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The Verifiability of Facts and Values

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Ray Lepley
Ray Lepley*
Affiliation:
Bradley Polytechnic Institute, Peoria, Ill.
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Extract

The pervasive contrast in modern life between the certainties of science and technology, on the one hand, and the uncertainties of human goals and policies, on the other, is the objective source of a fundamental conflict in theory. It is now widely held that facts are rather definitely verifiable, but that values are unverifiable; though other students assume that values are also verifiable in some significant sense and degree.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , July 1938 , pp. 310 - 320
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1938

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References

Notes

1 E.g. by R. Carnap, Philosophy and Logical Syntax, 1935, pp. 24-25; C. Krusé, “Cognition and Value Reexamined”, Jour. Phil., Vol. XXXIV (1937), pp. 225-234; H. Osborne, Foundations of the Philosophy of Value, 1933, pp. 76-77; Charner M. Perry, “The Arbitrary as Basis for Rational Morality”, Inter. Jour, of Ethics, Vol. XLIII (1933), pp. 127-144; and B. Russell, Religion and Science, 1935, p. 249.

2 E.g. J. Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic, 1916, p. 386, also The Quest for Certainty, 1929, Ch. X; J. Mayer, “Comparative Value and Human Behavior”, Philosophical Review, Vol. XLV (1936), pp. 491-92; and N. P. Stallknecht, “The Place of Verification in Ethical Theory”, Jour. Phil., Vol. XXXIV (1937), pp. 150-156.

3 Though the matter cannot here be considered in detail, this polarity appears to point to the conclusion that every factual formulation can be transposed into valuative terms, and every valuative formulation more or less completely into factual terms. For instance, “Water is H2O” may be expressed as “For the purpose of accurate chemical denotation, water is correctly symbolized as H2O”, “For certain scientific purposes, H2O is a good (or the best) statement of what water is.” The statement “Water is H2O” conceals the fact that there is interest in making or using the formulation, whereas the other statements express the interest as well as what is asserted or predicated regarding the nature of the event (water) as such. Likewise, the statement “Water is good to drink” can be expressed more factually as “Water is enjoyed by or satisfies a (or this) thirsty organism”, or “Water is a substance which assists in maintaining normal physiological processes.” If all formulations are thus capable of expression in both factual and valuative form, it follows that verification of the one is verification of the other, and that all possible facts and values are, therefore, if compared en masse, equally verifiable. It should be noted, however, that although an affirmative answer to the more strictly semantic question of the translatability of facts into values and of values into facts will support the conclusion herein presented regarding verification and verifiability, such an answer is not necessary to the present argument.

4 E.g. by E. F. Carritt, The Theory of Beauty, fourth edition, pp. 215-217, 287-295; J. Dewey, Art as Experience, Chs. IV, V, and pp. 167-169; Malvina Hoffman, Heads and Tales, Ch. II; D. H. Parker, Principles of Aesthetics, Chs. IV, V, VII; and M. Schoen, Art and Beauty, Chs. III, IV, V.

5 Osborne, op. cit.

6 F. H. Knight, “Social Science and Social Action”, Inter. Jour. of Ethics, Vol. XLVI (1935), p. 21.

7 This question is raised and discussed, though not in relation to verifiability, by R. B. Raup, “Limitations of the Scientific Method”, Teachers College Record, Vol. XXX (1928), pp. 212-26.

8 Carnap, op. cit., and Russell, op. cit.

9 Charner M. Perry, op. cit. and also “The Relation Between Ethics and Political Science”, ibid. Vol. XLVII (1937), pp. 163-79.

10 Krusé, op. cit.

11 In replying to these questions, the writer does not presume to have presented fully nor to have refuted in toto the positions taken in the writings just cited. The references are given to assist any reader who may wish to examine answers which differ, in the main, from the present viewpoint.

12 The numbers of the discussion correspond to those of the questions, but due to the fact that the questions are closely interrelated the discussion on any one question is not in every case confined to its respective number. The remarks should be considered collectively.