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have this kind of significance: the emotive, the logico- mathematical, the merely formal' (Feigl 1943). The criterion itself is empirical: 'there is no way to under- stand any [factual] meaning without reference to "experience" or "possibility of verification".' (Schlick 1936.) To be intelligible, it was claimed, genuine pro- per names must stand for objects with which we are acquainted; predicates must stand for observable properties; and sentences must in principle be veri- fiable in experience.
3. Syntax, Logic, and Mathematics
According to the logical positivists, if a true, scien- tifically useful sentence is not synthetic, verifiable, and knowable only a posteriori, then it must be analytic, tautologous, empty of empirical content, and know- able a priori. Analytic assertions, they believed, are 'linguistic' in the sense that they merely express arbi- trary conventions governing the use of signs. The discipline Carnap called the 'logical syntax of language' was intended to investigate the formal pro- perties of different sets of linguistic conventions, both natural and artificial; and his principle of tolerance denied that any such set was intrinsically more accu- rate or basic than any other: 'it is not our business to set up prohibitions, but to arrive at conventions.' Both formal logic and number theory, it was claimed, con- sist of conventionally true analytic statements.
4. Pseudo-problemsandtheLanguageofMetaphysics
One consequence of verificationism eagerly embraced by the positivists was this: many sentences of tra- ditional metaphysics are mere pseudo-sentences, and many traditional problems in philosophy are merely pseudo-problems. Unverifiable statements about the ultimate nature of reality, say, or about God, the soul, moral goodness, or beauty were dismissed as empty and meaningless. In this connection Carnap dis- tinguished between 'internal' and 'external' questions. The former are questions concerning the existence or nature of certain objects that can be answered by mean-
ingful sentences belonging to a particular language. The latter are pseudo-questions which attempt to raise issues independently of the power of any language to answer them. If, for example, a language is constructed whose primitive terms refer to physical objects (or sense data, or numbers), then within this language it will make sense to ask whether there exist such things as physical objects (sense data, or numbers). But if one tries to ask, in general, whether physical objects really exist, say, or whether numbers are parts of the ultimate furniture of the world, then the questions lack content. Problems can only be posed, and solved, within some particular, con- ventional language; and outside language there is sim- ply nothing to be said.
See also: Analyticity; Verificationism. Bibliography
Ayer A J (ed.) 1959Logical Positivism. Free Press, NewYork Ayer A J 1971 Language, Truth and Logic. Penguin, Har-
mondsworth
Bergmann G 1954 The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism.
Longmans, Green, New York
Carnap R 1928 Der logische Aufbau der Welt. Weltkreis-
Verlag, Berlin (1967 The Logical Structure of the World and Pseudoproblems in Philosophy. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London)
Carnap R 1934 Logische Syntax der Sprache. Springer, Vienna (1937 The Logical Syntax of Language. Kegan Paul, London)
Feigl H 1943Logicalempiricism. In: RunesD D (ed.) Twen- tieth Century Philosophy. Philosophical Library, New Y ork
Gower B (ed.) 1987 Logical Positivism in Perspective. Croom Helm, London
Kraft V 1950 Der Wiener Kreis. Der Ut-sprung des Neo- positivismus. Springer, Vienna (1953 The Vienna Circle. TheOriginsofNeo-positivism. PhilosophicalLibrary,New
Y ork)
Reichenbach H 1951 The Rise of Scientific Philosophy. Uni-
versity of California Press, Berkeley, CA
Schlick M 1936 Meaning and verification. The Philosophical
Review 45:339-69
Solipsism is the metaphysical doctrine that nothing exists except one's self or mind. Methodological sol- ipsism, in contrast, is a regulative principle prescribing how psychological states (one's own or anyone else's) should be individuated. Its advocates, far from being
solipsists, are usually realists about the physical environment and the organisms that live within it. They argue that the principle is a legitimate and necessary constraint upon any scientific investigation into how a mind works. The principle has linguistic
Methodological Solipsism A. Woodfield
Methodological Solipsism
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