itself as the heir.

. . . when Philipp Frank summarised [sic] the main achievements

of Mach's philosophy in an article published in 1917, he first
pointed to the idea of the unity ofscience . ... [And] he praised
Mach for being the philosopher who preserved the heritage of the
Enlightenment for our time. 45

As Neurath expressed it,46 The International Encyclopedia of Unified

Science is the direct counterpart to the Encyclopedie begun under the direction of
Diderot in the eighteenth century and inspired by the philosophes who were its major
contributors. In his introductory article in the Encyclopedia, Neurath presents an
historical account of western thought and the role of positivism within it. Neurath
specifically invoked the critique of systems found in d'Alembert and in Condillac's
Traite des systemes. 47
Rudolf Carnap was a pivotal figure in the development of analytic
philosophy throughout the twentieth century.48 It will be useful to cite him here as
an example of someone who subscribed in a holistic and unambiguous fashion to
each and every feature of the Enlightenment Project.
First, we have Carnap's critique ofreligion: 49 "During my pre-university
years, I had gradually begun to doubt ... religious doctrines about the world, man,
and God. . .. I recognized that these doctrines, if interpreted literally, were
incompatible with the results of modem science, especially with the theory of
evolution in biology and determinism in physics."sO
Second, we find his endorsement of scientism: "Since science in principle
can say all that can be said, there is no unanswerable question left."sl
32 Chapter J

Third, Carnap proclaims the unity ofscience, understood as the reduction

of subjects to objects: "[T]he unity of science ... thesis must be understood primarily
as a rejection ofthe ... view ... that there is a fundamental difference between the
natural sciences and the Geisteswissenschaften [social sciences] .... "52
Fourth, is his endorsement of the Enlightenment Project: "I was in
sympathy with ... [the] humanist aim of improving the life of mankind by rational
means."53 Part of that project, in Carnap's mind, was the creation of a special
language, Esperanto, which he viewed favorably as the fruit of "Western culture,
more specifically, its modem science and technology .... "54
Fifth, we discover Carnap's persistent refusal to deal with the metaphysical
issue ofthe totality: "I came in my philosophical development first to the insight that
the main statements of traditional metaphysics are outside the realm of science and
irrelevant for scientific knowledge ... the same holds for most of the statements of
contemporary Christian theology."55
Sixth, instead of engaging the philosophical arguments against scientism,
we find a seemingly scientific hypothesis about why others are against scientism:
"[T]he belief in one or several gods and in immortality was very widespread in all
known cultures. This, however, was not a philosophical problem but a historical and
psychological one. 1 gradually found an answer based on anthropological results ..
. [and] later ... through the results of Freud's investigations and in particular his
discovery of the origin of the conception of God as a substitute for the father. "56
Seventh, we find the desire to be a scientific technician but of an
indeterminate formal sort: "I ... saw clearly that 1 did not wish to do experimental
work in physics, because my inclination and abilities were purely theoretical."57 "I
often thought of becoming a linguist. However, 1 was more inclined toward
theoretical construction and systematization than toward description of facts.
Therefore 1had more interest in those problems oflanguage which involved planning
and construction."58
Eighth, there is the exhibition of the two-levels of discourse: "All of us in
the [Vienna] Circle were strongly interested in social and political progress. Most
of us ... were socialists. But we liked to keep our philosophical work separated
from our political aims."59
Ninth, despite the disclaimers just mentioned, there is the embrace of a
progressive historicism: "[There is a] connection between our philosophical activity
and the great historical processes going on in the world: Philosophy leads to an
improvement in scientific ways of thinking and thereby to a better understanding of
all that is going on in the world, both in nature and in society; this understanding
serves in tum to improve human Iife."60
Finally, we see in Camap the endorsement of a specific political agenda of
a social technological sort not based on any actual social scientific study. This is
seen in Carnap's "conviction that the great problems of the organization of economy
and the organization of the world at the present time, in the era of industrialization,
cannot possibly be solved by the 'interplay of forces' , but require rational planning.
For the organization of economy this means socialism in some form; for the
organization of the world it means a gradual development towards a world
government."61
 The Enlightenment Project 33

Summary
Analytic philosophy cannot be understood simply as a method or style or as a self-
contained conversation in which later philosophers address issues raised by earlier
philosophers. On the contrary, analytic philosophy began as a programmatic
movement with substantive beliefs and a larger social and political agenda. The
later evolution of the program cannot be understood except against the backdrop of
those substantive beliefs. The most important of those beliefs is that modem physical
science could be used to de legitimate most of the previous western philosophical
tradition, that any serious objections to the Enlightenment Project could be safely
ignored, and that somehow the program would take care of itself.
34 Chapter 1

NOTES (CHAPTER 1)

1. "The Enlightenment. . . was the work of three overlapping, closely

associated generations. The first of these, dominated by Montesquieu and
the long-lived Voltaire ... grew up while the writings of Locke and Newton
were still fresh and controversial, and did most of its great work before
1750. The second generation reached maturity in mid-century: Frank-
lin ... Buffon ... Hume ... Rousseau ... Diderot. .. Condillac ... Helvetius
. . . d' Alembert. . . It was these writers who fused the fashionable
anticlericalism and scientific speculations of the first generation into a
coherent modern view of the world. The third generation, the generation
of Holbach and Beccaria, of Lessing and Jefferson, of Wieland, Kant and
Turgot. ... moved into scientific mythology and materialist metaphysics,
political economy, legal reform, and practical politics... In the first half of
the century, the leading philosophes had been deists and had used the
vocabulary of natural law; in the second half, the leaders were atheists and
used the vocabulary of utility" Peter Gay (1966), pp. 17-18.

2. Alasdair MacIntyre, in his enormously important and influential book After

Virtue (1981), identifies the 'Enlightenment Project' as the "project of an
independent rational justification of morality" (p. 38). While we use the
same expression as MacIntyre, namely 'Enlightenment Project', and while
we agree that part of that project was to establish the authority of Judeo-
Christian morality by reason alone, that is to secularize morality, we
propose to give a more systematic account of tflat project. We further
suggest that the attempt to secularize morality antedates the Enlightenment;
finally we would disagree with MacIntyre's analysis of specific figures such
as Hume and Kant. MacIntyre's own agenda to defend an Aristotelianized
version of Christianity obscures important differences between the
philosophes and their critics. Nevertheless, what is important here is our
agreement with MacIntyre's recognition that contemporary moral
discussion is rooted in something we can all identify as the 'Enlightenment
Project'. See also Bloom (1987), pp. 243-312; Adorno and Horkheimer
(1990); McCarthy (1998).

3. See Becker (1962), Chapter Four, for an exposition of the position that the
dream of a technological utopia is the common inheritance of liberals,
socialists, and Marxists.

4. Berlin (1993), pp. 27-28.

 The Enlightenment Project 35

5. Randall (1962), p. 862.

6. Condillac (1921), p. 32.

7. The purely naturalistic reading of Aristotle was a problem even within

medieval Christendom. Averroes of C6rdoba (died 1198), for example, an
Arab commentator on Aristotle, exercised enormous influence on the early
introduction and understanding of Aristotle in the West. Averroes
maintained that (I) God is so self-contained that individual human actions
are not guided by divine providence, (2) the material world is eternal and
not created, (3) the material world is further governed by an internal
necessity under the influence of celestial bodies, (4) there was no first
human being, (5) the individual soul dies with the body, and (6) the human
will acts within material necessity.

8. La Mettrie (1960), pp. 175-76.

9. Condillac (1798), p. 17.

10. Cabanis (1805), pp. 39, 85.

11. For a fascinating account of scientism, its rise during the enlightenment, its
influence upon analytic philosophy, and its larger cultural influence see
Sorell (1991).

12. Cassirer (1955), p. 55.

13. D' Alembert, Melanges de Philosophie, (1759) vol. iv, pp. 63-64.

14. See Diderot's novel Jack the Fatalist.

15. Turgot published two essays, in 1750, dealing with his philosophy of
history: "Philosophic Panorama of the Progress of the Human Mind," and
his "Plan of Two Discourses on Universal history". See also Buffon,
Histoire naturelle XIII, Paris, 1765; Yves Goguet, De I'Origine des loix,
des arts, et des sciences, 1758.

16. For an insightful discussion of the relevance of Comte see Scharff (1995).
Scharff maintains that Comte was not a narrow positivist and that he is
closer, in his view ofthe relation between philosophy and history, to Rorty,
Charles Taylor, and Putnam.

17. The full skeptical challenge to the idea of scientific progress is to be found
in Montaigne's Apology of Raimond Sebond. For the importance of
Montaigne's influence in subsequent discussion see Popkin (1964).
36 Chapter 1

18. Condorcet (1955), p. 163 (The Ninth Stage: From Descartes to the
foundation of the French Republic).

19. "But with these well known conclusions of the materialistic system, we only
have so far its outside, not its real conceptual core. For, paradoxical as it
may appear at first glance, this core is not to be found in natural philosophy,
but in ethics" Cassirer (1955), p. 69.

20. Helvetius (1774), De ['homme, vol. III, sec. II, ch. I, pp. 113-14. Compare
to Rawls (1971), p. 74: "Even the willingness to make an effort, to try, and
so to be deserving in the ordinary sense is itself dependent upon happy
family and social circumstances."

21. Helvetius (1774), De l'homme, vol. III, ch. 2, p. 4.

22. Hartley (1791), I, ch. I, sec. ii, proposition XIV, corollaries 5 and 6, pp. 81-
82.

23. E.H. Carr, What is History (London, 1961), quoted by Morris Ginsburg
(1973), p.637. See also the previous article by E.R. Dodds, "Progress in
Classical Antiquity." The classic works on progress are Bury, (1932) and
Baillie (1950).

24. "Both Kant's and Hume's views share the characteristic aspect of our own
position in having the consequence that laws, even natural laws, are in some
measure made by man rather than being altogether products of his
discovery" Rescher (1973b), pp. 62-63.

25. See Manser (1983), p. 131, and chapter vii.

26. Hylton (1993).

27. Russell (1961), pp. 298-299.

28. Hacker (1996) offers a useful distinction between the version of analysis
that derives from Russell and the version that derives from Moore. "One
(Russellian) root ofthis new school might be denominated 'Iogico-analytic
philosophy', inasmuch as its central tenet was that the new logic, introduced
by Frege, Russell and Whitehead, provided an instrument for the logical
analysis of objective phenomena. The other (Moorean) root might be
termed 'conceptual analysis', inasmuch as it was concerned with the
analysis of objective (mind-independent) concepts rather than 'ideas' or
'impressions' . From these origins. . . other varieties grew. Russell's
Platonist pluralism, considerably influenced by the pre-war impact of the
young Witlgenstein, evolved into logical atomism. Fertilized by the
Tractatus linguistic tum in philosophy, and greatly influenced by the
 The Enlightenment Project 37

contemporary writings and teaching of Moore and Russell, Cambridge

analysis on the inter-war years emerged. At much the same time, the
Tractatus was a primary source of the different school of logical positivism,
which arose in Vienna, was further fertilized by contact with Wittgenstein
between 1927 and 1936, and spread to Germany, Poland, Scandinavia,
Britain and the United States. In both these phases of the analytic
movement, philosophers, in rather different ways, practised and developed
forms of reductive and (its mirror image) constructive analysis. Under the
influence of Wittgenstein in Cambridge (and later, of his posthumous
publications), analytic philosophy became more syncretic, and entered yet
another phase. Reductive and constructive analysis were repudiated.
Connective analysis ... exemplified in various forms in Oxford after the
Second World War, emerged, and, with it, therapeutic analysis" (p. 4).

29. It would be a mistake to lump Russell and Moore together here

indiscriminately. Russell credits Moore with having shown the way. "It
was towards the end of 1898 that Moore and I rebelled against both Kant
and Hegel. Moore led the way, but I followed closely in his footsteps"
Russell (1959a), p. 54. More precisely, Russell (1967-69) credits
"conversation" with Moore rather than a specific argument in Moore: " ..
. it was largely his conversation that led me to abandon both Kant and
Hegel" ( p. 78). Moore's article, "A Refutation ofIdealism" appeared in
Mindin 1903, and the article says nothing about wholes and parts. Rather,
the article defines "idealism" as the thesis that everything is spiritual. It
deals with the epistemological issue of distinguishing within perception
between an act and an object. In an earlier essay in Mind in 1899, Moore
had criticized Russell's 1897 Essay on the Foundations o/Geometry as
being too psycho logistic in appealing to a subject or mind.
The specific philosophical roots of Russell's rejection of idealism
are attributed by Russell himself to (1) the claim that the discussion of
mathematics in Hegel's Logic was nonsense and to (2) the claim that when
he, Russell, lectured on Leibniz, he was able to see the fallacy of Bradley's
arguments against the reality of relations.
Moore's rejection of Hegel is a rejection of what Moore considered
Hegel's subjectivism and holism. Moore offered in their place a position
that can be described as realism and atomism. This raises the question,
"Did Moore offer any arguments for realism and atomism?" The answer is
that he did not. As Baldwin (1984), p. 366, has put it, "I think it was
because Moore accepted, almost without thinking about it, the natural
assumption that one should explain wholes by their parts ... that he rejected
the conception of an organic whole as incoherent."
What this amounts to saying is that Moore and Russell had an
implicit commitment to the old, pre-Copernican Revolution empiricism.
However, it was only with the development of the new logic that the
implicit commitment, in Russell's case, became the basis for a principled
objection and a new movement in philosophy. Finally, a crucial difference
38 Chapter J

for the subsequent development of the Enlightenment Project in analytic

philosophy was Russell's commitment to scientism, something Moore did
not share. See Eames (1989), pp. 56, 58-9.

30. Capaldi (1992).

31. According to Russell (190011937b),p. 14, " 'Kant's Copernican Revolution'

[is the position] that propositions may acquire truth by being believed
.... " In his unpublished dissertation of 1898, entitled "Metaphysical Basis
of Ethics", Moore maintained that Kant's account of the a priori was
excessively psychological. In Principia Ethica (1903), p. 133, Moore
criticized the Copernican position: "That 'to be true' means to be thought
in a certain way is, therefore, certainly false. Yet this assertion plays the
most essential part in Kant's 'Copernican Revolution' of philosophy, and
renders worthless the whole mass of modern literature, to which that
revolution has given rise, and which is called Epistemology."

32. See Popper (1950). If one accepted a holistic approach, as Hegelians insist,
not only would analysis be wrong but we would not be able to formulate a
theory of meaning: "The acceptance of holism should lead to the
conclusion that any systematic theory of meaning is impossible," or so says
Dummett (1975), p. 121. As Putnam has moved closer to a Hegelian
position he has begun to wonder if we need a theory of meaning.

33. Clark (1975), p. 153.

34. Another good source for Russell's views of his new program are the essays
published in 1918 under the title Mysticism and Logic. Hylton (1990) dates
the beginning of analytic philosophy in 1912 with the formulation oflogical
constructionism.

35. See Hacker (l996), pp. 14-15.

36. Russell (1945), p. 836.

37. Positivism is the view that all legitimate knowledge is based upon sense
experience and that speculative metaphysical claims are therefore
illegitimate. The term 'positivism' was first used to describe the doctrines
of Auguste Comte (1798-1857). Positivism is the nineteenth-century
expression of the Enlightenment Project. The expression 'logical
positivism' is sometimes used (e.g., by Feigl) to denote the philosophy of
the Vienna Circle because logical statements that are not based upon
experience were also recognized as legitimate knowledge. 'Analytic
philosophy' encompasses positivism but is a much broader expression that
covers many who reject positivism. By encompassing positivism, however,
analytic philosophy encompasses the Enlightenment Project. What we
 The Enlightenment Project 39

identify as the' analytic conversation' is by and large a conversation among

positivists, sympathetic and constructive critics of positivism, those who
reformulate a more chastened positivism in the light of the criticisms, and
those who have worked through positivism to the point of abandoning it.

38. Carnap (1963), p.13.

39. Ibid.

40. Philosophically, G6del has always been a Platonist and not an Aristotelian.

41. Ludwig Wittgenstein is the major anti-analytic philosopher in the twentieth-

century. Carnap was always aware of this and proceeded to isolate
Wittgenstein from other members of the circle. Polish analytical
philosophers always saw Wittgenstein as anti-analytic. See Skolimowski
(1967), pp. 247-48. As we shall see, it is important to distinguish between
the Wittgenstein who wrote the Tractatus and the later Wittgenstein. But
even with regard to the early Wittgenstein the case has been made that he
was not an analytic philosopher. See Janik and Toulmin (1973) and
McDonough (1986). We shall be discussing Wittgenstein at length in
chapters five and six.

42. "And the new empiricism, for all of its logical and scientific pretensions,
was full of uncritical pre-Kantian assumptions about the relations of
language to its 'objects' . . .. On reading the new empiricists one often has
the impression that they are not talking about anything remotely related to
the practical problems either of experimental science or of common sense,
but on the contrary that they have reinstituted the archaic methodological
and semantical dogmas of seventeenth-and-eighteenth century rationalists
and empiricists which Kant had been at such pains to explode" H.D. Aiken
in Barrett and Aiken (1962), p. 9.

43. As late as 1951, Nelson Goodman was still attempting to improve the
Aujbau in his book entitled The Structure of Appearance, a revision of his
Harvard dissertation. Goodman recanted in 1972.

44. "Rorty thinks there was a 'hidden agenda' behind the central problems in
analytic philosophy: the defense of the values of science, democracy and
art on the part of secular intellectuals .... " Rajchman and West (1985),
p. xii. In "Solidarity or Objectivity?", Richard Rorty claims that "there is,
in short, nothing wrong with the hopes of the Enlightenment. . .. I have
sought to distinguish these institutions and practices from the philosophical
justifications for them provided by partisans of objectivity, and to suggest
an alternative justification" Ibid., p. 16.

45. Haller (1988), p. 39.

40 Chapter I

46. This view was expressed in a letter to Charles Morris. See the introduction
by Morris to the 1969 edition of vol. I of the Encyclopedia. See also p. 103
of Hanfling (1981).

47. Neurath (1938), p. 2.

48. As Hacker (1996) has noted: " ... the impact of. .. the Vienna Circle and,
in particular, Quine's influence steered philosophy into new channels ....
To a large extent, the 'scientific world-view' was transformed into a
scientistic world-view" (p. 265).

49. The opposition to absolute Idealism can perhaps be understood here as a

rejection of its endorsement of religion. As Hacker (1996) points out,
"Absolute Idealism met two needs in social and intellectual thought: it
provided a defence of Christianity against threats from science (in
particular, Darwinism and geology) and German biblical historical
scholarship, hoping to reconcile science and religion in a 'higher synthesis';
and it advocated an ethic of social responsibility in opposition to both
utilitarianism and social Darwinism, thus contributing to the non-Marxist,
Christian socialist roots of the subsequent ideological development of the
British Labour party" (p. 5).

50. Carnap (1963), p. 7.

51. Ibid., p. 38.

52. Ibid., p. 52.

53. Ibid., p. 7.

54. Ibid., p. 70.

55. Ibid., p. 9.

56. Ibid., p. 8.

57. Ibid., pp. 10-11.

58. Ibid., p. 67.

59. Ibid., p. 23.

60. Ibid., pp. 23-24.

61. Ibid., p. 83.

 CHAPTER 2

Analytic Philosophy Of Science

The Importance of Science for Analytic Philosophy

The increasing, cumulative, and spectacular successes of science and technology
throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries made science the most prestigious
and authoritative institution in western society.] This can be seen in a number of
ways. In Germany, from about 1830 onwards scientism was not on Iy in the
ascendancy but an intellectual threat to the legitimacy of philosophy. From about
1870 onwards in Germany the new philosophy tended to justify itself as concerned
with the logic of science and the articulation of a world view replacing philosophy.
This current was subsequently to sweep across Great Britain and the Atlantic. 2 At
the first meeting of the American Philosophical Association, on March 31, 1902, at
Columbia University, the association's charter president, J.E. Creighton, pointed out
that philosophy's importance had been eclipsed by the empirical sciences. He urged
that philosophy should compete more effectively with the empirical sciences by
becoming more methodological, systematic, and by setting strict standards of what
counts as professional work.]
Scientism is the view that physical science is the ultimateframeworkfor
understanding everything including science itself. This entails that science is self-
legitimating. Scientism is the fundamental presupposition of the Enlightenment
Project within analytic philosophy. Scientism is not just the view that science is
important or should be taken seriously. Of course, if one subscribes to scientism then
one believes that science is important and should be taken seriously. But one can
believe that science is important and should be taken seriously without believing that
science is either autonomous or the whole truth about everything. One could believe
that science is part of the truth about everything or that it is the whole truth only
about part of the world, or that it is part ofthe truth about part of the world, or even
that it is not in any sense true but a series of important techniques for manipulating
part of the world. There are all kinds of positions that one could hold, positions
which involve taking science seriously but which do not involve a commitment to
scientism.
What distinguishes the doctrinaire analytic philosopher,4 that is the analytic
philosopher who subscribes to the Enlightenment Project, is the clear, insistent,
unambiguous, and rigid adherence to the view that physical science is the whole truth
about everything. As Bertrand Russell once put it:

I have no doubt that, in so far as philosophical knowledge is

possible, it is by such [scientific] methods that it must be sought;
I have also no doubt that, by these methods, many ancient
problems are completely soluble. . .. Whatever can be known,
can be known by means of science .... 5

In the words of Wilfrid Sellars:

42 Chapter 2

science is the measure of all things, of what is that it is, and of

what is not that it is no1. 6

More recently, Michael Dummett has expressed this commitment as follows:

[Most American philosophers] are unanimous in regarding

philosophy, with Quine. as at least cognate with the natural
sciences, as part of the same general enterprise as they.7

Mark Sacks has succinctly noted the philosophical commitment to scientism.

The idea that the world is fully determinate, such that for any fact
in the world there is a reason why it is so rather than some other
way, or that the world abides bivalence, was not new. However by
the early part of the twentieth century the conviction that the
principle of sufficient reason held true of the world seemed to be
fully borne out by empirical successes of science, and no longer
required rationalist principles to be adduced in its favour. 8

Rorty's description of the commitment to scientism is worth quoting:

... positivism preserved a god in the notion of Science (and its

notion of 'scientific philosophy'), the notion of a part of culture
where we touched something not ourselves, where we found Truth
naked .... 9

If one looks at the early careers of prominent and influential analytic

philosophers like Russell, Carnap, Schlick, Quine, even the early Wittgenstein,
Kripke, and many others one sees an early aptitude, training, and even some
accomplishments in the sciences, mathematics, and engineering. Analytic
philosophers are often products of scientific training. In most cases, academic
philosophy was not their first career choice.
Since there are many branches of science, which science is the whole truth?
Since the time of Newton, and especially since the latter half of the Nineteenth
century, the dominant branch of science has been physics. Commitment to scientism
has, therefore, usually meant a commitment to physicalism, or the view that (a) only
what mathematical physics says exists, really exists; that (b) the only differences
among things are the differences that mathematical physics says there are; and that
(c) all truths whatsoever are reducible to or dependent upon the truths at the level of
mathematical physics. 1o Physicalism is usually supported by the unity of science
thesis, namely, the thesis that whatever diversity exists within science is merely
apparent, reflects an underlying homogeneity and unification, and will be borne out
by the progress of science.
Given the cultural hegemony of science and technology, it was not science
that was called upon to justify itself but anything which seemed at odds with
scientism. To the extent that Hegelianism came into conflict with scientism, it was
 Analytic Philosophy O/Science 43

Hegelianism which was to give way. Specifically, physics and mathematics cannot
be absolute standards of truth if they are dependent upon mind, so their independence
of mind is not only assumed but hotly defended against the encroachments of Hegel
and the Copernican view in general. The notion that truth comes to us in isolable
atomic units and not in some all-encompassing whole reflects, among other things,
that in mathematics we must first identify individual units before we can understand
their relations, and it reflects the allegedly gradual and piece-meal nature of the
growth of scientific knowledge. Ifwe could not know for sure that each new piece
of scientific information was genuine until we knew all of scientific truth, then not
only would scientism be left exposed but we could not be sure of each ofthe pieces
or ofthe meaning of the progress and growth of the accumulating pieces. In short,
the commitment to scientism dictates an anti-Hegelian posture and a defense of the
validity of an analytic methodology.
Philosophical analysis is a rejection of Hegelian monism precisely because
analysis assumes that we can reduce the complex to the simple, that the "simple" can
be recognized in isolation. To the extent that the "simple" was not previously
recognized or was not immediately obvious (e.g., "sense-data") and we had to learn
how to isolate it, it bears an analogy to the "atom" in physical science. At a deeper
level, analysis presupposes the incremental growth of scientific knowledge. As
Hector-Neri Castaneda has expressed it,

the method of philosophy is, like the method of the sciences:

empirical, exegetical, hypothetical, deductive, iterative, and
cumulative. I I

The notion of analysis as the isolation and identification of simples which are
combined into a knowledge of the whole is consistent with both empiricism as weB
as the notion that the acquisition of knowledge is itself a cumulative and progressive
process. Analytic philosophers refer to this conception of knowledge acquisition and
growth as /oundationalism. Roderick Chisholm maintained that, "no serious
alternative in epistemology to foundational ism has yet been formulated."12
Scientism is not just a doctrine. It issues in a program in the sense that it
specifies how we should identifY, define, and look/or solutions to our intellectual and
practical problems. Because of the vast implications of such a program it is only fair
to ask why we should adopt it. The only possible answer is the belief that science is
the ultimate framework for understanding everything. We would then be led to ask,
further, what reason is there to believe that science is true about anything. We are
not asking if science is useful or important. After aB, science is still an on-going
enterprise. Only if what we believe now about science and what science tells us is
true and that it will continue to be true do we have a basis for adopting the program
of scientism. However, what we know now, or what we think we know now, is a
collection of individual and quite specific truth claims. Therefore, it is only on the
assumption that analysis, or a piece-meal approach to knowledge, is correct that
scientism can serve as a program. Analysis is a necessary presupposition 0/
scientism.
44 Chapter 2

The commitment to scientism means that it is incumbent upon analytic

philosophers (1) to specify clearly, precisely, and accurately the internal logical
structure of science, (2) to establish that the internal logic of science is self-
legitimating, (3) to indicate how this logic is applicable outside the confines of
physical science, and (4) that after this approach there is no remainder.

The Structure of Science

The practice of science does not dictate the acceptance of the doctrine of scientism.
Scientism is a philosophical dogma. J3 The interpretation given to science by some
analytic philosophers is not an empirical report on scientific practice but an
interpretation that reflects a philosophical framework. Analytic philosophers
attribute the superiority of physical science to three factors. First, science is
supposed to reveal the truth about the real world. Realism u with regard to science
is the belief that science discloses an objective epistemic and ontological structure
that exists independent of human beings and that this structure includes or applies to
human beings as well. An epistemological realist maintains that the conceptual
apparatus of science refers exclusively to structural features of the world and not in
any degree to the conceptualizer. Realism is opposed to the Copernican Revolution
in general and, allegedly, to Hegel's philosophical idealism in particular. Second,
it is alleged that physical science, unlike myth or religion, offers a coherent
explanation of how the world is, and not a mere tale or description. Explanations
have a special logical structure, one that we shall discuss shortly. Third, explanations
in physical science are alleged to be empirical or firmly grounded in experience.
That is, unlike religious or metaphysical explanations, scientific explanations can be
tested and established experientially.
In singling out these factors we are not constructing an ad hoc list. These
factors actually reflect a long-standing philosophical tradition. Early analytic
philosophers did not fashion a view or interpretation of science based on their own
experience as scientists or on a scrutiny of the practice of scientists contemporary
with themselves, nor did they arrive at their view by a careful reconsideration of the
history of science. IS On the contrary, analytic philosophers inherited their
interpretation from a long and continuous philosophical tradition. That tradition,
which came to analytic philosophy, through the Enlightenment Project is
'Aristotelianism'. Keep in mind what we showed in Chapter One, namely that the
Enlightenment Project took over Aristotle's ontology and epistemology but without
the teleological metaphysics. Analytic philosophy of science began then as
"truncated" Aristotelianism. 16

Aristotelianism 17 as a Philosophy of Science.

Aristotelianism as a philosophy of science is comprised of three tenets: deductivism,
empiricism, and causality. IS
a. Deductivism: Many philosophers have traditionally held that
there is an important distinction between a description and an explanation. A
description merely presents the details of a situation or event. Since the Copernican
Revolution in philosophy, some philosophers have held that there is no fundamental
logical distinction between descriptions and explanations, and that both are relative
 Analytic Philosophy O/Science 45

to the explainer or the audience to which the explanation is offered. Realists, on the
other hand, insist that explanations connect events in a manner that displays a
structure independent of the explainer or the audience. An explanation puts the
description into a context that "connects" the description with other events.
What this means is that in an explanation one event is shown to be part of
a wider network of events and that the events fit together into an objective structure.
The structure clearly must have some identifiable form or shape. The shape of that
structure for Aristotelian philosophy of science is a hierarchical one in which the
most general or all-encompassing events are at the top and the less general or more
specific ones are at the bottom. The hierarchical shape or form of explanation is
analogous to the presentation of a classical proof in geometry in which specific
theorems are deduced or derived from fundamental axioms. The fundamental
axioms represent the basic truths which are not themselves derivative from anything
else. The axioms are said to be self-explanatory or self-evident. The first tenet, then,
of the Aristotelian philosophy of science is that an adequate explanation is a
deduction from first principles. This conception of explanation was taken over by
Aristotle from Plato, and it has been with some exceptions the dominant position
throughout the history of Western thought. 19
b. Empiricism: Aristotelians differ from Platonists in holding that
the first principles or fundamental axioms are abstracted from experience. In
Aristotle's organic universe, processes are endlessly repeating cyclical ones. Hence,
when Aristotle appealed to experience it was to a well established record of what had
already happened not an appeal to imagined or hypothetical experience under some
as yet unrealized set of conditions. As Aristotle described it, the process of
abstraction moves from particular experiences to the formation of generalizations.
The movement from particulars to a generalization, or from a lower level
generalization to a higher level generalization is called induction. Once a
generalization is achieved, then particular conclusions or lower level generalizations
may be deduced from it.
c. Causality: For Aristotle, all explanations are causal
explanations. That is, not only do explanations form a hierarchy that moves
downward logically from the more general to the less general, but the more general
level reflects a structural connection within the world itself. Entities on the more
general level are the causes of entities on the less general level. To take a
contemporary example, we explain a specific collection of symptoms such as a fever
and aches and pains (entities on the less general level) as a disease or illness by
reference to a virus which is said to be the cause of the disease or illness. The virus
is an empirically confirmable entity that connects the symptoms in a structural way.
Aristotle had asserted that there was only one world and the principles of
intelligibility were within that one world (i.e., form was in matter). The one world
is self-explanatory. In order to defend this assertion, Aristotle had to answer two
Platonic objections: (a) How can a world offlux have anything permanent within it?
And (b) how can we explain the use of or the knowledge of ideal concepts if we must
rely totally upon our experience of the everyday world?
Aristotle answered the first objection by arguing that although nothing in
the world is permanent because everything changes, nevertheless the process by
46 Chapter 2

which the changes take place is permanent. Processes, not things, are permanent.
For example, oak trees produce acorns which in turn grow into oak trees. At some
point, each generation of oak trees will die out, but the process in which oaks
produce acorns which produce more oaks, etc. remains forever. This biological
example is a reflection of a deeper point in Aristotle. He conceived of biological
(organic) processes as fundamental to everything, and further interpreted organic
processes as teleological or goal directed. In understanding an individual process we
are, according to Aristotle, recognizing its goal, as when the acorn becomes an oak.
Not only does every process have a goal in itself but it is part of a wider all-
encompassing hierarchy of goals. The use of teleological biology as a model
permitted Aristotle to find a prime place within nature for human beings, for purpose,
and for consciousness.
Aristotle further elaborated his answer by means of his theory of causation.
There are four causes: material, formal (structure); efficient (originating agent), and
final (goal). In natural objects the formal, efficient, and final causes are identical.
For example, the efficient cause of an acorn is an oak tree (parent oak), the final
cause or goal is for the acorn to become an oak tree, and the formal cause is the
acorn's internal structure which gives it the potential to become an oak tree. It is this
form that gets transferred from generation to generation and accounts for the
permanence of the process. The identity of the formal, efficient, and final causes is
what permits us to know or to infer the past (i.e., the efficient cause) or the future
(i.e., the final cause) from a knowledge of the present structure (i.e., the formal
cause).
Aristotle answered the second objection, the acquisition of ideal concepts
from experience, by appeal to the notion that the form is in the matter. What happens
when we learn, according to Aristotle, is that we abstract the form from the matter.
Aristotle explained this process by a metaphor. The mind is like a piece of wax upon
which a seal leaves an imprint, its form so to speak, although the seal remains
external to the wax. Thus, although in experience we see many acorns which do not
become oak trees, we somehow manage to discern in our experience that some
acorns do develop into oaks and thus achieve their goal. If we have correctly
identified the goal, then we have obtained knowledge of the form. This follows from
the identity of formal, efficient, and final causes. How do we know when we have
correctly discerned or abstracted the form? The answer is that we see it fit into wider
and wider nets of goals.
This last point about the wider net is important. Observe that Aristotle's
account of form being embedded in matter relies ultimately on his theory of
causation, specifically the identity of formal, efficient, and final causes. If form is
embedded in matter, then the theory of causation explains how we would know it.
At the same time, Aristotle's account of how we learn appeals to the theory of
causation which, in turn, presupposes that form is embedded in matter. At no point
does Aristotle or can Aristotle step outside of the circle of his own theory. If
knowing is a natural process then the only way to explain it is by appeal to natural
processes, and the understanding of the natural processes is accounted for by the
account of how we know. What saves Aristotle from the charge of a circular
 Analytic Philosophy O/Science 47

argument is the contention that there is a wider net of goals and that part of the goal
of human beings is to become conscious of these other goals.
The belief that we can thus abstract form from matter and that this form (or
essence) is identical with the efficient and final causes, and the belief that knowing
the essence (formal cause) guarantees the truth of inferences to efficient and final
causes lead to the articulation of logic, the discipline that deals with correct
reasoning. The model of logic is the following:

All A's are B's.

This is an A.

Therefore, this is a B.

We can derive one truth from others if we know the correct rules of reasoning. The
correct rules reflect a structural feature of the world, namely, that the formal,
efficient, and final causes are identical. Our certainty about the truth of the original
premisses, like "All A's are B's", depends upon our having correctly abstracted the
essential form in a universe which has both true essences and objective goals.
Aristotle's logic thus follows from his epistemology, which in tum follows from his
metaphysics.
The significance of the identity of the formal-efficient-final causes is that
it permits a special kind or kinds of inference. Once we have grasped the formal
cause we are entitled to infer the existence of an efficient or final cause. The
Aristotelian maintains that the formal cause is abstracted from experience. The
explanation of the identity ofthe formal-efficient-final causes is derivative from the
Aristotelian beliefs that processes are permanent and that the form is "passed on"
from one "generation" to the next. This is expressed in the view that nothing can be
in the effect that is not already present in the cause. If everything in the effect is
already present in the cause, then it also follows that a careful observation of the
effect entitles us to infer some things about the cause.
This traditional Aristotelian conception of causality dominated Western
thought for 2000 years, until the eighteenth century. The Aristotelian tradition
continued not only throughout the Middle Ages (Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus,
Aquinas, Grosseteste, etc.) but down into the modem period with Francis Bacon,
Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, and many figures during the Enlightenment.
The Aristotelian analysis of causation was even accepted as the correct understanding
of causation by philosophers who were in other respects not Aristotelian or even anti-
Aristotelian. One historical example can be useful here. Descartes rejected final
causes with regard to the natural world, and as a scientist was instrumental in
undermining Aristotle's physics. Yet Descartes still accepted the identity of formal
and efficient causes. It was this alleged identity which licensed, in Descartes' view,
the backwards inference from the idea of God (the effect) to the existence of God as
a real external, efficient cause ofthat idea. An analogous use of this identity is to be
found in Locke's inference from our ideas of primary qualities (the effect) to the
existence of external substance, sight unseen, as the efficient cause of our ideas of
primary qualities.
48 Chapter 2

We are not at the moment concerned with the correctness or incorrectness

of the foregoing views. What concerns us is the continuity of the Aristotelian
tradition of explanation as deductive, empirical, and causal in the above sense, as
well as the extent to which the understanding of causality achieved a kind of
intellectual autonomy that cut across even the so-called rationalist/empiricist
distinction.

The Analytic Restatement of the Modern Aristotelian Philosophy of Science

Analytic philosophy is, in part, heir to the Enlightenment Project. The
Enlightenment Project operates with a truncated or modern version of
Aristotelianism. We can now explain both analytic philosophy of science and its
evolution in terms of the foregoing Aristotelian conception of the philosophy of
science and the problems that it generates in a mechanically conceived post
seventeenth-century universe.
To begin with, analytic philosophers of science subscribe to the view that
an adequate explanation is a deduction from first principles. The classic statement
of this view is to be found in Hempel and Oppenheim.

We divide an explanation into two major constituents, the

explanandum and the explanans. By the explanandum we
understand the sentence describing the phenomenon to be
explained, ... by the explanans, the class of [those] sentences
which are adduced to account for that phenomenon. . .. The
explanandum must be a logical consequence of the explanans; in
other words, the explanandum must be logically deducible from
the [information contained in the] explanans .... 20

The explanans consists of a covering law in conjunction with a description of the

initial conditions. The explanans is further stipulated to be true, to have empirical
content, and to be causal. As Popper expressed it:

To give a causal explanation of a certain event means to derive

deductively a statement (it will be called a prognosis) which
describes that event, using as premisses of the deduction some
universal laws together with certain singular or specific sentences
which we may call initial conditions. 2t

L t , L2,· •• ,Ln (laws)

C t , C2 , ••• ,Cn (initial conditions) Explanans

E (event) Explanandum

A deduction from first principles is called either a covering law explanation or a

deductive-nomological explanation.
Aristotle's conception of causation is still implicit in this view of
explanation. What has happened is that the identity of formal-efficient-final causes
 Analytic Philosophy OfScience 49

has been elevated to a logical requirement long after that identity has lost its
scientific and ontological status. The identity offormal and final causes is implicitly
present in the requirement that explanation be symmetrical with prediction: 22

... an explanation is not fully adequate, unless its explanans if

taken account of in time, could have served as the basis for
predicting the phenomena under investigation. 23

A prediction is a disguised deduction of descriptions of the predicted event from

causal laws and initial conditions.

Since in a fully stated deductive-nomological explanation of a

particular event the explanans logically implies the explanandum,
we may say that the explanatory argument might have been used
for the deductive prediction of the explanandum-event if the laws
and particular facts adduced in its explanans had been known and
taken into account at a suitable earlier time. In this sense a
deductive-nomological explanation is a potential deductive-
nomological prediction. 24

Successful prediction is a necessary condition of an adequate explanation

but not a sufficient condition. Correlations between two events can be formalized
into a successful prediction without leading us to believe that we have given an
adequate causal explanation. For example, prior to an earthquake we can observe
abnormal animal behavior. No one would maintain that the abnormal animal
behavior caused the earthquake.
One further criterion is needed to distinguish an adequate explanation and
serves to identify a covering law. A genuine law is distinguished from an accidental
generalization because the former, but not the latter, licenses unfulfilled
hypotheticals. As Nelson Goodman expressed it, the causal law "all heated gases
expand" licenses counterfactual and subjunctive conditionals such as "if this gas had
been heated, it would have expanded."2s On the other hand, the accidental
generalization "all the coins in my pocket are silver" does not license the conditional
"if this coin had been in my pocket, it would have been silver." Again, there is an
implicit appeal to Aristotle's conception of causation, for within Aristotle's language
Goodman's point could be expressed as the identity of formal and efficient causes.
Along with the identity offormal and final causes, the identity offormal and efficient
causes constitute the necessary and sufficient conditions of an adequate explanation.
The identity of formal-efficient-final causes is expressed as the requirement that
causal laws license predictions and counterfactuals.
To sum up so far, analytic philosophers continue to subscribe to the
traditional Aristotelian philosophy of science by embracing the views that (a)
explanation is deduction from first principles, (b) a first principle is based upon
experience, and (c) it expresses a necessary26 causal connection among events.
Moreover, scientific explanations are alleged to be superior because they (i) refer to
an objective (realist) structure independent of the observer, (ii) express necessary
50 Chapter 2

causal relationships or connections within that structure, (iii) are deductively related,
and at some point (iv) empirically verifiable.
The idea ofaxiomatization takes on additional significance within analytic
philosophy.
1. Analytic philosophy of science is committed to total conceptualization,
and the analogue to this would be an axiomatic or formal system with one all
encompassing axiom. This means, first, that all sciences are to be reduced to and
derived from one science, and, second, that within that science all laws are to be
reduced to one over-arching theoretical principle. This is what came to be known as
the unity of science.
2. Later, as we shall see, in choosing among alternative possible theories,
analytic philosophers appealed to the traditional notion of simplicity, understood in
a mathematical or axiomatic sense. A "simpler" theory came to be understood as one
which fit better with the proposed reduction to one science and to one law within that
science, that is, it simplified axiomatization.
3. The favored science was to become physics (and the favored principle
E=mc 2). Physics is the favored basic science because it is within physics that we
allegedly find necessary causality. That is to say, axiomatization and total
conceptualization are tied to causality.27 Physics is also the favored science because
it lends itself to the idea of technological manipulation which is the foundation of the
program of the Enlightenment Project.
Now let us turn our attention to the problems generated by using an
Aristotelian philosophy ofscience in a mechanically cunceived universe. As should
already be clear, Aristotle's physics, metaphysics, and epistemology function in an
interdependent way. Despite the indigenous difficulties, Aristotle's own views form
a coherent whole. It should also be recalled that Aristotle's own view of the universe
is teleological and organic, not mechanical and deterministic. The mechanical~
deterministic view is attributed by Aristotle to the Greek atomists and promptly
rejected by him. Our concern here is to indicate the logical difficulties engendered
by the application of the Aristotelian tradition to a modern mechanical universe.
These difficulties will presage some of the difficulties analytic philosophers will have
in the twentieth century in their attempt to formulate a coherent account of physical
science.
The first difficulty for the analytic philosophy ofscience concerns the nature
and status of causation. The thrust of the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries was to reject Aristotle's physics and to substitute a mechanical
and deterministic world view. Galileo, Descartes, Gassendi, and Newton were
chiefly responsible, and they were the architects of the new mechanical physics. The
newer mechanical physics of the seventeenth century led first to the rejection of the
existence of final causes and eventually to the rejection of the existence of fonnal
causes. We were left only with efficient causes, and hence our univocal notion of
causation as opposed to Aristotle's four fold view. Ifthere are only efficient causes,
then there can be no such thing as the identity offonnal-efficient-final causes. Once
this identity of causes is eliminated, then the inference from present effect to past
cause as well as the inference to future effect is invalidated. There is then no
necessary connection among the past (efficient cause) the present (formal cause) and
 Analytic Philosophy Of Science 51

the future (final cause). That is, there is no logical or conceptual link in Newton's
physical world in the way there was in Aristotle's world. One may want to believe
anyway that there is a structure in the world that allows for such necessity, but there
is nothing in Newtonian physics that licenses such a belief.
David Hume was the first to understand these implications of Newton's
physics, and Kant was soon to concur. 28 Left only with efficient causation, Hume
proceeded to reconstruct the concept of causation in his now familiar way by
reference to spatial contiguity, temporal priority, and observed constant conjunction.
Aside from its Copernican reference to the observer-agent, this reconstruction raised
serious obstacles to the program of explanation by deduction from first principles.
Specifically, the traditional Aristotelian "cement" that held the universe together
seemed to have disappeared.
What is the objective difference, if any, between an accidental
generalization and a law of nature? Are there, in fact, laws or "necessary"
relationships of any kind? If there are no laws, then there can be neither first
principles from which we can explain by deduction nor a necessary structure of
events independent ofthe explainer. Science would then be reduced to an elaborate
system of descriptions, and explanations would be relative to the purposes of the
explainer.
(i) Ifthere are no necessary laws, how can we justify predictions about the
future?29
(ii) If there are no necessary laws, then how do we justify our statements
about past hypothetical situations concerning what would have happened
if something else had happened?
Some analytic philosophers, like Ernest Nagel, were perfectly well prepared
to jettison contrary to fact conditionals or to reinterpret them along Humean Iines. 30
Nagel's argument was that the purposes of modem technological science were
adequately served by the Humean recasting of the concept of causation. Nagel's
critics, however, were unhappy with this answer because the case for scientism was
not adequately served by the Humean conception of causation. 3 I
One possible resolution is to jettison the insistence on necessary structural
ties. After all, it can be argued, as long as science gives us information sufficient for
physical and social technology, why worry about necessity. There are two
difficulties with this resolution. First, scientific explanations were supposed to be
superior to other kinds of explanation precisely because they were explanations and
not elaborate descriptions. Giving up on necessity is to make everything into a
description. Second, without necessity, any proposed technology might have to be
qualified by appeal to other cultural values. In effect, this undermines the
Enlightenment Project claim to cultural hegemony through scientific technology.
In opposition to Aristotle's four-fold conception of causation including final
causes, modem Newtonian physics recognizes only efficient causes. When the
concept ofefficient causation is applied to events in the human social world, as is to
be expected in light ofthe unity ofscience, the major explanatory concept becomes
'historicism '. By' historicism' we mean the view that events succeed one another in
linear time such that earlier events are said to cause later events. The notion of linear
52 Chapter 2

time replaces the classical notion of cyclical time, and this can be seen even in the
modem physical idea that natural motion is motion in a straight line.
It is not surprising that the philosophes adopted an historicist posture.
However, without final causes or theism, there is no way to equate historicism with
progress. Without importing some norm or invoking final causes, it is difficult to
argue that what comes later is in any sense better. Hence there is always going to be
a lacuna in any attempt to show that an historical explanation is also a progressive
explanation.
To sum up, Aristotle's analysis of causation did not seem to hold for modem
mechanical physics. Hume's alternative analysis led to difficulties with defining
laws and law-like statements, the alleged symmetry between explanation and
prediction, the status ofthe claim that laws license contrary to fact conditionals, and
the inability to show how historical development was progressive.
The reconstructed concept ofcausation also brought to the fore difficulties
in the traditional Aristotelian doctrine ofempiricism, namely, that knowledge offirst
principles is "abstracted" from experience. Modem or seventeenth-century physics,
unlike Aristotle's physics, postulated the existence of hidden structures. That is, the
ultimate explanatory principles were not descriptions of the ordinary world of
everyday experience but of a world to which we gained access via microscope as
well as via telescope.32 Some modem philosophers starting with Locke held that on
the micro or atomic level we would in principle find the "cement" or necessity that
was formerly expected on the macro or everyday level. Hume maintained, on the
contrary, that even on the micro level "necessity" no longer made sense.
In the meantime, empiricists, or those who attempted to explain our
knowledge of the world through the internal processing of external physical stimuli
were forced to put on hold any attempt to offer a satisfactory account of exactly how
the external physical objects "caused" our internal experience. It was not the
introduction ofphenomenalism that undermined the traditional Aristotelian view of
causation. Quite the contrary, it was the questioning of the traditional Aristotelian
concept of causation that had, among other things, suggested epistemological
phenomenalism.
The Aristotelian empirical tradition presents us with a largely passive
picture of perception, one in which external objects leave imprints upon the mind.
Of course, there is always something done internally with the imprints, and in the
case of Aristotelians who believe in an active intellect and in final causes and the
human role in the great purposes of nature, the difficulties can be safely ignored.
However, once the active intellect, purpose and final causes are banished from
nature, the difficulties cannot be ignored. How the internal workings correlate with
the external workings, if at all, remains a mystery. Moreover, it now becomes a
mystery to discover if there are any external workings. The content of physical
science told us of a not-directly-visible world which somehow "caused" the visible
world, and the logic of Aristotle's concept of causation "allowed" Locke to infer to
his own satisfaction the existence of those causes from our directly visible world.
Yet, on further reflection, specifically Hume's reflection on Newton, the content of
physical science had eliminated Aristotle's concept of causation. What we are left
with, so to speak, is our raw experience, our internal cognitive structures, the
 Analytic Philosophy O/Science 53

problematic existence 0/ an external world, and a mystery about how all of these
things are connected.
During the 1920s, optimistic members of the Vienna Circle held to the
position that what distinguished physical science from everything else was that the
statements of scientific fact could be shown to be true by direct appeal to experience.
In line with scientism, this view was expanded into the principle known as the
verifiability criterion of meaning or the verification principle. According to the most
common version of the verifiability criterion o/meaning, a statement is meaningful
if the statement can in principle be subject to empirical testing. Very quickly it was
brought to the attention of these philosophers that the vocabulary of science makes
use of terms that do not refer to observable entities (e.g., points, lines, instants,
particles, etc.). On the surface, it appears as if the verifiability criterion is too strong,
throwing out the baby with the bath water. In response, members of the Circle
appealed to Russell's theory of descriptions. In his theory of descriptions, Russell
had argued that the surface structure of a statement could be misleading and that a
sentence could be recast to make more explicit its underlying logical structure.
Armed with the technical language of Principia Mathematica, positivists such as
Carnap, as well as Russell himself, sought to recast scientific statements which
mentioned unobservables into statements, all of whose components referred either
to observable entities or purely logical functions.
Carnap's original program was designed to express the statements of science
in phenomenalistic terms. Later, Carnap abandoned phenomenalism for a physicalist
language that permitted the use of statements about common sense physical objects
and not just sense data. Somewhat later, the positivist translation program was
modified again, this time to permit statements about things not directly observable
as long as those statements could be shown to follow from a finite and consistent set
of observation sentences. That is, one sentence was now being translated into a set
of statements under a specific set of circumstances. Unfortunately, even these
changes in the translation program still disallowed Newton's mechanical laws,
Maxwell's electrodynamic equations, and Einstein's theory of relativity. By 1937,
in his work "Testability and Meaning", Carnap had surrendered the view that all
legitimate expressions in science could be recast in observational terms. A statement
was held to be meaningful if it played a function in scientific discourse. What was
needed was a clearer conception of scientific discourse and the meaning of
"function."
Analytic philosophers of science introduced what they originally thought
was a major modification in the form of the concept of a scientific hypothesis. An
hypothesis is a generalization not initially secured by experience, and its origins
though shrouded in creative mystery are declared irrelevant to science. What is
relevant, according to analytic philosophers, is that once the hypothesis is formulated
it serves as a generalization from which particular instances may be deduced. The
inferred particular instances then become test cases that can be empirically examined
by observation or experiment. If the test cases are positive, then the hypothesis is
said to be confirmed. The elaborate criteria for confirming an hypothesis constitute
an inductive logic.
54 Chapter 2

The alleged difference between the traditional Aristotelian empiricism and

the analytic modification can be brought out in the following diagrams. The earJy-
modem Aristotelian, Francis Bacon, supposedly represented the process of scientific
thinking as follows.

Bacon:
particular experiences---> generalization---> deduction of new information

The analytic modification that supposedly bypasses the murky problem of how
particular experiences generate (---» a generalization is as follows.

Analytic modification:
hypothesis (generalization)---> deduction of new particular cases--->
tested empirically (positive test results)---> confirm the hypothesis
(generalization)

Unfortunately, this modification is not successful. As can be seen from the

diagrams above, in both cases we are still going to have to explain how particulars
give rise to or support a generalization. The locus of the problem has been changed
but not its nature.
As early as 1945, Carnap had initiated rigorous research programs to deal
with inductive logic or confirmation logic. 33 In pursuing these programs of
confirmation logic all kinds of paradoxes were uncovered. It was admitted that in no
single instance of an observed regularity can one discern the difference between an
accidental generalization and a genuine causal law. One way of trying to get around
this difficulty is to maintain, as Hempel suggested, that an alleged causal law may be
said to be confirmed by the number and kinds of observations. The degree of
confmnation is said to be proportional to the number of observed positive instances.
Further, the degree of confirmation increases with the representative nature of the
sample of observations. For example, the alleged causal law that "all heated gases
expand" increases in confirmation not only every time we heat hydrogen and the
hydrogen expands but much more so according to the number of different gases that
are observed to expand when heated under different sets of circumstances.
However, the strongest argument against confirmation logic was articulated
by Popper. 34 According to Popper, if we take seriously the notion of the positive
confirmation of an alleged causal law, the probability is always going to be zero, no
matter how many and how varied the positive instances. Every alleged causal law
covers a potentially infinite number of possible situations. But the number of
observable instances is always finite. Since the probability is the derivative of a
finite number divided by an infinite number, the probability is always zero. Popper's
argument neatly reinforces a point made by Kneale. Kneale had pointed out that
there is never any way to distinguish through observation the difference between a
causal law and an accidental generalization, for any alleged causal law might just be
an accidental generalization on a cosmic scale. 35
 Analytic Philosophy Of Science 55

The 'Kantian Turn'

Difficulties with the concept of causation led to difficulties with empIrIcIsm.
Difficulties with empiricism will lead to difficulties with the notion that science is
preeminently a matter of deductive explanation. In analytic philosophy it is
maintained that science owes its superiority to its being able to offer deductive
explanations from first principles which are grounded in experience. We have seen,
in the previous section, that analytic philosophers have great difficulty both in
establishing causal laws as first principles with the requisite necessary structural tie
and in anchoring scientific discourse in experience. Not only had analytic
philosophers been unsuccessful in showing how the terms of scientific discourse
could be anchored in experience, but they had been unsuccessful in showing how
alleged scientific causal laws could be anchored in experience.
A bottleneck had been reached in large part because ofthe narrow construal
of the Aristotelian requirement that all first principles be grounded in experience.
Little by little, analytic philosophers moved away from the Baconian and Lockean
conception of experience, and, in epistemology, began to exorcise the ghosts of
Mill's and Russell's sense-data. Having failed to anchor in experience either terms,
sentences, or laws, analytic philosophers began to move to a higher level of
generality. More and more, analytic philosophers came to see that great speculative
principles, which were in no sense derived from experience, played a significant role
in scientific discourse. We have already noted some indication of this in our earlier
discussion of how analytic philosophers modified Bacon's conception of scientific
method by recognizing the role of creative hypotheses. In a hesitant sort of way it
was conceded that Platonists were right about abstract intellectual constructs, and it
was conceded that Kant may have been on the right track when he insisted that our
thinking was guided by intellectual norms. Analytic philosophers now accepted the
vital instrumental role of theoretical constructs.
By the 'Kantian Turn', we shall mean both the abandonment ofthe earlier
narrow empiricist attempt to ground starting points in experience and the
recognition that theoretical activity originates in theoretical contexts that are not
empirically anchored. 36 On the other hand, analytic philosophers were quick to
domesticate this Kantian insight by insisting that these vast theoretical structures
were, in principle, a kind of temporary scaffolding that would "eventually" be
removed when science reached its ultimate fruition. In this way realism would still
prevail.
In 1946,37 Richard Braithwaite had proposed that the mark of a genuine
scientific law was its own deducibility from statements of a still higher order of
generality. These higher order generalities were theories. Statements of scientific
theories were in an important sense speculative and therefore did not refer directly
to observable entities. This proposal had the added advantage of seeming to fit actual
scientific practice, for in the case of the gas laws, the formulation of the laws came
after the formulation of the kinetic theory of gases. Charles' Law is explained by
being deduced from the kinetic theory just as wave lengths for the emission of
hydrogen are explained by deduction from Bohr's theory of the atom. Not only was
the bottleneck broken, but Braithwaite's proposal preserved the deductive
requirement of explanations.
56 Chapter 2

According to the new "Kantian" analytic philosophy of science, the key

element in scientific thinking is the theory. A theory, such as the kinetic theory of
gases, is a set of conceptual postulates such as "molecule", "elastic collision",
"kinetic energy," etc., all of which refer to unobservables. These theoretical terms
are connected to observable physical events by means of "bridge principles" or
"correspondence rules." A 'bridge principle' is one that bridges the gap between an
observable entity and an unobservable entity. For example, a correspondence rule
in the kinetic theory of gases relates the "mean kinetic energy of molecules"(which
is not directly observable) to temperature (which is directly observable). What
emerges from this tri-partite distinction is the now familiar hierarchical logical
structure.

THEORIES

Bridge Principles

observation laws

The theory explains the observation laws by providing the premises from
which the observation laws can be deduced. The highest order theoretical statements
are not themselves statements of scientific laws. Rather, the theory systematizes and
integrates the observation laws. This notion of theory thus preserves the Aristotelian
logical structure of explanation. The observation laws describe the world of
everyday experience. The theory explains the laws deductively, permits new or
additional predictions by way of deduction from the theory, and the theory is in turn
confirmed by the successful prediction of observational laws. Finally, the
hierarchical structure of explanation by theory provides an account of the piece meal
growth of scientific knowledge. Specific successful laws and theories are both
superseded and reincorporated as consequences of ever more general theories. What
we are given is a linear historical model that moves from the base of the hierarchy
to its apex.
What is missing in this instrumental account oftheories is any clear idea of
a necessary structural tie, causal or otherwise. Without actually saying so, it was
generally assumed that the issue of the necessary structural tie could be safely
subordinated to the issue of confirmation. That is, if and when the theory was
confirmed, then we would know what on the "micro" level was the cement of the
universe. In short, theories postulated a presently hidden sub-structure in which the
requisite necessity reigned. 38

Does Science Progress?

Perhaps the most interesting modification introduced by this analytic
reconceptualization of the structure of science is the new notion of how scientific
knowledge grows. The question of how an individual abstracts the general from the
particular or the more general from the less general has been replaced by a communal
 Analytic Philosophy OfScience 57

model of the growth of scientific knowledge. 39 The foregoing notion of a theory

allows for the incremental growth of observation laws, for those laws to be
superseded by more general ones, and for less general theories to be superseded by
more general theories. In place of a psychology of learning we are given an
historical account of theory growth. The historical account seemed more in tune
with actual scientific history. As Ernest Nagel put it, "the phenomenon of a
relatively autonomous theory being absorbed by, or reduced to, some other more
inclusive theory is an undeniable and recurrent feature of the history of modem
science."4o The classical historical instances always cited are that Galileo's laws of
terrestrial motion and Kepler's laws of planetary motion were "absorbed by" or
reduced to Newton's theory of gravitation. Subsequently, Newton's theory was
"absorbed" by Einstein's theory, and the ultimate goal of contemporary physics is
then seen as the "absorption" of both Einstein's relativity theory of the macro world
and the micro world of quantum mechanics into an all-inclusive theory like
Einstein's unified field theory.
What seemed like a liability for the Aristotelian logic of science as
subscribed to by analytic philosophers, namely, the ambiguous connection between
observation and interpretation, had now become a kind of asset. Theoretical
statements and theoretical terms in scientific discourse are always partially
indeterminate in their links to observation. Vagueness of this kind had now become
a virtue. This indeterminacy is now seen as a necessary feature of the growth of
scientific knowledge. Indeterminacy is precisely what allows for theory
development, or further articulation, and growth. According to the revamped view,
old theories grow into new theories in a kind of progressive-conservative process.
The new theory is connected with the old theory both because of the presence of
terms or concepts that maintain the same meaning and because the observational
deductions, or predictions, of the old theory are accommodated by the new theory.
In short, the traditional Aristotelian problem of relating complex abstract structures
to experience has seemingly been solved by appeal to the notion of the growth of
scientific knowledge as exemplified in the actual history of science. Scientism is now
to be defended by appeal to the common experience of theory growth as seen in the
empirical history of science. Once more we see scientism defended, ultimately, by
appeal to a progressive view of the history ofscience.
We may now ask, "Exactly, how does growth take place in science?" The
most sophisticated analytic view on the growth of scientific knowledge was
articulated by Karl Popper. Popper had always insisted upon distancing himself from
the naive empiricism of the positivists. 41 Instead, Popper had always asserted a
strong instrumental role for theories in scientific discourse. He interpreted theories
as conjectures subject to refutation orfalsification, rather than as generalizations to
be confirmed. Instead of proving a theory to be true, we hold a theory until it is
discarded, and it is discarded when it is shown to be false. In a somewhat ironic
fashion, scientists are said to be trying to falsifY their theories rather than confirming
them, and the process of falsification through testing leads to new discoveries and the
further growth of scientific knowledge.
This interpretation of the growth of scientific knowledge has to be qualified.
Stated in its most simplistic form. the interpretation might give the impression that
58 Chapter 2

there is only one theory at a time and that there is a smooth logical transition from
one theory to its successor. Actually, the situation is much more complicated, as any
historical survey of science will amply show. One has only to think ofthe famous
controversy between defenders ofthe Ptolemaic geocentric theory and the defenders
of the Copernican heliocentric theory.42 Nevertheless, the initial response to the
historical existence of conflicting and competing theories was to look for formal
criteria for selecting one theory over its rival or rivals. Having surrendered the
notion of a direct confirmation of the truth of a theory, analytic philosophers had no
choice but to embrace formal or non-empirical criteria.
Two formal criteria widely discussed in the literature were simplicity and
fecundity. It was widely held that the more simple theory was to be preferred to the
less simple theory. The traditional notion of simplicity is understood in a
mathematical or axiomatic sense. A 'simpler" theory is one which fits better with the
proposed reduction to one science and to one law within that science; that is, it
simplified axiomatization. This characterization alone is too general to be of much
help in the day to day practice of science. 'Simplicity' is often characterized as
roughly equivalent to 'economical' in having a less complicated and less ad hoc
structure. The usual example is that the Copernican heliocentric theory has fewer
epicycles than the Ptolemaic geocentric theory. However, the mathematical
calculations in the Ptolemaic theory are far less complex than in the Copernican
theory. Simplicity seems a useful retrospective criterion, but it does not seem useful
in formulating new speculative hypotheses. There does not seem to be a univocal
notion of simplicity.
It is also said that some theories were preferable because they were more
fertile (fecundity) in the discovery of new facts by suggesting additional predictions
and experiments. For example, the apparent exception to Newton's theory of
gravitation is the "irregular" motion of Uranus. Assuming Newton is correct led to
the speculative suggestion that the gravitational pull of the existence of an as yet
unseen planet might explain the apparent irregularity of Uranus' path. What
followed was the discovery of Neptune.
One difficulty with fecundity as a criterion is that it is time-bound. Given
different time frames, a theory might be fecund in one period but not in another. For
example, at the time that Descartes' vortex theory was a rival to Newton's
gravitational theory, Descartes' theory could explain why all of the planets revolved
around the sun in the same direction while Newton's theory could not. But Newton's
theory subsequently proved to be more fecund. One is led to wonder how long a
'grace period' do we allow for specific theories? Is there a theory about 'grace
periods'? Are there competing theories about 'grace periods'?
An innocent reader coming to this discussion might raise the question of
why it is necessary to choose among alternative theories? Why not have a
continuous market place of theories? This suggestion will be derisively dismissed
because it conflicts with scientism. Scientism requires that there has to be, in the
end, only one correct theory. Only by insisting upon and establishing the one true
theory can it be shown that science is self-certifying.
Given the commitment to scientism and given the open texture of theories
which allows for continuous elaboration and emendation, an embarrassing problem
 Analytic Philosophy Of Science 59

keeps reappearing: "Is there a rational basis for why a community of scientists favors
one theory or modifies a theory in a particular way at a given time?" There does not
seem to be an easy answer to this question.
Theories, according to Popper's view, have to be modified or discarded
when they are falsified. But exactly how does an experiment falsify a theory? This
question is raised in the light of Pierre Duhem's contention that there is no such thing
as a crucial experiment.

. . . the physicist can never subject an isolated hypothesis to

experimental test, but only a whole group of hypotheses; when the
experiment is in disagreement with his predictions, what he learns
is that at least one of the hypotheses constituting this group is
unacceptable and ought to be modified; but the experiment does
not designate which should be changed. 43

Duhem's point was revived by Quine in 1951.44 Quine went even further
in maintaining that the entire system of what we know is put to the test, not just an
isolated theory. "Any statement can", according to Quine, "be held to be true come
what may, if we make drastic enough adjustments elsewhere in the system."45 It is
in the light of what was happening to analytic philosophy of science that one can
now understand the tremendous importance of Quine's collapsing of the analytic-
synthetic distinction and his suggestion of holism for broadening the scope of what
was to count as empirical.
One significant point that is sometimes lost sight of in these discussions is
the tremendous strain being put on the analytic philosophy of science by the demands
of empiricism. It was claimed to have been part of the legitimacy and superiority of
explanations in physical science that its statements could establish some direct link
with experience. More and more that claim itself is being held true by making
drastic changes in other parts of the analytic view of the philosophy of science.
Quine's holism is just such an example. Theories with non-empirical conceptual
components are admitted, and this is followed by the admission that theories cannot
be separated from background assumptions. We have identified these admissions as
"Kantian." They are, of course, different from Kant's own views because analytic
philosophers offer us the promissory note that these non-empirical elements, the
"pragmatic a priori"' (to use c.I. Lewis' memorable phrase) will be cashed out as
empirical or as part of something empirical at some future time. The relationship of
background assumptions to scientific theories is itself handled by assuming, as Quine
does, that the whole of our conceptual knowledge structure is one gigantic theory.
This move can, in retrospect, itself be seen as inherent in the assumption of scientism
once we are forced beyond naive empiricism. Whether this move is intelligible is
something to be discussed.
Quine's Duhemian point created a crisis in the Popperian model of the
growth ofscientific knowledge. Analytic philosophers of science were split into two
camps. Some (e.g., Agassi) argued that preserving a theory through auxiliary
modification was often defensible. Others (so-called Popperian hard-liners) derided
what they saw as a conventionalist stratagem. As Popper had himself argued, the
60 Chapter 2

difference between genuine science and pseudo-science was that in pseudo-science,

like Marxism, a failed prediction was always rationalized by the addition of ad hoc
assumptions.
This crisis was soon overshadowed by another. As a byproduct of the
notion of the communal growth of scientific know ledge there was a renewed interest
in examining the history of science. Having appealed to the history of science in
order to show how scientific knowledge grew. Popper had made the study of the
history of science fashionable. The Encyclopedia of Unified Science, a positivist
inspired series founded by Neurath and Carnap, published in 1962 Thomas Kuhn's
The Structure ofScientific Revolutions. This book became an instant sensation and
a battleground for the next decade. An accomplished historian of science, Kuhn
challenged the reigning analytic view of the growth of scientific knowledge as
accretion and incorporation, and in so doing brought all of the skeletons out of the
closet.
According to Kuhn, the historical development of science is a series of
paradigm shifts. A paradigm comprises not only a theory and a set of
methodological practices but a whole host of background assumptions that guide
activity within a scientific community. What Kuhn calls a paradigm is one more
example of the 'Kantian Turn' in the analytic philosophy of science. When a theory
(and its attendant paradigm) is in its period of ascendancy, the paradigm is not really
open to refutation or falsification. A period marked by the presence of a dominating
paradigm Kuhn calls a period of normal science. As anomalies or conflicting data
are uncovered, the theory is protected through modification by auxiliary hypotheses.
When the anomalies begin to multiply beyond the point where auxiliary hypothesis
modification is not so readily available or where members of the scientific
community "Sense" the ad hoc nature of the modifications we enter a period of
crisis. During the period of crisis, rival paradigms compete for acceptance.
Kuhn calls a period of competing paradigms a period of revolutionary
science. During this period, the normal procedures of confirmation or falsification
do not work because there is no consensual basis or set of neutral observations in
terms of which we can choose among rival theories. Whereas Quine had pictured
two or more alternatives each of which was consistent with the data, Kuhn finds in
the history of science cases where none of the alternatives is fully compatible with
the data and where each rival theory interprets the data from within its own
paradigm.
Here we come to the heart of Kuhn's position. We cannot appeal to
observations and experiments in order to decide among competing theories because
all observations are interpreted by reference to the background assumptions that
constitute each paradigm. Any theory, according to Kuhn's account, structures the
data not just at its origin but at every stage including the evaluation at the end. Since
all observation is theory-laden, some of the constraints on theory development that
we noted earlier, such as the notion that key terms should be meaning invariant and
that there should be continuity of predictive successes, are no longer operative. Kuhn
thereby reopened the whole issue of the relation between interpretation and
observation implicit in the 'Kantian Turn.' Kuhn had not been the first to challenge
the dichotomy between interpretation and observation, for Quine had already done
 Analytic Philosophy G/Science 61

that with his epistemological critique of the analytic-synthetic distinction. What

made Kuhn's version the focus of discussion was the recent prominence given to the
history of science.
Some of the points uncovered in the case studies are worth noting. As
terminology changes from one theory to another, so does the meaning. In Newton's
theory, the concept of 'mass' is conserved and 'length' is independent of velocity,
gravitation, and the motion of the observer; in Einstein's theory, 'mass' is convertible
into energy, and 'length' is dependent on all three of the factors mentioned.
Moreover, the predictions for Newton are inconsistent with the predictions of
Einstein at high relative velocities. Galileo's prediction that in free fall a body has
constant acceleration near the earth's surface is inconsistent with Newton's
prediction of increasing acceleration with decreasing distance from the earth's
surface. Analytic philosophers soon found themselves talking about the relationship
between the predictions of the older theory and the predictions of the successor
theory in such terms as "close approximations" (e.g., Popper) or "most" of the
predictions or the "most important" predictions being consistent (e.g., Putnam).
A good example of how a theory, and its attendant paradigm, collapses the
distinction between interpretation and observation is given by Feyerabend. 46 The
defenders of Ptolemy maintained that the earth was the stationary center of the
universe. They suggested an experiment to prove this, an experiment in which a
stone was dropped from a high tower. If the earth moved, as the rival Copernicans
argued, then the stone should land some distance from the tower. If the earth
remained stationary, then the stone should land at the base of the tower. The
experiment showed that the stone landed at the base of the tower. For the defenders
of Ptolemy, this was a crucial experiment in proving that they were correct.
However, according to Feyerabend, the Copernicans can offer the following rebuttal.
The earth moves as well as rotating on its axis, but the tower and the stone move as
well; what we observe is a "mixed straight and circular" motion. Feyerabend
reminds us that no crucial experiment is available either to the Ptolemains or the
Copernicans. Finally, Feyerabend pointed out how Galileo used rhetoric to persuade
the scientific community at a time when the light of sight observations remained the
same for both theories.
One of the most remarkable things to emerge within Kuhn's writings and
the literature that he inspired was the extent of our ignorance of the history of
science. 47 Kuhn's own scholarship and that of others showed both how little had
been actually known and the extent to which specific case studies failed to reveal any
unambiguous method or structure to science. The analytic movement had formed its
conception of the growth of scientific knowledge in ignorance of the actual history
of science. When the study of the history of science failed to conform to the analytic
model, many analytic philosophers stubbornly held on to their preconceptions. One
even heard it said that the scientific community failed to embody fully the scientific
method! Holding on to the analytic preconception in the face of such anomalies
ironically seems to exemplify Kuhn's views on how paradigms operate, only this
time in philosophical thinking.
The periods of revolutionary science come to an end when a new paradigm
manages to achieve dominance within the scientific community. We then return to
62 Chapter 2

normal science. Kuhn does not specify in any formal way exactly how the rise and
fall of paradigms has worked. He has always insisted that there is progress in
science, but he interprets it as progress from a previous cultural and intellectual
framework.

Later scientific theories are better than earlier ones for solving
puzzles in the often quite different environments to which they are
applied. That is not a relativist's position, and it displays the sense
in which I am a convinced believer in scientific progress. 48

Despite Kuhn's protestations of personal loyalty, analytic hard liners such

as Shapere were not satisfied with Kuhn's version of realism, and they and others
remain convinced that the implications of Kuhn's own argument pointed in a quite
different direction. Shapere's suspicions seem well founded. The existence of
alternative paradigms in the practice of science seems to confirm the Copernican
view that epistemological structures are reflections of concerns internal to human
beings rather than reflections of an external and physically embedded structure.
An attempt to defend the Popperian view of the growth of science and to
accommodate some of Kuhn's contentions was made by Irme Lakatos. Lakatos
called his view "sophisticated falsificationism."49 He begins by admitting that if
every theory were judged on the basis of whether they made false predictions then
no theory could survive. For example, initially, Newton's theory could not predict
the orbit of the moon. It is therefore necessary to think of theories as research
programs and then to distinguish between progressive and degenerating research
programs. A research program is progressive if the auxiliary hypotheses generate
new and successful predictions. Thus, the problem of the irregular orbit of Uranus
was resolved by the auxiliary hypothesis of the existence of another planet which
turned out to be Neptune. A research program is degenerate if the auxiliary
hypotheses only accommodate some of the anomalies and do not lead to new and
successful predictions. Newton's research program presumably entered its
degenerate stage when the anomalous motion of Mercury was interpreted by
reference to the assumed existence of the planet 'Vulcan'. There is no such planet.
It is then that Einstein's research program supersedes the Newtonian one.
Putting aside the issue of the relation between interpretation and
observation, Feyerabend was able to expose the flaw in Lakatos' argument. The
fortunes of a research program can vary over time in a non-cumulative fashion. A
program can be progressive, then degenerate, and then be progressive again. This
seems to have been the case with Prout's hypothesis about atomic weights.
Anomalies were at first discounted by claims that the samples were impure. This
auxiliary hypothesis led nowhere. Prout's hypothesis was later revived by the
introduction of the notion of isotopes whose existence was predicted successfully.
Any program could in principle be defended by waiting a little longer!50
There have been subsequent attempts to defend the notion of progress in
science, notably by Laudan. 51 What is curious about these attempts is that they
exemplify the point we made in Chapter One about the concept of 'progress' as
employed by the philosophes. Committed to the view of scientism but unable to
 Analytic Philosophy OfScience 63

demonstrate independently that science progresses, the philosophes declared that

'progress' was whatever science said it was. 52 In short, what we receive in place of
an argument is a self-fulfilling prophecy. This question-begging approach has been
exposed by Worrall:

If no principles of evaluation stay fixed, then there is no 'objective

viewpoint' from which we can show that progress has occurred
and we can say only that progress has occurred relative to the
standards that we happen to accept now. However this may be
dressed up, it is relativism. 53

To use Kuhnian language and insight, we can preserve the word 'progress' at any
cost if we are willing to change its meaning from context to context.
The major difficulty with the historical theory of the progressive growth of
scientific knowledge is that it is itself a theory that cannot be confirmed! The
concepts of 'growth' and 'progress' only make sense once we have completed the
process and have arrived at the final destination. Only when science tells us the
whole truth may we look back on the history of science and see where and how
scientific progress occurred. Prior to reaching the end point, there is no non-
question-begging way oftelling which ofthe alternative research programs was most
deserving of experimental elaboration.
No one questions the fact that we now know more than was known in the
past in the sense that there are items of information available to us than to our
predecessors. But for the Enlightenment Project science is not just a growing
collection of useful items of information; science is also supposed to explain these
items of information. However, the explanations keep changing. What cannot be
established is that later explanations are "better" than earlier explanations in any
realist-objective sense. Any criteria we use for judging success or progress are not
realist criteria. Within the scientific community we can discern specific
intersubjective norms for directing future research, but this in no way is guaranteed
by structures independent of the community. In this respect, social epistemology
does not advance the cause of realism.
The criteria we use for judging success or progress are not realist criteria.
As Nicholas Rescher has pointed out such criteria might include technological
success as defined by historical or cultural norms (e.g., increasing life span, military
capability, etc.) or conventional norms of rationality (like past record of successful
predictions in areas that are of interest to us) or even aesthetic norms of rationality
like theoretical elegance, etc. 54 In none of these cases can the appeal to ultimate truth
be a criterion. 55
Coupling the analytic 'Kantian Turn' with an historical and teleological
theory of the growth ofscientific knowledge brings us to Hegel. Addressing Hegel,
Popper concedes that:

... it is of the very essence of all rationality that it must work with
contradictions and antinomies. . .. The synthesis absorbs, as it
were, the two original opposite positions, by superseding them; it
64 Chapter 2

reduces them to components of itself. . .. I am quite prepared to

admit that this is not a bad description of the way in which ...
scientific thought, may sometimes progress. 56

Popper cites a statement by Einstein S7 as evidence:

No fairer destiny could be allotted to any physical theory than that

it should itself point out the way to introducing a more
comprehensive theory in which it lives on as a limiting case. 58

Is this new and more comprehensive theory any truer? Popper admits that "we need
the new theory in order to find out where the old theory was deficient."59 So, it is
only after we have accepted the newer theory that we can see it as an improvement
over the older theory. Finally, Popper points out that the newer theory is infinitely
open to reexamination and reconstruction.
Wherein, then, does this differ from Hegel?

Hegel was right in pointing out ... that the framework, too, was
subject to growth, and could be transcended. But he was wrong in
suggesting ... that we are dependent upon the evolving ideas,
rather than these upon us . . .. [Hegel] leads ... to historical
relativism. 60

Hegel is a relativist to Popper because Hegel was an idealist and not a materialist.
For Popper, we can only avoid relativism if our framework ultimately reflects a
physical structure independent of us but discovered by us. Can we ever know for
sure that our framework reflects such a structure? The answer turns out to be
negative, so that in the end we are left with an act of faith and a heroic posture.

We can merely escape into a wider prison (that of a language of

relations). This fact, however, should not depress us. A life
sentence confining us to an intellectual prison from which we can,
in principle, free ourselves by escaping into a wider one, and then
on into another that is wider still, with no pre-assigned limits, is
not only a bearable sentence but one that opens up a thrilling
prospect of fighting for freedom: a worthy task for our intellectual
life. 6!

Some would argue that this does not avoid relativism for Popper, and is in fact
inferior to the neatness of Hegel's solution. We seem to have returned to the
historicist rhetoric and methodological pose of the philosophes, perhaps with a dash
of romanticism. Finally, it is not surprising that the latest literature reflects a concern
for how far analytic philosophers can be both realists and relativists at the same time
- how much can be conceded to relativism and still enable one to claim to subscribe
to 'realism'.62
 Analytic Philosophy OjScience 65

To some there appears to be a liberalization in the way in which the analytic

conversation approaches science. One example of this is to be found in Holton's63
recommendation that we engage in a descriptive philosophy of science where the
activities of scientists are interpreted in terms of empirical content, analytic content,
and thematic content. A second example is in Toulmin's64 substitution of a
biological model for a geometrical model in trying to understand conceptual revision
in science. 65 The latest tendency in analytic philosophy of science is to turn to
biology because the only self-regulating natural systems we know are organic and
teleological. 66
What is missed in this apparent liberalization is the internal focus of the
discussion. All of these authors are trying to understand science as an isolable
institution that can be understood, in principle, apart from other institutions. Even
Toulmin, after all, substitutes one favored science for another. What is missing in
this liberalized literature is the recognition that science might not be intelligible as
a set of practices apart from other, perhaps more fundamental, cultural practices. It
is difficult to make sense of this internal perspective apart from some lingering
commitment to scientism.

Alternative to Scientism
To the extent that analytic philosophy of science is informed by the Enlightenment
Project it has failed. Specifically, it has failed to show that science is autonomous.
The important steps in the recognition ofthat failure include the following. (I) There
is the recognition that we cannot isolate experience from the interpretation of
experience, what we have called the 'Kantian Turn,' as reflected in such things as
Sellars exposure of the "myth of the given" and Hanson's claim of the theory-
laddenness of observation. (2) There is the further development of this point in the
recognition that scientific theories cannot be tested in isolation, or Quine's thesis of
ontological relativity. (3) Even the way in which science "progresses" by
substituting one theory for another cannot be justified in a realist and empiricist
fashion because of the presence of background features, identified by Kuhn as a
'paradigm' .
It is not science but scientism that is endangered by the failure of the
Enlightenment Project. Is there an alternative understanding of science that can be
extracted from the story of the gradual dissolution of the attempt to establish the
autonomy of science? We think there is, and it begins with one last analytic attempt
to discredit Kuhn.
A problem of incommensurability arises within Kuhn's discussion.
Because terms acquire different meanings within different scientific theories, the
same experimental evidence will mean different things or give rise to different
interpretations depending upon the particular theory a scientist employs. There does
not appear to be an external perspective from which any scientific theory can be
evaluated. Feyerabend's discussion of the tower experiment is a case in point. If
theories are incommensurable then there is (a) no empirical basis for choosing among
them, but also (b) no rational basis for choosing among them. We face here a radical
relativism.
66 Chapter 2

Both Donald Davidson and Dudley Shapere 67 criticized Kuhn by pointing

out that if two or more scientists had completely different paradigms then it made no
sense to talk about the incommensurability of their theories. There would be nothing
in common about which their theories could be said to be incommensurable. Rival
theories are rivals only with respect to some commonality, and if there is
commonality then there is some external framework in terms of which we can in
principle judge rival accounts. The conclusion drawn by Davidson and Shapere is
that the concept of incommensurable views is inherently unintelligible. Hence, there
is some rational and objective basis for judging among rival scientific views. It
appeared as if scientism might yet be saved.
Davidson and Shapere are correct in insisting that rival views are only rival
views with respect to a common framework. Curiously, Kuhn, Davidson, and
Shapere all share one assumption and that is that paradigms are like scientific
theories in that each is an attempt to conceptualize the common framework, namely
the whole ofreality. This would reduce Kuhn's position to something like Quine's
notion of holism. This reflects another element of the Enlightenment Project within
analytic philosophy, namely the commitment to total conceptualization. By total
conceptualization is meant a theoretical account of everything, including the giving
of this and all other theoretical accounts. It is not a matter of giving an account but
of whether we can give a theoretical account understood as a scientific account of
everything. By their commitment to scientism, Quine, Davidson, and Shapere are
committed to total conceptualization.
There is an alternative view, and it arises out of a suggestion made by
Feyerabend, that a paradigm might be considered the whole of a culture. Perhaps
what we are talking about are rival cultures and not just rival scientific views. In this
sense, then, there is a common framework within a culture but not across cultures.
For his part, Feyerabend rejects scientism: science is not necessarily the best way to
engage the world, and the dogma of scientism is a threat even within western
culture. 68
Putting aside for the moment the issue of cultural relativism in the larger
sense (something we take up in Chapter Ten), let us take seriously Feyerabend's
suggestion that technical scientific discourse is dependent upon and presupposes a
pre-theoretical and pre-scientific frame of reference. This pre-theoretical frame of
reference is the whole of a culture with norms embedded in its practices. That is,
cultures are not attempts to conceptualize reality but to engage reality. Suppose
further that:
1. Cultures are not like scientific paradigms. Hence, a culture does not
structure our engagement with the world in the way that a scientific theory does.
Since cultures are not rigid structures, understanding a culture -- how it undergoes
transformation, self-criticism, and interaction with other cultures -- requires a
different kind of understanding. It is the positivist and analytic insistence upon
scientism and the unity of science that leads to cultural relativism, that is reading into
culture some notion of the rigid structure as the object of analysis.
2. This cultural framework is not itself in principle conceptualizable. That
is why it requires a different kind ofunderstanding. 69 The cultural framework is the
pre-theoretical ground of conceptualization.
 Analytic Philosophy Of Science 67

3. Scientific theories are not accounts of a structure independent of us 70 but

instruments or practices created for engaging the world.
One of the clearest expressions of this view is to be found in the work of
Mary Hesse. 7 ! Her long-time study of the practice of science and the history of
science has convinced her that science cannot be understood in what we have called
the modem naturalist fashion. In order to understand science we require a broader
social epistemological background. So along with scientism and modem naturalism
she lumps together and rejects naive realism, a universal scientific language,
physicalism, and the correspondence theory of truth. According to Hesse, no public
language can function with just descriptive-observations. Any intersubjectively valid
language depends upon a background of communally accepted norms of
interpretation that relate the descriptions. There is here a strong echo of the later
Wittgenstein. Hesse argues that in science there is no convergence to an ideal
conceptual language but instrumental convergence in the form of greater control.
This convergence is itself limited to low level laws and predictions in one very tiny
fragment of the universe.
4. There is only one common pre-theoretical frame of reference, but there
can be many competing scientific theories that depend upon and operate within the
pre-theoretical framework.
5. ConfliCts among rival scientific theories cannot be resolved simply by
appeal to observation since what counts as a validating observation is relative to the
different theoretical frameworks. This is the sense in which it is true to say that
scientific theories are incommensurable. However, conflicts can be resolved by
appeal to something not experimental, namely to the norms inherent in the larger pre-
theoretical framework. 72
6. The resolution of such conflicts in the latter sense might be a temporal
process rather than an immediate one because there is no definitive formulation of
the pre-theoretical framework. Nevertheless, there could be a set of cultural practices
that allow us to operate in the absence of a definitive formulation. This makes more
sense of our capacity to operate with conflicting alternative views and with the grace
period on research programs.
7. The process of hypothesis formation would no longer be irrelevant or
shrouded in mystery but could be amplified and illuminated with regard to the larger
cultural framework. 73
8. Given our alternative list of suggestions, we can see the dispute between
analytic philosophers who support the Enlightenment Project and their critics as a
dispute about the larger context within which scientific institutions function rather
than a dispute about whether science is the truth. Analytic interpretations of science
would have to be judged both against their rivals and with respect to the larger
cultural context. It could be suggested, for example, that cultural practices are fertile
sources of adaptation somewhat like Wittgenstein's view of how rules evolve. We
might be led to ask if the practice of science is put at risk by claiming too much on
its behalf. We might be led to raise questions about the intellectual damage done to
our culture and to science by driving science in the direction of skepticism and
relativism.
68 Chapter 2

Summary
We have shown that analytic philosophy of science is focused upon an evolving
series of questions; this series of questions is not internal to science itself but reflects
the kinds of questions that philosophers might ask about science. We have argued
that not all philosophers (e.g., Platonists and those who subscribe to the 'Copernican
Revolution in Philosophy') would ask those questions in the same way nor would
they expect the same kind of answers. Moreover, those questions become
unanswerable "problems" only if one asks philosophical questions about science
from a modern Aristotelian perspective. Why do analytic philosophers look at
science from a such a perspective? No argument has ever been offered to explain or
to justify this perspective. This is where history can help us to understand what is
happening. Analytic philosophers adopt the modern 'Aristotelian' perspective
because it is something they inherited from the Enlightenment Project. The
advocates of the Enlightenment Project adopted that perspective because that
perspective was the only one compatible with their program to make physical science
the ultimate basis of truth, the arbiter of all cultural values, and the foundations of a
social technology. ln short, the unanswerable "problems" of the analytic philosophy
of science exist only for those who subscribe to this ideology.
Our examination also establishes that science is not self-certifYing. The
intelligibility ofscience presupposes a larger cultural framework. It is, therefore, not
possible to account for the larger cultural framework in a "scientific" manner. This
dooms the Enlightenment Project from the start. Our discussion of that project
within the analytic conversation will serve to reinforce this conclusion.
 Analytic Philosophy O/Science 69

NOTES (CHAPTER 2)

1. "Analytical philosophy was stimulated and came into being through

science, particularly through the development of eighteenth-century botany,
chemistry, physics, nineteenth-century non-Euclidean geometries, and
above all mathematical logic" Skolimowski (1967), p. 8.

2. American universities were much more heavily influenced in the twentieth

century by the German model of a research institute than were British
universities. It is, therefore, not too surprising that the notion of analytic
philosophy as a technical discipline is much more endemic to the United
States than it is to Britain. The 1930s migration of positivists from
Germany to the U.S. is also relevant.

3. See the unpublished dissertation of Edward 1. Pitts, Penn State, 1979.

4. Unless we indicate otherwise, when we use the expressions 'analytic

philosophy' or 'analytic philosopher' with or without the qualification
'doctrinaire', what we shall mean are those philosophers who subscribe to
all or a significant part of the Enlightenment Project. Analytic philosophy
cannot be reduced to the Enlightenment Project, and some of the strongest
critics of the Enlightenment Project are in some broader sense analytic
philosophers.

5. Russell (1945), p. 834.

6. Sellars (1963), p. 173.

7. Dummett (1978), p. 438. Quine's statements that philosophy is continuous

with science are to be found in Quine (1969b) and (l969c).

8. Sacks (1990), p. 193,n.1.

9. Rorty (1982), p. 33.

10. "The dominant contemporary spirit ... [is one of] privileging facts about
the physical and seeking to understand statements about mind and
consciousness in its terms. This is known as physicalism, or less often
materialism (the word physicalism is preferred because physics itself asserts
that not everything that exists is material; the world includes such items as
forces and fields)" Blackburn (1996), p.68.

11. Castaneda (1980), p. 27.

12. Chisholm (1982), p. vii.

70 Chapter 2

13. RG. Collingwood (1957), p. 175: "[A] search for truth, and a search that
does not go unrewarded: but that natural science is not, as the positivists
imagined, the only department or form of human thought about which this
can be said, and is not even a self-contained and self-sufficient form of
thought, but depends for its very existence upon some other form of thought
which is different from it and cannot be reduced to it." Collingwood's
original critique of positivism and scientism, An Essay on Philosophical
Method, was first published in 1933.

14. "For the realist it is important that there is no residual reference to us (our
language, our sensibilities, our conceptual scheme) ... realists believe that
a good conceptual scheme 'carves reality at the joints'" Blackburn (1996),
p.71. Unambiguous expressions of this kind of realism are to be found in
Salmon (1984); D. Lewis (1983); Humphreys (1989); Salmon (1990);
Boyd (1993). For a discussion of Carnap as a scientific realist see Creath
(1985). There are other weaker senses of 'realism', senses which
increasingly reflect awareness of the inherent difficulties of the
Enlightenment Project. See Putnam (1987) for the distinction between
realism with a capital 'R' and with a lower case 'r'. Dummett (1978)
argues for 'antirealism' which turns out to be the anti-positivist position that
truth conditions are to be replaced by assertability conditions; sense
experience is not essential to the verification or assertability of a truth.

15. " ... in whatever ways the theories of science of Popper and Carnap may
differ, their common and decisive weakness lies in the fact that they
proceed generally in an unhistorical manner. And so it is with most of the
other contemporary proposals .... " Hubner (1983), p. 70.

16. A full blown history a/the philosophy a/science (as opposed simply to the
philosophy of science or the history of science) would show that modern or
post-Renaissance philosophers poured the new wine of seventeenth century
mechanical science into the old bottles of both Aristotelianism (Bacon,
Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke) and Platonism (e.g., Descartes, Leibniz, and
Berkeley) as well as theism (Newton) while some interpreted the new
science in terms of the Copernican view of philosophy (Hume and Kant).

17. For a description of the continuing importance of Aristotelianism in the

history and philosophy of science see Losee (1993).

18. For a discussion of contemporary debate about the nature of explanation in

Aristotle see Ruben (1990).

19. Toulmin (1972).

20. Hempel and Oppenheim (1948); Hempel (I 942).

 Analytic Philosophy O/Science 71

21. Popper (1950), pp. 445-46.

22. The theory of evolution in biology "explains" but does not predict.
Analytic philosophers must either deny that the theory of evolution explains
or surrender the notion that explanation and prediction are symmetrical.

23. Hempel and Oppenheim (1948), p. 323.

24. Hempel (1965a).

25. Goodman (1947), pp. 149-51.

26. See Armstrong (1983).

27. In the controversy between Einstein's general theory of relativity and

Heisenberg's version of quantum mechanics, analytic philosophers have
tended to side with Einstein because Einstein's views are more compatible
with total conceptualization and the alleged symmetry between explanation
and prediction.

28. Capaldi (1975).

29. "It is an hypothesis that the sun will rise to-morrow: and this means we do
not know whether it will rise" Wittgenstein, Tractatus (6.36311).

30. Nagel (1961).

31. Nagel (1961) suggested that genuine scientific laws, as opposed to

accidental generalizations, are unrestricted in time and space. However,
this would rule out Kepler's laws of planetary motion (space), and
Newton's theory of gravitation (time). Nagel's book (1961) was a classic
statement ofthe positivist philosophy of science. Nagel extended Hempel's
account of scientific explanation to biology and argued that teleological
explanations could be eliminated. He also extended Hempel's account to
historical explanation.

32. Contemporary sub-atomic physics has made this issue even more
complicated by invoking entities such as quarks or properties of entities that
are in principle not isolable.

33. For a useful discussion of the Bayesianisn program in confirmation see

Papineau (1996), pp. 295-298.

34. Popper (1959).

35. Kneale (1949).

72 Chapter 2

36. "What we have here is the old commitment to transcendental idealism - the
world in itself is not the world of which we have empirical knowledge -
along with an empirical realist claim, that the world of which we do have
knowledge is constituted in part by the framework we apply to it, so that the
success of its application is not surprising. The difference being that
whereas Kant is concerned with the constitutive role of the mind, Quine is
concerned with that of language" Sacks (1990), pp. 183-84.

37. Braithwaite (1955).

38. This should help to explain the consternation of analytic philosophers of

science when faced with Heisenberg's contention of the existence of
probabilistic laws on the sub-structural level of quantum physics.

39. This development or transition from epistemological individualism to a

social view of knowledge acquisition will have important parallels in other
areas of analytical philosophical endeavor. It clearly parallels the transition
in epistemology from a focus on sense data to a focus on language.

40. Nagel (1961), pp. 336-37.

41. Although he attended some of the meetings of the Vienna Circle, Popper
was never considered a member, and he disagreed with Carnap on a number
of issues. For our purposes, however, we note the following: (1) whatever
their disagreements, Popper subscribed to scientism, to naturalism, and to
the anti-agency view of the human self; (2) Popper was always a classical
liberal, highly critical ofNeurath's Marxism and the widespread socialist
beliefs of the members of the circle.

42. Copernicus' heliocentric theory is not to be confused with the Copernican

Revolution in philosophy initiated by Hume and Kant. There is, however,
an historical connection in that Kant had Copernicus in mind when he
formulated the expression "Copernican Revolution in philosophy." See
Capaldi (1970).

43. Duhem (1954), p. 187.

44. Quine (1951).

45. Ibid., p. 43.

46. Feyerabend (1975).

47. Hubner (1983) argues that analytic philosophy of science"lack[s] an

understanding of the historical foundations of scientific progress, as this
 Analytic Philosophy O/Science 73

relates to something which goes beyond the immediate framework of

science today" (p. 70).

48. Kuhn (1970), p. 206.

49. Lakatos and Musgrave (1970).

50. "resolution of scientific controversies often takes a long time - for example,
almost a century in the case of Copernicanism. .. All that traditional
naturalism needs to show is that resolution is ultimately achieved, in favor
either of one of the originally contending parties or of some emerging
alternative that somehow combines their merits" Kitcher (1992), pp. 97-98.

5l. Laudan (1977), (1984).

52. A similar argument is to be found in C.S. Peirce. For a trenchant critique

of this argument see Rescher (1978),especially pp. 250-52.

53. Worrall (1988), p. 274.

54. Rescher (1978), especially Chapter VIII.

55. Van Fraassen (1989) rejects the existence of law as a metaphysical notion
and advocates the instrumentalist view that science is a construction or set
of models to represent phenomena.

56. Popper (1950), pp. 234-35.

57. Einstein is not a perfect fit for Popper. When asked what He would have
done if Eddington's observations had failed to support his theory, Einstein
replied: "Then, I should have been sorry for the good lord, for the theory
is correct." Quoted in Holton (1970). Einstein is the favorite scientist of
analytic philosophers of science who adhere to the Enlightenment Project
because he was always a committed realist. On the other hand, one can find
twentieth-century scientific geniuses who are not realists and therefore
routinely ignored or dismissed by these same philosophers. Werner
Heisenberg is an example: "[T]he objective reality of the elementary
particles has been strangely dispersed, not into the fog of some new ill-
defined or still unexplained conception of reality, but into the transparent
clarity of a mathematics that no longer describes the behavior of the
elementary particles but only our knowledge of this behavior. . " Science
always presupposes the existence of man and we ... must remember that
we are not merely observers, but also actors on the stage of life"
Heisenberg (1958), p. 15.

58. Popper (1983), p. 13l.

74 Chapter 2

59. Popper (1962), p. 246.

60. Popper (1983), pp. 28-29.

61. Popper (1983), pp. 17-18.

62. Margolis (1986) and (1987).

63. Holton (1988).

64. Toulmin (1972).

65. See also Hull (1988) and (1989).

66. See Sober (1993).

67. Shapere (1983).

68. Feyerabend (1975), (1978), (1981).

69. This different kind of understanding we call 'explication' and contrast it

with both 'elimination' and 'exploration' as these function within the
analytic conversation. See Chapter Three for the beginning of the
deployment of this trio of concepts.

70. See van Fraassen (1980) and (1989).

71. Hesse (1974), (1980). See also Cartwright (1983) denying that unification
is necessary to science.

72. Stockman (1983), pp. 258-59: "If its [science] objectivity, its universality
and its necessity, cannot be grounded, as it seems on the basis of earlier
argument that it cannot, then the case for the 'autonomy' of science is
weakened, and the case for an alternative conception of scientific progress
bound to 'external' goals of the satisfaction of real human needs is
strengthened."

73. Hubner (1983) engages in a detailed analysis of Einstein's theory of

relativity in order to show that the analytic philosophical notion of
rationality is false, that analytic philosophy of science ignores history, and
that the historical context determines what the facts and fundamental
principles will be (p. 107). He also manages to do this without falling into
relativism (p. 116).
 CHAPTER 3

Analytic Philosophy· And Science

Philosophy as the Logic of Physical Science

If scientism were true, i.e., if science were the whole truth about everything, then
what would be the role or function of philosophy? If scientism were true then every
meaningful intellectual activity would be a science or a part of science. In order for
philosophy to be a meaningful intellectual activity, philosophy must be either itself
a science or a part of science. 2 As Russell expressed it:

The first characteristic of the new philosophy is that it abandons

the claim to a special philosophical method. . .. It regards
philosophy as essentially one with science, differing ... merely by
the generality of its problems, and by the fact that it is concerned
with the formation of hypotheses where empirical evidence is still
lacking .... The new philosophy ... is constructive, but as science
is constructive, bit by bit and tentatively. It has a special technical
method of construction, namely mathematical logic .... 3

Philosophy is not a science with a specific empirical subject matter. There

is no special domain of nature studied exclusively by philosophers. Nor can
philosophy be a meta-science, that is a science sitting in judgment on the other
sciences, passing on the coherence of their respective undertakings and the validity
of their methods and procedures. Philosophy cannot be this super or meta-science
within the Enlightenment Project because philosophy would then be in contlict with
the assumption of scientism. If scientism is true, i.e., if science is the whole truth
about everything, then there is nothing outside of science itself which can serve as
the standard of truth. Science is, among those analytic philosophers who subscribe
to the Enlightenment Project, the standard of truth, and therefore the standard for
judging everything else. As Ramsey put it in an often quoted remark, "there is
nothing to know except science."4 There is no standard outside of science by which
science could be judged. The whole point of the analytic philosophy o/science, as
we saw in Chapter Two, was to extract from science that very standard.
If philosophy is to have a role at all then it must be the moderate role we
have already indicated, i.e., the conceptual clarification of science or extracting from
science the standards of truth and meaning that one fmds in the sciences themselves.
One way of putting this is to say that philosophy is in a sense coextensive with the
philosophy of science, where the philosophy of science is understood as the activity
of revealing the logic of science. Philosophy is the logic 0/ science in that it tries to
lay bare the standards inherent in science itself through an examination 0/ the
structure o/science.

philosophy = philosophy o/science = logic o/science

76 Chapter 3

RudolfCarnap expressed this conception of the analytic enterprise in the forward to

Logical Syntax (1934), when he said that "philosophy is to be replaced by the logic
of science."5
As we saw in Chapter Two, there are serious difficulties with the analytic
philosophy of science, that is, with the analytical philosophical attempt to establish
the intellectual autonomy of the physical sciences. Hence, we should not be
surprised to discover that there are difficulties of a similar kind with respect to the
analytic enterprise of constructing a logic of science.
There are two distinct issues here. One issue is the attempt to establish the
autonomy of science as an intellectual enterprise; a second issue is the attempt to
articulate the structure of science. One can engage in the second activity without
believing that the first activity is possible. For those within the analytic conversation
who subscribe to the Enlightenment Project, both issues are crucial, and precisely
because they are engaged in establishing the autonomy of science, they will construe
the articulation of the structure of science in a particular way that reflects the
autonomy project. Hence there will be an obvious continuity in their treatment of
both these issues. At the same time, we note that as difficulties emerged within the
autonomy project greater and greater attention was paid to the second project of
articulating the structure of science as a means to overcoming those difficulties.
There is one obvious question to which this analytic conception of the role
of philosophy gives rise. Aren't scientists themselves in the best position to tell us
what the logic of science is? ]f so, then we do not seem to need philosophy, certainly
not a separate academic department of philosophy. Presumably the work involved
can be and must be done by scientists. To a large extent, some early analytic
philosophers argued precisely this point. Others got around this point by claiming
that in the interests of economy and consonant with the division of labor, a specialty
area had to be created within science where those with proper scientific background
and training could concentrate exclusively on the logic of science. As Arthur Pap put
it, "scientists employ concepts and principles which they could not, in due respect to
the rule of division of labor, be expected to clarify themselves."6 For the moment,
we shall pass over this rather extraordinarily patronizing claim that all along
scientists have been employing concepts and principles which at one and the same
time give us the whole truth about everything but which scientists themselves have
not had the time to clarify. Nagging doubts will remain about the precise intellectual
and cultural function ofphilosophy.7
For our present purposes it is sufficient that we have an intellectual function
specified for philosophy, namely, that it is to be the logic of science. Moreover, the
logic of science has to be understood, in general, as being the logic of physical
science. This follows from the further assumption made by analytic philosophers
that not only are the sciences unified but they are all reducible to the physical
sciences.

What is Logic?
Before we can understand philosophy as the logic of physical science we must ask
the question, "What is logic?". Logic has had a rather long history in Western
Thought, and as with most things that have a long history there are controversies as
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 77

to what logic comprises and what is the status of logic. 8 As we argued in Chapter
One, the Enlightenment Project is based upon a truncated version of Scholastic
Aristotelianism. Hence, when analytic philosophers talk about logic what they mean
is the Aristotelian conception of logic.
In order to understand Aristotelian logic we must see its integral relation to
Aristotelian metaphysics. For the Aristotelian, metaphysics is an examination of the
most comprehensive and general characteristics of existent things, that is, the
fundamental realities. Aristotelian metaphysics commences with the problems
generated by the special sciences and explores the implications oftheir leading ideas.
This clarification of the first principles of any particular science is to be distinguished
from the application of those first principles which is what the scientist does. Here
we are beginning to clarify what Pap had in mind.
We may distinguish then among three interconnected levels of intellectual
activity:
1. application of the first principles of "a" specific science, which is an
empirical scientific activity;
2. clarification of the first principles of "a" specific science, which is a non-
empirical but conceptual activity we can identify as the philosophy of "that"
specific science; and
3. clarification of the generic traits or principles common to all of the
sciences, i.e. philosophy in general (or metaphysics).
For Aristotelians, the fundamental realities are the common sense things we
experience in daily life. "Being", for the Aristotelian, is neither a thing itself nor a
property of any kind. "To be" (as opposed to "Being") means to be a subject of
thought or discourse and to have or to possess properties. Another way of putting
this is to say that "to be" is to be the subject of a sentence and never to be a predicate
of another subject. The fundamental reality was traditionaIIy referred to as
substance, but the perennial problem with substance is the difficulty of specifying
what a substance is other than by enumerating its properties. That is why
Aristotelians have traditionally used a logical (or grammatical) criterion for
identifYingfimdamental realities or substances.
Now we are in a position to specify a little more accurately what the
Aristotelian conception oflogic is. In the most general sense, logic, for Aristotelians,
comprises both epistemology and language. Logic is the structure of what we
abstract from our experience. It is the structure of our thought and speech about our
experience. It is, therefore, always grounded in what we take the experienced world
to be and what the special sciences tell us about that world.
Aristotelian logic is the study of the fundamental principles of our thought
(and speech) about the world. Aristotelian metaphysics is, on the other hand, the
study ofthe fundamental principles of the world. We can now add to our original list
of the three interconnected levels of intellectual activity, a fourth level:
4. clarification of the fundamental principles of our thought (or speech)
about the general traits or principles common to all the sciences. This is
logic.
If our thought (and speech) about the "real" world were identical to the
"real" world, or more accurately, if the structure of our speech were somehow
78 Chapter 3

identical to the structure of the world, then logic would be identical with
metaphysics. However, Aristotelians deny that there is a simple identity relation
between speech (or thought) and the world. For example, Aristotelians deny that
universal terms in speech refer directly to independently existing universal entities.
That is, Aristotelians deny the Platonic position of the independent existence of
"Forms." So, for Aristotelians, there are structural elements of our speech (and
thought) which do not mirror reality. These structural elements are deemed
meaningful and important but must be abstracted from reality. Another way of
putting this is to say that these structural elements can be distinguished within
thought and speech but not within our experience.
All of this leads Aristotelians to distinguish between two parts of logic.
There is, first, the concern with the structure of speech and language (i.e., with syntax
or "logic" in the narrow or technical sense), and, second, there is the concern with
semantics or how exactly we abstract the universal structures from our experience
(i.e., epistemology). It is assumed by Aristotelians that these two parts of logic,
namely syntax and semantics (epistemologically conceived), go together and are
continuous, but it has always been easier to talk about syntax than to talk about
semantics. The problem of relating these two parts of logic is epitomized in the
medieval controversy between conceptualists, like Aquinas who insisted on the
continuity, and nominalists, like Ockham who denied the whole epistemological
enterprise of abstracting the structure from experience. For the nominalists,
universals or linguistic structures are mere human contrivances that exist only in the
mind or thought.
There is, then, a perennial problem in Aristotelian logic about the
relationship between the structure of speech (and thought) and the structure of
reality. This problem was considerably exacerbated in the modern period. It is in
the modern period that we see a dichotomy between a physical world viewed as
mechanical and deterministic and a mental world viewed as teleological and
normative. Moreover, in the modern period, the structure ofthe physical world is not
directly visible. It became increasingly difficult to conceive of how the structure of
the latter could be abstracted from the structure of the former. Moreover, once norms
and standards in general were construed as purely internal in origin, it was impossible
to side step the question of the extent to which the structure of speech (or thought)
corresponded to the structure of the external world. All of this will form the focus
of our discussion of analytic epistemology in Chapter Five.
Analytic philosophy is also a reaction to the Copernican Revolution in
philosophy. The Copernican Revolution is best expressed in Kant's conception of
the synthetic a priori. Synthetic a priori truths, for Kant, exhibit the irreducible
functioning of the agency of the mind or self. Kant had singled out four distinct
areas which he identified as exemplifying the existence of synthetic a priori truths:
1. arithmetic
2. geometry (Euclidean)
3. principles in natural science like causality
4. morality
Moritz Schlick once epitomized positivism as the rejection of the view that
there are synthetic a priori truths. In each of the above cases there has been a
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 79

characteristic response on the part of analytic philosophers. In the case of arithmetic,

analytic philosophers initially advocated logicism or the thesis of the reduction of
arithmetic to logic. Logicism was later buttressed and then replaced by the Tractatus
view that mathematical truths, like logic, were tautological. In the language of Kant,
these philosophers were arguing that all alleged synthetic a priori truths in
mathematics were at bottom "analytic"9 (i.e., true by definition).
In the case of geometry, much was made of the articulation after Kant's
death of non-Euclidean geometries. These alternative geometries were treated as
"analytic", i.e., as un interpreted formal calculi, and the question of which alternative
geometry applied to our universe was referred to empirical confirmation.
In the case of the principle of causality and other like principles, it was
alleged by analytic philosophers that such principles were either contingent empirical
truths or heuristic devices, i.e., "analytic" definitions. Finally, in the case of
evaluative norms, these were either assigned to the social sciences where they
functioned as a kind of alleged fact or the norms were declared to be non-cognitive.
In every case, the alleged synthetic a priori truth was eliminated by declaring it to be
either meaningless, or false, or purely "analytic" or purely synthetic.
Norms playa variety of very special roles in our lives. At various points
some sort of consideration must be given to them. Since the Copernican Revolution
in philosophy, one persistent strand in modern philosophy has argued that norms are
more fundamental than facts, and that norms can only be understood by reference to
an agent-self with a history. Analytic philosophy is opposed to this view, and it
castigates such a view as the fallacy of psycho log ism. Psychologism/ o is said to be
the confusion of logic with psychology, the illegitimate substitution of a
psychological account (made psychological by reference to an agent-self who is part
of a community with a history) for a logical account, which only makes reference to
objective structures independent of the human will. 11
Aristotelians insist that logic is the study of objective structures independent
of the subject. Logic is said to be a matter of entailment and not reasoning, for
reasoning has psychological connotations. 12 Bertrand Russell defined logic as
concerned with implication understood as a formal relation among propositions, a set
of rules independent of the rule user. Russell refused to define logic in terms of
inference, which connoted the psychology of thinking. Sometimes this view is
expressed in terms of the distinction between logic as normative and psychology as
descriptive. The thing worth noting about the analytic charge that psychologism is
a fallacy is that it exemplifies our contention that one of the defining characteristics
of analytic philosophy is its anti-agency view. To the extent possible, analytic
philosophy chooses to dispense with any explanatory role for human agents and
focuses instead on alleged objective structures.
An important logical issue to emerge in the last half of the nineteenth
century was a dispute among Aristotelian logicians, specifically a dispute between
idealist logicians inspired by Hegel, such as Bradley, and the forerunners of Russell's
analytic philosophical approach such as Boole. The dispute is an important one both
because it reminds us of long standing difficulties inherent within the Aristotelian
tradition and because it heralds a major difficulty with the analytic philosophical
concern for formal logical analysis.
80 Chapter 3

As we have already seen, the Aristotelian tradition in logic denies the

complete and absolute identity of logic and metaphysics, and yet, at the same time,
it asserts a continuity between the structure of thought (and speech) and the structure
of reality. The denial of the identity is necessitated by the Aristotelian insistence that
universals have no independent existence but rather are the structure of individual
things. So the problematic issue is the status of universals.
As the object became more elusive, Aristotelians began to talk about a
"thing" as a relation or set of relations between its properties. The traditional
subject-predicate distinction in Aristotelian syllogistic logic seemed too rigid. The
traditional concept of a "thing" began to look more and more like a heuristic fiction
to be replaced by a concatenation of relations. This point was expressed by saying
that the real subject is different from the grammatical subject of a sentence. What
seemed to be needed was a logic of relations. However, if we adopt a logic of
relations what is going to happen to our understanding of universals? What does a
universal affirmative statement of the form "All x's are y's" assert? The answer given
eventually and widely accepted by modem Aristotelian logicians was that universals
are conditionals (if x then y), that is, they assert hypothetical relationships rather than
categorical relationships.
The issue of relations was made central by Bradley in his Principles of
Logic, along with an attack on psychologism. Bradley was clearly in the Aristotelian
camp. But Bradley did not stop here, rather he went on to press his case against an
atomistic epistemology which he identified with 1.S. Mill. Bradley argued that
thought could not operate with particulars but presupposed some universals that
linked or related one fact to another. Bradley further distinguished between abstract
universals which can exist only in thought or speech (e.g., "red") and concrete
universals which he asserted to be individuals. Moreover, if everything is related to
everything else in a coherent universe, then we must terminate with one all-
encompassing individual, or a monism. Logic, according to Bradley, must be
supplemented in the end with a metaphysical monism. This he took to be the
inherent logic of modern Aristotelianism. 13
In Chapter One, we discussed how analytic philosophy originated in
Russell's revolt against Bradley's version of Hegelian monism. 14 In reaction to
Bradley's logic, Russell's logic appealed to the Boolean 15 version of the Aristotelian
tradition in logic. Whereas Bradley had made affirmation primary, the Booleans
made negation primary. Booleans believed that universal affirmative statements
could be expressed as conditionals understood negatively. Thus, "All x's are y's"
first becomes "if x then y" and, eventually, "x entails y," which is said to be true as
long as it is not the case that x is true and y is false [~(x&~y)]. As W.E. Johnson was
to show, the connectives "if' and "or" could be replaced by "and" (&) and "not" (~).
What looks here like a technical matter actually has serious philosophical
consequences.
This a good point to remind ourselves what was behind Russell's rejection
of Bradley. As an advocate of scientism, Russell alleged that science progressed
through the discovery of individual truths that could be known from experience
atomistically. Methodologically this meant that parts could be known independently
of the whole and that the whole was constructed piecemeal from the parts. This is
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 81

what was behind the idea of analysis, namely knowledge through reduction to
isolable component parts. Russell was, in short, reviving Lockean British empiricism
by supplementing it with new (i.e., Boolean) techniques in logic. Interpreting
universal affirmative statements as negative conditionals was just such a new
technique. 16
According to Russell, the statement "it is not the case that there is an x
which is not a y" [~(x&~y)] can only be established inductively by examining
individual x's. If so, then the truth of the universal is dependent upon the truth of
individually (i.e., analytically) established truths. By using Boolean logic, Russell
followed Boole's lead in maintaining that relations l ? could be encompassed by an
algebraic technique that explained relations or reduced them to formalistic
concatenations of individually true or false statements. This presupposes, of course,
that Boolean logic captures what we mean by a universal truth.
It is interesting to note that what later became Russell's logicist program was
already foreshadowed ifnot wholly anticipated by Boole in a statement he made in
1848:

The view which these enquiries present of the nature of language

is a very interesting one. They exhibit it not as a mere collection
of signs, but as a system of expressions, the elements of which are
subject to the laws of the thought which they represent. That these
laws are as rigorously mathematical as the laws which govern the
purely quantitative conceptions of space and time, of number and
magnitude, is a conclusion which I do not hesitate to submit to the
exactest scrutiny. IS

Logicism
Now that we have discussed the competing alternative views of logic and the
historical background to these competing views, we are in a better position to
understand both the importance of the thesis ofiogicism for analytic philosophy and
the differences between Frege's logicism and Russell's logicism. It will be Russell's
version, not Frege's, that is crucial for analytic philosophy and for the contention that
philosophy is the logic of science. 19
Let us examine Frege first. Philosophically, Gottlob Frege was a Platonist. 20
As a Platonist, Frege subscribed to the view that the order of being (metaphysics) and
the order of knowing (epistemology) are the same. A logically perfect language
would reflect this identity. That is, a perfect language would reflect the identity of
thought with reality, although not in the idealist sense. Hence, Frege spoke of "The
True" as the reference of all thinking without any further elaboration.
Frege's primary intellectual activity was as a mathematician. His classical
Platonic orientation in mathematics led Frege to oppose Kant's treatment of
mathematical truths as synthetic a priori. 21 From Frege's point of view, Kant's
position was too subjective in invoking the activity of the mind or a role for the agent
in the explanation of mathematical truth. The rejection of this subjective element in
Kant was part of Frege's outspoken criticism of "psycho log ism." For Frege, thought,
or correct thought, was identical with reality. It must always be remembered that
82 Chapter 3

Frege understood this identity in a Platonic sense, for Frege specifically denied the
correspondence theory of truth. Consequently, he urged that the laws of logic must
be "rooted in an eternal ground."22
In order to demonstrate what he took to be the falsity of the Kantian view
and in order to exhibit the correctness of a purified Platonism, Frege proposed to
prove that the laws of arithmetic could be presented as a rigorous system wholly
derivable from the principles of logic. This is the logicist program in Frege.
While all Platonists would agree that the principles of logic are a priori,
only a radically pure Platonist like Frege would have urged that logic is analytic a
priori and capable of being presented as a consistent, coherent, and self-contained
body of truth. In 1879, Frege articulated his views of logic in his work Begriffichrifi,
giving an assessment of inference, the formal structure of judgments, and concept
formation. Frege made clear his belief that there are conceptual relations, understood
Platonically, that are expressed in all meaningful statements. The actual expression
of the conceptual relations, whether in mathematics or in another language, was
historically imperfect. The world of our daily experience is thus an imperfect
manifestation of its own underlying unity. Hence, Frege's objective is to design a
notational system that mirrors perfectly the conceptual content of any statement.
That is why the 1879 work is entitled "concept-script." As opposed to Lotze, Frege
thought that logic itself could be formalized; as opposed to Boole, the intuitionists,
and the formalists in mathematics at that time, Frege argued that logic is prior to
mathematics.
It is precisely because Frege was a Platonist that he thought logic must be
specified first and that only afterwards can mathematics be made rigorous and
coherent. Frege never proposed to derive or abstract logic from mathematics, which
is what a modern Aristotelian logician would do. This Platonic approach helps to
explain what would otherwise seem arbitrary in Frege's approach to mathematics.
Frege thought that mathematicians were not at all clear on what they meant by words
like "zero", and therefore he did not have to search for some kind of consensus on
what these concepts meant. Rather, Frege sought to tighten up mathematics by using
definitions which gave him the proof he wanted.
Even the details of Frege's logic bear a Platonic stamp instead of an
Aristotelian one. Frege developed a propositional logic in opposition to the
traditional Aristotelian class logic because, in Frege's view, a judgment is prior to a
concept. This is anti-empiricist and anti-inductivist. Again, in faithfulness to the
Platonic tradition, Frege rejected the subject-predicate distinction in favor of a
distinction between function and argument. The latter is a syntactical notion, not a
semantical one. In developing his logicist program, Frege defined arithmetical
concepts in his Grundlagen (Groundwork of Arithmetic), published in 1884. 23 In
1893 and again in 1903 he sought to carry out formally the derivation of arithmetic
from logic, most notably in his Grundgesetze (Basic Laws of Arithmetic). The
Grundgesetze represents the application of the notation developed in the
Begriffischrifi to the logicist program of the Grundlagen. As part of his
formalization of logic, Frege used the concept of a set, thereby presupposing that one
could have a formalized set theory. This proved to be the Achilles heel of logicism.
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 83

Any collection of objects is a set. In mathematics, it is held that every

mathematical object can be interpreted as a set. A set can be specified either by
tabulating all its elements, e.g. {major philosophy graduate schools in the northeast,
the editorial policy of the Journal of Philosophy, etc.}, or by specifying a rule for
determining which things are part ofthe set, e.g., {all even integers greater than 13}.
However, it was soon discovered by Russell that not every description which seems
to be meaningful can be denoted as a legitimate set.
In reading Frege, Russell discovered an inconsistency which came to be
known as Russell's paradox. Briefly, Russell raised a question about what it means
to belong to a set. Some sets can seemingly belong to themselves, and some sets
cannot so belong. Russel\ then formulated the notion of a higher level set which
allegedly consists of all the sets that do not belong to themselves. Within such a
higher level set we discover a contradiction, namely, a set which is a part of a super
set only if it is not a part of that super set. The set both is and is not a part of the
super set. Technicalities aside, what this says is that within set theory we cannot talk
consistently about the existence of sets that contain themselves. If we cannot talk
about systems in terms of themselves, then we cannot have a consistent, coherent,
and self-contained frame of reference. This will eventually turn out to be, as we shall
see over and over again in the following chapters, a very special problem for analytic
philosophy. In the meantime, it was perceived as a disaster both for Frege's logicism
and his Platonism, and this perception subsequently caused Frege to abandon
logicism. 24
It is at this point that Bertrand Russell offered his own version of logicism,
one that reflected the defining characteristics of the Enlightenment Project:
scientism, Aristotelianism,25 and an anti-agency view. Russell's logicism begins with
the assumption of scientism, namely, that science is the whole truth about everything.

What I myself have had to say, whether about mathematics or

about physics or about perception or about the relation of language
to fact, has proceeded always by a certain method. Taking it for
granted that, broadly speaking, science and common sense are
capable of being interpreted so as to be true in the main, the
question arises: what are the minimum hypotheses from which
this broad measure of truth will result? This is a technical question
and it has no unique answer. A body of propositions, such as
those of pure mathematics or theoretical physics, can be deduced
from a certain apparatus of initial assumptions concerning initial
undefined terms. Any reduction in the number of undefined terms
and unproved premisses is an improvement since it diminishes the
range of possible error and provides a smaller assemblage of
hostages for the truth of the whole system. It was for this reason
that I was glad to find mathematics reducible to logic. Kronecker
said that God created the natural numbers and the mathematicians
created the rest: viz. fractions, real numbers imaginary numbers
and complex numbers. But the natural numbers themselves, on
this view, remained at an infinite set of mysterious entities. It was
84 Chapter 3

comforting to find that they could all be swept into limbo, leaving
Divine Creation confined to such purely logical concepts as or and
not and all and some. It is true that when this analysis had been
effected, philosophical problems remained as regards the residue,
but the problems were fewer and more manageable. It had
formerly been necessary to give some kind of Platonic being to all
the natural numbers. It was not now necessary to deny being to
them, but only to abstain from asserting it, that is to say one could
maintain the truth of pure mathematics with fewer assumptions
than were formerly necessary.26

Russell's logicism is Aristotelian as opposed to Frege's Platonism. Instead

of arguing that logic is prior to mathematics, Russell saw the reduction of
mathematics to logic as a process of abstraction in which we obtain by a process of
increasingly refined analysis a knowledge of the ultimate structure of the world.
Logic is the ultimate and final abstracted structure of reality. Rather than thinking
oflogic as a self-contained frame of reference, we may think of it as more analogous
to the periodic table of elements. The periodic table leaves lots of gaps, but it
provides both the frame and the connections that can aid in filling in the gaps. That
is why Russell's discovery of the paradox in Frege's system did not discourage him
as it did Frege. Like the discovery of grammar, logic tells us the structure of all
meaningful statements but not necessarily which ones are true. The latter notion of
truth depends on experience and future discovery in science. In the meantime,
philosophers can contribute by articulating the logic of science without ever having
to go near a laboratory.
Russell's logicism is also anti-agency or anti-Copernican in important ways.
If logic is abstracted from mathematics which in tum is abstracted from science, then
the Kantian contention that mathematics is synthetic a priori will have been
successfully undermined. 27 The "derivation" of mathematics from logic, or the
ability to express mathematical truths as deductions from logic, shows that the
fundamental principles of mathematics are not themselves mathematical. As even
Frege had made clear, there is a difference between a rule and the principle for
applying the rule. But whereas Kant had located the principles of application in the
mind of the subject,28 and whereas Frege had sought unsuccessfully to locate the
principles in a self-contained system, Russell saw those principles as ultimately
abstracted from our experience of the nature of the physical world itself.

Russell's logicism can be expressed in the following argument:

[Principia <---logic <--- mathematics <--- science <---reality

Mathematical

1. Science is the whole truth about reality.

2. Mathematics is the language of science. Hence, mathematics
is the language in which all truth is expressed or expressible.
3. Logic 29 is the structure or "grammar" of mathematics.
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 85

4. Therefore, to understand logic is to understand the structure of all truth.

If one could fonnalize logic, then one would have the ultimate framework
in terms of which all truth is expressible. Knowledge of such a framework
would lay bare the architectonic of the universe and give us a powerful tool
for clarification and criticism.

This is the original reason why the techniques of Principia Mathematica or

formal logic are the official language in which analytic philosophers "do" philosophy
or express the logic of science. To this day, undergraduate philosophy majors are
required to take a course in logic that trains them in the use of these techniques. But
it is also true to say that such a logic is not a neutral method, rather it commits one
to a philosophical position.
In Chapter Two we examined the analytic philosophical attempt to establish
the autonomy of science, that is, step (1) of Russell's program. Here, in Chapter
Three, we are examining steps (2) and (3). Precisely because of the difficulties in
establishing step (1) we shall see difficulties in steps (2) and (3).
Russell's logicist program seemingly accomplished a number of objectives.
First, it gives a specific meaning to the notion of philosophy as the logic of
science and thereby provides for a substantive division of labor between scientists
and philosophers.
Second, it diffuses the ever present threat that the existence of mathematics
poses for Aristotelians. That is, rather than there being an alternative source of truth
that Platonists can fasten upon, mathematics is grounded in empirical science at one
end and domesticated by logic at the other end.
Third, in addition to undermining Platonism, the rejection of the Kantian
view that mathematics is synthetic a priori also serves to undermine the Copernican
Revolution in philosophY. That is, no reference need apparently be made to the
contributions of the agent to the knowing process. Mathematics has an abstractable
structure just like everything else.
Fourth, by actually specifying the ultimate structure of all meaningful
discourse as abstracted from mathematics and empirical science, Russell is
supporting the analytic philosophical program of a unified and total science. This
achievement, if successful, is not to be underestimated. Scientism is an article of
faith. In the initial euphoria that greeted the publication of Principia Mathematica
(1910-13) it was thought that here we had transfonned an article of faith into a
rigorous proof.
Fifth, by seemingly establishing scientism through logicism, Russell
maintained a traditional role for philosophy as final arbiter of the intellect and of
culture.
Finally, Russell provided philosophers with a powerful tool with which they
could carry out their research program.
Russell's logicist program for the reduction of mathematics to logic began
with the use of Peano's three undefined notions in mathematics: 'zero', 'number', and
'successor'. These notions were then defined by Russell as logical relations between
classes understood as sets. Russell, like Frege, continued to rely upon set theory.
Relations, in turn, were defined by reference to material implication (p > q).
86 Chapter 3

Eventually, material implication (», "if...then," was reduced to the undefined

notions of "or" (v) and "not" (-) which connected particular or atomic truths.
Two things are to be noticed about this use of material implication. First,
it relies upon the concept of negation derived from Boole and opposed to Bradley's
Hegelian understanding of conditionals. Second, the use of material implication
involves well known paradoxes (such as that a false statement materially implies
anything), but Russell was content to use it because it is the notion of implication
most compatible with an atomistic conception of truth. Analytic philosophy assumes
a world ofisolable factual truths capable of being discovered and understood on their
own and without any irreducible whole (Hegelian or otherwise). Any atomistic truth
can be related to any other in a purely formal and syntactic fashion without reference
to any other kind of truth or meaning. One consequence of conceptualizing inference
in terms of material implication is that it allows validity to be defined in terms of the
truth of individual atomic statements. An argument is said to be valid as long as it
does not have true premisses and a false conclusion. Again we are seemingly able
to avoid the Hegelian notion ofthe totality within which truths are locked together.
Principia Mathematica gives us a picture of a perfectly modem Aristotelian world
in which all truths are discovered empirically and related to each other in a
syntactical way without a semantic residue.
Unfortunately, no sooner had Russell presented this pure syntactical vision
than problems began to emerge. Since he too had used set theory, Russell had to
explain how his system managed to avoid the paradoxes that he himself had
discovered in Frege's version of logicism. Recall Russell's paradox:
1. Let S stand for a set consisting of all sets which do not
belong to themselves. [For example, the class of men is not itself a man, and
hence does not belong to itself. On the other hand, the class of non-human
things is itself non-human and therefore belongs to itself.]
2. Question: does S belong to S?
3. If S belongs to S, then it does not belong to S. If S does not belong to
S then it does belong to S. This is clearly a contradiction.

There is one way of avoiding this paradox that is of special interest to us.
One can rule out the paradox by asserting that everything belongs to one all-
encompassing consistent set. This way out is unavailable to Russell because it would
amount to accepting the very Hegelian position whose denial is the immediate origin
of analytic philosophy. Instead of taking the Hegelian route, Russell proposed his
theory of types. The theory of types invokes three principles, each of which is
highly controversial. One of these principles is an ontological one, that is, it makes
a claim about the fundamental nature of the universe. The ontological claim denies
the possibility of an all-inclusive set. We shall call this the anti-Hegelian principle.

You can lay it down [italics addedJ that a totality of any sort
cannot be a member of itself. That applies to what we are saying
about classes. For instance, the totality of classes in the world
cannot be a class in the same sense in which they are. So we shall
have to distinguish a hierarchy of classes. 3o
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 87

The second principle is a semantic one which allows us to handle the issue
of how one set can belong to another by postulating a hierarchy of sets. Within the
hierarchy of sets, one set can belong to another only if the other set is of a higher
type within the hierarchy. This hierarchy is said to be infinite. The combination of
these two principles, a hierarchy without a final encompassing set, required Russell
to postulate a third principle. The third principle is the axiom of infinity in which it
is alleged that there are an infinite number of individuals.
There are two objections to Russell's theory of types, one external and one
internal. The external objection is in the form of a question. Ifthere is no closure,
where are we standing when we make statements, or what is the meaning of a
statement made about, an infinite hierarchy? Might the notion of a 'progressive
hierarchy' be an oxymoron? Surely such statements cannot be just one of the levels,
for if so, then there would be another level from which Russell could presumably
explain them. Ifthe statement cannot belong to one of the levels, then the statement
about an infinite hierarchy would be meaningless. It seems as if the fundamental
statements of Russell's logicism are either false, meaningless, or cannot be stated.
This lack of reflection would not be lost on Wittgenstein in his contemplations at the
end of the Tractatus.
The second or internal objection concerns the ad hoc nature of these three
principles. What is not so obvious is that Russell's picture of the perfect syntactical
Eden has managed to let in the semantic serpent. Russell's logicist program alleges
that "mathematics and logic are identicaL"3! More exactly, Russell said:

AIl [pure] mathematics deals exclusively with concepts definable

in terms of a very smaIl number of [fundamental] logical concepts,
and ... all its propositions are deducible from a very smaIl number
of fundamental logical principles. 32

There are three separate claims being made in the foregoing statement by
Russell. First, it is being claimed that every mathematical statement is translatable
into a logical statement. Second, it is being claimed that every logical statement
which translates a mathematical statement is a logical truth. Third, it is being
claimed that every mathematical truth is deducible from a finite set of logical truths.
As we shall see, Godel successfuIly challenged the third claim. Our interest
here is in the second claim. The semantic principle in Russell's theory of types and
the axiom of infinity are not pure logical principles or mere stipulations. Rather,
they make claims about the relation of Russell's theory of types to the world. Even
Russell's subsequent attempt to deal with these problems in his ramified theory of
types had to employ another non-logical and semantic principle, namely, the axiom
of reducibility. The logicist program failed to present a pure syntactical vision. This
in itself, quite apart from Godel, raises profound issues of what constitutes logic. As
it stands, Russell's logicism amounts to no more than the minimal claim that
mathematics and logic are inter-translatable, which simply means that one technical
language can be translated into another. The status of both of those technical
languages remains at issue. 33
88 Chapter 3

The problem created by the failure of Russell's logicist program is, at one
level, a problem for the analytic version of the Aristotelian conception of logic. It
appears that we cannot reduce or eliminate semantics in favor of a purely syntactical
view of logic. The reader will recall from our earlier description that Aristotelians
assume a continuity of semantics and syntax, and further they assume that the
clarification of syntax is a necessary prelude to dealing with semantical issues.
However, the failure ofRussell's logicist program reveals that the understanding of
syntax presupposes an understanding of semantics. 34
There is yet a second level at which the failure of Russell's logicist program
is important. Part of the purpose of the hoped for reduction of semantics to syntax
was to legitimate the piecemeal approach to truth that Russell championed as
opposed to the Hegelian view he opposed. Once we have to invoke semantic
considerations to account for syntactical distinctions it would appear that individual
truths are not identifiable in abstraction from some background interpretation. We
have already, in the previous chapter on the analytic philosophy of science, seen how
the analytic conception of incremental growth in scientific knowledge cannot be
sustained without employing historicist assumptions. Our brief examination of
Russell's logicist program shows us the same thing in a more limited or technical
domain. Logic, or the logic of science, cannot be abstracted in any straight forward
fashion from science via mathematics. The use of semantic principles shows that we
must appeal to something outside of science in order to understand science. Thus,
the failure ofRussel/'s logicism casts forther doubt on the notion of the autonomy of
science.
At yet a third level, the philosophical ambition of analytic philosophy has
been shaken by the failure of Russell's logicism. It is the avowed purpose of the
Enlightenment Project within analytic philosophy to achieve a total conceptualization
of all knowledge as a form of scientific knowledge. That is, scientism is not only a
claim about science being the whole truth but it is also a claim about science being
the whole truth about everything. Everything is in principle conceptualizable, and
it is conceptualizable scientifically, or so it is alleged. Russell's attempt to exemplify
this in Principia Mathematica failed, and so we are left with two alternatives, both
of which are unpalatable. Either one would have to appeal to non-scientific
principles to explain science or one would have to opt for total conceptualization in
the Hegelian manner.35 Either way would require us to abandon the Enlightenment
Project within analytic philosophy.36
In retrospect, and without touching upon the metaphysical issues raised
(something we shall do in the next chapter), logicism can be viewed as an attempt to
give a definitive answer to the question of what philosophy would be ifit were the
logic of science. Given the optimism that pervaded science at the turn of the
twentieth century with its belief that the whole truth was almost at hand, given the
brilliant technical achievements in mathematics and mathematical logic, and given
a certain naivete about metaphysics, it is understandable that many analytic
philosophers were drawn to the idea that logic could be read off of or abstracted in
a neat fashion directly from science and mathematics. The failure of logicism closes
off one easy and direct route to answering the question of the role of philosophy as
the logic of science. The abandonment of logicism does not mark the abandoning
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 89

of analytic philosophy, but it did require that a different conception of philosophy as

the logic of science had to be supplied.

From Positivism to the New Analytic Philosophy

Let us take stock of where analytic philosophy stands at the demise of logicism.
Scientism is still going to be maintained, and it will still be held both that
mathematics is the language of science and that logic is the grammar of mathematics.
However, it is now clear that the logic cannot be directly abstracted from the
mathematics. Just as analytic philosophers had to take a 'Kantian Turn' in
comprehending science, whose truth and development turn out to be far more
complicated affairs than previously suspected, so within mathematics it will be
necessary to recognize that the principles which guide it are not so easily identifiable
or specifiable. The non-trivial a priori elements (hence the phrase 'Kantian Turn')
that form the background to all forms of human intelligence are not easily identified
or explained. Rather than accept the alternatives that either no account is possible
or that their quest for an account is misconceived, analytic philosophers will
steadfastly maintain that at some other level an account of a priori thinking is
possible and that the account at that level is compatible with the scientism of the
Enlightenment Project.
In the meantime, logic can still be viewed as the grammatical structure of
mathematics and science. Since, however, our scientific knowledge is incomplete
(i.e., we do not know the whole scientific truth yet), and hence our understanding of
scientific knowledge is incomplete, and since afortiori our mathematical knowledge
is incomplete as well as our understanding of mathematical knowledge, our
understanding of logic is necessarily incomplete. Can one do anything in science
with an incompletely understood logic? The answer is yes if one is willing to
assume, as Russell had urged, that knowledge is acquired in an incremental process.
What we think that we presently know we may be said to know. The only question
is how to proceed from what we think that we presently know to knowing more and
ultimately to knowing all.
Philosophy is still the logic of science but of an as yet incomplete science.
What analytic philosophers must do now is to sketch a vision of what that logic must
be like in a manner compatible with scientism. Since scientific thinking is the
standard of all right thinking, one must approach this task of specifying logic in a
scientific way. The paradox here, which is obvious to us in hindsight, is that without
a prior consensus on what constitutes science we cannot give a consensual scientific
account of logic. The argument for the relationship between science and logic is
circular.
An important historical note should be added here. When the difficulties
with logicism were first encountered, during the first three decades of the twentieth
century, analytic philosophers were still not aware of the inadequacy of their vision
of science. The technical difficulties in logic were presumed to be merely technical
and technically solvable in the near future. At the same time, it was presumed that
a consensus on the nature of science existed and hence that it was still possible to
proceed. If analytic philosophers had been aware prior to the 1950s that there was
to be no clear and defensible consensus on what constituted science, they could not
90 Chapter 3

have proceeded as they did. There would have been no clear meaning to the notion
of philosophy as describing the logic of science.
Our concern here is with the conception of philosophy itself that emerges
within analytic philosophy as the result of its basic commitments, its notion that
philosophy is the logic of science, its modern truncated Aristotelian conception of
logic, and its recognition in the light of the difficulties of logicism that logic cannot
be abstracted mechanically from mathematical science.
1. Science is the whole truth about everything.
2. Philosophy is the logic of science.
3. Logic cannot be abstracted directly from mathematical science. This is
the result of the failure oflogicism.
4. Therefore, philosophers must give or presuppose some other account of
logic, presumably a "scientific" one.
5. Giving a "scientific" account of logic presupposes a certain conception
of what it means to be scientific. This is a preconception precisely because
their is no independent support for what it means to be "scientific." There
is no such independent support because of the failure of logicism and
because of the inability to demonstrate the autonomy of science.
Ultimately, the analytic attempt to give a "scientific" account of science
will turn out to be circular.
6. The analytic preconception of what it means to give a scientific account
of anything is that we must explore a hypothesis about the hidden structure
of what we are explaining. What we have here, in Quine's words, is "a
strategy for the scientific study of scientific method and evidence."37
7. Scientific explanations are, therefore, either eliminative reductions or
exploratory hypotheses about hidden sub-structure.

Where did this preconception of what it means to give a scientific account

originate? The answer to this question is an historical one, namely the previous
historical models available to analytic philosophers and the reasons why some of
these models are more attractive to them than others. There were, or are, three prior
models of explanation available, the first two of which are borrowed directly from
the practice of physical science itself. Those three models are elimination,
exploration, and explication. The distinction among these models and the
relationships among them are crucial to understanding and critiquing analytic
philosophy.
Elimination. When we theorize from an elimination point of view there is
an explicit substitution of new ideas for old ideas. All forms of reductionism are
forms of elimination. Elimination is most characteristic of physical science and
technological thinking. Some examples would be the elimination of Ptolemy's
geocentric view of the universe and its replacement by Copernicus' heliocentric view
of the universe. Another example would be the elimination of traditional theories of
disease by the discovery of microbes. Elimination is a form of technological
thinking which seems to make sense if there is some prior agreed upon framework
in terms of which we can judge that a new theory is better than an old theory.
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 91

The early history of analytic philosophy, especially in its positivistic phase,

can be viewed as subscribing to the view that all correct thinking is eliminative
thinking. Certainly in the early Russell and in the positivism of the Vienna Circle
one sees an optimism about how science is the successful elimination of superstition
and nonsense and how philosophy is the overseer of the transition period to a totally
scientific world view.
The major difficulty with elimination is one that we have already touched
upon, and that is that there must be some independent criterion in terms of which we
can judge an elimination to be successful. Analytic philosophers, because of their
commitment to scientism, believed, originally, that science bore the mark of its own
validity. Therefore, in order to decide when one theory has successfully eliminated
another we can look to science itself. Within physical science we find examples of
"successful" reductions of one theory to another or eliminations of one theory in
favor of another. So it would seem to be a simple matter of extracting the criteria for
such success. Unfortunately, as we saw in Chapter Two, this turned out not to be the
case. Instead of being a minor technical problem of specifying when reduction-
elimination was successful, it turned out that there was no consensus on when
elimination was successful. J8 It is not sufficient to borrow a form of reasoning from
the practice of physical science if that practice rests upon a prior framework which
is not itself either autonomous or internal to physical science.
Russell's Principia Mathematica and Wittgenstein's Tractatus are the high
water mark of the notion that philosophy as the logic of science is to be a form of
elimination. The failure of logicism and the results of GOdel's theorem show the
impossibility of carrying out the kind of reduction and elimination that analytic
philosophy originally thought possible. In logic, mathematics, and science there are
a priori elements (semantic notions, conventions, appeals to common sense or to
intuitions, etc.) which cannot be eliminated in a straightforward and unambiguous
fashion. Hence, if philosophy is to be the logic of science, it must appeal to some
other version of scientific thinking.
Exploration. In exploration we begin with our ordinary understanding of
how things work and then go on to speculate on what might be behind those
workings. An exploration is a speculative hypothesis about the hidden structure of
how things work. In time, we come to change our ordinary understanding. The new
understanding does not evolve from or elaborate the old understanding, rather it
replaces it by appeal to underlying structures. The underlying structures are
discovered by following out the implications of some hypothetical model about those
structures. Exploration, then, stresses the search for structure rather than for
meaning, the search for the formal elements underlying the everyday world rather
than believing that the everyday world can constitute its own level of understanding.
There are two versions of exploration. In one version, our ordinary
understanding is a necessary but temporary scaffolding to be taken down when the
construction is completed. In a second version, our ordinary understanding is
indispensable but revisable in the light of the clarification of underlying structures.
Exploration is and has been a primary mode of thinking found in the
physical sciences since the sixteenth century discovery of objects either too small
(e.g., microbes) or too far (e.g., the moons of Jupiter) to be seen with the naked eye.
92 Chapter 3

In this sense the technological development of instruments like the microscope and
the telescope had momentous consequences even for the conception of scientific
explanation. This mode of thinking is exemplified, most famously, in the atomic
theory. For example, we explain chemical behavior or the behavior of gases by
reference to molecular and atomic particles.
Exploration is also preeminently the mode of thought of academic social
science. By alleged analogy with physical science, the social sciences have
persistently sought to discover the hidden structure behind the everyday
understanding of social activities. From Durkheim to Marx, Freud, the functionalists,
Chomsky, etc., social scientists have persistently sought to reveal a structural level
of which we are not immediately aware.
The single most important development in the evolution of analytic
philosophy is the transition from the view that philosophy is elimination to the view
that philosophy is exploration. The failure of logicism made it impossible for
philosophy to be an integral part of physical science, and consequently that failure
made it impossible for philosophy to be a form of eliminative thinking. Another way
of putting this is to say that the radical elimination of philosophy, alluded to in our
earlier discussion of the relation of philosophy and science, could not be carried out.
A more moderate position had to be taken.

Philosophy as the Social Science of Science

To construe philosophy as aform ofexploration is to construe it as aform ofsocial
science. Let us review how this came about and what it means.
a. If scientism is true then every meaningful intellectual activity must be a
science or part of a science.
b. Philosophy cannot be the logic of science because of the failure of
logicism.
c. Philosophy must be the task of giving a "scientific" account of the social
practice of science.
d. Therefore, philosophy can only be the social science of science.
e. Philosophy formulates scientific hypotheses or models which speculate
on the hidden structures which underlie our cognitive activities. That is, if
our cognitive activities cannot be cashed out directly in a straight
elimination, then there must be another level, presumably hidden, which
both accounts for the cognitive activity and is itself amenable to scientific
confirmation.
f. The hidden structure cannot be accounted for in solely sociological terms
because the unity of science thesis requires that social scientific
explanations be themselves explained by or reduced to reference to
structures totally independent of human nature. 39
g. The obvious candidates for such a science are cognitive psychology and
Iinguistics. 40 We shall examine this development in Chapters Six and
Seven.
h. If philosophy is a form of exploratory pre-social science then it can be
extended to deal with that level of phenomena that has hitherto been a
stumbling block to scientism, namely the level of consciousness where
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 93

norms seemingly operate. We shall examine this development in Chapters

Eight, Nine, Ten and Eleven.
i. The foregoing conception of philosophy as an exploratory social science
allows philosophy to fill an important cultural role as the herald and
defender of the scientism of the Enlightenment Project until the independent
social sciences can operate on their own. According to some analytic
versions of the philosophical history of culture, philosophy is an early form
of science, and specific sciences eventually become independent.
j. The problems we encountered in Chapter Two with the analytical
philosophical attempt to establish the autonomy of physical science led to
the postulation of an historical view of theory progression. That historical
view can now, in retrospect, be viewed as an exploratory hypothesis.
Hereafter, programs in the analytic philosophy of science will be
rechristened as programs in the history and philosophy of science.

The widely hailed rejection o/positivism is the symbol o/this transitionfrom

philosophy as eliminative physical science to philosophy as exploratory social
science. Symptomatic of this transition is the emphasis on the continuity of science
and common sense. 41 Of course, we must be careful to keep in mind that
"continuous" is being used here metaphorically, and we shall have to specify it more
carefully. To explore is to begin with common sense and then to transcend it by the
use of science. It is this further requirement that common sense ultimately be
transcended that distinguishes the main stream of analytic philosophy, as defined
here, from ordinary language philosophy. Ordinary language philosophers had
always opposed the reductive eliminativism ofthe positivists, and for a while joined
hands with the view that we must explore the structure of common sense or ordinary
usage. Moreover, ordinary language philosophers fully expected that structure to be
objective and realist in an Aristotelian and anti-Copernican sense. However,
ordinary language philosophers resisted the notion that the hidden structure was
scientistic, opting instead for structures that could be expressed in ordinary language
itself.42 At best, ordinary language philosophers prevaricated by espousing
compatibilism or, at worst, evaded coming to terms with the status of their own
analyses. In any case, ordinary language was ultimately superseded by scientistic
exploration.
The paradigm case of exploration in analytic philosophy had been suggested
early on by Bertrand Russe1l 43 himself in his theory 0/ descriptions. 44 This theory
was originally developed to account for the meaning of expressions which refer to
non-existent objects. For example, we have the sentence "The present King of
France is bald," articulated today (or in 1905) when there is (or was) no King of
France. According to Russell's analysis, we must distinguish between the meaning
ofthe statement and the truth ofthe statement. More important, we must distinguish
between the grammatical form of the statement, which is immediately observable,
and the logical form of the statement, which is its hidden structure. By employing
these distinctions and the tools of his own modem logic, Russell claimed to have
discovered the hidden structure of the foregoing statement.
94 Chapter 3

(1) Ex [i.e., there exists an x] such that

(2) x is the King of France, and
(3) x is bald.

Once the hidden structure is exposed, we can conclude that the sentence is
meaningful because of (2) and (3) but false because of (1).
The theory of descriptions is an exploration because it begins with our
ordinary understanding and then proceeds to reveal the hidden structure behind our
ordinary understanding. Once exposed, the hidden structure leads us to change our
understanding. Revelation of the hidden structure avoids misunderstandings,
puzzlement, and confusions endemic to naive ordinary understanding and goes on
to replace it with clear and precise formulations in the language of logic. Further,
what makes this an exploration and not an elimination is that Russell assumed that
our ordinary understanding was a starting point to be clarified and then replaced by
an analysis of the hidden structure. A totally eliminative approach would have begun
simply by dismissing ordinary language as non-scientific.
It would also be instructive here to point out how Russell's exploration is
'Aristotelian'. Before Russell, Frege had distinguished the meaning of a concept
from the reference of a concept. According to Frege, we can grasp the meaning of
a concept without knowing its reference. Frege concluded that if some names in a
sentence did not refer, then while the sentence was meaningful the sentence was
neither true nor false. Russell's interpretation insists that such sentences are both
meaningful and have a truth value. Platonists can accept meanings without
reference, but Aristotelians cannot. "The real aim of 'On Denoting' was to safeguard
the non-linguistic nature of the analysis of propositions by the elimination of
denoting concepts."45 Finally, it should be noted that Quine has refined Russell's
analysis in Quine's article "On What There Is".46 Quine treats statements about non-
existent objects as follows: ~(Ex) Fx. In Quine'S ontology "to be" is to be the value
of a bound variable; historically, this is the contemporary analytic counterpart to
Aristotle's original contention that "to be" is to be the subject of a sentence.
The transition from elimination to exploration clarified the role of the
analytic philosopher as a kind of social scientist. ''''Now [analytic] philosophers
prefer to think of themselves as quasi-scientists, collaborating in a research
programme."47 It is a research program that focuses on concepts. "Philosophy is a
much more purely verbal activity than any of the sciences: verbal discussion is the
laboratory in which the philosopher puts his ideas to the test."48 The hypotheses
formulated by the philosopher are hypotheses about the meaning of concepts, not the
everyday surface meaning but the underlying structural meaning. The end result of
a successful hypothesis is that we change our ordinary understanding. "A useful
definition - one which helps to solve real problems will always be", according to
Popper, "an eliminating definition, rather than an explicating one."49 The end result
of exploration is the same as elimination, namely, the replacement of everyday
notions with more precise ones. However, in exploration we must arrive at precision
by elaborate hypotheses about the hidden structure behind everyday notions.
'Precision' is understood here by reference to structure.
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 95

One of the clearest contemporary expressions of the analytic philosophical

program of exploration is to be found in Donald Davidson:

I view formal languages or canonical notations as devices for

exploring the structure of natural language. We know how to give
a theory of truth for the formal language; so if we also knew how
to transform the sentences of a natural language systematically
into sentences of the formal language, we would have a theory of
truth for the naturallanguage. 5o

George Romanos maintains that both Quine and Davidson are engaged in "an actual
analysis of the underlying 'deep structure .. .' of a given fragment of a more
encompassing naturallanguage."5J
In addition to Russell, Carnap had also suggested an early form of
exploration in the Aujbau. In that 1928 work, Carnap developed the notion of
constitution or construction theory. In construction theory, one set of sentences is
transformed into another set where the latter explains the former but is not identical
to it. This version of exploration will later inspire the neo-Carnapians, Montague and
Kripke.
So far we have discussed one important continuity between the eliminative
phase of analytic philosophy and the exploratory phase of analytic philosophy. The
element of continuity is that both elimination and exploration eventually replace our
ordinary understanding. A second element of continuity is the continued use of the
notational system of symbolic logic originally developed by Russell in Principia
Mathematica. The abandonment of logicism was not followed by the abandonment
of formal logic. Of course, logic is now, in the case of exploration, understood
somewhat differently. Whereas in the case of elimination logic was alleged to give
us a formal picture of the ultimate structure of reality and our speech about reality,
and therefore solving the problem of the relation between the two, in the case of
exploration logic is a tool for theory exploration.

Formal logic became a serious science just a hundred years ago,

ach ieving its renaissance at the hands of Gottlob Frege. A striking
trait of scientific philosophy in subsequent years has been the use,
increasingly, of the powerful new logic. This has made for a
deepening of insights and a sharpening of problems and solutions.
It has made also for an intrusion of technical terms and symbols
which [while serving the investigators well,] tended to estrange lay
readers. 52

The question remains as to whether the logic originally developed by

Russell in Principia Mathematica, however subsequently modified, is the correct tool
for theory exploration. Here we must distinguish between two questions. First, is
formal logic, in general, an adequate tool for theory exploration? Second, is the
formal logic of Principia Mathematica as subsequently modified sufficiently
adequate as the tool for theory exploration?
96 Chapter 3

It is easier to answer the first question than it is to answer the second one.
If science is in the end the whole truth about everything, then whatever is the
language of science is of necessity the language in terms of which the exploration of
hypotheses must be carried out. The language of science in the history of Western
Civilization has always been mathematics. Therefore, whatever the logic of
mathematics is, that becomes the formal logic for theory exploration.
The answer to the second question, namely, is the formal logic of Principia
Mathematica and its derivatives sufficient for all of the purposes of theory
exploration, is much more elusive. The failure of logicism and the incompleteness
proof of Godel, demonstrate that mathematics cannot be completely and consistently
formalized in one system. At the very least, some concatenation or hierarchy of
systems would seem to be necessary. However, even if a hierarchy of systems is
necessary, we would not know if that hierarchy is sufficient. That is, it might be
necessary to supplement mathematics with additional non-formal principles that are
non-mathematical and non-scientific, or at least not directly abstractable from
mathematical science. This in itself would not be a problem for either scientists or
for mathematicians, but it is a problem for anyone whose philosophical commitment
is to scientism. Within mathematics itself there are competing views, i.e.,
philosophical positions including Platonic ones (e.g., by Godel and Wang) and a
Copernican one (e.g., Wittgenstein). Given controversies within mathematics itself,
and given Wittgenstein's contention that "there is no such thing" as philosophic
logic,53 no appeal to mathematics can settle the issue.
One way of evading these difficulties is to argue that there is much more to
mathematics than is necessary for science. That is, many branches of mathematics
have no application or no conceivable scientific application. The truth of scientism
or the assumed truth of scientism requires only that some mathematics is necessary,
not all of it. It may, therefore, be the case that whatever mathematics turns out to be
the final, correct and comprehensive language of scientism will lend itself to being
systematized and that the final systematization, whatever its form, will give us all the
formal logic we need.
This way of evading the difficulty of the ultimate logical formalization of
mathematics and its adequacy for purposes of philosophical exploration faces
additional problems of its own. It amounts to saying that (a) we do not yet have the
final scientific truth, and therefore (b) we do not yet have the final sufficient
mathematics, or at least we cannot be sure that present mathematics as we know it
is the final sufficient mathematics. It could very well be that all of our present
mathematics is analogous to Descartes' analytic geometry prior to the development
of calculus by Newton or by Leibniz. This very real possibility might mean that all
of our present formal logic is hopelessly inadequate and that everything we do, every
exploration in which we now engage, is doomed to failure and at best will be viewed
as of purely antiquarian interest by future generations. The view of a piecemeal
approach to the growth of scientific knowledge that was initiated by Russell gives us,
at least, pieces of the puzzle, but it does not give us a substantial clue to what the
formal frame will be like. Under these circumstances, namely, the failure of logicism
and the unsupported nature of exploration, the continued use of our present forms of
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 97

formal logic is (a) at best an act of faith, or (b) a misguided anachronism, or (c)
totally wrong-headed.
Serious questions have been raised about whether technical advances in
logic help to solve philosophical problems.

If Principia Mathematica had been successful, it would have been

a wonderful example ofthis. But it was not successful, so why has
symbolic logic remained as one of the characteristic features of
analytical tradition? Unlike the position in Principia, the technical
tricks oflogic are not often essential and symbolic arguments are
prone to conceal rather than illuminate. Who is the beneficiary,
for example, of the clarification of the way in which Peano's
axioms in first order fail to be categorical, that is, fail to
characterize their subject matter up to isomorphism, when first
year mathematics undergraduates are routinely taught an 'easy'
proof that they are? Perhaps since Principia Mathematica only the
1930 paper of Godel has been a really convincing example of the
power of symbolic reasoning. 54

Exploration with the logic of Principia Mathematica and its derivatives as

the tool of formal analysis cannot be divorced from a substantive view. The
substantive view of analytic philosophy comprises scientism, modern
Aristotelianism,55 and an anti-agency conception (i.e., "anti-psychologism" and anti-
Copernican). Hence, formal analytic explorations employ the techniques deemed to
be consistent with the mathematical-physical views of the universe one finds in
"current" science, along with the assumption that these scientific views will
eventually cover everything, including human beings, and that the progress of
science will not lead to radical reconstructions of our conception of scientific
knowledge. These assumptions are breathtaking, but they remain an act of faith. As
should now be clear, the problem of what is the final and correct mathematics, and
therefore the final and correct logic, would have been a problem even without the
failure of logicism. All of this reinforces the extent to which analytic philosophy
subscribes to a kind of epistemological atomism, an epistemological atomism which
was Russell's way of trying to avoid the conclusions of Hegel in particular and the
Copernican Revolution in general. In the light of what we have seen in the previous
chapter on the philosophy of science and in view of what scholarly studies in the
history of science continue to reveal, we can begin to appreciate just how traumatic
for analytic philosophy was the challenge to the classic but simplistic empirical
account of the evolution of scientific knowledge that we encountered in Chapter
Two.

Explication as the AIternative 56

So far, we have discussed elimination and exploration, and we have identified
exploration, with formal logic as its tool, as the mode of thinking which best
characterizes the method of the new (post-positivistic) analytic philosophy. Let us
now turn to the third mode, explication, because in discussing explication we shall
98 Chapter 3

by contrast be able (a) to reinforce further the extent to which analytic philosophy
engages in exploration, (b) to highlight the difficulties of exploration, and © to
introduce what we take to be an alternative and more productive direction for the
analytic conversation.
In explication we try to clarify that which is routinely taken for granted,
namely, our ordinary understanding of our practices in the hope of extracting from
our previous practice a set of norms which can, reflectively, be used to guide future
practice. Explication presupposes that efficient practice precedes (both temporally
and logically) the account ofpractice. Explication attempts to specify the sense we
have of ourselves as agents and to clarify that which seems to guide us. We do not
replace our ordinary understanding but rather come to know it in a new and better
way. Explication seeks to arrive at a kind of practical knowledge which takes as
primary that human beings are agents.
Advocates of explication reject the perspective of exploration in any area
beyond the inorganic world. To engage in exploration about human beings is to
perceive them as purely thinking subjects facing an objective world and performing
a purely theoretical task. On the contrary, social practices, including the practice of
science, involve human beings who are engaged in an ultimately practical task.
Explication seeks to mediate practice not from an external theoretical perspective but
from within practice itself. Explication is anti-reductive.
Critics of explication are apt to charge that in explicating we must pick and
choose "key" practices but that the choice cannot be justified by an appeal to
anything other than an intuition about our practice. The defenders of explication
respond by saying that there is no coherent alternative. That is, advocates of
explication maintain that while human acts can be understood such acts cannot be
explained, especially when explanation is conceived along eliminative or exploratory
lines. We can give an account of what we understand but such an account is not an
explanation in the sense in which we explain non-human things.
Moreover, the defenders of explication will then tum around and charge the
proponents of exploration with incoherence. In order to theorize, that is in order to
explore a hypothesis about the hidden structure behind our practice, we must first
identify the object of analysis, i.e., one must first identify the practice. Therefore,
one must already possess an intuitive common sense understanding of practice before
it can be analyzed. The theoretical analysis is forever parasitic upon the intuitive
understanding and can never go beyond it. In examining any social practice,
including our cognitive or linguistic or logical practices, we are not really observing
an independent object as the physical sciences presumably do, rather we are
examining what we mean by what we are doing. It is therefore logically impossible
to explore the hidden structure of our practice because there is no such structure!
To put this in analytical terms, exploration commits the error of providing the
explanans without having an explanandum. This is the crucial difference between
practical knowledge and theoretical knowledge.
The most significant point to be made in the debate between exploration and
explication is the charge by advocates of explication that exploration on its own is
inherently incoherent. This incoherence can be seen on two levels. First, before one
can investigate the alleged hidden structure of a social practice one must clearly
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 99

identify the social practice itself. No analysis can proceed unless there is a clear
conception of the fundamental entities that are the subject matter of analysis.
However, a social practice is an intersubjectively sharedframework of norms within
which what we are doing has an interpretation. In order to identify the social
practice, therefore, one must specify clearly the intersubjectively shared framework
of norms. To identify the practice is to identify the social norms. Since the
framework is intersubjective no specification of the framework is legitimate that does
not accord with previous historical practice. In short, one must already have engaged
in explication before one can engage in exploration. Exploration always presupposes
explication. 57
This is precisely where the incoherence arises. What would be the point of
exploration in the light of a given consensus on explication? Exploration (and the
thesis of scientism outside of the realm of physical science) was designed and
introduced as a way of overcoming disputes. In the presence of a consensus on
explication, an exploration, if it were possible, is redundant at best. If there is no
consensus on explication, what would be the function of an exploration (i.e., an
hypothesis about the alleged hidden structure) of our social practice? An exploration
in the absence of a consensus on explication could only be either (a) a form of
advocacy for one version of explication or (b) an attempt to discredit rival
explications. But it is difficult to see how we can judge between rival explications
of a social practice without appeal to a consensus explication on another (higher)
level. It is equally difficult to see how we could tell the difference between an
outright elimination or radical replacement and an exploration that operates in the
absence of consensus on explication and that is intended to discredit its rivals.
If the foregoing argument is correct, then those who claim to engage
exclusively in exploration are doing something that is intellectually incoherent,
analogous to pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps, or they are doing
something that is disingenuous, introducing a radical replacement disguised as a
contextual clarification.
The exploratory view ofthe function of philosophy is sometimes expressed
as the view that philosophers are "underlaborers" (borrowing the Lockean
expression) to scientists. In order to carry out this function analytic philosophers
must have the correct understanding of science. As it turns out, physical science is
a social or communal enterprise. Hence, one must already possess a philosophy of
the social sciences in order to be sure that one has correctly understood physical
science. Where does this philosophy of the social sciences originate? Ifit is based
on a preconception about physical science along with the assumption that social
science must be consonant with physical science, then analytic philosophers have
surreptitiously introduced into their account a preconception about physical science.
Hence, the analytic philosopher who subscribes to the Enlightenment Project is not
a modest underlaborer but an advocate with an agenda. It is precisely this
disingenuousness that infects any naturalized epistemology.58
The entire argument59 about the incoherence of exploration can be
articulated at an even higher level. No technical form of thinking (including logic,
mathematics, and physical science) can itself be understood except by appeal to
something which is pre-technical (e.g., common sense). Technical thinking, no
100 Chapter 3

matter how valuable within its limited sphere, can never replace pre-technical
thinking. Rival hypotheses in technical discourse must ultimately be judged by
appeal to pre-technical norms. Nor can one develop a technical account of pre-
technical reasoning, for, on pain of incoherence, there would be no possible way to
judge the adequacy of the proffered technical account.

Explication vs. Exploration

The distinction between exploration and explication can be used to clarify the
relationship between philosophy and science. We begin by distinguishing among the
following:
1. science
2. the history of science
3. the philosophy of science
4. the history-and-philosophy of science
5. the philosophy of the history of science

The Enlightenment Project in the analytic philosophy of science can be

viewed, in retrospect, as the attempt to construe philosophy as the logic of science.
The logic of science was initially understood as a form of elimination, i.e., as the
attempt to extract the structure of scientific reasoning in a timeless and contextless
fashion [3]. This project failed. Moreover, those positivists who were eliminativists
refused initially to consider issues of the social practice of science. How could they
use social science without having established what physical science is? Moreover,
many believed that when a definitive account of physical science was provided the
social scientific account would be rendered superfluous. Instead of talking about
these issues, they chose to remain silent.
Other analytic philosophers took the failure more seriously. They
supplemented the logic of science with an historical thesis about theory articulation
and replacement [4]. This is when the philosophy of science became the history-and-
philosophy of science. However, [4] was construed as an exploration. That is, the
history-and-philosophy of science was still understood in terms of an objective but
initially hidden structure that could at another level be explained in terms of timeless
elements without reference to human values. Analytic philosophy of science can be
conceptualized as beginning with how scientists think of their practice but then goes
on to provide a theory of what is really behind that practice. From this point of view,
analytic philosophers are exploring the hidden structure of scientific practice rather
than explicating scientific practice.
The immediate difficulty with reconceptualizing analytic philosophy of
science as an exploration is that it raises the question of what legitimates exploratory
thinking. Analytic philosophers must first be correct about the structure of science
before they can use exploratory thinking. Hence, it would be begging the question
for analytic philosophers of science to use exploratory thinking in order to establish
their interpretation of science.
Much of analytic philosophy of science is attempting to give a theoretical
account of what it takes to be theoretical knowledge. It had been hoped that physical
science would present us with an unambiguous and incontrovertible example of self-
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 101

justifYing knowledge. That program has failed to materialize. Analytic philosophers

cannot turn to other sources such as practical knowledge or metaphysics or religion
or history, etc. without abandoning the Enlightenment Project. The 'Kantian Turns'
in analytic philosophy represent a dawning awareness that formal undertakings
presuppose some kind of framework so that no formal analysis can be made
intelligible without reference to that framework. But committed as they are to the
exploratory mode of thinking, the only possible response from within analytic
philosophy is to offer a hypothesis about the framework itself.
Explication, on the contrary, understands the philosophy of science as [5].
That is, the philosophy of science is the explication of the evolving human values
that have informed and continue to inform the practice of the scientific community.
Moreover, since these values are part of something more fundamental than the
practice of science, philosophy deals with issues more fundamental than science.
Philosophy is not pre-science or an early version ofscience but the study of the pre-
conceptual domain upon which the intelligibility of science itself depends.
The explicator's case can be seen in five ways. First, history is important
because it is no accident that science as we know it arose in the West as opposed to
other historic cultures. Second, one important item in that history, an item with
religious roots, is technology. Technology is not the mere application of theoretical
science to practical problems, rather technology is an integral part of the practice of
science. Third, it was not mathematics that was reduced to logic in Russell's
logicism, rather it was really the mathematicization of logic. This mathematicization
of]ogic failed to capture all the norms in our logic. Instead it ended by identifying
rationality with only one aspect of scientific practice, not unlike the error of trying
to reduce rationality in scientific practice to empirical observation. 60 Fourth, the
claim made by some analytic philosophers that there is a fallacy of psycho log ism is
a reflection of the analytic denial that parts need to be understood by reference to a
larger whole.
The analytic contention that analysis can proceed in a presuppositionless
way ironically reflects a whole host of anti-Copernican philosophical
preconceptions. 61 Traditionally, analytic philosophers dismissed issues of the
background context or the origins of a hypothesis on the grounds that an hypothesis
can eventually be confirmed. However, as we saw in the previous chapter, the
confirmation process itself presupposes other background features. If so, then we
can never transcend the background. It is in this sense that explication is primary.
Fifth and finally, the key issue is the relation among philosophy, common
sense, and science. Starting with Russell and continuing through Quine right down
to the present it is held that common sense and science are "continuous." The
question is what is meant here by "continuous". After all, Jonah and the Whale were
continuous, so it comes down to who is swallowing whom. For those analytic
philosophers who subscribe to the Enlightenment Project, the continuity is construed
as meaning that common sense is a truncated version of science. Hence, philosophy
as a science is an attempt to amend common sense in order to bring it into line with
physical science. We cite as a recent example of this view the statement by Fodor
that "language learning is a matter oftesting and confirming hypotheses."62 So what
Fodor is suggesting is that exploration is how we actually think all the time whether
102 Chapter 3

we are aware of it or not. Karl Popper has argued that common sense in the form of
ordinary usage can be formulated as conjectures about things, i.e., as a form of
hypothetical thinking.63 What this all boils down to is that common sense is
something that these philosophers can fall back upon to handle the pre-theoretical
context of hypothesis exploration when it is convenient to do so, but at the same time
they reserve the right to ignore or to amend common sense when it conflicts with
their philosophical preconceptions about science.
There is a continuity between science and common sense but it is a
continuity in which the former depends on the latter for its intelligibility; in which
common sense is explicated but not explorable; and in which all conflicts are
resolved in favor of common sense.
We would contend that many analytic philosophers of science fail to offer
an adequate account of science because their interest is in establishing a certain
(realist) vision of the world, not in understanding the social institution of science.
Further, we would contend that analytic philosophers of science cannot understand
science as an institution because they cannot, in general, understand any institution.
The reason that they cannot understand any social institution is that the perspective
they adopt is an "I Think" one in which they presume to be totally external
observers. 64 We would urge instead a "We Do" perspective that is both social and
focused on practice from the point of view of engaged and responsible agents. The
norms of any institutions, including the concepts of science, cannot be interpreted as
timeless spatial structures. 65 Analytic philosophers thus fail to see the sense in which
concepts in science have a historical development such that structural transformations
become part of the meaning of the concept. We hope to bring out these points in our
subsequent chapters, including our discussion of social science and history.
Defenders of the Enlightenment Project in the analytic philosophy of
science will not agree with what we have just said about the explication of science.
They will see explicators as offering an alternative, and to their mind mistaken,
account of science. In fact, they will see explicators as holding a rival exploratory
account of science. Explorers think explicators are mistaken because values are non-
cognitive. To believe that "facts" depend upon "values" would require the
abandonment of the Enlightenment Project.
Unfortunately, there is no independent way to choose among these alleged
rival exploratory accounts of science, and that is why there will be alternative
historical accounts of what "really" happened and happens in science. The stories
about Galileo, for example, will be understood in different ways. Unable to dismiss
the explicatory account out of hand, the defenders of the Enlightenment Project in
analytic philosophy must move to another level. They will first agree that some
important decisions within the scientific community reflect human values, but they
will then go on and argue that these values can be explained by reference to an
objective structure at some other level. Unable to establish the autonomy of science
directly and unable to provide a consensus account of the logic of science, they will
pursue their project on the level of epistemology. We shall turn to this pursuit in
Chapter Five.
Our discussion of explication has revealed a fundamental conflict between
philosophy viewed as exploration and philosophy viewed as explication. Much of
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 103

post-positivistic analytic philosophy, as we have shown, is a particular variety of the

genus of exploration. We urge, instead, that the analytic conversation move in the
direction of explication.
In addition to revealing the fundamental conflict between exploration and
explication, we have offered a critique of exploration that claims that there is both
a series of flaws in exploration and a crucial incoherence. The other great danger of
adopting the exploratory mode with formal logical analysis as its tool is that analytic
philosophers are caught up in an intellectual framework which inhibits ifnot actually
proscribes them from reexamining their own starting points. Putnam has expressed
this problem as follows:

I think there is a unity to philosophy, even though it has different

aspects, both disciplinary and geographic. The Germans ...
emphasize the salvific aspect. Then there is a scientific aspect,
which analytic philosophers emphasize, a literary aspect, and so
on. But these are, I think, aspects of one thing. I think that when
one tries to cut philosophy up, to isolate one of these aspects in the
way that analytic philosophy has tried to do with the scientific
aspect, then philosophy behaves like a neurotic individual. And
you get all the typical symptoms of neurosis: fantasy and
compulsion, repetition, and, finally, the return of the repressed. 66

This shall be our starting point for the next chapter.

104 Chapter 3

NOTES (CHAPTER 3)

1. Again, we caution the reader that when we use the expressions 'analytic
philosopher' or 'analytic philosophy' without qualification we intend to
designate only those analytic philosophers who subscribe to the
Enlightenment Project.

2. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein suggested how philosophy would disappear

into natural science. See 4.11,4.111. 4.1 12,6.53, and 6.54.

3. Russell (1928). See also Searle (1996), p 13: " ... philosophy is now seen
by most analytic philosophers as being adjacent to and overlapping with the
sciences."

4. Ramsey (1925), p. 287.

5. Carnap (1934), p. xiii.

6. Pap (1949), p. 478.

7. "The threat of a philosophy with no task to perform is expressed by Frank

P. Ramsey: 'I conclude that there really is nothing to discuss; and this
conclusion corresponds to a feeling I have about ordinary conversation also.
It is a relatively new phenomenon, which has arisen from two causes which
have operated graduaIIy through the nineteenth century. One is the advance
of science, the other the decay of religion; which have resulted in all the old
general questions becoming either technical or ridiculous ... .' Ramsey
says that what Russell believes about the world is really physics and that
what he believes about ethics is really psychology. For Ramsey,
Wittgenstein may be right that philosophy is nonsense, but wrong if he
thinks it 'important nonsense'." Eames (1989), p. 226.

8. We have identified three major competing philosophical approaches,

namely, 'Platonic,' 'Aristotelian,' and 'Copernican.' To each of these there
corresponds a different conception ofiogic. The Platonic view is reflected
in the work of Frege, although its 'Platonic' dimension was not recognized
until recently. The Copernican conception of logic is best reflected in the
twentieth century in the work of pragmatists like Schiller and Dewey. The
standard analytic philosophical history of logic is William and Martha
Kneale (1962). In that text, the names of Bradley, Schiller, and Dewey are
never mentioned.

9. Kant's use of the term' analytic' , as in the distinction between' analytic' and
'synthetic' statements, is not to be confused with our use of the term
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 105

'analytic' to designate philosophers who, following Russell, engage in

analysis and subscribe to the doctrines of' analytic philosophy'.

10. Husserl, like Frege, made a strong anti-psychologism case in his Logische
untersuchungen (1900). Husserl was a continental phenomenologist, the
founder of the movement. Whenever analytic philosophers want to express
a positive attitude toward continental and phenomenological thought, they
praise Husserl. Heideggarians, who are beyond the pale as far as analytic
philosophers are concerned, refer to Husserl as the "continental analyst".
Monk (1996), p. 11, perceptively notes that "Frege, Russell, Husserl and
Meinong are all on the same side of the border, while Wittgenstein lies
outside. And thus the opposite of 'analytical' is neither 'continental' nor
'phenomenological' but rather 'Wittgensteinian.'"

11. Quine considers Hume and Kant to be "psychologists." See Quine (1981a),
p. 19l. In discussing Kant's views on the transcendental deduction,
Strawson comments (1975), p. 32, that the work is " ... also an essay in the
imaginary subject of transcendental psychology."

12. The nineteenth-century British Aristotelian tradition and its critique of

psychologism can be traced back to George Boole, a mathematician whose
work Mathematical Analysis of Logic (1847) stated that logic was a non-
quantitative algebra which expressed the necessary operations of thought.
Boole, by the way, also advocated the use of probability theory as a way of
enabling social scientists to make predictions on the basis of statistics. W.E.
Johnson (1892) argued that logic dealt with propositions which expressed
truth or falsity, not judgments which expressed an attitude of mind.

13. C.S. Peirce also argued that atomic items were connected by relations that
ultimately had to be understood in terms of the Hegelian triad (firstness,
secondness, and thirdness). This Hegelianism in Peirce is a continual
source of frustration or embarrassment to those analytic philosophers who
have sought to appropriate Peirce to their tradition.

14. One of the main themes of the history of modern philosophy is that the
inherent logic of adopting modern Aristotelianism is a move toward
monism (Hegelian). In the domain of logic this would make Bradley's
version of modern Aristotelian logic correct and Russell's wrong. As we
shall see in our discussion of metaphysics in Chapter Four, the concept of
negation will prove to be philosophically problematic for analytic
philosophers rather than a mere technical innovation. Eventually, analytic
philosophers will be forced to define truth as the absence of non-being
(double negative), and this will only make sense in the presence of a
totalizing or monistic system. By the time they have arrived at this position,
analytic philosophers will have abandoned analysis and be forced to adopt
some version of Hegel. In short, technical issues in modern Aristotelian
106 Chapter 3

logic create a momentum that will drive analytic philosophers into

accepting some version of Hegel, and the irony of the history of analytic
philosophy is that it originated in an attempt to avoid Hegelian monism.

15. See Kneale (1948).

16. There is a connection between this view of logic and Popper's notion of
falsifiability.

17. "Boole's success in constructing an algebra which included all the theorems
of traditional logic led some logicians to assume that all logic must be
capable of presentation in algebraic form. and attempts were made in the
next generation to work out a logic of relations in the same fashion as the
logic of classes... , [T]he original idea and most of the interesting
propositions were first suggested by Peirce .... " W. & M. Kneale (1962),
p.427.

18. This statement appeared in Boole's "Calculus of Logic" originally

published in the Cambridge and Dublin Mathematical Journal in 1848. It
is quoted in W. & M. Kneale (1962), pp. 405-406.

19. A strong case for the difference between Frege and Russell is made by
Hylton (1990b), pp. 137-172.

20. For a convincing and insightful presentation of this interpretation of Frege

see Sluga (1980). See especially Sluga's criticism of Dummett's
interpretation, pp. 105-107. Burge (1990) stresses the extent to which Frege
understood science in terms of mathematics and "not natural science as it
is for the positivists, Carnap, and Quine" (p. 58 n.15). Sainsbury (1996),
p. 674, concludes his comparison ofFrege and Russell by noting that "The
question would then remain: do we need sense as well as reference to
explain the working of the simple expressions? It is essential to anything
like Frege's view that the answer should be affirmative, and to anything like
Russell's view that it should be negative."

21. Frege agreed with Kant that geometry was synthetic a priori.

22. Frege [189311903 (1962)], vol. 1, pp. xv-xvi.

23. Frege (1959).

24. In an important sense, Frege is not necessary for the history of analytic
philosophy. The attempt to make mathematics rigorous and the debate
which surrounded that attempt were already part of the late nineteenth-
century background to analytic philosophy. Russell developed his logicism
before he even knew ofFrege's attempt, and Russell would have discovered
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 107

the paradoxes even without seeing them in Frege's work. The paradoxes
continued to plague Russell's own views. What is immediately important
about Frege is that Russell showed the flaws in Frege's system. Initially
and even long afterwards, this was interpreted as the triumph of an
Aristotelian conception of logic over the Platonic conception of logic. In
the later history of analytic philosophy, when analytic philosophy was
forced to make its "Kantian Tum" and syntax was seen to require
supplementation by semantics, Frege's semantics came back into vogue.
However, following a pattern which will become familiar to readers of this
book, Frege's semantics will allegedly be superseded by a sophisticated
Aristotelianism. See, e.g., Hintikka (1981).

25. Once again, we remind the reader that when we speak of 'Aristotelianism'
without qualification we mean the truncated version of Scholastic
Aristotelianism that emerged in the Enlightenment Project.

26. Russell (1959a), p. 219.

27. Quine's contention that even the distinction between the analytic and the
synthetic must be surrendered is already implicit in this line of argument.
All levels of thought are ultimately anchored in and abstracted from initial
experience. It is merely a matter of levels or of different distances to the
core. "Russell's logicism was originally intended as part of some kind of
argument against Kant, and post-Kantian idealism .... " Hylton (1990b), p.
137.

28. Wittgenstein will locate the principles in the social context of a way of life
of agents.

29. Hylton (1990b) puts this as Russell's belief that logic was presuppositionless
(pp. 148, 154).

30. Russell [191811919 (1956)], p. 264.

31. Russell [1903 (1937a)], p. v.

32. Ibid., p. xv.

33. " ... what symbolic logic achieves is anything but logic, i.e., a reflection
upon logos. Mathematical logic is not even logic of mathematics in the
sense of defining mathematical thought and mathematical truth, nor could
it do so at all. Symbolic logic is itself only a mathematics applied to
propositions and propositional forms. All mathematical logic and symbolic
logic necessarily place themselves outside of every sphere of logic, because,
for their very own purpose, they must apply logos, the assertion, as a mere
combination of representations, Le., basically inadequately. The
108 Chapter 3

presumptuousness of logistic in posing as the scientific logic of all sciences

collapses as soon as one realizes how limited and thoughtless its premises
are" Heidegger (1967), p. 156.

34. Hylton (1984) has made the following case: "Russell can offer no coherent
account oflogical forms. . .. Given Russell's conception of an object, the
potentiality, or lack of potentiality, which two objects have for combining
into a proposition cannot be explained simply in terms of the features of
those objects: we have to invoke the notion of logical form. But if the
potential for combination which the objects have cannot be explained in
terms of features of those objects, then neither can the fact that the pair of
objects stands in the appropriate relation to a logical form. The introduction
of logical forms, or of further objects, is simply irrelevant to the task of
explaining why certain groups of objects can be combined to form
propositions, while other groups cannot. The 1913 theory is thus no better
able to explain this than was the 1910 theory." (pp. 388-90).
Hylton also quotes (p. 390) the following letters by Russell. The
first letter is to Lady Otto line Morrell in May 1913: "I showed him
[Wittgenstein] a crucial part of what I have been writing. He said it was all
wrong, not realizing the difficulties -- that he had tried my view and knew
it wouldn't work. 1 couldn't understand his objection -- in fact he was very
inarticulate -- but I feel in my bones that he must be right, and that he has
seen something I missed." A second letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell on the
same subject was written in 1916: "His [Wittgenstein's] criticism ... was
an event of first-rate importance in my life, and affected everything I have
done since. I saw he was right, and I saw that I could not hope ever again
to do fundamental work in philosophy."

35. It has been suggested by Consuegra (1996) that Russell's work after 1919
was a movement away from atomism toward 'holism'.

36. As it turns out, the analytic movement was to show great resilience in the
face of the failure of Russell's logicism. As we shall see in our discussion
of epistemology in Chapter Five, Quine will attempt to circumvent the
failure of Russell's logicism by denying altogether the special status of
analytic truths in logic and mathematics. Moreover, as we shall see in
Chapter Six on the philosophy of language, an attempt will be made to
conceptualize semantics itself.

37. Quine (1975), p. 75.

38. Nagel (1961) specified both formal (pp. 345-358) and "informal" (pp. 358-
366) criteria for successful reductions.

39. That is why the work of Bloor (1976) and others in formulating the "Strong
Programme" [see Brown (1984)] to provide a social-causal analysis of
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 109

scientific developments is rejected by analytic hard-liners. Marxists, and

others argue that the social causal factors are independent of human nature.
Very often disputes of this kind reflect different political agendas.

40. "Accepting this view of the world, and the obvious capacity of empirical
science to cope with the investigation of it, the philosopher ... was clearly
made redundant. . .. Rather than opposing or evaluating the scientific
enterprise ... analytic philosophy accepted natural science as paradigmatic,
and retreated to the linguistic, to ask what language must be like if it is to
be adequate to the scientific task" Sacks (1990), p. 174.

41. Quine, "I think ofphilosophy as continuous with science, even as a part of
science", quoted in Magee (1982), p. 143.

42. 1.L. Austin was in the awkward position of sometimes using "ordinary"
language expressions that he invented to express alleged structures for
which there was not already a term. These new terms were ordinary only
in the negative sense of not being scientistic.

43. Some readers may be surprised to find that Russell is the source of
exploration given that we have identified his logicism as the model of
elimination. Several comments are in order here. First, the positivists, who
were uncompromising eliminativists, were much more doctrinaire about
logicism than Russell himself. Second, we believe that neither Russell nor
any other major analytic philosopher was as self-conscious about the
analytic enterprise as we are capable of being in retrospect. Hence, it is
possible for several versions of the analytic enterprise to co-habit the mind
of a single thinker. Third, eliminativism was a phase that gave way to
exploration as the result of the recognition of difficulties in earlier phases.
Fourth, there is, as we shall show and have already indicated briefly, a kind
of continuity between eliminativism and exploration. Russell's practice of
exploration explains, in part, his hostility to the later Wittgenstein's
explication of ordinary language. This is what prompted Russell to write
a preface for Gellner's notorious book, Words and Things (1959), a satire
on ordinary language philosophy. Russell identified Wittgenstein as the
initiator of that movement. In Chapter Six, we shall discuss the relation of,
and the difference between, Wittgenstein and ordinary language.

44. Russell (1905). We are not offering a comprehensive account of "On

Denoting" but indicating a line of thought suggested within it. This
particular paper has had a long and 'mythical' history within the analytic
conversation. For some indication of its continuing importance see Griffin
(1996) and Noonan (1996).

45. Monk and Palmer (1996) p. xi on Noonan's (1996) interpretation.

110 Chapter 3

46. Quine (1953), pp. 1-19.

47. Passmore (1985), p. viii.

48. Alston (1967a), p. 387.

49. Popper (1983), p. 275, note 18.

50. Davidson (1977), p. 247.

51. Romanos (1983), p. 154.

52. Quine (l98Ia), p. 191.

53. Wittgenstein in a letter to C.K. Ogden dated 4 April 1922., p. 20 of von

Wright (1973). The full text reads as follows: "As to the title I think the
Latin one is better than the present title. For although 'Tractatus logicus-
philosophicus' isn't ideal still it has something like the right meaning,
whereas 'Philosophic logic' is wrong. In fact I don't know what it means!
There is no such thing as philosophic logic (unless one says that as the
whole book is nonsense the title might as well be nonsense too.)"

54. Kilmister (1996), p. 282.

55. There are two senses of Aristotelianism in analytic philosophy that are
relevant here. First, analytic philosophy is 'Aristotelian' in the previously
defined sense of believing that the world explains itself (naturalism), that
there is an objective structure which includes human beings as a part and
that the structure is apprehended by abstraction from experience
(empiricism). Second, the growth of scientific knowledge is asserted to be
cumulative, but in the absence of a known final vision "cumulative" has to
be understood as teleological so that the end is already contained in the
beginning. This implicit assumption of teleology is what allows analytic
philosophers to be confident that present formal logic is a piece of the final
true logic. Curiously, even though teleology has been banned ontologically
by analytic philosophers, it nevertheless reappears in any account of the
growth of human knowledge.

56. Our use of the term 'explication' follows von Wright (1989): "[T]he
philosopher's enterprise is not so much a reconstruction of the logic of
language -- either in the deep or in the surface sense -- as an explication of
conceptual intuitions. . .. This is how I would understand Wittgenstein's
words in the investigations that 'philosophy may in no way interfere with
the actual use oflanguage' and 'that it cannot give it any foundation either'"
p.49.
 Analytic Philosophy And Science 111

57. This is a central insight of Gadamer's hermeneutics (1975) and Apel's

"transcendental pragmatics" (1975).

58. Kitcher (1993) is an example.

59. For a similar argument see Rescher (1985b), especially pp. 170-172.

60. "This thesis can be summed up in a single, deeply held conviction: that, in
science and philosophy alike, an exclusive preoccupation with logical
systematicity has been destructive of both historical understanding and
rational criticism" Toulmin (1972), p. vii.

61. " ... the answer to large problems is to be derived from thorough analyses
of particular and detailed sub-problems. In this respect analytical
philosophy is a philosophy without presuppositions" Skolimowski (1967),
p.4.

62. Fodor (1975) p. 59.

63. Popper (1983), p. 210.

64. Recognition of the limitations of what we here are calling the "I Think"
perspective has been persuasively articulated by Donald Davidson in his
critique of Quine: "I think his [Quine's] epistemology is still starting out
from a subjectivist point of view. . .. His concept of data is purely
subjective, and that's why I call him a Cartesian. . .. [T]hinking
presupposes intersubjectivity. This will remain an irreconcilable dispute
between Quine and me" Borradori (1994), pp. 53-54.

65. Polanyi (1958).

66. Borradori (1994), pp. 68-69.

 CHAPTER 4

Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy

Introduction
In Chapter One, we identified the metaphysics of the Enlightenment Project as a
modern truncated form of Aristotelianism. The purpose of this chapter is (1) to
elaborate upon our identification of that metaphysics as a modern and truncated form
of Aristotelianism, (2) to show how much of analytic philosophy is informed by the
metaphysics of the Enlightenment Project, (3) to argue that the only coherent form
of "modern" Aristotelian metaphysics is Hegel's,' and (4) to show that although
analytic philosophy is by virtue of its embrace ofthe Enlightenment Project opposed
to Hegelianism, analytic metaphysics is often and inevitably driven in its pursuit of
coherence and comprehensiveness in the direction of Hegelianism. What emerges
in the metaphysics of analytic philosophy is a constant and unresolved tension
between what it wishes to say and what its pursuit of coherence forces it to say.2

What is Metaphysics?
Any survey of the history of the term 'metaphysics' will show not only that there
are conflicting metaphysical positions but there are conflicting views about what
metaphysics itself is. Even the meaning of the term 'metaphysics' is difficult to
divorce from substantive metaphysical positions. Although this is an obstacle, it also
tells us something important about the attempt to abstract form from substantive
beliefs.
In an endeavor to start with a more generic sense ofthe term 'metaphysics',
let us begin by noting that, from its inception in ancient Greece, philosophy has
always striven to provide a comprehensive or total vision of the world. The belief
in the possibility of doing so is part of the original definition of philosophy. There
are, of course, conflicting visions both of what the total picture is and of what
constitutes a comprehensive vision. When we use the term 'metaphysics' here what
we shall mean is (1) what one identifies as the fundamental truths, (2) the status of
these truths, (3) the referent ofthese truths, and (4) how the philosopher understands
his relationship to those alleged truths.
Three generic metaphysical traditions 3 have emerged within the history of
Western thought. 4 Those traditions can be labeled as Platonism, Aristotelianism, and
Copernican ism.
Platonic Metaphysics: In the Platonic tradition (e.g., Plato, Plotinus,
Porphyry, Augustine, Descartes, Leibniz, and Frege, to mention just a few), it is
claimed that how we understand ourselves is different from how we understand the
world and that how we understand ourselves is fundamental whereas how we
understand the world is derivative. Hence, the world of everyday experience cannot
be understood on its own terms. As a consequence, a distinction is introduced
between the world of appearance (or everyday experience) and ultimate reality.
Platonic metaphysics is marked by a series of derivative dualisms.
In its modem form, it is claimed within Platonism that although science can
account for the world of appearance, science cannot account either for itself or for
ultimate reality. Hence, metaphysics is a kind of non-empirical pre-science.
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 113

Ultimate reality is conceptual or logical, (consisting of forms, ideas, or universals,

etc.), not a system of physical objects. The conceptual entities that comprise ultimate
reality are related to each other in logical fashion. Platonism, moreover, rejects any
distinction between a thing and its properties. A thing is a particular set of properties
(ideas, forms, etc.). Platonists do distinguish between essence (meaning) and
existence (reference) as well as insist upon the irreducible and fundamental nature
of meaning. The distinction between meaning and reference is derivative from the
distinction between ultimate reality (which is conceptual) and the world of everyday
experience. Finally, Platonists insist upon the dualism of subject and object, a
dualism in which the subject's knowledge of itself is more fundamental than the
subject's knowledge of objects.
Aristotelian Metaphysics: In Aristotelianism (e.g., Aristotle, the Stoics,
Aquinas, Spinoza, Locke, Hegel, Russell, etc.), we understand both ourselves and the
world in the same way. Hence, Aristotelianism is monistic.
For Aristotelianism in its secular variants, the everyday world of experience
is self-explanatory. As a substantive view, this kind of metaphysics is known as
naturalism. Metaphysics is thus no more than the most comprehensive and most
general characterization of existent things. As a form of knowledge, Aristotelian
metaphysics is arrived at by abstraction from the specialized sciences. Hence,
metaphysics is a kind of empirical super-science.
One consequence of this naturalism is that modern secular Aristotelians do
not speak so much of metaphysics but prefer to speak about ontology. The question
of ontology, namely what constitutes the most general features of reality, is tied in
Aristotelianism to epistemology, understood as the study of the basic categories or
concepts used for describing and explaining the everyday world.
Reality is said to consist of individual or particular things or substances. A
substance (thing) is something more than its properties, and it is ultimately, though
problematically, identified grammatically as the subject matter of discourse. In
Aristotelian metaphysics there is a tendency to reduce meaning to reference. It is in
this sense that Aristotelians approach their metaphysics through epistemology.
We can understand Aristotelianism as the denial of Platonism. In secular
Aristotelian metaphysics there is a denial that there is a transcendent realm over and
above the empirical sciences and thus a denial that the first principles of the special
sciences need to be deduced from or explained by a transcendent or transcendental
realm. Rather than being a distinct and logically self-contained body of knowledge,
metaphysics is an examination of the most comprehensive and general characteristics
of existent things. Like all forms of metaphysics, Aristotelianism has a
comprehensive vision, but its comprehensive vision is a totalization in which all parts
of the system flow into each other in homogeneous fashion.
Copernican Metaphysics: s The Copernican Revolution in philosophy, as
introduced by Hume and Kant, offers a third or alternative vision of metaphysics.
According to this view of metaphysics, the ultimate source of reality and
intelligibility is neither the experience of external physical objects nor a
supersensible conceptual world. Rather, the source is the everyday pre-theoretical
world constituted by the interaction of human beings with their environment.
114 Chapter 4

Copernican ism can be understood both as a rejection of modem Aristotelian

realism and as a humanizing of Platonism. For example, Copernicans do not equate
metaphysical realism with epistemological realism. That is, while Copernicans can
recognize that there are objects independent of human beings (this meaning of
realism is unobjectionable), Copernicans deny that knowledge is the abstraction of
an external structure. Unlike Aristotelianism, Copernican ism sees discourse (and
epistemology) as conventional in the sense that it denies that structure can be
explicated apart from the agent. As in Platonism, Copernican metaphysicians insist
upon the distinction between, and the irreducibility of, subjects to objects; but, unlike
Platonism, the subject is seen as rooted in the pre-theoretical world of everyday
practices.

Modern Aristotelian 6 Metaphysics

In Chapter One, we established that the Enlightenment Project in analytic philosophy
was based upon a truncated or modem form of Aristotelian metaphysics. By
'truncated' we meant that Aristotle's naturalism was combined with mechanism and
shorn of its organic teleology. In this section of the chapter we shall outline the
special nature and the special problems that are faced by Aristotelian metaphysics in
its modern, truncated, and secular form.
All versions of modem philosophy face a special problem. That problem
is the newly opened gap between the human world and the physical world. This gap
was initiated by modern physical science, and it can be seen in a number of ways.
First, there is an epistemological gap. Modem science attributes to the world a
structure that is hidden from the naked eye. Our conceptualization of the structure
ofthe world, then, does not refer to what is directly perceivable. Second, there is an
ontological gap. The structure of the world according to modern physical science is
mechan ical and deterministic, whereas our awareness of ourselves is still traditionally
organic, personal, and teleological. Third, there is an axiological gap. Since the
external physical (now mechanical and deterministic) world can no longer serve as
the locus of norms, it thereby loses its direct and immediate continuity with the
human world.
Modem philosophy, commencing with Descartes, was born out of the need
to overcome these gaps. There are different ways of trying to reconstruct the
relationship of human beings to the world. Modern philosophers did not respond to
this gap in a uniform way nor did they conceptualize the problem of that gap in a
uniform fashion. Rather, modern philosophers responded by refurbishing traditional
metaphysical models. Modern "Platonists" beginning with Descartes had less
difficulty dealing with this gap since some form of dualism is inherent in Platonism.
Nor are modern Platonists especially concerned by the fact that modern physical
science conceptualizes the world by means of abstract structures not directly rooted
in experience.
Copernican metaphysics is a distinctively modem response, but it is also a
response that is based upon an explicit rejection of traditional Platonic and
Aristotelian approaches. That is why both Hume and Kant commence with attacks
on traditional metaphysics. For Copernicans, the gap is closed by construing our
knowledge of the physical world as ultimately a reflection of the human world.
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 115

The gap is much more problematic for modern secular Aristotelian

metaphysicians. We can begin to appreciate why this is so by noticing the difference
between the classical and modern versions of Aristotelian metaphysics.
Classical Aristotelian metaphysics does not face this special problem. That
is because classical Aristotelian metaphysicians subscribed to both a teleological and
organic world view. Hence, when classical Aristotelians avow a monism in which
subjects and objects are treated the same, the avowal does not appear to them as
either noteworthy or problematic because the normative and agency features of
subjects are easily accommodated within a teleological and organic perspective.
Because classical Aristotelianism has an enveloping teleology in the totalization,
there is no problematic difference in kind either between subjects and objects or
between theoretical discourse and pre-theoretical discourse. That is, in Aristotle
there is an obvious continuity between our ordinary way of speaking and
understanding and how things are understood in the special sciences. It would be
easy to think that this problem was avoided simply because classical Aristotelians did
not have to concern themselves with mechanism. But Aristotle explicitly rejected
mechanism; moreover, some twentieth-century cosmologists from Alexander to
Whitehead subscribed to organicism.
But for modern secular and mechanistic Aristotelians the problem takes on
a special character necessitated by their adherence to a monism in which the subject
and object must be understood in fundamentally the same way. The modern
Aristotelian takes our knowledge of nature to be fundamental. Nature in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had come to be understood as a mechanism and
not as an organic whole. If nature is a mechanism, and if human beings are to be
understood in the same monistic way as we understand physical nature, then human
beings must be understood as mechanisms. This development was resisted for two
reasons. First, everyone continued to conceptualize human beings in the traditional
common sense way, that is in personal, organic, and teleological terms. Second, the
process by which knowledge of the physical world was itself explained continued to
be itself understood in personal and organic terms.
Given the special nature of Aristotelian metaphysics, specifically the link
between ontology and epistemology, the problem appeared to modern Aristotelians
in the following way. Our conceptual apparatus is directly linked to the world so that
our conceptual apparatus can clue us in on how the world is. When the world was
innocently believed to be exactly the way it appears there was no special problem.
But the triumph of modern science is precisely its ability to go beyond and challenge
our common sense view of things. If the world is so very different from our common
sense conception, then how do we know that our conceptual apparatus is a clue to
how the world really is?
One way of trying to deal with this new gap, a gap between our conceptual
apparatus and the world as it is in itself is to turn to Platonism or to deny that there
is such a thing as the world in itself. The latter solution is the Copernican turn. Both
of these ways out are rejected by the Aristotelian. Another way is to use the new
mechanistic science to offer a mechanistic account to close the gap. In this endeavor,
our conceptual apparatus is treated as an isolable part or set of parts and the physical
world is treated as a set of isolable parts. An account is then offered of how these
116 Chapter 4

parts interact. This account exists as an item within our conceptual apparatus. So,
from within our conceptual apparatus we offer an account of how our conceptual
apparatus is a map of the real world The obvious problem is that we can never get
out of our conceptual apparatus in order to check the reliability of our conceptual
apparatus.
It is important to stress that this is a problem for modern secular
Aristotelianism. It is not a problem for classical Aristotelianism; it is not a problem
for Platonism; it is not a problem for Copernican ism; and it is not a perennial
philosophical problem. It is, to repeat, a special problem for those who operate with
a particular set of assumptions, specifically for those who have tried to conceptualize
modem science from a modem, secular, and mechanistic Aristotelian point of view.
This is also why it is important to get the history of modern philosophy right. It is
crucial that we see figures like Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, etc. not as trying to solve
the modern Aristotelian problem but as dealing with a more generic issue from a
variety of different points of view. Failure to see this surreptitiously introduces the
modern secular and mechanistic Aristotelian framework as if it were the only
possible way of understanding the generic issue of how to accommodate modern
sCIence.
To sum up, the major issue for modem Aristotelian metaphysics is to close
the gap between the subject and the object. The subject-object distinction keeps
reemerging in three distinguishable but related ways.
First, there is the linguistic or grammatical distinction between subjects and
objects.?
Second, there is the psychological or epistemological distinction between
self-knowledge or self-consciousness and knowledge of things.
Third, there is the crucial philosophical distinction between the pre-
conceptual or pre-theoretical framework and our actual conceptualizations or
theoretical construals of the world.

Hegelian Metaphysics
Hegel's modernized Aristotelian metaphysics is, in the fITst instance a response to the
epistemological problems of modern Aristotelianism. 8 There is an intimate
relationship within Aristotelianism between metaphysics and epistemology.
Aristotelian epistemology is concerned, in part, with the process of knowledge
acquisition. If human nature is completely continuous with physical nature, then
whatever account is given of the physical world supplies a basis for any account of
the process by which human beings acquire knowledge. Likewise, whatever account
is given of the process by which human beings acquire knowledge supplies us with
an account of nature itself.
The modern epistemological predicament:
Modem Aristotelian epistemology, in the light of the scientific revolution,
has to confront a situation in which we as subjects and knowers do not have direct
contact with objects. Unlike classical thinkers who believe that knowledge is the
direct grasp of some external structure, modem thinkers all believe that knowledge
involves an internal processing procedure. Instead of the classical concern of
whether the mind mirrors nature, the moderns are concerned with whether the
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 117

internal processing of the mind accurately models nature. It is a question of

modeling because modem science does not pretend to give us a static snap-shot
conception ofthe world; rather, modern science gives us a dynamic process account
that cannot be reduced to a series of static snap-shots. As a consequence, no model
can itself be reduced to a mirror of a snap-snot or series of snap-shots.
Although we are in one way conscious of how our minds work and of the
norms generated within the conscious mind about how the external physical world
works and is to be both understood and managed, we still do not know how the
physical world generates the conscious mind. There is, in short, no physiological
account available. Moreover, and this is what Hegel realized clearly, even if such an
account were available that account would itself be a model. We would still then be
left with a higher-order model that faced the same problem, ad infinitum. We can
never be sure either of the continuity of mind and physical world or whether the
intellectual and moral norms generated within the conscious mind accurately models
the physical world.
In adopting the Copernican view that structure is what the subject
imposes on the object, Hegelian metaphysics is in opposition to classical Aristotelian
epistemology. At the same time. Hegelian metaphysics Aristotelianizes the
Copernican Revolution by construing the process of becoming within the subject as
somehow identical with a changeless actuality. It attempts to do this by postulating
an identity between the subject (Absolute) and the world as object. Hence, Hegelian
metaphysics maintains the world as self-explanatory by maintaining the principle of
intelligibility within the world and maintaining a monistic identity of subject and
object. That is, the object is collapsed into the subject. In this respect, Hegel's
idealism is able to save modern Aristotelian epistemology9 by claiming that in a
special sense the subject is still grasping the structure ofthe object. There can be no
gap, then, between how we think about the world and how the structure of the world
really is. Finally, the recognition of this identity is a temporal or historical process
construed teleologically.
Hegel's view is thus in an important sense Aristotelian, monistic, and it
explains itself. Precisely because he does not lose the self, Hegel was able to provide
an account of self-reference; and because he could account for self-reference, Hegel
could make some sense of totalization. Hegelian metaphysics also differs from other
modernforms ofAristotelian metaphysics like analytic metaphysics by (a) taking the
Copernican tum in epistemology, (b) collapsing the object into the subject, ©
embracing teleology, and (d) extracting truths from the sciences broadly understood
instead of embracing a physicalistic scientism. Hegelian metaphysics is the only
modem form of Aristotelianism that succeeds in achieving totalization. It does so by
providing for the consistency and coherence of ontological and epistemological
realism.
In the light of the above, it is misleading or at the very least insufficient to
characterize Russell's rejection of Hegel as a rejection of idealism. Everything
depends upon how one understands idealism. Russell had distinguished between
idealism and realism, arguing that idealism asserts that objects exist only when
perceived, and realism asserts that objects exist even when not perceived. This way
118 Chapter 4

of making the distinction is epistemological, and it tends to obscure important

metaphysical points.
Idealism, more accurately, collapses the subject-object dichotomy in favor
of the subject. In addition, philosophical idealists assert that to be real is to be a
member of a rational system such that the parts of the system can only be understood
when the system as a whole is understood. Idealism, in Hegel's sense, can just as
easily be construed as a form of metaphysical realism.
What Russell rejected was (a) a specific feature of the doctrine of a total
system when he insisted that individual truths could be known prior to knowing their
role within a comprehensive system. What Russell did not and could not reject was
the existence of a total system. As a subscriber to scientism, Russell subscribed to
the existence of a world order. So what Russell rejected, in part, was an
epistemological view and not a metaphysical view. Further, what Russell rejected
was (b) the collapsing of the subject-object distinction in favor of the subject, for
Russell wanted to collapse the distinction in favor of the object. We may summarize
our discussion so far by saying that what Russell rejected was both Copernican
metaphysics in general and Hegel's version of modern Aristotelian metaphysics; and
that what we have here is a family squabble among different versions of modern
Aristotelian realist metaphysics.
What Russell, in particular, and analytic philosophy, in general, confuse is
phenomenalism (an epistemological doctrine) with idealism (a metaphysical
doctrine). How does this confusion arise? This confusion is endemic because of the
close connection between metaphysics and epistemology in the Aristotelian tradition.
In Aristotelianism, ontological realism is identical with epistemological realism.
However, for analytic philosophy, ontological realism is construed as the belief in
a world independent of human beings (discovered by and best understood through
physical science), and hence epistemological realism must be the position that
knowledge is the abstracted structure ofthat independent world. If all knowledge has
to be an abstracted external structure then self-knowledge has to be knowledge of an
abstracted external-like structure. Hence, we see the analytic rejection of any agency
view of the self.
The only alternative to epistemological realism, so conceived, is
phenomenalism understood as the view that what we know is a non-representative
mental entity rather than an externally physical one. 10 If epistemological realism
were identical to ontological realism, and if someone rejects the analytic version of
epistemological realism, then analytic philosophers conclude that ontological realism
has been rejected as well. Therefore, when any philosopher (like Hegel) suggests
that our knowledge is not an abstraction of an external physical structure and that
self-knowledge is not knowledge of an external-like structure and that self-
knowledge is both primary and agency-oriented, analytic philosophers construe this
as a rejection of realism as a whole. But it is just as true for Hegel as it is for analytic
philosophers that epistemological realism and ontological realism are identical. For
Hegel the movement from self-knowledge to knowledge of the Absolute is no
different in principle from the analytic movement from knowledge of external
objects to the knowledge of the self as a thing-like (i.e., physical) structure. By
having collapsed the object into the subject, Hegel guaranteed that the structure of
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 119

self-knowledge was identical to the structure of what was taken to be the external
object world. Hegel is just as much an Aristotelian realist as any analytic
philosopher. The issue is how we construe the "real."
It is important to keep emphasizing that idealism is not to be confused with
phenomenalism and that what is crucial to idealism is the belief that to be real is to
be part of a system. Hence, if we are correct about analytic philosophy being a
modern form of Aristotelianism, and if we are correct in assuming that idealism so
understood is the logical consequence of "modern" Aristotelianism, then inevitably
analytic philosophy will have to subscribe to the view that to be real is to be part of
a system. If that is so, then analytic philosophy cannot be a rejection of idealism.
It is the main argument of this chapter that the only possible direction of analytic
metaphysics is to embrace idealism, something that it cannot for other reasons do.
Analytic philosophers came, in time, to reject epistemological
phenomenalism, and they continued to subscribe to the notion of a total system in
which eventually no ultimate distinction can be made between subjects and objects.
At the risk of being unduly paradoxical one can say that analytic philosophy never
abandoned idealism. However, it would be more accurate to say that analytic
philosophy's totalization is different from Hegel's in being scientistic, materialist,
and anti-agent. Analytic philosophy thus rejects certain features of Hegel's
metaphysics but not all of them.
The Hegelian moment in analytic metaphysics is intimately related to what
we have call the 'Kantian Turns' in every branch of analytic philosophy. When
Russell rejected Hegel it was the Hegel to which he had been introduced by way of
Bradley and McTaggart. What Russell did not fully grasp was the extent to which
Hegel was responding via the Copernican Revolution to difficulties in the
Enlightenment Project that originated in the secularization of Locke's epistemology.
That Russell did not fully grasp the major developments in Western Philosophy is
abundantly revealed in Russell's exposition of the history of Western Philosophy.
Failing to see what Hegel was responding to, Russell and his followers were doomed
to repeat the progression from:

Locke -----> Kant -----> Hegel.

Throughout this book we shall see that analytic philosophers begin with a
Lockean empiricist program as modified by the Enlightenment Project. Then,
finding themselves unable to carry out that project without a 'Kantian Turn,' they
endeavor to make the 'Kantian Turn' consistent with an empirical naturalism, thus
approaching a Hegelian position. For obvious reasons, analytic philosophers cannot
fully embrace the Hegelian resolution and thereby remain suspended.
Perspective on this contention can be gained by examining Whitehead.
Whitehead was as much the author of PrinCipia Mathematica as Russell, and
Whitehead was just as concerned with science. In working out his own metaphysics
in response to the challenge of modern science, Whitehead was led to a version of
Hegelianism, and by his own admission without a serious knowledge of Hegel. What
this shows is that a non-doctrinaire attempt to develop a metaphysics for modern
science that is realist, naturalist, and organic leads to some form of Hegelianism. As
120 Chapter 4

we shall see, it is the presence ofthe Enlightenment Project that militates against an
organic conception of science and in favor of a mechanistic one.

The Hegelian argument can be presented as a progression through ten

theses.
1. There is a mUltiplicity of objective truths.
2. This multiplicity of truths forms a coherent system (S).
3. a. Any statement about S is, if true, a part of S.
b. Our understanding of S is, if true, a part of S.
4. Statements of the kind (3a) and (3b) cannot be established by
correspondence because we, the establishers, would have to be outside of
the system (S) in order to use correspondence. Nothing can be outside the
system.
5. Therefore, the fundamental explanatory principles (3a) must be
established in some other way, by coherence understood organically - or the
way in which an organism reflects unity.
6. Coherence alone is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. It is a
mere formal requirement. Any suggested (3a) is a hypothesis to which
there are alternatives.
7. We cannot tell which version of coherence is true by correspondence
(see step 4) or by any other extra-systemic means.
8. Therefore, there must be a final all-encompassing system which includes
the correct understanding of itself. It must also account for the how and the
why of alternative expressions of (3a).
9. How can a system know itself? This is only possible ifthere is a unity
of thought and being.
10. Since we cannot now articulate this unity of thought and being, it
follows that we are at one stage of a process undergoing development
toward self-articulation. This explains why and how we relate to the
Absolute (3b).

Does Analytic Philosophy Have a Metaphysics?

We distinguish the question "What is the metaphysics of analytic philosophy?" from
the question "How are metaphysical issues dealt with in the analytic conversation?"
When we ask the former question what we have in mind is the programmatic way in
which metaphysical issues are addressed by those who subscribe to or are heavily
influenced by the Enlightenment Project. Our aim is not to show that all
metaphysical issues in the analytic conversation are always and everywhere dealt
with programmatically; but that the program is much more ubiquitous than realized.
An important part of the analytic community has come to reject the program, and
hence the need to identify what the program was and still is for some.
"What kind of metaphysics does analytic philosophy have?" There are
several obstacles to answering this question. One obstacle is the terminological one
of how the term 'metaphysics' is to be understood. Given the broad way in which
we have defined metaphysics, any philosophy, including analytic philosophy, has a
metaphysics.
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 121

A second obstacle is the assertion made periodically by major philosophers

throughout the modem period of the history of philosophy that the very idea of
metaphysics or the possibility of doing or of having a metaphysics is to be rejected.
What these philosophers are doing, we contend, is attacking the metaphysical views
of other philosophers or denigrating the word 'metaphysics' because the word has
taken on a meaning to which they object. We should not be surprised therefore to
find the assertion among some analytic philosophers that all metaphysics is to be
rejected or that analytic philosophy has no metaphysics. This assertion partly reflects
a view of what metaphysics is that can be obviated by clarifying terminology. This
assertion also reflects, in part, a rejection of specific alternative views so that what
is being denied is some other version of metaphysics.
In this section we shall remove the obstacle that reflects what analytic
philosophers were against in previous versions of metaphysics. In the next section
we shall spell out in a positive way the metaphysics of analytic philosophy.
The most notorious episode in the history of the role of metaphysics in
analytic philosophy was the positivistic "rejection" of metaphysics. The word
'rejection' is in quotes in order to signify that it, like 'metaphysics', has a very
special set of meanings.
To begin with, analytic philosophy is the twentieth-century version of the
Enlightenment Project. It was during the Enlightenment, as we argued in Chapter
One, that the notion of an anti-systematic philosophy was first propounded by figures
such as Condillac. Hence, the positivist-analytic rejection of metaphysics is the
reassertion of the Enlightenment's anti-systematic philosophy. One reason behind
the anti-systematic approach of the Enlightenment was the perception that scientific
research was impeded by imposing non-scientific preconceptions on that research.
A second, and related, reason was the espousal of scientism or the view that science
was an intellectually autonomous discipline.
One can agree that scientific research is sometimes impeded by the
imposition of either non-scientific or scientific preconceptions upon that research
without having to agree that science can proceed in the absence of all
preconceptions. Some critics of analytic philosophy will contend that analytic
philosophy is itself such a non-scientific impediment. The real issue is whether
science is autonomous. In Chapter Two we showed how it has come to be
recognized that science is not intellectually autonomous. Hence, some sort of non-
scientific preconception is necessary.
The fundamental non-scientific preconception of analytic philosophy is one
that also has its roots in the Enlightenment, namely a providential history without
God. As we saw in Chapter Two, analytic philosophers were forced, finally, to
defend a view of how later scientific theories are more true than and superior to
earlier scientific theories by appeal to a view of historical progress. That is,
following the Enlightenment lead, analytic philosophers sought to construe certain
philosophical positions as scientific hypotheses. Unfortunately, the view of historical
progress could not itself be substantiated as a scientific theory in its own right.
Although analytic philosophy leads to Hegel, analytic philosophy began
with Russell's rejection of Hegel's metaphysics. It is, therefore, not possible to
understand the metaphysics of analytic philosophy unless one has some conception
122 Chapter 4

of Hegelian metaphysics and what Russell rejected in it. Specifically, what Russell
rejected was Hegel's contention that the subject was primary and the object
derivative. Hegel's insistence on the priority of the subject is related to his notions
that the whole is prior to the parts and that the whole has to be understood as a
SUBJECT. We have already noted Russell's critique of Hegelian holism and
Russell's advocacy of analysis.
It is significant that analytic philosophers single out Hegel because analytic
philosophy shares certain features of Hegel's metaphysics, specifically its monism.
The monism is a reflection of a common Aristotelian inheritance. The retention of
core elements of Aristotelian metaphysics helps to explain some important
differences between analytic philosophers like Russell on the one hand and the views
of philosophers like Frege and Wittgenstein. Frege was a Platonist. Like Lotze
before him, Frege denied that the pre-theoretical could be conceptualized as when
Frege said that the relation of a thought to truth is not describable. I I Platonists handle
totalization by employing a metaphysical dualism. Wittgenstein, in the enigmatic
last section of the Tractatus, and in his notebooks, seriously considers Hegelian
totalization but comes down in the end against it. More important, Wittgenstein goes
on in his later work to reject analytic philosophical totalization and to reject any
attempted discursive characterization of the pre-theoretical. 12 For Wittgenstein, pre-
theoretical discourse is a level of understanding that is not in principle eliminable.
There is an implicit comprehensive vision in Wittgenstein, but it is Copernican and
not Aristotelian. On the contrary, the scientism in analytic philosophy entails the
view that everything is in principle knowable and conceptualizable, that the subject
can be conceptualized in exactly the same way that we conceptualize objects.
Russell, Frege, and Wittgenstein all reject Hegelian totalization. That is
why it is so easy for analytic readers to lump these philosophers together. At the
same time, we should note that Frege's comprehensive metaphysical vision would
be dualistic Platonism, Wittgenstein's comprehensive metaphysical vision would be
Copernican, and that both of these philosophers would reject the kind of scientific-
naturalistic vision toward which Russell in particular and analytic philosophy in
general are inclined.
To summarize, the positivist "rejection" of metaphysics can be understood
as meaning all of the following.
1. The positivists reasserted the Enlightenment view of an anti-systematic
philosophy but ultimately had to buttress it with a providential history. What must
never be lost sight of was an inability on the part of some positivists to understand
that the philosophical claim to possessing some kind of ultimate truth or a method
that leads to such truth (i.e., scientism) requires a total conceptualization. 13
2. Positivists rejected Platonism and Copernicanism; more generally they
rejected any view that there is something beyond physical science that is required to
make sense of science itself.14 In the minds of positivists, a belief in scientism was
identical to the denial of any kind of metaphysics, insofar as metaphysics is taken to
be the view that the natural world, scientifically understood, is not self-explanatory.
(Frege and Wittgenstein would obviously part company with the positivists on this
issue.)
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 123

3. There was an early optimism, soon to be surrendered, about the progress

and immanent finality of science that encouraged the belief that traditional
metaphysical issues could all be reformulated as issues about the logic of science.
Science is the whole truth, and when the specific sciences have delivered all their
truths the remaining problems are all problems of the clarification of the language of
science. Positivists thus construed the philosophy of science as a substitute for
metaphysics. As we have broadly defined it, this is still an Aristotelian conception
of metaphysics and not the rejection of all metaphysics.
4. Positivists rejected Hegel's version of totalization; this does not, as we
have argued, preclude the necessity for some other kind of totalization. Whether a
non-Hegelian totalization is actually possible for analytic philosophy is precisely the
question of this chapter.

The Modern Aristotelian 15 Metaphysics of Analytic Philosophy

Analytic philosophy exhibits an "Aristotelian" metaphysics in the following general
senses.
1. Analytic philosophy is a form of naturalism. The fundamental truths are
truths about the natural world, not truths about a supernatural or supersensible or
purely human world. These truths about the natural world are self-explanatory.
2. Analytic philosophy is monistic. It assumes that we understand both
ourselves and the world in the same way. (However, analytic philosophers insist that
how we understand the world physically is also how we understand ourselves.)
3. Analytic philosophy also has an Aristotelian metaphysics in the sense that
fundamental realities are always identified by the use of epistemological or
grammatical criteria (e.g., in Quine and Kripke as we shall see shortly).
4. Analytic philosophy arrives at a comprehensive vision by abstraction
from the truths of the specific empirical sciences. It rejects any transcendent or
transcendental system beyond the empirical sciences. Metaphysical truths are
equivalent to the ontological structure revealed by the philosophy of science.
We have characterized the metaphysics of analytic philosophy as "modern"
as well as "Aristotelian." The qualification is important. By "modern" we mean the
following.
I. The modern view is to be understood both negatively and positively.
Negatively, the modern view is a rejection of the classical view, where the latter is
understood to mean that ultimate explanatory principles exist objectively, i.e.,
independent of human beings; that our primary intellectual goal is to grasp those
principles; and that the secondary moral problem is to conform to the principles once
they are grasped.
2. Positively, the modern view means a turning inward in the search for
ultimate explanatory principles. Hence, the norms, both intellectual and moral, are
now alleged to be internal to us. Once the norms are construed as internal this
renders problematic both the primary intellectual goal and the secondary problem of
how to conduct ourselves. The primary intellectual goal is to confirm that what we
apprehend internally maps what is external. The secondary moral problem is also
altered. If norms are internal, then obeying internal norms implies the transformation
of the external physical world to better reflect those norms.
124 Chapter 4

The Enlightenment Project is a form of modernity. As such it seeks to

create a social technology based upon objective principles that will permit the
transformation of the world and of human beings. To the extent that the
Enlightenment Project informs analytic philosophy, analytic philosophers seek to
establish a realist epistemology and metaphysics in the service of social technology.
Analytic philosophers stress the difference between theoretical discourse
and ordinary or common discourse. In the previous chapter we saw that, rhetoric
aside, analytic philosophy is a program to replace (however problematic) those
elements of common discourse that "conflict" with science. At the same time,
analytic philosophers are committed to some kind of totalization. Hence, it is
necessary for analytic philosophers to argue either that (a) common discourse is in
principle eliminable or (b) replaceable, in time, by appeal to a theoretical hidden
structural level which it is the job of analytic philosophy to explore. Most of the
technical problems in analytic philosophy are reflections of this metaphysical agenda.

The analytic metaphysical agenda, then, has three points ofstress:

1. Is there the possibility of a coherent totalization within analytic
philosophy? [This question is the primary focus of this chapter].
2. Can analytic totalization collapse the subject (the pre-theoretical) into
the object (understood theoretically)? In short, can analytic philosophy do away
with the subject? Another way of putting this is to ask if analytic philosophy can
make sense of self-consciousness. [These questions emerge in many guises in every
chapter but most especially in the chapter on philosophical psychology].
3. Can analytic totalization succeed without covert appeal to historicism in
the form ofa naturalized but providential history? [This is another ubiquitous issue
but one of special concern in our later chapters that deal with axiological questions].

Quine as Modern Aristotelian Metaphysician

The major goal of modern Aristotelian metaphysics is to achieve totalization by
collapsing the subject into the object. Put another way, the major objective is to get
rid ofthe 'subject'. In a now famous essay, "On What There IS,"16 Quine eliminated
the concept of a subject, or more specifically he eliminated the category of subjects.
Building on Russell's theory of descriptions in which nominative phrases like "The
present King of France" were reinterpreted as predicates (there is an x, x is the
present King of France, etc.), Quine goes on to eliminate all singular terms, even
proper names! Only predication remains, so that a proper name is a unique
descriptive predicate. Instead of asking, "What particular things exist?", we must
now ask, "What things satisfy predicates with which the signs for quantified
variables are coupled?". "To be" is to be the value of a bound variable. [We note in
passing the typical Aristotelian maneuver of using logical or grammatical criteria to
identity basic entities.]
By doing away with subjects, Quine does away with essences. Essences had
traditionally been used in the Aristotelian tradition to capture the identity of subjects.
By doing away with essences, Quine cuts out the metaphysical ground from under
analytic statements. Without appeal to an essence of some sort, there is no non-
question-begging way to specify the difference between an analytic statement and a
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 125

synthetic statement. Every statement, Quine concludes, is thus synthetic in some

sense or to some degree.
One of the things for which Quine is best known is his rejection of the
distinction between so-called analytic statements or truths and so-called synthetic
statements or truths. This was first discussed in the now classic article "Two Dogmas
ofEmpiricism."17 The rejection of the distinction is intended specifically to deal with
the "Kant ian" elements in science. Quine is intent on assimilating all truths to the
synthetic. Not only does he deny that there are traditional analytic truths, but he
implicitly rejects the notion that synthetic a priori truths exist. IS
Let us keep in mind why analytic philosophy must reject the idea of Kantian
"analytic"19 statements. "Analytic" statements in the Kantian sense are statements
that, for whatever reason, are alleged to be true independent of experience. No
analytic philosopher, and no Aristotelian metaphysician, can grant the existence of
such statements. If ultimate reality is given to us in the world of everyday
experience, then all truths must in some sense be dependent upon experience; i.e.,
meaning must depend upon reference.
Further, ifthere are no such things as analytic statements, it follows that no
two statements are strictly synonymous. If no two statements are strictly
synonymous, then there is an inherent linguistic indeterminacy. One can never
specify in a definitive fashion the necessary and sufficient conditions for the meaning
of a specific statement. This linguistic indeterminacy gives rise to Quine's doctrine
of ontological relativity, namely, no statement has a meaning or specifiable truth
conditions independent of its membership in a system of statements.
We may summarize the progression to Quine's doctrine of ontological
relativity, that is the importance of membership in a system, as follows:
I. Russell's Theory of Descriptions-->
2. Quine's views on predication-->
3. Denial ofsubjects with essences-->
4. No analytic statements-->
5. No synonymy-->
6. Linguistic Indeterminacy-->
7. Ontological Relativity.
Quine expressed his ontological relativity in a now famous physicalist
metaphor:

Total science is like a field offorce whose boundary conditions are

experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions
readjustments in the interior of the field. Truth values have to be
redistributed over some of our statements. Reevaluation of some
statements entails reevaluation of others, because of their logical
interconnections -- the logical laws being in tum certain further
statements of the system, certain further elements of the field.
Having reevaluated one statement we must reevaluate some others,
which may be statements logically connected with the first or may
be the statements of logical connections themselves. But the total
field is so underdetermined[20] by its boundary conditions,
126 Chapter 4

experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what

statements to reevaluate in the light of any single contrary
experience. No particular experiences are linked with any
particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly
through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a
whole.
If this view is right, it is misleading to speak of the
empirical content of an individual statement -- especially if it is a
statement at all remote from the experiential periphery of the field.
Furthermore it becomes folly to seek a boundary between
synthetic statements, which hold contingently on experience, and
analytic statements, which hold come what may. Any statement
can be held true come what may, if we make drastic enough
adjustments elsewhere in the system. Even a statement very close
to the periphery can be held true in the face of recalcitrant
experience by pleading hallucination or by amending certain
statements of the kind called logical laws. Conversely, by the
same token, no statement is immune to revision. Revision even of
the logical law of the excluded middle has been proposed as a
means of simplifYing quantum mechanics; and what difference is
there in principle between such a shift and the shift whereby
Kepler superseded Ptolemy, or Einstein Newton, or Darwin
Aristotle?21

There are many important things that can be said about Quine's holism, that
is, his view that empirical truth is not a property of individual statements but a
property of their position in the whole system of statements. The unit of significance
is now to be the whole of our knowledge. First, holism is in standing opposition to
Russell's insistence that science proceeds piecemeal and that we can know individual
truths to be truths on their own, one at a time. If analytic philosophy were to be
understood simply as the insistence on the knowability of the part prior to the whole
then it could be said that after Quine there is no analytic philosophy! Such a
paradoxical conclusion ignores the important elements we have identified as
fundamental to analytic philosophy: scientism, modern Aristotelianism, and an anti-
agency view. Quine continues to subscribe to all three elements and therefore
remains squarely at the heart of analytic philosophy.22 What we are witnessing is an
attempt to deal with an important tension within analytic philosophy.
Second, it should be clear that Quine is attempting to salvage scientism in
an Aristotelian fashion by making the whole of our knowledge synthetic, i.e., testable
by reference to experience. Quine's solution solves a number of problems that have
continually plagued the modern secular Aristotelian (i.e., modern empiricist) account
of knowledge, including problems having to do with intentional discourse, modal
discourse, and discourse involving dispositionals and subjunctive conditionals. For
example, in denying the existence of essences, Quine denies the need for modal
categories. That is, by rejecting necessity, including physical necessity, he rejects
any hard and fast distinction between laws and accidental generalizations.
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 127

Third, Quine's holism shows that some form of Hegelianism is inherent in

analytic metaphysics. It would seem as ifno modern Aristotelian (as opposed to a
classical Aristotelian) can avoid the Hegelian resolution. Try as they might, when
analytic philosophers attempt to solve the problems generated by their initial set of
assumptions they are inexorably driven to embrace some version of Hegel. What
still remains to be decided is what version and whether the result is palatable.
Holism, or the move toward Hegelian totalization, has always been an
implicit feature of the analytic program even when analytic philosophers are busy
denying it.2J Long ago, Mure pointed out that Russell's idea of logical analysis is
designed to reduce empirical content to some sort of membership in a logical system.
Against Russell's own intention, the bare empirical particular becomes a class
member and "particulars which are nothing but class members are themselves an
element oflogical form."24 This is reinforced by Quine's version of quantification.
Doing away with particular subjects is also perfectly compatible with their being one
all-inclusive subject, namely the' system as a whole (Bradley's argument for
Hegelianism!). Not surprisingly, Quine's holism was already suggested by Carnap
in 1934 in Logical Syntax of Language. In Carnap's version, an empirical "test
applies, at bottom, not to a single hypothesis but to the whole system of physics as
a system of hypotheses (Poincare, Duhem)."25 No statement, for Camap, is anything
but provisional, "laid down with the reservation that they may be altered as soon as
it seems expedient to do SO."26 Even in the case of mathematical rules, Carnap
agreed that "there are only differences in degree; certain rules are more difficult to
renounce than others."z7
The implicit holism can also be seen in the way that the issue of negation
is handled by Quine. Quine's version of quantification not only is designed to
eliminate subjects but it leads to a redefinition of negation.
Quantification is a form of affirmation about concepts (predication).
Concepts do not have contraries. How then are we to understand negation?
Negation, according to Quine, is the denial of existence when it occurs together with
a quantifier. What this does is to rob negation of substantial meaning by denying that
negation is a predicate. Negation cannot be a predicate because existence is not,
according to Quine, a predicate. "What is" has no contrary as can be seen by the fact
that the copula is interpreted as the bearer of existence (as well as identity and
predication). By making negation a formal feature instead of a substantial one, we
are left only with affirmation, a totalizing affirmation. "To exist" is to be part of a
system. With total knowledge, negation would disappear. Once more we confront
shades of Hegel.
There are two consequences to the elimination of negation under holism.
First, it becomes unclear what affirmation means or how it would be possible in the
absence of negation. Second, and this is another way of making the same point, by
subscribing to the view that there is no opposite to being, this kind of holism denies
the possibility of a pre-theoretical or pre-conceptual context. Ifthere seems to be a
pre-theoretical domain, then it is a kind of illusion or temporary phase that will be
eliminated or superseded by total knowledge.
We can now begin to appreciate how Quine's various positions, quite
impressively, are all of a piece. The serious commitment to scientism is a
128 Chapter 4

commitment to totalization, to denying that there are substantially different kinds of

statements, like analytic and synthetic, or fundamentally different levels of discourse.
But ifthere are no fundamentally different kinds of discourse then there can be no
real distinction between science and philosophy. If there is no real distinction
between science and philosophy, then philosophical statements are exploratory
hypotheses. So the question, for example, "Are there universals?", is a kind of
existential question, and the answers are all hypotheses to be confirmed or
disconfirmed.
The notion that rival hypotheses are to be confirmed or disconfirmed
reflects the modern Aristotelian (empiricist) commitment. However, if rival
philosophical positions were alternative conceptual schemes then there would seem
to be no Archimedean point for judging them. Quine must here confront the
relativism of Kuhn and Feyerabend. In order to avoid this relativism one would have
to argue, as Quine's disciple Donald Davidson has, that there cannot be rival
conceptual schemes only alternative accounts of a common conceptual scheme. The
common conceptual scheme, for Quine, cannot be construed as one which itself
defies definitive conceptualization28 or totalization (as in the later Wittgenstein); nor
can the common conceptual scheme be understood as a Platonic ideal mirrored
imperfectly by our rival systems. There is and must be a total and final correct
accounting. In the final accounting, the alternative philosophies, if they were ever
at all meaningful, must all be seen as varying approximations to the truth, and that
is Hegel again! In short, the commitment to scientism and to Aristotelianism lead
either to denying the meaning of philosophy or to embracing a version of Hegel. 29

Kripke as Modern Aristotelian Metaphysician

As we have seen in previous chapters, the eliminative phase of analytic philosophy
(now known as logical positivism) failed. What succeeded it was the movement
toward exploration. Difficulties discovered in the eliminative phase drove analytic
philosophers to a more self-conscious recognition of their metaphysics.
The two most general features of the eliminative (positivist) phase are
closely related. First, in the philosophy of science, analytic philosophers came
increasingly to recognize a priori (i.e., conventional, pre-theoretical, or pragmatic)
elements in scientific theorizing. Second, in the aftermath of the failure of logicism,
analytic philosophers came to recognize the role of semantic constructs in our
understanding even of syntactical notions. In general, what we see is the gradual
acceptance of a 'Kantian Turn' and a retreat from naive empiricism. Short of
abandoning the fundamental commitment to Aristotelian metaphysics, what can we
expect analytic philosophers to do? It is stilI necessary to achieve totalization if
scientism is to be maintained, but now it is more problematic as to how we are going
to collapse the pre-theoretical (subject) into the theoretical (object).
Let us formulate the problem of relating the pre-theoretical to the theoretical
by distinguishing two kinds of talk.
Talk J is what science says about the world.
Talk2 is what analytic philosophers say about science.
That is, Talk2 is about Talk J• What, we may ask now, is the status of Talk 2? Analytic
philosophy is committed to totalization (via scientism) and to the thesis that Talk2 is
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 129

just like Talk1 (via Aristotelianism). If Talk2 is just like Talk1 ,then one of two
general possibilities exists: either Talk2 is in some sense eliminable, or Talk2 has to
be reinterpreted as a special form ofTalk 1. Quine accomplished this by collapsing
the distinction between analytic and synthetic truths and embracing a form of holism.
Not everyone is happy with Quine's approach to Talk2. An alternative way
of trying to deal with Talk 2, while at the same time showing that it is a version of
Talk 1, emerged with the development of modal logic. Instead of eliminating Talk2
altogether, as the positivists proposed, and instead of ignoring it with the help of
promissory notes about the future development of science (as Quine proposes), the
following two part hypothesis is introduced and explored:
a. Talk2 itself has a hidden formal structure, and
b. Talk2's hidden formal structure can be seen as a kind of Talk 1 ,by
introducing a new theory of reference. That is, realism is now treated as an
exploratory hypothesis.
This hypothesis is to be explored through the use of modal logic. Modal
logic, in its present form, was developed by C.1. Lewis, in 1918, because of Lewis'
dissatisfaction with Russell's notion of material implication. C.l. Lewis (not to be
confused with David Lewis) felt that our intuitive conception of implication was
meaningful but not captured by Russell's analysis. In the 1940s, Lewis' student,
Ruth Barcan Marcus, extended Lewis' work to the predicate calculus and to
quantification theory. By the 1950s, modal logic was being used to explore
chronological, deontic, and epistemic discourse. The most important developments
came in the 1960s with the development of modal theoretic semantics by Kanger,
Hintikka, and Kripke and their use to explain intensional discourse.
The key concept in modal logic is the quantifier. Back in 1879, Frege had
introduced the quantifier in order to represent arguments in mathematics. Instead of
distinguishing between a subject and a predicate,3° Frege distinguished between a
function and an argument. This accomplished two things. First, quantification could
deal with relations; second, it could deal with higher level functions. The quantifier
is a concept which applies to other concepts and is thus itself a second or higher level
concept.
According to Quine's so-called objectual interpretation of the quantifier, to
quantify is to presuppose the existence of the objects in the domain over which one
quantifies. As we have seen, for Quine, variables involve ontological commitment.
The variables acquire this capacity because of the elimination of singular terms. This
effectively precludes second order quantification because second order concepts are
intensional and not names. We cannot state identity conditions for intensional
notions in a clear (i.e., Aristotelian-empiricist) way. Objects can be named and
characterized by a structureless expression, says Quine, but properties cannot be
specified without reference to "our"31 mode of characterizing them.
According to Marcus, Kripke, et al., and in opposition to Quine, we can
employ what is called a substitutional interpretation of the quantifier. 32 This
interpretation permits the use of logical apparatus to roam over non-denoting singular
terms, expressions of other syntactic categories, and modal predicate logic. The issue
raised by modal predicate logic is the metaphysical status of the roaming. What
exactly is modal predicate logic talking about? If there is no extensional grounding,
130 Chapter 4

how do we know that modal predicate logic is an adequate exploration of our

intensional discourse? This question is made more acute by the existence of
alternative modal logics depending on how modal semanticists interpret words like
"necessary" or "possible".
Now we are in a position to appreciate the importance of the second part of
the hypothesis introducing a new theory of reference. Without a new theory of
reference, modal predicate logic would be an unanchored exploration, as Quine
steadfastly accuses it of being. Saul Kripke attempted to provide the new theory of
reference. If successful, Kripke would achieve a highly symbolic victory not only
over Quine and those analytic philosophers who stop short of dealing with semantics
but most especially over all of those critics of analytic philosophy who persistently
dwell on analytic philosophy's inability to deal with Talkz, the semantic level of
discourse, and then go on to claim that this inability in particular signifies the failure
of the entire analytic program.
What Kripke attempts to do in his theory of reference is to provide an
exploratory account of the hidden structure in nature that gives rise to our most
theoretical modeling ofthe world It is a way of trying to solve the central problem
ofmodern Aristotelian metaphysics ofproviding a natural-physical grounding ofour
conceptual system. It is a model ofmodeling. 33
Kripke returns to Quine's contention that second order quantification is
unacceptable. Quine maintained this, the reader should recall, because Quine thinks
that variables involve ontological commitment. The variables acquire this function
because singular terms (e.g., proper names) were eliminated in favor of definite
descriptions. What Kripke does is to insist on a difference between proper names
and definite descriptions. If there is a difference, then this will restore the
ontological and epistemological importance ofproper names (singular terms) and
the traditional Aristotelian subject.
Kripke is not retaining the common sense grammatical subject, rather he
begins with the common sense subject and then speculates on the hidden structure
behind it. The hidden structure will be given in Kripke's causal account of naming.
This is an exploration, not an elimination, and in that sense it starts off from common
sense but is not required to retain all of its features. Kripke is not a reductivist or
behaviorist like Quine, but neither is Kripke an opponent of scientism. 34 Although
Kripke restores the formal importance of the subject, he also reinterprets it so as to
do away with it in its common sense form. Kripke thus continues the modem
Aristotelian metaphysical agenda of getting rid of the subject.
In his seminal article, "Naming and Necessity" (1972), Kripke objected to
the view that proper names need to have associated with them specific criteria or
definite descriptions in order for a given object to be recognized as the referent of the
name. Instead, Kripke distinguishes between proper names and definite descriptions.
A proper name is a rigid designator, one that refers to the same object in every
possible world in which that object exists. How do we know when a name is a rigid
designator? Kripke's answer is that the details of its origin furnish every object with
a set of necessary properties or essence. This origin is construed as a causal process.
A causal theory of naming claims that the object named is the meaning and that the
effects of the object (under normal or clear conditions) are what gives it its meaning.
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 131

Keep in mind that exploration is intended, ultimately, to modify our ordinary

understanding, which is pre-theoretical, by showing it to be a reflection of a hidden
structure of the Talk J variety.
Necessity has, by this argument, been shown to be a property of things and
not a feature of discourse. "Necessity" is an important semantic concept which has
in a special sense been located in reality and not merely in discourse. This directly
contravenes Quine's position that necessity is in our speech (de dicto) and not in
things (de re), and it contravenes Quine's contention that Talk2 is ultimately
dispensable.
In our earlier chapters we maintained that 'necessity' was considered an
important feature of scientific explanations by those who argued for the superiority
of scientific explanations over other kinds of explanation. Quine and some other
analytic philosophers are willing to forego the claim to 'necessity' in order to
mitigate some epistemological and metaphysical difficulties. Other analytic
philosophers are not willing to surrender 'necessity'.
Before discussing the merits of Kripke's approach, something should be
said of its metaphysical pedigree. The appeal to elements of traditional Aristotelian
metaphysics should come as no surprise in the light of the persistent claim that we
have made in this book that analytic philosophy is a modern form of Aristotelianism.
Moreover, some kind of essentialism would seem to be implicit in any view that aims
at total conceptualization. Not only must that conceptualization account for
"Everything," it must also account for why we have one particular version of
"Everything" as opposed to other potential versions of "Everything." Most
important, the causal process which generates necessity or essence appeals to the
traditional Aristotelian identity of efficient and formal causes. That is, this alleged
identity of efficient and formal causes guarantees that our thinking gives us a direct
grasp on the world so that proper names have a denotation but do not have a
connotation or sense (i.e., a meaning).
Given this metaphysical pedigree, where do we go from here? There are
two implications. First, Kripke's move toward essentialism may have moral, social,
and political consequences. It encourages the view that either human beings or social
institutions have essences or built-in-ends. This is an issue that will be pursued in
our discussion of analytic social and political philosophy. Second, if modal logic is
to be extended to the whole range of semantic concepts hitherto ignored, then it
would have to be extended to tense and mood. When modality is combined with
tense we seem to be committed to temporal determinism. This was already apparent
in Spinoza. However, a temporal determinism combined with essentialism is
tantamount to historical teleology. That is, once we add final cause to the identity
of formal and efficient causes, and once we apply this to historical time, we have
arrived at Spinoza's successor, namely Hegel! In short, once more we have arrived
at some form of Hegelianism as the terminus of analytic philosophy's implicit
metaphysics.
Having outline Kripke's views and having briefly discussed its metaphysical
pedigree and implications, we must now raise the question of how successful his new
theory of reference has been. There are three serious shortcomings to Kripke's
theory of reference. First, neither Kripke nor anyone else has ever explained the
132 Chapter 4

causal process by which proper names acquire necessary properties. This failure is
an instance of the fact that since Aristotle himself no one in that long epistemological
tradition has ever been able to explain exactly how we "abstract" form from matter
in our experience. As we shall see in the next chapter, analytic epistemology is part
of this continuing historical failure.
Second, Quine's misgivings that attempting to formalize Talk2 obfuscates
what exactly we are quantifying over (which, in analytic jargon, is the problem of the
transworid identity of possible individuals) seems justified. There is no
epistemologically independent way of specifying what modal locutions are about
which does not at another level presuppose the very semantic concepts it attempts to
explain. In short, the inability to ground these explorations makes them subject to
the objection we raised against exploration at the end of the previous chapter. What
we are given are explorations without criteria for judging when the explorations are
confirmed. It will do no good to tell us that there are further alternatives to Kripke's
views 35 because each and everyone of these alternatives is also an exploration
without criteria. The only way out of this impasse is to grasp at Hegel.

... but we do not know what it would mean for Nature to feel that
our conventions of representations are becoming more like her
own, and thus that she is nowadays being represented more
adequately than in the past. Or, rather, we can make sense of this
on)y if we go all the way with the Absolute Idealists, and grant
that epistemological realism must be based on personalistic
pantheism. 36

The third criticism to be made of any analytic exploration, including modal

logic, is that it fails to capture our common sense understanding and leaves us with
no way of deciding when common sense is to be overruled or modified. Analytic
philosophers such as Kripke begin by exploring our common sense intuitions and
then attempt to structure them by appeal to a variety of criteria (unity, coherence,
etc.). The question is whether these criteria themselves are part of our common sense
intuitions. If they are not, then what we still have is elimination. Moreover, what are
the norms, intellectual or pragmatic, to which we can justifiably appeal when we
eliminate or replace whatever it is in our common sense intuitions that resists
inclusion in the exploration? Is it the common sense that is wrong or is it the
exploration that fails to capture what we are about? Only those already committed
to scientism would think that rigorous formalistic constraints are intrinsically
valuable or bearers of their own truth. They render the entire enterprise of
exploration question-begging.

Self-Reference as the Achilles Heel of Analytic Metaphysics

The key to understanding the failures of analytic metaphysics is its inability to deal
with self-reference. Self-reference did not seem to loom as such a serious problem
in the eliminative phase of analytic philosophy, but elimination failed. Self-reference
then emerged as a serious problem for exploration, especially when we began to
confront explorations without criteria for choosing among them. However, a brief
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 133

look backward will show that self-reference has always been lurking as a problem
in analytic metaphysics. Remarkably, the failures of Quine and Kripke were
foreshadowed in the previous analytic tradition.
In the discussion of logicism, we mentioned Russell's paradoxes. Those
paradoxes ostensively dealt with whether a class could be a member of itself. It is
our contention that those paradoxes deal with whether a system can talk about itself,
i.e., whether we can have Talk2 at all. Russell understood what the implications of
Hegel's system were, and Russell's own program was a deliberate attempt to avoid
those implications. Russell's ramified theory of types ruled out the application of a
property to itself. Here was established the prototype of how analytic philosophy
attempts to deal with self-reference. Instead of dealing with the "whole", analytic
philosophy attempts to interpret all problems as analyzable into smaller units. This,
after all, is what 'analysis' means. That is, the "whole" is construed as merely the
sum a/its parts. Analytic philosophers establish a series oflevels in which each level
can speak about the level below it. Hence, self-reference is treated as a relative
technical problem of the relation between higher and lower levels.
There is a serious question that can be raised about splitting the whole up
into a series of levels. How many levels are there? It would seem that we would
need an infinite number in order to prevent the issue of self-reference from emerging
in a fashion that could not be dealt with in this way. Can we really make sense of an
infinite number of levels of conceptualization? In the drive toward total
conceptualization that is explicit in scientism, we must be able to conceptualize the
existence of a potentially infinite number of levels. Where would we be standing
when we say that there are an infinite number of levels? Is this itself another level?
Is this new level outside of or different from the other levels? Failure to answer or
to deal with these questions threatens the intelligibility as well as the total
conceptualization of analytic metaphysics.
Russell's multiple levels approach was deemed inadequate almost from its
inception because although it blocked some paradoxes it could not block all of them.
Russell's approach could not block paradoxes such as the Epimenides or Liar
Paradox. Specifically, what Russell's approach could not block were semantic
paradoxes that involved concepts dealing with meaning and truth. Alfred Tarski's
celebrated "Semantic Conception of Truth" (1931) attempted to solve the Liar
Paradox again through the use of multiple levels. It is not simply a matter of
overcoming a logical paradox. It is a matter of trying to overcome a serious barrier
to self-reference and to semantic theorizing in general. Moreover, it is a matter of
overcoming it in a way that is consistent with both scientism and Aristotelian realism.
Tarski's semantic conception of truth seemed to do all of these things. Critics,
however, continued to find new ways of reconstituting the paradox. 3?
The Liar Paradox, or the Epimenides Paradox as it is sometimes called, is
one more example of the problem of self-reference. It can be represented in the
following statement:
(SI) "This sentence is false."
We next proceed to raise the question: Is (SI) true? If it is true, then it is false; and
if it is false, then it is true.
134 Chapter 4

According to Tarski's treatment, the word 'true' is to be understood as (1)

an adjective (2) that applies to or modifies sentences in a language (L), but (3) from
the perspective of a meta-language (ML). Tarski then goes on to generalize his
results to argue that all semantic terms occur only in a meta-language, not in the
language to which they apply. Self-reference ceases to be paradoxical because it is
treated as part of the potentially infinite series or hierarchy of meta-languages. Truth
is now to be understood to be a property of expressions rather than a relation between
expressions and objects. At the same time, Tarski's semantic conception of truth
maintains its ties with the correspondence theory38 ofthe Aristotelian epistemological
tradition through the use of the concept of satisfaction. 'Satisfaction' performs the
function of denotation or relating the open sentences (i.e., sentences with a free
variable) of a language to objects. "For every sentential function x, x is a true
sentence if and only if x is a sentence and for every sequence of classes f, f satisfies
x."
Tarski does not actually establish what 'satisfaction' is, rather his discussion
takes for granted the prior judgments about truth in the language under study. This
use is, however, carefully tailored to avoid semantic primitives that would conflict
either with the unity of science or of the supposed truth of physicalism.
The two obvious criticisms of Tarski's treatment are (1) that the use of the
concept of 'satisfaction' merely evades and postpones the problem of how language
and thought relate to reality, and (2) that the language in which Tarski himself works
when he formulates the semantic concept of truth is a super-meta meta-language.
Consequently, there is always going to be some background language or framework
in which 'truth' and other semantic constructions remain undefined and
unanalyzable.
The objection to having an unanalyzed background language if one is going
to remain an analytic philosopher is that it blocks a satisfactory solution to the issue
of totalization in general and self-reference in particular. Analytic philosophers can
evade the paradoxes of self-reference on anyone level but only at the cost of being
unable to account for their own work on some other level or for the system as a
whole. Put another way, the existence of an infinite number of levels seems to be a
fact that transcends all of these levels. Hence, while analytic philosophers use this
super level, they are unable to explain or to justify it. 39
Additional light can be shed on this problem of self-reference by examining
GOdel's proof. G6del's proofis significant for a number of reasons, not the least of
which is that it calls attention to the problem of self-reference. GOdel's
incompleteness theorem destroyed forever the dream of logicism by showing that it
is impossible to derive even elementary arithmetic from any consistent set of axioms.
Mathematics cannot be formalized (and therefore not totalized) because any
mathematical system which includes elementary arithmetic will have unprovable
statements. Echoing points already implicit in Cantor's theory of sets, GOdel showed
that in any classification there are going to be more classes than things to be
classified. The reason for this is the ever present possibility of self-reference. No
system of classes can contain itself. Given this circumstance, it is not at all surprising
that only the first order predicate calculus has a decision procedure. At every
subsequent level the issue of self-reference arises.
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 135

More precisely, what GOdel tried to do, and then showed could not be done,
was to define the axioms of arithmetic by use of internal rules. This enterprise bears
a distinct analogy to Wittgenstein's Tractatus. But the project is according to Godel
hopeless. What we would need would be a set of internal relations (Hegel, again!).
Russell's paradoxes, Wittgenstein's Tractatus, the intuitionist critique of the concept
of the 'infinite', and GOdel's proof all exhibit the problem of self-reference.
Being a serious Platonist, GOdel saw the significance of his own proof as
showing the illegitimacy of certain kinds of totalization, not just Hegel's but analytic
philosophy's as wel1. 40 According to Godel, there are pre-theoretical principles
governing all rational activity such that these principles cannot be definitively
articulated. We are not to confuse these principles with invariant meta-rules that are
difficult to state (contra Chomsky, Fodor, Kripke, etc.). Rather, these principles
place limits on self-understanding. There is a clear conflict between our intuitions
of the non-finite character of mathematics and Quine's holism or any totalization in
analytic philosophy.41
The problem of self-reference, and its relation to the issue of infinity, can
be expressed as follows. 42 There is a difference between an infinite number offacts
and an infinite fact. Analytic philosophers attempt to treat semantic categories in
particular and Talk1 in general as if they are dealing with facts in the same manner
as Talk l . Talk2 , that is talk about factual talk, is construed as just another kind of
factual talk. Syntax is seen as a second order physical property; or semantics as
supervenient on syntax. However, any statement about the whole or the entirety of
an infinite number of facts, which includes our recognition of that whole and
accounts for our recognition of the whole at the same time, is an infinite fact or a fact
about the infinite. It is not an infinite number of facts. By its commitment to
totalization, analytic philosophy must deal with this infinite fact, but it persistently
misconstrues this as an issue of an infinite hierarchy or number of facts. The
confusion between the two is analogous to the fallacy of composition, i.e., a
confusion of the properties of the parts with the properties of the whole 43
Part of the reason for the confusion is that analytic philosophy has been
unable to collapse the subject (mind) into the object (body), and hence any attempt
it makes to capture the awareness of the totality, i.e., to capture the subject's part in
all of this, fails. The problem of self-consciousness is a version of the problem of
self-·reference. Analytic philosophy can only construe such awareness as itself an
object. But if awareness were an object then there would have to be another subject
aware of that awareness. So to the infinite fact is added another "fact."
Unfortunately, the added "fact" belies the existence of the original infinite fact which
was supposed to be all encompassing.
Analytic philosophers who recognize this problem are apt to respond that
there is nothing viciously circular about the appeal to meta-levels. They are certainly
correct in that there is nothing viciously circular about it. But what is at issue is not
the consistency of the appeal to meta-levels, but whether such an appeal is coherent.
To use meta-levels is to respond to every challenged analytic exploration by appeal
to yet another exploration. However, there is no way of judging either the
correctness of particular explorations or the very intelligibility of an endless series
of explorations, or an exploration about the endless series of explorations.
136 Chapter 4

Quine's attempt to avoid the self-reference issue which arises with Talk2
leads to the colJapsing of the analytic-synthetic distinction. Once we eliminate
analytic statements in general, Talk2 statements in particular never arise. Quine
concludes from this that everything is packed into one-big synthetic statement. But
further development ofthat dire remedy leads to a double relativism in which "both
our understanding of the world and our understanding of that understanding are
equally underdetermined" [italics added}. ~~ If everything is underdetermined, then
how do we distinguish between a world in which analytic statements are absorbed
into synthetic statements and a world in which synthetic statements are absorbed into
analytic ones? What would the latter world be like? It would be a world with
competing explorations among which we have no way of rationally choosing. This
is Quine's world. Despite his objections to modal semanticists, Quine's world is
indistinguishable from theirs.
What will it be like if Quine's view of the final fruition of science actually
comes about? What would it be like to know all true and meaningful sentences?
Wouldn't this have to include not only a knowledge of all true sentences but the
additional true sentences of our reaction to knowing all true sentences? Would the
latter kind of true sentences be like the former kind of true sentences? Most certainly
this would be different from the present state of both believing that we know some
true sentences and trying to discover the rest. What, if anything, would be the
function of an exploratory hypothesis if all of the facts are known? Perhaps we
would not need exploratory hypotheses. If so, then the state of total know ledge is a
completely different kind of state of knowledge from one in which theories are
instruments for discovery and use. Moreover, if the two states are different, then we
cannot use the present state of underdetermined understanding as a model for talking
about the total state. If Quine's views are at all intelligible they certainly fail to be
coherent in any obvious philosophical sense. What we end with in Quine is a silence
about the really fundamental metaphysical questions.
We can locate the failure of Quine's and Kripke's metaphysical programs
by referring back to the Hegelian Argument above. Quine and those analytic
philosophers who subscribe to elimination stop at step (2). They are willing to move
to holism and they embrace, implicitly, a teleological view of progress in science.
But, Quinean holism remains unintelligible because it cannot make sense of self-
reference; and, it cannot make sense of self-reference because it has discarded the
subject. Quineans refuse to talk about talk about the world, that is, they refuse to
discuss the status of what we have called Talk2.
Other analytic philosophers do attempt to discuss step (3), notably the neo-
Carnapians, like Kripke, who subscribe to exploration. However, from the point of
view of the Hegelian argument, Kripkefails to understand step (4), that is Kripke's
attempt to provide a new theory of reference is an attempt to establish (3) by a kind
of correspondence theory of truth. He expected to do this by reconsideration of the
movement from step (I) to step (2) in his theory of reference. In this special sense,
Kripke's metaphysics is retrogressive.
To put the Hegelian point succinctly: there cannot be a definitive
exploratory model of modeling because there is no way to choose among such super-
models. However, if the alternative super-models were stages in an historical
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 137

development toward one all-inclusive super-super model then our problem would be
solved. Without the essentialist-historicist thesis and the reduction of objects to a
super-subject a la Hegel this cannot be done. The rhetoric of scientific progress, in
the meantime, serves as a kind of rhetorical mask for the inability to deal with this.
In Chapter Six we shall see a shift in the vocabulary of analytic philosophy
from the use of psychological and mathematical metaphors to linguistic metaphors.
We suggest that this shift can be explained as an attempt to circumvent the issue of
self-reference and to blunt the impact of GOdel' s proof. Although admitting GOdel
to be in principle correct about mathematics, it will be presumed without argument
that mathematics is just part of or an extension of language in general. One might,
if one were an analytic philosopher averse to Quine's particular solution, still hold
out for a total formalization of language (i.e., conceptualizing the pre-theoretical) in
the way that the later Carnap, Montague, and Kripke try. A syntax for modal logic
requires a language which can talk about itself, at the very least by naming its own
expressions. Self-reference then is a key element of any attempt to make Talk2 a
formalized version of Talk\. Construing Talk2 as a version of Talk\ is an attempt to
achieve total conceptualization by showing that the pre-theoretical (subject) can be
absorbed into the theoretical (object). Having to achieve total conceptualization in
this way was necessitated by the transition from elimination to exploration in analytic
philosophy, and this transition was necessitated by the failure of positivist
elimination.
However, we note that the very notion of formalization is itself borrowed
from mathematics, and if mathematics cannot be formalized, what reason is there to
believe that formalization can be applied or extended to language as a whole? The
recent popularity of cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence can be seen as
the search for some alternative scientific model. Are there non-mathematical notions
of formalization? What would they be like, and are they compatible with the rest of
analytic phiiosophy?4S
To engage in philosophy at all one must subscribe to the view that
everything is in principle intelligible. This is perfectly compatible with their being
conflicting views of what constitutes intelligibility and substantive alternative
accounts. What this is not compatible with is an ultimate explanation that does not
explain itself. One cannot complain that this is an open question, namely whether
ultimate explanations must explain themselves, for in order to debate this point one
would have to assume an ultimate framework of intelligibility. To give a complete
and coherent account of everything means accounting for one's own account as part
of the picture, to indicate what a total picture would in principle be like. To the
extent that analytic philosophy misses this intellectual demand it fails to be
philosophical at all. To the extent that analytic metaphysics fails to do this it is
engaged in an evasion of intellectual responsibility.46 Claims that one's personal
analytic research program has more limited goals are not expressions of intellectual
modesty but a failure to think the program through. Limiting metaphysics to
ontology, for example, is just such an evasion. If scientism is supposed to be true,
then it must explain itself.47 The problem is that it does not and never has. The
inability or unwillingness to grasp this point is precisely what we mean by the loss
ofphiiosophical consciousness.
138 Chapter 4

It is important to distinguish between inconsistency and incoherence.

Inconsistency is a logical notion and is exemplified by the existence of two
individual statements both of which cannot be true at the same time. Analytic
philosophers are
concerned about inconsistency, but this concern is a concern for how individual parts
interact with each other. It is not a concern for how individual parts fit into a whole.
Incoherence is a much wider notion. It has both a logical and a natural
meaning. Logically speaking, a statement or position is incoherent if it does not fit
into the system understood as a whole. The metaphysics of analytic philosophy is
incoherent because it cannot be stated in analytic terms in a way that permits it to be
measured against the whole. This is due to the fact that analytic philosophers either
do not state what the whole is, cannot state what the whole is, or for any number of
reasons evade stating what the whole is.
From a natural point of view, actions can be incoherent as well as
statements. As a set of practices or actions, analytic philosophy is incoherent. It is
incoherent because it is incapable of stating how a certain part of its actions fit into
a larger whole. For example, analytic philosophers take specific hypotheses
seriously but they refuse to investigate why they take these hypotheses seriously.
Stock rhetorical flourishes are introduced such as saying that "the origin of a
hypothesis is irrelevant to its validity." Hypotheses are thus treated as isolable units.
Often, it is claimed that the question of why these hypotheses or stances are taken is
the subject matter of social science not philosophy. However, before social science
can investigate these stances it must model itself after physical science. Ifwe then
raise the question of why the social sciences must model themselves after the
physical sciences, we are told that physical science is the paradigm of truth. If we
then inquire on what basis physical science is alleged to be the paradigm oftruth(i.e.,
scient ism), no answer can be forthcoming.
It will not do to say that science best epitomizes what we mean or
traditionally have meant by a good explanation, so that the demands oftotalization
may be safely ignored. To begin with, this view is historically false. Second, this
view presupposes that traditional standards are somehow inherently correct.
Unfortunately, this presupposition is in conflict with the whole point of scientism,
which, since the time of the Enlightenment, has been to dispose of tradition and
replace it with something else. The only way of reconciling the appeal to tradition
with the claims that current science best captures what the tradition was aiming at is
to embrace an historical teleology embodying a final synthesis, and that is Hegel
again!
It will also not do to say that unexplained explainers at the end of a regress
of explanations imply no ultimate absurdity. To be sure it is not absurd. But it is still
philosophically incomplete and intellectually evasive. Unexplained explainers may
meet the norms, or perhaps not violate the norms, of rationality in science, but they
certainly do not meet the norms of rationality in philosophy. To substitute the nonns
of science for the norms of philosophy begs the fundamental point with which we
started. In order to evaluate the claims of the meaning and utility of scientific
discourse we must translate that discourse back into the terms of prescientific
discourse and experience, which is both its genesis and arbiter. Analytic thinkers use
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 139

or assume exploration as a way of thinking because they think it is "scientific," but

this merely reinforces our claim that the entire discussion for many ofthem is guided
by a commitment to scientism that is never explained or justified. Even when
analytic philosophers concede the 'Kantian Tum' and admit that background and
context serve as the genesis of explorations, still, in their practice they develop
abstract models that do not spell out their own contextual grounding. There is an
implicit assumption that background is just background, not internally part of the
exploration, and ultimately a ladder to be thrown away.
In desperation one might be led to distinguish between different or
competing views of philosophy and what is required by each. This distinction would
then require that there be a meta-philosophical level at which we try to understand
these differences. What would we use as an adjudicatory framework? The claim that
competing conceptions of philosophy are so many different explorations is once
more a q)Jestion-begging reflection of the analytic construal of issues. Unfortunately,
as we have seen, there is no way of choosing between competing explorations
without criteria. This resolution has resulted in a fragmentation of the discipline in
which it no longer becomes necessary to speak to anyone except the people with
whom one already agrees.
Analytic metaphysics has been shown so far to be guilty of one or more of
three counts. First, it is evasive; second, it has a tendency to become historicist;
third, when fully self-conscious, it leads back to Hege1. 48 All three of these points
can be seen in Goodman,49 Putnam;O and in Robert Nozick's Philosophical
Explanations. 51

The Hegelian Moment in Analytic Metaphysics

Analytic philosophy began with Russell's rejection of Hegel's metaphysics. What
was inaugurated was a realist, foundationalist, anti-psycho logistic enterprise. This
enterprise has failed to achieve its goals, and we are now in a period of reassessment.
Robert Nozick's Philosophical Explanations is the clearest example of that
reassessment and the clearest example of a return to idealism. The return to idealism,
here understood as the belief that to be real is to be a member of a rational system,
where members are only understood when the system as a whole is understood, is
signaled by Nozick's conception of a self-subsuming explanation.
The Hegelian background to analytic philosophy can be expressed in terms
of three intertwined themes. (1) There seems to be a gap between how we
understand ourselves (self-consciousness) and how we understand the world, a gap
accentuated by scientistic, reductive attempts to subsume the former under the latter.
(2) It does not seem possible to reconcile science as the study of a non-teleological,
fixed, lifeless external structure with the human striving for value. (3) The attempt
to construe the logic of explanation in purely formal (mathematical) terms
independent of the subject who does the explaining renders meaning unintelligible.
Nozick's task is expressed in terms of(3), but it is also motivated by (1) and
(2). This is the whole point behind the desire to replace argument by explanation.
Some expressions of that motivation are the following.
140 Chapter 4

It is ironic that one of the most glorious achievements of the

modem mind, science, seems to leave no room for its own glory;
that the reduced image of man toward which it seems inexorably
to lead -- a mean and pitiable plaything of forces beyond his
control -- seems to leave no room even for the creators, and the
creation, of science itself. 52... [T]hose who deny value sometimes
see as itself valuable their tough-mindedness in refusing to
succumb to (what they view as) the illusion of value, this comfort
is not legitimately available to them.53

Just as Hegel developed a dialectical logic to overcome the dualism of

thinking and being, so Nozick develops an organic as opposed to a mechanical
paradigm of logic in the form of self-referentiality and self-subsumption. But
whereas Hegel solved the first problem, the gap, by reconceiving the phenomenal
world as the self-presentation of the noumenal world, Nozick is content with a mere
formal analogy between self-consciousness and the world in terms of self-subsuming
explanations. By arguing for the analogy between reality and self-articulating
reason, Nozick's enterprise is Hegelian but with a refosal to follow it through to the
Absolute Spirit.
There are two specific metaphysical issues upon which Nozick focuses. The
first is the identity of the self. The second is the question: "Why is there something
rather than nothing?"
According to Nozick, the self is an entity with the essential "capacity for
reflexive self-reference," somewhat analogous to Fichte's notion of self-positing. 54
The self is created by a primordial act of self-reference which is also a decision about
what to be. This primordial act is self-reflexive (when seen from the inside) and
refers to itself at the same time. "The self which is reflexively referred to is
synthesized in that very act of reflexive self-reference,"55 and it is also described as
a "reflexive act of craftsmanship."56 This conception of the self satisfies the original
impulse to engage in philosophy, which, according to Nozick, is to explain how we
are valuable. 57
The foregoing account of how reflexive self-knowledge is possible now
becomes a paradigm of all explanation. 58 It is a self-subsuming explanation in that
it both refers to itself and justifies itself.

Self-subsumption is a way a principle turns back on itself, yields

itself, applies to itself, and refers to itself. If the principle
necessarily has the features it speaks of, then it necessarily will
apply to itself. This mode of self-reference, whereby something
refers to itself in all possible worlds where it refers, is like the
Gtidelian kind ofthe previous chapter. There we also discussed an
even more restrictive mode of self-referring, reflexive self-
referring. Can the fundamental explanatory principle(s) be not
merely self-subsuming and necessarily self-applying, but also
reflexively self-referring?59
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 141

Nozick treats the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?",
as an issue of explanation. Philosophy is an attempt to explain everything. But as
we all know, the attempt to push explanation to its outer limits seems to present us
with the following paradox:

Explanatory self-subsumption, I admit, appears quite weird -- a

feat of legerdemain. When we reach the ultimate and most
fundamental explanatory laws, however, there are few
possibilities. Either there is an infinite chain of different laws and
theories, each explaining the next, or there is a finite chain. If a
finite chain,. .. the endmost laws are unexplainable facts or
necessary truths or the only laws there can be ifthere are laws of
a certain sort at all (the fact that there are laws of that sort is
classified under one of the other possibilities) - or the endmost
laws are self-subsuming.60

Given the traditional and seemingly intractable problem of justifying first principles
within a deductive explanation (and given, we might add, the inability of analytic
philosophers to anchor science in experience without appeal to other unanchored
explanatory principles as we saw in Chapter Two), we are brought back to self-
subsumption as the only way out. What we need, according to Nozick, is a
fundamental explanation of the totality of reality in which that explanation loops
back onto itself without circularity and without an unexplained residue of brute fact.
Nozick does not claim that all self-subsuming statements are true or
acceptable proofs. Being self-subsuming is a purely formal characterization. Nor
does Nozick deny the possibility of a multiplicity of alternative self-subsuming
explanations.

Still, won't there be many different equally coherent and unified

worlds? If each is equally in accord with a principle of organic
unity, why then does one hold rather than another? (This question
parallels the familiar one put to coherence theories of truth) ....
I see no reason to think there is only one self-subsuming organic
unity principle capable of generating other facts within a structure
of high organic unity undistinguishable in fundamentalness; so the
question would remain of why one particular one holds, baring a
reflexive account. 61

One obvious solution ofNozick's problem of a plurality of self-subsuming

explanations is to suggest that all of the alternative explanations are themselves
moments within one great organic unity, all being reinterpreted in the way that the
self recasts itself in Nozick's own view. Nozick refuses to complete the picture in
this way. The reader, of course, will have noticed that the suggested solution is the
Hegelian view. Nozick has gone further than any other analytic philosopher by
raising the question of the status of such explorations. But Nozick stops at item (6)
within the Hegelian argument (see above). He refuses to discuss how we choose.
142 Chapter 4

As an analytic philosopher not satisfied with just deductive argument but who wants
a self-subsuming explanation, Nozick is engaged in a total conceptualization of
reality. That is, he is taking his philosophical responsibility seriously. In order to
accomplish this, knowledge must not only explain but be like the world. Ultimate
reality and self-articulating reason must be identical. In some way we must explain
that logic is derivative from self-consciousness (self-reflexivity in Nozick's
terminology). What this boils down to is a dialectic or thought process that annuls,
preserves, and elevates. Since thinking so construed is a developmental activity, not
a static one, an explanation of thought must itself be developmental. Once the
explanation of thinking is based on the movement of thinking then the explanation
must itself be subject to movement. This would explain pluralism and maintain the
possibility of absolute truth.
Despite his penchant for evolutionary epistemology, Nozick will not go that
far. Hegel can envisage saying everything (a final synthesis) whereas Nozick is left
with a plurality of self-subsuming explanations. Nozick fails in the end to reconcile
his stated commitment to objective truth with this plurality. Self-subsumption or a
coherence theory of truth understood organically can on Iy be successful ifthere is
a single organic whole of mind and reality and ifit is undergoing a self-development
that finds ultimate consummation. Hegel understood that. Short of that, Nozick is
going to be left with an implausible or incomplete historicism. As it now stands,
Nozick's self-subsuming explanation is no more than another ungrounded or
ungroundable exploration.
Nozick's views, when fully spelled out, are indistinguishable from
historicism. Suppose there are two philosophers, Nand H. N believes or says that
he believes in an absolute and objective truth, but he is also totally open to new ideas,
new hypotheses, radical paradigm shifts, and so on. At the same time, N refuses to
commit himself to any specific criteria by which we can tell that later is better or that
we are ever closer to the absolute truth. H, on the other hand, either denies the
existence of an absolute and objective truth or refuse to be drawn into a debate about
it. Instead, H argues that later thought evolves out of earlier thought but is not in any
objective sense closer to "the" truth. H even seizes upon and welcomes N's point
that all thinking involves speculative assumptions or starting points that cannot
themselves be objects of proof.
How would we be able in practice to distinguish between Nand H? What
difference is there between Nozick's quasi-Hegelianism and an out and out
historicist? The answer is that there is no difference without an act of faith.62
Alternative self-subsuming theories become just so many incommensurable
discourses. It is never explained how we are to choose or compare or to coordinate
those alternatives.
What Nozick shows us is that fully selfconscious analytic philosophy must
embrace its nemesis, Hegelianism. 63 It must embrace Hegelianism if it is to close the
gap between knowledge of the subject and knowledge of the object. We want to
conclude this chapter by raising the question of why it fails to do so. Before
addressing that question there is one potential misunderstanding we want to avoid.
Our examination of analytic metaphysics is not a brief for Hegel. We are not
advancing the position that all philosophers ought to embrace Hegelianism. Our
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 143

purpose is to expose the ambiguities in analytic metaphysics, one of which is its

failure to come to terms with what is implicit in its own position.
Why is analytic philosophy the failure to be its Hegelian self? It is tempting
to argue for the role of historical ignorance, the failure of many contemporary
analytic philosophers to study the history of philosophy, much less the history of
their own tradition or to teach it to subsequent generations. But this cannot be the
whole story. Clearly the originator of analytic philosophy, Russell, knew very well
what he was rejecting in idealism and some later analytic philosophers like Nozick
are aware of the problems. We want to suggest two other reasons why analytic
philosophers would not embrace Hegel even if they understood him. The first has
to do with scientism, and the second with the social and political agenda of analytic
philosophy.
Analytic philosophers subscribe to scientism, to the belief that science gives
us the ultimate truth about everything. Scientism is opposed to idealism only in the
sense that idealism takes reality to be mind dependent or mental. Not only do
analytic philosophers believe that reality is independent of mind but they believe that
mind is itself explainable in the same way that we explain physical reality. Thought
becomes nothing but the modeling of a lifeless structure. Scientism as such entails
materialism and reductionism. This is one reason why analytic philosophers cannot
be consistently Hegelian.
It will appear to some readers that Nozick does not subscribe to scientism
because he criticizes reductionism. On the contrary, Nozick always writes under the
shadow of reductionism. The great fear is that whatever independent realm we carve
out for human beings is in imminent danger of being reduced, so that the ultimate
embarrassment in analytic circles is to be cast into the role of people who refused to
look through Galileo's telescope or who opposed evolution. Evidence of this is that
Nozick goes to great pains to point out that any attempt to prove that reductionism
must fail is futile. 64 Nozick does not rule out the possibility of reductionism, and in
his treatment of freedom he does not argue that human beings are free but strives
instead to formulate a compatibilist position. Finally, Nozick denies that there is an
intersubjectively valid common sense world from which science itself is derived. 65
In short, the commitment to physicalism and the primacy of body over mind makes
it conceptually impossible for analytic philosophers to embrace a Hegelian
resolution. We shall have more to say about this in the chapter on analytic
philosophical psychology.
The second reason for the failure of analytic philosophy to move
consistently to Hegelianism is political or ideological. Analytic philosophy, because
of its roots in the Enlightenment, is inclined to the view that social problems can be
reduced to problems of social technology. A social technological approach
presupposes physicalism which, as we have seen, is incompatible with Hegelianism.
Moreover, analytic social and political philosophy has routinely or very often
advocated a methodological individualism deemed incompatible with the social
epistemology in Hegel. Finally, many analytic philosophers, like Popper, have
mistakenly attributed to Hegel some form of collectivism. We shall expand upon and
qualify these points in the chapters on analytic social and political philosophy and
analytic philosophy of the social sciences.
144 Chapter 4

We conclude with some observations on the social and political importance

of Aristotelian realism to analytic philosophy. Rhetoric aside, analytic philosophers
subscribe to some form of realism in their metaphysics. Nowhere in analytic
philosophy does one find a direct argument for why realism should be accepted, and
this is in itself a symptom of its fundamental importance. Instead, what we shall find
are epistemological views that buttress realism, and this we shall see in the next
chapter. Finally, what we see is what we shall call a cultural case for realism, that
is, an argument to the effect that in order for us to believe that our social technology
is "good" we must believe that it reflects some permanent truths about reality.
Instead of a positive argument what we get is a negative argument to the effect that
the alternative to realism is or would be the inability to justify the use of our social
technology. Again, what this reflects is an ideological commitment to the
Enlightenment program rather than a serious philosophical argument.

Summary
Three central conclusions emerge from our discussion of analytic metaphysics. First,
in order to understand the analytic conversation in general and the discussion of
metaphysical issues in particular it is important to recognize the philosophical
paradigm which informs that conversation, namely Aristotelianism. It is
transparently disingenuous to claim that the analytic conversation is motivated by the
attempt to clarify problems or to offer carefully formulated hypothetical solutions to
those problems. It is as well inadequate to claim that the conversation merely takes
a naturalistic stance. Failure to be fully self-conscious about one's own philosophical
orientation not only impoverishes and parochializes one's philosophical activity but
it is irresponsible in failing to deal adequately with rival philosophical paradigms or
to be sufficiently philosophical about what the existence of rival paradigms means
or entails.
Second, once we recognize the peculiar modern form of Aristotelian
metaphysics that informs the analytic conversation, and once we accept that this
orientation is inevitably driven in a Hegelian direction, we are able to recognize two
features of that conversation. We can recognize why the analytic conversation
repeatedly runs into the same problems. We can recognize as well the recurrent
pattern of development and failure in other areas of the analytic conversation.
Third, we can begin to understand why a persistent issue of analytic
philosophy is the denial of the self. If there is no self, then there cannot be self-
reference. If there is no self-reference, then there cannot be totalization. Without
totalization, the claims analytic philosophy makes on behalf of scientism are
unintelligible. If scientism is unintelligible then analytic philosophy is incoherent as
a philosophy. This amounts to the loss ofphilosophical consciousness. Unable to
engage in fully self-conscious metaphysical reflection, analytic philosophers find
themselves in search of a successor discipline.
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 145

NOTES (Chapter 4)

1. "It is a fair, though obviously incomplete, interpretation of Hegel's system

to call it a reconstruction of the Aristotelian universe in terms of self-
consciousness, and to see Hegel's dialectic as an incomparably subtle and
powerful attempt to consummate Aristotle's triple analysis [matter-form,
with their respective correlates potency and actuality, fourfold causation,
temporal process and timeless activity] .... " Mure (1958), p. 246.

2. This tension is brought out in the following remarks by John Skorupski

(1990): "If the modernist philosopher espouses naturalism he espouses it
neither as a metaphysical doctrine nor as an empirical one but as an anti-
metaphysical one. He asserts the final unintelligibility of any alternative"
(p. 10); "[A]t the limit, absolute idealism coincides with fully thought-
through naturalism. . .. However, the true modernist should hold that there
is absolutely no idealism involved." (p. 25).

3. "Dilthey was right in stressing, against Hegel, that the development of

philosophy is not a sequential succession of all-dominant systems but an
ongoing parallelism of conflicting systems that assume different historically
conditioned configurations. . .. Dilthey, vol. VIII, pp. 131, 34." Rescher
(1985b), p. 90.

4. This tri-partite distinction was originally suggested by Randall (1958),

Chapter 5, and developed in (1962), Bk. I, Chapter Three. No claim is
made in our text that these generic versions are perfectly instantiated in
individual thinkers.

5. See Capaldi (1987).

6. Some might object that combining Aristotle in this way with other doctrines
is to create something that should not be called Aristotelian. Our response
to that claim is as follows: (1) we have chosen to define' Aristotelian' in a
more generic fashion in order to stress certain continuities and to indicate
how philosophers refurbish past models for new contexts -- something that
we think is important for understanding the history of philosophy; (2) those
who object to the appropriation of the term 'Aristotelian' in this fashion are
free to substitute any term they like as long as the continuities and the
historical process thesis are recognized -- although they are free to argue
against the thesis; (3) the belief that terms have essences so that all future
applications of a term are already intrinsic to its meaning is a substantive
philosophical thesis -- I make this point to show that what might seem to
outsiders to be semantic quibbles usually mask substantive philosophic
debate.
146 Chapter 4

7. Strawson (1959) is a sustained argument that we cannot describe our

conceptual system without distinguishing between persons and physical
objects. However, Strawson concedes that he cannot thereby close the gap:
"When we have acknowledged the primitiveness of the concept of a person,
... we may still want to ask what it is in the natural facts that makes it
intelligible that we should have this concept. ... " pp. 110-11.

8. This epistemological problem shall be discussed in greater detail in the next

chapter, Chapter Five.

9. Our claim is that Hegel salvages modern Aristotelian epistemology. It is

not our claim that Hegel salvages Aristotelian epistemology; the classical
Aristotelian epistemologist does not need to be saved in the way that the
modern Aristotelian epistemologist does.

10. This explains the tendency on the part of many epistemologists continually
to confuse the issue of the source of knowledge with the issue of the object
of knowledge. Even going back to Locke, it is never clear whether
experience is a source of knowledge or an object of knowledge. There is
a tendency to treat alleged epistemic entities, like sense data, as if they
were ontological entities as well.

II. See Sluga (1980), pp. 116-121.

12. The rejection of the conceptualization of the pre-theoretical is present in

both the Tractatus and in the Investigations, but in different ways.

13. " ... it is impossible to understand Hegel; it is good that you have noticed
it", p. 57 ofNeurath (1973). The reexamination of one's starting points
is a routine part of any rational practice, especially those that face
seemingly intractable problems, and a large part of what philosophy has
traditionally done. Failure to see this leads to being trapped within one's
own conceptual web. One example of being trapped within one's own web
can be found in the work of Rudolf Carnap. See Carnap (1950) where he
distinguishes between internal questions and external questions and then
goes on to construe metaphysics as linguistic proposal, that is, what we have
identified as an exploratory hypothesis. Carnap had the annoying habit of
transforming everything anyone said, including attacks by his critics, into
a kind of hypothesis. He actually prided himself on this and called this his
principle of tolerance, that is he was willing to accord to everyone the status
of offering exploratory hypotheses. Apparently, what he could not grasp
was that there was a conception of philosophy as something other than
exploration. For a particularly harsh judgment on Carnap see Agassi
(1988), pp. 95-98.
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 147

14. E. Nagel (1956) is symptomatic of this view.

15. Passmore (1985) has remarked on "the centrality of Aristotle for Oxford-
trained philosophers ...." (p. 17); Turnbull (1988) has noted that "[T]he
twentieth century provides many examples of very influential Anglo-
American philosophers who can properly be called Aristotelians. John
Austin, Gilbert Ryle, Peter Strawson, Elizabeth Anscombe, Peter Geach,
and Donald Davidson come readily to mind" (p. 117); see also Sorabji
(1969).

16. Quine (1948).

17. Quine (1953), pp. 20-46. Dummett (1974), p. 351, has called this work of
Quine's "probably the most important philosophical article written in the
last half-century."

18. The existence of synthetic a priori truths is claimed by Copernicans as

evidence of a pre-theoretical ground of conceptualization that cannot be
conceptualized, most especially by science. Analytic philosophers must
reject the existence of synthetic a priori truths otherwise Copernicans and
Platonists will be in a position to undermine scientism. What "analytic"
statements and synthetic a priori statements both share is that they are not
dependent upon experience.

19. Keep in mind that the analytic vs. synthetic distinction is Kantian and has
noth ing to do with why analytic philosophy is called 'analytic'.

20. Analytic philosophers, committed as they are to Aristotelian or empiricist

epistemology, believe that our conceptual structures are true when grounded
in experience. As we have seen in Chapter Two, theories in science cannot
be explained simply by being grounded in experience. Rather than admit,
then, that being grounded in experience is not what makes a theory in
science true (or acceptable) and meaningful, analytic philosophers follow
Quine in using the term 'underdetermined'. To say that a statement or
conceptual structure is 'underdetermined' is to say that they accept it as true
even though it is not totally grounded in experience and that they are not
surrendering a formal commitment to Aristotelian (empiricist)
epistemology!

21. Quine (1953), pp. 42-43.

22. See the essay by Roger Gibson and Quine's reply to Gibson as well as the
replies to Nozick and Putnam in Schilpp (1986) .

23. " ... how often Popper's later views seem to approach Hegelian ones!"
Gellner (1985), p. 53.
148 Chapter 4

24. Mure (1958), p. 133. In his paper, "Russell's Mathematical Logic,"

(Schilpp, 1944) Godel argues that both Frege and Russell are committed to
the view that sentences with the same truth value have the same referent.
There is an important difference, however, between Frege and Russell.
Frege distinguished between sense (meaning) and reference (denotation).
All true sentences have the same referent, namely, "the True".
Nevertheless, all true sentences do not have the same sense (meaning). This
is the element of Platonism in Frege that distinguishes him from Russell's
Aristotelianism.

25. Camap [1934, (1937)] p. 318.

26. Ibid.

27. [bid. However, Camap still insisted on the analytic-synthetic distinction.

Kripke will follow Carnap's lead, and this is important for understanding
Kripke's differences from Quine on the semantics of modal logic.

28. Quine simply puts on hold the whole issue of the pre-theoretical. For Quine
(1969a), the regress ends with our "acquiescing in our mother tongue and
taking its words at face value" (p. 49). That is, Quine advocates that we use
these words without making any attempt to understand their metaphysical
status or meaning.

29. " ... despite ignoring the issue, Quine's views do commit him to a very
definite position regarding what is independently real: Quine's
epistemology seems to presuppose a Kantian background of transcendental
idealism" Sacks (1989), pp. 34-5.

30. Keep in mind that as a Platonist, Frege would be inclined to deny that
objects were anything but concatenations of properties.

31. This reintroduces the possibility of the synthetic a priori or conventional

dimension that analytic philosophers are at such pains to reject.

32. (Ex) Fx = "at least one substitution instance of F is true."

33. In the next chapter, we argue that this attempt to model modeling is exactly
what Wittgenstein's Tractatus shows to be impossible.

34. Kripke (1972) " ... science can discover empirically that certain properties
are necessary . .. " (p. 128); "Having expressed these doubts about the
identity theory ... I should emphasize ... [that there are] highly compelling
arguments [for the identity theory] which I am at present unable to answer
convincingly. Second, rejection of the identity thesis does not imply
acceptance of Cartesian dualism. In fact my view ... suggests a rejection
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 149

of the Cartesian picture" (p. 155n).

35. To accomplish the same end, David Lewis has developed what he calls
"counterpart theory" -- a more inclusive alternative to modal logic. Lewis,
like Kripke, thinks that his logical exploration captures the meaning of
conditional statements as a truth about the world. Like Kripke, Lewis
would deny the Copernican (and Wittgensteinian) claims that all this
depends not on the world but on the community of language users. Lewis's
views have been attacked as philosophically and onto logically unintelligible
by Haack (1976).

36. Rorty (1979), p. 299.

37. Alfred Tarski was a mathematician, his doctorate was in mathematics, and
he was a professor of mathematics. In opposition to Brouwer, Tarski
employed the assumptions of set theory, especially infinitistic set-theoretical
concepts. We note, as well, that Tarski's solution will not work for
languages which do not employ the theory oflogical types (e.g., Zermelo-
Fraenkel and von Neumann versions of set theory).

38. "It cannot be too strongly emphasized that Tarski's idea of truth ... is the
same idea which Aristotle had in mind and indeed most people ... the idea
that truth is correspondence with the/acts (or with reality). But what can
we possibly mean if we say ofa statement that it corresponds with the/acts
(or with reality)? .. Tarski solved this apparently hopeless problem ... by
... reducing the unmanageable idea of correspondence to a simpler idea
(that of 'satisfaction' or 'fulfillment')" Popper (1959), p. 274n. There is
also a noteworthy analogue between the infinite number of meta levels of
Tarski's semantics and the Popperian notion of how later theories in science
are more encompassing than earlier theories without ever reaching total
encompassment. Keep in mind, as well, Popper's stress on falsification
rather than confirmation. Finally, we think it is interesting to compare the
epistemological notion of truth as always being undefinable for some meta-
language with the social and political idea found in some versions of
liberalism to the effect that human beings be seen as having an infinite
horizon which is at the same time progressive.

39. See Haack (1978), Chapter Eight, especially p. 148. More recently, Kripke
has attempted to circumvent the reconstituted paradoxes by declaring that
if a sentence threatens paradox under certain circumstances, then we must
conclude that it says nothing. Rather than showing us how to deal with the
issue, or perhaps even seeing the issue, what we get is a question-begging
evasion of the issue.

40. Hao Wang (1986), p. 19, quotes GOdel as having said: "How strange [it is]
that the positivists (and empiricists) do philosophy by cutting off parts of
150 Chapter 4

their brain (in excluding conceptual knowledge)?" As a Platonist, Godel

can recognize the limitations of totalization in other than a Platonic sense.

4l. Godel's Platonism has never been taken seriously by analytic philosophy
who are, as we have argued, committed to some form of modern
Aristotelianism. Nor do analytic philosophers admit the dire consequences
of Godel's proof. "The bearing of Godel's results on epistemological
problems [notice metaphysics is not mentionedJ remains uncertain. No
doubt these results and other 'limitation' results have revealed a new and
somewhat unexpected situation insofar as formal systems are concerned.
But beyond these precise and almost technical conclusions, they do not bear
an unambiguous philosophical message. In particular, they should not be
rashly called upon to establish the primacy of some act of intuition that
would dispense with formalization" J. van Heijenoort (1967), p. 357.

42. In a 1932 lecture, Wittgenstein admitted that one of the two basic mistakes
of the Tractatus was confusing or failing to distinguish between the finite
and the infinite. See G.E. Moore (195411955).

43. Bergson (1911), Part IV, warned about this kind of fallacy of confusing
parts and wholes in his discussion of time. Bergson also located the source
of this confusion in the philosophical misappropriation of science.

44. Romanos (1983), p. 186.

45. Husser! believed in a phenomenological conceptualization of the pre-

theoretical. There is a long and distinguished tradition of the
phenomenological approach even to the philosophy of science.

46. In retrospect, we can see the issue of the status of the principle of
verification as a version of the problem of self-reference. Briefly,
positivists had held that for a statement to be meaningful that statement
must in principle be capable of empirical verification. Critics of positivism
responded by asking if the statement of the principle of verification was
verifiable. Clearly, the statement ofthe principle of verification is not itself
verifiable. The principle has some other status, but positivists could never
explain clearly just what that status was. The inability to make its own
ground clear is a fatal flaw of analytic philosophy. Perhaps the greatest
example of this inability is the unwillingness on the part of many analytic
philosophers to discuss the status, or even the existence, of analytic
philosophy.

47. Feigl (1967) understood this point, i.e., Feigl recognized the necessity for
a fully reductive scientism to account for science itself.
 Metaphysics In Analytic Philosophy 151

48. Putnam (1981) tried to distinguish his position from idealism by denying
that mind comprises or constructs the world. Nevertheless, in a way
Putnam never explains, Putnam asserted that "the Universe makes up the
Universe - with minds - collectively - playing a special role in the making
up" p. xi.

49. Goodman (1978) embraces the idea of alternative explorations without a

commitment to scientism as in Quine. He eschews relativism (p.94) but
never explains how this is possible. According to Sacks (1989), "the
grounds upon which Goodman urges us to accept his irrealist position leave
it entirely plausible to see this position as rejecting ontological realism
while leaning towards the endorsement of ontological idealism ... "(p.l 00).

50. Sacks (1989), p. 81: "Putnam seems to be saying that for survival all
theories must have in common that they are to some extent determined by
the world, by reality; only he also thinks that they are essentially
underdetermined by the world - so that they all agree with the world so far
as to allow for survival, yet there is no one true theory that corresponds to
the way of the world."

51. For a more detailed exposition and critique ofNozick's book see Capaldi
(1984).

52. Nozick (1981), p. 628.

53. Ibid., p. 559.

54. Ibid., pp. 79, 76.

55. Ibid., p. 91.

56. Ibid., p. 110.

57. Ibid., p. 109.

58. There are three interrelated Nozickean concepts: self-reference, self-

subsumption, and reflexive self-reference. An example of self-reference is:
"This sentence has five words." An example of reflexive self-reference is:
"} am Robert Nozick" (when uttered by the author of Philosophical
Explanations). An example of self-subsumption is: "(P) any lawlike
statement having characteristic C is true; P is a lawlike statement with
characteristic C. Therefore P is true." (p. 119). All reflexively self-
referential statements are self-subsuming, and all self-subsuming statements
are self-referential, but not all self-subsuming statements are reflexively
self-referential.
152 Chapter 4

59. Ibid., p. 136.

60. Ibid., p. 120.

61. Ibid., p. 149.

62. Nozick himself admits "just as empirical data underdetermine a scientific

theory, so actions do not uniquely fix the life plan from which they flow.
Different life plans are compatible with and might yield the same actions"
(Ibid., p. 577).

63. Another significant figure in the analytic conversation whose work reveals
the movement toward Hegel is Hilary Putnam. Putnam, in fact, is
significant because his career is a microcosm of the evolution of analytic
philosophy. Originally, Putnam gained attention by seconding Quine's
challenge ofthe analytic-synthetic distinction, specifically arguing that even
mathematical statements are in principle revisable. Putnam was also one of
the first analytic philosophers to make what we have identified as the
'Kantian Tum', i.e., a move away from naive empiricism and toward the
recognition of the important role of the pre-conceptual. Always a stalwart
realist, Putnam later defended the realism of Kripke's causal theory of
reference. The implicit Aristotelianism in Putnam is revealed in his defense
of a view of natural kinds, qualified with the provision that future
investigation might reverse even the most certain of examples. In his
philosophy of mind, Putnam rejected central state materialism but favors the
kind of functionalism one finds in Dennett's theory (to be discussed in the
chapter on the philosophy of mind). Putnam characterizes his own position
as a form of "internal realism" understood teleologically by reference to
human flourishing. He even believes in value-facts, another teleological
notion. Finally, the movement toward Hegel is epitomized in his belief that
the mind and the world jointly make up the mind and the world. For an
excellent summary of Putnam's views and his implicit Hegelianism see
John Passmore (1985), pp. 92-101, 104-107.

64. Ibid., pp. 570, 642.

65. Ibid., p. 627.

 CHAPTERS

Analytic Epistemology

Introduction
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the criteria of what
constitutes knowledge. The primary purpose of epistemological investigation is to
determine the legitimacy of any knowledge claim.
Epistemology presupposes metaphysics. No account of knowledge can
proceed without assuming that we already have some sample or example of it or of
the way the world works. Ifwe already know something, then we already have some
insight into reality. Depending upon what one believes the ultimate nature of reality
and the place of human beings within it to be, one will formulate a particular view
of what knowledge is. If epistemology presupposes metaphysics, then it cannot be
the function of epistemology to legitimate metaphysics. Rather, the role of the
epistemologist is to establish the consistency and coherence of one's epistemology
within one's metaphysics.
Just as we have identified three major but different metaphysical
orientations, so we shall identify three derivative epistemological orientations,
namely, Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Copernican ism. Given the different claims
about ultimate reality and the place of human beings within it, there will inevitably
be different accounts of knowledge. This chapter commences with a brief historical
overview of these competing epistemological accounts.
One of the values of a survey of this kind is that it will show the extent to
which analytic epistemology is part of an ongoing historical debate. More to the
point, we have argued that analytic philosophy is in large part informed by a version
of the Enlightenment Project. To the extent that it is, then it is a modem, secular,
truncated version of Aristotelianism. In order to understand significant parts of
analytic epistemology we shall show in what sense it evolved from and radically
altered the tradition of Aristotelian epistemology. Moreover, the previous chapter
identified special problems within analytic metaphysics, specifically the challenge
of presenting a coherent metaphysical vision without resorting to Hegel. Given the
relationship of epistemology to metaphysics, this chapter will show that the same
issue haunts epistemological discussions within analytic philosophy. Finally, it is
important to recognize wherein the alternative conceptions of epistemology differ
and what they have to offer in order to consider alternatives to analytic philosophy's
present landscape.

Classical Epistemology
Classical epistemology begins with a clear understanding of the intimate relationship
between metaphysics and epistemology. Despite differences, classical
epistemologists all agree that we have a direct grasp of reality. Therefore, classical
epistemology is largely focused on giving an account of error.

Platonism:
Plato was one of the first to formulate epistemological issues. The
background to his concern is his confrontation with the Sophists. The Sophists
154 Chapter Five

denied the possibility of having objective knowledge about the world. In the moral
and social realm they went so far as to advocate a kind of cultural relativism, the
view that all norms are relative to time and place. They were led to conclude that no
norms are intrinsically superior to others. Protagoras had seemingly generalized this
to the thesis that "man is the measure of all things." Plato believed otherwise. He
believed that there were absolute and objective grounds for preferring some norms
to others.
Plato argued, first, that there is an ultimate and unchanging reality with a
permanent structure. If there is to be absolute and objective knowledge, then it must
be identical with this structure. Second, Plato believed that geometry (mathematics)
is an unquestionable example of this knowledge, and that geometry gave us a clear
example of what it meant to prove something, i.e., establish something as an
indisputable example of knowledge.
Platonism, as an epistemology, originated with Plato's choice of geometry
as his paradigm ofwha~ constitutes knowledge. What is geometry like as a form of
knowledge? It begins with definitions of key terms like 'point' and' line'. What is
peculiar about these definitions is that they are not empirical, that is they do not
define what we can imagine (picture in our mind). A "point," for example, has no
dimensions. We may draw a dot on a page, like the period at the end of this
sentence, and say that the dot "represents" the 'point'. But the dot is not itself a
point, no matter how small we draw it. We can conceive of a point, but conceiving
is not imagining (or picturing). So knowledge begins with concepts that are
conceivable but not experienceable. Sometimes this is described as an intuition.
With these intuitions we are able to construct axioms, that is, principles that cannot
be proved but are the starting points of all proofs. Once we formulate the axioms,
we are then able to derive (deduce, prove) a theorem. From this theorem we can
prove other theorems, etc.
There appear to be two different kinds of knowledge: first, the knowledge
that is proved or deduced from other knowledge; second, the knowledge that is
intuited and without which there would be no proof. Plato insisted that intuited
knowledge cannot be learned or acquired from experience. Before we can learn
anything from experience we must already possess some framework for interpreting
what we learn, and the framework cannot be learned or acquired the way we learn
from experience. Plato also insisted that intuited knowledge cannot be acquired by
proof, for otherwise we would have an infinite regress or a vicious circle. Finally,
there cannot be a criterion for distinguishing correct from incorrect intuitions for
such a criterion would either have to be proved (infinite regress or circle, again) or
itself be intuited.
There is a logical test that can be performed on an alleged first principle or
intuited truth in order to determine if it qualifies. The test is to try to conceive of the
opposite of that alleged first principle. If the opposite can be shown to be self-
contradictory, then we are secure in accepting the alleged first principle as an intuited
truth. Using a later technical terminology, the first principles that pass this test are
a priori true. To be a priori means two things: (a) non-empirical or independent of
experience; (b) the opposite is self-contradictory. Error is accounted for in a number
of ways. There is in Plato a doctrine of degrees of knowledge. But in the end, error
 Analytic Epistemology 155

can only be avoided by rigorously returning to intuited first principles and re-
establishing or recalling their a priori status. Error is avoided only by a return to
fundamental concepts (FORMS) that do not originate in experience and cannot be
established or invalidated by experience. We see in this a sort of Socratic
examination of basic concepts as the model of this rigorous return. To justify a belief
is to derive it axiomatically from the basic concepts. There is, therefore, a meaning
terminus in Plato, a self-certifying state in which we intuitively grasp a priori
principles.
We may summarize the main features of Platonic epistemology as follows.
First, Plato's epistemology is consistent and coherent with his metaphysics. Beyond
the world of everyday experience there is an external, objective, permanent,
unchangeable and absolute structure of Forms or ideal concepts. To have knowledge
is to grasp or mirror that structure. Second, knowledge is not a matter of grasping
the everyday world of experience which is unstable and changing, nor is learning a
natural process involving the everyday world of sense experience. Since know ledge
is apprehension of the unchangeable, there is no knowledge ofthe everyday world.
Third, critics who call attention to the unreliability of the everyday world of
experience reinforce the persuasiveness of Plato's case. Moreover, failure of the
world to mirror the ideal structure perfectly is irrelevant. Plato does not deny the
gap, rather he asserts it. Looking at knowledge from this point of view, Platonists
can maintain that the world of everyday experience is an imperfect copy or
realization of a set of principles that is necessarily and unchangeably true. That is,
the forms (ideal concepts) are not in matter. Fourth, Plato's challenge to those who
argue from experience is to try and make sense of experience without using ideal
concepts, especially normative ones, that go beyond actual and possible experience.

Aristotelianism:
Formally, Aristotle followed Plato's lead in making deduction from first
principles the standard of a good explanation. Where Aristotle differed from Plato
was in the status of first principles. First principles, for Aristotle, are abstracted from
experience. This difference in epistemology reflects a metaphysical difference.
Wh ile agreeing with Plato that knowledge must be the mirroring of a timeless and
absolute structure independent of ourselves, Aristotle insists that the structure (forms)
is embodied in the world of everyday experience. The problem of how a structure
can be unchanging and still embodied in a changing succession of objects is solved
in Aristotle by appeal to teleological biology. Teleological biology is thus Aristotle's
paradigm of what constitutes knowledge.
The assumption in Aristotelianism that form is embedded in matter leads to
an especially intimate relationship between epistemology and metaphysics. Recall
that in Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition metaphysics is itself extrapolated from
the specialized sciences. Metaphysics cannot, as in the case Plato, come to the rescue
of epistemology. Epistemology and metaphysics are intrinsically bound in such a
way that they are established simultaneously.
Aristotle's epistemology is consistent and coherent with his metaphysics.
Knowledge is part of the natural process. Not only is the universe irreducibly
organic but the process of knowledge acquisition is construed as a natural, organic
156 Chapter Five

process. Teleology helps to explain how our search for knowledge fits in with the
world as a whole. The appeal to organic and teleological processes as constitutive
of both the world and human nature allows for a continuity of knowledge acquisition
with natural processes. There is then in classical Aristotelianism a seamless web
connecting epistemology with metaphysics.
Experience, organically understood, is a kind of final arbiter for Aristotle.
Our experience of the world is not to be explained in terms of something else but is
itselfthe explanation of everything else. Given this perspective, a number of things
follow. First, there must be some kind of basic (i.e., pure or natural) experience
unmediated by any judgment or prior frame of reference. This is why Aristotle gives
a receptive account of perception. Second, this basic pure experience is either
infallible or can be overruled only by another basic or natural experience that is
infallible. Third, only when we move beyond perception to the higher more complex
forms of intellectual activity where we begin to combine concepts and to make
judgments do we encounter the possibility of error. Fourth, since the higher faculties
depend upon the lower (perception), Aristotle implies that it is always possible to
correct errors ofjudgment by a return to basic natural experience (perception).
Aristotle simply denies the existence of the Platonic gap between experience and
knowledge. Finally, there is an explicit belief that as experiences accumulate they
tend to confirm the patterns in events and that in the long run the experts will agree.
Teleology and the functional interdependence of the perceptual apparatus and
embodied forms help to make this position plausible.
The fundamental tenet of all classical epistemology is that knowledge
consists in the successful mirroring of an objective structure, that is a structure
independent of human beings. The Aristotelian version of classical epistemology,
as opposed to the Platonic version, is based on (a) the metaphysical claim that
structure is embodied in matter (realism) in the everyday world of objects and (b) the
psychological claim that human beings both possess and exercise the internal mental
capacity to abstract that structure from the matter or content of our experience.
Aristotelian epistemologists do not seriously entertain the question of whether
knowledge exists; rather, they start with the view that we already possess knowledge
and seek to specify what the structure of knowledge is. The Aristotelian
epistemologist is primarily concerned with making generalizations about the
abstracted structure of our knowledge.
Aristotelians believe that the objective structure of reality (the forms) is in
matter (i.e., in the physical world of everyday experience). Because the structure is
embedded or embodied or present in some fashion in matter, it is not empirically (in
fact) possible to separate the structure (form) from the matter. What we can do is
make the separation in our minds, that is, we can "think" (i.e., conceive) the structure
in abstraction from the particular bit of matter. This is what is meant by saying that
we possess the capacity to abstract. This is a key point in Aristotelian epistemology.
According to Aristotle, knowledge is equated with perception (in classical
Greek the verb "to know" is the same as the verb "to see"), I and perception is
construed as a largely receptive process in which the soul (mind) abstracts the forms
of things perceived. The mind is construed as a set offaculties (capabilities) in the
bodily organs. In addition to the separate senses there is alleged to be a common
 Analytic Epistemology 157

sense or faculty of perceiving qualities common to more than one sense, as in the
case of shape which is perceived both by sight and by touch. Following the initial
apprehension of the abstracted form, a process which Aristotle often represents as
error free, there is a second process, known as judgment, in which the concepts
(forms) are combined. The second process is where error becomes possible. The
second process involves the operation of the intellect, but it is wholly dependent
upon the prior existence of sense perception. Aristotle unequivocally maintained that
the mind never thinks without an image. As long as thinking is wholly dependent
upon the prior existence of sense perception the functioning of the mind can be
explained, in principle, without appeal to internal principles of structuring.
Aristotle's account raised two issues. An Aristotelian epistemologist must
in the early stages assume or present some view of the psychology of learning, that
is, some view of how an account of objects applies to an account of the mind, or how
object-like processes give rise to knowledge in the mind or instrument. Thejirst
issue concerns just exactly how we abstract the form from within our experience, a
form that gives us access to the essences of things. According to Aristotle, this
abstraction process is a form of intuition in which we just "see" the structure in the
particular instances. There is thus a meaning terminus in Aristotelian epistemology.
The issue ofabstraction is directly related to the Aristotelian assertion that form is
never empirically separable or isolable from matter.
The meaning terminus in Aristotle, the self-certifying state of knowledge,
is different from Plato's. It is also different from modem conceptions of perception.
In Aristotle's world there are no hidden structures; the world is what it appears to be.
What it appears to be is inherently organic. This means, first of all, that the object
of knowledge and the instrument for apprehending knowledge are identical and
continuous. Moreover, given the identity of formal, efficient, and final causes, and
given that the acquisition of knowledge is the grasping of the formal cause, every act
of knOWing is both self-contained and stands for something else, namely the wider
net of teleological (final causal) relationships.
The second issue concerns the active intellect. On the whole, Aristotle's
account of knowledge acquisition is in terms of the passive intellect. At the same
time, Aristotle had to invoke an active intellect in order to account for what sets the
faculties of the mind in motion and ultimately allowed for judgmental error. What
this active intellect is and how it does what it allegedly does are controversial issues.
Historically, the issue of the active intellece is a forerunner of the difficulties in the
modem period of trying to avoid appeal to an agent.

Skepticism:
Although skepticism is routinely caricatured in contemporary
epistemological discussions, classical skepticism is an alternative way of construing
knowledge. Skepticism as an epistemology was originally formulated within Plato's
own Academy in the third century B.C. The Academic skeptics rejected Plato's
metaphysics and stressed tHe moral posture of Socrates' self-examination. The
Academic skeptics then concentrated on attacking the Aristotelian epistemological
position as it was then represented by the Stoics and Epicureans. Both Epicureans
and Stoics had insisted upon the infallibility of sensations, and some Stoics believed
158 Chapter Five

that perceptions were infallible as signs of the true nature of reality. The Academics
responded that there was no way intrinsic to experience of distinguishing between
veridical perceptions and illusory ones. In short, skeptics denied a natural meaning
terminus. Skepticism has always focused on the problematic nature of the
psychology of knowing or learning. 3 While rejecting infallibility and certainty, some
Academics suggested a distinction between the probable and the improbable.
A second school of skeptics, the Pyrrhonians as represented by Sextus
Empiricus, denied even the distinction between the probable and the improbable.
Instead they suggested that being reasonable involved social conventions that had
nothing to do with Absolute Platonic Forms or with alleged Aristotelian structures
in external objects being duplicated in our minds and in discourse.
There are two dimensions to the skeptical challenge. First there is the
epistemological challenge, namely a rejection ofthe contention that knowledge is the
grasping or mirroring of a structure independent of human beings. The belief that
knowledge is the mirroring of an external structure is known as epistemological
realism. This challenge is directed against both Platonists and Aristotelians. Second,
there is the psychological challenge, namely the claim that the perceptual apparatus
cannot substantiate itself. This challenge is directed primarily against the
Aristotelian assertion that form can be successfully abstracted from matter. Given
the intimate relationship between metaphysics and epistemology in Aristotle, once
Aristotle's organic metaphysics is questioned, the epistemology becomes
questionable.
Some ancient skeptics remained ambivalent in their approach to the
metaphysical issue. Very often, a skeptic might agree that the world had a structure
but that we could not grasp it successfully. That is, some skeptics accepted the
metaphysical thesis in realist epistemology but denied the psychological thesis. What
one does not find in the skeptical challenge is an attack on the coherence of either
Platonic or Aristotelian epistemology.
Unable to present a direct and objective case for their version of
epistemological realism, classical epistemologists responded to the skeptics by
presenting an indirect case. The indirect case attempts to show that the denial of the
existence of knowledge is incoherent or self-contradictory. The argument here has
to be a logical one rather than an empirical one since the existence of empirical
knowledge is exactly what is subject to challenge. The case against the skeptic goes
something like this: In order for the skeptic to deny that we have knowledge in a
specific case, the skeptic must "know" that we are wrong, or the skeptic must "know"
that we have failed to embody the criteria of what constitutes knowledge. Surely,
then, the skeptic must be in possession of some kind of knowledge to deny that we
have knowledge. That is, every negative thesis presupposes some positive thesis or
claim. So skepticism is self-refuting.
The oft-repeated classic refutation of skepticism insists that every skeptical
denial must presuppose some affirmation, otherwise the skeptic cannot state hislher
case. However, the skeptic can always concede that every negative challenge
presupposes an affirmation without having to concede that there are absolute,
unchanging or foundational structures (i.e., meaning termini), and if there are such
affirmations they do not have to originate in experience or reflect a purely physical
 Analytic Epistemology 159

world. Maybe the affirmations have only conventional or arbitrary standing, and
maybe the conventions change. Maybe the affirmations have some totally different
kind of standing in metaphysics, or religion, or tradition, etc. Some skeptics are
perfectly happy to rest on convention and to keep shifting their conventional ground.
We shall have more to say below about the nature ofthe skeptics' challenge.
For the moment, we note that the success of the skeptical attack on classical
Platonists and Aristotelians can be gauged by the medieval response to this
controversy. Saint Augustine asserted that skepticism could be overcome only by
revelation. Augustine adopted a version of Platonism in which first principles come
to our soul (some of whose functions cannot be explained by reference to the body)
from God. The Forms are thoughts in God's mind. Much later, a kind of religious
Pyrrhonism flourished, as with Erasmus, wherein it was held that we should suspend
judgment and accept social and religious conventions.

Medieval Aristotelian Epistemology

Our concern ultimately is with analytic epistemology which we have identified as
largely derivative from a truncated version of the Aristotelian epistemological
tradition as found in the Enlightenment Project. In this section we shall make some
brief comments about medieval Aristotelian epistemology. The Aristotelian
epistemological tradition was revived most notably in the thirteenth century by St.
Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas, like Aristotle, asserted that all knowledge originated in
sense experience (phantasms). Further, Aquinas argued that the abstraction process
was the work of the active intellect upon the phantasms, and that, following the
abstraction, the active intellect formed a concept which was then imposed on the
passive intellect as well as verbalized. Language is thus an accompaniment or
addendum to the intellectual process.

PERCEPTION
Physical --> { sensory ---> abstraction <--- active
World experience process intellect

\-----passive intellect----/
LANGUAGE

Aquinas construed all perception as mediated by the active intellect so that

perception was universally representative in character. But, again, like Aristotle,
Aquinas gave no clear account of how the active intellect functions.
William ofOckham sought to circumvent these ambiguities with the claim
that the mind could directly and perfectly intuit some particulars in sense experience.
These direct intuitions are natural signs of things, and the words in our language are
conventional signs of our concepts (direct intuitions). Error, as in Aristotle, enters
when our concepts embody past experience (i.e., memory) as well as present
experience. An ambiguity arises in Ockham's account with regard to signs. The
notion of a sign seems to originate in or to be borrowed from convention. If "signs"
160 Chapter Five

are conventional to begin with, then it is not clear how conventional signs can be
derived from natural signs, or how there can be a natural sign in the first place. 4 This
possibility gives rise not only to medieval nominalism but also to modem versions
of conventionalism.
One other noteworthy figure transitional to the modem period was Francisco
Suarez, who differed from Aquinas in arguing that the passive intellect abstracted the
universal and that the active intellect could apprehend the individual material object.
At the same time, Suarez maintained that the active intellect was responsible for
making the passive intellect accurately represent phantasms. Suarez's epistemology
exemplifies a movement toward greater involvement on the part of the active
intellect. This foreshadows later 'Kantian Turns.' Despite these interesting
differences, the model of abstraction and its problems remained the same. What is
additionally interesting about Suarez, for our purposes, is that he raised the question
of the status of entia ration is or ideas which exist in the mind only. Among these he
singled out the concepts of negation and privation. 5
There are several reasons why classical and medieval Aristotelian
epistemologists did not seem overly concerned by the mystery surrounding how
forms were abstracted or how the active intellect processed phantasms or how there
could be such a thing as a "natural" sign. Part of the reason is that they all believed
themselves to be living in a universe where human beings were organically
continuous with nature, had a direct access to nature, where nature had meaning and
purpose (teleology) continuous with the human understanding of that purpose, or
where they quite simply believed in God, a transcendent rational being who gave
order and meaning to the universe, to human beings, and to the relation between
human beings and the world. The assumption that the physical world and human
beings were both organic in nature and the assumption that the organic nature of the
world was suffused with meaning or purpose (teleology), made the problem of
meaning transfer or interaction seem less than crucial.

Modern Epistemology
Developments in the rise of modem science led to a renewed interest in and the
transformation of epistemological issues. In modem science, that is in the physical
science articulated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we do not have direct
access to the natural world. The natural world is accessed through a scientific theory
or model which (a) refers to an initially hidden and not directly visible structure and
(b) where the structure consists of dynamic processes. The immediate response was
to refurbish classical models. In a very important sense modem epistemology is a
replay of central aspects of classical and medieval epistemology. At the same time
there are important differences.
The tradition that had least difficulty dealing with the epistemological
problems of modem science was Platonism. Scientists and mathematicians of a
Platonic persuasion have been largely successful in postulating an underlying
mathematically formalizable unity to the world that is not immediately obvious to
ordinary sense perception. Since the structure is not derivable from experience, and
since experience only makes sense when we interpret it from the point of view of this
structure, this structure is logically and metaphysically independent of the world of
 Analytic Epistemology 161

everyday experience. It is no accident that Platonic resolutions of modern

epistemological issues were favored by modern philosophers who were also major
participants in the development of modem mathematical physical science, namely
Descartes and Leibniz.
A second option available to modern epistemologists was to buttress
epistemology with theology. Some thinkers appealed directly to God. Most notable
was another serious scientist, namely, Newton. Many modern epistemologists
offered an account of how our internal resources, volitional as well as cognitive, give
us access to God who in tum guaranteed that our internally generated models fit the
world.
A third option, the peculiarly modem Copernican Revolution in philosophy,
reconceptualized knowledge first by denying that it was a matter of capturing the
hidden structure external to us and then by asserting that knowledge was ultimately
based upon practical (i.e., volitional) features of human beings. Scientific constructs
are humanly created instruments and not representations.
A fourth option was the refurbishing of the Aristotelian tradition. The
modern Aristotelian tradition faced the greatest difficulties in dealing with the new
developments in science. As we have already argued, these difficulties stemmed
from the fact that the Aristotelian tradition was originally formulated to reflect an
organic and teleological conception of the world. In the medieval Aristotelian
tradition, the organic and teleological conception was further buttressed with the
appeal to God's divine providence. Modern science, however, adheres to a
mechanistic and non-teleological conception of the world. Whereas a perfectly
straightforward relation existed between classical Aristotelian metaphysics and
ontology, the development of modern science made that relationship problematic.
This change in the relationship between metaphysics and ontology led to several
epistemological problems.
There is a special modern (secular) Aristotelian epistemological
predicament. There is a special predicament, in the first place, because all modern
epistemologists recognize that our grasp of the natural world is indirect. Whereas,
the classical Aristotelian epistemologist thought of himself as enjoying an immediate
and direct grasp of the dynamic structure of the natural world, the modern
Aristotelian epistemologist thinks of that structure as not immediately or directly
present to the senses. To put it succinctly, whereas the classical Aristotelian denied
atomism, the modern Aristotelian embraces atomism understood as the
presupposition that there are ultimate discrete components of the natural world and
that such components are not given directly in sense perception.
Because we do not have direct access, the problem of knowledge acquisition
has to be understood differently. That is, the modern epistemologist must explain our
internally generated model. This is the acquisition problem. Our model is no longer
a stripped down picture of what we directly observe but an imaginative hypothetical
model of a dynamic process that is not directly visible. The acquisition problem
encompasses the traditional Aristotelian issues of abstraction and the status of the
active intellect; it also requires a response to the skeptical psychological challenge.
At the same time, the modern Aristotelian epistemologist must explain how
the internally generated model gives us a view of the real world that is defensible.
162 Chapter Five

This is the verification problem. The verification problem requires a response to the
skeptical challenge to realism. Ifform and matter can only be separated '·in the
mind" how do we "compare"6 what is "in our mind" with what is "in nature"? That
is, how do we check on whether we have abstracted correctly?
Third, the modem Aristotelian epistemologist must show how the account
of knowledge acquisition is coherent and consistent with the account of the real
world. This is the coherence problem that is unique to modern Aristotelian
epistemology. The notion that we do not have direct access to the real world because
our access is mediated by a scientific model nevertheless assumes that there is a real
world by reference to which we can say this. It is this background assumption that
must be made coherent with whatever survives verification. The background is what
we have referred to as Talk2 as opposed to Talk J • 7
The coherence problem is a reflection of the fact that modem Aristotelian
epistemologists substituted a mechanistic ontology for an organic and teleological
one. There are two issues that must be distinguished, at least logically. It is one
thing to argue that structure is not directly apprehended; it is another thing to argue
that the indirectly grasped structure is mechanical. Newtonian atomism encompasses
both positions, but those positions are not identical.
If modem secular Aristotelian epistemology is to be coherent with a
mechanistic ontology, then knowledge acquisition and verification must be
intelligible as mechanistic processes. So, for example, phenomenalism can be
understood as a modem Aristotelian epistemological project designed to explain
knowledge acquisition and verification as a process which can be reduced to the
interaction of isolable parts. The macro activities of knowledge acquisition and
verification are here being analogized to a micro event -- namely the hidden
mechanical process.
The immediately obvious problem with this project is that science is an
experimentally acquired form of knowledge that reflects a dynamic human
engagement with the world. It is not clear if and how this macro event can be made
analogous with the micro event.
A second dimension to the coherence problem concerns the ontological
status of mechanism. Mechanism itself can be either a macro thesis or a micro thesis.
Mechanism as a macro thesis asserts that the macro world can be treated as a
mechanical world subject thereby to prediction and control by human technological
manipulation; the actual micro events that explain macro predictability need not
themselves be mechanical but dynamic (perhaps organic, teleological, or not even
scientifically explainable, etc.). As a macro thesis, mechanism is a practical program
and not even an ontological position. One might not even want to entertain any
ontological hypothesis at all about the micro world. Mechanism as a micro thesis
asserts that both the macro and the micro world are identical and differ only as to
scale; macro predictions allegedly become more accurate when supplemented by
micro regularity. It was Locke who said:

I doubt not but if we could discover the figure, size, texture and
motion of the minute constituent parts of any two bodies, we
 Analytic Epistemology 163

should know without trial several of their operations one upon

another: as we know the properties of a square or triangle. s

The difficulty with micro level mechanical processes is that according to

modern physical science the interaction of isolable parts occurs according to
dynamic principles that are not themselves mechanical or reducible to isolable parts
that can be visualized. In other words, mechanism as a micro thesis does not seem
to be part of what either modern or contemporary physics tells us about the natural
world. During the modern period, outstanding scientists such as Descartes, Leibniz,
and Newton did not embrace mechanism as a micro thesis and were perfectly willing
to supplement their understanding of micro events as dynamic processes with
metaphysical and theological positions. Mechanism as a micro thesis was and is held
primarily by philosophers as part of either a philosophical (metaphysical) or
ideological prDgram about science.
Finally, if we attempt to achieve coherence between our epistemological and
ontological positions by appeal to whatever principles it is that science uses, even if
those ultimate principles are not mechanistic, then those principles are always going
to be expressed in the form of a model that is not itself either visualizable or
verifiable empirically. This result, as we shall see, has momentous epistemological
consequences. 9
Refurbishing classical Aristotelian epistemology meant radically
naturalizing it. Modern naturalist epistemologists in the post-Renaissance world
denied the teleology of nature and replaced it with a mechanical and deterministic
physicalism. This modern naturalist epistemology is exemplified in the works of
such diverse philosophers as Hobbes, Spinoza, and Locke.
Spinoza was a significant transitional figure who illuminated the three
problems raised by modern naturalist epistemology. His approach to the acquisition
problem was to assert that there are degrees of knowledge, but they all begin in sense
experience. His solution to the verification problem was the same as his solution to
the acquisition problem, namely, the adoption of a monism in which the mental and
the physical realms are interpreted as two aspects of a single Nature, seemingly
guaranteeing that the order of ideas is identical to the order of th ings. lo If the two
realms are identical, then there is no problem of how abstraction takes place. Even
more important is Spinoza's contention that the theory of the degrees of knowledge
culminates in intuition or the seeing of the world as a coherent whole bound by
necessary connections. That is, Spinoza's doctrine is that knowledge must be
reflexive and that to possess genuine knowledge we must know that we know.
It is worth dwelling on why knowledge must be reflexive. The way in
which we access the world epistemologically is not wholly identical to the way the
world is. Therefore, there has to be at some point a kind of knowing 2 that confirms
that knowing l is genuine knowledge and where knowing is self-certifying. The
reflexive totalization function to which Spinoza called attention is exemplified
historically in Aristotle's God (who thinks about thought), the Christian God,
Spinoza's Nature, the Leibnizian monad, and Hegel's Absolute. Spinoza's
identification ofform with matter and the insistence that the system must know that
it knows (self-reference) leads eventually to Hegel's Absolute.
164 Chapter Five

The difference between the Platonic approach to the coherence problem and
the modern secular Aristotelian solution is the following. Whereas the Platonist
makes knowing! an imperfect copy of knowing, the modern Aristotelian like
Spinoza (and, as we shall see, Locke and analytic epistemologists) asserts that
knowing 2 is (somehow) like knowing!.
Like Hobbes before him and Locke after him, Spinoza asserted the identity
of mind and matter without actually displaying it scientifically or explaining how it
is possible or even what it means. One looks in vain for an explanation of the
interpretive process, i.e., the active intellect, as part of a genetic physiological
process in a world conceived of as mechanistic and physically deterministic.
John Locke's empiricism is the best known and most influential form of
modern naturalist epistemology. Like his immediate predecessors, Locke asserted
the existence of a physiological process that accounts for perception but admits that
scientists have not discovered it. All knowledge originates in experience or ideas of
sense. Ideas of reflection result from the operation of the mind on the materials
provided by the ideas of sense. Perception is a passive process, while the mind
engages in a subsequent active process. By insisting upon the passivity of the
acquisition of the ideas of sense, Locke seems to achieve both a direct contact with
an objective world and to avoid any "contamination" of the ideas of sense by
activities of the agent. Even the use of the term 'idea' seems to cut across the
distinction between the world and our conceptualization of it. There is a counterpart
in Locke to Aristotle's doctrine of the common sensibles in that Locke identifies
primary qualities as both measurable and perceptible by more than one sense. It is
also the primary qualities that link us causally with objects. Locke embraced as well
a form of medieval Aristotelian conceptualism when he defended the linguistic
theory that general words are signs of the general ideas we form through abstraction.
Locke also asserted that there is a reflexive knowledge of the self so that we may be
said to know our internal processing directly. Finally, Locke believed that we could
prove the existence of God from purely internal resources. Similar to but not
identical to Descartes, Locke believes it is possible to know the self which in tum
leads to knowledge of God who guarantees our knowledge of the world. In short,
Locke buttressed his naturalist epistemology with an appeal to God.
Like Aristotle and Spinoza, who postulated degrees of knowledge, 11 Locke
asserted that "elementary" experiences constituted incorrigible knowledge and that
error crept in only with more complex levels of interpretation. By splitting
knowledge into at least two levels, modern naturalist epistemologists introduced a
strategy that appears to appease to some degree legitimate skeptical complaints about
error and at the same time gain acquiescence in the existence of a basic, though
modest, abstraction process. The more the abstraction process is construed as a
mechanical copying process, the less mysterious it is supposed to become.
The problem, of course, is that there is nothing elementary about allegedly
"elementary" experiences. The physiological process by which elementary ideas of
sense are acquired remains a mystery, hence we cannot appeal to science to help
identify "elementary" particulars.
The skeptical problems into which Locke's account runs are by now well
known. Berkeley attacked Locke's theory of abstraction as incapable of showing
 Analytic Epistemology 165

how our ideas could be abstracted from the experience of objects or how words could
be names of things. Hume reinforced Berkeley's critique of Lockean abstraction,
and by undermining the Aristotelian analysis of causation, Hume further undermined
the argument that the distinction between primary and secondary qualities could help
to account for abstraction or establish the existence either of independent objects or
of God. Hume undermined Locke's attempt to generate a purely cognitive self-
certifying internal model even with the appeal to God. This is not to say that
Berkeley and Hume are skeptics but only that they expose problems in Locke's
theory that fueled skepticism.
From this point on, we shall refer to Locke's successors in the modem
secular Aristotelian vein as naturalist epistemologists or as adherents of
epistemological naturalism. There are two skeptical challenges to modem naturalist
epistemology. First, there is the traditional skeptical challenge to the psychological
thesis that knowledge acquisition involves a process of abstracting the structure of
an external physical object. No naturalist epistemologist ever successfully explains
the physiological- psychological process. Moreover, there seems to be an inherent
ambiguity in, if not confusion between, trying to explain a physiological process and
trying to explain a conceptual process or the relation between the two. It is all along
assumed that the physiological process is somehow basic and the conceptual process
is derivative, and at the same time it is assumed that we can "conceptualize" the
relation between the two as physiological even in the absence of present knowledge
of the physiological process.
There is a second skeptical challenge to modem naturalist epistemology.
That challenge is to the realist thesis that knowledge is a representation of an
external physical structure. If we must begin our epistemological account with
internal models, and if we cannot explain where and how these models originate,
then we can never advance beyond the internal models to an external real world.
Either we can never have knowledge of the real external world (external to our
model), or knowledge has nothing to do with an external structure. Put simply, if we
cannot explain how form is abstracted from matter then how do we know that there
is an "embedded" form in the first place?
The skeptical challenges are much more virulent in the modem period than
in the classical period. Since classical theorists began with a metaphysics and then
proceeded to epistemology they could hold on to the metaphysics and its attendant
ontology without having to have full confidence in their epistemology. So a classical
skeptic could hold that there is a real world, but since we cannot know it we settle for
something less. A modem naturalist epistemologist has to wonder if it even makes
any sense to talk about what we cannot reach.
Naturalist epistemology (i.e., modern, secular Aristotelian epistemology
based on a mechanistic view of the world) will not work. It will not work for the
following reasons.
What we begin with is a model\ of ultimate reality.
What we would seem to need in order to explain knowledge acquisition and
error is a model] of how model} relates to ultimate reality. We cannot give a direct
common sense account of how model\ relates to ultimate reality because all
knowledge is now construed as a form of theoretical modeling. The task of modern
166 Chapter Five

naturalist epistemology is to provide us with a model2 that is consistent with modelJ

and is self-certifYing.· z
The first problem is that we do not have such a model2 of how model. relates
to ultimate reality. This lack is reflected in Hume's famous recognition in the
appendix to the Treatise that he cannot conceive of how he or anyone else is ever
going to give a physicalist/scientific account of how the mind gives scientific
accounts. The lack is reflected in the perennial undiscovered physiological account
of how the physical world generates mental functions. In short, we do not have a
model of modeling. The abstraction problem remains unsolved
The second problem concerns the status ofany alleged model2. If modern
naturalist epistemology is to be consistent and coherent, any model z would have to
be like modeJ!. Ifwe do not have or cannot provide an account of how model. is
correct then how can we provide such an account or understand how any suggested
model z is correct? Recall that model. is not a direct view of ultimate reality but a
scientific model of it. If there is no direct way ofknowing that modelJ is correct, then
there is certainly no direct way of knowing that any model2 is correct.
The verification problem remains unsolved. This epistemological problem
is the analogue of the difficulty we saw in Chapter Two of the inability to establish
the definitive truth of a scientific theory coupled with the subsequent inability to
establish the truth of any historical hypothesis about the progress from one theory to
another. It is also an example of how one unanchored exploration cannot be
salvaged by another unanchored exploration.
The third problem is that if model z is supposed to be identical to model band
ifmodel. cannot certify itself, then how can mode~ certify itself? Worse yet, how
would we even know that the very idea ofmodel z makes sense? We must have some
understanding of how a model can certifY itself at least as being a model. That is,
we must have a model ofmodeling. In order to have a model ofmodeling (i.e., a
model of the abstraction process), we would have to show the mechanism of how
form is separatedJrom matter. That is precisely what cannot be done in any form of
naturalist epistemology.
Without a model of modeling we can never show how a model certifies
itself. The coherence problem remains unsolved, and both the verification problem
and the coherence problem are parasitic on the abstraction problem for naturalistic
epistemology. The relationship between model z and model. is the analogue to the
problem of the relationship between knowledge2 and knowledge., and between Talkz
and Talk •. The requirement of reflexivity is the epistemological counterpart to the
problem of self-reference discussed in the previous chapter. In both cases, the
modem Aristotelian starting point in the object presupposes that any analysis will
eventually be turned back upon itself and account for the originating process in the
subject. If our thesis in the metaphysical discussion was correct, namely that
analytic philosophy is incapable ofdealing with self-reference, then we should expect
a similar difficulty to emerge in any epistemological discussion designed to explain
the initial process of knowledge acquisition.
The ambiguity of the status of model z has serious implications. To begin
with, epistemology cannot rescue metaphysics. The correctness of the
epistemological account is always parasitic upon the correctness or presumed
 Analytic Epistemology 167

correctness of the metaphysical account. No alleged scientific account of the

learning process can by itselfestablish the truth ofscientism. 13 We should, therefore,
not be surprised to discover that there was a revival of skepticism with in the modem
period and the contemporary period as well. 14 This is the analogue to our contention
that there is no neutral way to establish the truth of an exploration. If the
epistemology cannot support the metaphysics, then we cannot establish the
consistency and coherence of modem epistemology with modem metaphysics. From
the skeptical point of view, the naturalistic epistemological exploration can never get
started. If the instrument of analysis is challenged (because we can never be sure
that someone has correctly abstracted the structure) then the object is always subject
to challenge. If the object is subject to challenge, then there is no unambiguous
example of knowledge from which epistemological analysis can originate. The
continuous possibility of this challenge is a result of the fact that naturalist
epistemology commences with the assumption that the structure of the external
object is primary and that the structure of the mental contents of the mind is
derivative. This should make clear why so much of the literature of naturalist
epistemology commences with time-honored refutations of skepticism.
Epistemological naturalists identify their critics as skeptics and accuse their
critics of denying the existence of or the possibility of knowledge. IS Platonists and
religious thinkers are dismissed as mystics, and Copernicans are lumped with the
skeptics. Naturalists then proceed to point out that those who raise questions about
the existence or possibility of knowledge are doing something that is fundamentally
incoherent since the challenges themselves are unintelligible without assuming some
epistemological framework. This is the revival of the standard refutation of
skepticism.
Confronted with any challenge to the psychology of knowing, the naturalist
epistemologist has invariably responded by saying that all skeptical challenges to the
psychological processes of knowledge acquisition or confirmation ultimately share
in the fundamental incoherence of all challenges to the existence of knowledge per
se. Hence, naturalist epistemologists conclude, often hastily, that it is not really
incumbent upon them to provide details about the process of knowledge acquisition
and processing. This is often followed by the assertion that the concern of
epistemology is the clarification of knowledge and not its genesis which is the
province of psychology,16 and this is often followed by the assertion that future
scientific developments will establish the process.
The naturalist response is too hasty. The epistemological problem of
abstraction is parasitic upon a metaphysical presupposition. Since the structure is not
in principle physically separable from the matter, we cannot actually present or show
or display the structure on its own. Ifwe cannot physically separate or isolate form
or structure from matter (because we can only do it "mentally"), then (1) we can
never be sure l7 that either we or anyone else has successfully performed the mental
abstraction, [hence, there is no way to look into someone else's mind and see that
they have correctly abstracted the structure or even abstracted at all] and (2) if we
cannot be sure of that, then we cannot know for sure that there is a form or structure
embedded somehow in matter. Naturalist epistemology is thus subject to two kinds
of objection: one can deny that we (or anyone else) have successfully abstracted the
168 Chapter Five

form or structure, or one can deny that there is an objective structure or form to be
abstracted. By the very nature of its basic metaphysical assumptions, there can be
no objective scientific presentation of the correctness of the naturalist position. We
have already indicated why this problem seemed less acute to classical Aristotelian
epistemologists. What makes it especially acute for modern naturalist
epistemologists is the status of model z.
In order to reinforce the point that future developments in science cannot
solve this problem for modern naturalists we note two related speculative hypotheses
that have served as prototypes. First, one might be tempted as Locke was to identify
form with subatomic structure. However, if we could be an epistemological Gulliver
and imagine ourselves observing a subatomic particle or event, the problem of the
form ofthe form (sub-atomic event) would arise, as Hume noted. We have simply
moved the problem to a new level. In Newton's mechanistic universe there are only
efficient causes; without formal and final causes there is no essential form to grasp.
Second, one might be tempted to identify the act of abstraction with neural events in
the brain. Here again we face the same problem of correctly 'abstracting' the
structure of the act of abstraction. Both of these moves will either end in a new
nominalism or reflect the recurrent analytic strategy of trying to shore up one
exploration with subsidiary explorations.
Let us put this point more succinctly. Modern naturalist epistemology can
only work if some form of ontological mechanism is involved. What we mean by this
is that if reality ultimately consists of discrete parts, and if all explanation can be
reduced to discrete parts, and if we could reduce knowing (explaining) to interaction
among discrete parts, then a naturalist epistemology would in principle be possible.
However, if ultimate reality consists of relationships among parts then no
relationship can itself be explained by reference to discrete parts. Hume understood
this about mechanical explanations that appealed to 'secret springs'; this is also the
Hegelian point about internal relations; which is later reinforced by Heisenberg's
principle of indeterminacy.
If ultimate explanations (modeI 2) are relational then they are not in principle
different from model]. If model2 is not different from model] then mode~ cannot
certify itself. If model 2 cannot certify itself then it is subject to all of the limitations
of model]. If it is subject to all of the limitations of model] then it presupposes a pre-
theoretical background context that cannot in principle be conceptualized. If total
conceptualization is not possible then scientism and naturalism cannot be made
coherent.
Naturalist epistemologists call their critics skeptics or relativists.
Unfortunately, the use of the term 'skepticism' by modern naturalist epistemologists
as a general pejorative term (both timeless and contextless, to identify all of their
critics) has had an obfuscating effect on epistemological discussions.]S To be sure,
there are and have been critics of naturalist epistemology who have designated
themselves as skeptics, but even amongst these there are different kinds of
skepticism. Lumping ancient and modern skeptics together is especially misleading
because it obfuscates the fundamental difficulties of modern naturalist epistemology.
There are other critics of naturalist epistemology who would eschew the term
'skepticism' or relativism on the grounds that they have an alternative conception of
 Analytic Epistemology 169

what constitutes knowledge and thus are not engaged in a wholesale dismissal of the
possibility of knowledge. The skeptics, for example, challenged the view that
knowledge consists in the successful grasping of the objective structure of the world.
In its place, some of these so-called "skeptics" advocated an alternative!9 view of
what constitutes knowledge. We must be careful to identify what kind of
'skepticism' we are discussing.
Recognition of the peculiar difficulties of modern naturalist epistemology
is precisely what gave rise to the Copernican Revolution in Philosophy in both Hume
and Kant. Basic to the Copernican view is the affirmation that the paradigmatic form
of knowledge is practical/moral knowledge, and that this necessarily involves
references to formative activity by the agent. The automatic response of modern
naturalist epistemologists to the Copernican position is that the latter is just a modern
form of skepticism, appealing to custom or tradition or some "disreputable"
subjective source as a substitute for "real" knowledge. 20
What is important for our story is that the successive demolition of Locke's
modern naturalist epistemology by Berkeley, Hume,2! and Kant, leads us to the post-
Kantian epistemology of Fichte and Hegel. Fichte revived the naturalist tradition in
opposition to Kant. He not only reified experiences or phenomena as a way of
evading the abstraction problem but he also indicated that a consistent empiricism
must ultimately collapse the distinction between the experience and the experiencer
(i.e., the subject) if it is to avoid the Kantian synthetic a priori. The full force of
Fichte's arguments as well as the necessity for totalization (already implicit in
Spinoza) are spelled out in Hegel.
There is only one way around this naturalist epistemological impasse. That
way is to assert that the instrument of analysis and the object of analysis must be
identical. This requires that the object be collapsed into the instrument (mind or self-
knowledge). If the instrument and the object are identical, then whatever is true of
the instrument is true of the object, and vice versa. No gap is possible between the
instrument and the object. There can be no problem, then, of whether we have
successively abstracted the form. As a consequence, the skeptic cannot challenge the
instrument absolutely for he/she must use that instrument. If so, the only recourse
for the skeptic is to challenge the instrument relatively by suggesting that the
instrument does not remain the same but changes. Those who take this suggested
way out can then introduce the claim that the changes in the instrument are
progressive and part of the instrument, and, derivatively, part of or intrinsic to the
objt:ct. This way out is Hegel's, and the instrument is the human mind itself.
Precisely because this way out is Hegel's and precisely because it collapses the object
into the subject, analytic philosophers cannot accept it.
There appears to be a second way around this impasse. In this second way
it is still agreed that the instrument of analysis and the object of analysis are identical,
but this time we attempt to collapse the subject into the object. The primary focus
or starting point is the object. We begin with clear cut examples of objective
knowledge and bracket offpurely philosophical concerns. As long as all parties to
the discussion believe there are such clear cut examples of objective knowledge, the
epistemological discussion can proceed. Once we begin with the object it must be
admitted that in the early stages it will not be possible to prize off the structure (form)
170 Chapter Five

from the content. Every account of knowledge is going to have to reflect the
particular objects or kinds of knowledge with which we begin the analysis. For such
an account to be legitimate the naturalist epistemologist must assume (1) that the
object is a genuine form of knowledge, (2) that the object is proto-typical of all
knowledge, and (3) that the proto-typical form of knowledge can be reflexively
applied, in time, to the 'instrument' of analysis, namely the subject. In order to
sustain this approach some sort of providential history (e.g., evolutionary
epistemology) is needed. As we have repeatedly maintained, the providential history
rhetorically blocks consideration of the philosophical concerns. As an attempt to
buttress one exploration with another, it leads to the abyss of exploration.
It is our contention that the task ofnaturalist epistemology is to provide us
with model2• Moreover, it is our contention that this is an impossible task. That is
why we maintain that the providential history serves a purely rhetorical function. We
believe that a review of early analytic epistemology, especially versions that
culminate in Wittgenstein's Tractatus, will further confirm why the task is
impossible to complete.
Given what we have said about the inherent and intractable difficulties of
modem Aristotelian or naturalist epistemology the reader may be led to wonder why
all philosophers did not uniformly move to other alternative and less troublesome
positions like Platonism, Copernican ism, idealism, theology, or even return to
classical positions? There are two answers. First, modem naturalist epistemology
is often in the service of the Enlightenment Project, and that commitment constrains
the choice. Second, once someone has entered the seamless web of epistemology
and metaphysics in modem naturalism, the logic of that position encourages one to
offer further naturalistic exploratory hypotheses to overcome difficulties in earlier
naturalistic hypotheses. This only postpones the problem.

Early Analytic Epistemology

Analytic philosophy began as a reaction against Hegel. The early analytic
epistemological reaction against Hegel took the form of a revival of realism,
understood here as the reassertion of the existence of an external physical world
independent of the mind. This way around the modem naturalist epistemological
impasse maintained that the instrument of analysis and the object of analysis are
identical, but then insisted that the primary focus or starting point has to be the object
of analysis. The affirmation ofthis realism is an act of faith. Analytic philosophers
feel comfortable with this approach because they begin with the assumption of
scientism, more specifically the assumption that science constitutes the
unimpeachable body of knowledge.
Seemingly freed from the nuisance of skepticism, the naturalist
epistemologist can now set about articulating the structure of knowledge. A key
figure in this revival was Franz Brentano (1838-1917), who devoted much of his
writing to the psychology of learning and to Aristotle's psychology in particular. 22
Rather than establish any direct physiological link between external physical objects
and our thoughts, Brentano looked upon that link as a hypothesis of high probability.
Mental phenomena were construed by Brentano as intentional, i.e., as involving both
an activity and a mental object to which the activity is directed. By distinguishing
 Analytic Epistemology 171

between judgments which were directly evident and those which were only indirectly
evident, Brentano merely revived the standard difficulties of (a) how exactly our
thoughts relate to the world and (b) how exactly the active part of the mind processes
information.
In response to the Copernican Revolution in general, naturalist
epistemology, as initially exemplified in Brentano, sought to postpone the difficulty
of explaining the abstraction process and focused instead on how the mind processed
information. However, when it did so, naturalist epistemology construed the mind's
activity as analogous to the outside-inside abstraction process by once more
distinguishing between an object and a subject within the mind itself. That is,
Brentano tried to indicate in what sense starting with an object could be reflexively
applied to the subject who knows.
A recurrent pattern can now be identified in early analytic epistemology,
and, as we shall see, philosophical psychology. The basic model is: [OBJECT --->
SUBJECT]. The subject is construed as both passive in its receptivity of the object
and as active in its subsequent interpretation of the object. The further explanation
of the subsequent active interpretation is to construe the subject as itself composed
of [quasi-objects ---> quasi-subjects (homunculus)). The first set of quasi-objects
can be variously called phantasms, ideas, intentional objects, sense-data, etc. In
some always mysterious and undefined way the quasi-objects result from the real
objects (OBJECT), and this is the traditional idea of abstraction. Ignoring that
mystery for the moment along with the indefinitely renewable promissory note that
the "next" generation of psychologists will solve it, the naturalist epistemologist
focuses on the quasi-object. This focus also turns out to be probletnatic and for
exactly the same reasons. In order to understand the quasi-object we must invest the
quasi-subject with active powers to such an extent that the quasi-object is threatened
with extinction. As naturalist epistemology continually shifts the emphasis to the
quasi-subject, the quasi-object seems increasingly to be a creature of the quasi-
subject. Threatened with the entire collapse of the realist (i.e., subject-independent)
structure, the naturalist epistemologist must fall back again and now asserts that the
quasi-subject is itself a quasi-quasi-object, and so on ad infinitum. It is incumbent
upon the naturalist epistemologist to fabricate increasingly ingenious and sometimes
bizarre models for how this is possible. The ultimate purpose of all this is to
neutralize or to do away completely with any irreducible subject.
In our terms, what Brentano has done is to embrace epistemological realism
by introducing an exploratory hypothesis of the naturalistic kind. But, as we have
argued, no exploration can be substantiated except by appeal to an explication of the
common sense framework. Epistemological realism as an exploration is meant to
explain the common sense framework. However, the common sense framework
serves as the arbiter of all explorations. Hence, no exploration, including
epistemological realism, can explain the common sense framework. Epistemological
realism as Model z is ultimately incoherent. No future scientific findings of any kind
can obviate this philosophical point.
Brentano's distinction between an act of awareness and an object of
awareness became the basis for G.E. Moore's celebrated 'refutation of idealism'.
Moore, along with Russell, was largely responsible for the tendency amongst analytic
172 Chapter Five

philosophers to accuse their opponents of denying the existence of external physical

objects and then to label this denial as 'idealism'. This is the origin of the analytic
philosophical confusion between idealism and phenomenalism.
For Moore, to defend realism is to reject idealism by insisting that
knowledge originates in the abstraction of an external structure. Moore failed to see
that many of his opponents are really denying that knowledge originates in the
abstraction of an external structure rather than denying the existence of external
objects. Moore is also a prime example of the slippery slope in Brentano. For
example, Moore distinguished between the sense datum (Le., the object we see) and
the sensation we have of the sense datum. So while the real object (OBJECT) is a
physical object, the sense datum is a quasi-object, and the sensation is a quasi-quasi-
object. Moore was never able to explain either the relation between the physical
object and the sense datum or the relation between the sense datum and the sensation
of it. This exemplifies the abyss of exploration.
A number of issues are confusedly run together in Moore's epistemology,
but unraveling them will enable us to summarize, once again, the chief difficulties
in modern naturalist epistemology. The central problem with modern naturalist
epistemology is its version of realism, i.e., its insistence that knowledge is the
abstraction by a subject of the structure of objects external to human beings.
Certainty is not the central issue. Focusing on certainty confuses the question of the
state of the agent with the question of whether we have properly grasped the external
structure. Nor is foundationalism a central issue, for it raises a peripheral or
derivative question of whether we have an idea of or an accurate copy of something
external. If we cannot solve the initial abstraction issue we cannot solve the
derivative issue. Nor are sense data a central issue, for the introduction of sense data
leads again to a derivative conflict over whether the external object we are trying to
"know" is a sense datum or a hidden physical structure. It had been hoped by some
naturalist epistemologists that if we construed sense data as the OBJECT instead of
as quasi-objects, and if we could be said to know sense data, then epistemology
would no longer be troublesome. But once again failure to make clear how we
abstract in the first place simply led to the raising of all the same questions about
sense data that were raised about external physical objects in the first place. 23
Finally, Moore's repeated theatrical denunciations of skepticism never amounted to
a solution of the problem of how we abstract the external structure.
Bertrand Russell followed Moore's lead in embracing "realism." Russell
assumed the legitimacy of modern naturalist epistemology, specifically the notion of
foundationalism, despite all the well known problems that we have just summarized.
The question, we raise, is why? There is nothing intuitively obvious about this
epistemology. There are two reasons, one historical and one ideological. Despite
pretensions to novelty, every philosophical movement inherits a large part of its
starting point. Analytic philosophy is no exception. At the same time, modern
naturalist epistemology seemed the only form of realism compatible with scientism.
If substantiated, it would cut off appeals to anything other than technologically
controllable natural objects.
Russell adopted the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance (which,
initially, was thought to be error-free) and the derivative knowledge by description.
 Analytic Epistemology 173

This version of foundationalism we have already shown to be less than useful

because it begs the basic epistemological issue of how we perform the initial
abstraction. It is a testament to how deeply committed analytic philosophers are to
modern naturalist epistemology that the whole of twentieth-century epistemology
could be characterized by and exemplified in Russell's serial attempts to solve the
abstraction problem, all of which he subsequently discarded without ever having
surrendered or questioned his basic modern naturalist frame of reference.
What is important about Russell as an epistemologist is not his solution of
the abstraction problem but his manner of evading it. Let us look at that evasion
because it established a pattern of analytic argumentation. Modern and
contemporary critics of naturalist accounts of abstraction maintain that there is a pre-
conceptual domain (Hume's habits of the mind, the Kantian synthetic a priori,
transcendental arguments in general, Wittgenstein's practices, etc.) that cannot be
conceptualized in naturalist terms. Instead of responding to this critique by
producing a definitive naturalist account of abstraction, Russell merely asserts that
at some other level such an account could in principle be given. The clearest
example of this is the Theory of Types, as discussed in Chapter Three. For Russell,
it is always useful to ask for the epistemological justification of any level of
discourse or thought simply by moving to the next level. Since we can, allegedly in
principle, always move to the next level there is no reason why we cannot demand
and expect a naturalist account of any alleged pre-conceptual domain of activity,
even if we cannot provide it ourselves at the moment.
The pattern this establishes among analytic epistemologists is that instead
of providing an account of abstraction what we get is a dismissal of all claims that
the pre-conceptual cannot be conceptualized and a dismissal of all attempts to
establish a framework by transcendental argument (i.e., explication). This dismissal
takes the form of turning the tables and demanding a naturalist account or foundation
for any explication of the pre-conceptual. When confronted with the response that
any such request is illegitimate, the analytic epistemologist rests his case with the
question-begging charge that explicators cannot provide a satisfactory exploratory
account of their explication. This pattern of analytic argument creates the appearance
that the critics of analytic epistemology are failing to provide something.
This is appearance only. The irony of this situation is that it is analytic
epistemologists who fail to provide something. What they fail to provide is an
account of abstraction at any level. In lieu of such an account they embrace an
infinite regress of levels. Any serious account of abstraction is postponed, not
indefinitely, but infinitely. Unfortunately, as we saw in Russell's Theory of Types,
there is no way to establish a foundation or meaning for the claim that there are an
infinite number of levels or even to understand on what level we are standing when
we entertain such a claim. We can call this Russell's Regression. The analogue to
this that recurs again and again in analytic arguments is the attempt to buttress one
exploration with another exploration, and so on. Popper's notion or metaphor of
escaping into wider and wider prisons, or historicist appeals to the infinite future
progress of science, are but restatements of Russel!'s Regression. What we end up
with is not an account of the pre-conceptual but an abyss of exploration.
174 Chapter Five

The optimistic revival of modem naturalist epistemology by the analytic

movement in the twentieth-century would have come as a surprise to anyone familiar
with the history ofthe problem of abstraction if it had not been for one factor. That
factor was the popular cultural triumph of the view that science is the whole truth
about everything. Scientism helped the revival of naturalist epistemology in two
ways. First, the spectacular success of science in its technology made any
philosophical challenge seem sophistic, i.e., science appeared to be self-certifying.
If science were self-certifying, then we would once more have a metaphysical basis
on which to base the epistemology and thereby escape the modem predicament of
trying to use the epistemology to answer issues in metaphysics. Second, the
anticipated advances in all branches of science made many optimistic that the
psychology of learning would soon dispose of nagging questions about the genesis
of knowing.

Wittgenstein's Traetatus
Wittgenstein's Tractatus is the single most important work of analytic epistemology
written in the twentieth century. It is therefore the most significant philosophical
failure of the twentieth-century! By the author's own admission, the Tractatus
failed. What makes the failure significant is that (a) it is the clearest embodiment of
analytic epistemology, and (b) it is itself an example of what it as a work says cannot
be done. Critics of analytic philosophy would consider the recognition of the failure
and the disavowal as a very special and significant kind of success.
Wittgenstein's Tractatus subscribes to the three major doctrines of the
Enlightenment Project within analytic philosophy as we have defined them. First,
the Tractatus subscribes to scientism: "The totality of true propositions is the whole
of natural science (or the whole corpus of the natural sciences)." (4.11).24 The
Tractatus subscribes to metaphysical and epistemological naturalism, the view that
our thoughts are abstractions of the forms (internal structure) of the things we
experience: "A logical picture of facts is a thought." (3). Finally, the Tractatus
embodies an anti-agency view: "There is no such thing as the subject that thinks or
entertains ideas." (5.631).25
In addition, the Tractatus expresses Wittgenstein's solidarity with Russell
in opposition to Hegel on the issue of the relation of the parts to the whole. Like
Russell, Wittgenstein asserted that the world is made up of atomic facts so that the
truth or falsity of any elementary proposition is independent of the truth or falsity of
any other proposition.

What is the case - a fact - is the existence of states of affairs (2).

States of affairs are independent of one another (2.061).

The Tractatus addresses a number of philosophical problems, but it is

primarily addressed to solving one. That problem, upon which all the others hinge,
is the epistemological problem of abstraction. In a letter written to Russell while
Wittgenstein was in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp,26 Wittgenstein identifies the
"cardinal problem of philosophy" as "what can be expressed [gesagt] by
propositions, - i.e. by language". He then went on to equate this with "what can be
 Analytic Epistemology 175

thought." What can be expressed is contrasted with what cannot be expressed but
"only shown."
The crucial problem of naturalist epistemology is to explain how we abstract
the form from matter in our experience of the world; i.e., how our thought can be a
representation of external reality or, derivatively, how language can be an accurate
description of the structure of objects external to human beings. In our terminology,
to explain abstraction is to provide a Model2 of Model}. Like his modern naturalist
forbearers, Wittgenstein admitted that the actual biological and psychological
mechanisms are a mystery, but he also insisted that knowledge must be an abstraction
of external structure.

I don't know what the constituents of a thought are but I know that
it must have such constituents which correspond to the words of
Language. Again the kind of relation of the constituents of
thought and ofthe pictured fact is irrelevant. It would be a matter
of psychology to find [it] out Does a Gedanke consist of words?
No! But of psychical constituents that have the same sort of
relation to reality as words. What those constituents are I don't
know. 27

Wittgenstein thought that the Tractatus solved the crucial problem of

epistemology even though it did not provide a scientific account of the learning
process. He also believed that his solution avoided the slippery Brentano slope of
having to postulate increasingly subtle functions of a subject. In fact, the Tractatus
prided itself on eliminating considerations of the self.
In order to present more clearly the solution of the Tractatus, let us briefly
summarize the structure of the work as a whole. The Tractatus is presented in the
fonn of a preface and seven numbered sections.

Preface: The problems of philosophy are all reducible to the issue

of how language and thought relate to the structure of the world.
The solution lies in seeing what can and cannot be said.
Wittgenstein here indicates that his solution amounts to a
dissolution ofthe problem; (a) "it shows how little has been done
when these problems have been solved."
1. the structure of the world and how facts relate to the world;
2. the common 'logical form' offacts and pictures;
3. thoughts as logical pictures of facts;
4. Language is a system of truth functions of elementary
propositions (Russell); the 'general form' of propositions,
especially as seen in tautologies, gives us a comprehensive view
of language, logic and the world.
5. the transparent structure of propositions;
6. applications of the comprehensive view to:
6.1 logic
6.2 mathematics
176 Chapter Five

6.3 science
6.4 ethics and esthetics
6.5 the method of philosophy;
7. conclusion: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be
silent."

The Traetatus Solution

The classic modem naturalist epistemological problem from Locke to Brentano and
Russell has been to explain the relation between the structure of external objects and
the mind which allegedly abstracts that structure. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein
declared the classic problem to be dissolved. His dissolution is brilliantly simple:
epistemologists do not, cannot, and need not explain the abstraction process. Instead
of this being an indication of the failure of modem naturalist epistemology,
Wittgenstein saw it initially as a confirmation of the truth of that position. 28 Stated
in analytic terms, the sole function of language is to picture (state) facts; but just as
the likeness of a picture to a fact cannot be pictured, so the likeness between
language andfact cannot be stated (pictured). The relation between a picture and
the facts is something that one can show, but the likeness is not itself something we
can picture or imagine. "A picture is a model of reality" (2.12) but "A picture
cannot, however, depict its pictorial form: it displays it" (2.172).29 There cannot be
a model2 ofmodel/> and hence the concernfor why we are unable to give a model of
modeling is a bogus problem.
In one important sense, this dissolution should come as no surprise. It is no
surprise to those familiar with the history of epistemology because from the
beginning it should have been clear that the particular defining form cannot be
separated from the matter. If the form cannot be separated from the particular
material object, then the form cannot be isolated in such a way as to enable us to
represent in any way its relation to matter. "My fundamental idea is that the 'logical
constants' are not representatives; that there can be no representatives of the logic of
facts" (4.0312).
What Wittgenstein adds to this dissolution is the notion of showing. 30 The
clearest example and best evidence Wittgenstein offers of something that shows itself
is the tautology.31 A tautology is a compound proposition which is always true and
remains true no matter what the truth values are of its constituent propositions. For
example, the compound proposition "P or not-P" is a tautology because it is always
true. At the same time, the tautology or compound proposition does not itself say
anything, i.e., the tautology or compound proposition is not itself representational of
any fact. The tautology does not project itself or direct us to anything outside of
itself. The truth of a tautology presents itself, i.e., it is self-illuminating and self-
guaranteeing. The structure of logic mirrors the structure of the world; but, the
propositions of logic say nothing about the world.
The very existence of tautologies, according to Wittgenstein, leads us to
discover something about the structure of reality. The structure is shown but not
sayable in the same way that the tautology does not say anything. The structure
(form) of reality is revealed in or implicit in our language, especially in the existence
of tautologies. To the extent that the logic or form of our language reflects the
 Analytic Epistemology 177

structure of reality or is analogous to it, the logic of our language can only show
itself.
There are in Wittgenstein's universe the facts and the relationships among
the facts (i.e., the structure). The facts are individually capable of being pictured.
The structure (model]) is not itself a fact but the purely formal tautological
connections among the facts. Therefore, one cannot picture (or provide model 2 of)
the structure (model]). The structure is shown with or given in the picture. Ifwe
cannot picture the structure (or form) in abstraction from the content, then we cannot
have a picture, or meta-picture if you will, of the mind's grasping of the structure.
The most we could say is that the mind has a picture of the facts.
What Wittgenstein says follows consistently from both his assumptions
about the status of tautologies and his notions about thoughts and language being
pictures or representations of the facts. Knowledge begins, and ends, in "seeing."
Any exploration must therefore terminate in "a" seeing or in something being shown.
The ultimate or final seeing is not something that can be explained further. In short,
what Wittgenstein has made clear is that a proper understanding of epistemology
blocks the asking ofa certain kind of philosophical question, but it also commits us
to the existence of a meaning terminus. Indeed, this is a symptom of the refusal to
'go reflective'. Those who persist in asking that question are either doing something
unintelligible (as the Tractatus maintains) or they are challenging the whole
naturalist epistemological position (which is what the later Wittgenstein will do).

The Implications of the Tractatus Solution

What Wittgenstein has done is to solve the abstraction problem by dissolving it into
the verification problem. This way of dissolving the abstraction problem also
dissolves the coherence problem by transforming it into the verification problem.
Everything now depends upon the verification problem.

There are three important points in Wittgenstein's Tractatus solution:

First, the dissolution point: epistemologists cannot and need not explain the
abstraction process;
Second, the doctrine of the tautology: the truth of the tautology shows us
something about reality;
Third, the meaning terminus point: there is a final or ultimate state of
representing that is self-referential.

The first point in Wittgenstein's Tractatus solution dissolves the need for
explaining the abstraction process. The abstraction process cannot in principle be
explained. This is so because there cannot be a meta-picture of the picturing or
abstraction process. But if this is so, then there cannot ever be a scientific!
psychological account of the act of grasping meaning! There can only be a
philosophical explanation of why the scientific explanation is impossible. At best,
there could only be a correlation between a physical state and a mental or cognitive
state. There could never be an explanation of the correlation between the physical
state and the mental or cognitive state. This implication of Wittgenstein's own
solution is something that he did not fully comprehend when he wrote the Tractatus,
178 Chapter Five

as witnessed by his previously cited correspondence in which he allows for some

future scientific-psychological account. It is, however, something that he did come
in time to understand about his own position, and it led to abandoning the scientism
of the Tractatus when he wrote the Investigations and Zettel. It also led to
Wittgenstein's standing objection to any attempt to provide a mechanistic-scientific
account of cognitive or linguistic functioning.
The second point in Wittgenstein's Tractatus solution is that the tautology,
specifically its self-presentational nature, tells us something about reality. In other
words, the structure of language seemingly has ontological implications. This is, of
course, a key assumption of naturalist metaphysics, logic, and epistemology.
However, this point has to be carefully qualified. The structure of logic, it is
claimed, mirrors the structure of the world, while the propositions of logic say
nothing about the world.
How does this second point stand up to the first point? If, by Wittgenstein' s
own admission, we can never have a meta-picture of the picturing or abstraction
process, then this merely reinforces the recognition that the form cannot be separated
from the matter. If the intellectual separating of the form from the matter cannot be
objectively checked, then there is no objective test for establishing that we have
correctly abstracted form (structure) from matter. Specifically, the distinction
between atomic sentences and the tautological connections among the atomic
sentences articulated in Russell's Principia Mathematica cannot be established as
being objectively correct. Wittgenstein, in fact, never gives an example of a simple
or atomic truth. It also, therefore, means that we have no objective way of
establishing that the logical connectives exhibited in the tautologies reflect the true
structure or form of reality. Hence, there is no way of drawing ontological
conclusions from logicalform. The full recognition of the implications of this point
will lead Wittgenstein, eventually, to abandon both metaphysical and epistemological
modem naturalism. 32
This brings us to the third point, the meaning terminus. In order to block
the classic challenge to naturalist epistemology, namely, "How do we know that the
mind has correctly abstracted the structure or form of the external object?",
Wittgenstein had to embrace two theses: (1) there is a meaning terminus or ultimate
representation, and (2) the meaning terminus must be explicable without reference
to any subject.
The meaning terminus or ultimate seeing is a mental event (thought) which
captures the structural similarity of the facts that make up the world. Moreover, this
thought is at one and the same time a representation and a representation that
presents itselfas a representation ofsomething else. 33 The representation directs us
to or projects upon the external object the structural similarity. In this respect it is
analogous to Brentano's view of the mental as intentional. By attributing a
directional character to thought, Wittgenstein seemingly escapes having to make
reference to a subject. It is important to eliminate reference to the subject otherwise
we open the traditional Pandora's box of wondering how much the thought is a true
representation and how much it is a projection of the subject. Skepticism, relativism,
and of course the Copernican Revolution can only be permanently put to rest by the
supposition that there is such a thing as a meaning terminus.
 Analytic Epistemology 179

The crucial importance of the meaning terminus is often overlooked because

Wittgenstein presented the Tractatus largely as a thesis about language. Yet it is
clear enough. Language is the totality of propositions, and propositions are
expressions of thoughts. Language does not explain itself, but is in need of
interpretation. Language is explained by reference to the thought. The meaning
terminus is mental, context independent, and self-contained. It simultaneously
presents itself and stands for an object or state of affairs. The crucial difference
between a proposition and a thought is that the proposition is not meaningful in itself
but the thought is meaningful in itself.
The thought is a meaning terminus which includes its own principle of
application. To say that it includes its own principle of application is equivalent to
saying that it applies itself. So the thought in Wittgenstein's Tractatus has
effectively absorbed into itself the traditional role of the subject (active intellect,
etc.). This is tantamount to a rejection of the existence of an independent subject.
At the same time, by absorbing the subject into the object in this fashion,
Wittgenstein has eliminated the difference between subjects and objects by
attributing the properties of the subject to the object.
Wittgenstein's self-referential object is indistinguishable from a self-
referential subject because both are mental entities. There is in the end not much, if
any, difference between a representation that projects itself as a representation and
an entity that is both a representation and a being represented.
What did Wittgenstein have in mind when he conceived of self-referentiality
as the presentational dimension ofthe meaning terminus? How can something refer
to an external state of affairs by referring to itself? There is a classical antecedent
for this in Aristotle; but more importantly there are modern antecedents for this
possibility in Leibniz, Fichte, and HegeJ.34 There is, in short, an idealist resolution
ofthe epistemological and metaphysical problems ofmodern naturalism. Ifwe are
correct then the ultimate dissolution of the problem of modern Aristotelian or
naturalist epistemology lies in the notion of a self-referential meaning terminus.
Hegel's Absolute incorporates the properties of such a self-referential meaning
terminus in an idealist form.
Wittgenstein ofthe Tractatus is, of course, unable and unwilling to accept
the Hegelian solution or Hegelian interpretation of his own solution. Let us review
why. If thought is to be nothing but a reflection of external structure, and that is
what naturalist/realist epistemology is all about, then there cannot be, in the end, a
subject which provides residual structure of any kind. Residual structure is here to
be understood as structure not reducible to some kind of external objective structure.
This is why the Copernican Revolution or any notion of a synthetic a priori is
anathema to naturalist epistemology. This means there cannot be special
philosophical truths which are different in kind from ordinary truths; there cannot be
'truths' about the ordinary truths which are different in kind from ordinary truths.
There cannot be special philosophical truths that involve the postulation of a residual
subject or super subject. There cannot, in short, be an irreducibly different Talk2 or
Model 2 •
Here we begin to uncover a special problem. Wittgenstein's solution in the
Tractatus involves seeing certain philosophical truths about tautologies. Truths
180 Chapter Five

about tautologies are philosophical rather than ordinary truths because tautologies are
not themselves truths about the world. Truths about tautologies really ought to be,
on Wittgenstein's own view, oblique truths about ordinary truths. They could only
be such oblique truths about the system of ordinary truths if there were a super
subject standing outside the system of ordinary truths who could note the
obliqueness. To accept the super subject is to surrender naturalist epistemology; it
would mean that the only way to preserve a self-referential meaning terminus would
involve collapsing objects into THE SUBJECT; it would mean surrendering the
possibility of analysis or the gradual accumulation of isolable truths. In short, it
would mean surrendering analytic philosophy.
How then did Wittgenstein propose, in the Tractatus, to evade the Hegelian
implications of the notion of a self-referential meaning terminus? He did so by
maintaining that the philosophical truths enunciated by the Tractatus are logical
fictions that are supposed to disappear once we comprehend them. To use two
metaphors that express this view, the insights ofthe Tractatus are a scaffolding to be
taken down when the whole picture is complete, or those insights are to be construed
as a ladder to be thrown away at the end. That is why Wittgenstein is led to say that
the Tractatus is, in a sense, itself nonsense and that in the end the Tractatus leaves
everything as it is. This Tractatus suggestion or solution is a way of handling what
was identified as Talk2 or Model. So after all is said and done, there is in
Wittgenstein's Tractatus a Model 2. This illustrates the need of analytic philosophy
to keep two incompatible levels of discourse going at the same time.
It is impossible to take the Tractatus suggestion seriously. A complete and
serious philosophical account, as we have persistently maintained, not only explains
everything, it must explain the explanation itself. We cannot and would not,
therefore, ignore the path to the Tractatus explanation. Even where we may disagree
with it, the path of the Tractatus is lined with brilliant philosophical insights,
including the insights of its own difficulties. More important for our immediate
discussion, the difficulties of the Tractatus exemplify, once more, that explorations
presuppose explications, that to think otherwise is to try and stand in two places at
once without admitting it, that it is an attempt to get by with showing what must be
said! Apparently the only way to resolve the internal difficulties of modern naturalist
epistemology and still remain a realist is to embrace Hegel.
An additional set of implications in the Tractatus solution ensue.
Wittgenstein's Tractatus was initially inspired by Russell's ideal language in the
Principia Mathematica and the syntactical conception contained within it. The
Tractatus was inspired by the ideal of a perfect language in which everything could
be understood either as an atomic proposition corresponding to a fact or as a formal
relationship among symbols. As we noted, Russell's syntactical ideal ran into
difficulties from which Russell vainly attempted to extricate himself by appeals to
semantic principles that violated the syntactical ideal. Wittgenstein's Tractatus
sought to transcend those difficulties by means of the distinction between what can
be said and what can only be shown. According to the Tractatus, what can be said
are atomic propositions corresponding to the facts. What can only be shown is the
logical form of a language, i.e., its syntax and semantics. The Tractatus thus denies
 Analytic Epistemology 181

(4.12 and 4.121) that a language can express its own meta-language (i.e., its syntax,
semantics, pragmatics, etc.).
Wittgenstein was also ruthless in spelling out the implications of the
conclusion that a language cannot express its own meta-language. No meta-theory
can be checked, and therefore meaningfully expressed.
1. What is true of logical form is true of mathematics, that is, it cannot
express its own meta-language; hence, Wittgenstein would not have been
surprised by GOdel's proof which was published a few years after the
Tractatus.
2. The meta-theory of the Tractatus itself is inexpressible, by Wittgenstein's
own admission.
3. All of traditional philosophy is, by Wittgenstein's account, an attempt to
express impossible meta-theorizing.
4. Scientism would itself have to be construed as a meta-theorizing doctrine
and hence a special version of nonsense. Hence, all of the difficulties we
detailed in the Second, Third, and Fourth Chapters should come as no
surprise. 35 Although the positivists welcomed the notion that meta-
theorizing is nonsense, they would not welcome the notion that scientism
is a form ofmeta-theorizing. 36
5. Ifwe cannot talk about the relation of a theory to the world, then we can
never tell which of the rival theories is correct. We cannot judge between
rival explorations, either scientific or philosophical.
6. Quine's version of holism, in which he presents the meta-theory of
language-as-a-whole as a kind of theory or hypothesis which is tested as a
whole, would, on Wittgensteinian grounds, be ruled out as nonsense and
patently unintelligible. 37
7. Ifwe cannot picture picturing or internal processing then it may be and
is the case that there is no such thing as internal processing as traditionally
understood (i.e., neither introspection, nor private languages, nor cognitive
science). That is, language and thinking are not properly construed as
mere internal (private) processes but as intersubjective cultural processes.
Hence, there can be no theory of it. We can now understand why the
"promise" that has been issued at least since the time of Hobbes about a
scientific account of abstraction can never be realized.
Could it be that this is not a scientific issue at all but a colossal philosophical
confusion? Here we are moving beyond the Tractatus and into the later
Philosophical Investigations. We shall focus on this in the next chapter.

Wittgenstein's Misgivings
Side by side with the writing on the Tractatus, Wittgenstein was making a series of
entries in his Notebooks that revealed not only deep misgivings about the Tractatus'
solution but also a more profound grasp of the issues involved. 38 In the Tractatus,
Wittgenstein had maintained that his exposition was presuppositionless in the special
sense that what he said is implicit in the tautological symbols, and the symbols say
nothing because they are tautologies. However, it is only on a certain interpretation
of tautologies, specifically the view of Russell's logical atomism, that what
182 Chapter Five

Wittgenstein says in the Tractatus follows. It is precisely the set of assumptions in

logical atomism that the Notebooks call into question, and it is that questioning that
inexorably drives Wittgenstein's Notebooks in the direction of Hegel.
To begin with, in the Notebooks, Wittgenstein raised doubts about the
existence of simples, examples of which are totally lacking in the Tractatus, and he
seriously entertains the idea of complexes. In his only published article, a 1929 piece
entitled "Some Remarks on Logical Form," Wittgenstein explicitly rejected the idea
that states of affairs are completely independent of one another. When analytic
philosophers eliminate reference to an agent in the interests of realism and to
circumvent the possibility that what we discriminate and identify reflect the
perspective or interests of the agent or subject, and when analytic philosophers in
general, and Wittgenstein in particular, deny that it is necessary to explain the
physiological processing of perception, they are still left with the gnawing problem
of just exactly what are the "simples" we require or presuppose. Bertrand Russell's
perennial quest for foundations is a reflection of this persistently unanswered
question. Put bluntly, if what analytic philosophers said about abstraction were true,
then why should we have so much trouble in identifying the simples?
Once misgivings are entertained about simples, we can begin to raise
questions as well about the relations among the simples. Wittgenstein's original
claim (2.021) was that objects cannot be composite because they make up the
substance of the world, and if the world had no substance, then the truth of every
proposition (2.0211) would depend on the truth of the others. And, if that happened,
then the correspondence theory of truth would have to give way to the coherence
theory oftruth.39 Once we accept the coherence theory of truth, we would be faced
with the critical problem of the existence of internal relations. Wittgenstein sought
to evade the problem of internal relations in the Tractatus by claiming that such
relations are part of logical form, and logical form is what cannot be said but only
shown.
Although Wittgenstein thought that he had successfully overcome the
problems of internal relations in the Tractatus by advocating the existence of a
plurality of simple pictorial truths, he soon discovered that such a plurality led to
difficulties with negation, which, in turn, took us back to internal relations. In the
Tractatus, Wittgenstein says the following:

The totality of existing states of affairs is the world (2.04).

The existence and non-existence of states of affairs is reality (2.06).
The sum-total of reality is the world (2.063).40

What this amounts to saying is that, at one and the same time, the world is
equivalent to all positive facts and the world is equivalent to all positive facts plus
all negative facts. Unfortunately, negation cannot possibly make any sense in a
world the totality of which is true propositions. This follows both from
Wittgenstein's claim that we cannot picture what does not exist and his claim that a
true factual proposition excludes a negative proposition. The totality of all true
propositions excludes all negative propositions. "It is the dualism, positive and
 Analytic Epistemology 183

negative facts, that gives me no peace. For such a dualism can't exist. But how to
get away from it?"41
Nor is the idea of exclusion any help to Wittgenstein. Exclusion is a
synonym for negation. Once we eliminate negation we also eliminate exclusion.
We, really, then cannot know anything until we know everything, for in the end,
everything, including logical form, depends upon a positive totality. So we have
returned once more to the doctrine of internal relations and holism.
To summarize the progression in Wittgenstein's misgivings: the
reconsideration of the existence of simples led to a reconsideration of internal
relations, which, in turn, led to holism. Additional doubts about negation also led
back to internal relations which are seemingly compatible only within a totality. All
of this spells Hegel. What Wittgenstein discovered, but admitted only in the
Notebooks, is that a modern naturalist epistemology can only make metaphysical
sense, i.e., total philosophical sense, if it terminates in Hegelian holism with internal
relations. 42 This parallels the progression we discussed in the previous chapter on
analytic metaphysics.
Wittgenstein's philosophy in the Tractatus is intellectually schizophrenic.
In the Tractatus itself, he adhered rigidly to the doctrines of analytic philosophy.
But, in his endeavor to think these doctrines through to the bitter end, in the
Notebooks, he is inescapably drawn to a comprehensive anti-analytic Hegelian
position. He tried to escape this dilemma by developing within the Tractatus the
notion that a comprehensive view is somehow out of bounds. Hence, we see a
critique of metaphysics as trying to say what can only be shown, and Wittgenstein's
claim that the Tractatus itself is nonsense.
The argument goes something like this. The world of facts can be thought
of as one whole, but that thought of the whole is not itself a fact in the world. To use
quasi-Hegelian jargon, God is the world but does not reveal himself in the world.
Our awareness of the system is not an item in the system.

How can logic - all-embracing logic, which mirrors the world - use
such peculiar crotchets and contrivances? Only because they are
all connected with one another in an infinitely fine network, the
great mirror (5.511) [italics mine].

This last point is important and profound, but its significance is often
missed. 43 The only way that the awareness of the system or totality could be part of
the totality is if the totality were itself both mental and infinite. It would have to be
an infinite fact, a knowing that knows itself to be a knowing in Spinoza's, Leibniz's,
and Hegel's sense. This infinite fact has to be understood holistically or organically.
Wittgenstein's notion of a thought (mental entity) which is a meaning terminus, both
a representation and a projection of that representation function, is a microcosm
(monad) of the macrocosm that is the infinite fact. This infinite fact, as we stressed
in the previous chapter, is not to be confused with an infinite regress or an infinite
number of facts. It cannot be reduced to a hierarchy of systems (as in Russell and
Tarski), for doing so simply begs the question of the awareness ofthe existence of
the hierarchy, an awareness that cannot itself be a specific level of the hierarchy.
184 Chapter Five

In the wake of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, the alternatives should now be

clear:
1. one can embrace Hegel's monism as unavoidable;
2. one can embrace Wittgenstein's temporary intellectual schizophrenia
and talk in two separate ways in two separate sets of writings or
conversations;
3. one can fail to see or refuse to think through the implications of the
Tractatus;N or
4. one can abandon the modern naturalist epistemology in analytic
philosophy.
The story of analytic philosophy after the Tractatus is that whereas
Wittgenstein did (4), many in the analytic movement engaged in either (2) or (3). It
is for this reason that the Tractatus is at one and the same time the apotheosis and the
self-destruction of analytic epistemology. Although Wittgenstein attempted to
silence his own philosophical conscience,45 he never lost his philosophical
consciousness.

Post-Wittgensteinian Analytic Epistemology

There were two different general responses within the analytic community to
Wittgenstein's dilemma of self-reference.
The Positivists, who subscribed to elimination, accepted all the specific
conclusions of the Tractatus, especially the denial of meta-theorizing and the
elimination of the self. Eschewing attempts to account for how knowledge was
generated in hypothesis formation (another version of the abstraction problem), the
positivists had moved the locus of the discussion to accounting for how we verified
a hypothesis once formed. Analytic epistemology always begins and must begin
with the claim that there is knowledge of some sort. In the case of analytic
philosophy, science is taken as the exemplar of knowledge. As long as science was
believed to be autonomous, the status of the starting point could be ignored. Hence,
positivists simply ignored Wittgenstein's insight that scientism is a version of meta-
theorizing.
It is customary for many opponents of positivism to charge that the
verification principle is not itself an empirical statement nor is it verifiable. In one
sense this objection is sound, but in another sense it misses the point. If the
positivists had been successful in showing how verification really worked in science
they could have responded to their critics by saying that once all scientific statements
had been confirmed the principle of verification would eventually be seen to be
either a vast true meta-systemic generalization or a redundant and ultimately
disposable statement of methodology. However, the failure of the positivistic
program to explain science in naturalist-realist terms, not only underlines the dubious
status of the verification principle but it also shows that principle to be a restatement
in positivist jargon of modern naturalist epistemology.
Unfortunately, as we have seen in Chapter Two, scientism raised more
problems than it solved. Analytic philosophers failed to show how science
conformed to the modern naturalist-realist model in terms of which they chose to
represent it. It is the failure to explain science along modern naturalist-realist lines
 Analytic Epistemology 185

that led to the questioning of the positivist representation of the structure of

knowledge. The failure was signaled initially by attacks on the verification principle.
However, as we saw in Chapter Two, the process of verification became as much a
mystery as the genesis of knowledge. During the eliminative phase of analytic
philosophy, it was believed that the progress of science would reveal an
unambiguous structural level to the world (e.g., sub-atomic structure) that was the
object of knowledge. With the fading of this early optimism and the acceptance of
a 'Kantian Turn' in the philosophy of science, analytic philosophers could no longer
hope to use science to resolve the controversy over the metaphysical thesis in
epistemology.46
Quine sought to overcome the problem of verification by postulating a
limited meaning holism. In setting about this task, Quine presupposes a conventional
framework which he both uses and claims can ultimately be discarded. He seemingly
inhabits two worlds at once, the everyday world he tries to explain and a utopian
epistemological domain that a\1egedly provides support for what is valid in the
everyday world but rests itself on nothing else. 47 Just like the positivist
eliminativists, Quine simply ignores Wittgenstein's claim that there is something
incoherent about occupying two worlds at once. Under the leadership of Quine,
analytic eliminativist epistemologists would seemingly acquiesce in the limitations
of meta-theorizing but persist in their adherence to the traditional meta-theoretical
doctrines of analytic philosophy.

The old epistemology aspired to contain, in a sense, natural

science; it would construct it somehow from sense data.
Epistemology in its new setting, conversely, is contained in natural
science, as a chapter of psychology. But the old containment
remains valid too, in its way. We are studying how the human
subject of our study posits bodies and projects his physics from his
data, and we appreciate that our position in the world is just like
his. Our very epistemological enterprise, therefore, and the
psychology wherein it is a component chapter, and the whole of
natural science wherein psychology is a component book -- all this
is our own construction or projection from stimulations like those
we were meting out to our epistemological subject. There is thus
reciprocal containment, though containment in different senses:
epistemology in natural science and natural science in
epistemology.48

Quine's naturalistic epistemology49 is a microcosm of all of the points we

have made about analytic epistemology. He dismisses skepticism on the grounds that
skepticism is an example of the appearance/reality distinction that science itself
makes possible, i.e., that skepticism presupposes the truth of science. Quine rejects
the positivist focus on verification, that is, he rejects the notion that we should
10gica\1y reconstruct science from sensory evidence. Instead, he returns to the
fundamental issue of analytic epistemology, namely, the abstraction process. Quine
proposes to substitute questions about how the input of sensory stimulation leads
186 Chapter Five

both consciously and unconsciously to the creation of scientific models as output.

That is, Quine is engaged in offering a Model 2 of Modell'
The thing to note about Quine's Model 2 is that it is just like Modt1l. If
Model 2 is just like Modell, then one of two general possibilities exist: either Model 2
is in some sense eliminable, or Model 2 has to be assimilated to or reinterpreted as a
special form of Modell' Quine chooses the latter alternative in opposition to earlier
positivism and accomplishes this by collapsing the distinction between analytic and
synthetic truths and embracing a form of holism.
Naturalistic epistemology is not a solution but an evasion. The locus of
difficulty of all modern and contemporary naturalistic epistemology is that it is a
form of interpretation and not description. In providing an account of the act of
interpretation what we are stuck with is another interpretation. Since no
interpretation can be cashed out directly there are always going to be rival
interpretations. In fact, naturalist epistemology is a constant frenetic search for such
new interpretations. In the end what we have, though, are explorations of
exploration. We are brought once more to the brink ofthe abyss of exploration.
Having abandoned the simplistic positivist verificationist enterprise, we are
led to wonder how the legitimacy of Model 2 will be established. Quine substitutes
holism for verification ism. But holism turns out to be afideistic and historicized
verification ism. In the end, the justification for naturalized epistemology is that it
will allegedly converge with the progress of science itself.50 In short, naturalistic
epistemology leads to historicism.
This is the familiar scenario that we have already identified as the implicit
ideology of the Enlightenment Project. It begins with the belief in scientism but adds
the historical-teleological "myth" ofa progressive science in which we are allegedly
getting closer and closer to the whole truth, although we cannot prove that
independently. Since we have not yet arrived at the end point we suffer from both
an ontological and an epistemological relativity. While our present intellectual
constructs are necessarily incomplete, they are still internal reflections of this whole
truth. 51 Consequently, we must use our incomplete constructs, at which we arrive by
extrapolation from the partial truths, to project what the final truth will be like as we
struggle to formulate it. This scenario is the epistemological analogue in analytic
philosophy of the Hegelian and Marxist notion of the progress of history. It is also
the view that while we all reflect our own historical circumstances, some of us more
closely approximate the final truth. It is our contention that some such narrative and
historical myth sustains a great deal of analytic philosophy. In the end, Quine's
naturalized epistemology is consistent with his metaphysics but it is not coherent
with his metaphysics. The lack of coherence is exemplified in the presence of the
wild-card historical thesis. The only way to achieve coherence would be to embrace
Hegel.
A second group, under the leadership of Carnap and eventually Kripke,
would challenge the Wittgensteinian dilemma; they also try to show how there could
be a legitimate model of modeling, but reject Quine'S version of the model of
modeling. The Neo-Carnapians, like Kripke, are engaged in an exploration of the
structure of our knowledge claims. As such they face two kinds of problems. First,
they face the traditional naturalist epistemological problem of making intelligible the
 Analytic Epistemology 187

process by which we abstract external structure (e.g., Kripke's causal theory of

naming).s2 Second, they face the modem version of that problem. In the modem
version there is the postulation of a pre-conceptual apparatus that mediates our
relation to the external structure.
Neo-Carnapians see the hopelessness of Quine's model of modeling. Neo-
Carnapians, having taken the 'Kantian Tum,' reject verification ism even in its
Quinean mythological historical form. A modem naturalist epistemologist must
explain the pre-conceptual abstraction process itself in the same terms that we use to
conceptualize what we think we know of external structure. This is what is meant
by conceptualizing the pre-conceptual. The obvious sore point here is that if we can
never explain the abstraction process simpliciter it is not clear or even conceivable
how we can explain it twice removed. The failure of verification ism within science
renders this a highly dubious enterprise. We fall into an abyss of the modeling of
modeling, or an abyss of explorations of exploration. Quine'S objection to Kripkean
modal semantics is that the original abstraction process (now considered the original
modeling process) must be explained before anything else can be explained.
In order to clarify the comparison and contrast among Wittgenstein, Quine,
and Kripke, we shall recast their positions as follows.
1. Wittgenstein denies that there can be a picture of picturing.
Wittgenstein's position applies more generally to any attempt to model modeling.
2. Quine agrees that we cannot picture picturing. However, Quine believes
that we can have a picture ofmodeling as long as the picturing takes place against a
background language.
3. Wittgensteinians and neo-Carnapians like Kripke recognize that Quine's
qualification about a background language begs all the relevant issues. Kripke
proposes, instead, that if we need the background language then an adequate account
would constitute a model of modeling. Quine's critique of Kripke is that any attempt
to picture Kripke's model of modeling is unintelligible. Wittgenstein would agree
and then go on to argue that the entire naturalist epistemological enterprise is
unintelligible and that the proper philosophical task is the explication of the pre-
theoretical background language - something we discuss in the next chapter.
One of the ironies of post-Tractatus analytic epistemology is that it accuses
its rivals of embracing skepticism when, in actuality, naturalist epistemology leads
to a modern and virulent form of skepticism. In naturalism, metaphysics is not an
independent presupposition but becomes an exploration. Naturalized epistemology
is an exploration which attempts to explain the metaphysical exploration. Given the
abyss of exploration, skepticism is inevitable. Traditional Aristotelianism faced no
such problems because of its organic unity between metaphysics and epistemology.
Analytic philosophers cannot express that unity except as the exploration of
explorations, ad infinitum.
188 Chapter Five

NOTES (CHAPTER 5)

1. Almost all the examples in textbooks of modern epistemology involve

visual perception as the primary form of knowledge.

2. Historically, the issue of whether the active intellect was particular or

universal foreshadows the modern and contemporary discussions of
whether epistemology is individual or social.

3. Plato transcended this problem by denying that knowledge originates in a

natural process from external objects. We are almost tempted to assert that
Plato's argument in the Meno about the origin of knowledge is the first
expression of skepticism! The Copernican position also transcends this
problem by denying that knowledge originates in a natural process,
however its solution differs from Plato's in its grounding.

4. The contemporary counterpart to Ockham's notion of a natural sign would

be the contention that machines can perform cognitive tasks because some
natural events are "signs" of other natural events.

5. The reader should recall from our discussion in the previous chapter that
'negation' is a problematic concept for modern naturalist metaphysics.

6. We can even ask if the word 'compare' has any meaning. For example,
how would one "compare" a box with its shape? As Wittgenstein will
argue later the whole question seems misconceived.

7. That is why we distinguished in the last chapter between the metaphysics

of analytic philosophy (background) and analytic metaphysics -- the
ontology that is now supposed to emerge from the epistemological analysis.
Our claim is that there is more in the background than can be verified, and
that the more is precisely what cannot be made coherent with what is
verified.

8. Locke, Essay, IV, iii, 25, p. 556.

9. In his attempt (1961) to downplay the distinction between organic and

mechanical systems, Nagel is led to conclude that there is "no general
criterion which makes it possible to identify in an absolute way systems that
are 'genuinely functional' as distinct from systems that are 'merely
summative'" (p. 393). What this amounts to is the recognition that
mechanism as a micro thesis is not an empirical scientific thesis but a
metaphysical thesis. We have no clear cut instances of a mechanical
system. All such alleged systems refer to initially hidden entities which are
 Analytic Epistemology 189

supposed to be ultimately intelligible as clearly identifiable structures. No

such structures ever emerge in scientific discourse. The ultimate entities
always interact in some process that requires either interpretation or the
further search for even more fundamental ultimate entities (e.g., quarks).

10. This is an early version of identity theories of mind.

II. One important difference between Spinoza and Locke is that, according to
Locke, we have intuitive knowledge only of our own existence.

12. Platonists, Copernicans, and Deists all respond to this challenge in different
ways and in a way different from that of modern naturalists.

13. Consider Hume's claim that the existence of body (i.e., the external world)
is a basic assumption that must be taken for granted.

14. See Stroud (1984).

15. "it is impossible to be generally in error" -- Davidson (l983b), pp. 19-20.

16. Popper (1983), p. 96.

17. The traditional epistemological problem of certainty may thus be seen as

derivative from the more fundamental problem of what it means to say that
we abstract the form from matter.

18. Kripke (1982) identifies a position allegedly held jointly by Hume and
Wittgenstein as the' skeptical argument'.

19. We wish to remind the reader that there are different kinds of
conventionalism so that the conventionalism of Protagoras is different from
that of Hume or of Wittgenstein or of American pragmatism. To the
modern naturalist epistemologist such distinctions are irrelevant.

20. Modern naturalist epistemologists, because of their commitment to realism,

are always unhappy with those philosophers like Hume who seek to subvert
skepticism by appeal to the practical and social context of knowledge.
What the committed naturalist wants is a refutation of skepticism that is
grounded in something incontrovertibly objective and unchanging, i.e.,
something independent of human social agents.

21. One of the great sustaining myths of the analytic view of the history of
philosophy is that Berkeley and Hume are empiricists (modern
Aristotelians). On the contrary, we would contend that Berkeley was a
"Platonist" (hence his critique of the process of abstraction) and that Hume
was one of the originators of the Copernican Revolution in philosophy.
190 Chapter Five

22. See Brentano (1862), (1867), (1911 a), and (1911 b).

23. Austin's (1962) devastating critique of A.1. Ayer is the best example of this
recrudescence.

24. See also 6.342-343 for the view that the science of mechanics sufficiently
describes the whole world.

25. "How the description of the propositions is produced is not essential"

(3.317); "This shows too that there is no such thing as the soul - the subject,
etc.- as it is conceived in the superficial psychology of the present day"
(5.5421). Note as well (1961 b), p. 80: "Isn't the thinking subject in the last
resort mere superstition?"

26. Quoted in Anscombe (1959) p. 161.

27. Wittgenstein (1974), p.72.

28. In his later work, the Investigations, Wittgenstein maintains that this does
show the inadequacy of modern naturalist epistemology. Both works are
still held together by the view that the abstraction process cannot be
explained, but the later work denies for that very reason that there is an
abstraction process. In the later work, Wittgenstein comes to embrace the
Copernican Revolution in philosophy.

29. "Every picture is at the same time a logical one. (On the other hand, not
every picture is, for example, a spatial one)" 2.182.

30. "Propositions show the logical form of reality. They display it" (4.121);
"What can be shown, cannot be said" (4.1212).

31. One ofthe best books written on the Tractatus is McDonough (1986). I am
indebted to McDonough for his many helpful conversations on this topic.

32. "According to Aristotle, the word is a symbol for a thought, which in its
turn is, or may be, a picture of a thing. According to a medieval line of
thought which we have met in Ockham, the spoken or written sign stands,
by arbitrary convention, for a mental sign which in a natural way, non-
arbitrarily, refers to its object. Locke said that words primarily stand for
ideas. The later Wittgenstein [of the Investigations, not the Tractatus] turns
sharply against the philosophical tradition of which these theories are
examples" Wedberg (1984), p. 328.

33. "The view of the Tractatus is that the propositional symbol involves a
meaning locus, an entity which is intrinsically meaningful, which contains
its own rule of projection, etc. This meaning locus is also an interpretation
 Analytic Epistemology 191

tenninus: To be aware of such an entity is to be aware of something which

unambiguously shows its own meaning, which does not stand in need of
interpretation" McDonough (1986), p. 172.

34. Hegel's Absolute can be seen as Aristotle's, Spinoza's and Leibniz's God
constituting the whole of reality. In Leibniz, God as the Supreme monad
takes into His consciousness the consciousness of all monads. Fichte's
postulation of the external world can be seen as the self qua Leibnizian
monad postulating the world that it then reflects in its own consciousness.
Leibniz is the source for the entire tradition of German idealism. However,
Leibnizian monads are not physical objects and not atomistic but relational
in nature. This will be echoed in Hegel. The notion ofa meaning terminus
is also at the heart of Nozick's self-subsuming explanation that we
discussed in Chapter Four.

35.. "The whole modem conception ofthe world is founded on the illusion that
the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena"
(6.371).

36. "Wittgenstein and Russell disagreed concerning the relevance of theory of

knowledge to the domain of philosophy. Wittgenstein regarded it as of little
philosophical import and deprecated Russell's concern for it, while Russell
regarded it as a core and foundation for work in logic and in scientific
conceptual analysis. To him [Russell] science and philosophy were
intimately related in the analysis of scientific concepts by philosophy. For
Wittgenstein, the two realms of science and philosophy were separate;
philosophy cannot tell us how things are, and science cannot clarify our
ideas or our language" Eames (1989), p. 168.

37. IfWittgenstein is correct, then all that science (Modell) can show us is how
one object interacts with another object. Science cannot show us how an
object interacts with or causes cognitive and mental phenomena; that is
there cannot be modeI 2). Hence, Quine is correct to maintain that any
"scientific" (i.e., Modell) account of language learning would have to be
behavioristic; unfortunately, Quine's statement of his holism is an example
of Model 2 and therefore on Wittgensteinian grounds incoherent.

38. The notebooks were written during the period 1914-16, but they were not
published until 1961.

39. In the Philosophische Bemerkungen, Wittgenstein suggests, technically

speaking, on Iy that systems of propositions correspond to the world. It is
a transitional work in enlarging the unit of correspondence and does not
quite reach coherence.
192 Chapter Five

40. 'Reality' and 'world' are different concepts in the Tractatus; 'reality' refers
to what is and to what is not; 'world' refers to what is.

41. Wittgenstein, (1961b), p. 33.

42. "So when Solipsism is worked out, it becomes clear there is no difference
between it and Realism. Moreover, since the unique self is nothing, it
would be equally possible to take an impersonal view of the vanishing point
behind the mirror oflanguage. Language would then be any language, the
metaphysical subject would be the world spirit, and Idealism would lie on
the route from Solipsism to Realism. Wittgenstein takes all three of these
steps in the Notebooks, but in the Tractatus he takes only the first, which is
also associated with Realism" Pears (1971), p. 76.

43. "The answer then would have to be that what was left out could only be
shown, not described, with the implication that language cannot be freed
from its dependence on context. Yet a recording angel {our italics],
writing a history of the world, which included the fact of my writing these
words, would not need to employ any such demonstratives. Perhaps the
moral is that we, taking part as we do in the history of the world, and
speaking from our position inside it, cannot assume the standpoint of the
recording angel. Or rather, we can assume his standpoint but have to return
to our places in order to interpret the utterances which we issue from it"
Ayer (1982), p. 29. We might also suggest that within the modern historical
period of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, God played, for many
philosophers, the important epistemological role of Ayer's recording angel.

44. During the 1960s, many analytic epistemologists rejected the message of
the Tractatus and began to focus once again on the causal processes that
seemingly generate knowledge. See Goldman (1967); Skyrms (1967); and
Unger (1968).

45. "We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been
answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course
there are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer" (6.52); "The
solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem"
(6.521).

46. Unable to appeal to science, some contemporary naturalist epistemologists

have sought to evade the challenge to their metaphysical thesis by using a
cultural argument, e.g., Sosa (1987) to the effect that the Enlightenment
program of social technology requires the thesis. This argument shall be
challenged in the last chapter.

47. For a recent statement see Kitcher (1992), pp. 74-76: "The epistemic status
of a state is dependent on the processes that generate and sustain it. The
 Analytic Epistemology 193

central epistemological project is to be carried out by describing processes

that are reliable, in the sense that they would have a high frequency of
generating epistemically virtuous states in human beings in our world.
Virtually nothing is knowable a priori, and, in particular, no
epistemological principle is knowable a priori." Note as well the statement
(pp. 63-64) that "the root issue will always be whether the methods
recommended are well adapted for the attainment of our epistemic ends,
and that cannot be settled by simply appealing to our current concepts."

48. Quine (1969b), p. 83.

49. Quine (1969b) and (1975).

50. Komblith (1985), pp. 1-15.

51. Evolutionary epistemology is just such an approach. It is the analogue in

epistemology of the historicist notion ofprogress in science. That is, just
as the myth of historical progress was used to buttress the claim that science
is autonomous and self-certifying, so evolutionary epistemology will be
used to buttress the claim that we can, "in time", give a scientific account
of the process of knowledge acquisition. The fact that evolutionary
epistemology uses biological metaphors gives it a kind of specious
scientific plausibility. The analytic notion of evolutionary epistemology
should not be confused with Bergson's creative evolution or Piaget's
genetic epistemology.

52. In Chapter Four we argued that Kripke's attempt to provide a causal theory
of naming violated Hegel's contention that no statement about the whole
could be established by correspondence. In this chapter we have argued
that Kripke's attempt violates the argument of the Tractatus. In the next
chapter, we argue that Kripke's attempt fails because it falls into the abyss
of exploration.
 CHAPTER 6

Analytic Philosophy And Language

The Epistemological Agenda

The manner in which analytic philosophers have approached language reflects a
particular epistemological agenda.' Analytic philosophy is committed to a modern
naturalise epistemology. Such an epistemology has a recurrent problem: to explain
how, if knowledge is to be understood as the internal grasping of a wholly objective
external structure (form), it is possible for a subject to abstract within experience the
form of an object. The reason why this is a problem is that all modern attempts so
far to explain the abstraction process as itself a natural (mechanistic) process have
failed. Moreover, many attempts to explain the process seem to raise the specter of
a subject (or human culture) that structures experience to such an extent that
knowledge can no longer be understood as the internal mirroring of a wholly
objective external form. In short, there are two things that modern naturalist
epistemology has difficulty accomplishing: (a) presenting knowledge as itself a
wholly natural process (thereby making its epistemology consistent and coherent
with its metaphysicsj1 and (b) avoiding appeal to a subject of any kind. 4

Why Language?
In the early part of the twentieth-century, analytic philosophers revived the
eighteenth-century introspective model, but, after rediscovering all of its
shortcomings in deja vu fashion, moved to replace introspective epistemology with
the philosophy of language. The question with which we wish to begin our
discussion of the philosophy oflanguage is, why did the epistemological analysis of
language come to be viewed as an improvement over introspective epistemology?
First, "introspection" was, at best, a temporary expedient until a full blown
scientific account of cognition was available. "Introspection" was always understood
as the phenomenal analogue to physiological processes that could not be directly
apprehended given the present state of science. That is, the shift to language enabled
analytic philosophers, at least temporarily, to ignore or evade the absence of a
scientific/psychological account of knowledge acquisition.
Second, in introspection it is difficult to resist the invoking the active subject
that analytic philosophers wish to eliminate. It would appear that the very nature of
the modern introspective approach invokes an internal subject that is not in principle
reducible to some kind of object. The requirement that mind be construed as some
kind of physical object or a function of a physical object, and no more, was
jeopardized. Analytic philosophers refer to this "heresy" as idealism. Since they
believe that the first temptation (i.e., phenomenalism) leads to the second temptation
(i.e., idealism), they tend to lump together and thereby confuse phenomenalism and
idealism. In other words, analytic philosophers see the Copernican Revolution in
philosophy not as a legitimate response to intractable difficulties in modern naturalist
epistemology but rather as a mistake brought on by approaching epistemology with
an undue emphasis on introspective "experience." As a consequence of these
difficulties, there is a serious shift of the locus of attention in analytic epistemology
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 195

away from "experience" and toward "language." The approach is still

epistemological, but the focus is now on language.
In order to save itself from "idealism," analytic philosophy must avoid
phenomenalism. This is in part why Carnap was persuaded by Neurath to switch
from a sense-data language to the language of physicalism. Neurath argued that
science operated intersubjectively or publicly, not by appeal to an isolated knower
in danger of slipping into solipsism. Language, on the other hand, appeared to be an
object in the world. As Carnap put it, " ... language phenomena are events within
the world, not something that refers to the world from outside."s
To sum up, language seemed more promising than "experience" because
language appeared to be a more objective, public, or social fact as opposed to the
more personally introspective appeal to private sense-data and its attendant
dangerous temptations. In the wake of the difficulties with abstraction the
connection between language and objects appeared less problematic than that
between mental representations and an object. Ironically, the connection of language
to experienced objects appeared less problematic precisely because language was or
had elements of the conventional. At one and the same time, analytic philosophers
hoped to steal the thunder of the Copernicans by first admitting conventional
elements and then going on to argue that the conventional elements were "objects"
within a package that could be explained along realist lines.

Analytic Linguistic Epistemology

In order to appreciate the full significance of this point, namely the subsumption of
metaphysical and epistemological issues under language, we must recall the serious
challenge of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. In his endeavor to dissolve the traditional
Aristotelian epistemological problem of how we can be seen to have correctly
abstracted form from experience, Wittgenstein had argued that the relationship of a
symbol to an object can only be shown and never stated. In other words, the relation
of language to fact cannot be a meaningful topic of discussion. His argument had
been that (a) there can be statements of fact, and (b) there can be tautological
statements about the relations of linguistic items. However, (c) statements about the
relation oflanguage to fact (or oflanguage to the subject, to culture, etc.) are neither
(a) nor (b), and hence disallowed. In addition, Wittgenstein had tried to block the
raising of metaphysical issues by construing them as attempts to talk about what was
beyond the pale of acceptable discourse.
The early positivists had accepted this part ofWittgenstein's view since it
enabled them to evade the discussion of metaphysical and epistemological
difficulties. 6 Both (a) and (b) above represent the two dogmas of positivism. As
Quine was later to put it, (a) presupposes naive empiricism and reductionism, and (b)
presupposes the analytic-synthetic distinction. This distinction between the two
dogmas or doctrines failed to hold up under scrutiny for three reasons.
1. The two dogmas failed because it was not at all clear what a statement of
fact was, especially in view of the inability of modern naturalist epistemologists to
specify how we abstract the form from experience.
The use of a physicalist language forced Carnap to raise the question of
what physical terms and theoretical terms in particular refer to, so that semantics
196 Chapter 6

started to come to the fore. The growing recognition of the importance of theoretical
statements in physical science, statements which could not be explained as a one-to-
one relation of observation terms to experience, encouraged consideration of larger
units, like the sentence instead of the individual term. Hitherto, analytic
philosophers, especially the positivists, thought that they could ignore semantics and
concentrate on syntax with its focus on formal (mathematical) structure and without
regard to reference or meaning. It had been assumed that reference was handled in
a non-problematic way by sense data. So, one of the consequences of a shift from
"experience" to "language" will be a greater interest in semantics.
2. The two dogmas distinction failed to give an accurate account of
mathematical discourse as a form of (b) and as Godel's proof made clear
mathematical reasoning seemed to employ principles that necessarily defied
formalization; i.e., there seemed to be a pre-theoretical framework within which
(theoretical) mathematical reasoning moved but which mathematical reasoning could
not itself capture.
Largely as a result of Godel's theorem, following upon the problems in
Russell's Principia Mathematica, it became clear that mathematics, and hence its
logic, could not be completely formalized. The failure of logicism meant that no
consistent mathematics could therefore be the model of all discourse. Godel's own
tendency to draw Platonic conclusions about the significance of his proof would
always cause a certain amount of discomfort for the naturalism in analytic
philosophy. The very limitations of mathematics itself and the use of mathematics
now raised rather than resolved syntactical and semantical questions. Finally, if one
construed mathematics as just one kind of language, perhaps a more general and
fundamental analysis of language could help circumvent the limitations of the
language of mathematics.
3. The two dogmas distinction failed to hold for Wittgenstein himself whose
entire Tractatus and its own themes reflect neither (a) nor (b) but some third kind of
status that Wittgenstein remarkably declared to be a special kind of "nonsense"; the
distinction failed to account for the special status of the positivist's own principle of
verification which is neither (a) nor (b); there seemed to be a kind of philosophical
discourse that exempted itself from what was said about the rest of (scientific)
discourse. It is almost as if this kind of philosophical discourse is to be "thrown
away" after it is used; so really there is no such discourse. Once more positivists
were embarrassed by their attempts to evade instead of acknowledge fundamental
metaphysical issues.
In their endeavor to assimilate all meaningful discourse to technical or
theoretical discourse, a reflection of the commitment to scientism, analytic
philosophers seemed to employ a pre-theoretical discourse which does not exemplify
what they say about theoretical discourse. This issue is different from the issue of
whether analytic philosophers have even accurately characterized theoretical (i.e.,
scientific) discourse. The pre-theoretical discourse functioned like a kind of
metaphysics much to the embarrassment of analytic philosophers. Try as they might,
analytic philosophers were unable to avoid using two different kinds of discourse:
Talk} and Talk2 •
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 197

Talk J is talk (usually theoretical) about the world.

Talk2 is talk about Talk 1• Talk2 is pre-theoretical discourse.

There were three responses to this impasse. First, as we shall see below,
Wittgenstein eventually abandoned the entire analytic philosophical enterprise.
Second, analytic philosophers attempted to regroup by arguing that to the extent that
we are forced to recognize Talk2 (pre-theoretical discourse), Talk 2 must be
assimilated to Talk J• - Although loyal analytic philosophers all agreed that there must
be some way to conceptualize the pre-conceptual (pre-theoretical) in realist and
naturalistic terms, they did not agree on how this was to be done. Two general
alternatives emerged, one under the direction of Quine and the other inspired by the
later Carnap (Kripke).
The shift from "experience" to language seemingly permits the
reformulation of all metaphysical issues as assertions about the structure, reference,
or meaning of language. Instead of taking traditional issues in metaphysics and
epistemology at face value, analytic philosophy could postulate the existence of a
hidden structural level in language where the issues could be resolved. Instead of
having to explain how a subject abstracted form from within experience, all of the
metaphysical and epistemological issues associated with the activity of the subject
could seemingly be reconceptualized as issues of semantics and pragmatics. Most
important, this move to language also supports scientism.

1. Language is a natural object.

2. Natural objects are explained scientifically.
3. Hence, language can be explained scientifically.
4. All philosophical issues are expressed in language.
5. Therefore, at some level, philosophical discourse can be explained
scientifically.
6. Hence, all metaphysical and epistemological issues can be replaced
with or subsumed under science.

To sum up, the transition from "experience" and mathematical logic to the
philosophy of language is a response to both the epistemological and metaphysical
tensions in early analytic epistemology. Specifically, the transition from experience
to language accomplished the following:
1. It postponed having to account for the alleged physiological mechanism
by which the mind or subject internally grasps the external objective structure (a
process which the later Wittgenstein believed to be either impossible to represent or
non-existent).
2. It seemingly avoided having to invoke an internal subject that was not
itself an object or reducible to a set of objects. (As we shall see, the problem of the
subject is also the problem of meaning and the problem of the status of pre-
theoretical discourse -- i.e., the epistemological analogues of the metaphysical
problem of self-reference).
3. It proposed to deal with the metaphysical presuppositions of scientism
instead of either denying or ignoring their existence. It proposed to deal with them
198 Chapter 6

by showing that metaphysical issues were still at bottom just epistemological issues
and that epistemology could be scientifically represented as a natural (mechanical)
process within language.

Alternative Philosophical Views of Language

Let us introduce some terminological distinctions that will help to clarify both the
issues in the philosophy oflanguage and the alternative philosophical positions with
respect to those issues. Semiotics is the study of signs. Linguistics is the study of
linguistic signs. Linguistics is usually subdivided as follows:

SYNTAX SEMANTICS PRAGMATICS

(relation among symbols) (relation oflanguage to things (Relation of symbols
other than symbols) to speakers, listeners,
and social contexts)

reference meaning
denotation connotation
or or
extension intension

In addition to the foregoing terminological distinctions, we shall invoke our

previously discussed distinction among three alternative modes of understanding:
elimination, exploration, and explication. 8
Elimination: When we theorize from an eliminative point of view there is
an explicit substitution of new ideas for old ideas. Elimination is a form of radical
replacement through innovation. Elimination is a form of reductionism. Scientistic
elimination is a form of technological thinking which seems to make sense if there
is some prior agreed upon framework in terms of which we can judge that one new
theory is better than an old theory.
The early history of analytic philosophy, especially in its positivistic phase,
can be viewed as subscribing to the view that all correct thinking is eliminative
thinking. Certainly in the early Russell and in the positivism of the Vienna Circle
one sees an optimism about how science is the successful elimination of superstition
and nonsense and how philosophy is the overseer of the transition period to a totally
scientific world view.
The major diffiCUlty with elimination is one that we have already touched
upon, and that is that there must be some independent criterion in terms of which we
canjudge an elimination to be successful. Analytic philosophers, because of their
commitment to scientism, believed, originally, that science bore the mark of its own
validity. Therefore, in order to decide when one theory has successfully eliminated
another we can look to science itself.
It was assumed that within physical science we could find examples of
"successful" reductions of one theory to another or eliminations of one theory in
favor of another. So it would seem to be the case that it is a simple matter to extract
the criteria for such success. Unfortunately, this turned out not to be the case.
Instead of being a minor technical problem of specifying when reduction-elimination
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 199

was successful, it turned out that there was no consensus on when elimination was
successful. Moreover, turning to the larger question of how science "progresses"
from one theory to another we find even more intractable problems.
In its original conception, as represented by Russell's Principia
Mathematica, Wittgenstein's Tractatus, and positivism in general, the analytic
philosophy oflanguage was at most concerned with syntax. Syntax was considered
more fundamental than either semantics or pragmatics, and syntax was understood
to be formalizable in quasi-mathematical or logical terms.9 Semantics was
considered reducible to syntax plus epistemology. Pragmatics was thought to be of
no fundamental philosophical importance and assigned to descriptive social science.
As long as analytic philosophy subscribed to scientism, understood as elimination,
analytic philosophy denied the philosophical importance of either irreducible
semantics or pragmatics. Despite his concessions and qualifications, Quine still
subscribes to this view.
Exploration: In exploration we begin with our ordinary understanding of
how things work and then go on to speculate on the mechanism alleged to be behind
those workings.

Analytic philosophers do not study ordinary language in order to

verifY 'common sense beliefs': they aim at uncovering beliefs and
ways of thinking which we do not know we have but which, they
hope, are revealed by ordinary modes of speech. 10

In time, we come to modify our ordinary understanding. The new understanding

does not evolve from or elaborate the old understanding; rather it modifies it by
appeal to underlying structures. The underlying structures are discovered by
following out the implications of some hypothetical model about those structures.

The resulting picture of the world does not really involve any
attack on common sense, or any claim to correct it. Rather, it
claims to go deeper and reveal structures of the world undreamt of
in everyday thought. II

There are two versions of exploration. In one version, our ordinary

understanding is a necessary but temporary scaffolding to be taken down when the
construction is completed. This first version of exploration is almost
indistinguishable from elimination. In a second version, our ordinary understanding
is indispensable but revisable in the light of the clarification of underlying structures.
Whereas the earlier emphasis on logic was designed to foster eliminative thinking,
the later emphasis in the philosophy of language is designed to foster exploratory
thinking. Quine's "exploration" is of the first variety and keeps within the narrow
pre-set limits of the old logic and is therefore thought of as a way station toward
elimination, whereas the neo-Carnapian explorations extend the old logic beyond its
original confines in order to explore the realm of the pre-conceptual.
As a result of problems and pressures already mentioned, many analytic
philosophers abandoned the elimination version of analytic philosophy and adopted
200 Chapter 6

an exploration version. We call this movement from el\mination to exploration a

'Kantian Turn. ' The move to exploration in the field of the philosophy of language
was spearheaded by the later Carnap, and it shifted attention to semantics. Still
subscribing to a realist view that sees language as itself a natural ("found") object
that can be studied in its own right, the followers of the later Carnap used the formal
tools which had been developed to express the properties of ideal (quasi-
mathematical) languages and applied them to the study of the alleged "hidden
structure" of actual languages. Generally, these analytic philosophers of language
deny that semantics can be reduced to syntax, and. more importantly, believe that the
formal structural analysis of semantics can actually be extended to encompass
pragmatics. That is, they subscribe to the view that pragmatics can be reduced to
semantics. Chief among these exploratory semanticists are Montague, Fodor, and
Kripke.
It is important to see that both analytic philosophical responses to the new
developments in the philosophy of language, despite their differences, agree on what
they take to be the derivative nature of pragmatics. Despite differences between
eliminators like Quine and explorers like the later Carnap, Montague, and Kripke, all
subscribe not only to scientism and an naturalistic realism about language in which
the representative function of language is primary, but they all deny that language
needs to take into account the user of language or the wider social linguistic
community in any way that cannot be reduced to the representative function.
Language, according to both Quine and Kripke, can be described, "ultimately,"
independent of its users. This is clearly the anti-agency element in analytic
philosophy.
Explication: In explication we try to clarify that which is routinely taken
for granted, namely, our ordinary understanding of our practices in the hope of
extracting from our previous practice a set of norms which can, reflectively, be used
to guide future practice. Explication presupposes that efficient practice not only
precedes any account ofpractice but explication also precludes any exploratory
account ofpractice. Giving an account is not the same thing as providing a theory.
Explication attempts to specify the sense we have of ourselves as agents and to
clarify that which seems to guide us. We do not replace or modifY our ordinary
understanding but rather come to know it in a new (non-reductive) and better way.
The third response to the problems engendered by the ongoing development
of analytic philosophy was to abandon both eliminative and exploratory views of
language. This was the path taken by Wittgenstein in his Philosophical
Investigations and other later works. Language comes to be viewed from the
Copernican or agency perspective rather than from the perspective of modem
naturalist realism. Language is seen as conceptually prior to the external physical
environment.
To engage in philosophizing about language is to engage in the explication
of social actions. These actions are not themselves mere natural events 12 but
symbolic activities which presuppose tacit agreement on specific norms. Symbolic
action is not equivalent just to rule following, since that would permit reduction to
some theory of the alleged "hidden mechanistic structure" of rule following. It is the
tacit agreement on the norms that takes this beyond the realm of mere objects.
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 20 I

The view of language at which Wittgenstein arrived in the Philosophical

Investigations and in reaction to and rejection of his own Tractatus is a monumental
intellectual achievement as well as an act of courage on Wittgenstein's part. We do
not wish in any way to detract from it. Yet it must be said that this view of language
is not unique. It is a view already expressed in both the American pragmatic
tradition (e.g., C.S. Peirce, G.H. Mead, and John Dewey) and it is fundamental to
Heidegger, Gadamer, and the hermeneutic tradition which follows. These are
traditions which make pragmatics prior to semantics and syntax and which argue that
the whole is prior to the parts.13 To sum up: there are three views of the philosophy
of language within the analytic conversation.

elimination (syntax) Russell, early Carnap, and Quine

exploration (semantics) later Carnap, Montague, Kripke,

Chomsky, Fodor, Katz

explication (pragmatics) - Wittgenstein of the Investigations,

(Heidegger, classical Pragmatism,
Gadamer, Hermeneutics)

Philosophy of Language as Elimination (Quine)

Quine and his defenders l4 present his views on the philosophy of language as a
radical critique of the previous analytic tradition or positivism. IS At the same time,
Quine is the clearest embodiment of that tradition.

We see, then, a strategy for investigating the relation of evidential

support, between observation and scientific theory. We can adopt
a genetic approach, studying how theoretical language is learned.
For the evidential relation is virtually enacted, it would seem, in
the learning. This genetic strategy is attractive because the
learning of language goes on in the world and is open to scientific
study. It is a strategy for the scientific study of scientific method
and evidence. We have here a good reason to regard the theory of
language as vital to the theory of knowledge. 16

The original justification for scientism, from Russell through positivism,

was that scientific statements could be individually or jointly verified by experience.
During the period that science remains incomplete, we employ two languages:
technical, theoretical scientific discourse and common sense. Common sense is a
pre-theoretical linguistic framework from within which we elaborate technical,
theoretical scientific discourse. If and/or when science is completed or nears
completion, common sense will gradually and ultimately be absorbed or eliminated
in favor of theoretical discourse.
In a post-positivist milieu, Quine recognized that the truths of science
cannot be independently established or verified. Rather than offer some other
rationale for science, Quine merely reaffirms his faith in scientism. From within his
202 Chapter 6

own system, Quine can even take pride in the fact that there is no perspective,
philosophical or otherwise, outside of or above science from which science can be
judged. Quine also subscribes to an implicitly teleological view about the
progressive development of science and its march toward the truth. Of course, in
practice there is no independent way of distinguishing between a truly progressive
development and a merely historicist reading of the development of science. The
language of progress continues to serve only rhetorical and fideist purposes. Yet,
Quine remains undaunted; for he believes that even though we are inescapably
trapped within our own conceptual system, the system is connected in some
mysterious way with the progressive development of science. As we have pointed
out numerous times already this is but another way of saying that without appeal to
some form of Hegelian ultimate synthesis analytic philosophy is doomed to
incoherence. 17
Quine offers a naturalistic reinterpretation of the pre-theoretical linguistic
framework! His reinterpretation is the now famous claim that our entire conceptual
system confronts experience as a whole. This reinterpretation still subscribes to
scientism, now treated as an article of faith; it still subscribes to modem naturalist-
empiricist epistemology now viewed holistically; and it still subscribes to an anti-
agency (anti-Copernican) view of human functioning. It is anti-Copernican in that
while it recognizes pragmatic considerations, these considerations (like simplicity,
convenience, utility, etc.) are construed from a limited scientistic point of view and
are presumably, in time, to wither away. The consequences for the philosophy of
language are that (a) philosophy can still examine the formal properties of notational
systems (i.e., syntax), pretty much limited as in the old days to the lower functional
caIculus,18 and (b) that these notational systems are an analysis of a "hidden
structure" of a fragment of a more encompassing natural language. 19 In short, there
is a potential progressive elimination of pre-theoretical discourse as theoretical
discourse progresses. Quine's philosophy of language is a bold reassertion of the
original analytic position that the kind of language we speak is ultimately determined
by experience understood in an absolute sense. 20
The kind of elimination implicit in Quine's philosophy of language is of a
special sort. Recall that Quine's objection to neo-Carnapian semantics is that
ontological relativity makes it impossible to determine fully the semantics of a
language. Any semantic determination can only be done from within the context of
a further background language which remains un interpreted. As a result, exploration
is always incomplete. One way of circumventing this limitation is to assume a
postulate that the background language can eventually be described behavioristically.
That is, a science of psychology in which behavior is understood physically could
provide a level of scientific generalization about language and mind that escapes the
inherent limitation of exploration. Quine believes that behaviorism is viable because
he thinks that sense data and similar cognitive phenomena which figure in linguistic
theories are subjective or psycho logistic but that the "stimulation of sense receptors"
is somehow an objective phenomenon. Thus, the elimination is via behavioral
psychology. One may be tempted to object that science, including behavioral
psychology, can proceed only via observation sentences. How then are we to break
out of the circle? Quine's answer is to embrace the view of holism. Holism thus
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 203

solves two problems at once: the problem of under determination and the problem
of the background language.
Quine's response to the existence of Talk2 is to appeal to holism, i.e.,
specifically to the collapsing ofthe distinction between (a) statements offact and (b)
the alleged "tautological" statements about the relations of linguistic items in favor
of (a). This was Quine's way of making Talk2 a form of Talk,. It followed that (b)
was eliminated along with a loosening or broadening of (a). This is the import of
Quine's rejection of the analytic-synthetic distinction. Despite his characterization
of naive empiricism (i.e., pre-Tractatus empiricism) as reductionism, Quine believes
that Talk2 is not strictly speaking part of the philosopher's domain, but the domain
of linguistic (behavioral) social science. Quine also, in effect, reduces Talk 2 to Talk,
by giving it to social science. It is reductive in that it is another attempt to block the
formulation of a special status for pre-theoretical discourse. Despite using Talk 2,
Quine hopes eventually to see it wither away.
In his own work in the philosophy of language, now considered as an
examination or consideration of the non-empirical elements in the pre-theoretical
linguistic framework, Quine rejects the explorations of all other analytic philosophers
(especially Carnap and Kripke), and claims that, in our terminology, all explorations
are in principle bound to fail. Why must they fail? They must fail, says Quine,
because any exploration of the non-empirical elements in the pre-theoretical
linguistic framework is itself, at best, a scientific hypothesis. As a scientific
hypothesis the exploration itself is "underdetermined" with regard to the data (i.e.,
cannot be fully explained in a naturalistic empirical epistemological manner), and,
in addition, relies upon or presupposes the pre-theoretical linguistic framework at
another level for its own applicability. This is what Quine means by ontological
relativity, and he does not hesitate to say that there is always going to be a
background metaphysics.
Frege and Wittgenstein would both agree with this, but, of course, for very
different reasons. As a result, Quine rejects the intelligibility of semantics as an
enterprise (his so-called "flight from intension ") and even goes so far as to argue
both for the behavioral inscrutability of reference and the radical indeterminacy of
translation. These Quinean positions entail the rejection of the analytic-synthetic
distinction and the rejection of modal logic. All interpretations presuppose the pre-
theoretical background language. In short, both our ordinary understanding of the
world and, more important, our understanding of that understanding are
underdetermined, i.e., cannot be fully explained by naturalist epistemology.
In a very important sense Quine is denying the existence of meaning. Nor
should this surprise us. Increasingly, the search for "objective" structure understood
as the property of a spatial and atemporal object leads us not only away from
meaning but away from the existence of a subject/agent that does the structuring.
That is, meaning comes increasingly to be associated with the very subject/agent that
analytic metaphysics and epistemology want to deny. As we shall see this is not only
true of Quine but of much of analytic philosophy in general.
In short, Quine attempted to solve the problem of the physiological
mechanism by both admitting that it could not be conceptualized as an internal
process and subscribing to the existence of an alleged behavioral analogue. Further,
204 Chapter 6

he attempted to solve the problem of the status of a subject by denying the existence
of meaning. Finally, he attempted to dissolve the metaphysical issues of scientism
by subscribing to holism.
The remarkable thing about Quine's reinterpretation ofthe original analytic
philosophy of language is that taken at face value it is both inconsistent and
incoherent. The inconsistency is between Quine's empiricism and his relativism. At
one and the same time, Quine asserts that (a) there is nothing independent of different
conceptual schemes (ontological relativism) and (b) that different conceptual
schemes are alternative readings of the flux of experience (ontological empirical
realism).21 Without some supplementary metaphysical theory, the relativism simply
cannot be reconciled with the empirical realism.
The incoherence of Quine's theory consists in the fact that his denial of the
validity of the semantic enterprise is itselfa semantic enterprise! Quine's expression
of how our entire conceptual system confronts experience as a whole is a theory of
how language relates to reality. What is the status, otherwise, of the expression of
such a grandiose view? Where is Quine standing when he makes a pronouncement
about the relation of our conceptual system to experience as a whole?
The source of the incoherence is twofold. The commitment to scientism
means that, for Quine, all truths, or all statements of truths, must have a univocal
interpretation. That is, there cannot be different kinds of truths. A univocal
interpretation entails that statements within the system and statements about the
system must be interpreted in the same way. The commitment to naturalist
epistemology means that, for Quine, all truths must be empirical truths. However,
it is quite impossible to see how on Quine's view a specific statement about the
system as a whole can ever be made or made as an empirical statement. Quine
himself denies that any single statement can confront experience. Hence, his own
statement about the system as a whole is not empirical. Hence his statement about
the system as a whole is either false or incoherent. Ironically, Quine both makes
such statements and denies that such statements can be made. Nor will it do to say
that such systemic statements are conceptual statements, for even conceptual
statements must, on Quine's view, be empirical. Some of the lessons of
Wittgenstein's Tractatus have gone unnoticed.
If we do not know what it means for a single statement to confront
experience, then we do not see what it means for a set or collection of statements to
confront experience. And, likewise, if we do not know what it means for a collection
of statements to confront experience, then we cannot ever begin to understand how
the statement about the system or collection can confront experience nor how such
a statement functions within the collection itself. Metaphors about cores and
periphery remain just metaphors obfuscating a lack of intelligibility.

Philosophy of Language as Explication (Wittgenstein)

For reasons which will become apparent, it will be more useful to discuss
Wittgenstein's later philosophy of language as expressed in Philosophical
Investigations before we discuss the neo-Camapians. In the Philosophical
Investigations and in his subsequent work, Wittgenstein rejected scientism,22 he
rejected modern naturalism, and he rejected the anti-agency view of human beings.
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 205

Language is seen as a tool. 23 Scientism distorts the conception of language as a tool

by making referential use basic. The distortion takes the form of liken ing language
to a "Quinean" telescope in which it is alleged that we can only talk about the way
in which the world appears using different sets of lenses. Scientism refuses to ask
questions about the telescope itself, or about the user of the telescope, or the
interpretation of what is seen through it, or all of the uses to which it is put. If it did
bother to ask such questions then we would see that the uses and the meaning of the
results ofthe uses are molded by our culture. Moreover, Wittgenstein denies that the
semantic and pragmatic dimensions of language can themselves be explained by
some further science. 24
The rejection of modern naturalism takes the form of denying that reality
determines the structure oflanguage. It would be easy and literarily elegant to say
that language determines our view of reality. But this is inaccurate and sounds not
very different from Quine. Rather, it would be more accurate to say that the relation
of human beings to external things (and to other human beings) is mediated by
language in particular and culture in general. Social practices determine how we
individuate the structure of language and, derivatively, the structure of external
things. The rejection of an anti-agency view and its replacement by an agency
centered view is a form of the Copernican Revolution in philosophy. Thought is
itself immersed in social life and social action. Practical reason, therefore, takes
primacy over theoretical reason. 25
Despite the emphatic, repeated and sometimes humorous rejection by
Wittgenstein of the analytic philosophical presuppositions of the Tractatus, there are
important connecting links between the earlier and the later work. To begin with,
Wittgenstein always denied that philosophy itself was a science. While the earlier
work left the role of the philosopher somewhat ambiguous, the later work stresses
how the explication of what we are doing is (a) not science and (b) not capable of
being superseded by a science. Further, in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein had contended
that it is not possible to discuss semantic notions. Semantic notions were reflected
in our usage. In the investigations, Wittgenstein contends that we most certainly can
discuss semantic conceptions, but not as neo-Carnapians do. Rather, we can discuss
semantic notions only in relation to how we live and act. Semantic constructs cannot
even be identified in abstraction from our way of life (i.e., pragmatics).
There was in the Tractatus the assertion of the existence of something
unsayable but nevertheless something which language showed. In the investigations,
the unsayable is now to be understood as the pre-theoretical and its grounding in
practice. The pre-theoretical resists and defies conceptualization.
In order to understand this better, let us look at the earlier Tractatus notion
of a picture. It was said there that a picture can represent reality, but the picture
cannot represent its own representing. Yet, Wittgenstein did not hesitate to talk, that
is to use language, about what pictures can and cannot do. There is, therefore,
something in language more fundamental than picturing. Hence, picturing cannot
be explained by reference to the structure of the picture. Language cannot, therefore,
be understood as a fundamentally pictorial process, employing only a spatial-
mathematical logic. Language has some other kind of status or mode of being. In
order for something even to be a picture there must be an implicit interpretation of
206 Chapter 6

it as a picture, i.e., there must be picturing. The act of picturing is not a structure but
the activity of a cultural agent.
The crucial concept in the Tractatus, the concept which provided
Wittgenstein with a focus for all of his points, was the tautology. The tautology was
the transparent entity which "showed" itself.26 It upheld the fundamental analytic,
naturalist-realist doctrine that language and thought are identical at some point with
reality. The tautology, on Wittgenstein's view of it, allowed for the convenient
disposal of all traditional notions of necessary but non-empirical truth, and it seemed
to fit smoothly with Russell's proposed reduction of mathematics to logic. However,
the now famous lecture by Brouwer on intuitionism in mathematics led Wittgenstein
to revise his views. What Wittgenstein got out of that lecture was the insight that no
system can be completely formalized in a finite set of principles and that there is
always an ineliminable residue of interpretation. There is no formalization apart
from prior agency.27
Wittgenstein began to ask what it meant to understand a rule.
Understanding a rule was not like understanding the truth conditions of the statement
of the rule. 28 If that were possible, then we could have total formalization and
conceptualization. Neither did Wittgenstein believe that there was a special and
unique epistemological act by which rules were grasped, which would be tantamount
to accepting some form of Platonism. Instead, Wittgenstein went on to argue that in
order even to follow a proof in mathematics we must be able to recognize when a
rule is applied. This recognition is not the same as an explicit formulation of the
rule. At each transition we are free to reject a particular application, and none of this
can be definitively formulated in advance. The final acceptance of a proof is a new
decision, not entailed by previous decisions.
Wittgenstein then proceeded to generalize this point for all discourse. No
system of rules can contain a meta-principle for the development and application of
the rules. Our discourse cannot be understood as the transparent image of an external
reality. Once Wittgenstein arrived at this conclusion he was forced to reject the
modern naturalism of so much of analytic philosophy. Those who believe that
discourse is an image of an external structure have no way of explaining how
communication avoids constantly breaking down. Something holds communication
together, but it is not what so many analytic philosophers say that it is. What saves
communication is that it is embedded in what we as social agents are doing. The
glue, the necessity if you will, is the grounding in social practice. All meaning and
all necessity is grounded in social practice. That is why, for example, Wittgenstein
placed such great stress, in the Investigations, on the contention that sensation words
do not arise from a private language. This is the reason why the latter notion is
incoherent.
The original Tractatus view of meaning as pictorial entailed that the
meaning of a mental structure determined itself. It was mechanical. The observation
of the same perceptible sign (written or spoken) allegedly produced, with some
qualification, the same mental structure. This explained how it was possible for the
same meaning to be transmitted from one person to another. But Wittgenstein's
investigation of rule application led him to reject the notion of a mechanical
application of a rule. Once he rejected a mechanical theory of rule application he
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 207

was led to reject a mechanical theory of meaning. In opposition to the later

Wittgenstein, many analytic philosophers (despite differences among themselves)
still believe it is possible to give a scientific account of the process of determining
meaning. That is, some analytic philosophers still think that we need some kind of
theory deriving a rule from something in nature.
A proper understanding of language, for the later Wittgenstein, involves the
following considerations:
1. Language is an aspect of human action. As such, language in its most
fundamental mode has to be understood as practical and not theoretical. "Language
-- 1 want to say -- is a refinement, 'in the beginning was the deed' .... "29
2. As a form of human action, language is social. Hence, the proper starting
point of an understanding of language is a clear explication of what "we do." Neither
a Cartesian "I think" nor an atomistic "I do" is an adequate starting point. Neither
is the "we think" perspective or the "we say" perspective of ordinary language
analysis.
Human actions are not purely natural events but symbolic events relying
upon tacit agreements. To say that human actions are not purely natural events is,
in part, to say that the meaning of such events is not independent of how the agents
involved in those events perceive or understand the events. There is an
institutionalized cultural background. Moreover, it is to say that the agents'
understanding of the events is not itself explicable at some other level by reference
to objects independent of the agents' attitude toward those objects. In addition, it is
to say that the attitudes of the agents are not themselves totally explicable at some
still further level without reference to the agents, etc. This is the Copernican
element in Wittgenstein's philosophy of language.
Wittgenstein compares language to a game and reminds us that the
participants in a game change the game or, more accurately, cause the game to
evolve by adding on new interpretations of the rules. Since a game is open-ended,
it cannot be definitively analyzed. It can, however, be studied historically, and it can
continue to evolve, sometimes through the conscious efforts of its participants who
seek to apply the historically inherited rules to new circumstances. Although the
ability to use language presupposes the ability to follow rules, language cannot be
equated with rule following.
What is philosophically significant about language for Wittgenstein is that
the object of explanation and the perspective ofthe explainer are mutually inclusive.
Hence, it is not possible to stand outside of the process of language and explain it
scientifically, i.e., as if it were an object. 30 No purely psychological or scientific
account is possible of how one person makes, follows, or breaks a rule because any
account must refer to conventionally established social norms. 31
3. Wittgenstein would agree with Quine that we cannot theorize about the
linkage between our language and reality, although Wittgenstein's reasons are
completely different from Quine's. Meaning cannot be explicated in terms of
reference alone. Even intentionalist theories of meaning, which try to explain
meaning by reference to what the speaker intends as opposed to reference exclusively
to an external object, will also fail because they are still fundamentally referential and
ignore the primary importance of social action.32
208 Chapter 6

It is the grounding of language in socially responsible action that

differentiates Wittgenstein from Quine. There is a kind of necessity in language for
Wittgenstein that Quine refuses to grant. For Wittgenstein, there is a pre-theoretical
framework of social norms that are not a matter of individual choice but which have
evolved historically. There are rules that bind us in a given context of the activities
oflife. Quine would argue that ifthere is any necessity it must be in symbols (i.e.,
syntax). Failing to find it there, Quine rejects the whole notion of necessity. Kripke,
as a neo-Carnapian referentialist, looks for it outside. Wittgenstein, on the contrary,
would argue that there are necessities but they are conventional, hence Copernican.
In addition to distinguishing logical concepts from ordinary concepts, Wittgenstein
would also argue that it is only from within the perspective of ordinary concepts that
it makes sense to talk about 'existence' and 'experience'. From Wittgenstein's point
of view, Quine is still a residual referentialist since Quine still thinks that 'existence'
and 'experience' have external, realist metaphysical import.
4. For Wittgenstein, both syntax and semantics are parasitic on pragmatics,
while pragmatics must be explained conventionally, historically, socially, culturally,
i.e., by explication of prior cultural norms which continue to evolve:

When I talk about language (words, sentences, etc.) I must speak

the language of everyday. Is this language somehow too coarse
and material for what we want to say? Then how is another one to
be constructed? - And how strange that we should be able to do
anything at all with the one we have!
In giving explanations I already have to use language
full-blown (not some sort of preparatory, provisional one) .... 33

For those still committed to the naturalist program, Wittgenstein would

appear as a defeatist,34 precisely because he denied that the pre-theoretical could be
conceptualized. It can be discussed from within the perspective of common sense
but not from without, certainly not from a scientific perspective. If Wittgenstein is
correct, then the philosophy of language cannot be a technical discipline wherein
technical distinctions can solve metaphysical and/or epistemological problems.

Philosophy of Language as Exploration (Neo-Carnapians)

There is an historical or evolutionary pattern in analytic philosophy, one to which we
have already called attention. In the initial phase, analytic philosophers proclaim the
truth of scientism as understood from a modem naturalist point of view in an
unqualified manner. The result is a view of philosophy as a mode of eliminative
thinking. With regard to language this meant the elevation of logic and syntax and
the dismissal of actual or natural languages. "Inadequate" natural languages were to
be replaced by a formal artificial language using the syntax of the Principia
Mathematica and simple observation terms making direct contact with experienced
reality. In the second phase, after the generally recognized failure of elimination, we
see a 'Kantian Tum' in which cognitive structures or activities that are not reducible
to or capable of being eliminated in favor of overt empirical entities are recognized.
The recognition ofthe non-empirical entities leads to a view of philosophy as a mode
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 209

of exploratory thinking. An exploration begins with our ordinary understanding of

something and looks for the hidden structure behind it. This analytic philosophy of
language formulates speculative theories of the hidden structure oflanguage which
try to combine a surface acceptance of actual linguistic practice with some theory
of the hidden structure behind the practice.
The oldest and most well known of these theories is the work of Noam
Chomsky. Chomsky was the first to reject the simplistic empiricist account of
language acquisition in which it was alleged that external stimuli mechanically
produced conceptual-linguistic responses. Chomsky's specific target was Skinner's
behaviorist theory. The significance of the critique of behaviorism in particular and
simplistic empiricism in general is that it is a rejection of elimination. In order to
take elimination seriously it would be necessary to believe that the superiority of one
explanatory theory over another can be directly established by appeal to experience.
But as we have seen, again and again, no such direct test of conceptual (and
linguistic) structures is possible. Chomsky tried to explain why this was so.
According to Chomsky it is not possible to understand a sentence as a linear
sequence of components each of which is to be explained inductively, i.e.,
empirically. Put another way, the syntax and the semantics in a linguistic unity
cannot be treated separately. Rather, the surface structure of language can only be
explained by reference to deep structure (an internal code). In what clearly amounts
to a 'Kantian Turn' in linguistics, Chomsky argued that there is an internal pre-
theoretical framework. At the same time, Chomsky still treated this framework as
a form of representation, a knowing that, that precedes our use of language, which
is a knowing how. "It is the deep structure underlying the actual utterance, a
structure that is purely mental, that conveys the semantic content ofthe sentence."35
Chomsky believed that there was some psychological process to account for
the existence and functioning of this internal structure, but he does not concern
himself either with the physiology or the philosophical problems raised by this
empirical hypothesis about intensional entities. We are reminded here of the as yet
undiscovered physiological mechanism introduced with the Enlightenment project.
Although Chomsky himself focused primarily on syntax, his students, Fodor and
Katz, emphasized the semantic dimension of Chomsky's initiative. As Fodor put it:

... a theory oflanguage must say, in some way or other, what the
terms in the language refer to. For this reason, a 'real' semantic
theory would have to be part of a theory of the internal code. 36

In Fodor's version, there is a finite set of concepts embedded in a "language of

thought." This finite set can be explained, in principle, by biology independent of
culture. This is clearly anti-agency or anti-Copernican. It is also clear that the shift
from elimination to exploration parallels and reflects the shift of emphasis from
syntax to semantics.
We should not be misled here by the appeal to innate mechanisms. Some
kind of internal processing or innate mechanism has always been part of empiricism.
The important question has to do with the extent and nature of those innate
mechanisms and how such mechanisms connect with and explain competence or
210 Chapter 6

successful performance. Curiously, no such account is ever given. In their concern

to work out a science ofJinguistic competence, Chomsky, Fodor, and Katz beg the
question of the philosophical foundations of that science. Specifically, Chomsky,
Fodor, and Katz use the Tractatus notion of a meaning locus without ever analyzing
or explaining it. The meaning locus is a mental (intentional) entity that accompanies
the public linguistic entity and which is inferred from the public linguistic entity by
the quasi-mechanistic application of rules. The public linguistic entity, i.e., the
propositional sign, touches reality by "going through" something else, namely the
meaning terminus, which means that state of affairs. The meaning terminus itself
does not go through something else. Wittgenstein, as we saw, came to reject this
notion in the Philosophical Investigations largely because it reflected the perennially
baffling Aristotelian epistemological problem of how we abstract the "form" from
the matter. Like all modern naturalist epistemologists/ 7 Chomsky, Fodor, and Katz
use a type of argument in which a series comes to an end or terminus that is uniquely
different from the other members ofthe series, but the uniqueness is never explained.
The 'Kantian Tum,' the shift from elimination and syntax to exploration and
semantics, led to a renewed appreciation of Frege's distinction between sense and
denotation. It was now clear to many that meaning could not be reduced to reference
(denotation). One of the new appreciators of Frege is Michael Dummett. Inspired
by what he takes Frege's views to be, Dummett contends that the philosophy of
language is the most fundamental part of philosophy; it is "the part of the subject
which underlies all the rest."38 Without an understanding of language, we do not,
according to Dummett, understand the world. The understanding of meaning is prior
to the determination of truth. Moreover, for Dummett, the philosophy ofJanguage
is the exploration of the hidden structure of natural language .

. . . formalized language is a more perfect instrument for doing the

same thing as that which we normally do by means of natural
language, as if, therefore ... we are studying the ideal which
natural language strives after, but fails to attain. 39

While agreeing with Quine that philosophy must become a science,

Dummett thinks of the philosophy oflanguage as an exploration, a theory of meaning
and not an elimination. He further demurs from holism, specifically attacking
Davidson's version, in favor of an analysis of the parts ofJanguage. Unfortunately,
the basic units never get specified. Like all explorers, Dummett has come to the
conclusion that there is a class of statements which do not possess objective truth
value independently of our means of knowing them. In other words, like all
explorers, Dummett recognizes a conventional (pre-theoretical, "Kantian") element
in language and thought, but disagrees on the issue of its locus. This notion of a
conventional element Dummett calls his anti-realism. The reader should not take this
"anti-realism" to be a rejection of either scientism or naturalism. Dummett's position
remains programmatic. Dummett is also a severe critic of explication as witnessed
by his condemnation of "psychologism" and Wittgenstein. By far the most
substantial exploratory program emerged out of the work of the later Carnap,40
specifically the work of the "neo-Carnapians" Montague and Kripke. Neo-Camapian
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 211

exploration emanates from the following world view: since language is a natural
object like other natural objects, the relation of language to other natural objects is
a complex which must itself be capable of study just as we study any natural
interaction. It follows that a concept like "truth" is a kind of natural object, as are all
the norms of thought and language (i.e., the pre-theoretical).41 The exploration of
this natural object (language) and its relation to other natural objects proceeds via
hypothesizing about the substructure of language. In hypothesizing about the
substructure, neo-Carnapians all subscribe to the following Traclatus views (later
repudiated by Wittgenstein himself in his Philosophical Investigations):
1. substructure is limited by theoretical considerations;
2. substructure is like classical, first order logic;
3. sentences are constructed from smaller' atoms' by means of logical
operations (or rules);
4. substructure is describable extensionally.

Richard Montague was a student of Tarski's, but he was greatly influenced

by Carnap, whom he frequently cited. It was Montague's goal to conceptualize the
pre-theoretical, i.e., to give a formal analysis not only of syntax and semantics but
of pragmatics as well. Montague made semantic analysis fundamental. Thus, he
disagreed with the Chomskians on the relation between syntax and semantics.
Montague maintained that semantics is not reducible to syntax and syntax is not
reducible to psychology. The explanation of semantic concepts like 'truth' cannot
be t:vaded by appeal to internal codes. Rather, a formal meta-mathematical analysis
of all of these concepts is possible using set theory.
Montague also argued that pragmatics could be reduced to semantics.
Borrowing from Yehoshua Bar-Hillel the notion of an "indexical" expression to
cover the concepts in pragmatics of tense and first and second person pronouns (i.e.,
the role of the speaker and the context such as'!', 'you', 'here', 'now', etc.),
Montague defined pragmatics as the extension of semantic truth-definitions to formal
languages containing indexical terms. "Truth" became one such indexical term.
Montague devised an intensional logic that made use of set theory. From
within set theory, he proposed to "justify" a language that transcended set theory.
All of this assumed that (a) there is a meta-language which would enable us to
formulate rules that relate situations to utterances, i.e., a revival of the Tractatus
world picture, and that (b) there could be total knowledge of all possible situations.
The latter assumption revives the Hegelian specter of holism. Moreover, if one were
to accept the notion of a language as an on-going historical-cultural entity, then we
would require the further Hegelian assumption that our present incomplete analysis
hooks up in some guaranteed way with the final totality. Montague's position
remained programmatic.
The most influential and impressive attempt to develop an exploration of
language is to be found in the work of Saul Kripke. Kripke exemplifies the second
alternative or neo-Carnapian approach to the substitution of language for experience
within analytic epistemology. This second approach declares that philosophy is a
science with Talk2 as its special subject matter. It will argue that there is a kind of
"higher semantics" that can only be understood if we take a 'Kantian Tum.' So, in
212 Chapter 6

effect, it claims that, as opposed to Wittgenstein, we can theorize about the

unmentionable zone of discourse, and, as opposed to Quine, Talk2 cannot be reduced
to Talk l (hence traditional social science cannot handle it) but can in some special
way be made compatible with Talkl.42 It contemplates and proposes a more radical
revision of our conception of Talk l to make this possible.
Kripke first attracted attention for his work in modal logic. Modal logics,
as discussed earlier, were developed initially as alternatives to Russell's
unsatisfactory explanation of implication. One of the things that could not be
satisfactorily explained in Russell's tenns were counterfactual statements. Following
Russell, Quine and others had even proposed that scientific discourse abandon
counterfactuals. It was in opposition to Quine and in order to legitimate the presence
of counterfactuals in genuine scientific discourse (scientism!) that modal logics were
applied to counterfactual discourse.
Counterfactual statements talk about possible worlds, that is, about what
would have happened (consequent) if something else had happened (antecedent),
when historically that antecedent did not occur: "Ifthere were a tenth planet in our
solar system, then it too would have an elliptical orbit around the sun." One way of
handling this kind of discourse is Copernican and it suggests that such statements can
be explicated by reference to linguistic agents in a social context. That is,
counterfactuals do not tell us something about the world but about our speech and
our pre-theoretical framework. Analytic philosophers, however, would reject such
a non-realist solution out of hand. Kripke agrees that we need a realist solution to the
problem of counterfactuals, so much so that his treatment of possible worlds echoes
an Aristotelian essentialism.
Invoking a "possible world" requires an intensional logic. 43 Kripke
attempted to develop a semantics for "possible worlds" that was similar to
Montague's. That is, Kripke was trying to conceptualize the pre-theoretical. It was
in the working out of this semantics that Kripke came into direct conflict with the
eliminative views of Russell and then Quine. This conflict can be best seen by
turning our attention to the status of singular terms.
Singular terms appear in natural languages as proper names. They are
problematic for analytic philosophy (and all fOnTIS of empiricism) both because some
proper names do not denote, e.g., 'Pegasus', and because they can be part of true
negative statements, e.g., 'Pegasus does not exist'. The empiricist program seems
to require that all meaningful terms denote something. Russell thought he had
resolved the difficulty with his theory of descriptions, and Quine had concurred.
According to the theory of descriptions, proper names have both a denotation and a
meaning, and the meaning could be formalized into a description. Whereas the
meaning is fixed, the reference is not. This effectively eliminates singular terms in
favor of a description, but at the same time it blocks second order discourse. The
blocking of second order discourse makes it illegitimate to employ modal discourse.
Kripke is committed to the viability of modal logic (second order discourse
or intensional logic). Therefore, he challenged the Russell-Quine theory of
descriptions. In its place, he argued that proper names have denotation only. That
is, proper names such as "Socrates" can refer independently of an identifying
description. In effect this amounts to saying that proper names have no intension.
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 213

Even more significant is the further application of this thesis about proper names to
common nouns. The end result is that all of the terms that allegedly refer to and
reflect the objective external structure of the world can be explained without appeal
to any concept or philosophical preconceptions that might possibly attribute a role
to the subject/agent.
In Kripke's terminology, names are rigid designators. In saying that names
are rigid designators, Kripke argued that names are not definable by any set of
predicates as in the theory of descriptions, rather names are definable by reference
to essential predicates as determined by science. Science is the final arbiter of the
range of possible worlds. A rigid designator would refer to the same entity in all
possible worlds. A possible world is explained by appeal to counterfactuals, and
counterfactuals are explained by invoking modal logic.
Kripke's views may be summarized:
I. proper names are archetypes that
a. do not require intensions or definite descriptions, and
b. are explainable solely in terms of reference;
2. proper names are rigid designators;
3. rigid designators refer in all possible worlds;
4. possible worlds are counterfactual conditionals;
5. counterfactuals require the use of modal logic;
6. the use of modal logic justifies a second order discourse or Talk 2 that is
not ultimately eliminable in favor ofTalk J •
7. Talk2 can be assimilated to Talk J only by reconceptualizing the process
of how reference operates within Talk 1•
Kripke supplemented this view with a causal account of the pragmatics of
using names. The concept of a rigid designator and the causal theory of meaning
amounted to a potentially new theory of reference which, if successful, would be a
solution of the perennial Aristotelian epistemological problem of abstraction.
Specifically, Kripke invoked Carnapian foundationalism modified by a conventional
element, and all of this is in opposition to Quine's holism. Kripke also invoked a
strong analytic version of Tarski's semantic conception of truth where 'truth' is the
result of how individual terms link up. The entire analysis makes no appeal to the
speaker's knowledge, and hence it is anti-agent. In order to avoid misunderstanding,
we stress that Kripke has not restored the grammatical subject to a special status by
calling it a rigid designator. Since a rigid designator can refer independently of any
associated description, a rigid designator has, in the most traditional sense of the
term, no meaning. Hence, like Quine, Kripke has got rid of the subject.
Reference, according to Kripke, is explainable through the use of a causal
chain originating with a kind of baptism that establishes the initial use of a name.
This initial use is then handed on and down from speaker to speaker and from
generation to generation. Reference thus involves a relationship among three
elements: (I) a speaker, (2) a social context, and (3) a physical environment.
Reference, and therefore meaning, depend upon this chain of acquisition and the
physical environment. Reference does not depend upon the attitude or internal
condition of the speaker (i.e., the subject/agent). By eliminating any appeal to the
internal condition of the speaker, Kripke seemingly evades the traditional
214 Chapter 6

Aristotelian problem of how the subject abstracts the form from the matter.
Moreover, Kripke, with a bow to Wittgenstein, does seem to take social context into
account. However, the social context is construed as a natural object whose relation
to the physical environment can be explained scientifically!
The crucial question about Kripke's exploratory alternative is whether in
fact he provides a satisfactory solution to the perennial Aristotelian epistemological
problem of abstraction, or what analytic philosophers now call the theory of
reference. The answer is that he does not! No account is forthcoming of the causal
theory of the pragmatics of using names. We can, apparently, only name entities
after we have intuited the necessary properties (i.e., essences) which define those
entities. A property is a necessary one if, and only if, there are no logically
conceivable states of affairs (i.e., possible worlds) where the entity might lack that
property and still remain the same entity or individual. No non-controversial
example is ever given by Kripke. Instead, Kripke argues by counter-example.
Reference, in Kripke, depends upon intuition, and intuition is conceived of
as exploration or hypothesis formation. A model of the act of intuition would
presumably explain how the relation of social context to physical environment can
be construed as itself an objective entity. In short, precisely at the point where we
require a model of the act of intuition, none can be or is given. There is a recurrent
problem faced by the neo-Carnapian exploratory approach. Neo-Carnapians want
to use the present technical language, with some modifications, to talk about or to
conceptualize the pre-theoretical (what they conceive of as the relation among
speaker, social context, and physical environment). But how do they know that the
present technical language is adequate to the task? Wouldn't there have to be, still,
some external position from which the issue could be surveyed and resolved?
Wouldn't this external position then be the pre-theoretical position that is beyond
conceptualization? This seemingly infinite regress is what Kripke tries to rule out
as illegitimate in his treatment of the liar paradox, and it is the fear of this regress that
leads Kripke, Field, and other like-minded analytic philosophers to suggest an
Aristotelian series in which we come to a terminal entity which is different from the
other entities in the series. That is what the causal theory of reference was supposed
to do but fails to do.
As we have expressed it on previous occasions, no exploration can proceed
unless there is a prior consensus on explication. Not having a prior consensus on
explication makes it impossible to resolve disputes about essences or necessary
properties. 44 Many analytic philosophers are adamant in their opposition to making
explication basic, for that amounts to embracing the Copernican Revolution in
philosophy and the dreaded alleged fallacy of "psychologism." Kripke's attempt to
discuss examples and thereby link up with a theory of reference is doubly
confounded because his original theory is an exploration which depends upon
subsidiary theories like intuition which are themselves explorations. Explorations
are backed up by other explorations which, in turn, are backed up only by still further
explorations. There does not seem to be any way of breaking out of this circle
(Quine's objection). In the end, Kripke's formalism falls back upon question-
begging informal arguments in which he begins to speak of a "better picture." Since
there are no criteria for judging "better pictures" or explorations in the absence of a
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 215

prior consensus on explication, Kripke even hesitates to call his view a theory. There
is a peculiar sort of double circularity here in that the use of abstractions, like
"quantifier" and "sets," to explain ordinary English is then supplemented with an
explanation of the abstractions by reference to informal arguments in ordinary
English. In practice this makes ordinary English a kind of meta-met a-language.
Here we also see a common and recurrent pattern of argument amongst neo-
Carnapians who are attempting to conceptualize or formalize the pre-theoretical
element in our thinking and speech. As in Tarski's appeal to 'satisfaction', or Lewis'
appeal to 'similarity', or Kripke's appeal to 'intuition', the pre-theoretical is always
tentatively conceptualized or formalized by appeal to some other still non-formal
notion. The more remote non-formal notion would then have to be formalized, but
it never is. Moreover, there is no clearly discernible progressive movement in which
the specific earlier non-formal notions are formalized later. Rather, what we find is
a host of seemingly endless but non-cumulative "new and innovative" programs.
To summarize then the difficulties with Kripke's approach to solving the
problems of analytic philosophy's epistemological agenda by focusing on language
we note the following; first, the actual mechanism by which form is abstracted from
matter is no clearer when treated as a purely linguistic object, that is, Kripke does not
give us in the end the promised scientific account of reference; second, the causal
chain in Kripke's account reintroduces the subject and the community; third,
Kripke's account does not subsume the metaphysical problems of analytic
philosophy as purely epistemological ones, but rather raises them again in a new
locus; finally, Kripke teeters on the edge of the abyss of exploration.

Quine's Elimination vs. Kripke's Exploration

Kripke's work attracted a great deal of attention. Although much of Kripke's
methodology had been articulated earlier by others, Kripke's timing could not have
been better. The overall analytic shift from the limited empiricism of elimination to
the various Kantian Turns of exploration created an environment of great receptivity
to neo-Carnapian semantics. However, along with all of the attention came serious
criticism.
Modal logic is an intensional formalism. Contemporary modal sentence
logic originated in 1918 with C.1. Lewis, who was dissatisfied with the paradoxes of
material implication because they fail to capture our intuitive notion of implication.
Specifically, material implication failed to capture the idea that causal connections
in nature must reflect some necessary structure, otherwise science cannot be the self-
contained truth. In the 1940's Ruth Barcan Marcus extended C. I. Lewis' system to
predicate logic. The biggest boost came when it was pointed out that scientific
discourse encompasses dispositional terms. In 1973, David Lewis went on to argue
that dispositional terms, which are expressed in the SUbjunctive conditional mode,
could only be represented by a rnodallogic.
Quine's response was that dispositionals could ultimately be dispensed with,
at least in principle given certain assumptions about the future of science. Moreover,
Quine argued that modal logic invokes a view of necessity which is highly
questionable. Recalling his attack on the notion of analyticity, Quine argued that
necessity is a property of language (de dicta), not a property of things (de re).
216 Chapter 6

Quine's criticisms are focused on the role of the quantifier. Quantifiers, according
to Quine's ontology, are about things (Talk l ), whereas in modal logic quantifiers
range over (Talk 2) talk about things. So modal logic becomes a talk about talk whose
referential nature remains obscure.
In response to Quine's criticisms, Marcus and Kripke defended the view that
modality is talk about things. If so, then necessity would be a property of things;
hence some version of essentialism is true. This, in turn, means that some identities
at least are necessary.
Quine responded by stressing that modal logics are not truth functional, i.e.,
modal formulas do not depend for their truth upon the truth values of their
component parts, and they do not have finite characteristic matrices.
Subsequent discussions of the transworld identity of possible individuals
confirmed Quine's worst fears. Nobody seems to know what modal logics are about.
To the older generation of analytic philosophers, like Quine, the whole validity of the
analytic enterprise rests upon its being extensional, that is an empirical understanding
of science. To put all of this in our language, there is no empirical way to evaluate
exploratory hypotheses. Kripke's failure to develop an adequate theory of reference
merely confirms this fatal flaw of all exploration. 45
Second and third generation analytic philosophers have been so accustomed
to the idea that philosophy is hypothesis exploration that many of them cannot
imagine it being any other way. But why is hypothesis exploration so important?
It seems to be important because physical science is largely hypothesis exploration,
and philosophy has to be like physical science (i.e., scientism). But why is physical
science so important that it should serve as the paradigm of all meaningful
intellectual activity? It seemed to be important because physical science is
empirically confirmable truth. If this is so, then exploration is only a legitimate
mode oftheorizing ifit is empirically confirmable. However, intensional logics are
not empirically confirmable. It would seem to follow that intensional logics are not
legitimate modes of theorizing.
The situation is even worse when we recall that we have arrived at this point
in the story precisely because ofthe inability even of physical science to be empirical
(i.e., to meet the modern naturalist epistemological demands made on physical
science by many analytic philosophers), and this inability led to the promise of
empirical redemption at some more remote and exotic level. The redemption does
not appear to be forthcoming at any level. Nor will it do to respond that intensional
logics no longer have to be empirically confirmable explorations since science is not.
This response merely highlights that once the empiricist pretensions of science are
surrendered we are not only left wondering why physical science is the paradigm of
all legitimate intellectual activity but we must also question the whole raison d'erre
of the naturalist program. Pointless and unredeemable exploration is a form of self-
immolation. 46
Does the notion of semantics, not itself grounded in pragmatics, make any
sense? It would make sense if there were some way to study the relation of words
or linguistic units to reality. In the naturalistic endeavor within analytic philosophy,
there is a continuous tendency to reduce semantics to the correspondence theory of
truth. What is not clear is exactly what are the elements being related. Moreover,
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 217

any attempt to explain this relationship presupposes that our present mode of
discourse is adequate to do the job. If it is, then do we not already have to know
what it is we are looking to explain or to understand? This is exactly why Quine
keeps harping on the indisputable point that the language for which truth is defined
presupposes a meta-language whose notion of truth is antecedently accepted. The
understanding of the meaning of words presupposes, Quine claims, a prior
understanding of the truth conditions of the sentences in which they appear. The real
force of Quine's critique of Kripke and all neo-Carnapians is that they treat questions
of meaning prior to questions of truth, but when they offer a theory of meaning they
fail to make sense of how such theories (explorations) can themselves be true. 47
As Quine sees it, using our terminology, if scientism and modern naturalist-
realism are correct, then there cannot even be a second level intensional discourse
(Talk2) about our first level technical discourse (Talk[). Any discourse (Talk2) about
our technical discourse would have to be the province of some other empirical
science. The latter science would use the logic of the lower functional calculus.
Moreover, this other empirical science would have to be a social science like
behavioral psychology.
What we have said so far indicates just how severe the criticism of
exploration can be on the part of those who still subscribe to elimination. Lest we
take this to be a vindication of elimination, we should remind ourselves that
exploration was itself a response to the perceived inadequacies of elimination.
Quinean elimination is no stronger because neo-Carnapian exploration is fatally
flawed. In fact, looking back over the work done in exploration reinforces the
inadequacies of Quinean elimination. The main Quinean objection to neo-Carnapian
exploration is that the latter is trying to get at the external view from the inside. We
grant Quine the validity of this objection. However, as we have already argued,
Quine is guilty of the same thing. In denying the legitimacy of the semantic
enterprise, Quine is, at one and the same time, pretending to stand and speak from
outside the monistic and holistic system he champions, and, from within that system,
Quine denies that one can talk about the system as a whole from inside the system.
It is precisely this kind of internal incoherence that neo-Carnapians see in Quine.
After all is said and done, what we have in the confrontation between Quine
and Kripke is a mutually destructive family quarrel. The quarrel concerns the level
at which analysis is going to be carried out. Quine's approach to the philosophical
problems of language is to move the resolution of them to the level of a social
science like behavioral psychology in order to maintain the fundamental commitment
to modern naturalist-realism and empiricism. Kripke is looking for a meaningful
resolution on the linguistic level. Despite the differences, both Quine's appeal to
behavioral psychology and Kripke's appeal to social context are attempts to evade
explaining how the subject abstracts the form from the matter.
The neo-Carnapian approach of Kripke and others resurrects in a new guise
all of the unsolved epistemological problems of modern naturalism. Kripke's view
appears as an epicycle within the analytic philosophical movement. At the same
time, shifting the problem to behavioral psychology as Quine suggests has exactly
the same effect of resurrecting unsolved Aristotelian epistemological problems.
218 Chapter 6

After all is said and done, both the Quine and the Kripke approaches lead
us down the Hegelian route and have made no progress. This we have already seen
in Quine's case where in order to save empiricism Quine accepts holism and a
powerful myth about scientific progress toward that whole. The neo-Carnapians are
faced with the same difficulty.48 Pushed by their opponents, the neo-Carnapians are
forced to admit the internal circularity of their position. Like Quine, the neo-
Carnapians take evasive action. Quine remains mum on the nature of the whole,
while the neo-Carnapians try in vain to block reformulations of the liar paradox from
within their position. In their laudable attempt to capture the pre-theoretical, the neo-
Carnapians have made a 'Kantian Turn' in recognizing the important role of meaning
and necessity. But as in the case of all 'Kantian Turns,' we are faced with a plethora
of alternative formal analyses with no possible provision on how to choose among
them. What is needed is a higher synthesis of this 'Kantian Turn,' and in the case of
a movement committed to Aristotelian realism, this can only mean a Hegelian
synthesis.

Summary of the Analytic Philosophy of Language

There is an analytic epistemological agenda. Specifically, that agenda is to establish
that ideas (or words) are internal reflections of an external structure (objects).
Enlightenment empiricism had maintained that the relation of ideas (words) to
objects was itself an object that could, in principle, be explained physiologically and,
in the meantime, could be introspected. Enlightenment empiricism failed to establish
that relation without appeal to a subject which was not itself an object. In order to
avoid the problems of an introspective psychological approach, contemporary
empiricism focused on language and hence construes the relation as one of word to
object. It still wants to construe this relation as itself an object (i.e., something with
a structure external to us).
1. Positivists failed to establish the existence of the relation as an object.
2. Quine construed the relation holistically, but this turns out to be either an
evasive metaphor or an incoherent approach.
3. Neo-Carnapians (Kripke) assert that there is a hidden objective structure
behind surface language, and it is this structure, which is a linguistic object,
that relates to non-linguistic objects. The very statement of the neo-
Carnapian position raises the question of how the truth of such a statement
would be established. Presumably that hidden structure would in principle
be observable. However, neo-Carnapians have never been able to present
the hidden structure as an object. On the other hand, if we have to invoke
a social or communal framework in order to be able to "see" or identify the
structure then we have just raised in a different locus all of the problems
that analytic epistemology is trying to resolve.
4. Those who advocate some version of linguistic coherence 49 recognize,
overtly or tacitly, the failure of the epistemological agenda of analytic
philosophy.
5. Other critics of the analytic epistemological agenda would maintain that
the relation of word to object is not an empirical issue, rather the whole
issue is precisely what we mean by such a fact.
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 219

Wittgensteinian Explication vs. Analytic Philosophy of Language

Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations was not only a repudiation of the
Tractatus but also a repudiation of the analytic epistemological agenda.
Wittgenstein's approach to language is an explication, not an elimination or an
exploration. How would a Wittgensteinian explication respond to both Quinean
elimination 50 and Kripkean exploration? Wittgenstein would initially agree with
Kripke and the neo-Carnapians that we need a clearer, less evasive, and more self-
conscious conception of the philosopher's task. At the same time, Wittgenstein
would agree with Quine that we cannot do what Kripke wants to without an implicit
or explicit reference to a prior framework or background. That background,
according to Wittgenstein, can never be identified with scientism. It can only be
identified with a way of living.
Some implicit recognition of the pre-theoretical is found even in Quine
when he says the following:

In practice of course we end the regress of coordinate systems by

something like pointing. And in practice we end the regress of
background languages, in discussions of reference, by acquiescing
in our mother tongue and taking its words at face value. 51

But Quine persists in thinking that there can then be some scientific account of
pointing.
The background, or pre-theoretical frame of reference, is not, according to
Wittgenstein, a theory, 52 nor can it be understood from the perspective of another
theory or kind of theory (like the "science" of psychology). Language itself is not
a theory but rather something learned as part of a community of practices. Language
is not initially a consciously adopted set of practices or a construction. In order to
understand the norms which "structure" or inform language we would have to see
those norms as internal to the linguistic practice. A language is not a structure
independent of the norms of the users, nor are the norms isolable from the language
or agents.

[Quine] is an exemplary 'hedgehog', a methodological monist, a

defender of scientism in philosophy, a naturalized epistemologist
and propounder of an ontology guided by physics and canonical
notation .... [Wittgenstein] is a pardigmatic 'fox', who viewed
scientific method in philosophy as the worst source of
misconceived metaphysics, a methodological pluralist appalled at
the misguided idea that the only forms of knowledge and
understanding are scientific, who socialized epistemology without
naturalizing it, held the canonical notation of mathematical logic
to have completely deformed the thinking of philosophers, and
rejected ontology as conceived by the philosophic tradition. 53

Wittgenstein would agree with Donald Davidson that there cannot be

radically alternative paradigm languages because the whole notion of 'alternatives'
220 Chapter 6

presupposes a common core. Wittgenstein would agree that there is a common core.
However, the real dispute is over how we identify the core.
I. Wittgenstein would deny that in identifying the core we are theorizing
about a hidden structure: " ... we do not seek to learn anything new ... we want to
understand something that is already in plain view."s4
2. He would deny that the norms or actions which ground linguistic practice
can be definitively specified. There is no rule for the interpretation of rules so
disputes are possible. The resolution of those disputes can only be in actions and
never a theory about a further hidden structure.
3. Scientific practices and the language of science are derivative from the
main core. Hence, the core explains science rather than science explaining the core.
Since science is derivative rather than fundamental, there can certainly be rival, and
incommensurable, scientific paradigms which structure our scientific experience or
observations or experiments just as Kuhn said. The possibility of such conflicts is
further explicable by the aforementioned fact that not all conflicts over the
interpretation of rules can be settled by deeper rules. However, the resolution of such
conflicts lies not within science itself, so Kuhn was correct again, but by appeal to
more fundamental core practices which are not themselves scientific. Davidson
missed this point, and Kuhn failed to express it properly, because both Kuhn and
Davidson are among those analytic philosophers who subscribes to scientism.
Let us take a specific issue in the philosophy of language, namely, the status
of universals. Both Wittgenstein and Quine deny that there are universals. But, for
Wittgenstein this is a negative philosophical claim. He would not construe this as
a negative existential claim like 'there are no unicorns'. The negative claim has
nothing to do with ontological commitment as in Quine. Nor is it a negative
theoretical claim like 'there is no such thing as phlogiston'. What possible scientific
developments, for example, could resolve the issue of whether there are universals?
Nor is the rejection of universals a rejection of a conceptual scheme or hypothesis.
Nor is the denial of the existence of universals the exposure of some terrible fault
with the language we speak. If there are alternatives then these alternatives are
philosophical accounts (i.e., explications, not explorations) of the generality of
words. Wittgenstein would also reject Kripke's essentialist claims which tie
meaning to necessity. Concepts do not require sharp boundaries in order to have
meaning, according to Wittgenstein, rather "we require it for special practical
purposes."ss
The same sort of approach would be taken toward the status of logical
necessity. Quine is right in contending that the notion of analyticity does not capture
the meaning of logical propositions, but he is wrong to deny necessity. Kripke is
right in recognizing necessity but wrong to treat it as de re or as having ontological
status. For Wittgenstein, the logically necessary is the pre-theoretical, and hence
there is a real difference between logical statements and empirical statements. Quine
is correct that no statements are immune to revision, but then all this amounts to for
Wittgenstein is that no practices are sacrosanct in the light of other practices.
Many philosophers have felt intensely uncomfortable with the collapsing
of the logical realm into the empirical realm, especially in mathematics. It is difficult
to see, for example, how mathematics can in any sense be said to be empirical, and
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 221

curiously while theories in physics have been revised and abandoned this has not
happened in mathematics. Non-Euclidean geometries, to the contrary, did not lead
us to abandon Euclidean geometry. The persistent recognition oflogically necessary
statements has been a thorn in the side of Aristotelianism from the very beginnings
of philosophy itself.
In reading the Philosophical Investigations, analytic readers are frequently
frustrated and struck by the fact that Wittgenstein did not give a single
straightforward argument for why exploration will not work. He did not explain why
our ordinary understanding cannot be replaced by an understanding based upon
hidden sub-structures. Yet, the reason for this should be clear. The whole point of
explication is that there cannot be an independent understanding of our ordinary
understanding oflanguage. In order to formulate a knock-down argument to prove
this point, one would have to step outside of our ordinary understanding. In short,
the demand that Wittgenstein provide an independent proof of his position that
explication is the only legitimate approach is a failure to understand Wittgenstein's
point.
Since Wittgenstein does not, and clearly cannot on pain of self-
contradiction, provide a definitive refutation of exploration, there seems to be a
permanent open invitation for some analytic philosophers to keep trying their hand
at exploration. This raises the interesting practical question of how one would go
about making these particular analytic philosophers both understand and/or accept
the claim of the incoherence of their practice of exploration. Incoherence is much
more subtle and less obvious than contradiction so it is more difficult to demonstrate.
Part of the subtlety of incoherence is the extent to which it is embedded in practice!
Wittgenstein solved the practical challenge by taking specific alleged explorations
and showing how in the end these explorations rely upon implicit explications.
The Philosophical Investigations is a brilliant kaleidoscopic example of
such exposures. Artificial languages, to take one example, are not really languages.
Before one can construct an artificial language one must know what a real language
is. Ifwe have a mistaken view about language or we do not fully understand what
a language is, then the model of the artificial language will be a commensurate
distortion. Ifwe do have the correct understanding, then we do not need the artificial
model in the first place.
No more than Wittgenstein can we provide a definitive refutation of
exploration, and for the same reason.56 What we can do, and have been doing, is
showing how the analytic philosophy of language (a) fails to achieve its objectives,
(b) operates even by its own admission with implicit explications which it cannot
discard, and (c) is, when consistently developed, a prelude to Hegelianism. The
exploratory version, in particular, of the analytic philosophy oflanguage looks for
the hidden structure of our ordinary understanding of linguistic usage. Such analytic
philosophers are trying to explain what we mean, but the ultimate data turn out to be
what we mean. This cannot be done unless in some sense we already know what we
mean. There is a peculiar kind of circularity or incoherence here. In order to avoid
incoherence, it becomes necessary to appeal to the Hegelian system in which we
achieve total synthesis and in which we see the earlier unanalyzed meaning as part
of a progressive (teleological) process of clarification wherein the beginning is
222 Chapter 6

subsumed in the end and the end is already contained in the beginning. The analogue
to this Hegelian system in the analytic philosophy of language is the movement from
pre-theoretical common sense discourse (background framework) to theoretical
discourse, and finally, to the suggestion that theoretical discourse can reveal the
secret structure of the original pre-theoretical discourse.
The other thing that can be done is to dwell at length on the persistent and
systematic misunderstanding in the minds of many analytic philosophers about what
their critics and even their analytic opponents are saying. The best recent example
of that misunderstanding is Kripke's (1982) Wittgenstein on Rules and Private
Language. Kripke challenges Wittgenstein's claim that there is no underpinning to
explain how we apply signs. Kripke suggests that we can find the underpinning
(hidden structure) in the user's relation to a community. Wittgenstein, however,
would deny that the user's relation to a community has an underlying objectifiable
structure. That is precisely why we need explication instead of an independent
interpretation. Actions, including speech, for Wittgenstein, are not natural events but
symbolic events. As symbolic events they involve tacit agreements which we seek
to explicate, and they require the ability to follow rules. However, symbolic action
is not reducible to rule following. 57 There cannot be a meta-language relating acts
to anything else. Acts can only be related to other acts, as in Wittgenstein's example
of the bricklayers at the building site.
Kripke, on the other hand, still insists upon seeing language as an object
rather than a practice. Kripke characterizes Wittgenstein's position (and Hume's as
well) as skeptical. Kripke does not actually define what skepticism is. Rather, he
distinguishes between a straightforward solution of the skeptic's challenge and the
skeptical solution to the skeptic's challenge. The straightforward solution is to offer
an argument which shows that skepticism is unwarranted. The skeptical solution, as
in Wittgenstein and Hume, says Kripke (a) concedes that the skeptic's negative
assertions are unanswerable, and (b) claims that ordinary practice or belief is justified
because such practices and beliefs do not require the justification the skeptic shows
to be unattainable.
In one sense Kripke is absolutely correct. The sense in which he is correct
is that the language he uses to say what he says makes sense given his point of view.
What Kripke fails to understand is the Wittgenstein-Hume point of view. For both
Wittgenstein and Hume there is a response to the skeptic. The skeptic's argument
is incoherent. The incoherence is revealed in the conjunction oflanguage (which is
itself one form of action) and action. The skeptic's argument is incoherent because
that argument is itself parasitic upon a shared practice.
In relating skepticism to social action or context we distinguish this
refutation from the traditional rebuttal that skepticism presupposes a truth at another
level. To be sure there is an assumed truth at another level, but it is not a
propositional truth that is assumed. What is assumed or shared is a set of embedded
norms of action.
Philosophical dialogue proceeds on the assumption that there is a common
community of discourse or consensus, not a set of axiomatic rules. The consensus
embodies norms of action, not just sentences. Professional philosophers in the
Anglo-American academic world may lead compartmentalized lives in which
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 223

classroom and professional discussions are totally disconnected from other social
actions, but this is hardly true of the rest of the world. Many analytic philosophers
persistently try to avoid coming to terms with this in their discussion of skepticism,
which they insist upon treating as a position despite the fact that no one ever claims
to hold such a position. We all know "in practice" that such a position is incoherent.
Further, these analytic philosophers dismiss the claim that nobody actually holds
such a position as they try to engage in imaginary dialogues with that position. A
real dialogue, of course, would only be possible with a prior consensus among the
discussants. Nor do any of these analytic philosopher interrogate the position of
skepticism, and that is why no serious definition of skepticism ever emerges from
analytic literature. Rather, the implicit rejection of skepticism ('skepticism' is always
a pejorative term in analytic literature) is a surrogate for affirming Aristotelian-
realism without actually having to defend that realism.
The analytic approach obfuscates the fact that skepticism cannot really be
asserted without presupposing the social action framework (the pre-theoretical) that
would instantaneously reveal skepticism to be incoherent. Academic philosophical
arguments and dialogues take place in such an artificial environment that we are apt
to lose sight of their pre-theoretical grounding. It is important, therefore, to remind
ourselves that in our endeavor to achieve intersubjectively shared understanding we
do not go back to axioms or rules in order to achieve consistency, rather we go back
to prior activities in order to achieve coherence. In trying to resolve a dispute about
what something means we return to the aims and activities which either originally
gave rise to the disputed terms or from which the dispute evolved. This is precisely
why the history of philosophy itself is so important. It is not to an isolable truth that
we appeal in times of distress but to a shared context of organically and historically
related norms.
Let us summarize, first, Kripke's critique of Wittgenstein. According to
Kripke, in scientific or theoretical discourse our language is meaningful if it
represents a structure in things that are independent of us. We now wish to raise the
question: "How are we to understand or explain representation, i.e., meaning?"
Analytic philosophers, like Kripke, presume that a correct answer to this question
must be both scientific and naturalistic. An answer is naturalistic if it explains
something by showing that it represents a structure independent of us. We are thus
back to the Aristotelian problem of explaining how form can be abstracted.
Therefore, for Kripke, to explain 'representation' (meaning), we would have to show
that 'representation!' (meaning) has a structure of which we can give a
'representation2'. Wittgenstein claims that this cannot be done, and, in addition, we
face an infinite regress. This is what Kripke thinks of as Wittgenstein's skepticism.
Kripke thinks that this can be done and must be done, but admits that he has not yet
been able to do it.
Now let us summarize a Wittgensteinian answer to Kripke. 58
'Representation!' is not a pictorial process. 'Representation!' is to be understood as
a human action, as 'representing'. 'Representation!' is not the attempt to picture a
structure independent of ourselves. We are certainly interacting with objects outside
of ourselves, but that interaction, even in scientific discourse, is not the picturing of
a structure. Hence, right from the beginning Kripke misunderstands 'meaning'
224 Chapter 6

because Kripke is imposing upon meaning a modern naturalist-realist demand.

Moreover, we can give an account or explanation of 'representation l ', so Kripke is
wrong to accuse Wittgenstein of being skeptical or negative about anything except
Kripke's own metaphysical and epistemological presumptions.
When Wittgensteinians (and Copernicans) give an account of
'representation l ' they see themselves as giving an account or explanation of an
action. No action can be explained by giving a picture of the action's structure. In
fact, nothing can be explained that way. Only modern naturalist-realists believe that
is what an explanation is supposed to be. In order for a Wittgensteinian (Copernican)
to explain an action, that action must be related to other actions. The other actions
are part of a way of life, that is a social, historical, and normative framework. The
other actions are not different in kind from the first action, hence we can dispense
with subscripts and avoid an infinite regress. Someone is said to understand our
explanation when shelhe performs further actions. Speech is a perfect example, for
others are said to understand our meaning when they can speak to us, that is, act (for
speech is an action) in a manner that coheres with our actions. Everyone who
teaches surely understands this. That is why skeptics exist only in fantasy discourses.
The important thing to remember about explaining anything human, like language,
meaning, or representing, is that there cannot be a gap between the account and the
thing explained. This is why there cannot be any natural object with an independent
structure that explains our actions. The serious misunderstanding on the part of
Kripke and other modern naturalist-realists in general is that they distinguish between
the alleged 'representation' and the alleged 'structure' and thereby create a problem
for themselves (not others) that they cannot solve. 59
Critics of explication are apt to charge that in explicating we must pick and
choose "key" practices but that the choice cannot be justified by an appeal to
anything other than an intuition about our practice. The defenders of explication
respond by saying that there is no coherent alternative. That is, advocates of
explication maintain that while human acts can be understood, such acts cannot be
explained, especially when explanation is conceived along eliminative or exploratory
lines. We can give an account of what we understand, but such an account is not an
explanation in the sense in which we explain non-human things, like the behavior of
billiard balls.
In rebuttal, the proponents of explication charge the proponents of
exploration with incoherence. In order to theorize, that is, in order to explore a
hypothesis, about the hidden structure behind our practice we must first identify the
object of analysis, i.e., one must first identify the practice. Therefore, one must
already possess an intuitive common sense understanding of or participation in
practice before it can be analyzed. The theoretical analysis is forever parasitic upon
the shared practice and can never go beyond it. In examining any social practice,
including our cognitive or linguistic or logical practices, we are not really observing
an independent object as the physical sciences presumably do, rather we are
examining what we mean by what we are doing. It is therefore impossible to explore
the hidden structure of our practice because there is either no such structure or any
structure it did have would be irrelevant! This is the crucial difference between
practical knowledge and theoretical knowledge.
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 225

Forced to admit the role of agency, the new question that analytic
philosophy had to face is how best to deal with it. The answer is to treat the agent
as an object of scientific scrutiny, i.e., an appeal to the doctrine of scientism. Here
epistemology comes back into fashion, but like all shifts in fashion in a slightly
different way. The agent will reemerge now as a structure within or a set of
functions within the brain. Analytic philosophy oflanguage, in short, will transform
itself into cognitive and neuro-psychology. It puts philosophy onto a carrousel where
the movement from epistemology to language to mind creates the illusion of
progress, but only to find that in the end we are back where we started listening to
the same tune. 60

Ordinary Language Philosophy61

There is yet another view about the philosophy of language, a view that played an
important tangential role in the development of the analytic philosophy of language
in the twentieth-century. Analytic philosophy originated with Russell's rejection of
Hegel. Russell's rejection was shared by, and in fact inspired by, his colleague, G.E.
Moore. Moore also shared Russell's Aristotelian realist metaphysics and
epistemology,62 and one of the consequences of this realism was the further sharing
of Russell's anti-agency view ofthe human self. In short, like Russell, G.E. Moore
sought to circumvent the Copernican Revolution in philosophy. What Moore did not
share with Russell was a doctrinaire commitment to scientism. It is the lack of a
shared commitment to doctrinaire scientism that distinguished Moore from Russell,
that separated Moore from positivism and the Vienna Circle, that led to Moore's
championing of common sense, and finally that established a separate philosophical
movement known as ordinary language philosophy.
What confuses readers is that Moore also favored a methodology in his
approach to philosophical issues that he called "analysis". Moore's conception of
analysis, however, was different from Russell's. One of the reasons that readers
have difficulty in understanding what analytic philosophy is all about is that until
quite recently some writers used the expression 'analytic philosophy' to refer
indiscriminately to every philosopher in the twentieth-century influenced by either
Moore or Russell or both. Since there is an important difference between Moore and
Russell on the issue of scientism, this attempt to find and emphasize a common
ground led either to somewhat superficial characterizations of 'analysis' or to what
under the circumstances is the perfectly defensible claim that there is no such thing
as 'analytic philosophy'.
Using the terminology we have developed, we can say that Moore sharply
disagreed with Russell's eliminative view of philosophy that sprang from Russell's
doctrinaire scientism. Moore insisted upon both the centrality and fundamental truth
of common sense beliefs. Common sense beliefs cannot be and ought not to be
eliminated in favor of some other kind of alleged truth. All philosophical error
springs from the attempt to eliminate common sense beliefs in favor of some
speculative hypothesis.
At the same time, G.E. Moore advocated that philosophers should engage
in the 'analysis' of our common sense beliefs. The purpose of 'analysis' was to
clarify our common sense beliefs so that we would be led to a better understanding
226 Chapter 6

of our metaphysical, epistemological, and axiological presuppositions. The

recognition offundamental presuppositions was the recognition of a pre-theoretical
domain on which all other intellectual activity, including science, rested. This
activity of clarification was not part of the domain of either logic or science,63 and
hence it was a unique role for philosophy. Our fundamental presuppositions were
not just presuppositions, however. In Moore's mind, our fundamental
presuppositions were also objective truths about the world independent of human
attitudes or projects. The belief in the independent truth of our basic presuppositions
reflected Moore's commitment to Aristotelian realism.
This is the locus of all the difficulties in Moore's conception of 'analysis'.
The belief in the independent truth of our presuppositions is itself a substantive
metaphysical and epistemological thesis, namely Aristotelian realism, rather than the
clarification of our metaphysical presuppositions. In the light of the history of
philosophy, Moore not only took a substantive metaphysical position but a
controversial one as well. Certainly the advocates of the Copernican Revolution in
philosophy did not believe that our presuppositions were objectively true in an
Aristotelian realist sense. Moreover, some of Moore's own contemporaries like
Collingwood and the later Wittgenstein would, while agreeing that philosophy is the
clarification of presuppositions, insist that a presupposition is not and cannot be an
objective truth about the world independent of human projects in the world. From
Wittgenstein's perspective, Moore erred not in believing in common sense but in
believing that common sense could be subject to realist analysis. Starting then with
Moore, the ordinary language movement persistently obfuscated the differences
between the clarification of presuppositions and advocacy of a particular theory
about those presuppositions. As a consequence, positivist critics of ordinary
language could always dismiss ordinary language philosophy as either a
rationalization of pre-scientific prejudice (whenever ordinary language philosophers
stressed clarification of presuppositions) or a failure in getting at the deep structure
accessible only to "scientific" methods of analysis (whenever ordinary language
philosophers stressed Aristotelian realism).
When G.E. Moore did engage in 'analysis' it was (a) initially, like all
analysis, a decomposing of a complex into its simple parts, and (b) an attempt to
show that the simple parts were capable of real definition in Aristotle's sense.
However, in order to give a real definition, it is necessary to abstract correctly the
form from the matter. As we have already contended, no Aristotelian philosopher
has ever successfully solved the problem of explaining how one can abstract the form
from the matter. It comes as no surprise therefore that Moore was unable to arrive
at consensual real definitions and that his analyses constantly foundered in the same
way that all modern Aristotelian epistemology founders. For example, what emerged
was the bizarre spectacle of a philosopher who both claimed to champion common
sense and also advocated the existence of sense-data in his "clarification" of common
sense beliefs. In his typically modest and honest fashion, Moore came in his later life
to the conclusion that he was no longer sure what it meant to give an analysis.
As a movement ordinary language philosophy gota new lease on life with
the demise of positivism. When analytic philosophy in general took its 'Kantian
Turn' and rejected eliminative thinking, ordinary language philosophy was viewed
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 227

by its practitioners as a revolutionary64 philosophical movement because it had

always recognized the existence of the pre-theoretical and it had always, in
retrospect, been trying to engage in exploration.
Moore was an early prophet of the recognition of a pre-theoretical domain
thalt resists elimination. What Moore and those later inspired by his work (Ryle,
Strawson, and Austin) thought was possible was an Aristotelian exploration of the
pre-theoretical. There is thus a distinct analogy between Husserlian phenomenology
and the "linguistic phenomenology" of ordinary language philosophy. Ordinary
language philosophy focused on language instead of upon experience both because
of the by now recognized difficulties of Aristotelian epistemological analysis of
experience65 and the hope that a focus on publicly accessible entities like language
would escape those difficulties. Moreover, ordinary language became a program for
the dissolution of philosophical problems, for it was alleged that traditional
philosophical problems were almost always generated by speCUlative eliminative
hypotheses rather than exploratory clarifications. So, for example, Berkeley's
immaterialism and Cartesian dualism were speculative eliminative hypotheses rather
than clarifications of the distinctions embedded in ordinary discourse. A careful
exploration of the nuance of ordinary language would show that speculative
eliminative hypotheses were all based on the misuse of or misunderstanding of the
structure of the idiom of ordinary discourse. 66
From the point of view of ordinary language philosophy, scientism is always
an example of eliminative thinking. The critique of scientism is thus formal rather
than substantive. That is, instead of denying the truth of scientism, what ordinary
language does is to stress that it is the wrong model for analysis. Eliminative
thinking was also always equated with an emphasis on syntax as the focus of
linguistic analysis. That is why Ryle was so critical ofCarnap's earlier philosophy
oflanguage,67 and why Strawson attacked both RusselI's discussion of denotation 68
and Quine's colIapsing of the analytic-synthetic distinction. 69 In short, scientism and
syntactical analysis are taken to be rejections of or blindness to the pre-theoretical.
The general program of exploration in ordinary language philosophy can be
represented in the folIowing diagram:

{S} {usage} <----- {LANGUAGE} <-----{O}

To focus only on language per se is either to engage in empirical linguistics or to

treat language as an isolable syntactic structure. Instead, what philosophers are
supposed to be doing is focusing on usage which is the locus of the semantic
structure of our thought and speech. The pre-theoretical, in short, is housed within
the semantics of ordinary language.
Let us remind ourselves here why it is important to capture the pre-
theoretical. The pre-theoretical is important because naive empiricism is a false view
of how we think. Our thoughts and speech are not simply the result of external
stimulation. Rather, our thought and speech is structured in part from an internal or
background perspective. Those who recognize this have made the Kantian Turn.
The job of the philosopher is to clarify70 the pre-theoretical. The main area of
contention is how we are to understand the pre-theoretical. Positivism never
228 Chapter 6

recognized the pre-theoretical. In Quine's view, the pre-theoretical has an

ambivalent if not contradictory status. Sometimes it is recognized as the background
language which in principle disappears with total knowledge, and at other times it
would appear that the pre-theoretical has to remain part of the holistic system. The
ambivalence and the threat of self-contradiction is one reason why we suggested that
there is a nascent Hegelianism in Quine's system. For Kripke, the pre-theoretical can
allegedly be conceptualized in terms of modal semantics supplemented by a .new
theory of reference. For Wittgenstein, the pre-theoretical reflects a way of life, that
is, a form of cultural action. As such, the pre-theoretical cannot be conceptualized
although it can be explicated. In ordinary language philosophy, it is alleged that the
pre-conceptual can be conceptualized through the exploration of the semantic
structure of usage. 71 It should thus be clear from this focus on the pre-theoretical
why ordinary language philosophy is critical of both positivism and Quine, why it
is intrinsically different from Wittgenstein,72 and why it is closest to the view of the
neo-Carnapians like Kripke.
In recognizing the importance of the pre-theoretical, ordinary language
philosophy recognized the existence of non-empirical background structures to our
thinking. At the same time, in claiming that the pre-theoretical can be conceptualized
or that its structure can be captured through exploration, ordinary language
philosophy reveals the extent to which it is committed to modern Aristotelian
epistemology and metaphysics. The subscribers to ordinary language philosophy,
believed themselves to be engaged in an empirical analysis. In short, while the pre-
theoretical functions as a non-empirical background structure, it is assumed within
ordinary language philosophy that structure can be revealed empirically.
Let us assume for the sake of argument that the pre-theoretical can be
subject to exploratory hypotheses that are in principle empirically verifiable. That
still leaves us with the question of the status of the pre-theoretical. Does the pre-
theoretical reveal something about human beings or does it reveal something about
the world independent of human beings? Moreover, if it does reveal something
about human beings is this a revelation of something fixed about human nature or
something subject to historical development? Finally, if it reveals both (or all three)
kinds of things we have enumerated: truths about the world, (permanent truths about
human nature, variable truths about human nature), then what is the relationship
between (or among) these truths?
Clearly what we are driving at here is the extent to which ordinary language
philosophy is willing to entertain the Copernican Revolution in philosophy and/or
the extent to which ordinary language philosophy is committed to realism. When
pressed, ordinary language philosophers remained true to their Aristotelian realism.
That is precisely where ordinary language philosophy departed significantly from
Wittgenstein. What ordinary language philosophy shared with Wittgenstein was (a)
a recognition of the significance of the pre-theoretical; (b) anti-scientism; (c) the
belief that many traditional philosophical problems were to be dissolved.
Wittgenstein agonized over the fact that those associated with ordinary
language philosophy had constructed a mythological vision of his work.73 In a letter
written in 1947, Wittgenstein sawall too clearly how the Philosophical
Investigations would be misinterpreted: "The most I might expect by way of effect
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 229

is that I should first stimulate the writing of a whole lot of garbage and that then this
perhaps might provoke somebody to write something good."74 Ordinary language
philosophers construed Wittgenstein's argument against private language as a
solution to the mind-body problem when, in fact, that argument was a critique of the
possibility of the very exploration practiced by those philosophers. The crux of the
difference between Wittgenstein and ordinary language philosophers is that they
presupposed in typical Aristotelian realist fashion that linguistic usage was a natural
object with an isolable structure that could be explained independent of the user,
whereas he insisted nothing could be explained without reference to the user or
agent-subject.7 5 Wittgenstein's contempt for ordinary language explorations was
expressed in a letter in which he said: "How people can read Mind if they could read
Street and Smith [a detective magazine] beats me. Ifphilosophy has anything to do
with wisdom there's certainly not a grain of that in Mind, & quite often a grain in the
detective stories."76
Ordinary language philosophers refused to follow Wittgenstein's lead in
embracing the Copernican Revolution in philosophy with the practice of explication.
Instead they pursued exploration in an Aristotelian realist vein. That is why, for
example, when Austin sought to explain ordinary usage he created an exploratory
structure with technical terms, like 'performatives', that are not in fact part of
ordinary language.
Why did ordinary language philosophy fail as a movement? The failure can
be traced to the contlict between its root adherence to Aristotelian realism and its
refusal to embrace scientism. If it had embraced scientism then it would have
transformed itself into something indistinguishable from the neo-Carnapian version
of analytic philosophy. To begin with, ordinary language philosophy is a form of
Aristotelianism, and as such it is subject to the major difficulties that Aristotelian
epistemology faces. One such difficulty is that it cannot explain how form is
abstracted from matter, which means that in its treatment of language it is never clear
whether usage is a source of knowledge or whether usage has become the object of
knowledge. 77 Second, ordinary language philosophy engaged in exploration about
usage, but, as we have repeatedly emphasized, exploratory hypotheses cannot be
empirically confirmed. 78 The exploration would have to be supplemented with a
theory of reference both in order to establish the 'truth' about the exploration and to
ground the exploration in the objective world. Since Aristotelians cannot explain
how form is abstracted from matter, they cannot provide us with a theory of
reference. Ordinary language philosophers never responded to the challenge of
grounding their explorations by some theory ofreference, and in all fairness neither
has any analytic philosopher (e.g., Kripke). Failure to ground the exploration with
a theory of reference made it impossible in practice to distinguish between a
description of use and an exploration of usage, that is between a simple description
of some use and a normatively binding account of usage. The reader is reminded that
Wittgenstein could in principle capture the norms by grounding them in social
practices, but this way out, of course, would give up all pretension to realism. In not
following Wittgenstein's Copernican lead a great opportunity was missed in helping
Anglo-American philosophy transcend the Enlightenment Project.
230 Chapter 6

By not providing a grounding for their explorations in some theory of

reference, ordinary language philosophy's case against scientism was weakened
considerably. Specifically, it could be and was argued that the missing theory of
reference required an appeal to psychological science. For example, Gilbert Ryle
maintained in The Concept ofMind79 that there are only physical events in the world
(which is an ontological thesis) and that all statements about mental events are
categorial statements about bodily behavior (which is an exploratory linguistic
thesis). At the same time, Ryle denounced behaviorism as a form of reductive
scientism. It was difficult to see how if the first two theses were true Ryle could
avoid committing himself to some form of behaviorism. Again, without an
independent theory of reference, the attempt on the part of ordinary language
philosophers to maintain that ordinary usage sanctioned some form of human
freedom always failed to meet the challenge that ordinary usage merely embodied
pre-scientific prejudice. Thus, ordinary language philosophy could not successfully
recast classic philosophical problems such as the relation of mind to body or freedom
and determinism as dissolvable by semantic exploration of ordinary usage. Main line
analytic philosophers were in a position to claim that ordinary language philosophy
used psychological concepts in its handling of pragmatics and semantics without
explaining them. 80 This leaves open the possibility that whatever useful things come
out of ordinary language analysis can be explained at some further scientific,
specifically, psychological, level. That is, the claim could be made that the
philosophy of language must be linked with philosophical psychology.8\
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 231

NOTES (CHAPTER 6)

I. "In its fonnative phase, analytic philosophy was much concerned with the
question: What must language be like if it is to perform the role required
of it by the sciences -- whether mathematical, logical or physical?" BeIl
(1990), p. ix.

2. We remind the reader that the Enlightenment Project is expressed

epistemologicaIly by an Aristotelian naturalism and realism radically
transformed in modern times so that nature is understood mechanisticaIIy
rather than organicaIIy. Here and elsewhere expressions like 'modern
Aristotelian', 'naturalist', 'realist,' and 'empiricist' are used to convey this
historical transformation.

3. Charlton (1991): "A good theory of philosophy should map out the
isomorphism of reality, language and thought and explain why it exists" (p.
19).

4. Let us retrace, briefly, the important steps leading to the analytic

epistemological agenda.
Classical Aristotelian epistemology construed the world in terms
of {S} subjects (minds) and {O} objects, and the presence within the
subject of some internal organizing capacity. Although the details of the
abstraction process remained obscure, the role of an internal active intellect
did not seem particularly troubling because such an active inteIIect (subject)
was made continuous with nature by assuming a universal organic teleology
and/or a soul with access to divine guarantees.

{S} <----- {O}

The Enlightenment and analytic philosophical version of

Aristotelian epistemology is empiricist. Modern empiricist epistemologists
changed the model in two ways. First, they looked upon nature as
mechanical, not teleological, and, in time, came to dismiss the notion of
divine guarantees. Second, they recognized that we do not have direct
access to objects. Rather, a veil of experience is a kind of intermediary
between the mind and the object.

{S} {EXPERIENCE} <----- {O}

These changes greatly complicated the task of emptrlClst

epistemology. Since our experience is not identical to the structure of
objects as now conceived scientifically, a gap is created between our
scientific model of the structure of objects and the objects as we are
acquainted with them through our experience. This difficulty reflects the
problem of making epistemology consistent with ontology. Try as they
232 Chapter 6

might, modem Aristotelian epistemologists from Locke to Russell could not

account for how we could be sure that our experience was a reliable
representation of the objective world. This frustration gave way from time
to time to the temptation of suggesting that rather than being a source of
knowledge about objects perhaps "experience" was itself the object of
knowledge. This is a position known as phenomenalism. Phenomenalism,
however, never seemed comfortably compatible with the realism and
physicalism of scientism, for scientism is based on the belief that science is
the whole truth about an independently objective and physical world.
The other problem created for modem Aristotelian epistemologists
was that there seemed to be a substantial gap between the alleged
mechanical processes ofthe world of objects and the internal processing of
experience. This led to the temptation to toy with the "heresy" of the
Copernican Revolution (as in Hume and Kant) in which it is argued that
knowledge involves an ineliminable active element of mental constructs.
In this view, internal processing becomes a form of structuring. This
second temptation is "heretical" because it amounts to abandoning the
fundamental objectivism or realism of Aristotelian epistemology.

Kantian Turn (Copernican Revolution):

{S}-----> {EXPERIENCE} <----- {OJ

In the previous chapter we saw the extent to which Wittgenstein' s

Tractatus is the clearest expression of the aims of analytic epistemology, the
difficulties to which analytic epistemology is subject, and the dilemmas to
which the recognition of those difficulties leads. According to Wittgenstein,
knowledge cannot be represented as itself a natural (mechanical) process.
The reason why knowledge cannot be presented as a natural process is that
the form (structure) is not separable or isolable from matter, and hence there
cannot be a natural (mechanical) representation of the process by which we
mentally "abstract" the form from the matter. In Wittgenstein's language,
we cannot picture (i.e., provide a mechanical model of) the process of
picturing.
As we indicated in the previous chapter, there are two major
responses to Wittgenstein's Tractatus dissolution.
First, one can agree that we cannot present knowledge as a natural
(mechanical) process but nevertheless insist that knowing is a natural
process! This first response, Quine's response, amounts to that version of
intellectual schizophrenia in which we agree to speak in two separate ways
in two separate contexts and also agree to ignore the lack of coherence in
these two separate ways of speaking. In short, Quine abandons the attempt
to make analytic epistemology coherent with analytic metaphysics.
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 233

Quine's naturalized epistemology:

{S} <----«{s} -[modeling]----> {EXPERIENCE} <----- {O}»

As the reader can see, this is just a more complicated version of the modern
Aristotelian approach. The {S} in Quine still appeals to a background
language whose status and meaning begs all the fundamental
epistemological issues.
Second, one can refuse to accept the implications of the Tractatus
dissolution and continue the search for new and better ways of carrying out
the analytic program of showing how knowledge can be rendered as a
natural (mechanical) process and thereby try to make analytic epistemology
coherent with analytic metaphysics (i.e., scientism). This is what the neo-
Carnapians (Kripke) try to do.

Kripke:

«{S} <----> ({s} -[modeling]--->{EXPERIENCE}<----{O}) »

There is, of course, no way in which we can discuss how the « » in Kripke
can be rendered verifiable or how we would choose among alternative
accounts of it.
Third, one can abandon the analytic project altogether, acquiesce
in the Copernican Revolution and try to understand knowledge acquisition
as a cultural process instead ofa wholly natural (mechanical) process. This
is what Wittgenstein did in his later work. From Wittgenstein's point of
view any diagram (model/picture) must ofnecessity have an {S} that stands
outside of the natural process; either that {S} is going to be Hegel's
absolute or it is going to be the common sense world that cannot be
encompassed within any naturalistic or theoretical framework.
With the movement to the philosophy oflanguage, a new diagram
emerged.

{S} {LANGUAGE} <-----{O}

Again, it was assumed that the relation between {LANGUAGE}

and {O}, just like the prior relation between {EXPERIENCE} and {O},
could be explained both as a natural process and without reference to
ineliminable activities on the part of the subject (agent, speaker, etc.).

5. Carnap (1963),p. 29.

6. "It was not clear whether he [Wittgenstein] thought that the logically valid
sentences with variables of higher levels, e.g., variables for classes, for
classes of classes, etc., have the same tautological character. At any rate,
he did not count the theorems of arithmetic, algebra, etc., among the
234 Chapter 6

tautologies. But to the members of the [Vienna] Circle there did not seem
to be a fundamental difference between elementary logic and higher logic,
including mathematics" Carnap (1963), p. 47.

7. Almost everything that analytic philosophy is against is characterizable as

the denial that Talk2 can be absorbed into Talk! (non-Aristotelian
metaphysics, e.g., Platonism, dualisms of any kind, Copernicanism,
synthetic a priori, psychologism, idealism, etc.). Although Aristotle
believed it was possible to conceptualize the pre-theoretical, Aristotle
believed in a thoroughly teleological universe. Medieval Aristotelians and
Thomists supplemented the teleological naturalism with a supernaturalism.
Modem and contemporary Aristotelians are materialists who deny
the existence of teleology and often deny the existence of God. How is it
going to be possible to conceptualize the pre-conceptual without either
natural or supernatural teleology? Hegel needed the teleology, and he
denied the materialism. Marx combined the materialism with the teleology
(historicism).

8. See Chapter Three for a lengthy discussion of this distinction.

9. The notion that logic constitutes the study of relationships among certain
symbols reflects the fundamental belief among some analytic philosophers
that symbols can have relationships independent of the users of the
symbols. It is premised on the belief that parts (e.g., symbols) can have
meaning apart from the whole to which they belong and thus can be learned
incrementally. This harks back to the original idea of analysis that we can
and must proceed from the part to the whole. In retrospect, analysis can
now be seen as the epistemological counterpart of an atomistic mechanical
ontology, and the opposition to Hegel is the opposition to an organic
ontology.

10. CharIton (1991), p. 17.

11. Perry (1986), p. 139.

12. It wiJI be said by analytic critics of explication that social actions are still
natural events and therefore have a "hidden structure" that can be studied
like any other natural object. If the defenders of explication respond by
saying that such actions cannot be understood independent of human
attitudes toward those actions and that such attitudes are an integral part of
the action, then the analytic critics of explication will respond by claiming
that human attitudes are natural objects with a "hidden structure" that can
be studied like any other natural object. This is why it is important to note
that in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of the social sciences,
and the derivative views of axiology, analytic philosophers must at least
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 235

implicitly adhere to some kind of belief in determinism, however qualified,

with respect to human beings.

13. John Dewey made a wonderfully clear case for this in the psychology of
learning as early as (1896). In the philosophy of language, Heidegger and
his followers argue that the distinctions between language and reality, sense
and reference, intension and extension, are all derivative from the social
context. Hottois (1983), p. 125: "The confrontation between Heidegger and
Wittgenstein makes sense when one reads their works as complex reactions
to the seizure of referential language - or discourse about extra-linguistic
reality - by science."

14. Romanos (1983).

15. At a fateful meeting in 1940 at Harvard, Quine found himself with Russell,
Carnap, and Tarski to discuss Carnap's manuscript Introduction to
Semantics. It was at this point that Quine challenged Carnap's views on
analyticity. The importance of the controversy for the history of analytic
philosophy can be indicated here. What Quine argued was that scientism
could not be adequately defended by a narrow empiricism, i.e., by the
Lockean version of Aristotelianism to be found in Russell and Carnap,
among others. What is needed is a better empiricism. What constitutes a
better empiricism is a collapsing of the distinction between analytic and
synthetic truths. So, instead of maintaining that mathematical truths are
analytic a priori, Quine maintains that all truths are synthetic. In order to
make all truths synthetic, Quine has had to argue that truths cannot be tested
individually but only as a whole system. Nowhere does Quine challenge
scientism, Aristotelianism, and the anti-agency view of the self. On the
contrary, he reaffirms them on what he considers a more secure basis.

16. Quine (1975), pp. 74-75.

17. Davidson faces the same problem. We cannot "get outside our beliefs and
our language so as to find some test other than coherence, we nevertheless
can have knowledge of and talk about, an objective public world which is
not of our own making" Davidson (1983a), pp. 426-27.

18. The subjunctive conditional "and the propositional attitudes set aside, and
modality and intentional abstraction dropped, and quotation reduced to
spelling, and the indicative conditional canalized, no evident reason remains
for" going beyond elementary logic. Quine (1960), p. 228.

19. See Romanos (1983), pp. 154-57.

20. Dilman (1984), p. 127.

236 Chapter 6

2l. Dilman (1984), Chapter Six.

22. See Pears (1971), p. 183.

23. "It was Wittgenstein, in On Certainty, who grasped the significance of

Moore's defense of common sense better than Moore himself" Baldwin
(1990),p.135.

24. Wittgenstein's "position has some very unpalatable consequences for

anyone of even moderately physicalist tendencies ... i.e., understanding is
not supervenient on a person's (internal) physical properties" McGinn
(1984), p. 113.

25. The traditional analytic philosophical view is that theoretical reason is and
ought to be primary and that it is explicable in a manner totally independent
of practice. This view is reflected in the emphasis on value-free social
science. "Belief seems to be something much needed in practical actions:
man is a believing animal because he is an acting animal. The theoretician,
qua theoretician, can do without it" Popper (1983), p. 62.

26. 6.127.

27. Formal analysis always terminates in the non-formal. In Frege,

epistemology was conceived of as justifying non-inferential judgements,
whereas logic was conceived of as being concerned with inference from one
judgment to another judgment. Logical laws did not themselves define
truth, rather truth was presupposed. Frege then went on to characterize
truth in psychological terms as a form of assertion. See Sluga (1980), p.
115. This attempt continued in the Grundgesetze. In the essay "Function
and Concept," Frege had contended that concepts are necessarily
incomplete and that we cannot make identity statements about them.
Finally, categorial distinctions cannot be stated in the theory in which they
obtain. All of this is Frege's Platonic version ofWittgenstein's Copernican
views.
This insight recalls Frege's original distinction between axioms and
rules. Frege had pointed out that axioms themselves cannot be used without
reference to a rule. Recall Charles L. Dodson's (i.e., Lewis Carroll) point
about a vicious regress. Every inference requires another premise to
connect any premise with its derivations. What we need to avoid this
regress is a different category of entity, namely a rule. Frege's point is the
same as the one Wittgenstein got from Brouwer, despite Frege's rejection
of intuitionism. It is also a point foreshadowing G6del's proof that the total
formalization of mathematics is impossible. Neither Frege nor G6del, both
of whom were Platonists, would have been puzzled by this. But to the
"Aristotelian" Wittgenstein of the Tractatus this was indeed puzzling.
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 237

28. Wittgenstein came to reject "the classical (realist) Frege-Tractatus view that
the general form of explanation of meaning is a statement of the truth-
conditions. [Remarks, I, App. 1,6]. This provides a motive for the rejection
... of the Platonist picture [of mathematics] .... " Dummett (1959), p. 348.

29. Wittgenstein (1980), p. 31; see also p. 46, and (1958), 546; Wittgenstein' s
reference, as he notes, is to Goethe, Faust, Part I (In the Study).

30. See Capaldi (1987).

31. The same point is made by Gadamer in his notion of the fusion of horizons
which shifts historically. Piaget has also stressed the consensual element in
the recognition of universals.

32. "No saying says of itself all it wants to say .... Every text presents itself
as a fragment of a context ... an idea acquires its authentic content and its
true and precise 'meaning' only in fulfilling the active role for which it was
invented and which consists in its functioning with regard to a given
situation." Ortega (1963), pp.98-99.

33. Wittgenstein (1958), 120.

34. Dummett (1978), p. 448, calls Wittgenstein a "defeatist" because

Wittgenstein believed it to be impossible to see how a theory of meaning
could be constructed which explained the meanings of assertoric sentences
in terms of a direct connection between the utterance of such sentences and
the non-linguistic behavior of the speakers and hearers.

35. Chomsky (1966), p. 35.

36. Fodor (1975), p. 121.

37. Another good historical example is Spinoza and his view about four kinds
or levels of knowledge that culminate "somehow" in seeing the essence.
The metaphysical counterpart to this unique epistemological endpoint is
Aristotle's unmoved mover or Spinoza's causa sui. All this would seem to
indicate that analytic philosophy can become intelligible only by accepting
some form of teleology. It is, however, difficult ifnot impossible to square
this teleology with the determinism of a mechanistic view of science.

38. Dummett (1978), p. 441.

39. Ibid.

40. The evolution in Camap's thinking from syntax to semantics can be seen
in (1934); in (1936) where Camap had originally thought of pragmatics as
238 Chapter 6

a purely descriptive and empirical discipline; (1939), (1942), (1943),

(1947); and (1963), p. 861, with Carnap emphasizing the "urgent need for
a system of theoretical pragmatics". Wang (1986), p. 121, claims that
Carnap's treatment is "semantics only in appearance, but syntax in
substance" .

41. "Something we have all learned to do is interpret any sentence on (an

infinite fragment of) English, given merely its physical make-up. Since we
are finite beings, there must in principle be some way of representing this
practical ability theoretically: by a finitely stated theory which is
informative enough to enable one who knows the theory to interpret any
sentence in (the relevant infinite fragment of) English. In short, there must
be a finitely statable theory of meaning for English" Sainsbury (1979), p.
159.

42. "In looking for a theory of truth and a theory of primitive reference we are
trying to explain the connection between language and (extralinguistic)
reality, but we are not trying to step outside of our theories of the world in
order to do so. Our accounts of primitive reference and of truth are not to
be thought of as something that could be given by philosophical reflection
prior to scientific information -- on the contrary, it seems likely that such
things as psychological models of human beings and investigations of
neurophysiology will be very relevant to discovering the mechanisms
involved in reference. The reasons why accounts of truth and primitive
reference are needed is not to tack our conceptual scheme onto reality from
the outside; the reason, rather, is that without such accounts our conceptual
scheme breaks down from the inside" Field (1972), p. 373.

43. The logic has to be intensional because we are speaking about possibilities
rather than actualities. Nelson Goodman had suggested that talk about
possibilities could be reformulated as talk about actualities. However, there
were problems with his suggestion. Lewis (J 973), has taken a realist
position on possible worlds. Lewis grants that there are linguistic
conventions involved but he goes on to argue that conventions are
regularities in action which are arbitrary but perpetuate themselves because
they serve some common interest. What is interesting about Lewis'
approach is that he proposed to explore the hidden structure of conventions,
thus carrying out a realist analysis on another level. According to Lewis,
a convention is a kind of hypothesis which involves an implicit commitment
to truth. So we have a concession to the existence of non-empirical
elements in our thinking (' Kantian Turn') but an attempt to transcend these
elements by appeal to something else which is empirical. Unfortunately, for
Lewis, the something else can only be understood in vague teleological
terms. In the end, we have another exploration which cannot be confirmed.
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 239

44. Dummett maintains, in opposition to Kripke, that everything Kripke says

about the reference of proper names can be said about the reference of
definite descriptions, and vice versa. Hence there is no basis for choosing
between these views. Once more we are confronted by explorations
amongst which we have no empirical basis for choosing.

45. Kripke (1972), p. 93. seems to recognize this shortcoming as when he says
that his views do not amount, strictly speaking, to a theory; rather, he claims
to be offering a "better picture."

46. " ... the growing professionalization of philosophy has made it particularly
easy for deductivist analytic philosophy to detach itself from the central
issues of contemporary culture. The denser the milieu of journals, graduate
schools, research institutes, etc. within which contemporary philosophical
dialogue takes place, the easier it is for a philosopher who takes his
problems exclusively from other philosophers to believe that these problems
merit discussion just because they are also discussed by other philosophers.
The Vienna Circle contained more non-philosophers than philosophers, and
was deeply interested in the theoretical problems of non-philosophical
disciplines. But the effect of the post-1945 expansion of university life
throughout the world has been that an immense forum of purely
philosophical discussion has now been created, within which philosophers
can much more easily cease to be concerned about the relevance of their
work to other intellectual issues. Their self-esteem is sufficiently
maintained by the approval of other participants in the professional dialogue
or even by the approval of just their own immediate colleagues, if the latter
are sufficiently numerous. This effect has been enhanced by the vastly
greater opportunities now available for philosophers to publish at article-
length rather than at book-length: indeed some influential writers (for
example, H.P. Grice, D. Davidson, and H. Putnam) have published almost
exclusively this way. What happens is that within the narrow span of a
minutely argued article in a professional journal it is an obvious waste of
space to rehearse whatever non-philosophical considerations may have
given rise to, or be at stake in the general issue under discussion, and so
newcomers to the profession are sometimes no longer made aware that
these considerations still exist" Cohen (1986), pp. 138-39.

47. " ... [a] conventionalist version of the analytic conception oflanguage [i.e.,
neo-Carnapian] is therefore still, in a sense, a picture theory oflanguage .
. . [it] just opts for a different theory of picturing altogether ... the world
is not determinate apart from language, but . . . our conceptions or
understanding of the world, as constituted in language, are ... Conceding
that there is no way the world really is, they continue to adhere to the view
that there is a way we really say it is or conceive it to be .... " Romanos
(1983), pp. 38-39.
240 Chapter 6

48. " ... we can meaningfully and nontrivially discuss the links between our
language and reality ... [this] requires a tacit reinterpretation of the
representative relationships between language and reality: a sentence is
valid if and only if it is true on every possible reinterpretation of its non-
logical ... concepts. Hence a completeness proof ... presupposes the idea
ofianguage as calculus" Hintikka (1981), vol. I, pp. 58-59.

49. Rescher (1973a).

50. For a thoroughgoing comparison see Hacker (1996), Chapter Seven.

51. Quine (l969a), p. 49.

52. I am indebted here to the work of Dilman (1984) and McDonough (1986).

53. Hacker (1996), p. 227.

54. Wittgenstein (1958), 89.

55. Dilman (1984), p. 59.

56. It is remarkable how powerful is the rhetorical appeal to the notion that
philosophical arguments ought not to preclude the possibility of scientific
research projects and that exploration in the philosophy of language is just
such a project. This indicates the pervasive power of science as an
institution in our culture, and it reinforces the extent to which scientism is
a fundamental doctrine for many analytic philosophers. But we wish to
stress that the appeal is purely rhetorical, and the reason for this is that
analytic philosophy has never established the autonomous philosophical
credentials of science.

57. Kanbartel and Schneider (1981), vol. I, pp. 155-178.

58. "It seems more reasonable, however, to think that Wittgenstein does not feel
the need to answer the sceptical paradox at all. To assume that he is trying
to do that, is to assume that he was still wedded to a picture of meaning
determinacy that was once his -- precisely the view of the analytic tradition
. . .. Perhaps, unlike Kripke, Wittgenstein is no longer concerned to
capture as much as possible of these ideals ... it might be that Wittgenstein
is simply out to debunk the ideals of that tradition ... opting out of that
tradition altogether, and for a different account of meaning attribution"
Sacks (1990), p. 188.

59. "I cannot found a school because I do not really want to be imitated. Not
at any rate by those who publish articles in philosophical journals."
Wittgenstein (1980), 61; the following comment was originally intended for
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 241

the preface ofthe Investigations: "It is not without reluctance that I deliver
this book to the public. It will fall into hands which are not for the most
part those in which I like to imagine it. May it soon -- this is what I wish
for it -- be completely forgotten by the philosophical journalists, and so be
preserved perhaps for a better sort of reader" Wittgenstein (1980), 66.

60. " ... we might feel that the analytic tradition has run its course" Sacks
(1990), p. 193.

61. This movement, which was centered at Oxford, achieved its greatest
influence in the Anglo-American philosophical world from the end of
WWII until the early 1960's. For reasons that will become clear in the main
body of the text in went into decline and has all but disappeared. As a
movement it is sometimes known as "linguistic philosophy", but this
expression should not be confused with the 'philosophy of language' as a
whole. "Linguistic philosophy" refers to a specific set of views about
language and a particular version of the philosophy oflanguage.
For an excellent discussion of "analytic philosophy" as seen from
the British perspective see Hacker (1996): "To a large extent, contemporary
North American philosophy is the outcome of grafting the later ideas of
members of the [Vienna] Circle on to the native American pragmatist stock.
The impact of the later Wittgenstein's philosophy in the United States was
relatively brief, and was coincident with the influence of what was
popularly and misleadingly known as 'Oxford Linguistic Philosophy' or
'Ordinary Language Philosophy'. Ironically, it had to contend with the
lively and flourishing post-positivist tradition which had descended, inter
alia, from the Tractatus. By the mid-1960s its influence was already
declining, and twenty years later it was evident that in many respects the
spirit of the Tractatus, merged with the scientific and occasionally
scientistic character of post-positivist ideas derived in part from members
of the Circle, had triumphed over the spirit of the Investigations and its
Oxonian offspring" (p. 1).

62. The pervasiveness of "Oxford Aristotelianism" has been noted by Sorabji

(1969), and Turnbull (1979) p. 27; Passmore (1985), p. 17, has also called
attention to " ... the centrality of Aristotle for Oxford-trained philosophers
"

63. Moore, for example, rejected Russell's analysis of "implies" as material

implication because Russell's analysis was incompatible with our common
sense intuitions.

64. Three books that present this image of ordinary language philosophy are:
(1) Ryle (1956); (2) Urmson (1956); and (3) Warnock (1958). Warnock's
book is particularly interesting in presenting what can only be described as
a mythological history of philosophy. Warnock sees Russell and Moore are
242 Chapter 6

reviving the "Great British Tradition" of empirical analysis (i.e.,

Aristotelianism) that was established by Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.
Wittgenstein is co-opted into ordinary language philosophy, and, with the
help of Strawson and Ryle, the movement culminates in John Austin. F.H.
Bradley is seen as an aberration in the history of British thought and
Collingwood is not mentioned. As opposed to Warnock, we would suggest
(1) that Hume was anti-Aristotelian and a part of the Copernican
Revolution in Philosophy; (2) the later Wittgenstein was an advocate of
explication and a subscriber to the Copernican Revolution and not to the
exploration of ordinary language philosophy; (3) that far from being an
aberration, Bradley's advocacy of Hegelian idealism can be seen in
retrospect as continuous with the main line of Western thought which
terminates in the Copernican Revolution; and (4) that as analytic philosophy
returns to Hegel, it is Russell, Moore, and Moore's followers who may
come to be viewed as aberrations.

65. Austin's (1962) critique of Ayer on sense data is the classic statement.
Ayer remained a logical positivist and is, therefore, not to be counted as part
of the ordinary language philosophical movement.

66. Perhaps the earliest statement of ordinary language as a program for

dissolving philosophical problems was Ryle's (1932), p. 61. There, Ryle
declared that "philosophical analysis" is "the sole and whole function of
Philosophy" and that philosophical analysis is "the detection of the sources
in linguistic idioms of recurrent misconstructions and absurd theories."

67. Ryle ( 1949b).

68. Straws on (1950).

69. Grice and Strawson (1956).

70. The choice of metaphor here is important. Ifwe talk about "remembering"
(Plato) or "retrieving" (Heidegger) or "explicating" (Wittgenstein, e.g.) we
are engaged in an activity that requires self-consciousness on the part of
social agents. Ifwe talk about "hidden" or "deep" (Chomsky) structure or
"archeology" (Foucault) then we are engaged in an activity that requires
denying the importance of such agents.

71. The classic statement is in Hare (1960). Hare draws analogies between
language and actions, e.g., dance, and he sees the analogy with Plato's
reminiscence, but in the end, he still thinks that what we rediscover is some
kind of structure within pre-conceptual thought/language.

72. Ordinary language philosophers have routinely, but mistakenly, seen

Wittgenstein as following in Moore's footsteps. Ryle ([1951],1971), pp.
 Analytic Philosophy And Language 243

256-57. If Ryle had seen the true nature of Wittgenstein's project of

explication then RyIe would probably have said of Wittgenstein what he
once said of Heidegger: "Similarly, the attempt to derive our knowledge of
'thing' from our practical attitude towards tools breaks down; for to use a
tool involves knowledge of what it is, what can be done with it, and what
wants doing" Ryle ([ 1928], 1971), p. 212.

73. "Those of us who attended his lectures during the Second World War or
during his last two years of teaching there [Cambridge], in 1946 and 1947
... struck Wittgenstein as intolerably stupid. He would denounce us to our
faces as unteachable, and at times he despaired of getting us to recognize
what sort of point he was trying to get across ... we were happy to lap up
the examples ... and bring them to bear on those preconceived, Anglo-
American questions. His denunciations we ignored ... [we were] an
audience of students whose philosophical questions had been shaped by the
neo-Humean (and so pre-Kantian) empiricism of Moore, Russell and their
colleagues" Janik and Toulmin (1973), pp. 21-22. In a less sympathetic
but nevertheless insightful vein, Mure noted that "Mr. P.F. Strawson called
Wittgenstein 'the first philosopher of the age.' One might think him at any
rate a good one-eyed king among the blind" Mure (1958), p. 156.

74. Wittgenstein (1980), p. 62; see also p. 66.

75. One example should suffice here. In his critique of Russell's account of
denoting, P.F. Strawson was originally ambiguous about whether the
statement "The present King of France is bald" is to be understood
semantically (i.e. presupposing is a logical relation between statements such
that if Sj presupposes ~, then ~ is true or follows only if2S is true) or
pragmatically (sentences are not always true or false, that is bi-valence can
be challenged because everything depends on the intentions ofthe speaker
or the social context). In the end, Strawson opted for the former semantic
construal which remains anti-agent and does not fundamentally challenge
the empiricist program.

76. Malcolm (1970), p. 36.

77. See Gellner (1959). Ryle, who was then editor of Mind, refused to have
Gellner's satirical critique of ordinary language philosophy reviewed.
Russell had written an introduction to Gellner's book in which he noted the
divergence between what he had done and the different direction taken by
Moore and Moore's followers. Part of the problem with Gellner's book is
its running together of positivists like Ayer with Wittgenstein as well as
Moore's followers. For a critique of Gellner and the difficulties involved
in sorting out who belongs where see Dummett (1960).
244 Chapter 6

78. " ... inductive extrapolations are always underdetermined by their data .
. . the problem is always how to pick out ... those features that are to be
held relevant to the task of analogizing or generalization" Cohen (1986),
pp. 112-13.

79. Ryle (1949a).

80. See Dummett (1978), p. 444.

81. Ordinary language philosophy survives in two ways. First, there are
practitioners like Grice who claim only to be attempting to sketch out
(explore) the informal logic of conversation. This is indistinguishable from
empirical linguistics. Second, one might maintain a two-tier view in which
ordinary language analysis spells out what is occurring on our linguistic
level (an exploration) with the proviso that this is compatible with whatever
science discovers at any other level. In this second form, ordinary language
philosophy has succumbed to the scient ism of main line analytic
philosophy.
 CHAPTER 7

Analytic Philosophical Psychology!

Introduction
The Enlightenment Project in the analytic conversation is founded on scientism, the
presupposition that science can explain everything and legitimate itself. Rather than
establishing the autonomy of science, analytic philosophy of science found that
science relies upon a pre-theoretical domain. Unable to establish scientism in its
analysis of science, proponents of the Project substituted the more modest goal of
providing an account of the pre-theoretical domain in a manner consistent with
scientism. Specifically, they sought to provide a "scientific" account of knowledge
acquisition. If successful, this would constitute a naturalist epistemology. Unable
to do this in the idiom of traditional epistemology, proponents embraced the
linguistic turn and sought to establish a naturalist epistemology through an analysis
oflanguage. Problems in the analytic philosophy oflanguage led proponents of the
Project to seek in psychology the possibility of a naturalist epistemology. Searle's
observation on Austin expresses this view:

... philosophical analysis of language is part of the general

analysis of human behavior. ... [T]he philosophy oflanguage is
not 'first philosophy'; it is a branch of the philosophy ofmind. 2

For the moment we shall suspend the objections that have been made, and
stat,,:d in the previous chapters, to the very intelligibility of this project and, instead,
follow the train of the argument. As we shall see, the same objections will recur in
this train.
Psychology is the study of the individual human being insofar as this can
be done independent of social, historical, and cultural factors. Philosophical
psychology is the articulation of the philosophical presuppositions of psychology as
an enterprise thus understood. As Joseph Margolis has expressed it:

[If] there can be no science of psychology or of social or cultural

phenomena .... [This] would generate a conceptual scandal. ... 3

Analytic philosophical psychology is the articulation of the philosophical

presuppositions of psychology from the point of view of the Enlightenment Project,
itself understood as comprising scientism, modern Aristotelian naturalism, and an
anti-agent view of the self. Scientism is articulated by Daniel Dennett as follows:

My sense that philosophy is allied with, and indeed continuous

with, the physical sciences grounds both my modesty about
philosophical method and my optimism about philosophical
progress. 4

As Colin McGinn says, the physical world is "anterior to the mind in its intrinsic
nature."5 Analytic accounts of philosophical psychology invariably begin with
246 Chapter 7

Descartes and the incompatibility of his discussion with scientism. Lycan is a recent
example:

Immaterial Cartesian minds and ghostly non-physical events were

increasingly seen to fit ill with our otherwise physical and
scientific picture of the world. . .. Since human beings evolved
over aeons, by purely physical processes of mutation and natural
selection, from primitive creatures such as one-celled organisms
which did not have minds, it is anomalous to suppose that at some
point Mother Nature (in the form of population genetics) somehow
created immaterial Cartesian minds .... 6

Searle expresses it as follows:

... most of our metaphysics is derived from physics . . . two

features of our conception of reality are not up for grabs ... the
atomic theory of matter and the evolutionary theory of biology
. . . living systems evolve through natural selection . . . .
Consciousness is a biological, and therefore physical, though of
course also mental, feature of certain higher-level nervous
systems, such as brains .... 7

The Enlightenment Project: Introspection and the Central Role of Cognition8

The commitment to scientism does not entail that psychology is a legitimate science
but only that human beings can be understood in terms of some science or collection
of sciences. The exact level at which meaningful scientific laws will be found would
be a contingent matter to be determined by empirical investigation. The assumption
that it makes sense to study individual human beings independent of social,
historical, and cultural factors does not deny that such factors exist or are important
or influential. Rather, it assumes that the interaction of human beings with those
factors and with each other can be best understood by first isolating what is true of
the individual independent of those factors. The foregoing assumption is consistent
with the overall program of analysis in which it is presumed that parts can be
identified and understood prior to wholes.
The assumption that individual human beings are the focus of analysis
reflects important historical precedents we shall discuss shortly, but it also reflects
the larger axiological program of the Enlightenment Project. Specifically, the
Enlightenment Project proclaims that there is a social technology based upon a
scientific understanding of human beings such that the social technology can solve
human problems. As Randall reminds us:

... intellectual hedonism. The sole spring of action in man is the

rational foreseeing of pleasures and pains, the only human motive
is rational self-interest, the conscious calculating and choosing of
the more pleasant course. This principle sprang also from the
model of Newtonian science: human nature must be rational, like
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 247

the universe; and from a strong reformer's motive: you can

calculate, predict, and control the action of such men. . .. It is
much harder to legislate for a bundle of irrational impulses. 9

While officially endorsing the view that human beings are machines and
that all of human nature including human cognition could be explained
physiologically and mechanically, the philosophes also recognized that they were
neither in possession of the scientific account nor did they have a clear idea of what
such an account would be like nor how to provide it. In the absence of such an
account, the philosophes turned to introspection as a "temporary" methodological
device.
Introspection was not an idle choice. It reflected, in part, the inheritance of
the classical epistemological perspective. Like all forms of classical epistemology,
classical Aristotelian realist epistemology adopted the "I Think" perspective. That
is, it is a perspective in which the epistemologist views himself/herself as an subject
confronted with an external world of objects which he/she must somehow
understand. The primary task is thus construed as theoretical. All structure or
meaning is external, objective, and independent of the subject. Within such a
perspective, human beings are viewed as isolable thinking subjects facing an
independent and objective world, and the relationship of human beings to the world
is primarily theoretical. Because of this essentially intellectual standpoint, theoretical
knowledge is held to be fundamental, and practical knowledge is held to be
derivative. The "I Think" perspective was taken over by most modern
epistemological perspectives, including modern Aristotelian epistemology.
The "I Think" perspective created no special problems for classical
epistemology. This was so because ofthe larger enveloping organic and teleological
ontology of the classical Aristotelian world view. In an organic universe the
relationship between the subject-agent and the object involves a qualitative exchange,
but given the over-arching teleology the exchange does not radically transform the
world but helps the world realize itself. Moreover, since truth resides within the
larger net ofteleological relationships there is no potential conflict between how any
single individual agent interacts with the world and how others would interact or
between how the single individual interacts and the social context.
All of this changes when modern naturalists adopt a physicalist world view
in place of an organic world view. One of the major doctrines of the Enlightenment
Project is an anti-agency conception of the self; both elimination and exploration
ultimately intend to replace the classical subject. To adopt an "I Think" perspective
is going to create serious internal tensions.
Descartes was among the first to identify this problem or range of problems
by recognizing the divide between a physical world and a mental world, where the
former was construed as mechanical and the latter in traditional organic (classical and
Christian) terms. This became known as the mind-body problem in the later
literature that rejected Descartes' resolution. 1O The mind-body problem is not
Descartes' problem but a problem for naturalists trying to close the gap in favor of
the body.
248 Chapter 7

The "mind-body problem" is an ontological problem concerning the status

of the "mental" or "inner" realm. Ontologically speaking, we can ask whether there
are two different kinds of things, minds and bodies, or are there just bodies as the
proponents of scientism keep insisting. The "mind-body" problem is also an
epistemological problem concerning the difference between how we come to know
"ourselves" and how we presumably know the physical world. We seem to be able
to speak meaningfully about knowledge, including self-knowledge and scientific
knowledge, without any monistic or univocal account of knowledge and even in the
absence of any physiological account of how cognition allegedly takes place. The
"mind-body problem" is, most importantly, a fundamental philosophical problem
about the coherence of metaphysics and epistemology within the Enlightenment
Project in general and analytic philosophical psychology in particular. Specifically,
can there be an account of cognition that does not at some level presuppose the
existence of a pre-theoretical domain that is not conceptualizable in any theoretical
way?
The philosophes were empiricists or modern naturalistic epistemologists.
For them, it is through experience that we can gain access to the truths that refer to
objective structures:
1. They continued to be realists in believing that truth was the apprehension
of an external structure;
2. that apprehension involved the "] Think" perspective; and
3. that apprehension was a primarily theoretical or cognitive affair. But
experience was now understood to be a mechanical process of inputs.
Experience is the internal physical processing ofexternal physical stimuli.
Introspection is the adoption of the "I Think" perspective only turned
inward instead of outward. This immediately raised a problem. The internal
processing of external stimuli must be explainable without reference to an
autonomous agent, i.e., the world consists ultimately only of objects, and a putative
subject must be a concatenation ofsub-objects. The immediate problem inherent in
introspection is that the introspective process, by being a species of "I Think," starts
out by presupposing the very "I" that should be one of the objects of its investigation
and which, at some point, is supposed not to exist!
One way of handling this dualism was first to distinguish between the "12"
of the "I Think" perspective and the "I)" of the inner agent. Then, it was claimed that
the "I)" of the inner agent does not exist, at least not in a directly apprehendable state.
Witness Hume's denial that we can introspect a "self." This leaves "12" with a
problematic status.
The reader should note that the distinction being drawn here between "12"
and "I I" is the analogue to the distinction drawn in previous chapters between "Talk d'
and "Talk)". Just as it became necessary somehow to treat "Talk 2 " as a form of
''Talkt, so it will be necessary, eventually, in analytic philosophical psychology to
reinterpret "12" as a form of "I )". How this "I 2" gets interpreted within analytic
philosophical psychology will depend upon the particular stage of development
within that movement as shall see below. I ) Needless to say, this version of the
problem calls attention to the issue of self-reference in the most direct possible way.
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 249

The Enlightenment Project was committed to denying the existence of an

internal active intellect, but in a strangely incongruent fashion it sought to originate
this eliminative process by asking each "subject" to look within "himself." Hume
calls attention to this incongruence by saying that there is a difference between the
common sense "I" with which we begin the introspective process and the "I" of the
philosophers. To be sure, when we "each" introspect none of us can find the
subject/self as an object. This fundamental philosophical problem is reflected in
two other issues that arose in the eighteenth century. One such issue is the problem
of "personal identity." Since within the modem naturalist epistemological tradition,
the "self' is not a direct object of observation, how does each individual come to
know himself or his self? That is, what does it mean for "12 " to know "II"? or what
is it that is being apprehended?
A second such issue is the ''problem of other minds." If my own mind
(subject, self) is not something that I can directly apprehend as an object in
introspection, then clearly I cannot apprehend or observe as an object the mind of
someone else. How then do I know that there are other human beings with minds?
How can there be a social world? How, in fact, do I know that there is anything other
than the contents of my own consciousness (solipsism)? How do we account for
other "I 2s"?
Introspection turned out to be an unmitigated disaster for both the
Enlightenment Project and later for analytical philosophical psychology. From its
inception during the Enlightenment, human nature was construed ambivalently as
both ultimately physical in nature but allegedly accessed through introspection.
Introspection was not the observation of the external physical/physiological realm
but the observation of an "inner" domain (comprising, among other things, present
experience, thought, feelings/emotions, memory, and imagination). The existence
and status of this "inner" domain and its relation to the external physical world
remained problematic and controversial. Thus, right from the beginning, the project
seemed to be contaminated with the very dualism that it was committed to
eliminating.
The appeal to introspection either generated or left unresolved the classic
empiricist issues of (a) the "mind-body problem," (b) the problem of "personal
identity," (c) the "problem of other minds," and (d) solipsism. Finally, introspection
leads to the sins of the Copernican Revolution: idealism and psychologism.

Analytic Philosophical Psychology as Elimination

The objectives of the Enlightenment Project in analytic philosophical psychology are
to (a) provide a scientific conception of human nature, (b) eliminate the existence of
an irreducible subject, and (c) maintain a monistic ontology that is physicalist. To
the I~xtent that we are forced to talk about anything 'mental' this talk must be either
temporary or reinterpreted so as to maintain (a), (b) and (c).
Analytic philosophy began in the twentieth century by trying again to use
introspection to solve problems generated by the introspective approach. In the
Problems of Philosophy (1912), Russell originally asserted that we could be aware
of the perceiver, but he quickly abandoned that view for a reduction of the subject
to sense-data. 12 Carnap, in the Aufbau, had declared that "The Given Does not Have
250 Chapter 7

a Subject."13 After repeating all of the errors of the eighteenth century, positivists
abandoned introspection in epistemology in general and in philosophical psychology
in particular. In place of sense-data, these philosophers introduced the physicalist
program, and the analogue to physicalism in philosophical psychology was
behaviorism. 14
The history of analytic philosophical psychology in the twentieth century
followed the now familiar pattern of an initial eliminative stage and a subsequent
stage of exploration. Elimination as a methodology seeks to replace our ordinary
understanding with a more scientific understanding. Within the discipline of
psychology itself the rejection of introspection in the late nineteenth-century heralded
the beginning of an eliminative scientific psychology. The seminal figures in this
movement were J.B. Watson and E.B. Holt. In the domain of psychoanalysis,
Sigmund Freud attempted in the Scientific Project (1895) to translate the terminology
of the clinic into the language of neurophysiology.
During the heyday of the Vienna Circle, Carnap went on to give the most
forthright statement of eliminative methodology .

. . . every sentence ofpsychology may be formulated in physical

language . . . all sentences of psychology describe physical
occurrences, namely, the physical behavior of humans and other
animals. This is a sub-thesis of the general thesis of physicalism
to the effect that physical language is a universal language, that
is, a language into which every sentence may be translated. IS

In the wake of criticisms of Carnap's unfulfilled program, Quine went so far, as late
as 1960, to advocate giving up psychological sentences altogether. 16
The alleged advantages of adopting behaviorism (a form of elimination)
were:
1. There is no problem of solipsism since internal mental states do not exist!
2. There is no mind-body problem since there are only bodies.
3. There is no problem of personal identity since each of us isjust a body
with its peculiar history.
4. There is no problem of other minds since we can access what is going on
in another person by observing bodily activity and behavior.
For reasons we have already indicated above, analytic philosophical
psychology has been primarily concerned with one special class of "mental"
phenomena, namely cognitive phenomena. It is commonly agreed that cognitive
phenomena have so far resisted such reduction. On reflection it should now be
obvious why cognitive phenomena, including language, are a stumbling block to
elimination. The reason is that analytic philosophical psychology is fundamentally
committed to the "I think" perspective. Hence the very conception of how we
approach these problems starts with a subject-oriented basis. Every attempt to
eliminate the subject/agent begins with an isolable subject who poses this issue.
Every such attempt issues a promissory note about its own self-liquidation, but no
such attempt ever succeeds. The program of eliminating the SUbject/agent seems
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 251

trapped in a web of its own making. It seems to be the case that analytical
philosophical psychology is internally inconsistent.
Let us consider one example, keeping in mind that we shall come across
others. The example addresses intentionality. Intentionality is a property of the
mind, namely, its being directed toward events in the world. An intentional sentence
is one which can be true about things that might not exist. For example, "Rudolf
believes that Alf is cute." Carnap construed intentional sentences as sentences about
other sentences. So we have, sentence (1): "A If is an alien life form depicted on a
popular TV serial," and sentence (2): "Rudolf is disposed to give an affirmative
response to the question "Is Alf cute?" In his now classic criticism of Carnap,
Chisholm pointed out that Carnap would have to appeal to other intentional entities
in a complete analysis.17 For example, Rudolf might answer affirmatively but not
really believe what he says, that is, Rudolf might say it to humor a child.
Intentionality seems to be an ineliminable characteristic of the relation between a
subject and the object of his/her psychological state.
Well developed strict versions of elimination are hard to come by. In fact,
there are no well developed strict versions of elimination, only sketches of what such
theories might be like. One example of elimination is Skinner's behaviorism.
Skinner argued that explanatory laws of human behavior could be formulated making
exclusive reference to environmental stimuli and the overt behavior of human beings.
While admitting that internal physiological states have an explanatory role but are
not necessary for explaining behavior, Skinner still denied that the conventional
notion of "mental" states (which presuppose a subject/agent) have any role at all.
Skinner never made clear, however, whether he was eliminating the "mental" (either
logically, methodologically, or onto logically) or just choosing to ignore it.
There are innumerable devastating critiques of Skinner, but for our purposes
three are worth noting. First, Skinner never gave a single complete example of a
successful elimination. It really is important to keep stressing that for decades
analytic philosophical psychology has remained no more than a program. Second,
in anticipation of the next stage of analytic philosophical psychology, namely
exploration, we note Noam Chomsky'S criticism of Skinner to the effect that
language learning cannot be accounted for in terms of external stimuli alone. 18 In
brief, Chomsky's argument is that no finite characterization of English grammar can
account for the ability of language learners to produce an infinite number of
meaningful sentences. Chomsky went on to conclude that in order to account for
language learning it is necessary to postulate internal cognitive activities and
structures. Third, Skinner had to invoke the notion of operant conditioning, i.e.,
generalized behavioral response, in order to explain exactly what gets reinforced by
the stimulus. This not only smuggles in the notion of an internal central state (active
intellect?) but seems to suggest that cognitive behavior operates from whole to part
and not by means of isolable parts accumulating to make a meaningful whole. The
often documented failures of behaviorism underscore the inadequacy of mechanical
explanations of human action.
A second version of elimination, identity theory, appears in the
philosophical writings of lJ.C. Smart l9 and D.M. Armstrong. 2o Identity theory is an
improvement over behaviorism. Instead of denying the existence of inner states or
252 Chapter 7

leaving their status ambiguous, proponents of identity theory identify inner states
with states of the brain. According to Smart, although our conventional discourse
invokes "mental" entities (i.e., subject/agent), the sentences of that discourse can all
uniformly be replaced by sentences which are purely physicalistic and make
reference only to internal (brain and central nervous system) physiological states.
The replacement sentences are alleged to be equivalent in meaning or identical with
the sentences of conventional discourse. The difference then between Skinner on the
one hand and Chomsky, Smart, and others is that the latter all insist upon the
importance of internal physiological states.
Needless to say, Smart's version of identity theory never gets off the
ground, i.e., we are never given a successful equivalence. Again, the reasons for the
failure are interesting. Smart is never able to establish criteria for identifying the
"mental" phenomena without appeal to intentional elements at some other level of
analysis. Hence, he was never able to establish non-question-begging criteria for
psycho-physical identity. Typically, Smart would appeal to behavioral dispositions
which, in tum, required reference to intentional considerations in order to be
understood. The worst irony is that the new idiom ended up acquiring the functions
of the old idiom, so that implicitly throughout the years of discussion of the identity
theory the audience could only follow the discussion because it continued to assume
the presence of the old idiom.
Can anyone provide a mechanistic account of this kind of subject? While
we shall have more to say below about mechanistic explanations, a number of
distinctions should be introduced here. There are at least three different kinds of
ontological order: mechanical, organic, and human (cultural). In general, the
distinction among mechanical, organic, and human forms of order is the following.
In a mechanical system, explanation is ultimately in terms of internal sub-structure.
In an organic system, explanation is ultimately in terms of a state of exchange or
interaction among entities such that structure is a function of a whole (defined by a
tel os) over time. In a human system, explanation is in terms of consciously held
norms such that structure is provided by and does not exist independent of the goals
of the agents. 21
As we mentioned above, analytic philosophical psychology adheres to the
view that a good explanation is a physicalist or mechanical explanation. To give a
physicalist explanation is to explain things mechanically. A more detailed
consideration of a mechanical system is as follows.
1. A mechanical structure has parts each of which can be identified
atomistically or independent of context. The atomistic nature of mechanical
explanations is especially important because the whole notion of analysis is to
understand the parts independent of the whole.
2. A mechanical structure is spatial, but not temporal. Any seemingly
temporal transformation can be reduced to a sequence or series of spatial
rearrangements of the parts which do not change but remain identifiable independent
of context. All change is quantitative and in principle reversible.
3. However subtle or highly articulated a mechanical structure might be, it
has an external cause for what happens to it.
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 253

4. Moreover, when a mechanical structure is attributed to a process, it is

assumed that the process can be fully described by its product. The product, it is
alleged, is an adequate characterization of the events leading up to it (input = output).
In short, the atomism of a mcchanical explanation assumes that the whole results
from the addition of the parts rather than the parts presupposing the whole. 22
On the assumption that all scientifically discoverable structure is
mechanical, an analytic philosophical psychology is committed to (a) the empirical
confirmation of abstract structural models of the mind, and to (b) the position that the
model is of a mechanism that operates on the basis of specifiable principles. The
principles which allegedly control the operation of the mind are thought to have a
logical (i.e., spatial) structure that we can discover. Hence, (c) our knowledge comes
to be thought of as encoded information. As a consequence, (d) "we," as agents, do
not have direct or immediate access to the world. Rather, all activity is carried on by
processes beyond our control and perhaps even our consciousness. In this very
special sense, an internal bodily process can still be said to be an external cause.
Usually but not necessarily, mechanical explanations of the mind require a
homunculus, that is an internal "agent" who selects and uses the stored information.
(e) Finally, the relation of one subject to other subjects is treated as a form of
theoretical knowledge. Hence, analytic philosophy of mind treats self-awareness and
social consciousness (i.e., knowledge of other minds) as kinds of theoretical
knowledge.
There are a number of obstacles to any eliminative mechanistic explanation
of so-called "mental" phenomena:
I. Those committed to scientism presume that both the organic and the
human (cultural) form of order can be reduced to or emerge from the mechanistic
form of order. This remains a presumption and a program but not a scientific fact. 23
Modern or seventeenth-century mechanism is different from ancient atomism;
modern mechanism is atomism understood by reference to a creative God. The
philosophes and their heirs have eliminated God, and as a result mechanism remains
inexplicable. The principles of modern science cannot explain anything without
reference to the larger pre-theoretical framework that the Enlightenment Project
seeks to eliminate.
2. As we have continually emphasized, before one can claim to give an
explanation of something we must have some consensus on what it is that we are
explaining. Engineers have been able to construct physical systems which, through
the use of feedback mechanisms (e.g., a thermostat), are self-regulating. That is,
engineers have produced physical systems that seem to operate in a state of exchange
with their surroundings, thereby mimicking organic systems. This in itself does not
constitute any kind of proof that living organisms can be adequately explained in
physicochemical or mechanistic terms. The notion that a mechanism is "mimicking"
an organic or human system presupposes agreement on what is being "mimicked."
Machines, it will be claimed by opponents, do not perform cognitive tasks except by
a metaphorical extension of the use of cognitive terminology. Thus, a thermostat
does not measure or adjust to changes in temperature, rather "we" measure and adjust
by using the thermostat. That is, only by "knowing" the "whole" in advance can we
make sense of the "part".
254 Chapter 7

3. Organic and human forms of order exhibit a temporal dimension such that
they are qualitatively transformed through time. It is not possible to deduce temporal
transformations from spatial organization alone. This is true even ofpurely physical
systems. Hence, it is no surprise that anatomical structure does not determine
function. In order to explain temporal transformations even of purely physical
systems it is necessary to assume a theory or set of scientific laws.
All of analytic philosophical psychology alleges the existence of such
connecting laws between physiological phenomena and cognitive phenomena.
Analytic philosophers generally concede that there are emergent properties not only
in organic phenomena but in purely physical phenomena. Few contend that we can
directly deduce organic properties from the mechanical level; all agree that we must
add some bridge principles connecting the explanans (mechanistic) with the
explanandum (organic).
Urifortunately, no version of such a missing link is ever exhibited. Nor do
we have any idea of what such a missing link would be like. The most we are given
is a set of metaphors in which it is alleged that mechanism can "generate" (i.e.,
cause) organic phenomena. The implicit argument for this metaphor is the
recognition that the mechanical level is the level at which we frequently intervene to
produce or to prohibit developments on the organic level.
There are insuperable obstacles to providing a mechanical explanation
anywhere. As Hume has pointed out, we cannot even imagine what it would mean
for one event to cause another at any level except as a spatio-temporal sequence.
Hence, any notion of causal generation must appeal to the very temporal concepts it
was designed to replace. Further, any account of the relation between our
intervention into organic systems or into mechanical ones would itself have to be a
temporal-historical account on the human level, an account which is not itself
explainable by any mechanism. We seem caught in a hopeless circle.
4. As we saw in our discussion of the analytic philosophy of science,
analytic philosophers are unable to offer a fully satisfactory realist account of the
status of physical science in general and the status of laws in particular. Analytic
philosophical excursions into epistemology and language are meant to buttress
analytic presuppositions about physical science. To appeal to science to buttress
claims about epistemology and language when the latter are intended to buttress the
former is to offer a circular argument.
5. (fteleological and organic forms can be reduced to mechanistic forms,
then it also follows that mechanistic forms can be replaced by teleological forms of
order. That is, the two would be interchangeable. This would be an unwelcome
consequence for five reasons.24
a. It would introduce metaphysical considerations into the
discussion of the status of scientific laws and theories that would
endanger the status of such scientific entities; for example,
entertaining the possibility ofa mechanism whose parts correlate
with all of the holistic relationships of an organic entity with other
organic entities is to imagine a "part" to contain within itself the
"meaning" of its relation to a "whole" -- this is not only to
entertain the possibility of Leibnizian "monads" but to reintroduce
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 255

Aristotle's notion of an internal relation among formal, efficient,

and final causes, and, we might add, Hegel's Absolute; once such
metaphysical considerations are introduced, it becomes possible
to entertain the idea that mechanism is not basic.
b. Unless mechanism is basic, the Enlightenment social
technological program could not be consummated; this is one
reason why some analytic philosophers feel uncomfortable with
the notion that physical systems can be viewed as hierarchically
ordered.
c. Once physical systems can be viewed as hierarchically ordered
(perhaps realized in a teleological system), some version of
Hegelianism or Marxism can be viewed as plausible.
d. If mechanism is not an ultimate ontological form of order, then
the entire notion of 'analysis' is fundamentally flawed.
e. Once analysis is surrendered, along with the substitution of a
social epistemology for the "/ Think" perspective, and once
functional-teleological-hierarchical systems are viewed as
ontologically fundamental, analytic philosophical psychology will
have become Hegelian! This is exactly the line ofdevelopment we
shall observe.
6. The argument that organic forms of order are sui generis and
incommensurable with mechanical forms of order has been repeatedly made and
repeatedly ignored or misrepresented since the eighteenth century.

Epistemology, Language, and Mind

As we saw in the chapter on analytic epistemology, no naturalist epistemologist has
been able to account for how the subject abstracts knowledge from experience of
objects. Attempts to provide such an account ended by appealing to the activity of
the subject in ways that did not reflect external structure. These covert appeals to the
activity of the subject were clearly not consonant with realism. Unable, initially, to
provide an account of the alleged physiological process of cognition, and faced by
the problems and limitations of introspection, analytic philosophers turned to the
philosophy of language. In order to circumvent these difficulties, analytic
philosophers shifted the epistemological focus from the psychology of learning to
language. By focusing on an apparently public and social object like language, they
had hoped to avoid the alleged fallacy of "psychologism", i.e., making reference to
the activities of the subject-agent an integral part of the knowing process.
Unfortunately, as our previous chapter on the philosophy of language
showed, the analytic philosophy of language was unsuccessful in its program of the
total conceptualization of language. Certain features of language seem to stand in
the way. By noting what those features are we can begin to understand why there has
been a revival ofphilosophical psychology, now known as cognitive science,25 and
why the focus of total conceptualization, i.e., the goal of conceptualizing and
objectifying the pre-theoretical elements in our thought, has been shifted away from
language per se and back to a focus on the mind. Only now the focus in
philosophical psychology is on the psychology of language acquisition instead of the
256 Chapter 7

psychology of learning. In short, what we are going to be given is a linguistic model

ofmental events. That is,just as epistemology was reformulated out of introspective
terminology and into linguistic terminology, so the use ofphilosophical psychology
to solve epistemological problems, and in the wake ofthe failure ofbehaviorism, will
see the reformulation of mental phenomena as linguistic phenomena.
Language has, since the time of Hobbes, been the major obstacle to a
complete reduction ofthe subject/agent to a mere object. To begin with, explaining
any concept invariably involves specifying what that concept implies for future
action on the pan of agents (the pragmatists' perennial point). Second, although the
structure of language or a pan thereof certainly might limit the uses to which it can
be put, the structure of itself does not determine the use. This is what Wittgenstein
was stressing when he said that no concept had a definitive structure. In order to get
at the meaning of a concept we have to appeal to the social interaction among agents.
Meaning is an aspect of cultural activity. In short, language seems to be a cultural
artifact, the creation of a social group with a history. Third, in our understanding of
language in use we move from wholes to parts. That is, we cannot understand
concepts by breaking them down into smaller units, rather we understand the units
by noting their roles within a larger whole or context. To sum up, the understanding
oflanguage does not seem possible without appeal to (1) agents, (2) cultures, and (3)
irreducible background or pre-conceptual norms. Since it does not seem possible to
explain language without some consideration of the users oflanguage, it has become
necessary for those analytic philosophers who aspire to total conceptualization to
reconsider once more the position on the user, i.e., the subject.
As we saw in the previous chapter, the problem of the ambivalent
relationship between language user and language was finally settled by analytic
philosophy's acceptance of the 'Kantian Tum.' There is now a positive role for the
language user or subject.

{S} -----> {L} <----- {OJ

On the surface this appears to be a capitulation to the Copernican

Revolution in philosophy. However, analytic philosophers coupled their acceptance
of the 'Kantian Tum' with a double qualification. First, it is maintained that the
relationship between {S} and {L} is a matter of objective fact capable of scientific
study. That is, the relationship is treated from the point of view of realism. Second,
it is maintained that the relationship of {S} and {L} may be understood in the same
way that we understand {O}. This change of focus required a reconsideration of the
subject {S}.
As we saw in the last chapter, the philosophy of language was unsuccessful
in meeting the analytic epistemological agenda. 26 Encouraged by the use of other
methodologies in recent "scientific" psychology (e.g., artificial intelligence), analytic
philosophers drifted away from the philosophy of language and returned to a newly
refurbished philosophical psychology.
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 257

Analytic Philosophical Psychology as Exploration

With the generally recognized failure of elimination (reduction), analytic
philosophers turned to the possibility of exploration. As a methodology, exploration
begins with our ordinary understanding of things, rather than dismissing or denying
its existence, and then constructs imaginative hypotheses about the hidden structure
behind our ordinary understanding. What happens when this methodology is applied
to psychology?
The immediate consequence of an exploratory theory of human psychology
is what we shall hereafter call a two-tier conception of human nature. 27 Human
beings are alleged to operate on two levels at one and the same time. There is the
usual common sense level of consciousness and self-consciousness where we think
of ourselves in a conventional way. No attempt will be made to eliminate, reduce,
or replace this level, although we may in time "modify" it. In addition there is a
second level of physiological processes that constitute the hidden structure behind
the upper or conscious level. The "lower" or physiological level involves processes
of which we are not directly aware, and it can be fully described in biological,
chemical, and/or physical terms. Exploration thus retains a firm commitment to
scientism. This lower level also, it is alleged, "fully explains" in some manner the
common sense level. As we come to learn more about this lower level, we may even
change the way we think and speak on the common sense level.
The reader may well ask how this differs from identity theory, which we
have treated as a form of elimination. One answer we could give is to read identity
theory, charitably, as a crude form of exploration. A more accurate answer is that
identity theory sought either to replace fully our ordinary understanding altogether
in favor of a new "scientific" vocabulary and/or identity theory had a tendency to
deny the existence of phenomena that could not be expressed in the idiom of
mechanistic-physicalistic language. One thinks, for example, of D.M. Armstrong
asserting that in consciousness "one part of the brain scans another part of the
brain."28
Exploration, on the contrary, does not seek a total replacement of our usual
idiom for talking about human activity, and it does not assert that every meaningful
expression in our common sense idiom correlates with a particular brain process. To
be sure there is some connection between the levels but it may be whole-whole or
whole-part or part-whole. Most important of all, exploration permits the use of non-
mechanistic idioms in our understanding of upper-level phenomena, so that organic,
intentional, and even modal terminology need not be avoided. 29
Let us tum now to an examination of the "upper" level or first tier. One
thing that exploration permits is the use of organic or functional descriptions of the
phenomena traditionally thought of as "mental" or as involving consciousness. Thus
it becomes possible to think of the mind as an active "participant" in an interaction
with its environment. The mind need not, then, be construed as a mere mechanism
with simple parts but as an on-going system. It is even possible to imagine the
organic nature of the mind as having a purpose. 30
A second thing that can be done with a two-tier approach is to accommodate
the 'Kantian Tum' on the upper level. The cruder eliminative versions of analytic
philosophical psychology routinely followed a simplistic empiricist epistemology of
258 Chapter 7

external stimulus and response because this was the only conception compatible with
a mechanical-collision model of how two things interacted. As we have already seen
in our examination of the analytic philosophy of science and of epistemology, it
proved to be impossible to sustain this simplistic epistemology, and it became
necessary to assign a more active and less passive role to the intellect. Hand in hand
with this partial 'Kantian Turn' in analytic epistemology went the acceptance in
analytic philosophical psychology of an organic conception of the mind in place of
a mechanical one.
What happens to the problem of personal identity when it is treated from the
point of view of exploration?
What is personal identity? In exploratory analytic philosophical
psychology, the problem of personal identity is the problem of how an individual can
know or identify herself/himself as the same person over time. As we pointed out
earlier, self-knowledge must be a form of theoretical knowledge in analytic
philosophical psychology. That is, analytic philosophers want to know how an
individual can identifY the object/objects (structure) that constitute the self or person.
What these philosophers concede that we know in advance is our everyday
conception of ourselves or '1'. What they are seeking to explore is the hidden
structure "behind" this everyday conception. Because it is part of the everyday
conception to see the 'I' as embodied,31 analytic philosophers believe that this is
enough of an opening to allow them to argue that the 'I' can be discursively
characterized fully as a bodily structure or a set of functions (causal properties) of
bodily structure.
After agreeing on embodiment, analytic philosophical psychology proceeds
to disregard every other aspect of our ordinary understanding of the' I'. Behind
imaginative hypotheses about brain transplants, etc., we have an attempt to begin
with and to retain something of the common understanding we have of ourselves and
yet to suggest things about a hidden structure that effectively eliminate the
subject/agent. The common understanding starting point as well as the exploratory
eschewing of reductive elimination grant that persons are more than just a body. The
"more than" is referred to as the "mental", so analytic philosophical psychology is
required to delineate the "mental"32 as long as it is in principle compatible with
physicalism at some more remote level.
The seminal version of this 'Kantian Turn' or exploration was articulated
by Noam Chomsky.33 According to Chomsky, our conscious cognizing rests upon
processes of which we are not immediately or directly aware. Our cognitive
processes are encoded (in the brain or central nervous system) as information. The
code consists of a logical (intentional) structure of rules, laws, or principles. 34
Similar views are defended by Jerry Fodor and more recently by John Haugeland.
Haugeland has described the mind as an information processing systPI11 35 A II "f'
these theorists believe that the code operates through mechanisms 01'
physiological level and that these mechanisms will eventually b,
scientifically. All of these theorists believe that the cognitive processes
"for us."
The very special significance of the two-tier approach is that thl
of cognitive activity on the upper level allows analytic philosophical ps),
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 259

propose a solution both to the traditional problems of naturalist (empiricist)

epistemology and to the issue oftotal conceptualization. Instead of dealing with
epistemology proper, learning, and the use of language as issues of relating ideas to
experience or of relating words to objects, the new cognitivism takes the mind or
language user into account.

{S} <-----> {L} <-----> to}

What it attempts to do is to encompass the whole process and to treat the whole
process, i.e., {S} as well as {L} and {O}, as an object of analysis. Cognitivism
thinks that it can deal with the 'Kantian Turns,' the pre-theoretical, etc., and yet still
claim to give a scientific treatment.
This is certainly a departure from much of traditional analytic empiricism
and its simplistic mechanical model of how we think. At the same time, we should
not lose sight ofthe fact that it is a deeper reaffirmation ofthe Enlightenment Project.
It is, to begin with, a reaffirmation of scientism. All of the talk about how the new
cognitive science is an inter-disciplinary mix calling upon physiologists, computer
scientists, and artificial intelligence enthusiasts revives the suspicion that philosophy
will disappear or simply serve as a label for a new inter-disciplinary nexus of
sciences. 36 Second, it is naturalist in its belief that meaning is at bottom just a
structure capable of being treated as an object, no matter how complex. Third,
despite its seeming acceptance of a role for the subject/agent, in the end, the subject
is to be explained by a mechanism so that "we" in any traditional sense are still not
agents in these processes. The cognitive processes do it "for us."

Versions of Exploration
The most immediate and pressing issue for the exploratory version of analytic
phillosophical psychology is to relate the two tiers without falling into a new and
more bizarre dualism. If there are two tiers or two levels then they must be related
in some way.
The first version of exploration in analytic philosophical psychology was
functionalism. According to Putnam, 37 inner states do not have simple "type
identity", that is there is no simple and direct correlation of a mental state with a
physiological state. To be 'angry' is not simply correlated with having an increase
in blood pressure plus a few other physiological things. The mental state of being
'angry', for example, is part of a larger system including external stimuli,
physiological states, other mental states, and resulting behavior.
Whereas behaviorism had ignored internal mental phenomena, identity
theorists allowed internal mental states to be causes of behavior, but identified
internal states with states of the brain. This type-type identity theory seems limited
in insisting that the same mental state had to have exactly the same physical correlate
-- why could not different physical states correspond to similar mental states? So
functionalists moved to token-token identity theory. The neurophysiological states
are the same mental state if they serve the same function.
Can functionalism solve the analytic epistemological problem? That is, can
functionalism account for cognitive processes without invoking a subject? Drawing
260 Chapter 7

on the analogy of the computer, a new generation of machine functionalists 38

maintained that the relation of the mental and physical is analogous to relation
between the software and the hardware, the program and the physical object that
implements the program. Different physical systems can implement the same
program.

Mental - Mind - Software

Physical - Brain - Hardware

There is an obvious objection to this analogy. Software requires an external

human creator and interpreter, so the subject has simply found a new problematic
locus. Another way of making the point is that this view which is known as strong
AI (Artificial Intelligence), gives us only a syntactic conception of information
processing, whereas cognitive activity is semantic and pragmatic. Searle has
epitomized this objection to strong AI. I could "have a program that enables me to
answer question in Chinese simply by matching incoming signals with the
appropriate processing and output symbols, but nonetheless I still would not thereby
understand Chinese."39
In response to these challenges, another view was developed, namely
psychosemantics or the so-called 'language of thought' hypothesis. In order to
account adequately for cognition as a form of information processing, the intentional
or representative features of thought must be seen as semantic. That is, there must
be some connection between the internal structure of information processing and the
external world. Can internal physical states have semantical properties? Inspired by
Chomsky and by computer models, Fodor postulates a uniform human nature
encoded in a "language ofthought" which is a finite set of concepts capable of being
described as an organism. Needless to add, the organism is allegedly reducible in a
way something like the identity theory.4o Fodor insists that a scientific psychology
must presuppose that organic processes can be understood as computational, that is
analogous to the internal machine states of a computer, and that "computational"
states of the nervous system are causes of human behavior. 41 In order to avoid
reference to an homunculus, Fodor has to postulate an innate representational scheme
for every cognitive process so that the selection and use of information is automatic.
Fodor presumes that there is a causal relation between physiological states, i.e., the
lower level, and semantic relations among the formulas of the internal code or
language of thought on the upper level. That is, so-called propositional attitudes such
as 'beliefs' and 'desires' can be construed as having a semantic content or structure
and as causally efficacious because they are instantiated as discrete items in neural
systems. Psychology is able to offer causal explanations because there is a physical
relationship among the brain states that instantiate symbolic representations.
Two pertinent objections can be made of Fodor's alternative. First, the
actual mechanisms are alleged rather than demonstrated. Second, Fodor's theory
actually reverts to a Tractatus notion of a meaning locus. The Tractatus meaning-
locus doctrine alleges that at some point we can "see" directly what meaning is. As
we saw in our earlier discussion of epistemology, the Tractatus doctrine begs rather
than solves all of the epistemological issues involved. Wittgenstein himself
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 261

eventually dismissed this aspect of the Tractatus. Fodor is simply bringing it back
at another level where, it is presumed, meaning can be reduced to a structure and
some mechanism can either "have" or "see" meaning. One of Fodor's assumptions
is that meaning accrues to elementary (atomic) units.42 However, if meaning is not
interpretable as a structure ofisolable parts on the conscious level, what expectation
is there that meaning can be so interpreted on a mechanistic level? Finally, If the
contents of the mind are determined solely by the subject's internal representation,
and not by the external world itself, then Fodor's exploration has not progressed
beyond the solipsism of eighteenth century introspection. 43
Another early version of the two-tier view highlights the difficulties of
relating the two levels. Donald Davidson defended what he called "anomalous
monism."44 Davidson says that his theory is a form of materialism, and hence it is
both monistic and physicalistic. Within this monism there are two levels, a "mental"
one and a physical one. The physical level is strictly law-like and deterministic in
the traditional sense. There is also a mental-physical causal interaction between the
levels so that mental events are also physical events subject to causal influence. This
is, nevertheless, a form of epiphenomenalism. At the same time the "mental" level
is ineliminably intensional so that mental events are not related amongst themselves
in law-like fashion. It follows that there are no strictly deterministic laws on the
"mental" level for predicting and explaining mental events. This is what makes the
monism anomalous.
Translated into our terminology, what Davidson holds is that human beings
function on two levels. The upper level (mental, conscious) is organic (functional,
holistic, teleological); the lower physical level is mechanistic and deterministic. It
would also seem to be the case that the two levels are miraculously and inexplicably
correlated. Rather than accounting for this remarkable coincidence, Davidson
merely asserts its existence. The problem here is not only that Davidson fails to
provide an exact physiological accounting, but rather the problem is that even if one
were prepared to accept a two-tier view there does not seem to be any a priori reason
why the upper level, even though organic, should also be teleological as opposed to
one marked by dissonance.
Another attempt to account for how the two tiers are related is made by
Daniel Dennett. 45 Dennett identifies these two levels as follows. The everyday
common sense level, according to Dennett, is a kind oftheory. Although not a strict
or "robust" empirical theory, it is nevertheless a semantic theory about the meaning
of mental terms. 46 The referents of this "theory" are conceptual entities or logical
constructs, what Dennett calls "abstracta." The scientific level makes use of
theoretical terms that refer to real posited entities or what Dennett calls "illata." One
consequence of this is that Dennett denies that beliefs, which are abstracta, are
internal states that cause behavior. By distinguishing between these two tiers in this
fashion, Dennett believes that he has preserved the integrity of the upper level.

... the claim that human beings are genuine believers and desirers
... [can] survive almost any imaginable discoveries in cognitive
and physiological psychology, thus making our status as moral
agents well-nigh invulnerable to scientific disconfirmation. 47
262 Chapter 7

Dennett rejects Fodor's contention that discrete parts of the nervous system
could serve as the locus of meaning. Meaning in the form of semantic values is an
emergent property of organisms as a whole. The brain is a "syntactic engine" from
which semantic values emerge on the upper level. 48

One starts ... with a specification of a whole person or cognitive

organism -- what I call more neutrally, an intentional system ... --
or some artificial segment of that person's abilities (e.g., chess
playing, answering questions about baseball) and then breaks that
largest intentional system into an organization of sub-systems,
each ofwhich could itself be viewed as an intentional system (with
its own specialized beliefs and desires) and hence as formally a
homunculus. . .. If one can get a team or committee of relatively
ignorant, narrow-minded, blind homunculi to produce the
intelligent behavior of the whole, this is progress .... Eventually
this ... lands you with homunculi so stupid (all they have to do is
remember whether to say yes or no when asked) that they can be,
as one says, 'replaced by a machine.' One discharges fancy
homunculi from one's scheme by organizing armies of such idiots
to do the work. 49

Dennett claims that we must first "create two new theories: one strictly
abstract, idealizing, holistic, instrumentalistic -- pure intentional system theory [upper
level] -- and the other [lower level] a concrete, microtheoretical science of the actual
realization of those intentional systems -- ... subpersonal cognitive psychology."5o
Dennett then proposes to reduce the upper level to homunculi and later, in theory at
least, the homunculi are to be replaced in favor of mechanisms still to be discovered
by empirical science. Dennett insists upon the scientific importance of mechanism. 51
Persons are alleged to be made up of sub-persons where the sub-persons are
in principle eliminable. Hence, despite his differences from Fodor, Dennett remains
a mechanist in believing that the emergence of meaning on the upper level is
determined by the relation of the brain to its environment, where that relation is
construed mechanistically. Alleging that common sense is somehow like a "theory"
because within it we explain and predict makes the potential replacement easier, or
at least more intelligible as an enterprise. It is a mechanistic relation because, as we
have pointed out, a process is specified by its end product and the process is itself
construed as composed of isolable or atomic parts. In this case, the atomistic units
are the tasks of the homunculi, namely, "answering" "yes" or "no." Moreover,
Dennett, despite differences about their locus, shares with Fodor the assumption that
ultimately meaning states must be isolable units to which states of the mechanism can
correspond. Hence, like Fodor, Dennett interprets meaning as a structure of isolable
parts. In fact, Dennett makes the claim that the great benefit of artificial intell igence
in computers reveals how it is possible to have "representations that can be said in
the requisite sense to understand themselves."52
The significance of Dennett's work is that it reflects what cognitive
psychology is as a form of analytic philosophical psychology. Cognitive psychology
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 263

assumes that there is a logic or set of rules that literally determine cognitive activity,
and all behavior for that matter. Cognitive processes involve information supplied
by the senses and then transformed internally in a manner similar to a program
controlled computer. The transformation process operates, allegedly, in a sequential,
objective, and mechanical pattern. At each stage of the transformation we get a
clearer identification of what the stimulus is. It is at this point that the homunculus
is required, i.e., a being of minimal intelligence sitting in something like a central
control room and who must select and use the stored information. The homunculus,
obviously, is the internal counterpart who duplicates all of the things that we used to
attribute to subject/agents. Instead of the two-tiers eliminating the subject, the
subject has been given a new locus. The ghost in the machine has been replaced by
hordes of stupid ghosts. However. it is not at all clear how moronic a homunculus
can be, since it must "understand" that it is being asked a "question," remember what
a question is as well as understand the content of the question, etc. Hence, the two
tier exploration will degenerate into a new dualism unless, as Dennett himself admits,
the homunculus is eliminated at some other level. Dennett thinks this will be done,
but he does not do it himself nor does he indicate how this would be possible.

What's Wrong with Exploration?

First, exploration presuppose a consensus explication. A consensus explication is
precisely what is missing and at issue. Any neurophysiological account must explain
the facts of cognition we already know to be true about our cognitive activities.
However, our contention is that we cannot investigate empirically and theoretically
our "inner states" (physiological or otherwise) but only what we mean by our inner
states. Before one can engage in scientific research, one must get agreement on what
are the fundamental entities of a science that constitute its subject matter. This is
precisely what the explorers have failed to do. Psychology, unless carefully
qua:tified, may be a bogus intellectual enterprise.
There is a real danger of intellectual disingenuousness and bad faith. The
temptation is to dismiss or to redefine those features of our common sense
understanding that do not fit the underlying exploratory hypothesis. Dennett, for
one, has consistently tried to face up to the challenge, but even he redefines
"freedom" as "elbow room" in order to make it fit his hypothesis about underlying
structure. 53 Ifwe do not agree on the phenomena to be explained, then any attempt
to explain it is pointless; (f we redefine the phenomena to fit what we want the
explanation to be. wefool no one but ourselves.
The second problem with exploration is, as we have persistently contended,
that without appeal to a background explication or consensus, there is no way to
conlfirm an exploration or to choose among rival explorations.
a. One consequence of this is that instead of illuminating the human
condition the practice of philosophical psychology becomes an experimental theater
for displaying the ingenuity of exploratory hypothesis.
b. A second consequence is a profound skepticism that is introduced into the
discussion of human affairs. One of the virtues of science was supposed to be its
ability to terminate partisan disputes; here scientism seems to encourage such
disputes.
264 Chapter 7

Let us exemplify the difficulty of the inability to choose among explorations

by taking an example that is thought to help the case of scientism. It might be argued
that if an exploratory hypothesis were to postulate a hidden structure such that the
structure enabled us in practice to predict all human behavior with unerring accuracy,
then we could bring the opponents of scientism to their knees. However, even here
the predictive success would not achieve that objective. In order to show this we call
attention to a claim by Strawson that we have nothing to fear from physicalist or
mechanistic determinism. We would not, says Strawson, treat or think of people as
objects because our usual understanding of interpersonal relationships is too deeply
rooted. 54 In this respect the two tiers helps to eliminate our uneasiness about
accepting determinism. Strawson's point is that determinism is compatible with
anything on the common sense level and would not change a thing. However, if
determinism does not change a thing, then perfect predictive success would not
necessarily bring opponents of scientism to their knees. 55
The third major problem with exploratory accounts in analytical
philosophical psychology occurs whether those accounts are successful or
unsuccessful. If successful they are preludes to elimination/reduction; and we shall
have more to add about the problems of elimination shortly. If unsuccessful,
explorations remain forms of dualism.
Dualism is unacceptable for a number of reasons. Dualism is precisely what
modern Aristotelian monism was supposed to overcome. 56 Dualism underscores the
inability of much of analytic philosophy to deal with self-reference. That is, dualism
reminds us that how we understand ourselves is different from how we understand
the physical world. Finally, dualism runs the risk of leading to nihilism, for some
theorist is bound to assert that what goes on at the upper tier is onto logically a form
of pure mythology.
The fourth problem is that exploration in analytic philosophical psychology
exemplifies the extent to which analytic epistemology is hopelessly incompatible
with analytic metaphysics. The failure can be explained by reference to a distinction
introduced by Herbert Feigl between physical\ and physical 2 •57 Physical 2 is what we
have identified as the realm of mechanical-physicalistic explanation. Physical \ refers
to "a conceptual system anchored in sensory observation and designed for
increasingly comprehensive and coherent explanations of the intersubjectively
confirmable facts of observation," i.e., what we have referred to as the "I Think"
perspective. The success of exploration depends upon the extent to which physical\
terms can be explained in physical 2 terms, otherwise the activity of explaining that
constitutes the practice of science remains outside of science. The conflict between
the mechanical form of order and the "I Think" perspective is that whereas the
former can clearly be explained in terms of the latter, the latter resists being
explained in terms of the former. From the time of Descartes to the present we have
speculated on how we might think by using or imagining mechanical structures but
we do not have the vaguest inkling of how a mechanical structure can capture what
we mean by "I Think."58
To the extent to which analytic philosophy is committed to total
conceptualization and therefore to explaining the act of explanation (the "I Think")
and to the extent to which analytic philosophical psychology operates with an "I
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 265

Think" perspective (the egocentric observer) as well as a mechanical conceptual

structure, analytic philosophy seems to be caught in a vicious regress. Every
explanation must posit a structure observable to the egocentric observer ("I Think"),
but there must be a mechanical structure behind the egocentric observer. Who or
what would constitute the final observation of the ultimate structure that eliminates
the observer? Some sense ofthis dilemma can be seen as early as Carnap's Aujbau:

Egocentricity is not an original property of the basic elements. of

the given. To say that an experience is egocentric does not make
sense until we speak of the experiences of others which are
constructed from 'my' experiences. We must even deny the
presence of any kind of duality in the basic experience, as it is
often assumed (for example, as 'correlation between object and
subject' or otherwise).59

It would appear that any version of exploration in analytic philosophical psychology

is subject to an infinite regress or a vicious circularity.60
We may represent the fundamental conflict within analytic epistemology
and metaphysics and its consequent infinite regress by reference to the following
diagram. Recall first that analytic philosophical psychology strives in its exploratory
foml to recognize the entire context of language, thought, and meaning.

I. {S} <-----> {L} <-----> {O}

At the same time, analytic philosophical psychology tries to account for this whole
by n~ference to some objective structure, located somewhat differently by the various
versions of exploration but nevertheless an objective structure.

2. [ {S} <-----> {L} <-----> {O} ] <----- [0]

This so-called new and more sophisticated approach is still just another version of
the classical "I Think" epistemological perspective, as a simplified version of
diagram 2 will show.

3. [ ]<----- [0]

Now, the process represented by the arrow in diagram 3 must itself be observed by
some further subject.

4. {S} {[ ]<---- [0] }

It is the observation at stage 4 that deternlines the truth of the hypothesis at

stage 3. The obvious difficulty is that at stage 4 there is no objective structure to
account for or to buttress its own status. We can hardly use the assumption that stage
4 works like stage 3 in order to guarantee stage 4, since the truth of what happens at
stagle 3 is precisely the hypothesis in question. Moreover, it is always open to
266 Chapter 7

advocates of the Copernican Revolution to maintain that at stage 4 the arrow goes
from the subject to the object, so that meaning always originates in a pre-theoretical
context that can only be captured by explication. Moreover, such critics of analytic
philosophical psychology can point out that diagram 4 reinforces their contention
that mechanical and physicalistic explanations are themselves only intelligible as
creations of or extensions of the pre-theoretical context. Hence any attempt to give
a physicalistic-mechanistic explanation of the pre-theoretical is to put the cart before
the horse. Finally, from the point of view of the Copernican Revolution, {S} would
have to be seen itself as an interacting set of S's where the interaction would be
ultimately explainable culturally, that is as irreducibly social and historical.
Another way olmaking this same point is to point out that any exploratory
hypothesis would itselfhave to be an upper level phenomenon. As an upper level
phenomenon, it would have to be correlated with a known sub-structure on the lower
level in order to lend itse/fto empirical confirmation. What we would be confirming
is the lower level phenomenon. But the process of scient{fic con.firmation is,
presumably, an upper level phenomenon involving our ordinary consciousness, albeit
highly rule-bound. What this amounts to is making the upper level the judge of
hypotheses about the lower level when the whole point of the appeal to the lower
level was to explain the upper level. Most important of all, we would have to judge
on the upper level the success of the empirical research without being able to appeal
to naive empiricism or to the beliefin isolable hypotheses; that is, the 'Kantian Turn'
reminds us that there is always a set ofbackground assumptions or framework to any
hypothesis such that there can be alternative interpretations of what the research
shows. lfnaive empiricism did not work on the macro level, what reason is there to
believe that it will work on the micro level or be able to resolve disputes on the
macro level? As we have argued repeatedly, radical exploratory thinking that is not
grounded in explication seems hopelessly circular.
The most serious challenge to an analytic philosophical psychology is to
achieve total conceptualization. 61 Whereas the modern empiricist and naturalist
epistemological perspective invokes an "[" who does the thinking and observing, the
physicalistic or mechanistic structure that it is alleged we observe or think about has
no room for an "I." In short, while any form of realism seems to be in need of a
subject who discovers external structure, the appeal to mechanism seems to make it
impossible to account for such a subject. Analytic philosophical psychology thus
both rejects the Copernican notion of a subject-agent which is the source of all
intelligibility but, at the same time, appeals to the notion of a subject who more or
less passively records the intelligibility of an external structure. It is not at all clear
how a mechanism can even be said to have a project, cognitive or otherwise. There
is a paradox here, and at bottom it is an internal conflict for analytic philosophers
between their epistemological perspective ("J think 'j and their ontology or the form
of the order or structure (physicalism / mechanism) to be found in the world.
We may conclude our discussion of exploratory analytic philosophical
psychology by stressing that it is faced with an irresolvable paradox. The paradox
olanalytic philosophical psychology is that the very expression of all those theories
which seek to eliminate the "[" ontologically must appeal to an "[ Think" perspective
epistemologically. This is why in the various versions of the identity theory there is
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 267

a recurrence of the criticism that the new "objective" structure that presumably
replaces the "I" takes on the linguistic functions of the very thing it is supposed to
replace. This is also why the theory of eliminable homunculi is unable to express
itself except by appeal to the very thing it seeks to replace. 62 Using the terminology
of two-tiers, all explanation is an upper level phenomenon which is in principle
replaceable and itself explainable by lower level phenomena; at the same time, the
view which asserts that the upper level is explainable (and correctable) by reference
to the lower level is itself an upper level assertion or phenomenon. No one ever
states the replacement view in purely lower level terminology, nor is it at all clear
how this would be possible. Rather, another promissory note is issued about future
scientific progress. In other words, what this seems to show is that all explorations
terminate in some kind of explication. But if all explorations terminate in or
presuppose an explication, then the whole program of analytic philosophical
psychology in particular and analytic philosophy in general is misconceived.

The Hegelian Moment in Analytic Philosophical Psychology

A final criticism of analytic philosophical psychology as exploration is that it is
inevitably driven in an Hegelian direction. The problem can be expressed as follows.
If the ultimate decision about the correctness or validity of an exploratory hypothesis
is an upper-level phenomenon, and if there are competing exploratory hypotheses,
then how would we choose between an exploratory hypothesis that claims to be true
to our ordinary understanding and one that claims to be true but requires changes in
our ordinary understanding? Now, if it were the case that there was a one-to-one
causal relation between an upper level cognitive state and a lower level physiological
state, then the dispute could be resolved immediately and empirically. In fact, we
would then be able to predict, based on our new knowledge of the lower level
mechanisms, all upper level cognitive states including the ones of the holders of the
wrong hypothesis. However, the criteria for the correctness of the one-to-one
relation presupposes a prior pre-theoretical background.
Somehow, any change in the way we understand ourselves must be
consistent with our previous understanding of ourselves if exploration is to remain
exploration and not merely be another form of elimination. This kind of change
would have to be part of the phenomena to be explained by any hypothesis. If taken
as a serious intellectual problem, the problem of conceptualizing the continuity of
"our" changing conception of ourselves would have to add both a social and an
historical dimension to any theory. Fodor's 'Kantian Tum,' for example, would have
to give way to a version of Hegel, that is, the competing explorations would have to
be seen as moments in a teleological progression.
To make matters even more Hegelian, let us recognize the fact that
competing explorations would themselves be examples of divergent cognitive
phenomena, all of which are compatible with the same substratum of lower level
events. Either the competing explorations reflect divergent ordinary understandings,
or they reflect different perspectives on a common core understanding. The
competing explorations cannot be reflections of divergent ordinary understandings
since this would make the process of exploration itself impossible. Hence, they must
be reflections of, or different perspectives upon, a common core understanding. If
268 Chapter 7

this is so, then the common core would have to be a social phenomenon not captured
in anyone perspective.
Once the question of the social dimension of mind is raised, it would be
easy to argue that the social consciousness converts itself over time into a super-mind
that does the progressing. 63 Once more we seem to have arrived at the Hegelian
terminus of any analytic endeavor pressed to its limits.
Something like this direction is implicit in the work of Donald Davidson.
Although Davidson originally tried to reduce meaning to reference, he subsequently
abandoned the theory of reference and embraced Quine's holism. Thus, he argued
that we could only understand a sentence if we understood the meaning of every
other sentence in a language. Semantic analysis is an upper level phenomena so that
the statement of the holism doctrine is itself tied to a theory of philosophical
psychology.64 Hence, the Davidsonian theory of philosophical psychology can only
be known to be true once we know all truths about the world. 65 It is only in this
quasi-Hegelian grand finale that the true relation of subjects and objects can be
known. Without a quasi-Hegelian myth there is no conceivable way of knowing that
analytic philosophical psychology is on the right track.
Even more revelatory of the Hegelian moment is the actual progression
within analytic philosophical psychology to the notion ofthe "mental" as something
which is both outside of or external to the individual mind and something which is
by its very nature social. This progression has been described by Tyler Burge as one
of the three "major, possibly durable contributions" of analytic philosophy of
language and psychology.66 Burge does not hesitate to call this a kind of anti-
individualism.67 Specifically what Burge is calling attention to is "the fashioning of
the non-descriptivist account of reference, with an extension of the line of thought
associated with this account into the philosophy ofmind."68
What Burge has in mind is perhaps the most interesting kind of exploration
to emerge in the literature of analytic philosophical psychology. This is a movement
that we shall call "externalism." Externalism 69 is a response to the on-going
difficulties in analytical philosophical psychology to get rid of the subject. All of the
previous explorations that we have discussed presuppose internal ism or some internal
locus for meaning or the processing of information. By its very nature this approach
seems to lead continually back to some notion of an internal subject. As we have
argued, this has been a continuing problem in analytic epistemology. Externalism
is the view that meaning or the locus of meaning is external to or outside of the
individual subject. Once meaning is located outside of the conventional subject it
can be discussed without reference to "mental representation." The emergence of
externalism is analogous to the shift from introspective epistemology to linguistic
epistemology, and, in fact, this movement was inspired by developments within the
analytic philosophy of language.
In terms of our earlier diagrams, what we have are two SUbjects:

«{S} <----> ({s} -[modeling]---> {EXPERIENCE} <----{O}) ))

{S} corresponds to "12" and {s} corresponds to "II ". The {S} is now to be rendered
as a "We Think" external structure.
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 269

As early as 1975 Putnam had suggested that" 'meanings' just ain't in the
head!"70 The work of Putnam and Kripke in the philosophy oflanguage suggested
that meaning and reference could be understood by reference to complex
relationships within the environment. This has led Tyler Burge to contend that:

. .. reference ... [is] dependent on more than the beliefs,

inferences, and discriminatory powers of the individual.
Reference seems to depend on chains of acquisition and on the
actual nature of the environment, not purely on the beliefs and
discriminative abilities of the person doing the referring. This
result suggests that reference cannot be reduced to psychological
states of individuals, unless these states are themselves
individuated partly in terms of the individual's relations to his
community and/or physical environment. 7'

One of the clearest versions of externalism is to be found in Colin McGinn

who maintains that not just reference but mental content is environment dependent. 72
In the end, however, McGinn insists that externally individuated mental content is
still rooted in some kind of internal mechanism. 73 Burge tries to take matters a little
further by insisting that the external environment must include the social as well as
the physical environment. This is an extremely important development precisely
because it sees the possibility of a non-individualist psychology. That is, once
meaning has been moved outside of the (brain of the) individual it is possible to
entertain the view that meaning is a social phenomenon. 74 We call this the Hegelian
moment in analytic philosophical psychology because the disappearance of the
individual subject is achieved at the cost of embracing a larger social subject.
Burge, in the end, focuses on the relation of mind to physical world thereby
preserving a commitment to scientism.7s That is, although flirting with the Hegelian
moment, Burge in the end embraces scientism. We remind the reader that the
combination of an Hegelian social account of mind with materialism leads to
Marxism. 76 We also remind the reader that Marxism is one of the forms of social
technology to emerge out of the Enlightenment Project.
To underscore further the inherent Hegelian/Marxist dimension of analytic
philosophical psychology we note the following. The main problem is not the
recognition of the social dimension of mind. On the contrary, this is a real advance
in thinking among analytic philosophers. The problem lies in the ontological status
of the social dimension of mind, specifically attributing to it a material/causal
dimension. Ifthere is a causal material basis for our thinking and/or ifthere is a an
external causal social basis for our thinking then we are left with the problem of how
any individual theorist can know that he/she is correct as opposed to being
determined in one's views by forces beyond one's ultimate (and rational) control?
This problem is analogous to the classic problem raised within Marxist theory by the
concept of ideology. That is, if everyone's view is determined by external forces,
then how does the Marxist know that his view or even his belief in the concept of
ideology is really true? The Marxist answer, which is a version of the Hegelian
answer, and what has to be the analytic answer is that he/she as an individual theorist,
270 Chapter 7

or as part of a special group of theorists, is an exception because helshe, or the

special group, is further along in the historical developmental process that occurs at
the upper level given developments on the material level! Moreover, we know that
we are further along, or so the philosopher will have to answer, because we have
managed to be in tune with the progress of intellectual history as exemplified in
science. 77 In short, what sustains analytic philosophical psychology is the historical
mythology first enunciated in the Enlightenment by the philosophes.
Although Burge himselffails to make either transition, he suggests a more
profitable line of development. First, what externalism substitutes for the "I Think"
perspective is a "We Think" perspective. This is a significant advance, but it still
leaves open the question of how we are to understand the "We Think." As long as
Burge and others are tied to exploration there are going to be alternative versions of
the "We," that is some of us will understand the "We Think" in one way and others
of us will understand the "We Think" in another. The question now arises as to
whether this larger context is to be interpreted through inner psychological andlor
physiological states or by appeal to a larger social consensus. If we opt for the
former, then we have the same problems all over again. However, if we opt for the
latter, then we have moved toward explication and away from exploration. Second,
by placing meaning and language into the world in a kind of holism it is no longer
possible to say that language is a tool for depicting the world. 78 This would seem to
suggest that language is related to action in a different way, namely, the "We Do"
perspective. There is, then, an important distinction between interpretation of the
context by the language users and the interpretation of the context by philosophers
observing language use.

The Alternative of Explication

Since the time of Plato (and Socrates), at least, there has been an on-going
philosophical tradition that denies that our understanding of ourselves is derivative
from our understanding of the world of nature. In the modem period, Descartes, and
many since, reflect this on-going tradition. Therefore, no discussion of human nature
can ignore the extent to which common sense and long standing philosophical
tradition, as well as Western religion, would all insist that how we understand
ourselves cannot be captured by modem physical science. This should help us to
understand both the extent to which the Enlightenment Project and analytic
philosophical psychology are truly revolutionary and revisionist intellectual
enterprises.
At the same time, this common sense view of ourselves must not be
confused with specific philosophical attempts to articulate it or to explain it. The
errors within or refutations of specific articulations does not of itself reflect errors
within the common sense view. 79
The alternative to elimination and exploration is explication. Explication
is based on the assumption that our common understanding and practice can make
sense of itself. We have characterized our common understanding as the pre-
theoretical. We now raise the question, "What is the pre-theoretical?" Failure to
identifY the pre-theoretical domain accurately would undennine not only explication
but exploration as well, for even exploration must begin with our pre-theoretical
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 271

understanding. As we shall see, analytic philosophical psychology has made

precisely that mistake because it has begun with an attempt to attack other
explorations rather than an attempt to identify the pre-theoretical accurately.
By the very fact that explication begins with our common understanding and
practice such explication presupposes that our understanding ofourselves is primary
and our understanding of the world is derivative. This is the key to understanding
the inability of so much of analytic philosophy to take explication seriously. The
Enlightenment Project in analytic philosophy takes our knowledge of the physical
world as primary and our knowledge of ourselves as derivative.
Advocates of common sense would argue that we not only understand the
human and social world differently but in a manner superior to our understanding of
the physical world. Our understanding ofthe physical world is itself derivative from
and dependent upon our understanding of the social world. This prior social
understanding is what Wittgenstein and others mean when they invoke the pre-
theoretical context of discourse. It is possible to view mechanistic explanations as
heuristic; in fact, we can even view subsets of human functioning as "mechanistic"
as long as that "mechanism" is viewed heuristically, not ontologically, and as part of
a larger whole that cannot itself be conceptualized as mechanistic. Taking
mechanism as anything other than heuristic leads to a profound skepticism in which
we remain unable to explain either norms or how the "physical" gives rise to the
"mental."
It will be asked, "Does this mean that there is no physical foundation for the
"mental", i.e., the world of common sense?" The answer to this question is that the
question is illegitimate. The activity of explaining is a social activity; an explanation
has a purely epistemological and social function. If the social world is the pre-
theoretical domain, then it makes no sense to ask for a further explanation of the act
of explaining. There can be no hidden structure to explanation; explanation is sui
generis. The most we can do is understand the act of explanation; we do not explain
explanation. The analytic questioner does not understand but remains confused and
confounded because he/she subscribes to a philosophical doctrine of scientistic
epistemological realism within which explanation must refer to physical structures.
Does this mean that there is no connection between "mental" activity such
as explaining and physical events? The beginning of an answer is that talk about the
"mental" does not capture the pre-theoretical. It is, first of all, designed to give a
rhetorical advantage to advocates of scientism and physicalism. This kind of
language conjures up images of disembodied spirits or traps opponents of
physicalism into thinking that we are talking about some kind of occult entity.
Philosophers can proceed to dismiss objections to physicalism by claiming that it
appeals to dubious notions of disembodied spirits. On the contrary, talking about the
"mental" in this context is not a way of getting at the pre-theoretical world but is
itself a reflection of discarded philosophical theories about what it means to be a
human being. No one except the holder ofa philosophical theory would even begin
to think that the mind is a thing or that it can have a spatial relationship to the body.
It is not the nervous system that explains what we do, rather it is what we
do as agents that requires us to explain the significance of the nervous system's
functioning. Clearly this sort of explanation is not going to be physicalistic. There
272 Chapter 7

is, then, no problem of how the physical gives rise to the "mental." This is not a
scientific problem! It remains a philosophical problem only for those who begin with
physicalist epistemological realism. This also underscores the extent to which
determinism is a bogus philosophical issue. 8o The common sense perspective does
not explain action by appeal to a nervous system except in case of non-moral
abnormal behavior. Dualistic versions of exploration come close to grasping this
point but fail in the end because they still seek for a further explanation of how the
tiers are related, and they expect to find some kind of physicalistic answer.
If we must, then, begin with our understanding of ourselves, how then do
we understand ourselves in the pre-theoretical context? The answer is that we
understand ourselves. first, by reference to our culture. Common sense seeks not for
order or structure but for meaning, and it does so by reference to what other members
in our culture have done before us. Questions of genesis and transmission become
primary. Culture, then, is to be understood as social and historical. The social
dimension of mind is to be taken seriously in any explication. Hence, the initial
philosophical question is not "How can I know myself?", but rather "How are we to
understand ourselves?"
Second, we begin with action and not with thought. We understand
ourselves primarily as actors, not as thinkers. In action we experience the unity of
ourselves with our bodies so that there is no problem of how a mind can influence
a body. There is thus no mind-body problem in this sense either. In fact, we have
no conception of ourselves except as agents. The common language of "mental"
phenomena does not function in isolation but is related to our action, not just our
body. What I believe, think, feel, etc. is integrally related to what I do. The common
sense perspective is one of agents engaged in action. An "I Do" perspective is a
better approximation than the "I Think" perspective. Yet, the most that analytic
psychologists can do with this is to invoke behaviorism, the inadequacies of which
they themselves recognize. Behaviorism is on the right track, but behaviorism aborts
by trying to explain action in purely physicalist realist terms without reference to
social agents.
All meaningful thought must ultimately concern some form of actual or
potential action. Efficient practice always precedes the theory of it. What this means
is that rational (i.e., socially responsible) thought is an attempt to draw cultural norms
implicit in previous action. To think is to take the inherent norms of prior practice
as fundamental. not an external structure. What is 'external' to us is a set of social
practices and not a rigid material structure. When we discuss the "causes" of our
actions we do not seek for them in other events, rather we look for reasons. 81
Reasons, moreover, refer to intentions and are relative to a community over time.
Individual human action is thus reconstructive of a culture. Contrary to analytic
philosophy, those who try to understand common sense do not want to see what
empirical research will show (i.e., exploration), rather they attempt to explicate the
concepts of ourselves already implicit in our everyday practice. This is why the
analytic literature on personal identity seems so removed from how we normally
understand ourselves. We do not so much "explain" human action as try to
understand and judge it. The perspective which incorporates the primacy of culture
and action is the "We Do" perspective and not the "I Think" perspective.
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 273

Even in the case of the "I Think," the vestigial presence of the "I" is
significant. It is significant because it calls attention to the fact that the paradigm case
of knowledge is self-knowledge. This is part of what is meant by saying that
knowledge involves self-consciousness. This also reflects the extent to which our
knowledge of the world is derivative from our knowledge of ourselves. In this
respect even modem epistemologists such as Descartes and Locke were on the right
track. Unfortunately, the "I Think" perspective endemic in Locke, Descartes, and
others ignores the social dimension to thought itself. Locke's starting point and the
starting point of much of analytic philosophy is egocentric, ahistorical, and asocial.
The immediate consequence ofthis "I think" perspective is the recurrent incoherent
discussions of solipsism, personal identity, and the so-called problem of "other
minds" construed as an epistemological problem.
All reductive and eliminative programs in analytic philosophical psychology
have always stumbled over the issue ofthe human ability to use language. Language
is so clearly an example of a social as opposed to a psychological artifact that it
should hardly be surprising when reductive analytic psychological programs fail to
account for it. s2 Social communication does not have as its paradigm either an
academic conference or a parlor game. Social communication serves the purposes
of action and has to be understood from that point of view. Meaning ends up being
not a specifiable structure but something that is conveyed from one social agent to
another. Yet, analytic philosophical psychology takes theoretical knowledge as
primary and practical knowledge as derivative, again reversing the common sense
understanding.
If self-knowledge is fundamental then knowledge cannot be explained
simply in terms of external structure. Self-knowledge requires explication in terms
of something "internal" as opposed to an external structure. What is "internal" is not
a structure, and it itself cannot be explicated in terms of an external structure, and
hence the "internal" is not a place or an object. Once we get away from the notion
that the "internal" is a place, we are free to recognize other things about self-
knowledge. If the "internal" is not an object with a structure (and here Hume is
correct) then it has a different kind of status.
Self-knowledge is a form of cultural awareness. "We" come to see certain
truths about our "selves." These truths cannot be perceived by the isolated "self' and
then communicated to the social whole. Even where one individual "sees"
something before others do, what he/she "sees" is a deeper or better sense of the
culture. Since we learn about ourselves through others, there cannot be a concept of
'self' that is not parasitic upon a concept of other selves. Hence there cannot be a
problem of how there are other minds. Without other minds we would not as
individuals have mindl' of our own. From within the "We Do" perspective of
common sense, the epistemological problem of other minds simply does not arise.
Recall Wittgenstein' s critique of a private language. Rather it is understood that
human beings interact with their environment and each other in a way that is always
mediated by culture. The corrective dimension both to moral and theoretical
problems is social. Objectivity is understood as inter-subjectivity, and not as
reference to a non-human structure. Clearly this sense of objectivity is at odds with
274 Chapter 7

the modern naturalist realism sense of objectivity to which so much of analytic

philosophy is committed and from which it inherits its "I Think" perspective.
Taken seriously, this implies that our understanding of ourselves is
derivative from (Le., transmitted by) contact with others. We, initially, learn about
ourselves through interaction with others. This process is one of moving from whole
to part. The isolated cognizer comes much later and is an extremely sophisticated,
artificial, and abstract notion. It is difficult to see how beginning with an isolated
cognizer and "forgetting" its origins we can come to an understanding of the social
dimension. In short, the analytic "I Think" perspective moves from part to whole,
reversing what may well be the natural order of learning. 8] We hasten to add that
the larger cultural context is not an object or structure, that is, it is not a larger
external machine (e.g., "the economy," or "history"). Nor is it the case that the
individual is onto logically subsumed under the community; rather, being an
individual is a cultural phenomenon and an achievement only possible within some
historical communities. To be an "I" is to distinguish oneself from a pre-existing
whole. The Hegelian moment (e.g., Burge) in analytic philosophical psychology is
the beginnings of the recognition of the social dimension ofmind, but it falters by
ultimately trying to construe the larger social context as an external structure. The
cultural context consists of historically evolving norms where such norms cannot be
construed as reflecting further hidden structures. Changing "I Think" to "We
Think"84 will still leave an unbridgeable gap.
The social dimension of thought calls attention to a number of interlocked
features of the "mental" which individually and collectively have proven to be
stumbling blocks. The two interlocked features are self-consciousness and self-
reference.
Of special interest is the issue of self-reference, since it is the capacity to use
language that enables human beings to be self-conscious, to think about thought, to
speak about speech. How would one explain the capacity of language for self-
reference?
The capacity for self-reference exists only when mutual inclusivity exists.
A "We Do" perspective and a concept of human/cultural order are mutually
inclusive. The mutual inclusivity of our common sense understanding of ourselves
follows from the social dimension of the "mental," that is, from the "We Do"
perspective coupled with a sense of order that is cultural. The distance between the
mutual inclusivity of common sense and the difficulty analytic philosophical
psychologists have in gaining mutual inclusivity, or rendering their epistemology
consistent with their metaphysics, by using either the "I Think" or the "We Think"
perspective and a mechanical conception of order is perhaps unbridgeable.
A consistent analytic philosophical psychology has to deny the ontological
existence of self-consciousness, for self-consciousness is the ultimate affirmation of
the subject/agent to whose elimination analytic philosophy is committed. When
analytic philosophers castigate others for being idealists, it is because they associate
idealism with the affirmation of the ontological existence of a self-consciousness that
is not eliminable in favor of some form of physicalism.
In contrast to analytic philosophy, Platonism has always affirmed self-
consciousness or the existence of a mind whose intelligibility is self-evident,
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 275

undeniable, and the basis of the intelligibility of an external reality, the latter
remaining derivative from the self-intelligibility of the mind (Plato, Augustine,
Descartes, Kant, etc.). Traditional or classical Aristotelianism, while denying the
position of the Platonists, managed to circumvent the paradoxes of denying self-
consciousness because it adhered to a view of objective structure that was inherently
teleological and organic. Hence, for the classical Aristotelian a teleological mind
could mesh with a teleological view of non-human nature. The categories used to
describe the perspective and the categories used to describe the structure were
mutually inclusive.
The inability to deal with self-consciousness is at the root of the inability to
deal with self-reference. We saw the inability to deal with the issue of self-reference
in the logical paradoxes Russell found in his own Principia Mathematica, and we
saw it again in the discussion of analytic metaphysics, specifically the discussion of
total conceptualization, we saw it in the inability to model the act of modeling
(abstraction), and we have seen it again in the inability to achieve mutual inclusivity
of analytic epistemology and metaphysics. It is perhaps easier to see now why this
is an obstacle to analytic theorizing. Self-reference and self-consciousness are
analogous in that both can be conceived of as attempts to talk coherently about the
source of talk. Although it will be contested by many, others will argue that self-
consciousness is the paradigm of all forms of self-reference. Failure to account for
self-consciousness invariably creates problems in handling the issue of self-reference
wherever it appears.
The paradoxes of self-consciousness exist only for analytic philosophical
psychology because it retains Aristotelian or naturalist realism but denies teleology
as onto logically fundamental in favor of mechanism. 85 Analytic philosophical
psychology is necessarily committed to denying the existence of a subject/agent
precisely because it has no way of accounting for how one structure can be conscious
of another structure. It is therefore not surprising that versions of the identity theory
and theories of allegedly ultimately eliminable homunculi are popular options among
analytic philosophers.
We can summarize our case against analytic philosophical psychology as
follows:
l. It is a "category mistake" or logical error to entertain the possibility of
a scientific explanation of any cultural process. Cultural processes are
epistemologically fundamental so that any scientific explanation will always be
parasitic upon some cultural context for its own intelligibility.
2. Analytic philosophical psychology cannot be an empirical hypothesis and
therefore cannot be defended by the claim that it is a research program that has not
yet been refuted. 86 All empirical (scientistic) hypotheses are dependent upon a prior
cultural context for their intelligibility.
3. The most that can be achieved is to discover a concomitant variation
between a cultural context and a physiological process. There is nothing beyond
concomitant variation, and no philosopher can specify even in principle what more
there could be. Such a discovery does not lend credence to analytic philosophical
psychology or establish the origins of further research. Such a discovery reflects two
things. It reflects prior agreement on what constitutes the cultural context, i.e., an
276 Chapter 7

explication; and it reflects our subsequent extension to human physiology of a

derivative mechanistic model. It is not the discovery of the concomitant variation
that illuminates the cultural context, rather it is the explication ofthe cultural context
that illuminates the concomitant variation.
4. If it were possible to achieve technological mastery over individual
human beings such that physiological processes could be manipulated to produce
epistemological utterances this would merely discredit those utterances not establish
the validity of an empirical hypothesis.
5. Proof of point (4) above is that any disagreement about it or what
anything means would not be resolvable by appeal to alleged evidence about
technologically induced utterances. The very intelligibility of something like
materialism is itself resolvable only on the cultural level. This brings us back to our
first point. Scientific explanations are themselves (parts) parasitic upon a larger
cultural whole. Epistemological concepts are normative. not descriptive; and it is
the normative that explains the descriptive. not vice versa.

The Analytic Critique of Explication

Those analytic philosophers committed to scientism do not recognize explication as
a legitimate mode of intellectual activity. Such philosophers recognize only
elimination and exploration. What then are they to make of explication? The answer
is that they look upon or construe the explication of the pre-theoretical as an
exploratory theory. They call this "theory" "Folk Psychology,"87 and, of course, they
find it to be defective exploration.
Patricia Churchland understands 'folk psychology' as follows:

[By] folk psychology I mean that rough-hewn set of concepts,

generalizations, and rules of thumb we all standardly use in
explaining and predicting human behaviour. Folk psychology is
common sense psychology -- the psychological lore in virtue of
which we explain behaviour as the outcome of beliefs, desires,
perceptions, expectations, goals, sensations and so forth. It is a
theory {italics mine] whose generalizations connect mental states
to other mental states, to perceptions, and to actions. These homey
generalizations are what provide the characterization of the mental
states and processes referred to; they are what delimit the 'facts'
of mental life and define the explananda. Folk psychology is
'intuitive psychology', and it shapes our conceptions of
ourselves. 88

Paul Churchland makes this charge on behalf of what he confidently predicts will be
future developments in neurophysiology.

Eliminative materialism is the thesis that our common-sense

conception of psychological phenomena constitutes a radically
false theory, a theory so fundamentally defective that both the
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 277

principles and ontology of that theory will eventually be displaced,

rather than smoothly reduced, by completed neuroscience. 89

There are a number of important features in the Churchlands' thesis. First,

the Churchlands are eliminativist and not explorers. Implicitly this is to accept the
case we have made against exploration and at the same time to remain unscathed by
it. If the Churchlands were offering an exploration, then we would have raised one
of our fundamental questions, namely, how can there be an exploration without a
prior agreement on explication. But the fact that the Church lands deny any previous
or possible explication means they are engaged in elimination. They never seriously
question the ethos of scientism. Second, the Churchlands' response to the critique
of elimination is highly revealing. According to them, we can judge the success of
a scientific elimination not by appeal to common sense but by future developments
in science. Future developments in science are to serve as the standard of success in
science. "Excellence of theory emerges as the fundamental measure of all
ontology."9o The Church lands are not only willing to bite the bullet of scientism but
they clearly express the importance of the historical myth in analytic philosophy, a
myth that descends to it from the philosophes of the French Enlightenment.
Crucial to the Church land case is an attack on our ordinary understanding
of cognitive activity. Both Church lands maintain that our ordinary understanding
does not have a privileged standing but is itself a theoretical account to be judged like
any other. They present a number of arguments, but the most interesting one is as
follows. Since it is now generally agreed in the wake of the 'Kantian Tum' that there
is no "given," then there cannot be a set of facts that constitute the ordinary
understanding. Hence, the ordinary understanding must be an interpretation, i.e., a
theoretical account. They then go on to characterize this alleged theoretical account
as involving reference to "internal states," and finally, dismiss it because it lacks
"empirical integrity."9!
The curious thing about this argument alleging that our ordinary
understanding is a theory is that it proves just the opposite of what the Churchlands
want to conclude. To be sure, there is no "given" set of facts that constitutes our
cognitive or mental life. But what this shows is that there is no such thing as our
"internal states," and hence there cannot be an empirical investigation of our
"internal states." What this shows is that the only thing we can investigate is what
we mean by our internal states and not our "internal states" themselves. To use our
terminology, any theoretical activity presupposes a pre-theoretical context, and this
pre-theoretical context is not conceptualizable or capturable by any theory. Our
ordinary understanding is our pre-theoretical context; it is not itself a theory, and it
cannot be captured by any theory.
The Church lands, having dismissed to their satisfaction our ordinary
understanding, then proceed to offer a reductive or eliminative neurobiological
account of our cognitive states. Their argument, quite simply. is that cognitive
representations are structures mirrored by structures in the brain. The trouble with
this account is that it begs the most important question. Is it the case that cognitive
representations are structures? Patricia Churchland thinks so:
278 Chapter 7

Why should not ... a [neural] theory explain the logical and
meaningful relations between states at the psychological level?
How, a priori, do philosophers know that it cannot? What can be
their special source ofknowledge?92

The answer to Church land is that it is she who presumes a whole host of
philosophical positions, positions like the correspondence theory of truth, a picture
theory of meaning, internal ism, scientism, etc. The whole thrust. for example. of
Wittgensteinian explication is that meaning is a cultural phenomenon (social and
historical) and not a structure or set ofatomistic units. If advocates of explication
or linguistic holism93 are correct, then the Churchlands have not offered a theoretical
reinterpretation of the data, rather they have manufactured the data or replaced the
data with bad poetry:

It is important for us to appreciate, if only dimly, the extent of the

perceptual transformation here envisaged. These people do not sit
on the beach and listen to the steady roar of the pounding surf.
They sit on the beach and listen to the aperiodic atmospheric
compression waves produced as the coherent energy of the ocean
waves is audibly redistributed in the chaotic turbulence of the
shallows. 94

Nor can the Churchlands dismiss advocates of explication (and linguistic holism) on
the grounds that explication is a falsifiable theory. Explication is not a theory of any
kind. 95 Critics of analytic philosophical psychology would claim that our
consciousness is being misdescribed by reference to a theory. Our consciousness
cannot be explained or reduced to anything else. It is sui generis. It is what asks
questions, answers them, and does the explaining. Many analytic philosophers
assume that we are starting out with data (part), but what we always begin with is our
way of seeing things (whole). This is the message of the 'Kantian Tum,' with the
consequence that there is no given. But even in their attempt to recognize it, these
philosophers fail to grasp its meaning. To the extent that we cannot get outside of
our language and culture 96 we cannot explore any notion of hidden structure. We
can only try to understand ourselves through explication. The pre-theoretical cannot
be conceptualized either by way of exploration or by way of elimination. The
attempt to conceptualize the pre-theoretical is not a scientific enterprise but a
hopelessly misguided philosophical one. The pre-theoretical is itself the ground of
conceptualization. As Wittgenstein put it:

The confusion and barrenness of psychology is not to be explained

by calling it a 'young science'; its state is not comparable with that
of physics, for instance, in its beginnings. 97
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 279

Summary
Is there a pre-theoretical domain?
A. No (elimination)
1. Behaviorism
2. Psychology (Stich)
3. Neuroscience (Church lands)
B. Yes
1. Conceptualizable (exploration)
-a- Hegel
-b- Ordinary Language Philosophy (Grice)
-c- Phenomenology
-d- Psychology (Fodor)
-e- Biology (Dennett)
-f- Sociology (Burge)
2. Not Conceptualizable (explication)
-a- Hume, Kant
-b- Wittgenstein
-c- Heidegger
-d- later Husserl

Analytic Philosophical Psychology as Ideology

An examination of the literature of analytic philosophical psychology reveals an
unswerving commitment to scientism. Even when previous theories are criticized or
whole approaches are rejected as in Chomsky's critique of Skinner or Dennett's
critique of all forms of the identity theory, the one constant is a reaffirmation of some
other version of physicalism. Constructive criticism is defined as criticism within the
scientific paradigm. Analytic philosophical psychologists always fall back on the
claim that their contentions have not been shown to be impossible, although we are
left wondering what kind of argument would convince them. That is why so much
of the literature of analytic philosophical psychology is ritualistic rather than
substantive. A careful examination of that literature does not reveal anything of
substantial scientific interest, despite the use of borrowed technical jargons. Not one
of the theories we have discussed actually serves or can serve as a hypothesis for
future scientific research. All of these theories are content to argue for the viability
of scientism and attempt to reaffirm loyalty to scientism by answering the latest
round of objections to, and construing more intricate qualifications for, pre-existing
versions of physicalism. What should not be lost sight of is a crucial difference.
Whereas the physical scientist can explain what is behind what appears to us, the
analytical philosophical psychologist does not explain what is behind the
appearance (experience ofconsciousness, agency, etc.) but denies legitimacy to the
appearance.
Beyond the ideological reaffirmation of scientism there lies a further
function. As we suggested in the introductory chapter, one of the cultural functions
of so much of analytic philosophy is to defend the Enlightenment faith in a social
technology. In order for there to be a psychological and social technology for the
creation of a social and political utopia there must be a human physics, a literal
280 Chapter 7

science ofhumanify.98 Moreover, this alleged science of humanity must discover the
necessary and sufficient conditions for human action so that a causal structure
capable of technological manipulation can be constructed.

[T]he magnitude of the conceptual revolution here suggested

should not be minimized; it would be enormous. And the benefits
to humanity might be equally great. 99

Ifphysicalism is somehow true, then it would follow that both the world and human
beings have an objective structure which we could "obey." This would ground
norms in something objective, an external-to-us authority that would terminate
debate. On the other hand, to appeal to the explication of social practice is to appeal
to something that cannot be definitively defined.
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 281

NOTES (CHAPTER 7)

1. By 'philosophical psychology' is meant an account of what is a human

being. An older expression was 'philosophical anthropology.' One also
reads and hears of "philosophy of mind", but this expression often reflects
the ordinary language approach to these issues. By using the expression
'philosophical psychology' we wish to convey the view of those analytic
philosophers guided by the Enlightenment Project and who assert that
human beings are to be accounted for in scientific terms and without
reference to an irreducible and larger social context. Finally, it is important
to stress the adjective 'philosophical' in all of this. These analytic
philosophers are not scientists offering a scientific account, rather they are
answering objections to the possibility of giving such an account. They
would say that they are preparing the philosophical groundwork for such a
scientific account.

2. Searle (1996), p. 8.

3. Margolis (1984), p. 15. Margolis is not a physicalist. He subscribes to

scientism but without physicalism. This seems to be a compromise position
that suits neither hard line analytic philosophers nor their critics. As Field
(1972), p. 373, expressed it, "our accounts of primitive reference and of
truth are not to be thought of as something that could be given by
philosophical reflection prior to scientific information - on the contrary, it
seems likely that such things as psychological models of human beings and
investigations of neurophysiology will be very relevant to discovering the
mechanism involved in reference."

4. Dennett (1987), p. 5.

5. McGinn (1989), p. 10 n. 14; see also p. 11 n. 15.

6. Lycan (1996), p. 168.

7. Searle (1995), p. 6.

8. We must distinguish between two Enlightenment posItIOns.

'Sensationalism' focused on epistemological or cognitive concerns. This
position originated with Locke but was developed by Helvetius and
Condillac into the Enlightenment Project ofthe perfectibility of man. There
was a second position epitomized by LaMettrie's L'Homme machine and
reflected in Diderot. This second position emphasized the extent to which
individual differences of internal physiology militated against political
ideals such as equality. However, both positions were physicalist, and the
second position also lends itselfto social technology but of a non-cognitive
282 Chapter 7

variety. In this sense, the second position anticipates the contemporary

move from language to internalist psychology. One may also see in this
distinction between the two positions the later political difference between
those who looked upon democracy and public debate as the method of
social reform (liberals and socialists) and those who advocated radical and
perhaps violent change in social structure as the method of social reform
(e.g., doctrinaire Marxists).

9. Randall (1962) pp. 923-24.

10. Almost every anthology of analytic epistemology or psychology contains

Gilbert Ryle's celebrated critique of Descartes' so-called ghost in the
machine.

11. But, to make matters worse from the point of view of the Enlightenment
Project, Hume went on to insist that try as we might all of cognition and
action presupposed an ineliminable subject/self that was not wholly
conceptualizable. Instead of eliminating the "I," we discover that "I" is an
important and ineliminable pre-theoretical element in human identity. In the
analytic history of philosophy, Hume is (a) congratulated for revealing that
the self in not an object but (b) excoriated as inconsistent for then asserting
that there is a self nevertheless! Moreover, when Hume confesses in the
appendix to the Treatise that there was a serious lacunae in his account of
the self, analytic philosophers profess not to understand what Hume was
worried about.

12. Russell (1959a), p. 139. Commenting on Russell, Mure (1958) has pointed
out two things. First, "The rapprochement of mental and physical seems to
be after all wholly a movement towards the physical" (p. 99); second, "[a]t
each stage he [Russell] introduces a new activity of mind familiar in
common experience, and does his best with Occam's razor to slash it into
bare particulars. These mutilated shapes remain recognizable only because
we continue to assume them as we knew them before Mr. Russell began to
subject them to analysis. The sketch-map which he provides may be useful
for prediction and control, but as a philosophical treatment of mind it has
not even the interest of a caricature" (p. 105).

13. Carnap (1 967a), p. 103 (heading # 65). "The basis could also be described
as the given, but we must realize that this does not presuppose somebody or
something to whom the given is given" (# 64, p. 102).

14. " ... what we are looking for is not simply an account of meaning; but
rather one which will also satisfy the various constraints set by the aims of
the analytic tradition. 'Meanings', as things in the mind, are admittedly not
the sort of entities with which the scientific outlook would be comfortable.
There is for this reason an understandable tendency among advocates of
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 283

analytic philosophy towards behaviorism and nominalism" Sacks (1990),

p. 185.

15. Carnap (1932/33); translated by G. Schick, in Ayer (1959), p. 165.

16. Quine (1960), p. 22l.

17. Chisholm (1957), Chapter 11.

18. Chomsky (1959).

19. Smart (1963).

20. Armstrong (1968); See also David Lewis (1966); Dennett (1969).

21. The Biblical notion that human beings are made in God's image and that all
meaning emanates from God is the origin of the "human" notion of order.

22. "In the child/candle example here, Dewey would suggest that the child does
not at first see that there is 'a candle' before him, and that the seeing of this
object (while at first it may cause reaching movements), as a result of the
experience of being burnt, causes avoidance movements. Such an account
would be quite mistaken, he would say. For Dewey, the child first has to
learn what kind of stimulus it is that confronts him, he has to learn its value
or meaning. In this learning, the child himself has to coordinate the seeing
phase of his activity with its manipulatory phase. As a result, he can learn,
among other things, that it is a light-which-if-touched-will bum-him; ....
His learning of what kind of stimulus it is, is then an outcome of a process,
an act which he as an agent performs" Shotter (1975), p. 55.

23. See Chapter Five for our contention that mechanism is a metaphysical thesis
and not a scientific one.

24. For the rare recognition of the importance of this interchangeableness see
Searle (1990), p. 253.

25. Cognitive science is an attempt to explain human cognition on the analogy

with artificial intelligence (AI). One version of (AI) is the thesis that the
human mind is analogous to a computer, a view known as
computationalism. Some of the classics in this field are: Turing (1950);
Searle (1980); Haugeland (1981); Dennett (1984); and R.C. Cummins
(1989). Strictly speaking, artificial intelligence should be distinguished
from cognitive science. Artificial intelligence can be construed as an
attempt to give a mechanistic account of machine "intelligence"; cognitive
science is the attempt to encompass human intelligence using artificial
284 Chapter 7

intelligence. The legitimacy and usefulness of the latter does not

necessarily extend to the fonner; any rejection of cognitive science is not
a rejection of (AI).

26. For a different gloss on the transition from the philosophy of language to
analytic philosophical psychology, see Burge (1992), pp. 28-29.

27. In addition to Davidson, Dennett, and Fodor, two-tier views of human

nature are to be found in: Thomas Nagel (1965); Putnam (1960); Rorty
(1979); Sellars "Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man" in (1963);
and Strawson (1959).

28. Armstrong (1968), p. 94.

29. It is in the light of the two-tier conception of human nature that we can now
explain other dimensions of the controversy between Quine's eliminative
view oflanguage and Kripke's exploratory view of language. That is, the
Quine-Kripke disputc in the philosophy of language may be explained by
appeal to a similar but more fundamental controversy in analytic
philosophical psychology. As we have seen, Quine uses a two-tier
methodology, that is, he allows for the use of theoretical terms and creative
hypothesis fonnation at one level and at a second level he asserts that all of
the upper level cognitive activity can be reduced in principle to behavioral
psychology. The two levels, so to speak, for Quine are contingently
identical. The identity has to be contingent since the two-tier methodology
is itself an hypothesis.
Kripke has objected to the very notion of a contingent identity.
Given the program of total conceptualization, the final all encompassing
explanation should not only explain but explain why no other explanation
is possible. Hence, if there is an identity it cannot be contingent but
necessary. At the same time, it is difficult if not impossible to see how
contingent identity can be anything other than a miraculous coincidence
(shades of Cartesian dualism!). In addition, a necessary as opposed to a
contingent identity seems to attribute a special status to the upper (i.e.,
"mental") level which thwarts one of the consequences of elimination,
namely eliminating upper level cognitive phenomena.
Put another way, Quine can be interpreted as an elimination
epistemologist whose faith in scientism leads him to believe that we can
replace our common sense epistemological notions with scientific accounts
of the learning process. Hence, Quine subscribes to a contingency version
ofthe identity theory in analytic philosophical psychology. Kripke, on the
other hand, is an exploration epistemologist who in the philosophy of
language does not think that semantics and pragmatics can be reduced to
syntax. Hence, rather than eliminating the upper or common sense level,
Kripke attempts to formalize it by exploring its alleged hidden structure
and, at the same time. make the upper level or tier compatible with
 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 285

physicalism on the lower level or tier. More alert to the demands of total
conceptualization than Quine, Kripke seeks a tighter connection between
the levels or tiers without submerging the one into the other. What Kripke
does not provide is any clear idea of how the levels or tiers are related, but
as we shall see neither does anyone else.
Kripke, interestingly, chooses the view that the two levels are not
identical in either sense. Others have suggested that the identity is a
necessary one but only seems to us to be contingent (shades of Leibniz and
Berkeley) at this point in the history of science. That is, others have
suggested that the future of science will reveal the identity as necessary.
Kripke (1980) has no intention of rejecting any of the tenets of analytic
philosophy. Specifically, he embraces both an anti-agency view ofthe self,
and he embraces scientism: " ... rejection of the identity thesis does not
imply acceptance of Cartesian dualism. In fact, my view above that a
person could not have come from a different sperm and egg from the ones
from which he actually originated implicitly suggests a rejection of the
Cartesian picture .... [W]e have no such clear conception of a soul or
self'(n. 77 on p. 155). "Whether science can discover empirically that
certain properties are necessary of cows, or of tigers, is another question,
which 1 answer affirmatively" Ibid., p. 128.

30. For an example offunctionalism, see Putnam (1975a).

31. Sometimes, analytic philosophers slip into the idiom of saying that the "I"
is incarnated. This choice of idiom is significant in that the relation of the
"I" to its body within analytic philosophical psychology remains
miraculous.

32. Typical of this genre was Straws on (1959). Strawson argued that the
defining characteristic of the "mental" was that it required no evidence for
ascribing it. The paradigm of this characterization is "I feel pain:" Rather
than pursue a discussion of Strawson we note merely that what he engages
in is an epistemological characterization of the problem.

33. See, for example, Chomsky (1966) and (1980). Chomsky characterizes his
view as a form of rationalism; Fodor characterizes his version of Chomsky
as Platonism; others refer to this view as a form of innatism, recalling
Locke's terminology for Descartes' notion of cognitive structures without
empirical origins. In our discussion in the chapter on metaphysics, we
indicated how both Descartes and Kant are modern Platonists. Hence, this
plurality of characterizations is, in general, quite consistent.

34. As we have argued in our chapter on epistemology, Aristotelian

epistemology has always been committed to some form of cognitive
structuring. This was true in the Scholastic period, and it was true even of
Locke. However, until the full force of the 'Kantian Turn,' empiricists in
286 Chapter 7

general and analytic philosophers in particular have discreetly evaded

dealing with the implications of that structuring.

35. Haugeland (1978).

36. Bealer (1987).

37. Putnam (1960, 1967).

38. Fodor (1968) and Haugeland (1978).

39. Searle (1996), p. 15; (1980).

40. As in the case of identity theory, Fodor's description of the relationship

between cognitive states and neural states uses intentionalistic vocabulary,
a vocabulary that is alleged to be ultimately replaceable.

41. Fodor (1979), p. 198.

42. "It is ... reasonable to suppose that a system rich enough to express the
messages that natural language sentences can convey wiII have ... a
vocabulary [that is] a finite inventory of discrete, meaningful elementary
items" Fodor (1979), p. 123.

43. Fodor (1980): "One's experiences (and afortiori, one's beliefs) might have
been just as they are even ifthe world had been quite different from the way
it is" (p. 64).

44. Davidson (1970).

45. Dennett (1978c).

46. Dennett (1981) reprinted in Boyd, Gasper, and Trout (eds.)(1991).

47. Dennett (1980), p. 73.

48. Dennett (1978a).

49. Dennett (1978b).

50. Dennett (1981), p. 640.

51. Dennett (1987), pp. 34, 69.

52. Dennett (1978a), p. 123.

 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 287

53. Dennett (1984), note the subtitle: "The Varieties of Free Will Worth
Having." This has been the ongoing redefinition since Hobbes.

54. Strawson (1974), pp. 1-25.

55. I raise the question of whether our conception of philosophy as an

intellectual discipline might not be changed if we came to believe that there
was not a realm offree, rational, and responsible intellectual evaluation. I
hasten to add that ifthe successful predictions did have a profound change
on our attitudes, etc., then what we would be witnessing is a successful
elimination and not a successful exploration. For more on this possibility
see discussion of the Churchlands in the next section of this chapter.

Determinism is a metaphysical thesis not an empirical thesis, for no one can

specify what would constitute its empirical verification. All alleged
examples of such verification are fallacies of affirming the consequent.

56. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-Century dualisms of a non-functional sort were

referred to as epiphenomenalism. In analytic literature, epiphenomenalism
appears under the name of supervenience. See Jaegwon Kim (1984).

57. Feigl (1967).

58. David Hume's lament in the appendix to his Treatise is one of the earliest
statements of this problem. Instead of trying to explain how physical
objects cause mental states, Hume explains how the mind imposes order on
its perceptions while all along assuming that these perceptions are caused
by external physical objects. However, when Hume tried to explain the
principles behind the mind's ability to impose such order, he found himself
confronted by the gap between the physiological base and the unity of
consciousness.

59. Carnap (1967a), # 65, pp. 104-105.

60. Dennett (1978a), p. 253, recognizes that the cultural practice of science
requires a first person perspective: " ... one cannot have a world view of any
sort without having beliefs, and one could not have beliefs without having
intentions, and having intentions requires that one view oneself, at least,
intentionally, as a rational agent."

61. Typical of this genre is the work of Levin (1979): "This book restates and
defends the ancient thesis that man is a piece of matter, that all his mental
states and psychological properties are physical in nature. Within a
metaphysical framework, the author discusses the problem of identity and
diversity of such 'virtual entities' as states and properties and employs
recent tools of linguistic analysis to explain how we refer to our inner states
288 Chapter 7

and the phenomenon of privileged access. He avoids a strict reductive view

and presents a detailed defense of a compatibilist account of free will and
moral responsibility" (dust jacket).

62. Consider Margolis'(1984) critique of Dennett: "The failure of Dennett's

strategy .. .the functions of sub molar homunculi = the subfunctions of the
function of molar agents. If so, the homuncular cannot replace the molar,
because the homuncular is nothing but some subroutine of the molar itself.
.. the homuncular is a relational notion that ineliminably involves reference
to the molar" (pp. 76-77).

63. Consider the work of the Danish linguist Louis Hjelmslev (1969) who has
suggested that a representational mechanism of the kind sought by Fodor
and Dennett might be social in origin and then "internalized" by the
individual in the process of social conditioning.

64. It is holism that overcomes the suspicion that Davidson's version of the
two-tiers is not arbitrary and self-serving. Intensional causality on the
upper level is consistent with covering laws on the lower level.

65. It would not surprise Davidsonian holism to discover that Dennett does not
succeed in eliminating a molar agent but ends up with submolar homunculi
being defined by reference to the functioning of molar agents.

66. Burge (1992), p. 49.

67. Ibid., pp. 46-47: "Anti-individualism is the view that not all of an
individual's mental states and events can be type-individuated
independently ofthe nature of the entities in the individual's environment.
There is, on this view, a deep individuative relation between the
individual's being in mental states of certain kinds and the nature of the
individual's physical or social environments."

68. Ibid., p. 49.

69. See McDonough (1993a), (1993b), and (1994).

70. Putnam (1 975c), p. 227. Husser! had already made this transition in his last
major and unfinished work The Crisis of European Sciences and
Transcendental Phenomenology (1936 [1954]), which is very close to
Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.

71. Burge (1992), p. 25.

72. McGinn (1989).

 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 289

73. Ibid., pp. 122 n. 6, 144 n 42.

74. "If the causal generalizations of psychology hold not by virtue of intrinsic
properties of mental states but instead because of actual relations that those
mental states bear to features of the environment, then it would appear that
the individualist version of psychological reduction would be rendered
implausible" Trout(1991), p. 612.

75. Burge (1986a); (1989). Ultimately, for Burge, the social environment
merely mediates the relation of mind to world: " ... the difference in ...
mental states ... [is] a product of differences in ... physical environments,
mediated by differences in their social environments" (1982), p. 102. See
also Burge (1986b).

76. A serious example of such is to be found in Bhaskar (1989).

77. See for example, Railton (1984). See also, Philip Kitcher (1992), pp. 97-
98: "At this point, a strategy for defending traditional naturalism should
become evident. With respect to the historical and contemporary cases, the
aim will be to show that the case for continued divergence and indefinite
underdetermination has not been made out. . .. Resolution of scientific
controversies often takes a long time. . .. All that traditional naturalism
needs to show is that resolution is ultimately achieved, in favor either of one
of the originally contending parties or of some emerging alternative that
somehow combines their merits."

78. These criticisms are brilliantly articulated by Sacks (1990), pp. 191-92.

79. Hume maintained that it was the function of philosophy to methodize and
correct (render internally consistent) the common sense or vulgar view.
Such correction could not, in Hume's view, take the form of an external
rejection, for common sense was in the end our standard of what is correct
or incorrect.

80. If, as we have maintained, mechanism is a metaphysical thesis and not a

scientific one, then there is a further reason to reject determinism.

81. Reasons are not causes in the mechanistic sense. See Peters (1958) and
Louch (1966). This is not an issue about whether to use the word 'cause'
but what 'cause' means. It would be useful to have a lengthy discussion of
causation which would show (a) that Aristotle did not construe his causes
as mechanistic; (b) that Hume only analogized propositional attitudes to
Newtonian causation and stressed that there was no spatial contiguity (no
mechanism); but even Hume was unable to identify propositional attitudes
without reference to action so that we are left wondering if the connection
is causal or conceptual.
290 Chapter 7

82. For example, neither Chomsky nor any of his associates ever has given an
account of how innate competence and successful performance coalesce.

83. This does not imply a collective notion of individual identity. Collectivism,
either metaphysical or political, is an example of a super-mental "\ Think."
The existence of culture is not incompatible with an acquired sense of one's
individuality and personal responsibility.

84. For evidence of movement within the analytic community to a social

epistemology see Goldman (1987).

85. There is an important analogy here between the mind-body problem and the
value-fact problem in ethics. Once teleology is ontologically removed from
nature it is impossible to see how on realist grounds the mind can discover
values in a world of mechanical facts. It is equally impossible to see how
purposive cognitive activity can be generated from or extracted from a
mechanical structure.

86. Fodor (I975), p. 47, has said: " ... it is, I take it, an empirical question
whether psychological processes are computational questions."
Wittgenstein, on the other hand, maintained that the characteristic of a
metaphysical question was its expression of an unclarity about the grammar
of words in the form of a scientific question.

87. McGinn (1989) asks whether Folk Psychology "impedes the development
of ... a systematic science of mind" (p. 23). The only legitimate function
of Folk Psychology is that it "offers the beginnings" of a "finished scientific
psychology" (124 n 9).

88. P.S. Churchland (1986), p. 299.

89. P. 67 of P.M. Churchland (1981). A similar line of argument is advanced

by Stich (1983). See also P.S. Churchland (1986).

90. P.M. Church land (1979), p. 2.

91. P.S. Church land (1986). In this connection, see also Stitch (1983).

92. P.S. Church land (1986), pp. 381-82.

93. " ... the adoption ofa holistic view of language [Wittgensteinian notion of
the fundamental nature of explication and the irreducible nature of the
personal or human level] renders the construction of a systematic theory of
meaning impossible" Dummett (1975), p. 132.

94. P.M. Church land (1979), p. 29.

 Analytic Philosophical Psychology 291

95. Sorell (1991), p. 144.

96. We can get outside of any given individual, but we cannot get outside of
ourselves collectively.

97. Wittgenstein (1980), p. 43.

98. " ... if, as we have argued, causal interaction holds, and the mental is not
reducible to the physical, then the physical sciences themselves can no
longer be said to form 'a closed system '. . .. The relevant closed system
would have to be an incarnate system - a psychological or social or cultural
system of some sort" Margolis (I984), p. 67.

99. P.M. Church land (1984), p. 45; see also (I 981) pp. 84ff.
 CHAPTER 8

The Enlightenment Project in Analytic Social Science]

Introduction
The concept of 'social science' is the most salient feature of the Enlightenment
Project. If there could be social science then we could derive from it the social
technology that is the ultimate practical objective of the Enlightenment Project. In
this chapter we show how the Enlightenment Project survives and functions within
analytic social science. Specifically, we argue (1) that the unity of science thesis
exemplifies the Project; (2) that during its eliminative phase analytic social science
adheres not only to a covering law model of explanation but to a methodological
individualism that makes social science derivative from psychology; (3) that during
its subsequent exploratory stage, methodological individualism gives way to a social
theory of meaning; and (4) that exploration achieves its Hegelian moment within the
Enlightenment Project by leading to Marxism. Finally, we indicate what social
thought as explication would be as an alternative to the Enlightenment Project in
social science. The analytic understanding of human beings as outlined in the
previous chapter and this one, and its reflection of the Enlightenment Project of a
social technology, will be crucial for the analytic understanding of ethical and
political philosophy in the subsequent chapters.

Unified Science
The basic element of the Enlightenment Project in analytic philosophy is scientism.
Unified science is the doctrinal belief that social science is continuous with and
derivative from natural science. Whenever changes or shifts occur in the analytic
conception of the physical sciences, then we may expect corresponding changes to
occur in the analytic conception of the social sciences.
The commitment to scientism does not entail a belief in the possibility of
social science. One could maintain that no significant or law-like phenomena occur
on what could be called the human and social level. Perhaps nothing meaningful in
the scientific sense can be said about human social life. Perhaps the only level at
which scientific explanation is possible is the level of physics and/or chemistry
and/or biology. The reluctance to deny the possibility of social science is rooted in
the program of founding a social technology equivalent to the technology of the
physical and biological sciences.
Going back to Hobbes, there has been a continuous modern tradition of
philosophers who have maintained a fundamental monism; a monism which makes
the understanding ofthe physical world primary and our understanding of the human
social world derivative. The philosophes, Bentham, nineteenth-century materialists,
and positivists belong to this tradition. It is within this tradition that we can locate
analytic social science.
The classic statement ofthe analytic commitment to unified science is to be
found in Hempel's discussion of the covering law model of explanation. 2 An event,
whether in the physical world or the specifically human and social world, is
explained if and only if the statement asserting its occurrence (E) is logically
 The Enlightenment Project in Analytic Social Science 293

deducible from premisses consisting of both a set of well confirmed initial conditions
(C I , C1 , . . . Cn) and a set of covering laws (L I , Lz, ... Ln).

L I , L 2, ••• Ln (major premise)

C I , C 2 , ••• C n (minor premise)

Therefore, E (conclusion)

The initial conditions are understood by Hempel to be causes of the event,

and it is further presumed that causes can be connected to the event as effect if and
only if the causes and effect are mediated by a law. Hence the symbol" E" stands
for both event and effect, and the symbol "c" stands for both conditions and causes.
"E" is the explicandum and the premises are the explicans. Hempel goes to great
pains to point out and to insist upon the difference between what his view maintains
should be the mode ofhistorical explanation, and all social scientific explanation for
that matter, and what one actually finds in the works of historians and social
scientists. Covering laws are rarely if ever mentioned, perhaps too complex even to
be stated, and if stated or implied frequently incapable of being confirmed by
experiment. Hempel's conception of explanation in the social sciences is neither an
explication of what historians and social scientists actually do nor an explication of
what common sense expects of historical or social scientific explanation. It is a
proposal or model for what social scientific explanations ought to be if they are to
conform to true scientific explanation.)

Analytic Social Science as Elimination

The eliminative version of analytic social science comprises two theses.
Thesis One: (Methodological Individualism): There is only one real social
science, and it is psychology.4 Any scientific discussion of the human/social world
must ultimately be in terms of how the actions of atomistic individuals can be
explained, predicted, and controlled. Atomistic individualism does not deny the
influence upon the individual of external/social circumstances. However, such
influence is viewed as a kind of experience which is internally processed according
to principles which can be explained by reference to physiological structures solely
within the individual. All meaningful statements in economics, history, sociology,
anthropology, etc. can be reduced to statements in psychology. In short, the
explicans of a covering law explanation must refer to laws governing individual
motives.'
Thesis Two: Psychology, as a science, must treat the atomistic individual
not as an autonomolls agent but as a concatenation of sub-objects. Law-like
statements of the kind invoked by Hempel in the discussion of the covering law
model must refer, ultimately, to causal regularities on the sub-agent/object level.
This conception of social science is eliminative because it is at odds with the
common sense or pre-theoretical context within which we routinely understand the
human/social world. Thesis One ignores the extent to which we routinely invoke
social concepts that are not in any obvious sense reducible to statements about the
psychology of an atomistic individual. Thesis Two ignores the extent to which
294 Chapter 8

common sense considers the individual to be an autonomous moral agent not

reducible to sub-objects.
Typical of the eliminativist attitude is Rudner's statement:

For the thesis of absolute emergence, a thesis that does imply the
inapplicability of the scientific method, there appears to be no
plausible evidence whatever. It is, in fact, an extraordinarily
strong thesis. In order to establish it, a proponent would have to
prove not merely that no lawlike hypothesis applying to the
putatively emergent event had been formulated, nor even that none
would be or would be likely to be formulated in the future, but
rather, he would have to prove that it is logically impossible for
any such hypothesis to ever be formulated. Not only has no
proponent of the thesis of absolute emergence produced anything
that even begins to approximate such a proof, but it is very
difficult to imagine how a proponent could ever go about doing so.
To the contrary, the history of science exhibits numerous instances
of phenomena for which the status of absolute emergence has been
claimed but which have subsequently been shown not to be
outside the pattern of lawlike regularity of other events. 6

What is interesting about Rudner's statement is its philosophic

commitment. Rudner assumes that scientism is true and is generally accepted.
Therefore, the burden of proof is on those who oppose scientism. Nowhere does
Rudner believe that he has to provide an argument for scientism other than the claim
that intellectual history is on his side.
The eliminative version of analytic philosophy of the social sciences did not
produce or lead to explanations in the social sciences based upon its suggested
model. It remained a program of what social science should be. Curiously, the
failure of the social sciences to emulate the success of the physical sciences is taken
as evidence not of the illegitimacy of unified science and eliminativism but of the
failure to be ruthlessly and imaginatively eliminative.
Let us turn our attention to methodological individualism. According to the
thesis of methodological individualism, all valid social scientific explanations must
be expressed in terms of facts about individual human beings. Popper's expression
of methodological individualism is as follows:

... all social phenomena, and especially the functioning of all

social institutions, should always be understood as resulting from
the decisions, actions, attitudes, etc., of human individuals, and .
. . we should never be satisfied by an explanation in terms of so-
called 'collectives' .... 7

The question we want to raise is why methodological individualism was

insisted upon as fundamental. To begin with, the commitment to the notion that all
explanations must proceed from the parts to the whole, i.e., logical atomism, is
 The Enlightenment Project in Analytic Social Science 295

central to analytic philosophy. In fact, as we saw in the first chapter, the very name
"analytic" reflects Russell's initial insistence that explanations involve analysis or
reduction to elementary parts and that the elementary parts can be understood prior
to the understanding of the wholes. Logical atomism, however, is not sufficient to
explain methodological individualism. It still remains an open empirical question as
to what are the atoms or smallest units that in fact form the basis of all human and
social explanation.
Although stated as a methodological thesis, methodological individualism
is a product ofthe ontological, epistemological, and axiological presuppositions of
the Enlightenment Project. 8 Ontological truths about the atomistic individual were
to be discovered by postulating a hypothetical state of nature in which we discover
what a human being is independent of all social influence. This purely hypothetical
state was "accessed" in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries through
introspection. 9 Atomistic individualism as an ontological thesis thus entailed
epistemological individualism or an "I Think" perspective. 10
What epistemological individualism opposes are all forms of social
epistemology, i.e., all views which insist that knowing and learning presuppose a
shared social world and language. One thing that advocates of epistemological
individualism object to in social epistemology is the possible denial of ontological
realism. If we know and learn only through an inherited cultural apparatus, then
there is no guarantee of a direct contact with reality. Another related concern is the
extent to which a social epistemology leads to relativism or the "idols of the
marketplace," that is the extent to which social policy reflects historical accidents
rather than objective truths about human nature. Eliminative social science aims to
be value-free in the sense that it wants to understand, predict, and control social
phenomena by means ofthe psychological laws that undergird social phenomena and
not what it construes as prior social prejudice.
A third source of methodological individualism is commitment to the
axiology of the Enlightenment Project. Modern naturalists, beginning with
Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Spinoza, insisted upon the existence of fundamental and
universal desires, i.e., a modem form of natural law. Moreover, as versions of
modem natural law, these views assume the harmony of these desires properly
understood. Confirmation of these desires is achieved through introspective ("I
Think") epistemological individualism. The fundamental desires never disorient
theoretical reason, and this is part of what it meant to maintain the fundamental
goodness of natural desire. The fundamental goodness of natural desire is an
important theme of the Enlightenment Project. Politically, the Enlightenment Project
was initiated with a view to guaranteeing certain basic individual political rights.
These alleged "rights" were rooted in certain fundamental truths about human nature,
that is, in terms of the alleged universal desires.
Methodological individualism thus functions in analytic social science to (a)
defend certain preconceived values in such a w~ that (b) those values are
compatible with both ontological realism and (c) epistemological individualism. The
connection between the ontological realism and the preconceived values goes both
ways. Not only must the values be compatible with realism but the values are
seemingly protected from the potential threat of relativism by grounding them in an
296 Chapter 8

allegedly absolute structure independent of human beings. In sum, eliminative social

science entails: (i) methodological individualism, (ii) epistemological individualism,
and (iii) value free epistemology
Let us now turn to the second Thesis of elimination in analytic social
science. The individual of methodological individualism must, ultimately, be
reducible to an objective sub-structure. In view of the strong historical connection
between a defense of individual rights and analytic social science we may raise the
question whether methodological individualism is an exception to our contention that
analytic philosophy has an anti-agency view of the self. When the self that seems to
be implicit in methodological individualism is examined, we find that the self is
construed as or reduced to a mechanical model. Instead of the individual person
being an autonomous atom in any ontological sense, the individual is reduced to a
concatenation of "atoms" such as "drives" or "needs." Crucial to methodological
individualism is the notion of an objective internal structure that determines or
dictates individual choice and preference. The concept of an autonomous selfwhich
is not determined in its choices is incompatible with scientism. Hence, the self
disappears at some level in favor of a mechanism, however sophisticated, that is
amenable to scientific objectification and presumably control. If this were not the
case, a social technology would also be impossible.
A great deal of time and ingenuity has been spent trying to make scientific
determinism compatible with common sense notions of individual freedom and
responsibility. The appeal to epistemological individualism plays a role even here.
If individuals are governed by internal mechanisms of choice determination, II and
if individuals can learn or come to know certain objective structural features of the
world and themselves directly, then social reform via social technology can proceed
by what would appear to be a wholly rational public and democratic process of
persuasion in providing the right information, education, opportunity, etc. This
seems non-manipulative, and in that sense compatible with individual dignity.
However, to the extent that the process by which the individual interprets the
information is governed by a mechanism not under the control of the individual,
analytic social scientists are still denying an agency view of the self. It also seems
clear that if non-manipulative strategies for obtaining political ends do not work
sufficiently well, it is but a short step to more manipulative social technologies. The
decline of individual rights-based political theories in favor of manipulative social
technologies confirms this trend. Ultimately, the anti-agency view of the self
weakens rights-based political views.

Analytic Social Science as Exploration

The eliminative period of analytic philosophy of the social sciences roughly
paralleled the period when the discipline of psychology was dominated by reductive
views. That is, eliminative analytic social science prevailed during the time that
psychologists contended that social phenomena could be reduced to physiological or
physical explanation. The parallel development in analytic philosophical psychology
was marked by the dominance of the identity theory, in which eliminative analytic
philosophers of mind tried to reduce "mental states" to "physical states."
 The Enlightenment Project in Analytic Social Science 297

The eliminative approach in both analytic philosophical psychology and

analytic social science failed for the same reason. Both failed to generate a coherent
account because both failed to recognize the social dimension of mind. This failure
can be seen in two specific areas: the problem of "other minds" and the problem of
"personal identity."
The problem of "other minds" is, in part, an epistemological problem, and
as such is parasitic on the problem of "personal identity." It is precisely because of
the way in which analytic philosophers of mind raise the issue of personal identity
that they have trouble with "other minds." Analytic philosophers of mind seek to
identify a person in the same way in which an observer identifies an object. As a
result, they are left trying to distinguish between individual persons and other kinds
of objects. Presumably what distinguishes persons from other objects is that persons
have "mental" lives. Personal identity is then equated with self-consciousness, and
self-consciousness then becomes a kind of privileged access to mental states. The
result is that we become aware of the asymmetry between self-ascription of mental
states and the ascription made by others.12 Identity-type theories now appear as
desperate attempts to overcome this asymmetry.
The problem for analytic philosophers in establishing the existence of "other
minds" is not merely an epistemological difficulty. It is as well the inability to
generate the social world out of the consciousness of the isolated and abstract
individual. This problem in analytic philosophical psychology has as its counterpart
the inability to generate a conception of social obligation out of the individual's
perception ofhislher self-interest. That is why many analytic ethical theorists ask the
seemingly bizarre question "Why ought I be ethical?" The question is bizarre
because instead of trying to explicate the moral world it starts with putting the moral-
social world in jeopardy, i.e., it wonders how there can even be a social/moral world.
Taken to its logical conclusion, an eliminative conception of the social
sciences would reduce all of social science to psychology. Moreover, taken to its
logical conclusion, a reductive conception ofpsychology would actually eliminate
psychology in favor ofphysiology. Jj There would be no such thing as social science
of any kind.
The root of these epistemological impasses of the problems of "other
minds" and "personal identity" is epistemological individualism. Epistemological
individualism will have to be abandoned or severely modified in order to overcome
the impasses. Here, again, a parallel historical change took place. At roughly the
same time that analytic philosophers of science and epistemologists were making a
'Kantian Tum', analytic philosophers of social science made a parallel move. 14 The
'Kantian Tum' in the analytic philosophy of science and epistemology consisted in
the recognition that there is no direct perception or perceptual atomism, i.e., it
rejected foundational ism. All perception is mediated by a background framework.
Put in the various jargons, all perception is theory-laden or all theories are
empirically under-determined. The parallel move in the analytic philosophy of the
social sciences, along with the rejection of introspection, was the recognition that
mind has a social dimension. What is now being denied is that we can have access
to ourselves without recognizing the social framework from which we perceive
ourselves. Our self-perception is theory-laden. The "1 Think" perspective of
298 Chapter 8

methodological individualism will have to be replaced by the "We Think"

perspective of a social epistemology.
To talk about the social dimension of mind is to recognize that some, if not
all of our "mental" life is constituted by socially learned and negotiated
representations. We cannot, for example, identify the emotion of "shame" without
reference to the agent's interpretation of his/her action as humiliating within a
particular social context. I do not observe my "mental" states directly, rather what
I observe is mediated by social and cultural inheritance. The 'Kantian Turn' in
analytic philosophy of social science replaced epistemological individualism with
what is called a social theory of knowledge. "I Think" has been replaced by "We
Think." The importance of this turn is that it permits a notion of social science that
is not reducible to or replaceable by psychology or physiology.
By moving away from eliminative social science and epistemological
individualism, analytic social science could now be construed as a form of
exploration. Exploration, you will recall, begins with our everyday understanding
of things. Instead of trying to eliminate our ordinary understanding, exploration
seeks for the hidden structure of our ordinary understanding.
There is, however, an important difference. With regard to the social
sciences, exploration contends that our ordinary understanding of the human and
social world is a constitutive part ofthe subject matter. That is to say, that unlike the
physical sciences in which we formulate theories about distinct and separate objects
( e.g., distant galaxies), theories in the social sciences are an integral part of what we
ourselves are as social beings. Part of what we are ( but only part) is what we think
or conceive ourselves to be. Hence, no social scientific theory can ignore our
ordinary understanding and still do justice to the data of the social world.
The classic articulation ofthe 'Kantian Turn' in analytic social science and
the consequent move to an exploration model is to be found in Rom Harre. ls Harre
and his followers were among the first to critique the positivist eliminative
conception of the physical sciences. 16 The positivist emphasis on foundational ism
or definitive empitical confirmation of scientific theories and the positivist insistence
that explanation and prediction be symmetrical are rejected. The theory-ladenness
of observation emphasized by Kuhn is accepted.
Exploration for Harre and his followers is still a matter of subscribing to
scientism. Crucial to the whole argument is that the rejection of the positivist
account of science is not a rejection of scientism. That is one reason that Harre and
his supporters reject what they take to be the relativism and irrationalism of
Feyerabend. Moreover, the new exploration view of social science stresses the extent
to which it subscribes to realism. The chief spokesman for the exploration notion of
realism is Roy Bhaskar. 17 Central to the exploration notion of realism is a rejection
of what Harre and his followers call the Humean conception of causation. 18 In
opposition to "Hume," the supporters of the exploration view insist that there are at
some hidden level structural mechanisms which exhibit generative causality.
The rejection of "Humean" causation along with the rejection of the idea
that a good explanation involves a symmetry with prediction also leads to the
rejection of the requirement that scientific explanations be deductive. The relaxation
of the requirement of deductivity is crucial. This relation allows for two things.
 The Enlightenment Project in Analytic Social Science 299

First, the relaxation is compatible with the two-tier view of human nature, a view that
permits us to continue to speak about ourselves in the common sense way that
exploration encourages and that is compatible with an underlying generative
structure but not reducible to it. Second, the relaxation permits the agents to invoke
values in the expression of their understanding of what they are doing. Harre and
Secord assert the "Kantian" position in which "human beings must be treated as
agents acting according to rule, and it must be realized that it is unscientific to treat
them as anything else."19
In opposition to "naive" determinism and methodological individualism,
and in consonance with what they take to be Kant's notion of agency, Harre and his
supporters contend that the ideas or conceptual framework of the participants are
irreducibly necessary for any explanation of social behavior. Unlike natural science,
where we can contemplate the possibility of eventually eliminating, at least in
principle, the pre-conceptual background which gives rise to theories, the social
sciences must accept that social theories are always integral to what they explain.
This is an important difference, but it is the only difference between natural science
and social science.
According to Harre and Secord, their conception of social science is still
science. Scientific explanations are not demonstrations or deductions from theory,
a view long since denounced by Kuhn and Feyerabend. Rather, according to Harre,
scientific explanations are the "use of iconic paramorphs to stand in for the unknown
generative mechanism of non-random patterns in nature,,20 [i.e., explorations]. The
role-rule model of social behavior, for example, is the analogue in social psychology
to things like the virus or an electrical network, for the model does account for and
"generate" non-random behavior. What is also essential to science is the "persistent
attempt to check the reality of these models."21 When we monitor our own behavior
we are "checking" the modeJ.22 Put into our terminology, an exploration is a search
for hidden structure, and to the extent that social psychology searches for hidden
structure it is scientific.
Harre and Secord draw a further analogy between physical science and
social science as they conceive it. Unlike the positivist eliminativists, they recognize
no ultimate truth in the form ofa fully confirmable theory. That is, we have no way
of telling in the absence of definitive confirmation whether our presently accepted
theory in the physical sciences is the final true theory. Analogously, in social
psychology we can have conflicting accounts of social behavior that appeal to
alternative models of hidden structure. In both cases, in physical science and in
social science, the conflicting accounts must be resolved. In social science, the
conflicts are resolved by negotiation among the participants, for no account of social
behavior can ignore the agents' conception of themselves.
Such an exploratory conception of social science with its social theory of
meaning permits values to be recognized as an integral part of the social world.
However, while values function on the upper level, there is a lower generative level
that we access via exploration. Our hypotheses about this lower level are presumably
value free in the sense that they describe a realist structure independent of ourselves.
Harre and Secord insist that there is a theoretical irreducibility of participant
accounts to physiological statesY At the same time they maintain that social theories
300 Chapter 8

are iconic in that they refer to hidden generative mechanisms. Hence, social
scientific theories do not hypostatize our ordinary understanding. It is thus possible
for the social theorist to correct or transform the agents' understanding of what is
involved, even to identify self-deception, so long as the participants "eventually"
agree. In this sense, the social scientist can make genuine additions to our
understanding of ourselves. In fact, if the participants accept the transformation
suggested by the social scientist then social theories can be normative as well as
descriptive and explanatory. The theories are normative in that they prescribe future
rule-governed behavior. It is the existence of the hidden structure whose discovery
can lead us to change or reject our previous ordinary understanding that distinguishes
the scientific character of exploration from what we have called explication.
There are a number of problems with this exploratory conception of the
social sciences. The first problem has to do with whether this is really science.
Granting the 'Kantian Turn' in analytic philosophy of science there are still
substantial differences, on the one hand, between what physical scientists claim and
what analytic philosophers claim for physical science and, on the other hand, what
can be claimed for the exploratory conception of social science. The explorers seem
more intent on finding tenuous analogies between physical science and what they
claim for social "science" than in dealing with the importance of the differences.
One point that we always notice about the hidden structures in physical science and
those in "social science" is that the former sometimes can be empirically confirmed
(as when we discover a new star or a new virus, etc.) whereas in the case of the latter
we merely discover a new language, not new entities.
Perhaps this problem can be brought out by attending to the issue of realism.
What does realism mean? Bhaskar, for one, acknowledges that realism in natural
science means the existence of "real structures which endure and operate
independently of our knowledge, our experience, and the conditions which allow us
access to them."24 Are there equivalent structures in the social world? To the extent
that any structure which delimits human decisions can be overcome by the agent and
transformed by the agent there is an important difference. Here the 'Kantian Turn'
works against the idea of exploratory social science. To the extent that our
conception of a social structure is a constituent element of the structure, the social
structure is not like the reputed physical structure. At the very least, there seems to
be some friction between social epistemology and realism, a friction that cannot be
dismissed by saying there is no finality in physical science either. Only Hegel has
managed to combine realism and social epistemology in a coherent fashion, but
Hegelianism is what analytic philosophers cannot accept. 25
Part of what the proponents of exploration do with their 'Kantian Turn' is
to relax the requirements of what constitutes a scientific explanation. They no longer
insist that explanations are deductions from first principles. On the other hand, they
insist that explanations must exhibit structural ties. The structural tie is still a causal
one. According to the proponents of exploration,26 the eliminativists (Hempel,
Nagel, etc.) defended a view of causality as a regular contingent relation between
events (i.e., constant conjunction). As opposed to the eliminativists, the explorers
demand a stronger tie. By itself this demand for a stronger tie seems to be a
commitment to realism, not unlike those who have defended the importance of
 The Enlightenment Project in Analytic Social Science 301

subjunctive conditionals as a sign of a necessary connection. At first this would

seem to make causal explanations more difficult to establish. Ironically, by insisting
that in the real world we never have complete closure, and hence the ceteris paribus
clause of any causal claim cannot be definitively specified, the proponents of
exploration make seemingly strong causal claims in social science that do not reflect
uniform experience and that need not be perfect predictors, i.e., do not tie
explanation to prediction. The end result is looser usage of a seemingly much tighter
concept of causation. What this seems to license is the making of causal claims in
the social sciences that would not pass muster in the physical sciences.
What is at issue is not whether events on one level can be said to cause
events on another level. Not even Hume denied that! What is at issue is whether the
alleged "generation" exhibits necessary connection. Here we can only repeat a point
already made above. If we never have complete closure what is the status of any
causal claim? The rhetoric of realism again masks a position that is indistinguishable
from relativism. In the end, the only major difference between Harre's exploration
and positivist elimination is that Harre rejects deductivism in order to preserve the
possibility of an alleged form of human fr.eedom.
One final example of the ambiguous claim to realism on the part of the
proponents of exploration is the distinction between sciences that aim to discover
deep structures and sciences that apply theoretical accounts of these structures to
"explain, diagnose, and predict those particulars and points of interest to us [the
structures of nature, etc.]."27 There is also a therapeutic use of science. This
distinction is consistent with the denial of the symmetry Of explanation and
prediction. To explain "requires knowledge of the causal properties of the
configured structures and a historical grasp of the particular and changing
configuration"28 (e.g., the course of a disease or an economic depression, etc.).
Pursued to its logical conclusion, by identifying social science with the second kind
of activity we find that "a hermeneutic science of individual persons is then the
psychological analogue to history or to meteorology."29
Two difficulties raised by this distinction concern how far we have turned
social science into a reasonable facsimile of history,30 and what constitutes the
theoretical relationship between these two alleged levels of science. With regard to
the first, it is not history that is problematic but whether we want to call historical
explanation the same thing as scientific explanation? This merely reiterates a
concern for what it means to call exploratory social science both scientific and realist.
With regard to the second difficulty we have returned to the existence of a kind of
dualism in the way in which analytic philosophy understands human beings. This
will be better brought out by turning to the second general problem of exploration,
namely, the status of the agent.
Throughout their presentation Harre and Secord maintain an
anthropomorphic model of man designed to preserve our sense of agency. The
question we raise here is: How successful are they at preserving human agency? We
are agents, according to Harre and Secord, because we are capable of monitoring and
commenting on our own behavior, and we are capable of monitoring ourselves
because of our use of language. "The use of language is what distinguishes human
beings from all other creatures."3! However, we do not monitor atomistic "mental"
302 Chapter 8

states, rather our verbal behavior is part of what constitutes our mental states. 32 We
say only part because hidden structures may also be involved. Since our language
is social, what we end up monitoring is our various roles in a system of rules. This
allows for (I) the social constitution of the agent, (2) public checking of "mental"
events, (3) the integral nature of participant accounts, and (4) predictable non-
random patterns seemingly compatible with the agent's freedom.
The question raised by this specific account of agency is: What determines
the choice of role or how to act within the role? Harre and Secord deny that there is
a self which makes these choices. That is, they deny that each biological individual
may be associated in 1-1 correspondence with a social persona. 33 The latter notion
is, according to them, a religious myth sustained by the mechanistic model! Clearly
if there were an agent behind or beyond the social roles then the iconic paramorphs,
i.e., hidden structures in social scientific theory, would be utterly different from their
analogues in the physical sciences. It is difficult to see how there is an agent or
agency of any kind.
Preserving the integral nature of the participants' accounts in no way
preserves agency. The exploratory perspective of Harre and Secord allows us to
move in two directions, neither one of which is compatible with the common sense
notion of agency. Either the traditional agent is swallowed up in a totally socially
determined self (e.g., some versions of Hegel and Marx, etc.) or the agent can be
whittled away by reference to sub-agent forces like traditional physiological
mechanisms, drives, etc. Nothing that Harre and Secord say militates against either
of these possibilities except their personal commitment.
In a vain effort to preserve some sense of agency, Harre and Secord
recommend that the ultimate parameter of explanation is "just wanting to."34 In
physical science apparent disparities are accounted for by reference to further
parameters. In social science, instead of introducing further parameters we try to
preserve the absolute status of the person as agent by reference to "just wanting to."
There is nothing in Harre's account that legitimates this decision as to where to stop.
Moreover, since we do not have to hypostatize common sense accounts, any social
scientist is free to speculate on the hidden structure of "just wanting to." It is also not
clear what it is that 'Just wants to," especially since Harre has declared the traditional
agent to be a religious myth. 35 In short, despite their best intentions and personal
commitments, Harre and Secord have not preserved the agent. If anything, they have
further opened the door to the exclusion of the agent.
We have already mentioned some of the difficulties. faced by an exploration
notion of social science in defending the autonomy of the agent. Now we would like
to show that those difficulties reflect an on-going analytic philosophical inability to
overcome dualism with regard to human beings. As expressed by proponents of
exploration, at one level, the physiological level, human beings can be explained, in
part, by reference to biological, chemical, physical, and neurophysiological
properties. At a second level we have the agent's account of his/her action in
hermeneutic terms. At still a third level are the social structures that are the
unintended consequences of individual human acts. According to the exploratory
version of analytic philosophy of the social sciences, social psychology is the attempt
to bring all of these levels or perspectives together.
 The Enlightenment Project in Analytic Social Science 303

Social psychological science focuses on individuals in their

interaction with one another and with social institutions and on
how this activity relates to the larger social structures.
Engagements in social activities (practices) may be described and
analyzed either from the point of view of the agent ... or in terms
of her or his place (function) in the social structures. Social
psychology has, as it were, the onerous task of joining these two
perspectives. 36

Harre calls this integrative interpretation "ethogeny."37 The question is:

How successful have proponents of exploration been in integrating the levels?38 The
answers are neither promising nor new. At one extreme we see a return to the
doctrine of emergence. The self at the so-called hermeneutic level is an
unpredictable emergent.

The past is, in a sense, 'determined.' That is, what happened can
be causally explained. But the future is not determined precisely
because the complexly related structures and systems of the world
are constantly being reconfigured. 39

There are several problems with emergence. To begin with, proponents of

eliminativism such as Rudner would argue that no one can establish the logical
impossibility of predictability, i.e., what Rudner calls absolute emergence. Second,
other critics would point out that this turns human freedom into a kind of illusion.
In retrospect we can see what determined our decisions, but at the time we make
them we cannot see what determined them, and no one can predict the decision in
advance. This gives small comfort to the defenders of agent autonomy. To the
extent that proponents of the exploratory model of social science opt for deep and
ineradicable social structures they are led to undermine the autonomy of the agent.
The attempt to maintain agent autonomy and a social structure realism is no more
successful than the attempt to maintain that determinism is compatible with a slightly
modified notion of moral responsibility. The modifications are never slight, and
what we get is a rhetorical success.
Third, and most important, if we take the commitment to realism to imply
total conceptualization, and if we add the process of emergence to it, we end up with
Hegel once again. The appeal to a combination of realism and emergence when
carried to its logical conclusion leads to the view that at some point we can speculate
on looking back and seeing how the whole hangs together and how it necessarily had
to develop in the way it did. Emergence does not save either the agent or herlhis
freedom. Alternatively, to adhere to a realism which is infinitely open is
indistinguishable from relativism and historicism. 40
There is a third problem with exploration. A curious epistemological
argument used to buttress the claim for realism is that proponents of exploration
insist on the fallibility of any account. Here we must introduce a distinction between
ontological realism and epistemological realism. Ontological realism maintains that
there is a world independent of the observer or agent. Epistemological realism
304 Chapter 8

maintains that knowledge consists of grasping the structure internal to that world.
Admitting that no social theory is final or definitive will not by itself establish that
there are deep and ineradicable social structures. There are lots of other explanations
of why we change our conceptions of ourselves, and none of these need imply that
we think we are mistaken about the deep structure. We can go on and make this
argument even stronger and direct it against all forms of analytic philosophical
realism. Admitting that we can always be corrected is tantamount to saying that we
can never be sure we are correct. If so, then what is the difference between a realist
who never knows what the deep structure is and a relativist who denies that there is
a deep structure? Realism has been reduced to a slogan.41
Instead of strengthening the case for exploration, fallibilism points to a
standing objection we have made to exploration. If there are alternative accounts and
if we have rejected definitive confirmation how can we choose among the alternative
views? Rather than establishing the realism of exploration, what openness reveals
is the vacuity of exploration. It is not the openness that is at issue but the legitimacy
of exploration. The only suggested solution offered by Harre and his followers is
negotiation, but negotiation is itself a social phenomenon whose allegedly hidden
structure can be interpreted in alternative ways. In short, there are always going to
be alternative explorations with no way to decide among them.

The Hegelian/Marxist Moment in Analytic Social Science

Can the subject, who seeks to explain the object, itself become the object of
explanation? Can the subject be both subject and object at one and the same time?
If that were possible then the distinction between subject and object would disappear,
i.e., there would be no difference between "looking" and "looked at."
This is not a coherent prospect. How could the subject, the "I," recognize
that it is the "I" of which it is conscious? The only answer would be that the subject
would have already to know itself in advance. But if the subject knew itself in
advance there would be nothing more to discover. This is the paradox of self-
knowledge.
Since what we mean by self-knowledge is always retrospective it would
appear that the subject as subject is forever beyond conceptualization, beyond being
an object. That is why the proponents of exploration, in the end, join the proponents
of elimination in denying the existence of the subject. What we are given instead are
physiological mechanisms and social roles with no theoretical connection between
those levels.
The exploratory version of analytic social science is no more successful than
the eliminativist version in preserving the status of the agent. There is little or no
recognition of the historical evolution of the autonomous agent. If such an agent
were given the status of something real then no scientific account could be given of
human social action. In analytic social science the notion of an agent or individual
acquires a variety of meanings depending upon the theorist. At one extreme, the
agent may emerge out of a purely physical concatenation, or the agent may emerge
from "psychological" properties understood with or without social reference and in
varying degrees or at the other extreme the agent may incorporate all of the features
of the social world.
 The Enlightenment Project in Analytic Social Science 305

There are two subterfuges for avoiding the issue of total conceptualization.
One is for proponents of exploration to deny the existence of the subject. Aside from
its ad hoc nature, this denial is at odds with the purported attempt to begin with how
the participants understand themselves. Proponents of exploration reserve the right
to overrule common sense, the inherent intellectual right of all exploration. But
contrary to their claim that overruling is negotiated with the participants, the denial
of the self is never negotiated. Rather it is insisted upon to meet the demands of
theory. Second, the issue of total conceptualization is evaded with the claim that
knowledge is infinite so we never come to a final picture. However, it is also
claimed that as we acquire more and more knowledge we get a better picture of the
truth. So we come closer and closer to the total truth but we never actually arrive
there.
One can still wonder how a world of infinite truths is possible, but aside
from this philosophical musing there are two insuperable objections to this
subterfuge of progressivism. First, if we can never arrive at the total truth, then we
have no real reason for believing that there is one. Second, without a firmly
grounded total truth, it makes no sense to talk about getting closer to it. This is an
idle metaphor. There would be no way of knowing that we are getting closer, and
as a consequence the entire edifice of our understanding would be without
foundation. Once more we see that exploration's defense of itself by appeal to
fallibilism results in nihilism. It is not fallibilism in general that arouses our
suspicion but its specific use here.
What exploration advocates among analytic social scientists do with regard
to positivist elimination is to reject Thesis One, namely, methodological
individualism, and replace "I Think" with "We Think." At the same time, advocates
of exploration accept Thesis Two, namely, they accept the view that the individual
is determined by sub-structures. In the case of Harre, the larger social context is still
filtered through or factored out ofthe organism-environment relationship in order for
some kind of psychology to function.
We can imagine two other alternatives. The first exploratory alternative
would not only reject methodological individualism but reject the notion of the
hidden material foundations of the individual. That is, one could reject both Thesis
One and Thesis Two. Hegel did exactly that. The second exploratory alternative
would reject Thesis One (methodological individualism), accept Thesis Two, but this
time factor out the physical environment or filter it through the larger social context.
That is, one can reverse what Harre did with Thesis Two. This is what Marxists do. 42
Consistent thinkers take the issue of total conceptualization seriously. The
greatest and most important modern figure in this regard is Hegel. He was the first
to see what was implied by total conceptualization. For this to be possible, Hegel
thought it necessary that objects be absorbed into a subject. Further, since self-
knowledge is a temporal process, and in order to avoid the paradox of self-
knowledge, namely that the self would already have to know itself, Hegel concluded
that self-knowledge is a teleological process. That is, we are progressing toward a
final stage of awareness, that progress is documentable and moving through a series
of stages, and at the end of that progress we shall know all, we shall know that we
306 Chapter 8

know, and the objective world will be seen as a manifestation of the all-
encompassing subject's journey to self-knowledge.
Hegel's thesis is both consistent and breathtaking. Nevertheless, from the
point of view of analytic social science it has two shortcomings: (1) it tends to
rationalize the status quo as opposed to providing a rationale for social engineering,
and (2) it is idealistic in the philosophical sense of absorbing the object into the
subject. Analytic philosophy requires the absorbing of the subject into the object.
It seeks, on behalf of its commitment to social technology, to treat the human and
social world on the model of what it thinks natural science tells us about the non-
human physical world, that is, physicalism.
Hegel's consistent all-encompassing final synthesis is therefore
unacceptable to analytic social science. Is there another alternative? Can one find
a philosophy that permits in principle a final synthesis of total truth, avoids the
nihilism of pure historicism and the paradox of self-knowledge or personal identity
by appeal to a teleological unfolding process, and is philosophically materialistic
instead of philosophically idealistic? The answer is "yes," and the answer is
Marxism.
Marxism is the only philosophy that provides a/ull rationale/or the analytic
program o/the social sciences. It does this by:
1. construing social science as continuous with and derivative from natural
science;
2. recognizing the intellectual demand of total conceptualization;
3. avoiding the paradox of self-knowledge by allowing for a progressive
(teleological) unfolding of self-knowledge that is consummated with total
conceptualization, and
4. finding in its understanding of that progressive-historical process a
justification for a particular social technology.
The virtue of Marxism is that it takes seriously the issue of total
conceptualization. That is, it takes seriously the importance of making a modern
realist epistemology coherent with a modern realist metaphysics. Moreover, it takes
seriously the issue of making its axiology or political agenda coherent with its
metaphysics. It is orthodox Marxism that recognizes fully and openly the
incompatibility of exploration with the notion of an autonomous agent.
A higher order resolution thus emerges from an appeal to the philosophical
theories of Hegel and Marx, that is, by appeal to a progressive teleological historical
theory in which an ultimate synthesis will be achieved in the future. But this way of
trying to escape the dilemma of exploration merely compounds the problem. To
embrace Hegel or Marx is to cross the boundary from exploration back to
elimination. It becomes an elimination by denying the legitimacy of those
participants who do not accept the appeal to an external structure as seen by the
epistemologically privileged few. This is tantamount to introducing a radical
reorientation intellectually disguised as a clarification.

Explication as an Alternative to Analytic Social Science

The unified science movement reflects an on-going conflict in the history of modern
philosophy and culture. Going back to Descartes' original distinction between mind
 The Enlightenment Project in Analytic Social Science 307

and body, there has been a continuous modern tradition of philosophers who have
rejected reductive monism. 43 This other tradition denies that we can understand the
human and social world in the same way that we understand the physical world.
Prominent proponents of this tradition include Kant, Dilthey, advocates of
Geisteswissenschaflen or the uniqueness of the cultural sciences, Weber, Heidegger,
the hermeneutic tradition, Oakeshott, the later Wittgenstein, etc. It is to this tradition
that we tum in discussing explication as an alternative to the Enlightenment Project.
Metaphysically, adherents of explication maintain that human beings or the
human dimension of existence is fundamental and the physical world is derivative,
or, alternatively, the relation between the human and the non-human as understood
by the human is fundamental. Without denying ontological realism, advocates of
explication deny epistemological realism if by that is meant that knowledge is
construed as the grasping of a structure independent of the primacy of the human
world. Explication also involves, in its modern forms, a denial of epistemological
individualism and the acceptance of a social epistemology. In this respect,
explication shares with analytic exploration and with Hegel and Marx a social
epistemology. However, unlike analytic exploration the "We" is not coupled with
an observational "Think" engagement of reality. Like Marx and like pragmatism,
the "We" becomes a "We Do." Unlike Marx, explication does not root the "We Do"
in an ontological structure that is external and physically determined.
The case has been made most prominently by the sociologist Max Weber,
who argued that all social phenomena involve agents who attach meaning to their
action. Any account of social action must include reference to this dimension of
meaning by a special act of understanding (verstehen) not only to explain but even
to describe the phenomena. The response to Weber was twofold. First, by
distinguishing between the context of discovery and the context of justification,
analytic philosophers conceded that "verstehen" was a method of hypothesis
formation but insisted that scientific practice required a theory ultimately to be
couched exclusively in concepts that permitted public confirmation.44 This response
missed the thrust of Weber's argument and trivialized his position. Second, it is
contended that if the agent's conception of action is an integral part of the action then
social science is not science. 45
Peter Winch, in The Idea of a Social Science, came to Weber's defense,
offered a radical critique ofthe enterprise of a science of social life, and proposed a
different philosophical conception of explanation in the social world. First, Winch
argued that the current notion of making social science like experimental physical
science is a logically impossible enterprise. Social science cannot use the concepts
belonging to natural scientific investigation, according to Winch, because:

... the conceptions according to which we normally think of

social events are logically incompatible with the concepts
belonging to scientific explanation. An important part of the
argument was that the former conceptions enter into social life
itself and not merely into the observer's description of it. 46
308 Chapter 8

Thus, it is not possible merely to observe outward motion and explain it, rather we
must penetrate to the social attitudes themselves. Second, borrowing Wittgenstein's
argument against the possibility of a private language, Winch argues that social
relations necessarily express agents' ideas about reality, and therefore we cannot
refer to or explain social action without taking those ideas into account. Moreover,
these ideas are not discreet empirical entities "in the mind" but part of the social
fabric. In an important sense, social ideas are identical with social reality. Social
concepts are linked in a logical way so that there is no way of breaking out of the
circle to some purely external empirical ground.
Winch's Wittgensteinian conception of explanation in the social world is
what we have previously identified as explication. 47 As Wittgenstein put it, we can
never definitively circumscribe the concepts we use. This does not reflect ignorance
on our part but rather that there is no "real" definition of those concepts. 48 Adopting
the "We Do" perspective emphasizes agency and time. Because of the importance
of time and agency, there is always more to come,49 i.e., meaning always involves
others. The others are those with whom we share a past history and a common
posterity. 50
If we cannot make the subject an object of analysis or conceptualization,
and if we do not want conveniently to deny its existence, then does that mean that we
must remain silent about it? The answer to that question is "no," for we can and do
speak meaningfully about the subject as long as we do not insist that all rational
discourse is scientific discourse. The alternative way of speaking rationally about the
subject is from the perspective of common sense. Common sense is the pre-
conceptual ground of conceptualization, the precondition of all knowledge and
action. But common sense can only be explicated, never discursively characterized.
The explication of common sense is the province of philosophy or those who are
conscious of their philosophical role.

Analytic Philosophy as a Social Science

It is no accident that in many universities and colleges the philosophy department is
now housed within the social science division. To the extent that analytic philosophy
embraces and reflects the Enlightenment Project it has largely become an instance
of its own conception of social science. It has never sought to explicate what we
routinely mean by our metaphysical, epistemological, and axiological notions. It has
sought either to eliminate our ordinary understanding in favor of some new view or
to explore the allegedly hidden structure behind our ordinary understanding with a
view to its reformation. Both in its eliminative and exploratory versions analytic
philosophy is an attempt to understand the human social world, or at least specific
institutions in our world: science, religion, philosophy itself, law, politics, ethics, art,
etc. The perspective from which it has sought to understand those institutions is a
"social scientific" one, i.e., an application to the human social world of what it takes
to be the methods of the physical sciences.
The intellectual validity of analytic philosophy as a social science depends
upon two things: (a) whether it has correctly understood the practice of science, and
(b) whether the practice of science can serve as the foundation for understanding all
 The Enlightenment Project in Analytic Social Science 309

other human social practices. On both counts, analytic philosophy runs into deep
trouble.
In the first place, how can analytic philosophers establish that they have
correctly understood the practice of science? If the old positivist and empiricist view
of science had been correct, namely if what distinguished science from other
intellectual activities was the direct empirical confirmability of scientific theories,
then it would have been an easy matter to determine if what analytic philosophers
said about the practice of science was empirically confirmable. Analytic philosophy
would then have been giving us a scientific hypothesis about science. However, this
turned out to be a false view of scientific practice.
Subsequently, analytic philosophers revised their conception of what
constituted scientific practice, what we have called the 'Kantian Turn' or the
adoption of an exploratory view of scientific practice. The exploratory view of the
practice of science is not directly confirmable. From the point of view of the
traditional positivist conception of science, the exploratory view of science is not
even a scientific hypothesis about science. Some eliminativists understood that once
we go beyond elimination we have entered the realm of metaphysics, and what we
find are metaphysical theses about science. Exploration is certainly a hypothesis
about science. But how are we to tell the difference between a scientific and a non-
scientific hypothesis about science? Short of adopting the Hegelian synthesis, there
is no clear analytic philosophical basis for choosing among alternative explorations
or hypotheses. Hence, analytic philosophers are unable to establish that their
hypothesis about science is correct. If they cannot establish the correctness of their
hypothesis about science, then they cannot establish that their own practice is
scientific. That is, they cannot establish the correctness of their conception of social
science and of the practice of analytic philosophy as a social science.
In the second place, we can question whether the practice of science can
serVf: as the foundation for understanding all other human social practices. The kinds
of non-scientific accounts of human action and social events that are achievable may
be both intellectually superior to and logically prior to what natural scientists can tell
us.
In the third place, the practice of natural science is a meaningful cultural
activity, one which is both social and one which has a long history. We must already
know or possess in some sense a framework for the interpretation of cultural activity
in order to know if our interpretation and explanation of natural science is acceptable.
That is, only a higher consensus explication can serve to adjudicate claims about the
practice of science. In short, we already need a clear idea of social explanation in
order to understand natural science. Ifwe possess a clear idea of social explanation,
and explication is one example, then we do not need to use natural science as a model
for obtaining a conception of social explanation. Not only do we not need it, but it
would be impossible for a natural science model to overrule our present framework
of social explanation. It cannot overrule it because its own validity and intelligibility
is parasitic upon our present framework of social explanation.
It is no accident that the most informative accounts of natural science have
been and are being written by historians of science or those with historical training
and acumen. Such studies of the history of natural science done in the last thirty
310 Chapter 8

years show that there is no timeless and absolute logic over and above the practices
of the individual sciences. Rather, in assessing the overall validity of natural science
what we find is a social framework. This is not to deny naively that there are
intersubjective and time tested techniques within each natural science, but it does say
that such techniques are not the final arbiters oftheir own rationality. That would be
bootstrapping again. Rather those techniques presuppose a much more deeply
embedded social framework. Ironically, even analytic philosophers refuse to
concede that what practicing scientists say about scientific work is final!
Let us make the same point, this time from the perspective of the agent.
Crucial to the practice of natural science is conducting an experiment. In order to
understand the conducting of an experiment we need to employ the distinction
between intentional human activity and what happens when no intentional human
activity is present. Without the presence of an agent, physical scientific inquiries
could not be initiated. Experimentation requires an agent who is able to recognize
both how to conform to some social framework of norms and the consequences of
her/his action. If it is asserted that someday these intentional acts of the agent will
themselves be explained by the non-intentional, then one would still have to back up
the validity of this other claim with other experiments. These other experiments
would require an agent who was able to recognize the consequences of his/her action.
Once more, the attempt to undermine the central role of human agency is lost in an
infinite regress, or it calls for Hegelian synthesis.
In summation, there are two obstacles to the analytic conception of social
science. First, it does not seem possible for there to be a natural scientific account
of human action. Second, there is a form of explanation which is unique to the
cultural world, a form of explanation logically prior to scientific explanation so that
natural scientific explanations are themselves unintelligible without this prior cultural
form of explanation. The attempt to replace the cultural form of explanation,
specifically explication, with the natural scientific form of explanation is an attempt
to eliminate or replace the more intelligible in favor of the less intelligible. This not
only has to fail on logical grounds but it produces peculiar forms of intellectual
incoherence and hypocrisy within the so-called social sciences.
Earlier we saw that the intellectual validity of analytic philosophy as a social
science depends upon two things: (a) whether it has correctly understood the practice
of science, and (b) whether the practice of science can serve as the foundation for
understanding all other human social practices. We have argued that many analytic
philosophers have misunderstood the practice of science and that an explication of
natural science will show that the practice of natural science cannot serve as the
foundation for understanding all other human social practices. We also concluded
this argument with the observation that failure to grasp the centrality of explication
leads to intellectual incoherence. Large areas of the practice of analytic philosophy
as a social science exemplify this incoherence.
The issue then becomes how we are to understand the social dimension of
all science. Analytic explorers want to claim that the social dimension can be
explained "scientifically" only this time the principles of "social scientific"
explanation are extracted from the practice of selected "social scientists." What
justifies these latter principles? Surely it cannot be that these principles are like
 The Enlightenment Project in Analytic Social Science 311

physical science, as we have already stated in the previous paragraph. Hence, it must
be the case that all science is now defined with the "social sciences" as the paradigm
sciences! In short, the physical sciences have now been assimilated to the social
sciences. Once this assimilation has taken place, this either (a) leaves all science
without serious philosophical rationale or (b) reveals the need for philosophy beyond
scientism.

Summary
What all ofthis spells is not only the end of positivism but the end of unified science
if that was supposed to mean the reduction of social theory to the format of natural
science. Emancipated from the inappropriate model of the natural sciences, the
"social sciences" are now seemingly free to pursue other models. If the social
sciences are liberated, what intellectual purpose is served by calling the study of the
human and social world a science or a collection of sciences? (We are, of course,
aware of the public relations benefits of calling them sciences.) And, ifthey are not
sciences, does it make sense any longer to construe new models of any kind? Might
not the whole notion of the "social sciences" be itself defective?
312 Chapter 8

NOTES (CHAPTER 8)

1. Social thought must be distinguished from social science. Social thought

includes any reflection on the human predicament that recognizes the
cultural embededness of human nature. On the other hand, social science
is the notion that social thought can be modeled along the lines of the
physical sciences. The failure of the social sciences to illuminate the human
predicament should not obscure the extent to which social thought has
continuously and successfully done so throughout history. We must also
keep in mind that advocates of social science have frequently contributed
to that illumination in their writings on social thought even when they have
taken the additional step, mistakenly in our judgment, of trying to buttress
their social thought with an appeal to an alleged social science. The same
writer is often capable of both illuminating and obfuscating the human
predicament, and the obfuscation is largely but not always a product of the
attempt to buttress social thought by appeal to social science.

2. This article originally appeared in the Journal of Philosophy (1942), and

was reprinted in Feigl and Sellars (eds.), (1949). Hempel's position was
refined even further in (1948), reprinted in Feigl and Brodbeck (eds.),
(1953). Popper anticipated as well as articulated Hempel's position in
Popper (1950), n.7 to ch. 25, pp. 720-723.

3. See Dray (1957) and Weingartner (1961). Hempel's position was reasserted
by Nagel (1961) and Rudner (1966).

4. According to Fodor (1980), Block (1986), and Stalnaker, any claim about
how an external environmental factor, including the larger social context,
determines the inner states of individuals can be "factored out" of the
organism-environment relationship by a proper scientific psychology.
Moreover, Fodor makes the claim that any attempt to formulate
nomological relationships between the organism and the environment will
not work until we know everything about the environment. Hence, any
social science beyond psychology depends upon possessing total
knowledge.

5. We have not "arrived at rock-bottom explanations of ... large-scale

phenomena [e.g., inflation or unemployment] until we have deduced an
account of them from statements about the dispositions, beliefs, resources
and inter-relations of individuals" Watkins (1991) [1957], p. 734.

6. Rudner (1966), p. 71. For a good summary of how the proponents of

Hempel's eliminativism and the opponents to it talked past each other, see
Weingartner (1961 ).
 The Enlightenment Project in Analytic Social Science 313

7. Popper (1950), p. 291. For another classic statement, see Watkins (1991)
[1957].

8. Watkins, op.cit., explicitly draws attention to the extent to which

methodological individualism is derived from seventeenth-century
mechanism. For a more thorough history see Lukes (1973).

9. As we have already seen in previous chapters, there are problems with

introspection. We can anticipate that the rejection of introspection will lead
to shifts within analytic social science.

10. This terminology is borrowed from John Shotter who has greatly influenced
my thought on these matters both in discussion and through his now classic
book (1975).

11. The analogue to this in analytic ethics is rational choice theory; within the
social sciences the analogue to this is neo-classical economics.

12. Analytic philosophers distinguish between first person and third person
ascriptions.

13. See Harre (1971) on "Joynson's Dilemma."

14. See Manicas (1987), p. 243.

15. Harre and Secord (1972).

16. Manicas and Secord (1983).

17. Bhaskar (1975). See the 1978 Harvester Press edition with postscript.

18. Harre and Madden (1975). Like many readers of Hume, Harre and his
followers "forget" that Hume had three criteria for causal ties: in addition
to constant conjunction, there must be spatial contiguity and temporal
priority. Once spatial contiguity is admitted as part ofHume's conception
of causation, there will be no difference between what Hume means and
what Harre and Madden mean by generative causality. Unfortunately,
"generative causality" is not equivalent to necessary connection in the old
Aristotelian sense. Hence, despite the claim that they are restoring a strong
causal tie, Harre and his followers have a position that is no different from
the position of most analytic philosophers on causation.
Harre and his supporters misrepresent Hume because they really
want to argue against phenomenalism (which they call idealism). In
phenomenalism, causation could only be constant conjunction. The reason
Harre and his followers object to phenomenalism is that it leads, they
contend, to the deductive-nomological conception of explanation. They
314 Chapter 8

sincerely believe that the deductive-nomological conception of explanation

was a consequence of phenomenalism. In this, they are also historically
mistaken since the notion dates back to Aristotle.

19. Harre and Secord (1972), p. 29.

20. Ibid., p. 67.

2l. Ibid., p. 67.

22. Ibid., p. 12.

23. Ibid., p. 265.

24. Bhaskar (1975), p. 25.

25. The best example of the attempt to make social epistemology cohere with
realism and without going as far as Hegel, is to be found in Margolis
(1986). See also, Margolis, Manicas, Harre, and Secord (1986).

26. See Manicas and Secord (1983), and Harre and Madden (1975).

27. Manicas and Secord (1983), pp. 403, 410.

28. Ibid., p. 403.

29. Ibid., p. 41l.

30. This is a criticism persistently made against exploration by K. Gergen and

M.M. Gergen (1982).

31. Harre and Secord (1975), p. 84.

32. Ibid., chapter six.

33. Ibid., pp. 6, 85.

34. Ibid., p. 228.

35. Characteristically, Harre also speaks about ''just wanting to" as an example
of British "bloody-mindedness", and later he speaks about the tendency in
Anglo-Saxon culture to "treat all internal stimuli as potentially resistible"
(Ibid., p. 260). It would seem as ifhis own works reflects here a cultural
liberal bias rather than an entailment of exploration in social science.
Further evidence of the intrusion of background values in Harre's
exposition is the notion that conflicting participant accounts are resolved
 The Enlightenment Project in Analytic Social Science 315

through negotiation. This sounds more like a liberal conception of

parliamentary democracy than an exposition of what is entailed by a realist
conception of science, especially one which subscribes to the existence of
hidden structures. Our purpose here is not to challenge Harre's values but
to indicate the extent to which one liberal paradigm operates within the
analytic preconception of social science.

36. Manicas and Secord (1983), p. 408.

37. Harre and Secord (1972), p. 9. The original conception ofethogeny goes
back to John Stuart Mill. See Capaldi (1973).

38. Stockman (1983), p. 213: " ... Harre and Secord here confuse the rules for
the argumentative testing of truth claims in discourses . . . with the
constitution of object-domains of physical objects and symbolically pre-
structured meaning-systems, accessible to sensory and communicative
experience respectively. It is the latter distinction which Harre and Secord
had originally noticed; but since their commitment to metaphysical realism
forbids them a theory of knowledge which could reflect the conditions in
which object-domains are constituted, their insight is lost and faUs victim
to their insistence on the principles of the realist theory of science .... We
can see, therefore, that realism's objectivism leads to its inability to justify
its own version of naturalism .... "

39. Manicas and Secord (1983), p. 403.

40. There is a curious paraUel here. Eliminativists who defend methodological

individualism (e.g., Popper, E. Nagel) tend to be classical liberals.
Proponents of exploration tend to be modem liberals who refuse to embrace
the collectivism that seems to be required by a consistent development of
their views. The refusal to deal with the implications of total
conceptualization has been noted earlier with regard to Nozick's
metaphysics. Marxists are the exception in being consistent.

41. Harre seems to believe that social practices have a deep structure not unlike
the deep structure that ordinary language philosophers attributed to
language. All of the Wittgensteinian arguments against deep linguistic
structure are applicable to the notion of deep social structures of any kind.

42. For a serious attempt to do this see Bhaskar (1989), Chapters Five and Six.

43. Generally speaking, those in the Platonic tradition in modem philosophy

from Descartes to Kant and onwards have maintained dualism, which
clearly originated in Plato. Recall here Socrates' assertions in the Phaedo.
Moreover, the Platonically oriented moderns (Descartes, Leibniz, Berkeley,
etc.) have uniformly insisted on the freedom of the will. It is no surprise
316 Chapter 8

then that they should resist reductionism to physical science and unified
science.

44. A similar response is to be found in Miller (1983).

45. Hempel (1963), p. 223. Stockman (1983), p. viii: "I have therefore
sketched out a synthesis of ideas drawn from all three antipositivist theories
of the sciences, the core of which is the thesis that rules of scientific
method, while not arbitrary conventions, do change historically in relation
to changes in both the material and the social conditions of scientific
inquiry. The implication of this thesis seems to me to be quite different for
the social sciences than for the natural sciences, and to reinforce the
'antinaturalism' ofthe critical theorists rather than the 'naturalism' of many
scientific realists."

46. Winch (1958), p. 95.

47. MacIntyre (1970), p. 129, criticizes Winch on the grounds that Winch
makes it impossible to "go beyond a society's own self-description."
MacIntyre misses the dynamics of explication.

48. This view is expressed by Wittgenstein in (1958) but most especially in

(1969). It derives, ironically enough, from a point made long ago by Frege,
who distinguished between a rule and the principle of its application.

49. Margolis believes that we come to know ourselves by successive attempts

to understand the act of understanding. He objects to the suggestion that we
can come to know ourselves by attending to action ("We Do") on the
grounds that there are problems to the "recovery of the past, problems that
Gadamer and Foucault . . . have already shown to require a further
argument" Margolis (1988), p. 214, reprinted from (1986). To the best of
my knowledge, these so-called problems are problems of providing a
definitive conceptualization of the past.

50. Hence, MacIntyre's charge that in explication we cannot go beyond a

society's image of itself is either trivially true or misconstrues the fluid
nature of tradition.
 CHAPTER 9

Analytic Ethics

The Enlightenment Project and Utilitarianism

The import of the Enlightenment Project is to respond to the human condition by
means of a social technology. The understanding of norms must, therefore, be a
scientific understanding that eventuates in and is compatible with such a technology.

The quintessential Enlightenment Project conception of ethics is

utilitarianism. Historically, there is a close connection between the utilitarian
tradition and the Enlightenment Project.

Helvetius ... ,d'Holbach ... ,and other Enlightenment writers

argued that since self-interest is the sole motive of all action,
society must be reorganized so that, in effect, what Mandeville
believed to be already occurring would be made to come about.
Most people are now neither happy nor virtuous, they held, but it
is because religious superstition and political despotism stand in
the way of the free play of enlightened self-interest.)

Utilitarianism, as exemplified by Bentham, denies that our common moral

intuitions are to be taken literally. These intuitions were to be ruthlessly replaced by
a two-tier analysis in which (a) there is an axiological conceptual scheme relying
exclusively upon the principle of utility such that actions are right insofar as they
contribute to human happiness and (b) human happiness is to be understood in
hedonistic terms, i.e., pleasure becomes the ultimate intrinsic good. Utilitarianism
is 'consequentialist' in the sense that it appeals to consequences, and the
consequences themselves are evaluated in terms of their conduciveness to some
naturalistic conception of human welfare. In the minds of its founders, Jeremy
Bentham and James Mill, utilitarianism was to form the basis of a scientific social
technology derived from the Enlightenment Project. As James Mill said, "Helvetius
alone is an entire army. Bentham himself was but a disciple of Helvetius."2
J.S. Mill conceded to Bentham's critics that our common axiological
intuitions could not be eliminated in favor of a crude axiological hedonism.
Nevertheless, Mill still seemed to believe that some qualified conception of utility
could capture all or most of our common axiological intuitions. Hence, he proposed
both a more sensitive and complex understanding of our common axiological
intuitions on the upper level and a more complex form of psychological hedonism
as a lower level explanation of the upper level. Mill's utilitarianism seemingly3
contained two parts: first, the claim that all evaluations are in principle
reconceptualizable as assessments of utility; second, the explanation of utility as a
hedonistic psychological calculation. There remains, however, a fundamental
ambivalence in Mill about the exact relation ofthe two levels. 4 Sometimes he seems
to suggest that the lower level explains the upper level but not in a reductive way.
Taken in this sense, Mill's utilitarianism could be construed as offering an
318 Chapter 9

exploration rather than an elimination. This reading of Mill became the connecting
thread from Mill to Russell and Moore and on to Hare.

Analytic Ethics
Analytic ethics, not to be confused with or identified directly with the Enlightenment
Project, began with G.E. Moore. Moore had been among the first twentieth-century
philosophers to recognize the ambiguous status of norms. In Principia Ethica,
Moore attacked what he called naturalism. He denied that "values" were a sub-class
of facts in the usual scientific sense. The belief that "values" were a sub-class of
natural scientific facts was dubbed by Moore as the naturalistic fallacy.5
Specifically, Moore had attacked utilitarianism as a version ofthe naturalistic fallacy
since utilitarians had tried to reduce "values" to facts about human psychology.
The way in which Moore came to this realization of a difference between
"values" and facts is important. Natural scientific objects are, when analyzed,
reducible to parts. That is, things are to be understood by finding the parts of which
they are composed. There is, therefore, a direct connection between the original
notion of analysis advanced by Russell and Moore and the great divide between
"values" and facts.

. .. we may, when we define horse. .. mean that a certain

object, which we all of us know, is composed in a certain manner:
that it has four legs, a head, a heart, a liver, etc., etc., all of them
arranged in definite relations to one another. It is in this sense that
I deny good to be definable. I say that it is not composed of any
parts, which we can substitute for it in our minds when we are
thinking of it. 6

The immediate influence of Moore on twentieth-century analytic ethics,

much to his chagrin, was that his work sundered the "value-facts" into two realms,
one offacts and one of "values." Moore continued to defend the reality and even the
objectivity of "values." True to his own personal commitment to the Aristotelian
heritage of realism, Moore insisted that values were real and factual, but in some
non-natural sense. The domain of the non-natural was always characterized by
Moore negatively, and by his own candid admission he never gave a positive account
of non-naturalness. It was always Moore's purpose to establish and defend the
existence of an objective and independent ethical realm in response to the
recognition that "values" would no longer be viewed as facts in the ordinary sense.
It was never Moore's intention to deny the cognitive meaningfulness of ethics.?

The Enlightenment Project Enters Analytic Ethics

The Enlightenment Project has had a significant impact on analytic ethics. We
suggest that it was the impact of the Enlightenment Project on Moore's argument in
Russell that will lead to an eliminative conception of analytic ethics. Given the
Enlightenment Project's presuppositions about what a scientific understanding is, it
follows that ethical analysis commences with a search for some external objective
 Analytic Ethics 319

structure as a referent for normative concepts. This can be seen in Bertrand Russell.
In The Elements ofEthics, published in 1910, Russell, following Moore, claimed that
ethical terms referred to objective qualities. Moreover, he supported Moore's claim
that the goodness of a thing could not be inferred from any of its other properties.
Knowledge as to what things exist, have existed, or will exist, can throw absolutely
no light upon the question as to what things are good. s
Russell, within the next decade, had changed his mind. 9 He still maintained
that there was no direct connection between natural facts and values, but Russell now
denied that values were facts of any kind.
The whole thrust of analytic ethics was the discovery that normative
concepts do not have an external referent in the way that theoretical scientific
concepts allegedly have. In short, given the primacy of the analytic account of
theoretical knowledge, it follows that norms must be sharply distinguished from
facts. \0 Since norms are important to the Enlightenment Project, and since normative
judgments are not directly amenable to factual and scientific analysis, traditional
normative discourse is to be eliminated in favor of a substitute discourse that is both
amenable to scientific analysis and, ultimately, serviceable to social technology. I I

A judgment of intrinsic value is to be interpreted, not as an

assertion, but as an expression of desire concerning the desires of
mankind. 12

Analytic Ethics as Elimination

Some of those who understood the attack on naturalism did not hesitate to draw the
more radical conclusion that the nature and function of evaluative discourse had to
be rethought. The full force of scientism is not only its insistence that everything
which claims to be true must be scientifically true, but also its drive to replace our
ordinary pre-scientific understanding with more precise and accurate ways of
thinking. Scientism in its mode of theory as elimination explicitly attempts to
substitute new ideas for old ones.
When scientism in its eliminative form is applied to ethics it leads to
emotivism. Emotivism encompasses a negative and a positive thesis. Negatively,
emotivism denies the cognitive meaningfulness of normative utterances (a sharp
wedge is driven between facts and values I3 ). Positively, philosophers can analyze the
logic of normative discourse and supplement this analysis with factual statements
about the circumstances under which non-cognitive evaluative utterances are made.
The only facts that analytic ethics can study are facts about normative utterances.
In Language, Truth, and Logic (1935), A.1. Ayer officially denied on behalf
of positivism that ethics had a cognitive status. Russell immediately followed suit
by declaring that there were no ethical facts and that all values were subjective. 14
Camap soon agreed. By 1944, c.L. Stevenson's sophisticated version of emotivism
in Ethics and Language took up the suggestion that philosophers could at least
theorize in the manner of social scientists about the conditions of normative
utterance. By instituting the word 'value' and by speaking of value theory instead
of ethics or moral philosophy, it was thought that we could not only identify "ends"
in a more straightforward scientific way but also speculate on how such "ends"
320 Chapter 9

could be achieved through technological manipulation. The substitution in

terminology eliminated dealing with thorny issues of internal sanctions and focused
on external sanctions. External sanctions seemed more amenable to scientific
(causal) treatment. This will also mark the beginning of the movement within
analytic philosophy away from ethics as moral philosophy proper and toward ethics
construed as social or political philosophy. In this way, philosophers might still think
of themselves as arbiters of our "values" by advocating the elevation of the social
sciences over religion, the humanities, and the arts.
There were serious difficulties with accepting this position. IS With the
seeming collapse of utilitarianism and the rise of emotivism, scientism as elimination
led straight to nihilism. Unless values could be grounded in something rationally
persuasive, values would remain unjustified, mere preferences. With alternative sets
of unjustified and unjustifiable values, all values would appear as arbitrary. There
would be no way of justifying or using social technology on behalf of one set of
values as opposed to another. Some would suspect that it was not simply a
coincidence that the nihilism of scientific eliminativism coincided with the rise of
fascism during the 1930s.1 6 Emotivism could conceivably have at least a negative
use as a stick with which to beat or attack values which originated in objectionable
sources, which, for positivists, meant religion, metaphysics, or other non-scientific
sources. But destroying all values in the absence of a positive alternative lands us
right back in nihilism.

The culture of positivism thus produced endless swings of the

pendulum between the view that "values are merely 'relative' (or
'emotive' or 'subjective')" and the view that bringing the
"scientific method" to bear on questions of political and moral
choice is the solution to all our problems. 17

Analytic Ethics as Exploration: Meta-ethics

No one wants to be mired in nihilism. Some way out had to be found. One could
speculate that perhaps the social sciences would reveal a dimension of evaluation that
would enable us to deal with values in some rational way or at some rational level
without losing sight of the wedge that allegedly separates values from facts: 18 one
could raise questions about the conditions under which values occur as opposed to
treating values as surds or unanalyzable givens.
In pursuing this possibility, analytic philosophers returned to the work of
G.E. Moore, a remarkably seminal figure within the analytic conversation. By 1922,
Moore had come to embrace a two-tier view of ethical analysis that harkened back
to Mill and foreshadowed the main line of exploratory analytic ethics. 19 That is, he
argued that non-natural properties supervene upon natural ones. In short, values
comprise a kind of epi-phenomena. 2o
If one were to discover a body of coherent facts about the conditions under
which values occur this would not turn a value into a fact anymore than the science
of psychiatry would make witches and ghosts real. However, it would allow for a
new (social) science to bring to bear upon evaluative discourse some of the
techniques of formal logic derived from science. Theorizing would once again be
 Analytic Ethics 321

possible, but it would be theorizing of a different sort from most traditional

theorizing about substantive moral issues. It is precisely for this possibility that the
Enlightenment Project in analytic philosophy makes provision. An opening had been
found by which professional, i.e., analytic, philosophers can have some kind of input
into substantive evaluative discussions. To the extent that exploration can lead us to
modify our ordinary understanding, explorations of the logic of evaluative discourse
can lead to changes in how we conceptualize substantive evaluative issues.
We have already seen the exploratory view of analytic social science in the
previous chapter. It can be summarized as follows:
exploratory social science entails:
1. a social theory of meaning,
2. a "We Think" epistemology,
3. a relaxation ofthe requirements that explanations are deductive
and empirically verifiable,
4. a two-tier conception of the human world, and
5explanations that encompass values on the upper level but are
value free on the exploratory level.
In order to avoid confusion, in order to capture the historical developments
following the strong distinction between values and facts, and in order to maintain
the possibility of some kind of value inquiry, a distinction was introduced between
theoretical ethics and practical ethics (i.e., casuistry) where we are engaged as agents
in applying values. In order to mark this distinction it was necessary to propose a
new discipline, meta-ethics. To take meta-ethics seriously is to move from scientism
as elimination to scientism as exploration.
There is an important historical and philosophical parallel here. At about
the same time (1950s) that the naive empiricism of positivism was being challenged
in both epistemology and in the philosophy of science so the positivist denial of all
cognitive status to values was being challenged. In both instances the elimination
view of scientism was being replaced by the view of scientism as exploration.
Exploration, you will recall, involves beginning with our ordinary
understanding of how things work and then speculating on what might be behind it.
That is, exploration is the search for the underlying structure. To do this we have to
employ imaginative theoretical constructs. In the process of exploration we may
come in time to change our original or ordinary understanding. The implication of
scientism as exploration for ethics is that it allows meta-ethical speculation. But it
must not be forgotten that meta-ethical speculation is different from ethical
speculation, for meta-ethical speculation is not the mere advocacy of substantive
positions, but speculation about the hidden structure ofevaluative discourse.
Fundamental to any analytic exploration is the notion of two levels, a
common sense understanding level and a hidden structure level. Analytic
philosophers assume a dualistic model of human beings in which human beings
operate on two simultaneous levels:

teleological

deterministic
322 Chapter 9

The deterministic level is alleged to be fully describable in empirical and scientific

terms. The teleological level (which is the level of consciousness, purpose,
rationality, etc.) cannot be articulated in purely empirical and scientific tenns. To
believe that the teleological level can be fully articulated in empirical and/or
scientific terms is to be guilty of the so-called naturalistic fallacy. The teleological
level is the one where values are embodied. These values are in some as yet
unspecified way related to the facts of the deterministic level, but the values are not
themselves supposed to be pure facts nor are they strictly deducible from the
deterministic level.

teleology values

determinism facts

By postulating two tiers, where the upper tier is functionally autonomous,

the possibility is introduced of studying the logic of that functionally autonomous
level. Analytic meta-ethics, therefore, is based upon a substantive assumption about
the human social world, namely, that it possesses an autonomous and teleological
level. It is, thus, not possible to understand analytic ethical theorizing in abstraction
from analytic philosophical psychology or analytic social science.
Any attempt to analyze evaluative discourse adequately must recognize, it
is alleged, both the functionally autonomous level of "values" and the grounding in
some way of the evaluative level in the factual level. We are reminded that this
grounding is not a reduction. What is the relationship between the two levels? The
upper level is supposed to constitute our common evaluative intuitions. Any account
of that upper level, especially an account which appeals to another level of
underlying structure, will constitute an exploratory hypothesis about the structure
underlying our ordinary pre-theoretical understanding of axiological issues.
The analytic philosopher whose meta-ethical analysis of evaluative
discourse initially best captured this dual level approach is R.M. Hare. 21 Hare
asserted two theses: (i) that evaluative discourse has a prescriptive as well as
descriptive element, and (ii) that the prescriptive element could not be reduced to the
descriptive element.

teleology values prescriptive

determinism facts descriptive

The second thesis is not new, being a reassertion of the alleged naturalistic
fallacy doctrine. It is the first thesis that is important. What Hare recognized was
that our common sense evaluative intuitions were not fully captured as pure
teleological intuitions. This is Prichard's point. In conceptualizing our intuitions as
prescriptive, Hare gave to meta-ethics a 'Kantian Turn.' Hare's analysis had the
advantage of letting us see the complex guiding functions of evaluative discourse
rather than reducing such discourse, as in the case of the emotivists, to simple
 Analytic Ethics 323

expression or persuasion. Hare further developed the relation of prescription to

description so as to analogize it to the alleged distinction between "ought" and "is."
That is, by stressing the prescriptive dimension of teleological statements, Hare both
accounted for why normative statements are not strictly descriptive and he
diminished the distance between statements about the good (teleology) and
statements about obligation. However, in an important sense, Hare allowed teleology
to absorb deontology.22
teleology values prescriptive ought

determinism facts descriptive is

In short, Hare combined the insights of Moore and Prichard, as well as others, in a
way that was compatible with the dual-level view of human nature intrinsic to
analytic philosophical psychology by that time.
During the 1950s and 60s analytic ethics took a 'Kantian Turn.' On the
assumption that theoretical ethics is possible, analytic meta-ethicists offered
exploratory hypotheses to account for the underlying structure of our common
evaluative intuitions. The exploration isformal in attempting to arrive at the logic
ofevaluative discourse by identifYing its major principles, not by giving an historical
or empirical account of how the principles emerged. 23 This assumes, of course, that
concepts or principles can be understood independently of their historical context.
The formal logical analysis revealed, it was a\1eged, that there is a normative or
prescriptive dimension to evaluative discourse, a dimension that cannot be either
equated with something empirical or reduced to something empirical. This logical
or formal element ofnormativity is usua\1y identified as the universalizable element
in evaluative discourse, reminiscent of Kant's first formulation of the categorical
imperative. 24 Critics of naturalistic ethics now recalled that the philosopher who had
first insisted upon the 'deontological' dimension in ethics was Kant! Just as in the
analysis of science a Kantian element has to be recognized, so in the analysis of the
logic of ethics a Kantian element had to be recognized. Specifically, the
universalizable element embodies the public or social dimension of evaluative
discourse. Just as we cannot explain scientific knowledge by reference to the
observations of a single individual so we cannot explain morality by reference to
self-interest, the preferences of a single individual or any collection of facts about
human psychology. All evaluative discourse presupposes a prescriptive social
framework. The important question will turn out to be how we are to understand that
framework.
Some analytic philosophers attempted to distinguish meta-ethics from the
social sciences like sociology by claiming that sociology merely describes values
whereas in meta-ethics we uncover the underlying logical structure. 25 What analytic
meta-ethicists want to deny is that they are merely giving an historical (empirical)
account of how certain values arose. They aim, instead, to identify certain universal
features of the hidden structure of our values. This distinction between philosophy
and social science is implausible, for it assumes that sociology is a purely descriptive
discipline. On the contrary, many sociologists would claim that they are engaged in
exploring the hidden structure of the social world. That is, sociologists have as much
324 Chapter 9

right to engage in exploration as meta-ethicists have. (fthis is so, then there would
be no substantive difference between social science and meta-ethics26 anymore than
there is a substantive difference between science and the philosophy of science or,
perhaps in the minds of some analytic philosophers, between philosophy and
cognitive psychology. This lack of a clear distinction between philosophy and the
social sciences is one of the results of construing philosophy as a form of exploration.
This is a result which has already been alluded to in our discussion of the analytic
philosophy of the social sciencesY The issue is not whether there is an overlap
between social science and philosophy or fruitful cooperation between the two. The
issue is whether there is an autonomous level of intellectual activity that can be
called philosophical.
For the moment we may ignore issues of disciplinary boundaries, in order
to focus on the implication of the convergence of meta-ethics with social science in
general. If there is no substantive difference between social science in general and
meta-ethics, then the meta-ethical level cannot be identified independently of the
actual values operative within a community. This is another way of saying that the
logic of evaluative discourse cannot be identified apart from consideration of
evaluative content.
The logical challenge to the autonomy of meta-ethics is all the more clear
when we recall Quine's thesis of translational indeterminacy28 or the even stronger
Wittgensteinian case on the indeterminacy of rule-following. There is, finally, an
important analogy between the recognition that syntax cannot be isolated
independent of semantics and the recognition that the logic of evaluative discourse
cannot be separated from substantive values. This recognition in analytic meta-ethics
followed the recognition of the ties between syntax and semantics within analytic
philosophy oflanguage.
In order to be sure that we have correctly identified the logic of evaluative
discourse we would have to be sure that we have correctly identified the values (or
norms) operative within a given community. If this is true, then we should expect
to see meta-ethicists driven in the direction of having to be concerned with
substantive evaluative issues within some community or communities.
It should now be clear what the next stage of development would be.
Analytic meta-ethics had to abandon the notion of a strictly formal approach to ethics
and add content to form. That is to say that analytic meta-ethics had to take into
consideration substantive evaluative principles as part of its analysis of evaluative
discourse.
Before examining how this was done, it will be useful to recapitulate the
historical progression within analytic ethics.
In the first stage, analytic philosophers assumed, somewhat naively as it
turned out, that ethics was a science.
In the second stage, an alleged distinction was recognized between facts and
values such that the realm of value could no longer be construed as a strictly
cognitive domain. In this second stage, the most typical and extreme version of
analytic ethics was emotivism, a position that denied any cognitive dimension to
ethics.
 Analytic Ethics 325

In the third stage, analytic ethics asserted that evaluative discourse was rule-
governed discourse and hence a cognitive dimension did exist in ethics. Meta-ethics
was the attempt to explore philosophically the logic of evaluative discourse in
alleged abstraction from substantive axiological issues. The decline of emotivism
and the rise of meta-ethics paralleled the substitution of exploratory versions of
science for eliminative versions of scientism that occurred during the 1950s.
In the fourth stage, at which we have now arrived in our narrative, analytic
meta-ethicists recognized that the logic of evaluative discourse could not be divorced
from substantive axiological issues. Another way of putting this is to say that all
exploration proceeds against a set of background assumptions and the background
assumptions in the case of ethics would be substantive axiological positions. Finally,
it should be obvious to readers that the recognition of background assumptions to
exploration is tantamount to what we have persistently identified as a 'Kantian
Turn.'29

The Return to Substantive Ethical Theorizing

If philosophers could identify the prescriptive framework and the structure
underlying our common moral intuitions then they would be in a position to
influence positively the resolution of moral dilemmas. This would be possible
because within exploration we could come in time to change our common sense
views as a result of the better understanding of the underlying framework. This is
what exploration is supposed to achieve, not the imposition of the philosopher's
hidden evaluative agenda. The analytic philosophical ideal in ethics is to be both
value-free and to help resolve moral dilemmas.
Having recognized that it is not possible to separate form from content,
meta-ethics from ethics, those analytic philosophers who continued to pursue ethics
as exploration sought to uncover the logic of evaluative discourse in conjunction with
an examination of substantive ethical principles. They came, in time, to ask,
explicitly, "What ethical principles actually undergird our common sense moral
intuitions?" It is clear that this sort of question overlaps questions about human
nature in general.
One of the immediate consequences of the two-tier view was a resurgence
of utilitarianism. According to Alan Donagan, "From 1950 to 1970 utilitarianism in
its various forms was the dominant moral theory."3o Utility is now understood to be
a normative upper level principle, not a descriptive principle; moreover, it is
construed as a universalistic principle ("we think" perspective) not an egoistic one.
This upper level principle is then explained but not deduced from a lower level
account of human nature.

Moral judgments, then, express a state of mind that is not, in the

strictest sense, belief in a moral fact. Neither, though, is it a
feeling or a disposition to feelings. Rather, it is a complex state of
mind that consists in accepting certain norms ... [the] problem,
then, is to explain, in psychological terms, what it is to accept a
norm. 31
326 Chapter 9

The question we raise is why was utilitarianism so popular? To begin with,

utilitarianism was from its inception a two-tier view. But far more important in the
light of the Enlightenment Project in analytic ethics is the appeal to many analytic
philosophers, given their bias toward scientism, of the technical resolution of moral,
social, and political issues. The move toward technocracy is to be found even in the
work of Hare who claims that, in the end, when the philosopher's work is done we
turn over the suitably clarified ethical situation to social scientists.

I have perhaps helped by putting the question in a clearer way than

it was being put before. I have explained what it is one has to find
- what one is looking for; and it is for the economists, for example,
and social scientists generally, to do the looking for possible
solutions.32

It is no accident that Hare should single out economists. 33 For what has
happened is that in analytic ethics as influenced by the Enlightenment Project our
intuitive notion of a moral decision has been replaced with the model of an economic
agent. The decision process can be characterized. Each of us chooses from among
a number of alternatives according to which one scores highest relative to some
value. The value is alleged to be a stable preference of the chooser-agent. The
alternatives are believed to possess known properties that permit co-measurement
relative to the value. There is, in practice, no systematic attempt to specify the value
verification process. Nor is any attempt made to specify how values actually
function within someone else's system. It appears that no inter-systemic comparison
of value is possible. On the contrary, it would seem to be denied that we can actually
understand the values or preferences of another person other than through
speculation on some of hidden structural conditions that give rise to the differences. 34
We suggest that there is a distinct analogy between the analysis of choice
in analytic utilitarian ethics and neo-c1assical economics. 35 It is in neo-c1assical
economics, so closely tied to utilitarianism, that we find the denial that we can really
understand the relative satisfactions of other individuals. On one level this seems to
be compatible with the notion of autonomous individuals, but at another level such
satisfactions are assumed to be explained by hidden forces that cannot be themselves
morally evaluated. The resulting system turns out to be teleological, for it appraises
situations in terms of what price has to be paid (means) to obtain the item desired
(end). It further incorporates the assumption of some kind of ultimate harmony or
equilibrium, a kind of Pareto optimum, which seemingly allows for pluralism.
The real problem with utilitarian explorations is that they rest upon analytic
philosophical psychology, and the problem with analytic philosophical psychology,
as we saw in Chapter Seven, is that it is unable to provide a mechanistic account of
choice. Analytic philosophical psychology gives way to analytic social science and
a social theory of meaning. In addition, analytic social science turns out to be
defective because it is unable to provide criteria for choosing among alternative
explorations even after the social dimension is recognized.
Recall that when analytic philosophy of science was forced to make its
'Kantian Turn' it did not abandon its fundamental commitment to naturalism.
 Analytic Ethics 327

Analytic meta-ethics, following the lead of analytic philosophy of science, contends

that at some higher level a naturalist account is possible of the prescriptive
framework. However, we must keep in mind that this is not to be construed as the
claim that the prescriptive framework is itself empirical. Recall the analytic claim
that the non-empirical framework of scientific theories was both acknowledged and
yet subsumed under an empirical theory of the growth and development of scientific
theories.
It is important to keep in mind why analytic ethical theorists cannot rest
within the 'Kantian Turn' and must ultimately provide a naturalist resolution. The
problem is that there are alternative and competing explorations of what constitutes
our prescriptive framework. If there is no empirical way of resolving which
exploration is correct then theoretical ethical analysis would remain in chaos. If there
were no consensus on the framework then there would be no way of distinguishing
between a philosopher who identifies and clarifies our values and a philosopher who
advocates a particular set of values. Without a consensus on the framework we
might all be led to the suspicion that the very idea of a framework was itself a myth.
That is, we would have returned full circle to emotivism, or what is worse, nihilism.
What then would be a higher level resolution of conflicting exploratory
accounts of our prescriptive framework? Pursuing the analogy with the analytic
philosophy of science, which is the constant regulative ideal of analytical
philosophical discussions, we could treat competing exploratory hypotheses about
the framework just as we presumably treat competing theories in physical science.
Just as we cannot even within physical science have a direct appeal to facts so we
cannot do so in choosing among competing exploratory accounts of our evaluative
framework. What we can do is supply or supplement our discussion with an
historical account of the progressive growth of our understanding of the evaluative
framework. Specifically, one could offer an empirical account of the value-fact
relationship that both preserves the alleged non-factual nature of values and
recognizes the progressive modification of values in the face of changing factual
circumstances. Such an historical account could be held to be empirically
accountable, account for the existence of conflicting explorations, account for the
cases where overlap does occur, and provide for the possibility of resolving conflict
and thus a positive role for philosophical wisdom.
It should also be clear that this way of upstaging the 'Kantian Turn' and
allowing for a naturalistic return is the by now familiar implicit analytic move back
to Hegel, whose presence continues to haunt analytic philosophy. Recall that in
Hegel's discussion of objective spirit, he distinguished three stages:(1) rights, (2)
morality, and (3) ethical life. Classic utilitarianism never got beyond the first stage. 36
Kant's conception of duty and universalizability and the 'Kantian Turn' in general
is a reflection of progression to stage two. However, the' Kantian Turn' alone is
unable to resolve conflicts among duties. The third stage, ethical life, is a synthesis
of the first two stages combined with an unconditioned end understood in
teleological and historical terms.
There are two prominent progenitors of the movement toward a Hegelian
resolution: Robert Nozick and Alasdair MacIntyre. In Robert Nozick's
Philosophical Explanations (1981), the largest part of the book is devoted to value.
328 Chapter 9

His discussion of value is divided into three chapters: free will, foundations of
ethics, and the meaning of life.
Nozick does not argue that the human will is free. Instead, he formulates
a theory of free action that is "compatible with determinism and sufficient for our
value purposes.'>37 A free choice is a choice which weighs both the reasons for and
against an action, and it weighs the principle in terms of which it assigns weights.
By assigning weight to itself, the choice is self-subsuming. 38 This allows for the
explanation of choice as something other than a random event, and although the
explanation is not itself causal it is compatible with reductionism. This account, we
are told, is compatible with the mind-body identity theory/9 and with a notion of
contributory value but not originatory value, for the latter is ruled out by the
possibility of determinism.
What Nozick is doing is reintroducing Aristotelian teleological concepts but
in such a way that he feels is compatible with but not deducible from determinism.
He does this by adopting the two-tier approach. There is a teleological level of
conscious understanding and a level which is purely deterministic. If these two tiers
were functionally identical, like mind-body identity theory, then we could have it
both ways. The teleological concept he introduces is "tracking." Tracking is the
ability to vary beliefs with the truth of what is believed. Tracking is a disposition of
human behavior, both cognitive and evaluative, a disposition connected with certain
obvious facts but not entailed by those facts. Free action exhibits tracking by
tracking value or bestness. 4o
This parallel which Nozick draws between epistemology and value is further
clarified by invoking an evolutionary or historical hypothesis. Nozick imagines a
God who creates organisms that would have true beliefs in a changing world, beings
"able to detect changes in facts, who will change their beliefs accordingly."
According to Nozick, such beliefs are "merely" true. But the evolutionary process
that Nozick suggests gives such beings the "capability for true beliefs."

. .. it makes their beliefs (sometimes) vary somehow with the

truth of what is believed; it makes their beliefs somehow sensitive
to the facts . . .. Thus, the belief capability instilled by the
evolutionary process will yield beliefs of status intermediate
between a belief that (merely) is true in the actual world, and a
belief that varies with the truth in all possible worlds. 4!

This same evolutionary hypothesis allegedly explains value. Nozick's

ethical theory is an attempt to show how we can mold the world into an embodiment
of human purpose. He defines the task of ethical theory in terms of the dialectical
relation between right and morality, or in his words, "the moral pull and the moral
push."42 Value is understood teleologically as "organic unity." Nozick calls his
position "realization," that is, "we choose or determine that there be values, that they
exist, but their character is independent of US."43 Moreover, "The choice that there
be value brings (some) facts into an organic relationship with value, unifying these
but not identifying them."44 The unification is perhaps obscured because our facts
have not been organically unified enough yet. 45
 Analytic Ethics 329

In attempting to do justice to Kantian "deontology" as well as to Aristotelian

teleology, Nozick takes the predictable view that deontology needs to be
supplemented by some end for organization. So we must now face the issue of an
ultimate synthesis, this time of push and pul1. 46 Nozick rejects the idea of an ultimate
synthesis, urging instead that "there not be the highest organic unity in the realm of
values" so as to leave "room for new and even radically different organic unities."47
We are left wondering if it is really possible to resolve autonomy and an
unconditioned end without resort to a self-developing Hegelian absolute. Can we
avoid, finally, finding freedom by having the individual fully identified with and
integrated into the community? Nozick hesitates and then declines to explore these
issues. 48 Once more, what we observe is that analytic philosophy is brought to the
brink of recognizing its inherent Hegelian resolution but refuses either to embrace
it or to own up to it.
Failure to embrace the Hegelian notion of an ultimate synthesis leaves
Nozick's evolutionary view (i.e., his exploration) indistinguishable from a purely
relativistic historicism. Again, suppose the existence two philosophers, Nand H. N
believes, or says that he believes, in an absolute and objective truth, but he is also
totally open to new ideas, new hypotheses, radical paradigm shifts, and so on. At the
same time, N refuses to commit himself to any specific criteria by which we can tell
later is better or that we are ever closer to the absolute truth. H, on the other hand,
either denies the existence of an absolute and objective truth or refuses to be drawn
into a debate about it. Instead, H argues that later thought (or values) evolves out of
earlier thought (or values) but is not in any objective sense closer to "the" truth. H
stresses that evolution is not teleology. H even seizes upon N's point that all thinking
involves speculative assumptions or starting points that cannot be themselves the
objects of proof, that is, what Nozick means when he denies that deductive
arguments can justify themselves. How would we distinguish in practice or
empirically between Nand H? Is there any difference other than rhetoric between
Nozick's quasi-Hegelianism and an out-and-out historicist? There is no perceivable
difference without an act offaith. Alternative self-subsuming theories or alternative
explorations are just so many incommensurable discourses. It is never explained
how we are to choose or to compare or to coordinate those alternatives.
MacIntyre's After Virtue (also published in 1981)49 attracted a great deal of
attention precisely because it called attention to the predicament in which analytic
ethical theorizing found itself.50 MacIntyre defines the modern ethical predicament
as originating in the Enlightenment Project Sl and terminating in what he takes to be
Nietzschean nihilism,52 of which emotivism is but one species. MacIntyre stresses
the inadequacies of both Enlightenment individualism and Kantian appeals to duty.
What Macintyre suggests as an alternative is a return to Aristotelian ethical
realism in which the virtues are centralY Only if there is the "fe/os of a whole
human life"54 or objectively true beliefs about "the concept of man understood as
having an essential nature and an essential purpose or function"55 can we escape
nihilism. At the same time, Maclntyre recognizes that in the modern post-scientific
revolution period we can no longer accept Aristotle's "metaphysical biology."s6
Hence the good life for man becomes a quest with an historical dimension, a
teleologized historicism that brings us smack up against Hegel. While recognizing
330 Chapter 9

the plurality of narrative histories that human beings might construct (i.e., alternative
explorations), MacIntyre provides no explicit way of choosing among them.
Nevertheless MacIntyre provides a brilliantly clear statement of the problem of
analytic ethical theorizing.
Let us summarize where analytic ethics stands today as a result of
exploration. The fundamental insight of analytic ethics is that value judgments do
not refer to isolable states ofaffairs or structures, either in the external environment
or in the internal workings of the human being. 57 If so, then the following
possibilities present themselves:

either
a. nihilism (i.e., values are not real);
or
b. values are epi-phenomena which can be studied from either a physical
scientific perspective, a social scientific perspective, or an historical
perspective, where all of these perspectives are neutral or non-committal;
or
c. values as epi-phenomena are culture relative, i.e., relativism;
or
d. values as epi-phenomena have an objective sub-structure that is trans-
cultural, timeless, and which renders human beings compatible and
cooperative;
(1) this substructure can be appealed to in order to correct surface
disagreements and overcome relativism
(2) this substructure allows for a social technology in which
cognition can control volition because this sub- structure is not
dependent upon a perspective;58 it is a structure that reveals our
basic and universal drives so that we respond automatically to any
information about this structure; this is the science of ethics for
which analytic philosophers seek, i.e., this is the level at which we
shall find explanations that exhibit realism, causality, and
empirical verifiability, but not deductivity;
(3) the fundamental drives alleged to exist in the substructure are
neither culture specific nor conscious level specific (hence the
rejection of natural law) but more physiological in nature (like
seeking pleasure, e.g.);59
(4) the fundamental drives also seek some kind of homeostasis or
maximization that permits negotiation or overruling specific rules;
(5) combining (3) and (4) yields utilitarianism;
(6) utilitarianism so understood is compatible with democratic
egalitarianism on the political level;
(7) if we add a cultural (i.e., social and historical) dimension to our
understanding of this sub-structure (i.e., a social epistemology) we
arrive at Hegelian versions of analytic philosophical ethics;
(8) if we supplement the cultural account with some notion of
 Analytic Ethics 331

homeostasis the Hegelian versions become compatible with

socialism and Marxism on the political level.

Analytic Ethics and the Loss of the Moral Agent

We return, at this point, to the third defining characteristic of analytic philosophy, its
anti-agency view of human nature. Combined with scientism, this view leads to the
denial of a subject that is not also an object. The implication for ethics is that the
common sense intuitive notion we have of ourselves as moral agents who are
ultimately responsible for the choices we make is abandoned. 60 The joint influence
of scientism and an anti-agency view is largely negative. The positive alternative
will be to appeal to naturalism understood in the modem two-tier sense.
Analytic ethics must deny that human beings are free or have free will in any of the
traditional senses or in any sense that can capture our common intuitive notion of the
moral agent as responsible. 6 ! From Plato to the present, the belief in some version
of free will has been a belief in the position that human beings cannot be explained
in the way in which we explain non-human objects. It is, as well, a belief in the
primacy of how we understand ourselves. In the modem period, the belief in free
will has been in standing opposition to any form of scientism. There is, therefore,
no clearer instance of the standing opposition between the scientism inherent in
analytic philosophy and our common sense understanding of things than the issue of
free will in ethics.
One of the earliest and clearest statements of this view is to be found in the
works ofM. Schlick. 6z Schlick not only denied the freedom of the will so essential
to the traditional conception of moral agency but tried to re-define moral
responsibility so as to preserve it as a concept compatible with determinism. This
redefinition of moral responsibility and "freedom" is, in effect, an exploratory
hypothesis. The subsequent literature presented and continues to present increasingly
more subtle redefinitions of moral responsibility and freedom that permit the
preservation of traditional moral vocabulary but in a way compatible with both
scientism and the belief in deterministic psychological sub-structures.63 What the
new exploratory definitions cannot do, however, is capture our traditional conception
of moral agency. What analytic philosophy asserts in its own defense is that
exploratory redefinitions capture the underlying structure of what we really "must"
mean in the light of modem scientific information. Unlike eliminative rejections of
"freedom", exploratory redefinitions try to maintain some part of our ordinary
intuitive understanding but reserve the right to overrule that part of the ordinary
intuitive understanding that is in conflict with alleged scientific knowledge of
previously hidden sub-structure. Traditional conceptions of moral agency are
rejected as if they were inadequate exploratory hypotheses now known to be
disconfirmed. 64 Consider, for example, Quine's statement of this view.

Clearly we have free will. The supposed problem comes of a

confusion, indeed a confusing tum of phrase. Freedom of the will
means that we are free to do as we will; not that our will is free to
will as it will, which would be nonsense. We are free to do as we
will, unless someone holds us back, or unless we will something
332 Chapter 9

beyond our strength or talent. Our actions count as free insofar as

our will is a cause of them. Certainly the will has its causes in
tum; no one could wish otherwise. . .. The body-mind problem
. .. is cleared up by dropping dualism and accepting materialism
. . .. We simply keep the old mentalistic terms, but understand
them hereafter as applying to people as bodies. 65

There is a huge literature, almost an industry, on this issue. For our

purposes, three things are worth noting. First, there is no way to render common
sense conceptions of freedom compatible with determinism. The most-powerful
recent statement of an anti-compatibilist determinism is to be found in G. Strawson,
Freedom and Belief. He argues that it is psychologically impossible to internalize
determinism. "Conventional compatibilism cannot give an adequate account of our
ordinary, strong notion of freedom."66 Second, critics of the common sense or
traditional moral conception of freedom clearly see the incompatibility of this
conception with the analytic ideal of total conceptualization. As Strawson puts it,
libertarian attempts to give an account of self-determination are impossible. "True
self-determination is logically impossible because it requires the actual completion
of an infinite regress of choices of principles of choice."67 Strawson' s argument
amounts to this: self-determination cannot be conceptualized; hence it does not exist.
It ignores the contention that self-determination is pre-theoretical and therefore not
conceptualizable; not everything is conceptualizable. There is a clear parallel
between Strawson's position and that of the Churchlands, namely, the attempt to
discredit common sense conceptions of freedom on the grounds that they are a kind
of failed theory. However, common sense is not a theory but a transcendental
condition. Third, the relevance of the analytic argument against freedom to social
engineering is clear: If the selfis an illusion, then there is no such thing as free will
or self-control; if there is no self-control, there is only control of the environment (no
ethics, only politics); if there is no self-control then there is no difference between
persuasion and force.
Having abandoned the traditional moral notions of freedom and
responsibility, what can analytic ethics put in its place? The answer is a social or
political conception offreedom. Freedom, for analytic ethics, can only mean the
absence of external constraints. Suitably qualified, freedom is the absence of
arbitrary external constraints, where 'arbitrary' is specified relative to certain built-in
ends (e.g., rights). This view had its origins in Hobbes and has been continuously
present through the Enlightenment and utilitarian traditions. The substitution of a
social conception of freedom for a moral conception of freedom is part of what we
mean when we maintain that within analytic ethics as impacted by the Enlightenment
Project moral philosophy has been replaced by social philosophy.
The loss of the moral agent in analytic ethics can be seen in a number of
other ways and contexts. In John Rawls' A Theory of Justice, an explicit
environmentalism is endorsed. Rawls speaks of the genetic lottery, a form of genetic
determinism, and how "even the willingness to make an effort, to try, and so to be
deserving in the ordinary sense is itself dependent upon happy family and social
circumstances."68 Rawls even goes so far as to argue that "since inequalities of birth
 Analytic Ethics 333

and natural endowment are undeserved, these inequalities are to be somehow

compensated for."69 His argument moves from the position that since we do not
"deserve" our genes therefore we do not "deserve" what our genes make possible.
The presumption that "deserve" means the same thing in both cases is plausible only
if there is no such thing as the traditional moral conception of agency.
The loss of the moral agent is even more apparent in the discussion of
punishment within analytic ethics in generapo and in Nozick's discussion of
punishment in Philosophical Explanations. Although Nozick claims that punishment
is a form of retribution, he also claims that the purpose of punishment is to reconnect
the wrongdoer with correct rules. 71 The latter purpose is clearly utilitarian-reformist.
The contlict between the retributivist and the utilitarian comes to a head in the case
of capital punishment. The execution of a murderer who has some intrinsic value,
according to Nozick, destroys intrinsic value and jeopardizes our own connection
with value. Nozick admits that on this issue he is "unable to reach a clear stable
conclusion."72
Generally speaking, analytic ethical discussions of punishment
conceptualize the issue as a choice between a retributivist theory and a utilitarian-
reformist alternative. 73 This is routinely followed by the rejection ofretributivism
as barbaric and a recognition of the difficulties of a full blown utilitarianism. Full
blown utilitarianism might involve, for example, the prospect of deterring future
misdeeds by 'framing' and punishing innocent people. The resolution is routinely
taken to be some form of utilitarianism properly qualified so as to reform wrongdoers
only. The emphasis is once again on external agency. The possibility that
individuals are punished both because they are responsible for their actions and
because they have consented to the penalties for rule violations scarcely seems to be
recognized.

The Alternative of Explication

To approach moral philosophy from an explicatory perspective is to adopt the
perspective of an engaged agent within a particular moral community. Such an
explicatory perspective can be characterized as a "We Do" approach in which we
attempt to make clear the norms that are embedded within our previous and current
practice. This approach is (1) social as opposed to individual, (2) practical as
opposed to theoretical, and (3) takes as the fundamental ethical or moral question
"What ought I to do?" as opposed to the question "Why should I be moral?" The
latter question would be unintelligible to an engaged agent; but it is a question that
is unanswerable or highly problematic to say the least within the context of analytic
ethics.

There have been. . . two seemingly independent debates about the

justification of morality. The first debate has focused on ... the
objectivity (or lack of it) of the reasons it offers for action. The
second debate has focused on the question, Why be moral? ....
It has become increasingly difficult to see how these two debates
might be kept apart .... 74
334 Chapter 9

This issue brings us back to one of the fundamental disputes between

analytic philosophers and many of their critics. Analytic philosophers take
theoretical knowledge to be fundamental and practical knowledge to be "somehow"
derivative and clearly different. Hence, analytic ethical theorists are concerned with
and perplexed about the cognitive gap between scientific knowledge and ethical
knowledge (between "is" and "ought"), and they are equally perplexed about how
cognition relates to motivation. Insisting upon the difference between facts and
"values" is symptomatic of the concern about the gap. There is an honest perception
on the part of many analytic theorists that the whole issue of normativity is not
captured within their analyses. It is the failure to capture the normative dimension
within the "I Think" or even the "We Think" perspective that accounts in partfor the
substitution of social philosophy for ethics or moral philosophy as traditionally
conceived. In social philosophy, as opposed to moral philosophy, one does not have
to deal with internal sanctions; rather, one can speculate on what social and political
structures can "cause" agents to function in a specific way.
Now, the whole point of an explication approach is to see practical
knowledge as fundamental and theoretical knowledge as derivative. If practical
knowledge is fundamental then, of course, there can be no theoretical account of
practical knowledge. That is what is meant by the denial that the pre-theoretical can
be conceptualized. We take it that this is what is behind the persistent and nagging
worries about the open question argument. The open question argument, as we
understand it, is that no matter what analysis one gives of "good" it is always
possible to ask of that analysis if the analysis really captures what "good" is all about.
Clearly no one can give a definitive analysis of "good" because "good" denotes the
pre-conceptual that is beyond conceptualization. This is the point behind
Wittgenstein's remark that" ... no description that I can think of would do to
describe what I mean by absolute value .... " 75 Wittgenstein was not endorsing
eliminative thinking or denying the intelligibility of ethics.
Those analytic philosophers who subscribe to total conceptualization are
unable to accept the notion that there is a pre-theoretical domain that cannot be
captured in their theories. As agents in the real world they can intuit this point; as
doctrinaire subscribers to a particular theory about the world they cannot.
Once we recognize, as explication advocates, that there is a difference
between practical knowledge and theoretical knowledge, we can recognize that in an
important sense there is a difference between "value" and "fact." But what is at
issue is not whether there is a difforence, but which is fundamental. For explication,
"value" or more accurately "norms" are fundamental. What we ideritify as "facts"
presupposes prior agreement on the norms implicit in certain practices. Norms are
not inferior, logically speaking, to facts; quite the contrary, norms are superordinate.
Those who argued for the similarity were correct in recognizing that every judgment,
whether of "value" or "fact" presupposes an authoritative context or perspective.
Those who argued that "fact" was easier to determine were correct but only to the
extent that they chose examples that reflected some implicit authoritative context that
was never called into question. 76 While it is in some sense true that values cannot
be derived from facts, this amounts to no more than the assertion that there cannot
be a theoretical account of practice.
 Analytic Ethics 335

Rather than being inferior to theoretical knowledge, it is practical

knowledge that renders theoretical knowledge itself intelligible, but only from the
point of view of the engaged agent. There is a sense, then, in which everybody is
saying the same thing but viewing it somewhat differently because of their prior
philosophical commitments. By stressing the closing of an alleged gap, analytic
philosophers have obfuscated what morality is all about.
The major objection that analytic philosophers and exploratory theorists
make of explication is that explication cannot present a justification of what it
chooses to present as the authoritative context or the moral perspective of a particular
moral culture. 77 Again it looks as if explicators are picking or choosing.
The answer to this objection is as follows. What the analytic defenders of
exploration are demanding is that the authoritative perspective is only authoritative
if it can be grounded in a realist, scientific structure independent of all agency.
Hence, their objection reinforces the extent to which much of analytic ethics is
committed to scientism, modern naturalism, and an anti-agency view of the human
being. Now, not only have analytic philosophers failed to present ajustification of
this trio of commitments but this trio of commitments leads to a situation in which
analytic philosophers proffer a multitude of explorations with no way of choosing
among them. We see, therefore, no reason for accepting their philosophical
framework.
A second response to analytic critics is to note that there is no alternative to
explication. Despite their best efforts even advocates of exploration must rely upon
some pre-existing explication. The analytic demand is that an authoritative context
must be transcultural or universal and that it must "persuade" outsiders. The
demands that an authoritative moral context be universal and persuasive rather than
coercive are themselves reflective of the Western moral perspective within which
analytic philosophers operate. Our intention in pointing this out is not to question
that perspective but merely to show that no advocacy of exploration can operate
without an implicit explication. 78
The first two responses are important but not sufficient. The failure of
analytic ethics to offer a viable view does not legitimate any and all non-analytic
approaches. At some point, defenders of explication must indicate what makes the
authoritative context authoritative.
As a third response I shall sketch what such an account would be like. My
perspective is not authoritative because it is mine, rather it is mine because I believe
that my perspective reflects some set of universal norms about human beings. These
universal norms are discovered in action, not by reflection, and what they reveal are
truths about human beings, not truths about some physical structure. In short,
explication reveals that there is a form of natural law. Those who have not engaged
in the requisite action in the appropriate circumstances, e.g., children, marginal
individuals, outcasts, outlaws, and perhaps members of some other cultures, will not
have access to these truths. Moreover, the requisite circumstances are always of
necessity historically bound. As a consequence, we have no way to articulate these
truths in a timeless and definitive fashion.
It also follows that we cannot discover any hidden structure behind these
moral truths. There is moral philosophy, but there can be no such thing as meta-
336 Chapter 9

ethics. Anyone familiar with the Western Biblical tradition, with Platonism, with the
classical tradition as a whole, with the Copernican Revolution, with modern
philosophy up to the Enlightenment, with post-Kantian continental philosophy, and
the classical American tradition, with the whole of the mainstream of the Western
Tradition for that matter, will not find this strange or unintelligible. 79 It is only those
who are a product of the Enlightenment Project who will find this account odd or
unorthodox. 80
If of necessity we must begin our explication of moral truths from within
a particular cultural tradition,81 then there can be no totally "external" perspective
from which to critique "our" perspective. Does this rule out critique? Certainly not!
Critique must take the form of explication. To begin with, since fundamental moral
truths cannot be totally conceptualized (hence the open question) we are always in
a position to ask whether what we think is good is really good or right, etc.
Explication makes the existence a/the open question a strength and not a weakness.
In addition, the contextualization of moral truths means that we face the perennial
task of applying or extending these truths to novel circumstances in a way that is not
the deduction of a conclusion from an axiomatic set of truths. The whole point of
explication is the extraction of norms for future practice, and this extraction process
is a matter of coming to know the same truths in a new way. Explication thus allows
for the evolution of the understanding of moral truths that not only permits the
growth of "our" authoritative perspective but such growth allows one culture to
absorb or to be absorbed by or to grow into or with another culture. 82
Appealing to objective substructure, i.e., analytic philosophical psychology,
is a way of trying to overcome what some see as a limitation of explication. But
claiming that there is an objective substructure and producing it for inspection are
two different things. The Enlightenment Project in analytic philosophy has not
produced for inspection the alleged substructure. Further, explicators can point out
that any disagreement on a specific explication is only intelligible against the
background of some other implicit consensual explication, and the function of moral
philosophers is to remind us of that background framework. Such a reminder cannot
ignore or be ignorant of the historical evolution of "our" authoritative framework;
moreover, recapturing this framework is a matter oflooking backward, not looking
forward to an anticipated end of history or Hegelian climax. Those who look within
"our" authoritative perspective will also find a consensus explication in which we
agree on how to disagree.
A second nagging problem for critics of explication has to do with the
relationship of cognition to volition. The analytic position poses a theoretical
problem here of understanding why some agents do not behave and a practical
problem of getting them to behave. Explicators would respond by pointing out (a)
that since there can be genuine disagreement about specific explications that this is
sometimes not a problem of behavior; (b) that since moral apprehension is not the
apprehension of a totally independent and external structure that all moral
apprehension depends in the first place on recognizing the specific authoritative
perspective (analogy here with aesthetic appreciation); (c) that the intellectual
recognition of the authoritative perspective is not sufficient to move us to action
(hence moral philosophy is concerned to discuss such phenomena as evil, sin,
 Analytic Ethics 337

hypocrisy, self-deception, akrasia, etc. - all of which involves a kind of moral

phenomenology, not the analytic philosophical psychology of physiological
substructures; (d) and that the perspective must be internalized through habitual
practice (as Aristotle and many others have persistently reminded us). This is part
of what is meant by the primacy of action as opposed to cognition.
The criticism that defenders of explication will make of exploration is that
exploration, as well as elimination, lead to nihilism. Hence, nihilism is present not
only in emotivism but in analytic ethical theorizing in general. There are three
senses of nihilism. First, nihilism can mean the loss of absolute standards and the
substitution of radical subjectivism. Certainly emotivism was nihilist in this sense,
but later analytic ethical theorizing is not. Second, nihilism can mean the attempt to
objectify our fundamental "values" by objectifying the conditions that sustain such
"values." Treating our fundamental "values" in this way (i.e., as epi-phenomena)
still underscores the extent to which such "values" or their accompanying conditions
have no absolute status. Hence, analytic ethical theorizing remains nihilist in this
second sense. Third, nihilism can mean the illogical attempt to undermine an
historically embedded moral perspective by acting as if there were a timeless
external perspective from which the embedded perspective could be criticized. This
approach leads to the abyss of exploration. Analytic meta-ethics is just such an
attempt, and we believe that we have shown it to be incoherent on this count. 83
Moreover, explicators maintain that in the very act oftrying to engage in exploration,
explorers are led to devalue the act of exploration. We see this repeatedly in the
shocking discovery that there is no way to choose among competing explorations.
Science as an enterprise is itself threatened by the triumph of scientism, since
science rests upon values that cannot be established by exploratory hypotheses. 84
We see a fundamental conflict between the image of human beings that
emerges from the explorations of analytic ethics and the image that emerges from
explication. In explication, the kind of infonnation that we discover about ourselves
is not a matter of empirical psychology or social science in general. In explication,
we do not see ourselves as objects or as cognizing observers; rather, we see ourselves
from the point of view of engaged agents. Two examples of this kind offundamental
conflict in how human beings are to be understood are worth noting. From the point
of view of explication, Kant's analysis of morality in general and the categorical
imperatives in particular are explications. Kant's transcendental argument for human
freedom would appear to be the kind of way in which human freedom is
philosophically discovered, established and understood. 85 One could not offer a
scientific proof for human freedom and responsibility. A second example comes
from literature. 86 Often (in fact, usually) we learn more about ourselves as human
beings and as moral agents from reading a great work of literature than from reading
social science. Moreover, defenders of explication would insist that this kind of
understanding of ourselves is not in principle reducible to or replaceable by
sophisticated social science or literary "theory."
The difference between exploration and explication has important
consequences for the area of applied ethics. With the return to substantive ethical
theorizing within the last twenty years, we have seen a remarkable outpouring of
literature by philosophers on public policy issues. This outpouring is referred to as
338 Chapter 9

"applied" ethics because it reflects the analytic notion or preconception that theory
is fundamental and application is derivative. It is a form of old fashioned casuistry
only now largely, but not wholly, inspired by developments in analytic ethical
theorizing. If one takes an explication approach to ethics, then public policy
discussions will always be rooted in the clarification of previously operative norms
not the application of allegedly theoretical principles. If one takes an exploratory
approach to applied ethics, then public policy discussions once again become
indistinguishable from advocacy.
Let us elaborate on this last point. As we have persistently pointed out,
explorations have two salient characteristics. First, explorations appeal to hidden
structures by reference to which common sense intuitive understandings of the norms
embedded in past practice may be overruled. Second, there is no way of choosing
among competing explorations except by appeal to a previously agreed upon
explication. It is very easy for applied ethics to become a battle ground in which
competing but unanchored explorations will appear as no more than masks for
private agendas. This is precisely what we are going to see in the next chapter on
analytic social and political philosophy.

Summary
Analytic meta-ethics in both its positivistic and exploratory phases leads to nihilism.
It is nihilistic because in its loss of philosophical consciousness it fails to recognize
the need for an authoritative explication to ground explorations. The consequence
is a multiplicity of unanchored and unverifiable explorations. The attempt to
overcome this nihilism by appeal to a psychological substructure leads either to
relativism or to hypothetical and unverifiable accounts of that substructure that serve
private agendas. Analytic meta-ethics is thereby politicized, and meta-ethics
becomes mere advocacy in disguise. What we are going to get are political
conceptualizations of and solutions to moral problems.
In the end, the thrust of scientism is to replace understanding with
technique. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the analytic philosophical attempt
to argue that behind the common sense moral agent there is really an economic agent.
The loss of moral agency is tantamount in practice to the replacement of morality by
social and political philosophy, the subject of the next chapter.
 Analytic Ethics 339

NOTES (CHAPTER 9)

1. Schneewind (1992), p. 89.

2. Quoted in Randall (1962), p. 932.

3. We say "seemingly" because this was how Mill was read, and it is a reading
that has had enormous influence on the analytic tradition. However,
Capaldi (1983) has argued that Mill's discussion of utilitarianism must be
read in the light of an autonomy theory as expressed in On Liberty, not the
other way around. If so, this would be another example of the rewriting of
the history of philosophy in order to subtend analytic preconceptions.

4. A distinct line of criticism developed in response to utilitarianism. Critics

were apt to charge that utilitarianism confused axiological hedonism with
psychological hedonism. That is, the critics denied that our common
axiological intuitions could be understood hedonistically or eliminated in
favor of psychological hedonism. H.A. Prichard (1912) criticized the
utilitarian account of our prima facie axiological intuitions. J.H. Muirhead
subsequently coined the term 'deontological' to characterize Prichard's
position. Deontology is to be understood as opposition to any purely
teleological or consequentialist account of our common axiological
intuitions. According to Prichard, and others, some actions are morally
obligatory independent of their consequences and without regard to long
range prudential considerations. Our common evaluative and specifically
moral intuitions could not in the first instance be explained solely in terms
of the principle of utility or any purely teleological conceptual scheme.

5. Moore (1903), section 8. I think it is important that Moore's example is of

something whose parts are related organically (and, therefore,
teleologically).

6. Moore (1956) [1903], p. 8.

7. Moore did not subscribe to scientism. For this reason, Moore is not part of
the Enlightenment Project in analytic philosophy as we have understood it.
See our discussion of ordinary language philosophy at the end of Chapter
Six. Later analytic philosophers who borrowed Moore's point against
naturalism did not follow Moore's own positive program in ethics. Jennifer
Welchman (1989) has argued that Moore"s Principia did not have a
revolutionary impact on Anglo-American ethics. "Stevenson claimed that
although he had altered the form of the argument [open-question argument]
he believed himself to have preserved 'the spirit of Moore's objection.'
The claim is disingenuous.. .. Stevenson simply used the language of
340 Chapter 9

Moore's argument as a convenient devise for translating his own position

into terms more familiar to his audience" p. 325.

8. Russell (1910) reprinted in Sellars and Hospers (1952), p. 7.

9. As we saw in Chapter One, Hylton (1990) dates the beginnings of analytic

philosophy in 1912; we suggested that a program was formulated about
1914; in either case the 1910 work on ethics predates Russell's full blown
analytic philosophy.

10. After the scientific revolution, purpose was denied to the universe as a
whole and confined to the narrowly human world. It became increasingly
difficult to defend even this limited teleology. " ... this essentialist
teleology is precisely the element of Aristotle's ethics that now seems least
likely to be refurbished .... " Darwall, Gibbard, and Railton (1992), p. 168.
It is against this background that one can understand the catastrophic
intellectual effect of Darwin's views on evolution. According to Russell
(1945),p. 753, Darwin destroyed the doctrine of 'natural rights' [i.e., natural
rights based on the belief in natural law] in politics by undermining belief
in the fixity of the human species.

11. Schlick declared ethics to be a branch of psychology (1938). Camap, in

The Logical Structure of the World, asserted that values could be
understood scientifically. A version of this original view is still present in
the work of those who engage in rational choice theory. Rational choice
theorists conceptualize evaluative judgments from the point of view of
epistemological atomism and the representative function of language that
derives from an extreme modem naturalism. Ethical judgments, then, are
construed as being about objective items of information or reducible to such
information. Individual preferences are treated as items of information
ultimately reducible to causal accounts (i.e., more information). See for
example Gauthier (1987), and a group of critical essays on Gauthier, by
Paul, Miller, Paul and Ahrens (1988). Rational choice theory adopts the
substitution ofthe economic agent for the moral agent that we discuss in the
section of this chapter subtitled "Analytic Ethics and the Loss of the Moral
Agent."

12. Russell (1938), p. 247.

13. The use of the term 'values' as a substitute for moral norms is relatively
recent. For a good brief history see Frankena (1967). The following facts
about the use of the term 'values' are relevant to an understanding of
analytic ethics. First, 'value' is ambiguous in a way useful to analytic
ethics, because it connotes that something is valued as opposed to
possessing an intrinsic quality that makes it valuable, i.e., the subjective
dimension is made primary over the objective dimension. It also
 Analytic Ethics 341

ambiguously connotes either personal preference or social custom, both

understood in a non-objective way. Second, the term originally was used
within the social sciences, specifically economics, and thereby lends itself
to the notion that we can examine the factual substructure of what is merely
subjective. Third, the subjectivity of "values" is welcomed by some as a
defense ofliberal democracy against any dogmatism because each person's
or group's preference (or pleasure in Bentham's sense) counts for as much
as any other.

14. Russell (1935).

15. It significant that Russell himself was unsatisfied with th is turn of events in
analytic ethics. He expressed that dissatisfaction in Schilpp (1961), p. 724:
" ... 1 am not guilty of logical inconsistency in holding to the above
interpretation of ethics and at the same time expressing strong ethical
preferences. But in feeling I am not satisfied." In (1967-69) the first
volume of his Autobiography, Russell claimed that one of his earliest
ambitions, one inspired by Hegel, was to unite science with ethical or social
issues (p. 162). "I thought that I would write one series of books on the
philosophy of the sciences from pure mathematics to physiology, and
another series of books on social questions. I hoped that the two series
might ultimately meet in a synthesis at once scientific and practical. My
scheme was largely inspired by Hegelian ideas." See also (1959b), pp. 141-
43.

16. See Reichenbach's defense of democracy (1951), pp. 295-96: "Everybody

is entitled to set up his own moral imperatives and to demand that everyone
follow these imperatives. . .. 1 do not derive my principle from pure
reason. I do not present it as the result of a philosophy. I merely formulate
a principle which is the basis of all political life in democratic countries,
knowing that in adhering to it I reveal myself as a product of my time ....
I do not claim that it applies to all forms of society; if I ... were placed in
a different society I might be willing to modify my principle."
For critiques of positivism as leading to nihilism and its disastrous
influence on public affairs see Strauss (1989) and Voegelin (1952).

17. Rorty(l982),p.33.

18. "We can distinguish two broad trends in contemporary moral theory
depending upon how 'the problem of placing ethics' is identified. . .. The
first . .. approach depends upon finding some substantive contrast or
discontinuity between facts . .. and norms or values. Perhaps most
philosophers find such a contrast prima facie plausible .... The second
broad trend ... accepts the challenge of showing that moral judgments are
factual in the paradigm sense afforded by empirical or theoretical judgments
in the natural sciences" Darwall, Gibbard, Railton (1992), pp.I28-30.
342 Chapter 9

Note, however, that with regard to analytic philosophers in the second

group (Railton, David Lewis, Hannan, Sturgeon, and Boyd) the continuity
is established through a fonn of supervenience or reductionism that reflects
the two-tier view.

19. Moore (1951), Chapter Eight, "The Conception of Intrinsic Value", pp.
253-275.

20. A similar view is defended at the same time by Bertrand Russell in a paper
he presented to the Apostles on March 4, 1922. This was called to my
attention by Alan Ryan. See Ryan (1988), p. 47 n66.

21. R.M. Hare (1972).

22. Deontologists would claim that our moral intuitions cannot be explained in
wholly consequentialist or empirical terms. Those who engage in
exploration can deny this claim by appeal to the hidden structural level.
Explorers, while beginning with our ordinary intuitions, may modify our
common sense understanding by appeal to hidden structure.

23. The analogue to this approach in the law is the work of Hans Kelsen in his
attempt to articulate the structure of a legal system in tenns of a basic nonn
which, in tum, requires psychological analysis.

24. Prominent analytic meta-ethicists who have followed Kant (and Hare) in
stressing the "objective" or "social" or "intersubjective dimension" to
ethical discourse include: Thomas Nagel (1970); Gewirth (1978); Rawls
(1980); and Darwall (1983). Alan Donagan (1977) is sometimes put into
this group, but, unlike analytic meta-ethicists, Donagan combined his
Kantianism with a commitment to teleology, natural law, and Judeo-
Christian morality.
Finding some neutral meaning to the word 'objective' so that
ethical discourse can be construed as 'objective' is not to be confused with
the rejection of scientism. In (1986) Thomas Nagel argued that 'objective'
was not simply equatable with knowledge as attained in the empirical
sciences (p. 144). However, Nagel nowhere challenges scientism.

25. Nielsen (1967), vol. III, p. 118.

26. Rawls (1974-75), p. 22: "We must not tum away from this task because
much of it may appear to belong to psychology or social theory and not to
philosophy. For the fact is that others are not prompted by philosophical
inclination to pursue moral theory; yet this motivation is essential, for
without it the inquiry has the wrong focus."
 Analytic Ethics 343

27. This consequence is not unwelcome to many social scientists. It reinforces

a claim made earlier in this book, namely, that analytic philosophy has
served for a long time as the rationalizer of the position that the social
sciences are really sciences. It is in performing this role that philosophers
are welcome within certain circles of social science.

28. Quine'S reversion to some form of eliminativism in the face of the

implications of the radical indeterminacy of exploration can be seen now as
a consistent move on his part.

29. Henry Sidgwick was among the first utilitarian writers to try to harmonize
utilitarianism with Kant. When the 'Kantian Turn' was taken, Sidgwick,
who had been largely ignored, was once again taken seriously among
analytic philosophers of ethics. See Schneewind (1987).

30. Donagan (1982), p. 147. Among these prominent utilitarians are Rawls,
Toulmin, Baier, and Singer. Rawls insisted that his approach was Kantian.
However, in his review of Rawls, R.M. Hare stressed the extent to which
Rawls never surrendered Utilitarianism. See the next chapter on analytic
social and political philosophy. R.M. Hare, for one, has stated explicitly
that "I am in fact a Utilitarian, in the tradition of Mill." Quoted in Magee
(1982), p. 128. Properly qualified, it is also easy to see Moore, Russell and
Sidgwick as utilitarians.

31. Darwall, Gibbard, Railton (1992), p. 150. These writers rightly point out
that supervenience, in the end, is not distinguishable from reducibility (p.
172). Straightforward reductionists among analytic meta-ethicists include
Harman (1977), David Lewis (1989), and Railton (1986).

32. R.M. Hare, quoted in Magee (1982), p. 141.

33. Hare, specifically, singles out Amartya Sen, "who is a very good
philosopher as well. The philosophers (utilitarians in particular) have a lot
to learn from economists like him." Ibid.

34. Rawls' 'veil of ignorance' is an instance of how these questions are rejected
as extraneous.

35. Prominent analytic meta-ethicists who employ a neo-classical economic

approach include Baier (1958); Gauthier (1987); and Gibbard (1990).

36. The main line of analytic ethical theorizing tends to dismiss libertarianism
and rights theorizing on the grounds that it is still stuck at stage one.
Traditional natural law theories are dismissed for the same reason as well
as the fact that their adherents tend, at times, to want to connect natural law
to religion.
344 Chapter 9

37. Nozick (1981), p. 292.

38. See Chapter Four on analytic metaphysics for a further discussion of what
Nozick means by a self-subsuming explanation. The reader should be
reminded of our contention that such a conception of explanation is
Hegelian.

39. Nozick (1981), p. 339.

40. Ibid., p. 317.

41. Ibid., pp. 285-86.

42. Ibid., p. 401.

43. Ibid., p. 555.

44. Ibid., p. 568.

45. Ibid., p. 524.

46. Ibid., p. 421.

47. Ibid., p. 449.

48. In his earlier work, Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974), Nozick had defended
a more robust theory of individualism, some would even say libertarianism.
However, in Philosophical Explanations, Nozick not only makes the
'Kantian Turn' but comes close to a Hegelian theory of the individual as
organically linked with the community. Nozick, while not embracing such
a Hegelian view, does recognize that this theory may not be congruent with
his earlier work (Philosophical Explanations, pp. 498-99n), and he
concedes that he is not linking this view of ethics with his earlier book.

49. MacIntyre (1981).

50. MacIntyre attacks positivism in particular and not analytic philosophy.

Curiously, Darwall, Gibbard, and Railton (1992) recognize that MacIntyre
is offering what we have called an exploration and thus remains a meta-
ethicist (pp. 182-83).

51. MacIntyre (1981), p. 111.

52. Ibid., p. 107.

 Analytic Ethics 345

53. MacIntyre stresses that he is trying to vindicate "the moral tradition to

which Aristotle's teaching about the virtues is central" (Ibid., p. 238).

54. Ibid., p. 188.

55. Ibid., p. 56.

56. Ibid., p. 183.

57. The suggestion was made as far back as Hume that moral qualities are like
secondary qualities. Such a view is to be found in recent theorists like
Blackburn and Wiggins (1976). But such secondary qualities are not
isolable in that they still ultimately depend on a selected perspective.

58. Darwall, Gibbard, and Railton (1992), pp. 150-51.

59. Once we move the universal substructure away from the cultural and/or
conscious level the domain of the moral can easily be extended to
encompass either animals, plants, or the environment in general. There are,
of course, other roots for both the animal rights movement and
environmental ethics, but both of those concerns are legitimated in special
ways by analytic ethics.

60. To his credit, Popper tried to defend the possibility of human freedom.
However, what is curious about his defense is that it relies upon appeals to
indeterminacy in quantum mechanics. What makes this appeal a reflection
of the Enlightenment Project is that Popper still tries to ground his defense
in something drawn from the physical sciences. Hence, Popper's defense
of freedom is still done within the framework of scientism. We find this
defense superfluous; hard line analytic philosophers reject Popper's
contentions.

61. Contrast the analytic treatment of the problem of free will as a technical
problem involving the redefinition of freedom with the reactions of J.S. Mill
and William James to the threat of the dissolution of the traditional notion
of the moral agent as free. See Mill's Autobiography, and note as well that
when Mill came to defend the freedom of the individual in his essay On
Liberty he specifically dissociated that defense from utilitarianism. See
James' correspondence with Renouvier in his Letters (ed. Henry James, Jr.,
1920), reprinted in Revue de metaphysique et de morale (1935).

62. See Schlick (1965).

63. Ginet (1966).

346 Chapter 9

64. See Honderich (1988) (e.g., p. 207) and Double (1991 ) (e.g., p. 218), both
of whom treat free will in this fashion. Their arguments both amount to the
claim that since free will cannot be conceptualized, it cannot be meaningful.
This presumes that everything meaningful is in some sense
conceptualizable. It therefore, presumes, that there is no pre-theoretical
domain. This part of their case is not argued but merely presumed.

65. Quine quoted in Magee (1982), pp. 146-47.

66. G. Strawson (1991), p. 17.

67. Ibid., p. 29. "There is a clear and fundamental sense in which no being can
be truly self-determining in respect of its character and motivation in such
a way as to be truly responsible for how it is in respect of character and
motivation" (p. 311). "It follows that there is a fundamental sense in which
we cannot possibly be truly responsible for our actions" (p. 312).

68. Rawls (1971), p. 74.

69. Ibid., p. 100.

70. Feinberg (1965): see articles by Beardsley, Chisholm, Ayer, and Stevenson
for evidence of the loss of moral agency.

71. Nozick (1981), p. 374.

72. Ibid., p. 378.

73. Feinberg (1965): see articles by Mabbot, Glover, and Rawls for the issue of
punishment.

74. Darwall, Gibbard, and Railton (1992), p. 187.

75. Wittgenstein, (1965) p. 11.

76. Darwall, Gibbard, and Railton (1992), p. 159.

77. DarwaII, Gibbard, and Railton (1992), p. 161-62: " . . . addressing

underlying worries about the possible arbitrariness of our evaluative
practices .... This is not the sort of thing that carries much justificatory
weight even within our moral scheme. Not only is it hard to imagine
appealing to this feature in an attempted justification aimed at outsiders; it
is hard to imagine it succeeding very far in showing non arbitrariness to
ourselves."
 Analytic Ethics 347

78. Darwall, Gibbard, and Railton (l992),p. 143, make just this kind of
criticism of Rawls: "It amounts to dogmatically claiming that some specific
version of hypothetical contractarianism is correct: that the valid principles
of justice are the ones we would have framed in such and such
circumstances. Adherents of rival versions of hypothetical contractarianism
will dispute this claim, and then, again, old metaethical issues reappear."

79. This is why an historical dimension is an integral part of any explication or

philosophical examination, and why we maintain that philosophy is an
essentially explicatory activity. This theme is developed in Chapter Eleven.
Any serious history of Western morals demonstrates an ongoing and
persistent set of fundamental moral issues.

80. Darwall, Gibbard, and Railton (1992): " ... examples of continuity founded
on a thoroughly noncognitive interpretation of both scientific and ethical
language are scarce" (p. 130 n.34); "Or, one might find that a notion of
objectivity developed for ethics could provide an unorthodox [italics
added], but superior, understanding of objectivity in mathematics and
science" (p. 127 n29).

81. Hence there is a reason why we begin from within Western morality. This
is not an arbitrary choice. Others may disagree with our explication, but
that is not to deny that we who are thinking within Western culture must
begin by explicating "Western" morality.

82. The history of "Western" Civilization is just such a history of growth and
absorption (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Germanic, etc. cultures).

83. The intellectual legitimation that analytic ethics provides to anti-

establishment moral, social, and political movements is to be found in the
postulation of an ideal perspective from the point of view of which all
actual regimes are inherently inadequate. This is not to say that the ideal
perspective is rooted only in analytic ethics, but it is to say that analytic
ethics helps to sustain it by legitimating the "view from nowhere".

84. "Thought seems to have made little advance since David Hume and
Immanuel Kant. . .. It was they who came nearer than anybody has done
since to a clear recognition of the status of values as independent and
guiding conditions of all rational construction. What I am ultimately
concerned with here. . . is that destruction of values by scientific error
which has increasingly come to seem to me the great tragedy of our time -
a tragedy, because the values which scientific error tends to dethrone are the
indispensable foundation of all our civilization, including the very scientific
efforts which have turned against them. The tendency of constructivism
to represent those values which it cannot explain as determined by arbitrary
human decisions, or acts of will, or mere emotions, rather than as the
348 Chapter 9

necessary conditions of facts which are taken for granted by its expounders,
has done much to shake the foundations of civilization, and of science itself,
which also rests on a system of values which cannot be scientifically
proved" Hayek (1973), pp. 6-7.

85. One of the claims to be defended in the chapter on analytic history of

philosophy is that curious distortions or reinterpretations of historically
important material results from taking an exploratory view. Within the
context of this chapter we suggest that the interpretations of Kant and Mill
to be found in the analytic ethical literature partakes of this sort of
distortion. For example, Kant is best understood as offering an explication
of moral life and not an exploratory hypothesis. We suggest, further, that
a great deal is lost by treating Mill as a utilitarian; for example, the
discussion of freedom in On Liberty is in no way reconcilable with
utilitarianism and/or a deterministic conception of human nature. With
regard to issues in social and political philosophy, we suggest that Locke is
grossly distorted when interpreted independently of his theological views.

Literature is, thus, closer to philosophy as explication than is social science

or physical science. Philosophy as exploration is closer to the sciences.
The closeness of literature to philosophy as explication does not mean there
are no differences. Kant's treatment of freedom is still different from a
literary treatment.
 CHAPTER 10

Analytic Social and Political Philosophy

The Politics of the Enlightenment Project

In this chapter we shall trace how the political agenda of the Enlightenment Project
has impacted analytic social and political philosophy. I This will involve two distinct
elements: (a) exhibiting the historical origins of analytic social and political
philosophy and (b) showing how the conceptual ramifications within the evolution
of analytic thought are reflected back into the politics of the Enlightenment Project.
A number of qualifications are in order. First, we are not going to discuss
all of the political philosophy of the Enlightenment, or of the Enlightenment Project,
or even all of the philosophes. Second, although the politics of the Enlightenment
Project are clearly visible in the major post-Enlightenment political typologies that
we shall be discussing, namely liberalism, socialism, and Marxism, we are not going
to discuss all of the subtleties of those typologies. Third, some philosophers who
would identifY themselves as in some sense analytic hold political positions that are
not directly part of the Enlightenment Project. What we shall emphasize is that
insofar as analytic social and political philosophers do respond to the major
typologies many of them do so largely from the perspective of the Enlightenment
Project. 2 As MacIntyre has put it:

When analytic philosophers do reach substantive conclusions, as

they often do, those conclusions only derive in part from analytic
philosophy. There is always some other agenda in the
background, sometimes concealed, sometimes obvious. In moral
philosophy it is usually a liberal political agenda. 3

Historically, the political philosophy of the Enlightenment is a response to

the rise of liberal culture. By liberal culture we understand the kind of culture that
emerged in Western Europe in the post-Renaissance and post-Reformation period
and eventually spread to North America and beyond. 4 The most distinctive practices
of liberal culture are individual rights, the rule of law, republican (limited)
government, toleration, and afree market economy. Liberal culture was not planned
or deliberately brought into existence. Rather, it emerged from classical and
Christian roots working themselves out in a novel modem economic and political
context. Generally speaking, the response of Enlightenment thinkers to liberal
culture was a positive one. However, not all Enlightenment thinkers responded in
the same positive way. It is simply not the case, as MacIntyre contends, that there
was a uniform Enlightenment endorsement of liberal culture. The endorsements of
Locke and Montesquieu in the seventeenth-century and the endorsements of HumeS
and Kant in the eighteenth-century were fundamentally different from the
endorsement of the philosophes.
Fundamental to our discussion is a distinction between liberal culture and
the endorsements of liberal culture. By an endorsement we mean an account of
liberal culture coupled with a justification and defense of it. Part of the source of our
difficulty here is that the term 'liberal' is an adjective that characterizes both a set of
350 Chapter 10

evolving historical practices and a variety of endorsements of those cultures where

some of those endorsements conflict with each other. For example, there are
differences, as we shall see, between classical and modern liberals. This
terminological confusion will even require us to recognize non-liberal endorsements
of liberal culture such as conservative ones. This semantic confusion and
obfuscation is, as we shall argue, one of the consequences of the Enlightenment
Project.
Our interest here is in the endorsement of liberal culture within the
Enlightenment Project. Within the Enlightenment Project there were two distinct
endorsements based upon two competing views of human nature. Both views
originated in the attempt to ground social theory in social science modeled after
Newtonian mechanics. The first view, which is the origin of methodological
individualism, assumed the truths of physicalism, empiricism, associationism, and
intellectual hedonism. The idea of associationism was first suggested by Hume in
his Treatise of Human Nature (1739) and comprised the view that elementary
sensations from the environment were combined in the mind according to mechanical
laws analogous to the law of gravity. But associationism did not become an all-
encompassing doctrine until articulated by David Hartley in his Observations on
Man (1749). What gives special significance to associationism is the additional
thesis of intellectual hedonism, namely, that the sole origin of human response to
environmental stimuli is the desire to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. The
alleged basic truth about human psychology is that every individual is by nature
governed by rational self-interest. This endorsement is to be found in Helvetius, but
it is primarily to be found in Bentham's utilitarianism, James Mill's Analysis of the
Human Mind (1829), and it is a mainstay of classical political economy. Since
human nature partakes of the natural harmony of the universe, enlightened self-
interest implies that human beings can manage their own affairs without government
interference. As Randall put it:

... sensationalism, associationism, hedonism, and intellectualism

were ostensibly the outcome of a mechanical analysis of human
nature. Actually, they were dictated by the demands of the middle
class for social change. They became the philosophic justification
of nineteenth-century British Liberalism, its method of criticizing
traditional institutions, by their consequences in individual
pleasures and pains. They provided a "rational" basis for a society
oflaissez-faire and free competition, the trust in the reason of the
common man. 6

The idea of limited or repUblican government could also claim Locke and
even Montesquieu as part of its pedigree but these thinkers had not subscribed to
anything programmatic. In Locke, individualism or the doctrine of individual rights
reflected a Protestant religious conception of the relation between the individual and
God. As we can see from this, what the Enlightenment Project of the philosophes
did was to transmute Locke's conception of rights from an ethical doctrine about the
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 351

relationship of individuals to God into a quasi-Newtonian doctrine about the natural

harmony of human interests.
There is another version of how the Enlightenment Project endorsed liberal
culture. Philosophes such as Voltaire, Diderot, d'Alembert and the physiocrats
(Gournay, Quesnay, Turgot, and Dupont de Nemours) took their cue from Bacon.
This latter group advocated not only the idea of the conquest of nature but the idea
of a social technology to solve all social and political problems. They equated this
program with a powerful central government unencumbered by the Church, the
courts, or legislative bodies. That is, they eschewed limited government. It is this
latter group, as we shall argue, that reflects in its clearest form the Enlightenment
Project. 7
What the political agenda of the Enlightenment Project amounts to is the
following:
I. human beings are, basically, good, not sinful, and the ultimate goal of
human existence is happiness in this life (secularization);
2. the institutional practices most compatible with human happiness are
individual rights, market economies, rule of law, and toleration (i.e., liberal
culture);
3. human beings are to be understood mechanistically, hence evil behavior
is exclusively the result of external 8 forces (scientization);
4. social technology can create a utopia 9 by the control of external forces
(scientization);
5. society is a hierarchical structure best served by a powerful and
authoritarian state supervised by the new clerisy, namely the philosophes.

Earlier we claimed that the second group of philosophes, those who

espoused a powerful central government engaged in social technology, were the
more consistent advocates of the Enlightenment Project. 10 Why is this? Although
they embraced individual rights, proponents of the Enlightenment Project denied the
existence of a subject that is not an object or not reducible to a collection of objects.
Most especially this amounts to the denial of the idea of a free and personally
responsible individual soul that emerged out of the Greco-Roman and Judeo-
Christian world view. The denial of the self serves a number of important and
interrelated purposes. Metaphysically it reinforces the claim that the physical world
is primary. It is, as well, an attack on the theistic contention of a unique volitional
being. Epistemologically, the denial of the self reinforces the claim that knowledge
is nothing but the grasping of an external structure. Failure to grasp the structure
cannot be attributed to any act of the will but becomes in principle explainable in
terms of further objective structures. This gives a tremendous boost to rationalist
optimism. Finally, the denial of the self serves the axiological function of providing
for an objective social technology that does not depend upon human attitudes that are
not externally manipulable. Put in other terms, intellectual virtue would not depend
upon moral virtue, nor could there be a failure of the will, and there would be no
problem of the freedom of the will.
The clearest example is Helvetius' De ['Esprit (1758). Starting with
Locke's epistemological claim that all knowledge originates in experience and that
352 Chapter 10

the human mind at birth is a tabula rasa, Helvetius goes on to embrace an extreme
fonn of environmental detenninism. All differences in beliefs, attitudes, values, etc.
are solely the result of historical and environmental accident; with the conclusion that
all human beings are, at some level, fundamentally equivalent and therefore equal.
All forms of social hierarchy, privilege and differences in power and influence were
deemed the result of historical accident and therefore unjust. In its place Helvetius
substituted the notion that all individuals, when properly educated, are equally
competent judges. Since no one is, therefore, in a privileged position to make
judgments, Helvetius concluded that participatory democracy is the only form of
government compatible with the fundamental equality of human nature.
What Helvetius did not see, but other proponents of the Enlightenment
Project did, is that his reading of Locke was also compatible with totalitarianism. If
there were basic truths about human nature which dictated specific social arrange-
ments then why should these practices not be forthwith instituted by an enlightened
elite? Further, the people were only to be trusted if they were properly educated and
had undergone a deprogramming therapy which cleansed them of the misperceptions
(i.e., political idols) from which they suffered as the result of previous oppressive
governments. Allowing the people to debate public policy issues in their current
state of mind ran the risk oftheir intellectual exploitation by scoundrels. It might be
necessary to have a "temporary" dictatorship until the therapeutic process was
completed, and even then political debate could be dispensed with in favor of
scientific discussion among the informed experts followed by public reeducation.
All of this is perfectly compatible with the commitment to environmental
determinism. This transition from the individualism of liberal culture to
totalitarianism will turn out to be the most important conceptual ramification of the
Enlightenment Project in analytic political philosophy.
The theorist who explicitly carried out this transition was Gabriel Bonnot
de Mably. Mably's brother was Condillac, and it had been Condillac who had turned
Locke's doctrine into a pure environmentalism by dispensing with Locke's notion
of ideas of reflection. According to this view, Locke's conception of the individual
is a metaphysical phantom. It is a short step from this view to the rejection of the
notion of private property. As Mably put it: "it seems to me we must conclude that
we can find happiness only in the community of goods."11

The Enlightenment Project in the Nineteenth-Century

Liberalism, socialism, and Marxism can be seen as the nineteenth and twentieth
century political expressions of the Enlightenment Project, differing only in their
favored modes of what a social technology comprises. Let us turn to liberalism first.

Liberalism:
1. The starting point (onto logically, axiologically, and epistemologically)
is individualism. From this individualism we deduce conclusions about the
social world.
a. In its Lockean formulation, individualism reflected a Protestant
moral- religious conception of the relation between the individual
and God.
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 353

b. In its Enlightenment Project form, the atomism reflects

methodological individualism.
2. Each individual is alleged to have a built-in end or set of such consistent
ends;
a. In its original Lockean formulation, these ends (e.g., life, liberty,
property, etc) are designated as "rights "12 (qualified as 'natural',
'human', etc.); these ends are teleological. Rights, so understood,
are absolute, do not conflict, and are possessed only by individual
human beings. Rights are morally absolute or fundamental
because they are derived from human nature and God (or later the
categorical imperative), and as such cannot be overridden; the role
of these rights is to protect the human capacity to choose. I]
Finally, such rights impose only duties of non-interference.
b. In its Enlightenment Project form, the ends are not rights;
rather, rights are means to the achievement of the ends. As such,
rights are only prima facie, may be overridden, and may be
possessed by any entity, not just individual human beings. Such
rights can be welfare rights, i.e., they may be such that others have
a positive obligation to provide such goods, benefits or means.
3. What distinguishes one 'liberal' social philosopher from another is (a)
whether rights are understood to be absolute or primafacie, (b) the content
of the rights, and (c) the lexical ordering of those rights.
4. Within the Enlightenment Project, individuals are to be understood in
terms of a dualistic psychology. Ends are epiphenomena with a materialist
and deterministic substructure that is transcultural and timeless. On the
substructural level the values appear as drives that are not culture specific
but are physiological in nature, like seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.
The differences among liberal social philosophers expressed in (3) reflect
differences in substructure accounts.
5. There is a miraculous congruence of the teleological level with the
deterministic level. The fundamental drives seek some kind of humeostasis
or maximization that permits both internal and external negotiation or the
overruling on occasion of some specific drives. The miraculous congruence
permits utopian social planning.
6. The miraculous congruence in (4) which also produced a miraculous
homeostasis was originally guaranteed in Locke by God, later evolved into
a social scientific 'hidden hand', and now operates as a secular act of faith.
As a secular act offaith it now no longer requires a grounding in natural law
and serves to legitimate any drive found on the physiological level. All
drives are legitimate so long as one subscribes to a continuing homeostasis.
7. Freedom is compatible with substructure determinism only iffreedom is
construed as the absence of arbitrary external constraints, and where
constraints are found to be arbitrary relative to the end enumerated in (2).
By subscribing to internal determinism, no distinction exists between
'freedom' and 'liberty '. These terms refer interchangeably to
environmental constraints. This conception of freedom leads to a political
354 Chapter 10

conception ofethics based on external social sanctions instead of morality

(which involves the inner sanction of autonomous agents).
8. Social policy consists in the removal of external constraints.
9. Whereas classical liberalism as a 'liberal' social philosophy views the
state as one of the environmental obstacles to the realization of our "rights,"
modern liberalism views the state as the super agency for removing
environmental obstacles (internal or external) to the realization of our
"rights."

For our purposes, we shall begin with the contrast between classical and
modern liberalism. 'Liberalism' does not come into use as a term until the early
nineteenth century, conveniently for our discussion which is concerned with post-
Enlightenment political philosophy.

Classical liberalism:
As a social philosophy, classical liberalism is the political analogue of
Benthamite utilitarianism. It begins with an atomistic conception of human beings
(consistent with the modeling of social science on a certain version of physical
science) and offers a quasi-mechanistic sub-structure explanation of human values
as a reflection of the drives for pleasure and pain.
The naturalizing of the human agent for political purposes was clearly
enunciated by Bentham in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation (1789). The fundamental axiological truths about human beings were
rooted in human physiology and not in either natural law or natural right.
Individualism is an epi-phenomenal representation of this sub-structure. It was
Bentham who first connected utilitarianism with atomistic individualism in his
formula that each individual is "to count for one and none for more than one." The
social world is then interpreted as a construct based upon a contractual arrangement
among such atomistic individuals.
Contractual arrangements are not to be understood politically but from the
point of view of social science and technology, specifically classical economics.
Contractual arrangements can be understood cognitively and scientifically by their
operation in a pure (Le., timeless and contextiess) market economy. Markets, in
which price is seen as a way of communicating information to rational maximizers,
become the technical model for understanding, predicting, controlling, and resolving
social conflicts. The political process is understood by classical liberals as a way of
inhibiting or limiting the government from interfering (a) with the natural operation
of the market and (b) the basic rights of rational maxim izers. It is important to notice
that something like economic determinism, the view that the rest of culture is a
superstructure based upon economic arrangements, is already present in classical
liberalism. 14
Bentham thus espoused a kind of individualism that was not based upon any
traditional conception of natural rights. Instead he looked to the legal system to
establish the rights that defined individual liberty, and he saw representative
democracy as a means to securing legal rights. The task of the legislator is to be a
social engineer in which the only question is how to maximize pleasure for the
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 355

greatest number of citizens. Bentham thus assumed that the general welfare was
some kind of democratic aggregation process. Specifically, Bentham blithely
assumed that all people were equivalent on some physiological level, without
ultimate conflicts, and that democracy was a matter of counting each individual as
equal to every other. IS Democracy, for Bentham, had nothing to do with restricting
the social engineer and hence Bentham's opposition to social contract theories. For
Bentham the chief obstacle to achieving harmony was inherited legal fiction, and
hence the major focus of political reform was 'rationalizing' the law.
It is important to see in Bentham's critique of natural rights the beginnings
of the move away from individualism even in the earliest espousers of classical
liberalism. Rights are not expressions of ultimate truths about human nature, rather
a purely scientific account of human nature reveals that something on the
physiological level is more basic. The social engineer cannot allow allegedly
historical, conventional, and fictional entities like rights to trump scientific public
policy.
Classical liberalism contains within itself the seeds of its own undoing.
Even in an ideal setup where equal opportunity is available there will be differential
outcomes. From the perspective of the Enlightenment Project, differential outcomes
were problematic. First, there was and is a persistent presence of the poor,
understood as socially dysfunctional individuals. Classical liberals cannot account
for poverty in moral-psychological terms because they have rejected the traditional
subject who exercises free will and who may have uncontrolled sinful impulses.
Second, differential outcomes lead to unequal influence upon economic transactions
(unequal bargaining power) and upon political processes. This is problematic, again
from the perspective of the Enlightenment Project, because there are, seemingly,
successful individual rational maximizers whose own personal interest seems to
them best served by maintaining differential outcomes that favor themselves. At this
late stage it is not possible to reintroduce traditional religious or moral considerations
or philanthropic impulses or community spirit as a check on the misuse of differential
outcomes for all of these considerations have been abandoned by supporters of the
Enlightenment Project. Ingenious arguments about how being socially cooperative
and having community spirit is itself a way of serving personal self-interest do not
seem to change the reality. What these arguments accomplish is the reinforcement
of the notion that classical liberalism is unable to close the gap in practice between
personal and communal interest. Sometimes classical liberals themselves suggest
political adjustments in order to maximize economic outcomes thereby introducing
the notion of the use of the social engineer to advance the economy.

Modern Liberalism:
Modern liberalism agrees with classical liberalism up to the point of
identifying contractual arrangements with a market. Modern liberals (as well as
socialists and Marxists) recognize that in a market all negotiation begins from the
status quo, but they argue that the status quo is the product of historical accident.
Historical accident not only leads to differential outcomes (inequality) but it distorts
the capacity of negotiators to be rational maximizers with regard to the community.
356 Chapter 10

Modern liberals share with classical liberals a faith in rational self-interest, but they
find a different locus for the operation of this faith.
Modern liberals understand the social contract by analogy with the exchange
of information (conversation) in parliamentary debate, a debate that is pure (i.e.,
timeless and contextless), untainted by historical accident, and which presumes the
utopian homeostasis. "Pure" participatory democracy becomes the favored technique
or technical model for understanding, predicting, controlling, and resolving social
conflicts. State regulation of the market economy in the form of redistribution is
seen as a way of maintaining the benefits of a market economy rationally harmonized
to overcome the irrationality created by historical accident.
Modern liberalism also contains the seeds of its own undoing. To begin
with, from the perspective of the Enlightenment Project, it fails to produce a utopian
outcome, and if anything, exacerbates the very problems it seeks to solve. There is
no rational economic or principled basis on which to determine the calculus of
redistribution amongst individuals. 16 That is why modern liberalism reduces in
practice to the culture of complaint. The results of such redistribution include the
actual wounding of the market economy so that all parties are economically
damaged, the creation of new groups with unequal influence on economic
transactions (regulators) and on the political process, and pervasive social and
political cynicism.

Socialism:
Modern liberals are also unable to close the gap between individual and
social interest. It is the need for the concept of a common or group or social interest
that is the origin of a second version of political philosophy in the Enlightenment
Project, namely socialism. 17 Socialists seemingly solved the theoretical problem of
social harmony by rejecting psychological hedonism. Rather than being the basic
truth about human beings, psychological hedonism is viewed as the product of a
"corrupt" environment. The distinction between individual self-interest and
communal interest is rejected in favor of communal interest and identity. Crucial to
socialism is the move to prima facie welfare rights as well as the claim that rights are
not restricted to individual human beings but can be attributed to larger social
wholes. Once the move is made from individual interest to communal interest, the
distinction between the market and the state is seen as irrational, hence the advocacy
of a state owned and run economy.
The pure market economy is to be replaced by a centrally controlled or
planned economy designed not only to produce prosperity but to equalize the
condition of all individuals. Reconciling maximization with equality is construed as
a technological problem. Some form of representative government is still envisaged
as a way of guaranteeing that the central planners remain committed to the common
good so conceived. It is but a short step from this position to the idea of world
government or world planners.
Still working with the inherited idea of the sanctity of individuals but
mindful of the implications of psychological hedonism for potential conflict,
socialists welcomed the opportunity to pursue social engineering from within the
perspective of the common social good. Given the notion of some kind or level of
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 357

basic uniformity to human nature, socialists construed the sanctity of individuals as

responding to what all individuals share in common in an equal way. That is,
individualism is linked to and tamed by equality. Equality is in practice open-ended,
always conceptualized negatively in opposition to "corrupt" psychological
hedonism, and, whatever practice is "perceived" as "causing" disharmony leads to
some proposed form of equalization.
The concept of communal interest has two sources: (a) the classical and the
medieval religious and feudal notions of the communal good and (b) the advocacy
of a social epistemology. What has given a new intellectual legitimacy to socialism
has been the movement away from naive empiricism and epistemological
individualism toward a communal or social model of knowledge acquisition.
Socialists are still empiricists, that is, they construe experience as the internal
physical processing of an external physical structure, what they add is the assumption
that the external physical structure is mediated by a social structure as well. Hence,
how anyone individual construes his relation to others is conditioned by social
circumstances subject to control, revision, or reform.
Socialists are also in a position to deny that the maximization of individual
wealth is part of the social good. The social good might be interpreted in terms of
other goals like harmony, etc. that overrule maximizing productivity. One must
therefore distinguish between socialists who advocate economic planning in the
interests of maximization and socialists who advocate economic planning in the
interests of other overriding social goals.
Socialism also contains the seeds of its own undoing. It is one thing to
declare the existence of an all-encompassing communal interest and it is another to
expect the democratic process to capture that communal interest. After all, current
political practice reflects the distorted judgment that results from past historical
accident.

Marxism:
Marxists 18 are the most consistent and coherent representatives of the
Enlightenment Project. Building on the socialist critique of liberalism, already
committed to a social epistemology by virtue of its Hegelian inheritance, Marxism
takes the notion of irrational decision making based upon historical accident to
greater depths of analysis. Not only must the state and the economy be identified as
one, but rational planning can only be accomplished by a liberated elite and not by
the changing whims of a dysfunctional electorate. The tyrannical implications both
theoretically and practically of such Marxism are by now too obvious for us to have
to dwell upon them. However, what gives a special intellectual legitimacy to
Marxism within adherents of the Enlightenment Project is the unswerving
commitment to materialism and the embrace of that historical progressivism by
which all objections to scientism are answered.
A crucial issue here is social epistemology. It is one thing to say that our
perception is mediated by social structures as a condition of all perception including
self-perception, and it is another thing to say that our perception is ultimately caused
by external social conditions. Advocates of the Enlightenment Project who are
committed to scientism are ultimately forced to opt for the latter. Without this
358 Chapter IO

commitment there is no possibility of a social technology. On the other hand, to say

that the social epistemology is a condition and not a cause would be to jettison social
technology. It would also call for a different kind of understanding of moral, social,
and political phenomena. Once this move is made, liberal culture will be understood,
defended or criticized, modified, curtailed, or extended in a host of other ways.
Political philosophy is hardly exhausted by utilitarian defenses of liberal culture, 19
or by materialist versions of socialism 20 and Marxism. The widespread but mistaken
belief that these are the only alternatives reflects the enormous influence of the
Enlightenment Project on the culture as a whole. 21
The conclusions we draw, and which will be exhibited in the remainder of
the chapter, are:
1. The political agenda of the Enlightenment Project is to construct and
implement a social technology based upon a naturalistic and materialistic
view of human nature (i.e., what we have previously identified as modern
truncated Aristotelianism).
2. Historically, this agenda begins with a defense of absolute rights but
moves by stages first to a conception of welfare rights and ultimately to a
form oftotalitarian democracy; this transition is mediated, philosophically,
by the anti-agency view of human nature and by a social epistemology.
3.orthodox Marxism is the most consistent and coherent expression of the
Enlightenment Project political agenda,
4 Moral revulsion at the effects of orthodox Marxism is partly responsible
for the collapse of confidence in the Enlightenment Project.
a. One response is to refurbish earlier versions of the project
(versions of liberalism and socialism) - but these are
philosophically indefensible.
b. A second response is to embrace earlier versions of the project
(versions of liberalism and socialism) on relativist grounds - but
this leaves us with alternative explorations and no principled basis
for resolving disagreements.
c. In short, the politics of the Enlightenment Project leads to
nihilism.

The Political Agenda of Analytic Philosophy

It is often said by analytic philosophers that their theoretical positions are held
independently of practical concerns. Let us note, in response, that (a) even if
theoretical positions are independent of practical ones, this does not show that
practical positions are independent of theoretical ones, so some relationship between
analytic philosophy and Enlightenment values is still possible; (b) even if theoretical
positions are independent of practical ones, this by itself does not show that all
analytic philosophers hold theoretical views independent of practical ones, for it is
always open to someone to suggest the hypothesis that when push came to shove
many analytic philosophers consistently opted for solutions compatible with certain
practical commitments; that is, some analytic philosophers may not have practiced
what they preached; (c) we shall show that the relationship worked both ways,
specifically with Carnap and Popper; (d) the belief that a theoretical position can be
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 359

held coherently without reference to prior practical or evaluative concerns is itself

a controversial thesis that analytic philosophers have never established. It is a
restatement of scientism.
We are not suggesting that a political agenda is all there is to analytic
philosophy, nor are we suggesting that recognizing this agenda automatically
discredits analytic philosophy, nor are we suggesting that all those who have
identified themselves as analytic philosophers consciously operate in their
philosophical endeavors to advance this political agenda. We do, however, maintain
that in order to understand any philosophical movement some consideration must be
given to its cultural context, and we do want to maintain that a great deal of what
analytic philosophers have done and have failed to do is illuminated by recognizing
the political agenda of the Enlightenment project.
At this point we shall summarize the evidence connecting large parts of
analytic philosophy with political agendas deriving from the Enlightenment Project.
1. Russell was the founder of analytic philosophy. He was also one of the
twentieth-century's most prominent liberals both in his public positions and in his
social philosophy. Russell was a member of the Fabian Society, and he was in 1922
and 1923 the Labour Party candidate for Parliament from Chelsea. From 1903
onwards he was a pacifist and actually jailed for expressing pacifist views during
World War I. Initially, Russell welcomed the Russian Revolution, but after a visit
to the Soviet Union in 1920 he became disenchanted as well as convinced of its
totalitarian bent. During the 1920s, Russell established an experimental school and
advocated the general view that a peaceful and happy world could be achieved
through education. Russell believed that the greatest human need after hunger was
sex, and consequently that a sexually liberated society would be a happier and more
peaceful society. His pacifism was sorely tried by the threat of Nazi Germany during
World War II. After the war, he initially advocated a first strike against the Soviet
Union but later came to advocate unilateral nuclear disarmament. His last
engagement with politics came with lending the support of his name to the "Vietnam
War Trials." Among his numerous political publications were German Social
Democracy (1896), Principles of Social Reconstruction (1916), On Education
(1926), and Education and the Social Order (1932).22
2. The Manifesto of the Vienna Circle specifically endorsed the idea of the
"shaping of economic and social life according to rational principles." Prominent
members of the Vienna Circle and their associates held liberal and socialist positions,
some were even political activists. Carnap, for example, was not only inspired by
Russell's general philosophical vision but by his political positions as welJ.23 Carnap
asserted his conviction:

... that the great problems of the organization of the economy

and the organization of the world at the present time, in the era of
industrialization, cannot possibly be solved by the 'interplay of
forces', but require rational planning. For the organization of [the]
economy this means socialism in some form; for the organization
of the world it means a gradual development towards a world
government. 24
360 Chapter J0

The most programmatic member of the Circle, Otto Neurath, was actively
involved in the Social Democratic Party in Bavaria, and he articulated in unequivocal
fashion the utopian goals of social engineering. Specifically, Neurath argued that
after seeing the fruits of central economic planning during wartime (WW I), market
economies would be replaced by a communal economy.

In a socialized economy the living standards and wages of

everybody will be fixed by . .. decrees ... they will not be
decided by contract .... 25

Even epistemological issues were not immune to political considerations.

According to Anders Wedberg, "through the influence of the ideas of Otto Neurath,
which in their turn were inspired by Marxism, Carnap began in the early 1930s to
regard methodological solipsism with a certain disapproval."26
Another positivist who shared Neurath's enthusiasm for planning was Hans
Reichenbach. Reichenbach had been a leader of the Socialist Youth Movement in
Germany. In his book, The Rise of Scientific Philosophy, Reichenbach praised Marx
specifically for Marx's critique of Hegelian idealism, Marx's empiricism, and most
especially Marx's advocacy of applying science to the social world.27
3. One of the clearest and most direct expressions of the link between
analytic philosophy and liberalism understood as the advocacy of social technology
is to be found in the works of Popper.

Man can know: thus he can be free. This is the formula which
explains the link between epistemological optimism and the ideas
of liberalism. 28

According to Popper, the belief in objective truth or epistemological realism is

equated with the belief in liberal social technology. He believes that the rise of
science and technology since the Renaissance leads to the epistemological optimism
of the liberal mind. 29
Perhaps the most significant link between analytic philosophy and liberalism
is to be found, quite surprisingly, in Popper's doctrine offalsification. According to
Popper, scientific theories cannot be directly confirmed but they can be falsified.
Hence, empirical testing is designed to establish a scientific theory indirectly by
actually trying to falsify it. By Popper's own admission, the doctrine of falsification
was not originally the result of Popper's study of scientific procedure. Actually, the
doctrine of falsification was first formulated by him as a way of refuting Freud,
Marx, and historicist theories. 30 Hence, in a very important sense, Popper's political
views were not derived from his scientific philosophy, rather his views on science
were more directly influenced by his political preconceptions.
4. Rorty also maintains that there was a hidden agenda behind the central
problems in analytic philosophy, namely liberal values.

There is, in short, nothing wrong with the hopes of the

Enlightenment. . .. I have sought to distinguish these institutions
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 361

and practices from the philosophical justifications for them

provided by partisans of objectivity, and to suggest an alternative
justification. 31

5. As the position of analytic philosophy vis-a-vis science evolved from a

naive empiricist form of elimination into a more open ended form of exploration, the
connection between analytic philosophy and liberalism became even more apparent.
In the absence of strict empirical confirmation, other criteria closely resembling
liberal political values were substituted. We have already had occasion in our
discussion of ethics to note that in analytic ethical theorizing the traditional moral
agent gets replaced by an economic agent and that the economic agent seems to make
decisions using the model of neo-classical economics. Analogously, when analytic
philosophers surrender naive empiricism and take the 'Kantian Turn' they are forced
to specify criteria to be used in the evaluation of rival hypotheses, and the criteria
turn out to be the sort of criteria that one would expect of a neo-classical economist!
As Romanos points out:

The assimilation of philosophy to general theoretical science is

frequently thought to deprive philosophy of its normative or
critical role in telling us how we ought to think. . .. Such views
... tend to exaggerate the purely factual nature of science; those
who hold them fail to see that science is also a discipline of
enormous normative scope. Legislative postulation, the general
mode of scientific hypothesis, is essentially a matter of human
proposal and decision. Theory is not simply and unequivocally
'determined by the facts,' but instead involves theory-wide
'practical' considerations of simplicity, convenience, utility, and
efficacy, which have become increasingly recognized for their
important role in theory construction. Thus the problem of
deciding what is best or most desirable of alternative views of the
same set of 'facts,' so to speak -- deciding what we ought to think
-- is a regular feature of standard scientific operating procedure.32

Just to reinforce the point about the analogy to liberal decision making, note in
passing the close similarity of the foregoing criteria to Bentham's felicific calculus
for determining the value of pleasure and pain, specifically Bentham's criteria of
fecundity, purity, and extent. 33
The connection between analytical modes ofthinking, decision procedures,
and liberal values has been noted recently by L. Jonathan Cohen. Cohen stresses the
element of continual reassessment, an element not unlike Popper's falsification .

. . . to clarify, evaluate, improve, or redesign the various rational

frameworks within which people can determine the optimal
solutions of their personal, social, cultural, technical, or scientific
problems . .. makes for tolerance, universal suffrage, ethical
362 Chapter 10

pluralism, non-violent resolution of disputes, and freedom of

intellectual enterprise .... 34

It is not our intention to challenge the claim that values or criteria other
than those of the epistemological realist are necessary for the evaluation of scientific
hypotheses. Nor is it our intention to challenge the attempt to draw science and
common sense decision making closer together. We do not wish to challenge the
contention that there is something analogous between scientific decision making and
liberal values. The real question is whether scientism can survive the recognition of
the analogy and connection. If liberal values sustain the modem scientific enterprise,
as some have suggested, then science cannot explain or justify liberal values. Nor
can scientific realism be the foundation of all of our thinking. To the extent that
analytic philosophers come to recognize the implicit liberal norms of scientific
practice they also come to recognize thefotility ofthe original Enlightenment Project
within analytic philosophy. This does not of itself discredit science, and it does not
discredit liberal culture. Rather, it calls for an entirely different understanding of
both science and liberal culture.
What we have been suggesting is (1) that a particular set of political values
has always formed the cultural context of analytic philosophy and (2) that, in tum,
analytic philosophers who subscribe to the Enlightenment Project have interpreted
or reinterpreted those values from within their own philosophical perspective.

Analytic Political Philosophy as Elimination

We tum now to the discussion of political philosophy during the eliminative phase
of analytic philosophy. Eliminative thinking, you will recall, is marked by the
wholesale elimination of customary ways of thinking and its replacement by new
scientific ways of thinking. Given its early optimism about the verification of
scientific theories1 positivism contemplated the rejection of everything that could not
be empirically confirmed. It was on this basis that analytic philosophers could
engage in the debunking of traditional, i.e., non-scientific, foundations for political
and social norms. This was viewed as a way of combating dogmatism.
One consequence of eliminative thinking in social and political philosophy
was the amalgamation of emotivism and utilitarianism. Emotivism denied that
statements of value were anything other than the expressions of a preference;
utilitarianism 35 took these preferences as givens and interpreted social policy as the
attempt to construct a calculus for resolving disputes and implementing a consensus
on preferences.
Popper, for example, thought that we could identify "ends" in a scientific
way and then go on to speculate on how "ends" could be achieved through
technological manipulation. Popper insists upon a strict dichotomy between fact and
value. Facts reflect the permanent structure of nature, whereas values are said to be
conventions or decisions. Social institutions are seen as instruments to facilitate our
decisions. Curiously, Popper treated this view of social institutions as a fact, whereas
it is a reflection of one version of the liberal position that individuals have rights
independent of their communities. Even here, then, we see the extent to which
political preconceptions influence one's conceptualization of the functioning of
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 363

social and political institutions. Given the limited extent of scientific knowledge, i.e.,
our fallibilism, Popper concludes that social engineering should be piecemeal.
Hence, social technology should be developed and used but central planning ought
not to be. Again, Popper treats the classical liberal agenda of limited government as
if it were derivable from epistemological doctrines like falsifiability. Popper even
attempted to assimilate policy making in parliamentary democracies to his notion of
the functioning of a scientific community.
The belief that it is possible to have piecemeal social engineering is the
political counterpart to the belief that it is possible to establish individual truths, that
is, to know parts prior to some theory of the whole. Just as we witnessed the
movement in the philosophy of science from piecemeal truth to holism so we shall
see a corresponding movement to the advocacy of central and holistic political
planning.
It is interesting in this context to compare Popper with the early Neurath.
Neurath's early optimism about scientific progress and verification encouraged him
to espouse a position of wholesale social engineering. Popper always took a more
cautious and skeptical attitude about verification, and hence he was encouraged to
advocate a more limited social engineering. However, despite his preference for
classical liberal social policies, the logic of Popper's own argument is in the direction
of greater and greater central planning. Although Popperaoes not believe that we
shall reach a terminus oftotal scientific understanding, he does see endless growth. 36
In a pregnant metaphor, scientific progress is likened to escaping into larger and
larger 'prisons'. As we progress in our scientific knowledge there should be a
corresponding growth in the area that central planners can legitimately control.
Hence, one could argue that while totalitarian control is unacceptable we can have
ever increasing growth in central planning. The totalitarian implications37 of
Popper's conception of social engineering, despite its intention, has been duly noted
and criticized by F.A. Hayek,38 despite the fact that Conjectures and Refutations was
dedicated by Popper to Hayek.
Popper has steadfastly adhered to scientific realism;39 at the same time, his
commitment to liberalism has always been his basic commitment. It is no surprise,
therefore, that in order to keep faith with liberal culture he has within the philosophy
of science come to maintain that determinism is not part of either classical or
quantum physics;40 and, he has also come to maintain an ontological view of nature
that is teleological. 41
As long as analytic philosophy remained within its eliminative period,
which lasted through the 1950s, and during which emotivism was the dominant
ethical view, analytic philosophers remained content to use philosophy to debunk
traditional or non-scientific foundations for political norms. Although they
themselves remained largely committed to liberalism 42 or socialism in some form or
other and saw emotivism as a way of combating dogmatism, the eliminative
approach did raise the specter ofnihilism 43 in politics as well as ethics. The best that
positivistic analytic philosophers could come up with was Reichenbach's argument
that liberal democracy was the form of government most compatible with
relativism. 44 By the 1950s it surely looked as if substantive philosophical politics
was dead. 45
364 Chapter 10

The Meta-Politics of Exploration

In a remarkable analogue to the development of meta-ethics, there developed a
corresponding meta-politics.

Exploratory political theory:

a. It begins with our ordinary understanding of political practices and then
speculates on what might be behind those practices. Exploratory political theory is
the search for underlying structure by employing imaginative theoretical constructs.
Such exploration is not prompted by an agenda, but it can lead us to change our
ordinary understanding of our practices. The exploration is formal in attempting to
arrive at the logic ofpolitical discourse by identifYing its major principles, not by
giving an historical or empirical account ofhow the principles emerged The logic
of political discourse cannot be identified independent of the actual content of
practices within a community. If this is true, then we should expect to see political
exploration driven in the direction of having to be concerned with substantive
evaluative issues within some community or communities.
b. Exploratory political theory begins with a 'Kantian Turn' by
recognizing that non-empirical conceptual elements or procedural considerations are
present in every theory. Any normative theory must be formalistic and begin with
an explanatory hypothesis rather than just mere facts. Moreover, such a normative
theory must account for universal izabil ity, i.e., generate the social dimension out of
logical requirements. Just as we cannot generate knowledge from sense data without
a framework, so we cannot generate justice from alleged facts about the pursuit of
self-interest. Normative discourse presupposes a social framework. What all of this
amounts to is the reaffirmation of the naturalistic fallacy and the rejection of the
eliminativism of classic utilitarianism.

H.L.A. Hart:
Just as meta-ethics begins with a critique of earlier versions of positivism
such as utilitarianism, so meta-politics begins with a critique of earlier versions of
positivism in the law. John Austin, the nineteenth-century legal philosopher, had
defined a legal system as the commands of a sovereign (an empirical social fact). He
then explained the normativity of law in terms of (a) the sanctions imposed on non-
compliance and (b) the prudential response of a general habit of obedience. The
latter also seemed to be a matter of fact, namely, to whom and to what do people
habitually comply. The answer to the second question was reduced to the answer to
the first question.
The first major example of meta-political exploration was H.L.A. Hart's The
Concept ofLaw (1961). Hart begins his philosophical meta-analysis with a critique
of Austin's positivism. Austin, says Hart, has confused obedience with obligation.
Hart agrees that part, but only part, of the normativity of rules can be explained by
reference to facts such as the consequences of social practices. The other part of the
normativity of rules involves the "acceptance" of the rules from an "internal"
perspective on the part of social agents. However, Hart goes on to specify the
internal point of view in purely behavioral tenns, namely when agents appeal to it in
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 365

justifying their actions and in criticizing noncompliance on the part of others. The
normative dimension is not purely factual, but we can specify certain facts about
nonns which enable us to identify them. This part of Hart's analysis bears a distinct
analogy to Hare's analysis of normative discourse.
Hart's book was a classic attempt to isolate the logic of legal discourse
independent of the content. Hart analyzed law as a union of primary and secondary
rules. Primary rules impose duties whereas secondary rules are meta-rules for
recognizing the rules of a system as well as changing and adjudicating among them.
Hart attacked simplistic attempts to equate legal concepts with empirical entities
(e.g., the commands of a sovereign or predictions about the actions of courts). In its
place he substituted an analysis of the conditions under which statements that employ
legal concepts would be true. Implicit in Hart's approach is a rejection of what is
called "rule scepticism" and the advocacy of the view that a system oflegal rules can
be definitively analyzed and conceptualized. Hart thus rejected the Wittgensteinian
view, expressed in the Investigations, that there is a pre-conceptual domain that
cannot be captured analytically but only explicated. Finally, Hart believed that the
legal system could be conceptualized without appeal to moral or normative
considerations.
Some of the persistent criticisms of Hart's analysis reflect the kinds of
criticism that were made earlier of meta-ethics and of exploration in general. First,
it is not clear how analytical meta-politics differs from social science. Second, it is
not clear that form and content can be separated, or, to use Hart's context, that the
secondary rules can be understood apart from the primary rules or substantive
evaluative considerations.
The alleged gap between fact and "value" is reflected in the alleged
distinction between 'what the law is' and 'what the law ought to be'. Specifically,
two questions were raised in such a way that the answer to one seemed to leave
unclear the answer to the other. The questions were: (I) What constitutes a legal
system? (2) What is the locus ofnormativity in such a legal system? Hart answered
the first question in a way that appealed to social scientific concepts. Unfortunately,
this left unclear in what sense a legal system was binding upon social agents.
Just as early analytic philosophers had thought it was possible both to
separate syntax from semantics and to reduce semantics to syntax so in the
philosophy of law it was thought possible to separate questions about the logic or
structure of a legal system from the content and normative force of such a system.
Just as the separability of syntax from semantics had to give way to the priority of
semantics, so in the philosophy of law there will be a corresponding movement
toward explaining the structure by reference to systemic norms.
If Hart's analysis is analogous to Hare's, then we can expect the same sort
of objections to be raised. Leaving aside questions about transcendent norms and
focusing merely upon conventional norms, we must still raise the question of what
account can be given of our common legal intuitions. Specifically, what are we to
say when there are divergent accounts of such intuitions? How would we or could
we resolve such disputes? This question is important because we must have some
way of distinguishing between a situation in which (a) an agent, including a judge,
fails to act consistent with our conventional nonns and one in which (b) a theorist has
366 Chapter 10

incorrectly identified the conventional nonn or the relevant one. Hart is forced to
admit that in cases where disagreement arises about conventional nonns there can be
no convergent social practice. If there is no convergent social practice then there
would be no law.
Dworkin criticizes Hart precisely upon this point. Dworkin contends that
it is just in such cases of controversy that we must recognize the existence of moral
principles which express our conceptions offaimess and justice and not just social
rules of a peculiar kind. In two important respects, Dworkin and Hart are in
agreement. Both deny the view that nonns are purely subjective (i.e., both deny
eliminative or emotive views of "value"), and both deny that nonns are recovered or
rediscovered by explication of previous historical contexts. 46 All of this leaves us
precisely where we left off in our discussion of ethics. In moving from elimination
to exploration, and in rejecting explication, analytic philosophy of law tenninates in
a situation where (I) nonns are recognized as substantive entities, (2) which cannot
be reduced to a set of facts, and (3) where attempts to explore the hidden structure
of our nonns cannot be divorced from substantive political views, but (4) where
competing accounts of those substantive views leaves us with no way of deciding
which account is correct.
The full flowering of exploration occurred in the 1970s and 80s. It was a
flowering that was reflected in analytic political philosophy.

Exploratory Liberalism: 4?
Exploratory Liberalism may be characterized philosophically as providing
an exploratory model that explains the political practices of a liberal culture. What
distinguishes one exploratory liberal social theorist from another is the content ofthe
"rights, " the lexical ordering ofthose "rights, " and the substructure account of the
lexical ordering. These differences in themselves can be significant.

Rawls:
John Rawls' A Theory ofJustice (1971) has been the most influential and
most widely discussed example of analytic political philosophy. This is not
surprising. His book reflects every feature of analytic philosophy in general (i.e.,
scientism, modem naturalism, and an anti-agency view of human nature);48 the book
is the most celebrated re-articulation of the agenda of modem liberalism,49 and it is
an excellent example of exploration.
Let us begin with the title of Rawls' book. It presents, first of all, a
"theory" about justice. What this means is that instead of explicating what we
commonly mean and how we have distinguished justice and injustice in our
experience, Rawls takes our common sense intuitions about justice as a springboard
from which he intends to explore the hidden structure behind our ordinary
preconceptions with the hope of modifying our preconceptions in the light of that
exploration. What Rawls describes as the method of reflective equilibrium 50 is
precisely what we have identified as exploration.
It is as well an exploration in the Hobbesian and Lockean liberal tradition
of a social contract, and it has a counterpart to the state of nature in the fonn of a
hypothetical state of affairs known as the "original position."51 Social contract
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 367

theories are usually exploratory models that are necessarily ahistorical and
contextIess. As Rawls puts it, we must "leave questions of meaning and definition
aside. .. to get on with the task of developing a substantive theory of justice."52
In the hypothetical "original position" individuals are said to choose
principles of justice "behind a veil of ignorance." This means that the individual's
choices are to be made with no knowledge of "[one's] place in society, his class
position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural
assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength," even one's sex.53 What sort of
knowledge can be the basis of the choices? The answer Rawls gives is "general facts
about human society" and the "laws of human psychology." In short, scientism in
the form ofthe social sciences is to provide us with those facts that will serve as the
foundations of social and political theory.
We might well wonder how it is possible to generate a set of "values" from
alleged facts about human psychology and human society, especially in the light of
the distinction between facts and "values." Here it is useful to recall what was said
in the discussion of ethics about the dualistic or two-tier view of human nature that
emerged in the literature of analytic philosophical psychology. It is held at one and
the same time that human beings are subject to deterministic forces and that human
beings pursue ends on a conscious level. It is further held that these two levels are
both compatible and consistent. Again we point out the significance of analytic
philosophical psychology for analytic axiology.
The deterministic level is present in Rawls' theory in the form ofa sweeping
environmental determinism. "Even the willingness to make an effort, to try, and so
to be deserving in the ordinary sense is itself dependent upon happy family and social
circumstances."54 We remind ourselves that a sweeping environmental determinism
is an instance of an anti-agency view ofhuman nature. The teleology is present in
Rawls' theory in the assumption that all human beings would make the same choices
if interference conditions were removed. 55 That is why behind the veil of ignorance
we are not permitted knowledge that would set human beings against one another.
One analogue to this notion is that of the proverbial acorn that has a built-in end to
become an oak tree as long as accidental environmental and historical circumstances
do not frustrate it.
A look at the details of Rawls' analysis of justice will bear out our claim of
an implicit teleology. Rawls' insistence on pure procedural justice is designed to
"nullifY the effects of specific contingencies which put men at odds and tempt them
to exploit social and natural circumstances to their own advantage." This cannot
mean their "real" advantage but only to their "apparent" advantage. Hence, it is clear
that Rawls presupposes that each individual would under natural or ideal
circumstances have a well being that is dermed relative to some harmonious holistic
view of society. We might raise the question of why human beings would be
tempted to exploit specific contingericies. This cannot be a law of human
psychology because individuals behind the veil of ignorance will be allowed to know
all of the laws of human psychology. Hence, the temptation to exploit circumstances
must be one of those deterministic environmental circumstances which deflect
individual human beings from their true ends. We cannot see any basis for
nullification unless human beings have a natural teleology which defines their "true"
368 Chapter 10

or real self-interest or fulfillment. Rawls' list of primary goods is quite arbitrary and
clearly presupposes certain "truths" about human nature, an implicit teleology.56
Interestingly, Rawls claims to be both a deontologist and a critic of
utilitarianism. What Rawls means by his claim to be deontological is that social
philosophy must take a 'Kantian Tum.' On closer inspection, Rawls turns out not
to be a strict deontologist. For one thing, Rawls admits that "right" cannot be defined
independent of "good." On even closer inspection, Rawls turns out not to be a
deontologist at all, especially when we raise the crucial question of how we are to
understand the social framework. Instead of elevating moral agency and the primacy
of "right," Rawls claims that the "right" and the "good" converge. Specifically,
Rawls maintains that "everyone's well being is dependent upon a scheme of
cooperation without which no one could have a satisfactory life .... "57 By making
this assumption, Rawls is relieved of the necessity for proving that self-interest
requires cooperation (what Benthamite liberals are required to prove). In short, the
'Kantian Tum' in Rawls is to be transcended in a modem naturalist way by a higher
level teleology. Individual teleology must be defined relative to some kind of social
teleology, and it is this social teleology that is alleged to capture normativity. No true
deontologist will grant the reduction of normativity to social teleology. The real
question is how this can even be possible or plausible without embracing the dreaded
Hegelian endpoint. 58
Among the criticisms of exploration as a mode of thinking that have been
made in previous chapters is that there is no way of confirming an exploratory
hypothesis or choosing among alternative explorations. Calling an exploration
"Kantian" merely acknowledges the lack of both empirical foundations and
confirmation. Explorations always maintain that they begin with our ordinary
understanding and then go beyond it. We would suggest, contrary to Rawls, that the
concept of justice as ordinarily understood is backward looking, whereas Rawls
changes its meaning by equating it with future equality of outcome. Whatever the
merits of the case for equality of outcome, it appears in this context to be an external
value surreptitiously introduced as if it were both the logical and future historical
outcome of the present meaning. Short of appealing to Hegelian teleology it is not
clear how Rawls can legitimately make this move. The lack of empirical
confirmation for exploratory hypotheses easily becomes a mask for introducing
private political agendas.
We should not ignore this logical shortfall simply because we happen to be
sympathetic to this or that agenda. The point is that any theorist would then be at
liberty to introduce any agenda. As remarked in the chapter on analytic ethics,
within exploration we have no way of determining when agents are not following or
understanding the rules as opposed to when theorists have misunderstood the rules
behind the practice of the engaged agents.
The private political agenda in Rawls and its implicit but unacknowledged
Hegelian teleology becomes progressively clearer as we work through the details of
Rawls' analysis. According to Rawls, those in the original position operate with the
maximin rule: "rank alternatives by their worst possible outcomes" and "adopt the
alternative the worst outcome of which is superior to the worst outcomes of the
others."59 Two principles of justice then emerge:
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 369

a. "Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system
of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all."
b. "[S]ocial and economic inequalities" are to be to the greatest benefit of
the "least advantaged" (Difference Principle).60 The difference principle is a
response to socialist concerns about equality. It is a way of arguing that given the
original position we understand how self-interest is tied to the interest of others.
Rawls maintains both that liberty is a prior principle and that fair
opportunity is prior to the notion that inequalities are or must be to the advantage of
those less fortunate. With regard to the primacy of liberty, Rawls offers no argument
or proof. Nor does he prove that adopting liberty advances the collective interest.
Rawls does not specify which specific liberties are basic nor how conflicts among
liberties are to be resolved. A similar kind of criticism can be made ofthe Difference
Principle, a principle which is not clearly deducible from the original position
without some implicit assumptions about human nature, specifically the assumption
that everyone's well being depends upon everyone else's well being. In addition, the
discussion of maximin does not differentiate between relative and absolute
disadvantages (e.g., basic vs. minimal needs). This leads to the suspicion that for
Rawls the main concern is with how each views oneself relative to others. This
suspicion is borne out by Rawls' contention that "the most important primary good
is self-respect,,6J coupled with the view that self-respect depends upon how we see
ourselves through the eyes of others. 62
Ronald Dworkin has pointed out that Rawls does not establish the priority
of liberty. Moreover, Dworkin argues that the "damage to self-respect that comes
from seeing others better off in the social structure is such a malign influence on
personality that people at the bottom can't really be better off overall, even if they're
materially better off."63 The Difference Principle is a substantive end that is achieved
in the original position by eliminating diversity. The Difference Principle amounts
to an abandonment of deontic liberalism.
Certainly Kant argued for the primacy of liberty and in this Rawls follows
him. But Kant not only argued for fundamental human autonomy, he argued that
redistribution treats persons as a means to the good of others, and he argued against
the belief in both determinism and the view that justice was in any way concerned
with teleology and self-fulfillment. 64 This is precisely where Rawls departs from
Kant, and why without some further Hegelian notion oftranscending right and duty
in the ethical life of the community Rawls' position will appear as no more than a
popular though logically private political agenda.

Nozick:
Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1975) is the classical liberal
exploratory response to Rawls' modem liberal exploration. Nozick's analysis is also
an exploration but one which finds a different hidden structure behind our everyday
understanding of social and political life. We pause to note that the very existence
of these two (Rawls and Nozick) competing and mutually exclusive analytic
explorations underscores our contention that there is no way of deciding between
two competing explorations unless one either is willing to accept a prior explication
or is appealing to a hidden agenda.
370 Chapter 10

Nozick's exploration postulates a Lockean state of nature without a contract.

Within this hypothetical state of nature the major problem is the insecurity of
individual rights in a free market. Human beings are thereby led through an invisible
hand to join in protective associations with the state emerging as the dominant
protective association. The state envisaged is a minimal or night watchman state
whose primary responsibility is to provide protection against force, theft, and fraud
and to enforce contracts.
Nozick specifically criticizes Rawls on the ground that Rawls' theory and
all so-called patterned theories of justice would require continuous government
interference in the lives of individuals. Nozick also criticizes Rawls for assuming
that the burden of proof is on those who want to justify differential entitlements. By
contrast, Nozick provides his own entitlement theory, which consists of three parts:
l. original acquisitions (as long as no rights have been violated);
2.transfer of holdings (as long as it is voluntary and without coercion);
3. rectification of injustice in holdings.
Finally, Nozick adds a "Lockean proviso" which stipulates that property
rights cannot be bequeathed if the position of others no longer at liberty to use the
property in question is thereby worsened. The best example of this would be
ownership of a water hole in the desert.
Three basic criticisms have been made ofNozick's exploration. First, his
analysis makes controversial assumptions about human nature, e.g., that property
rights are supreme or that people would only want a minimal state. Again, the issue
is not whether we are sympathetic or antipathetic to these values but the rational basis
for subscribing to them. How would one establish that this is what human beings are
or would value independent of all contexts? Since there is no way to confirm directly
any exploration, Nozick's claims are as unsubstantiated as those of Rawls. As in the
case of Rawls, it is easy to see these values as a private political agenda masked in
the form of an exploratory hypothesis.
What Nozick presents is a particular version of liberal social philosophy,
one that emphasizes classical liberal values. Classical liberalism finds an ultimate
teleology within the individual per se. Classical liberalism is therefore forced to
assume that on the social level there is no ultimate conflict between the organic unity
of anyone individual and any other individual.

There is no guarantee of a path to maximize both your own

harmonious hierarchical development and also that of others.
However, ethical responsiveness does not demand you most (sic)
enhance the development of others, only that you respond to their
value as value, that you treat them as having the value they do
have. Between such responsiveness and your own value, your
own harmonious hierarchical development, there is no conflict at
al1. 65

There is a difference between the notion of a lack of conflict (Nozick) and

the notion of a special harmony (Rawls). Modern liberal social philosophy finds a
double teleology: both in the individual and a more inclusive organic unity in the
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 371

social world as a whole, so that no one can achieve full organic unity without every
other individual achieving it as well. Although modem liberal social theory
embraces social teleology it still eschews the notion of social transcendence. Both
of these positions are ad hoc. Both depend upon the whim of where we would like
to see the organic unity rest. Both assume or postulate such organic unities but never
offer any argument for them.
Second, Nozick's position leads, when fully developed, in the same
technocratic direction as that of Rawls. The most glaring instance of this in Anarchy,
State and Utopia is the rectification principle. This principle urges us to organize
and reorganize society with the expressed purpose of maximizing the position of
whatever group ends up being least well off. Nozick's rectification principle bears
a distinct analogy to Rawls' difference principle. 66
Third, the more Nozick developed the analytic philosophical foundations
of his exploration, the more he was led in a Hegelian direction. We have already had
occasion to note the Hegelian direction ofNozick's later and more mature reflections
in Philosophical Investigations, both in the chapter on analytic metaphysics and in
the chapter on analytic ethical theorizing. In The Examined Life (1990) Nozick
abandons classical liberal social theory in favor of a welfare state informed by
subjectivist individualist ethics. This movement on Nozick's part underscores the
contention that the Enlightenment Project in analytic political philosophy has an
inner logic which moves it in a collectivist direction.

The Inevitability of Marxism

Liberal political theory, informed by the Enlightenment Project, is an attempt to
account for and to justify liberal culture. Liberal political theory does not treat liberal
culture as an historically embedded set of practices informed by substantive values.
It cannot do this because it cannot recognize the ontological independence of norms.
Rather, it must see norms as a reflection of underlying structure. The attempt to
identify the underlying structure through the construction of exploratory hypotheses
leads to the abyss of exploration. In the end, liberal social theory is unable to provide
an account of and defense of liberal culture.
One of the peculiarities of liberal social exploratory political theory is the
extent to which it adheres to an individualist epistemology despite taking the
'Kantian Tum.' As we have already shown, values on the upper level or the super-
structure are taken to be epiphenomenal and therefore do not ultimately explain
liberal culture in a contentful way. The upper level consists of rights that are not
directly equatable with or deducible from a specific account of the good life.
Meanwhile, on the level of sub-structure analysis there is an appeal to psychological
truths about the individual which explain the upper level as if those truths could be
identified in a purely theoretical manner by a disengaged observer. Since exploratory
liberals disagree among themselves on the content of the rights and the lexical
ordering ofthe rights, those disagreements are in principle traceable to disagreements
about the exploratory theory on the lower level. How would we decide which
exploratory account of the lower level is correct? The answer is that there is no way
to confirm or disconfirm alternative explorations.
372 Chapter 10

Consider for a moment the problem of trying to understand those alleged

psychological truths in Rawls. According to Rawls, "the self is prior to the ends
which are affirmed by it; even a dominant end must be chosen from among numerous
possibilities."67 It is difficult to square this notion of an isolable self that makes
choices with Rawls' own beliefs that we are bound by fundamental psychological
laws and by outside forces over which we have no control that determine the choices
we make. The "original position" assumes the outside forces have been removed, but
still leaves us wondering what choice could mean under these circumstances -- it
hardly makes sense from an internal agent perspective.
Can the subject understand itself? Can the subject be both subject and
object at one and the same time? If that were possible then the distinction between
subject and object would disappear, for there would be no difference between
"looking at" and "looked at." How could this be a coherent prospect? How could
the subject, the "I", recognize that it is the "I" of which it is conscious? The only
answer would be that the subject would have already to know itself in advance. But
if the subject knew itself in advance there would be nothing more to discover. This
is the paradox of self-knowledge generated within the "I Think" perspective.
This paradox is exemplified by Dworkin when he claims, on the one hand,
that "liberalism is the theory that makes the content of justice independent of any
particular theory of human virtue or excellence,"68 and, on the other hand, that
liberalism seeks to "expand imagination without imposing any particular choice on
imagination" and to ensure that every individual can "lead a decent, self-fulfilling
life."69 How can the latter goals be achieved without some prior conception of
human nature? Without some prior conception of human nature we are left only with
the rhetoric of mindless pluralism. Hence, exploratory liberal political theory is
neutral with regard to the specific ends or life-style consciously pursued by
individuals.

[This] theory of equality supposes that political decisions must be,

so far as is possible, independent of any particular conception of
the good life, or of what gives value to life. 70

The paradox of self-knowledge reflects the analytic commitment to total

conceptualization. The only figure in the history of Western philosophy, we find,
who has fully grasped what is entailed by total conceptualization is Hegel. For total
conceptualization to be possible, it is necessary that objects be absorbed into a
subject. Further, since self-knowledge is a temporal process, and in order to avoid
the paradox of self-knowledge, namely that the self would already have to know
itself, Hegel concluded that self-knowledge is a teleological process. We are
progressing toward a final stage of awareneSs, progress is documentable and moving
through a series of stages, and at the end of that progress we shall all know all, we
shall know that we know, and the objective world will be seen as a manifestation of
the all-encompassing Subject's journey to self-knowledge. So, in addition to the first
exploratory account of liberal culture, any theorist would have to offer a second
exploratory account which would (i) explain why one of the original accounts is the
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 373

correct one, and (ii) explain why other theorists fail to perceive liberal culture
correctly. This is precisely what Marxism can provide.
The most consistent development of the Hegelian moment coupled with
materialism is Marxism. To the extent that analytic philosophical psychology moves
from internalism to externalism, as in the work of Tyler Burge, the more clearly
analytic philosophical psychology will construe a notion of substructure that is
hospitable to totalitarian Marxism. Hence, Marxism is the only logical and consistent
position for analytic political philosophy. This is precisely why many sophisticated
Marxists have persistently and consistently taunted advocates of liberal social
philosophy with the charge of being inconsistent and hypocritical ideologues. 7l Even
if Marxist characterizations of advanced capitalism are inadequate, the Marxist
understanding of liberal social theory as ideological, as a deceiving and self-
deceiving mask for certain social interests, remains compelling.
From the Marxist perspective, the attempt to be scientistic without being
realist leads to nihilism -- the end product of the Enlightenment Project's attempt to
rescue liberal culture. None of this discredits any particular set of social and
political values, but it does call into question whether analytic political philosophy
can adequately interpret and defend liberal values. That Marxism is the political
philosophy most compatible with the Enlightenment Project can be seen directly by
recalling the inherent movement in analytical philosophy toward Hegelianism
whenever analytic philosophy runs into problems. Marxists have always had the
virtue of being consistent. 72
Let us elaborate on this point by reference to epistemology. For analytic
philosophers, a good explanation is one which ties one phenomenon to other
phenomena in a causally necessary fashion. It is most certainly not the case within
analytic philosophy that an explanation is a social activity guided by implicit norms.
Hence in the endeavor to change the minds of others about any issue it is wrong
headed to engage in the social activity of trying to persuade. Once we know the true
explanation, which means knowing what is going on at the level of substructure, we
can mechanically manipulate other minds (brains) into accepting our (presumably
correct) point of view on any issue. This manipulation (even the use of terror) cannot
be judged to be immoral because the belief in the immorality of external control is
itself based upon ignorance of substructure. This leaves only the question of how we
can know at the conscious level that our original point of view, that is the point of
view of the environmental manipulators, is the correct one? The answer is that the
historical progression of materialist forces has led some to this position earlier than
it has led others to it. Finally, how do we know that there has been or will continue
to be historical progress? The answer is that this is the faith of the Enlightenment
Project in the progress of science.
The problems of analytic social and political philosophy are replicated in
analytic legal philosophy. The easiest way to see this is to follow the progression
from Austin to Hart to Dworkin to Critical Legal Studies. Austin is an eliminative
positivist; Hart and Dworkin are explorers; critical legal studies is the ultimate
Marxist critique and development of analytic jurisprudence. The critical legal
studies73 movement, specifically its critique of Dworkin, makes clear that there is no
rational basis for choosing among rival liberal explorations.
374 Chapter 10

The Communitarian Alternative

In the late twentieth-century there has been a near universal revulsion at the
inhumanity of Marxist regimes. It has also become increasingly clear that Marxism
is the ultimate product ofa social technological conception of public policy, that is
of the Enlightenment Project. Coupled with this has been the increasing recognition
that liberal social theory cannot provide a rationale for liberal culture. This has led
to a reaction against both the Enlightenment Project and liberal culture, known as
communitarianism. As John Gray has expressed it:

In the late modern period in which we live, the Enlightenment

project is affirmed chiefly for fear of the consequences of
abandoning it. Except in the United States, where it has the status
of a civil religion, it carries little positive conviction. Yet much
professional philosophy is devoted to anxious apologies for the
Enlightenment's central enterprises, such as the rational
reconstruction of morality, and the assertion by science of
authority over all forms of knowledge. Further, enfeebled though
it has become in most of the Western cultures in which it
originated, the Enlightenment project continues to inform many
areas of thought and discourse aside from the increasingly
culturally marginal activity of academic philosophy. In the
rhetoric, and even in some measure in the practice of international
relations, for example, conceptions -- such as doctrines of
universal human rights -- whose provenance is manifestly that of
the Enlightenment enjoy an anachronistic authority which derives
partly, in all likelihood, from the manifest absence of any coherent
alternative. Ours are enlightenment cultures not from conviction
but by default. 74

In order to put this communitarian reaction in perspective, we begin by

noting that it shares with Rorty the recognition that the Enlightenment Project has
failed. Rorty's response has been to persevere with the advocacy of the humanistic
values ofthe Enlightenment but without the foundational matrix. This puts Rorty in
the post-modernist camp, understood as the advocacy of certain humanistic values
precisely on relativistic grounds. How exactly does post-modernism connect
relativism with humanistic values?
The immediate inspiration for post-modernism is the work of Quine,
Thomas Kuhn, and Paul Feyerabend. In his attack on the 'Two Dogmas of
Empiricism', Quine undermined traditional empiricism by asserting (a) that there is
nothing independent of different conceptual schemes (ontological relativism) and (b)
that different conceptual schemes are alternative readings of experience. The
significance of Kuhn's work The Structure ofScientific Revolutions is that it used the
history of science to further discredit the original positivist conception of scientific
theories as experimentally confirmable or disconfirmable. As Kuhn showed,
scientists operate with paradigms, understood as a framework of background
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 375

assumptions, which structures the way in which experiments are interpreted. Kuhn's
work was followed by the more radical views of Feyerabend who extended Kuhn's
thesis in Against Method to argue that paradigms were more than just frameworks
within science. Paradigms constituted the entire cultural pre-theoretical context
within which theoretical science operated. Science could not, therefore, serve as the
arbiter among competing paradigms or pre-theoretical contexts.
The response to the relativistic implications of Quine, Kuhn and Feyerabend
was to embrace and to extend the relativism, to wit, the incommensurability and
incivility theses to moral and political philosophy. If science is radically relativistic,
then everything is radically relativistic. Relativism is a view that had long been
asserted on other grounds, but the demise of the positivist conception of science gave
relativism a new lease on life. It is important to note this because relativist
deconstruction is too often routinely and mistakenly dismissed as if it were another
self-refuting version of skepticism. Unlike earlier existentialist philosophers, the
contemporary French 'deconstructionist' philosophers Michel Foucault and Jacques
Derrida do not reject scientism but argue that mathematical science is the best and
only defensible ideal construct for thinking. They see only the need to interpret the
implications of the situation to which the scientific ideal has led.
Curiously, the response is an appeal to scientism, an appeal to the view that
physical science is the model to be followed and standard by which all other forms
of thinking are to be judged. Scientism is the commonly shared paradigm that
simultaneously permits scientistic fide ism and relativism in every other dimension
of cultural and intellectual life. The significant difference is that whereas scientistic
fideists still cling to the notion of a scientifically accessed cosmic order,
deconstructionists consign scientism to the same trash bin as metaphysics, religion,
and tradition. That is, deconstruction denies the existence of a cosmic order that is
not another human construction. From their own point of view, deconstructionists
are more consistent than scientistic fideists because the fonner see, as the latter do
not, that scientism is a humanly constructed paradigm. Whereas advocates of
scientism appeal to a "mythic" progressive historicism, advocates of deconstruction
see lin history a gradual "emancipatory" move away from the notion of a cosmic
order. Scientism was just one of the latest stages in the great emancipation. It is for
this reason that Quine, Kuhn and Feyerabend are among the unlikely heroes of the
deconstructionist narrative. The advocates of scientism, having de legitimated
everything but science, now found themselves delegitimated with their own
arguments. What we are left with is scientism without realism.
The position is now that whatever is true of science is the model for
everything else. Since science is a human creation that is, allegedly, not dependent
upon a prior framework other than human interests, it follows that all forms of
reasoning are human creations not dependent upon anything else. Human interests
(values) seem to be the only constraint on formulating and evaluating alternative
hypotheses in physical science. It could be asked whether there is not some objective
or universal truth about human interests to which we could appeal to avoid
incommensurability. The answer, under the circumstances, is that any alleged
universal truth about human interests represents but another contestable exploration.
Once more, we seem to have fallen into the abyss of exploration.
376 Chapter 10

Under the circumstances, how do we avoid nihilism? We avoid nihilism

allegedly by moving from the moral realm to the political realm. The consequence
of the Enlightenment Project and of scientism is to replace moral philosophy with
political philosophy. The crucial thing to notice at this point is the assumption that
the function of political philosophy is to achieve an equilibrium within which rival
ideas may flourish in peace.
a Incommensurability Thesis: According to the incommensurability thesis,
our world is one in which there are not only competing but incompatible conceptions
of the good. Moreover, these incompatible views of the good are rationally
incommensurable. There exists no overarching framework for arbitrating the
conflicting claims of these diverse and incommensurable moralities or moral
communities. There is only the political problem of devising a system within which
divergent and competing conceptions of the good can coexist. Since there is no
overarching moral framework, the political system is the product of amoral practice
and negotiation.
b. Incivility Thesis: Since there is no overarching framework for arbitrating
conflicting moral claims, there is no neutral standpoint from which we can comment
upon or challenge an alternative moral position. Anyone who engages in such a
practice is behaving, at best, in an uncivil manner or engaging in the practice of
political domination or subversion. We shall call this the incivility thesis.
From within a particular moral community, whenever one's moral position
is challenged it is neither necessary nor possible, technically speaking, to respond to
the arguments of others with counter arguments. All one can do, other than reassert
one's position, is to describe from within one's own paradigm why someone outside
that paradigm would attack the paradigm, or one can offer from within one's
paradigm an analysis of why someone would hold an alternative view.
What's wrong with post-modernism? First, the humanistic values of the
Enlightenment are made to appear arbitrary. There is a presumption of "liberal"
cultural values but there is no argument for this presumption. The only explanation
for this presumption is that it is part of the shared inheritance of the Enlightenment
Project. While the incivility thesis helps in this context to identify political
domination or subversion it no longer gives us either a reason or a motive to shun
domination or subversion. Domination has lost its pejorative sense. Second, the
internal meaning of belonging to a moral community becomes unintelligible. It
might be suggested that within each moral community it is possible to specity rules
of moral reasoning such that at least internal fallacies of moral reasoning can be
identified. Even here, however, the charge of fallacious moral reasoning can be
evaded. It is always open to holders of the above two theses to declare themselves
as founders or proponents of a new or different moral community. There would then
be as many moral communities are there are proponents. There is no way for a
second or third party to distinguish between someone who fails to follow the rules
and our failure to identity properly what the rules are. It might be suggested that this
really marks the disappearance of morality and its wholesale substitution by politics.
More importantly, post-modernism has reduced liberal culture to a set of
procedural norms without any argument for why we should accept those norms. Can
a liberal society promote procedural norms without appealing at some level to
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 377

substantive norms? If it must appeal to substantive norms, then this implies that a
substantive theory of the good and not merely a neutral stance. 75 Liberal social
theory in the name of freedom imposes a certain kind of unacknowledged
domination, and one which in the long run tends to dissolve traditional human ties
and to impoverish social and cultural relationships. Liberal social theory, while
imposing through state power regimes that declare everyone free to pursue whatever
they take to be their own good, deprives most people of the possibility of
understanding their lives as a quest for the discovery and achievement of the good,
especially by the way in which it attempts to discredit those traditional forms of
human community within which this project has to be embodied. 76 Too much of
liberal social philosophy consists of alternative exploratory accounts as mere
rationalizations for hidden political agendas no one ofwhich is objectively defensible
(i.e., nihilism).
Communitarians, of whom the most prominent are MacIntyre and Taylor,
correctly see the collapse of the Enlightenment Project both as a support for liberal
culture and on its own epistemological grounds. They offer as a positive
epistemological alternative the embrace of a social epistemology. We cannot
understand ourselves in some abstract psychological fashion independent of our
historical and social engagement with the world. This framework provides ethical
principles for evaluating political practices. In short, the communitarian critique sees
the necessity for an ethical grounding to politics and the decoupling of that ethical
analysis from materialism. This social epistemology is a version of Hegel, but one
not compatible with the social technology of the Enlightenment Project. 77

Exploration vs. Explication 78

From "J Think" to "We Think":
Communitarianism is both a devastating criticism of analytical political
philosophy and a significant advance beyond it. It is significant in advancing from
an "I Think" perspective" to a "We Think" perspective.
How can the tasks of atomic individuals be conceptualized in a socially
coherent and responsible way? As we pointed out in our discussion of analytic ethics
it is not possible to see how values or norms can be generated from a purely formal
or structural analysis, that is from the perspective of the disembodied observer. 79
Methodologically speaking, contract theories presuppose that all existing and
historically conditioned social arrangements have been eliminated precisely because
they are illegitimate. No authority or practice is legitimate unless chosen in the
prescribed way. At the same time, the principles oflegitimacy that emerge from this
vacuum have no content. 80 The existence of alternative exploratory hypotheses in
Rawls, Nozick, and Dworkin shows that any atomistic "I Think" starting point,
whether it be old-fashioned utilitarianism or recent rights-based views which claim
a "Kantian" ancestry, leads to unresolvable conflicts at the conceptual level and to
the suspicion that alternative explorations are rationalizations for private political
agendas. Just as Hegel felt it necessary to transcend both Locke and Kant, so
contemporary communitarians have suggested that we must progress to a social
perspective in which we view ourselves as interacting with the world and each other
in a culturally mediated way.
378 Chapter 10

What analytic ethics could not do was make sense of our moral intuitions
without moving to the political level. However, when it came time to explain our
political intuitions, analytic political philosophers could not do so without question-
begging appeals to some moral notion.

The Enlightenment's central project had been to identify a set of

moral rules, equally compelling to all rational persons. That
project has failed and its heirs were a number of rival standpoints,
Kantian, utilitarian, contractualist, and various blends of these,
whose disagreements multiplied in such a way that twentieth-
century culture has been deprived of any widely shared, rational
morality .... 81

For example, the liberal defense of toleration and diversity by appeal to relativism
turns out not only to be no defense but undermines liberalism itself.82
When analytic philosophical defenders of liberal culture, such as Rawls,
Nozick, and Dworkin engage in the exploration of sub-structure they cast off any
help that can be obtained by appeal to prior cultural practices. Hence, when they
attempt to make sense of the fundamental liberal value of the sanctity of the
individual they cannot appeal to any moral or cultural or historical context for
support. Hence, in asking the question why anyone should respect the autonomy of
another they are forced to ask the question "Why should I be just?" This is the
counterpart of the question in analytic ethics "Why should I be moral?" An analytic
theory of justice is an attempt to show how principles of justice can function in a
world of disparate individuals or communities who do not share a general and
comprehensive moral view on the cultural level (social and historical).83
In the absence of an overriding cultural context, the kind of universality we
find on the level of substructure would be something like whatever pleases or
displeases someone. If someone is pleased by sado-masochism, etc. (fill in the blank
... ), then ipso facto the rest of us are required to respect it. But this very quickly
leads to the disintegration of civil society. The reason is that in order to support a
practice like respect for diversity all of us must share some common moral view like
toleration. Why should I be tolerant? Here we have recreated the same problem
faced by those who attempt to convince through argument that we are better off or
that our self interest is best served by cooperation. However, if being cooperative
with certain kinds of people displeases me, then r have no rational motivation for
being just.
Analytic political philosophy can no more create a political society than it
can create a moral community by appeal to substructure. Individual or group
pluralism does require certain political arrangements. However, these arrangements
cannot function without a commitment to other norms. It is this latter set of norms
that must be universal. Hence no social entity can function without an implicit set
of norms. The clarification of this implicit set of pre-operative norms cannot be
achieved through the exploration of sub-structure. Once the explication of the
implicit set of pre-operative norms is carried out some theorists might be surprised
to discover empirically that it is only within certain traditions (e.g., liberal culture
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 379

understood as an historical entity) that toleration and maximum diversity actually

flourish. Could anyone actually understand Rawls, Nozick, or Dworkin who was not
already versed in Anglo-American culture and contemporary debate between rival
political parties and factions within those parties?

... the hope of a tradition-independent rational universality is an

illusion derive [sic] from the history of that [Enlightenment]
project.84

Given the classical teleological view ofthe universe and the place of human
beings within it, there were no conflicts between individual and communal goals or
between internal and external sanctions. When later medieval Aristotelians identified
and defended certain rights as natural rights those rights were grounded in a theory
of natural law, and the natural law was grounded in a theological conception of the
universe. All ofthat changes radically in the modem period. In the modem period,
it is denied that there are external standards, a denial that reflects in part the rising
mechanical-deterministic world view that denies teleology to nature. Once external
standards are denied, those standards are relocated internally. Social and political
theorists continued to advocate certain traditional rights but those theorists had to
reinterpret the philosophical foundation of those rights. By moving the rights to an
internal locus, no matter how discovered, those rights were now disassociated from
natural law, from natural theology, and from any social, historical or communal
context.
One consequence is that theorists, and activists, had a view of abstract
natural rights that became the standard for judging all external communities. This
is, of course, totally antithetical to classical Aristotelianism, but it is a consequence
of holding on to certain Aristotelian axiological notions and then radically modifying
them in the light of a new ontology (reflecting developments in modern science).
The political consequence of these philosophical changes is the emergence of a
rhetoric in which any individual or set of individuals could claim to have discovered
some rights and then demand that some selected community bow before those rights.
I say 'rhetoric' advisedly because we have no way of establishing those rights
empirically. Appeals to introspection have by now been discarded along with naive
empiricism. Moreover, the sophisticated advocates of those rights, like Dworkin,
claim to be Kantians, which, in our terminology, means they ground their rights in
an exploratory hypothesis that is, as we know, unconfirmable. The unresolvable
clash of conflicting rights claims merely reinforces the suspicion that we are facing
nihilism.85
Modem naturalism as opposed to classical Aristotelian axiology leads to
nihilism 86 in the sense that absolute values are replaced by limitless claims on the part
of individuals and groups with no criterion for what constitutes an illegitimate claim.
When that modem naturalist axiology is combined with scientism, the resultant
nihilism is replaced with collectivism. 87 Let us explain why.
The advocates of social technology believe that social policy should be
based on the scientific study of human nature. This belief dovetails nicely on the
metaphysical level with the natural right tradition which claims to be pursuing the
380 Chapter 10

same course. Traditional natural law doctrine during the Middle Ages had been used
to place limits on the power of government, especially in the light of the medieval
distinction between the spheres of Church and State. Even Locke was to understand
his own theory this way. However, once natural right was disassociated from natural
law and/or theology it became the preferred rationale for justifying the expansion of
government power, for the state was then seen as the means to those presumably
scientifically established ends. Only tyrannical government had to be resisted,
whereas "enlightened" despotism became widely viewed as the key to liberation. In
short, exploration encourages the belief that political arrangements can replace
moral education. xx
There is an element of social destabilization in analytic objectivism. 89 Just
as there is no purely political solution to what holds a particular social/political entity
or community together, so there is no basis for preferring one's own community to
another or limiting who can or cannot be a member of the community. This
implication is welcomed by those who favor one world community, but it still leaves
unanswered what is to hold that world community together. We are left with a set
of alienated interest groups operating only through power politics. The hope that
there can be a rational and democratic resolution of incommensurable interests is
incoherent. It is surely for this reason that Marxists see repUblican or democratic
government as just another instance of the corruption of psychological hedonism.
Often we are told that any internally generated human perspective such as
we find in explication discourages critical reflection. This is clearly not true, for the
very expression of this concern shows how it is always possible to ask the question:
Is our practice rational? -- i.e., the open-question argument. Explicators also
understand what a socially responsible answer to that question means. On the
contrary, the doctrinaire proponents ofscientific objectivism, who imagine that their
own personal thought embodies reason, are subject to a special limitation: the
inability to recognize that they might be engaged in illusory forms of critical
reflection. The greatest such illusion is that one can escape all internally generated
human frames of reference. If consistently pursued to its logical conclusion the
contextless thought ends in total skepticism. However, long before the analytic
realist reaches this absolute zero, he or she engages in a bad-faith act of introducing
a favored norm, a private agenda, which, ironically, reflects some past practice. 90
The analytic presentation of these private agendas may very well be acts of self-
deception that exemplify both the unwillingness to pursue abstract reason to its
logical end and the inescapable need to reflect embedded practice. The existence of
a multitude of competing explorations without any way of choosing among them is
an example of the emergence of these private agendas.
Structure cannot be identified apart from substantive considerations. Hence,
despite the focus in analytical political philosophy on concepts such as 'justice',
'equality', 'neutrality,' etc. we are quickly transported in the literature to thinly
veiled political intuitions. In substituting structure for meaning, analytic political
philosophy has created a rhetorical mask for private political agendas. As Leo
Strauss, Eric Voegelin, and Michael Oakeshott pointed out long ago, the substitution
of "political science" (exploration) for political philosophy (explication) is in the end
a mask for utopian social technology.
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 381

A final consequence of the politics of exploration is the revival of interest

in the sociology of knowledge. If there are competing alternative exploratory
hypotheses and no empirical way of choosing among them, then the only analytical
philosophical way in which this can be comprehended is to appeal to yet another
level of exploratory hypothesis to explain the first level of competing exploratory
hypotheses. One is thereby tempted to offer an exploratory hypothesis about the
hidden structure of the thought process of one's presumably mistaken rivals. In this
way one avoids the unmanageable burden of empirical refutation and maintains at
least the appearance of rationality. Of course one of the additional consequences is
that candid dialogue with one's opponents as well as civility is lost. In its place we
get a bifurcated political rhetoric, one part of which is the ceremonial articulation of
one's favored policies and the other part of which is the sociological dismissal of
unfavored policies. This has been the path of postmodern critics of liberal social
theory. As Putnam has warned us:

The debate has. .. become boring; yet we seem doomed to repeat

it (like a neurotic symptom) unless, perhaps, we can step back and
offer a better (and deeper) diagnosis of the situation than the
competing diagnoses of historicism and positivism. 91

What then does a communitarian like Macintyre propose to put in place of

liberal social theory? Communitarian 92 critics of atomistic liberalism have begun to
argue in favor of the necessity for common ends and for a social and historical
conception of the self. However, it is not clear that this is anything more than
advocacy. As David Archard has expressed it, communitarians "offer not so much
an alternative political view to liberalism as a criticism of its presuppositions."93 This
vacuousness is evident in MacIntyre's After Virtue which argues for a social self
engaged in an historical quest for an end we cannot yet fully grasp.
Having abandoned his early Marxism, Macintyre has turned to Aristotle
but it is an Aristotle devoid of naturalistic essentialism and complemented with an
indefinite historical mission. We are, according to Macintyre, to understand
ourselves in terms of a communal narrative, and the communal narrative involves a
telos. In this case, the telos is the quest for the good. The good, in turn, is defined
in terms of the quest for the good. The obvious way of characterizing this position
is to say that Macintyre is a Hegelian without final consummation. This position
should not surprise us because it is the analogue to Nozick's Hegelian self-
subsumption, a way a principle turns back on itself, yields itself, applies to itself, and
refers to itself. What we said of Nozick can be said of Macintyre. Hegel can
envisage saying everything (a final synthesis) whereas MacIntyre is left with a
plurality of self-subsuming quests. 94 Macintyre fails in the end to reconcile his stated
commitment to objective truth with this plurality. Self-subsumption or a coherence
theory of truth understood organically can only be successful if there is a single
organic whole of mind and reality and if it is undergoing a self-development that
finds ultimate consummation. Hegel understood that. Short of that, Macintyre is
going to be left with an implausible or incomplete historicism. As it now stands,
382 Chapter 10

MacIntyre's self-subsuming quest is no more than another ungrounded or

ungroundable exploration. 95

From "We Think" to "We Do":

The error of communitarianism in general and MacIntyre in particular is to
conflate their critique of individualist epistemology with the individualism of liberal
culture. That is, communitarians confuse liberal social theory with liberal culture
and then conclude that since liberal social theory is defective so liberal culture must
be defective.
There are two interrelated reasons why they fall into this confusion. In the
first place, communitarians such as MacIntyre (and perhaps Taylor) are hostile to
certain features ofliberal culture, specifically its emphasis upon individualism, a free
market economy, and limited government. They are less interested in explicating
liberal culture than in condemning it. In MacIntyre's case this is coupled with a
desire to return to a pre-modern world reminiscent of medieval Catholic feudalism
with a clear conception of a communal good that transcends the good of individuals.
Opposition to liberal culture and some of its inherent norms reflect, we contend, a
failure to explicate liberal culture. Both MacIntyre and Taylor seem content to think
that liberal social theory is the only voice or articulation of liberal culture. Both
seem unaware of recent explications of liberal culture that do not rely upon the
Enlightenment Project and thatappeal to pre-Enlightenment traditions ofthought.96
The second and most important reason is that neither MacIntyre nor Taylor
has engaged in an explication of liberal culture. If we are serious about taking
context into account,· that our context is the context of a free market economy.
Beginning with the actual practices of liberal culture, we will try to understand them
both as historical products and as the result of the transformation of traditional ways
of thinking and doing things in the face of novel circumstances. Both Macintyre and
Taylor are stuck in a "We Think" (or perhaps a critique of the "They Think") mode
without moving to a full scale explication of liberal culture from a "We Do"
perspective. Some contemporary theorists maintain that a free market economy is
not the product of atomistic rational maximizers but the reflection of certain classical
and Christian ideals. 97
An authentic explicator is a participant in some practices the principles of
which have not been articulated. The principles or norms are preconceptually
internal to the practice. These practices can and do conflict, but the task of the
explicator is to articulate the principles internal to the practice, systematize them, and
adjust them in order to avoid or resolve conflict. At no time can the explicator
become an outsider to the practices, and at no time do these principles become
objects of reflection.
Explication, by making an implicit norm fundamental to the understanding
of a cultural practice makes the moral dimension fundamental to all cultural
practices, including politics and science. Hence, political practice must be judged by
moral standards. 98 Explication does not pretend to be value free in the positivist
sense. Unlike some forms of communitarianism, explication does not see the cultural
framework as a paradigm or as a cause that constrains what is possible for
individuals. This would be to make communitarianism a form of historicism. The
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 383

cultural framework is a context which is itselfrearticulated for novel circumstances;

some cultural frameworks can even make us aware of our capacity for autonomous
and responsible choices. It can be argued, for example, that autonomous individuals
do not exist in a natural state and that such individuals cannot be explained in terms
of physical structures. Rather, autonomous individuals arise within certain cultural
contexts, or we discover our autonomy only by acting a certain way in specific
cultural contexts. This way of discovering universal norms is not available to
analytic philosophers because this kind of discovery is a form of explication and not
exploration. It is not the case that the culture is itself a structure that causes another
structure to come into existence, rather the cultural context permits individuals to
discover thing about themselves; discoveries about ourselves, however, are not
discoveries of hidden structures.
Explication makes practical knowledge fundamental and theoretical
knowledge derivative. Hence there cannot be a theoretical account, reductive or
otherwise, of our norms. Practice cannot be explained either by elimination or by
exploration. Any exploratory account presupposes some explication in which that
exploration is grounded. This is why all political philosophical explorations are
ultimately question-begging and why we have no rational way of choosing among
competing explorations except by appeal to a wholly different level and kind of
understanding. In this sense, there cannot be a political "theory. "~9 Hegel himself
offers us a theory in the form of an historical exploratory thesis. In this sense, then,
explication goes beyond the limits even of fIegel.
384 Chapter 10

NOTES (CHAPTER 10)

1. "What binds analytical figures together is that they endorse. . . the

distinctive assumptions of the Enlightenment. These assumptions go,
roughly, as follows:
1. There is a reality independent of human knowledge of which we human
beings are part.
2. Reason and method, particularly as exemplified in science, offer us the
proper way to explore that reality and our relationship to it.
3. In this exploration traditional preconceptions -- in particular, traditional
evaluative preconceptions -- should be suspended and the facts allowed to
speak for themselves" Pettit (1993), p. 7.

2. "In the plethora of theories, currents, and individual positions which figure
in post-analytic thought, liberalism is still a crucial problematic. Rorty
reproposes it in an epistemological key, as a requisite of solidarity among
the disciplines; Rawls's theory of justice gives it a neo-contractualist twist
in which the egalitarian principle is based on a mental experiment, or at
least stipulated by individual entities from behind 'a veil of ignorance';
Sandel opposes himself to Rawls, maintaining that no contractualist choice
can be made in the abstract about precise contents; Nagel, in turn,
eliminates the model of antagonistic social interests and suggests the simple
coexistence of diverse 'modes' of the egalitarian principle. These positions
of general reevaluation are joined by more critical readings of liberalism.
Among its critics are Scanlon, who is inclined to a historical
recontextualization of contractualism; Wolin, who attempts the redefinition
of a project of Jacobin revolutionary action as a premise for the global
transformation of society; and, finally, Roberto Unger who, mediating
between Habermas's theory of communicative action and Rawls's new
contractual ism, is committed to launching a new version of 'emancipatory'
social experimentalism" Borradori (1994), p. 23, n 9.

3. MacIntyre in Borradori (1994), p. 145.

4. Please note the existence of the following alternatives: (1) those who reject
modernity tout court in favor of some form of classicism; (2) those who
conceptualize the modem political predicament and liberal culture outside
of the framework of the Enlightenment Project -- of which there are many
varieties.

5. See Livingston (forthcoming) for Hume.

6. Randall (1962), p. 924.

7. Cranston (1986).
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 385

8. 'External' may taken either narrowly to mean outside the body or widely
to include the body as long as it denotes something not capable of direct
control by the will.

9. The classic discussion of gnosticism is to be found in Voegelin (1952).

Voegelin provides (in Chapter IV) an historical progression that begins with
medieval immanentism, then progresses to humanism, and then to the
Enlightenment to progressivism to liberalism to positivism and finally to
Marxism.

10. According to Hayek (1960), there are "two different traditions in the theory
ofliberty ... the victory of the Benthamite Philosophical Radicals over the
Whigs in England ... concealed the fundamental difference which in more
recent years has reappeared as the conflict between liberal democracy and
'social' or totalitarian democracy" (pp. 54-55).

11. Mably (1776), Book I, chap. ii, p. 308. Benjamin Constant, in his
celebrated essay "On the Liberty of the Ancients and the Modems,"
accused Mably of distorting Rousseau into a totalitarian.

12. I am indebted here to J. Hasnas (1995).

13. These rights are sometimes called 'option' rights. See M.P. Golding
(1978), p. 44.

14. There are other interpretations and defenses of a market economy relative
to the moral foundations of liberal culture that are not reflections of liberal
social philosophy (e.g., Hume, Kant, Weber, Oakeshott, etc.).

15. There are classic difficulties in any utilitarian account. See D. Lyons
(1965).

16. The original argument against making such a calculation is to be found in

Hume's Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals; the most famous
version is in Hayek (1944).

17. While socialism is a complex phenomenon with many roots, the term
'socialism' was first introduced in 1827 in a periodical, Co-operative
Magazine, which expressed the views of Robert Owen, an early critic of
Bentham. Socialism is not a coherently defined set of doctrines but a
reaction to the shortcomings of Benthamite social theory. Its resilience is
a reflection of both the intellectual shortcomings of Benthamism and the
practical problems created by industrial dislocation and the large numbers
of people who have failed to be absorbed into liberal culture.

18. See Hook (1967) for an elaboration of the different versions of Marxism.
386 Chapter 10

19. See Capaldi (1990), as well as the other essays in that issue. A case can be
made that what distinguishes the social epistemology of liberal culture is
the promotion ofautonomous individuals or the recognition of the capac ity
for free and responsible individuals.

20. Mention could be made here of such diverse figures as the Frankfurt
School, Habermas, Charles Taylor, communitarians, etc.

21. The following major contemporary political philosophers will never appear
on analytic reading lists: Jacques Maritain, Ortega y Gasset, Leo Strauss,
Eric Voegelin, and Michael Oakeshott. Historical figures to be ignored are
Edmund Burke, Kant, Hegel, and David Hume (whose political writings are
totally ignored despite the prominence of his epistemology for analytic
philosophers). No doubt the list could be lengthened considerably.

22. For reactions to Russell's social and political views see Santayana (1936)
and (1940); Einstein, in P.A. Schilpp (ed.) (1961), pp. 288-89, 291; for a
balanced view see Ryan (1988).

23. "1 am in complete agreement with the aims for which you are fighting at
present: serious negotiations, instead of the Cold War, no bomb-testing, no
fall-out shelters." Letter from Carnap to Russell, dated May 12, 1962.

24. Carnap (1963), p. 83.

25. Otto Neurath, "Through War Economy to Economy in Kind" in (1973), p.

140. By 1942, Neurath had changed his mind, and moved from a socialist
position to a more clearly liberal one. In "International Planning for
Freedom" (Ibid.), he recognized that "Some muddle thus seems to be
unavoidable in a society of free men" (p.430), and that "Merchants are
sometimes better guardians of freedom than enthusiasts having the State as
their highest ideal" (p. 440).

26. Wedberg (1984), vol. 3, p. 222.

27. Reichenbach (1951), p. 7.

28. Popper made this statement at the annual Philosophical Lecture read before
the British Academy on January 20,1960. It was reprinted in (1962), p. 6.

29. Ibid., p. 5.

30. Popper (1983), pp. 162-63.

31. Rorty (1985), p. 16.

 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 387

32. Romanos (1983), p.193.

33. See Bentham An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation,

Chapter Five.

34. Cohen (1986), pp. 61-62.

35. Brian Barry (1990) describes political philosophy during this period as a
sort of utilitarianism which is then handed over to experts for
implementation (p. xxxv).

36. Earlier, in our discussion of metaphysics, we questioned whether a

conception of endless progress is meaningful without implicitly assuming
a terminus.

37. If we could scientifically explain the factual deep structure of human

decisions and if these decisions had some underlying systematic structure,
then democracy could itself be increasingly replaced by social and political
expertise with scientific progress. Popper attempted to circumvent this
possible line of objection by developing a kind of argument in favor of
some form of human freedom based on unpredictability. That argument is
now considered largely implausible.

38. Hayek (1973).

39. Popper (1982a).

40. Popper (1982).

41. Popper (1983).

42. For another exposition of the relation between liberalism and empiricism
see Hooker (1987), p. 207.

43. We have already had occasion in our discussions of ethics to point out the
nihilistic implications of emotivism and the same would hold of analogous
versions of liberalism. The nihilistic implications of orthodox Marxism
were prominently discussed in the works of the Frankfurt Marxists such
Habermas. These Marxists emphasized the early Hegelian Marx and saw
Marxism in terms of philosophical idealism rather than materialism.
Habermas made a famous critique of positivism for using philosophy to
rationalize social control and advocated, instead, liberation. For our
purposes, what is important here is the recognition that scientism and
materialism constitute serious intellectual challenges to moral agency. See
Habermas (1968).
388 Chapter 10

44. Reichenbach (1951), pp. 292-302.

45. Laslett (1956), pp. vii, ix.

46. "We're not concerned with the historical question here. We're not
concerned about how principles are in fact chosen. We're concerned about
which principles are just" Ronald Dworkin, quoted in Magee (1982), p.
216.

47. "In a way, we're [i.e., Rawls, Nozick, and Dworkin] all working the same
street ... liberalism .... " Dworkin in Magee (1982), p. 223.

48. Rawls (1974-75) maintains that his position is not the reflection of a
philosophical school.

49. "This [Rawls' book] is certainly the model of social justice that has
governed the advocacy of R.H. Tawney and Richard Titmus and that holds
the Labour Party together," Stuart Hampshire in his review of the book in
the New York Review of Books, 1972. Rawls's conclusions have "enormous
intuitive appeal to people of good will," Ronald Dworkin in Magee (1982),
p.213.

50. Rawls (1971), pp. 46-53.

51. "In morality as in everything else, the Rationalist aims to begin by getting
rid of inherited nescience and then to fill the blank nothingness of an open
mind with the items of certain knowledge which he abstracts from his
personal experience, and which he believes to be approved by the common
'reason' of mankind" Michael Oakeshott, "Rationalism in Politics," p. 40
[1962 (1991)].

52. Rawls (1971), p. 579.

53. Ibid., p. 137.

54. Ibid., p. 74.

55. There is no recognition of the possibility of individuals who might actually

choose to be disadvantaged, say for religious reasons. One can only
speculate that such choices would be viewed as "abnormal" or as evidence
that all interference had not been removed. Clearly "abnormal" and
"interference" would have to be specified relative to some implicit
teleological view.

56. For an elaboration of this point see Gourevitch's (1975) review of Rawls,
especially the discussion of "the ideal of the person" (pp. 216f).
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 389

57. Rawls (1971), p. 151 (see also pp.522, 527, 570-77).

58. For an insightful look at how Rawls moves from Kant almost to Hegel see
Kukathas and Pettit (1990). "Its [Rawlsian philosophy] aim, ultimately, is
not to challenge or repudiate such competitors but to subsume them .... "
(P. 149).

59. Ibid., pp. 152-53.

60. Ibid., p. 75.

61. Ibid., p.440.

62. This is the polar opposite conception of self-respect from what one would
find if the autonomous moral agent were taken seriously.

63. Ronald Dworkin in Magee (1982), p. 220.

64. Allan Bloom in his (1975) review of Rawls maintained that Rawls
misunderstands both Kant and Aristotle.

65. Nozick (1981), p. 515.

66. In (1981), Nozick recognizes a context in which there is a possibility that

rights can be "transcended" (p. 504), and in his discussion of the barrier to
self-development (p. 514), we are reminded how difficult it is to specify
criteria for when all barriers have been removed. We cannot, according to
Nozick himself, specify the sufficient conditions for such an event.

67. Rawls (1971), p. 560.

68. Dworkin quoted in Magee (1982), p. 223.

69. Ibid., pp. 228, 226.

70. Dworkin (1984), p. 64.

71. One of the most acute and perceptive critics of the relationship between
analytic philosophy and liberal social philosophy has been Maurice
Cornforth. Speaking from a Marxist perspective, Cornforth (1971) writes
that "the promotion of the sciences is part of the very life-blood of the
bourgeois social order. The dilemma ... consists of this --that either you
take your stand by the sciences and sacrifice your illusions, or else you take
your stand by your illusions and sacrifice the sciences. But they are
prepared to do neither... so some third way has to be found .... The most
fruitful, the most plausible, and at once the simplest and most flexible way
390 Chapter 10

was that discovered by Locke .... It enables the explorers at one and the
same time to accept the empirical approach and the discoveries of the
natural sciences, and to reject all materialism (such as that of Hobbes or,
more to the point later, of Marx) and keep the discussion of social and
moral problems on a plane where the real contradictions and motive forces
operating in society, behind the facade of social consciousness, remain
hidden and are never allowed to intrude" pp. 38-39.

72. Indirect evidence of this can be seen in the persistent fact that many of the
brightest intellects have been attracted to Marxism despite the debacle of
communist inspired regimes in the former USSR and elsewhere. That so
many highly intelligent people continue to be drawn to a position that fails
in practice has to be accounted for by its theoretical strength. Its theoretical
strength is that it is the consistent outcome of the entire Enlightenment
Project and that an individualist moral culture cannot be defended by
analytic philosophy.

73. Unger (1986). One might also want to consult the writings of Andrew
Altman and Duncan Kennedy.

74. Gray (1995b), p. 144. See also Gray (I995a).

75. For a brilliant exposition of this thesis and its use as a critique of liberal
social theory in Rawls, a critique of Habermas, and a critique of post-
modernism see Seung (1992) and (1994).

76. MacIntyre in Borradori (1994), p. 143.

77. See Taylor (1992).

78. Wittgenstein's argument against a private language and his discussion of

following rules can now be seen as a critique of epistemological
individualism and an argument in favor of the social context of individual
thought, i.e., what we have been calling the "We Do" perspective. For the
bearing of these issues on social and political thought see O'Hear (1991).

79. Certainly Kant himself denied this was possible as can be seen from
detailed consideration of his writings on specific political and social issues.
Unfortunately, analytic philosophers tend to be familiar only with the
discussion of the categorical imperative.

80. To his credit, Rawls (1985) has clarified in a later essay that the content of
'justice' cannot be understood independent of a specific cultural context. In
this essay he makes clear that his analysis was intended to reconcile, within
our culture, a libertarian version of liberalism (originating in Locke) with
an egalitarian version ofliberalism (originating in Rousseau). Two things
 Analytic Social And Political Philosophy 391

are to be noted about this essay. First, it confirms our contention that
Rawls' analysis had a hidden agenda. We are not here disputing that
agenda but calling attention to its existence. Second, despite what Rawls
said in this 1985 essay readers continue to ignore it and use his original
analysis as a model of analytic political philosophy.

81. MacIntyre in Borradori (1994), p. 146.

82. We must distinguish between an individualist axiology and the axiology of

individualism. That is, there are many ways of both understanding and
defending individualism and autonomy without initiating the attempt in
epistemological individualism or methodological individualism. One can
imagine an account of individualism that is rooted in certain cultural
practices and discovered in action. I take it that this is the mainline account
to be found in Western Philosophy with its roots in classical Greek culture,
Christianity, the Renaissance, the Reformation, Hume, Kant, etc.

83. Rawls' latest work (1993), eschews exploration for the social
epistemological perspective he describes as "the public culture of a
democratic society."

84. MacIntyre (1988), p. 335.

85. Once more we would like to call attention to the charge made by Maurice
Cornforth that positivism is a mask for a private political agenda: " ... the
methodology of bourgeois social science ... to misrepresent the methods
and findings of the natural sciences in such a way as to represent the
officially recognized social sciences as practicing the same scientific
method ... to bolster up bourgeois views about the social system and its
workings ... the effect was to stress the inadequacy of mere scientific
modes of knowledge [the is-ought distinction?] and to leave scope for ...
every kind of obscurantist authority, to stake a claim for recognition as
essential elements in human consciousness, which supplement but do not
conflict with the findings of the sciences" Cornforth (1971), pp.72-73.

86. See MacIntyre in Borradori (1994), p. 149.

87. "Suppose that a liberal is asked to found a new state. He is required to

dictate its constitution and fundamental institutions. He must propose a
general theory of political distribution, that is, a theory of how whatever the
community has to assign, by way of goods or resources or opportunities,
should be assigned" Ronald Dworkin (1978/1984), p.65.

88. Earlier, in our discussion of socialism, we noted that the demand for
equality is frequently made by or on behalf of those who have been "left
behind" by the progress of liberal culture. Is it possible that the problem
392 Chapter 10

with these people is not economic or political but moral? That is, is it
possible that for a variety of reasons these people have failed to grasp or
embody the moral foundations of liberal culture? This is what is suggested
by Oakeshott (1961).

89. See MacIntyre in Borradori (1994), p. 151.

90. One could delineate alternative political agendas in terms of which favored
past practice is seen as a panacea, e.g., the market, majority rule, the
supreme court, the referendum, the general strike, or even initiating a
violent revolution construed as a traditional practice.

91. Putnam "Beyond Historicism" (1983), p. 288.

92. See Avineri and de Shalit (1992), MacIntyre (1981), Sandel (1982) and
(ed.) (1984), and Taylor (1982).

93. Archard (1996), p. 269.

94. This is evidenced in MacIntyre's book on education (1990).

95. Compare to the discussion ofNozick in Chapter Four.

96. See Rasmussen and Den Uyl (1991) and (1997).

97. See Novak (1993) and Capaldi (1995).

98. We are not here advocating a particular morality, nor does it follow from
this that the function of the state is to impose a morality. What the state can
and cannot do will follow from the particular moral preconceptions that one
finds to be operative. For example, in Mill's On Liberty, the moral
principle of individuality (autonomy) makes it immoral and illogical to
impose on individuals in certain ways.

99. The classic account is in Oakeshott (1989). A more recent account is Gray
(1993).
 CHAPTER 11

Analytic Philosophy and The History of Philosophy

Introduction
This chapter demonstrates: (1) how analytic philosophy, as a reflection of the
Enlightenment Project, understands the relation between philosophy and the history
of philosophy; (2) how analytic philosophy understands its own history; and (3) how
the analytic understanding of these issues renders itself highly problematic. We
provide a way of overcoming these difficulties by showing how the history of
philosophy is integral to philosophy itself.

The Positivist Elimination of the History of Philosophy

Analytic philosophers influenced by the Enlightenment Project deny the
"philosophical" importance of the history of philosophy. This denial of the
philosophical importance ofthe history ofphilosophy is composed of:
1. the epistemological thesis that good explanations are not historical (i.e.,
temporal) accounts, and that specifically with regard to philosophical
explanations the denial that an historical dimension is an "integral" part of
a philosophical explanation;
2. the denial of the metaphysical significance of time;
J. the claim that, except in a limited pedagogical sense, the history of
philosophy is irrelevant to the self-understanding of philosophy or the
practice of philosophy.
Analytic philosophy began with a commitment to scientism. And scientism
necessarily implies the rejection of any historical mode of explanation in favor of a
covering law model of explanation for all of human action. If the covering law
model of explanation eliminates historical explanation in general then it would
eliminate the possibility that the history of philosophy, or an historical account of
philosophy, is an acceptable form of explanation. Whatever other function it may
perform, an historical account of philosophy, like history in general, has no
philosophical relevance. As William Frankena expressed it:

What bothers me is not distinguishing [history from philosophy]

. . .. I can, if I have the right conceptual equipment, understand
what the view is without seeing it as the result of a historical
development; and, so far as I can see, I can also assess its status as
true or false or rational to believe without seeing it as such an
outcome.]

As Quine jokingly expressed it, there are two sorts of people interested in
philosophy: (1) those interested in philosophy, and (2) those interested in the history
ofphilosophy.2 More to the point is the denial of the metaphysical role of time. 3
Quine's substantive conception of science involves the refusal to take time itself as
a fundamental ontological category. Specifically, Quine has appealed to Einstein's
view as justifying the position that we treat "time as spacelike."4 When faced by the
fact that ordinary language employs tenses which reflect the temporal perspective of
 394 Chapter 11

the speaker-agent, Quine proposes to eliminate 'tensed' sentences in favor of

'eternal' sentences which are extensional. Nor is this anti-temporal bias confined to
Quine. Even Quine's analytic opponents who take modal logic seriously concede
that conventional modal logics are wholly insensitive to both tense and mood. 5
Analytic philosophy has an anti-agency view of the human self. This anti-
agency view is a reflection of the rejection of the Copernican Revolution in
philosophy. If one were to take the Copernican Revolution seriously, then the
understanding of philosophical concepts and categories would not be merely a
reflection of an independent and external structure. Rather, the structure would, in
part at least, reflect the perspective or situation of the human agent. If the agent's
perspective, in turn, required reference to history then the self-understanding of
philosophy would require historical considerations. By rejecting the Copernican
revolution, analytic philosophy officially and logically commits itself to a denial of
the importance of the historical context. Any attempt to understand or validate
philosophical concepts by reference to background considerations about why, how,
when, and where a position was formulated is to be guilty of the alleged fallacy of
psychologism. 6
The analytic commitment to realism involves the presupposition of a
timeless audience oriented toward timeless truths.7 This is a modern development
that could not be presupposed prior to the emergence of analytic philosophy.8 This
presupposition eliminates in one stroke the problem of philosophical rhetoric in
general and the philosophical problem of the significance ofthe rhetorical dimension
of texts in particular. By philosophical rhetoric, we mean the issue of how to
persuade this particular audience of these particular claims, which always involves
a consideration ofthe culturallhistorical context within which the audience comes to
hold certain opinions about itself and the world. These cultural/historical
considerations must also be considered irrelevant in the case of the philosopher
himself. The analytic approach does not allow one to acknowledge that persuasive
rhetoric plays a role in the self-persuasion of the philosophers through unspoken
internal reflection.
Analytic philosophers seem to believe themselves to occupy an absolute
standpoint, but feel no need to provide those not at that standpoint with a ladder to
the absolute. Evidently, philosophers are not and should not be in the business of
persuading themselves or anyone else that philosophy is worthwhile or of turning
. them toward philosophy. The question "Why philosophize?" need not be addressed
by philosophers. It further follows that texts concerned with this question are in this
respect not philosophical. In addition, these presuppositions give interpreters license
to disregard the rhetorical dimensions of otherwise "philosophical" texts.
Positivism is on this issue disingenuous. Even if we grant that the intended
audience is already 'philosophical' in the way that the author is, i.e., already oriented
toward timeless truths, there are still issues for analytic philosophers to face.
Philosophizing involves adjudicating between different truth claims and this process
of adjudication, which also takes place within the analytic community, cannot occur
without reference to the best opinions one brings to the problem at hand. Rhetoric
is ineliminable in philosophy; we persuade ourselves in the light of the certainty we
bring to philosophical issues, and this celtainty is the result of an individual histor\
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 395

that is connected with a cultural history. There is no absolute standpoint in

philosophy such as analytic philosophy presupposes. Philosophizing implies self-
conscious reflection upon cultural history in general and the history of philosophy
in particular.

Why Positivist Elimination Still Needed a History of Philosophy

For at least two reasons any form of realist philosophy would still have need for
some conception ofthe history of philosophy. Ifone is in possession of the whole
of the objective truth then it should be a simple matter, logically speaking, to
articulate that truth. The articulation of the timeless truth would obviate the need for
a history of the acquisition of that truth, or the history would itself only make sense
in the light of the timeless truth. However, no one presumes to be in possession at
present of that complete timeless truth. Ifwe believe in a timeless truth, but we are
not capable at present of producing it for inspection, then we must provide an
historical account of two factors. First, we must provide an historical account (past
oriented) of why we have not yet been able to achieve total access to that timeless
truth. 9 Second, we must provide an historical account (future oriented) of how the
process of achieving such a timeless truth could develop. At the same time, these
two histories should be linked in some way and must be compatible with the form
that the final timeless truth will take.

What are these problems? Who decides what they are? How do
we decide whether or not they are important? Some account has
to be given ... of why this bundle of 'fundamental problems'
deserves our attention, rather than some other bundle, or some
bundle of problems as yet unformulated. And some account has
to be given of why anyone should imagine that past philosophical
thinking would be of real help in solving our current problems,
assuming them to be as real and as pressing as contemporary
philosophers claim. 10

The Enlightenment Project, the root of analytic philosophy, has always

made its ultimate appeal to some kind of progressive historical account, specifically
a progressive historical account of science. In the positivist (eliminative) phase of
analytic philosophy, the history of philosophy was subsumed under the history of
science. I I Since science is the presumed form of the final timeless truth, the history
of science becomes the only viable history. It is indeed one of the great ironies of
analytic philosophy that it rests in the end on an historical presumption.
Equating the history of philosophy with the history of science is Quine's
view:

Aristotle was, among other things, a pioneer physicist and

biologist. Plato was, among other things, a physicist -- if
cosmology is a theoretical wing of physics. Descartes and Leibniz
were in part physicists. Physics and biology were called natural
philosophy until the nineteenth century. Plato, Descartes and
396 Chapter 11

Leibniz were also mathematicians. Locke, Berkeley, Hume and

Kant were in large part psychologists.
All these luminaries and others whom we revere as great
philosophers were scientists in search of an organized conception
of reality. Their search did indeed go beyond the special sciences
as we now define them; there were also broader and more basic
concepts to untangle and clarify.
But the struggle with these concepts and the quest of a
system on a grand scale were integral still to the overall scientific
enterprise. 12

The positivists also saw "the history of' science as useful in exposing the
"idols" or cultural obstacles to a scientific world view. In other words, a certain
ideological account of history had instrumental or rhetorical value in overcoming the
opposition to both scientism in general and positivism in particular. In principle, this
instrumental value would be temporary and something that would wither away when
scientism came to dominate the culture as a whole.
What's wrong with the positivist conception of the history ofphilosophy?
In reducing the history of philosophy to the history of science, positivists did not
have to make any pretense of serious scholarly interpretations of past figures. They
could pick and choose what was directly relevant to the history of science and openly
ignore or dismiss what did not fit. Such an approach is direct, honest, and acceptable
so long as we are given the correct history of science. This is precisely where
positivism failed. Science is not self-certifying; as a consequence, progress in
science cannot be directly certified. Belief in such progress becomes an ideological
act of faith, ideological in the sense of reflecting a commitment to the Enlightenment
Project. Positivism was therefore unable to establish in its own terms its superiority
to what it rejected in its predecessors. What's more, positivism offered no rational
way of choosing between itself and what it rejected in its predecessors. Without any
common frame of reference, the positivist conception ofthe history ofphilosophy led
to nihilism.

The History of Philosophy as Exploration

It was confrontation with the issue of theory revision and growth that forced
positivists to provide an historical account of the growth of physical science. As we
saw in Chapter Two, their account took the form of an account of the growth of
science in which it was alleged that the later and better theory was the increasingly
more inclusive one. Instead of evading historical considerations, analytic
philosophers found themselves· more deeply immersed in such considerations.
Baconian inductivism and the naive empiricism of the positivists came in time (the
1950s) to be replaced in the analytic philosophy of science and elsewhere by the
recognition that there are non-empirical elements or a background framework in
terms of which all cognitive activity proceeds. Once the 'Kantian Tum' was taken,
it could be admitted that there is an historical background to the questions we ask and
the kinds of answers we are willing to entertain. Analytic history of philosophy
could now concede that our definition of what constitutes a philosophical problem
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 397

is rooted in the history of philosophy. However, what is important is the subsequent

exploration of the hidden structure which can, in time, cause us to revise
substantially, and ultimately overrule, the historical understanding.

. . . philosophy is fundamentally a search for solutions to

particular problems. . .. Trying to make reasonable philosophical
sense of an important text provides a useful scaffold from which
to work on central problems .... \3

The 'Kantian Tum' in analytic philosophy allowed for a more coherent role
for the history of philosophy. It accomplished this by analogizing previous historical
positions to hypotheses. This analogy accomplished a number of things. First, if it
turns out that philosophical discourse is parasitic upon its own history then this can
be analogized to the historical evolution and clarification of concepts in physical
science. Second, it allowed analytic philosophers to admit the diversity of previous
historical perspectives, which could now be viewed as rival hypotheses. Third, since
all hypotheses are subject to empirical or scientific confirmation, analytic
philosophers believe that they can still transcend the history of philosophy, that is,
that they can adhere to a realism in opposition to the historical relativism they see in
the hermeneutical circle and the Copernican Revolution in general. Just as the
'Kantian Tum' in the analytic philosophy of science is understood to be itself
overcome when "in the long run" one hypothesis or theory is determined to be the
correct one, so the 'Kantian Tum' in the analytic history of philosophy is understood
to be transcendable when we arrive at the post-historical period initiated by the
professional and cultural triumph of the Enlightenment Project. The 'Kantian Tum'
seemingly establishes the wholly instrumental value of the history of philosophy.
Finally, all those disturbing lapses into historical references can be excused and
understood, and those disturbing questions about the relation of philosophy to culture
as a whole and the integrity and the legitimacy ofthe discipline can now in principle
be addressed.

The Analytic Exploration of the History of Philosophy

What does the analytic exploration of historical philosophical texts tell us?
First, it tells us what it understands the practice ofphilosophy to be and to
have been. According to analytic philosophy and its view of philosophical
psychology after the 'Kantian Tum,' all thinking is exploratory in nature. If all
thinking is a form of exploration, then all philosophical thinking is a form of
exploration. Hence, all philosophical texts are to be understood and interpreted as
explorations. Analytic philosophy can take seriously the work of any historical
figure as long as it construes that work as an exploration. Since the thinking of the
analytic historian is an exploration as well, it follows that analytic historians of
philosophy understand themselves to be offering explorations about the explorations
of other historical thinkers.
Second, the analytic exploration of historical philosophical texts offers an
account of the relationship between philosophy and its history. 14
398 Chapter II

In the exploration of philosophical texts one must assume (a) a diachronic

identity ofproblems and a diachronic transferability ofsolutions. As Russell put it:

... there remains always a purely philosophical attitude towards

previous philosophers -- an attitude in which, without regard to
dates or influence, we seek simply to discover what are the great
types of possible philosophies ... the philosophies of the past
belong to one or other of a few great types -- types which in our
own day are perpetually recurring -- we may learn from examining
the greatest representative of any type, what are the grounds for
such a philosophy. . .. By what process of development he came
to this opinion, though in itself an important and interesting
question, is logically irrelevant to the inquiry how far the opinion
itself is correct. . .. Philosophic truth and falsehood, in short,
rather than historical fact, are what primarily demand our attention
in this inquiry. IS

At the same time, (b) there has been some obfuscation of the timeless
problems and solutions due to the historical and sociological obstacles to clear
thinking. The gap between (a) and (b) is overcome in several ways. The gap is
overcome in the first place by an historical-teleological theory superimposed on those
texts of how previous questions and answers have progressed toward current analytic
questions and answers.16
We have an important analogy here with the analytic philosophy of science.
Just as the growth, development and replacement of one scientific theory by another
had to be explained by appeal to an historical development theory which was itself
an exploratory hypothesis, so the formulation, development and assessment of earlier
philosophical work has to be explained by appeal to some exploratory hypothesis
about the history of philosophy itself. We have already indicated that such an
hypothesis would be teleological and emphasized the extent to which it is believed
that earlier work culminates in the later work, especially the tenets of analytic
philosophy itself.

The understanding of our intellectual past must unavoidably be

partly 'Whiggish', in that we must use our own thought as the
main reference point in terms of which we find the past intelligible
.... This circumstance is not unique to philosophy, but applies
equally to the history of the natural sciences and mathematics. We
inevitably must understand past scientific theories and
mathematical reasoning in terms of the best thought available
today. 17

There is an implicit assumption that at some point we arrive at the final,

correct and definitive questions and answers. This implicit meta-history of
philosophy would be the Hegelian moment in the analytic history ofphilosophy.18
The claim that the meaning of every position lies in a later position means, in the
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 399

end, one all- encompassing final philosophy emerging historically. The belief that
the true content of an idea, and therefore its logical structure, is how it relates over
time to a final all-encompassing answer equates logical structure with teleological
unfolding .
. . . we would like to be able to see the history of our race as a
long conversational interchange. We want to be able to see it that
way in order to assure ourselves that there has been rational
progress in the course of recorded history -- that we differ from
our ancestors on grounds which our ancestors could be led to
accept. The need for reassurance on this point is as great as the
need for self-awareness. We need to imagine Aristotle studying
Galileo or Quine and changing his mind .... 19

Third, the analytic history ofphilosophy allows us to answer the question

of who is and who is not a great philosopher. To be or to have been a great
philosopher is analogous to being or to having been a great scientist. That is, to be
or to have been great means to offer or to suggest exploratory hypotheses which
turned out to have been true in revealing crucial elements in the eventual teleological
march of analytic philosophy to the truth .

. . . all would agree that the goal of philosophy is not, in the first
instance, to understand the great works of philosophy, but to
understand how things are. Philosophical understanding is
understanding the nature of things, not the meanings oftexts.2o

Such elements can certainly predate the official inauguration of analytic philosophy
by Bertrand Russell. To be included in such a history is to become a member of The
Grateful Dead.
Texts may be likened to cadavers upon which students may practice in order
to see (a) both the likeness to and the distance from the textbook diagrams, and (b)
diseases or malfunctioning. Earlier systems are always less complex than later ones
(viewed as increasingly more inclusive along the lines of scientific theories), so
historical texts are useful pedagogical devices. To use another analogy, just as bright
undergraduate physics majors today know more physics than Newton, so a bright
undergraduate philosophy student can come to understand more about philosophy
than Plato or Kant, etc. Finally, an analytic reading of the history of philosophy can
be useful in helping graduate students to absorb the spirit of analytic philosophy and
gain an image of themselves as part of this progressive intellectual community. In
short, the political or ideological dimension of the analytic philosophical movement
can best be conveyed in courses in the analytic version of the history of philosophy.
Some of the brightest moments in the analytic history of philosophy occur
when a hitherto commonly accepted 'great' philosopher deemed to have been an
enemy of analytic philosophy or deemed to be someone who would have been hostile
to its views is shown to have offered an exploration that fits in with the analytic
400 Chapter 11

history of philosophy.21 For example, one way of approaching Hume and Kant
without taking the Copernican Revolution seriously is suggested by Philip Kitcher:

Twentieth-century [analytic] historians of philosophy would

ultimately reclaim the great early moderns by sanitizing their
psychological and other scientific references. Leibniz, Hume,
Kant and the others emerged as analytic philosophers manques --
but, it must be conceded, extremely talented analytic philosophers
for all of their psychological fumbling. 22

It is not even necessary that the 'great' philosopher have had any clear
conception that what he said was such a contribution, much less an exploration.
Rather, all that is necessary is that some current analytic historian of philosophy be
able to reconstruct the work of the 'great' philosopher as if it had contained or
suggested such an hypothesis. As Jonathan Bennett argued:

Let me give an example. In writing Kant's Analytic I came across

something that I call 'the ordering argument.' It is a fine,
powerful argument, and so far as I know it had never before
explicitly appeared anywhere in the literature of philosophy. Its
basis in Kant's text was slim, but there were a few small bits that
I could understand only as fragmentary expressions of the ordering
argument; it was indeed my attempt to understand these that led
me to the argument in the first place. It occurred to me that if I
was right in attributing the argument to Kant, I had scored an
important exegetical coup; and that if I was wrong about that, then
I deserved the credit for thinking up a first-rate bit of original
philosophy. Well, Peter Straws on in his review of the book
described the ordering argument as being better than anything that
that part of Kant's text seems on the surface to contain, and
praised the quality of my evidence that the argument was Kant's
. . . . I would rather have been told that I had invented the
argument myself.23

The foregoing remark by Bennett leads us to another dimension of the

analytic exploration of historical philosophical texts. An important distinction must
be made between the surface meaning of a text and the deep structure behind that
surface meaning. On the analytical philosophical assumption that there is an
objective and timeless set of philosophical problems,24 and on the further assumption
that only writers whose works can be construed as offering exploratory hypotheses
about the solution to those problems are philosophers, it no longer matters that
previous philosophers or even some live philosophers would reject an exploratory
hypothesis about their work. This was Russell's attitude toward Leibniz.

What is first of all required in a commentator is to attempt a

reconstruction of the system which Leibniz should have written. 25
 Analytic Philosophy And The History OfPhilosophy 401

The very nature of an exploration allows for the distinction between the
conventional understanding of something and the hidden structure behind the
conventional understanding. Analogously, we can distinguish between the author's
conscious understanding of his writings and the hidden structure behind those
writings. Philosophical authors are free to hold exploratory hypotheses about the
hidden structure even to their own consciously expressed views. It is, therefore,
perfectly possible for one to hold the wrong meta-exploratory hypothesis about one's
own work, or even the work of someone else. By hidden structure we do not mean
the motives for holding or articulating views but the structure of those views. It is
by reference to the allegedly timeless and objective problems that we can evaluate
rival explorations. This allows for a seemingly legitimate analytic social
epistemology as opposed to a self-refuting sociology of knowledge.
The reader should recall that an exploration begins with the ordinary
understanding of something and then goes on to offer an hypothesis about the hidden
structure behind the thing as ordinarily understood. Hence, analytic philosophers in
the exploratory phase can begin with conventional understandings of the history of
philosophy, instead of eliminating it or suggesting that it be eliminated. However,
what is important is the subsequent exploration of the hidden structure which can, in
time, cause us to revise substantially the conventional understanding.
Earlier we mentioned the gap between the assumption that there is a
diachronic identity of problems and solutions and the obfuscation of that identity by
accidental cultural features. A second way in which the analytic history of
philosophy can close that gap is to appeal to the analytic approach to philosophical
psychology and the social sciences. To the extent that it is consistent with such
views it underlines the contention that analytic philosophy is a 'package deal' rather
than a disparate collection of positions. In the more sophisticated versions of the
analytic philosophy ofmind we saw the postulation ofa two-tier view of the human
mind, (a) a conscious level and (b) a purely physiological level. It is on the upper or
conscious level (a) that we experience our history and the background framework
reflected in the 'Kantian Turn.' We are thus aware of the extent to which our
philosophical concepts are not generated in a naively empiricist way directly from
experience. The lower level (b) can be explained in purely scientific (physicalist-
structural) or empirically confirmable terms. Within that two-tier view, there is,
admittedly, no strict reduction of the conscious level to the physiological level.
Nevertheless, it is presumed that there must be a causal mechanism and account of
the generation of the upper or conscious level. Although this recognizes the
cognitive independence of the upper level, it also conveniently makes the temporal
or historical dimension ofour thought a kind ofepi-phenomenon that does not have
to be captured on the scientifically explainable physiological level. Cognitive
independence preserves the analytic commitment to a timeless metaphysical reality.
To the extent that there is an objective (and, for analytic philosophy, timeless) causal
origin to exploratory or philosophical thinking, the entire history ofphilosophy can
be construed as a "sequence" of explorations rather than as a system of genuine
temporality. All "temporal" transformations may be viewed as quantitative rather
than as qualitative. Simultaneously, the whole of the history of philosophy can be
402 Chapter 11

interpreted on the epi-phenomenological level as a teleological process culminating

in the recognition of the "truth" of analytic philosophy.
The distinction between levels (a) and (b) and the claim that the (b) level
causally generates the (a) level means that there is an alleged objective structure to
philosophical discourse and that there is some way to conceptualize totally the
thought and speech process of any thinker. It is precisely because there is an external
objective structure to philosophical discourse that such discourse can be accessed by
an analytic interpreter. What the analytic interpreter of the history of philosophy is
offering is an exploratory hypothesis about the thought pattern of previous
philosophers. This thought pattern is the hidden structure of what those philosophers
said. The analytic historian of philosophy does not have to accept the author's own
account of the status ofher/his exploration. In fact, any author's account ofthe status
of hislher prima facie exploration is itself a secondary exploration or hypothesis.
Holding the wrong meta-exploratory hypothesis about one's own work is
perfectly compatible with offering useful and insightful substantive explorations in
the body of one's actual philosophical work. In fact, given the "progress" that has
taken place in methodology and substantive views since the advent of analytic
philosophy, it is more than likely that great insights would be confined to specific
points rather than grand syntheses. If anything, starting with the author's own, but
probably incorrect, meta-exploratory hypothesis about his own work is likely to be
an impediment to extracting substantive insightful explorations. "He [Ree] thinks it
important to make the author look sensible; [ [Jonathan Bennett] don't."26 After all,
past philosophers did not and could not have had a clear conception of 'meaning'
because a clear conception of 'meaning' is what only current analytic philosophy
provides or seeks to provide and about which, it is alleged, we have only recently
become clear ourselves.
Fourth, the analytic exploration of historical philosophical texts is
conducted with a definite notion ofhow a text is to be read An exploration of a text
is a rational reconstruction. [t is a reconstruction in the sense that it reflects the
imposition upon that text of the analytic framework of what the real problems are,
what possible correct solutions could be, and the overall teleological sequence of the
history of philosophy. It is rational in the sense that it is not merely free form
speculation inspired or suggested by a text, but a serious endeavor to interpret past
philosophers as contributing to the problematic of analytic philosophy .

.. . we perhaps inevitably rewrite history to suit our purposes.

. . . In retrospective there may seem to us to be a chain of
development down through the ages tied to the same collection of
intractable problems, and viewing the past in this way may be very
useful to us .... It is not so much what the philosophical attitudes
of the time really were that matters, as it is what they conspired to
produce of importance to all other times.27

More specifically, an analytic reading becomes an excursion in micro-

analysis. Small, highly delimited units of text are given an in-depth analysis or
reconstruction. The original conception of "analysis" was that knowledge is acquired
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 403

in a piecemeal fashion from part to whole. Hence, any attempt to understand and
reconstruct a text must proceed from part to whole. A text is, therefore, a kind of
natural object and a product of natural mechanisms as opposed to a cultural artifact.
Moreover, knowledge of the larger context can actually be an obstacle to
understanding an argument because it can lead to the imposition of the original
author's own "false" meta-exploratory hypothesis about the author's work.
Borrowing a point from Kuhn, who had asserted that advances in science frequently
resulted from paradigm shifts initiated by younger outsiders unencumbered by old
perspectives and bearers of a fresh perspective, analytic historians of philosophy
could argue that approaching a text with minimal preconceptions leads to creative
new insights.
Analytic explorations enable us to determine precisely the limits of context.
How far afield do we have to go in order to understand a text? The answer is that
any information is relevant as long as it enables us to see how an historical text is an
exploratory hypothesis or set of such hypotheses relevant to contemporary analytic
formulations of questions and the range of acceptable answers.28 Any information
that performs that service, including information that did not exist until after the
creation of the historical text (e.g., the latest logical techniques), is relevant. Any
information that does not perform that service, however accurate, is irrelevant.

By understanding why somebody thought something is not the

same as understanding the thought itself. . .. To understand the
thought itself, by contrast, requires that one be able to imagine
having that thought oneself .... We will try as much as possible
to see those ideas in terms of our own. 29

By carrying this point to its logical conclusion, we can come to see why any
background information that shows that an analytic rational reconstruction of an
historical text is totally at odds with the intention of the historical author does not
discredit the reconstruction. At best, such iriformation discredits the historical author
or lowers our estimate of that figure. It does not discredit the value of the rational
reconstruction or of the analytic history of philosophy.
Historical philosophical texts are to be understood as exploratory
hypotheses. All exploratory hypotheses, including scientific ones, contain concepts
that are open ended in order to allow for further development and extended
application to new and unanticipated contexts. Hence, there is no obvious closure
to a philosophical text. Even if a critic could provide background information about
the author of the text such that the informed reader might be in a position to say how
the author would have delimited or closed off the application of the author's views,
such information does not bear upon the meaning or the inherent possibilities of the
original exploratory hypothesis itself. Such information is of merely historical, i.e.,
antiquarian, interest. It is without philosophical significance. 3o
Analytic historians of philosophy are criticized for ignoring contextual
background to such an extent that they distort the text and give us a false reading. 3 )
Analytic historians of philosophy deny this charge on the basis of what we have
already said above, specifically (a) by reiterating the contention that truly
404 Chapter 11

understanding a text can only be a rational reconstruction, i.e., an exploration of an

exploration, and (b) the implicit assumption that there is a continuity of and
teleological progression within philosophical practice wherein what comes later is
better because it is closer to the truth. There is an important sense in which the
analytic history of philosophy claims to get at the "real" meaning of a text, and the
"real" meaning of a text can be quite different from the intention of the author.
Analytic historians do not deny the relevance of background, what they deny is the
relevance of certain kinds of background information. 32
Specifically, analytic historians of philosophy deny that philosophical issues
are generated and developed in the broad cultural and historical way that some
philosophers (e.g., Hume, Vico, Hegel, Croce, Collingwood, MacIntyre,33 Taylor,34
Margolis,35 etc.) have argued. Analytic philosophy presupposes a metaphysics and
an epistemology of the generation of philosophical issues that reflects its own beliefs
and commitments of a fundamental philosophical kind. This is why no critique of
the analytic history of philosophy can succeed without bringing to the fore and
chaIlenging those metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions. Such a
challenge by a non-analytic philosopher could invoke the very cultural and historical
factors that analytic philosophers ignore.
The examination ofthe analytic history ofphilosophy is important because
it reveals the extent to which an analytic philosophical world view consistently
informs analytic philosophy. Given the metaphysical and epistemological orientation
of analytic philosophy, which is atemporal, analytic philosophers would refuse to
accept 'historical' evidence against their view because such 'historical' evidence is
tainted by what analytic philosophers consider a false epistemology. Broad cultural
and background studies may be legitimate examples of intellectual history but they
are not accepted as philosophy; they may be useful and even suggestive in a limited
way to philosophy; or they may be judged false meta-exploratory hypotheses.
We are now also in a position to formulate more clearly the distinction
between "genuine" history of philosophy and "mere" intellectual history or the
history ofideas. 36 Analytic history of philosophy is "genuine" or legitimate history
of philosophy because it is itself a form of philosophy. That is, by engaging in an
exploration of a text which is itself an exploration, the gap between the original
philosophical text and the analytical historical treatment of that text is diminished or
closed. 37
During the positivistic eliminative stage of analytic philosophy, an invidious
comparative distinction had been made between philosophy and the history of
philosophy. Now, during the exploratory phase of analytic philosophy provoked by
the 'Kantian Turn,' some form of the history of philosophy has been legitimated. Of
course, the legitimate history of philosophy must be an analytical history that itself
engages in a form of exploration; and there is still an invidious distinction, only this
time between legitimate or analytic history of philosophy and the history ofideas. 38
J.L. Mackie offered a typical formulation of this analytic history of philosophy when
he said that his purpose was" ... not to expound Locke's views or to study their
relations with those of his contemporaries and near contemporaries, but to work
towards solutions of the problems themselves."39
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 405

Exegesis40 is not genuine philosophical activity because it is not an

exploration. While it is possible to discover a hitherto unknown text it is impossible
for the newly discovered text to challenge fundamentally the world view of analytic
philosophy. At most, the newly discovered text might be a brilliant anticipation of
what has already transpired in analytic philosophy. For it to be otherwise, it would
constitute a delegitimation of either analytic philosophy or the teleological view of
the history of philosophy to which analytic philosophers subscribe. There can, in
short, be no shocking surprises. Because there can be no shocking surprises, those
analytic philosophers working on the "frontiers," can for the most part still ignore the
ongoing work of even analytic historians ofphilosophy.41
There is a fifth conclusion to be drawn from the analytic exploration of
historical philosophical texts, and it concerns the question of how to deal with
alternative readings ofan historical text.
There is no recognized needfor analytic historians ofphilosophy to map
their interpretation onto the work of other commentators, analytic or non-analytic,
past or present. 42 Previous work that is suitable to the analytic mold may be
cannibalized to further one's own hypotheses or exploration, but one need not be
concerned with the architectonic of other explorers. Here, our previous examination
about context becomes relevant. The relevant context is always the analytic
framework which the analytic historian of philosophy already has at hand. What
remains important is the contemporary analytic definition of the problem as well as
the range of acceptable analytic solutions and the original historical text from which
we can extract explorations about the solution to those problems. If other
commentators have already done this successfully then we have no reason for further
examination of the text; if the other commentators have done so incorrectly then their
work is either false or irrelevant. It is not the responsibility of the analytic historian
of philosophy to engage in side conversations but to focus on the text through his
own analytic lens. Surely, ifthe original author's own meta-exploratory hypothesis
is irrelevant then the meta-hypotheses of subsequent readers is also irrelevant.
Precisely because of its anti-agency view of cognitive activity, analytic history of
philosophy has no notion of a special responsibility to other members of the
interpretive community. Moreover, given its commitment to realism, analytic
philosophy presumes that the ultimate test of an exploration is its capturing of a
structure independent of human agents. Hence, the agreement of the author or of
other readers and interpreters is itself irrelevant. Analytic historians of philosophy
would deny that a text takes on a philosophically significant life of its own (e.g., the
history of the reintroduction of Aristotelian texts in the Middle Ages). Analogous
to the physical sciences, previous work is important only to the extent that it sets the
stage for further exploration. Scientists, qua scientists, are not supposed to wonder
why previous scientists thought the way they did; rather they are supposed to get on
with further exploration. Whatever might be learned from other interpretations or
the evolution of interpretations is either irrelevant, however interesting, intellectual
history or it is a set of false meta-explorations.
We believe there is a significant source of confusion in all of this. Analytic
history of philosophy is confusing three different things: (1) using historical texts to
generate (psychologically) new hypotheses or explorations, (2) providing an
406 Chapter J J

historical account of philosophy, and (3) believing that one's own explorations are
a continuation of and crucial to the historic activity of philosophizing. As we shall
argue, analytic history attempts to do the latter and must in fact do so. While the first
two functions are compatible, the potential confusion between the two encourages
a potentially loose and irresponsible attitude toward the text even from the point of
view of analytic philosophy. Moreover, by muddying the difference between these
two functions any analytic historian of philosophy is given a good rhetorical mask.
That is, any time one's interpretation is challenged, rebuked, or discredited, one can
always claim that one was merely engaged in the auto-generating of hypotheses. It
is disingenuous to say that analytic readers are just looking for inspiration or
hypotheses in historical texts. On the contrary, there is a progressivist framework to
the analytic reading of historical texts. Finally, by maintaining (3) that all of
philosophy is exploration, analytic philosophers shield themselves from the criticism
ofexplicators because they can deny, rhetorically, that explicators are philosophers
who have to be taken seriously.
Two issues in interpretive fidelity must not be confused. The first issue is
whether an interpretation is based on a serious familiarity with the texts and the
meaning of the concepts in the texts as they functioned in a particular historical
period. Even having read the texts is not the same as knowing the meaning of the
concepts in a particular historical period. The second issue concerns the
architectonic ofa philosopher's text, i.e., the organizational framework or logic of
the author's assertions. To be knowledgeable about the text in the earlier sense is not
to be knowledgeable about the architectonic. 43 There is an important difference
between the ignorance of positivist eliminativism and the erudition of analytic
exploration. The problem is that highly respectable scholars within the analytic
community have invested an immense erudition into the interpretation of historical
materials, but their efforts have largely gone to waste because the investment was
based either upon a defective theoretical foundation, namely, the analytic exploratory
notion of how to reconstruct the past, or a frenetic attempt to make the text relevant
to a temporary enthusiasm.
To assume that all relevant architectonic is one and that there exists a
timeless structure of how ideas go together is to impose realism, to engage in an
ideological reading. This is what is meant when non-analytic "historians of
philosophy" object to some techniques of analytic reconstruction. The issue is not
between parroting and reconstructing but whether we are dealing with reconstruction
as fabrication of the text or interpretive fidelity.
Another way in which analytic historians of philosophy might try to avoid
the foregoing criticism, namely, that they distort the architectonic of important
historical figures, is by arguing or suggesting that we can never know what really
went through the minds of our predecessors .

. . . we should not deceive ourselves about our inability to know

how those problems actually appeared to previous thinkers, any
more than we can expect to know what subset of them will emerge
as perspicuous links to understanding for future thinkers. . .. In
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 407

fact the failure to have knowledge of either sort may not be crucial
at all. 44

This would obviate the need to be concerned with the architectonic and allow one to
concentrate on specific portions of isolated text. In response to this argument we
note, first, that it is hard to see how one would establish such a conclusion. It is one
thing to say that it is difficult to determine the architectonic or even, perhaps
impossible in some cases, but it is quite another to say that it is always impossible.
Nor does it seem likely that this argument could be a weaker version of the much
stronger claim that we can never really understand the architectonic of anyone else.
Such a stronger claim would plunge all of us, including analytic historians of
philosophy, into the deepest skepticism and relativism about all human affairs and
not just the history of philosophy. For analytic philosophers to maintain that we
cannot retrieve the author's own architectonic is to maintain, quite paradoxically, that
while we can say how the world really is we cannot say how an author really says the
world is. Besides, as we have already pointed out, it is important to analytic
philosophy itself to establish that it is continuous with, and the true heir to, the
philosophic tradition.
There is a curious analogy between the foregoing suggestion that we can
never know the architectonic of another philosopher and the persistent problem that
analytic philosophers have with knowledge about the existence of other minds. In
both cases, analytic philosophers construe this as a problem of gaining access to an
elusive structure as opposed to retrieving the larger cultural context within which
agents function.
The most consistent course of action is for analytic historians of philosophy
to maintain steadfastly that the only legitimate framework is that of analytic
philosophy and that the truth of analytic philosophy makes it unnecessary to debate
rival philosophical views. However, one consequence of this position is that analytic
historians of philosophy can not deny that what they teach students about the history
of philosophy is ideological. Analytic history of philosophy becomes ideological not
by possessing a canon, that is a list of who and what is "must" reading, but by its
insistence on how authors and texts are to read, what is not to be read, and what other
interpretations are not to be read or discussed. A position is defined as much by what
it systematically excludes as by what it includes. To teach the history of philosophy
without making clear the philosophical foundations of one's presentation of the
history is to engage in ideology and not teaching; to be unaware of the source's of
one's bias is the ultimate philosophical sin.
If the past does not illuminate the present, what use is there in studying the
past? Furthermore, what use is there in deliberately going back and revising it? I
suspect that it could be because the past threatens the present. Indeed, the history of
philosophy is laden with challenges to the Enlightenment Project in analytic
philosophy. Plato and Aristotle present serious challenges to the mechanistic
approach. Hume and Kant present serious challenges to naturalistic epistemology.
Could it be that the primary function of analytic historians of philosophy is to
"reinterpret" the great works of the western philosophical tradition in such a way as
to minimize this challenge or even eliminate it? Many crippling challenges to the
408 Chapter II

Enlightenment Project in analytic philosophy lie latent in the history of Western

philosophy. The easiest way to deal with these challenges is not to meet them and
defeat them, but simply "revise" them out of existence!
Some might still try to defend the analytic history of philosophy by claiming
that every reading is the projection of or the imposition upon past texts of present or
contemporary perspectives. If everyone does it, then there is no stigma to be
attached to the fact that analytic historians do it. This kind of defense amounts to the
claim that all interpretation is exploration, and that is certainly something that
analytic philosophy in general maintains. 45 Curiously, the recognition that there are
alternative explorations with no way to choose among them leads to the recognition
that there can be alternative analytic exploratory histories with no way to choose
among them. Choice, in the end, for analytic philosophy, then is a function of one's
current and allegedly realist research paradigm. Instead of the history of philosophy
helping to illuminate present concerns, it is our present concerns that generate our
view of the history of philosophy.
What's wrong with the analytic exploratory account of the history of
philosophy? By taking the history of philosophy seriously, analytic exploratory
history is forced to offer hidden structure accounts. These sometimes ingenious
explorations ofthe text lead to an abundance of alternatives among which there is no
rational basis for choosing. The analytic exploration ofthe history ofphilosophy, like
its positivist forbearers, leads to nihilism. The consequence of the nihilism of
exploration is the deconstruction of the history of western philosophy. All historical
accounts are viewed as political acts.46

The Alternative of Explication47

Explication is a way of studying social practices which focuses on how we as agents
have been and continue to be engaged in those practices, and how we have
understood those practices in order to extract from the practice some inherent norm
which can serve as a guide for future practice. Explication is an intrinsically
historical activity precisely because a practice is an on-going event. If a practice
evolves, and ifthe norm that infonns the practice is implicit, then we should be able
to distinguish among and identify:

a. some originating or founding practice,

b. the understandings of that original practice,
c. the circumstances that prompt or demand the evolution of the
practice,
d. the process by which we extend our understanding of the
practice, and
e. the understandings of the process of (d).

Let us begin with the notion of an originating practice:

(a)What is the notion of an originating practice?

Neither philosophy nor history48 as disciplines are originating practices.
Practice always proceeds the account of that practice, as for example in the growth
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 409

of a natural language. Philosophy is a practice, but certainly not just the practice of
reading and commenting on other philosophers. No doubt, there are some
"professional" philosophers who do just that, but it would be circular and question-
begging to claim that this was all there was to the practice of philosophy. Certainly,
the first philosopher could not have read and commented on other philosophers.
Hence, there must be some more general and fundamental practice to which the
practice of philosophy is subordinate. That practice, or set of practices, are all of the
other things we have been doing. The originating practice or set of practices is
common life.

(b) How are we to understand the originating practice?

The practice is fundamental; the explication of a practice that appears in a
text is derivative. Practices are not texts. Texts or interpretations of texts do not
overrule practices but try to help us to understand the practice. The accuracy or
legitimacy of a text or written interpretation of a practice is by reference to how the
practitioners understand themselves.
Explication presumes that at least some of the time we can recapture the
original or earlier senses of a practice. This is what makes possible the
understanding of some historical texts. Sometimes the texts even help us to identify
the practices. The originating practice is to be understood by reference to the
explication that the original practitioners gave to their practice. Any critique of an
originating explication can only be by reference to another originating explication.
The originating explication that serves as the critique of all other
explications or interpretations is the authoritative explication. To identify an
explication as authoritative is to identify its role; to say that an interpretation is
authoritative is not to say that it is definitive; no explication is definitive precisely
because explication is an on-going activity. For convenience sake we shall refer to
the scholarly attempt to recapture the explication that the originating practitioners
gave to their practice as antiquarianism.
The claim that we can never recapture the original sense of a practice would,
from the point of view of explication, annihilate all subsequent understanding, i.e.,
lead to nihilism. If the claim is that there was an original sense but we cannot get it,
then the claim is self-contradictory for it presupposes that we know in some sense
what we cannot know in another sense. If this claim is that there was no authoritative
understanding of an originating practice then it is either (empirically) pointing to the
existence of conflicting understandings or (logically) denying the existence of
standards or norms internal to a. practice or set of practices. The empirical claim that
there are or have been conflicting understandings can never by itself establish that
there is no authoritative explication. It is always open to say that some of the
participants have missed the point of the practice. We do this all of the time.
The logical claim that there are no standards or norms internal to a given
practice cannot itself be understood or taken to be an intelligible remark unless there
is another more authoritative context of practices from which a subordinate practice
is being explained or condemned. The claim that all practice lacks an internal
standard is unintelligible or self-contradictory. Hence, there is always some
410 Chapter 11

authoritative context. 49 This is the first step towards understanding what philosophy
is all about.
From the point of view of explication, it is a mistake to explain a practice
or the interpretation of a practice by reference to an alleged substructure. The appeal
to substructure (which is an exploration) misses the original point of what it means
to understand ourselves. Any exploration must, in order to establish its own validity,
ultimately appeal to a conscious level explication. 50
Antiquarianism can itself be a critical enterprise. First, some practitioners
can be criticized for failing to see or to follow the implicit norms of a practice.
Second, any practice can be criticized by reference to a more fundamental practice
with which it might be in conflict. Third, the antiquarian might expose the existence
of conflicting practices, each of which is internally consistent, but which conflict
with each other in a way that cannot be resolved by appeal to a higher level practice.
The antiquarian can and does expose the errors of the past but not as a way of
exhibiting our personal superiority and greatness, but only in order to articulate better
the principles presupposed in the practices. Bennett is mistaken when he calls this
"parroting"Sl because the critical process is internal to the practice of explication, not
a wholly external perspective.
A fourth kind of "criticism" reveals a "conflict" between the norms internal
to an originating practice or set of practices and a later set of practices with in the
same culture. This is an important and meaningful kind of critique but it still
presupposes that there is an authoritative explication both of the originating practices
and the subsequent development of a set of practices in the tight of new
circumstances.
A fifth kind of "criticism" reveals a "conflict" between the norms internal
to a set of practices and another set of practices in a different culture. Again this
presupposes that there can be an authoritative explication of both cultures.

(c) How do we understand the circumstances that prompt an evolution in a practice

or set a/practices?
Every set of practices can confront novel circumstances (economic,
political, aesthetic, religious, legal, moral, etc.), including but not limited to
information that challenges preexisting beliefs. We are reminded that practice
always precedes the understanding of the practice, and that even artificially construed
practices are parasitic upon a background of practices that preceded the
understanding or articulation of those practices. The circumstances are novel in that
the originating practice always reflects or is always a practice within a particular
historical context. Agents within an originating practice are always reflecting upon
what they as practitioners in a specific set of circumstances have been doing. The
demand for a more universal articulation of the implicit norms or for a final and
definitive articulation of the norms can now be understood as part of the recognition
that the explication of the originating practice is never sufficient to address changing
circumstances.

(d) How do we understand the process by which we extend our understanding a/the
practice?
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 411

The nonns that infonn our practice cannot be applied deductively to the
novel circumstances. The relationship between the originating practices and the
novel circumstances is not logical but analogical. To extend the norm or to come to
understand it in a better way as a result of applying it to novel circumstances is an act
of moral (political, legal, etc.) insight that cannot be explained by reference to
anything else. 52 This is what is meant by saying that the pre-conceptual cannot be
conceptualized; this is what is meant by saying that no exploration can explain an
explication. The pre-conceptual cannot be conceptualized because thought is a
reflection upon practice; to believe that it is possible to conceptualize the pre-
conceptual is to see practice as the reflection of some thought where thought is
understood to be a picture of some structure, i.e., to see practice as informed by a
sub-structure. The application ofa nonn to novel circumstances requires a consensus
among the practitioners, and the cultural activity by which we work toward achieving
this consensus among practitioners is itself a practice infonned by norms of the
highest order.
Perhaps a helpful analogy would be with the common law. The law
certainly has to be rethought and restated in such a way as to be applicable in new
contexts. From the point of view of explication, it is bizarre to say that there is no
norm and that judges merely fabricate the law (we have already addressed this
possibility above in those who deny that there are norms); it would be equally bizarre
to say that earlier decisions are hypotheses about later and completely unanticipated
cases (thus making law a form of exploration); and it would also be bizarre to say
that there is a cunning in the law such that the changes in the law are progressively
moving toward a final closure (Hegelian).

(e) How do we account for the evolving meaning of our practices?

The account ofthe evolution of the explication of the norms inherent in a
practice or a set of practices is an historical account of the meaning of those nonns.
This is what constitutes an account of the historical meaning of philosophy. It
comprises (1) an antiquarian account of each stage of the process, (2) an account of
the novel historical circumstances which routinely might have had nothing directly
to do with philosophy, and (3) an account of the qualitative transformations of the
norm as it is applied to the novel historical circumstances. At each stage it requires
the capacity to discern the authoritative explications. Everything that we have said
already applies to this process of writing the history of philosophy. It is not possible
to transcend the past; we can move beyond it but only by first comprehending it and
taking it with us.
When such an account is used to justifY or to buttress the further extension
ofa norm to novel circumstances then we are engaged in philosophy per se. This is
what constitutes philosophy. If the extension is limited to a specific domain then we
are engaged in the philosophy of (e.g., mathematics, law, etc.). If the extension
requires consideration of the coherence of our entire common life or our most
fundamental norms then we are engaged in philosophy proper.
It is possible and useful to distinguish among (1) the activity of providing
the historical background, (2) the activity of making the extension, and (3) the
activity of using the historical background to justify the extension. It is not the
412 Chapter 11

activity of extending the norm that constitutes philosophy; it is providing the

understanding of that extension that constitutes philosophy. Philosophical
understanding is not the same thing as doing or making something; understanding
how something is done is not the same thing as successfully doing it; philosophy is
the performance of explaining the original performance with which it is not to be
confused. This is why philosophy is not like solving problems in science. This is
why philosophy ought not to be confused with rehearsing arguments.
Although it is possible to teach the standards of scholarship with regard to
the history of philosophy (I), it is not possible to construe the extension of the past
into the present (2), as a specifiable decision procedure. This is the element of truth
in the distinction between knowing the history of a practice and engaging in a
practice. It is nevertheless clear that the history of philosophy (1), is integral to
philosophy (3). One cannot do the latter without doing the former.
In order to engage in an extension (2) it is necessary to know the norms
implicit in a practice, and this will require some historical knowledge of the practice
or accepting some authoritative account of a practice. If one were engaged in
extending a norm in the law or in mathematics then one would need to know the
history of the law or the history of mathematics or accept some authoritative account
of those practices. It follows that if one were to engage in the extension of a norm
in the practice of philosophy then one would need some historical knowledge of
philosophy or some authoritative account of philosophy. Is it possible to provide an
authoritative account of any practice without implicitly appealing to the history of
that practice? We think not.

How do we explicate philosophy?

Philosophy is the explication of common life or a way of life. What we
have been doing since the time of the pre-Socratics is trying to explicate correctly all
of the practices of common life, no matter whether those practices are themselves
primarily practical or primarily intellectualY No doubt these activities or practices
of common life have changed and evolved over the centuries.
Philosophy is itself a meta-practice that explicates the explication of other
practices. This would explain why the explication of philosophy itself is always a
major part of philosophy and why philosophy is the most fundamental intellectual
practice. Philosophy necessarily involves the authoritative explication ofthe history
ofphilosophy. The object (its implicit norm) of such a meta-practice is to achieve
coherence among practices. This is a practical objective, not a theoretical one.

What does the explication ofhistorical philosophical texts tell us?

The explication ofhistorical philosophical texts can provide us with at least
fwe lessons which are in contrast to the fwe problems generated by exploration. The
first lesson that explication provides us with is insight into the practice of
philosophy. We do not start out with a clear idea of what philosophy is and then
decide whether certain texts are philosophical. Rather we begin with a collection of
texts and writers consensually denominated as philosophical and then try to extract
from those texts how the practice of philosophy has been. We may want, at some
time, to criticize some ofthose practices along lines indicated earlier, but it would be
 Analytic Philosophy And The History OfPhilosophy 413

impossible to condemn all of those practices at once. No practice can be judged by

norms external to the practice except when those norms are themselves recognized
as part of a more encompassing practice; but, as already argued, philosophy is the
most encompassing practice. The periodic need to remind ourselves of a framework
and the explication of that framework are the primary intellectual responsibilities of
philosophy.

The second lesson ofexplication tells us something about the intrinsic relationship
ofphilosophy to the history ofphilosophy.
Explication makes the past logically prior to the present and to the future.
To understand a concept we must (a) recapture the sense that agents had of the
original, or at least earlier, practice with which the concept was associated, and (b)
we must document the qualitative transformations the concept has undergone. The
historical transformations become part of the meaning or logic of the concept.
Exploration, by contrast, presupposes that the present context or the projected future
context is the correct one and that all of the past contexts were inadequate gropings
to get it right.
By making the past logically prior to the present, explicators are able to
identify the authoritative perspective from the point of view of which we discern the
authoritative rendering of an implicit norm. When explorers such as analytic
philosophers make the future prior to the present they are identifying the
authoritative perspective as the one on which all explorers will eventually agree. In
this way, explorers hope to avoid the nihilism that results from denying the existence
of all authoritative perspectives. However, the claim that the authoritative
perspective is the one on which we shall eventually agree is of no help to the
participants of the present unless accompanied by an implicit Hegelian thesis about
how the present is implicated in the future in ways that some explorers can identify.
In short, it is only the implicit Hegelianism of analytic philosophy that saves it from
nihilism, but it is that Hegelianism, as we have continually argued, that renders
analytic philosophy incoherent. 54
Explication involves antiquarianism, namely, the belief that some of the
time we can recapture the original or earlier senses of a practice. Ifwe can retell the
story correctly, then we can identify when another reader or interpreter is engaged
in anachronism. It is especially important in explication to expose anachronism.
This is partly why analytic history of philosophy seems especially pernicious. Since
it is only in the light of past practices and the consensus understanding of those
practices that we can be said to have problems, anachronism by its very nature
distorts the definition of problems.
This intrinsic relationship between philosophy and its history overcomes
misconceptions about whether there is a permanent set of philosophical "problems."
Clearly from one point of view we all recognize that there is something persistent or
something universal within the history of philosophy. Clearly from another point of
view it is often anachronistic to read into the past a "problem" from the present. The
confosion is caused by the idea that philosophy is concerned with "problems" as if
"problems" were somehow timeless. Perhaps it would be more useful to think in
terms of the perennial character of the problems rather than the problems being
414 Chapter J J

considered perennial. If instead of seeing philosophy as concerned with "problems"

we come to see philosophy as focused on practices, their evolution and their
exhibiting of universal norms, change and permanence are more easily reconciled.
"Problems" exist in a variety of senses: novel contexts, retrieving past explications,
the extension of the implicit norms of practice, etc. "Problems" are thus relative to
on-going practices. It does seem to us, however, critical to retain a ground for
universalism in the constancy of human nature.
If universal norms are embedded in practices. then the articulation of those
norms is always time-bound. There is no way of accessing or articulating the
universal truth without reference to historical context. It isfor this reason that the
history ofphilosophy is intrinsic to and indispensable to the practice ofphilosophy.
One cannot "do" philosophy without the history ofphilosophy.
There can be a persistent "problem" or set of problems within a particular
philosophical perspective, for example the modem naturalist perspective from within
which analytic philosophers operate. However, for those who do not share that
perspective, there is no such problem or perhaps there is a different problem. To
insist that there is a permanent set of problems is to impose one's perspective on all
of philosophy. This is precisely what analytic philosophy does to the history of
philosophy.
In denying that philosophy is a problem solving discipline, explicators deny
that philosophy is like science. 55 Philosophy, from the perspective of explication, is
a part of the humanities. Being a part of the humanities does not mean that
philosophy is focused exclusively on interpreting texts, rather philosophy is
concerned to identify the inherent norms of practices. Texts are vehicles, although
not the only ones, for getting at practices.

The third lesson of explication concerns who or what is to be read and why.
An author or a text is not philosophically important merely because we are
led to original and novel conclusions, that is, new explorations. Instead, it is
important if we come to understand what we already understood but in a different
and expanded way. In contrast to exploration, explication is not wedded to the "star"
system. In imitation of science and art, analytic philosophy conceives of a "star" as
someone who offers the great hypothesis. Explication, on the other hand, given its
familiarity with the larger background, is likely to recognize how much of an
author's work is borrowed from others or was "in the air." Originality, in
explication, is less prized than sensitivity to the wider contextual issues. Retracing
the path, which is integral to explication, uses authors' works as landmarks rather
than as storehouses of truth or mines to be explored. The social dimension of the
task of explication takes precedence over the notion of the lonely genius of
exploration.
We would identify the crucially influential thinkers as those who have
served to articulate key practices, who have articulated the conflicts engendered by
the interaction of these practices, and who have articulated the major attempts to
synthesize or reconcile these diverse practices. One thinks, for example, of
Augustine's integration of three formative cultures: Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; or
one thinks of the attempt of early modem philosophers to integrate science.
 Analytic Philosophy And The History OfPhilosophy 415

commercial economies, and ideas of representative government. The major works

of the Western intellectual tradition are identified as those which have thus
illuminated the human predicament, that is, those which have helped us to recognize
how and why we come to view certain situations as we do.
Focusing upon individual thinkers is the most effective way of recovering
the tradition and conveying a sense of its continuity. We could discuss either ideas,
texts, or individual thinkers. However, we do not see how ideas can be discussed
independently of the texts in which they are embodied or the individuals who
articulated them. How often are we told that we do not understand something
because we missed the "intended" meaning? Nor can it be fruitful to discuss texts
independent of the cultural context within which authors have worked and to which
they were themselves responding.
What we are trying to elicit are the implicit norms of a practice. Such
norms, designated by a concept, cannot be clarified apart from the practices and
individual explications of those practices. There are, in a sense, no concepts apart
from the understanding of those concepts on the part of agents. Hence we do not
have access to those concepts or what they reflect except through explication, either
our own or that of a previous thinker.
Some thinkers have been extremely important despite the fact that their
work does not survive in whole literary texts. Focusing on the author allows us, in
the examination of the cultural context, to convey the sense in which seminal
thinkers rely upon and presuppose the work of other thinkers. A focus on the
individual thinker will also display the integration of metaphysics, epistemology, and
ethics that is crucial to the Western tradition. Some writers have expressed this
integration in a more complex, subtle, insightful, rich, and influential way. This is
why we focus on them, without having to deny or denigrate the role played by other
thinkers.
Precisely because explication is rooted in practices beyond philosophy,
explication treats philosophy not as an end in itself but as a way of making sense of
our cultural life. This enables explicators to criticize earlier philosophers or each
other by relating any philosophy to common life.
Explication makes all philosophers in the dialogue equals. Some would
argue, for example, that Quine has much more to learn from Aristotle and Hegel than
they have to learn from him. To be sure, those who have lived later and have seen
the evolution of practices have some advantage, but coming later does not give one
privileged access to the norms embedded in earlier practices nor does it make one's
present explications of present practice valid. Moreover, our present explications
necessarily presuppose that earlier practices are linked with present practices and
have been correctly explicated. This reinforces our earlier contention that our
explications only make sense in the light of responses to earlier explications. Hence
we in the present are not in a privileged position and are, in fact, often dependent
upon earlier or historical explications. At the same time, we are not barred from
challenging any other explication by reference to practices. In short, explication puts
all philosophers, past and present, on an equal footing and makes the history of
philosophy an integral part ofphilosophy and not an ancillary activity.
416 Chapter J J

The fourth lesson ofexplication is how to read those designated texts.

You cannot understand what another philosopher says simply by looking
at alleged formal arguments. Even the attempt to identify those arguments requires
some knowledge of or familiarity with (a) the practices with which the thinker was
concerned; (b) previous explications, especially if known by the philosopher we are
trying to understand; (c) the cultural factors that led the philosopher under discussion
to engage in an explication. It is only, as R.G. Collingwood stressed, by reworking
through why a philosopher took something to be a problem and how he resolved it
that we come to understand both the philosopher and the problem. Another way of
making this point is to distinguish between what an authors says, which can
sometimes but not always be isolated within a text, and what an author is "doing" in
that text, where the "doing" has to be understood within the broader intellectual and
cultural context. This is an example of the Wittgensteinian point of how language
itself reflects a way of life or social practices. 56
Professional analytic philosophers tend, primarily, to read recent articles in
philosophy journals. Hence when they try to reconstruct the past they have a
tendency to project back into the past their current practice. So they tend to interpret
a philosopher by reference solely to the written work of other selected philosophers.
This is partly how the general cultural context is ignored. Thus, they exhibit the
implicit assumption that wholes emerge from parts, instead of parts as discernible
aspects of developed wholes, so that the general cultural context is to be constructed
by first understanding the individual philosophers.
Because practices (political, social, scientific, artistic, religious, etc.) have
evolved, we would look in vain for a permanent set of "problems" and "answers,"
or a definitive articulation of such problems and answers. We hasten to add that the
recognition that the pre-conceptual cannot be conceptualized but only explicated
presupposes and is perfectly compatible with the notion of enduring universal norms.
Precisely because the activities of common life are continuous, the later activities or
practices have to be understood by reference to the earlier practices. Borrowing from
Quine'S espousal of holism, we contend that present concepts cannot be understood
outside oftheir membership in a framework that includes the past. To privilege the
present is to subscribe to a by now discredited empiricism. Finally, if there are
universal truths they are thereby located only within a larger historically shaped
context.
In the same way, we as philosophers can recognize the continuity of our
explications with the explications of philosophers in previous historical periods. All
of the forces that dictate change and development in the practices of common life are
also the forces that dictate the need for fresh on-going explications. However, any
attempt to interpret this evolution as a progress to a fixed endpoint would be an
attempt to superimpose an all-inclusive exploration on explication. We have already
seen why no exploration can supersede all explications.
Understanding classic philosophic texts is not an end in itself. The purpose
of getting the story straight is to help in the extension of implicit norms to novel
circumstances. Explicators try to get the text right not because the history of
philosophy contains all the truth, but in order to deepen our understanding of the new
challenges we face by trying to see what in our past practice can be applied, either
 Analytic Philosophy And The History OfPhilosophy 417

with or without transformation, to new contexts. What is at issue is not the solution
of isolated conceptual problems but the coherence of our culturallife. s7 At the same
time, it is not possible to engage in meaningful critique without restating in a fresh
way the whole of the previous tradition. Consider, for example, Wittgenstein's
statement about his debt to the previous tradition:

I think there is some truth in my idea that I only think

reproductively. I don't believe I have ever invented a line of
thinking, I have always taken one over from someone else. S8

Building further on the analogy with the common law, there would be no
closure to the history of philosophy as explication, that is, no one is going to write
the final and definitive account. There can be no closure because the explication of
the past cannot be final as long as new contexts require us to rethink our past
practices and ways in which they can be adapted to the new contexts. Any history
is always the study of how human beings have tried to carry over what they regard
as important in their modes of action to new situations. The history of philosophy
is then always alive and fresh.
It is important to stress the difference between what open-ended means for
explication as opposed to what it means for exploration. Explication presupposes
that we can have and must seek interpretive fidelity. Moreover, interpretive fidelity
can be and even ought to be combined with reconstruction into a later or present
idiom in order to give us a deeper understanding as well as practical benefits.
Exploratory reconstruction into a present idiom done in ignorance of interpretive
fidelity may be and do many things, but it does not give us a deeper understanding.
It is important to distinguish among (a) rewriting the past in order to fit a
contemporary orthodoxy, (b) telling the past like it was in order to see what does and
does not fit with the present, (c) allowing the past to challenge a contemporary
orthodoxy as well as confronting the philosophical significance of what does not fit,
and (d) extending the past into a present novel context so that the past gains clearer
meaning, and (e) extending the past into the present in order to illuminate our
outlook into the future. What explication does is to eschew (a) and to embrace (b),
(c), (d) and (e).

The fifth lesson ofexplication concerns dealing with alternative readings ofthe same
texts.
Explication is concerned not only with the original text but with the
subsequent history of the interpretation of the text. Explicators are much more
concerned than analytic historians of philosophy to map their interpretations onto the
interpretations of previous explicators. Why? Knowledge of the evolving discussion
of an historical text instantiates the contention of explication that new contexts
require us to rethink our past practices and how they can be adapted to the new
contexts.
Prior explications are always important because a consensus emerges either
on the authoritative explication or the exposure of major conflicts among the
embedded norms. We can, by the way, agree on the authoritative explication
418 Chapter 11

(antiquarian) of previous thinkers without necessarily agreeing on the further

application of the norm. At the same time, there can be norms to the practice of
agreeing on how to disagree about other practices.
Explication also takes the "We Do" perspective in which the importance of
a text depends upon how it illuminates our practices, including the practice of
interpreting texts. Other interpreters are part of the "We." Getting agreement on the
practice of interpreting texts is as important as getting agreement on any other social
practice. The whole point of explication is to extract norms for future practice. The
interpretation of a philosophical text is not an isolated intellectual activity.
These points seem to be as necessary to the internal dialogue of the analytic
community as to any other community. From the point of view of explicators, one
of the objections to the epistemological individualism of analytic philosophy is that
it fails to take note of the social framework and consequences of intellectual activity.
This provides a clue as to why analytic philosophers have such difficulty
understanding themselves and their own history. Whereas analytic history of
philosophy sees a diversity of previous explorations, explicatory history of
philosophy sees an evolving discussion.

Explication vs. Exploration

Analytic advocates of exploration charge that explication is, charitably understood,
really an exploration in disguise. That is, explorers charge that explicators are
actually offering an exploratory hypothesis about philosophy and its history. In
making this charge, explorers like Rosenthal maintain that:

Describing issues in historicist terms is therefore typically idle;

historicist arguments can generally be readily reconstrued as
direct, ahistorical arguments about the merits of the case. 59

This charge is easily rebutted and points to a more important point. To

translate an explication into an exploration becomes problematic because there are
alternative translations or explorations. There is no way to choose among the
alternatives without a consensus explication. Hence, there are some explications that
cannot in principle be treated as explorations. Therefore, it is not possible to
reconstruct historical explications as purely ahistorical arguments. 60 The issue is not
whether we can translate adequately past ideas into present conceptual frameworks;
rather the issue is that present conceptual frameworks cannot be understood apart
from their historical development. The reason that 'past' ideas can be translated into
'present' frameworks is that 'present' frameworks are historically impregnated or
they are supplemented with covert ad hoc explications that reflect past developments.
It is bizarre to treat historical philosophical texts as hypotheses about current
problems. Finally it should be clear that this dispute about the history of philosophy
exemplifies in a powerful way the issue of whether the pre-theoretical can be
conceptualized.
Let us now confront the key objection that exploration makes about
explication. According to the analytic protagonists of exploration, explicators must
pick or claim to have identified "key" practices and that this identification ultimately
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 419

relies upon an intuition about practice. That is, advocates of exploration implicitly
deny that there can be an authoritative explication.
The defenders of explication respond by claiming that there is no coherent
alternative. It is true that one cannot deduce from past explications a present
explication; on the other hand, we can find analogies among past, present, and future
practice, analogies that reflect persistent and enduring norms. It is impossible for
explorers to deny this because they themselves must engage in this practice ifthey
are to make what they do intelligible.
Explicators do pick and choose from historical texts, but they can do so
without ignoring or denying the author's own architectonic. To ignore the author's
architectonic is (a) to run the risk of committing the fallacy of affirming the
consequent, (b) to intrude the framework of the social sciences upon the humanities,
and (c) to fail to gain one of the great benefits of studying the thoughts of others,
namely, liberation from our own prejudices.
Explicators can even take seriously historical figures who denied the
relevance of history (e.g., Descartes or Quine). Explication itself can illuminate the
non-explicatory elements within a previous philosophy. Those who take explication
to be fundamental can recognize that even analytic philosophers are still
philosophers, whereas analytic philosophers who conceive ofphilosophy exclusively
as exploration would refuse to grant that explicators are philosophers. Whereas
analytic history of philosophy is forced to deny the particular author's own
architectonic, explication accommodates that architectonic within the larger
framework of explication even where that architectonic was not explicatory.
Some kind of historical account is more crucial than the issue of conflicting
accounts of individual philosophers. Analytic philosophy needs a history of
philosophy. In the wake of the 'Kantian Turn' and the emphasis on exploration, all
philosophical reflection must begin with previous understandings before searching
for or speculating about hidden structure. Hence, analytic philosophers need to
engage in the historical reconstruction of philosophy itself.
Analytic philosophy also requires some view of the history of philosophy
in its struggle with rival conceptions of philosophy. Analytic philosophy wishes to
present itself as the legitimate heir to the philosophical tradition. By construing the
history of philosophy as the exploration of explorations it seemingly achieves both
objectives.
Analytic philosophy cannot deny its own continuity with past philosophy
without prompting the question of what justification there would be in calling
analytic philosophy "philosophy." The term 'philosophy' is five thousand years old,
and it would therefore be ludicrous to claim that philosophy only came into existence
in 1914! The onus is clearly on analytic philosophers to establish their legitimacy
as part of the philosophic heritage. This is an important philosophical issue about
identity.61 Even if one believed that it were possible to transcend the history of
philosophy and that we could eventually enter a post-historical period in
philosophizing, one is still intellectually obliged to offer an account of this
transcendence. Such an account would have to take the history of philosophy
seriously.
420 Chapter 11

For analytic philosophy the only solution would be either to present the
whole truth or to establish the truth of a grand exploratory hypothesis about the
history of philosophy. Clearly, analytic philosophy is not in a position to present the
whole truth. What's more, analytic philosophy is not in a position to establish the
truth ofa grand exploratory hypothesis about the history ofphilosophy.
There are several important reasons for this. The first is that we have no way
to judge among rival explorations. The second is that in order for there to be a grand
exploratory hypothesis something like a fairly complete scientific world view would
have to be in place. The third reason is that we would need to have achieved
something like a consensus solution to the specific "problems" of analytic
philosophy. If we had the latter, we could systematically review and rewrite the
history of ph ilosophy as a progressive enterprise. One could even envisage a quasi-
Marxist materialist account of philosophical developments as historical and cultural
phenomena.
The best course of action available to analytic historians of philosophy is to
offer further, or supplementary, exploratory hypotheses about why rival conceptions
of philosophy and the history of philosophy are unacceptable to them. However, if
they did this, in the light of the fact that there is no way to establish the objective
validity of an exploration, then such supplementary explorations would be
indistinguishable from ad hominem arguments 62 or genetic explanations or the
sociology of knowledge. All of these latter kinds of explanations are rejected by
analytic philosophers themselves. Hence, the only prudent course of action is to
ignore the critics of analytic history of philosophy and the practitioners of explication
and/or to exclude them from the discussion.
If we were to remain solely within the analytic philosophical framework
what we would find are competing or rival explorations. It will not do to rest content
with the claim that rival explorations within the analytic history of philosophy are a
welcome plurality of hypotheses since this still excludes explication and begs the
,]uestion of how we are to choose at some other level among the explorations.
\1oreover, some notion of historical continuity is requisite for the analytic enterprise
-,ven if it is only the notion of ultimately transcending history. If some sort of notion
If historical continuity is integral, then at some point analytic philosophy and the
lIlalytic history of philosophy must establish that some version of the analytic
I istory of philosophy is the correct one. It is not at all clear how in analytic terms
his is possible.
From the point of view of explication, the meaning of what we are doing
lepends upon our understanding of our past history and how we relate to it. The
"iew of the history of philosophy that finally prevails will determine which view of
lhilosophy prevails. This follows from the contention that the whole point of
'xplication is to extract norms from past practice in order to guide future practice.
Alternative histories of philosophy reflect, here, alternative philosophies of
he history of philosophy. Alternative philosophies of the history of philosophy
cflect competing conceptions of philosophy. Do we have a forum for understanding
nd evaluating competing conception of philosophy? Explicators would argue that
. e do have a common forum, the explication of past practice; and therefore that the
!story of philosophy is a vital as well as an integral and not merely instrumental part
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 421

of the enterprise. 63 That is why getting the story straight means so much more to
explicators.
We come now to the classic objection that explication would make of
exploration. Exploration is a philosophically limited and question-begging mode of
intellectual activity. A fundamental claim that we have made throughout this book
on behalf of explication is that it is intellectually or logically prior to exploration.
What this means is that (a) explorations are themselves intelligible only against the
background of consensus explications of what "we" have been doing, that (b) rival
explorations can be judged only against a background of consensus explications of
what "we" have been doing, that (c) no explication can be rejected on the basis of
some exploration, and that (d) no practice can be delegitimated except by appeal to
a consensus explication of some more fundamental or encompassing practice. We
offer the contention that without at least an implicit explication students could not be
introduced to analytic philosophy, for they would then be only introduced to
techniques that would turn out to be mere rituals of which they did not see the point.
Without the past, i.e., without explication and without the authoritative
perspective that the past provides, exploration would degenerate into or provoke
nihilism. Once analytic philosophy takes the 'Kantian Turn' and recognizes that a
fact is a fact only from a particular background perspective, then it must address the
issue of what constitutes the authoritative perspective. The authoritative perspective
cannot be the future on which we all shall agree since such a perspective is Hegelian.
The Hegelian resolution is (a) incompatible with the professed view of analytic
philosophy, and (b) would in any case require an historical synthesis that analytic
philosophers are unable and/or unwilling to provide.
It might be suggested, at this point, that perhaps analytic philosophy is itself
an explication which points to scientific practice as the superordinate practice in our
communal life. That is, suppose one were to argue that the practice of philosophy
is subordinate to the practice of science, so that what analytic philosophy is doing is
transcending all previous philosophy and correcting it by appeal to a superordinate
practice.
If this were seriously suggested as an explication, it would be rejected out
of hand as false. In the first place, it is simply not true that scientific practice has
been the continuously superordinate practice of Western civilization. Analytic
philosophers know enough about past history to know that this is not true. In fact,
they have always presented scientism as a later development, a revolutionary
development, as a teleological end-point rather than something that has always been.
Part of the mythology of analytic philosophy is the notion of a long march to
scientism against all kinds of cultural obstacles. Scientism has to be the hidden
structure and previously obscured endpoint rather than the commonly agreed upon
starting point.
In the second place, even if we were to concede for the sake of argument
that scientific practice was the superordinate practice, we would still require a
consensus explication of scientific practice itself. This is what analytic philosophy
of science and the analytic history of science have failed to provide. This is exactly
why historical studies, beginning with but certainly not limited to Kuhn and
Feyerabend. have proved to be so embarrassing. Moreover. analytic philosophy of
422 Chapter II

science, as we saw in Chapter Two, can only provide, at best, an exploration of

scientific practice; and when this exploration is challenged, then it can provide at
best an exploratory account of the history of science to buttress the original
exploration. Unfortunately, again, as we saw, the second (i.e., historical) exploration
failed to support the first exploration even on analytic philosophy's own terms.
In the third place, the critics of analytic philosophy would maintain that a
proper explication of scientific practice would show that practical concerns are
superordinate to science itself. To the extent that analytic philosophy thinks it might
be giving an explication, its explications would be false. At the same time we urge
the view that even a false explication is at least a coherent intellectual activity.
Refusal to face this serious charge, namely that analytic philosophy presents a false
explication of the history of philosophy, along with the refusal to take seriously non-
analytic readings of the history of philosophy, reinforces the suspicion that when
analytic philosophers teach the history of philosophy and the history of science they
are rewriting history in order to fabricate a pre-ordained consensus.
How do proponents of explication see proponents of exploration? An
explication of exploration, especially as found in analytic philosophy, would show
its intellectual origins in certain scientific practices beginning in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries and the attempt to extend those practices to contexts outside a
narrow range of scientific activity. The larger cultural context would make reference
to the attempt to treat moral, social, and political problems emerging in the
eighteenth century as if they were technical problems within science (i.e., the
Enlightenment Project). Many of the critics of analytic philosophy would argue that
philosophy is part of a larger social practice, that, specifically, philosophy is an
attempt to explicate ourselves as social, historical, agents. This is precisely why the
context of explanation of important historical texts must or might include the entire
cultural background. Science itself might be part of that cultural context, but science
itself is a subordinate practice within a general sustaining culture.
If analytic history of philosophy is not any kind of explication but
irremediably exploratory, and if all explorations require an anchoring explication,
then that leaves us with three possibilities. The first possibility is that analytic
historians of philosophy must offer an explication whose acceptance or rejection will
determine the fate of analytic history of philosophy. It is to be hoped that this book
serves as a challenge to produce that explication. The problem remains, however,
that ifthe task of defining philosophy is itselfthe logically prior philosophical task,
and if that task can only be accomplished through explication, then exploration
cannot be the fundamental cognitive activity. Moreover, if the explication is
intrinsically historical, then philosophy and its history cannot be separated. If so,
then analytic philosophy as a program is undone.
The second possibility is to admit that analytic philosophy is an unanchored
set of explorations, that such an unanchored set amounts to an eliminative version of
thinking. Analytic philosophy is then a revolutionary intellectual (perhaps with
practical implications) movement that should announce its radical disassociation with
the past and face the consequences of such a disassociation. 64 Such a revolutionary
stance is inherently incoherent.
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 423

The third possibility is to recognize that the only coherent (though not
necessarily correct) way to combine unanchored explorations that claim to reflect a
realist structure with an historical account that claims to be progressive or
teleological is to embrace Hegelian Absolute Idealism. We would need some
philosophy about how we are all going to see the truth in the end. Once more, we
repeat our claim that analytic philosophy can avoid its metaphysical impasses only
by accepting the very Hegelianism whose rejection initiated its conception.

Analytic History of Philosophy and the History of Analytic Philosophy

Given what we has been said in the previous examination of how analytic history of
philosophy approaches the history of philosophy in general, what would we expect
to find in the ways analytic philosophers take to their own history?
First, there are no official histories of analytic philosophy. 65 By this is
meant that there are no histories of analytic philosophy written by major analytic
philosophers and accepted as canonical by other analytic philosophers. Aside from
treatments of specific analytic philosophers, treatments of specific problems that
make reference to some historical material, as well as several accounts of positivism,
we have received no single treatment of the history of analytic philosophy as a
whole. The reasons for this should be obvious. The most prized form of intellectual
activity among analytic philosophers is exploration and the most despised is
explication. Allan Wood believes that:

[Russell's] lack of systematic philosophical education was an

advantage, and nothing can do more to stultify original thinking
than a thorough knowledge of past philosophers acquired too early
in life. 66

Hence, it is highly unlikely that a mind that prizes exploration and denies the
fundamental value of explication would offer an explication of itself! Again, for
reasons that we have already detailed, analytic philosophers deny the value of
historical (i.e., temporal and developmental) accounts of ideas.

One sure way to kill a cultural movement is to write its history ..

. . We are all understandably reluctant to see ourselves as
belonging to an era whose time has past, ... the natural desire to
make recognizable contributions will lead most to be cautious
about disregarding the debates of the day.67

From the point of view of analytic practitioners they do not think that they
need to know how analytic philosophy or any of its doctrines, problems, or solutions
relate to earlier movements in the history of philosophy or to culture as a whole
except in a vaguely progressive way. Subscribing as they do to an atemporal logic
which denies that historical transformations of a concept are part of its meaning, the
problems can be approached and are perhaps best approached from a seemingly
timeless or historically and culturally innocent perspective. All of the analytic
arguments for why an historically important author's own architectonic is best
424 Chapter 11

ignored can be extended to why the whole history of analytic philosophy as a

movement is best ignored. Even when they concede the 'Kantian Turns,' that is even
when they concede that historical background factors influence the formation of a
hypothesis, they still believe that the confirmation ofthe hypothesis will allow them
ultimately to transcend the past.
Another point to keep in mind is that being an analytic historian of
philosophy is a lower status than being an active analytic philosopher. Little
incentive is proffered to remain seriously focused as an analytic historian of
philosophy, and a lot of pressure to try to combine analytic history of philosophy
with more active analytic exploration. As already indicated in the previous section,
the analytic history of philosophy in general serves ancillary functions. Even when
analytic historians generate new explorations out of old, the other analytic
philosophers who are not historically focused believe that they can just borrow those
explorations. In any case, the pressure to do something more "professional" with
history means that when analytic philosophers treat particular individuals within their
own history they are not concerned to explicate even those individuals but to
cannibalize them.
For those outside analytic philosophy, additional reasons are seen for not
writing a history of analytic philosophy. To write a serious history of analytic
philosophy from within analytic philosophy would be to admit that there is a
developmental movement. To admit a movement distinct from other movements
within contemporary philosophy is both to invite comparison, and hence debate, with
other philosophical movements and to raise questions of greater or lesser historical
continuity between the history of philosophy in general and any contemporary
movement. In short, at one and the same time, analytic philosophy claims to be heir
to the tradition but refuses to discuss that to which it means to be the heir. The
question of historical continuity is one that analytic philosophers prefer not to discuss
openly. Analytic historians of philosophy have no grand synthesis of the history of
philosophy that they are willing to express and defend openly, and as yet no way of
objectively establishing any exploration from within the analytic perspective. The
question of debating the relative merits of analytic philosophy as compared to its
rivals is one that presumably has to be discussed in neutral or at least non-analytic
terms. Analytic philosophers are neither prepared nor willing to do that. Even
thinking about entering such a debate would require a knowledge of and a
sympathetic understanding of other traditions, i.e., explications and not analytic
translations of those views. Hypothesis exploration is of little use here. Moreover,
once someone is convinced of the lack of intrinsic value of alternative views, it is
difficult to justify spending time on this sort of thing.
Second, there are no analytically canonical accounts of major analytic
philosophers. 68 To the extent that analytic philosophers take their own historical
forefathers seriously what they offer is an exploration of those philosophers and their
texts. In fact, when they read each others' texts their readings are further
explorations of what they take to be analytic philosophical explorations. Hence, non-
analytic philosophers would accuse analytic philosophers of distorting the work even
of earlier analytic philosophers or of each other in precisely the same way that
analytic philosophers have distorted the entire history of philosophy.
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 425

Let us take some examples of the distortion of the history of analytic

philosophy by analytic philosophers. The first example is Michael Dummett's
treatment of Frege. According to Dummett, Frege is "the fountain-head of analytical
philosophy, rather than supposing it to have begun with Russell, or with
Wittgenstein, or with the Vienna Circle."69
What can be said about Dummett's interpretation of Frege? It is a curious
example of how the analytic "history" of analytic philosophy is written. What we
find is the imposition upon Frege of an architectonic that reflects the world view of
analytic philosophy and not the way the philosopher-author viewed himself. We
have, for example, argued that Frege was a Platonist, not a modem Aristotelian in the
analytic sense, and hence his technical interests, achievements, and failures are not
a direct part of the history of analytic philosophy. In his book on Frege, Hans Sluga
has made a powerful case against Dummett's distortion of Frege. Sluga maintains:
(1) that we have no evidence that Frege "ever read the logical writings of Aristotle,"7o
(2) that Frege was opposed to scientific naturalism,?) (3) that Frege's realism was
different from Russell's and Moore's,72 (4) that Frege's sense-reference distinction
applies to whole sentences and not sentence parts so that analytic philosophy has
misunderstood it,?3and (5) that there is a non-empirical basis in Frege to all empirical
knowledge. 74
Sluga makes the following general point about Dummett's treatment of
Frege:

Michael Dummett's extensive discussion of Frege and the

philosophy of language can serve as a paradigm for the failure of
analytic philosophers to come to grips with the actual, historical
Frege .... What [Dummett] says turns out to be motivated more
by his own search for an anti-realist theory of meaning than by the
wish to uncover the real historical significance of Frege's
writings. 75

Arguably, the most important figure in the history of analytic philosophy

is Wittgenstein. Two points are worth noting about the "historical" treatment of
Wittgenstein. At one time it was fashionable to view him as the connecting thread
between positivism and ordinary language analysis. We have maintained, on the
contrary, that ordinary language philosophy was not the natural analytical successor
to positivism but a dead end. We have also charged that ordinary language
philosophy misconstrued Wittgenstein. Indeed, the author of the investigations is
engaged in a massive repudiation of analytic philosophy.76 That the rejection should
come from its most brilliant advocate is something that analytic philosophers either
pass over in silence or attribute to Wittgenstein's "personal problems". To be sure
some of Wittgenstein's arguments are attacked, but the architectonic of
Wittgenstein's repudiation is ignored.
An example of such a "reconstruction" ofWittgenstein is to be found in the
work of Peter Carruthers. 77 Carruthers attempts to reconstruct the Tractatus,
independent of its continental background and in conformity with Dummett's reading
of Frege. According to Carruthers, the principle of "fidelity to the text itself ... is
426 Chapter J J

not absolute", but must be supplemented by the principle of charity, "which enjoins
us to maximize the interest of the text .... "78 If there are two interpretations such
that one is "consistent with all of the author's claims" but uninteresting, and a second
one that is incompatible with the text but interesting, then Carruthers would prefer
the latter. 79 Along the way, Carruthers manages to dismiss the influence of
Schopenhauer on Wittgenstein on the grounds that the evidence is merely
"anecdotal."8o Carruthers discounts Wittgenstein's own claim that the main point of
the Tractatus was an ethical one as "certainly an exaggeration, understandable in a
letter to a prospective publisher";81 Carruthers claims that when Wittgenstein wrote
his later works he may not have "understood or had the measure of his earlier way
ofthinking";82 and, finally, Carruthers asserts that "it is sometimes said of works of
literature that their authors are the last people to understand them, or to be trusted to
interpret them: I suspect that this may be more true of TLP than of any other work
in philosophy."83
Third, there are no historically "great" analytic philosophers.84 As we saw
in the previous section, to be a "great" historical figure is to suggest an exploratory
hypothesis that is the foundation of current work. Although there is a consensus on
why there must be exploratory thinking and why those explorations must be
consistent with scientism, modern Aristotelianism, and an anti-agency view of the
self, there is no consensus on which explorations are the most promising. In fact,
there are rival explorations. To some, such variety seems to be a virtue, but to others
this is symptomatic of a fatal defect in exploratory thinking. There is, as we have
maintained, no way yet to choose among rival explorations. Hence, there is no way
of telling who has the inside track on truth. Therefore, there is no way to tell as of
yet which analytic philosopher or philosophers will turn out to be the truly great
ones. Some analytic authors acquire devoted followers, but such devotion is never
taken as a sign in itself of anything philosophically serious by other analytic
philosophers.

Philosophical discussions add little to our knowledge or

understanding if we measure such progress by whether adherents
of one position are converted to another. But from the perspective
of a particular school ... such discussions often lead to substantial
advances. . .. Rival research programs typically seem relatively
sterile to one another .... 85

Fourth, analytic philosophy has no canonical texts. Obviously there are

some texts and some authors that are generally known. Nevertheless, the texts have
not become canonical, and for much the same reason that the authors have not. The
realist orientation of analytic philosophy focuses attention on what is believed to be
the objective structure of the world, not on what people have thought about the
world. Texts are important if they suggest hypotheses to be explored, but if the text
is opaque or no longer generating novel exploratory hypotheses then spending time
on that text or its exegesis is either pointless or a lower level of inteIlectual activity
unbecoming to analytic philosophy. There will be periodic but temporary flurries of
interest about one text and then another (Compare, for example reading lists in major
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 427

analytic graduate schools over the past four decades). What does not emerge from
the flurries of interest is any consensus about the permanent value of a particular text.
One of the paradoxes of the analytic conception of the history of philosophy
is that although analytic philosophers do not provide a history of analytic philosophy
they all do come to hold an historical view about how analytic philosophy has
superseded the past. Despite the lack of an accepted history, the teleological
conception of the history of analytic philosophy is evident in the way courses are
taught, in informal statements, in asides that appear in published works, and in
conversations and discussions of various professional evaluative committees.
Analytic texts "do" something other than or in addition to what they "say" they are
doing. One of the consequences ofthis is that individual analytic philosophers come
to adopt the same attitude toward the work of earlier analytic philosophers. That is,
the latest analytic work frequently presents itself stylistically as superseding and
transcending all previous analytic work. Previous work then appears as erroneous
and as dry a well as the traditional canon of Western philosophy. Hence, some of the
same reasons that lead to a disinterest in the history of philosophy reinforce a
disinterest in analytic history. Besides, except in some general pedagogical sense of
learning from past mistakes, what good would it do for analytic philosophers to
document and remind themselves offailure after failure within analytic philosophy?
It is much easier to dismiss or to disown the failures on the grounds that nobody
believes that anymore. 86
Curiously, the failure to provide a history of itself that is open to public
review and the failure to identify a definitive cannon is seen by many analytic
philosophers as living proofthat analytic philosophy is not a movement or a doctrine.
On the other hand, the critics of analytic philosophy see this lack as symptomatic of
analytic thought's loss of philosophical consciousness, the rhetorical attempt to
immunize the movement from criticism, and as evidence of the inability of analytic
philosophy to establish how one exploration is superior to another exploration.
Fifth, analytic philosophy has adopted the habit ofpresenting itself in the
form of a perpetual new beginning. From the time of the "Positivist Manifesto" to
the present, analytic philosophers have adopted a revolutionary progressive self-
image. 87 As the early Rorty put it:

Linguistic philosophy, over the last 30 years, has succeeded in

putting the entire philosophical tradition, from Parmenides through
Descartes and Hume to Bradley and Whitehead, on the defensive.
It has done so by a careful and thorough scrutiny of the ways in
which traditional philosophers have used language in the
formulation of their problems. This achievement is sufficient to
place this period among the great ages of the history of
philosophy.88

It is an abdication of responsibility to keep claiming that one is engaged in a

revolution but not to give a canonical account of the revolution. Moreover, such an
account will have to be developmental, because the notion of constant revolution is
indistinguishable from anarchy. Although analytic philosophy believes itself to be
428 Chapter 11

a progressive movement it does not produce any generally accepted account

documenting its own progress. As a consequence, the history of analytic philosophy,
to the extent that it is mentioned, is bound to be misrepresented or presented in
ideological terms by its own practitioners.
The changes in the views of individual analytic philosophers and shifts
within analytic philosophy itself (e.g., the 'Kantian Turns') are not taken by analytic
philosophy to have philosophical import or as revealing something about the
historical nature of thought. The shifts are taken merely as the substitution of one
hypothesis for another, or as anomalies, or as embarrassments to be ignored. No
notion appears that something significant might be learned from the shifts. One
apparent exception to this appears to be the widespread repudiation of positivism by
later analytic philosophers. However, a closer look reveals that what is being
rejected is the naive empiricism of positivism. What is happening is that the
expression 'analytic philosophy' is being used by some to cover a set of exploratory
hypotheses that are no longer fashionable within analytic philosophy. The search for
new exploratory hypotheses is taken as a significant break without consideration of
the fact that exploring hypotheses is precisely what ties all of these people together
as well as the continuing commitment to scientism, modem naturalist realism, and
an anti-agency view of the self.89 Precisely because they do not see the present as an
evolution out of the past, analytic philosophers cannot see the continuity between
positivism and the exploratory mode of analytic philosophy.
It is inconsistent to claim at one and the same time that any history of
analytic philosophy got the story wrong and that there is no story because there is no
analytic philosophy.90 One can only get the story wrong ifthere is a story to tell. If
there is a story then there is analytic philosophy. Finally, in the absence of a
canonical history of analytic philosophy it would be inconsistent for analytic
philosophers to become indignant with any proffered account of the history of
analytic philosophy on the grounds that such a history has incorrectly interpreted
either the intention or architectonic of a particular analytic philosopher and/or the
movement as a whole. In the absence of a canonical account of analytic philosophy,
we have no way to identify who is and who is not at the core; we cannot fault any
critique of analytic philosophy by claiming that it has chosen "unrepresentative"
figures. Finally, since, on our account, analytic philosophers themselves believe in
speCUlative exploratory hypotheses about the hidden structure in the works of other
philosophers they cannot object to anyone who claims that there is an architectonic
to the work of analytic philosophers. Analytic philosophy has diffiCUlty
understanding itself because it lacks an historical sense and a clear idea of how its
own debates have emerged. The only way in which it can become self-conscious is
by writing its own history. In so doing it will come to see that the history of
philosophy is intrinsically a part of philosophy.

Summary
We summarize our argument as follows:
1. If analytic philosophers were to come to understand the meaning of
explication, then they would see that most of the previous history of
Western philosophy was engaged in an enterprise different from and at odds
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 429

with analytic philosophy. Specifically, they would see that scientism,

naturalist realism of the mechanistic variety, and an anti-agency view of the
self have been persistent objects of scorn and attack. 91
2. Analytic philosophy is thus not the natural heir to the Western
philosophical tradition.
3. Forced to defend itself, analytic philosophy would have to provide either
an historical or ahistorical account of itself;
a. there is no ahistorical account available;
b. to offer any historical account would show that analytic
philosophy cannot understand itself except as an historical
product, but this would contradict the very nature of analytic
philosophy;
c. only Hegel can rescue analytic philosophy, but that too is a form
of intellectual death for analytic philosophy.
The history of analytic philosophy is the Achilles' heel of analytic
philosophy. This is not surprising given what we have seen throughout about the
inability of analytic philosophy to deal with the problem of self-reference. No
human practice, including philosophy, is intelligible apart from its cultural history.
430 Chapter II

NOTES (CHAPTER 11)

1. Frankena (1983), p. 580.

2. Macintyre (1984), 39-40.

3. For a counter-argument that stresses how temporality is essential to being

and therefore the study of former reflection is essential to self-
understanding.see Dupre (1987) and (1989).

4. Quine (1960), 172.

5. "There are human enterprises and cognitive pursuits where the

consideration of logical structures is of little significance, where the
consideration of other types of structural patterns may be more important,
such as, for instance, that of temporal and evolving structures. Inquiry
which is directed towards such enterprises and cognitive pursuits has
profited little from the new logic. In some cases preoccupation with that
logic has actually led to a decline in the quantity and quality of such
inquiry. In philosophy that is clearly evident in the study of the history of
philosophy and the philosophical study of history ... " Sluga (1984),353.

6. For an interesting and informative discussion of the relation between

'historicism' and 'psychologism' and its relevance to other features of
analytic philosophy see Mandelbaum (1967).

7. Not all forms of realism need necessarily involve an ahistorical perspective.

Hegel, for example, is a realist with an historical perspective. We have
already had an opportunity to comment on the inability of analytic
philosophy to see idealism as a form of realism because analytic philosophy
has a tendency to confuse idealism with phenomenalism.
There are others who embrace a form of realism but who claim not
to be analytic. This view has recently been articulated by Jorge Gracia
(1988). Gracia maintains a distinction between philosophy and the history
of philosophy such that the "history of philosophy is not necessary for
philosophy, although it is very useful for it" (p.92). The reason that the
history of philosophy is not necessary is that "philosophers have
traditionally interpreted their task as the discovery of truth" (p. 103), and
"the product of philosophy understood as discipline consists of a
comprehensive, consistent, and accurate view of the world ... without regard
to provenance or time" (pp. 104-05). Consequently, "the philosopher qua
philosopher does not need to refer to the history of philosophy, its actors,
and/or its ideas" (p. 107). The history of philosophy is instrumentally
valuable insofar as it "furnishes diverse formulations of positions and
arguments that facilitate the philosopher's task. In many instances it may
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 431

supply the solution or the seeds of the solution that the philosopher was
looking for, or it may show that certain views are over simplistic, or that
certain arguments are unsound" (p. 108). This is the same volume in which
the comments by Bennett to which we shall refer later appeared. Hare, the
editor, describes Gracia's argument as "the most sustained discussion of
philosophical historiography in this volume" (p. 15). Gracia has repeated
this view in (1992): " ...to do history of philosophy is not to do philosophy .
. .to do history of philosophy is not even a requirement of doing
philosophy" (p. 334).

8. Hacking (1984), p. 110.

9. "To achieve the kind of liberation from particular historical circumstances

for which philosophers have craved, we must know the matrix from which
ideas arise, and in order to surmount our prejudices and biases we must
flesh them out" Gracia (1992), p. 334.

10. Gabbey (1987), 16. See also L. Cohen (1986).

11. "In papers from the beginning of the 1930s Carnap occasionally wrote (with
a Marxist accent) of physicalism as an expression of "scientific
materialism", and saw in it the crown of a development in which the names
of Copernicus, Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud marked earlier
milestones. Physicalism was, in other words, presented as the completion
of an intellectual development through which man was transformed into an
element of the natural chain ofthings and events, and the supernatural was
eliminated" Wedberg (1984), p. 222. See also the list of historically
important individuals cited in the positivist manifesto.

12. Quine (1979). See also Rorty (1984): "So far I have been suggesting that
the history of philosophy differs only incidentally from the history of one
of the natural sciences" (p. 56). See also Lepenies (1984), p. 157: " .. .is not
the history of Western philosophy the story of its weakening domination of
disciplines, first of the natural sciences, and then, shortly thereafter, over the
human and social sciences?"

13. Rosenthal (1989), p. 141 and p. 169.

14. We must distinguish between how analytic philosophers, qua philosophers,

use and conceive of the history of philosophy and how analytic historians
of philosophy use and conceive of the history of philosophy. To begin
with, our case is directed primarily against the former. No matter how
many exceptions to our remarks are cited in the writings of analytic
historians of philosophy our case against analytic philosophers, qua
philosophers, still stands. There is also a question of who qualifies as an
analytic historian of philosophy. Margaret Wilson identifies, without
432 Chapter II

definition, Alan Donagan as an analytic historian of philosophy; but

Donagan in his book on Spinoza (1988) specifically calls attention to
anachronistic analytic readings of Spinoza. Second, as long as analytic
historians of philosophy accept the notion that the history of philosophy is
not intrinsic to the practice of philosophy they are confirming our case.
Third, as we show throughout this chapter, even analytic historians of
philosophy practice their "subsidiary" craft in a way that serves rather than
challenges analytic philosophy.

15. Russell (I 937b), pp. xi-xii.

16. "In my opinion, the effort attendant on philosophical history is often not
justified in terms of the purely philosophical product. This outcome is not
entirely surprising. If you want to work on the problem of personal
identity, it is useful to read John Locke's writings, but it is more important
to read Sydney Shoemaker - in part, of course, because Shoemaker has
incorporated Locke's insights into his own work. If you are interested in
making a contribution to the metaphysics of modality, it does no harm to
study Leibniz, but Kripke is really more to the point. Philosophy is not
related to its history in the way physics is to its history, but there is progress
in philosophy, and it is not necessary to study the history of a philosophical
problem in order to make a fundamental contribution toward the
understanding, perhaps even the solution, of that problem" Sleigh (1990),
p.3.

17. Rosenthal (1989), p. 156.

18. "The course of history does not show us the becoming of things foreign to
us, but rather the becoming of ourselves and our knowledge" Hegel (1968),
Vol. I, p. 4.
"No age but ours could have taken Mr. Russell's account of the
great thinkers in his major pot-boiler, The History o/Western Philosophy,
for serious historical scholarship, nor greeted with respect and not ridicule
a work based on such extensive ignorance and misconceptions as Dr.
Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies. It may have been arrogant in
Aristotle to call his predecessors lisping Aristotelians, and in Hegel to claim
the main philosophies of the past as moments absorbed and transcended in
his own system; but. .. Aristotle and Hegel had not only read and reflected
deeply on their predecessors' work but were respectively the first and the
last great historians of philosophy. Their pride pales to humility beside the
conceit of those who argue that the sages of the past talked mainly nonsense
(because theirs was not the way to talk), and even offer their outmoded
epigoni a course of psychotherapy, a philosophical brain-washing, to relieve
them of anxiety complexes induced by wrestling with pseudo-problems"
Mure (1958), 250.
Aristotle and Hegel both took their predecessors seriously. We
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 433

believe that both Aristotle and Hegel engaged in what we shall call an
explication of previous philosophers and that they both did so brilliantly
and in a way that is still useful.

19. Rorty (1984),51. Two points must not be confused: (a) we always look at
the past from the point of view of the present; (b) present beliefs are always
superior to past beliefs. The truth of (a) does not entail the truth of (b).
Moreover, we shall in the main body of our text be denying the truth of (a)
and, independently, the truth of (b). Finally, ifthere are alternative systems
of present beliefs, not all of them are necessarily true or necessarily false.

20. Rosenthal (1989), pp. 157-58.

21. "The majority of those who are commonly supposed to have been great
philosophers [Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and the British Empiricists from
Hobbes to Mill] were primarily not metaphysicians but analysts" AJ. Ayer
(1950), p. 52.

22. Philip Kitcher (1992), p. 55. The misrepresentation of Hume and Kant in
this respect is especially egregious. For the analytic misrepresentation of
Hume see Capaldi (1992). For the analytic misrepresentation of Kant by
Patricia Kitcher see McDonough (1995).

23. Bennett (1988),p. 67.

24. If analytical history of philosophy is an exploratory hypothesis about

historical texts which are themselves exploratory hypotheses, then the
rational reconstruction of such texts is analogous to translating one
scientific theory or hypothesis into another. Such a translation of the terms
of one theory into those of another raises all of the now familiar issues
about incommensurability that we discussed in Chapter Two. Just as
Donald Davidson rejected the notion of radical incommensurability and
argued that alternatives presuppose a common core, so an analytical
historian of philosophy would have to insist on diachronic problems and
so lutioris.

25. Russell (1937b), p. 2.

26. Bennett (1988), p. 64.

27. J-C. Smith (1990), p.xxi. Among those who contributed articles to this
collection are Hubert Dreyfus, Noam Chomsky, J.1. Biro, Patricia Kitcher,
and John Searle. How representative is such a view? We note that the
editors of the series in which the Smith book appears, Philosophical Studies
Series, are Wilfrid Sellars (deceased) and Keith Lehrer (currently serving
as Chairman of the Board of the American Philosophical Association); the
434 Chapter J J

Board of Consulting Editors include Jonathan Bennett, Allan Gibbard,

Robert Stalnaker, and Robert Turnbull.

28. "As to the thesis that the hypothetico-deductive approach is wrong because
of some radically rival way of looking at the entire work ... I have nothing
to say about that and don't expect to on any future occasions." Bennett
(1988),64. Margaret Wilson (1992) asserts that "Barry Stroud's Hume is
widely regarded as a classic" (p. 198) even though Stroud's admitted lack
of attention to Hume's views on religion, economics, politics, and history
suggests that these areas are less fundamental to Hume's philosophy. We
note that Stroud's book would not be considered a classic, if anything just
the reverse, by a good many serious non-analytic Hume scholars; see, for
example, the review of Stroud in Review of Metaphysics (1978), 688-89.
More important, note that what counts as relevant context in Stroud are
epistemological and metaphysical problems central to analytic philosophy.

29. Rosenthal (1989), p. 156.

30. There are other, i.e., non-analytic, bases upon which one can come to
construe an historical philosophical text as open ended. For example, it is
perfectly possible for later authors to develop ideas from earlier authors in
ways that are different from what the original authors intended. However,
such a procedure does not pretend that it is getting at the "real" historical
meaning of a text. Technically speaking, it is the ideas that evolve rather
than the text. Moreover, this basis for utilizing earlier texts permits earlier
authors to participate in the contemporary dialogue as equals.

31. See Michael Ayer's critique of Bennett in Ree, Ayers, and Westoby (1978).

32. (1) "How if at all is literary structure relevant to interpretation? I'm sorry,
but I have no opinions about that" (p. 64). (2) "The relevance of societies
and institutions to interpretations in philosophy is not a topic that I have
thought about, and I have nothing to say about it" (p. 66). Bennett (1988).

33. " ... although arguments of the kind favored by analytic philosophy do
possess an indispensable power, it is only within the context of a particular
genre of historical inquiry that such arguments can support the type of claim
to truth and rationality which philosophers characteristically aspire to
justify" MacIntyre (1984), p. 265.

34. "It is essential to an adequate understanding of certain problems, questions,

and issues, that one understand them genetically ... and this fact about
philosophy, that it is inherently historical, is a manifestation of a more
general truth about human life and society" Taylor (1984), p. 17.

35. Margolis (1993).

 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 435

36. One would have to distinguish between analytic historians of philosophy as

we have defined them and intellectual historians whose work is useful to
analytic philosophy. For example, from the point of view of analytic
philosophy itself, Jonathan Bennett and Barry Stroud are analytic historians
of philosophy, whereas Jerome Schneewind, Margaret Wilson, and Ed
Curley are intellectual historians whose work is useful to analytic
philosophy. A separate set of criticisms would have to be developed against
"intellectual historians" who work within the broader analytic umbrella.

37. Some sense of the tension within the analytic community between
"genuine" analytic historians of philosophy and "mere" historians of ideas
can be gleaned from Margaret Wilson's comments (1992): "At least in the
present intellectual climate. a parallel position of pluralistic tolerance is
appropriate with respect to approaches to historical writing. People with
their own philosophical ax to grind shouldn't necessarily (depending on
their gifts and results), be treated deprecatingly by dedicated historical
scholars. And others content to be viewed as historical scholars --especially
if they are good at this line of work -- shouldn't have to answer to others
(for instance, members of departmental hiring committees) for lack of
'philosophical motivation' "(p. 209).

38. Wilson (1992) was asked by the editors of Philosophical Review to reflect
upon "how contemporary philosophers view their history" (p. 195). Even
so, she found it necessary to devote half her article to a specific issue, the
status of sensible qualities in order to show there could be convergence
between philosophers "primarily concerned with developing and defending
positions of their own" and "historical interpretation" (p. 194). This choice
of topics reflects several things. First, it is an attempt to do the history of
philosophy in an analytic way and to avoid "merely" doing exegesis;
second, it is a problem that pre-dates the Copernican Revolution and is
discussed independent of how Hume and Kant would have responded (i.e.,
it is anti-Copernican); third, it is an example of "the" crucial
epistemological problem of analytic philosophy, i.e., how and to what
extent do our ideas reflect an external physical structure; finally it is
problem that is metaphysically defined by reference to scientific realism,
e.g., "Once the scientific realist preconceptions of the era are given their full
due ... the basic conception of what these philosophers [Descartes, Locke,
Berkeley] and their contemporaries were trying to accomplish undergoes
transformation" (p. 230).

39. J. Mackie (1976), pp. 2,4. For a similar view, see Passmore (1967).
According to Mure (1958), p. 249, Gilbert Ryle is responsible for coining
the phrase 'philosophical paleontology'. Note the comment by Price (1940)
"My remarks are addressed to those who write about him [Hume] as
philosophers, not as mere historians of philosophical literature" (p. 3).
436 Chapter II

40. For an expression of this distinction see R.C. Sleigh (1990). Sleigh
distinguishes between 'philosophical history' [what we are calling analytic
exploratory history of philosophy] and 'exegetical history' [what we are
calling history of ideas]. He identifies Bennett as master of the former (p.
3), and Sleigh identifies himself as a modest practitioner ofthe latter (p. 6).
Sleigh also maintains that philosophical history is a help to exegetical
history in the latter's attempt to get at an accurate understanding of the most
basic assumptions of a philosopher. That is, a rational reconstruction needs
the Bennett approach. What Sleigh does not say is that exegetical history
is a help to or a necessary ingredient in philosophical history or in the
practice of philosophy. Neither Sleigh nor Margaret Wilson tries to make
a case for the indispensability ofexegetical history.

41. "Writing this sentence, I find myself prey to an appropriate fear that (some)
experts in Hume and Berkeley will not approve of some particular thing that
I say about these philosophers here. I have made no careful study of them
for the purpose of this paper. Rather a crude and fairly conventional
account of the 'rough outlines' of their views is used for purposes of
comparison with Wittgenstein" Kripke (1982), p. 67, n.56. Consider also
David Lewis's remark (1986), p. viii: " ... this book on possible worlds ..
contains no discussion of the views of Leibniz . . .. When I read what
serious historians of philosophy have to say, I am persuaded that it is no
easy matter to know what his views were. It would be nice to have the right
sort of talent and training to join in the work of exegesis, but it is very clear
to me that I do not. Anything I might say about Leibniz would be
amateurish, undeserving of others' attention, and better left unsaid."

42. "He [Ree] seems to be raising a question about one's responsibility to

account for earlier interpretations. Well, I acknowledge no such
responsibility ...." Bennett (1988),65-66.

43. Positivists were ignorant in the first two senses. Current analytic
philosophers who have taken the 'Kantian Tum' and engage in exploration
are generally but not universally quite ignorant of architectonic.

44. J-C. Smith (1990), p. xxi. Smith quotes Robert D' Amico, Historicism and
Knowledge (New York: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, 1989), p. 55: "A
research program is not simply there in the history of science as a
documented fact, but is more like a Weberian ideal type. It is the idea of
the program or tradition that tells us what to look for in history."

45. See Wilson (1992), p. 202: " ... even the most dedicated and distinguished
historical scholars may well be influenced by distorting 'preconceptions'
and personal agendas ..."
 Analytic Philosophy And The History Of Philosophy 437

46. The recognition that (a) we cannot deduce future applications but must rely
upon a kind of intuition and (b) we cannot conceptualize this act of intuition
have led some to argue or to suggest that the process is simply a power
struggle (e.g., Foucault). What is missed in the latter claim is that such a
claim amounts to an exploration of the pre-conceptual. Hence, the claim
amounts to a denial of (b). If there is a denial of (b) then there must be
some way of choosing among rival explorations. If, as we have maintained,
there is no way to make such a choice without appeal to another explication
then the denial of (b) either reflects misunderstanding, failure to carry the
point far enough, or the disingenuous attempt to impose an elimination
disguised as an exploration or as an explication.

47. Wilson (1992) denies that the history of philosophy is integral to

philosophy itself (p. 195), and she denies that a strong case for this
suggestion has yet been made (p. 207). In this section of the chapter we
provide a case. Saying that no "strong" case has been made, as opposed to
saying that "no" case has been made, relieves Wilson of the responsibility
of rebutting any previous case.

48. The term 'history' is ambiguous. It can mean, among other things, a series
of events or it can mean the recording of those events or it can mean the
interpretation of those events. We are using the term 'history' here to mean
the interpretation of those events. For a further elucidation see Danto
(1985).

49. This is Davidson's point.

50. Despite his recognition of the inherently historical nature of all thought,
Margolis remains an analytic philosopher by insisting on the need for a
grounding of explication in a further explanation (exploration). This can be
seen in Margolis' (1993) objections to Gadamer: "He [Gadamer] offers no
responsible theory [italics mine} of interpretation or of the norms of
practical life ... the 'classical' is ... simply announced. One suspects it is
meant to serve as an assurance that a radical hermeneutics will not (however
inadvertently) legitimate the barbarisms of a recent past. But it is seriously
announced" (pp. 107-108). Our presentation of explication is meant to
serve as an account but not as a theory.

51. "To understand someone's thought you must get it into your own terms,
terms that you understand. The only alternative is to parrot his words"
Bennett (1988),67.

52. Plato's notion that our practice imperfectly copies the "Good", the Judeo-
Christian notion that God cannot be fully conceptualized, Heidegger's
notion of retrieval, and Wittgenstein's assertion that we can never
circumscribe a concept are all alternative ways of making this point. The
438 Chapter J J

assertion of a pre-conceptual domain is treated, by analytic philosophers, as

a form of mysticism.

53. The social origin of inquiry and subsequent social test is absolutely essential
for Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. For Aristotle the truth about human
beings does not consist in reference to timeless structures. Ethical or
political inquiry, the kind of inquiry appropriate to human beings, is
different from metaphysics in its objects and standards (Nicomachean
Ethics, 1.3). The truth about human beings is an essential part of the truth
as a whole. Put another way, self-consciousness is essential to wisdom. To
understand the relevance of timeless structures to human beings in general
and to the philosopher in particular is therefore to understand something
other than timeless structure. And, in fact, to do this Aristotle employs
explication in a masterly fashion. He repeatedly orients his inquiries (in the
Ethics and Politics) with an explication of the endoxa, opinions that deserve
consideration because they are held in common by the few or the wise or
gentlemen or those in high repute or the many. His metaphysical works
also fmd their paths of inquiry by the same method. Aristotle is committed
to the thesis that the establishment of norms begins with a consideration of
common beliefs and measures itself against those beliefs.

54. The classical American pragmatic tradition (Peirce, James, Royce, and
Dewey) embraces Hegel but without the absolutism. By rescuing Hegel
from absolutism, the pragmatic tradition distances itself from analytic
philosophy. The outstanding contemporary example of this pragmatism is
Nicholas Rescher: see his (1977), pp. 78-80, and (1992), pp. 180-81,239-
40.

55. Explicators do not deny that we can use physical science to "understand"
the world and to "understand" the human body. But "understand" has to be
understood relative to a larger and more fundamental framework which can
only be explicated. We can treat parts of our body as if they are
mechanisms as long as we do not forget that "we" are not mechanisms and
that it is the "we" who are employing the model of a mechanism.

56. We can apply this distinction to analytic philosophers and distinguish

between what they say on particular occasions and what they are doing on
those occasions. This would not be an hypothesis about hidden structure
but an observation on a practice. Analytic philosophers, we have learned
from experience, are apt to be quite indignant about such observations,
especially if they are critical. Nevertheless, part of the reason for the
indignation is that such observations invoke a larger contextual reference
which analytic philosophers cannot in principle accept.

57. Critics of analytic philosophy can charge that the very notion of "analysis"
encourages the belief in isolable problems, and this has a pernicious effect
 Analytic Philosophy And The History OfPhilosophy 439

on social and political life.

58. Wittgenstein (1980), pp. 18-19. Compare Wittgenstein's conception of his

activity with David Pears'(1987) account ofWittgenstein as a lonely genius
of exploration: "Open any of Wittgenstein's books and you will realize
immediately that you are entering a new world. . .. You will not feel that.
· .the ideas merely repeat one of the familiar patterns of western thought."
(Y. I, p. 3). Consider also Wilson's (1992) remarks on Wittgenstein: " ..
· Descartes and Wittgenstein, evince little or no direct concern with defining
their positions in relation to the long history of philosophical thought; and
the depth of their implicit historical knowledge is at best controversial" (p.
208).

59. Rosenthal (1989), p. 155.

60. For a different argument of this same conclusion see Danto (1985): "
· . descriptions relevant to science will differ from those of importance to
history .... [N]arrative history ... cannot become more 'scientific' without
losing its defining human importance ... " (p. xii); " ... the philosophy of
history, as an effort to perceive the narration of events in the light of
knowledge of the philosopher of history's own future, is an incoherent
enterprise" (p. 360).

61. The issue of identity is also present in another form. Whereas analytic
historians of philosophy look for universal structures because of analytic
philosophy's commitment to realism, explicators look for identity in some
sort of temporal continuity (using Hume's notion of identity; hence, this is
one reason why Hume is not an analytic philosopher). The notion of
temporal continuity is precisely what makes an account a historical one.

62. " ... Hegel's philosophy was inspired by ulterior motives, namely, by his
interest in the restoration of the Prussian government of Frederick William
Ill, and that it cannot therefore be taken seriously ..." Popper (1950), p.
228.

63. For a defense of this view see Powers (1986).

64. According to Wilson (1992), Gilbert Harman has asserted that with respect
to major figures in the history of philosophy "their problems are not our
problems; there are no perennial problems of philosophy" (p. 193).

65. " ... analytic philosophy has been, and remains, largely unselfconscious and
almost entirely ahistorical" Bell (1990), p. vi. A remarkable controversy
has arisen of late because of Dummett's (1993) claim that analytic
philosophy is not Anglo-American in origin but continental and that Russell
is not a key figure in its definition. See Monk (1996).
440 Chapter 11

66. Wood (1959), p. 274. Scriven (1977) maintained that the history
requirement in the philosophy curriculum is an obstacle to philosophical
development.

67. Rosenthal (1989), pp. 154-55.

68. There are some excellent historical accounts of major figures within the
analytic conversation, among which I mention Peter Hylton on
Russell(1990a), Janik and Toulmin (1973) on Wittgenstein, McDonough on
Wittgenstein (1986), Hacker (1996) on Wittgenstein, and Sluga (1980) on
Frege (although both Sluga and I would deny that Frege is 'analytic'). But
these works are not written by analytic philosophers who attempt to
establish authoritative readings of the original philosophers for future
analytic purposes. To see this distinction clearly I would suggest
contrasting Hylton's book on Russell with, say, Sainsbury's (1979) book.

69. Dummett (1978), p. 440.

70. Sluga (1980), p; 52.

71. Ibid., p. 14.

72. Ibid., p. 176.

73. Ibid., p. 160.

74. Ibid., p. 105.

75. Ibid., p. 3. "His [Frege's] considerations about truth as an object are

dismissed as mere scholasticism . . .. His rejection of logicism after the
discovery of Russell's paradoxes is considered an overreaction; his
objections to Cantorian sets are explained as the result of personal hostility
... where [Frege's views] cannot be made to fit [current discussion] they
are either ignored or explained away in psychological terms" Ibid., p. 6.

76. "The analytic tradition has not so far drawn the most radical consequences
out of Wittgenstein's thought. Instead ... it has pinched a multitude of
insights out ofWittgenstein's philosophy without acknowledging that this
philosophy undermines the view of the relation of logic, mathematics, and
language that has prevailed in analytic philosophy since Frege. For
Wittgenstein logic and mathematics are outgrowths of language and cannot
be used to reveal the essence of language. . .. The essence of language
shows itself only if we attend to the concrete uses of language . . . the
abstract theory of meaning must give way in all but the most trivial cases
to the examination of actual historical discourse" Sluga (1980), 186.
 Analytic Philosophy And The History OfPhilosophy 441

77. I am indebted to Richard McDonough for calling this to my attention.

78. Carruthers (1989), pp. 1,3.

79. Carruthers (1989), 3.

80. Carruthers (1989),9.

81. Carruthers (1990), p. 186 n.6.

82. Carruthers (1989), pp. 6-8; (1990), p. xiii.

83. Carruthers (1989), 7.

84. In Bell (1990) the beginnings of analytic philosophy are identified with "the
publication of Frege's Grundlagen, or his' Uber Sinn und Bedeutung' . .."
(p.vi). Not surprisingly, the only contributor to the anthology who
subscribes to this view is Dummett, according to whom, Frege is "the
grandfather of analytical philosophy" (p. 102). Tyler Burge, on the other
hand, while maintaining that Frege's conception of sense fathered all the
major approaches to meaning that have preoccupied philosophers in the
twentieth century, nevertheless, argues that all subsequent analytic
philosophers with Russell (and continuing through Dummett, see p. 52 and
55 n.4) have obfuscated or misinterpreted Frege's doctrines. According to
Burge, then, Frege is someone who ought to be taken seriously but who has
been consistently misunderstood and therefore it is the misunderstanding of
Frege that is an origin of analytic philosophy. Finally, in the same volume,
Peter Hylton argues (Chapter Seven), quite convincingly, that Russell's
logicism is a completely different program from Frege's. Hence in the
same volume we find three conflicting v·iews: (1) Frege is the origin of
analytic philosophy, (2) the misunderstanding of Frege is the origin, and (3)
Frege is not the origin. While we, and Sluga, would support Hylton's
reading, it is nevertheless the case that in the only book which even tries to
give an historical account there is no agreement on whether Frege should
even be seen as an analytic philosopher.

85. Rosenthal (1989), p. 146.

86. C.W.K. MundIe (1979) is directed at ordinary language philosophy, but one
statement made within it is applicable to the rhetoric used by analytic
philosophers to defend themselves. "To assail the movement or its
supposed doctrines as a whole was therefore to be accused of tilting at
windmills which existed -- if at all-- only in the imagination of the critic;
while to pitch directly into the statements of individual authors was not
uncommonly to be told that the views in question were untypical, or
outdated, or had been misconstrued, or at any rate were not shared by
442 Chapter 11

anybody else -- so that very little overall damage could be done in this
way." Peter Heath in the Foreword, pp. 1-2. Just such a position is
expressed by Margaret Wilson: "When they [the critics of analytic history
of philosophy] do get down to specific cases, they tend to focus on writings
-- not necessarily recent -- which offer particularly doctrinaire statements
concerning the relation of philosophy and history ...." (op.cit., p. 200).
Contrary to Wilson, we have cited recent examples; moreover, until Wilson
defines 'analytic', something she eschews doing, she is not in a position to
distinguish between what is and what is not doctrinaire or representative.
However, Wilson does cite Bennett as a doctrinaire example. In response
to Wilson we note that R.C. Sleigh, claims that Bennett is a master (op.cit.,
p. 6); moreover, in the very same issue of Philosophical Review in which
Wilson's article appears, there is an article by Philip Kitcher in which
Kitcher praises Bennett's work, along with Russell and Strawson, as
"rightly influential studies that assimilate historical figures to post-Fregean
philosophical practice ...." (op.cit., p. 55, n.8).

87. For a sampling of this revolutionary rhetoric see: (1) The Positivist
Manifesto; (2) Moritz Schlick (1930); Dummett's (1967) article on Frege
where Frege is called "the first modern philosopher;" (4) "Philosophy has
only just very recently struggled out of its early stage into maturity,"
Dummett (1978), 457. See also Ayer, et al. (1956).

88. Rorty (1967), p. 33. Rorty has, of course, subsequently changed his mind
about analytic philosophy.

89. To an outsider, the analytic obsession with the question of who is and who
is not a philosopher and the subsequent identification of its own past with
those it deems to be "professional" philosophers [see for example, Passmore
(1985), p. viii and Perry (1986)], is symptomatic of a rootless technological
culture with nihilistic tendencies.

90. Margaret Wilson (1992) is a case in point. To begin with, she identifies
herself as an "analytic" historian and as "trained in [an] analytically
oriented graduate philosophy" program (p. 191). She also claims that
criticisms directed against analytic historians gives rise to "resentment" (p.
195) because they are oversimplified. All this leads one to expect some
alternative account that would show why the criticisms are oversimplified.
Instead what we are told is that the meaning of the expression "analytic
philosophy" is contested and remains in doubt (p. 197).

91. See McDonough (1995a), (1995b), and (l995c).

 CHAPTER 12
Beyond The Enlightenment Project

Metaphysics
Analytic metaphysics as informed by the Enlightenment Project is misguided
because:
1. Naturalism in any form is a defective position. There is a pre-conceptual
domain that is not itself conceptualizable; hence there is not and cannot be a
successful theory about when the meaning of a concept has been extended as
opposed to when the concept has been changed; a theoretical account is only
successful when it meets previously agreed upon norms; what these norms are can
only be explicated and never theorized about.
The world does not explain itself, rather we explain our relationship to it.
All understanding and all explanation must originate in a human cultural context, that
is a social and historical context. No form of reason can certify itself. Some cultural
tradition which sees itself as the embodiment of universal norms must be the court
of final appeal. There is, for example, no way of expressing the truth except in terms
of some language that is itself a cultural artifact. The norms cannot be accessed
except through a tradition, i.e., an articulated "We Do." This kind of tradition is self-
certifying and self-critical because no epistemic or axiological challenge is
meaningful or coherent except within some common inherited framework. A
"disengaged" observer will not see this point but any engaged/socialized agent will
understand it immediately. Hence the true starting point of philosophy must be with
the practical knowledge of a socialized agent.
The dismissal of theism has to be seen, metaphysically speaking, as the
rejection of a pre-conceptual domain that is beyond conceptualization. Prior to the
Enlightenment, philosophers who subscribed to theism or the importance of
revelation were calling attention to this domain. In offering the exploratory
hypothesis that all expressions offaith were insincere and a response to outside
pressure, philosophers not only distort the history of philosophy but once again
obfuscate the need to recognize a pre-conceptual domain.
2. Scientism is philosophically defective. How we understand ourselves is
fundamental and how we understand the world is derivative. Science is a way of
interacting with the world. In order to understand science we must first understand
ourselves and then see science as derivative from that prior understanding. There is
certainly a continuity between science and common sense but that is because science
incorporates and reflects common sense procedures.
We must also come to see that there are cultural factors which serve as
necessary conditions for scientific advance. Hence, it is not science that explains
culture, but vice versa. The issue is not whether we are to take science seriously but
whether we are to accept certain programmatic presuppositions about what science
is supposed to be. According to the analytic model, the supposed superiority of
scientific explanations is their alleged reflection of a necessary causal order in nature
(nature being presumed to be self-explanatory). In this respect, analytic philosophy
has failed to understand science. We weaken science when we attribute to scientific
explanations more weight than they can bear. Theoretical knowledge is parasitic
upon practical knowledge. Any attempt on the part of the "disengaged" observer to
444 Chapter 12

make theoretical reason self-certifying or the standard for judging practical reason
is thus doomed to failure, to being incoherent.
If science is derivative, then there cannot be a science of the human world,
i.e., there is no such thing as social science modeled along the lines of physical
science. If science is derivative then science cannot be the ultimate arbiter of
intellectual and cultural norms. Any attempt to create unified science or make
science an arbiter will lead to the obfuscation or delegitimation of all norms as well
as undermine science which itself depends upon those norms. Finally, the rejection
of scientism leads to the immediate dismissal of the mind-body problem and the issue
of human determinism.
Even thought many analytic philosophers have come to reject scientism they
nevertheless continue to engage in hypothesis exploration. Exploration is a method
that has no warrant outside of scientism. To continue to embrace the method long
after the substantive thesis on which it is based is discarded is at best a form of
intellectual lag and at worst a failure to be self-critical.
3. The most damaging metaphysical consequence of the Enlightenment
Project in analytic philosophy is the loss ofphilosophical consciousness. Certainly
the most frustrating feature of analytic philosophy is its inability to discuss itself.l
I say inability instead of unwillingness, advisedly.
The loss of philosophical consciousness is one of the consequences of
scientism. By its very nature hypothesis exploration involves a kind of thinking
which is inherently unreflective. What I mean by this is that analytic philosophers
are trained to explore the consequences of a hypothesis and not to examine the
framework out of which the hypothesis emerged. Such philosophers steadfastly
maintain that the formation of a hypothesis is a mysterious creative act that is
irrelevant to the validity of the hypothesis. Any speculation about the formation of
the hypothesis is alleged to be the domain of psychology, sociology, history, or
literature,2 but not philosophy.3
This inability shows itself in several ways. (a) We have already seen the
difficulties that analytic philosophy has in discussing the history of philosophy,
including its own role within it. (b) Perhaps the most glaring symptom of the loss of
philosophical consciousness is the occasional denial of the existence of any such
thing as analytic philosophy.
We are immediately confronted with three interrelated issues, namely: (1)
How ought one to identify a philosophical movement? (2) How do philosophical
disagreements about identity, self-reference, and definition impact on the issue of
defining a philosophical movement? and (3) Is there any philosophical significance
in trying to identify and define such movements?
We believe that the answer to the third question is an obvious "Yes!" The
philosophical significance of defining movements is threefold. First, it makes us
more aware of the criteria we employ in identifying and defining anything. Second,
it indicates how philosophical preconceptions are internal to self-identification.
Third, and most important, it provides one way for assessing philosophical
preconceptions. If philosophical preconceptions are internal to self-identification,
and if members of a movement have difficulty in identifying themselves, then this
casts some doubt on the adequacy of their philosophical preconceptions.
 Beyond The Enlightenment Project 445

We believe that this is the case with analytic philosophy. That is, we assert
that there is and has been an analytic philosophical movement, that it can be defined,
in part, by reference to a set of philosophical preconceptions, and that those
preconceptions render it difficult for analytic philosophers to identify themselves.
This book itself provides an extended explicatory definition of 'analytic
philosophy' insofar as it reflects the Enlightenment Project. Now we shall support
the definition indirectly by detailed consideration of objections to the definition. We
shall demonstrate that the objections form a pattern, that the pattern reflects a set of
philosophical preconceptions, and that those preconceptions constitute the entity we
are trying to define.

Objections to the Definition

1. (First Objection) "Analytic philosophy cannot be defined because there
is no readily identifiable entity, as evidenced by the lack ofa consensus on the use
of the expression 'analytic philosophy'."4
This objection only makes sense if it is assumed that an adequate definition
specifies necessary and sufficient conditions that capture a uniform structure. This
objection presupposes that the only good definitions are "real" definitions, and this
in tum presupposes realism. The objector, therefore, subscribes to realism, one of
the features we have identified as crucial to analytic philosophy.

2. (Second Objection) "If 'analytic philosophy' does refer, what it refers to

is a style or method rather than to a body of doctrine."5
This objection at least has the virtue of admitting that there is a movement.
Nevertheless, we find this a remarkable reply. Can methods/unction independent
0/ some substantive belief? To believe so is to believe that it is possible to engage
in epistemology without metaphysics. To believe that epistemology does not require
metaphysics is to believe that, in the end, epistemology is identical to ontology. The
scientific-realism we have attributed to analytic philosophy is precisely such a belief.
Hence, only an analytic philosopher would believe that it is possible to use a method
independent of substantive philosophical positions, except that this belief is itself part
of a set of philosophical preconceptions.
The method in question is sometimes characterized as careful analysis into
isolable parts. On the contrary, we insist that this principle of atomistic analysis is
parasitic upon epistemological and metaphysical presuppositions explicitly
enunciated in Russell's critique of Hegel. Sometimes the method is characterized as
the use oflogical notation in the interest of clarity. Why should logical notation of
a special kind be considered clarifying? Is there not a historical connection between
logicism on the one hand and scientism and realism on the other?6
We are willing to accept the reply that a whole generation of philosophers
has been taught a method without being taught that the method makes
epistemological and metaphysical and axiological presuppositions, but we are not
willing to accept the claim that the method or style exists independent of substantive
claims.
446 Chapter 12

3. (Third Objection) "I am an analytic philosopher and the definition does

not fit me. Therefore the definition is inadequate."
This objection only makes sense ifthere a group with the exclusive privilege
of defining itself. Many analytic philosophers believe that they comprise such a
group because they are part of an invisible college of researchers with a common
interest in solving puzzles that are clearly defined, self-sustaining, and embody an
agreed upon form. Only the judgment of colleagues is relevant to the definition and
solution of the puzzles, and in order to guard themselves against the danger of
outside interference, the colleagues develop a technicallanguage. 7 The solution of
these puzzles will at some unspecified point in the future have great practical (i.e.,
technological) value. 8 The foregoing is a description of a kind of scientific
community, and in claiming the privileges of such a community analytic
philosophers indicate that they subscribe to a kind of scientism.
Note Carnap's early description of this social system.

The basic orientation ... are not property and achievement of the
author alone but belong to a certain scientific atmosphere which
is neither created nor maintained by any single individual ...
[but] supported by a group of active or receptive collaborators .
. .. Each works at his special place within the one unified science
. . .. Ifwe allot to the individual in philosophical work as in the
special sciences only a partial task, then we can look with more
confidence into the future: in slow careful construction insight
after insight will be won. Each collaborator contributes only what
he can endorse and justify before the whole body of his co-
workers. Thus stone will be carefully added to stone and a safe
building will be erected at which each following generation can
continue to work. 9

4. (Fourth Objection) "There is no doctrine or set of doctrines that all self-

designated analytic philosophers share in common. In fact, they disagree among
themselves."
This objection only makes sense if philosophical thinking is construed as
hypothesis formation where the genesis of the hypothesis is irrelevant to the validity
of the process. The belief that philosophical thinking is hypothesis formation is part
of the scientism we have attributed to analytic philosophers.lo While it is true that
analytic philosophers offer competing exploratory hypotheses, they nevertheless
share the belief that hypothesis exploration is what they should be doing, and they
believe that this is what they should be doing because they all come out of a tradition
that was committed to scientism.
The belief that hypotheses can exist, at least in principle, in a value-free
contextless form is a reflection of the axiology of analytic philosophy. In opposition
to that claim, we suggest that analytic philosophy is a state of mind, a cultural
phenomenon, like the "Renaissance" or "The Enlightenment." This state of mind
(naturalist/realism, scientism, and an anti-agency view of the self) sets the agenda
for and provides a framework within which much philosophical discussion takes
 Beyond The Enlightenment Project 447

place. Even those philosophers who do not subscribe wholly to that collection of
ideas or possibly even disagree with some or all of those ideas find it necessary to
express themselves within that context. Analytic philosophy has become the lingua
franca of philosophical discussion in the Anglo-American world. There is, in short,
an analytic conversation, and one is or is not an analytic philosopher depending upon
the degree and the manner in which one participates in that conversation. What we
have identified as a key element ifnot core of that conversation is the Enlightenment
Project.
Some individuals who are sometimes conventionally identified as analytic
philosophers do not reflect this state of mind to a very high degree. We are perfectly
well prepared to concede this point. J I However, we hasten to point out that very
often the kinds of problems on which these individuals focus and the way in which
they focus on the problems are intelligible only by reference to the back drop created
by the state of mind. 12 We shall go further and assert that many ofthe individual
practitioners who do not completely reflect the state of mind do so because they are
either (a) not as self-conscious of the state of mind as they should be or (b) are
implicitly rejecting some basic tenet within that state of mind. We even agree that
there is now an ever increasing diversity amongst the views of individuals who
participate in the analytic conversation. But the failure of large numbers of
individuals to adhere consistently to a state of mind is not evidence that the state of
mind does not or did not exist. It may even suggest the first sign of an awareness of
serious flaws in that state ofmindY

5. (Fifth Objection) "Even if such a cultural background exists, it IS

irrelevant to the discussion of philosophical issues."
Does the cultural phenomenon of analytic philosophy have any
philosophical significance? How one responds to this question will reflect one's
understanding of social phenomena and hence one's philosophy of the social
sciences, which in turn reflects one's general philosophical commitments. This
objection only makes sense if one subscribes to the unity of science, to the
subordination of social explanation to physical explanation. Ifwe are correct in our
definition of the mind set of analytic philosophy, and if we are correct in asserting
that for analytic philosophers the physical sciences are primary and the social
sciences are derivative, then for analytic philosophers no cultural phenomenon can
have a primary philosophical significance. Whatever cultural generalizations one
could make about analytic philosophy would, even if true, be "irrelevant"
philosophically to its primary task of exploring the logic of physical science and its
implications. To make such cultural generalizations will appear to the analytic
philosopher as (a) missing the point of analytic philosophy and (b), in the cases
where such "irrelevant" generalizations do not reflect credit on analytic philosophers,
might be construed as ad hominem arguments against its primary intellectual task.
Why do Analytic Philosophers Have Trouble IdentifYing Themselves?
Analytic philosophers have difficulty identifying themselves because they have
difficulty with the problem of self-reference. 14 They have difficulty dealing with
self-reference because (a) they have denied the existence of a self and (b) they have
cultivated a form of thinking, namely, the exploration of hypotheses, that by its very
448 Chapter 12

nature inhibits self-consciousness about the framework within which those

exploratory hypotheses function.
Analytic philosophy cannot allow itselfto be drawn into a debate about the
relative merits of exploration as opposed to cultural explication precisely because
there are no resources within analytic philosophy for resolving this dispute other than
an appeal to the eschatological vision about the future progress of science.
Ironically, this amounts to an historical appeal, but analytic philosophy denies that
there is a wider cultural context that could serve as the framework for resolving this
dispute. Their refusal to countenance opposition to that belief, therefore, does not
and cannot take the form of an argument. We suspect that this state of affairs is both
a reflection of uneasiness, a symptom of disarray, and a rhetorical move to block
debate about the status of analytic philosophy. We conclude that the inability and
unwillingness of analytic philosophers to discuss the status of analytic philosophy
signals a growing awareness of the inadequacy of its substantive positions.
Once analytic philosophy is thought of as "a" school of philosophy, one
among many, then at some point it would have (a) to account for the existence of a
plurality of philosophical viewpoints, and (b) argue for its superiority over others.
This is something which analytic philosophy cannot do. Some of the analytic
colleagues concede the existence of something like a crisis and then point to the
conflicting sides as examples of the absence ofa governing philosophical paradigm.
What these colleagues fail to notice is, first, the larger intellectual and historical
context from which the current crisis emerged. Again, in order to recognize such a
context one would have to focus on the framework of hypothesis formation. For
reasons we have already indicated that is something that analytic philosophers cannot
or will not do. The second thing that the analytic colleagues frequently fail to notice
is that the "sides" of the debate that they are willing to recognize all still share the
notion that their function is to explore hypotheses.
Analytic self-awareness is directed internally to those who share the
commitment and must be accompanied by or exemplified by substantive analytic
exploration in order to be considered professional:

... to satisfy [the] internal interest [of analytic philosophers

themselves] an apologia must also achieve some non-trivial
contribution towards a creative enhancement of analytical
philosophy's self-awareness: it must show how the analysis of
analytical philosophy is bound up with the resolution of some
substantive issues .... [Otherwise we] would risk an accusation
. .. [of being] satisfied with the description of what might be
merely accidental features of all previous analytical philosophy
15

Because it rejects explication in general, analytic philosophy will reject any

explicatory account of analytic philosophy itself. It will, therefore, most certainly
reject any attempt to see analytic philosophy as a cultural phenomenon or movement.
It is doubly offensive to attribute to any analytic philosopher membership in a
cultural or intellectual movement since this would imply that the beliefs and activities
 Beyond The Enlightenment Project 449

of that philosopher are partly a reflection of cultural forces instead of pure responses
to what are perceived to be objective structures.
Because they think of themselves as engaged in hypothesis exploration in
a manner similar to physical scientists,16 analytic philosophers also think of
themselves as doing original or creative work. Geniuses are those colleagues or
members of the community who introduce methodological innovations which set the
standard and framework of future research. It is thus possible for analytic
philosophers to evaluate and rank themselves in terms of how proficient they have
been at methodological innovation. 17
Given the paradigm of scientific creativity, it is easy to establish the status
hierarchy of specializations within analytic philosophy. In descending order, we
have:
1. logic, epistemology, and the philosophy of science
2. the philosophy of . .. (e.g., language, mind, etc.)
3. axiology (ethics, social and political philosophy)
4. history of philosophy and comparative philosophy.IS
What emerges from all this is a star system operating at two levels. Vis-a-vis the
hierarchy, logicians are rated more highly than anyone else. 19 Within each
subdivision the same star criteria are at work.20
In a true science, practitioners not only formulate but also test hypotheses.
The difference between conventional sciences and philosophy as a science is that
there are no empirical or experimental procedures for testing philosophical
methodological innovations. The analogue in analytic philosophy of testing a
hypothesis is to refute by the imaginative construction of a counter example. Some
analytic philosophers are famous not as innovators but as refuters through counter
examples. Since the dialectic of analytic debate is largely semantic, analytic
philosophy progresses by turning in upon itself and reformulating previously
discredited or challenged hypotheses followed by improvements in or restatements
of old refutations. Moreover, just as in physical science there is progress when
someone introduces into the debate developments from a seemingly external field of
science, so in analytic philosophy there is a frenetic search outward to borrow the
concepts of the latest fashionable science (e.g., cognitive psychology, artificial
intelligence, etc.).
To some observers this may not appear unusual because philosophy, at least
since the time of Socrates, has been a discipline which has always valued the give
and take of argumentation. But a closer look reveals a significant difference. In
traditional philosophy, the give and take of argument often functioned to enlighten
us by uncovering the presuppositions (i.e., the pre-technical framework or
background) which initiated the discussion. That is what made it Socratic! In the
case of analytic philosophy the objective is different: it is to clarify the consequences
of a hypothesis or methodological innovation, not the context which gave rise to it.
For those committed to scientism, the genesis of theory is a creative act which cannot
be further understood philosophically. In short, theory construction and
methodological innovation are indistinguishable. Hence philosophical debate is not
about what should be the starting point, rather it begins with a starting point and
pursues its consequences.
450 Chapter 12

Debate within the analytic conversation all too often becomes a matter of
refutation and ordeal not a matter primarily of clarification. It is adversariaF' in
practice. The adversarial nature of analytic debate is a reflection of the commitment
to exploration; the consequences of such adversarial engagement are a premium on
cleverness and the discouragement of genuine philosophical explication. The best
analogy I can think of would be making the ability to cast a horoscope (which
requires serious mathematical skills) the basis for ranking astronomers and refusing
to allow into the profession of astronomy anyone who challenges the thesis that
heavenly bodies influence human destiny.
Even where it is recognized that there is (and must be) some historical
precedent to the search for objective structures, analytic philosophers will not want
to dwell on this history because such an activity is both tangential to and inferior to
the search for objective structures. Analytic philosophers, then, will not routinely
want to get involved in discussions of what analytic philosophy is. There is a sort of
institutionalized collective forgetfulness about analytic philosophy. It is much easier
to marginalize this issue by simply denying (even if somewhat disingenuously) the
existence of a movement. Consistent with their own ethos of not wanting to inject
personal values into value-free research, it is anathema for individual analytic
philosophers overtly to insist upon some definition of the movement. 22
When such denials will not work, or when confronted with an explicatory
account, analytic philosophers will respond to it as if it were an exploration. This is
not surprising in view of the fact that analytic philosophers think in terms of
exploratory hypotheses. Hence, there is a tendency to see the thought of others as if
it were exploratory. Now, any exploratory account of analytic philosophy faces two
hurdles. First, in the eyes of an analytic philosopher committed to realism, no
philosophical thesis can in principle be explained by reference to social phenomena.
Hence, any exploratory account of philosophy is in principle wrong, being guilty of
the genetic fallacy.23 Second, any exploratory hypothesis can be automatically
disconfirmed. Since there is no generally agreed upon definition of analytic
philosophy amongst analytic philosophers, and since they are discouraged from and
mutually discourage articulating such a definition, individual analytic philosophers
have varying intuitive notions depending upon what is central to their work or the
work of people they take seriously. As a consequence, any exploratory hypothesis
is bound to fail to capture 'something' in the work of 'some' individual analytic
philosopher, where such philosophers are identified ostensively. As such, the
exploratory hypothesis is disconfirmed.
If all philosophy is exploration, then any analytic account of analytic
philosophy would be an exploration of other explorations. Since there are alternative
explorations of other people's explorations with no way to confirm which is correct,
any analysis of analytic philosophy would constitute a deconstruction of analytic
philosophy.
The critic of analytic philosophy insists that he is offering an explication and
not an exploration. If the critic is offering an explication, then it is possible for an
explicatory account to identify the implicit norms and, further, to specify when some
ofthe practitioners are deviating from the norms. Such deviation does not invalidate
the existence of the implicit norms. Hence, the personal idiosyncracies of some
 Beyond The Enlightenment Project 451

members of the analytic community does not invalidate an explicatory account of

analytic philosophy. Making a distinction between correctly identifying norms and
identifying when practitioners fail to adhere to the norms is precisely what an
explication can, and what an exploratory account cannot, do. All of this, however,
is to no avail. It is to no avail because analytic philosophers reject explication.
Explicators recognize that there cannot be a definitive analysis of a concept
because concepts have to be understood as organic and historical phenomena, not
mechanical phenomena. 'Analytic philosophy' is just such a concept. Hence any
account of 'analytic philosophy' would have to recognize its historical
transformation as in the movement from positivistic elimination to analytic
exploration. We have defined analytic philosophy in three historical ways, by
reference to its origins in the Enlightenment Project, by its initial articulation against
a previous tradition, and by how it has transformed itself in the course of dealing
with problems generated internally by its initial adherence to doctrines like scientism,
modern naturalism, and an anti-agency view of the self. Where explicators see a
continuity, many analytic philosophers see a break.
Resistance to our definition is a disguised way of arguing a philosophical
point. Hence, the real issue is not whether we have correctly defined analytic
philosophy but whether a form of argument not sanctioned by analytic philosophers
should be used and even discussed. The controversy over defining 'analytic
philosophy' is a classic case of the issue of the relationship of rhetoric to substantive
argument. Analytic philosophers refuse to discuss or consider the role of rhetoric
because it is incompatible with their commitment to realism. It is our claim that
analytic philosophy has a rhetoric and uses it without being fully self-conscious of
it. This is part of what we mean by the loss ofphilosophical consciousness.

Epistemology
Analytic epistemology as informed by the Enlightenment Project is misguided
because:

I. The "I Think" perspective, i.e., epistemological individualism, leads to

unfathomable problems of relating thought to action, of relating mind to body, and
renders unintelligible the social world, e.g., the problem of other minds. More
important, the "j Think" perspective renders analytic philosophy incoherent because
analytic philosophy ultimately denies that there is an "1. "

2. Analytic epistemology leads to nihilism.

a. This nihilism is the consequence of combining epistemological
individualism with scientism. Epistemological individualism by itself is a
consequence of naturalist realism. In the classical and medieval periods,
epistemological individualism faced no problem of discovering or validating
meaning because it construed the physical world as suffused with purpose, i.e.,
teleology. Early modern epistemological individualists (e.g., Descartes, Locke, etc.)
introduced the conception of the physical world as a mechanism devoid of internal
purpose but nevertheless reflecting God's purpose. Meaning was to be discovered
internally and its congruence with God's purpose was guaranteed by God. When
452 Chapter 12

proponents of the Enlightenment Project rejected God and His guarantee an

ineradicable gap was created between our conception of the world and what the
hidden meaning of the world might be. Curiously, the proponents of the
Enlightenment Project believed in a hidden structure or meaning, i.e., they kept
God's function but dropped God.
b. The practice of epistemological individualism within the Enlightenment
Project became a matter of offering speculative hypotheses (i.e., explorations) about
the gap. Since the proponents of that project also continued to believe in the 'value'
of cumulative experience, the speculative hypotheses changed with the addition of
new or additional data. Unable to close the gap or guarantee the validity of the
speculative hypotheses about nature, they substituted speculative hypotheses (i.e.,
explorations) about the historical growth of the cumulative experience. Cognitive
psychology or analytic philosophical psychology is in this sense individual history
or history 'writ small'. In short, epistemological individualism changed its focus
from nature to history.
c. Unfortunately, all of the problems of guaranteeing our conceptualization
of nature are replicated in trying to guarantee our conceptualization of history. The
result is either the abyss of explorations about explorations ad infinitum or the
nihilistic conclusion that history is itself a construct.
Unambiguous consensual formulations of puzzles are notoriously difficult
to achieve. In the absence of a clear-cut consensus, ingenuity of formulation and the
rationalization of preexisting practice become the substitutes for judging the quality
of work. The important thing is not so much to solve the puzzle but to appear to
make an ingenious stab at solving it within the analytic framework. The result is a
series of self-contained and self-indulgent methodological explorations. In short,
methodological sophistication24 replaces actual solutions, and it serves to control the
trajectory of future research by constraining attention on directions consistent with
the survival of existing hypotheses.
One of the few remaining ways of enforcing a consensus is by insisting
upon a particular version of the history of philosophy. Analytic history of
philosophy plays a vital rhetorical role within the analytic community. What
happens, however, when we try to see philosophers like Plato, Hume, Kant, Dewey,
the later Wittgenstein, Heidegger, etc. as offering exploratory hypotheses? The
answer is historical mythology. One example comes from Ruth Marcus:

The tradition up to Kant was analytical. It was one of addressing

questions in a careful way and giving reasons for one's point of
view .. .. There was also a close connection between philosophy
and science. . .. Plato's Academy bore the inscription: 'Those
who have not studied mathematics shall not enter here.' Leibniz
invented the calculus. Spinoza wrote his Ethics like geometry.
Nobody is more analytical than Descartes. They had
tremendously high standards of clarity and a healthy regard for
good reasons. 25
 Beyond The Enlightenment Project 453

The highest quality work is always described as rigorous. To be rigorous

is to present one's case in the form of a deductive explanation. To value rigor is to
subscribe to the view that an atemporal spatial logic is the ultimate form of all good
explanations. This identification of rigor with formalism puts the emphasis on the
structural properties of what is explained. This is at once the reaffirmation of modem
naturalist realism and, so far as it uses mathematically derived formalism, scientism.
Rigorous explanations, in effect, are anti-Copernican in that they eschew reference
to the explainer or the historical or cultural context in favor of the "objective"
properties of the object to be explained. So, for example, any epistemologist who
att,empts to explicate knowledge claims by reference to conventional norms of what
is acceptable and what is not is thereby deemed to be lacking in rigor. 26 No appeal
to conventional norms will sustain or help to sustain scientific realism, the implicit
analytic paradigm. Such work will be dismissed as incompetent.
Modem methodological formalism remains a stylized myth, an attempt to
place a hard plastic dome over a highly volatile arena. It is first and foremost an
attempt to constrain professionals to act in accordance with the model rather than to
question it. Whenever someone complains that current formalist structures fail to
incorporate our intuitions and experience, we are reassured that even greater
understanding will accrue to us from articulating more inclusive formal structures.
To the extent that reality is only available to us through symbols, then at least let the
symbols be as distinct and as unambiguous as mathematical logic will permit.

We may conclude, then, that Tarski's procedure provides a general

method of defining truth for any systematized language of
standard quantificational structure. Let us agree, in addition, that
such languages, whether or not they actually suffice for every
conceivable intellectual pursuit, may represent, at least, a standard,
or ideal, of logical rigor, precision, and clarity toward which all
theoretical discourse strives. 27

This brings us to the point of the importance of who is to count as a

colleague. The integrity of analytic philosophy is amply demonstrated by its
willingness to subject to criticism any analytic solution to any analytically defined
problem. The intolerance of analytic philosophy is shown by its refusal to discuss
criticism of the analytic paradigm. This is why it is so important that any criticism
be made by one of the analytic colleagues. In short, one of the ways in which
analytic philosophy can immunize itself from fundamental criticism is to listen only
to those who are colleagues and therefore share the same fundamental
commitments. 28
For example, the historicist implications of a narrow empirical reading of
science were noticed by Leo Strauss long before Kuhn's work dramatized those
implications. 29 But Strauss was not one of the colleagues, and therefore he did not
have to be answered. In retrospect, analytic philosophers can claim to be open
minded in conceding that Strauss had a point, but, of course, Strauss had failed to
present his point in a "rigorous" or precise fashion.
454 Chapter 12

The new methodological formalism was originally justified on the grounds

that it would serve as a means for more clearly formulating the old puzzles and for
solving them as well. Unfortunately, methodological formalism has produced
criteria of scientific performance based more upon the sophistication of intellectual
input than on the quality of output. There is no escaping the undeniably poor
performance of formalist verifications when applied to specific problems. Think of
the abandoned enterprises of Frege, Russell,30 Carnap, Davidson, Chomsky, etc.31
It would be difficult to imagine physicists honoring their colleagues for hypotheses
that failed to work. The heroes of analytic philosophy must, in the end, be praised
for the introduction of research programs rather than for successful explorations.
However, the cumulative effect of these failures has resulted in a crisis of
analytic philosophy in which we now have competing analytic explorations but no
framework in terms of which we can choose among the competing explorations. In
the heyday of positivism, when it was assumed that scientific theories could be
empirically confirmed, judging among competing hypotheses was assumed to be an
easy matter. The first symptom of this crisis was the pronounced failure of "normal"
analytical philosophical science, that is positivist elimination. This first symptom
was marked by a proliferation of methodological discussions. We are now wiser
about such matters, but the wisdom is purchased at great cost.
Given the commitment to hypothesis exploration, there is no way of making
sense of the act of acceptance other than to fall into the abyss of a hypothesis about
how hypotheses are accepted. In the absence of any framework in terms of which
one can choose among the competing explorations and in the presence of technical
analytical philosophers engrossed in an exclusive focus on the tertiary puzzles
generated by their favored exploration we find ourselves in a situation in which
practitioners talk past each other rather than to each other. Consider van Fraassen's
remark:

Given these problems, what hopes remain? My hopeful idea has

two parts. The first is that a philosophical position can consist in
something other than a belief in what the world is like. The
alternative is a stance (attitude, commitment, approach) .... In
the case of an empiricist, this stance would for instance involve a
characterization of what science is (in my opinion it is a pursuit of
empirical adequacy) but also a certain advocacy of scientific
practice, and of course disdain for certain sorts of metaphysics.
The second hope, about which I am more tentative, is that Carnap
may have been right to think that such a philosophical position can
be identified (wholly or in part?) through a choice of language.32

We propose, as an alternative, a "We Do" perspective, rooted in the pre-

conceptual domain, that eliminates all ofthe above problems. Mind is not a "thing"
but part of the pre-conceptual domain which is already cultural (social and
historical). It is not a construct contracted among isolated "I's" but the domain from
which the "I's" take their meaning.
 Beyond The Enlightenment Project 455

Social understanding is prior to physical understanding. Social

understanding does not take a "scientific" form but is, instead, philosophical
(explication), historicaL and artistic (humanities).
Insisting upon rigor obfuscates the main point of the controversy. Ifthere
is a pre-technical or pre-theoretical or pre-conceptual context which is prior to all
theory, then the pre-technical cannot be formalized, cannot be stated rigorously. To
ask philosophers to be rigorous is in effect to ask them not to accept the possibility
ofa pre-technical realm. It is so typical of analytic philosophers to refuse or fail to
see the extent to which there is a conflict over the statement of an issue or even what
constitutes a philosophical issue. Analytic philosophers genuinely want to solve
problems but without discussing why we focus or how we focus on those problems.]]
Analytic philosophy's conception of its rivals and critics exhibits a pattern
that is consistent with its conception of itself. Since "a" science is characterized by
a consensus, analytic philosophy in practice strives to be homogeneous and
monolithic, and is, therefore, frequently intolerant. Given its conception of itself and
its inability to discuss its conception of itself (an inability that we have argued is
logically internal to its self-conception), analytic philosophy can only respond to
criticism by ignoring it or suppressing it. In suggesting that sometimes there is
something fundamentally authoritarian and tyrannical about analytic philosophy,
critics are not asserting that this has anything to do with analytic philosophers being
bad people. Curiously, many contemporary analytic philosophers concede the
intolerance of positivism (elimination) but do not recognize either the intolerance of
exploration or the historical and philosophical continuity of exploration with
elimination.
The authoritarian nature of analytic philosophy is a logical consequence of
its conception of itself. Analytic philosophy eschews explication in favor of
hypothesis exploration. Hypothesis exploration presupposes a pre-technical context,
but analytic philosophy either denies that the pre-technical context can be the focus
of discussion or postpones the discussion indefinitely. In the meantime, no questions
can be raised about the pre-technical context either on the grounds that it is irrelevant
or it is premature. In practice this amounts to granting control of the context of
discussion to analytic philosophy. Alternative "metaphilosophical" positions, to
borrow the language of analytic philosophy, are seen as so many alternative or rival
hypotheses to be tested. As Carnap put it, "I wished to show that everyone is free to
choose the rules of his language and thereby his logic in any way he wishes. This 1
called 'the principle of tolerance'. . . ."34 However, this is still to view
"metaphilosophical" positions as the pre-technical formulations of hypotheses, a
restatement of the analytic position rather than a genuine recognition of alternative
conceptions of philosophy. Finally, by its own criteria, were a successful all
encompassing hypothesis forthcoming part of its adequacy would be its capacity to
silence dissent. 35
In addition to the constraints of scientism, analytic philosophy is also
committed to a modern atemporal realism, to a belief in a timeless structure
independent of human reaction. Given this constraint, analytic philosophy is unable
and unwilling to see human beings as cultural beings, both social and historical in
character. This has two consequences: (a) analytic philosophers are not interested
456 Chapter 12

in how other people, past or present, "see" the world, for what is important is how
the world really is; (b) analytic philosophers make no attempt to explicate the
culturaIly negotiated context in which it interacts with non-analytic philosophers. Its
only response to opposition is either hegemony or reluctant participation in a
pluralism it sees asflawed andfragmented. What we are suggesting is that analytic
philosophy by virtue of its adherence to exploration is both unable and unwilling to
explicate its own ground At the same time, its ownfonctioning requires that there
be a consensus. 36 Hence, when faced with opposition it has no coherent intellectual
response and is therefore forced to respond politically. 37 I use the word 'political',
as opposed to 'intellectual', because an inteIlectual response is only possible within
a framework of mutual respect and dialogue. In the absence of mutual respect and
dialogue we find, at best, tolerance or a truce.
If there is a pre-conceptual domain then philosophy must be expressed in
common sense language. not a technical language. The issue of precision masks
here a fundamental disagreement. This should also explain why literature cannot be
replaced by social science if we expect to capture the lived-experience time of the
responsible agent.

Axiology
Analytic axiology (i.e., value theory) as informed by the Enlightenment Project is
both inadequate and dangerous because:

I. It has failed to grasp the centrality ofthe norms within the pre-conceptual
domain; it has failed to grasp what a norm is because it has tried to understand norms
from the point of view of facts. On the contrary, given the priority of practical
knowledge, it is norms that help us to understand what a fact is.

2. Since all forms ofthought and practice presuppose prior norms, and since
human beings cannot understand themselves in a timeless or contextless fashion, it
follows that moral-social-political issues can only be understood and resolved by
reference to prior institutional practices and norms.

3. Analytic philosophy has construed normative problems as political

problems, i.e., purely as problems of institutional structure rather than seeing that
institutional structures are permeated with meaning and norms.

4. Its anti-agency approach, rooted in its metaphysics and epistemology, has

denied or obfuscated the importance of autonomous agents in morality. The
practical analogue to this is that the real moral, social, and political problem is not
getting an "I" to become a "We" but getting individuals to internalize what an "I"
means from within the "We Do" perspective. Our world is one in which too many
people do not yet know how to be responsible individuals.

Analytic Philosophy and "Our" Culture

Analytic philosophy as informed by the Enlightenment Project is both the reflection
of a particular culture and seeks to be the voice of that culture. The culture in
 Beyond The Enlightenment Project 457

question is liberal culture. The element in this culture upon which analytic
philosophy has fastened is technology.38
Within this culture a new kind of elite has emerged. This new elite
comprises engineers, doctors, lawyers, educators, accountants, statisticians, air traffic
controllers, etc., in a word, technicians. This group is the elite not only because it
plays a key role in the maintenance of our institutions but because it believes itself
capable of exercising the role of critically reviewing our fundamental cultural values.
It believes that it deserves to exercise this critical function because it is rational,
methodical, and liberated from past traditions. 39 Remarkably ignorant of its own
traditions, it nevertheless believes that values can be the object of technical analysis.
Precisely because of its ignorance of its own traditions, the new technical elite
confuses technique with science and seeks to absorb the prestige of science itself.
In seeking to give a technical account of values (as well as of science itself) it has
failed to notice that science depends upon values that science cannot itself certify.
The question we wish to raise in this section is: where does analytic
philosophy fit into all of this? Analytic philosophy tries to be a part of this new
technical elite, but it is not at all clear that there is really any role for it. At one point,
the specific subject matter of analytic philosophy seemed to be logic, but logic has
long since passed into the control of mathematicians. The real danger confronting
analytic philosophy is that given its conception of itself, it has become intellectually
and academically superfluous.

Let us specifY the steps that have led analytic philosophy to this impasse:

1. As a consequence of its commitment to scientism, analytic philosophy

adopted exploration as its model of thinking.

2. As a model ofthinking, exploration looks for the hidden structure behind

our ordinary understanding.

3. Since there can be no a priori limitations on what the hidden structure

might be, it is always open and sometimes plausible to suggest that behind our
ordinary understanding of things, even the ordinary or widely accepted
understanding of analytic philosophy itself, there is a hidden structure. This hidden
structure could conceivably be the domain of another discipline.

4. Analytic philosophers have routinely rejected such hypotheses on the

ground that these hypotheses are guilty of the genetic fallacy. More specifically, it
is maintained that prior to all other forms of thought there is "the logic of science"
and that philosophy is specifically charged with exploring that logic. This contention
presupposes that is possible to isolate the logic of a practice independent of the
subject matter. In other words, it is presumed that the form can be isolated from the
subject matter.

5. So far, all attempts to isolate the logical structure from the content have
failed. This is a point we have demonstrated in each of the prior chapters. As we
458 Chapter 12

have shown, when faced with the limitations of this kind of technical analysis
analytic philosophers have sought to evade these limitations with even more subtle
techniques or a frenetic search for new techniques. 4o Nevertheless the result has been
one failed project after another.

6. Within the last two decades. there has been a grudging acceptance that
logical structure cannot be specified independent of content and context.

7. Iflogical form cannot be separated from content then it is not clear how
anyone can isolate the logic of science or of a particular branch of science who is not
a trained scientist. Hence it would seem to be the case that even analytic
philosophers are not adequately trained to offer exploratory hypotheses in the area
of the hard sciences.

8. Moreover, once logical structure and content are considered jointly to be

the focus of attention there is no principled basis for distinguishing between
philosophy and the social sciences. Whatever philosophers do in this respect in the
so-called "soft" sciences it is indistinguishable from what is done by linguists,
psychologists, sociologists, economists, etc. The popularity of cognitive science is
partly a result of its appearing to be the last great hope of the analytic program as
well as an opportunity for individual theorists to move out of academic philosophy
and into a real "science."

9. The inability to distinguish analytic philosophy from the social sciences

renders academic philosophy superfluous on intellectual grounds. Philosophy even
as exploration has lost its integrity as an independent subject.
In practice, analytic philosophy becomes the perpetual postponement of the
issue of meaning in the interest of the searchfor structure, but analytic philosophy
would in principle never be able to recognize meaningful structure without some
prior notion of meaning. The only escape from this thesis is Hegelian, namely, the
view that there is some final all encompassing exploration that transforms our very
conception of ourselves. This escape not only transforms analytic exploration into
an elimination, but it reverts to the despised Hegelian metaphor for its very
intelligibility.

10. If philosophy were a form of explication then its independence and

integrity would be assured. However, analytic philosophy by its commitment to
scientism and to the possibility of total conceptualization eschews explication.

11. Given all of the foregoing, it is now open to a social scientist to suggest
a hidden structure hypothesis about the claims and practices of analytic philosophy.41
Analytic philosophers, given their superfluity, are now fair game for Marxists,
Freudians, doctrinaire feminists, deconstructionists, etc.

12. Short of providing the logic of science independent of content,

something that they have not hitherto been able to do, analytic philosophers are in
 Beyond The Enlightenment Project 459

no position to reject the line of argument in (II) on the grounds that this is not how
they understand themselves. They are not free to use this defense because they are
themselves committed to and partly responsible for the widespread use of
exploratory hypotheses about hidden structure wherein such hypotheses allow us to
modify or overrule our pre-existing understanding. 42 Nor are they in a position to
claim that an activity cannot be understood independent of how the agents in that
activity conceive of it. They cannot use this defense because they have rejected
agency explications.
As a consequence of the above argument there has been a demoralization
within analytic philosophy. Analytic philosophy has ceased being a vital practice
and has become an ideology. The connection between the ideology of analytic
ph ilosophy and political domination of the profession deserves to be stressed. In
stressing the practice of philosophy ("doing" philosophy) and repressing the question
ofthe norms behind the practice, analytic philosophers deny that there is a normative
order beyond practice. Once practice refuses to recognize pre-existing norms, it
invariably converts both theory and practice into production. The result is
technocracy, or a social system in which technical elites emerge as a political
despotism.

13. The critics of the Enlightenment political program often run together in
their minds the specific values with particular rationalizations for those values; often,
it is the rationalization to which they object rather than the values. In their endeavor
to defend liberal culture in one specific way, analytic philosophers may have done
more to jeopardize those very values.

14. By rejecting explication and promoting exploration, analytic philosophy

has sought to undermine all tradition or the very idea of an intellectual inheritance.
By ,engaging in exploration instead of explication it has blinded itself to its own basic
cultural framework. In its place, it has substituted and helped to promote the illusory
external standpoint that presumes to rely on no frame of reference. The result has
been a plethora of bad-faith private agendas. It is not the case that analytic
philosophy itself reflects such a plethora. It doesn't, for it espouses the
Enliightenment program. Rather, it has helped to create and sustain an intellectual
climate within which everyone with a private political agenda can mask it in the
name ofthe external standpoint. It is in this respect that we have identified some of
the practices of analytic philosophy with some of the practices of deconstruction.
This has helped neither liberal values nor the rational examination of value conflict.
Every group, as we have persistently maintained, pretends to discredit every other
agenda by proposing an exploratory account of the allegedly "wrong" agendas.
Those standing on the sidelines cannot help thinking that they live in a world of
mindless relativism. In its failed endeavor to promote realism through scientism,
analytic philosophy leads to skepticism and cynicism.

15. Not only has analytic philosophy promoted the destruction of tradition
in general but it has endangered its own traditional practices and values. Instead of
placing its own traditions beyond criticism, it has helped to delegitimate the values
460 Chapter 12

that are so necessary for the very practice of science itself The inability to speak
about itself as a program leads only to a further erosion of confidence in those values.
We are left with unexpressed conventions and a rhetoric of evasion. This is
something we have identified as the "forgetfulness" of analytic philosophy. In short,
not only analytic philosophy, but the discipline ofphilosophy, the university as an
institution, and our culture in general have been put at risk. 43

16. By becoming a narrow set of specialized practices or techniques,

analytic philosophy has abrogated the traditional role of philosophy in higher
education of providing an integrated view of knowledge and values, of the
humanities, and ofhigher education itself. It has abandoned this role to philistines,
political ideologues, and to utopian technocrats. The latter two categories are
actually consonant with the Enlightenment Program. Finally, analytic philosophy
has been especially destructive of the humanities by scientizing them. The great
divide is no longer, as c.P. Snow thought, between the sciences and the humanities;
rather it is between those who see the humanities as sui generis and those who would
replace the humanities with social "science." Realist explorations of hidden structure
can dispense with history, with what things mean to an agent,44 and with how
meaning has undergone and undergoes transformation. Lest this appear of only
"academic" interest, we hasten to point out that the consequence of analytic
philosophy has been the undermining of the major institutional resource for
reconstituting our culture.

There are lessons to be learned in all of this. Just as we have learned that
we cannot separate logic from metaphysics, and syntax from semantics, body from
mind, thought from action, exploration from explication, so we have learned that we
cannot intelligibly separate philosophy from its history and its place within culture
as a whole. Philosophers might continue to use, with profit, some of the points and
techniques of analytic philosophy just as Roman coins continued to circulate long
after the fall of Rome. Some might even hope to revive analytic philosophy in the
way that the Holy Roman Empire thought of itself as the heir of the Roman Empire.
The passing of analytic philosophy marks the end of one very powerful attempt both
to grasp and direct Western civilization by virtue of a program first articulated during
the Enlightenment. It does not mark the demise of Western civilization. Indeed,
Western civilization would be a rather sorry set of institutions were it not strong
enough to survive the passing of analytic philosophy. Something will have to fill the
vacuum, but what? This, we hope, will be the crucial question in the coming
decades.
 Beyond The Enlightenment Project 461

NOTES (CHAPTER 12)

I. "I approach this question [the definition of analytic philosophy] with

trepidation. Not only it is [sic] certain to be addressed elsewhere in this
volume [in fact, it is nowhere addressed], but there is no clear agreement
about who counts as an analytic philosopher. . .. 1 do not wish to debate
here the extent to which the analytic movement represents a genuine break
with traditional philosophy. . .. I find it exceedingly difficult to say with
any precision what a philosophical movement is and what purpose is served
in characterizing a particular movement one way rather than another"
Resnick (1981), pp. 84-88.

2. Ayer's (1982) assessment of Collingwood's An Essay on Philosophical

Method is that it is "a contribution to belles-lettres rather than philosophy"
(p.193).

3. " ... some philosophers have tried to answer questions of psychology and
thought mistakenly that they were doing philosophy" Corrado (1975), p.
xi.

4. When one denies that there is a cultural phenomenon of analytic philosophy

what is meant, initially, is that there is no readily identifiable institution
called 'analytic philosophy'. To be sure, there is no such institution in the
strong sense that there is an institution like the ASPCA. That is, there is no
institution which has on its letter head the phrase 'analytic philosophy' nor
is such an institution given tax exempt status by the IRS, etc. However, this
does not show that there is no such cultural phenomenon in the sense of
individuals who identify and interact with each other in specified ways
(e.g., journals, publishers, editorial boards, granting agencies, academic
programs, etc.). Moreover, the lack of a standard usage may indicate a
prior inability to see the phenomenon clearly; or, it may reflect that few if
any cultural phenomena emerge in a completely planned and fully spelled
out form; or, analytic philosophers may have reasons not to want to
introduce a standardized usage or definition. Even ifthere has not been a
standard usage up until now, there are good reasons for wanting to retain
the expression. We suspect that the expression is too deeply ingrained to
eradicate. We believe it is historically and philosophically significant that
"analytic" philosophy began with Russell's rejection of Hegel's critique
(via Bradley) of analysis. It is historically significant because it situates
analytic philosophy within the larger context of the history of Western
philosophy. Specifically, we want to retain the expression in order to
identifY the set of ideas that characterize the mind set or cultural phenomena
under discussion.
What we should not lose sight of is that it is not the expression
'analytic philosophy' which is at issue but the set of ideas behind the
462 Chapter J2

expression. Despite the self-ascribed heroic image of academics and

intellectuals as people who thrive on challenging old ideas and exploring
new ones, the stubborn fact is that few ifany of us enjoys altering our basic
views. Clearly those who want to avoid the consequences ofthis argument
will suggest that perhaps a terminological revision is all that is involved.
They will ask whether so much fuss should be made over the expression
'analytic philosophy', or what expression we might use instead of it, or
whether it really matters what we call the cultural phenomena to which we
are alluding. Hence, it is important to repeat that we are not debating the
expression. Avoiding the expression would be of little value if the general
model was not modified. It is the associated set of ideas that is at issue.

5. Charlton (1991).

6. See Hylton (1990b).

7. This description ofa scientific community is freely borrowed from Kuhn

(1962). Resnick (1981): " ... let me propose some properties of analytic
philosophy ... the emulation of science ... the introduction of research
programs . . . . " (p. 86); Quine (1979): "A striking trait of scientific
philosophy ... an intrusion of technical terms and symbols which tends to
estrange lay readers. But in their field they serve investigators as well as
technical terms do in other areas"; Passmore (1985): "now philosophers
prefer to think of themselves as quasi-scientists, collaborating in a research
programme" (p. viii). The adoption of the self-image of being a scientist
can be seen in little ways as well. Professional philosophers, like scientists,
hold congresses, tend to publish articles in journals rather than publish
books, are accorded status on the basis of specific articles; books usually
tum out to be collections of previously published articles. Even the choice
of examples reflects the imagery of science, including the use of science
fiction. "Vienna positivism ... demanded technical competence on the part
of its practitioners and was intolerant of inexact thinking and expression; .
technical competence in logic and mathematics and great interest and
reasonable competence in one or more of the sciences" Turnbull (1979), p.
26. "A striking trait of scientific philosophy in subsequent years [after
Frege] has been the use, increasingly, of the powerful new logic. This has
made for a deepening of insights and a sharpening of problems and
solutions. It has made also for an intrusion of technical terms and symbols
which tends to estrange lay readers. But in their field they serve
investigators as well as technical terms do in other areas" Quine (1979).

8. "[There are] ... special qualifications which analytic philosophers can bring
to the clarification of public issues" Perry (1986), p. xiii.

9. Carnap (1967a), pp. xvi-xvii.

 Beyond The Enlightenment Project 463

10. "Characteristically, human enquiry proceeds instead, at these explanatory

levels, by the invention and investigation of a new hypothesis as anomalies
begin to threaten the one currently accepted or entertained" Cohen (1986),
p. 6. "Deeper theoretical understanding comes from the discovery of
underlying unity amid superficial diversity. No one would deny the truth
of this for scientific progress. But (as already suggested ... )it is equally
true of philosophical progress" Ibid., p. 123.

11. Very often the kinds of individuals cited are religious philosophers who
move freely within the analytic conversation. In response, we note that
there has been a long tradition of acceptance of a positivist conception of
science by deeply religious thinkers. These thinkers are happy to accept
positivism precisely because of its limitations since such limitations provide
the opening for their own theistic (realist) views. Hence, these religious
philosophers do not subscribe to scientism, but they are content to permit
exploratory thinking to become dominant in philosophical discussions.

12. We have claimed that analytic philosophy is the dominant movement in the
Anglo-American professional philosophical community. This does not
mean, sociologically, that every prominent professional philosopher
subscribes to analytic philosophy. That is, the reader must not confuse
'analytic philosophy' with the 'establishment'. There is a great overlap but
not an identity. It is important to make this distinction lest someone come
to believe that the presence of non-analytic philosophers in the
establishment constitutes evidence against the claim that there is a powerful
analytical movement.
The 'establishment' consists (minimally) of those (a) who
subscribe to the paradigm and articulate and defend it, (b) those who raise
objections to particular 'analytic' positions but within the paradigm, ©
those who go along with the domination of the analytic movement in order
to advance their careers although privately decrying the dominance, (d) and,
most especially, those who claim to have transcended 'analytic philosophy'
but have only restated it in a new idiom (i.e., they reformulate all the
objections into a new version of how everything is hypothesis formation).

13. Putnam (1985) : "Analytic philosophy has great accomplishments, to be

sure; but those accomplishments are negative. Like logical positivism
(itself just one species of analytic philosophy), analytic philosophy has
succeeded in destroying the very problem with which it started. Each ofthe
efforts to solve that problem, or even to say exactly what would count as a
solution to that problem, has failed .... But analytic philosophy pretends
today not to be just one great movement in the history of philosophy --
which it certainly was -- but to be philosophy itself. This self-description
forces analytic philosophers ... to keep coming up with new 'solutions' .
. . solutions which become more and more bizarre, and which have lost all
interest outside of the philosophical community. Thus we have a paradox:
464 Chapter 12

at the very moment when analytical philosophy is recognized as the

'dominant movement' in world philosophy, analytical philosophy has come
to the end of its own project -- the dead end, not the completion" ( p. 28).
The negative accomplishment was to show in great technical detail that the
problem of "how words hook onto the world" does not admit of a solution,
and that rationality in science or in ethics does not consist in the possession
of a formal method for appraisal and adjudication.

14. Failure to deal adequately with self-reference can be seen technically in

Russell's Theory of Types, in the uneasiness with the philosophical
implications ofGOdel's proof, in Kripke's contention that Quine's denial
of the semantic enterprise is itself a semantic enterprise, and the perennial
preoccupation with the Liar paradox.

15. Cohen (1986), p. 2. See also Charlton (1991):" ... my strategy will be
to dive into the discussion myself and try to obtain some worthwhile
results" (p. 4).

16. Scientists and writers on science have drawn analogies between the
constructs of scientists and the creation of a work of art which, in an
important sense, is also the exploration of a model. The analogy between
science and art on the one hand and analytic philosophy on the other has
been noted in the concluding section of Nozick's Philosophical
Explanations. We would suggest, on the contrary, that the analogy between
philosophy and art is a symptom of decadence.

17. Charlton (1991): "They [analytic philosophers] pride themselves on their

individualism, on each developing his own or her own views" (p. 4).

18. " ... philosophical scholarship, that valuable activity of a good many
professionals who produce original analyses or constructions only as a by-
product of their interpretation of past thinkers. (To be sure, some good
historical scholars are also creative thinkers who take part in present-day
debates)" Perry (1986), p. xv. Italics mine.

19. On this basis Quine and Kripke are greater philosophers than Rawls ang
Nozick. It is also the case that Bas Van Fraasen is a better philosopher than
Rawls because although Rawls is a super star axiologist and although Van
Fraasen is a good logician but not a super star, good logicians are better
than any axiologists.

20. So, for example, in the history of philosophy Jonathan Bennett is

considered a "better" philosopher than Margaret Wilson because Bennett
explores hypotheses within his historical work as well as in strictly
epistemological debates.
 Beyond The Enlightenment Project 465

21. For a different perspective on the adversarial nature of analytic

philosophical debate see Harding and Hintikka (1983).

22. " ... the progress of science is bound up with this liberal faith. Yet from the
premiss that science owes no allegiance to any type of dictator some
scientists may have concluded, falsely as I believe, that science is
autonomous in the sense that its nature is undetermined by any relation to
practice. But the conviction that science should be free from religion or
politics is a moral conviction" Mure (1958), p . 36.

23. Although analytic philosophers are among the first to decry ad hominem
attacks and the reference to background material they consider a reflection
of the genetic fallacy, there has been a persistent use of both ad hominem
and assertions that appear to be examples of the so-called genetic fallacy in
the analytic literature that attacks Heidegger. Heidegger's membership in
the Nazi party is sometimes mentioned as if this fact alone not only
undermines all of Heidegger' s philosophy but undermines all criticism of
analytic philosophy. Popper (1983) has spoken of the "demand for an
irrational and anti-rational philosophical messianism ala Heidegger" p. 177.
" ... Martin Heidegger, who was a pupil of Husserl, and by an opportune
adherence to the Nazi party supplanted him in his Chair at Freiburg .... "
Ayer (1982), p. 226. " ... positivist philosophers fled or were driven from
the area of Nazi control, whereas their value-laden antagonists, including
Heidegger, stayed put, and mum" Nozick (1981), p. 749 n32. "Some
leading Continental philosophers like Heidegger compromised with the
Nazis, and it is hard to doubt that some Nazis drew support for their ideas
from the writings which still strongly influence Continental philosophy, the
writings of Nietzsche; on the other hand, many of the German and Austrian
philosophers who emigrated to English-speaking countries shared Russell's
taste for empiricism and formal logic" Charlton (J 991), p. 3.

24. "Russell is distinguished from other seekers after absolute certainty chiefly
by the ingenuity of his constructions and by the candor with which he
admits the failures of the quest" Alston (1967b), vol. 7, p. 244. "Even if
it were decided eventually that none of Chomsky's work on generative
grammar was of any direct relevance to the description of natural
languages, it would still be judged valuable by logicians and
mathematicians, who are concerned with the construction and study of
formal systems independently of their empirical application" Lyons (1970),
p. 139.

25. Ruth Barcan Marcus, as quoted in the New York Times, Tuesday, December
29, 1987,p.A 15.

26. A very different view is expressed by Wittgenstein in the Philosophical

Investigation (sec. 88): "No single ideal of exactness has been laid down;
466 Chapter 12

we do not know what we should be supposed to imagine under this head."

27. Romanos (1983), p. 157.

28. In 1914, during his visit to Harvard University, Bertrand Russell had the
following to say about the work of Ralph Barton Perry, George Santayana,
and Josiah Royce: "Everybody is kind, many are intelligent along the
narrow lines of their work, and most are virtuous -- but none have any
quality" (Letter of March 19, 1914).
The persistent hostility to Continental thought, especially toward
Heidegger, is partly a reflection of Heidegger's critique of scientism and
realism as well as warnings about technology. Dummett reports (1978) that
when he was a student "Heidegger was perceived only as a figure offun,
too absurd to be taken seriously as a threat to the kind of philosophy
practised in Oxford" (p. 437).
Paul Kuntz relates a conversation in which after his expression of
sympathy with Richard Popkin's interest in Kierkegaard's existentialism
and in the Jewish heritage of Western Thought, Gustav Bergmann replied
"Dick knows less philosophy than the janitor." When Kuntz then
proceeded to write out his objections to Bergmann's remarks, Bergmann
suggested "Why don't you get out of philosophy?"

29. See Gildin (1975), pp. xiii-xvi for Strauss on Nagel. See Strauss (1953), pp.
9-34 and (1959), pp. 56-77.

30. " ... Russell's recognition that his thought about the nature of logic was
bankrupt: his old view will no longer work, he has nothing to take its place,
and yet his work crucially depends on logic having some kind of special
philosophical status. Under these circumstances he clutches at the word
'tautology', hoping, perhaps, that Wittgenstein will emerge from the
trenches with a definition of the word which will enable it to play the role
that Russell needs it for" Hylton (l990b), p. 165.

31. 'Davidsonic boom': "the sound made by a research programme when it hits
Oxford. And it was indeed an extraordinary phenomenon. Suddenly in the
mid-seventies, Donald Davidson became (as they say) a superstar. ...
Cynics might note that Davidson's output had just the characteristics that
would encourage a certain cult status. For a start, the published corpus was
widely scattered and wasn't always easy to get hold of. Bootleg xeroxes of
unpublished work were also in circulation. So there was the teasing
initiation rite of tracking down the stuff. But once acquired, the papers
made an attractively small pile of typically rather short pieces -- no
Dummettian tomes to get through. The graduate student was thus made to
feel that he could wade into the thick of things without having to do very
much homework first: there was no need to engage with recalcitrant
historical texts, no need to know anything of science or mathematics, even
 Beyond The Enlightenment Project 467

no need to know much serious logic (since Davidsonians told us that

standard first order logic was all we needed). Most importantly, the papers
had an enticing dual aspect. At one level, there were tidy analytic claims
of a regular kind about, e.g., the logical form of indirect speech, or about
the argument that reasons are not causes. These analyses were undoubtedly
clever, but comfortingly familiar in style, the sort of thing any good student
knows how to tackle: but at another level, it was suggested that the
particular analyses subserved and illustrated some much more general
programmatic claims -- Big Ideas (about truth, reality and the mind) were
at stake. And Davidson had caught something of Quine's style, combining
great superficial clarity with an occasional elusiveness on key questions --
providing ideal material, then, for graduate seminars, which could argue
themselves into the ground trying to pin down the Big Ideas. Not entirely
surprising, therefore, that Davidson should have been a big hit. . .. The
reverberations from that Davidsonic boom have died away. . .. The
bandwagons have rolled on elsewhere ... " P. Smith (1991) pp. 280-8l.

32. Bas C. van Fraassen, "Against Naturalized Empiricism," unpublished paper

presented at the Quine Conference, San Marino, May, 1990.

33. According to Gutting (1982), Kripke, Goodman, Plantinga and Rawls, for
example, all appeal to intuition so that there is "very little basis for the view
that philosophers are able to establish their claims by rational
argumentation" (p. 326).

34. Camap (1963), p. 55.

35. The existence of a tradition of a model of coercive argumentation is

sensitively acknowledged and, in principle, rejected by Nozick (1981) in the
introduction to his book. However, Nozick (1) does not discuss the history
ofthat model or identify specific practitioners; (2) substitutes for it what we
have called the exploration model; and (3) still leaves us with the suggestion
that "the philosopher's existential hypothesis may suggest detailed
investigations to the scientist ... " (p. 13).

36. Charlton (1991) claims that analytic philosophy" ... hardly defines itself
at all" (p. 4) and that" ... there is no set of doctrines analytical philosophers
... hold in unison ..." (Ibid.) but that " ... they have a consensus about
what is and what is not a satisfactory treatment of a topic. They also have
some agreement ... about what topics are fit for philosophical treatment."
(Ibid). What are these topics? Charlton claims that " ... history reveals a
single philosophical tradition ... " (p. 11); and that " ... a central task of
philosophy [is] to say how it is that our thoughts and speeches relate to the
world and are true or false" (p. 20) What Charlton is saying without
realizing it is that analytic philosophers have imposed upon the history of
philosophy a paradigm, namely the paradigm of epistemological realism,
468 Chapter J2

so that they do not have to see themselves as a movement dealing with a

particular set of problems in a particular way because of their own
commitments, and therefore do not have to give an account of why those
commitments should be taken seriously.

37. Between 1979 and 1990, a political battle was waged in the American
Philosophical Association between the analytic establishment and a loose
opposition movement called pluralism. See the New York Times, Tuesday,
December 29, 1987, pI. Given what we have said in the text of this book,
that is, given the difficulties we have enumerated in arriving at a consensus,
it is not surprising that a consensus even within analytic philosophy has to
be created politically. Moreover, if philosophy as "a" science requires the
existence of creative geniuses who achieve star status by articulating
hypotheses that defme all legitimate present work and future research in the
discipline, then the only sure sign of occupying this role is political
domination of the professional association, its journals, and its major
graduate schools.

38. My analysis is heavily influenced by the views of Ortega y Gasset's Revolt

of the Masses (specifically the analysis of mass man); Michael Oakeshott
in "Rationalism in Politics;" Hannah Arendt's The Life of the Mind; Martin
Heidegger's discussion of technology; and William Barrett's The Illusion
of Technique.

39. We have maintained that it does not seem possible for human beings to
exist without some conception of their past. Hence, even in a culture which
thinks of itself as liberated from its traditions, there is a mythological
historical account of how it has emancipated itself from its past. Any such
historical account, beside being inaccurate or distorted, is either logically
incoherent or presupposes unexamined metaphysical premises about the
relation of past, present, and future.

40. " ... even if our success to date has been modest, that does not show we
ought to quit. Where would physics be if Galileo, Newton, and Einstein
had yielded to such reasoning?" Sosa (1987), p. 711.

41. The present book is not and will not offer such a hypothesis. This book is
an attempt to explicate analytic philosophy with special reference to the
Enlightenment Project.

42. "Substantive analytical philosophy has often occupied itself with a search
for hitherto unnoticed presuppositions or implications, and so there is no
reason why analytical metaphilosophy should not do likewise" Cohen
(1986), p. 12.
 Beyond The Enlightenment Project 469

43. " ... science, which in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries
was the most powerful of weapons against obscurantism and tyranny,
became the dominant superstition of the twentieth" Mure (1958), p. 37 n 1.

44. There may be an important parallel here with the prevalence of pure
formalism in art, a formalism which eschews issues of meaning and thinks
that art is either structure or something that gives pleasure.
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 INDEX

a priori ..... 3,6,9,10,26,29,58,78,79,81,82,84,85,89,91,125, 128, 129,

154,155,169,173,179,185,197,201,261,276,456
absolute idealism .............. 0 ••••• 27, 31, 112, 423
0 0 •••••• 0 0 •••••• 0

abstract ......... 6,29,46,47,55,57,77,78,80,82,112, 114, 139, 141, 156,

157,167,172,175,187,194,195,210,226,253,262,
274,297,349,377,379,380,425
abyss of exploration ...... 4, 8-11,170,172,173,186,187,215,337,371,375
0

Achinstein, P.... 0 ••••••• 0 0 • 0 •••••••••• 470

0 ••••••••• 0 •••• 0 0 • • • • • • ••

active intellect ........... 19,52, 157, 159-161, 164, 179, 194,249,251

0 ••••

Adorno, ToW.................................... 17,470 00 •••••••• 00

Agassi, J. . 0 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 59, 122,470 0 0 • • • ••

agency .. 5, 13,29,30,57,78,79,83,84,97, 115, 118, 126, 174,200-202,204-

206,209,225,247,257,279,296,299,301,302,308,310,331,
333,335,338,354,358,363,366-368,394,405,426,
428,429,445,450,455,458
Ahrens, Jo 0 ••••• 0 ••••••• 0 0 ••••••• '0' ••319,495
0 ••••••••• 0 ••• 0 •••• 0 0

Aiken, H.D .............. 0 •••••••••••••••••••••• 31,471 0 •••••••• 000

Alston, WoP ...................................... 94,451,470 0 ••••••

American Philosophical Association ... 41,402,455,499,504

0 ••••••• 0 0 ••••

analysis ..0 0.0 12, 17, 19,27-29,43,47,52,66,68,79-81,84,92-95,

•••••••••

97-99,101,112,122,127,129,162,165-167,
169,170,180, 181, 194, 196, 199,200,202,
206,207,210-213,217,224-228,230,245,
246,249,251,252,255,259,266,268,295,
308,317-320,322-324,326,327,334,337,
350,357,364,365,367-371,376,377,402,
425,444,447,449,450,456,457,472,473,
476,477,481,486,487,
500,501,506,507
analytic conversation .. 1-4,6-11,30,63,65,67,76,93,98, 103, 120, 142, 144,
201,245,320,424,446,449
analytic philosophy 1-4,6,7,9-11, 19,27-31,33,41,44,48,50,55,56,59-
000.

61,65-68,75,76,78-81,83,86,88-93,95,97,98,
100-103,112, 114,118-126,128,130-133,135,
137-139,142-144,153,162,166,170,172,174,
180,183-186,185,194-204,206,208-210,212,
215-216,218,219,221,222,225-227,229,230,
245,249,250,253-255,257,258,264,
265,267,268,271-274,277,279,292,
294-298,300-302,306,308-310,318-
321,324,326,327,329,331,336,
349, 358-363, 366, 373, 393-399,
401-408,413,414,417-429,442-
450,452-459,470,474,475,480,
485,488,494, 497-500, 504, 508
analytic-synthetic distinction .......... 61,127,136,142, 195,203,227
0 0 0 ••

Anscombe, G.E.M ................. 0 •• 123,174,470

0 0 •••••••• 0 0 •••••••

anti-agency ... 13,30,57,79,83,84,97,126,174,200,201,204,205,209,225,

247,257,296,331,335,358,366,367,394,405,426,428,429,
 Index 511

445,450,455
anti-realism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 210
anti-systematic philosophy .................................... 121, 122
Apel, K-O. .................................................... 470
applied ethics ............ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 337,338
Aquinas, St. Thomas .............................. 47,78, 113, 159, 160
Archard, D ................................................. 381,470
Arendt, H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .467
Aristotelianism ... 44,48,77,80,83,97, 112-119, 126-129, 131, 135, 142, 144,
153,155,156,187,201,221,227,229,275,358,379,426
Aristotle ... 18,44-46,50,113-115,123,126,132,134,155-159,164,178,179,
197,225,272,298,337,369,381,395,398,399,407,412,415,
425,473,484,505,507
Armstrong, D.M..................................... 49,251,257,470
artificial intelligence (AI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 255, 260
atomism. 12,28,88,97,161,162,181,182,251,253,294,295,297, 319, 353,
477,501
Aufbau ......................................... 31,95,249,265,475
Augustine, St. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 112, 159,275
Austin, J.L. ................... " 93, 123,227,229,245,364,373,470,482
autonomy of science .................... 19,20,65,76,85,88,90,102,245
A verr/)es . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 18
Avineri, S ................................................. 381,470
axiology ............. 13,19,27,200,295,306,367,378,379,445,448,455
axiom of infinity .............................................. 87,86
axiomatization ............................................... 50, 58
Ayer, A.J.. 30,172,183,227,229,250,319,333,399,427,449,470,471,475,
476
Ayers, M.............................................. 403,471,499

Bacon, F........................................ 19-21,44,47,54,351

Baier, K. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 325, 326,471
Baillie, 1. .................................................. 24, 471
Baldwin, T.............................................. 28,205,471
Barker, S.F. . .................................................. 470
Barnes, W.F.H.............................................. 471, 502
Barrett, W. ............................................... 1,31,471
Barry, B. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 362,404,471
Bar-Hillel, Y............................................... 211,471
Baynes, K. .............................................. 1,470,471
Bealer, G.................................................. 259,471
Beck, L.W..................................................... 471
Becker, C.L. ................................... " ... 17,471,480,503
behaviorism ................... 202,209,230,250,251,256,259,272,279
Beiser, F.C................................................. 471,488
Bell, D .......................... 1, 194,423,426,472,474,488,502,505
Bennett,J........................... 394,400,402-405,410,427,448,472
Bentham,J........................ 23,31,292,317,354-356,361,472,488
Bergmann, G............................................ 30,452,472
512 Index

Bergson, H ................................................ 135,472

Berkeley, G............ 44, 164, 165, 169,227,257,307,396,405,476,487,
490,492,499
Berlin, I. ......................................... 17,18,30,472,475
Bhaskar, R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 269, 298, 300, 305, 472
Biro, J ........................................................ 402
Black, M.............................................. 471,472,482
Blackburn, S......................................... 42,44,330,472
Blanshard, B ................................................... 472
Block, N. ................................................. 312,472
Block, I. ........................................................ 472
Bloom, A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 17, 369, 388, 472
Bloor, D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 92,473
Bonham, J ............................................... 1,470,471
Boole, G...................................... 79,81,82,86,473,489
Borradori, G.............................. 1, 102, 103,349,377-380,473
Boyd,R.................... 44,261,320,473,479,483,493,498,507,508
Bradley,F.H .................... 27,28,77,79,80,119,227,427,444,481
Braithwaite, R.B ............................................. 55,473
Brentano, F ..................................... 170-172,175,176,473
Broad, C.D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . ............................. 473
Brodbeck, M ........................................... 292,481,486
Brouwer, L.E.J......................................... 133,206,473
Brown, J.R. ................................................ 92,473
Bunnin,N............................. 470,472,474,491,495,502,504
Burge, T........................ 81,256,268-270,274,279,373,426,474
Bury, J.B ................................................... 24,474

c
Cabanis, P.J.G ............................................ 17,19,474
Capaldi, N ........ 28,51,58, 113, 139,207,303,317,358,382,400,474,475
Camap, R. ............... 29-32,42,44,53,54,57,60,76,81,95, 122, 127,
137, 186, 195, 197,200,201,203,210,211,
249-251,265,319,358-360,395,445,453,
454,475,476,494,502,503,506
Carroll, L. ..................................................... 206
Carruthers, P. .......................................... 425, 426, 476
Cartesian ...................... 102, 130,207,227,246,257,258,474,476
Cartwright, N............................................... 67,476
Cassirer, E. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 20, 22, 476
Castafieda, H.N .............................................. 42,475
casuistry .................................................. 321,338
causal theory of meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 213
causality ................... 14,44,45,47,48, 50, 78, 79, 268, 298, 300, 330
causation ...................... 46-52, 55, 112, 165,272,298,301,474,489
Charlton, W........................... 1, 194, 199,444,447-449,455,476
Chisholm, R.M ...................................... 43,251,333,476
ChomskY,N............... 92,135,201,209,210,227,251,252,258,260,
273,402,453,476,485,488,491
Christian ............... 17,25,31,32,39,163,247,323,349,351,382,411
 Index 513

Churchland, P.M ................................. 276-279, 287, 290, 291,

476,477
Churchland, P.S .................................. 276-279,287,290,477
Clark, R.W. . ............................................... 29,477
classical liberalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 354,355, 370
cognitive science ................... 181,255,259,457,471,492,504,505
Cohen, A................................................ 1,477,500
Cohen, L.J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 216,229,361,362,445,447,458,
476,487,500
Cohen, L. .................................................... 395, 476
coherence problem .................................. 162,164,166,177
coherence theory of truth ...................... 27, 142, 182,381,479,499
collectivism ....................................... 143,274,303,379
Collingwood, R.G ............................ 44,226,227,404,416,477
Collins, H..................................................... 477
common law ............................................... 411,417
common sense 3,22,28,31,53,77,83,91,93,98,99, 101, 102, 115, 130, 132,
143, 157, 165, 171, 196, 199,201,205,208,222,224-226,249,
257,261-264,270-274,276,277,293,294,296,299,
302,305,308,321-323,325,331,332,338,362,366,
442,455,493,501
communitarian ......................................... 374,377,381
Comte, A............................................. 21,30,31,503
Condillac, E.B .............................. 17-21,26,121,246,352,477
conditionals ...................... 29,49,51,52,80,81,86,126,213,301
Condorcet, A.N. de .................................... 17,21,22,477
Constant, B.................................................... 385
Consuegra, F.A. Rodriguez .................................... 88,477
Continental philosophy ...................................... 336, 449
convention ............................................ 159,178,212
Cooper, N ................................... 1,472,474,488,502,505
Copernican .......... 26-29,43,44,51,58,62,77-79,84,85,93,96,97,101,
113-115,117-119,122,132,158,161,169,171,
176,178,179,194,196,200,202,205-209,
212,214,224-229,249,256,266,336,
394,397,400,404,452,474
Copernican revolution in philosophy ...... 26,44,58,78,79,85, 113, 161, 169,
176,194,205,214,225-229,
256,394
Copleston, F.C .................................................. 477
Cornforth, M.C. ........................................ 373,379,478
Corrado, M................................................ 443,478
correspondence theory of truth .................. 67,82, 136, 182,216,278
cosmic order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 5,6,375
counterfactual ........................................... 49,212,213
covering law model of explanation ............................. 292, 393
Cranston, M................................................ 351,478
Creat, R....................................................... 478
Creighton, I.E ................................................... 41
critical legal studies ......................................... 373, 507
Croce, B. ..................................................... 404
514 Index

Cummins, R.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 255, 478

Curley, E.................................................. 404,478

D'Alembert, J. . ................................. 16, 18-20,30,350,478

D'Amico, R. .................................................. 407,435
D'Holbach, P.H.D................................... 16,19,20,25,316
Danto, A.C .......................................... 1,408,418,478
Dartnall, T................................................. 478,492
Darwall, S...................... 319,320,323,325,329,330, 333-336,478
Darwin, C. ............................................ 126, 319, 395
Dascal, M. .............................................. 1,477,500
Dauenhauer, B.P............................................ 478,480
Davidson, D. ... 66,95, 102, 123, 128, 167,202,216,219,220,257,261,268,
400,453,478,479
dedicto ................................................... 131,215
de re ................................................. 131,215,220
deduction .......................... 27,45,48,49,51,54-56, 79, 155,336
definition .... 8, 17,24,29,79,94, 112,223,226,308, 367, 396, 397, 405, 413,
423,443-446,449,450,453
deism ...................................................... 18, 20
democracy .. 23,31,246,302,319,320,351,352,354-356,358,359, 363,494,
500
Den Uyl, D.l. .............................................. 382, 498
Dennett, D.C ............ 245,251,255,257,261-263,265,267,268,279,479
Descartes, R. 19-22,25,44,47,50, 112, 114, 116, 161, 163, 164,246,247,258,
264,270,273,275,307,395,417,419,427,450,451
determinism ....... 14,19,23,31,131,200,210,230,264,272,296,299,303,
322,323,328,331,332,352-354,363,367,369,443,483,
487,490
Dewey, J................................... 77,201,253,413,451,479
Diderot, D.................................... 17,21,31,246,351,478
Dilman, I. ..................................... 202,204,219,220,479
Dilthey, W ................................................. 112,307
Dodds, E.R. ................................................ 24, 479
Donagan, A.................................... 323,325,397,479,480
Double, R................................................. 331,480
Dray, W ................................................... 293,480
dualism ........... 20, 113, 114, 122, 130, 140, 182, 183,227,248,249,257,
259,263,264,301,302,307,332
Duhem, P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 31,59, 127,480
Dummett,M.... 1,29,42,44, 125,206,208,210,214,229,230,278,425-427,
452,480
Dupont de Nemours, H.A .......................................... 351
Dupre, L. ................................................. 393,480
Durkheim, E. ................................................... 92
Dworkin, R............................. 366,369,372,373,377-379,480
 Index 515

Eames, E.R.......................................... 28,76,181,480

Edwards,P ............. 470,471,473,480-482,489,491,494,495,503,507
efficient causation ............................................... 51
Einstein, A............................. 30,50,61,64, 126,359,457,487
elimination .... 2-4 (defined), 6, 7, 90-95, 97, 99, 100, 127, 129, 130, 132, 136,
137,184,198-202,208-210,215,217,219,227,247,
249-251,257,258,264,267,270,274,276-279,
293,296,301,304-306,309,318-321,337,361,
362,366,383,393,395,408,450,453,454,
457,476
emotivism ..................... 319,320,324,325,327,329,337,362,363
empiricism ...... 18, 19,25,27,28,30,43-45,54,55,57,59,81,97,125,128,
142,164,169,195,201,203,204,209,212,215,217,
218,227,228,259,266,321,350,357,360,361,363,
374,379,396,416,428,449,453,475,
481,488,494,497,498,502,504,507
empiricist ... 12,26,48,55,65,82, 119, 125, 126, 128, 129, 194,202,209,212,
216,229,249,257,258,266,309,361,401,453,487
Enlightenment .................... 2,3,5-12, 143, 144,218,279,349-360,
457-459,470,476,482,492
Enlightenment Project ..... 2,3,5-12,16,17,18,20-28,30-33,41,44,48,50,
51,63-68,75-77,83,88,89,93,99-102,112,114,
119-121,124,153,159,170,174,186,194,209,
229,245-249,253,259,269-271,292,
295,307,308,317-319,321,326,
329,331,332,336,349-353,
355-359,362,371,373,374,
376,377,382,393,395-397,
407,408,422,442-444,446,
450,451,455,457,475
Epimenides ................................................ 133, 136
epiphenomena .............................................. 13,353
epistemological agenda .......................... 194,215,218,219,256
epistemological realism ..... 114, 117, 118, 132, 158, 171,271,272, 303,307,
360,455
epistemology ... 2,4,8, 12-14, 19,25-27,29,43,44,47,50,55,57,63,77,78,
80,81,88,99, 102, 113-119, 124, 125, 128, 132, 142, 143,
153-180,183-187,194,195,197-199,
202-204,206,211,218,219,225,226,
228,229,245,247,248,250,254-260,
264,265,268,274,275,295-298,
300,306,307,321,328,330,
357,358,371,373,377,
382,401,404,407,415,
444,448,450,455,
489,492,497
equality ........................ 23,246,352,356,357,368,369,372,380
essentialism ................................... 131,134,212,216,381
evolutionary epistemology ................................ 142,170,186
516 Index

explanandum ......................................... 48,49,98,254

explanans ............................................ 48,49,98,254
explication ............... 5-7 (defined), 90, 93, 97-103,171,173,187,198,
200,201,204,205,207,208,210,214,215,219,
221,222,224,227-229,263,266,267, 270-
273,276-280,292,293,300,306-310,
333-338,366,369,377,378,380,
382, 383, 398, 408-423, 428,
447,449,450,454,
457-459, 505
exploration.. . .. 3,4 (defined), 6-11, 90-103, 122, 128, 130-132, 135-137, 139,
142, 166-168, 170-173, 177, 186, 187, 198-203,
208-212,214-217,219,221,224,227-230,247,
250,251,256-259,261,263-265,267,268,270,
272,276-279,292,296,298-307, 309,
318,320,321,323-325,327,329,
330,335,337,349,361,364-366,
368-371,375,377,378,380-383,
396-402, 404-406, 408,
410-414,416-424,427,
443,445-450,453-459
exploration presupposes explication ...... 97-98,262,266,276,409,415,418,
420
extension ............................. 137, 198,201,211,253,268,276
external world ......... 29,30,53,78,165,167,179,247,260,261,496,500
externalism ............................................. 268-270, 373

fallibilism . .. . . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. 304, 305, 363

falsification ................................ 27,28,57,60, 134,360,361
fecundity ............................................... 58,57,361
Feigl, H..................... 28,30,137,264,292,481,486,492,504,506
Feinberg, J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 333,481
Feuer, L....................................................... 481
Feyeraben~P................. 61,62,66,128,298,299,374,375,421,481
Fichte, J.G ................................................. 169,179
Field, H........................................... 214,238,281,481
Fleck, L..................................................... 9,481
Fl0istad, G............................................. 480,486,488
Fodor,L ...... 101,135,200,201,209,210,257-262,268,275,279,293,476,
481,482
folk psychology ............................................ 276, 505
form ........... 3,5,8,9,20,21,23,24,29,30,32,44-47,50,53,57,67,78,
80,81,87-93, 95,96,99, 100, 102, 112-114, 117-119,
123, 124, 127, 129- 132, 135, 140, 142-144, 154-158,
162-170,172,173,175-183,186,187, 194-198,
202,203,205-207,209,210,214-217,222,
223,226,228-230,246,248,250,251,253,
255,257,258,260-262,264-267,270,
272-275,280,295,298,299,301,310,
 Index 517

317-320,324,325,331-333,335,336,
338,349,351-353,356-359,361,363,
365-367,370,382,383,393-397,
402,404,411,419,423,427,429,
442-447,450,452-454,456,
457,482
Foucault, M ........................................ 227,308,375,408
foundationalism ........................... 4,43, 172, 173,213,297,298
Frank, P ............................................... 17,30,31,76
Frankena, W ........................................... 319,393,482
Frankfurt School ............................................... 358
free market economy ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 349, 382
free will ........................... 19,263,266,328,331,332,355,480
freedom ....... 8,9, 13, 14,22,25,64,143,230,262,296,301-303,307,329,
331,332,337,351,353,360,362,363,377,483,
490,501,505,506
Frege, G ............... 28,30,31,77,79,81-85,94,95, 112, 122, 127, 129,
203,206,210,308,424-427,453,474,480,482,
487,499,502,505
French, P.A. .......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 17, 18,22,277,375,472,479,499
Freud, S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 92, 250, 360, 395
Fuller, T ....................................................... 495
functionalism ......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 142,257,261

Gabbey, A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 395, 482

Gadamer, H-G .................................. 201,207,308,410,482
Galileo, G ....................................... 50,61, 102,399,457
Gasper, P .............................. 260,473,479,493,498,507,508
Gassendi, P. .................................................... 50
Gauthier, D.P ........................................... 319,326,482
Gay, P ..................................................... 17,482
Gellner, E. . ........................................... 127,229,482
Gergen, K. ................................................ 301,482
Gergen, M.M .................................................. 301,482
Gewirth, A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 323,482
Gibbard,A .............. 319,320,325,326,329,330,333-336,402,478,483
Gibson, R ..................................................... 126
Gildin, H.............................................. 452,483, 506
Ginet, C ................................................... 331,483
Ginsburg, M. ............................................... 24, 483
gnosticism .................................................... 351
God ... 18,19,21,25,31,32,42,47,83,121,159-161,163-165, 179, 183, 197,
252,253,328,350-353,411,450,451
Godel, K. ..................... 30,87,96,97, 127, 134, 135, 137,206,483
Goethe, J.W. von ............................................... 207
Golding, M.P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 353, 483
Goldman, A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 184,274,483
Goodin, R.E. .............................................. 483, 496
Goodman, N ............................. 31,49,139,212,454,483,484
518 Index

Goodwin, R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 496
Gourevitch, V.................................................. 484
Gournay, A. de ................................................. 351
Gower, B. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 484, 488, 505
Gracia, J.J.E. .......................................... 394, 395, 484
Gray, J................................................ 373,389, 391, 483
Greco-Roman ............................................... 25,351
Grice, H.P..................................... 216,227,230,279,484
Griffm, N................................................... 93,484
Guttenplan, S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 480, 482, 484, 498
Gutting, G. ................................................ 454, 484

Haack, S. ......................................... 132, 134, 484, 485

Habermas, J........................................ 358,363,377,485
Hacker, P.M.S ........................... 1,28,29,31,219,225,424,485
Hacking, I. ................................................ 394, 485
Hahn, H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 30, 503, 507
Haller, R................................................... 31,485
Hampshire, S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 366, 480, 485
Hanfiing, O................................................. 31,485
Hanson, N.R. .................................................. 485
Harding, S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 449, 485
Hare, P.H......................................... 394, 430, 484, 485, 507
Hare, R.M......................... 228,318,322,323,325,326,472,484
Harman, G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 320, 325, 422, 485, 488
Harre, R. ................................... 297-305,475,485,486,492
Harris, R.............................................. 475,486,492
Hart, H.L.A ......................................... 364-366,373,486
Hartle, A. ..................................................... 486
Hartley, D. .......................................... 23, 24, 350, 486
Hasnas, J. ................................................. 353,486
Haugeland, J. ...................................... 255, 258, 259, 486
Hayek, F.A. ................................... 337,351,356,363,486
Hegel, G.W. . . . . 7,25-29,43,63,64,79,80,97,112,113,117-119,121,122,
127,128,131,132,135,137-140,142,143,153,169,170,
174,179,180,182,183,186,197,199,225,227,267,
279,300,302,303,305-307,320,327,329,358,368,
372,377,381,383,394,398,404,413,
415,429,444,471,479,486,488,506
Hegelian Argument ..................................... 120, 136, 141
Heidegge~M........... 87,201,227,228,279,307,449,451,452,486,487
Heijenoort, J. Van .......................................... 135, 507
Heisenberg, W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 64, 486
Heivetius, C.A ......................... 17,19,23,246,317,350,352,486
Hempel, C.G ....................... 30,48,49,54,293,300,307,486,487
Hesse, M................................................... 67,487
hidden structure. . . . . . . .. 4,8,9,90-94,98-100, 130, 131, 161, 199,201,209,
210,212,218,220-222,224,257,258,264,271,
278,298-300,302,304,308,321,323,335,
 Index 519

366,369,381,397,401,402,408,416,
419,421,428,451,456-459
Hintikka, J ...................................... 83, 129,218,478,487
Hintikka, M............................................... 449, 464, 485
historicism ... 21,32,52, 124, 142, 186, 197,303,306,329,375,381,382,407,
491
historicist .. 21,25,52,64,88,137,139,142,173,186,202,329,360,418,452
Hjelmslev, L ............................................... 268,487
Hobbes, T................ 19,20,44,47, 163, 164, 181,256,263,292,295,
332,373,399,487
holism ........ 27-29, 59, 66, 122, 126, 127, 129, 135, 136, 181, 183, 185, 186,
202-204,210,211,213,218,268,270,278,363,416,477
Holland, A.J. . ................................................. 474
Holt, E.B .............................................. 250,472,479
Holton, G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 64,65,487
Honderich, T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 331,487
Hook, S........................................... 357,446,487,496
Hooker, C.A. .............................................. 363, 487
Horkheimer, M.............................................. 17,470
Hospers, J..................................... 319,487,500,503,504
Hottois, G ................................................. 201,487
Hubner, K.......................................... 1,44,61,67,488
Hull, D.L. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 65, 488
Hume, D.... 7,17,20,26,31,44,51,52,58,79,113,114,116,165,168,169,
194,222,227,248,249,254,264,270,272,273,279,298,
301,330,337,349,350,354,358,378,396,400,403-405,
407,419,427,451,474,475
Humphreys, P. . ............................................. 44,488
Husserl, E.................................. 79, 137,269,279,449,488
Hylton, P ................... 28,29,81,84,88,319,424,426,444,453,488
Hymes, D. .................................................... 488
hypothesis .... 4,32,51,53,54,59,60,62,67,90,91,93,94,98,99, 101, 102,
120, 122, 127, 129, 130, 136, 138, 162, 166, 170, 171, 181,
184,203,209,212, .214,216,220,224,225,257,260,
263-267,275,276,279,294,307,309,322,328,
331,337,358,361,364,368,370,379,381,
397,398,400-403,405,414,416,418,
420,424,426,428,442,443,445-449,
453,454,457

I Do ........................... 28,81,206,224,272,298,320,405,443
I Think ..... 27,96, 103,206,246,247,249,263-265,269,271-273,294,297,
304,318,333,371,376,417,450
idealism ........ 27,28,31,44,55,84,112,117-119,139,143,170,172,179,
183,194,197,227,249,274,298,360,363,394,423,471,
488,493
idealist ....................................... 27,64,79,81,179,492
identity theory ..... 130,251,252,257,259,260,266,275,279,296,328,490
Incivility thesis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 376
520 Index

incoherence ......... 98-100,103,138,167,202,204,217,221,222,224,310

Incommensurability thesis ........................................ 376
individual rights ............................... 27,28,296,349-351,370
individualist epistemology .................................... 371,382
infinite ...... 54,83,87,133-135,141,154,173,183,211,214,223,224,251,
265, 305, 310, 332
intension .............................................. 198,201,212
internal relations .................................... 135, 168, 182, 183
International Encyclopedia of Unified Science ..................... 31, 486
introspection .................... 181, 194,246-250,255,261,295,297,379

Jackson, A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 488
Jacobs, S. ..................................................... 488
James, VV........... 23,317,331,350,413,470,472,474,491,495,502,504
Janik, A. ........................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 30, 228, 424, 488
Joad, C.E.M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 488
Joergensen, J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 488
Johnson, VV.E. ........................................... 79, 80, 488
Judeo-Christian ...................................... 17,25,323,351

Kanbartel, F. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 222, 489

Kant, I. .. 7,17,20,25-29,31,44,51,55,58,78,79,81,84,113, 114, 119, 169,
194,258,275,279,307,323,325,337,349,354,358,368,
377,378,394,398,399,403,406,451,474,479,492
Kantian Turn ............ 4,6,53,54,59,62,64,75,88, 100, 118, 130, 140,
154,159,184,186,194,200,208-211,215,
218,226,232,238,255-258,265,266,
276,277,284,296,297,299,308,
321,322,324-326,342,343,360,
363,367,370,396,399,400,
404,407,418, .420, 423,
427,435
Katz, J............................................ 201,209,210,476
Kekes, J..................................................... 1,489
Kim, J. ................................................... 264, 489
Kitcher, P. . ......................... 62,99, 185,270,400,402,427,489
Kneale, VV.C ................................... 54,77,80,81,471,489
Kneale, M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 75, 79, 80, 488
Kornblith, H. .............................................. 186, 489
Kraft, v .................................................... 30,489
Kripke, S................ 42,95, 123, 127-137, 168, 186, 187, 195, 197,200,
201,203,208,210-220,222-224,228,229,257,
269,398,405,448,454,489
Kuhn, T....... 60,62,65,66,128,220,298,299,374,375,403,421,445,489
Kukathas, C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 368, 489
Kuntz, P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 452
 Index 521

Lakatos, I. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 62, 489

LaMettrie, J.~. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 489
Las1ett, P. ................................................. 363, 490
Latour, B. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 490
Laudan, L. ................................................. 62, 490
Lehrer, K.......................................... 402,481,483,490
Leibniz, G.W............ 20,21,28,44,96,112,116,161,163,179,257,307,
395,396,398,400,405,451,501,505
Lepenies, W. .............................................. 396, 490
Levin, M. ................................................. 266, 490
Lewis, C.l. ............................................. 58, 128,214,490
Lewis, D........... 44,69,129,132,206,212,215,237,251,280,320,325,
341,490
liar paradox ................................... 133, 136,214,218,446
liberal culture .... 11,349-352,354,356,358,362,363,366,371-374,376-378,
380,382,456,458
liberal social theory ..................... 369,371,373,374,377,381,382
liberalism .. 14, 134,349-352,354-358,360,361,363,366,369,370,372,377,
378,381,480,481,484,488,498,499,502
liberty ....... 15,17,317,331,337,351-354,368-370,382,486,493,495,498
limited government ..................................... 351,363,382
Livingston, D. ............................................. 349,490
Locke,1. 17-20,23,25,26,28,31,44,47,52,113,118,119,162-164, 168, 176,
178,194,227,246,258,273,272,337,349,350,352,353,373,
377,380,396,404,450,488,490,491
logic ......... 3,28-30,41,44,47,52-54,57,75-85,87-97,99-102, 123, 127,
129-132,137,139,140,142,170,175-178,181,183,195-197,
199,202,203,205,206,208,211-213,215-217,219,226,230,
263,310,319-325,363-365,371,394,406,413,423,425,445,
446,448,452-454,456,457,459,470,473,475,479,483,
486-490,492-494,496,500,501,503,506
logical empiricism .......................................... 481, 488
logical positivism. 11,28, 128,446,470-472,475,476,478,484,485,488,489,
494,499,502,505,508
logicism ........ 79,81-93,95-97,101,128,133,134,196,425,426,444,488
Losee, 1. ................................................... 44, 491
loss of philosophical consciousness ............. 137, 144,338,427,443,450
Lotze, R.H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 82, 122
Lukasiewicz, J ................................................... 30
Lukes, S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 295,491
Lycan, W.G ................................................ 246,491
Lyons, 1. .............................................. 355,451,491

Mably, G.B. ............................................... 352,491

Mach, E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 30, 31, 487
Machiavelli, N. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 295
MacIntyre, A .......... 11, 17,308,327,329,330,349,377-382,393,404,491
522 Index

Mackie, J.L. ............................................... 404,491

Madden, E.H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 298, 300, 485
Magee, B. .......................... 93,325,326,332,366,369,372,491
Malcolm, N................................................ 229,491
Mandelbaum, M............................................ 394,491
Manicas, P.T........................... 297,298,300,301,303,485,491
Manser, A. ................................................. 28, 492
Marcus, R.B ................................... 129,215,216,451,492
Margol~,J ...................... 64,245,280,300,308,404,410,485,492
Maritain, J. .................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 358
Marxism .. 14,15,57,60,255,269,292,306,331,349,351,352,357, 358, 360,
363,371,373,374,381,478,487
material implication ............................... 85,86, 129,215,226
materialism .... 18-20,27,42, 142, 143, 197,261,269,276,332,357,363,373,
377;394,477
Maxwell, G. ................................................... 492
McCarthy,J.............................................. 1,17,475,492
McCarthy, T. . ............................................. 470,471
McDonough, R.M. ........... 30, 176, 178, 219, 268, 400, 424, 425, 429, 492
McDQwell, J. . ............................................. 474,496
McGinn, C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 205, 245, 269, 276, 493
McMullin, E. .................................................. 493
McTaggart, J.M.E. ....... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 119
meaning terminus ........................ 155, 157, 158, 177-180, 183,210
mechanism ..... 25, 114, 115, 162, 163, 166, 168, 197, 199,203,209,215,245,
253-255,257,259,261,262,266,268,269,271,272,
275,295,296,299,401,414,450
metaphysics ... 2, II, 17, 19,21,25,27,32,44,47,50,77,78,80,81,88,101,
112-124,127,128,130-133,135-139,142-144,153,155-162,
165-167,170,174,178,183,186,187,194-197,203,219,
225,228,246,248,258,264,265,274,275,303,306,
309,320,328,363,371,375,398,403,404,412,
415,442,444,453,455,459,472,474,476,
479,480,484,488,490,494,497,
502,504
meta-ethics ............................. 320-325, 327, 337, 338, 364, 365
meta-language ............................. 134,181, 211, 215, 217, 222
methodological individualism .. 13, 143,292-296,298,299,303,305,350,353,
378,508
Mill, James .................................................... 23,316
Mill, John Stuart ......... 31,80,303,317,318,320,325,331,337,342,344,
347,474,488,493
Miller, F., Jr................................................... 319,495
Miller, R. . ................................................. 307,493
Millikan, R.G. . ................................................ 493
mind-body problem ..................... 229,247,250,272,275,443,490
Afind ....... ... 228,242,482,485,488,489,493,496,500,502,505,506,507
mind. 9, 19,21,23,26,28,29,32,42-44,46,52,55,58, 77-79,81,84,93,102,
116, 117, 120, 125, 129, 131, 134, 135, 139, 140, 142, 143, 154,
156, 157, 159, 160, 163, 164, 166, 167, 169-171, 173, 176-179,
194,197,200,202,225,226,229,230,245,247,249-251,
 Index 523

253,255,257-261,264,268,269,271,272,274,275,
292,296-298,306,319,325,327,328,332,350,
352,360,366,381,399,401,423,424,427,
443-446,448,450,453,456,459,470,
472,474,476,477,480,483,489,
496, 500, 503
Mises, 1. von .................................................. 507
modal logic ........ 127,129,131,132,137,203,212,213,215,216,394,475
model J • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 165,166,168, 177-177, 181, 186
model2 • • • • • • • • . • • • . • • • • • • • 165,166,68,170,171,175-177,,179-181,186
modem Aristotelian .. , 48,54,68,80,82,86,114-118,123, 124, 127, 128, 130,
161,162,164,166,170,179,194,
226,228,245,247,264,425
modem epistemological predicament ............................. 25, 116
modem liberalism ....................................... 354-356, 366
modem naturalist epistemology ..... 163-166,168-170,172-174,176,180,183,
184, 194
modernity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 26, 124, 349, 498
monism .................. 11,43,80, 115, 122, 163, 184,261,264,292,307
Monk, R ................................ 79,94,423,477,484,493,494
Montaigne, M ............................................... 21,493
Montesquieu, B. de ...................................... 17,349,350
Moore, G.E .......... 28,29,135,171,172,205,225-229,228,318-320,323,
325,493,494,503,508,509
Morrell, O. ..................................................... 88
Morris, C.W............................................. 24,31,494
Muirhead, lH .......................................... 317,493,494
Mulvaney, R.I . ............................................. 494,498
Mundie, C.W.K ............................................. 427,494
Munitz, M.K. .................................................. 494
Mure,G.R.G ................... 112,127,228,249,398,404,449,459,494
Musgrave, A. ............................................... 62, 489
mysticism .............................................. 29,411,500

Nagel, E .................. 30,51,57,91,122, 163, 188,257,293,300,303,

311,314,323,452,465,494
Nagel, T.............................................. 283, 349, 383, 494
natural law ............ 5, 17, 19,295,323,327,330,335,353,354,379,380
naturalism .. 11,18,20,27,30,57,62,67,97,112-114,119,123,165, 168, 170,
174,178,179,187,194,196,197,204-206,210,217,245,270,
303,318,319,326,331,335,366,379,425,442,450,472
naturalist .... 67, 119, 160, 163-180, 183-187, 194, 195,200,202-204,206,208,
210,216,217,224,245,249,255,258,259,266,274,275,
325,327,368,379,414,428,429,445,450,452
naturalistic fallacy ...................................... 318, 322, 364
naturalized epistemology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 99, 186, 187, 195
Nazi ..................................................... 359, 449
necessary connection ..................................... 50, 298, 30 I
524 Index

negation ................................. 80,86,127,130,160,182,183

neo-Carnapians ....... 95,186,187,204,205,208,211,214,215,217-219,228
neo-classical economics .................................. 296,326,361
Neurath, O............................ 30,31,60,122,195,360,363,494
Neville, R.C ................................................ 474,494
Newton, I. ....... 17,20,21,42,44,50,52,58,61,96,126,161,163,399,457
Nielsen, K. ................................................ 323,494
Nietzsche, F................................................ 395,449
nihilism ............. 7, 11,264,305,306,320,327,329,330,337,338,358,
363,373,376,377,379,396,408,409,413,421,450
Noonan, H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 93,494
Notebooks . ..................................... , ... 122,181-183,509
Novak, M ................................................. 382,495
Nozick, R. ......... 126, 140-143,327-329,333,366,369-371,377-379,381,
382,448,449,454,490,495

o
O'Hear, A. ................................................ 376,495
Oakeshott, M ....................... 307,354,358,366, 380, 383, 456, 495
Ockham, W ............................................. 78,159,178
Ogden, C.K. ..................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 96, 509
ontological realism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 118, 139,295, 303, 307
ontological relativity ......................... 65, 127, 125,202,203,497
open question argument .......................................... 334
Oppenheim, P............................................ 48,49,486
ordinary language philosophy ............... 93, 225-230, 279, 318, 425, 427
organic ........ , 21,28,45,46,50,65, 114, 115, 119, 120, 140-142, 155-158,
160-163,187,194,199,247,252-255,257,258,260,
261,275,328,329,370,371,381,450
original position ............................................ 368, 369
Ortega y Gasset ............................................ 358, 495
other minds ........................ 249,250,253,273,296,373,407,450
Owen,R...................................................... 356

Palmer, A. ..................................... 94,477,484,493,494

Pap, A.......................................... 76,77,481,495,503
Papineau, D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 54, 495
paradigm ., 10,60,61,66,93, 138, 140, 142, 144, 154, 155,216,219,258,273,
275,279,302,311,320,329,375,376,382,403,408,425,
446-448, 452, 455
Pareto, V. ..................................................... 326
passive intellect ........................................ 157, 159, 160
Passmore, J. ........................ 94, 123, 142,225,404,428,445,495
Paul. E.F.................................................. 340,374,494
Paul, G.A.................................................... 452, 471
Paul, J. . .............................................. 340, 374, 494
Peano, G....................................................... 31
Pears, D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 183,204,471,495,496
 Index 525

Peirce, C ......................................... 63,80,81,201,413

perception ........ 28,52,83,121,156, 157, 159-161, 164, 182,297,334,357,
470,474,504
Perry, T.O ............................... 1, 199,428,445,448,452,496
personal identity ........................ 250,258,272,273,297,306,398
Pettit, P. . ................................. 349,368,474,483,489,496
phenomenalism ........... 31,52,53,118,119,162,172,194,195,298,394
phenomenology ................................ 227,269,279,337,488
Philips Griffiths, A. ............................................. 496
philosophes .... 17,18,20-24,31,52,62-64,247,248,253,270,277,292,349-
351
Philosophical Investigations ..... 181,200,201,204,210,211,219,221,228,
371,505,508
philosophical psychology .......... 2, 8, 143, 171, 230, 245, 248-259,262-271,
273-275,278,279,296,297,322,323,
326,336,337,367,373,372,397,
401,451
physical science 3,4,6,8,9,12,21,22,25,27,28,33,41,43,44,50,52,53,59,
68,75,76,90-93,99-101, 114, 118, 122, 138,
160,161, 163, 196, 198,216,254,270,299,
300,302,307,311,327,337,354,375,
396,397,414,443,446,448
physicalism ...... 8, 12,31,42,67, 134, 143, 163, 194, 195,245,250,257,258,
266,271,274,279,280,306,350,395,494
Plato ... 45,112,153-155,158,227,270,275,307,331,395,399, 407, 412, 451
Platonism ............. 44,80,82-85,112-116,122,127,135, 153, 154, 159,
160,170,197,206,258,274,336
Plotinus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 112
Polanyi, M ................................................. 102,496
Popkin, R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 21, 496
Popper, K. . . 29,44,48,54,57,59-61,63,64,94, 102, 134, 143, 167,205,292,
294,303,331,358,360,362,363,420,449,488,496,503
Porphyry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 112
positivism ..... , 2-4,11,28-31,42,44,78,89,91,93,128,137,184,186,195,
198,199,201,225-228,311,319-321,329,351,
362-364,379,381,394,396,423,425,428,
445,446,453,454,470-472,475,476,478,
484,485,488,489,494,499,
502,503,505,507,508
possible worlds .................................. 140,212-214,328,405
postmodem .................................................... 381
Powers, L.H. ................................... 171,269,421,485,496
practical knowledge ...... 5,6,98,101,224,247,273,334,335,383,442,455
practical reason ............................................ 205,443
practice ..... 1,5,6, 11,20,26,29,44,55,58,62,67,90-93,98-102,122,139,
142,200,202,205,206,209,215,219-222,224,229,263-
265,270-272,280,307-310,326,329,333,334,
336-338,355-357,362,366,368,373,374,
376-378,380,382,383,393,397,399,
404,408-416,418-422,427,429,
449,451,453-459,474,
526 Index

499,501
pragmatic a priori ................................................ 58
pragmatics .. 97,181,197-201,205,208,210,211,213,214,216,230, 257, 470
pragmatism ..................... 169,201,307,413,492,494,498-500,508
pre-Socratics ................................................... 412
pre-theoretical ........... 65-66, 97, 112-115, 121, 123, 126-127, 130, 134, 136,
146-148,150,167,186,195,196,200-204,207-
211,213,214,217,218,220-222,225-228,
233,244,252,254,258,269-271,276-
277,321,331,333,345,374,417,454
Price, H.H...................................... 27,326,354,404,496
Prichard, H.A .......................................... 317,323,496
Principia Mathematica . .... 28,29,31,53,85,86,88,91,95-97, 119, 178, 180,
196,199,208,275,483,500
private language ........................ 206,222,229,273,308,377,489
problem of other minds .................................. 250, 273, 450
progress ... 10, 11, 17,21,22,24-27,31,32,42,43,52,56,61-64,67,97, 121,
123,136,137,166,173,185,186,202,218,225,245,262,267,
270,305,363,372,373,377,380,396,398,399,416,426,428,
445,447-449,471,474,477,479,483,490,499
Protagoras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 154, 169
psychologism .................... 79,80, 101, 197,209,213,249,254,394
Ptolemy ................................................... 61, 126
Punishment .................................................... 333
Putnam, H... 1, 11,21,29,44,61, 103, 126, 139, 142,216,257,259,269,381,
446,496,497
Pyrrhonians ................................................... 158

quantification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 127, 129, 130

quantifier ......................................... 127, 129, 132,216
Quesnay, F. . .................................................. 351
Quine. W.V.O..... 30,42,55,59,60,66,79,88,90,93-95,101,102,123-131,
133, 136, 139, 181, 185-187, 195, 197, 199-205,207,
208,210,212,213,215-220,228,250,257,332,374,
375,393,394,396,399,415,419,445,448,
453,478,479,483,497-499,503,507
Quinton, A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 482, 498

Railton,P................... 270,319,320,325,329,330,333-336,478,498
Rajchman, J................................... 1,31,497,498,500,508
Ramsey, F.P. . ........................................... 75, 76,498
Randall, J.H ............................. 18,112,246,247,317,350,498
Rasmussen, D.B. ........................................... 382,498
rational reconstruction ................................ 374,400,402-404
rationalism ...................................... 22, 23, 258, 455, 495
rationalists ..................................................... 31
Rawls, J .. ..................... 23,323-325,332, 333, 335, 349, 366-372,
 Index 527

377-379,448,454,489,498,499
real definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 226
realism ............ 12, 14,27,28,44,55,62,63,67, 114, 117, 118, 129, 132,
133,139,142,144,156,158,162,169-172,182,183,
194,200,204~10,217,218,223,225,226,228,
229,255,256,266,271,272,274,275,295,
298,300,301,303,304,307,318,329,330,
360,362,363,375,394,397,404-406,
419,425,428,429,444,445,449,
450,452,454,455,458,473,
476,478,492,496-498,505
reductionism ...................... 3,90,143,195,198,203,307,320,328
Ree,I. . .......................................... 403,471,472,499
Reichenbach, H...................................... 30, 360, 363, 499
relativism ..... 14,61,63-67,128,136,139,154,168,178,204,295,298,301,
303,330,338,363,374,375,378,397,407,458,482,492
Renouvier, C. .................................................. 331
Rescher, N .............. 11,26,63,62,99,112,218,413,478,489,499,502
research program .............................. 62,85,94, 137,275,407
Resnick, M. ........................................... 443, 445, 499
rights ... 15,27,28,295,296,319,327,330,332,349-351,353-356, 358, 362,
370,371,374,377,379,483,486
rigid designator ............................................ 130, 213
Romanos, G......................... 95, 136,201,202,217,361,452,499
Rorty, R... 1,4,11,21,31,42,132,257,320,349,360,361,374,396, 399, 427,
471,476,485,488,490,491,499,500,502,503,505,506
Rosen, S. . .................................................. 1,500
Rosenthal, D.M .......................... 397-399,403,418,423,426,500
Rousseau, 1.1 . ........................................... 17,352,377
Royce, 1. .................................................. 413,452
Ruben, D.H. ................................................ 44, 500
Rudner, R.S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 293, 294, 303, 500
rule of law ................................................ 349, 351
Russell, B. . .... 3,27-31,41,42,53,75,76,79-81,83-89,91,93-96, 100, 113,
117-119,122,127,133,143,171-176,180,181, 183,
194,198,201,212,225,227-229,249,275,
318-320,325,359,398-400,423-427,452,
453,470,477,488,493,500-503,509
Ryan, A............................................... 320,359,501
Ryle, G.................................... 123,227-230,404,471,502

s
Sacks, M................... 1,42,55,92, 128, 139,223,225,250,270,502
Sainsbury, M............................................ 81,211,502
Salmon, W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 44, 502
Sandel, M......................................... 349,381,480,502
Santayana, G. ...................................... 359,452, 502, 503
Scharff, R.C ................................................ 21,503
Schiller, F.S.C. ...... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 77, 503
Schilpp, P.A. ...................... 126, 127, 320, 359, 476, 503, 506, 507
528 Index

Schlick, M............................. 29,30,42,78,319,331,427,503

Schneewind,l.B.... 317,325,404,471,485,488,490,491,500,503,505,506
Schneider, H.l. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 222, 489
Schorske, C.E. ................................................. 503
Scriven, M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 423, 502, 504
Scruton, R. .................................................. 1, 504
Searle,l.R. ....................... 1, 75, 245, 246, 254, 255, 260, 402, 504
Secord, P.F..................................... 298-303,482, 485, 491
self ................ 1, 11-13, 18-20,24,25,27,29-31,33,41,44,45,57,58,
63,65,66,68,78,79, 82-84,93, 100, 112, 113,
116-120, 122-124, 128, 132-137, 139-144,
1~1~1~1~16~1~1~17~1~
183, 184, 186, 197,201,215,216,219,
221,225,227,228,245-250,253,257,
258,264,268,273-275,296,297,300,
302-306, 308, 317, 323, 328, 329, 332,
337,350,351,355-357,364,368,
369,371-373,375,378,380-382,
393-396,399,401,409,412,
426-429,442-447,450,451,
454,474,486
self-reference .............. 117,132-137,140,144,163,166,184,197,248,
264,274,275,429,443,446
self-referential ..................................... 140,177,179,180
self-subsuming explanation ....................... 139,140,142,179,328
Sellars, W........ 41,42,65,257,292,319,402,481,486,500,503,504,506
semantics ............ 30,78,83,88, 127, 129, 130, 134, 135, 180, 181, 187,
195-203,208-212,215, 216, 227, 228, 230, 257, 324,
365,459,472,475,476,487,
489,497,506
Sen, A. ............................................... 326, 504, 506
sense data ........................... 53,57,172,185,196,202,227,364
set theory ..................................... 82,83,85,86,133,211
Seung, T.K. . .............................................. 377, 504
Sextus Empiricus ............................................... 158
Shalit, A. De ............................................... 381,470
Shapere, D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 62, 66, 504
Shapin, S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 504
Shoemaker, S. ................................................. 398
Shotter, J. ............................................. 253, 295, 504
showing .............. 55,129,131,134,135,137,164,176,180,184,195,
198,221,223,320,335,349,393
Sidgwick, H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 325
simplicity ....................................... , 50,58,57,202,361
skepticism .......... 67,157-159,165,167-170,172,178,185,187,222,223,
263,271,375,380,407,458
Skinner, B.F........................................ 251,252,279,475
Skinne~Q ............................ 471,485,488,490,491,500,505,506
Skolimowski, H ....................................... 30,41, 101,505
Skorupski. J................................................ 112,505
Skyrms, B. ................................................ 184, 505
 Index 529

Sle:igh, R.C ........................................ 398,404,427,505

Smith, A.......................................................... 20
Smith, lC .................................... .402,407,432,435, 504, 505
Smith, P................................................. .453,466, 505
Sober, E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 65, 505
social engineering ......................... 8, 14,306,332,356,360,363
social epistemology .. , 14,63, 143,255,274,295,298,300,307,330,357,358,
377,401,492
social science ... 4,8,13,22,92,93,99,100,102,138,199,203,205,212,217,
292-304,306-310,321-324,326,337,350,354,365,379,443,
455,491,493,500,508
social technology ..... '" 8,14,17,20,22,25,27,51,68,124,143,144,185,
246,269,279,292,296,306,317,319,320,
330,351,352,358,360,363,377,379,380
socialism ............... 14, 15,30,32,331,349,352,356-359,363,380,501
Socrates .......................................... 211,270,412,448
solipsism .......................... 183,195,249,250,261,273,360,482
Sorabji, R. ............................................ 123,225,505
Sosa, E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 185,457,505
Spinoza, B ....... 44,47,113,131,163, 164, 169,210,295,397,451,480,481
Stalnaker, R.C. ................................... . . . . . . . . .. 293, 402
Stevenson, c.L. ........................................ 318, 333, 505
Stich, S. . ......................................... 277,279,479,505
Stockman, N ........................................ 67,303,307,506
Strauss, L. ................................ , 320,358,380,452,483,506
Strawson, G ................................................ 332, 345, 506
Strawson, P. F ... 79, 116, 123,227-229,257,258,264,263,400,427,471,484,
506
Stroud, B .......................................... 167,403,404,506
Suilrez, F. ..................................................... 159
subject . 3,5, 13, 17, 18,26-29,53,57,59,64,75,77,79-82,84,88,94,97,99,
113-118, 122, 124, 127-130, 132, 135-139, 142, 158,
162,166-172,174,175,178-180,182,183,185,194-
196, 197,203,204,210,211,213-215,217,218,
226,228,229,247-253,255,256,258-261,
263,265,266,268,269,274,275,298,
304-306,308,331,338,351,355,
357,367,372,380,397,452,
456,457,474,496
sub-structure ........ 12-14,56,90,252,266,296,330,331,354,371,378,411
supervenience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 264, 320, 325
symbolic logic ........................................ 87,95,97,483
syntax ........ 76,78,83,88, 127, 135, 137, 180, 181, 196, 198-202,208-211,
227,257,324,365,459,475
synthetic a priori. . . .. 6,26,29, 78, 79, 81, 84, 85, 125, 129, 169, 173, 179, 197

tabula rasa .............................................. 22,23, 352

Talk! .. 128,129,131,135,137,162,166, 196, 197,203,212,213,216,217,247
T~k2"""'" 128-133,135-137,162,166,179,180,196,197,203,211-213,
530 Index

216,217,247
tautology .............................................. 176-178, 206
Taylor, C............................... 21,358,377,381,382,404,506
technocracy ............................................... 326,458
technology .......... 8,14,17,19-22,24,26,30,31,41,42,51,68,101,124,
143,144,174,185,246,269,279,292,296,306,
317,319,320,330,351,352,354,358,360,
363,377,379,380,452,456
teleological biology .......................................... 46, 155
teleology ....... 6,19,21,97,114,115,117,131,138,156,160,163,194,197,
210,247,275,319,322,323,329,367-371,379,450
theism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 20, 44, 52, 442
theoretical knowledge ...... 5, 13,98, 100,224,247,253,258,273,319,334,
335,383,442
theory of descriptions ....................... 53,93,94,124,125,212,213
theory of types ................................... 86,87,133, 173,446
theory-laden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 60, 297
Thomistic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 19
toleration ......................................... 349,351,378,379
total conceptualization .......... 50, 66, 88, 122, 131, 133, 137, 142, 168,255-
257,259,264,266,275,303,305,306,
332,334,372,457
Toulmin, S........................ 30,45,65, 101,228,325,424,488,507
Tractatus ..... 28,30,31,51,75,79,87,91,122,130,135,170,174-184,187,
186,195,196,199,201,203-206,210,211,219,225,260,425,
426,470,476,509
transcendental argument. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 173, 337
Trout, J.D ......................... 261,269,473,479,493,498,507,508
Tsui-James, E.P ......................... 470,472,474,491,495,502,504
Turgot, A.R.J. ............................................ 17,21,351
Turing, A.M. . ............................................. 255, 507
Turnbull, R.................................... 123,225,402,445,507
two dogmas of empiricism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 123,497
two-tier ............ 13,14,230,257,258,261,299,317,320,321,325,326,
328,331,367,401

u
Uehling, T.E., Jr........................................ 472,479,499
underdetermination ......................................... 203,270
Unger, R.......................................... 184,349,373,507
unified science ... 31,60,292,294,306,307,311,443,445,472,475,486,494
unity of science ................ 12,31,32,42,50,51,66,92, 134,292,446
Urmson, J.O. .............................................. 227, 507
utilitarianism .... 14,31,317,318,320,325-327,330,331,333,337,350,354,
362,364,368,377,491,504,506

v
values ......... 7, 8,13,14,19,20,23,24,31,51,68,100-102,125,153,176,
216,262,275,295,299,302,318-324,326-330,334,337,
 Index 531

352-354,358,360-362,370,371,373-377,379,
449,456,458,459,475,490
value-free . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 205, 295, 325, 445, 449
van Fraassen, B....................................... 63,67,453,507
Van Heijenoort, 1. .......................................... 135, 507
veil ofignorance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 367
verifiability criterion of meaning .................................... 53
verification ......... 44,53,137,162,163,166,177,184,185,196,264,326,
362,363,503
verification problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 162, 163, 166, 177
Vico, G....................................................... 404
Vienna Circle .......... 3,29-31,53,57,91, 198,216,225,250,359,425,489
virtue .. 17,57, 112,269,276,306,329,351,357,372,373,381,426,444,455,
459,482,491
Voegelin, E .................................... 320,351,358,380,507
Voltaire ................................................. 17,18,351

W
Waismann, F.................................................... 30
Wang, H......................................... 1,96, 135,210,485
Warnock, G.J ........................................... 227,471,508
Watkins, J.W.N .......................................... 293-295,508
Watson, J.B ................................................ 250,508
We Do ..... 6,10,26,51,55,76,89,96,98,101,132,160-162,166,183,194,
199-201,204,210,220,221,223,263,264,271,272,301,
302,308,309,333,337,359,362,376,401,409,
412,414,415,420,442,452
We Think .......... 13,26,43,65,76,89,114,117,134,187,206,227,257,
259,267,269,273,298,304,320,324,333,336,412
Weber, M................................................. 307,354
Wedberg, A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 178, 360, 395, 508
Weinberg, J. ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 508
Weingartner, R.H. ...................................... 293, 294, 508
Welchman, J............................................... 318,508
West, C............................. 1,2,18,31,101,497,498,500,508
Westoby, A............................................ 403,471,499
Wettstein, H.K.......................................... 472,479,499
Whitehead, A.N ............................... 28,31, 115, 119,427,500
Wiener. P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 30, 479, 480, 483, 508
Wiggins, D. ............................................... 330, 508
Williams, B. ............................................... 504, 506
Wilson, M................. 397,403,404,408,422,427,428,448,491,508
Winch, P. ............................................. 307,308, 508
Wittgenstein, L. .... 11,28-30,42,51,67,75,76,79,84,87,93,96,122,128,
135,162, 168, 169, 174-184, 187, 195-197,
200,201,203-208,210-212,214,219-224,
226-229,256,260,271,275,278,279,
307,308,334,404,417,424-426,
451-453,472,473,485,487,
489,491,493,495,496,
532 Index

508,509
Wolheim, R .................................................... 471
Woodfield, A ............................................... 474, 509
Worrall, J. .................................................. 63, 509
Wright, G.H. von ................................. 1, 11,96,97,507-509

x
y

Zeltner, P.M. . ............................................. 494,498

Zettel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 178
 Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture
H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., Series Editor
Kevin William Wildes, S.J., Associate Editor

1. G. Motzkin: Time and Transcendence. Secular History, the Catholic Reaction and
the Rediscovery of the Future. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1773-4
2. H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. and T. Pinkard (eds.): Hegel Reconsidered. Beyond Meta-
physics and the Authoritarian State. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-2629-6
3. L.B. McCullough: Leibniz on Individuals and Individuation. The Persistence of Pre-
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