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Amalac
489Leszek Kolakowski, in his book: "If there is no God... About God, the Devil, Sin and other concerns of the so-called Philosophy of Religion", claims that the proposition "nothing exists" is false, but also unintelligible and absurd. "If something is absurd, it is that" he says. He then argues that because of this, the proposition “something exists” could be considered an analytic, necessary proposition.
But what does Kolakowski mean by absurd? In its colloquial sense, the word "absurd" means something that is obviously false, but in its technical sense it is more or less synonymous with nonsense, that is, a proposition that is neither true nor false.
If it is the first sense, then basically he says that it is not only a false statement, but also a clearly false one, as well as unintelligible. And it is this last part that is problematic, because if it is unintelligible, how can we know if it is false or not? We could not know that in that case, because to judge that a proposition is false we must first have understood the content of the proposition, and in order for this to happen it must be intelligible. Or at least it seems to me like that's the case.
If it is the second sense, then Kolakowski's statement is clearly self-contradictory, since he states that it is false and also nonsense/ meaningless, in effect affirming that it is both false and not false (which is implied by being nonsense/meaningless, that is: not true and not false).
I think this goes back to the problem of phrases denoting non-existent entities, for example: are statements like “the round square exists” or “the round square is round” false, or meaningless? One could argue they are meaningless since the existence of something that was both round and square is inconceivable and unintelligible, so that we don't even know what it is that we are wondering about whether it exists or not.
But likewise one could also argue that it they are false by saying that something with contradictory attributes cannot exist, and therefore the statement is not meaningless but false, and that we do in fact understand what is meant by “the round square” since we understand the individual words that comprise the phrase, even if we don't understand the phrase that results when they are put together.
That however seems untrue, since in a statement such as “red the is apple”, we do understand the meaning of the individual terms that comprise the phrase, but would surely agree that it is meaningless because the resulting phrase is unintelligible. I guess it could be argued that the phrase “the round square is round” is different, since the words there at least seem to be correctly put together.
But what about a phrase such as “Abracadabra is an ulterior motive"? Here, the words also seem to be well put together, yet Mill maintains that it is meaningless, not false. So it would appear from this that the phrase “the round square is round” is in fact meaningless.
If that's the case though, how come neither Meinong nor Russell considered the statement “the round square is round” to be meaningless, but true and false respectively? The sort answer is that they seem to have interpreted it differently according to their respective ontologies.
But following the previous line of reasoning: would it not be obvious that it must be meaningless since we don't understand what is meant by, nor can conceive of, something both round and not round, and therefore cannot understand what the subject of the phrase is?
So, my questions for those who are more knowledgeable in the subject (besides the one in the title) are: what is the current status of the analysis of such phrases by contemporary or more recent philosophers? I am aware that Kripke among others defended (don't know if he still does though) and developed Russell's theory of descriptions, which considers such statements to be false rather than meaningless, and that people like Strawson rejected Russell's theory. But has there been more development of the alternative theories of Frege and Meinong as well?
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Amalac
489
Hot things are cold.
contradiction — hope
It's a contradiction, and therefore false.
But my question has rather to do with phrases whose subject is self-contradictory and/or meaningless. In your example, the subject “hot things” isn't unintelligible nor self-contradictory.
Would you say the statement “the round square exists” is false, or meaningless? -
Amalac
489
You have a point I suppose, going by the most common definition of “unintelligible” meaning “impossible to understand”, it would seem clear that a statement can't be both (known to be) false and impossible to understand. If that's the case, Kolakowski is very clearly wrong.
What puzzles me is what Kolakowski meant when he said that the statement “nothing exists” is simultaneously false, unintelligible and absurd (that's what my translation says anyway), if not that it is false, impossible to understand and absurd, since it seems odd that a philosopher of his intellectual capacity would make such an obvious mistake. -
TheMadFool
13.8kfalse, but also unintelligible and absurd. — Amalac
To the two year old me:
1. 2 = 2 + 2
Statement 1 was unintelligible (I could barely speak), absurd (contradiction) AND false. -
Amalac
489
going by the most common definition of “unintelligible” meaning “impossible to understand” — Amalac
So a statement may be unintelligible to some people and still be false, but it seems strange to say (though is perhaps not impossible) that a statement is understood by no one and never will be, and yet is false, wouldn't you agree?
I should clarify that I'm referring to statements that are not understood by anyone and never will be due to their very nature, like: “abracadabra is an ulterior motive”, not statements that a person doesn't understand because of their ignorance or limited cognitive capacity. -
TheMadFool
13.8k
Also,
1. Meaningful (semantically positive) sentence aka proposition, say P: P (true) or ~P (false)
2. Meaningless (semantically negative) sentence Q: True/False N/A. Unintelligible.
Suppose now that a psychotic logician puts a gun to your temple and demands that you assign a truth value to Q or else...bang! bang!
What would you do?
True/False? Which is the most rational choice?
You can't say Q is true because you wouldn't be able to prove it since it's not a proposition. Can you say it's false? You wouldn't be able to do that too since then you're implying it's a proposition.
However, you have to assume Q is a proposition or else...goodbye! In my humble opinion, it would be better to say Q is false for the simple reason that Q is false means Q is claiming something that isn't real and Q, unintelligble, is not about reality.
Your choices:
1. Q is true: Making a claim that something is about reality.
2. Q is false: Denying that something is about reality.
3. Q unintelligble: Not about reality.
Don't 2. Q is false and 3. Q is unintelligble look similar? -
Amalac
489
Ok, but what I'm wondering about is: how can Kolakowski know that the statement “nothing exists” is false if he doesn't understand what the statement means? -
TheMadFool
13.8kOk, but what I'm wondering about is: How can Kolakowski know that the statement “nothing exists” is false if he doesn't understand what the statement means? — Amalac
I'll give it my best shot.
Basically, Kolakowski is equating meaninglessness to falsehood.
Meaninglessness means neither true nor false. Neither true nor false is a contradiction which is false. Ergo, meaninglessness = falsehood. -
Amalac
489
Basically, Kolakowski is equating meaninglessness to falsehood.
Meaninglessness means neither true nor false. — TheMadFool
So he just made an obvious mistake? I'm somewhat skeptical of that, but it's possible nonetheless.
The statement “nothing exists” is either false or meaningless (neither true nor false), but obviously not both false and meaningless. -
Amalac
489Neither true nor false is a contradiction which is false. — TheMadFool
Not necessarily, the statement “Caesar is a prime number” is meaningless (according to Carnap at least), but isn't a contradiction.
Another example: “abracadabra is an ulterior motive” is meaningless, but not self-contradictory. -
Amalac
489To clarify further: according to Kolakowski, the proposition “something exists” could be analytic.
An analytic proposition is a proposition such that its contradictory is self-contradictory.
If that was the case, then the proposition “nothing exists” would be self-contradictory, but what exactly is self-contradictory about it? It's not that clear to me.
We cannot imagine/ conceive that there should be or should have been nothing at all, but this alone is not enough to say that there is something impossible in that state of affairs, unless we accept the premise that whatever is inconceivable or unimaginable is impossible, which Kolakowski seems to accept here:
It seems that we are again faced with the problem of the contingency of the world; We could be unable to conceive of the "world's nonexistence", that is, absolute "nothingness" and therefore have reason to believe that "necessarily, something exists"
But a good objection to this line of argument is given by Wittgenstein, in his Remarks on Color:
You can't think of white water, etc. " This means that it is not possible to describe (e.g., paint) how something white and clear would look like, and this means: it is not known what description, what representation, these words demand of us.
When we come to grips with logic, "I can't imagine that" means: I don't know what it is that I'm supposed to imagine here.
Likewise, we could argue that we cannot even understand what description or representation the word “nothing” asks of us and consequently could not imagine how absolute nothingness would even look like, in which case the statement “nothing exists” would not be false, it would be senseless. For how could we say that a statement in which we don't understand what the subject means, is false? -
BannoAccepted Answer
23.4kI am aware that Kripke among others defended (don't know if he still does though) and developed Russell's theory of descriptions — Amalac
Proper names were for a while held to refer only in virtue of their standing in for a description of the thing named. The description was what was supposed to differentiate the thign. SO "Bertrand Russell" meant "Third Earl Russell, born 18 May 1872, in Trellech, Wales, author of German Social Democracy..." and so on, with the description being just long enough for us to be able to differentiate between Russell and anyone else.
Russell did this in order to answer a range of problems - see Descriptions
Kripke and others, in their analysis of modalities - "what if...'s" - showed this theory of names doesn't work.
I don't know if what you say about Kolakowski is correct, but it does appear odd to say that a statement is both nonsense and false. -
Banno
23.4kTo clarify further: according to Kolakowski, the proposition “something exists” could be analytic.
An analytic proposition is a proposition such that its contradictory is self-contradictory.
If that was the case, then the proposition “nothing exists” would be self-contradictory, but what exactly is self-contradictory about it? It's not that clear to me. — Amalac
From what you say, Kolakowski is engaging in the logical heresy of treating existence as a first-order predicate. For some that alone would be sufficient to reject his line of reasoning.
On that account, "Something exists" is not well-formed - is not grammatically correct - and so is not the sort of statement that can be given a truth value.
I'd go along with that. -
Amalac
489From what you say, Kolakowski is engaging in the logical heresy of treating existence as a first-order predicate. For some that alone would be sufficient to reject his line of reasoning.
On that account, "Something exists" is not well-formed - is not grammatically correct - and so is not the sort of statement that can be given a truth value.
I'd go along with that. — Banno
About the question whether it's grammatically correct or not, it's interesting that Kolakowski himself seems to be more or less aware of your criticism and similar ones, and gives this reply (he talks about it in relation to the ontological argument):
The empiricist can go further. He can assert that the very use of the concept of existence in the absolute sense is not permissible and that "existence" is an idea no less unintelligible than the idea of "nothing." When we say that an object exists, we always mean that it belongs to a class of objects, or simply that it exhibits some well defined properties; we do not have access to existence in the metaphysical sense, as the opposite of "nothing."
We can safely translate all the sentences in which the expression "exists" or its negation appears, into a language in which it is only permissible to use the "is" as a copula and then we will get rid of all the supposed metaphysical mysteries; it is not the case that a horse has the property of existence, as opposed to Pegasus who has the property of nonexistence: both statements are absurd unless they mean, respectively, 'horses (as defined by a set of properties) appear in experience ”,“ winged horses do not appear in experience ”.
Thus, not only assertions about a necessary being are removed, but also clauses such as "something exists" or "horses exist." This is, of course, a possible philosophical option: a radical phenomenalism very close to the ontological nihilism of the Buddhist sages. If an empiricist is right to take his premise to the extreme — and I believe he is — then the concepts of existence and nothing, being on the same plane of unintelligibility, are effectively removed from the field of our legitimate curiosity.
If, on the other hand, we admit the legitimacy of those concepts, there is nothing to protect us from Leibniz's formidable question: why is there something rather than nothing? Once we admit it and confront it, the necessary Being, Anselm's God, whose non-existence is unthinkable, emerges as an intellectual compulsion.
Again, the God thus imposed on our mind appears simply as a biblical "sum qui sum", not as the Christian Judge and Benefactor, and yet this God is not a figmentum rationis either. Once again we are faced with two irreconcilable options: either the point of view of the radical phenomenalist, an ontological nihilism that outlaws the very idea of the existence of the society of intelligible entities, or the admission that the question of existence leads to necessary existence. In the philosophical instrumenterium there are no commonly acceptable "higher" principles to which to appeal in order to settle the conflict between these options (except spurious appeals to moral considerations, etc.).
In the eyes of the phenomenalist, the metaphysician is powerless to "prove" his point of view; from the metaphysician's perspective, the very concept of 'proof', thus restricted, implies a philosophical choice which he has no reason to adopt. They are both correct in the sense that they both make a logically arbitrary decision, but the phenomenalist is usually more reluctant to admit this.
Personally I feel inclined to agree with his view here, it has a very sceptical flavor to it. -
Amalac
489
I mean specially this passage here, which is pretty clear:
In the eyes of the phenomenalist, the metaphysician is powerless to "prove" his point of view; from the metaphysician's perspective, the very concept of 'proof', thus restricted, implies a philosophical choice which he has no reason to adopt. They are both correct in the sense that they both make a logically arbitrary decision, but the phenomenalist is usually more reluctant to admit this.
Perhaps this other passage (earlier on the same book) can give context:
An empiricist can hold firmly to the theory that the concept of a necessary being is absurd, and a metaphysician can go on to say that the empiricist's denial implies an epistemological doctrine that is far from obvious; that all the criteria of cognitive validity turn out to be those elaborated by modern empirical science. -
Moliere
4kNothing exists....
I have to admit that I have a hard time understanding what it might mean for nothing to exist. So in that way it's unintelligible. But clearly something exists, so "nothing exists" must be false.
In a very simple way, then, it makes sense to say "Nothing exists" is unintelligible, but clearly false too -- since we can picture what the negation of "nothing exists" means, and that negation is all that's needed to make it true (and, hence, would be able to easily infer falsity)
Or something like that. :D -
Amalac
489
That's an interesting way of looking at it, perhaps that's what Kolakowski intended to say.
If it were though, it still seems troubling: if the statement “something exists” is analytic as he maintains, then its negation “nothing exists” would have to be self-contradictory. And yet, what is contradictory about that statement? Some people, like Sean Carroll, hold that there actually could have been nothing, which clearly can't be the case if “nothing exists” is a self contradictory statement. Yet they see nothing logically impossible about it, presumably because they don't accept the idea that something can't be the case simply because we can't conceive of it or imagine it. -
Amalac
489One could approach the question by saying, like Pauli did, that these things are "not even wrong."
They can't even be evaluated along a right/wrong axis. — Manuel
That's right, we could say that “nothing exists” is not false as Kolakowski maintains, but rather senseless.
To be consistent however, we would in that case also have to say that “something exists” is senseless, even though it seems intuitively true and is often presented as an indubitable basic belief by some foundationalists. -
Amalac
489
Hmm, but I thought you said such statements were not even wrong? Or were you only refering to the other statements in the OP?
Of course no one disputes that if “something exists” is true, then “nothing exists” is false. But the more interesting question is whether the statement “something exists”, if true, is necessarily true or not. -
Manuel
3.9k
I was answering the question of the thread. Looking at the OP, I don't think saying "red the apple is" is unintelligible. It is poorly phrased, but it clearly has content.
As per your second question, I don't think we know enough about the universe to say this with absolute confidence. The best I've heard physicist says is something roughly like something is somehow easier or makes more sense that to say that nothing exists. Why exactly, I'm not sure.
Personally, in my own thinking, I'm inclined to the view that possibility is more likely to exist that nothing. Nothing is a lack of anything. It's not even a state, per se.
But why would nothing necessarily exist? Possibility or potential might be the most basic thing that could be said about anything, as it allows for options. Nothing doesn't, at least not the nothing we use in ordinary life. -
Amalac
489I was answering the question of the thread. Looking at the OP, I don't think saying "red the apple is" is unintelligible. It is poorly phrased, but it clearly has content. — Manuel
I wrote “red the is apple” as an example of a phrase that's meaningless, despite the fact that the individual words that comprise it are not.
Personally, in my own thinking, I'm inclined to the view that possibility is more likely to exist that nothing. Nothing is a lack of anything. It's not even a state, per se. — Manuel
I think that argument can go on forever, since the other party will retort that nothing existing was far more likely since “nothing” was much simpler than the actual universe, in the same as a universe just like ours, but were a star didn't exist, was more likely to exist than the actual universe.
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