Language, Truth and Logic - Understanding the judgement system

POSITIVISM AS LEADING PSYCHOLOGICAL MOVEMENT FOR LOGICAL JUDGEMENT
"For a consideration of any dispute about a matter of any taste will show that there can be disagreement without formal contradiction, and that in order to alter another man's opinions, in the sense of getting him to change his attitude, it is not necessary to contradict anything that he asserts. Thus, if one wishes to affect another person in such a way as to bring his sentiments on a given point into accordance with one's own, there are various ways in which one may proceed. One may, for example, call his attention to certain facts that one supposes him to have overlooked; and, as I have already remarked, i believe that much of what passes for ethical discussion is a proceeding of this type. It is, however, also possible to influence other people by a suitable choice of emotive language; and this is the practical justification for the use of normative expressions of value. At the same time, it must be admitted that if the other person persists in maintaining his contrary attitude, without however disputing any of the facts, a point is reached at which the discussion can go further. And in that case there is no sense in asking which of the conflicting views is true. For, since the expression of a value judgement is not a proposition, the question of truth or falsehood does not here arise.

In such cases as these one does indeed arrive at something that approaches a definition in use; but there are other cases of philosophical analysis in which nothing even approaching a definition is either provided or sought. Thus, when Professor Moore suggests that to say that "existence is not a predicate" may be a way of saying that "there is some very important difference between the way in which 'exist' is used in such a sentence as 'Tame tigers exist' and the way in which 'growl' is used in 'Tame tigers growl,'" he does not develop his point by giving rules for the translation of one set of sentences into another. What he does is to remark that whereas it makes good sense to say "All tame to say "All tame tigers exist" of "Most tame tigers exist." Now this may seem a rather trivial point for him to make, but in fact it is philosophically illuminating. For it is precisely the assumption that existence is a predicate that gives plausibility to "the ontological argument"; and the ontological argument is supposed to demonstrate the existence of a god. Consequently Moore by pointing out a peculiarity in the use of word "exist" helps to protect us from a serious fallacy; so that his procedure, though different from that which Russell follows in the theory of descriptions, tends to achieve the same philosophical end.

I maintain in this book that it is not within the province of philosophy to justify our scientific or common-sense beliefs; for their validity is an empirical matter, which cannot be settled by a priori means. At the same time, the question of what constitutes such a justification is philosophical, as the existence of "the problem of induction" shows. Here again, what is required is not necessarily a definition. For although I believe that the problems connected within induction can be reduced to the question of what is meant by saying that one proposition is good evidence for another, I doubt if the way to answer this is to construct a formal definition of "evidence". What is chiefly wanted, I think, is an analysis of scientific method, and although it might be possible to express the results of this analysis in the form of definitions, this would not be an achievement of primary importance. And here I may add that the reduction of philosophy to analysis needs not to be incompatible with the view that its function is to bring to light "the presuppositions of science." For if there are such presuppositions, they can no doubt be shown to be logically involved in the applications of scientific method, or in the use of certain scientific terms.

In saying that the philosophy is concerned with each of the sciences, in a manner which we shall indicate, we mean also to rule out the supposition that philosophy can be ranged alongside the existing sciences, as a special department of speculative knowledge. Those who make this supposition cherish the belief that there are some things in the world which are possible objects of speculative knowledge and yet lie beyond the scope of empirical science.

But this belief is a delusion. There is no field of experience which cannot, in principle, beyond the power of science to give. We have already gone some way to substantiate this proposition by demolishing metaphysics; and we shall justify it to the full in the course of this book.

With this we complete the overthrow of speculative philosophy. We are now in a position to see that the function of philosophy is wholly critical. In what exactly does its critical activity consist?

One way of answering this question is to say that it is philosopher's business to test the validity of our scientific hypotheses and everyday assumptions. But this view, though very widely held, is mistaken. If a man chooses to doubt the truth of all the propositions he ordinarily believes, it is not in the power of philosophy to reassure him. The most that philosophy can do, apart from seeing whether his beliefs are self consistent, is to show what are the criteria which are used to determine the truth or falsehood of any given proposition: and then, when the sceptic realises that certain observations would verify his propositions, he may also realize that he could make those observations, and so consider his original beliefs to be justified. But in such a case one cannot say that it is philosophy which justifies his beliefs. Philosophy merely shows him that experience can justify them. We may look to the philosopher to show us what we accept as constituting sufficient evidence for the truth of any given empirical proposition. But whether the evidence is forthcoming or not is in every case a purely empirical question.

If anyone thinks that we are here taking too much for granted, let him refer to the chapter on "Truth and Probability," in which we discuss how to validity of synthetic propositions is determined. He will see there that the only sort of justification that is necessary of possible for self-consistent empirical propositions is empirical verification. And this applies just as much to the laws of science as to the maxims of common sense. Indeed there is no difference in kind between them. The superiority of the scientific hypothesis consists merely in its being more abstract, more precise, and more fruitful. And although scientific objects such as atoms and electrons seem to be fictitious in a way that chairs and tables are not, here, too, the distinction is only distinction of degree. For both these kinds of objects are known only by their sensible manifestations and are definable in terms of them.

One may attempt to deduce the preposition which one is required to prove either from a purely formal principle or from an empirical principle. In the former case one commits the error of supposing that from a tautology it is possible to deduce a proportion about a matter of fact; in the latter case one simply assumes what one is setting out to prove. For example, it is often said that we can justify induction by invoking the uniformity of nature, or by postulating a "principle of limited independent variety." But, in fact, the principle of uniformity of nature merely states, in a misleading fashion, the assumption that past experience is a reliable guide to the future; while the principle of limited independent variety pre-supposes it.

We shall see, when we come finally to settle the conflict between idealism and realism, that his actual conception of the relationship between material things and sense-contents was not altogether accurate. It led him to some notoriously paradoxical conclusions, which a slight emendation will enable us to avoid. But the fact that he failed to give a completely correct account of the way in which material things are constituted out of sense-contents does not invalidate his contention that they are so constituted. On the contrary, we know that it must be possible to define material things in terms of sense-contents, because it is only by the occurrence of certain sense-contents that the existence of any material thing can ever be in the least degree verified. And thus we see that we have not to enquire whether a phenomenalist "theory of perception" or some other sort of theory is correct, but only what form of phenomenalist theory is correct. For the fact that all causal and representative theories of perception treat material things as if they were unobservable entities entitles us, as Berkeley saw, to rule them out a priori. The unfortunate thing is that, in spite of this, he found it necessary to postulate God as an unobservable cause of our "ideas"; and he must be criticised also for failing to see that the argument which he uses to dispose of Locke's analysis of a material thing is fatal to his own conception of the nature of the self, a point which was effectively seized upon by Hume.

But first of all we ought, perhaps, to justify our assumption that the object of a "theory of truth" can only be to show how propositions are validated. for it is commonly supposed that the business of the philosopher who concerns himself with "truth" is to answer the question "What is truth?" and that is is only an answer to this question that can fairly be said to constitute a "theory of truth."

It may be objected here that we are ignoring the fact that it is not merely propositions that can be said to be true of false, but also statements and assertions and judgements and assumptions and opinions and beliefs. But the answer to this is that to say that a belief, or statement, or a judgement, is true is always an elliptical way of ascribing truth to a proposition, which is believed, of stated, or judged. Thus, if I say that the Marxist's belief that capitalism leads to war is true, what I am saying is that the proposition, believed by Marxists, that the capitalism leads to war is true; and the illustration holds good when the word "opinion" or "assumption," or any of the others in the list, is substituted for the word "belief." And, further, it must be made clear that we are not hereby committing ourselves to the meta-physical doctrine that propositions are real entities. Regarding classes as a species of logical constructions, we may define a proposition as a class of sentences which have the same intentional significance for anyone who understands them. Thus, the sentences, "I am ill," "Ich bin krank," "Je suis malade," are all elements of the proposition "I am ill." And what we have previously said about logical constructions should make it clear that we are not asserting that a proposition is a collection of sentences, but rather than to speak about a given proposition is a way of speaking about certain sentences, just as to speak about sentences, in this usage, is a way of speaking about particular signs.

Reverting to the analysis of truth, we find that in all sentences of the form "p is true," the phrase "is true" is logically superfluous. When, for example, one says that the proposition "Queen Anne is dead" is true, all that he is saying is that Queen Anne is dead.

This point seems almost too obvious to mention, yet the preoccupation of philosophers with the "problem of truth" shows that they have overlooked it. Their excuse is that references to truth generally occur in sentences whose grammatical forms suggest that the word "true" does stand for a genuine quality or relation. And a superficial consideration of these sentences might lead one to suppose that there was something more in the question "What is truth?" than a demand for the analysis of the sentence "p is true." But when one comes to analyse the sentences in question, one always finds that they contain sub-sentences of the form "p is true" or "p is false," and that when they are translated in such a way as to make these sub-sentences explicit, they contain no other mention of truth.

"What makes a proposition true or false?" And this is a loose way of expressing the question “With regard to any proposition p, what are the conditions in which p (is true) and what are the conditions in which not-p?" in other words, it is a way of asking how propositions are validated. and this is the question which we were considering when we embarked on our digression about the analysis of truth."

In chapter exploring critique of ethics and theology A.J.Ayer explores synthetic propositions and it comes to the conclusion that before it justifies views on all synthetic propositions saying that they are empirical hypotheses one more objection has to be met. "This objection is based on the common supposition that our speculative knowledge is of two stint kinds-that which relates to question of empirical fact, and that which relates to question of value. (...) "Statements of value", which is both satisfactory in itself and consistent with our general empiricist principles. We shall set ourselves to show that in so far as statements of value are significant, they are ordinary "scientific" and that in so far as they are not scientific, they are not in the literal sense significant, but are simply expressions of emotions which can be neither true nor false."

All above is either direct quotation from the book or rephrased points that I found of the most value in my study of Investigative Journalism research into psychological part of judgement.Language, Truth and Logic by Alfred Jules Ayer, (1967)

Charlotte Purkis on Nietzsche and Modernity - studio discussion

A studio discussion on Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra in connection with modern world of art and journalism. Charlotte Purkis, Chair, Faculty Quality Committee and lecturer in Drama, Department of Performing Arts at the University of Winchester joined by Chris Horrie, the director for Journalism Course explore Nietzsche's influences on modern world.

Charlotte Purkis on Nietzsche and Modernity PODCAST in here

Also, related link Professor Aaron Ridley from Southampton Uni speaking on Nietzsche (author of several relevant books)

The University of Winchester Journalism Course
History and Context of Journalism, part IV

The last trip in search for Higher Man - Part 4, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

He is hesitant if he is truly happy, after speaking to animals, despite his age, he decides to go to high mountains again. He thought that animals would follow him in his mountain climbing but they stopped walking somewhere on the way, Zarathustra was once again on his own. Here starts his stream of thought, contemplation.

After he is back from the mountain he sits at the table with a Gloomy Prophet (Schopenhauer). The Prophet tells him that he has not that much time left “for his boat to sit in the dry (…), waves of great distress and affliction: soon they will lift your boat too, and carry you away”. It is the Prophet’s way of teasing Zarathustra to “Pity”, the sin he dramatically wanted to avoid. Zarathustra becomes curious and asks who is after him, the Prophet says that it is the Higher Man “that cries after him”. Eventually, Zarathustra’s response to that is “you yourself shall dance to my songs as my dancing bear (…) I too- am a prophet!”

In the following chapter Zarathustra meets the Higher Men, two Kings (any Kings or reference to Biblical three Kings looking for baby Jesus from Nazareth, to confirm the birth of the new King of Nazareth, Jesus Christ). They say that they were looking for a Higher Man, as they were told that they must hear “him, who teaches.”

Zarathustra decides to go out to the world and find the Higher Man for them and tells them to wait for him in his cave as long as it takes for him to find one.

On his way he gets bitten by a dog and has to lie down beside the swamp for the leeches to clear his blood. Then he speaks to the Conscious Man Of Spirits (probably Darwin, or any other scientist).

Further on, during his journey he meets a last Pope (imaginary character), who he speak to about Jesus’ death, he says that “pity chocked” Jesus, that he saw how man hanged on the cross and could not endure it that love for man became his “Hell and at least his death?” The Pope tries to defend Jesus’ name as a Son of God saying that he was a “hidden God, full of secrecy”. They then go onto exploring why Zarathustra has lost his faith.

Zarathustra has a new name 'The God’s killer', and the 'peace breaker'. Other characters he meets on his way are the Sorcerer who represents Wagner; the meeting shows a parody of his later poetry manner. The Shadow, who Zarathustra has conversations with, represents a free thinker. And the Voluntary Beggar is likely to be either Buddha or Tolstoy.

Eventually, Zarathustra discovers that he does not need to look for a Higher Man as he is one himself. He goes back to the cave to announce to the Kings that he is the one. They take him as the Higher Man and all together with the Prophet have a meal (reference to the Last Sapper of Jesus Christ before he was crucified). There is no bread, on Jesus’ last supper the bread was very significant, it symbolised Christ’s body that he wanted to sacrifice. He shared the bread among the disciples and said 'take it and eat it, this is my body' (Bible). Bread became a symbol of unity and became a base to traditions in Christian Church. Zarathustra clearly stated there is no bread but there is lamb instead and that is what they will eat. While eating the meal, Zarathustra and his guests spoke only of Higher Man.

The narrative in this part is set in time; author speaks of Zarathustra growing old with white hair. It starts of Zarathustra being sat before this cave “gazing silently out”. Now when the Kings and the Prophet believe that Zarathustra is the Higher Man they will have to convince others on the “Market Square” to believe in it too.

“God has died: now we desire – that superman shall live.”

When Zarathustra meets the Lion, his prophesy is filled, he is certain of his destiny as he has seen the signal.

“Very well! The lion has come, my children are here, Zarathustra has become ripe, my hour has come!”

The University of Winchester Journalism Course
History and Context of Journalism, Part IV,
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part 4

Zarathustra the Godless - Part 3, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

The style of Part 3 of Thus Spoke Zarathustra is not only prose but also poems. It shows introspective, cheerful and calm mood; halfway between melancholy of part 2 and Dionysian ecstasy of part 3.

This part contains the Climax of the book, "the exhibition of the sustained intellectual passion which gives Nietzsche his place among the world’s great men". Eternity is external recurrence, and the child the main character, Zarathustra wants to have by “eternity” is himself. Once Zarathustra reaches end of his self-education, the fulfilment is celebrated with trilogy of poems.

“It is returning, at last it is coming home to me-my own Self and those parts of it that have long been abroad (…)”

Zarathustra is climbing the high mountain and speaking to his heart, he is trying to find the summit (solitude). He is ready to reach deeper down to “blackest stream, as that is his destiny”.

Then he speaks of his vision of the solitary man and that he discovered the Spirit of Gravity, “his Devil archenemy”. Nietzsche describes Zarathustra’s fear of falling, failing his quest as once he thrown himself high to discover truths and to overcome himself (overcome the logic) he must be destined to fall.

Hymn to solitude in a model revaluation of three voices (once he is back in cave), exhortation to cheerfulness. “But a man of my sort does not avoid such an hour: the hour that says to him: ‘Only now do you tread your path of greatness! Summit and abyss – they are now united in one!”

The scene with the shepherd with a snake in his mouth could symbolise that once Zarathustra shares certain theories with others there is no taking back of his words. Even though shepherd managed to bit snake’s head of he was “no longer shepherd, no longer a man – a transformed being, surrounded with laughing!” This quote also corresponds to how Zarathustra’s (“God’s Killer”) teaching attracts people, and he becomes a Higher Man in their eyes.

An inner dialogue is taking over the main character while he is travelling through the sea, he is thinking about what has to be overcome to seal his perfection. He realises that there is still a long way to go.

The next morning he concluded that the happiness runs after him, and that was because he did not run after women, “happiness, however,” he says, “is a woman”.

Chapter 'Before sunrise' is written in a very poetic style, it is a melancholic and quite a romantic (poetic descriptions of the nature), Zarathustra is lonely; beauty of nature reminds him of a woman who he is far away from (perhaps reference to Nietzsche missing the love of his life).

When Zarathustra came back to land, he went among people to learn what had happened while he had been away. People became ‘small’, and all they want is that nobody does them harm. He sees that as “cowardice” and they call it a virtue. There is not enough fight in them and too much calm, they are “modest and tame”, what makes them a “man’s best domestic animal.”

He feels that his time has not come yet and there is no one else thinking the way he does, people still don’t understand him but on the other hand, “of what consequence is a time that has no time for Zarathustra.”

‘On the mouth of Olives’ is another poetic monologue, slowing the action down. The chapter ‘Of Passing By’ is quite a visual and dramatic chapter. Discovers here that there are things that will not change, people that don’t want to progress and they are only to be passed by. In chapter ‘Of the Apostates’, he notices that people who he used to know have settled and turned into “stay-at-home” ones. ‘The Home Coming’ describes thoughts of solitude again; Zarathustra learns that loneliness and solitude are two different things. He summarises all the lessons he have learnt throughout the journey. “And especially that ‘he who wants to understand all things amongst men has to touch all things.” (Empiricism) When people misunderstood him, he shouldn’t have indulged them more than he did himself.

Zarathustra speaks of humans that “they crucify him who writes new values on new law tables, they sacrifice the future to themselves- they crucify the whole human future!”

To overcome humans- he has to overcome himself but, he shouldn’t expect from others what he expects from himself as not everyone is as strong as he is. And to overcome human’s logic is the way to become a worlds-man (Darwin- evolution). Becoming a superman is not the end of the evolution; Zarathustra says “There it was too that I picked up the word ‘Superman’ and that man is something that must be overcome, that man is a bridge and not a goal”.

“The good – have always been the beginning of the end”.

The stream of his thought finishes on a song of “Yes and Amen, love to eternity”.

The University of Winchester Journalism Course
History and Context of Journalism, Part IV,
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part 3

Zatrathustra The Enlightened One - Part 2, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“Thus spoke the Devil to me once: ‘Even God has his Hell: it is his love for men.’
And I lately heard him say these words: God is dead; God has died of his pity for man.”
Zarathustra is changing, he considers himself as an enlightened now. He criticises contemporary culture. He speaks of organised religion and priesthood, priests are to him hypocrites, “they called God that which contradicted and harmed them: and truly, there was much that was heroic in their worship! And they knew no other way of loving their God than by nailing men to the Cross” (Jesus Christ Crucifixion).

Wisdom is crucial and Zarathustra is fond of it because “she” reminds him of life. The author is quite likely to be describing the woman he loved, the love of his life. She must have been very wise and precious to him as he speaks of feeling alive when being with her.

He says, “I am fond of Wisdom, and often too fond, is because she very much reminds me of life! She has her eyes, her laughter (…): how can I help it that they both look so alike?”

He says that poets are liars, and their answer for Zarathustra’s accusation is, “we know too little and are bad learners: so we have to lie.”

Further on, Zarathustra says that life should overcome virtues like “Good and evil, and rich and poor, and noble men and all the names of the virtues (…) “.

Free will is essential in his beliefs and takes him beyond the death, “yes, you are still my destroyer of all graves: Hail, my Will: And only where there are graves are there resurrections.” (Elements of Buddhism)

Self overcoming is self-mastering, putting a self discipline and believing that it is good to challenge human’s logic. The will to existence is “not true”; “there is only will to power”. Having will to power, starts a change, change brings progress and progress leads to evolution. Zarathustra speaks of enlightened men whose “will to power” walks the feet of their “will to truth”. Will to existence is not enough. For it to be life there has to be will to power, man has to want to have power over himself and that is what keeps his existence.

Good and evil are not definite; they change as they too have to “overcome themselves”. And “he who has to be a creator in good and evil, truly, has first to be a destroyer (…)”, revolutionary human, brave enough to stop believing in what is set to be believed in.

The University of Winchester Journalism Course
History and Context of Journalism, Part IV,
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part 2

Nietzsche about men and women - Part 1, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“She knows only love, but tell me, you men, which of you is capable of friendship?’

Zarathustra, the main character in Nietzsche’s book believes that women are incapable of friendship. He doubts in human’s purity of intentions and ability to create a pure and truthful relationship with other people.

Speaking of women, Zarathustra does not value them in high purpose for humanity, he simply says that “everything about woman is riddle, and everything about woman has one solution: it is called pregnancy.”

Picturing a woman in man’s eyes he says that “the true man wants too things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous playing.” Negative experiences from Nietzsche’s life, as he had not much luck with love of his life and his intentions of marriage were unsuccessful.

Broken heart of the author dictated a lot of cold and shallow views on women. Zarathustra says that “man should be trained for war and woman for the recreation of the warrior: all else is folly.”

Zarathustra is representing stereotypical views on family structure and relations between men and women. “Woman understands children better than a man; but man is more childlike than woman.”

He also speaks of man’s ego: “The man’s happiness is: I will. The woman’s happiness is: He will.” Even though author tries to compare men and women equally and accurately, he admits that he knows not enough about women. Author reveals it by bringing another character to the conversation, an old woman, who is listening to Zarathustra and making him realise that he does not know all about women.

When speaking of men and women, the main character seeks new values and creation of good and evil. He says that “ truly, men have given themselves all their good and evil (…), they did not take it (…), it did not descend to them as a voice from heaven. Man first implanted values into things to maintain himself- he created the meaning of things, a human meaning!”

The University of Winchester Journalism Course
History and Context of Journalism, Part IV,
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra , Part 1

Who was “The Dead Dog” for Zarathustra- Part 1

After Zarathustra spoke to the Dying Man (Jesus), he had to leave the town as people started to hate him, he was carrying a “dead dog”. I believe the dead dog is in the book a memory after the Dying Man, the memory of Jesus that is in Nietzsche's mind. Nietzsche kept the message and lessons that he got from Christ’s life; he was still full of faith that Jesus' message was truth, even though he was only a human.

Zarathustra’s companion (Jesus) is dead but he kept a memory, of him. Zarathustra realized that it was not about the “dead body” he was carrying, he says that he needs life companions not dead ones now, meaning, that after Jesus died his message should be applied to other people.

“Zarathustra shall not speak to the people but to companions”, equality in humans and mutual love and trust, then he says: “Zarathustra shall not be hands-man and dog to the hand!”, it is not about the power over other people or manipulation but equality.

Zarathustra is against hierarchies in churches, he says, “Behold the faithful of all faiths! Whom do they hate the most? Him who smashes their tables of values, the breaker, the law-breaker- but he is the creator.” In Nietzsche’s new belief the hierarchy of Christian Church does not matter, hierocratic structure of the church is not necessary. It was undermining the power and prestige of the Church, as an institution. As you can imagine the Church could not approve of this theory.

Zarathustra calls himself a creator of a new philosophy that seriously threats the power and position of the Church. He also decided to find people who would join him and spread the truth.

He says that “man is something that must be overcome: and for that reason you must love your virtues-for you will perish by them.” He speaks of himself as an enlightened. In the scene with a tree, he discovers that there is no point in being an inventor of a new truth if there is no one to share it with. And so he decided to do.


TBC in ‘Nietzsche about men and women in Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ post

The University of Winchester Journalism Course
History and Context of Journalism, Part IV,
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part 1