Ayer and the Pragmatic Maxim

Ayer and the Pragmatic MaximAuthor(s): Harold MooreSource: Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Summer, 1971), pp. 168-175Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40319627 .

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Harold Moore

Ayer and the

Pragmatic Maxim

Ayer's The Origins of Pragmatism1 is indicative of both his own growth as a philosopher and the relevance of many themes in classical American philosophy to current problems. However, Ayer's interpretation of Peirce's pragmatic maxim is open to serious doubt. Ayer argues that the pragmatic maxim is identical with the verification principle of logical positivism and that Peirce's subsequent "conversion" to realism is a mere concession and changes nothing essential to the positivist position.

In this essay, I will argue that Ayer's interpretation of the maxim is wrong due to a confusion between operational definition and a reduction sentence. Secondly, I will point out some significant epistemological points that manifest the non-trivial nature of Peirce's realism.

I.

The essentials of Ayer's interpretation of the original formulation of the pragmatic maxim (5.402) is contained in the following:

It should be clear by now that what we are being offered here is a hard-headed version of the theory of operationalism, a theory which has gained fresh popularity since Professor Bridgman re- vived it in his book The Logic of Modern Physics. It should be clear also that the reason why I call Peirce's version of the theory



A yer and the Pragmatic Maxim 1 69

hard-headed is that it stipulates that the basis to which theoretical statements are to be reduced consists not of statements referring to what is observable, but of statements referring to what is actually observed.2

Ayer interprets Peirce as a forerunner of logical empiricism, though more restrictive than the logical empiricists, and equates the Peircean pragmatic maxim with the verification principle of logical positivism.

Its standpoint is very closely akin to that which was later adopted by the logical positivists. Peirce's pragmatic maxim is indeed identical, for all practical purposes, with the physicalist interpretation of the verification principle.3

Ayer's subsequent analysis seems to indicate that, on essential points, the verification principle is a good one, though not without its difficulties.4 But it is only his interpretation of Peirce in which we are presently interested.

In a later paper which appeared in the Monist in 1905 called "Issues of Pragmaticism," Peirce reconsiders the problem of the untested diamond that he had analyzed in "How to Make Our Ideas Clear." An objection against the earlier theory was that the maxim precluded assertions concerning the hardness of hard things until they were brought to test. The earlier answer had been that there would be "no falsity in such modes of speech" (5.403). In the later essay, Peirce modifies his position on the untested diamond. The question of the meaning of certain predicates is not at all contingent on what did happen, but rather on what would happen if certain operations had been performed (5.453). This move leads to Peirce's acceptance of a modified form of scholastic realism. The acceptance of this position results in a commitment to a doctrine of real possibility. And the acceptance of real possibility results in a commitment to hypotheticals that are operative in nature.

Ayer believes that this modification is unimportant. In his own [Peirce's] pragmatic terms, there is nothing to choose between them [the earlier and later positions] , since whatever view is taken of the status of general principles, the concrete expecta- tions which result from accepting them remain the same.5

Ayer's interpretation must now be analyzed. The logical form of his interpretation of the pragmatic maxim does not become clear until



170 HAROLD MOORE

his discussion of the problems attendant upon acceptance of the verification principle. How can an empiricist interpret dispositional predicates in terms of material conditionals?

An alternative suggestion, which has been made by Carnap, is that we should analyze dispositional predicates in terms of purely factual conditionals, but treat their meaning as undetermined in the case where the antecedent of the conditional is not fulfilled.6

Ayer finds difficulties with this move. But he does believe Peirce is committed to considering such an explication of unfulfilled conditions (untested diamonds) given the pragmatic maxim. The import of the passage is that Ayer is laboring under the assumption that the pragmatic maxim can be logically reconstructed as a reduction sentence.

In a reduction sentence analysis, a theoretical (non-observational) or dispositional predicate is introduced by its connection with basic predicates. A reduction sentence analysis for "x is soluble," for example, would look like the following:

(1) (x) [x is put in water z> (x is soluble = x dissolves) ] In the reduction sentence, 'x is put in water' and 'x dissolves' are already assigned meanings. They are epistemically basic observational statements. The dispositional 'soluble' is introduced via its logical connections with the basic statements. Thus without the connection the dispositional is left 'undetermined.' This accounts for Ayer's equation of the maxim with the reduction sentence.7

There is a fundamental difficulty with this interpretation for Ayer fails to make one fundamental point clear. The employment of the reduction sentence makes sense if and only if there is something epistemically self-justifying about observational predicates in general. Within the verificationist framework, a meaningful "theoretical" term must be functionally correlated with items of the observation framework. The domain of meaning is reduced to the logical space of veri- fiable, perceptible propositions. This position expresses the primacy of the brute facts of the observation framework. But there is a suf- ficient amount of evidence at hand to demonstrate that Peirce is not committed to the ultimate epistemic authority of the observational framework. Peirce's theory of signs, his rejection of any self-justifying proposition (his attacks on intuition), his fallibilism, his claim that many alleged categorical assertions are really disguised hypotheticals



Ayer and the Pragmatic Maxim 1 7 1

preclude any commitment to the epistemic priority of any arbitrarily selected set of "observational predicates."8 But if this is true then the employment of the reduction sentence is nonsensical; and the equation of the pragmatic maxim with the verification principle is highly dubious.

An alternative way to construe the maxim that bypasses the empiricist demand for "foundations" is as a species of operational definition. The operational definition for the solubility of a salt can be interpreted by a material conditional:

(2) (x) [x is soluble = (x is put in water 3 x dissolves) ]

"Solubility" is defined in terms of the conditional. Note the difference that is being pressed. There is a stronger and

weaker sense of "observation predicate" at issue. The stronger sense is rejected because the reduction sentence analysis is contingent on the existence of a basic, irreformable set of self-justifying propositions.9 The weaker sense can be applied to operational definition. The maxim is interpreted as a mechanism for explicating hard theoretical concepts in terms of less problematic concepts. And it is clear that there is a sense in which perceptual judgments are non-problematic for Peirce.10 There is a sense in which they can function as first premises (5.181). But, even admitting this, there is a fundamental point that must be noted to grasp the force of the difference between the reduction sentence and operational definition interpretations of the maxim. The explication of theoretical predicates in terms of operational definition does not presuppose, nor is it contingent in any way on, the demand that the terms in the definiens have any ultimate, founda- tional epistemological primacy. If there is an admission of primacy, it is only a relative one. It is not the sense of primacy argued for by those who demand a foundation for empirical knowledge.11

I would like to suggest that the operational definition analysis is closest to the status of the pragmatic maxim in the earlier article, "How to Make Our Ideas Clear." There are several advantages in doing this. This analysis does give a special status to observational predicates in the sense that since they are non-problematic in a way that "theoretical" concepts are not, the observational predicates can be used to explicate the less familiar predicates. But this move is in no way contingent on the existence of a set of basic, directly interpreted predicates. Second, this interpretation is consistent with other



172 HAROLD MOORE

Peircean positions (i.e. the attack on "foundations"). Last, and perhaps most important, the problems that arise from employing operational definition in the way suggested make manifest the importance of the later article and the significance of Peirce's realism. An analysis of the problems involved in operational definition will lead to comments on the significance of realism.

II.

For an empiricist like Ayer, it is important to render a nominalistic account of dispositional predicates in terms of truth -functional logic. For many empiricists the assertion that something has a certain disposition simply means that a certain state of affairs is liable to occur given the existence of certain antecedent conditions. No dispositional predicate, on the classical interpretation, entails or is entailed by any categorical proposition.

Suppose, however, that the antecedent conditions of the operational definition for the actual occurrence of the dispositional predicate never obtain. Suppose a soluble salt, for example, were burned up. Most language users, certainly in ordinary language, would want to say that the salt in question was indeed soluble. Most language users would underwrite the claim that the salt would have dissolved, if it had been immersed in water. But this is a problem for the empiricist account of the nature of dispositional predicates. For if the relation between dispositional and categorical assertions is a contingent one, how can one underwrite the counterfactual claim about the salt that had not been immersed in water? The empiricist might respond that since he had no reason to believe that there was any change in any categorical property of the salt, there is no reason to believe that the salt would not have dissolved. But this is precisely the problem for the empiricist: What sense can be made of the relation between categorical sentences and unfulfilled possibilities?12 It is indeed difficult to see, working within the systematic confines of the empiricist program, how one can make sense of the relation. Problems like this one make the issue a crucial one for the empiricist tradition.13

But suppose this approach were rejected. Suppose it were assumed that the relation between categorical properties and dispositional predicates is not contingent, but necessary. This is precisely what Peirce is doing in the later article. For he is asserting that the diamond



Ayer and the Pragmatic Maxim 173

that has not been brought to the test would not have been scratched had it been tested. The assertion can be made on the subsequent analysis because the manifestation of a disposition is no longer a contingent matter, but a necessary one. But how is the notion of necessity introduced into the explication of dispositional predicates? Necessity is introduced into the situation only by the existence of laws that underwrite counterfactual claims. For Peirce, a law of nature is how an endless future must come to be (5.545). As such, it involves non- contingent claims (1.615). u Given the truth of the law, and its acceptance by the community of inquirers, one is warranted in making claims about untested diamonds. Without the laws, one is not.

Chisholm15 has shown the importance of the decision made on the status of the count erf actuals in question. Examine the claim "All diamonds are hard." This statement can be regarded as an empirical generalization, and consequently contingent. Or it can be construed as a lawlike statement supported by scientific theories of molecular structure. The latter interpretation, with its claim of nomic necessity, supports the following two claims, while the former (contingent) interpretation does not.

(3) If a, which is not a diamond, were a diamond, a would be hard.

(4) For every x, if x were a diamond, x would be hard.

But if the epistemological importance of the lawlike claim is allowed, the crucial nature of counterfactuals loses much of its significance. For to solve the counterfactual problem, extra-logical matters (the status of laws and the hypothetical force attributed to them by members of the human community) must be brought to bear on the problem.16 On the other hand, the extensional analysis of counterfactuals remains Crucial for the positivist.

It is also interesting to note that the status accorded to laws by the scientific community has been proposed as a solution to the Goodman paradox.17 There is no need to worry about projections concerning the color of emeralds because there is no reason to believe that there is anything special about the year 2000 when emeralds might turn from green to 'grue.' There are no laws that warrant belief in such a state of affairs.

Now of course the metaphysical level is attained. What must the universe be like, given the existence of laws that warrant counterfactual claims? For Peirce, this state of affairs points to a realistic universe.18



174 HAROLD MOORE

In any event, it is clear that the epistemological significance of "Issues of Pragmaticism" is lost on Ayer's claim that the realism of Peirce is a mere concession.

The defended interpretation does offer continuity between the two articles. It is only by the reasonableness of laws and categorical propositions that a counterfactual assertion gains any kind of status. Consequently, pure hypothetical claims, for which no evidence can ever be offered, should still be regarded with suspicion. Hence evidential support is still crucial for a pragmatic theory of significance. But it is one thing to say that evidential support is important for the pragmatic maxim, and quite another thing to assert that the pragmatic maxim is identical with the verification principle.

University of Notre Dame

NOTES

1. A.J. Ayer, The Origins of Pragmatism (San Francisco, 1968). 2. Ayer, p. 44. 3. Ibid., p. 45. 4. Ibid., pp. 45-50. 5. Ibid., p. 54. 6. Ibid., p. 47. 7. For a discussion of the problems of a reduction -sentence analysis of dispositional

predicates, cf. Carl Hempel, "The Theoretician's Dilemma" in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, ed. H. Feigl, M. Scriven and G. Maxwell (Minneapolis, 1958) II, pp. 38-76. For a discussion of what 'undetermined' might conceivably mean, cf. H. Putnam, "What Theories Are Not," Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, ed. E. Nagel, P. Suppes and A. Tarski (Stanford, 1962).

8. Cf. 5.266; 5.384-5.397; 6.327. 9. One might argue that Ayer is using a weaker sense of 'observation' and hence save

his reduction-sentence analysis of the maxim. His use of Bridgman, however, precludes his consistently making this move.

10. For a good discussion of the kind of status given to perceptual judgments by Peirce, cf. R. Bernstein, "Peirce's Theory of Perception," Studies in the Philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, E. Moore and R. Robin, eds., (Amherst, 1964), pp. 165-189.

1 1 . For an excellent discussion of the difference between an operational definition and a reduction sentence, cf. Fred Wilson, "Definition and Discovery," British Journal for Philosophy of Science, 18 (1967-68), 287-303. For a discussion of operational



Ayer and the Pragmatic Maxim 175

definition consistent with many Peircean positions, cf. Bruce Aune, Knowledge, Mind and Nature (New York: Random House, 1967), pp. 109-1 15.

12. The significance of this problem is lost in Idus Murphree's analysis of positivism in Peirce. Murphree asserts that "our live encounter with percepts" underlies the con- cept of "conceivable practical effects." But how are perceptual predicates related to conceivables? Murphree ignores the problem, and, not surprisingly, interprets Peirce as a positivisti cf. Idus Murphree, "Positivism in Peirce's Philosophy," Moore and Robin, p. 229.

13. Cf. N. Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast (London, 1954). 14. Strictly speaking, "would be" claims are possible laws because the necessity intro-

duced is done so only by regarding individual, contingent events as members of an infinite class of similar events. Cf., 8.192; 2.664-2.666.

15. R. Chisholm, "The Contrary-to-Fact Conditional," Mind, 55 (1946), 289-307. 16. Similar solutions have been proposed. N. Rescher, "Belief Contravening Sup-

positions," Philosophical Review, 70 (1961), 176-196. 17. Brian Ellis, "A Vindication of Scientific Inductive Practices," American Philo-

sophical Quarterly, II (1965), 296-304. 18. There are other moves that can be made at this juncture; cf. N. Rescher,

Scientific Explanation (New York, 1970), pp. 105-121.



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