The Elimination of Metaphysics Ken Matheson, St. Francis Xavier University Introduction In Language, Truth and Logic, A. J. Ayer is harshly critical of metaphysicians engaged in theorizing about a reality that transcends the limits of sense experience and particularly of metaphysical propositions, declaring that metaphysicians produce nonsense. He argues that protracted metaphysical debates have not reached consensus nor resolution and have not generated knowledge comprising ‘matters of fact’. He wants to show that both the metaphysical propositions and the questions that the metaphysician investigates are literally senseless. His goal is to eliminate metaphysical debates from philosophical investigations. In this essay, I summarize and comment on Ayer’s argument with emphasis particularly on demarcation–the boundary between that which is sensible and nonsense. I briefly review Karl Popper’s earlier proposal for demarcation and then review and comment on Ayer’s alternate proposal, and, finally, I show that, although the demarcation models distinguish metaphysical propositions as separate from empirical propositions, the models do not necessarily support the claim that there is no value in metaphysical debate. Notwithstanding Ayer’s goal, metaphysical debate continues. The Problem Ayer declares that "no statement which refers to a ‘reality’ transcending the limits of all sense-experience can possibly have any literal significance.”1 In other words, statements, such as metaphysical propositions, that are not, or cannot be, supported by empirical evidence are nonsense. He supports his declaration with a claim that longstanding metaphysical disputes are unwarranted and that they have produced no meaningful knowledge.2 He postulates that knowledge that transcends the world of science and common sense is not possible and investigation of, and discussion about, such metaphysical knowledge is a waste of effort. Ayer acknowledges that he is not the first to claim that metaphysics is meaningless. He cites Kant’s claim that the human mind is incapable of
1 A.
Ibid, 4.
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2
J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic. (London: London, Gollancz, 1936), 5.
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