Chapter III - Philosophy of Language

Many if not most of the central concepts and issues in philosophy of science are in philosophy of language. Therefore the following selected elements of philosophy of language are discussed in the context of their relevance for philosophy of science.


3.01 Synchronic and Diachronic Analysis

To borrow some terminology from Ferdinand De Saussure’s classic Course in General Linguistics language analysis may be viewed either synchronically or diachronically. The synchronic view is static, because it exhibits the state of a language at a point in time like a photograph. In computational philosophy of science the state of the language for a scientific problem is displayed synchronically in a semantical state description, in which statements of either inputted theory language or outputted laws are viewed as semantical rules that describe the meanings of their constituent descriptive terms.

The diachronic view on the other hand exhibits two chronologically successive states of the language for the same problem, and shows semantical change over the interim period. If the transitional process between the two successive language states is described, then the diachronic view is dynamic like a motion picture. Otherwise the diachronic view is a comparative-static semantical analysis like “before” and “after” photographs.


3.02 Object Language and Metalanguage

Philosophers of science distinguish two perspectives, object language and metalanguage. Object language is used to describe the real world. Metalanguage is used to describe object language. The language of science is typically expressed in the object-language perspective, while much of the discourse in philosophy of science is in the metalinguistic perspective.


3.03 Dimensions of Language

The metalinguistic perspective offers four dimensions of language, which serve well as an organizing framework for philosophy of language. They are A. syntax, B. semantics, C. ontology and D. pragmatics.


A. SYNTAX


3.04 Syntactical Dimension

Syntax is the most obvious part of language. It is residual after the removal of pragmatics, ontology, and semantics. And it consists only of the forms of expression, so it is often said to be formal. Since meanings are excluded from the syntactical dimension, the expressions are also said to be semantically “uninterpreted”, and since the language of science is usually written, syntax consists of visible ink marks on paper or more recently displays on computer screens. Examples of syntax include the sentence structures of colloquial discourse, the formulas of pure or formal mathematics, and the computer source codes such as FORTRAN or LISP.

Syntax is the system of linguistic symbols considered in abstraction from their associated meanings.


3.05 Syntactical Rules

Syntax is a system of symbols. Therefore in addition to the syntactical symbols, there are also rules for the system called “syntactical rules”. These rules are of two types: formation rules and transformation rules.

Formation rules order concatenations of such syntactical elements as mathematical variables, mathematical operator symbols, descriptive terms, syncategorematic terms, and the various reserved words, variables and operator symbols of computer source codes. Concatenations (or matrices) that comply with the formation rules for a language are said to be “grammatical” expressions. Grammatically correct expressions in mathematics have been called “well-formed formulas” and grammatical computer source-code instructions are called “compiler-acceptable” or “interpreter-acceptable” code.

Formation rules are expressions in metalanguage that regulate the construction of grammatical expressions out of more elementary symbols.

When there exists an explicit and adequate set of syntactical formation rules, it is possible to develop a type of computer program called a “generative grammar”. A generative grammar produces grammatically correct expressions from inputs consisting of more elementary syntactical symbols. The generative-grammar computer programs input, process, and output object language, while the source-code instructions constituting the computer system function as metalinguistic expressions.

A generative grammar is a computer system that applies formation rules to more elementary syntactical symbols, in order to produce grammatical sentences or well-formed mathematical expressions.

When a computerized generative grammar is used to produce new scientific theories in the object language of a science, the computer system is called a “discovery system”. Typically the system also contains an empirical test for the selection of a limited subset of generated theories for output.

A discovery system is a computerized generative grammar that generates and empirically tests scientific theories as its output.

Transformation rules change grammatical sentences into other grammatical sentences. For example there are transformation rules for colloquial language that change a declarative sentence into an interrogative sentence. But the object language of science is typically expository, and philosophy of science therefore principally considers the declarative mood in descriptive discourse.

Transformation rules are of greater interest to logicians and mathematicians than to contemporary philosophers of science, who today are more interested in formation rules for generative-grammar discovery systems. Transformation rules are used in logical and mathematical deductions. Logic and mathematical rules are intended not only to produce new grammatical sentences but also to guarantee truth transferability from one set of sentences or equations to another, often by the transformation rule of substitution that makes the logic extensional.

Transformation rules are expressions in metalanguage that change grammatical expressions into other grammatical expressions.

In 1956 Herbert Simon developed an artificial-intelligence computer system named LOGIC THEORIST, which operated with his “heuristic-search” system design. The system developed deductive proofs of the theorems in Alfred Whitehead and Bertrand Russell's Principia Mathematica. The symbolic-logic statements are object language for this system. But Simon denies that formal logic itself is an appropriate metalanguage for the design of such systems.


3.06 Mathematical Language

The syntactical dimension of mathematical language includes the mathematical symbols and the formation and transformation rules of the particular branch of mathematics. Whenever possible the object language of science is mathematical rather than colloquial, because measurement enables the scientist to quantify the error in his theory, after estimates are made for the range of measurement error usually by repeated execution of the measurement procedure.

Mathematical language in science is object language for which the syntax is supplied by mathematics.


3.07 Logical Quantification in Mathematics

Like categorical statements, mathematical equations are explicitly quantified logically as either universal or particular, even though the explicit indication is not by means of the syncategorematic logical quantifiers “every”, “some” or “no”. An equation is universally quantified logically when none of its descriptive variables are assigned numeric values. Universally quantified equations may contain mathematical constants in empirical theories or laws. An equation is particularly quantified logically by associating measurement values with any of its descriptive variables, and it may then be said to describe an individual measurement instance.

When numeric values are associated with descriptive variables by computation with measurement values in other descriptive variables in the same mathematical expression, the equation may be said to describe an individual empirical instance. In this case the referenced instance has not been measured but depends on measurements associated with other variables in the same equation.

Individual numerical empirical instances are calculated when an equation is used to make a quantitative prediction. The individual numerical empirical instance is the predicted value. It is compared with an individual numerical measurement instance, which is the test-outcome value made for the same variable in the execution of an empirical test. The individual numerical empirical instance made by the predicting equation is not said to be empirical because the predicting equation is correct, but because the predicting equation makes an empirical claim, which may be falsified by an empirical test.

Mathematical expressions in science are universally quantified when descriptive variables have no associated numerical values, and are particularly quantified when numeric values are associated with any of the descriptive variables.


B. SEMANTICS


3.08 Semantical Dimension

Semantics is the second of the four dimensions, and it includes the syntactical dimension. Language viewed in the semantical metalinguistic perspective is said to be “semantically interpreted syntax”, which is to say that the syntactical symbols have meanings associated with them.

Semantics is the meanings associated with syntactical symbols.


3.09 Nominalist vs. Conceptualist Semantics

Both nominalism and conceptualism are represented in contemporary pragmatism. There are several variations of nominalism, but all nominalist philosophers advocate a two-level semantics, which in written language consists only of syntactical structures and the ontologies that are referenced by the structures. The two-level semantics is also called a referential theory of semantics, because it excludes any mid-level mental representations variously called ideas, meanings, significations, concepts or propositions. Typically on the nominalist view language referencing nonexistent fictional beings or entities is semantically nonsignificant, which is to say literally meaningless.

In the alternative view known as the three-level semantics, terms symbolize meanings, which in turn signify attributes and reference ontologies that include entities and attributes. This is called a conceptualist theory of semantics, which is emphatically not to say that there are concepts but nothing real conceptualized. Nominalism was common among many positivists, although some like the logical positivist Rudolf Carnap maintained a three-level semantics. In his three-level semantics descriptive terms symbolize what he called “intensions”, which are concepts or meanings viewed in simple supposition, and the intensions in turn signify properties and reference what he called “extensions”, which are the individual entities having the properties.

While the contemporary pragmatism emerged as a critique of neopositivism, some philosophers carried the positivists’ nominalism into contemporary pragmatism. Pragmatist philosophers such as Willard van Quine adopted nominalism and rejected concepts, ideas, meanings, propositions and all other mentalistic views of knowledge due to his fidelity to the Russellian predicate calculus. However, in his book Word and Object Quine defines “stimu¬lus meaning" as a disposition by a native speaker of a language to assent or dissent from a sentence in response to present stimuli. And then he adds that the stimulus is not just a singular event, but rather is a "universal", which he called a “repeatable event form”.

Nominalism is not essential to the contemporary pragmatism, and most contemporary pragmatists such as Russell Hanson, Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend have opted for the three-level semantics.

Also computational philosophers of science such as Herbert Simon and Paul Thagard, who advocate the cognitive-psychology interpretation instead of the linguistic-analysis interpretation, reject both nominalism and behaviorism. Behaviorism is positivism in the behavioral sciences. They recognize the three-level semantics, and furthermore believe that they can model the mental level with computer systems.

In his book Mind: Introduction to Cognitive Science Thagard states that the central hypothesis of cognitive science is that the human mind has mental representations analogous to data structures and cognitive processes analogous to algorithms. Cognitive psychologists claim that computer programs using data structures and algorithms applied to the data structures can model the mind’s concepts and its cognitive processes with the concepts.


3.10 Naturalistic vs. Artifactual Semantics

While the issue of nominalism vs. conceptualism is peripheral to contemporary pragmatism, the issue of naturalistic vs. artifactual thesis of semantics is central. The contemporary pragmatist philosophy of science is distinguished by a new philosophy of language, which has replaced the traditional naturalistic thesis with the thesis that the semantics of language is artifactual.

The naturalistic thesis is an absolutist semantics according to which the semantics of descriptive terms is acquired ostensively and is fully determined by nature. Thus descriptive terms function as names or labels for perceptions, primitive sense data or sensations. Then after the meanings for descriptive terms are acquired ostensively, the truth of statements constructed with the terms is ascertained empirically.

On the artifactual thesis sense stimuli contribute to semantics that is conceptualized by the linguistic context consisting of a set of beliefs that has a defining role for the concepts. The artifactual thesis revolutionized philosophy of science by relativizing both the semantics and ontology to belief. The outcome of this new linguistic philosophy is that ontology, semantics, and belief are all mutually and simultaneously determining and thus interdependent, unlike the simpler unidirectional relation affirmed by the naturalistic thesis with its foundational absolutes.

The artifactual thesis of the semantics of language is that the semantics of every descriptive term is determined by its context consisting of universally quantified statements believed to be true, such that ontology, semantics and belief are all mutually and simultaneously determining.


3.11 Romantic Semantics

On the romantic view the positivist semantics is deemed acceptable for the natural sciences, but is deemed inadequate for understanding human action in the behavioral and sociocultural sciences. Human action considered by the social sciences has subjective meaning for the members of a group or society, because it is purposeful and motivating for their social interactions. Therefore the semantics for these sciences explaining human action must include the subjective meaning that the action has for the social-group member.

Romantics call the resulting subjective meaning “interpretative understanding”, and the social member’s voluntary actions require such interpretative understanding, which is shared by both the social member and the social scientist. And if the researcher participates in the society or group he is investigating, the validity of his vicariously imputed interpretative understanding is enhanced by his personal experiences as a member in the group or society.


3.12 Positivist Semantics

According to the positivist philosophy the ostensively acquired meanings of descriptive terms used for reporting observations are primitive, simple and fully determined by nature. These meanings were variously called “sensations”, “sense impressions”, “sense perceptions” or “sense data” by different positivists.

For example in the case of a primitive term such as “black” the child’s ostensive acquisition of meaning might involve his pointing his finger at a present instance of perceived blackness in some black entity such as a raven bird. And then upon hearing the word “black” in repeated cases of various black objects, he associates the word with his experienced perceptions of the color black. And from the several early experiences expressible as “That raven is black” the young learner may eventually conclude by inductive generalization “All ravens are black.”


3.13 Positivist Thesis of Meaning Variance

What is fundamental to this naturalistic philosophy of semantics is the thesis that the semantics of observation terms is fully determined by human perception. Thus different languages are conventional in their vocabulary symbols and in their syntactical structures and rules. But nature makes the semantics of observation terms the same for all persons who have the same perceptual stimuli that occasioned their having acquired their semantics in the same circumstances by simple ostension. Thus the natural semantics of a descriptive term used to report observations is invariable through time and is independent of different contexts in which it may occur. Positivists view this meaning invariance as the basis for objectivity in science.


3.14 Positivist Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy

In addition to the descriptive observation terms that have primitive and simple semantics acquired ostensively, the positivist philosophers also recognized the existence of certain terms that acquire their meanings contextually and that have complex semantics. The initial distinction between simple and complex ideas can be found in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding by the seventeenth-century British empiricist philosopher John Locke.

The first type of term having complex semantics that the positivists recognized occurs in the definition. The defined subject term or definiendum has a compositional semantics that is exhibited by the structured meaning complex associated with the several words in the defining predicate or definiens. For example “Every bachelor is a never-married man” is a definition.

The second type occurs in the analytic sentence, which is an a priori or self-evident truth, a truth known by reflection on the interdependence of the meanings of its constituent terms. Analytic sentences contrast with synthetic sentences, which are a posteriori, i.e. empirical, and thus have independent meanings for their terms. The positivists view the analytic-synthetic distinction as a fundamental dichotomy between the two types of statements. A similar distinction between “relations of ideas” and “matters of fact” can be found in Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.

An example of an analytic sentence is “All bachelors are unmarried”. The semantics of the term “bachelor” is compositional and is determined contextually, because the idea of never having been married is by definition included as a component part of the meaning of “bachelor” thus making the phrase “unmarried bachelor” redundant. As in Quine’s paper “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” contemporary pragmatists reject the thesis of a priori truth, and maintain that all sentences are empirical and that their constituent terms are descriptive.


3.15 Positivist Observation-Theory Dichotomy

Positivists alleged the existence of “observation terms”, which are terms that reference observed entities or phenomena. Observation terms are deemed to have simple and primitive semantics and to receive their semantics ostensively and passively. Positivists furthermore called the particularly quantified sentences containing only such terms “observation sentences”. For example the sentence “That raven is black” uttered while the raven is being viewed by the speaker of the sentence, is a paradigmatic observation sentence.

In contrast to observation terms there is a third type of term having complex semantics that the positivists called the “theoretical term”. The term “electron” is a favorite paradigm for the positivists’ theoretical term. The positivists considered theoretical entities such as electrons to be postulated entities as opposed to observed entities like elephants. And they defined “theory” as sentences containing any theoretical terms. Rudolf Carnap maintained that the definition determines the whole meaning of the defined term, while the theory determines only part of the meaning of the theoretical term, because the semantics of a theoretical term will receive additional meaning as scientists further develop the scientific theory containing it.

Nominalists furthermore believe that theoretical terms are meaningless, unless these terms logically derive their semantics from observation terms. On the nominalists’ view terms purporting either unobserved entities or phenomena not known observationally to exist have no known referents and therefore no semantical significance or meaning. For example the term “centaur” is a meaningless term, since the centaurs have never been observed and are deemed to be mythical. For nominalists theoretical terms in science receive their semantics by logical connection to observation language, a connection that positivists called “logical reduction to an observation-language reduction base”. Without such connection the theoretical terms are presumed to be meaningless.

Both the post-positivist Karl Popper and the logical positivist Carl Hempel have noted that the problem of the logical reduction of theories to observation language is a problem that the positivists have never solved. Positivists cannot exclude what they considered to be meaningless theories from the theories currently accepted by scientists.

In summary for the positivists the definition, the analytical sentence and the theory all exhibit composition in the semantics of their constituent terms.


3.16 Contemporary Pragmatist Semantics

The development of the contemporary pragmatist philosophy was occasioned by reflection on the development of quantum theory in physics. Pragmatism contains a new philosophy of language with a new metatheory for semantics.

The fundamental postulate in the contemporary pragmatist philosophy of language is the rejection of the naturalistic thesis of the semantics of language and its replacement with the artifactual thesis that relativizes all semantics and ontology to linguistic context consisting of some set of related beliefs. The rejection of the naturalistic thesis is not new to linguistics, but it is fundamentally opposed to the previously prevailing positivist philosophy and also to other older philosophies such as Aristotelianism. As an entry guide to the pragmatist philosophy, consider the following analogy illustrating relativized semantics and ontology.

 

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