On The Logical Positivists Theory of Tru

ON THE LOGICAL POSITIVISTS’ THEORY OF TRUTH: THE
FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM AND A NEW PERSPECTIVE
LORENZ B. PUNTEL
SUMMARY. The present article purports to show that the protocol sentence debate, pur-
sued by some leading members of the Vienna Circle in the mid-1930s, was essentially
a controversy over the explanation and the real significance of the concept of truth. It is
further shown that the fundamental issue underlying the discussions about the concept of
truth was the relationship between form and content, as well as between logic/language and
the world. R. Carnap was the philosopher who most explicitly and systematically attempted
to come to grips with this problem. It is shown that the form-content distinction pervades
the three most important phases of Carnap’s philosophical development: the structuralist
(in Der logische Aufbau der Welt), the syntactical and the semantical. His final semanti-
cal stance is essentially determined by the concept of linguistic frameworks. The article
purports to demonstrate that this concept cannot be dispensed with in philosophy, but that
Carnap failed to work out its ontological implications. Finally, the concept of an internal
ontology is briefly delineated.
Key words: concept of truth, criterion of truth, protocol sentence, linguistic framework,
formal and material mode of speech, ontology, structure, logical syntax, semantics, internal
and external questions, existence, fact, reality, world, Carnap, Hempel, Neurath, Schlick
In the mid-1930s some leading members of the Vienna Circle engaged in

a famous debate that has become known as the protocol sentence debate.
It is customary to call the two parties involved the Circle’s Left Wing (rep-
resented by O. Neurath, R. Carnap, C. G. Hempel) and the Circle’s Right
Wing (whose main figures were M. Schlick and F. Waismann). The central
figures on the scene were Schlick and Neurath; but the most important
philosopher in the background was Carnap. This celebrated controversy
continues to interest and to fascinate many contemporary philosophers.
The general purpose of this paper is to show why there is such a
persistent interest in the topics debated by these members of the Vienna
Circle. Four central theses will be defended. The first of these is that the
protocol sentence debate was essentially a controversy over the explanation
and the real significance of the concept of truth. The second thesis is that
Journal for General Philosophy of Science 30: 101–130, 1999.

c 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
102 L. B. PUNTEL
the real issue underlying the discussions about the concept of truth was the
relationship between form and content, or logic and language on the one
hand and the world on the other hand. The third thesis is that the problems
raised by this issue continue to exist and remain unsettled in contemporary
philosophy. Finally, the fourth thesis claims that a resolution of these
problems presupposes rethinking the real issue at stake and taking a new
perspective beyond the usual discussions.
1. PROTOCOL SENTENCES AND THE CONCEPT OF TRUTH
The so-called controversy proper about the theory of truth was triggered by
the essay “The Foundation of Knowledge” by M. Schlick (1934), in which
he criticized “the confusion and oscillation” (ibid. p. 210) concerning the
question of the protocol statements. Other members of the Vienna Circle,
especially O. Neurath and R. Carnap, were the target of Schlick’s criticism.
In several writings Neurath had presented a view of protocols according to
which protocols are physicalistic expressions which cannot be regarded as
an immutable support for science:
According to Carnap we could only be forced to change non-protocol statements [Pro-
tokollsätze] and laws. But in our view the cancelling of protocol statements is a possibility
as well. It is part of the definition of a statement that it requires verification and therefore
can be cancelled. (Neurath 1932, p. 95)
In opposition to Carnap Neurath defended the claim that there are no

primitive protocol statements verifiable on a solipsistic basis, i.e., within
a “monologising [private] language”, even if one takes the solipsism or
the positivism to be “methodological”. He emphatically stressed that every
language as such is “inter-subjective” (ibid. p. 96).
To this criticism Carnap replied immediately in his “On Protocol Sen-
tences” (1932), which R. Creath rightly calls “an enormously important
paper both philosophically and historically” (Creath 1987, p. 471). But
Carnap’s aim was not in the least to refute Neurath or to accentuate his
difference to him; rather, he tried to reconcile both views by introducing
a distinction which was to become pivotal in the development of his own
philosophy. For Carnap, the question at stake was not a question
of two mutually inconsistent views, but rather of two different methods of structuring the
language of science both of which are possible and legitimate. (Carnap 1932, p. 457)
Carnap’s attempt of reconcilement is based on the distinction between two

language forms concerning what he called the “system language,”1 i.e., the
language of science, understood physicalistically. According to the first
form, protocol sentences are taken to be situated outside the language of
ON THE LOGICAL POSITIVISTS’ THEORY OF TRUTH 103
the system, whereas the second language form puts them inside the system
(language). The first language form has the advantage of being free from
any restrictions concerning the syntax of the protocol sentences; but a
translation into the physicalistic language is still required for evaluating
them. The second language form, of course, does not require any translation
since protocol sentences are bound to the syntax of the system language.
Carnap clearly pays tribute to Neurath, whom he praises for being “the
first to have recognized the possibility of the second procedure” (ibid.
p. 458), but at the same time he insists that the “fact that testing rests
on the perceptions of the tester forms the legitimate kernel of truth in
‘methodological solipsism’ ”(ibid. p. 469).
It may be difficult to understand why Carnap insists that there is such
a “kernel of truth” in the “methodological solipsism” even though he
recognizes that this terminology has idealistic connotations. If expressions
like ‘thought’, ‘perception’ and the like have to be translated into the
physicalistic system language, how can they serve as a tool for testing
statements of science? If they are to undergo the translation procedure,
they are as such devoid of any significance concerning the testing question.
This seems to be one of the many facets of the central issue underlying the
protocol sentences debate among the logical positivists.
Two years after the publication of Neurath’s and Carnap’s papers on
the protocol sentences the discussion within the Vienna Circle literally
exploded into a wide-ranging debate involving central issues of epistemol-
ogy, logic, philosophy of science and, in a negative but significant sense, of
metaphysics. Ironically, the virulent anti-metaphysical stance shared by all
the members of the Vienna Circle became an internal issue in the Circle,
insofar as some members accused other members of being committed to
metaphysical positions; as Neurath put it, some members expressed “the
opinion that each of us was better at noticing metaphysical residues in his
neighbour than in himself” (Neurath 1934, p. 100).
In his paper “The Foundation of Knowledge” (1934) Schlick presented
a remarkable criticism of some central tenets propagated and defended
by Neurath and Carnap. Schlick formulated his central claim in traditional
epistemological terms: according to him “what was at issue, fundamentally,
was just the old problem of the basis” (ibid. p. 212). From this point of
view he had no doubts that
the position to which the consideration of protocol statements has led is not tenable. It
results in a peculiar relativism, which appears to be a necessary consequence of the view
that protocol statements are empirical facts upon which the edifice of science is subsequently
built. [...] This means ... that protocol statements, so conceived, have in principle exactly
the same character as all the other statements of science: they are hypotheses, nothing but
hypotheses. They are anything but incontrovertible, and one can use them in the construction
104 L. B. PUNTEL
of the system of science only so long as they are supported by, or at least not contradicted
by, other hypotheses. We therefore always reserve the right to make protocol statements
subject to correction, and such corrections, quite often indeed, do occur when we eliminate
certain protocol statements and declare that they must have been the result of some error.
(Ibid. pp. 212–13)
At this point of his critical assessment Schlick turns to the truth issue. In
order to understand exactly what the real or fundamental issue is, it is of the
utmost importance to see how this happens. Schlick’s perspective up to this
point was clearly an epistemological one. But then he goes on to explain
and to develop this perspective in connection with the truth problem.
The end can be no other than that of science itself, namely, that of affording a true description
of the facts. For us it is self-evident that the problem of the basis of knowledge is nothing
other than the question of the criterion of truth. (Ibid. p. 213)
Schlick distinguishes between two questions concerning truth: the question

of the criterion and the question of the concept of truth. Indeed, he argues
that both Neurath and Carnap had changed the meaning and the status of
protocol sentences (which in his opinion had been introduced to provide a
criterion of truth) and that as a consequence they had changed the concept
of truth itself; for them “truth can consist only in a mutual agreement of
statements [so kann die Wahrheit nur bestehen in der Übereinstimmung
der Sätze untereinander]” (ibid. p. 214), i.e., according to Schlick they
had espoused the coherence theory of truth. It is remarkable that Schlick
presupposes a linkage between the concept and the criterion of truth. In
several writings, N. Rescher has characterized this linkage as “the con-
tinuity condition’ (e.g., Rescher 1985). From the fact that his opponents
admitted (only) the coherence of statements as the criterion of truth Schlick
inferred that they were committed to (and indeed were in fact admitting)
a coherence view as regards the concept or nature of truth. Conversely,
from his conviction that “the truth of a statement consists in its agreement
with the facts” (Schlick 1934, p. 214) Schlick derived the cogent necessity
of admitting a criterion of truth “in continuity” with the correspondence
view of truth. He found this criterion in that kind of observation statements
which he called “basic statements (Fundamentalsätze)” or “confirmations
(Konstatierungen)” and which are according to him “the only synthetic
statements that are not hypotheses” (ibid. p. 227).
Two features of the Konstatierungen are especially important for the
purpose of the present paper.2 First, the Konstatierungen satisfy the “con-
tinuity condition” mentioned above, insofar as the distinction between the
concept of truth and the criterion of truth as well as their unity (or “con-
tinuity”) are taken into acount. Second, the Konstatierungen constitute a
kind of correspondentist criterion of truth, i.e., a criterion thoroughly in
accordance with the correspondence notion of truth. Indeed, according to

Schlick the understanding of Konstatierungen involves an immediate and
absolutely certain comparison between statements and facts. The epis-
temological and the definitional question regarding truth appear equally
important and interconnected. As we shall see, after Schlick’s intervention
the definitional topic turned out to be the most fundamental, the very real
issue.
Schlick’s criticism of the coherence theory is well known. It can be
summarized by quoting a brief passage from his paper:
If one is to take coherence seriously as a general criterion of truth, then one must consider
arbitrary fairy stories to be as true as a historical report, or as statements in a textbook
of chemistry, provided the story is constructed in such a way that no contradiction arises.
(Schlick 1934, p. 215)
Neurath’s reply to Schlick’s criticism (Neurath 1934) accentuated even
more the dissent within the Vienna Circle. To summarize, he advocated,
contrary to Schlick, the following tenets:
(1) All content statements [Realsätze] of science, and also those protocol statements
that are used for verification, are selected on the basis of decisions and can be altered in
principle.
(2) We call a content statement ‘false’ if we cannot establish conformity between it and
the whole structure [Gesamtgebäude] of science; we can also reject a protocol statement
unless we prefer to alter the structure of science and thus make it into a ‘true’ statement.
(3) The verification of certain content statements consists in examining whether they
conform to certain protocol statements; therefore we reject the expression that a statement
is compared with ‘reality’; and the more so, since for us ‘reality’ is replaced by several
totalities of statements that are consistent in themselves but not with each other.
(4) Within radical physicalism, statements dealing with ‘unsayable’, ‘unwritable’ things
and events prove to be typical pseudostatements. (Neurath 1934, p. 102)
One must concede that Neurath’s formulations are impressive and even
brilliant from a rhetorical point of view. But what is their real philosophical
content? It is not at all clear what Neurath’s real tenet is. Is he reducing
the concept of truth to an epistemic feature of a system of sentences? Or
is he merely trying to settle the question of the criterion of truth? Neurath
seems to want to reduce the concept of truth to some purely epistemic
feature. If this is correct, the question unavoidably arises: Is there still any
sense in making statements about “the world”? It is significant that Neurath
asserts: “...‘reality’ is replaced by several totalities of statements that are
consistent in themselves but not with each other” (ibid.). Does this mean
that he no longer accepts “reality”, “world”, and the like? Is he reducing
“reality (world)” to something like a linguistic-idealistic dimension?
106 L. B. PUNTEL
2. THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT TRUTH
In the January 1935 issue of Analysis Carl G. Hempel published his article
“On the Logical Positivists’ Theory of Truth” (Hempel 1935a) that had
the merit of making clear that truth was the real issue underlying the many
facets of the Circle’s debate. The discussion about truth in the narrow
sense was conducted by Hempel and Schlick. In Schlick’s words it was
“a violent discussion” (Schlick 1935, p. 65). No detailed reconstruction of
this discussion will be presented here; rather, only those aspects that pose
central, as yet unresolved problems will be considered.
Hempel bluntly asserts that some objections Schlick raised against
Neurath and Carnap are pseudoproblems. First of all, Hempel concedes
that Neurath’s and Carnap’s general ideas do indeed imply a coherence
theory of truth. But he hastens to emphasize that those authors did not
intend to deny the existence of facts when they spoke solely of statements.
It is difficult to follow Hempel’s remarks in this passage. He states that
on the contrary, the occurrence of certain statements in the protocol of an observer or in
a scientific book is regarded as an empirical fact, and the propositions [i.e., the sentences]
occurring as empirical objects.” (Hempel 1935a, p. 54)
But if there are facts and if we speak of them, then we do refer to them and
we do express them. Surprisingly, Hempel does not draw this conclusion
and does not take into account the problem it poses. Instead, he points
only to the distinction between the material and the formal mode of speech
introduced and defended by Neurath and Carnap. To assert that statements
“express facts” and that truth consists in a certain correspondence between
statements and facts, is, according to Hempel, the result of employing the
material mode of speech. This mode, he points out, generates pseudoprob-
lems. Does Hempel really accept facts? But worse is to come.
To Schlick’s objection, that giving up the idea of a system of immutable
basic statements would lead to an unacceptable relativism, Hempel replies
that
a syntactical theory of scientific verification cannot possibly give a theoretical account of
something that does not exist in the system of scientific verification. (Ibid. p. 55)
But this reply will not do, since it simply describes what a syntactical
theory of scientific verification can achieve and what it cannot achieve.
But why should we accept such a syntactical theory?
However, the central objection raised by Schlick was that Neurath’s and
Carnap’s coherence theory of truth implies that scientific theories and fairy
tales would be on a par, and that therefore no difference concerning the
problem of truth could be indicated. To this Hempel replies that Neurath
and Carnap did not reduce truth to formal properties of a system of state-
ments without qualification; according to him, they countenanced only a

restrained coherence theory. This means that
there is indeed no formal, no logical difference between the two compared systems, but an
empirical one. The system of protocol statements which we call true, and to which we refer
in every day life and science, may only be characterized by the historical fact that it is the
system which is actually adopted by mankind... (Hempel 1935a, p. 57)
But what does “empirical” mean in this context? A page later Hempel
arrives at the conclusion that in the recent form of Neurath’s and Carnap’s
theory protocol statements are adopted or rejected by decision. And he
adds: “Thus the concept of protocol statements may have become super-
fluous at the end” (ibid. p. 59). But if this is so, Hempel’s response to
Schlick’s last objection simply vanishes. The objection stays. Hempel’s
attempt to invalidate Schlick’s arguments was doomed to failure; his coun-
terarguments are inconclusive. That is not to say that Schlick is right. As
will be explained later, Schlick was concerned with a genuine problem,
but he was not able to tackle it adequately, whereas Neurath, Carnap and
Hempel misunderstood and misrepresented a profoundly valuable insight.
In his response to Hempel’s “clever article” (Schlick 1935, p. 65)
Schlick gave an ironic and defiant tone to the debate:
I have been accused of maintaining that statements can be compared with facts. I plead
guilty. I have maintained this. But I protest against my punishment: I refuse to sit in the
seat of the metaphysicians. I have often compared propositions to facts; so I had no reason
to say that it couldn’t be done. (Schlick 1935, pp. 65–6)
In what follows only two aspects of Schlick’s paper will be comment-

ed on. [i] Hempel had asserted that statements are never compared with
“reality” or “facts”. In his view, such a comparison is based on a pseudo-
problem, since it presupposes a “cleavage” (Hempel 1935a, p. 51) between
statements and reality; now, Hempel stressed, such a cleavage is nothing
but “the result of a redoubling metaphysics” (ibid.). In his reply Schlick
asks: “Is it a mysterious property of propositions that they cannot be com-
pared with anything else? That would seem to be a rather mystical view”
(Schlick 1935, p. 66). According to the physicalistic conception accepted
by all the members of the Vienna Circle, “propositions” are facts among
other facts. Accordingly, Schlick is right in asking: Why is it impossible
or nonsensical to compare them with facts? He explains that a proposition
“is a series of sounds or other symbols (a ‘sentence’) together with the logical rules
belonging to them, i.e., certain prescriptions as to how the sentence is to be used. (Schlick
1935, p. 67)
In his reply to Schlick’s criticism Hempel fully agrees with the view
that propositions are empirical (physical) objects. But then he goes on to
argue that Schlick’s explanations are in one essential respect inadequate.
108 L. B. PUNTEL
Schlick had used the example of comparing a sentence in his traveller’s

guide describing the spires of a cathedral with the “reality” of the spires.
According to Schlick, the comparison could be made simply by looking at
the cathedral. And since a cathedral is not a proposition, the comparison
was not only possible, but real. To this Hempel observes that Schlick
“evidently compares the proposition in his Baedecker with the result (not
with the act!) of his counting the spires...” (Hempel 1935b, p. 94). But
Hempel is clearly misreading Schlick’s wording here. Schlick did not say
that he was comparing the sentence printed in his traveller’s guide with
the act of counting the spires. What he did say was that the comparison
between the sentence and the object looked at (the spires of the cathedral)
is made “when I apply the rules of counting” to the perceived object.3
Depending on one’s preferred view of the place and role of language in
connection with perceptions and the like, one can surely say that Hempel
is right in stating that it is a second proposition with which the first is
compared. But even accepting this analysis does not imply a refutation of
the central point in Schlick’s thesis. This can be shown by considering two
quite different aspects of this question.
[a] The first concerns the physicalistic view of propositions. If propositions

are physical objects, why should it be impossible to compare them to other
physical objects, for example, the spires of a cathedral? Schlick says that a
proposition is a series of symbols together with the logical rules belonging
to them. Now, if Schlick is a thorough physicalist, he should consider the
rules themselves as being physicalistic entities. In his paper he does not
say this explicitly. But it seems that he presupposes this as a common tenet
of the Vienna Circle. Indeed, only on the basis of an all-encompassing
physicalism does it make sense to affirm without restriction: “It is my
humble opinion that we can compare anything to anything if we choose”
(Schlick 1935, p. 66). In any case, his thesis that a comparison between
propositions and facts understood on the basis of unrestricted physicalism
is possible appears to be perfectly coherent (which does not mean that it
is correct). If Schlick did not countenance unrestricted physicalism, the
consequences for his position and for the topics of the Circle’s controversy
would be simply devastating, since this would show that the controversy
rested on a hidden metaphysics of huge proportions.
Hempel takes a proposition to be a physical object as well. But he
“reconstructs” what he assumes to be the kernel of truth in Schlick’s talk
of “comparison” by saying that propositions cannot be compared to any-
thing but propositions; but he adds: in a logical (or syntactical) respect.
Examples of such a comparison would be relations such as compatibili-
ty, contradiction, and the like. Now, for a physicalist like Hempel there
arises unavoidably the analogous question: what are logical relations, in
physicalistic terms? Significantly, Hempel did not ask this question.
[b] The second aspect of the discussion about the comparison between
propositions and facts concerns the concept and the reality of a fact. Here,
too, Hempel’s papers are astonishing. On the one hand, he points out that
Neurath and Carnap by no means “intend to say: ‘There are no facts, there
are only propositions’ ” (Hempel 1935a, p. 54). On the other hand, he
considers facts to be highly problematic. He interprets them as being one
of the results of the famous material mode of speech, which evokes “the
imagination that the ‘facts’ with which propositions are to be confronted
are substantial entities and do not depend upon the scientist’s choice of
syntax-rules” (Hempel 1935b, p. 95). It can be shown that Hempel is right
in stating that facts are not to be conceived of as being constituents of
a ready-made world (and that in this sense they are not something like
“substantial entities”). But this statement is a purely negative one. How
should facts be conceived of positively? One will hardly find in Hempel
(or in Carnap) even the slightest indication of the possibility and of the
method of clarifying this central concept. This is a result of the great dogma
which dominated the Circle’s Left Wing: the distinction between formal
and material mode of speech, a distinction never made thoroughly clear by
its proponents. Their repeated assurances that the material mode as such
is not faulty, even though it generates pseudoproblems, are devoid of any
real significance.
[ii] For Carnap, Neurath and Hempel the characterization of the concept of
truth in the strict sense is equivalent to the characterization of this concept in
the formal mode of speech. In his first paper Hempel suggests the following
“crude formulation”: The concept of truth is to be characterized
as a sufficient agreement between the system of acknowledged protocol-statements and
the logical consequences which may be deduced from the statements and other statements
which are already adopted. (Hempel 1935a, p. 54)
In this characterization reality, world, facts, and the like are not even men-
tioned. So, in this case any talk of a “comparison” between language and
the world, between sentences and facts is completely devoid of sense and
therefore unacceptable. But a quite different reconstruction of an accept-
able meaning of Schlick’s “comparison” can be given (or, more exactly,
briefly indicated) in this context. Let us suppose that in a traveller’s guide
we find the printed sentence S: “The Cathedral in Munich has two towers”.
We assume that the informational content of this sentence is the state of
110 L. B. PUNTEL
affairs A: that the Cathedral in Munich has two towers. The informational
content is what S expresses. This is not to say that the sentence taken
without further (explicit or implict) qualification expresses the fact that the
Cathedral in Munich has two towers. Whether the state of affairs A is a fact
remains to be seen, or rather, said. The missing qualification is supplied by
the predicate “true”. We can then say: The sentence S is true... (blanks).
The state of affairs A is true... (blanks). But what are we saying when we
apply the predicate “true” to S and A, respectively? Well, we have to fill
in the blanks.
Tarski’s biconditionals are one famous explication of truth (restricted
to sentences). Applied to the example mentioned above, this produces:
“ ‘The Cathedral in Munich has two towers’ is true if and only if the
Cathedral in Munich has two towers.” No doubt, the equivalence symbol
(‘if and only if’) connects two sentences. Can we say that the sentences
are “compared” with each other? Well, in some intuitive sense, yes. Can
we say that the biconditional connects merely sentences, “merely” in the
sense of being devoid of any relatedness to “reality”, “world”, and the like?
Here the difference between Tarski and the Circle’s Left Wing comes to
the fore: according to Tarski, the biconditionals include a sentence of the
object language and a sentence of the metalanguage. The sense of Tarki’s
biconditionals has been well explained by Quine:
Truth should hinge on reality, and it does. No sentence is true but reality makes it so. The
sentence ‘Snow is white’ is true, as Tarski taught us, if and only if real snow is really white.
(Quine 1970, p. 10; emphasis added)
But how to explain the “reality” talk employed by Quine? This is a formi-
dable question. In the present context only a few reflections on the concept
of fact in the context of the truth debate between Schlick and Hempel will
be added.
Tarski’s famous intuitive or “informal” characterization of the concept
of truth reads as follows:
A true sentence is one which says that the state of affairs is so and so, and the state of affairs
indeed is so and so. (Tarski 1935, p. 155)
If we say: The sentence “The Cathedral in Munich has two towers” express-
es the state of affairs that the Cathedral in Munich has two towers and the
sentence “ ‘The Cathedral in Munich has two towers’ is true” expresses the
fact that the Cathedral in Munich has two towers, then the question arises
whether there is a correspondence between the state of affairs and the fact
and, furthermore, whether the state of affairs and the fact can be compared.
One of the contentions of this paper is that the usage of such expressions
without an accurate explication is naive and unacceptable. Another con-
tention is that the explication of such expressions and the capturing of the
intuition underlying their usage involve extremely difficult questions in the

fields of logic, semantics, epistemology, and especially ontology.
3. SOME DEVELOPMENTS AND PERSISTENT PROBLEMS
[1] In two important papers published in 1982 and 1990, respectively,

Hempel reassessed the controversy in which he had participated in the
Thirties. He makes two claims.
The first amounts to a criticism of the thesis he had previously shared
with Neurath and Carnap. According to Hempel’s later view his former
thesis was based on a confusion between semantic and epistemic concepts
(cp. Hempel 1982, pp. 10–14). He now says that the expressions ‘truth’
and ‘falsehood’ were mistakenly employed; what Neurath, Carnap and he
himself really had in mind was the question of the acceptability of empirical
statements. To put it briefly, Hempel now distinguishes explicitly between
the concept and the criterion of truth.
In the second paper, Hempel defends the radical claim that the concept
of truth is completely irrelevant for the critical appraisal of scientific
claims. Instead of conceiving science as a search for truth, he proposes to
characterize science as a goal-directed endeavour in an alternative way. The
truth-directed view has, according to Hempel, fundamental logical flaws
and fails to do justice to some fundamental considerations that govern
the critical appraisal and the acceptance or rejection of hypotheses and
theories. To be sure, Hempel does not completely reject the concept of
truth; he continues to consider it a basic concept of logic and semantics.
It is difficult to follow Hempel in his 1990 paper. Has he really succeeded
in establishing two mutually exclusive views? It seems not. In his paper
the concept of truth lurks in the background and sometimes it is even
mentioned, at least in a disguised form. For example, he asserts that the
goal of scientific inquiry is surely
not the attainment of true theories. Our considerations about theory choice in the light of
the desiderata rather present scientific theorizing as directed towards the construction of
well-integrated world pictures that optimally incorporate our experimental data available at
the time into a simply and smoothly cohering and far-reaching conceptual scheme. (Hempel
1990, p. 9)
But what are “world pictures”? In Hempel’s conception truth is presup-

posed at least as a kind of regulative idea. But in what sense does Hempel
use the expression ‘truth’? It seems that he is presupposing some kind of
correspondence conception of truth.
As early as 1936 Carnap had criticized Kaufmann, Reichenbach, Neu-
112 L. B. PUNTEL
rath, and others for not having distinguished between the concept and the
criterion of truth and for saying that the semantic concept of truth
ought to be abandoned because it can never be decided with absolute certainty for any given
sentence whether it is true or not. (Carnap 1936, p. 123)
He concedes that absolute certainty cannot be attained. But he argues that
the inference from this to the inadmissibility of the concept of truth is
based on the following premise P:
A term (predicate) must be rejected if it is such that we can never decide with absolute
certainty for any given instance whether or not the term applies. (Ibid. p. 123)
But he stresses that the accceptance of P would lead to absurd conse-
quences. Instead, he proposes the following weaker principle P*:
A term (predicate) is a legitimate scientific term (has cognitive content, is empirically
meaningful) if and only if a sentence applying the term to a given instance can possibly be
confirmed to at least some degree. (Ibid.)
One can legitimately ask whether Hempel, in dismissing the concept of
truth as irrelevant for the critical appraisal of scientific theories in 1990,
had forgotten Carnap’s remarkable considerations in his 1935 lecture.
[2] When Carnap gave his lecture on “Truth and Confirmation” at the
Congrès International de Philosophie Scientifique in Paris in 1935, he had
already embraced Tarski’s semantic conception of truth. This turning point
in Carnap’s development must be seen in the continuity of a conviction
or program centered on the form-content distinction or the distinction
between formal and material mode of speech. During the period of Der
logische Aufbau der Welt “formal” was understood as meaning structuralist
construction or constitution, whereas in the phase of The Logical Syntax
of Language (1934) it meant simply syntactical construction. As of 1935
or 1936 the distinction was interpreted in a semantical framework and thus
its exact meaning and its central importance for all questions of philosophy
and science changed considerably. For reasons of space, detailed comments
on the intermediate, syntactical, period will be omitted.
The main problem posed by the form-content distinction in the Aufbau
(Carnap 1962 [1928]) has been well analysed by M. Friedman (1987).
Friedman has convincingly shown that the most fundamental problem
facing the Aufbau is not phenomenalistic reductionism, but the attempted
elimination of the primitive non-logical concepts from the constructional
system. According to the author of the Aufbau
A purely structural statement must contain only logical symbols; in it must occur no
undefined basic concepts from any empirical domain. Thus, after the constructional system
has carried the formalization of scientific statements to the point where they are merely
statements about a few (perhaps only one) basic relations, the problem arises whether it is
possible to complete the formalization by eliminating from the statements of science these
basic relations as the last non-logical objects. (Carnap 1962 [1928] § 153)
In order to carry out the intended elimination Carnap introduces the concept
of founded relations, i.e., “experienceable [erlebbar] or natural relations”.
Carnap makes now what M. Friedman calls an “extraordinary suggestion”,
that the notion of foundedness should itself be considered a basic concept
of logic (ibid. § 154). For Carnap in the Aufbau, the relation of similarity
turns out to be the unique founded relation which satisfies the empirical
conditions. Friedman rightly comments:
In these terms, Carnap’s suggestion for introducing the notion of foundedness may be seen
as an attempt to evade the problem simply by counting empirical or non-logical as itself a
basic concept of logic. (Friedman 1987, p. 533)
The profound ambiguity of the form-content distinction comes to the fore
when the task and the problem of eliminating the empirical basis as empir-
ical are tackled. To be sure, Carnap never explicitly denied the empirical
basis, the “content side” of his famous distinction; but the thrust of his
most fundamental tenets constantly led him to attempt to dispense with
the content side. This is one of the aspects of the real issue underlying the
discussions on the concept of truth. Later, after he had embraced semantics,
the form-content distinction continued to determine his thinking, but the
semantic framework gave the distinction a significantly different shape.
[3] In what follows Carnap’s paper Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology

(Carnap 1950) will be investigated in some detail. This paper must be
considered the most important paper Carnap published during his semantic
period with respect to the topic dealt with in the present paper. The topic of
Carnap’s paper is the problem of the relationship between semantics and
ontology. But the issue underlying Carnap’s considerations is the topic of
truth. Carnap had defined truth in a Tarski-like fashion in his Introduction to
Semantics (1942) and in Meaning and Necessity (1947). But the real issue
is that this concept is understood as belonging to a linguistic framework,
i.e., that truth for Carnap is immanent. Quine articulates one aspect of his
own position in a manner that can be taken as also expressing a central
tenet of Carnap’s philosophy after his semantic turnabout:
Truth is immanent, and there is no higher. We must speak from within a theory, albeit any
of various. (Quine 1981, pp. 21–2)
To be sure, Quine and Carnap do not agree on fundamental questions
concerning ontology and truth. It is well known that Quine often criticized
Carnap’s views on ontology (cp. especially Quine 1951).
Carnap introduces the concept of a linguistic framework. As will be
shown, this concept represents a new and in a certain sense much more
114 L. B. PUNTEL
differentiated version of the form-content distinction. On the basis of the

concept of a linguistic framework Carnap distinguishes two kinds of ques-
tions (and also of statements) concerning existence or reality: questions
of the existence of entities within the framework (internal questions) and
questions of the “existence or reality of the system as a whole” (external
questions). For Carnap, internal questions do not pose any problems of a
fundamental character; but external questions are problematic. Questions
of the first kind are to be resolved either by purely logical methods or
by empirical methods. It turns out that the form-content distinction has
been reinterpreted by Carnap. The dimension of content is now understood
in two very different ways: there are internal questions of content and
there are external questions of content. The “internal content” is what is
expressed by the empirical interpretation of a theory; it can be formulated
by specifying the semantics of the empirical part of its language. Ques-
tions concerning the “external content” are of a different kind: they address
the problem of the existence or reality of the entities accepted within the
framework.
The philosophical problem of the concept of truth is fundamentally con-
cerned with the issue as to how to conceive of the “relationship” between
the internal and the external dimension. There is no major problem in
assuming and explaining a concept of purely immanent or internal truth.
But is truth reducible to an immanent concept in the sense of Carnap’s
internal concepts or features? It is contended here that this issue is the
ultimate or the real issue underlying the multi-faceted discussions about
the problem of truth within the Vienna Circle and in important sectors
of analytic philosophy up to the present day. And it is further contended
that Carnap was profoundly right in introducing the idea of a linguistic
framework, but that he was wrong in understanding and developing this
idea in the way he chose to.
In order to elucidate and to make at least plausible these contentions,
the exact sense of Carnap’s external questions must first be clarified. What
does he mean when he speaks of “existence” or “reality”? It seems that
two different and in some sense complementary aspects are involved in
Carnap’s usage of those expressions.
[i] The first aspect is the relativity of the concept of existence or reality to a
given framework. In some sense this aspect is akin to D. Lewis’ concept of
existence (Lewis calls it the result of the “indexical analysis” of “actuality”
or “existence” [cp. Lewis 1986, p. 92]). Carnap articulates this aspect with
respect to the “thing language” with peculiar clarity:
The concept of reality occurring in these internal questions is an empirical, scientific, non-
metaphysical concept. To recognize something as a real thing or event means to succeed in
incorporating it into the system of things at a particular space-time position so that it fits
together with the other things recognized as real, according to the rules of the framework.
(Carnap 1950, p. 207)
[ii] According to Carnap, external questions are not raised by scientists,
but by philosophers. As regards the “thing language” the external question
concerns “the reality of the thing world itself” (ibid.). A detailed analysis of
Carnap’s wording in this passage of his paper is extraordinarily interesting
and revealing; it uncovers a profound ambiguity in Carnap’s conception and
presentation. Carnap asserts that this question “cannot be solved because
it is framed in a wrong way”. But why? Carnap justifies his assertion
in the following way: “To be real in the scientific sense means to be an
element of the system; hence this concept cannot be meaningfully applied
to the system itself” (ibid.). But this is no real justification of Carnap’s
claim. Granted that “real in the scientific sense” cannot be applied to the
system itself; but cannot (or should not) the expression ‘real(ity)’ be taken
in another, in a non-scientific sense? Carnap presupposes that the only
acceptable sense of “reality” is the scientific sense. This is begging the
question. To be sure, Carnap also refers to the “theoretical language” that,
at least in principle, can be taken as not being limited by the boundaries of
science:
The acceptance of the thing language leads ... to the acceptance, belief, and assertion of
certain statements. But the thesis of the reality of the thing world cannot be among these
statements, because it cannot be formulated in the thing language or, it seems, in any other
theoretical language. (Ibid. p. 208)
The cautious wording “...it seems...” in the last sentence reveals that Carnap
was aware of the difficulty of the topic he was dealing with. But he was often
inclined to a kind of radical reductionism as regards the external questions.
The “wrong way” in which these questions are formulated is interpreted
by Carnap as being the result of a confusion between a theoretical and a
practical question. For Carnap the external questions are in reality practical
questions, “a matter of practical decision concerning the structure of our
language. We have to make the choice whether or not to accept and use the
forms of expression in the framework in question” (ibid. p. 207).
Carnap also displays another tendency: the inclination to a kind of
philosophical neutrality. To remain neutral concerning a particular category
of questions is not to deny that these questions are real and meaningful
questions. In this context Carnap briefly presents a sketch of a system of
propositions or a propositional framework. He remarks that the system of
rules for linguistic expressions is all that is required in order to introduce
a propositional framework. And he adds:
116 L. B. PUNTEL
Any further explanations as to the nature of propositions ... are theoretically unnecessary
because, if correct, they follow from the rules. (Ibid. p. 210; emphasis added)
According to Carnap, it follows from the rules that propositions are neither
mental nor linguistic nor subjective entities. But he stresses that
Although characterizations of these or similar kinds are, strictly speaking, unnecessary,
they may nevertheless be practically useful. If they are given, they should be understood,
not as ingredient parts of the system, but merely as marginal notes with the purpose of
supplying to the reader helpful hints or convenient pictorial associations which may make
his learning of the use of the expressions easier than the bare system of the rules would do.
Such a characterization is analogous to an extrasystematic explanation which a physicist
sometimes gives to the beginner. (Ibid. p. 211)
This wording is surprising as well as symptomatic of the ambiguity in
Carnap’s philosophical stance. How can he say that attempts to explain the
nature of propositions are extra-systematic and at the same time present
some examples of such explanatory statements of which he claims that
“they follow from the rules”? Existential statements that follow from the
rules of a system are ingredients of the system itself.
In the author’s view, the thesis concerning the necessity of introduc-
ing and developing linguistic and, more generally, theoretical frameworks
proves to be irrefutable. But it remains to be shown how this thesis is to
be correctly and adequately understood. Carnap stresses many times the
necessity to explore alternative languages or frameworks.
4. RETHINKING THE FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE: A NEW PERSPECTIVE
The most fundamental problem posed by Carnap’s philosophical stance

concerns the truth issue. In this final section it will be shown how to
formulate this problem adequately and what perspective could or should
be adopted in order to resolve it.
Thinking in terms of frameworks affords a clear and comfortable philo-
sophical stance. Clarity is automatically provided by the methods of con-
struction employed. Comfort results from the fact that the philosopher
thinking strictly in terms of a framework is prompted to ask only questions
arising within the framework. But clarity and comfort are not the only
nor even the most important features or virtues of theoretical enterpris-
es. Philosophers thinking along such lines are naturally inclined to what
might be called a “reductionist” or “deflationist” attitude. Carnap is a good
example of this kind of philosophical attitude.
Every linguistic and/or theoretical framework – at least according to
Carnap’s understanding of frameworks (cp. Stein 1992 and Norton 1977;
see also footnote 10) – articulates an ontology, a world view. Ontology is
not separable from the question of truth. According to Carnap ontology

has an internal status, it is the theoretical articulation of the entities taken
to exist within the accepted framework. He accepts only internal ontology
(and ontologies).4 Since alternative frameworks can be constructed, one
has to envisage alternative ontologies. How is the philosophical status of
such ontologies to be determined more exactly? This question involves a
whole string of problems. In what follows four positions concerning this
fundamental issue will be delineated (the first three are the most important
positions being discussed in contemporary philosophy; the fourth posi-
tion represents in some sense a new perspective). To each of these there
corresponds a way of understanding and determining truth.
The first three positions are based on the assumption that there is a
world that exists independently of us, i. e., of language, theory, “mind”.
[i] The first position holds that there is a world as a totality of theory-
independent or language-independent things, a totality which is fixed once
and for all, briefly: an independent ready-made world, to use a famous
expression of Putnam’s. Concerning this position the question arises: Is
there any relationship between the “internal ontology” of a given frame-
work and the presupposed “world itself”? To be coherent, this position
would have to admit that ultimately there can be at most one, a unique lin-
guistic framework: a kind of “ideal framework”, reminiscent of Putnam’s
“ideal theory” (cp. Putnam 1983). It should be clear that this position must
assume a correspondence theory of truth. As will be shown later, Carnap
most probably did not countenance this strong version of the independence
thesis (which is today called ‘metaphysical realism’).
[ii] According to the second position we ought to adopt an attitude of

neutrality or indecisiveness concerning the question of the existence or non-
existence of an independent world. This poses a serious problem, at least
for the philosopher who accepts frameworks, since this attitude implies that
the status of the ontology (or ontologies) included in these framework(s)
remains completely in the dark. The concept of truth corresponding to this
position is either a deflationary one or it is understood in purely epistemic
or pragmatic terms.
[iii] The third position holds that there is an independent world, but claims
that this world is not a “ready-made” one (cp. Putnam 1983).
Did Carnap subscribe to this position? One cannot answer this question
without making some distinctions. In the middle of the Thirties Carnap
certainly held such a view. Indeed, there is a long passage in his “Truth and
118 L. B. PUNTEL
Confirmation” where Carnap tries to clarify the notion of “comparison”

extensively employed by Schlick:
Furthermore, the formulation in terms of ‘comparison’, in speaking of ‘facts’ and ‘realities’,
easily tempts one into the absolutistic view according to which we are said to search for
an absolute reality whose nature is assumed as fixed independently of the language chosen
for its description. The answer to a question concerning reality however depends not only
upon that ‘reality’, or upon the facts but also upon the structure (and the set of concepts) of
the language used for the description. (Carnap 1936, pp. 125–6)
And in a letter to Schlick, Carnap explained some aspects of his position:

... because I do not believe in complete translatability and consequently hold that also the
content of the world-description will be influenced to a certain degree through the choice of
a language-form. However, that is certainly not to say that reality is created by language.5
This seems to show that Carnap’s conception in the Thirties is to be char-

acterized as a kind of epistemic-ontological hylomorphism, “world” or
“reality” playing the role of “matter” or “stuff”, and language forms (or
structures, frameworks) playing the role of “form”.
The problems confronting this position are well known. D. Davidson
correctly formulated one aspect of the the main problem thus:
Meanings gave us a way to talk about categories of talking, the organizing structure of
language, and so on; but it is possible... to give up meanings and analyticity while retaining
the idea of language as embodying a conceptual scheme. Thus in place of the dualism of the
analytic-synthetic we get the dualism of conceptual scheme and empirical content... I want
to urge that this second dualism of scheme and content, of organizing system and something
waiting to be organized, cannot be made intelligible. It is itself a dogma of empiricism...
(Davidson 1973, p. 189)
And N. Rescher stressed the same aspect even more trenchantly:

The decisive shortcoming of the idea of a pre-schematized ‘given’ as an explanatory
instrument of the theory of cognition is simply and ex hypothesi that one cannot possibly
say anything about what this given is – that it inherently and necessarily lies beyond the
reach of conceptualization. No intelligible content can be given to this idea.To invoke
it is thus not to explain the obscure by the yet more obscure, it is to explain it by the
impenetrable. (Rescher 1982, pp. 45–6)
But the most devastating criticism of this position results from the fact
that according to it the wonderful linguistic and theoretical constructions
(frameworks) remain ultimately external to the content, i. e., to reality,
the world. To put it bluntly, these constructions are castles in the air. The
structures, so clearly and precisely developed and articulated within the
framework, are not shown really to be structures of the world or reality.
So, one must ask: To what purpose are they constructed? What is their real
status?
In the light of what has been shown in section 3, it seems that the late
Carnap did not hold the third position described above any more. Instead,
he should probably be interpreted as countenancing a variant of the second

position. Indeed, his distinction between internal and external questions
seems not to be consistent with the claim that
the answer to a question concerning reality... depends not only upon that ‘reality’, or upon
the facts but also upon the structure (and the set of concepts) of the language used for the
description. (Carnap 1936, pp. 125–6)
According to this wording, “reality” seems to be a thoroughly theoretical

concept, an ingredient of a theoretical statement. But later Carnap apparent-
ly dismisses such a view. Two different senses of “reality” are introduced:
a theoretical one and a practical one. The first is a purely internal (frame-
work relative) sense. The latter is a pseudosense, and to pose a problem
about it is to pose a pseudoproblem. No meaningful answer can be given to
such an external question, neither in the affirmative nor in the negative, for
example by stating: “Entities of kind K are ‘real’ (outside the framework)”,
“entities of kind F are ‘non-real’ (outside the framework)”. According to
Carnap, the “right” answer to such external questions amounts to trans-
forming them into practical questions, and this means: changing the topic.
The “right” topic of such questions is: acceptance (introduction) of lan-
guage form (framework) K or acceptance (introduction) of language form
(framework) F or...or...
A significant confirmation of this interpretation is to be found in §10
(“Variables”) of Meaning and Necessity, where Carnap comments on
Quine’s “ontological commitment” expressed in the following passage
from Quine’s paper Notes on Existence and Necessity (1943):
The ontology to which one’s use of language commits him comprises simply the objects
that he treats as falling...within the range of values of his variables. (Quine 1943, p. 118)
With respect to this statement Carnap observes:

I am essentially in agreement with this view... But, first, I wish to indicate a doubt concerning
Quine’s formulation; I am not quite clear whether the point raised is not perhaps of a merely
terminological nature. I should prefer not to use the word ‘ontology’ for the recognition of
entities by the admission of variables. This use seems to me to be at least misleading; it
might be understood as implying that the decision to use certain kinds of variables must
be based on ontological, metaphysical convictions. In my view, however, the choice of a
certain language structure and, in particular, the decision to use certain types of variables
is a practical decision like the choice of an instrument... (Carnap 1956, pp. 42–3)
From this passage it becomes evident that, contrary to what Carnap states,
there is an essential disagreement between him and Quine; the declaration
of non-disagreement is purely verbal. As a matter of fact, the difference
between Quine and Carnap goes far beyond purely terminological matters;
it is fundamental in character. To use his own expression, in Carnap’s later
120 L. B. PUNTEL
writings ontology is purely instrumental. Carnap’s usage of this “fine old

word ‘ontology’ ” (Quine 1951, p. 203) is deeply misleading.6
[iv] Finally, the fourth position is a completely different way of understand-

ing the status of framework ontology (ontologies); it consists in explicitly
denying the existence of an independent world or a world an sich as well
as in taking seriously the framework ontology (and ontologies) as ontol-
ogy (ontologies) proper. Clarifying what this proposal amounts to, is a
formidable task.
[iv–i] At first sight, this position seems to imply a reduction of the world or
reality to linguistic frameworks or an “idealization” of the world or reality
and, therefore, the assumption of something like a linguistic idealism.
Actually, this is neither a necessary implication of this position nor is it a
really intelligible way of understanding the non-independence of the world
or reality from language, theories etc. There is a better way of understanding
the denial of the independence thesis; it consists in “naturalizing” language,
language forms, frameworks, theories (and the so-called “mind”...). In both
cases the opposition or the gap between both dimensions is overcome. Only
the second way will be considered here. “Naturalization” means that all
the constituents of our whole theoretical apparatus, our language(s), our
frameworks, etc. are really part of “the world” or reality, briefly, that we
are really integrated into the world or reality. The so-called “transaction”
between us and the world is in reality an “inner-worldly” event.
The expression ‘naturalization’ is being used here in a wide sense, in a
sense certainly reminiscent of, but not restricted to, Quine’s “naturalism”.
As is well known, Quine’s naturalistic thesis is an epistemological and
methodological thesis. To be sure, this does not mean that ontology does
not play any role in Quine’s naturalism. On the contrary, Quine assumes a
“reciprocal containment of epistemology and ontology” (Gibson 1988, p.
43).7
The predominant perspective in the present context is an ontological
one. Perhaps the expression ‘ontological integration’ or even ‘ontologiza-
tion’ would be more suitable.
From this point of view, our so-called “theoretical constructions (frame-
works) etc.” are, to put it bluntly, actually constructions afforded by nature,
by the world or reality. Echoing Quine’s famous expression ‘epistemology
naturalized’, it would be suitable to speak of ‘language (framework[s])
etc. naturalized’. One consequence of this view is that our so-called “con-
structions” are in reality “reconstructions”, to be precise, reconstructions
of what has been developed by nature/reality and is, therefore, inherent in

nature or reality.8
As is well known, Carnap often employed the expression ‘reconstruc-
tion’; what he had in mind was clearly the explication of what is pre-
systematically given, for instance, the explication of the meaning of expres-
sions belonging to natural language. No doubt, Carnap’s intention and
achievement were excellent; but one needs to go further and clarify what
should be considered the ultimate basis of the various “reconstructions”
undertaken.
[iv–ii] A further remark concerning the idea (or phenomenon) of alternative

frameworks is in order here. The idea of naturalizing alternative conceptual
frameworks might seem more or less unintelligible or at least extremely
implausible. On this point, it should be remarked first of all very generally
that arguments or objections appealing to criteria of “intelligibility” or
“unintelligibility” and the like should be advanced only very cautiously.
As regards the topic just mentioned, interesting considerations have been
put forward by Rescher. In chapter 2 of his book Empirical Inquiry, in
which he deals with the topic of conceptual schemes, there is the following
remarkable passage:
The difference between conceptual schemes is not a matter of treating the same issues dis-
cordantly, distributing the truth-value T and F differently over otherwise invariant propo-
sitions. Different conceptual schemes embody different theories, and not just different
theories about ‘the same things’ (so that divergence inevitably reflects disagreement as to
the truth or falsity of propositions), but different theories about different things. To move
from one conceptual scheme to another is not a matter of disagreement about the same old
issues, it is in some way to change the subject. (Rescher 1982, p. 40; last emphasis added)
The point is, no doubt, well made. What is important in the present context
is that Rescher’s idea turns out to be very plausible and illuminating in the
perspective of naturalized conceptual schemes or frameworks. A “natural-
izing” reading of the following statement: “Different conceptual schemes
take us into literally different spheres of thought” (ibid. p. 42) leads to
the thesis: different conceptual schemes or frameworks articulate different
spheres or dimensions (or layers) of the world or reality.
To be sure, one has to be very careful in treating this difficult matter. The
expression ‘alternative frameworks’ is ambiguous. It is used at least in a
threefold sense: in the sense of “different” (without further qualification),
in the sense of “mutually exclusive” (implying, therefore, disagreement
or conflict), finally, in the sense of “incommensurable” (not implying,
therefore, disagreement or conflict). Clearly, Rescher has in mind the third
sense:
122 L. B. PUNTEL
The most characteristic and significant sort of difference between one conceptual scheme
and another thus does not lie in the sphere of disagreements or conflicts of the sort arising
when the one theoretical framework holds something to be true that the other holds to be
false. Rather, it arises when the one scheme is committed to something the other does not
envisage at all – something that lies outside the conceptual horizons of the other. (Ibid.)
It might be extremely difficult to establish that two “different” theoretical

frameworks are in a relevant conceptual and ontological sense mutually
exclusive, since in order to do that one has to show that both frameworks
are concerned with exactly the same subject or issue. But what are the
identity conditions for sameness of subject (or issue)? In general, two
different conceptual schemes are only apparently mutually exclusive. The
most interesting (and frequent) case concerning this matter is the case of
the reducibility of a theoretical framework to another. One well-known
example is the attempt to reduce the concept of number to logic or set
theory (or to reduce a “numerical” framework to a logical or set theoretical
framework).
It should be added that to take these aspects of the topic into account
and to clarify the questions arising in this context is in most cases to fulfill
only a necessary (not a sufficient) condition for establishing the thesis
formulated above: different conceptual schemes or frameworks articulate
different spheres or dimensions (or layers) of the world or reality.
[iv–iii] A final central question remains to be articulated and clarified (at

least in principle). It concerns the theoretical language in which statements
about the naturalization or ontologization of the frameworks are (or should
be) formulated. In an important passage of Empiricism, Semantics, and
Ontology Carnap asserts:
The acceptance of the thing language leads... to the acceptance, belief, and assertion of
certain statements. But the thesis of the reality of the thing world cannot be among these
statements, because it cannot be formulated in the thing language or, it seems, in any other
theoretical language. (Carnap 1950, p. 208; emphasis added)
In his very illuminating and thought-provoking paper On Carnap: Reflec-

tions of a Metaphysical Student (1992) Abner Shimony comments on the
quoted passage in a perspective very similar to the perspective just delin-
eated. It is worth quoting some passages from Shimony’s comments in
detail:
One thing that troubles me...is that the facts of efficiency, fruitfulness, and simplicity, which
Carnap points to with approbation, should not be merely noted but explained as deeply as
possibly. And the search for explanations can lead to questions about the structure of
the world and the place of knowers and language users in the world – questions hardly
different from those of traditional metaphysics and epistemology... I would ask how he
[Carnap] knows that the thesis of the reality of the thing world ‘cannot be formulated... in
any other theoretical language’. Do we not have here an instance of a vague ‘explicandum’
which stimulates the search for an ‘explicatum’ - comparable to the situation which he
found and tenaciously studied in inductive logic? (Shimony 1992, p. 263; emphasis added.
Cp. footnote 10.)
This topic deserves an extensive and careful treatment. But in the present
context only a few remarks are possible.
[a] As has been stated above, Carnap’s introduction of linguistic frame-

works is a valuable and even an apparently irrefutable idea, but the way
he understood and developed this idea is disputable and even wrong. The
question Carnap raised in the last quotation concerning the theoretical
language represents one central aspect of this central topic.
It is obvious that Carnap uses a meta-language and, therefore, a meta-
framework when he makes statements about the thing language, the thing
world, and the like. But the expression ‘meta-language’ in this context
is not without ambiguity. In The Logical Syntax of Language the meta-
language is understood as the neutral meta-discipline of logical syntax
within which it is possible to formulate and investigate the formal rules of
any and all object-languages or linguistic frameworks. This system (or the
discipline or the theory) of formal (syntactical) rules itself has the status
of a meta-“dimension” or meta-language with respect to a specific object-
language in the sense that it contains the presentation of the formal rules
or structures of the object-language. In order to avoid misunderstandings
from the outset, it should be stressed that the formal rules and structures
are formulated in the discipline or theory called logical syntax, but that
those rules and structures are rules and structures of the object-language;
they are, so to speak, built into the object-language. The theory, i.e., the
logical syntax, has a meta-status; but the formal rules and structures are
formal rules and structures of the object-language itself. It should be added
that the language, in which the syntactical theory or the Logical Syntax of
Language is articulated, is a Meta-Meta-Language.
From this syntactical point of view the very sense of the distinction
between the formal and the material mode of speech amounts to nothing but
the following: statements in the formal mode of speech are statements about
the formal rules and structures of the object-language; those statements that
are not about the formal rules and structures are “material” statements or
statements about the “content”. Obviously, in this perspective a theoretical
language is a purely formal (in the sense of: syntactically understood)
language. If the only task of philosophy is to investigate the formal (=
syntactical) rules and structures of linguistic frameworks, then this means
that we have to “substitute logical syntax for philosophy” (Carnap 1968,
124 L. B. PUNTEL
§ 2). But why should we restrict the task of philosophy to a purely logico-
syntactical one?
The best argument against this restrictive understanding of (the task
of) philosophy is afforded by Carnap himself: he overcame this exclu-
sively logico-syntactical stance and assumed a broader perspective: the
semantical perspective along the lines developed by Tarski. He himself
characterizes the reasons for his shift and the new semantic task of philos-
ophy in the preface to the second edition of the German version of his The
Logical Syntax of Language (1968) as follows:
When I was writing the first draft of this book, it was my view that the entire logic of science
could be represented by logical syntax. In the meantime, however, other areas of linguistic
analysis have been developed in which other aspects of language have been treated. As
a result I would be more inclined to say today that the logic of science is the analysis
and the theory of the language of science. According to contemporary thought this theory
encompasses, in addition to logical syntax, two further primary areas, namely semantics and
pragmatics. Whereas syntax is purely formal, i.e. only considers the structure of linguistic
expressions, semantics examines the relations of meaning between expressions and objects
or concepts. Further, with the aid of these relations of meaning it is possible also to define
the concept of the truth of a sentence within semantics. (Carnap 1968, p. vii)
The significance of Carnap’s semantic shift can hardly be overestimat-

ed. Unfortunately, he himself seemed to have remained unaware of the real
significance of his move (cp. footnote 10). To put it briefly, the semantic
shift amounts to leaving behind the early version (or, more exactly, the
earlier versions) of the form-content distinction, the distinction between
formal and material mode of speech. This has the consequence that Carnap
can no longer coherently state that philosophical (especially metaphysical)
sentences are meaningless sentences, i.e., pseudosentences. According to
the Carnap of The Logical Syntax of Language “philosophical sentences”
in the material mode are acceptable if and only if they are fully trans-
latable into the formal mode; but at the syntactical stage of his develop-
ment this simply meant that the philosophical sentences are meaningful
sentences only if they are translatable into the meta-language of logical
syntax. “Translatability” was understood by Carnap, it is submitted, as
“reducibility” in the strong sense: the only acceptable “sense” or “status”
of meaningful philosophical sentences is their syntactical sense or status.
A different sense or status is a pseudosense or a pseudostatus.
The semantical shift brought about a profound change and reassessment
of the form-content distinction. According to the syntactical version of
this distinction the “semantical dimension” itself would have to be seen
as belonging to the content side; consequently, “semantical” statements
would have to be assessed as statements in the material mode. Now, it is
obvious that after the semantical shift Carnap was not prepared to consider
semantics as being a discipline containing statements in the material mode.

But if semantical statements are taken to be statements in the formal
mode, it follows that the meaning of “formal” underwent a radical change.
What does “formal (mode)” mean now? It seems that after his semantic
turnabout Carnap was no longer entitled to use the expression ‘formal
(mode)’ in order to characterize his position, since “formal” cannot be
taken as a definiens or explicans of “semantical” now; rather, if one wants
to continue to use the expression ‘formal (mode)’, “semantical” should be
considered a necessary as well as only a partial definiens or explicans of
“formal”.
[b] But what is the “semantical” (dimension)? As the above quotation

shows, Carnap characterizes it almost in the same terms Tarski had used
in his address given at the International Congress of Scientific Philosophy
in Paris (1935):
We shall understand by semantics the totality of considerations concerning those concepts
which, roughly speaking, express certain connections between the expressions of a language
and the objects and states of affairs referred to by these expressions. (Tarski 1936, p. 401)
Accordingly, semantics is a meta-discipline or theory that formulates the

connections between language and the world. It should be obvious that
semantic considerations do not address the formal (in the sense of: syn-
tactical) structures of the expressions of the language under investigation;
rather, they work out another “dimension” or “structure” of these expres-
sions: their relatedness to the world. If the relatedness to the world is
an essential dimension of language (linguistic frameworks), the question
inevitably arises: what is meant by “(the) world”, “reality”? As has been
shown above, Carnap strongly distinguishes between internal and external
questions concerning (the) world or reality. It appears that at this point it
can be shown what this distinction really amounts to – and that Carnap
was mistaken about the real significance of his approach.
A thoroughly coherent reconstruction of his central assumptions leads
to the thesis that the most fundamental distinction concerning questions
(or statements) is the distinction between questions (statements) whose
semantical status is fully acknowledged and clarified and questions whose
semantical status is left in the dark: There are no meaningful questions,
problems, statements and the like outside a semantically clarified linguis-
tic framework. No question (or statement) about reality, (the) world and
the like that has not been submitted to a semantical clarification (or, more
exactly, whose semantical status is not clarifiable) can be accepted in the
area of philosophy and science. The famous distinction between inter-
nal and external questions (statements etc.) amounts to nothing but the
126 L. B. PUNTEL
distinction between semantically clarifiable questions and semantically

non-clarifiable questions, respectively.
From this it follows that talk of “(the) world” or “reality” and the like
is meaningless outside a semantical framework. Such questions and state-
ments are indeed pseudoquestions and pseudostatements on the ground
that their semantical status is not clarified.
[c] At this point we should briefly return to Carnap’s statement about

“theoretical language” quoted above (“... the thesis about the reality of the
thing world ... cannot be formulated in the thing language or, it seems,
in any other theoretical language” [Carnap 1950, p. 208]). Why should it
not be possible, at least in principle, to introduce a theoretical language
in which the meaning of “the reality” of the thing world is formulated?
To be sure, such a theoretical language would have to be a much broader
language encompassing several partial languages or sublanguages like the
thing (sub)language, the propositional (sub)language etc.9
To summarize, the most important shortcoming in Carnap’s develop-
ment lies in the fact that he has not entirely succeeded in clarifying the
ambiguous form-content distinction. Shifting from the syntactical to the
semantical dimension was a fundamental step. But he should have taken
a further step: he should have taken seriously the semantical dimension
itself. The semantical dimension involves the ontological realm. There is
no meaningful talk of an ontological realm outside the semantical dimen-
sion. But semantics remains a mere torso if it is stripped of its ontological
dimension.10
The perspective hinted at is a promising as well as a compelling one.
It should be added that it is a bold one. But the problems to which the
discussions within the Vienna Circle have led seem to demand that we
embark on new ways of thinking. The task to be accomplished is best
seen as the task of developing a theory of truth that takes into account the
perspective and the ideas briefly sketched in the description of the fourth
position.11 But developing such a perspective and a suitable theory is, alas,
a story for another day.12
NOTES
1
R. Creath and R. Nollan translate Carnap’s expression ‘Systemsprache’ simply as ‘System’
which is not quite accurate and can lead to dangerous misunderstandings (cp. Carnap 1932).
2
They are described in the following passage:
I can understand the meaning of a ‘confirmation [Konstatierung]’ only by, and when,
comparing it with the facts, thus carrying that process which is necessary for the verification
of all synthetic statements. While in the case of all other synthetic statements determining
the meaning is separate from, distinguishable from, determining the truth, in the case of
observation statements they coincide, just as in the case of analytic statements. (Schlick
1934, p. 225)
3
The passage reads as follows:
In our example it [the comparison] is done by looking at the cathedral and at the sentence
in the book and by stating that the symbol ‘two’ is used in connection with the symbol
‘spires,’ and that I arrive at the same symbol when I apply the rules of counting to the
towers of the cathedral. (Schlick 1935, p. 67)
4
In order to avoid misunderstandings, it should be noted that Carnap uses the expression
‘ontology’ only to characterize statements deriving from external questions concerning
existence. Indeed, this expression occurs only in contexts like the following: he rejects
“a metaphysical ontology of the Platonic kind” (Carnap 1950, p. 206); he does not find
it intelligible that “the controversy concerning the external question of the ontological
reality of the system of numbers continues” (ibid., p 219; emphasis added); as regards
the usage of the expression ‘existence’ in mathematics (for instance in statements like the
following: ‘for every m and n, m + n = n + m ’ and ‘there is an m between 7 nd 13
which is prime’), he observes: “The concept of existence here has nothing to do with the
ontological concept of existence or reality” (Carnap 1956, p. 43; emphasis added). In spite
of this usage of ‘ontology’ in a purely external sense, it is convenient to introduce and to
employ the expression ‘internal ontology’ to characterize correctly and adequately Carnap’s
own position. Indeed, he admits the “acceptance of entities” (Carnap 1950, p. 213) within a
linguistic framework or “the introduction of a framework for entities” (ibid. p. 211), and the
like. In other words, he accepts an internal ontology (more precisely, internal ontologies).
The qualification ‘internal’ is suitable for excluding any misunderstanding of Carnap’s own
position. Cp. footnote 6 below.
5
Archives for Scientific Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh Libraries; translated and
quoted by Oberdan (1993), pp. 141–2.
6
Significantly, Quine adds:
... if he [Carnap] had a better use for this fine old word ‘ontology,’ I should be inclined
to cast about for another word for my own meaning. But the fact is, I believe, that he
disapproves of my giving meaning to a word which belongs to traditional metaphysics
and should therefore be meaningless. Now my ethics of terminology demand, on occasion,
the avoidance of a word for given purposes when the word has been preempted in a prior
meaning; meaningless words, however, are precisely the words which I feel freest to specify
meanings for. But actually my adoption of the word ‘ontology’ for the purpose described
is not as arbitrary as I make it sound. Though no champion of traditional metaphysics, I
suspect that the sense in which I use this crusty word has been nuclear to its usage all along.
(Quine 1951, p. 204)
7
Gibson explains this reciprocal containment in the following terms:
... our ontology (natural science) tells us that our epistemology is true, and our epistemology
(empiricism) tells us that our ontology is warranted, but still both of these claims are part
of science itself and are therefore fallible and mutable. (Gibson 1988, p. 49)
8
An interesting characterization of what could be called the ontologocal status of “mind”
is due to Putnam:
The mind and the world jointly make up the mind and the world. (Or, to make the metaphor
128 L. B. PUNTEL
even more Hegelian, the Universe makes up the Universe – with minds – collectively –
playing a special role in the making up.) (Putnam 1981, p. xi)
To be sure, Putnam seems to be at least somewhat reluctant to explain the “special role”
he attributes to “minds” in genuine ontological terms. He hints at such an explanation, but
then he seems to fall short of stating it explicitly. Another significant passage from another
paper reads as follows:
We make up uses of words – many, many different uses of words – and none of them is
merely copied off from the world itself. Yet, for all that, some of our sentences state facts,
and the truth of a factual statement is not something we just make up. One might say, not
that we make the world, but that we help to define the world. The rich and over-growing
collection of truths about the world is the joint product of the world and language users.
Or better (since language users are part of the world), it is the product of the world, with
language-users playing a creative role in the process of production. (Putnam 1991, pp.
422–3)
9
To the passage quoted above Abner Shimony adds:
I can imagine that Carnap might agree, but with the proviso that if the ‘thesis of the reality
of the thing world’ were formulated in some theoretical language of the future, it would
ipso facto turn into an internal statement of existence. I would not be entirely content with
this answer, because it would fail to take sufficient account of the constraints which the
world imposes on the procedure of finding a fruitful explication, and these constraints are
external in a certain sense to the frame of language. (Shimony 1992, pp. 263–4; emphasis
added)
Carnap is right as regards this point. There is no possibility to assume or to state something
like ‘existence’ outside a linguistic (theoretical) framework. But the “real” question to
be asked against Carnap is whether it is not compelling to develop (he would say: “to
construct”) “higher” and “broader” theoretical frameworks. Why should that be impossible?
He himself presupposes such a very broad theoretical framework when he makes statements
about meaningful and meaningless questions or statements about existence. We never can
put ourselves outside a linguistic (theoretical) framework; but this does not imply any kind
of “limitation” and the like. It seems that Abner Shimony is profoundly right in pointing to
“the constraints which the world imposes on the procedure of finding a fruitful explication
[of the “emergence” or construction of “higher”and “wider” theoretical languages]” (this is
an aspect of what was called above “naturalization” or “ontologization”); but it should be
added that it is ambiguous (and possibly wrong) to say that “these constraints are external
in a certain sense to the frame of language”. In what sense?
10
In a certain sense Howard Stein comes to the same conclusion:
The notion of a framework...with its envisaged possibilities, does at least afford us a
convenient way of formulating statements about the ‘ontological’, or truth-related, bearings
of sentences of a theory – including purely mathematical ones. In his paper on ontology,
Carnap emphasized the relativity of this notion to the theoretical framework.
I think it has not been generally understood that, in Carnap’s scheme of things,...semantics
is fundamentally concerned with ‘ontology’, and not with ‘methodology’ or ‘epistemology’.
This should have been clear from the start, in view of Carnap’s tripartite classification
of linguistic theory: into syntax – concerned with linguistic entities alone; semantics -
concerned with linguistic entities and their relations to what they refer to; and pragmatics –
concerned with all the aspects of a language together, including in particular its conditions
and nodes of use. But the point was obscured – and seems at first not to have been
appreciated by Carnap himself .... (Stein 1992, p. 287; emphasis added)

11
Cp. Puntel (1990) and Puntel (1993).
12
The author is indebted to Godehard Brüntrup, Philip Clayton, Jürgen Dümont, Jerry
Massey, Thomas Mormann, Nicholas Rescher, Christina Schneider, and Johanna Seibt for
their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.
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Institut für Philosophie
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1
80539 München
GERMANY
E-mail: puntel@lrz.uni-muenchen.de

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ON THE LOGICAL POSITIVISTS’ THEORY OF TRUTH: THE

FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM AND A NEW PERSPECTIVE

In the mid-1930s some leading members of the Vienna Circle engaged in

Journal for General Philosophy of Science 30: 101–130, 1999.

1. PROTOCOL SENTENCES AND THE CONCEPT OF TRUTH

In opposition to Carnap Neurath defended the claim that there are no

Carnap’s attempt of reconcilement is based on the distinction between two

Schlick distinguishes between two questions concerning truth: the question

accordance with the correspondence notion of truth. Indeed, according to

2. THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT TRUTH

ments without qualification; according to him, they countenanced only a

In what follows only two aspects of Schlick’s paper will be comment-

Schlick had used the example of comparing a sentence in his traveller’s

[a] The first concerns the physicalistic view of propositions. If propositions

intuition underlying their usage involve extremely difficult questions in the

3. SOME DEVELOPMENTS AND PERSISTENT PROBLEMS

[1] In two important papers published in 1982 and 1990, respectively,

But what are “world pictures”? In Hempel’s conception truth is presup-

[3] In what follows Carnap’s paper Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology

differentiated version of the form-content distinction. On the basis of the

4. RETHINKING THE FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE: A NEW PERSPECTIVE

The most fundamental problem posed by Carnap’s philosophical stance

not separable from the question of truth. According to Carnap ontology

[ii] According to the second position we ought to adopt an attitude of

Confirmation” where Carnap tries to clarify the notion of “comparison”

And in a letter to Schlick, Carnap explained some aspects of his position:

This seems to show that Carnap’s conception in the Thirties is to be char-

And N. Rescher stressed the same aspect even more trenchantly:

he should probably be interpreted as countenancing a variant of the second

According to this wording, “reality” seems to be a thoroughly theoretical

With respect to this statement Carnap observes:

writings ontology is purely instrumental. Carnap’s usage of this “fine old

[iv] Finally, the fourth position is a completely different way of understand-

of what has been developed by nature/reality and is, therefore, inherent in

[iv–ii] A further remark concerning the idea (or phenomenon) of alternative

It might be extremely difficult to establish that two “different” theoretical

[iv–iii] A final central question remains to be articulated and clarified (at

In his very illuminating and thought-provoking paper On Carnap: Reflec-

[a] As has been stated above, Carnap’s introduction of linguistic frame-

The significance of Carnap’s semantic shift can hardly be overestimat-

semantics as being a discipline containing statements in the material mode.

[b] But what is the “semantical” (dimension)? As the above quotation

Accordingly, semantics is a meta-discipline or theory that formulates the

distinction between semantically clarifiable questions and semantically

[c] At this point we should briefly return to Carnap’s statement about

appreciated by Carnap himself .... (Stein 1992, p. 287; emphasis added)

Norton, B. G.: 1977, Linguistic Frameworks and Ontology. A Re-Examination of Carnap’s

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