Dear Sam,
When I turned 20, I got my first credit card.
My father sat me down and gave me the dreaded responsibility lecture.
I should’ve listened closer.
One thing led to another and suddenly I’ve bought cruise tickets to Kuala Lumpur and
a blowup fortress for my apartment.
I don’t know what happened!
But… now the bill is due.
Debt collectors keep calling and they’re not friendly.
So I need to call my father.
But I’m so nervous he’s going to be angry.
I hate being yelled at.
I hate lectures.
But if he doesn’t bail me out I don’t know what I’m going to do!
Yours,
Clementine
Well, Clementine
100% chance that your father is going to yell at you.
Especially since he's already given you the dreaded responsibility lecture.
But I may have a little nifty solution for you.
And all it requires is that you become a logical positivist.
In the 1920s and 30s there was a group of philosophers known as the Vienna Circle
And these are the logical positivists I'm talking about.
They had some pretty stringent views on meaning and language
because they thought that much of the philosophical past had been nothing but obscurity
Endless, ceaseless speculation about nothing.
It only seemed like philosophers were saying something,
when in reality they were saying nothing at all.
For Instance, Hegel would talk about
'When the Spirit speaks of itself, it's Perversion of Reality and the Notion'
People would read this and think hmm...
He's onto something that Hegel.
But when the Vienna Circle comes on the scene, then he's like 'Huh!?'
Are we taking crazy pills or did that make not a lick of sense?
Can we aim for some here clarity, people?
And so that's what the Vienna Circle tried to do,
they tried to clean house.
They tried to set philosophy on firmer foundation
and they tried for a little bit of clarity.
And they did that for "the principle of verifiability"
This principle says that:
A sentence is only meaningful if it can be empirically verified
in principle.
You don’t actually have to go outside and verify it, I mean heavens no!
That would be a non-starter for a philosopher.
You just have to know how you would do it - without actually doing it.
Like so many aspiring novelists, I suppose.
Take the sentence, “Jim owes me a lot of money.”
Now it just so happens that in theory and in practice, this sentence is true.
You can look at my bank account from four months ago and see that I very generously
transferred funds over to Jim, and that he hasn't gotten back to me.
I haven't heard from him, cause he's a little coward.
And so we come to the conclusion that Jim owes me a lot of money
It's a meaningful sentence because it's verifiable -
it says something about the facts of the world.
Now what about something a little bit more philosophical?
Take uh, um...
'God exists'
How would you verify that?
How would you observe the truth or falsity of the sentence: 'God exists.'
According to A.J. Ayer, who was a young follower of the Circle,
he said it can’t be verified.
You can't run an experiment to determine whether 'God exists'
is true of false.
It's simple meaningless.
And it just so happens that the Vienna Circle held all metaphysical sentences
to be meaningless,
as well as all value judgements and-
now here's where you come in Clementine-
Ethics. Ethics is meaningless.
According to Ayer, it is just emotion- that's all.
This is called the Emotive Theory.
For instance you take the sentence, uh...
'Jim is obviously an asshole.'
And you try to verify it and it's not really clear how you would verify it because
being an asshole, which is a value judgement,
is not an empirically verifiable thing.
It's just what other people think of you.
And so, unfortunately,
'Jim is obviously an asshole' is a meaningless sentence.
And so, if you can keep this in mind when your father is yelling at you.
When he's looking you in the eye and says,
'You are a bad person.'
What he's really just saying, according to the Vienna Circle is,
'Boo'
'Boooo'
And yes, that still might hurt you, cause you pain,
because even meaningless words have emotive power.
But at least you'll know the truth-
what he is saying is meaningless.
Yes, that's the truth according to a group of philosophers about 90 years ago in Vienna...
but still.
Also, uh, maybe put a moratorium on your credit card spending
That would be- I think that would be helpful.
I mean, I'm not your father but, you know,
That seems like the prudent thing to do, unless you really really want something
In which case...
I guess the choice is up to you.
Thanks, and I hope this helps.