1.3.2 1.3.2
1.3.2 The dThe dThe dismissal of the possibility of the material a prioriThe dismissal of the possibility of the material a prioriismissal of the possibility of the material a priori ismissal of the possibility of the material a priori
Schlick’s attempt to undermine the alleged groundworks of phenomenology involves questioning whether there could be propositions both synthetic and a priori and why some of these propositions have come to be counted as material?
This interrogation proceeds by claiming that “[a]ccording to [the logical- empiricist] programme, we ask how such propositions are factually used, in what circumstances they occur in general. Here we establish in a remarkable way that neither in science nor in life are they utilized, if we overlook a purely rhetorical use (an orator might perhaps exclaim: ‘What is black, is however not white!’); only in the phenomenological philosophy do they play a role. This must already make us suspicious.”40 The suspicion is whether such propositions – in lack of an actual use either scientific or common – are sensical in the first place. Their alleged use as groundworks of phenomenology would not suffice to establish that such propositions actually have a sense.
If someone told me a lady wore a green dress, it would be odd to ask: “Can I take it the dress was not red?”; the interlocutor would insist: “I have already told you it was green.” If an explorer told us that lions of normal yellow were encountered, which were also blue from tip to toe, we should immediately point out that this is impossible; if the interlocutor replied that our disbelief was due to our not having encountered a colour entirely yellow that was also entirely blue, this would not make us change our standpoint.
While it is by experience that we can come to know that a certain dress was uniformly green or that lions are of a certain yellow (case 1), once we know that, it could not be denied that we need no further experience to know that the dress was not uniformly red too, that lions entirely yellow are not entirely blue too (case 2). “These two cases stand on completely different levels [völlig
39 Schlick (1930: p. 25 / Eng: p. 166 tr. mod.)
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verschiedener Stufe].”41 Which is to say that “to know” in the two cases does not mean one and the same thing:
We must admit that an unbridgeable difference, of principle, subsists: it lies simply in that we only a posteriori know [wissen] what clothes this or that person wears, or how people in general dress up; that we however a priori know [wissen] that a green dress is not a red dress, and a yellow skin, not a blue one.42
Thus, insofar as phenomenologists would contend that propositions like “A dress green all over is not red all over” or “A skin entirely yellow is not entirely blue” are not ordinary judgments of experience, Schlick would agree with them. Where they would diverge was at the point where phenomenologists would contend further that at the same time “these propositions really convey a knowledge [Erkenntniss], that they were contentful [sachhaltig], that they had a material [material], not merely formal character”43.
What speaks for this contention? That the propositions in question “appear [schein] to be factually [tatsächlich] about colours, about sounds, so about the content [dem Inhalte], the material [Material] of sensations”. What speaks against this contention? The very “triviality [Trivialität] of the propositions in question, which we find elsewhere only in tautological, nothing-saying [nichtssagenden] propositions, which alone in virtue of their form are true and convey nothing upon reality.”44
Schlick regards the triviality, tautological character, of these propositions as given proof, and thus more reliable than an appearance of their conveying a content or material of sensations of colour or sound. His preliminary verdict is:
41 Schlick (1930: p. 26 / Eng: p. 166 tr. mod.)
42 Schlick (1930: p. 27 / Eng: p. 167 tr. mod.)
43 Schlick (1930: p. 27 / Eng: p. 167 tr. mod.)
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Our ‘material’ a priori propositions are in truth of purely conceptual nature, their validity is a logical one, they have tautological, formal character.45
In the final analysis, propositions taken to be material a priori and groundworks of phenomenology do not convey substantial knowledge [Erkenntnis], but boil down to tautological knowing [Wissen]; and express not factual or material necessity, but conceptual or logical necessity, showing nothing more than “only the content of our concepts [Inhalt unserer Begriffe], i.e. the way we utilize our words”46. The final verdict on alleged material a priori propositions would be:
As nothing-saying formulae, they contain no knowledge and cannot serve as the groundworks of a special science. Such a science as the phenomenologists have promised us does not even exist in fact.47
Schlick’s strategy is reminiscent of the interrogation in the Prolegomena of Kant, to whom he refers positively several times. Phenomenologists would claim that their science is a reality and grounded on material a priori propositions. By stressing that propositions like “A surface cannot be simultaneously green and red all over” are a priori yet simply analytic, rather than a priori and at the same time synthetic, Schlick insinuates that the very groundings of phenomenology are either void of sense (if they recognized as tautologies) or logically impossible (if taken as synthetic a priori or material a priori). Either what phenomenology takes itself to be grounded on would be a vacuum or phenomenology would not be grounded at all. Either way, phenomenology would not be a given science after all, it would be not real and perhaps even not possible.
45 Schlick (1930: p. 28 / Eng: p. 168 tr. mod.)
46 Schlick (1930: p. 30 / Eng: p. 170 tr. mod.). Cf.: “im ersten Falle würde die Notwendigkeit der
Geltung jener Wahrheiten eine sachliche […], im zweiten Falle aber ein rein logische” (Schlick 1930: p. 27).
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What would a mid-Wittgensteinian, or indeed middle Wittgenstein’s own, take on this mirror-image of his early approach to colour-exclusion be?