Carnap Ponders Canberra: Creating a Theory of Meaning Based on Carnap’s Criteria of Cognitive Significance and the Canberra Plan

doi:10.4236/ojpp.2013.33063

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Open Journal of Philosophy

2013. Vol.3, No.3, 429-433

Published Online August 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojpp) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojpp.2013.33063

Carnap Ponders Canberra: Creating a Theory of Meaning Based

on Carnap’s Criteria of Cognitive Significance and the Canberra

Plan

Andrew Whiteley Magrath

Department of Philosophy, Kent State University, Kent, USA

Email: [email protected]

Received April 29th, 2013; revised May 29th, 2013; accepted June 7th, 2013

Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

provided the original work is properly cited.

Although logical positivism has fallen out of favor within many philosophical circles, one might remain

sympathetic to the logical positivists’ critique of the meaningfulness of philosophical terms. In an attempt

to address this open problem, I will propose an updated theory of meaning by combining the Canberra

Plan methodology and Carnap’s four criteria of cognitive significance as explicated in “The Elimination

of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language”. I will argue that of Carnap’s original criteria, the

notion of protocol sentences (C2) and verification (C4) remain problematic. I will further argue that pro-

tocol sentences can be replaced by step-one of the Canberra Plan. This shift towards Lewis’ more robust

conception of O-terms as any known/old terms will still limit the types of terms that are meaningful yet

proven to be less problematic than Carnap’s notion of observation terms. Additionally, I will argue for the

replacement of verification with a modified version of step-two of the Plan. Due to the emphasis of locat-

ing a unique realizer within the Canberra Plan, I will propose two types of meaningful terms: meaningful

with a located unique realizer (MLR), and meaningful but an absent unique realizer (MAR).

Keywords: Canberra Plan; Rudolf Carnap; Frank Jackson; David Lewis; Logical Positivism; Logical

Empiricism; Theory of Meaning

Introduction

Despite the failures of the logical positivists to bring about a

full working theory of meaning, closeted logical positivists (and

likely philosophers of other stripes) may nevertheless remain

sympathetic to the positivists’ original critique of the meaning-

fulness of many philosophical terms. If the positivists’ objec-

tions remain salient, then a positivist-esque theory of meaning

is a worthwhile project. I will attempt to lay the groundwork for

such a theory using the Canberra Plan.

The Canberra Plan originated with David Lewis, Frank

Jackson, and other philosophers primarily from the Philosophy

Program of the Research School of Social Sciences at the Aus-

tralian National University in Canberra. Although the Canberra

Plan shares many traits with logical positivism, the Plan repre-

sents a more flexible approach to philosophy and philosophical

analysis. Despite engaging many of the same problems that

interested the logical positivists, an attempt to create a theory of

meaning has not, to my knowledge, been put forward within the

Canberra Plan literature. Frank Jackson, in his text From Meta-

physics to Ethics (Jackson, 1998) asserts that that the Canberra

Plan can contribute to any problem of philosophy. Given these

qualities of the Plan and a still relevant critique of meaning as

left by the positivists, the solution I will put forward is a fusion

of Carnap’s criteria of meaningfulness (outlined in “The Elimi-

nation of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis”) and the

Canberra Plan’s two-step process.

Although I am not the first to reexamine logical positivism,1

I believe my approach is nevertheless novel. While many that

attempt to address some perceived problem of logical positiv-

ism do so within what can broadly be understood as a logical

positivistic framework, I am attempting to examine what I take

to be problems with Carnap’s criteria of cognitive significance

from a standpoint of a Canberra planner. This shift in frame-

works allows me to work towards two goals: First, address a

problem that I believe exists within Carnap’s original theory of

meaning. Second, address what I see as a deficiency within the

Canberra Plan—lack of a theory of meaning.

In “The Elimination”, Carnap proposes a systematized theory

of meaning broken into four criteria:

(C1) The empirical criteria for the term, ‘a’, are known;

(C2) It has been stipulated from what protocol sentences

‘S(a)’ is deducible;

(C3) The truth-conditions for ‘S(a)’ are fixed;

(C4) The method of verification of ‘S(a)’ is known (Carnap,

2003: p. 158).

I will argue that of Carnap’s original criteria of meaningful-

ness, C2 and C4 are philosophically weak, and will need to be

replaced. I further assert that C2 can be directly replaced with

step-one of the Canberra Plan, as the two play functionally

similar roles. Yet, despite these functional similarities, step-one

1For a noted contemporary example, see Michael Friedman’s Reconsi derin

ogical Positivism .

A. W. MAGRATH

of the Canberra Plan is less problematic than C2. I will further

replace C4 with a version of the second step of the Canberra

Plan.

The Strengths of C2 & C4

Of primary importance to the positivists was that sentences

contain terms that are as epistemically strong as possible.

Claims about sense impressions are often taken to be the

strongest epistemic claims and the most resilient to many forms

of skepticism since nothing is asserted beyond the existence of

experience. Historical empiricists, such as Locke, asserted that

basic atomic ideas entered the mind through the sense, and then

the mind compiled the atomic notions into complex sensations

and ideas. The positivists follow this line of thinking. The posi-

tivist’s conception of the protocol sentence is meant to express

the empirical data provided by sensory perception of the world

in its rarified raw form. The strength of this approach is that

one can potentially create sentences that are reduced to epis-

temically strong sense impressions. Using this approach within

a theory of meaning, Carnap is able to pronounce many terms

in philosophy as meaningless. Of particular interest to Carnap

are metaphysical concepts that are claimed to bypass experi-

ence.

Many empiricists have historically been uncomfortable with

concepts that are claimed to bypass experience. While attempts

have been made to demonstrate such concepts are inconsistent,

overly speculative, and/or false, the positivists’ unique ap-

proach was to assert that terms describing such concepts are

meaningless. From Carnap’s criteria of meaning it is clear that

for such terms to be meaningful, they must either be grounded

in sense impressions—i.e. have empirical content—or must be

derivable from analytic truths, else the term is meaningless.

Carnap asserts that there may be psychological reasons why a

concept is believed to reach around experience, but, upon close

inspection, such concepts often ultimately rely on empirical

content. With the illusion gone, and the term’s empirical nature

uncovered, Carnap argues that the concept the term described is

best left to the sciences to understand. If, on the other hand, the

term is derivable from analytic notions, then the term says

nothing about the synthetic world owing to the nature of the

positivist’s conceptions of the synthetic a posteriori and the

analytic a priori. In either case, for the term to be meaningful, it

cannot truly reach around experience.

I remain sympathetic to Carnap’s overall project and what I

take to be the driving forces behind C2 and C4. I agree with

Carnap that there should be a division of labor between science

and philosophy, which seems to be a motivating factor in C4.

While I will ultimately find the positivists’ particular concept-

tion of verification problematic, I will nevertheless attempt to

preserve Carnap’s balance between science and philosophy. I

also remain sympathetic to the attempt to ground terms in an

epistemically strong vocabulary set. While I remain uncon-

vinced that these terms need be fully reduced to the austere

language of sense impressions, I nevertheless agree with Car-

nap that meaning is closely related to the ability to reduce terms

to a familiar, tested, well-defined vocabulary set. My goal

moving forward is to preserve the relationships that C2 and C4

establish (terms and familiar vocabulary sets, science and phi-

losophy), but avoid what I consider to be problems with Car-

nap’s original execution.

The Troubles with C2 & C4

The epistemic strength of the sense data protocol comes from

its austerity. Yet, it may be the case that this sense data lan-

guage is so austere that it hinders its ability to describe. Imagine

a common object such as a chair. It is not clear that one could

describe a chair using only terms that refer to sense data. The

length of such a sentence that would be produced just to capture

the experience of the softness of the chair, the color impress-

sions, the act of sitting and experiencing the chair cradling

one’s weight, etc. is almost beyond comprehension. It is likely

one could always add another sense data term to the protocol

sentence to more completely or more accurately describe the

experience such that the sentence would never be complete, or

would be so complex as to obscure the very notion of a chair. If

producing a sense data protocol sentence is unlikely or impos-

sible for something as mundane as a chair, it seems even more

dubious that such a protocol sentence could be created to de-

scribe more complicated notions.

The logical positivists exported a great deal of philosophy’s

explanatory project to the natural science. The use of sense data

greatly compromises this project. It is often argued that a hall-

mark of good science (which the logical positivists are com-

mitted to believing is also the trait of good metaphysics and

epistemology) is public reproducibility. The reliance on terms

referring to sense data seems to violate this basic tenet of sci-

ence. While observations have the possibility of being public,

sense data are always private. For these reasons, most positive-

ists (Carnap eventually among them) abandoned protocol sen-

tences using only the austere language of sense data. Therefore,

I shall address the more plausible notion of a direct observation

protocol sentence throughout the remainder of the examination.

Protocol sentences involving direct observation terms—that

is to say sense data directly perceived by the senses with no

other structures or features inferred by the intellect. Although

more robust, direct observation protocol sentences are more

susceptible to skepticism than are protocol sentences involving

sense data. Nevertheless, the convincing attacks on sense data

protocol sentences caused many positivists to adopt direct ob-

servation protocol sentences. Unfortunately, this move is also

problematic.

One of Carnap’s projects was an attempt to replace all theory

terms (T-terms) with observation terms (O-terms) through the

process of Ramsification. Theory terms were any term that

played a valuable role in a theory but whose references could

not be directly observed. By lacking referents that are directly

observable, these theory terms run the risk of failing the posi-

tivists’ criteria of meaning. Carnap attempted to solve this pro-

blem by linking all theory to direct observation.

Ideally Carnap wanted a relation of the form: For anything x,

x satisfies a given theory term T if and only if x satisfies the

agreed upon set of observation conditions Φ. For example,

assume there is some new proposed particle in nuclear physics

called the ‘pretendon’. Further suppose that positing the pre-

tendon has a great number of theoretical virtues and allows

useful predictions to be made, but the pretendon is not directly

observable. Under the positivists’ criteria, ‘pretendon’ would be

considered a theory term because the object it references cannot

be directly observed (a requirement of C2). Assume there is a

machine that can indirectly detect pretendons. Whenever a pre-

tendon enters the machine, a blue light is illuminated. The blue

430

A. W. MAGRATH

light is directly observable,2 thus the positivists could freely

replace the theoretical particle term with terms relating to the

direct observations associated with the pretendon detector, in

this case, the blue light:













x Pretendon xBluelight x

Although more reasonable than the reliance on only language

of sense data, protocol sentences involving direct observation

seems to result in conflating the notions of what is being ob-

served and how it is being observed. Assume there are two

groups of scientists: a group of human scientists and similarly

advanced group of Martian scientists. The human and Martian

scientists have no contact with each other, but have identical

mathematics, sense organs, neurological systems, and scientific

theories. Both the Martian and human scientists have reason to

postulate the existence of the pretendon using identical axioms,

mathematical assumptions, and experimental results. The only

difference between the two groups is how their respective pre-

tendon detectors signal detection.

When a pretendon is detected, the human scientists’ machine

produces a blue light, while the Martian detector sounds a

chime. These different detectors would generate different direct

observation translations of the term ‘pretendon’:

Human Detector:













x Pretendon xBluelight x



;

Martian Detector:











x PretendonxChime x.

Eliminating the T-term ‘pretendon’ using observation terms

from the human detector, results in utilizing the O-term ‘blue

light’. Yet, the Martian detector replaces the T-te rm ‘preten-

don’ with ‘chime’. Ceteris paribus the two theories are identi-

cal; it therefore seems that the term ‘pretendon’ should be trans-

lated into the same expression in the language of O-terms. Un-

der C2, this does not seem to be the case.

C2 seems to commit the positivists to the belief that the Mar-

tian pretendon is a different particle than the human pretendon.

Yet, a human scientist would have no trouble understanding

what a Martian pretendon was because functionally the human

pretendon is identical. It is unlikely that the human (or Martian)

scientist would believe that their respective pretendons were

different based solely on a chime or light. It therefore seems

that the role of direct observation inherent to C2 is too limiting,

resulting in cases were intuitively identical objects must be

considered to be of different kinds. It seems that C2 therefore

fails.

C4 can be understood as following from C3. Where C3 es-

tablishes that there is fixed truth conditions for ‘S(a)’, C4 em-

phases how one would determine whether those conditions

obtain. Since the positivists asserted that all propositions were

either a priori analytic or a posteriori synthetic, the options of

verification were limited (by design). An important aspect of

C4 is the emphasis on knowing a method of verification, rather

than having a requirement of verification. One must be able to

show how ‘S(a)’ could be verified for ‘S(a)’ to be meaningful;

one need not actually verify ‘S(a)’. Problems emerge when

considering verification and universal claims.

The analytic a priori possesses relatively few problems viz.

verification, as proofs of mathematics and logic can appeal to a

priori rules to verify universal claims. A problem with verifica-

tion comes about with respect to claims about the synthetic a

posteriori. Universal claims, such as: all x are y, seem unveri-

fiable given the logical positivists’ commitment to the empirical.

It seems that the only method that could be used to verify that

all x are y would be to have access to every x in existence and

observe that each x is y.

The ideal scenario is one where it is known that there are a

finite number of objects to be examined. If one had some prior

knowledge of the number of xs that existed, then one could

potentially observe each x in an attempt to verify that it is y.

Unfortunately, the more likely scenario is when the number of

elements in the set is unknown. Verification is problematic

because one can never be sure if they have observed all of the

xs that exist. Therefore, according to the positivists, there is no

way to assert universal statements of the sort we take to be

supported by the types of observations typically made—par-

ticularly in the sciences. It may also strike one as intuitively

strange to assert that there is no sample size (short of the whole)

from which one can draw universal conclusions. Yet C4 com-

mits the positivists to the position that where the number of xs

is unknown, no amount of observations can verify a universal

claim.3

For these reasons, I contend that C2 and C4 must be revised.

The Canberra Two-Step

The goal of the Canberra Plan is to analyze a group of related

concepts which, when taken together, form what is referred to

by practitioners of the Plan (referred to as planners) as a folk

theory. Planners use “folk” to refer to a collection of specified

individuals or a community of speakers, rather than in the sense

of the philosophically unsophisticated. The analysis of the folk

theory is accomplished, broadly speaking, by the “Canberra

two-step” (Nolan, 2009: p. 269).

The fist step of analysis consists of gathering the various

ideas, notions, and putative truths (which are all lumped to-

gether under the blanket term, ‘platitudes’) surrounding the

topic of inquiry. With the relevant platitudes gathered, the con-

cepts contained therein are analyzed. Analysis takes a different

form for various planners depending in part on their end goals

(obviously the type of platitudes and analysis surrounding the

concept of an undiscovered subatomic particle will be different

than those related to the concept of happiness). A restriction

placed upon analysis is that the platitudes are to be understood

in such a way that there is some confidence that, in the next

stage of the two-step, a suitable satisfier of the concept can be

found. Once analyzed, this analysis is handed off to an appro-

priate group of empirical researchers so that the item being

described can be “located” in the world.

The nature of terms that makeup the descriptive sentence ob-

tained by step-one has created an internal divide within the

Canberra Plan. The first tradition, forwarded by Lewis, is simi-

lar to Carnap’s treatment of theory terms (T-terms). Through

Ramsification, Carnap was able to replace all T-terms in a sen-

tence with observational terms (O-terms). Where Carnap spe-

cifically attempted to ground his O-terms, observation-terms, in

the realm of sense data/direct observation, Lewis asserts that

the O-terms need only be: “[A]ny other term, one of our origi-

nal terms an old term we already [understand] before the new

2For obvious reasons, we shall forgo the exercise of reducing the illumina-

tion of the blue light down to a direct observation protocol sentence level,

although a strong reading of the positivists’ philosophy would require that it

e done.

3I will ignore Hempel’s move towards confirmation as opposed to verifica-

tion. Suffice to say, I find Hempel’s attempts in “Studies in the Logic o

Confirmation” unsatisfying.

A. W. MAGRATH

theory T with its new T-terms…” (Lewis, 1983: p. 79) Under

Lewis’ conception, O-terms can take the form of any previously

understood notion that can be represented by a predicate. Lewis

hopes to formalize the relationships between T-terms and O-

terms into axioms and logical systems of first order theories.

The other Canberra Plan tradition, as forwarded by Jackson,

generates a descriptive sentence containing only platitudes. Un-

like Lewis, Jackson focuses on concepts. Shifting the focus

allows Jackson to avoid the formal process of Ramsification

and instead work with natural language statements that articu-

late the concept. As such, Jackson’s notion of analysis does not

involve the translation into a formal first order theory that the

Lewis’ tradition requires (although within Jackson’s philosophy,

he will often carry out Ramisification).

The newly generated sentence describing the analyzed con-

cept can be now handed off to the appropriate department to

attempt to identify a unique realizer—step-two of the Plan. The

nature of how a term is or might be realized often depends on

the nature of the concept that is analyzed. For example, the

notion of a theoretical particle in physics would be located dif-

ferently than the aesthetic notion of beauty. The nature of loca-

tion is dependent upon the nature of the concept analyzed and

the experts attempting location.

C2*: C2 & Step-One

To generate a Carnap-Canberra theory of meaning, I first

propose the replacement of C2 with what I shall call C2*.

(C2*) The folk theory containing the term has undergone

step-one of the Canberra Plan: a descriptive sentence con-

sisting of old terms (O-terms) or platitudes (depending

upon whether the Lewis or Jackson approach to analysis

has been used) has been generated for the folk theory.

The purpose of C2 was to give sentences involving the theo-

retical terms as much epistemic weight as possible. Converting

sentences involving these terms into protocol sentences was

hoped to ground the meaning of the terms in firm epistemo-

logical bedrock. Yet, protocol sentences, while philosophically

interesting and potentially useful, are likely too restrictive to

provide a plausible criterion of meaning.

Replacing protocol sentences with a demand for a Canberra

step-one descriptive sentence can effectively alleviate the prob-

lems associated with C2. The positivists’ slant on protocol sen-

tences effectively asked the question, from what direct observa-

tions/sense data did the use of this term arise? In principle this

is a very good question. The positivists erred in practice. We

should allow ourselves a great deal more flexibility than a pro-

tocol sentence could provide. We could conceptualize a C2-like

question: from what familiar notions did this theory arise? This

C2-like formulation captures the important aspect of C2, but is

now too broad. If the positivists critique is true—that there are

meaningless terms seemingly being meaningfully discussed in

familiar philosophical theories—then merely grounding terms

in such familiar theories is insufficient. What is required is a

controlling set of restrictions: not as limiting as protocol sen-

tences, but more binding than on open-ended appeal to merely

familiar notions. I propose that the descriptive sentence gener-

ated by step-one of the Canberra Plan is capable of providing

the needed controlling role.

Daniel Nolan has argued (and many planners would agree)

that, since one of the goals of step-one is a sentence capable of

having a suitable realizer located by relevant experts, it seems

that a planner can only seriously forward descriptive sentences

capable of physical realization (Nolan, 2009: p. 269). If it is the

case that the only claims that can pass from step-one to step-

two are inherently physicalistic,4 then the only types of claims

that can satisfy C2* will also be inherently physicalistic. This

will put a significant restriction on the type of terms that can

satisfy C2*. Although the positivists would likely agree with

such a physicalistic system, this may be too much for any with

non-physicalist intuitions.5

If, on the other hand, the Plan is not an inherently physicalis-

tic, then C1 plays an important role in the shaping of the de-

scriptive sentence. C1 requires that there be empirical criteria

for the application of the theoretical term. If physicalism is built

into the Plan, then this will likely not be a problem as physical-

ism is a more demanding principle than the need for empirical

criteria. Yet, if physicalism is not inherent to the Plan, then the

added requirement of empirical content will help to exclude

overly vague/ambiguous terms and notions of the sort that wor-

ried the positivists.

Despite the restrictive nature of C2*, if this were the only al-

teration to Carnap’s criteria of meaning, then it would likely be

insufficient. Step-one of the Canberra Plan likely still allows for

the analysis of a great many concepts that fail to apply to any-

thing that actually exists. Recall that the inclusion of protocol

sentences in the original C2 caused C2 to, in a sense, engage in

double duty. Protocol sentences sought to ground terms in the

world either through sense data or direct observation. To bor-

row from Canberra terminology, the inclusion of protocol sen-

tences in the original C2 both helped to define terms and to

locate their realizers given that, whenever one had the relevant

sense data (or made the direct observations), then the referent

of the term was present. A strength of the Canberra Plan is the

division of labor between description and location. My inclu-

sion of C2* formally separates analysis and location. C2*

represents the analyzing of the concept picked out by the terms,

where C4* will fill the role of the location phase.

The new C2* seems to follow in the general guiding prince-

ple set forward by C2. C2* still grounds the analysis of a con-

cept in a trusted vocabulary. Yet, while still restrictive, this

vocabulary is nevertheless more flexible and adaptable than the

positivists’ original conceptions of sense data and/or direct

observation.

C4*: C4 & Step-Two

It may be tempting to simply replace C4 with the location

step of the Canberra Plan. Yet, what is needed is a more sub-

stantial understanding than a simple substitution allows. As I

shall show, the second step of the Canberra Plan is contained in

what I will propose as C4*, but the second step by itself is not

sufficient—particularly given the possibility that a unique real-

izer of the descriptive sentence would not/could not be located.

4The Canberra planners typically diverge from the positivists’ meaning o

“physicalism”. The positivists took the central claim of physicalism to be

about language (all emerpical language could be reduced and/or translated

into the language of physics); planners take physicalism as a claim about

the objects, properties, and relations. The central claim of physicalism, as

used by Canberra planners, is a commitment to there being no objects,

properties, and relations over and above physical objects: the only obejcts

that exist are those that are described by the natural sciences.

5A comprehensive defense of physicalism of this sort is beyond the scope o

this project.

432

A. W. MAGRATH

(C4*) The descriptive sentence generated in C2* is either

classifiable as meaningful but absent a unique realizer

(MAR) or meaningful and with a located realizer present

(MLR), but not both.

There are many reasons why a folk theory may have a de-

scriptive sentence whose unique realizer (if any) cannot (or

should not) be located. Location may be unethical, too difficult

given modern technology, too expensive, physically impossible,

etc. In addition, the sentence generated in C2* may involve

terms that simply fail to denote existing objects. Location may

not be possible if the O-terms or platitudes denote objects that

do not exist in the actual world. Any attempt to provide criteria

for meaning must address these concerns.

With these accommodations, the new criteria of meaning are

still able to effectively winnow out many of the terms that trou-

bled the positivists: terms that are neither MAR terms nor MLR

terms have failed some previous criterion of meaning. Thus,

such terms are meaningless (just as it would be under Carnap’s

original construction).

Descriptive sentences produced during step-one (now incur-

porated into C2*) seem to have meaning whether or not they

are actually uniquely realized. It seems too much to demand

that all terms in the sentence generated at C2* must themselves

be analyzed (ala step-one) and then have a located unique real-

izer (ala step-two) located in the world in order to be meaning-

ful. One cannot discard as meaningless a term like ‘torture’

simply because one does not have the stomach to attempt to

locate the referent of the term. Yet, the preference for realiza-

tion cannot and should not be dismissed.

A Postitivist-esque Theory of Meaning: Carnap

& Canberra

By revising Carnap’s original criteria to reflect Canberra

Plan methodology, I have attempted to solve problems associ-

ated with the postivists’ theory of meaning and provide a theory

of meaning for the Canberra Plan. Although there is a great deal

more to be done, I nevertheless believe I have accomplished

what I set out to do: this new criteria seems to take seriously the

positivists’ initial charge of rampant meaninglessness, yet pos-

its a solution that, while sufficiently strong, nevertheless avoids

some of the pitfalls associated with the positivists’ initial ef-

forts.

To address the concern, I suggest two categories of mean-

ingfulness: meaningful and with a located unique realizer

(MLR), and meaningful but absent a unique realizer (MAR).

MAR terms meet criteria C1, C2*, and C3, but cannot or

should not have a unique realizer located (due to ethical, fiscal,

etc. considerations), even though a method by which a potential

unique realizer could be located is known. An example of an

MAR term may be the descriptive sentence of analyzing the

term ‘torture’. It is understood how one could finish the Can-

berra two-step and complete the location phase, but to do so

would be barbaric. An MAR term should not be confused with

a meaningless term. To be classified as an MAR term, we have

to know what it would take to locate a suitable realizer, but (for

whatever reason) the location phase has not commenced or has

not yet yielded any results. A meaningless term, on the other

hand, is a term in which one or more of the other three criteria

have not been met.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Deborah Smith and David Odell-Scott

for their continued support and guidance. I would also like to

thank Kwang-Sae Lee who I hope now spends his time taking

walks with Kant and having beers with Heidegger—hopefully

in that order.

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example, ‘neutrino’ is a term that is MLR because a descriptive

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This distinction also allows for potentially non-denoting

terms to remain meaningful. For example, ‘Santa Claus’ is an

MAR term because the method of location is known. We could

exhaustively search the North Pole for a person meeting the

descriptive sentence generated by analyzing the term ‘Santa

Claus’. The Santa Claus theory is (presumably) false,6 but not

meaningless: it meets the four criteria of meaning. The provi-

sion for MAR terms in C4* allows the new criteria to be more

flexible than Carnap’s original criteria of meaning. Since MLR

terms carry the greatest epistemic weight, the goal of analysis

should be the identification of MLR terms. MAR terms can

then be seen as a necessary sub-case of terms. Therefore, I

propose the following as the new C4:

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Nolan, D. (2009). Platitudes and metaphysics. In D. Braddon-Mitchell,

& R. Nola (Ed.), Conceptual analysis and philosophical naturalism

(pp. 267-300). Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Ramsey, F. P. (1929). Theories. In D. H. Mellor (Ed.), Philosophical

papers (pp. 112-136). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schlick, M. (2003). The foundations of knowledge. In J. Baillie (Ed.),

Contemporary analytic philosophy (pp. 141-154). Upper Saddle

River: Pearson Education.

6Sorry, Virginia.