Rudolf Carnap: Truth Is Relative to Convention

 “The conditions of the truth of sentences in a system need not be found outside the system [or convention], but must be provided within it.” — Rudolf Carnap

To put the following essay in context, let’s firstly quote two passages from Rudolf Carnap’s ‘Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology’, which was published in 1950:

“If someone wishes to speak in his language about a new kind of entities, he must introduce a system of new ways of speaking, subject to new rules; we shall call this procedure the construction of a linguistic framework for the new entities in question.”

“To accept the thing world means nothing more than to accept a certain form of language, in other words, to accept rules for formulating statements and for testing, accepting, or rejecting them.”

The German philosopher (a logical positivist) Rudolf Carnap argued that truth is an “internal question”. That is, truth is internal to specific “conventions”.

The following is a broad definition of conventionalism:

“Conventionalism is the philosophical attitude that fundamental principles of a certain kind are grounded on (explicit or implicit) agreements in society, rather than on external reality. [] Although this attitude is commonly held with respect to the rules of grammar, its application to the propositions of ethics, law, science, biology, mathematics, and logic is more controversial.”

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So why is any given convention chosen in the first place?

More specifically, why did Rudolf Carnap himself adopt the “framework” of what he called the “thing world”? Why not one based on abstract objects or the pronouncements of goblins?

It can be argued that truth-exterior-to-convention (at least in some form) was always lurking in Carnap’s background — i.e., despite his protestations against “external questions” on the outside of all (or any) conventions.

Again, surely there is some (form of) truth that’s antecedent to the adoption of a Carnapian convention.

What’s more, is it true that Carnap’s adopted convention “works”, “provides results”, “solves problems”, “handles experience”, etc?

Pragmatists and/or instrumentalists must face these antecedent questions - even if they’ve already adopted various conventions.

All this also parallels the late-19th-century stance of the American pragmatists.

For example, is it true that belief P is (as William James put it) “better for us to believe”?

Is it true that pragmatism itself is better for us to believe?

Thus, can we apply the pragmatist test of truth to pragmatism itself without begging the question?

Surely there must be some kind of truth which is, in this case, external to pragmatism.

We can then ask a Carnapian similar questions.

What comes first: “the world” or the convention?

Metaphysical realists would answer, The world.

Carnap would (or might) have answered, Conventions…

Or would he?

C = Convention

What would have made Carnap (or anyone else) adopt C¹ in the first place?

Carnap couldn’t have adopted C¹ from within C¹. It follows that his reasons for adopting C¹ weren’t internal to C¹. Therefore, when he adopted C¹, he must have been outside of C¹.

So where did these external reasons come from?

Didn’t truths, facts, reasons, evidence, data, etc. external to C¹ determine the choice of C¹?

Again, surely such reasons for a Carnapian rejecting his current convention couldn’t have come from C¹ itself. Thus he must have had good reasons for adopting C¹ which weren’t actually part of C¹.

So were they part of, say, C²?

Or are there many concurrent conventions which the Carnapian is internal to?

We may indeed require conventions, language games, conceptual schemes, etc. However, are we internal to just one of them?

More particularly, if conventions determine what we think and what we say, then conventions must determine our adoption of other conventions.

However, there’s something strange about this conclusion because conventions (or conceptual schemes) are often supposed to be “self-contained” (i.e., “closed universes”). At least many people have believed that. Yet this can’t be true if, for example, we can move from C¹ to C².

Thus, in the contemporary literature, why are conventions (or conceptual schemes) deemed to be so powerful, restricting and important?

We may indeed need conventions in the Carnapian sense. However, we can still jump from one convention to another. Conventions aren’t, therefore, anything like the Kant’s categories which a priori determine how we must perceive, experience or talk about the world. (Relevantly, the French philosopher Michel Foucault believed in what he called the “historical a priori”.)

Conventions are thoroughly contingent and adaptable.

On another point.

Was Carnap’s “adopted framework” a posit itself (i.e., a posit within which he posited other things)? Wouldn’t Carnap’s adopted framework itself (as an abstract object) need to have been posited via another adopted framework?…

And so on.

If this isn’t a real regress, then how do things get started?

If it’s not possible to posit anything without an adopted framework (or a convention), then perhaps it isn’t possible to posit an adopted framework unless that too belongs to another adopted framework. Contrary to this, if it’s possible to posit a convention which isn’t itself posited by another convention, then perhaps we can posit “medium-sized dry goods” without an adopted framework or convention.

So a thing from Carnap’s thing-language may be as autonomous as the adopted framework itself.

To generalise and repeat.

If conventions are necessary for the postulation of objects, events, facts, etc., then conventions themselves (as abstract objects) may need to be posited by other conventions… ad infinitum.

In detail.

What convention does a new convention belong to?

It can’t be an unmoved mover or cause of itself.

So does a convention need another convention to legitimise it as a genuine abstract object ?

If things, truths, facts, evidence, etc. are “relative to” conventions, then what are conventions themselves relative to? Are they relative to themselves? Have they come into being ex nihilo? Or are they relative to meta- (or second-order) conventions?

In that case, what are these meta-conventions relative to?

The same kind of problem can be seen at a smaller scale.

A convention (C¹) may offer the following statement:

Statement S is assertible according to C¹.

The assertibility of S is fine. However, what about the entire meta-statement directly above? What is the meta-statement assertible according to? The following? -

The meta-statement is assertible according to C¹, in which S is assertible according to C¹.

This is a more refined regress than the earlier regress. Or we could have the following:

The following is assertible in C¹: “‘…’ is assertible in C¹”.

Again, here we have an example of self-reference, which was earlier applicable to the convention itself.

External Truth Again

The possibility that there may be a tacit (or implicit) commitment to external truth (i.e., in relation to Carnapian conventions) was hinted at earlier. Yet Carnap himself had his own position on truth being entirely(?) internal to conventions.

Carnap wrote the following in his Introduction to Semantics:

“The semantic ‘definition’ [of truth] is not a definition of truth, but a criterion of the adequacy (accord with our intentions) of a predicate for the concept of truth within a given system. ‘True’ thus becomes a predicate applicable by the rules of a system to sentences of the system. [] In pure semantics the conditions of the truth of sentences in a system need not be found outside the system but must be provided within it.”

In Carnap’s scheme, then, just as the truth of the thing-language is an internal question, so too is the question of truth itself before it’s applied to a thing-language… or to anything else for that matter.

Carnap also referred to the “adequacy” of the “truth predicate”, rather than simply saying it “works”, “provides results”, “solves problems”, “handles experience”, etc. Yet now all the previous arguments about the adoption — and status — of a Carnapian convention are now applicable to Carnap’s internalist account of truth itself.

Carlo Rovelli vs Panpsychism: “Each atom must be a proto-cyclist.”

 “It is like saying that since a bicycle is made of atoms, then each atom must be a proto-cyclist.” 

— Carlo Rovelli

The Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli wrote the following passage in his book Helgoland:

“I do not find such arguments and such pan-psychism persuasive in the slightest. It is like saying that since a bicycle is made of atoms, then each atom must be a proto-cyclist.”

At first sight at least, Carlo Rovelli’s argument seems both simple and convincing.

Basically, Rovelli is arguing against the panpsychist contention that it’s highly unlikely that consciousness (or experience) could ever have arisen from that which is entirely non-conscious.

[This is sometimes called the Continuity Argument for Panpsychism. See my ‘Panpsychism in 1970: Keith Campbell on the Continuity Argument for Panpsychism’.]

However, the comparison (or analogy) that Rovelli cites above may not work. In other words, is there really a parallel between the atoms which make up a bike and the bike itself, and the parts which make up a brain, and consciousness itself?

In other words, is Rovelli’s general argument true of all systems and their elements (or parts)?

Systems and Their Elements

At one level at least, Rovelli’s analogy is correct.

Firstly, take this passage from the American philosopher John Searle:

“Suppose that we have a system, S [i.e., a bicycle], made up of elements a, b, c… [i.e., atoms and other elements]. [] In general, there will be features of S that are not, or not necessarily, features of a, b, c…”

In countless systems which are made up of elements or parts, the system itself will have characteristics which its parts — on their own — won’t have…

Not many people would disagree with that.

However, in the case of panpsychism, is it the brain which is the system, or consciousness itself?

In the bicycle case, it is literally identical to the sum of its elements or parts. However, surely we can’t say that consciousness itself is the sum of its elements or parts.

Does this mean, then, that Rovelli’s analogy doesn’t work because consciousness is simply left out of his picture?

So instead of a bike’s elements, let’s take four matchsticks.

We can combine four matchsticks to create a square shape. The square shape is nothing more than its four elements — i.e., it’s the sum of four matchsticks. Yet it can still be said that the square shape does indeed emerge from the four matchsticks. However, it doesn’t strongly emerge from them.

Philip Goff

The panpsychist Philip Goff provides his own example here. He writes:

“Take the case of seven Lego cubes placed on top of each other to make a rectangular tower. The mere existence of those bricks, each having a specific shape and location, necessitates the existence of the tower having the shape and location it has.”

More technically:

“The existence of a group of spatial objects, O¹….Oⁿ, with certain shapes and locations, can necessitate the existence of a spatial object with a shape and location different to the shape and location of each of O¹… Oⁿ.”

Goff puts this position without mentioning consciousness or anything else directed related to it. He also argues that

“the defining characteristic of constitution being that constituted states of affairs are nothing over and above the states of affairs which constitute them”.

That, again, is a statement of weak emergence.

So is consciousness (i.e., rather than the brain) a system made up of elements (or parts) in the first place? That is, can we even say that when it comes to consciousness, it is made up of neurons, synapses, the body, etc?

In theory (or at least according to various zombie scenarios), we can even have the sum of all the brain’s parts (along with the body as a whole), and still not have consciousness. Of course, the identity theorist would say that, of natural necessity, if we have the same brain, then we must also have the same consciousness. And that’s because the brain both constitutes and instantiates consciousness (i.e., even if consciousness is only experienced “from the inside”).

Alternatively, we can say that the brain and its elements cause (or bring about) consciousness.

Emergence or Identity?

Perhaps Carlo Rovelli himself does vaguely — or tangentially — broach this issue of (either) emergence and/or causation when he says that

“[o]ur mental life needs the existence of neurons, sensory organs, a body, the complex elaboration of information that occurs in it”.

Yet it’s very hard to unpack what Rovelli means by the words “[o]ur mental life needs”.

Sure, most people (though not idealists and dualists) would accept that without “neurons, sensory organs, a body” we would have no mental life (or consciousness) at all. However, is an individual’s mental life (or consciousness) one and the same thing as the sum of his/her neurons, sensory organs, and body?

Alternatively, do neurons, sensory organs, and a body cause (or bring about) a mental life (or consciousness)?

In this latter case, if x causes y, then x and y can’t be one and the same thing. Yet, in Rovelli’s example, a bike is literally the sum of its parts. This means that the sum of a bike’s parts don’t cause the bike: they’re identical to the bike.

Sure, a bike isn’t the same thing as any single part of it. It isn’t even the same thing as any subsection of its parts. It’s also the case that the relations, etc. between the bike’s parts need to be factored into this story. Still, when we have all the parts, and all the relations of all the parts, then we also have the bike itself. (Ironically put, most people are identity theorists when it comes to bikes and their parts.)

Again, does this way of putting things also apply to the brain, its parts, the relations of its parts, and consciousness?

Physical Entailment

In theory at least, if a person knew all about the parts of a bike, then that person could posit that a bike would (or simply could) result if all its parts were put together. Yet this can’t be done with the parts of the brain, etc. and their relation to consciousness.

Let’s go into detail.

The Australian philosopher Frank Jackson may be helpful at this point. He wrote the following words:

“But it is quite another question whether they must hold that θ [the set of all relevant physical elements] a priori entails everything about our psychology, including its phenomenal side, and so quite another question whether they must hold that it is in principle possible to deduce from the full physical story alone what it is like to see red or smell a rose — the key assumption in the knowledge argument that materialism leaves out qualia.”

Here we have a clash (or simply a difference) between entailment and deduction. More clearly, the physical may well entail (to put it grandly) everything in the sense that without the physical (as well as everything about the physical) there would be no consciousness. However, from our current — and perhaps future — knowledge of the physical, we still can’t (a priori) know everything about consciousness. [See note 1 on entailment and logical consequence.]

In terms of Rovelli’s bike (system S) and its elements (E), we can state the following:

E necessitates S.

Yet E doesn’t cause — or bring about — S. That’s because “necessitates” isn’t a causal term — at least not in this instance.

In the material conditional:

P ⊃ Q

We can say that P can’t hold without necessitating Q. It is ontologically necessary that P necessitates (or entails) Q.

Thus, we can say that the physical is necessary for consciousness, without our being able to posit consciousness from the physical. However, we could (in principle) do so in the bike-and-its-atoms case.

To sum up.

Carlo Rovelli’s analogy (or simple comparison) can only work if one is an identity theorist of some kind. So it doesn’t seem to work if one accepts strong emergence or non-reductive physicalism. In simple terms, then, saying that “since a bicycle is made of atoms, then each atom must be a proto-cyclist” is not like saying that in order for there to be consciousness, each element of the brain must instantiate… well, proto-psychism.

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Note:

(1) It may be questioned whether there can be such a thing as physical entailment for the simple reason that “logical consequence”— if not entailment when taken more broadly and physically — is a logical term used exclusively about statements, propositions or symbols.

In 1931, the Philosopher G.F. Stout Hinted at Panpsychism

 

George Frederick Stout (1860–1944) was an English philosopher and psychologist.

The Australian philosopher John Passmore expressed Stout’s main concern in this way:

“That matter could never produce anything so different from itself as mind.”

Stout’s position (of 1931) on the mind-body problem wasn’t Cartesian. In fact it’s fairly contemporary in its general tone.

Stout argued that the mind is “embodied mind”, not the “pure spirit” of mind-body dualism. As one other commentator put it:

“Stout [] held that mind and body are always implicated with one another in two basic ways. First of all, minds are embodied; they are never to be found on their own.”

In terms of panpsychism, Stout himself argued that

“every material object [] must be infused by mind, even though it is not itself a mind”.

Clearly Stout didn’t believe that all material objects can think. Indeed, the infusing of objects with mind may still mean that certain objects have no cognitive properties (or abilities) whatsoever. However, such objects may still instantiate phenomenal properties (or protophenomenal properties), which is a very different claim.

Stout also believed that there’s only one substance. In most cases, that substance isn’t complex enough to cause (or bring about) any forms of cognition. However, when complex enough (as in animal brains) it does have the ability to bring about cognition.

Stout argued that the prime reason for his monist stance is that only with this position can

“the distinctness of mind and matter be reconciled with their continuity”.

So we have two very different aspects of the mind-matter relation: their (obvious) distinctness, as well as their (less obvious) continuity. Indeed, their distinctness can also be explained by their ontological continuity, and not by, for example, the mental’s strong emergence.

The notion of emergence itself is, Stout argued, miraculous, and it doesn’t explain anything about the matter-mind relation. And Cartesian dualism, on the other hand, can’t explain the interaction of the mind and the brain/body (among other things).

In 1970, the Australian philosopher Keith Campbell also stressed continuity.

Keith Campbell

Even though Keith Campbell didn’t begin with the word “panpsychism”, the following passage expresses the broad gist of what’s been called the “Continuity-Argument for Panpsychism”. Campbell wrote:

“If minds are spirits they must have arrived as quite novel objects in the universe, some time between then and now [man and his remote descendants]. But when? We see only a smooth development in the fossil record. Any choice of time as the moment at which spirit first emerged seems hopelessly arbitrary.”

[See note 2 for the source. Interestingly, idealists can also adopt a version of this argument.]

The passage above seems like an argument that a panpsychist would be happy with.

Of course, it’s usually stated that consciousness didn’t just “arrive[]”. It slowly occurred during a very gradual process — a result of many evolutionary changes, as well as the increased complexity of brains and central nervous systems (among many other things). [See my ‘Panpsychism in 1970: Keith Campbell on the Continuity Argument for Panpsychism’ for more on Campbell’s position.]

Finally, philosophers to this very day are still grappling with the mind-body problem. They overwhelmingly reject Cartesian dualism. Many other philosophers also reject the various kinds of emergence theory (at least in the philosophy of mind). The latter positions are sometimes seen as being little better (i.e., in terms of their explanatory power) than Cartesian dualism.

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Notes

(1) Most of the work that G.F. Stout did on this issue can be found in his book Mind & Matter, which was published in 1931.

(2) This passage is from Keith Campbell’s chapter ‘Dualisms’, from his 1970 book, Body and Mind. This chapter includes a (relatively) early reference to panpsychism by an analytic philosopher. In other words, it occurred some time before the recent (renewed?) interest in panpsychism, dating back to the mid-1990s/early 2000s. [See my ‘The Recent Rise of Analytic Panpsychism: 1996 to 2022’.]

Philosophy: My Posts (or Tweets) on X (10)

 (i) Daniel Dennett

(ii) Doubt: Laypersons, Science, and Wittgenstein’s Doubts About Doubt

(iii) Albert Einstein’s Determinism or Fatalism?

(iv) Timothy Williamson’s Lectures

(v) Don’t Eat Blueberries… or Cashew Nuts!

(vi) Academics Are Human Beings

(vii) “We Are All One” — Albert Einstein Said So!

(viii) Philosophical Writing Styles

(ix)) Are String Theorists Insane?

(x) Stuart Hameroff Praises Deepak Chopra

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Daniel Dennett

Like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett received a lot of vitriolic abuse because of his views. But he argued his case. And he even engaged with many of his (fierce) critics. This is true of Dawkins too.

So even though many people may take Dennett’s views to be extreme in various ways, at least argument and data were of supreme importance to him. (I never agreed with everything he wrote.) Many (i.e., not all) of his critics, on the other hand, seem to glide on their visceral hatred of his views.

Doubt: Laypersons, Science, and Wittgenstein’s Doubts About Doubt

Didn’t Ludwig Wittgenstein have doubts about doubt? Or, at the very least, he was certainly very dismissive of global doubt (or global scepticism).

Also, aren’t many scientists highly suspicious when laypersons doubt their own claims and theories? What’s more, laypersons largely rely on testimony when it comes to (most) science. In other words, this is the exact opposite of doubting scientific statements and theories. [See my ‘When It Comes to Science, Non-Scientists Rely on Testimony’.]

Perhaps one can get around all this and say that Richard Feynman wasn’t using the word “doubt” in this philosophical(?) way.

Albert Einstein’s Determinism or Fatalism?

This is something I’ve never understood. “Spiritual” and religious people quote Einstein left, right, and centre in order to get him on board their own spiritual/religious trains. Yet doesn’t this quote (below) work against the free will which most spiritual and religious people champion? (Yes, non-religious people believe in free will too.)

I suppose, however, that Einstein’s words can be squared with certain brands of religious fatalism.

Timothy Williamson’s Lectures

The English philosopher Timothy Williamson’s lectures are usually brilliant. (Well, all the ones I’ve watched on YouTube are.) No one does them the way he does. They are clear and unpretentious. They’re also very forceful… And I say all that even though I don’t agree with many of his positions.

For example, I broadly see myself as being a naturalist. However, Williamson’s lecture on naturalism (on YouTube) really got me thinking. Not that he’s entirely critical of naturalism. Yet he does spot some fundamental problems. (That said, all philosophical isms have their own problems too.)

Also check out his debate (on YouTube) with Paul Horwich on Wittgenstein. Broadly speaking, I take Williamson’s “side” on this issue.

Don’t Eat Blueberries… or Cashew Nuts!

Literally all medicines have contraindications and warnings attached to them. I also suspect that all foods have at least some negative aspects — when it comes to some people at some points in time.

I eat a hell of a lot of cashew nuts. However, when checking up on them, I was deluged by warnings about doing so. (Perhaps I’m dying without knowing it.)

So there are scientific papers which say X. And then there are scientific papers which say not-X…

What can a layperson do?

Academics Are Human Beings

Academics are prone to all the human vices we lowly laypersons are prone too. Indeed, why should that be a surprise? Academics are biological, psychological and social beings, after all…

By the way, my next paper is called ‘My Ego Is the World and Nothing Else Exists’. This paper instantiates in conjunction with my ‘The World Will End Next Thursday’.

“We Are All One” — Albert Einstein Said So!

Albert Einstein was a physicist... Yes? So why are nearly all the words he ever uttered frequently quoted and turned into portentous memes?

Sure, some of his non-physics-based words are okay. Others are fairly banal, truistic or borrowed. None of his own is particularly brilliant.

The quote above certainly isn’t physics. I would argue that it’s not even philosophy. Being a German living mainly in the first half of the 20th century, it's precisely the kind of indebtedness to “eastern religion” you’d expect from a highly-educated German scientist or intellectual at that time. There are other German and Austrian physicists who, at that point in history, said fairly similar things. It was in the air at that short(ish) moment in history.

Philosophical Writing Styles

Personally, I believe that more analytic philosophers should find an appropriate middle way between the soulless and dry style of their very self-conscious academese, and the opposing literary philosophical styles which are primarily designed to appeal to feelings, emotions and prior tribal (or psychological) loyalties. (Literary styles that when unpacked, are often quite empty of philosophical content, argument and data.)

Are String Theorists Insane?

Yes! But the maths of string theory is truly “beautiful” and “consistent”. As some string theorist put it: “How can something so beautiful be false?” This is what non-scientists (or laypersons) are told by string theorists and (some) popular-science writers.

Now think of the self-consistent madman who creates a perfectly logical and self-consistent belief-system (or worldview). All the parts of that system fit together perfectly. However, all his beliefs are false. They bear no relation to reality. [See my ‘A Coherent Madman and His Little Self-referential Problem’.]

Stuart Hameroff Praises Deepak Chopra

Is the anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff being surreal or ironic here? Surely that must be the case. Then again, I don’t expect an anesthesiologist to be particularly philosophically literate, or have anything interesting to say when he branches out way way beyond his specialism.

And his New Age soundbites are atrocious… but, again, it could be ironic.

“I am an anesthesiologist interested in how the brain produces consciousness.”

Deepak Chopra is an idealist. He (along with his “spiritual” pals Bernardo Kastrup and Donald Hoffman) believes, and has explicitly stated, that consciousness “produces” the brain . So Hameroff and Chopra can’t be in agreement on everything. Perhaps just on the more sexy New-Age-soundbite stuff.

That said, according to a spiritual idealist, the brain that is an instantiation of consciousness may produce the (to use the terms of Kastrup and Hoffman) “images” or “icons” of the brain, which, in turn, we perceive and mistakenly deem to be physical…

Anything goes, eh?

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My X account can be found here.