nmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqw
ertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyui
opasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasd
fghjklzxcvbnmrtyuiopasdfghjklzxcv
If God is bnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmq
Transcendent and Ineffable, can we wertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwerty
describe God in any uiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopas
meaningful way? dfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghj
Featuring the works of: Ludwig Wittgenstein, klzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcv
The Vienna Circle, A.J Ayer, Anthony Flew St Thomas Aquinas and Paul Tillich. bnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmq
wertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwerty
uiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopas
dfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghj
klzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcv
bnmrtyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwert
yuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiop
asdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfg
Rhiannon Edwards Candidate Number: 1033 Princethorpe College Centre Number: 31210 Extended Project Qualification 1
INTRODUCTION This project will explore the issues surrounding the philosophy of language, and the extent to which we can describe any being whom we might describe as “God”. It is arguable that by definition, God is beyond the descriptive range of our languages and I will explore this argument throughout this project. I was first drawn to this research question because of my desire to study Modern Foreign Languages, including Spanish and French. For a long time the ways in which different languages and cultures describe and understand the world around us has been of interest to me. From my experience different cultures are different only on the surface and are linked by a common, deep rooted structure to their language: the logical form of grammar. Another rationale for choosing this question is that I would like to study Philosophy and Spanish at university and felt that by exploring this area I would have the opportunity to research an area that combines the two areas of academic thought. Pursuing an area of interest that requires both philosophical and linguistic thought has further demonstrated to me how compatible the two academic disciplines are: the linguistics field will continue to progress and develop, providing lines of enquiry for philosophers. The key distinction between linguists and philosophers of language is that linguists look at the empirical facts but philosophers ask conceptual questions, such as: ‘how it is possible that language can infer meaning and communication?’. Having explored the Philosophy of Language in school, I was excited by the opportunity to find out more about such a relatively contemporary debate, as it is only really in this century that language itself has begun to be examined. The question I have presented deals with the issue that arises when we try to use language to explain God – who seems to be, by definition, inexplicable. SECTION 1 Whichever way one perceives it, within the confines of this world, language is crucial to an understanding of human beings and human life and, without it, life as we know it would be impossible. For example, a particular arrangement of wood could be experienced by a simple life form such as a chicken, as simply an obstacle to be avoided. However, to a human, their superior conceptual understanding changes their experience of the wood to become a ‘table’ in addition to an obstacle that must be avoided, because we know the conditions under which ‘that is a table’ is true. Even our language is limited because we cannot use terminology acquired from our reality, and experiences in this world, to describe the things that are not in our reality: in terms of an understanding of God, we become the chicken viewing the table. Neither us, nor the chicken have any hope of comprehending the entire meaning. This could be compared to Plato’s theory of the Forms, which proposes that we are not fully aware of the true nature of our current reality. It seems that the application of our language to accommodate a deity can only result in an anthropomorphic, and therefore, in my opinion, meaningless idea of God. Although some theists may use examples such as miracles and religious experiences to argue that we can come to 2
understand and experience God; this dissertation is based around a monotheistic understanding of God for the purpose of a streamlined and direct argument. Ludwig Wittgenstein once said: “the limits of my language are the limits of my world”1 by which he meant that which we cannot describe, we cannot experience. However what about experiences of intense and overwhelming emotion, such as love, that we cannot always put into words? This suggests that key aspects of our life are experienced separate from the meaningful vernacular. In fact, François de La Rochefoucauld said: “Very few people would fall in love if they never read about it”2, suggesting that language shapes our experiences. However, some (such as...) would argue that metaphysical statements about the God cannot be reduced to statements about experience, and thus are devoid of (synthetic) meaning. Theists such as Tillich, argue that it is symbols rather than experience that form the basis of our understanding. Tillich defines God as ‘the ground of being’; the basis and meaning of everything that exists. This ‘ground of being’ cannot be known in a direct, personal way, but can be glimpsed through indirect symbols. A major example Tillich uses is the role of Jesus Christ in Christian teaching. His actions and words function as symbols to reveal the face of God. In this way we may be able to understand and talk about God, but only indirectly, and not in a form that is based on specific experiences3. Another way that we may be able to speak about God in a meaningful way was proposed by the second century philosopher Plotinus. His idea of the ‘via negativa’ (the negative way) 4
argues that one can only say what God is not: God is not a human, God is not evil. This provides a better understanding of God, by restricting a conception of it within negative parameters. However, it could be the case that the entire project is doomed to failure; as Wittgenstein argued in the closing statement of the Tractatus Logico‐Philosopicus. He stated that: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”. 5On the basis of this it is debatable that there is little point in attempting to understand God, as God cannot be described fully using our language. D.Z Phillips invokes a distinction made by Wittgenstein between ‘surface grammar’ and ‘depth grammar’6. This is the difference between what utterances or sentences might seem to mean by virtue of their appearance and what they really mean. For example, the 1
2
3
4
5
6
3
Davies, Brian. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. Oxford University Press (1993) pP11
sentence ‘I have a pain in my leg’, from a grammatical point of view, is structurally identical to ‘I have a key in my pocket’. But we are aware that if surgeons were to cut my leg open, they would not find a pain‐shaped thing. It actually means something very different to the second sentence. Language expresses the states of affairs of the world, and linguistic expression can be seen as a form of geometric projection, where language is the changing form of projection. The logical structure of the expression is therefore the unchanging geometric relationships. This forms part of Wittgenstein’s ‘Picture theory of language’, which the Vienna Circle based their ideas on. Phillips goes on to suggest that philosophers will see that belief in God is not the sort of thing for which ‘rational’ support of justification is required – I cannot prove that I have a pain in my foot by opening it up to show people. This group of philosophers put forward the idea that God is beyond the meaning of our language as the world is the totality of facts, which make up our language. This developed the theory of logical positivism – that which can be verified must be due to tautology or empirical evidence. It is logical positivism which seems to be at the heart of the debate, as there are strong arguments supporting both sides of the argument, and therefore one of the key areas that I will be focussing on. KEY THINKERS Ludwig Wittgenstein The work of Ludwig Wittgenstein can be separated into the early and the later Wittgenstein. His two major published works are; Tractatus Logico Philosophicus published in 1921, (The Latin title is probably homage to Tractatus Theologico‐Politicus by Baruch Spinoza)7 and Philosophical Investigations, published in 1953. His engineering diploma course, from the Technische Hochschule and his upbringing in a very musical family led him to ponder the foundations of logic and mathematics. Wittgenstein studied at the University of Cambridge in 1911 under Bertrand Russell who described him as: “perhaps the most perfect example I have ever known of a genius as traditionally conceived, passionate and profound, intense and domineering.”8 Wittgenstein came to reject his idea that underpinned his initial theory of logical atomism, that there were ultimate "simples" from which a language should, or even could, be constructed, instead opting for an approach to suggest that the meaning of language comes from its context. he points out that the practice of human language is more complex than the simplified views of language that have been held by those who seek to explain human language by means of a formal system. 9 Wittgenstein himself became convinced that his initial conclusions were mistaken in demanding an excessive precision from human expressions. The work eventually published 7
Wittgenstein, an Introduction 8
Bertrand Russell and his World By Ronald Clark 9
Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein remark #23 4
in the Philosophical Investigations (1953) pursued a different path. In ordinary language, he now supposed, the meaning of words is more loosely aligned with their use in a variety of particular "language games." Direct reference is only one of many ways in which our linguistic activity may function, and the picturing of reality is often incidental to its success. Paul Tillich (August 20, 1886 – October 22, 1965) Paul Tillich was born 20 August 1886 in Starzeddel, then a province of Brandenberg, Germany (now part of Poland). After graduating from the Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium in 1904, Tillich attended the universities of Berlin, Tübingen and Breslau. He graduated in 1911 from the University of Breslau with a doctoral degree in philosophy. In 1912 Tillich was ordained as a minister in the Lutheran Church. For the next two decades he lectured on philosophy and theology then spent four years serving as a military chaplain during World War I. Tillich became a U.S. citizen in 1940, then took up a position at Harvard in 1954, followed by one at the University of Chicago in 1962, where he remained until the end of his life. Tillich was undoubtedly a Christian theologian. His concern was to develop a satisfying Christian theology in the context of an acceptable philosophy. He opposed himself to any understanding of God that might give the impression of deity as a being among others. The manner in which he spoke of God, with such remarks as, ‘God does not exist. . . . He is being itself beyond essence and existence’, led to some accusations of atheism and pantheism. His understanding of religion emphasised the importance of symbolism, and he held that reason played the role of interpreting revelation through ‘true’ symbols. ‘True’ symbols were for Tillich an expression of the infinite through the finite. In his view, Christ could not be identified with God in any literal sense, but rather a symbolic revelation from God of what humanity ought to be. The Vienna Circle – Carnap The Vienna Circle was a group of early twentieth‐century philosophers who gathered around the University of Vienna in 1922, chaired by Moritz Schlick, and was also known as the Ernst Mach Society (Verein Ernst Mach) in honor the philosopher of science who is noted for his contributions to physics such as the Mach number and the study of shock waves. Their applied logical positivism was drawn from Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose Tractatus Logico‐Philosophicus formed the basis for the group's philosophy (although Wittgenstein himself insisted that logical positivism was a gross misreading of his thinking, and took to reading poetry during meetings of the Vienna Circle). The Vienna Circle sought to rethink empiricism by means of their interpretation of then recent advances in the physical and formal sciences. Their radically anti‐metaphysical stance was supported by an empiricist criterion of meaning and a broadly logicist conception of mathematics. They denied that any principle or claim was synthetic or a priori. Moreover, they wanted to 5
organize scientific theories within a logical framework so that the important role played by conventions, either in the form of definitions or of other analytical framework principles, became evident. While the Vienna Circle's early form of logical empiricism (or logical positivism or neopositivism: labels used interchangeably) no longer represents an active research program, recent history of philosophy of science has unearthed much previously neglected variety and depth in the doctrines of the Circle's protagonists, some of whose positions retain relevance for contemporary analytical philosophy. Karl Popper One of the many remarkable features of Popper's thought is the scope of his intellectual influence. In the modern technological and highly‐specialized world scientists are rarely aware of the work of philosophers; it is virtually unprecedented to find them queuing up, as they have done in Popper's case, to testify to the enormously practical beneficial impact which that philosophical work has had upon their own. But notwithstanding the fact that he wrote on even the most technical matters with consummate clarity, the scope of Popper's work is such that it is commonplace by now to find that commentators tend to deal with the epistemological, scientific and social elements of his thought as if they were quite disparate and unconnected, and thus the fundamental unity of his philosophical vision and method has to a large degree been dissipated. Here we will try to trace the threads which interconnect the various elements of his philosophy, and which give it its fundamental unity. Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell was born 1872 in Wales, and succeeded to the earldom in 1931. He had an illustrious (and controversial) career as a philosopher, mathematician, and social reformer. He taught at Cambridge early, where he produced most of his important mathematical works, including the Principles of Mathematics (1903), in which he tried to show that the laws of mathematics could be deduced from the basic maxims of logic. His mathematical work influenced twentieth‐century symbolic logic, set theory in mathematics, and logical positivism, especially through the work of his student Ludwig Wittgenstein. Russell was a rationalist who was convinced that facts were logically independent and that knowledge depended on experience.. St Thomas Aquinas Saint Thomas Aquinas was an Italian Dominican priest of the Roman Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian. He came from one of the noblest families of the Kingdom of Naples, with the title of "counts of Aquino". He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology, and the father of Thomism. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy was conceived in development or rejection of his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory. 6
Thomas is held in the Catholic Church to be the model teacher and indeed the highest expression of both natural reason and speculative theology. The study of his works, according to papal and magisterial documents, is a core of the required program of study for those seeking ordination as priests or deacons. The works for which he is best‐known are the Summa Theologiae and the Summa Contra Gentiles. One of the 35 Doctors of the Church, he is considered the Church's greatest theologian and philosopher. Anthony Flew(11 February 1923 – 8 April 2010) Antony Flew was a British philosopher. Belonging to the analytic and evidentialist schools of thought, he was notable for his works on the philosophy of religion. Flew was a strong advocate of atheism, arguing that one should presuppose atheism until empirical evidence of a God surfaces. He also criticized the idea of life after death, the free will defense to the problem of evil, and the meaningfulness of the concept of God. However, in 2004 he stated an allegiance to deism, more specifically a belief in the Aristotelian God, stating that in keeping his lifelong commitment to go where the evidence leads, he now believes in the existence of God. He later wrote the book There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, with contributions from Roy Abraham Varghese. This book (and Flew's conversion itself) has been the subject of controversy, following an article in the New York Times magazine alleging that Flew had mentally declined, and that Varghese was the primary author. The matter remains contentious, with some commentators including PZ Myers and Richard Carrier supporting the allegations, and others, including Flew himself, opposing them. A.J. Ayer (29 October 1910 – 27 June 1989) Sir Alfred Jules Ayer was a British philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books Language, Truth, and Logic (1936) and The Problem of Knowledge (1956). Ayer was a Special Operations Executive and MI6 agent during the Second World War. He was the Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London from 1946 until 1959, when he became Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1951 to 1952. He was knighted in 1970. Amongst British philosophers of the 20th century, he has been ranked by Stanford as second only to Bertrand Russell. SECTION 2: Ludwig Wittgenstein Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, (Latin for "Logical‐Philosophical Treatise") ends with the statement; “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” 10This 10
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico Philosophicus. (Translator: C. K. Ogden) LONDON, KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD. 7
reflects his attitude that discussion of the mystical, such as the existence of God and propositions concerning: ethics, aesthetics, the meaning of life, the soul and logic, is in fact meaningless and futile. There is little mention of God in the Tractatus because one cannot talk of it, and an attempt to do so would be futile. Wittgenstein believed that the nature of God must instead be shown. It is in fact our failure to understand the logic of our language that brings about philosophical problems: “Most of the propositions and questions in philosophy are not false but nonsensical…Most questions and propositions of the philosophers result from the fact that we do not understand the logic of our language.”11 Language expresses the states of affairs of the world (which is all that is the case) and the use of different languages can be seen as a form of geometric projection as the logical structure of language is unchanging like geometric relationships within mathematics. This forms part of his ‘Picture theory of language’.12 However, "model" is probably a more appropriate translation of what Wittgenstein meant by "Bild”13. According to the picture theory, when a (true) proposition is thought or expressed, each of its constituent parts correspond to the world. Although there is correspondence, it can only be shown not said, for example: we cannot say anything about the relationship between pictures and what they picture. If the logical structure of language cannot be shown then it is meaningless. Anthony Kenny has put forward a chess analogy to clarify this. He proposed that; objects of this model world are the chess‐pieces and the squares of the chess‐board and the relations between the pieces and the squares are states of affairs. It may, for instance, be a state of affairs that there is a white pawn at a2.14 However, there are deficiencies in this analogy. Firstly, the chess pieces are not permanent like the objects are proposed to be in the Tractatus, as they can be taken and new pieces can come into play within the game. Also, states of affairs on the chess‐board are not independent of each other as two pieces cannot be on the same square simultaneously, in contrast to the idea from the TLP that states of affairs are logically independent of one another. Wittgenstein was forced to change his views due to critics such as Piero Sraffa, (a Marxist economist and close friend of Antonio Gramsci, the imprisoned Italian Communist leader). According to Norman Malcom’s famous anecdote15, Sraffa used the example of a Neapolitan gesture of skepticism by brushing his chin with his fingertips then asked; ‘What is the logical form of this?’. In other words, what meaning does the context in which language is uttered contribute to the meaning of our utterances and gestures? For example; the interrogative phrase ‘Is the door shut?’ can become an imperative such as ‘Shut the NEW YORK: HARCOURT, BRACE & COMPANY, INC. (1922) Page 90, #7 11
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico Philosophicus. (Translator: C. K. Ogden) LONDON, KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD. NEW YORK: HARCOURT, BRACE & COMPANY, INC. (1922) Page 38, #4.003 12
Stern, David G. Wittgenstein on Mind and Language. Oxford University Press, January 19, 1995 p35 , Chapter 2 Logic and Language 13
Lucie Kunitz? 14
Schroeder, Severin. Wittgenstein. Published by Polity, 2006. P49 15
8
Malcolm, Norman. Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir. Oxford University Press, 2001. P58 door!’ The force that one uses with the sentence and even the tone can add to or even contradict what you said ‐ opposing the strict and literal truth conditions that you may be saying, as well as the context. If one was to say ‘Would you like a coffee?’ to someone who was hard at work late at night, trying to finish a dissertation and the answer was ‘It’ll keep me awake!’ one would assume using the context that they indeed wanted some coffee. However, if they were trying desperately to get to sleep and gave exactly the same response, one would assume quite the opposite.16 Wittgenstein called this contextual understanding a ‘Language Game’, arguing that this is the reality of the understanding of our world. He claimed that the rules of syntax and grammar of a language function in the same way mirror the rules of chess; to talk about how the ‘queen’ or ‘pawn’ should move only makes sense in the context of chess. You begin to speak ‘nonsense’ if you don’t follow the rules. One such ‘Language Game’ is the sphere of Religion and Religious Language as it is only understandable and meaningful to those who participate in the religious belief. Hence, you need to be a member of a religious tradition to fully understand the nuances of meaning and significance around a word or expression of belief.17 A real strength of this is that it allows believers to express the meaningfulness of religious language, but explains why it has no meaning for atheists. Wittgenstein has also said that "language is inherent and transcendental", since we can only comprehend and explain transcendental affairs through language. To conclude, because God is transcendent and ineffable, we are (and ultimately will always be) unable to speak about God in a meaningful way. An endeavour to do so would necessitate the ability to step outside of the ‘logic of our language’, which humanity is of course incapable of doing. This links in with C.S Lewis’ idea that “A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.”18 Although pursuing a different conclusion, I believe this is an apt illustration to describe the way in which man cannot appreciate the ‘logic of our language’ and the nature of our reality without stepping outside of it. This is analogous to the fact that we, as a race, could not appreciate the full beauty of our planet as a whole, without going into space to photograph it from the moon. Each of the religious notions of God belongs to a distinct ‘Language Game’ and we cannot use our physical reality and the language that is based upon it (as we need to step outside it), to determine the nature of God – or even God’s ontology. The world is everything that is the case, and an attempt to reach beyond the ‘limits of our language’ is comparable to trying to step over the boundaries of everything we will ever know to exist. As God is transcendent, no matter how far we stretch our knowledge of existence, God will (by definition) be forever out of our reach, intangible and mystical. 16
Talbot, Marianne. Oxford Podcasts: ‘The Philosophy of Lanaguage and Mind’ (09 Jan 2009). 17
Taylor, Matthew. OCR Philosophy of Religion Textbook for AS and A2. Publisher: Routledge; 2 edition (22 Dec 2008) 18
Lewis, CS. Mere Christianity, Publisher: Collins (reissue) edition (12th April 2012) 9
SECTION 3: The Vienna Circle Logical analysis was also another key method used by the Vienna Circle to clarify philosophical
problems; it makes an extensive use of symbolic logic and distinguishes the Vienna Circle empiricism
from earlier empiricism. Logical analysis shows that there are two different kinds of statements; one
kind includes statements reducible to simpler statements about the empirical; the other includes
statements which cannot be reduced to statements about experience and thus are devoid of meaning.
Metaphysical statements belong to this second kind and therefore they are rendered meaningless.
Hence many philosophical problems are rejected as pseudo-problems which arise from logical
mistakes, while others are re-interpreted as empirical statements and thus become the subject of
scientific inquiries.
Synthetic knowledge a priori is rejected by the Vienna Circle. Mathematics, which at a first sight
seems an example of necessarily valid synthetic knowledge derived from pure reason alone, has
instead a tautological character, that is its statements are analytical statements, thus very different
from Kantian synthetic statements. The only two kinds of statements accepted by the Vienna Circle
are synthetic statements a posteriori (i.e. scientific statements) and analytic statements a priori (i.e.
logical and mathematical statements). But one can see the different, so called 'left wing' of the Vienna
Circle, mainly represented by Neurath, Carnap, and Moritz Schlick. Their aim was to facilitate the
penetration of the scientific world-conception in "the forms of personal and public life, in education,
upbringing, architecture, and the shaping of economic and social life". In contrast, Schlick was
primarily interested in the theoretical study of science and philosophy.
The final goal pursued by the Vienna Circle was ‘unified science’, the construction of a "constitutive
system" in which every legitimate statement is reduced to the concepts of lower level which refer
directly to the given experience. "The endeavour is to link and harmonise the achievements of
individual investigators in their various fields of science”. From this aim follows the search for
clarity, neatness, and for a symbolic language that eliminates the problems arising from the ambiguity
of natural language.
CARNAP
The attitude of the Vienna Circle towards metaphysics is expressed by Carnap in the article 'The
Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language' (1932). Carnap argues that a
language consists of a vocabulary, and a syntax, i.e. a set of rules governing the formation of
sentences. Pseudo-statements, i.e. sequences of words that at first sight resemble statements but in
reality have no meaning, are formed in two ways: either meaningless words occur in them, or they are
formed in an invalid syntactical way. According to Carnap, pseudo-statements of both kinds occur in
metaphysics. An example offered by Carnap concerns the word 'arthropod'. The sentence form "the
thing x is an arthropod" is an elementary sentence form that is derivable from "x is an animal", "x has
a segmented body" and "x has jointed legs". Conversely, these sentences are derivable from "the thing
x is an arthropod". Thus the meaning of the word 'arthropod' is determined.
According to Carnap, many words of metaphysics do not fulfill these requirements and thus they are
meaningless. As an example, Carnap considers the word 'principle'. This word has a definite meaning,
if the sentence "x is the principle of y" is supposed to be equivalent to the sentence "y arises out of x".
This sentence is perfectly clear: y arises out of x when x is invariably followed by y, and the link
between x and y is empirically verifiable. But according to Carnap, metaphysicians assert that no
empirical relation between x and y can completely explain the meaning of "x is the principle of y",
because there is something that cannot be grasped by means of experience, for which no empirical
criterion can be specified. Therefore, metaphysical pseudo-statements such as "water is the principle
of the world" or "the spirit is the principle of the world" have no meaning because they contain a
meaningless word.
10
However, there are pseudo-statements in which occur only meaningful words, which can be formed in
a counter-syntactical way. An example is the word sequence "Caesar is a prime number"; every word
has a definite meaning, but the sequence has no meaning. The problem is that "prime number" is a
predicate of numbers, not a predicate of human beings. In the example the nonsense is evident;
however, in natural language the rules are not so easily detectable. Carnap argues that metaphysical
statements without meaningless words, are indeed meaningless because they are formed in a way
which is admissible in natural languages, but not in logically constructed languages. Carnap attempts
to indicate the most frequent sources of errors from which metaphysical pseudo-statements can arise.
**PERHAPS LOOK AT SPANISH VERBS One source of mistakes is the ambiguity of the verb 'to be',
which is sometimes used as a copula ("I am hungry") and sometimes to designate existence ("I am").
The latter statement incorrectly suggests a predicative form, and thus it suggests that existence is a
predicate.: I AM HUNGRY (TENGO …) I AM HUMAN (SOY…) I AM HERE (ESTOY…)** But what
is the role of metaphysics? According to Carnap metaphysical pseudo-statements express the attitude
of a person towards life. Metaphysics is an art like lyrical poetry. The metaphysician, instead of using
the medium of art, works with the medium of the theoretical; he confuses art with science, attitude
towards life with knowledge, and thus produces an unsatisfactory and inadequate work.
"Metaphysicians are musicians without musical ability".
11