This popular example comes under H. P. Grice’s considerations about communication in his article “Logic and conversation”. One of Grice’s results is that the successful communication comprises exactly what is necessary to communicate the message aimed at.
However, there is one particular, overriding, condition which every statement presupposes viz. that the statement has semantic meaning, especially that the singular words have word meaning. Next, it presupposes that the interlocutor can accept the contained concepts. The similar of course applies to questions, mutatis mutandis.
It must also be observed that when a sentence can be declared semantically meaningless, it does not qualify to be disproved, neither empirically nor rationally. For it has no semantic content.
Among the examples of sign sequences that may have semantic meaning but which some do not want to accept for specific reasons, can be the Danish term “starthjælp” (“start help”) or metaphorical use of the term “arbiter of taste”. Their reason may be that the former is used as a kind of new speech about reduced social benefits and the latter about persons who have studied a field.
It must be observed that to explain what something, i.e. some X or other, is, it is insufficient just to say “X is something that has these and these qualities” or “X is that which is so and so”, unless the defining relative clause refers to the concept that should be the starting point of the definition. However, this would make the sentence unnecessarily clumsy. (It would e.g. be clumsy to say, “A table is something that is a piece of furniture that...”) Instead, we must use the schema “X is a Y that has these and these qualities”. We could e.g. say “A table is a piece of furniture that...” or “A table is a physical object that...” Thus, we can only define something by means of already clarified concepts.
Religion.
A sad example of this is made by the question “Do you believe in God?” which presupposes that it consists of words, especially that the sign sequences “believe” and “God” are words. The section “Semantic critique of religious sequences of signs” in Treatise No 5 it makes good that this is not the case at all, but that these sign sequences only borrow an appearance of semantic meaning form usages in which they in fact have semantic meaning and thus are words. Therefore, we can answer this question neither in the affirmative nor in the negative without accepting that the two mentioned sign sequences “believe” and “God” have semantic meaning. Likewise, the concepts theist, agnostic and atheist all presuppose too much, if we for instance define a theist as a person that asserts, “I believe in God”. Thus, we cannot either answer the question “Are you an atheist?” without accepting the religious persons’ putative concepts. Instead, we can only say that the atheists have not understood the religious persons’ error, and explain this as it has been done in the treatise referred to above.
From the arguments above in can be concluded that when A. J. Ayer in Language, Truth and Logic advances a stringent rational proof against the existence of a putative God, this is superflouos. For there is neither something to prove nor disprove. Certainly, Ayer also concludes that the theists are not sufficiently critical. However, his reasons are that they accept statements such as ‘There is no transcendent god’, which are “nonsensical”, because they are metaphysical and thus neither true nor false. Thus, it must be observed that when Ayer says that “the term ’God’” is a metaphysical term, he erroneously attributes a semantic meaning to the sign sequence “God”. However, as above-mentioned, even this lacking word meaning makes the religious sentences semantically meaningless.
The realism debate.
In his treatise Reality Lost and Found” Søren Harnow Klausen asserts: “Since antirealism is the denial of realism, the definition of this term becomes absolutely crucial”. ([Klausen 04] p. 13)
However, the premiss about anti-realism presupposes that the anti-realist can accept the concepts that enter into this definition, which does not have to be the case at all. It is just as wrong to assert that anti-realism is the opposite of realism as it is to assert that atheism is the opposite of theism – for similar reasons. SHK presents the following definition of realism:
“Realism about the external world is the view that the world exists...”, and that its basic qualities are independent of how they are experienced and understood by conscious beings. ([Klausen 04] p. 13-14)
However, SHK does not thematize what it means to say that the world exists. Instead, SHK copies what he wants to negate into his definition of anti-realism, which is exactly what one cannot do if one wants to do full justice to the realism debate:
“Anti-realism is any denial of – or refusal to subscribe to - the view that the word exits...” with the same additions as referred above. ([Klausen 04] p. 14)
However, the anti-realist does not at all need to deny that the world exists, or that the attributes of the world depend of how it is experienced. For of course an anti-realist can think that reality exists but just have a different interpretation of the statement “Reality exists” than the realist has, so far as the latter has an interpretation. Thus, the anti-realist may think that the realism debate is about the semantic meaning of this statement, including what it means that things exist and have the qualities they have.
It is also expressive of a simplified idea of the substance of the realism debate if the expression “the denial” is supposed to denote the directly contrary viewpoint. For then it presupposes that the anti-realist can accept the realist’s view of the problem as being about existence versus not-existence. If, however, the expression is just to denote some contradiction it becomes too loose and not a definition of anti-realism, but just some view or other that accepts the realist’s way of presenting the problem.
For safety’s sake, Klausen amplifies his mistake with this statement:
“Realism is of course the belief in the existence of reality”. ([Klausen 04] p. 14, my bold types.)
However, as already made clear, the realism debate does not deal with existence versus not-existence, but with the semantic meaning of our existence statements. And it does not at all deal with any forms of belief or suppositions, but with arguments. This naturally turns the attention to the fact that SHK’s lacking understanding of this is already suggested by the title of SHK’s book Reality Lost and Found, which suggests that reality does not exist according to the one part of the realism debate, but exist according to the other part.
SHK defines reality and the world in the following remarkable way: ‘And reality is simply “the world” as defined above”: that which exists independently of its being experienced...’ with the most of the additions above. ([Klausen 04] p. 14)
What is remarkable in this quotation is its use of the following concept:
“that which exists independently of its being experienced...”.
This definition reminds incredibly much of past definitions of some entity X called “God”, e.g. that which is the greatest”. Both definitions presuppose that it has been clarified what kind of “that” we are dealing with.
Firstly, the definition circularly presupposes that it has sense to discuss the subject in this way, which is exactly what the realism is about and which some anti-realists want to argue against. Secondly, it presupposes that the opponent can accept it. As it has been concluded, definitions demand clarified concepts. Klausen’s erroneous approach has been touched on in the section “The semantic approach the realism debate” in Treatise No 4.
Litteratur:
Treatises No 1-7: http://philosophical-debate.blogspot.dk/ eller http://sites.google.com/site/antiintroduktionisme.
A. J. Ayer: Language, Truth and Logic, Penguin Books Ltd (Harmondsworth, 1974).
H. P. Grice: “Logic and Conversation”, i Basic Topics in the Philosophy of Language, Robert M. Harnish (ed.), (Harvester Wheatsheaf 1994).Søren Harnow Klausen: Reality Lost and Found, University Press of Southern Denmark, (Denmark 2004).
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