'Coordinative Definition' and Reichenbach's Semantic Framework - A Reassessment

L I O N E L STEFAN S H A P I R O
'COORDINATIVE REICHENBACH'S
DEFINITION'
AND
SEMANTIC
FRAMEWORK:
A REASSESSMENT* 1. INTRODUCTION Widely regarded as a landmark of logical positivism, Hans Reichenbach's Philosophie der Raum-Zeit-Lehre of 1928 (henceforth PdRZL) has yet to benefit from the recent awakening 1 of historical interest in this broad tradition, and still awaits a reevaluation of accreted critical preconceptions. Taking up this task in what follows, I will argue that Reichenbach's analysis of space and time avoids most of the positivist pitfalls it is nearly unanimously held to exemplify, notably both verificationism and conventionalism. Though such accounts of meaning and justification are not to be found in PdRZL, Reichenbach does not endorse any rival accounts of commensurate philosophical import. In this regard he resembles many present philosophers of science. Recent decades have witnessed the progressive adoption of an approach to scientific theories known as the 'semantic view', defined largely in opposition to the 'syntactic view' associated with the positivists (often labeled the 'received view' for polemical convenience). 2 While versions of these views may be mutually preclusive, they are not in themselves conflicting conceptions of the same domain. The semantic view, rather, reflects a conviction that useful philosophy of science may be conducted independently of the broader metaphysical issues the logical positivist tradition had largely chosen to pursue, unsuccessfully, within the context of an analysis of scientific languages. Writing prior to the emergence of a fully syntactic conception of theories, Reichenbach employs in PdRZL a version of the semantic view. Surely the 'received view' among his fellow mathematicians, it is a semantic conception of the mathematical natural sciences that is voiced by Andrew Gleason when he explains that "the mathematical method of dealing with the real world lies in applying purely logical deduction to a precisely described model of the situation". 3 This project of mathematical modeling is taken to comprise three moments: the interpretation of some aspect of reality into a mathematical structure belonging to a defined class, the exploration of this class of structures by deduction from its definition, and the reinterpretation of those properties deduced
Erkenntnis 41: 287-323, 1994. 1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
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as facts about the world. Gleason's schema corresponds perfectly to the semantic framework of PdRZL. In particular, Reichenbach's notion of the "coordinative definition" (Zuordnungsdefinition) of "concepts" by "real things" represents his specification of the first moment, the assignment of "precisely described" physical reference to the elements of a mathematical structure. One matter the schema leaves unresolved is the characterization of those aspects of reality that are to realize the mathematical objects and relations constituting a model of a theory. 4 On common implementations of the semantic view for space-time theories, these real correlates are entities as abstract as space-time manifolds possessing certain affine and metric structures. Motivated by the analysis of relativity theory occupying the bulk of his book, Reichenbach instead presents a reductionist account: the chief spatio-temporal relations realizing a model of physical geometry, e.g. spatial congruence, are now analyzed as constructs of counterfactual conditionals and other physical relations, e.g. coincidences of ideally rigid bodies. Not surprisingly, this has led Reichenbach's views to be conflated with those of the 'syntactic' tradition concerned with relating the 'theoretical terms' of a scientific language to its 'observation terms'.5 But it is his reductionism, rather than any peculiarly suspect doctrine in epistemology or the theory of meaning, that ultimately renders Reichenbach's space-time philosophy untenable. Contrary analyses, purporting to reveal the collapse of coordinative definition semantics, have in effect been based on one of the following two mutually opposed interpretative premises: (1)a.
b.
(2)
Reichenbach presents a verification theory of meaning. (By this and the synonym 'verificationism' I mean any conception that equates the meanings of sentences or larger bodies of scientific theory with their possession as truth-condition of particular propositions concerning possible experience). His coordinative definitions determine the meaning of individual theoretical sentences. Reichenbach presents a radically holistic theory of meaning. (By this I mean a conception that denies that a state of affairs may any more constitute the truth of one sentence in a scientific theory than that of any other).
Both assumptions, it will be argued, arise from misunderstandings of the form and function of coordinative definitions. Premise (2) may
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already strike the reader of PdRZL as bizarre: the book is in large part a plea for the formulation of coordinative definitions with view toward endowing each theoretical proposition with determinate physical content. Thus (lb) is correct. But to those familiar with Reichenbach's subsequent work, my denial of (la) may seem equally surprising. In his writings on general epistemology, notably in Experience and Prediction (1938), he endorses a probabilistic "verifiability theory" of the meaningfulness and meaning-identity of individual sentences. 6 Though this theory is more sophisticated than verificationism as defined above, both involve the identification of semantic notions with ones of empirical evidence. My claim is not that such an identification is expressly denied in PdRZL. The point is rather that Reichenbach is conspicuously (and in view of his subsequent position, salubriously) unconcerned with formulating a theory of meaning, as contrasted with the specification of what is meant by the propositions of space-time physics. Moreover, we will find that the conception of verification implicit in PdRZL and common to Reichenbach's earlier works is essentially holistic, whence by (lb) it is incompatible with a verificationist construal of coordinative definition.
2.
COORDINATIVE DEFINITION AND CONCEPTUAL DEFINITION
The examples by which Reichenbach introduces the notion of coordinative definition fail to impart a clear sense of how such a 'definition' will look. Contrasting coordinative definition with "conceptual definition" or the "determination of [conceptual] content" (Inhaltsbestimmung), he insists that a unit of length can ultimately only be established "by reference to [durch Hinweis auf] a physically given length such as the standard meter in Paris. ,,7 But how is this reference to be provided? Reichenbach is most explicit in a separate paper: "In the end this coordination can only be given ostensively [dutch Hinweis]; 'that thing there' is to correspond to such and such a concept". 8 Of course, such coordination by pointing is a mysterious task: how do we know that it is the Paris rod as an extended object, rather than as a colored object, that is hereby coordinated to the 'concept unit of length'? It appears that by this 'concept' Reichenbach means a predicate to be lent extension by specifying an operational property of those physical things to which it applies. In particular, when an object of length one meter is placed alongside the Paris rod, the two are locally congruent. Such a reading
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accords with Reichenbach's alternative coordinative definition of meter: "The unit is to be chosen in such a way that, placed end to end 40 million times, it yields the earth's circumference".9 It also explains his second coordinative definition, that of general spatial congruence, where the declared ostensive coordination to "something real" becomes even more obscure. Here, on my reading, it is stipulated that whenever a rigid rod locally congruent to one of a pair of congruent lengths is laid alongside the second length, it is locally congruent to the latter as well. Proceeding in this spirit, we might introduce 'is a meter long' and 'are congruent' as predicates in a formal scientific language by means of the following abbreviatory definitions: the sentence 'X is a meter long' stands for 'X would be locally congruent to the Paris rod', while the sentence 'X and Y are congruent' stands for 'If a rigid rod locally congruent (anywhere, anytime) to X were transported to Y, it would be locally congruent to Y'. Here local congruence is declared an 'observation term' in our language, accessible to immediate empirical determination. Now we are unlikely to be satisfied with the counterfactual conditional, and might resort to Carnap's solution of 'reduction sentences', or conditional definitions, as developed in 'Testability and Meaning'. 1 There is, however, no hint in PdRZL that any such program is being embarked on. Reichenbach does not attempt to construct an artificial language whose theoretical terms are formally connected through meaning postulates with a subset of directly verifiable 'observation terms'. Rather, his scheme stresses a sharp delineation between an abstract system of so-called "concepts" and the real world to which it is to be coordinated. Most importantly, his aim is not to give an account of the empirical verification of theoretical statements, but simply to specify in well understood terms the real-world correlates of the mathematical entities appearing in a theory. A geometric theory, for instance, may involve defining a certain class of structures possessing a relation R on their elements. Reichenbach may now interpret these elements as possible light-rays and assign to R the "real structure [reales Gefiige]'11 of spatial congruence, explained in terms of the hypothetical transport of rigid rods described above. Since this informal interpretation of R is not a reduction of the term 'congruent' to observation terms, the above problem of counterfactuals (that of formulating their empirical conditions of application) does not arise. The primary obstacle to an appreciation of Reichenbach's project lies
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in the fact that the early sections of PdRZL never clarify the nature of the realm of "concepts". As a result, one commentator argues that Reichenbach's concepts may only be understood as "mental entities", 12 another regards them as mere "words", ~3 while most critics altogether avoid distinguishing between the 'conceptual' and the 'physical'. 14 What has inexplicably been ignored is a central portion of the text (14-15) where Reichenbach explains that his concepts are intended as abstract entities, elements in a "system of relations [Beziehungsgefuge]" with "self-constituting [in sich bestehende], purely logical significance". 25 (In a footnote, he cites Carnap's dissertation Der Raum, where uninterpreted "formal space" is similarly pronounced a "Beziehungsgefiige". ~6) The content of this characterization becomes apparent once we examine Reichenbach's understanding of conceptual definition, elsewhere described as "mathematical definition": in each coordinative definition, "the mathematical definition is presupposed as a determination of the concept". 17 Reichenbach appeals to a notion of definition derived, via Moritz Schlick, from Hilbert's axiomatization of classical geometry the "implicit definition" of a primitive term as a specification of all axioms involving that term. 18 Illustrating such definition in PdRZL, he presents Hilbert's 'betweenness' axioms in logical notation. This fragment of a symbolic calculus serves merely to introduce the reader to abstract mathematics; Reichenbach is not concerned with the syntactic formulation of physical theory. Even in this example, he carefully distinguishes the symbolic calculus from the "relational structure" it "defines". It is the concepts constituting this relational structure (abstract points, lines, and the relations of colinearity and betweenness), rather than the terms whose "meanings" they represent, that we coordinate to the elements of a "physical system". 19 Thus the concepts of PdRZL are best taken (albeit anachronistically) to represent the types of objects specified in the definition of a class of mathematical structures, whose instantiations in each such structure satisfy the postulates specified in this definition. 2 Once this much is understood, the following passage from 15 reads as a summary of Gleason's "mathematical method of dealing with the real world":
T h e mastery of natural p h e n o m e n a follows through mathematical concepts - these concepts are defined through implicit definitions and are not d e p e n d e n t on a specific and unique kind of visualization [Veranschaulichung]. W h a t e v e r visualizable [anschauliche] things we wish to coordinate to t h e m is left to our choice; they m a y just as well be
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pressures or currents as rigid measuring rods. This process of coordination is just the process we earlier formulated as coordinative definition. 21
3.
UNIVOCALITY
AND
EMPIRICAL
ADEQUACY
Drawing on an idea from Schlick which had played a prominent role in his earlier writings, Reichenbach emphasizes that the coordination of concepts to things is not arbitrary: "Since the concepts are mutually interwoven in content [untereinander inhaltlich verflochten], this coordination may become true or false, as soon as we add the requirement of univocality [Eindeutigkeit]; the same concept should always denote the same object". 22 As an example of equivocality he cites the standard coordinative definition of congruence by the hypothetical transport of rigid rods, assuming a counterfactual world in which two rigid rods locally congruent at one time and location need not remain locally congruent upon transport. 23 Clearly, if the relation 'congruence' in a mathematical structure is coordinated with a physical relation that is not well-defined, the coordination is improper. Were we to conclude through observation that the above hypothesis is correct, we would hence reject the coordinative definition. But this is only a degenerate instance of the general situation that would lead us to revise our network of coordinative definitions and conceptual relations; the general situation obtains precisely when our theory proves empirically inadequate. How can the fact that "the concepts are mutually interwoven in content" bear on a theory's empirical adequacy? Our coordinative definitions translate these relations among mathematical entities into empirically ascertainable relations among physical things. As an example, suppose we coordinate an object al in the underlying mathematical space with a thing h, similarly aa with t2, and coordinate a mapping M from the space to itself with a physically realized one P, such that M(al) = a2 but P(h) turns out to be an object distinct from t2, say u. This would mean that a2 could be coordinated to ta or to u, depending on whether we employ the coordinative definition of a2 or the coordinative definitions of M and al together with the above equality, thus violating the 'univocality of coordination' (recognizable now as a condition of isomorphism). Assuming that the equality in question follows from our theory, the theory has been revealed faulty as interpreted by our coordinative definitions. For the special case of evaluation through real-valued functions, Reichenbach summarizes this conception in his
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1920 book Relativitiitstheorie und Erkenntnis apriori: "We always call a theory true when all chains of reasoning [and experience] lead to the same number for the same phenomenon. This is our only criterion of truth . . . . ,,24 Explicitly modeled after Schlick's slogan 'truth is univocality of coordination', the criterion is here formulated in terms of truth rather than empirical adequacy. A distinction between these two notions will prove essential in PdRZL, but Reichenbach retains a Schlickian conception of empirical adequacy. 25 Once a proposed theory has been found faulty, we may in rare instances be able to localize the problem in one equivocal coordinative definition. Usually, however, we will alter some of the relations among the concepts, maintaining their coordinative definitions, in order to reach univocality of the coordination as a whole. As most of our definitions will not be empirically applicable without the "interposition [Zwischenschahung] of conceptual connections" (this holds for measurement based on a definition of the meter as the 40-millionth part of the earth's circumference), we will generally enjoy considerable latitude, z6 Finally, we may always choose to revise a coordinative definition that has not been rendered equivocal by direct empirical observation (such would presumably have been the fate of the most natural pre-relativistic definition of distant simultaneity, through the transported clock). Citing Schlick, Reichenbach states that this ongoing process of the correction of models is what physics is all about: "the process of attaining physical knowledge [physikalischer Erkenntnisproze~8] ties precisely in establishing the univocality of this coordination". 27 Thus the account of the empirical confirmation of scientific theories implicit in Reichenbach's system of mathematical modeling already begins to resemble the holistic process of underdetermined readjustments to the "boundary conditions" of experience described by Quine. Unlike Quine, however, Reichenbach demands that we always be able to specify a set of coordinative definitions relative to which our mathematical propositions possess determinate physical content, content alterable only through revision of these coordinative definitions.
4.
COORDINATIVE DEFINITIONS ASSERTIONS AND ''OBJECTIVE '~
This notion of 'relatively possessed content' is best illustrated by responding to Putnam's claim that Reichenbach is confused about the objective significance of individual physical statements. 2s From Reich-
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enbach's most forceful and eloquent summary of his basic framework, Putnam extracts the following problematic sentences:
The objective character of the physical statement [Aussage] is thus shifted to a statement about relations. A statement about the boiling point of water is no longer regarded as an
absolute statement, but as a statement about the relation between the boiling water and the length of the column of mercury. There is a similar objective statement about the geometry of real space: it is a statement about the relation between the universe and rigid
rods. 29
Putnam rightly points out that this argument "will not do": if the length of the mercury column depends on our arbitrary coordinative definition of the unit of length, no relation of the boiling water to this length will achieve any greater 'objectivity'. It seems clear, though, that Reichenbach simply used the wrong words: he cannot possibly have intended the underlying "objective assertion" about the water's temperature to concern a relation between the water and a f u r t h e r n u m b e r ! Instead, he surely proceeded from the claim that 'a statement about the boiling point of water is a statement about the relation between the boiling water and a t h e r m o m e t e r ' , and then offered an incomplete description of the construction of the thermometer. The full expansion would instead have been: 'a statement about the relation between a column of mercury and a rod of glass, when they are placed in boiling water'. H e r e the 'length' of the mercury column in the original text is replaced by its local congruence with a standard rigid body. In a previous section, Reichenbach has explained that "the thermometer is based on the difference in the expansion coefficients of mercury and glass". 3 The proposed emended text would also fit perfectly with the passage's second example: a "relation between the universe and rigid rods" is also a relation among things. This example is a generalization of Reichenbach's previous claim that if we define the meter by the Paris standard rod and this rod is compressed by an earthquake, the concomitant expansion of our world is not an absolute change, the " f a c t u a l " statement being about "the change in the difference in size between the rod and the rest of the world . . . . ,31 In Reichenbach's example, the coordinative definition of the unit of temperature is supplied by a thermometer; he now explains that transforming a theoretical statement (e.g. a statement about the boiling point) into an "objective assertion" requires explicit reference to the physical correlates of all abstract entities invoked (e.g. to the mercury
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and glass of the thermometer). It is just this straightforward sense of 'combination' that Reichenbach has in mind when he asserts that "[p]roperties of reality are reached only through the combination of a statement of measurement with its underlying coordinative definition". 32 We find here the third moment of the schema sketched by Gleason, the translation of assertions about the mathematical model into objective assertions about things. Far from representing a "desperate attempt to straighten out [his] confusion concerning the 'objectivity' of our statements", the passage Putnam quotes illustrates a central aspect of Reichenbach's project.
5. D E S C R I P T I V E S I M P L I C I T Y AND R E I C H E N B A C H ' S ~CONVENTIONALISM'
Undoubtedly the best-known element of Reichenbach's space-time philosophy, though hardly its most original, is the supposedly 'conventionalist' thesis of the "relativity of geometry" (8 of PdRZL), according to which physical space may be represented by many different mathematical structures (of both Euclidean and non-Euclidean varieties).33 Each of these geometric theories will involve a different coordinative definition of the abstract metric, whence none is truer than any other, though the theories will differ with respect to their "descriptive simplicity". At first sight, this argument might appear to exemplify what Putnam has called the "conventionalist ploy", by insisting that the mathematical postulates for a metric "are essential in a way that the other properties - or the standards of coherence - are not". 34 Putnam rightly points out that a spatial metric "according to which my left little finger is bigger than my house" simply does not designate the "magnitude that we are referring to when we use the word 'distance' ", even should it turn out that a complete description of all particle trajectories may be based on such a metricY Far from engaging in the conventionalist ploy, Reichenbach employs the central element of Putnam's very "refutation of conventionalism" .36 Putnam's argument is that "internal coherence", consisting of "simplicity" of description and "agreement with intuition", contributes to the determination of reference, and therefore of truth (whence, somewhat confusingly, he refuses to speak of descriptive simplicity). While not explicitly concerned with German language reference, Reichenbach accords internal coherence much the same significance. Thus he asserts
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that our coordinative definition of the spatial metric is subject to restrictions from "two sources": those based on the "strict" coordination of the abstract concept, which is arbitrary, and others that arise "because we demand that the obtained metric sustain c e r t a i n . . . c o n clusions.., of the 'physics of everyday life'". 37 Were a coordinative definition of the spatial metric to entail that our floors and ceilings are no longer approximately planar, for example, we would reject that "scientific definition" as unreflective of the "habits [Gewohnheiten] of everyday life" .38 While these constraints deriving from our "habits" (Putnam's "intuition") are described as imposing only imprecise limits on the choice of metric, Reichenbach also supplies a stronger constraint based on "descriptive simplicity". In the first pages of his appendix to PdRZL, he reminds us that the coordinative definition of congruence in terms of rigid rods is predicated on a contingent fact, namely that the local congruence of rigid bodies is independent of their means of transport. For this reason, the resulting metric has the advantage that it "expresses a law of nature, namely the law of the transport of rigid bodies". Were we to choose an arbitrary nonstandard metric for space, he concludes, "the spatial metric would be definable, but through this choice no law of nature would be expressed; the metric would lose its physical significance [physikalische Bedeutung]". 39 He offers an example: using the standard metric definition, the length of a wall allows simple calculation of how many chairs of given width we can line up along the wall. And were the coordinative definition of congruence in terms of rigid rods not well-defined, we would find ourselves "rather indifferent" toward some arbitrarily chosen metric; we would instead search for a geometric scheme expressive of the laws characterizing the now mysterious behavior of walls and chairs. This argument, one Reichenbach deems "very important", reveals a significant deepening of his doctrine of mere "descriptive simplicity". Though the concept 'distance' is instantiated in various geometric models by functions that may be coordinated to any number of quantities, distance is really that physical quantity which among other things allows straightforward determination of how many chairs fit along a wall. Viewed in this manner, Reichenbach's much-maligned 'conventionalism' reduces to a forceful illustration of the fact that mathematical structures remain physically contentless pending specification of the real-world correlates of their abstract elements. This should not be
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surprising, if we note that Reichenbach's defense of the relativity of geometry is framed as part of his response to the neo-Kantian geometric apriorist. Here it is instructive to compare the anti-conventionalist Michael Friedman: "That the geometry ascribed to physical space dep e n d s . . , on our methods for measuring length (determining congruence relations) is clear and incontestable".4 This situation would hardly have been as clear or incontestable to Reichenbach's intended audience.
6. THE COORDINATIVE DEFINITION OF CONGRUENCE
Reichenbach's acknowledgement that there is a metric possessing "physical significance" is not simply an endorsement of Putnam's own account of the semantics of theories, according to which the function d(xl, x2) in the mathematical structure refers simply to a certain quantity distance, and the "coherence account" reveals just which physical quantity this is. For reasons to be examined in Section 12, Reichenbach demands a reductive characterization of the quantity distance itself, one he seeks to supply through his coordinative definition of spatial congruence in terms of the rigid rod. As it is this definition that is generally adduced to illustrate the fundamental flaws of coordinative definition semantics, it is striking that its actual presentation in PdRZL has been almost entirely ignored. Only a careful exegesis of the congruence definition will dispel both misconceptions about Reichenbach's semantic framework cited in my introduction. We have seen that Reichenbach rejects some logically possible coordinative definitions on the ground that they do not reflect physical law. Unfortunately, even his preferred coordinative definition of spatial congruence in terms of a rigid rod threatens not to satisfy this criterion. Clearly, it would not be acceptable to define congruence by pointing out an actual nearly-rigid rod nevertheless susceptible to deformation, as this would fail to yield a definition of the equality of distances. Referring to the simpler example of the definition of unit of length, Reichenbach concludes that we would no longer view the Paris standard meter as a meter, were it to be deformed by an earthquake. He now asks a question familiar from Schlick: "But is what we are doing still defining at all, if the definition may some day be called false? Doesn't the notion of coordinative definition lose all sense here? ''41 Rather than join Schlick in abandoning the notion (a move to be discussed below), Reichenbach attempts to rescue it by proposing a more complicated
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coordinative definition. In order for the definition of congruence by rigid rods to express physical law we must first define the ideal rigid body. A natural first attempt might be to define an ideal rigid body as one that follows Reichenbach's "law of the transport of rigid bodies": if at any time we find two or more such bodies locally congruent to each other, they will always remain locally congruent. Unfortunately, the relation of eternal local congruence possesses infinitely many equivalence classes. Given an arbitrary theory of physical geometry, this definition will be satisfied by any class of rods growing at a uniform rate relative to the actual 'rigid rods' of that geometry. Reichenbach employs instead a more restrictive physical law involving rigid bodies. This law is the limiting case of the empirical fact that solid bodies "change their shape and size only very little when subjected to outside f o r c e s " . 4z Why does he not simply state as a law that an ideally rigid body does not deform at all, regardless of the presence of forces? He explains that the satisfaction of this 'law' by a body would depend entirely on the metric we are using to describe the body's shape: we can always choose the metric so as to declare that our candidate for ideal rigid body undergoes deformation. Next, he distinguishes between two kinds of deformations: those suffered identically by bodies of all materials, and those that differ according to the material of the body. All deformations are to be understood as manifestations of "forces", and it is here that Reichenbach introduces his notorious distinction between universal forces, those responsible for deformations that affect all materials in the same way, and the remaining differential forces. Once we foreswear all invocation of universal forces, it becomes possible for a body to violate the above 'law' only when it suffers differential deformations, associated with differential forces. Accordingly, he defines ideal rigid bodies to be those not subjected to differential forces:
We define: rigid bodies are solid bodies, provided they are subjected to no differential forces [wenn sie keinen differentiellen Kr~tften unterliegen], or [bzw.] provided the effects o f differential forces are eliminated by corrective calculation; universal forces are here disregarded. 43
For the present, I ignore the second clause of the disjunction, concerning corrective calculation.
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Endless confusion has arisen over Reichenbach's vague characterization of a 'force' as "a something [ein Etwas] which we make responsible for a geometric c h a n g e " . 44 A t the root of the problem lies a hitherto unnoticed equivocation in Reichenbach's use of 'force', neatly separable into one usage in 3-6 and a second in 8. The division is one between two distinct arguments; the former motivating and specifying the congruence definition, and the latter expounding the thesis of the relativity of geometry. Almost all commentary on the congruence definition has proceeded from 'Theorem 0' in 8, where Reichenbach points out that we may accept any Riemannian spatial metric by positing the action of an appropriate "universal force" on all physical bodiesY In this context, 'universal force' is used to refer to a specific mathematical object, to be incorporated into the formalism of the physical theory based on our chosen metric (henceforth force1). 46 Reichenbach's analysis here matches an example from Camap's Der Raum, where spatial remetricization is accommodated by an alteration to Newton's second law formally equivalent to the positing of a n e w f o r c e . 47 Significantly, there is no mention of differential forces in 8. Were we to interpret these as forces1, we would always be able to posit two differential forces such that their resultant yields an arbitrary universal force (or zero). This would render the distinction between universal and differential forces utterly useless as a basis for the congruence definition.48 Fortunately, such a reading is irreconcilable with Reichenbach's insistence that the classification of a 'force' as differential be determined by the material-dependent nature of the deformations sufferable by transported measuring b o d i e s . 49 In the actual argumentation of 3-6, we find the name 'differential force' standing in for the totality of such sufferable deformations (henceforth differential force2). 5 It may be objected that this reading leaves little room for analogously defined universal 'forces', as these could no longer be associated with any region of space in which differential deformation occurs. Since however differential deformation is indeed ruled out in Reichenbach's introductory examples of 'universal forces', as in the rigid body definition itself, this need be no obstacle to a literal construal of 'universal force' as subsuming sufferable universal deformations. Still, a slight modification should prove more faithful to Reichenbach's intent. Following his actual definition of rigid body, Reichenbach
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offers an elaboration of the congruence definition in terms of the preservation of shape. Here, his point is that (*) change of shape is to be attributed exclusively to the presence of differential forces, whence the absence of differential forces is a sufficient condition for shape-preservation. But if 'forces' are taken as forces2, condition (*) fails to determine a unique spatial metric. However we choose to remetricize the vicinity of a heat source (Reichenbach's paradigmatic source of differential deformation), the deformation of rods in this region will remain material-dependent. It is perhaps for this reason that Reichenbach pronounces the vanishing of differential forces2, necessary for shape-preservation. 51 But we surely demand of any theory of physical geometry that it supply a notion of shape-preservation applicable in the presence of heat sources. As a natural solution, I propose that universal forces2+ be taken as subsuming all the deformations that would be sufferable by measuring bodies were there no differential forces2+ (=def differential forces2) present. On this reading, condition (*) does succeed in uniquely determining a metric, provided this condition is coherent. For once we assume that a given physical geometry satisfies the condition, any remetricization must clearly invoke a universal forcez+. The modified reading thus renders the coordinative definition of congruence equivalent to a stipulation that universal forces vanish. Though such equivalence is at best implicit in PdRZL, 52 Reichenbach's congruence definition has generally been taken to consist in the latter stipulation. A benefit of reading 'universal forces' as forcesz+ is that doing so may allow for this definition of congruence, unavailable on the strictly literal reading of them a s forces2. 53
8. IS T H E CONGRUENCE DEFINITION COHERENT?
Reichenbach's official formulation of the congruence definition remains in terms of ideal rigid rods, and regardless of the requirements for shape-preservation, the absence of sufferable differential deformation is a necessary condition for ideal rigidity. Since the presence or absence of such deformation in a given region is a matter of fact, satisfaction of the rigid body definition is indeed independent of physical theory. Admittedly, this definition entails seemingly paradoxical consequences: under suitable circumstances even a rubber band may approximate an ideal rigid body, and the mere releasing of a stretched rubber band
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alongside a steel rod suffices to deprive the latter of ideal rigidity by manifesting a 'differential force'. As viewed by Reichenbach, however, physical geometry does not articulate the relations among an ostensively given class of bodies which are 'rigid' in the usual sense; it describes the hypothetical coincident behavior of physical bodies made from different materials, 54 thus providing an idealized "zero point" for dynamical theoryY Here we encounter the real vulnerability of the congruence definition. The question of physical geometry has assumed the following peculiar form: how would solid bodies behave if all solid bodies behaved the same? What entitles us to suppose that there is a determinate answer to this question? Reichenbach appears to rely on a putative contingent fact: he insists that by means of "technical manipulation", it is always physically possible to eliminate differential forces to any desired degree of approximation. 56 While this possibility may render the above counteffactual more tractable, we would also like it to be physically impossible to cause all materials to approximate an alternative geometry. It could be retorted that the general theory of relativity introduces precisely such a possibility, to be realized by altering the distribution of mass in addition to eliminating differential forces. In fact, this is the very line taken by Reichenbach, who ignores the difficulty this situation might present for the interpretation of his counterfactual definition (he even suggests that were the coefficients of expansion for all materials equal, the presence of a warm body would alter the geometry of space). 57 Contrary to Reichenbach, however, gravitation itself is manifested through differential effects on solid bodies of different materials, 58 effects whose elimination is included in the antecedent of the counterfactuals involved in geometric assertions. Consequently, even if explicable by means of a ceteris paribus clause, Reichenbach's definition of congruence would be unavailable as an interpretation of the metric structure of general relativity theory. 59 Reichenbach confuses matters yet again when he allows the definition of congruence to be supplied through calculation of how an actual rod would behave if differential forces were not present. It is unclear how this clause of the definition can be accommodated within his semantic framework: corrective calculation clearly presupposes a theory of physics employing the quantity distance, whence it could not without circularity be drawn upon for the real-world interpretation of the spatial metric. Can Reichenbach, who boasts of having avoided the "circle"
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of defining the absence of forces through the preservation of shape, have overlooked so obvious an objection? Elsewhere, we find strong evidence that this clause represents no more than an unintentional conflation of two issues which Reichenbach allots separate roles. Supplying the rigid rod definition in his Axiomatik der relativistischen Raum-Zeit-Lehre (1924), he emphasizes that it utilizes "only qualitative [i.e. theory-independent] physical characteristics", and even takes this definition to "refute the view [one he had previously endorsed-L.S.] that it is impossible to define the rigid body without reference to a metric". 6 While the need for corrective calculation is fully acknowledged in the Axiomatik, such calculation does not figure in the definition of rigid body itself but rather in an account of measurement. 61 Similarly, we find no appeal to corrective calculation in the definition of the ideal natural clock in P d R Z L , otherwise parallel to the rigid rod definition.62 Here Reichenbach merely remarks that the astronomer uses such corrections to derive, based on observations, the flow of time that is implicitly determined by the current physical laws. This poses no objection to his semantics, as such corrective calculation is clearly essential to measurement.
9. EINSTEIN'S I N T E R P R E T A T I O N :
AS V E R I F I C A T I O N I S T REICHENBACH
One interpretative tradition has nonetheless endeavored to illustrate the incoherence of Reichenbach's entire framework based on the issue of corrective calculation. Commenting in 1949 on a paper in which Reichenbach presents his 1928 rigid body definition as an advance over the conventionalism of Henri Poincarr, Albert Einstein takes this issue as the starting point for a short dialogue between "Reichenbach" and a "Non-Positivist" initially identified as Poincar6. The consequences "Poincarr" first draws are familiar as 'Duhemian' holism:
[In providing the definition of 'rigid body' based on corrective calculation] you have made use of physical laws, the formulation of which presupposes.., geometry. The verification, of which you have spoken, refers, therefore, not merely to geometry but to the entire system of physical l a w s . . . An examination of geometry by itself is consequently not thinkable. 63
This conclusion need not by itself spell trouble for Reichenbach, although "Reichenbach" is predictably unaware of the reason. I have
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already suggested independently of the rigid body definition that his Schlickian account of empirical adequacy may entail Duhemian holism. But the "Non-Positivist" now forces the issue with a new line of attack, one that closely prefigures the central argument advanced two years later by Quine in 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism'64:
[H]ow then is it with your basic principle (meaning = verifiability)? Must you not come to the point where you deny the meaning of geometric statements and concede meaning only to the completely developed theory of relativity (which still does not exist at all as a finished product)? Must you not grant that no 'meaning' whatsoever, in your sense, belongs to the individual concepts and statements of a physical theory, such meaning belonging to the whole system insofar as it makes 'intelligible' what is given in experience? Why do the individual concepts that occur in a theory require any separate justification at all, if they are indispensable only within the framework of the logical structure of the theory, and if it is the theory as a whole that stands the test? [Einstein's use of English terms is indicated by italics]65
Einstein's argument involves a move between two varieties of holism, verification and radical meaning holism. 66 By verification holism I mean the thesis Quine derives from Duhem, that our theoretical propositions "face the tribunal o f . . . experience not individually but as a corporate body" and hence possess no determinate 'empirical content'. 67 By radical meaning holism, it will be recalled, I mean the more fully Quinean thesis that individual theoretical propositions possess no determinate content-about-the-world. Both Einstein and Quine argue directly from verification holism to radical meaning holism. However, Einstein's version better clarifies the necessary premise: the argument presupposes a verification theory of meaning, from which Einstein appears to distance himself. 6s The entire purpose of Reichenbach's semantic framework evidently lies in a denial of meaning holism (recall Section 4). Einstein and (recently) Don Howard point out that he is unable to reject verification holism. But this juxtaposition need not embarrass Reichenbach. Contrary to the readings of Einstein and Howard (and nearly all other commentators), Reichenbach does not defend a verification theory of meaning. 69 The difference emerges most vividly when Howard attributes to Reichenbach the following "cluster of doctrines central to the mature logical empiricist conception of the structure and interpretation of scientific theories":
(1) the distinction between analytic coordinating definitions and synthetic empirical propositions; (2) the assertion that the former are, alone, conventional; and (3) the claim that
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once the former are fixed by convention, each of the remaining empirical propositions is invested with its own, determinate, individual empirical content, such that the truth or falsity o f each empirical proposition is determined unambiguously by experience corresponding to that empirical content. 7
It is the clause I have italicized, central to the critique of Einstein and Howard, that is conspicuously lacking in PdRZL. The process of reaching a univocally coordinated model by progressive correction will be far more complicated than Howard's reading allows. In empirically evaluating a theoretical claim based on certain coordinative definitions, we will generally need to draw on further theoretical relations, including those involved in corrective calculation. This will allow empirical recalcitrance to be shunted along several different 'chains of reasoning and experience'. Of course, the establishment of any such chain ultimately requires that some coordinative definition be consulted directly. But Reichenbach's informal conception of coordinative definition preserves even here the underdetermination of the verification process; we may for instance reject a troublesome measurement on any reasonable plea that our measuring rod is subject to differential deformation. Reichenbach's central contentions are that (a) every statement of physical geometry has a determinate physical content, and that (b) our geometric theory is determined by the facts once all coordinative definitions are given. These will not imply the rigidly positivistic view of verification Howard finds in PdRZL, the view that we determine the truth-value of theoretical claims by simply inspecting whether or not their associated 'empirical content' obtains. 71
10. THE CARNAP-PUTNAM AS R A D I C A L INTERPRETATION: MEANING HOLIST REICHENBACH
We have seen that "Reichenbach" has grounds for rejecting the claim of the "Non-Positivist" that his congruence definition entails radical meaning holism. Responding specifically to Einstein's dialogue in his 1951 The Rise of Scientific Philosophy, Reichenbach himself plays out his part quite differently. 72 Perhaps under the influence of the verifiability theory of meaningfulness he had come to hold, he appears to bite the bullet and accept radical meaning holism. The only notion of meaning now in evidence is one which determines whether "empirical observations are compatible" with a description, and Reichenbach admits that such compatibility can belong only to theories of geometry
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and physics. Nonetheless, he attempts to rescue his "coordinative definition of congruence" by reinterpreting it as implicit in the conventional selection of a "normal system" from among the class of "equivalent descriptions" equally compatible with observations: he chooses the supposedly unique theoretical description that includes no universal forces (here forces1). If this reading of the brief discussion is accurate, Reichenbach's 1951 treatment of geometry represents a stunning abandonment of the entire semantic framework I have been describing. 73 It is however just this reading that has shaped both Carnap's and Putnam's analysis of PdRZL, TM though Putnam tellingly replaces 'equal compatibility with observation' by 'agreement on all possible particle trajectories and prediction of all actual o n e s ' . 75 On their view, Reichenbach is interested not in the direct physical interpretation of a metric function, but rather in the implicit fixing of its interpretation through a conventional restriction on the form of our empirically (in Putnam's case, trajectory-predictively) adequate theory of geometry and physics. Analyses of this sort were indeed common at the time Reichenbach was writing, though the standard restriction is one of maximal simplicity for physical law (such views were proposed by both Schlick76 and CarnapV7). Reichenbach moreover aligns himself with this position in a 1922 synopsis of the philosophical debate about relativity theory, denying here that a theory-independent definition of 'rigid body' is possible. TM But it is precisely these holistic analyses that he seeks to repudiate in PdRZL. They are patently incompatible with his insistence that theoretical relations are rendered objective physical facts through the explicit replacement of abstract entities by their physical interpretations as specified by coordinative definitions (recall Section 4) .79 Admitting no such role for coordinative definitions, the CarnapPutnam reading no longer allows for construction of the chains of reasoning and experience whose universal agreement had constituted the criterion for empirical adequacy, whence it is not immediately evident in what the desired 'compatibility' relation between description and reality is to consist (we find no intimation of Carnap's later analytic "L-rules" for deriving "protocol sentences" or of Quine's unabashedly "psychological" accountS). Here Putnam's nonverificationist sanitization fares worst of all: while he may appeal to derivation of particle trajectories "described in terms of [the theory's] metric", this clearly leaves the task of physically interpreting geometrical descriptions of
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trajectories. Besides imputing intolerable insincerity to Reichenbach's attempt at defining the ideal rigid body, the general Carnap-Putnam reading lays all weight on his apparent claim that there is a unique universal-force-free description of the universe. It is the "unfortunate" falsity of this claim on Putnam's reading of 'universal force' (force1) that he adduces in order to lay Reichenbach's congruence definition to rest. Once again, this claim is central to the discussion in The Rise of Scientific Philosophy but is nowhere emphasized in PdRZL. 81
11.
THE 'POSITIVIST INFERENCE' AND THE ARGUMENT ATTEMPTS FROM
FRUSTRATED
MEASUREMENT
Let us now return to my characterization of Reichenbach as a verification holist, a claim that may appear unconvincing as I have yet to produce an explicit endorsement in PdRZL. Certainly, it would be misleading to regard his embrace of the relativity of geometry as a manifestation of "Duhemian holism";82 this thesis is an ingredient even of Howard's interpretation of PdRZL, on which a complete set of coordinative definitions suffices to invest each proposition of physics with determinate observational truth-conditions. The verification holism I have been ascribing to Reichenbach is far stronger; it leaves open the possibility that we might make conflicting revisions to physical theory in the face of empirical recalcitrance such that each would be compatible with all possible observations, but none would involve any change in the meanings of terms, whence at most one would be correct. Here my reading runs directly counter to an overwhelming tradition according to which PdRZL endorses a "radical verifiability theory of meaning" (Clark Glymour), manifested in the standard "positivist inference from empirical equivalence to full equivalence" (Friedman). s3 We have already found a non-verificationist reading the only charitable one of Reichenbach's coordinative definition of congruence in light of his acknowledgment that corrective calculation is essentially involved in measurement. But the alleged 'positivist inference' is independent of Reichenbach's account of the real-world interpretation of mathematical models - it is compatible with both Howard's atomistic and Carnap's holistic readings, s4 Most commonly, the inference has simply been equated with Reichenbach's so-called conventionalism, as manifested in the thesis of the relativity of geometry. Contrary to received opinion, though, this 'conventionalism' is based not on any version of Leibniz's
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principle but on Reichenbach's semantics alone. Toward the end of PdRZL, he pauses to "rigorously formulate" the "epistemological" component of an analogous 'conventionalist' thesis, the "relativity of motion":
T h e traditional exposition has only obscured this subject matter. W h e n it is said that only relative motion is recognizable [erkennbar] and hence only it m a y be admitted as an objective determination, this assertion, based on the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, m a y be disputed, because it assumes a metaphysical character: if we cannot recognize [erkennen] a difference, is then no difference present in the objective p h e n o m e n a ? But this exposition overlooks the fact that we are dealing with a purely logical matter. T h e question 'Which reference frame is moving?' is not even a defined question, and therefore no answer is possible . . . . [T]he two conceptions between which we are supposed to decide cannot themselves even be meaningfully formulated, and therefore an answer selecting one of the two cannot possess any sense e i t h e r Y
In order for our theoretical claims to acquire any significance beyond their purely mathematical content, their elements must first be precisely interpreted through coordinative definitions, in this instance through the "coordinative definition of rest". It may be objected that Reichenbach's best-known argument for the necessity of coordinative definition is based on concerns of empirical verification. Introducing his metrical coordinative definitions, he argues that without such definitions all measurement would be "impossible in principle". In particular, he proceeds by the notorious argument from frustrated measurement attempts, painstakingly demonstrating each proposed method of determining a 'true' congruence or simultaneity relation to be defeasible by assumptions about universal forces or the behavior of signals such as light. Even without the 'positivist inference', this argument clearly succeeds in establishing that some specification of reference is needed in order to ensure that a transported rigid rod, rather than a transported rubber band, will count as congruent. In the absence of a sentence-by-sentence verificationism (stronger than the 'positivist inference'), it does not however mandate that this specification appeal directly to the behavior of rigid rods. Still, it is not difficult to account for the argument from frustrated measurement attempts. Once again, we must keep in mind that Reichenbach is addressing a philosophical public largely unfamiliar with the duality of mathematical and physical geometry. Temporarily begging the question of how the physical interpretation of the metric is to be specified, the frustration argument graphically illustrates the depen-
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dence of the geometry of physical space on such a specification. 86 A second function of the argument emerges during its lengthiest elaboration, the passage introducing the coordinative definition of simultaneity. 87 Throughout PdRZL, Reichenbach claims as the "philosophical achievement of the theory of relativity" the realization that coordinative definitions are required in more places than might initially seem evident. 88 The argument from frustration is Reichenbach's tool for demonstrating that the concept of simultaneity is left undefined by those spatial and temporal coordinative definitions already in place. 12.
REICHENBACH'S SPATIO-TEMPORAL REDUCTIONISM
I have argued that the need for coordinative definitions rests solely on the "logical impossibility" of making assertions about the world in terms of a mathematical structure before the elements of that structure receive physical interpretation. 'But', the reader will be left wondering, 'what is to prevent us from simply interpreting the metric function as standing for the physical quantity distance? Is this not because we have no theory-independent means of determining distances until we identify distance with the quantity yielded by a certain ostensively demonstrable measuring procedure?' We indeed possess no such means, but this cannot be why Reichenbach disallows a mere appeal to distance as the real-world member of the coordinative definition of the metric. In the closing section of PdRZL, he argues that spatio-temporal coincidences are among the elementary real-world members employed in his geometric coordinative definitions. Nonetheless, he insists that the determination of "which physical things are coincidences is not given through any kind of self-evidence in an unimpeachable manner; about this as well only the entire theoretical context [Zusammenhang] may decide", s9 This expression of Reichenbach's thoroughgoing verification holism contrasts sharply with Carnap's view in Der Raum, where spatio-temporal coincidences are pronounced a "Tatbestand" of experience (whose topological relations represent Kant's "necessary" formal conditions for the possibility of experience, while the metrical relations are a matter of arbitrarily "elective form"). 9 For Reichenbach, the trouble with a direct appeal to distance is that we have no understanding of what it is for two lengths to be congruentat-a-distance other than for them to be potentially locally congruent to
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an ideal rigid rod transported between them. By contrast, he does credit us with clear and distinct understanding of what it is for there to be a spatio-temporal coincidence, and (often) of what it is for it to be the case that one state of affairs would obtain provided another obtained. Is this simply metaphysical prejudice? Given how suspect this collection of theses may appear once explicitly formulated, it is remarkable how much credibility Reichenbach succeeds in affording it. Much, no doubt, arises from his elaborate "psychological" account of our grasp of what it is for two lengths to be congruent, involving an implicit coordination of the relations of parallelism and right angle to rigidly behaving physical structures. 91 Kant's "pure intuition" [reine Anschauung] of space and time is thus unmasked as the "visualizing" [Veranschaulichung] of mathematical relations using imagined physical structures. Leaving aside this account of our grasp of certain notions, Reichenbach's spatio-temporal reductionism provides a ready means of explicating the phenomenon of seemingly incompatible but equivalent descriptions encountered in the special theory of relativity. 92 Consider, for example, Einstein's relativization of the relation of simultaneity to inertial reference frames. Conflicting attributions of simultaneity are reconciled, so Reichenbach, once we recognize that they are merely different theoretical expressions of the same physical claims about the counterfactual behavior of light-signals and ideal c l o c k s . 93 We may be surprised at the distance traversed in PdRZL from Reichenbach's initial characterization of coordinative definitions as ostensive coordinations, as contrasted with discursive Inhaltsbestimmungen. While a firm distinction between conceptual and coordinative definition remains, the former has evolved from the 'determination of conceptual content' to the characterization of a class of mathematical models, the latter from a simple pointing gesture to the (now discursive) interpretation of an element of such a model as a specific physical quantity or relation. Ironically, Reichenbach here falls victim to his consummately pedagogical approach, his pervasive strategy of gradually developing and differentiating concepts first introduced in deliberately simplified guise. 94 The original ostensive/discursive distinction serves merely to dramatize the distinction between a mathematical model and its physical interpretation. Reichenbach's primary philosophical goals in PdRZL are threefold: (1) to distinguish between mathematical and physical geometry and to
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argue that this distinction vitiates neo-Kantian geometric apriorism, (2) to promote a specific reductionist account of certain spatio-temporal notions and of our (typically obscure and confused) grasp of them, and (3) to rely on this account in interpreting aspects of Einstein's theory of relativity. What we do not find in PdRZL, however, is any attempt to elucidate the nature of reference, that is (pace Putnam) "to explain how terms can refer to somethirtg at all". 95
NOTES * My greatest debt is to Prof. Hilary Putnam, without whose inspiration and encouragement this paper would not have been written. Thanks are also due to Prof. Michael Friedman for detailed and helpful comments on an earlier version, and to two anonymous referees. This paper is based in part on research conducted while supported under a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. 1 See Friedman (1991) for an extensive list of relevant authors. e See Suppe (1989), van Fraassen (1989, pp. 217-32). 3 Gleason (1988). Following Gleason's example, this paper uses the word 'model' in both the colloquial and the model-theoretic senses: mathematical structures supply models for physical reality as well as for a theory. 4 A n independent question is that posed by Bas van Fraassen: should we require of a theory that it be true, i.e. that one of its models be physically realized in its entirety, or should we merely require that a certain "empirical sub-structure" of the model be realized by a structure of observable phenomena? Interestingly, van Fraassen views PdRZL as a precursor to his empiricist version of the semantic view: the relationship between empirical substructure and phenomena "corresponds exactly to the one Reichenbach attempted to identify through his concept of coordinative definitions, once we abstract from the linguistic element" (van Fraassen, 1989, pp. 227-8). I will deny both the existence of a 'linguistic element' in PdRZL and the correspondence that van Fraassen here identifies. 5 See Hempel (1965b, p. 184n), Horwich (1982, p. 72). This feature is not definitional of a 'syntactic view', as that designation allows for two separate senses of 'syntactic': (i) a theory is to be presented as an axiomatizable formal language, (ii) the correlations of 'theoretical terms' with 'observation terms' are themselves to be (analytic) sentences in this language. It is sense (ii) from which I am most concerned to dissociate PdRZL, though (i) is equally a misattribution. 6 Reichenbach (1938, p. 55). 7 Reichenbach (1928/1958, pp. 31-2/14-5). The page numbers to be given for Reichenbach's German works are those of the original editions, which also appear in the Gesammelte Werke volumes. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine. 8 Reichenbach (1978b, p. 161 [Schneewind translation]). Reichenbach informs us that this article for the Handbuch der Physik was written in 1923 and lay unpublished for six years (Reichenbach, 1951a, p. 46). The brief section on coordinative definition is however nearly identical to 4 of PdRZL, where the cited claim appears only slightly less forcefully
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(Reichenbach, 1928/1958, p. 23/14). Concerning the account of 'concepts' in this article, which diverges substantially from that of PdRZL, see note 12 below. 9 Reichenbach (1928/1958, pp. 46/34, 24/15). In the present context, it is immaterial that Reichenbach also contrasts this definition with the direct definition through the Paris rod, identifying the former as an example of the "interposition of conceptual connections" admissible in the specification of coordinative definitions. After all, the concept interposed (the concept '40 million times as long') is itself physically interpreted through the "operation 'lay end to end 40 million times'" (1928/1958, p. 152/128). a0 Carnap (1936-37, pp. 441-54). 11 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 25/16). In the 1923-29 paper, he admits the "reality" not only of "substantial (elemental) objects" but also of "relations" thereof, since "it must be possible to coordinate some object with every concept" (Reichenbach, 1978b, pp. 149-50 [Schneewind trans.]). 12 Andreas Kamlah (1979, pp. 254-8). This reading is surprising, as Kamlah acknowledges that the source for Reichenbach's 'concepts' is Moritz Schlick, who in introducing "Begriffe" emphasizes that they are not mental (Schlick, 1925/1974, 5, pp. 19-20/201). The only initially credible support adduced from Reichenbach's own writings is his remark in the 1923-29 paper that concepts are "configurations of perceptions", a class of "special" mental things that are coordinated as symbols to the totality of things (Reichenbach, 1978b, p. 148). Ironically, Kamlah never mentions that this equation, with which he aims to disqualify any "language oriented" reading, itself arises as part of an explicit recipe for transcribing thing-talk into perceptual-experience-talk (Reichenbach, 1978b, p. 140). No trace of this program remains in PdRZL. Moreover, Kamlah's own conclusion is absurd: correctly refusing to saddle Reichenbach with Adolf Grtinbaum's thesis of the "intrinsic metrical amorphousness of space-time", he instead identifies as Reichenbach's "new message" (Kamlah, 1979, p. 259) a thesis of the intrinsic contentlessness of thoughts! My reason for belaboring Kamlah's views is that they point to one element of Reichenbach's argument indeed neglected by some "language oriented" readings. Although Reichenbaeh's 'concepts' are not mental entities, conceptual relations are the contents of our purely mathematical thoughts, and these thoughts are devoid of content about the physical world (1928/1958, p. 118/97). The contrary position, exemplified by Kantian geometric apriorism, is one Reichenbach is concerned to refute throughout much of PdRZL. But the only "though oriented" component of his response, his denial that we enjoy any "pure intuition" that can apply to Euclidean geometry alone (13), is a selfcontained argument, logically independent (as Reichenbach insists) ol the preceding account of the semantics of theories of physical geometry (1928/1958, p. 44/32). 13 Putnam (1975c, pp. 171-6; 1975b, pp. 120-4). 14 See especially Glymour (1980, pp. 53-58) and Friedman (1983, pp. 296-301). 15 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 129/107). 16 Carnap (1922, pp. 7-8). 17 Reichenbach (1924/1969, p. 5/8). 1~ Reichenbach (1928/1958, pp. 113-4/93). 19 Reichenbach remarks that the axiomatic calculus defining a Beziehungsgefage is itself only a coordination of that abstract system of relations to a visualizable system of symbols ("Zeichen"): Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 129/107).
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20 Assimilation of PdRZL to the 'semantic view' is not threatened by Reichenbach's inclusion of the logical connectives in his list of the "concepts" from which all geometric concepts are to be defined (Reichenbach, 1928/1958, p. 114/93). The logical connectives, while not concepts associated with the class of geometric structures their symbols help define, are themselves concepts, namely the meanings of the connective symbols. Unlike all other symbols, which acquire meanings through implicit definition (i.e. the definition of a class of structures), "the logical symbols have an independent meaning". 21 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 124/103). This passage occurs in the context of Reichenbach's reduction of spatial visualization (Kant's "reine Anschauung") to imagined physical coordination of "purely logical" concepts. 22 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 23/14). See Schlick (1925/1974, 10) for the criterion of "eindeutige Zuordnung". Only briefly summarized in PdRZL, the Schlickian conception is elaborated in far greater detail, though with significant differences, in chapter IV ('Erkenntnis als Zuordnung') of Reichenbach (1920), and in the 1923-29 paper (Reichenbach, 1978b, 8). 23 Reichenbach (1928/1958, pp. 25-6/16-7). 24 Reichenbach (1920/1965, p. 41143 [the full phrase "Oberlegungs- und Erfahrungskette" appears three sentences earlier]). The restriction to real-valued functions is of metaphysical significance in the Kant-influenced Relativitdtstheorie und Erkennmis apriori, where Reichenbach holds that elements of reality are in some sense first "defined" or constituted through our coordination. Therefore, contrary to Schlick's emphatic requirement (Schlick, 1925/1974, p. 63/68), we are never in a prior position to judge the identity of two such elements (Reichenbach, 1920/1965, p. 43/45). Instead, so Reichenbach, all we can establish is "whether two numbers derived from two different measurements are equal". In PdRZL, however, Reichenbach explicitly coordinates mathematical entities to determinate physical things conceived of as available prior to the coordination. 25 Reichenbach intends his 1920 "criterion" to be constitutive of truth (Reichenbach, 1920/1965, p. 43/45). The same claim figures in the 1923-29 paper (although Reichenbach now emphasizes that such truth is only approximately attainable in scientific inquiry). He draws the appropriate holistic consequence: "Once we note that every item of scientific knowledge depends on every other, that all scientific propositions are interconnected, we can say that truth, according to this conception, is a characteristic of the system; truth pertains only to the system as a whole, and only from this standpoint can truth be transferred to individual assertions" (Reichenbach, 1978b, p. 156 [Schneewind trans.]). In PdRZL, by contrast, the anti-holistic role of coordinative definitions in specifying reference implies that the Schlickian holistic conception can only be serving as a characterization of empirical adequacy. 26 Reichenbach (1928/1958, pp. 152/128, 24/15). Similarly Reichenbach (1978b, p. 161). 27 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 23/14). 28 Putnam (1975b, p. 122). 29 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 50/37 [M. Reichenbach translation]). 30 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 35/24); see similarly (1928/1958, p. 21/13) and (1928/1958, p. 128/106). 31 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 30/21 [original italicsl). 32 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 47/35 [original italics]). 33 Reichenbach credits Hermann von Helmholtz and Henri Poincar6 with the elaboration
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of this thesis, one that had been embraced by Schlick, Einstein, and Carnap alike. Poincar6's conventionalism (according to which certain elements of a theory must be regarded as arbitrary conventions) is however criticized for neglecting the semantic role of the coordinative definition of congruence in determining the geometry of space (Reichenbach, 1928/1958, p. 48-9/36-7). This is the most substantive of Reichenbach's repeated attempts to distance himself from Poincar6: in works both pre- and postdating coordinative definition semantics, Poincar6 is rather unfairly accused of a failure to emphasize the fact that the classes of cotenable conventions are delimited by objective reality. See Reichenbach's 1920 correspondence with Schlick (reprinted in Howard, forthcoming; item HR 015-63-21 in the Archive of Scientific Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh), and the identical complaint in Reichenbach (1951, pp. 152-7). 34 I employ the designation 'conventionalism' in the sense used by Putnam in his 'Refutation of Conventionalism' (1975c), a sense that does not presuppose a syntactic conception of physical theory. 'Conventionalism' is also the name of a separate view according to which particular sentences in a scientific theory are assigned the status of conventions. As we have seen, the latter is also a view commonly attributed to Reichenbach in PdRZL. 3s Putnam (1975c, pp. 165-8); the argument derives from his earlier paper (Putnam, 1975b, pp. 110-1). 36 Although he is criticizing views of "Reichenbachl, alias Adolf Griinbaum" that are "widely attributed to Reichenbach", Putnam's explanation of how Reichenbach himself eludes criticism is unconvincing, as it rests on a reinterpretation criticized in Section i0 below. 37 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 30/20) 38 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 30-1/21). Putnam misses the significance of this discussion: "There occurs on p. 21 the astounding assertion that the statements that the floors and ceilings of our rooms are planes, [etc.] . . . are not synthetic statements but definitions, and 'have nothing to do with cognition as one might at first believe'. This is clearly just a mistake" (Putnam, 1975b, p. 122). While his rhetoric is certainly unfortunate, Reichenbach is really saying that we choose our coordinative definitions based on the "constraint" that our floors turn out to be approximately planar. Only once the coordinative definitions are chosen can we then speak of scientific cognition. 39 Reichenbach (1928, p. 332 [my italics]). The appendix is missing from the English translation. In his commentary on PdRZL, Kamlah notes that this passage represents an important qualification of Reichenbach's conventionalism (Kamlah, 1977, p. 430). 4o Friedman (1983, pp. 295-6). 41 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 30/20). See Schiick's discussion of a definition of the unit of time according to the pulse of the Dalai Lama (Schlick, 1925/1974, pp. 66-7/71-2). It might appear that the fact that Reichenbach is troubled by this state of affairs contradicts my previous assertion that Reichenbach's understanding of scientific method includes revising coordinative definitions in accordance with experimental results (Section 3). But, as Putnam has pointed out, there is a great difference between 1) declaring an arbitrary coordinative definition, although the theory containing it may be revised due to unfavorable experimental results, and the definition abandoned, and 2) declaring an arbitrary coordinative definition with the understanding that certain physical events envisioned within the theory will cause us to alter the definition. See Putnam (1975a, p. 59-61). 42 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 29/19).
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43 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 32/22). 44 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 38/27). 45 The emphasis on 8 in the literature derives from its direct continuity with the conventionalist tradition since Poincar6, and from the fact that Reichenbach appears to abandon the congruence definition in 1951, effectively restricting his philosophy of geometry to the claims of 8 of PdRZL. See Section 10 below. 46 In his footnote elaboration of Theorem ~ (1928/1958, p. 44n/33n), Reichenbach identifies this "universal force" as the difference between the new and the old metric tensors. Seeking to render his target of criticism at least formally respectable, Clark Glymour offers a detailed interpretation of 'universal forces' as supplements to the old equation of motion ensuring that free particles follow the geodesics of the new geometry (Glymour, 1973, pp. 195-7; 1980, pp. 365-7; also Friedman, 1983, p. 298). Putnam likewise takes the universal forces of PdRZL to be elements of physical theory (Putnam, 1975b and 1975c passim). 47 Carnap (1922, p. 53). Carnap's example is cited in Reichenbach (1924/1969, p. 67n/87n). 48 This is the essence of Putnam's criticism of the congruence definition: just choose one "logically possible" differential force1, and its complement will also be differential (Putnam, 1975b, pp. 124-9; 1975c, pp. 186-91). Putnam's "theorem" codifying this possibility is slightly less trivial in that the differential forces1 yielding the resultant universal force~ (or zero) are all attributed to known physical sources (let us call such elements forces1+). But the theorem in this form is no longer threatening to PdRZL, once Reichenbach's congruence definition is recognized as stipulating the counterfactual absence of 'differential forces' (recall that the whole point of forces,+ is to preclude us from positing at will differential forces with resultant zero). It is only when Putnam takes the congruence definition to stipulate the absence of 'universal forces' in the theory of physics based on our metric that his theorem must be addressed (and this formulation never occurs in PdRZL). Nonetheless, Putnam's construal of 'forces' as forces1+ runs counter to the very principle of the congruence definition. On all readings, this principle involves the coopting of any 'universal force' into the metric, irrespective of whether or not the universal force is associated with a real source. As will be discussed in Section 8, Reichenbach holds (erroneously) that gravity is a universal force, associated with massive bodies, and he even suggests that the presence of a warm body would alter the geometry of space were the coefficients of expansion for all materials equal. Why then would Reichenbach suddenly desist from his requirement that a universal deformation be 'geometrized away' once Putnam has trivially decomposed it into a set of differential forces,+ arbitrarily assigned to known physical sources? Let us imagine Reichenbach's example insignificantly altered: a world into which not one but two universally-deforming 'warm' bodies are introduced. In this case, Putnam's position implies, the metric is left undetermined by Reichenbach's definition, as we may attribute mutually compensating differential coefficients of expansion to the two bodies! This, I submit, is not a demonstration of the collapse of Reichenbach's congruence definition but rather a reductio of Putnam's reading of 'forces'. As we will see, a more adequate reading is not difficult to motivate. 49 See especially Reichenbach (192811958, p. 38127-8). 50 Eventually, any force2 must be accounted for in physical theory by appropriate forces1
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(though we have seen that a differential force2 may be accounted for by a combination of differential and universal forces1). In his exposition of the congruence definition, however, Reichenbach's interests do not lie in developing a dynamical theory for use with each arbitrary metric. In a discussion of PdRZL, Carnap aptly remarks that "it is preferable here to speak o f . . . 'effects'" and to introduce "forces" (i.e. forces1) later "to explain the effects" (Carnap, 1966, p. 169-70). Unfortunately, he then takes Reichenbach's congruence definition to demand the reformulation of any empirically adequate physical theory so that it contains no universal forces1. 51 Commenting on the congruence definition, Reichenbach writes that "we d e f i n e . . . persistence with constant shape [formgetreue Erhaltung] through the absence of external [differential] forces" (Reichenbach, 1928/1958, p. 33/22). 52 Although Reichenbach frequently asserts that his rigid body definition has "set the universal forces equal to zero" (Reichenbach, 1928/1958, pp. 32/22, 34/23, 38/27, 39/28, 45/33), this claim need not be equated with its converse, i.e. that the definition is given by the elimination of universal forces. Rather, "this [elimination] is just what our definition of rigid body accomplishes" (1928/1958, p. 39/28 [my italics]). In the third of the passages listed, Reichenbach remarks that all universal forces must be set equal to zero if the geometry of space is to receive "unique determination [eindeutige Bestimmtheit]". In particular, while "necessary", it is not "sufficient" to eliminate only the coincidence-preserving subset of universal forces. Strictly, there is an implication that the elimination of all universal forces is sufficient, but here the agency of the coordinative definition could safely be assumed. In a passage from 8, Reichenbach refers to the "coordinative deftnition K = 0", where K is the "universal force-field" (1928/1958, p. 46/34). But this occurs in the context of his 'Theorem ~', which allows us to posit any Riemannian geometry deviating from that "which the measuring bodies follow" by assuming the action of an specified universal force1 K on these measuring bodies. Hence, given Reichenbach's prior definition of rigid body, each Riemannian geometry is indeed indexed by "its" K. 53 The most influential criticism of Reichenbach's use of 'universal forces', that of Adolf Grtinbaum, proceeds from grounds entirely separate from Putnam's (Grtinbaum, 1968, pp. 39ff). Griinbaum first points out that the existence of universal forces is completely determined by our coordinative definition of congruence (note that this can be true only of universal forces2/2+). Consequently, he argues, all talk of 'universal forces' is "entirely dispensable" and should simply be supplanted by talk of the various possible congruence definitions. A perfectly analogous argument would enjoin me, when asked for the height of the Eiffel tower, to respond by pointing to the Paris standard meter! Grtinbaum does appear to be making the following valid point: if we require that all deformation of physical bodies be accounted for in terms of the causal influence of 'forces' associated with "absolute or 'real'" sources (such as massive or charged objects), an arbitrary remetricization of space will clearly not bring into existence any such universal forces1+. Ironically, the existence, assumed by GriJnbaum, in our remetricized physical theory of forces1 (certain force-like elements of the equations of motion) that are not forces,+ would merely provide reason for Reichenbach (unlike Griinbaum!) to deny the "physical significance" of nonstandard metrics (recall Section 5 above). 54 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 294/256). Reichenbach identifies the geometric component of physical theory as that component responsible for the "einheitliche Einstellung" of bodies of different materials.
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55 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 39/28). 56 Reichenbach requires that differential forces can be made to vanish relative to the internal forces holding together our nearly rigid bodies, but this rests on an equivocation, as 'internal forces' are presumably theory-dependent forces1. More promisingly, if less practically, Reichenbach also asserts that all "physical forces in the sense of our definition can be kept away by means of suitable shielding devices" (1928/1958, pp. 33-4/23). Note, however, that this hypothesis fails to follow from his definition of 'differential [physical] force' (1928/1958, p. 21/13). 57 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 37/26). 58 Putnam (1975b, p. 125); contrast Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 294/256). Without explanation or justification, Reichenbach here shifts his attention from the coincident behavior of macroscopic "rods" to that of "mass points" of different materials (the very notion is certainly mysterious). 59 Worse yet, in spaces of variable curvature even the physicist's rigid body need no longer be approximately realizable (Putnam, 1975c, p. 189; Prof. Friedman has reminded me of the issue in correspondence). But this is not a fact that escapes Reichenbach's attention; he devotes 42 to exploring its consequences. For "general gravitational fields" he altogether abandons his approach to physical geometry in which the metric is interpreted in terms of rigid rods. He first explains that the physicist proceeds by implicitly defining a geometry based on physical law and a requirement of continuity with the rigidbody geometry in the infinitesimal domain. But on this approach, where the geometric elements are realized only "indirectly", "the concepts of space and time really possess significance only in the infinitesimal domain" (1928/1958, p. 304/265-6). Reichenbach instead sketches his "causal theory of space and time", a new directly realized theory of topological reality, which however promises to be of little use to the astronomer. This short passage helps clarify Reichenbach's aims: the theoretical model painstakingly constructed for the case of approximately constant curvature is just that, a model that must be replaced whenever we wish to question the approximations it presupposes. Reichenbach's interpreted models are not intended as components of ultimate physical theory, but rather as elucidations of that (approximate) physical structure we care to elucidate at the moment. 60 Reichenbach (1924/1969, p. 68n/88n). This is a claim he was later to reiterate (Reichenbach, 1949, p. 297). In 1922, by contrast, Reichenbach had cited approvingly Einstein's claim that such a definition is impossible (Reichenbach, 1922/1978a, pp. 354/33,365/41). 61 Immediately following his definition of "rigid rod", Reichenbach defines the "length of a rigid rod" as "that length which arises after (practical or computational) elimination of all physical forces . . . . " This can only be intended as a definition of something like the 'rigid-length of an imperfectly rigid physical rod'; the corrective calculation is clearly not used in the interpretation of the theoretical quantity 'length', which is here presupposed. 62 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 140/118). 63 Einstein (1949, p. 677). 64 Here I am indebted to Prof. Putnam; see also Howard (forthcoming). Incidentally, we find the same argument in Hempel's discussion of the cognitive significance of interpreted theories (Hempel, 1965a, p. 111-3), published in 1950-51. 65 Einstein (1949, p. 678). Deviations from the published text are based on the German original, for the most part following the rendering in Howard (forthcoming).
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66 A related distinction has been drawn by Putnam (1990, pp. 279-80, 282-3). 67 Quine (1953, p. 41). 68 Quine, on the other hand, implicitly accepts it, and confirms this explicitly in 'Epistemology Naturalized' (Quine, 1969, p. 81). 69 Einstein's reaction is entirely excusable. Though familiar with PdRZL (he wrote a review of the book), Einstein is responding directly to Reichenbach's 1949 paper, a collage of theses from PdRZL and elements of Reichenbach's later verificationism. Here Reichenbach pronounces, for instance, that "the physicist who wanted to understand the Michelson experiment had to commit himself to a philosophy for which the meaning of a statement is reducible to its verifiability..." (Reichenbach, 1949, p. 290). 70 Howard (forthcoming [my italics]). Howard's other representative of the "mature logical empiricist conception" is Schlick, and here his case is even less solid. In the 1918 edition of his Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre, we find Schhck acknowledging that an "immense" number of auxiliary hypotheses is involved in the "verification" of each judgment, and that such a "verification" increases the probability of each of these claims (Schlick, 1925/1974, p. 150/163-4). So far, Howard need not be concerned: he argues that Schlick rejects earlier holistic leanings during the course of the 1920s. In support of this claim, he cites a passage from the new 11 ("Definitions, Conventions, and Empirical Judgments") added to the 1925 second edition: "Once a certain number of concepts are fixed by convention, the relations between the objects they designate are no longer conventional, but must rather be determined by experience [sind aus der Erfahrung abzulesen]" (Schlick, 1925/1974, p. 67/72). But this is simply a misreading of Schlick, who in 1925 accepts a radical version of verification holism. Schlick's "conventions" are not physical coordinations, which he calls "concrete definitions"; they are rather "implicit definitions" in terms of the theory (Schlick equates them with Poincare~s conventions). Two sentences above the sentence cited by Howard, Schlick remarks that a definition of the unit of time "assumes the character of a convention" only when it is "determined by the general prescription that the fundamental laws of physics take on their simplest form". Any "reading off" from experience based on these conventions is necessarily holistic! 71 For the clearest statement of (b), see Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 49/37). Rather than make possible unmediated empirical verification of metrical claims, Reichenbach's metrical coordinative definitions merely afford questions of measurement "univocal meaning", with the result that "metrical statements [Ma~angaben] are possible" (Reichenbach, 1928/1958, pp. 40/29, 50/37). Such circumspect language is a far cry from that of Reichenbach's operationalist contemporaries. 72 Reichenbach (1951, pp. 132-7). 73 Alternatively, the 1951 passage could perhaps be read as a simple juxtaposition of the old congruence definition (in terms of the vanishing of universal forces2+) with an endorsement of verificationism, thus representing an utter failure to grasp Einstein's crucial point. In any event, I am taking narrative license of my own in characterizing Einstein's dialogue as the occasion for Reichenbach's change in views. In fact, his conception of empirically "equivalent descriptions" and "normal system" already appears in the Philosophical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (Reichenbach, 1944, pp. 17-20). However, it is not expressly applied to the specification of congruence, and remains absent from the 1949 exposition of PdRZL theses to which Einstein is responding.
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74 See especially Carnap's foreword to the English translation of PdRZL (Reichenbach 1958, p. vii), Martin Gardner's version of Carnap's 1958 lectures on the Philosophical Foundations of Physics (Carnap, 1966, pp. 169-71) and Putnam's papers (1975c, pp. 171-6; 1975b, pp. 120-4). Putnam explicitly remarks that his account of the "line of thinking" in PdRZL derives from "a later work" (1975c, p. 173), which he has identified in conversation as The Rise of Scientific Philosophy. Ironically, the Carnap-Putnam reading of PdRZL appears to yield an example of the "global conventionalism" Paul Horwich has advocated in explicit opposition to the supposed "local conventionalism" of Reichenbach's coordinative definitions (Horwich, 1982, p. 72). 75 Putnam is to my knowledge the only commentator who has in general resisted characterizing Reichenbach's position in PdRZL as a verificationist one. 76 For details, see note 70 above. Schlick's embrace of holistic "conventions" represents a retreat from the semiotic epistemology of the 1918 edition of Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre, a retreat occasioned by the worry that all "concrete definitions" of theoretical quantities will share the defects of a definition of the unit of time according to the pulse of the Dalai Lama (Schlick, 1925/1974, pp. 66-7/71-2). In PdRZL, Reichenbach seeks to redeem Schlick's earlier view by formulating non-holistic physical interpretations that avoid these defects. 77 Carnap (1922, pp. 55-6). Carnap's essay casts the requirement of simplicity not as a convention but as a Kantian regulative idea setting forth how scientific inquiry should proceed. 78 See note 60 above. 79 Indeed, Putnam's initial 'syntactic' understanding of the notion of coordinative definition provides the most direct route to his holistic reading. If coordinative definitions are understood not as physical interpretations of abstract entities but simply as certain sentences which we have declared conventional, it is all too easy to move from a definition of the form 'rigid bodies retain their length during transport' to a definition of the form 'all forces are differential'. The latter is emphatically not a 'coordinative definition' in Reichenbach's sense, though it may follow as the consequence of one. Geometric propositions are transformed into physical assertions by incorporating a reference to the "reales Gefage" supplied by the coordinative definition of congruence, not by some unexplained juxtaposition with the sentence 'all forces are differential' (see Section 4 above). This error explicitly vitiates Friedman's reading (forthcoming; also 1983, pp. 300-1), though Friedman believes it is "despite himself" that Reichenbach is "forced" into holism (personal correspondence). Here I am in full agreement with Howard (forthcoming), who remarks that for Reichenbach the "arbitrariness characteristic of coordinative defin i t i o n s . . , does not extend to the determination of the kind of proposition that counts as a coordinative definition". There is however one passage in 8 of PdRZL that appears to contradict Howard's claim and could thus be seen to fuel the Carnap-Putnam-Friedman understanding of the nature of coordinative definitions. In illustrating his "relativity of geometry" thesis, Reichenbach remarks that the coordinative definition of congruence may be given as an implicit definition based on a specification of which geometric theory is to result (1928/1958, p. 45/33). He justifies this point by analogy to his sample coordinative definition of the meter as the 40-millionth part of the circumference of the earth. At first sight, the analogy
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may seem flawed: the latter definition is given in terms of the "interposition" of a single well-understood concept, coordinated to the "operation 'lay end to end 40 million times'" (1928/1958, p. 152/128), whereas a congruence definition of form 'Let the resulting geometry be Euclidean' is based on the wholly unspecified method of verifying a geometric theory by empirical measurements. Moreover, it is not even unique: Reichenbach admits that there are alternative means of determining congruence that realize the same Euclidean geometry (1928/1958, p. 117/96-7). Nonetheless, read in immediate context, the problematic passage is revealed as an unfortunate explanation of a valid point. Reichenbach is drawing the consequences of his 'Theorem ~', which states that we may hold to any arbitrary Riemannian geometry topologically compatible with physical space by positing appropriate universal forces1. But this maneuver presupposes that we are "given" an initial geometry "which the measuring bodies follow", a geometry then employed in calibrating the universal force1. Hence, the putative coordinative definition of the metric in terms of a resulting geometry is actually obtained by mathematical transformation of a physically specified metric. The definition justified by Theorem ~ is indeed an example of the "interposition of conceptual relations", not the simple stipulation of a resulting geometry. It must take the following form: 'Let the relation of congruence be defined by taking the 'rigid bodies' as defined in PdRZL to be deformed in such a manner as to render the geometry Euclidean'. 80 See Carnap (1934, p. 245) and Quine (1969, pp. 82-3). sl Recall note 52 above. We saw in Section 7 that the claim is false for universal forces2 as well, but may be true for forces2+ (provided, that is, that it is coherent on this reading). Reichenbach may legitimately stipulate that the physical interpretation of the metric give rise to no universal forces2+ (i.e. that were there no differential deformation of solid bodies, these bodies would align themselves according to that metric). This differs from a stipulation that our theory of physics contain no universal forces1. 82 pace Friedman (forthcoming). 83 Glymour (1980, p. 56, further pp. 53-8); Friedman (1983, pp. 296-7, further pp. 280, 302, 20-5). See also Mtihlh/51zer (1991, pp. 78-9), Horwich (1982, p. 72), Beauregard (1979, passim) and Carnap's foreword to PdRZL ("physically equivalent.., in the sense of yielding the same observable results": Reichenbach, 1958, p. vii). Miihlhrlzer's catalogue of the "most serious defects" of Reichenbach's position serves as an excellent summary of all I have denied in the present paper. Of course, the theory of equivalent descriptions expounded in The Rise of Scientific Philosophy embodies the 'positivist inference', and Reichenbach comes to insist that even statements about the presence of unobserved trees are matters of conventional choice among a class of cognitively equivalent descriptions differing only in 'descriptive simplicity' (Reichenbach, 1944, pp. 17-20; 1951, pp. 177-80). 84 In the latter case, as in Reichenbach's theory of equivalent descriptions, the 'positivist inference' would be conjoined with verification holism. 85 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 253/219 [original italics]). s6 Putnam offers a similar evaluation of the frustration argument (1975c, p. 165). 87 Reichenbach (1928/1958, pp. 148-51/124-7). 88 Reichenbach (1928/1958, p. 24/15). He describes the epistemological significance of Einstein's theory as the "discovery that coordinative definitions are required at far more
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places than was held by the old space-time theory", such as for the determination of simultaneity (1928/1958, p. 205/176). s9 Reichenbach (1928/1958, pp. 328-9/286-7 [my italics]). Reichenbach here reiterates the view of verification he had given four years earlier in the introduction to the Axiomatik der relativistischen Raum-Zeit-Lehre, where he stresses that "a certain amount of theory already goes into the elementary facts" and asks: "May we regard these individual facts as more secure than the theory that validates them [die sie bestiitigende Theorie]? Does there even exist any validation other than that of the theory as a whole?" His answer is that the observational facts are at least "relative invariants", because the specific theoretical inferences admittedly involved in their constitution are approximately unaffected by differences in our large-scale physical theories (1924/1969, pp. 3-4/6). This understanding of scientific method is one to which Quine would hardly object. 90 Carnap (1922, pp. 38-9, 65). He cites Einstein on the empirical givenness of spatiotemporal coincidences. 91 Reichenbach (1928 and 1958, 13). 92 See especially Putnam (1983a, pp. 34-7). Here Putnam's reductionist reading of Reichenbach's simultaneity definition contrasts sharply with his earlier holistic reading of the definition of congruence. 93 Friedman has alleged that this aspect of Reichenbach's analysis grossly falsifies the structure of the special theory of relativity (Friedman, 1983, pp. 165-176, 309-320). Reichenbach supposedly "systematically confuses" the uncontroversial "relativity" of simultaneity with its spurious "conventionality". There is however at least one passage in PdRZL where he draws the distinction quite clearly (Reichenbach, 1928/1958, pp. 160-1/135). Having argued at length that the simultaneity relation is not derivable from our previous coordinative definitions, he concludes that there is no 'absolute' simultaneity. But this still leaves open the "possibility that physical mechanisms, or also the entire system of physical laws, might designate one of the definitions as particularly simple", as was the case among the intra-frame relations of spatial congruence. It is the physical content of the special theory of relativity that rules out this possibility, thus requiring the additional 'relativity' of simultaneity. See also Reichenbach's 1924 distinction between the "epistemological relativity" (i.e. conventionality) and the "physical relativity" (i.e. relativity) of simultaneity (Reichenbach, 1924/1969, p. 8/11). Whatever its problems, Reichenbach's spatio-temporal reductionism appears separable from any particular analysis of the structure of relativity theory. 94 For more examples of this approach, see Kamlah (1977, pp. 390-1). 95 This is an aim Putnam attributes to Reichenbach's space-time philosophy (Putnam, 1975c, p. 175).
REFERENCES Beauregard, L. A.: 1979, 'Reichenbach and Conventionalism', Hans Reichenbach: Logical Empiricist, ed. W. C. Salmon, D. Reidel, Dordrecht-Holland. Carnap, R.: 1922, Der Raum: Ein Beitrag zur Wissenschaftslehre, in Kant-Studien (Erg~inzungsheft 56), Reuther & Reichard, Berlin. Carnap, R.: 1934, Logische Syntax der Sprache, Springer, Vienna.
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'Coordinative Definition' and Reichenbach's Semantic Framework - A Reassessment

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L I O N E L STEFAN S H A P I R O

LIONEL STEFAN SHAPIRO

REICHENBACH~S SEMANTIC FRAMEWORK

LIONEL STEFAN SHAPIRO

LIONEL STEFAN SHAPIRO

LIONEL STEFAN SHAPIRO

LIONEL STEFAN SHAPIRO

LIONEL STEFAN SHAPIRO

LIONEL STEFAN SHAPIRO

LIONEL STEFAN SHAPIRO

REICHENBACH~S SEMANTIC FRAMEWORK

LIONEL STEFAN SHAPIRO

REICHENBACH~S SEMANTIC FRAMEWORK

LIONEL STEFAN SHAPIRO

LIONEL STEFAN SHAPIRO

REICHENBACH~S SEMANTIC FRAMEWORK

LIONEL STEFAN SHAPIRO

LIONEL STEFAN SHAPIRO

REICHENBACH'S SEMANTIC FRAMEWORK

LIONEL STEFAN SHAPIRO

REICHENBACH'S SEMANTIC FRAMEWORK

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