The Turning Point in Philosophy

UY

MORITZ SCHLICK

(TRANSLATED UY DAVID R Y N I N )

FROM TIMI? to time prizes have bee11 established for essays on the
question what progress philosophy has made in a given period. The period tends to be limited on the one side by the nallie of sonle great thinkcr, on the other by "the present." It was thus assumed that there is so~lle degree of clarity regarding the philosophic progress of mankind up to the time of that thinker, but that it is tlubious what further contributions have been made in recent tilnes. Such questions clearly express a certain ~nistrustconcerning the philosophy of the period which had recently elapsed. One has the iniprcssion of bcing presentcd only with an embarrassed forn~ulation of thc question: Has philosophy in that period riiadc any progress whati:ver? For if onc were sure that contributions had been made one woultl also know in what they consisted. If the ~ilorcrcmotc past is regarded with less scepticism and one is rather inclined to sce in its philosophy a continuous developmcnt, the explanation Inay bc that one's attitude towards everything whose place is established in history is tinged with greater respect A further point is that the older philosophers have at least denionstrated tlicir historical influence. I-Iencc in corisiclcri~ig tlicn~ one can take as one's base tlicir historical rathcr t l ~ a n their substantive in1p01 tancc, cspccially since one often docs not vcnturc to distinguish between the two. But it is just thc ablesl thinkers who tnost rarely havc belicvcd that rile results of carlicr pliilosophizing, inclutling tllat of the classical models, rcmain unshakable. This is shown by thc fact that basically every new s y ~ t e ~ starts n again from tlic beginning, that every thinker
"L)ie \Vcndc Dcr I'hilosophie," as tl1is piece is callcd in German, openet1 the first ri~irnhcr of Volumc I of I:'rltcrttifriis (1330/31). It is here published with the kind ~~crmission of Mrs. Schlick and Professor Carnap, tlte co-ctlitor of Brlrettnlr~is.

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MORITZ SCHLICK

seeks his own foundation and does not wish to stand on the shoulders of his predecessors. Dcscartes (not without reason) felt himself to be making a wholly new beginning; Spinoza believed that in introducing thc (to be sure quite adventitious) mathematical fort11 he had found the ulti~llate philosophical method; and Kant was convinced that on the basis of the way taken by him philosophy would at last adopt tllc sure path of a scicncc. Furthcr cxamplcs are superfluous, for practically all great thinkers have sought for a radical rcforrn of philosophy and cotlsidcrcd it csscntial. This pcculiar fate of philosophy has bccn so often dcscribcd and bemoancd that it is indeed pointless to discuss it at all. Silcnt scc~ticismand rcsigr1;ltion sccnl to be thc orily approprit~tcattitutfcs. Two thousand ycars of experience secm to tcach that cfforts to put an end to the chaos of systcms and to changc the fate of philosoplly can no longer be taken seriously. T o point out that man has finally succeeded in solving thc most stubborn problems, for cxample that of Dacdelus, givcs an irlforn~cctperson no comfort; for what hc fears is just that philosophy will never arrive at a genuinc "problcnl." I rcfcr to this anarchy of philosophical opinions which has SO often bccn describcd, in order to leave no doubt that I atn fully conscious of thc scope ant1 weighty sigrlificancc of the conviction that I should now like to exprcss. For I am convinced that we now find oursclvcs at an altogether decisive tur~lingpoint in philosophy, and that we arc objectively justified in considcring that an end has come to the fruitless conflict of systems. We are already at the prescnt time, in my opinion, in possession of rncthods which nlake evcry such conflict in principle unnccessasy. What is now required is their resolute application. Thcse mcthods havc been quietly dcvclopcd, unnoticed by the majority of thosc who teach or write philosophy; and thus a situation has bccn created which is not cotnparablc to any earlicr onc. That the situation is unique and that the turning ernbarkcd upon is really clccisivc can bc unclcrstood only by bccoming acquainted with thc new paths and by looking back, fro111 the standpoint to which thcy lead, upon all thosc efforts that llavc cvcr passcd as "philosophical." The paths have thcir origin in logic. Lcibniz dimly saw thcir beginning. Bertrand Russell and Gottlob Frege have opcncd up irnportant strctchcs in tllc last decades, but Ludwig Wittgcnstcin (in his Trncintlc,~ Logico-Pl~ilosopilicus,1922) is the first to havc pushed fonvarcl to the decisive turning point. It is well known that in recent decades mathcn~aticianshave developed new logical mcthods, at first primarily for the solution

Tlte Turiling Poirlt irt Philosophy [55 1 of their own problen~swhich could not be overcome by the traditional methods of logic. 13ut the logic thus devclopcd has also long since shown its superiority in other ways ovcr the old forms, and doubtless will very soon supplant thcm. Was 1 referring to this logic as the powcrful means which is in principlc capablc of raising us above all philosopl~icalconflicts? Does it give us gencral rules with tllosc 11clp ail thc traditional problcms of philosophy can at least in principle be resolved? If this werc so I sl~ouldhardly have had the right to say that a wholly ncw situation had bccn crcatcd. For thcn there would have been only n gr:~dual,as it wcl-c, tcchnic;~lprogress, ;IS for cxam[?le, whcn tl-tc invention of the internal conlbustion cngine finally made possiblc the solution of tllc problcm of flight. However highly the value of thc new methods is to be esteemed, it is plain that nothing so funclamerltal can be brought about by the mere dcvclopnlcnt of a method. The great turning point is therefore not to be attributed to logic itself but to somctlting quite different which was indecd stimulatcd and made possible by it, but which proceeds on a illuch deeper level: the insight into the nature of logic itself. That the logical is inssome scnsc thc purely formal has been exprcsscd early and often; however, one was not rcally clcar concerning the nature of pure forms. The clue to their nature is to be found in the fact that every cognition is an expression or representation. That is, it expresses a fact which is cognized in it. This can Ilnppcn in any number of ways, in any language, by means of any arbitrary system of signs. All thcse possible modes of representatioi~-if they othenvise actually express the same knowledgcmust havc something in common; and what is conlinon to them is thcir logical form. So all knowlcdgc is such only by virtue of its form. It is through its form that it represents thc fact known. But the form cannot itself in turn bc rcpresentcd. It alone is concerned in cognition. Evclything clsc in the cxprcssion is incssential and accidcnt;ll material, not diflercnt, say, from the ink by n~eansof which we write down a statement. This simple insight has consequences of tlze very greatest importancc. Above all, it enables us to dispose of the traditional problems of "the t11eoly of knowledge." lnvestigations concerning the human "capacity lor knowledge," in so far as they do not become part of psychology, are rcplaccd by considerations regarding the nature o l expression, of representation, i.c. conccnling every possible "language" in the most general sense of the term. Questions

[56] MORITZ SCEILICK regarding the "validity and limits of knowledge" disappear. Everything is k~iowablcwhich can be cxpressecl, and this is thc total sribjcct ~ilattcrconcerning which meaningful qucstions can be raised. Thcsc arc co~lscqucntly no qucstiorls which arc in principle unanswerable, no problems which are in prirlcil~lc insoluble. What have bccn corisiderccl such up to now are not gcnuinc questions, but mcaninglcss scqucnccs of words. To be sure, they look like qucslions from the outsidc, since they secni to satisfy the customary rulcs of graIl;lmar, but in truth they consist of cnlpty sounds, bccausc thcy transglcss the profound inncr rules of logical syntax discovcrcd by tlic new analysis. Whcrcvcr there is a meaningful problem one can in thco~yalways give tlic path that leads to its solution. For it bccorncs cviclcnt that giving tliis path coincidcs with thc indication of it? mcaning. The ]~racticnlfollowing out of this path may of course bc hindered by factual circu~nstanccs-by dcficicnt human capacitics, for ex,~mplc. Thc act of verification in which the path to the solution finally cntls is always of the satile sort: it is thc occurrcncc of a definitc fact that is confirmed by observation, by means of immcdiatc expericncc. In this inanncr the trutli (or falsity) of cver-y statement, of tl;lily l ~ f c or scicncc, is determined. Therc is thus no otlicr tcsting and corroboration of truths cxcept through observation and cnipiricnl scicncc. Evcry scicncc, (in so far as wc take this word to rcfcr to the contcnt and not to thc 11umnn arrangements for arriving at it) is a system of cognitions, that is, of true experie~ltialstatcrucnts. Ant1 thc totality of sciences, including the statements of daily lifc, is thc system of cognitions. Therc is, i11 addition to it, no domain of "p1iilosopliic;ll" truths. Philosophy is not a systclii of statemcnts; it is not n science. But what is it tlicn? Well, certainly not a scicncc, b u t ncvcrthclcss something so significant ant1 import;lnt that it may licnccfor th, :IS bcforc, be honoscd as the Quccn of thc Scicnccs. For it is nowhcrc written that tlic Quecn of tlic Scicnccs must itsclf bc a rcicnce. Illc grcnt contemporary turning point is ch;lracterized by thc fact th,~t wc see in philosophy not a systcir~of cognitions, but ;I systcrir of trc.t\; ~'hilosopliy is that activity througli wliicll the nicaning of stntcmcnts is rcvcalctl or dctcrminccl. By means of philosophy statcmcnts arc cxj,laincd, by nlcans of scicncc they arc vcrificd. Thc latter is conccrnctl with thc trutli of statcmcnts, the fortncr with wl~at thcy actually nicnn. The contcnt, soul and spirit of scicncc is lodgccl naturally in what in thc last analysis its statcn1crits actually mcan; tlic philos~pllic;~I activity of giving rnc;tning is therefor-e the Alpha ;1nt1Orlicga of all scientific knowledge. This was indccd correctly surmisctl whcn

it nas said that philosophy supplied both thc foundation and the apex of the cdificc of scicticc. I t was a ~nistakc, howcvcr, to suppose that thc foundation was tiiadc up of "philosophical" statements (thc statclllcnts of t l ~ e o ~of y knowletlgc), and crowncd by a dolnc of philosophical statcmcnts (cnllcd metaphysics). i t is casy to see that the task of philosophy docs not consist in asscl ting stntcmcnts-that bestowing nic;rning ii1>o1istatcmcnts cannot bc donc in turn by statcmcnts. For if, say, 1 givc the meaning of rliy words tlirougli cxplanato~ystatcmcnts a l c i definitions, that is by Iiclp of other words, onc must ask further for tllc ntc:lnirig of thcsc words, and so on. This proccss cannot procccd cndlcssly. It ;~lwaysco~iics to an cnd in actual paintings, in exhibiting what is meant, thus in real acts; only tlicsc :ICES arc no longer capable of, or in 11cecl of, further cxplailation. 'rhc final giving of n~caningalways tnkci placc thereforc, through rleerls. It is tlicse deeds or acts which constitute philosophical ;tctivity. I t was one of thc most scrious errors of fonncr tirnes to have bclicvcd that the actual mcatling and ulti~natccontent was in turn and so was rcprcsent;~blc in cognitions. to bc formulated in state~ncrits, This was the error of "mctaphysics." Thc cflorts of ~iictaphysicians werc always directed uRon the absurd end of cxprcssing the contcnt of pure quality (thc "csscnce" of thingr) by means of cognitions, hcncc of uttcring thc ~ n ~ i t t c s a b l c Qunl~tics .~ cannot bc "said." Tllcy CJII only bc sliown in expcricncc. But with this showing, cognition has ~lotliingto do. Thus metaphysics collapscs not because the solving of its tasks is an entcrprise to which the human reason is uncc1u;ll (as for cx;IITIPIC Kant thought) but bccausc thcrc is no such task. With the disclosure of thc rnistakcn formulation of the problcm the history of mctapl~ysicalconflict is likewise cxplnincd. 11 our conccplion is in gcncral corlcct wc ~iiust be able to cstnblish i t historically. It would llavc to be cap;lblc of giving some account of tll,: change in mcaning of the word "philosophy." how tliis is actually the case. If in ancient tinlcs, and ;lctu:rlly nntil recently, philosophy was simply iclcntical with cvcry purely thcol2tical scientific irivestig;ltion, this points to t l ~ c fact thal scicrice found itself in a statc in which it saw its nlaiil task still in thc clarification of its funclanlcntal concepts. Tlic emancipation of the specin1 scicnccs from tlicir common mother, philosophy, indicates that thc meaning of certain funtlarncntal concepts bcczunc clcar cnough to mnkc successful fu~tlicrwork with tlicni possible. If, totlay, cthics
1. See lily article "Erlebct~,I:,rkcl~ncn, Mctaphysik," K~zrr~.strrtliert, Vol. 31 (1930).

[ 58 I and aesthetics, and frequently also psychology, are considered branches of philosophy, this is a sign that these studies do not yct possess sufliciently clcar basic concepts, that their efforts are still chiefly directed upon the meaning of their statements. Finally, if within a wcll-cstablishcd science the necessity suddenly arises at some point of reflecting anew on the true meaning of tlre fundamental concepts, and thereby a more profound clarification of their mcaning is achieved, this will be Eclt at once as an crninent philosopllical achievcmcnt. All arc agreed that, for instance, Einstcin's work, proceeding from an analysis of thc rnca~li~lg of statcnlc~lts about time and space, was actually a philosophical achievcrnent. Hcre we should add that thc dccisivc cpoch-making forward stcps of science are always of this character; they signify a clarification of the mcaning of the fundamental statements and only those succeed in thcm who are endowed for philosophical activity. The great investigator is also always a philosopher. Frequently also the name of philosophy is bestowed on mental activitics which have as their concern not pure knowledge but the conduct of life. This is readily understandable. For the wise man rises above thc uncomprehending rnass just by virtue of the fact that he can point out more clcarly than they the nlcaning of statenlcnts and questions concerning lifc relationships, facts and desircs. The great turning point of philosophy signifies also a decisive turning away from certain erroneous paths which have been e~nbarked upon since the second half of the 19th century and which must lead to quite a wrong assessment and evaluation of philosophy. I mean the attempts to claim for it an inductive cl-raracter and accordingly to believe that it consists solely of statements of hypothetical validity. The idea of clairning only probability for its statcmcnts was remote frorn earlier thinkers. They would have rejccted it as incompatible with the dignity of pliilosophy. In this was expressed a healthy instinct for thc fact that philosophy must supply the ultimate support of knowlcdgc. The reverse side of the medal is thc dogma that philosophy supplics unconditionally tnie a priori axioms, which we rnust rcgard as an extremely unfortunate expression of this instinct, particularly since philosophy does not consist of statenlents at all. But we too believe in the dignity of philosophy and d c c n ~incompatible with it the character of being uncertain and only probable; and we are happy that the decisive turning point makes it impossible to attribute any such character to it. For thc concept of probability or uncertainty is sirnply not applicable to the acts of giving meaning which constitute philosophy. It is a matter of positing the meaning of statcmcnts as sorilething

MORITZ SCHLICK

Tlie Turning Point irz Philosophy

L d = is J simply final. Either we have this meaning, and then we know what me;lnt by the statcmcnt, or we do not possess it, in which case mere empty words confront us, and as yet no statement at all. There is nothing in between and there can be no talk of the probability that the meaning is the right onc. T l ~ u s after the great turning point philosophy shows its decisive c1lar:lcter even more clearly than befom. It is only, indccd, because of this cliaractcr t l ~ a tthc conflict of systcsns can be cndcd. I repeat: in consequence of the insights which I have sketched we may today consider it as in principle already ended. I hope that this may become increasingly clcar in tllc pages of Lhis journal* in the new period of its existence. Certainly there will still be many a rear-guard action. Certainly many will for centuries continue to wander further along the traditional paths. Philosophical writers will long continue to discuss the old pseudo-questions. But in the end they will no longer be listened to; they will come to resemble actors who continue to play for some time before noticing that the audicncc has slowly departed. Then it will no longer be necessary to speak of "philosophical problems" for one will speak philosopliically concerning all problems, that is: cteal ly and meaninrfullv. * SC. Erke~~rritzis, Ed. '
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