The Distinction Between the Logical and the Empirical in On Certainty

Abstract

The distinction between logical and empirical propositions has a long tradition in analytic philosophy, yet as long has been the history of the attempts to find a criterion for this distinction. One complicating factor might have been the belief that this distinction may parallel general distinctions which are hard to draw such as the one between analytic and synthetic, or between necessary and contingent propositions, or finally between propositions knowable a priori or only a posteriori. 1 Quine's refusal of the analytic and synthetic distinction is based on the criticism of the notions of meaning and synonymy on which this distinction is argued to be based. Yet, this refusal does not entail as well the rejection of the distinction between the logical and the empirical. Rather, Quine's significant influence on the contemporary philosophical debate is witnessed by the widespread acceptance of a different model of how to draw this traditional distinction. Quine's view is often summarized in two main points. On one side, there is the web or net of beliefs where the mathematical and logical truths are located in a central position with respect to, and thus more entrenched than, the empirical truths which are located at the periphery of the net and are more closely hinging on experience. On the other side, is the suggestive claim that observation sentences face the tribunal of experience not individually but as a corporate body, i.e., as components of a (scientific) theory.In this paper, I propose a comparison between these widely accepted Quinian views and Ludwig Wittgenstein's remarks on the logical and the empirical in On Certainty. While Quine's perspective and Wittgenstein's are not thoroughly dissimilar (so that the question 1. On the first of these distinctions Quine's work is still essential, and on the second Kripke's. The third may still better survive in the literature in comparison with the first two, but nobody could uncontroversially use it to delimit the logical versus the empirical.

Persuading the Tortoise

“…Although Wittgenstein often uses foundationalist vocabulary, e.g., when he writes that such beliefs (or “certain propositions”) are “at the basis” ( am Grunde ) of belief (OC §253), of knowledge (OC §380) or of “all asking and thinking” (OC §415), it is pretty clear that he does not intend to ascribe them either inherent indubitability or the role of primary truths from which all other truths are derivable. For converging interpretations, see Phillips (), Perissinotto (), Garavaso () and Williams (). For a resolutely foundationalist reading, see Moyal‐Sharrock ().…”

Wittgenstein on Scepticism. An Interpretation of Wittgenstein's On Certainty

“…That there are similarities between Wittgenstein's and Quine's views in this respect is suggested by(Garavaso, 1998).…”