Three Kinds of Clarity in 'early' Analytic (Carnap, Quine, and Nagel)

Philosophers themselves are at variance as to the "proper" task of philosophy. Many students of the history of philosophy agree, however, that the great texts in philosophy are best understood when viewed as so many reflections upon issues raised by the scientific and social developments of their day. The practice, if not always the explicit intent, of a great deal of philosophy has been to function as a commentary on the intellectual life of man - a commentary whose object is to bring some order and clarity into the propositions certified by the sciences or sanctioned by social needs. The commentaries which philosophers have provided have often been confused and unintelligible: they have frequently proved obstacles to clear conceptions of nature and man and have turned out to be fresh occasions for wonder. Nonetheless, the historical fact that so much of philosophy has been a reflection upon science and society suggests that the business of philosophy is not that of adding to the sum of our knowledge of nature, in the sense in which the sciences add to that knowledge, but of clarifying such knowledge. The "wisdom" of Aristotle, accordingly, is not to be identified with his encyclopedic knowledge or with his speculative interpretation of the science and society of his day; it is to be found in the careful distinctions he drew between the meanings of terms current in his day, and in the light his analyses throw on the confusions that arise when the distinctions are not respected. The task of philosophy, on this point of view, is not to supply a cosmogony or cosmology: its task, which may be pursued by professional scientists no less than by professional philosophers, is to serve as a cathartic to men's beliefs and ideas. In other words, according to this conception of philosophy its aim is to perfect principles of logic and method and to exercise them upon the various statements
occurring in everyday discourse and the sciences.--Ernest Nagel (1938) "The Fight for Clarity: Logical Empiricism" The American Scholar 8.(1): 46

Recall that Carnap and Quine have distinct understandings of clarity. For Carnap clarity is a property or by-product of formal systems, of constructed languages. Clarity in the hands of Carnap means to capture a kind of demand for transparency in one's inferential practices, one's commitments, and the use of terms (it very much hopes to prevent equivocation and polysemous use).  Carnapian clarity is really a second-order property of an otherwise esoteric, expert practice.

By contrast, Quine had a tendency, as Greg Frost-Arnold has shown, (i) to associate clarity with more general forms of intelligibility. In later years, Quine might argue that (ii) his program (developed in Word & Object) of the philosopher regimenting scientific language to exhibit its ontological commitments, may also be aiming at a species of clarity (about the 'ontology' of science), alongside systematicity.  He also (iii) came to think of clarity as a more general theoretical virtue of a system. 

The earlier discussion of Carnap and Quine left me a bit puzzled about the to-me-intuitive notion of clarity I had picked up from my teachers as an undergraduate and PhD student. (I assume it is intuitive because of my teachers.) And while I certainly do not want to ignore the contribution of Cambridge (Russell, Moore, etc.) to my intuitive understanding, I think Ernest Nagel gives a sense of where that might have, in part, come from.

The 1938 essay by Nagel that I quote above is, as scholars of analytic philosophy have noted, an important moment in twentieth century philosophy for two reasons. First, the piece partially (re-)introduces logical empiricism to an American audience, while simultaneously defending them from (rather persistent) misrepresentation (in part based on describing the evolution away from strict verificationism). In fact, Nagel puts a kind of neo-Kantian and proto-Foucaultian spin on the mature/more recent version of logical empiricism: "Indeed the proper question is not "what does a statement mean?" but "what are the conditions which empiricists will acknowledge to be necessary for a statement to have meaning? " (51)

Second, the piece aims to contribute to a convergence between what I call the 'scientific wing of pragmatism' (as represented, especially, by Peirce in the essay) and logical empiricism, and so is a signal moment in the development of analytic philosophy. (Regular readers know I treat Nagel as the philosophical prophet of the sociological and conceptual construction, analytic philosophy.) Toward the end of the essay it becomes clear that Nagel sees himself as occupying a (mature) version of the intersection between these two movements.

Okay, while keeping in mind that there are polemical ("fight") purposes being served and that in some sense he is constructing an image of clarity that is to have wide uptake, it may be useful to look at Nagel's version of clarity. For Nagel, the search for clarity is an effect or byproduct from the advanced development and specialization and, so, esotericism of the special sciences. And this means that new criteria of intelligibility distinct from those used in ordinary language are required. As he puts it, "the increased abstractness and generality of modern science require a serious reconsideration and a recasting of those relatively simple canons of intelligibility and validity which are sufficient for the needs of every-day discourse and inquiry." (47-48) So, at a first approximation, Nagel's version of clarity involve the canons of intelligibility and validity apt for  (esoteric) special sciences.

But the reason why this effort at clarification is a philosophical task is, in part, due to a limitation on the professional scientist:

we cannot fall back upon every-day practices and habitual intuitions for aid, and most professional scientists are not sufficiently conscious of their own procedures to enlighten us; special studies must be undertaken by men sensitive to the logical issues involved. Recent methodological studies aim to supply appropriate answers and their main objectives are therefore the following: the careful analysis, formulation and expansion of those intellectual techniques which have been found reliable for controlling our conjectures about the world we inhabit; the appraisal of the import of science and of the conditions for its successful activity; the analysis of scientific concepts and the formulation of logical standards for distinguishing meaningful statements and questions from those which have no accredited meaning.
The movement known at present as "logical empiricism" is a loosely-organized group of philosophers and scientists interested in such problems of method. (48)

We see here (Nagel emphasizes it again later in the essay) the germ of Thomas Kuhn's idea that there is a sense in which ordinary scientists lack proper self-awareness about all there own practices. We might say that a lot of scientific activity (calibration, measurement practices, hidden assumption in the math) is 'black-boxed' and 'taken off-line,' say in the name of cognitive and operational efficiency. To be sure, Nagel is quick to emphasize (and nods to Mach's influence) that interest in the process of clarification, so not just the results, is widespread among "professional scientists" (47 & 58). So, it would be more apt to say that for Nagel clarification is not just developing the canons of intelligibility and validity apt for  (esoteric) special sciences, but also making transparent the methods and practices of science that generate warranted claims. 

What is nice about this notion of clarity, is  that we see in it the significance of normative epistemology and the philosophy of scientific practice ("One of the most valuable and promising tendencies of logical empiricism is the emphasis it places upon the analysis of ideas
employed in special fields of study, so that the procedures which are relevant to those ideas and which alone make them intelligible are made explicit." (57)) These are two areas of philosophy of science that (under the ongoing influence of Reichenbach) are often orthogonal to each other today. 

I don't mean to suggest this completes my analysis of what Nagel means by clarity. One question one may well ask is what he means by 'intelligibility.' And I hasten to add that Nagel is no friend of the PSR (in the same period he has a polemic against Blanshard's version of the PSR, internal relations, and monism.).  Rather, I think Nagel means by intelligibility something like showing how and the way terms/concepts (etc.) hang together (he's a holist) and function in a system of knowledge and bodies of ordinary practice. I think this because of remarks like this, "the task of philosophy lies in the clarification of terms occurring in scientific and everyday discourse, by exhibiting their interrelations and function in the contexts in which they occur." (59)*

So, finally, Nagel clarification is not just developing the canons of intelligibility and validity apt for (esoteric) special sciences, but also making transparent the methods and practices of science that generate warranted claims in part by showing how and the way terms/concepts  hang together and function in a system of knowledge and forms of ordinary practice. Now, one may think that Nagel here echoes a kind of underlaborer to the sciences conception of philosophy (but note those ordinary practices.) However, he also endorses some of the political aims for clarification by "some" logical empiricists:

Certainly the least one can say of logical empiricism is that even if it accomplished nothing else it is a powerful force that aims to introduce rational methods into all fields of inquiry. One of its functions, that of serving as a disinfectant to the thinking of men, would alone justify the continuance and spread of the movement. It rests its case not on an appeal to authority or the emotional needs of men but on an appeal to a persistent effort to think clearly. The movement is an important arm in the interminable warfare against obscurantism and for clarity. (59)+

As I noted before (recall), for Nagel government by discussion is not about achieving authoritative consensus, but rather, as his conception of science and democracy reveal, as the ongoing practice of being responsive to reasons and criticisms based on experimentally controlled facts. Our cognitive practices in science and political life are made possible, and developed and improved by, our socially embedded interactions with each other. For Nagel it is clear that "Perhaps no intellectual tendency is more dangerous than that accompanying the claim that knowledge of human affairs is the exclusive property of men endowed with a "higher insight" - which is not subject to the control of well established experimental methods."" (55) For Nagel, the cultivation of clarity is a contribution to a democratic ethos.

 

*Here is a exemplary passage:

The logical structure of the theory of relativity, the character and function of the laws in classical and contemporary physics, the rôle of pure mathematics in the positive sciences, the methodology of measurement, the meaning and function of probability statements, the character and basis of social predictions and the logic of classification in psychology and the social sciences are some of the topics discussed in greater or less detail by individual members of the movement. In this respect logical empiricism has continued the tradition of Ernst Mach, whose analysis of such concepts as mass, temperature, and space has contributed so greatly to the advancement and clarification of contemporary physics. In consequence the movement has attracted not only profess philosophers but also professional scientists who understand the importance and feel the need of analyzing the concrete issues of the sciences in terms of the procedures employed in them. The international congresses which have been held yearly by logical empiricists would be noteworthy if only for the fact that the major theoretical disciplines have been represented in them. These congresses, as well as the encyclopedia now under way, exhibit a spirit of cooperation among intellectual workers in all fields that is rarely manifested outside the natural sciences. Much remains to be done, especially in analyzing the concepts of the social sciences and above all of ethics. Indeed the
discussion of ethical terms by most professed logical empiricists has thus far been of a negative, even a superficial character. It has been directed primarily against obscurantist tendencies instead of contributing positively to their clarification and systematization. 57-58

+This provides some evidence for Martin Lenz's claim that 'clarity' is always a political concept.