---
title: "Vienna Circle"
chunk: 6/6
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Circle"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:37:41.365102+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

What sentences is S deducible from, and what sentences are deducible from S?
Under what conditions is S supposed to be true, and under what conditions false?
How is S verified?
What is the meaning of S?
(Carnap, "The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language" in Sarkar, Sahotra 1996, p. 12)
An example offered by Carnap concerns the word 'arthropod'. The sentence form "the thing x is an arthropod" is an elementary sentence form that is derivable from "x is an animal", "x has a segmented body" and "x has jointed legs". Conversely, these sentences are derivable from "the thing x is an arthropod". Thus the meaning of the word 'arthropod' is determined.
According to Carnap, many words of metaphysics do not fulfill these requirements and thus they are meaningless. As an example, Carnap considers the word 'principle'. This word has a definite meaning, if the sentence "x is the principle of y" is supposed to be equivalent to the sentence "y exists by virtue of x" or "y arises out of x". The latter sentence is perfectly clear: y arises out of x when x is invariably followed by y, and the invariable association between x and y is empirically verifiable. But—says Carnap—metaphysicians are not satisfied with this interpretation of the meaning of 'principle'. They assert that no empirical relation between x and y can completely explain the meaning of "x is the principle of y", because there is something that cannot be grasped by means of the experience, something for which no empirical criterion can be specified. It is the lacking of any empirical criterion—says Carnap—that deprives of meaning the word 'principle' when it occurs in metaphysics. Therefore, metaphysical pseudo-statements such as "water is the principle of the world" or "the spirit is the principle of the world" are void of meaning because a meaningless word occurs in them.
However, there are pseudo-statements in which occur only meaningful words; these pseudo-statements are formed in a counter-syntactical way. An example is the word sequence "Caesar is a prime number"; every word has a definite meaning, but the sequence has no meaning. The problem is that "prime number" is a predicate of numbers, not a predicate of human beings. In the example the nonsense is evident; however, in natural language the rules of grammar do not prohibit the formation of analogous meaningless word sequences that are not so easily detectable. In the grammar of natural languages, every sequence of the kind "x is y", where x is a noun and y is a predicate, is acceptable. In fact, in the grammar there is no distinction between predicate which can be affirmed of human beings and predicate which can be affirmed of numbers. So "Caesar is a general" and "Caesar is a prime number" are both well-formed, in contrast for example with "Caesar is and", which is ill-formed. In a logically constructed language—says Carnap—a distinction between the various kinds of predicate is specified, and pseudo-statements as "Caesar is a prime number" are ill-formed. Now, and this is the main point of Carnap's argument, metaphysical statements in which meaningless words do not occur, are indeed meaningless because they are formed in a way which is admissible in natural languages, but not in logically constructed languages. Carnap attempts to indicate the most frequent sources of errors from which metaphysical pseudo-statements can arise. One source of mistakes is the ambiguity of the verb "to be", which is sometimes used as a copula ("I am hungry"), and sometimes to designate existence ("I am"). The latter statement incorrectly suggests a predicative form, and thus it suggests that existence is a predicate. Only modern logic, with the introduction of an explicit sign to designate existence (the sign 
  
    
      
        ∃
        
      
    
    {\displaystyle \exists \;}
  
), which occurs only in statements such as 
  
    
      
        ∃
        
        x
        P
        (
        x
        )
      
    
    {\displaystyle \exists \;xP(x)}
  
, never as a predicate, has shown that existence is not a predicate, and thus has revealed the logical error from which pseudo-statements such as "cogito, ergo sum" has arisen.
Another source of mistakes is type confusions, in which a predicate of a kind is used as a predicate of another kind. For example, the pseudo-statements "we know the Nothing" is analogous to "we know the rain", but while the latter is well-formed, the former is ill-formed, at least in a logically constructed language, because "Nothing" is incorrectly used as a noun. In a formal language, "Nothing" only means 
  
    
      
        ¬
        
        ∃
        
        x
      
    
    {\displaystyle \lnot \;\exists \;x}
  
, such as "there is nothing which is outside"—i.e., 
  
    
      
        ¬
        
        ∃
        
        x
        O
        (
        x
        )
      
    
    {\displaystyle \lnot \;\exists \;xO(x)}
  
, and thus "Nothing" never occurs as a noun or as a predicate, but as a quantifier.
According to Carnap, although metaphysics has no theoretical content, it does have content: metaphysical pseudo-statements express the attitude of a person towards life, and this is the role of metaphysics. He compares it to an art like lyrical poetry; the metaphysician works with the medium of the theoretical; he confuses art with science, attitude towards life with knowledge, and thus produces an unsatisfactory and inadequate work. "Metaphysicians are musicians without musical ability".

== Institute Vienna Circle / Vienna Circle Society ==
In 1991 the Institute Vienna Circle (IVC) was established as a society in Vienna. It is dedicated to studying the work and influence of the Vienna Circle. In 2011 it was integrated in the University of Vienna as a subunit of the Faculty of Philosophy and Education. Since 2016 the former society continues its activities in close cooperation with the IVC under the changed name Vienna Circle Society (VCS). In 2015 the institute co-organized an exhibition on the Vienna Circle in the main building of the University of Vienna.

== See also ==
Formalism (mathematics)
Logical behaviorism
Logicism
List of Austrian intellectual traditions
Mastermind group

== Notes ==

== Bibliography ==

=== Primary literature ===

=== Secondary literature ===

== External links ==

Institute Vienna Circle
Vienna Circle Society
Vienna Circle Foundation Amsterdam Archived 5 December 2020 at the Wayback Machine
Thomas Uebel, "Vienna Circle", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy