A Griceian Type of Metaphysic

Speranza

From wiki, metaphysics:

"Popper argued that metaphysical statements are NOT meaningless statements, but rather not fallible, testable or provable statements -- Howard Richards (2004). Understanding the Global Economy. Peace Education Books. p. 293. -- i.e.

neither empirical observations

nor

logical arguments

could falsify metaphysical statements to show them to be true or false.

Hence, a metaphysical statement usually implies an idea about the world or about the universe, which may be reasonable but is ultimately not empirically testable.

---

On the other hand (or is it the same?), Carnap, in his book Philosophy and Logical Syntax, used the concept of verifiability to reject metaphysics.

"Metaphysicians cannot avoid making their statements non-verifiable, because if they made them verifiable, the decision about the truth or falsehood of their doctrines would depend upon experience and therefore belong to the region of empirical science."

"This consequence metaphysicians wish to avoid, because they pretend to teach knowledge which is of a higher level than that of empirical science."

"Thus metaphysicians are compelled to cut all connection between their statements and experience; and precisely by this procedure they deprive them of any sense."

Simplistic overview, but worth examining!

It all started, recently, when Pinker and Fodor were considering Darwinianism, and we were revising Popper's idea that there may be a 'metaphysical research programme' at the core of it... or not!