The "ultimate" articulation of a nihilist's ethics in a floating opera

Here's a rather seductive argument that I just read in Barth's The Floating Opera, a wonderfully nihilistic novel about Todd Andrews intellectual descent into the wrath of his own mind.

I recommend it as a read if you're into cynicism. Anyway, his logic, in the final chapters, is certainly noteworthy:

<-- begin -->

I. Nothing has intrinsic value

II. The reasons for which people attribute value to things are always ultimately irrational

III. There is, therefore, no ultimate "reason" for valuing anything (including life).

IV. Living is an action.

V. There's no final reason for action (just as there is no final reading for valuing anything).

VI. There's no final reason for living.

<-- abyss -->

Questions raised:

1. Is 'value' a valuable concept?

1.1 Do we need 'value' to have will? In other words, does Andrew's rhetoric destroy our will to power? Our will to anything?

2. What are intrinsic qualities of anything? Mustn't intrinsic qualities be ascribed by the very people who claimed those qualities to be intrinsic?

3. What is an "ultimate reason" at all if there are no "intrinsic qualities"?

3.1 Ultimate reasons are indeed meaningless if there is nothing to be ultimate about them (this isn't a question I realize)

4. Can reasons for actions be relative instead of ultimate?

5. If there's no reason for living, is that necessarily a good reason for not-living?


The first to refute this argument, on logical or rational grounds, gets a present.


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A Rejection of Carnap's Rejection of Metaphysics

Rudolph Carnap is one of my favorite logical positivists because he is able to write passionately and with conviction about numbers, symbols, and form. Yet one of his most important seminal works - "The Rejection of Metaphysics" - is not without its own metaphysical problems. For better or for worse, here's some criticism:

Ruling out the possibility of a fact-only world

(Pardon the format; Wittgenstein has been rubbing off on me.)

Carnap's argument:

1. All facts, as we regard them, must be always be True to be facts.

2. Anything that is not a fact, say an opinion or conclusion, might still be interesting, but cannot have an objective meaning.

2.1 Without objective meaning, there can be no definite 'sense' ~ i.e. the same thing is not meant by the statement every time

3. Opinions, Reflection, and Convictions (as with other types of non-facts) hence do not have any 'sense.'

3.1 This is not to say that they can't have sense, just that they don't. The 'sense' of a non-fact can change depending upon context

3.1.1 Take for instance the opinion that 'Drugs are bad.' This has no anchored sense; I could be talking about legal drugs, illegal drugs and the sentence would
change if I was saying it in a counselor’s office or at a frat party.

4. If we are concerned with facts, we are concerned with separating facts from non-facts that appear as facts.

4.1 A fact might be 'the sky is blue' a non-fact that appears as a fact might be '"LSD can save endangered species.'

5. All facts must be verifiable in order to qualify as facts.

5.1 The only way we can identify facts, as such, is by testing them empirically.

5.1.1 If we want to test whether or not the sky is blue, we can take pictures of it, ask people, look at the sky, compare the sky's blue to other blues, etc...

6. If only facts can have sense and meaning, and we can only identify facts by empirical means, all facts can only be proven empirically.

:. (therefore)

7. 'Facts' presented as such (such as 'moral facts') which are not empirically demonstrable, testable, or otherwise observable cannot be qualified as 'facts' because they cannot necessarily be proven as facts need to be proven.

:. (therefore)

8. Metaphysical truths, moral facts, epistemological claims, psychological analysis, and all other opinion-driven intellectual pursuits are therefore not facts, and therefore do not have any objective meaning or anchored sense.


My Refutation:

Let's start with Carnap's conclusion, and then work backwards to his definition of fact

1. " 'Facts' presented as such (such as 'moral facts') which are not empirically demonstrable, testable, or otherwise observable cannot be qualified as 'facts' because they cannot necessarily be proven as facts need to be proven. "

2. If the above statement is true, it is a fact about facts.

3. Statement 1 cannot be tested, is not "empirically demonstrable", nor can we observe it.

4. Statement 1 is not a fact.

5. Statement 1 is not always true.

6. Statement 1 is not true, than it is also not true that "8. Metaphysical truths, moral facts, epistemological claims, psychological analysis, and all other opinion-driven intellectual pursuits are therefore not facts, and therefore do not have any objective meaning or anchored sense."

:.

7. Carnap's 'verifiability' thesis is itself an unverifiable proposition.


QED? We'll see...








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