S TEBBING’S R ESPONSE

4. S TEBBING’S R ESPONSE

Although Stebbing’s second paper on analysis, ‘Logical Positivism and Analy- sis’, was read (to the British Academy) on 22 March 1933, and thus before Black delivered (on 24 April 1933) his critique of her first paper, her second paper can

be partly seen as a response to Black’s critique. 5 The main body of the paper consists in an account of postulational analysis, but the account is embedded in a

wider discussion in which she considers various kinds of analysis and explicitly compares directional and postulational analysis. ‘Postulational analysis’, she now admits, is a better term than ‘symbolic analysis’ to capture the logical posi- tivists’ conception of analysis (1933: p. 80, fn.), a conception which she had only mentioned in her first paper to leave aside. I shall say something about the broader framework here, and turn to her account of postulational analysis in the next section.

Stebbing distinguishes four kinds of analysis (1933: pp. 79-82): (1) analytic definition of a symbolic expression; (2) analytic clarification of a concept; (3) postulational analysis;

(4) directional analysis. Stebbing explains the first, in the case of sentences, where E and E' are two sen-

tences, as follows: “E' is an analysis of E” is defined as “(i) E' says what E says; (ii) if ‘a’ is a symbol occur-

ring in E, then what ‘a’ refers to is not less distinctly referred to in E', and there is some symbol ‘b’ occurring in E' but not occurring in E”. (1933: p. 79.)

Stebbing admits that it is necessary to define ‘less distinctly referred to’, and explanations are also required of when two sentences ‘say’ the same thing and of what ‘symbols’ are; but the two examples Stebbing gives are the analysis of a relative product into its constituent factors and the ‘paradigm’ offered by Russell’s analysis of sentences involving definite descriptions (ibid.). It is clear, then, that what she has in mind is paraphrastic analysis, where clarification is

provided by expanding on a given proposition without exhibiting its underlying metaphysical commitments.

‘Analytic clarification of a concept’, Stebbing writes, “consists in the elimi- nation of elements supposed to be referred to whenever we use a symbol “S”, but which are not such that these elements must be referred to whenever we so use a sentence containing “S” that the sentence says what is true” (1933: p. 80). The concepts of mass, force and simultaneity are given as examples: we may say true things using such concepts, but be mistaken as to what exactly we are referring. As so characterised, Russell’s ‘paradigm’ of analysis might be taken to illustrate this too. I might say ‘It is false that the present King of France is bald’, and take

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myself (as Meinong and the early Russell did) to be referring to some subsistent (as opposed to existent) object. According to Russell’s theory of descriptions, I am saying something true, despite my confusion as to what I am referring. What we have, then, is also paraphrastic analysis – the aim being here, though, to ‘analyse away’ a problematic expression. The Fregean analysis of existential propositions – e.g. of ‘God exists’ as ‘The concept God is uniquely instantiated’ or ‘Unicorns do not exist’ as ‘The concept unicorn is not instantiated’ – would

be another example of ‘analysing away’ a problematic form of expression. 6 As already remarked, ‘postulational analysis’ is what Stebbing now calls

what is involved in the work of the logical positivists – “the kind of analysis used in the construction of a deductive system” (ibid.); and I shall return to this shortly. Directional analysis is what she was concerned to defend in her earlier paper. She admits that her earlier treatment was ‘very unclear’ (1933: p. 81, fn.), but adds little to that treatment, except to accept what we saw as Black’s main criticism. As Stebbing now puts it, a sentence such as ‘This is a table’ may entail the set of ‘absolutely simple’ sentences that represent the relevant ‘basic facts’, but such a set cannot be taken to provide the analysis of ‘This is a table’ without

a theory of generality (1933: p. 82). Stebbing refers us to Ramsey for help here (1933: p. 82, fn.), but does nothing else to reply to the criticism. However, the paper as a whole can be seen as reinforcing what was the cen- tral plank in her defence of directional analysis – the appeal to the distinction between understanding the meaning of a proposition and knowing its correct analysis (as Moore formulated it). “One of Moore’s great contributions to phi- losophy”, she writes, was “his insistence that philosophers must begin by accepting as true certain commonsense statements which we should all ... un- hesitatingly admit to be true” (1933: p. 56). That we may not be able to analyse a given proposition is no objection to a claim to know that it is true (1933: pp. 57- 8).

Stebbing herself, however, expresses the distinction here as the distinction between understanding a sentence and knowing the analysis of that sentence, on the grounds that talk of ‘meaning’ is ambiguous (1933: p. 59; cf. p. 84). But this cannot be right. I cannot be said to understand a sentence, and a forteriori to know that a given sentence is true unless I have some grasp of its meaning. (Perhaps there is a minimal sense in which I can be said to know that a sentence is true – if someone reliable tells me so – without understanding what the sen- tence means, but this cannot be the kind of case that Stebbing has in mind. In claiming that she knows that a sentence such as ‘This is a table’ is true, she clearly presupposes that she has a belief that the sentence expresses, which implies that she grasps the meaning of that sentence.) ‘Meaning’ may be am- biguous, but I must grasp some element of its meaning to understand a sentence. But if I do grasp (some element of) its meaning, then I must be able to offer at least some explanation of that meaning, so that there is not that clear distinction between understanding and knowing the analysis that Moore and Stebbing assume.

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Stebbing writes that “What the philosopher has to do is not to justify our beliefs, but to make them clear” (1933: p.60). This is presumably offered as another formulation of the claim that I know that certain propositions are true, even if I cannot ‘analyse’ them, but if I am assumed to understand those propo- sitions, then it seems odd to claim that they may still need to be made clear. Perhaps this is some concession to the view expressed by Black – that the logical structure of our beliefs may still require clarification; and indeed, Stebbing (1933: p.60) goes on to mention Wittgenstein’s statement in the Tractatus that “The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thought” (4.112). But she distances her own views (and those of Moore) from those of Wittgenstein, at least as developed by the members of the Vienna Circle; so her remark does not necessarily signal agreement. To gauge this, however, we need to consider the main body of her 1933 lecture, which consists in a critique of logical positivism.

5. S TEBBING ON V IENNA A NALYSIS Within the framework of the four kinds of analysis she distinguishes, Stebbing

states her criticism of logical positivism as follows: In my opinion Logical Positivism fails in its treatment of analysis. Wittgenstein and the

other Logical Positivists talk much about analysis, but they do not consider the various kinds of analysis, nor do they show in what sense philosophy is the analysis of facts. They make use of analytic definition of a symbolic expression, and of the analytic clarification of a concept, but they do not distinguish between them. They also employ postulational analysis. But they do not seem to understand directional analysis, and, accordingly, they fail to apprehend the need for it. In this way they depart, in my opinion, from the practice of Moore. Not only is their conception of analysis defective, but, further, their conception of the kinds of facts to be analysed is inadequate. They treat all facts as linguistic facts. Hence, they suppose that the first problem of philosophy is to determine the principles of symbolism, and from these principles to draw limits with regard to what we can think. This assumption has two important consequences. First, it leads to the view that philoso- phy is ‘the activity of finding meaning’, to quote Schlick’s statement. The second conse-

quence is that they are apt to place too much reliance upon the construction of postula- tional systems. (1933: pp. 82-3.)

Much of this just sounds like a criticism that the logical positivists are not doing analysis in the Moorean way, which begs the question as to whether that method is correct. Certainly, what Stebbing goes on to say about the first consequence of logical positivism confirms this suspicion. According to Schlick, she writes, ‘the pursuit of meaning’ “precedes the determination of the truth or falsity of a proposition”, a view which she thinks is “quite precisely wrong” (1933: p. 83). As we have seen, following Moore, she holds that we can know that something we say is true even if we cannot ‘analyse’ it (cf. 1933: pp. 83-4). But if, as we have argued, such a Moorean position is untenable, then the criticism of Schlick’s view equally fails.

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If we reject the view that we can know that a sentence is true (in the kinds of case imagined by Moore) independently of knowing what it means, then ‘the pursuit of meaning’ may indeed be primary. According to the logical positivist, this leads naturally to ‘the construction of postulational systems’, which is the

second target of Stebbing’s criticism. What is involved in this criticism? Stebbing writes that the logical positivists have been misled, “first, by accepting

Wittgenstein’s equivocal conception of the given; secondly by relying exclu- sively upon Russell’s supreme principle of scientific philosophizing” (1933:

p. 84). The equivocation rests on a confusion between ‘direct experience’ and ‘content’:

This table is not an experience of mine. Hence, in saying ‘I perceive this table’, I am not saying ‘I perceive an experience of mine’. Perceiving, I should contend, is neither direct nor inferential. To suppose that these alternatives are exhaustive is a prime mistake of Logical Positivism. Perceiving is certainly indirect; but it is a non-inferential, indirect

knowing. (1933: p. 78.) Russell’s ‘supreme principle’ is the principle first formulated in 1914, and en-

dorsed by Carnap as the motto of his Aufbau: “Wherever possible, logical con- structions are to be substituted for inferred entities.” (1914: p. 115.) Combined with Wittgenstein’s equivocation, as Stebbing sees it, this yields the idea that tables, for example, are logical constructs of the given, i.e. are ‘constructed’ from reports of ‘direct experience’ (as captured e.g. in Russellian propositions expressing knowledge by acquaintance or Carnapian ‘Protokollsprache’). But Stebbing is adamant that whilst points and electrons may be constructs, tables are not (1933: p. 84).

According to Stebbing, the construction of postulational systems is just what is involved in the misguided project of ‘constructing’ the objects of our ordinary world from reports of ‘direct experience’. Presupposed in this project is the dis-

tinction between form and content, and the idea that only form and not content is communicable, an idea to which Schlick gave the definitive expression. 7 On

Schlick’s view, when I observe something green, I cannot communicate the ‘content’ of my experience (the actual sensation of green that I have), but in calling it ‘green’, I indicate the place of the shade of colour I experience within a certain set of relations. In so far as the judgements of colour that you make have

a similar structure, you can ‘understand’ what I am saying. (You may be able, for example, to recall or conjure up for yourself a corresponding sensation, although there is no way of knowing whether it is the ‘same’ sensation.) The aim of con- structing a postulational system is to elucidate and facilitate such processes. It is

in this way that statements about colours, for example, are replaced by state- ments about wave lengths. (Cf. Stebbing, 1933: pp. 66-7.)

Within the framework of these ideas about form and content, the construction of postulational systems might seem the only means by which analysis can proceed. And it might seem that rejecting the framework goes hand in hand with rejecting postulational analysis itself. Certainly, for Stebbing, the only alternative

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to the conception of ‘content’ as ‘direct experience’ is the Moorean realist con- ception: the ‘content’ involved when I say truly ‘I perceive this table’ is the table

itself. ‘Contents’ are the elements of the facts supposedly referred to by true sentences. But Stebbing provides no support for her Moorean views other than the argument we criticised in the previous section. However, even if we share Stebbing’s worries about the positivist variants of solipsism, and the restriction of ‘content’ to ‘direct experience’ (which seems to make form and structure the only carrier of meaning), we are not forced to reject postulational analysis alto- gether. For all that is required for postulational analysis to be appropriate is that there is some aspect of ‘content’ that cannot be expressed and that needs to be

‘dropped’ in finding a replacement for a sentence we use. ‘Content’ is neither exhausted by ‘direct experience’ nor constituted solely by whatever is referred to in true statements. If the aim of analysis is clarity, then there is always something that we must abstract away from in elucidating what is expressed. Perhaps this would fall under Stebbing’s heading of ‘analytic clarification’, but it is hard to see how this can proceed without ‘translation’ into some postulational system. Since the distinction Stebbing draws between analytic clarification and postula- tional analysis cannot in the end be made out, the legitimacy of the former entails the legitimacy of at least some kinds of the latter.

6. B RONSTEIN’S C RITIQUE AND S TEBBING’S R ESPONSE In the early 1930s there was a great deal of discussion of the nature of analysis,

and the debate can be followed in the pages of the Proceedings of the Aristote- lian Society and the journal Analysis, whose first issue was published in 1933. I shall comment here on just two further papers, which both appeared in Analysis, the first by Eugene D.Bronstein, entitled ‘Miss Stebbing’s Directional Analysis and Basic Facts’ (1934), and the second Stebbing’s reply, ‘Directional Analysis and Basic Facts’ (1934).

Bronstein makes three points in criticising Stebbing’s account of analysis in the two papers we have considered. His first point is that he can see no basis for the distinction between directional analysis and analytic definition, and his second and third points concern his claim that Stebbing is illegitimately attempting to infer the existence of basic facts from directional analysis (1934: p. 11). In reply to this latter claim, Stebbing points out that it makes no sense to talk of ‘inferring’ the existence of something from a method. Her argument, she says, was only that “the method of analysis as practised by certain philosophers required the assumption that the analysis would terminate in basic facts”, and that this assumption was implausible (1934: pp. 33-4). This is disingenuous, however, since Stebbing makes clear in her British Academy lecture that she does believe in final facts, the only alternative she envisages being the view, which she dismisses, that propositions are based on ‘direct experience’ (1933: p. 86).

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Bronstein rightly notes that the question as to whether an analysis has a ‘direction’ is independent of the question as to whether it ends in basic facts. And if this is right, then it is less easy to see the distinction between directional analysis and analytic definition. (1934: p. 12.) In response, Stebbing emphasises that analytic definition is analysis at the same level whilst directional analysis is analysis at other levels. To illustrate the latter, she gives an example that was familiar at the time – the analysis of a statement about a committee into a state- ment about individuals. (1934: pp. 34-5.) However, although there is clearly a difference of level in this particular case, she provides no general criterion for difference of level; and for any given analytic definition, such as the paraphrase of (Ka) as (Kb) formulated in § 1 above, which is the paradigm that Stebbing herself offers, it would be possible to make out a case for there being different levels. What counts as different levels presumably depends on the overall system in which the analysis occurs. This brings us back to the involvement of postula- tional systems in the process of analysis, and Stebbing’s whole distinction between four kinds of analysis threatens to collapse.

We suggested in the last section that there is no clear distinction between the second and third of Stebbing’s four kinds of analysis – analytic clarification and postulational analysis. If Bronstein is right, then there is no clear distinction between the first and fourth either – analytic definition and directional analysis. And if directional analysis does not require the existence of basic facts, but merely a difference of levels, then postulational analysis too may count as direc- tional analysis. So do all four kinds of analysis simply differ in location along a spectrum from conservative to revisionist, as we suggested in § 3 in relation to logical analysis and postulational analysis? The important distinction is not so much between Stebbing’s four kinds of analysis as between paraphrasis and reduction; and to this extent we can defend Stebbing against Bronstein. Although reductive analysis presupposes paraphrasis, whether a given paraphrasis is inter- preted as involving different levels depends on the system in which the analysis is offered. In so far as the distinctions which Stebbing draws are valid, they are grounded on the distinction between paraphrastic and reductive analysis.