G R A H A M H. BIRD

C A R N A P A N D Q U I N E : I N T E R N A L

A N D E X T E R N A L Q U E S T I O N S

Carnap's complex set of distinctions between internal and external questions from his paper 'Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology '1 has been influential but is now widely regarded as erroneous and long since refuted. It is not at all fanciful to trace one major source, perhaps the major source, of that verdict to Quine's comments in his paper 'On Carnap's Views on Ontology' and in Word and Object. 2 For, although many others have commented unfavourably on Carnap's distinctions, most of these criticisms post-date Quine's comments and many of them are consciously influenced by Quine. 3 Nevertheless, despite this consen- sus I want to argue that Quine's criticisms leave Carnap's central points quite untouched.

It is not my intention to examine all the commentators who have criticized Carnap in this context. I want to concentrate on Quine, but I shall also make some reference to Susan Haack, Barry Stroud and Christopher Hookway. 4 Though I believe that all of these com- mentators misrepresent Carnap they do so in different ways. Susan Haack, for example, is certainly the least unfair, though her objections to Quine seem to have made little difference to the critical climate. What I propose to do is, first in Section 1, to outline the central features of Camap's distinctions, and second to show, in Section 2, that Quine's criticisms miss the mark. In another paper I defend Carnap's arguments against Susan Haack's objections.

1. C A R N A P ' S DISTINCTIONS

It is important to recognize that Carnap has a four-fold distinction, and not just the simple dual contrast between 'internal' and 'external' questions. Stroud, for example, says of Carnap: s

He, like Kant, distinguished between two types of question - ordinary empirical questions on the one hand which are raised and answered from "within" a framework of concepts, beliefs, and recognized procedures of confirmation, and, on the other hand, questions raised by the skeptic or metaphysician about this framework, raised, so to speak, "from outside".

Erkenntnis 42: 41-64, 1995. © 1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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This gives the impression that Carnap's distinction is dual, rather than four-fold, as also the impression that internal questions are to be identi- fied with empirical questions. Both of these impressions are quite wrong.

Among internal questions, for example, Carnap separates 'particular' from 'general' questions. The idea is that if we set up a 'language' with its syntax, vocabulary, rules, and test procedures, then we can in principle settle the internal particular questions. Carnap gives illus- trations from what he calls the "thing" language, for physical objects, and from the "number" language, dealing with basic arithmetical oper- ations on natural numbers. The former will include claims of an empiri- cal kind and will form an 'empirical system'; the latter will form a non- empirical, or logical, system. Once such languages are available we can formulate and answer such questions as "Is there a table in the dining room?" (thing language), or "Are there any even prime numbers?" (number language). Such particular internal questions are widely noted, but cause few flurries in the literature. However, it is already apparent that the particular internal questions in the number language will not be empirical, contrary to Stroud's suggestion quoted above.

The general internal questions, by contrast and for reasons which will become clear, are less often noted by commentators. These are ex- pressed by such questions as "Do physical objects (in general) exist?", or "Do numbers (in general) exist?" Carnap makes two observations about these questions. First, as internal questions they are directly answerable from answers given to particular internal questions. If there is a table in the dining room, and tables are physical objects, then it follows logically that there are physical objects. If two is an even prime number, then it follows that there are numbers. So general internal questions present, so far, no more of a problem than their particular counterparts. 6 Second, however, Carnap notes that when philosophers traditionally have raised questions in the form "Do numbers (in gen- eral) really exist?", they were not normally raising an internal question at all. For they knew perfectly well that there is an even prime number, and that it follows from this that numbers exist. They might have been inclined to say that they knew perfectly well that numbers exist 'in arithmetic', 7 but wanted to go on to ask a different question about their real existence. In this way their question presupposed the internal apparatus of arithmetic, in which specific numbers can be identified, but was to be answered independently of, outside, that internal appar-

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atus. So, although their traditional question might share the same verbal form as that of a general internal question it could not simply be identified with any such question. Of course, if some philosopher, confusedly or otherwise, did wish to identify his question as an internal general question, then Carnap's position would be that there is no philosophical mystery, or sometimes doubt, about what the correct answer is. 8

Traditional issues of these kinds, then, cannot be simply identified with internal questions, whether particular or general. They are supposed to arise independently of the internal apparatus of some language, and so will have to be classified as non-internal, or external. Carnap, for understandable reasons, is not totally precise in characteriz- ing the further features of such questions. They are questions arising "outside" the system, about the system "as a whole", and even in some ways "prior" to the establishment, or perhaps acceptance, of a system. They say, crudely, "Yes, of course, we know that given the languages for physical objects or natural numbers we can show that some such objects or numbers exist; but aside from that there is still a general question about their real, independent, existence". 9

Carnap again divides external questions into two categories, first 'practical' and second 'theoretical' questions. In the practical construc- tion the question is more properly formulated as "Should we accept, or adopt, the X-language?" Carnap believes that this is a perfectly respectable question, arising 'outside' the language, and about the sys- tem as a whole, and patently appropriate before adoption of the lan- guage, but he insists that it should be answered by an assessment of the benefits of acceptance and the disadvantages of non-acceptance. For Carnap such a question is not 'theoretical', it does not call for a "Yes/No" answer, or for a verdict in terms of truth. Instead it calls for a practical decision, and this procedure, he thinks, should not be con- fused with issues about truth or evidence, which, so far, properly have their place within the system.

At this stage, then, Carnap has located three perfectly intelligible, distinct types of existence question, but none of them is to be identified with the traditional question of existence. That will then be a fourth type, namely a theoretical, external question. But, notoriously, while Carnap is prepared to accept the first three types of question as respect- able and clear, he is not prepared to accept the fourth type in this way. He can find no adequate interpretation for it, despite the fact that it is

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this question, and not any of the others, which tradition has wanted to raise and answer. He says, in effect, that he can attach no sense to such a fourth question, so that the traditional issue conceived in this way is meaningless.

It will be clear now why I said earlier that Carnap does not succeed in identifying the traditional question for understandable reasons. He thinks we know how such a question is supposed to be construed, but he also thinks that the supposed construction is inadequate, even il- lusory or meaningless. In such cases (think for example of Wittgen- stein's argument against a private language) it is not that we identify a lucid claim only to discover that it is meaningless. Rather we have a set of requirements to identify a question put in a form which is pre- sumed to be meaningful, but then find that the requirements do not suffice to give it a meaning. The immediate requirements (other less immediate requirements lurk in the supporting arguments) are that such a question should be understood in terms of the features which give sense to the three respectable questions already identified. But we have seen, according to Carnap, that the residual, traditional question cannot be identified in any of these ways. Theoretical, external ques- tions are defined, if you like, by exclusion. They are not internal parti- cular, or internal general questions, and they are not external practical questions either. The challenge Carnap lays down is to show how they can be invested with a satisfactory sense.l°

Plainly a number of issues arise directly about this doctrine. How does Carnap identify the relevant languages? Does he succeed in distin- guishing the languages from the objects they are supposed to refer to? I assume that readers are familiar with Carnap's recognition of unclarity in his original paper over the term 'framework', and with his later correction in the reprinted version in Meaning and Necessity. 11 I have tried to avoid that difficulty by talking explicitly of 'languages', where that seemed appropriate; and talking of '(empirical or formal) systems', rather than 'frameworks' where the reference goes beyond that of a language. It has to be conceded that the sketches of languages which Carnap provides, whether empirical or formal, should undoubtedly be further elaborated. Carnap does a little better here than Wittgenstein in his sketches of language-games, but no doubt more could and should be done. On the other hand, and with one proviso that will emerge later, it is not obvious that any serious handicap attends the sketchy nature of the illustrated languages.

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There are also, of course, questions about the arguments designed to support Carnap's doctrine, as I have outlined it, but I shall not consider these here. Finally we might ask whether Carnap's central distinctions, the complex contrasts between types of internal and exter- nal question, are coherent or acceptable. This is the central point at which Quine's criticisms become relevant, and I consider these in Sec- tion 2. But one issue I shall not regard as questionable, though it may be controversial, does need~to be noted, namely: What exactly is Carnap's conclusion?

There are two main options, a strong conclusion and a weaker one. The stronger one is that theoretical external questions just are, and forever will be, meaningless. The weaker claim is that they could be given a meaning, only so far the requirements for such a meaning have not been met. Most commentators ascribe the strong claim to Carnap, but it seems clear to me that this is unfair. Such an attribution rests

primarily on one specific sentence in Carnap's paper, but before I consider it let me indicate other passages which point decisively in the opposite direction.

Unfortunately these philosophers have so far not given a formulation of their question in terms of the common scientific language. (209) Unless and until they supply a clear cognitive interpretation we are justified in our suspicion that their question is a pseudo-question. (209) I feel compelled to regard the external question as a pseudo-question until both parties to the controversy offer a common interpretation of the question as a cognitive question. (219) Let us admit that the nominalist critics may possibly be right. But if so they will have to offer better arguments than they have so f a r . . , to show that it is possible to construct a semantical method which avoids all references to abstract entities and achieves by simpler means essentially the same results as other methods. (221)

These passages make it clear beyond reasonable doubt that Carnap held the weaker view. Even if it were claimed that Carnap's provisos about the possibility of meeting his requirements are disingenuous, I do not think that we could forget or disregard the strict letter of what he here says. How then has it happened that the stronger claim is so often attributed to him? In one place Carnap may seem to commit himself to the strong claim, when he says:

But the thesis of the reality of the thing-world cannot be among these statements, because it cannot be formulated in the thing-language, or, it seems, in any other theoretical language. (208)

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This context is important because it is here that Camap outlines one of his central arguments for the overall doctrine. For the present I note only that even in this quotation Carnap still includes a proviso of the form "it seems" in his formulation of his conclusion. What he surely intends by this is only that the thesis cannot be formulated in the thing- language, and so far no way of formulating it in any other language has yet been offered; and these claims are both true. To construe the quotation in these terms is to fit it into the weaker context of the previous quotations where the balance of the interpretation must rest.

The second point arises from the suggestion that the division between the strong and the weak conclusion is not so sharp as I have suggested. For if Carnap were to envisage the construction of a new, theoretical language in which the contentious question could be formulated, then that question would be given a sense, but only at the expense of now presenting it as an internal question, that is, as internal to the new language. Viewed in this way Carnap's underlying requirements for a meaningful question, which would include its presentation within a new language, would ensure that it could no longer be regarded as an external question. The position is in danger of being reduced to a tautology. But although this may serve to explain why some have taken Carnap to be committed to the strong thesis, it does not damage the interpretation I have offered. The argument does not strictly entitle us to draw the conclusion that an external question cannot be given a sense for we could just as well draw the conclusion that the envisaged procedure precisely meets the requirements for giving such a question a sense, by then representing it in its new surroundings as an intemal question. For that reason it seems to me that Carnap should be under- stood only in terms of the weak conclusion, and in what follows I shall assume that interpretation.

2. Q U I N E ' S C R I T I C I S M S

Quine has commented extensively on Carnap's philosophy, and has paid generous tributes to its influence on his own views. But he devoted the paper 'On Carnap's Views on Ontology' specifically to an examin- ation of Carnap's contrast between external and internal questions, and it is that discussion that I shall concentrate on. I should, however, add one proviso. Quine clearly had direct contact and discussion with Car- nap over a long period, and it may seem presumptuous, if not absurd,

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to suppose that Quine could have misunderstood Carnap's position. It is all the more necessary for me to make this point since I shall represent Quine's objections as very wide of the mark. It may be that Quine has a better grasp of Carnap's real, underlying views as a result of his personal contact. If so then I should make it clear that I am concerned only with Carnap's position in 'Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology', and with an interpretation of it which accords with what he there says, whether or not he might have elaborated it differently in other contexts. 12

With that proviso let me outline Quine's two central criticisms of Carnap and the way I want to deal with them. Quine has two fundamen- tal objections which can be very easily stated. They are:

(A) that Carnap's distinction between internal and external ques- tions is, or is derived from, the distinction between category questions about items which exhaust the range of variables in some language, and sub-class questions about items which do not so exhaust the range of variables:

(B) that Carnap's distinction requires, or can be made in terms of, the contrast between analytic and synthetic truth.

Once he has re-located Carnap's account in these terms Quine's view is that the account is untenable. For the (A) distinction between cate- gory and sub-class questions is arbitrary and inadequate to separate meaningful and meaningless questions. And, of course, the (B) distinc- tion between analytic and synthetic truth should in any case be totally rejected.

My strategy in the face of these objections is to concede, or at least not to resist, the belief that if Carnap's position were as Quine repre- sents it, then it would be indefensible. For I agree, in the case of (A), that the contrast between category and sub-class questions could not justify even Carnap's weak conclusion, as I have represented it. On the other hand, in the case of (B), even if Carnap did accept a distinction between analytic and synthetic truth I would not want to agree with Quine, unreservedly, in rejecting that distinction. However, in relation to (B), I take it that the crucial issue is not whether Carnap did accept the analytic/synthetic distinction, but whether his view really requires it. For the point is that Quine envisages identifying Carnap's position in terms of the analytic/synthetic distinction, and in order to query that identification it is not necessary for me either to endorse, or to reject,

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the analytic/synthetic contrast itself. If Carnap's account can be given even without such an appeal, then Quine's rejection of the analytic/syn- thetic distinction will be irrelevant.

(A) Category and Sub-class Questions

That Quine's distinction between category and sub-class questions can- not be Carnap's distinction between external and internal questions is sufficiently shown by noting that for Carnap category questions may be either internal or external. The fact that we raise an existence question about a category does not necessarily mean that we raise an external question at all. We might instead raise it as what Carnap calls an internal general question. We might further note one reason for Quine's holding such a mistaken view, namely that at least internal particular questions do not have the sort of generality that attaches to the tra- ditional philosophical demand. But once the point is noted it serves only to reinforce the evident misunderstanding. For internal general questions do have the requisite degree of generality and, if they are raised about what Quine calls a 'category', then they will belong to Quine's class of category questions but not to Carnap's class of external questions. It might be thought that Quine, for some reason, does not recognize the class of internal general question s, perhaps because as I have already noted, he tends to think of Carnap's distinction as a simple dual division. It is moreover true, as I shall later show, that Quine does refer to internal general questions in a perfunctory and inaccurate way, but it could not be said that he was altogether unaware of their existence.

The same conclusion holds if we consider the alternative possibility, that is, that we might raise what Camap calls an external question about what Quine calls a sub-class of items in some language. For here too the answer is that although in some cases this will seem unusual, even absurd, there is no reason why external questions should not be raised about such sub-classes. Suppose, for example, that we decide to amalgamate what Carnap calls the 'thing' language and the 'number' language in order to construct one in which we not only identify things and numbers but actually count or number things. At a stroke we provide a language which, whatever its overall categories may be, counts things and numbers as sub-classes. 13 But there seems no reason to doubt that in such a context we might still raise exactly the same

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traditional issues about the 'real' existence of things and numbers as were raised separately for the previously distinguished languages. Such an arbitrary, perhaps even notational, change might affect the Quinean classification of category questions, but it need have no effect at all on Carnap's discrimination of external questions. Just as before we can go through the catalogue of internal questions, particular and general, and external questions of the practical type, and continue to reach Carnap's conclusion that external theoretical questions constitute a further class of questions whose meaning requires elucidation.

There is, certainly, something odd about an attempt to construe Carnap's external questions as covering every possible kind of entity, every sub-class, in some language. But this oddity has probably more to do with philosophers' interest in the most general questions rather than with any real barrier to raising such questions in a sub-class con- text. It would, however, be quite wrong to argue that such questions could not be raised in that context, just because there are procedures in the language for answering them. For the same is true, as we have seen, even for the most general categories. Even existence questions about general categories c a n be raised as internal questions, and can be answered on that basis. Nor would it be any sort of objection to Carnap to point out that there is unclarity, oddity, or even no clear sense, to be attached to external questions about sub-classes. For Car- nap could simply admit this, and draw exactly the same conclusion from the attempt to ask such questions about the categories themselves. In both cases Carnap clearly believes that there is some meaning deficiency in raising those questions. If there is unclarity about the sense of such sub-class questions Carnap can simply concede this and make exactly the same point about the purported category questions.

These objections to Quine's distinction between category and sub- class questions are parallel to those which Quine himself raised against the same distinction. I have already indicated, indeed, that if Carnap's distinction were equivalent to Quine's then these objections would count against Carnap's thesis. The difference between Quine's account and mine is that whereas he thinks his, admittedly hopeless, distinction matches Carnap's I have argued that the two contrasts are in fact quite distinct. Consequently where Quine draws the conclusion that Carnap's distinction, as he conceives it, should be rejected, I agree that Quine's distinction should be rejected but not that Carnap's should, since the two are plainly not equivalent.

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Although Quine treats the two contrasts as though they were the same his official view is that Carnap's distinction is "derivative from" Quine's. On page 130 of The Ways of Paradox Quine begins by identify- ing the two contrasts ("It begins to appear that Carnap's dichotomy is a d icho tomy. . . " between category and sub-class questions). But then he modifies this view by claiming that Carnap's distinction derives from his, since "external questions are the category questions conceived as propounded before the adoption of a given language; and they a r e . . , properly to be construed as questions of the desirability of a given language form". At this point, then, Quine identifies 14 external questions as 'practical questions'. He finally goes on to contrast these with internal questions which include, as he says, category questions "when these are construed as treated within an adopted language as questions having trivially analytic or contradictory answers".

This account is inaccurate. First, theoretical external questions are said to be category questions asked 'before' the adoption of a language, when Carnap has at least two other ways of characterising such ques- tions, viz., as questions arising 'outside' the language and about the language 'as a whole'. Second, Quine actually identifies such questions as practical questions, although Carnap's view is clearly that practical external questions are not theoretical. For the former are perfectly respectable, while the latter are, in his view, highly problematic. Finally Quine admits that external theoretical questions may have the same form as internal general questions, but of the latter he claims, wrongly, that they will have trivially analytic or contradictory answers. Carnap, however, makes quite clear that this will be true only of those languages which are themselves formal or logical, such as mathematics. In other contexts, such as the thing language, which is characterized as 'empiri- cal', the answers to general intemal questions will turn on the answers to particular internal questions, and these will be typically matters of fact, not logic. Nothing turns here on Quine's rejecting the whole distinction between 'fact' and 'logic', for he is here simply trying to outline Carnap's own view. Caruap believes, of course, that even in empirical languages the answers to general internal questions can be inferred from the answers to such empirical internal particular ques- tions, but it does not follow that the conclusions of such inferences will themselves be logically true (or false).

Even though Quine's brief account here misrepresents Carnap's posi- tion it nevertheless clarifies his reason for saying that Carnap's contrast

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'derives from' Quine's. For the suggestion is that the difference between external questions and internal general questions is that the former are category questions asked 'before' the adoption of a language, while the latter are category questions asked 'after' that adoption, and, presum- ably, in terms of the procedures internal to that language. Quine's position seems to recognize that Carnap's external questions cannot be identified with Quine's 'category questions', and so merely 'derive from' them, because it is false that

(1) If an existence question belongs to Quine's category class it belongs to Carnap's external class.

This is so, since category questions may nevertheless be asked 'after' adopting the language, in which case the questions will belong to Qui- ne's category class, but not to Carnap's external class. Quine, however, wishes to insist on the following claim:

(2) If an existence question belongs to Quine's category class, asked before adopting the language, then it will also belong to Carnap's external class.

But if this is the structure of Quine's argument it is incoherent. It shows nothing at all about the relationship between 'category' questions and 'external' questions on their own, though this is what Quine had prom- ised. Instead it shows only that a question asked 'before' the adoption of a language will be a Carnap 'external' question. Such a claim is entirely trivial, since if external questions are those asked 'before' the adoption of a language, the claim will be true of any such question whether it is a Quine 'category' question or not. It will, for example, be similarly and trivially true that

(3) If an existence question formulated in five words is asked before the adoption of a language, it will be an external question,

but this tells us nothing about the relationship between Carnap's exter- nal questions and those formulated in five words. There is, of course, the further important point that Quine is here identifying Carnap's external questions as solely 'practical', when the real issue for Carnap is whether we can attach clear sense to a theoretical external question. Quine's attempt to relate those latter questions of Carnap's to his own category questions owes everything to the latter's characterization as

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"asked before the adoption of the language" and nothing at all to their description as Quinean category questions. Since, as I have argued already, the following hypothetical is also false:

(4) If an existence question belongs to Carnap's external class, it will also belong to Quine's category class,

it seems to me that Quine has not shown that Carnap's distinction derives from Quine's. The two distinctions are quite unconnected. 15

Quine, of course, seeks to employ this relationship by arguing that since Quine's contrast is useless in separating questions which are mean- ingful from those which are not, Carnap's distinction will similarly be unable to carry out this discriminatory task. This would be justified if the two distinctions were at bottom the same but Quine does not even claim as much, and is instead content with the weaker view that Car- nap's distinction "is derivative from" his own. Once that is also shown to be untenable, then there is no rational basis for drawing Quine's conclusion. To show that Quine's division between category and sub- class questions is trivial tells us nothing about the triviality of Carnap's quite different distinction between external theoretical questions and others. I conclude, therefore, that this first part of Quine's interpreta- tion, and subsequent criticism, of Carnap's contrast fails.

( B ) The Analytic-Synthetic Distinction

Although Quine spends more time undermining the irrelevant distinc- tion between category and sub-class questions, there is some reason to think that his objection to Carnap's use of the analytic/synthetic distinc- tion carries even more weight. This might be argued on the ground that Quine wrote a longer paper, 'Carnap and Logical Truth '16 explor- ing, and criticizing Carnap's commitment to this distinction. Moreover, whereas the category/sub-class distinction is irredeemable in the con- text, many philosophers other than Carnap have wanted to accept some contrast between analytic and synthetic truth. I explained earlier that it was not strictly necessary for me to take sides on this issue, since the question is not whether such a distinction is independently acceptable, but only whether Carnap's internal/external distinction has to be in- terpreted in those terms.

Once again there is some ambiguity in Quine's account of the two contrasts, for he effectively makes two different suggestions about their

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relationship. The first is that Carnap could abandon the category/sub- class distinction not only because in the context it is useless, but also because he has available to him the analytic/synthetic distinction in terms of which alone the internal/external contrast can be drawn. Quine says:

No more than the distinction between analytic and synthetic is needed in support of Carnap's doctrine that the statements commonly thought of as ontological, viz. statements such as "There are physical objects", "There are classes", "There are numbers", are analytic or contradictory given the language. (WP, p. 133)

And he goes on to reinforce this with the suggestion that no more than the analytic/synthetic distinction, is needed to support the view that "the statements commonly thought of as ontological are proper matters of contention only in the form of linguistic proposals". But we have seen already that this tacit identification of theoretical and practical external questions itself misrepresents Carnap's position.

Now it is one thing to claim that the analytic/synthetic distinction can be used to support the external/internal distinction, and another to claim that the two contrasts are effectively identical. Yet it is this stronger claim which Quine also indicates, when he says:

The contrast which he wants between those ontological statements and empirical existence statements such as "There are black swans" is clinched by the distinction of analytic and synthetic. True, there is in these terms no contrast between analytic statements of an ontological kind and other analytic statements of existence such as "There are prime numbers above a hundred"; but I don't see why he should care about this. (p. 133)

For here the suggestion is, with one minor proviso, that the contrast between the internal and the external just is that between the synthetic and the analytic. Internal existence claims are synthetic, and external existence claims are analytic; although it is not true that all analytic propositions about existence are 'external'. Such a division goes nat- urally with the erroneous idea noted above that what Quine calls onto- logical statements, and what he presumes Carnap thinks of as external, are "analytic or contradictory given the language". It goes naturally, too, with the idea which Quine discusses in 'Carnap and Logical Truth', that the languages in all these cases are determined by the meaning postulates which establish them, where these meaning postulates are analytic linguistic truths or conventions. Although Carnap does not in "ESO" talk in this way of meaning postulates it is natural to associate

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it with his account of the establishment of a specific language in terms of such semantic rules.

This may make it look as though Quine is right to interpret the internal/external distinction in terms of the analytic/synthetic distinc- tion, but in fact there are two decisive reasons to reject that interpreta- tion. For first, although Carnap is undeniably using the analytic/syn- thetic distinction he is also undeniably not using it in the way that Quine suggests. Second, even if Carnap were using the distinction in just the way that Quine outlines, still there would remain the question whether he needs to make such use of it; that is, whether the internal/ex- ternal distinction could also be made without appealing to the ana- lytic/synthetic distinction. I shall argue that Carnap's distinction can be made even within a Quinean framework in which the analytic/synthetic distinction plays no part, but first I deal with the earlier point.

Carnap in "ESO" uses the analytic/synthetic distinction primarily to draw a contrast between two kinds of language, that is, the formal, logical, languages, such as the number language in mathematics, and the empirical languages, such as the thing language. When he introduces the idea of a logical or formal language he makes it quite clear that in this case the answers to internal particular questions are analytic, or logically true. This is in contrast to the thing language where the answers to its internal particular questions will depend on empirical investigation and be empirical or factual. He says, e.g., on page 209:

Here, however, (in the formal language of numbers) the answers are found, not by empirical investigation based on observations, but by logical analysis, based on the rules for the new expressions. Therefore the answers here are analytic, i.e. logically true.

There are two passages in the article which might seem to suggest that all logical consequences of answers to particular internal questions are analytically true, even in empirical systems, but closer examination shows that this is not so. For example, on page 210 Carnap claims that

(5) There are propositions

is analytically true in the system of propositions, because it follows from

(6) Chicago is large is a proposition. 17

And it might be thought that the latter is a factual truth, based perhaps on the empirical link between the form of words and the proposition

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expressed. But Carnap makes it plain that he regards the premiss (6) as analytic, so that the analytic character of (5) depends not just on the logical inference from (6) to (5) but also and crucially on the analytic character of (6). The same is true of the example on page 213 where Carnap claims that

(7) There are space-time points

as an answer to an internal question in the 'spatio-temporal co-ordinate system' for physics is an analytic truth. But once again the text shows that Carnap distinguishes clearly between the empirical features of this system in its physical application and the formal features of the underly- ing mathematics, and regards the inference to (7) as part of the latter. So, once again, the analytic truth of a general internal claim is not something that derives from its character as an answer to an internal general question. It derives in these restricted cases from the fact that such an answer is given as part of a formal, rather than an empirical, language. Evidently, as Camap has already explained, within empirical systems the answers to general internal questions will normally not be analytic truths at all.

If we review Quine's account in the light of these points it can be seen how badly wrong it is. Quine holds that the answers to general 'ontological' questions, in Carnap's view, will all be analytic and will at least include all Carnap's external claims. But it is clear that Quine confuses internal general questions and external questions, and at the same time errs in supposing that all answers to the former will turn out to be analytic. For Carnap, as we have seen, internal general questions are to be sharply distinguished from external questions; and the answers to internal general questions will not all be analytic in any case. It is true that they will all be derivable analytically from the answers to internal particular questions, with the proviso outlined above (note 6), but this is not enough to make them analytic. They will characteristically be empirical truths within at least the non-formal, empirical, languages. It seems likely that Quine falls into these mistakes in part because he uses the term 'ontological' to describe existence questions in which he has an interest and in a way which actually spans the gap between Camap's internal general and external questions.

The second issue arises directly out of the first. For it might be claimed that although Quine has misunderstood Carnap's account it remains true that Carnap is committed to the analytic/synthetic distinc-

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tion at two points in his argument. He is committed to it in terms of his distinction between empirical and formal languages, and also in terms of an underlying belief that the semantic rules of any language, whether formal or empirical, express analytic truths. Given these com- mitments it might seem that Quine's objections to the analytic/synthetic distinction must damage Carnap's position, even if it is wrong to relate it as Quine does to Camap's external/internal distinction. But the crucial issue is not whether Carnap actually did commit himself to the analytic/synthetic distinction but whether his thesis required him to do so. I shall argue that the commitment to the analytic/synthetic distinc- tion was not necessary.

The central reason for claiming that Carnap does not need to appeal to the analytic/synthetic distinction is that it provides a meta-linguistic characterisation which affects our classification of items in a language but does not need to affect their occurrence in a language or even their role, at least not in ways relevant to the present issues. For example the sketches of languages which Carnap offers could be given in exactly the same way even if no such meta-linguistic characterisations were given. Suppose that Carnap, under pressure from Quine perhaps, ref- used to offer such a meta-linguistic characterisation of the crucial items in a language, say the meaning postulates, but still kept them in place in order to identify the language in question. He might not definitely deny the application of the analytic/synthetic distinction, but even choose to be agnostic about it. He might not even commit himself to the view that these postulates are the only way of identifying the language. Perhaps other meaning postulates, or other items which were not described as 'meaning postulates', would do the job just as well. The question we have to ask is whether in such a circumstance Carnap could still draw his contrast between internal and external questions.

In such a case Carnap's meaning postulates, however we characterize them, have the function of fixing or identifying what the language is and how it works. But then the suggestion is that so long as we can identify a specific language, in whatever way, we can also draw Carnap's internal/external distinction. For once we have identified a language, then we can identify particular internal questions within it, and the general internal questions whose answers follow logically from the for- mer, given a specific notion of logical consequence; and we can also identify a practical external question about whether we should adopt such a language. But even in this case Carnap could still insist that

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external theoretical questions have so far not been given a sense and remain problematic. It seems that all Carnap needs in order to draw his distinctions is the idea of an identifiable language, whether the items which identify it are to be further characterized meta-linguistically as analytic or not. The point might be reinforced by considering the alter- native, that is, the refusal to identify specific languages in any way whatsoever. Even Quine would, I suspect, be disinclined to go as far as this. His objection is to the description of the elements identifying a language as analytic, rather than to any method of identifying a language at all. TM

Quine, however, also follows another line of argument in this connec- tion. For he thinks that just as it is objectionable to distinguish analytic from synthetic claims, so it is objectionable to distinguish between languages and theories. Consequently he also believes it an objection to Carnap that the internal/external distinction applies, apparently, only to the former and not to the latter. As he says:

Carnap maintains that ontological questions a r e . . , questions not of fact but of choosing a convenient conceptual scheme or framework for science; and with this I agree only if the same be conceded for every scientific hypothesis. (p. 134)

It is noticeable again here that Quine uses the epithet 'ontological' to confuse Carnap's contrast between internal and external questions. Equally he repeats the errors of supposing that external (that is what Quine calls 'ontological') questions produce answers which are analytic, are part of the meaning postulates of the language, and are in reality practical questions about the merit of accepting a language. Beyond those points, however, he now also complains about Carnap's alleged reluctance to apply his analysis to scientific theories, and to specific hypotheses within those theories.

The difficulty about these complaints is that it is quite unclear why they should concern Carnap. We have seen good reason already to allow Carnap's account to be applied to 'sub-class' questions within some language. Once that is conceded there seems no reason at all why Carnap should not be willing to apply his views to scientific theories, and to specific hypotheses within them. Of course, such an application will not involve Carnap's claiming that the adoption of specific hypoth- eses is always just a matter of choosing a convenient option, since Carnap does not hold that view with respect to existence questions anyway. His view is that internal existence questions are answerable in

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principle through, but not necessarily solely by, the language in which they occur; that an external practical question can be formulated and understood about accepting that language; and that the further external theoretical question about the 'real' existence of entities invoked in the language has not yet been given a clear sense.

The same points might usefully be made in relation to Christopher Hookway's account of the disagreement between Quine and Carnap. For Hookway essentially follows this part of Quine's criticism, without raising at all the issue of whether it gives an accurate portrait of Car- nap's views. On pages 36-37 of his book on Quine, Hookway begins by rehearsing the points about the analytic/synthetic distinction we have noted already in Quine's attack on Carnap. He says:

If Carnap's theory is correct, then we should be able to identify the linguistic frameworks employed by different inquirers, and in order to do this we must establish which of their confident assertions express analytic truths and which express empirical propositions that are well confirmed relative to their framework.

Here dearly Hookway is fight to insist that Carnap is required to identify his languages in some way, but he follows Quine in simply assuming that this can be done only by invoking the analytic/synthetic distinction. He then objects to a sharp division between analytic and synthetic truth, and goes further in using the same criticism to object to the different point about Carnap's distinction between internal and external questions, just as Quine does. He claims later (p. 37) that there is no principled way of separating analytic rules from synthetic truths in some language. The proposition "Physical objects fall when dropped" might be treated both as a synthetic truth and as a test for someone's grasp of the concept "physical object". And he goes on:

Yet it is not analytic - were it to become questionable, we should treat it as an internal question; and there would be no point in the development at which an external question was transformed into an internal question.

Here Hookway follows Quine in identifying the analytic/synthetic distinction with that between external and internal questions, but I have argued already that this is a mistake. Answers to theoretical external questions are not analytic, for according to Carnap they still lack sense; answers to internal questions are not necessarily synthetic either, since they may belong to formal languages in which such answers are themselves analytic. What Hookway's point shows is that within

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empirical languages we may be unable to draw an exhaustive and exclusive contrast between empirical and semantic issues, and in this he follows Quine's rejection of that distinction. But it is a further and unwarranted assumption in his argument that such a division, for all languages, is required if Carnap is to draw his distinction between external and internal questions.

Hookway further claims that there is no sharp division to be drawn between issues of empirical evidence within some language and the practical choice of languages, that is between internal empirical ques- tions and external practical questions. That point is used to support his conclusion on page 34 that "The sharp contrast between internal and external questions begins to blur". What he should have said is that the contrast between internal and external practical questions begins to blur; but this shows nothing about the contrast between internal and external theoretical questions and so overlooks Carnap's central point. Moreover, within the class of legitimate questions, whether internal or external, I do not think that Carnap needs to maintain a sharp division between the practical and the theoretical (or empirical). He could perfectly well say that in fact these are inter-related, rarely treated as quite separate issues, but that the division corresponds undeniably to two different dimensions along which we consider whether to accept hypotheses, or whole languages. It is this view which I take him to express in an otherwise puzzling passage at pages 212-213 where he discusses the 'spatio-temporal co-ordinate system for physics'. For there he raises the question: "Are our experiences such that the use of the linguistic forms in question will be expedient and fruitful?" Of this question he says that it is 'theoretical' and of a 'factual, empirical, nature', but a 'matter of degree' and so not susceptible of an interpreta- tion in the form "Real or not?". This appears to cut across his 'theoreti- cal-practical' distinction, but can best be understood as a realistic recog- nition of the point I have made above, that within the scope of legitimate questions the division between theory and practice is not totally sharp.

If Carnap's position can be represented in this way without overt commitment to the analytic/synthetic distinction, then Quine still has one objection to raise. For he could refuse to accept that languages, or theories, are identifiable in any way whatever. It might be argued, for example, that the blurred lines of division between analytic and syn- thetic truth lead to a holism which must inhibit the identification of

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languages. Quine's advocacy of semantic holism might be thought to support such a view, but it seems to me unlikely to sustain it. For first Quine's interest in this context is characteristically to assimilate 'language' and 'theory', and not to deny that there is any way of identifying the generic items to which these belong. Second, in any case, to speak of a semantic holism is to commit oneself to the idea of a 'whole' within which semantics functions. It seems bizarre, and arguably inconsistent, to treat meaning as a holistic phenomenon and then to deny that there is any identifiable whole within which it operates. 19 If semantic holism entails an inability to identify a linguistic, or theoreti- cal, whole, then although this would destroy Carnap's thesis the price would seem to be the destruction of any serious account of semantics. The point is clearly and persuasively made in Fodor's discussion of semantic holism in Psychosemantics. 2° For these reasons it seems to me that this one remaining strategy can be set aside.

If my account of Carnap is correct, then at this stage we may draw an important, but limited, conclusion. It is that Quine's criticisms have virtually no relevance to Carnap's position at all. Though there evi- dently is a serious disagreement between them over the analytic/syn- thetic distinction, this does not need to carry over to the distinction between internal and external questions. Quine's interpretation of Car- nap, in terms of the category/sub-class division and the analytic/syn- thetic distinction, is a misinterpretation. If Quine's criticisms have been influential in creating the belief that Carnap's position is hopeless, then that belief rests on an illusion. But though such a conclusion is impor- tant, it is also limited. For the question remains whether Carnap's position, understood as I have suggested, is correct. Even if he evades Quine's criticisms perhaps there are other more powerful or more relevant objections to his position. More positively it can be asked whether there are good arguments, given by Carnap or independently, for holding that external theoretical questions are, so far, meaningless; or whether Carnap is fight in establishing certain requirements which have to be met if such external questions are to be given a meaning.

Those further questions are important since if Carnap's arguments are acceptable, then a considerable tradition of ontology is threatened. I make one final comment on Quine's relation to Carnap and to that threatened tradition. For it may seem as though Quine's criticisms motivate the rehabilitation of the tradition which Carnap criticised, and many of those influenced by Quine may have understood him in that

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way. It is, then, puzzling that in some respects Quine plainly agrees with Carnap in n o t wishing to revive that tradition. It is true that Quine wishes to appeal to a notion of ontological commitment in a way which Carnap would not accept, but that appeal differs from the tradition in at least two ways. It differs, first, in relativising ontological commitment to particular languages or theories, and so follows Carnap's own wish to raise questions of existence only within the scope of specific lan- guages. It differs, second, in offering a clear criterion to determine what it is that a language or theory is ontologically committed to in terms of the dictum that "to be is to be the value of a variable". Whether that criterion is acceptable or not it at least takes seriously the need to provide an explicit test for ontological commitment. In this respect, too, Quine follows, and seeks to remedy, Carnap's complaint against the tradition that no clear criterion had ever been formulated to determine what 'really' exists. So despite Quine's apparent rejection of Carnap's position, he has taken that position into account in formul- ating his own ontology, and would not want to revive the tradition which Carnap attacked. If Quine has been thought to reject Carnap's position so as to leave room for a revival of that tradition then this is an illusion; but it is an illusion fostered in part by the apparent force of Quine's arguments against Carnap. If what I have said is correct, then those arguments are inadequate to reject Carnap's position, and Quine in any case had no wish to revive the tradition which Carnap attacked.

NOTES

1 Published originally in Revue Internationale de Philosophie 4, 1950, but revised and reprinted in Carnap's Meaning and Necessity (2nd. ed., 1956, pp. 205-221). Page refer- ences will be given to that latter version. 2 Quine's paper is reprinted in Ways of Paradox and Other Essays, Harvard, revised edition, 1976 (WP). Word and Object, MIT Press, 1960 (WO). 3 See, for example, W. D. Hart: 1990, Philosophical Quarterly 40, 159, pp. 256-257; "Here one might be reminded of Quine versus Carnap who wanted to consume his mathematical cake but not eat it . . . . Carnap wanted to say that there are infinitely many prime numbers, but not that there are numbers out there, independent of us . . . . " See also Peter Hylton: 1990-1991, 'Translation, Meaning, and Self-Knowledge', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, pp. 269-290. 4 Susan Haack: 1976, 'Some Preliminaries to Ontology', Journal of Philosophical Logic 5, pp. 457-474. Barry Stroud: 1968, 'Transcendental Arguments', Journal of Philosophy

62 G R A H A M H. BIRD

LXV, and The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism, Oxford University Press, 1987. Christopher Hookway: 1988, Quine, Polity Press, pp. 30-39. 5 Stroud, 'Transcendental Arguments', p. 243. Quine writes in a similar way: "Carnap t h i n k s . . , that the question what a theory presupposes that there is should be divided into two questions in a certain way, and I disagree". Ways of Paradox, p. 129. To claim that Carnap has two categories where he in fact has four is not to say something false; but it is a standard example of pragmatic inappropriateness and is misleading. 6 It probably should be noted explicitly that only affirmative answers to such questions will entail an affirmative answer to the general internal question. If we answer the particular internal questions negatively, then we are not in a position to answer the general question negatively. Even in that case, however, there is a clear procedure for finding the answer. 7 Susan Haack reflects this trend in her distinction between the questions: "Do X's exist in L?" and "Do X's exist, period?", op. cir., p. 459. 8 Later I shall show how serious a misunderstanding this apparently simple point entails. For commentators have persisted in identifying external theoretical questions with the other, legitimate, questions, sometimes general internal questions, but most often exter- nal practical questions. 9 Compare Hart 's description of numbers existing "out there", quoted in note 3 above. lo This notion of a "challenge" is explicitly used by Carnap in his later introduction to the Schilpp volume The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, edited by P. A. Schilpp, La Salle, 1963. On page 873, he says of an imagined opponent: " . . . I would challenge him to sPecify a method by which he and X together could ascertain whether the alleged assertion is or is not true". 11 Carnap simply notes that he now uses the term "framework" only for systems of linguistic expressions, and not for systems of the entities in question (p. 205 note). 12 Christopher Hookway has suggested to me that Quine's attitude may derive more from his knowledge of the earlier doctrines of The Logical Syntax of Language than from the 'ESO' paper. Hookway tells me that the 'internal/external' distinction was already explicitly present in LSL some fifteen years before 'ESO' was published, but I have been unable to find any such explicit reference in the earlier work. In LSL there are indications of a simpler version of the later account, in which a dual contrast is drawn between assessing truth/falsity and choosing a language, for example on page 300. But there is no explicit reference to the 'external/internar distinction, and the emphasis is rather on the contrast between the material and the formal mode. Moreover Quine's criticisms are explicitly directed at Carnap's 'ESO' paper when he says (WP, p. 126): "I shall devote particular attention to that one p a p e r . . . " . 13 The situation would be nominally different if we employed a many-sorted logic to differentiate such categories. But, as Quine is right to point out, such a formal, notational, move depends on a prior motivation, and does not serve to justify it. We do not have to employ such a notational device. 14 This is the first appearance of the error referred to above, note 8. It is in part a consequence of ascribing the 'strong' thesis to Carnap. For if it is really impossible ever to formulate an external theoretical question, then external practical questions are left as the only external questions available. For reasons given above I do not believe it is correct to ascribe the 'strong' thesis to Carnap.

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15 One of the referees for the paper has helpfully reported confirmation from the Carnap Archive (University of Pittsburgh) that he did not intend to equate external questions with Quine's category questions. The question will, then, be asked: How could Quine have come to hold this view? I suggest that the answer lies in two considerations; first that it is natural to identify a language in terms of its basic categories, and second that it is a requirement for Carnap that languages should be dearly identifiable and this is discussed below. But these correct claims do not entail that being a Quine category question is sufficient for being a Carnap external question. In fact the former is neither sufficient nor necessary for the latter. 16 WP, pp. 100-125. 17 Carnap explains his eccentric lack of quotation marks in the text, and I have simply reproduced his sentence, but without quotation marks round the whole sentence. is Of course without the 'analytic/synthetic' distinction Carnap could not draw his distinc- tion between empirical and logical languages. But this serves to reinforce the point being made here, since that latter distinction is evidently separate from, and secondary to, the 'internal/external' distinction. For the latter distinction can be drawn for both empirical and logical languages, as Carnap is at pains to point out. 19 It has been suggested to me that Davidson, in his "A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs", is willing to countenance some form of semantic nihilism, when he concludes: " . . . there is no such thing as language, not if a language is any.thing like what many linguists and philosophers have supposed". But Davidson's target is primarily a conception of language which treats it as a set of coded conventions applied in discourse, and that conception could be rejected without commitment to semantic nihilism. 20 j. Fodor: 1987, Psychosemantics, The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind, MIT Press, Chap. 3, especially pp. 56-67. Andy Clark criticizes Fodor's discussion in Microcognition, MIT Press, 1989, pp. 48-49, and Chap. 9; but as I understand his position, he is not advocating a return to the Quinean 'semantic nihilism' which Fodor attacks. Rather Clark's position is that he thinks Fodor has gone too far in the opposite direction in allowing meaning to thought atoms, even when they have no systematic links with other potential thoughts. This is to defend a sensible form of localized systematic links in meaning which probably should not be described as 'holism' at all, and certainly nowhere approaches semantic nihilism. Consequently Clark's perfectly fair provisos to Fodor do not offer any succour to the Quinean position which Fodor criticizes.

R E F E R E N C E S

Carnap, R.: 1950, 'Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology', Revue Internationale de Philo- sophie 4; revised and reprinted in Carnap: 1956, Meaning and Necessity, 2nd ed., pp. 205-221.

Clark, A.: 1989, Microcognition, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Fodor, J.: 1987, Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind,

MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. kIaack, S.: 1976, 'Some Preliminaries to Ontology', Journal of Philosophical Logic 5,

457-474. Hart, W. D.: 1990, 'Review of M. Tye', The Metaphysics of Mind, Philosophical Quarterly

40, 159, pp. 256-257.

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Hookway, C.: 1988, Quine: Language, Experience and Reality, Polity Press, Cambridge. Hylton, P.: 1990-1991, 'Translation, Meaning, and Self-Knowledge', Proceedings of the

Aristotelian Society, pp. 269-290. Quine, W. V. O.: 1956, 'On Carnap's Views on Ontology', Ways of Paradox and Other

Essays, revised edition, Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Quine, W. V. O.: 'Carnap and Logical Truth', Ways of Paradox, pp. 100-126. Quine, W. V. O.: 1960, Word and Object, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Schilpp, P. (ed.): 1963, The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, Open Court, La Salle. Stroud, B.: 1968, 'Transcendental Arguments', Journal of Philosophy LXV, 241-256. Stroud, B.: 1987, The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism, Oxford University Press,

Oxford.

Manuscript submitted December 20, 1993 Final version received August 10, 1994

Department of Philosophy Manchester University Manchester M13 9PL Great Britain