3 Questions

EXAMPLE MODEL

2.5 ARGUMENT AS INQUIRY

In the last chapter, I proposed that an argument could be informally analyzed into a statement of its premises and conclusion. From the perspective of the theory of inquiry, this is only a start. While arguments are the products of inquiry (i.e., someone sets out to solve a problem and produces an argument as a way to test a possible solution), arguments themselves can be viewed as presentations of inquiries for purposes of critique and as resources for new inquiries that occur in the context of discussion. For purposes of critique, arguments can be seen as responses to particular indeterminate situations that display a particular process of inquiry aimed at transforming the original situation. As a re-presentation of an inquiry, new inquirers can see where the earlier effort went wrong and right, both to undo past inquiries whose results are no longer sufficient and to find resources for future inquires. In the context of new inquiries, arguments present past results for reconsideration, affirmation, rejection or change.

If arguments are understood in this way, then the insights gained about the process of inquiry also provide an approach to understanding and assessing arguments. Following the stages of inquiry, in fact, one can structure an examination of arguments in light of five questions:

1. What is the indeterminate situation from which the inquiry emerged?
2. How is the problem framed and are there alternatives?
3. Where do the postulates come from and are they warranted?
4. Do the postulates warrant the conclusion?
5. Has the indeterminate situation been transformed?

These five questions provide a template for evaluating arguments not in terms of their rhetorical character or formal validity (though these are relevant), but rather as inquiries that are grounded at one end in an experienced problematic situation and, at the other end, with the actual transformation of a situation into one that becomes a determinate starting point for new experience. A consequence of this sort of evaluation, itself an inquiry, is that the critics also take up the original argument and, by following the process implied by the argument, also have the potential to participate in inquiry and produce their own outcomes in transformed experience and new arguments.

This self-critical or self-correcting character of the process of inquiry means that the results of inquiry can be constantly under review in a way that will produce new knowledge and new experience. Dewey emphasized this point

in commenting on Peirce's conception of science: “Science does not consist in any body of conclusions, but in the work of ever renewed inquiry, which never claims or permits finality but leads to ever renewed effort to learn. The sole ultimate justification of science as a method of inquiry is that if it is persisted in, it is self-correcting and tends to approach ever closer to stable common agreement of beliefs and ideas. Because science is a method of learning, not a settled body of truths, it is the hope of [human]kind” (Dewey, 1937, 484).

This evaluative approach works as well with arguments drawn from everyday problems, like that of the traveler, and from what appear to be far more abstract problems in the work of philosophy. Consider the following argument from Rudolph Carnap:

Many words of metaphysics, now, can be shown … to be devoid of meaning. Let us take as an example the metaphysical term ‘principle’ (in the sense of principle of being, not principle of knowledge or axiom). Various metaphysicians offer an answer to the question which is the (highest) ‘principle of the world’ (or of ‘things,’ of ‘existence,’ of ‘being’) …. In order to discover the meaning of the word ‘principle’ in this metaphysical question we must ask the metaphysician under what conditions a statement of the form ‘x is the principle of y’ would be true and under what conditions it would be false. In other words: if we ask for the criteria of application or for the definition of the word ‘principle.’ The metaphysician replies approximately as follows: ‘x is the principle of y’ is to mean that ‘y arises out of x,’ ‘the being of y rests on the being of x’ … and so forth.7 But these words are ambiguous and vague. Frequently they have a clear meaning; e.g. we say of a thing or process y that it ‘arises out of’ z when we observe that things or processes of kind x are frequently or invariably followed by things or processes of kind y…. But the metaphysician tells us that he does not mean an empirically observable relationship. For in that case his metaphysical theses would be merely empirical propositions of the same kind as those of physics. The expression ‘arising from’ is not to mean here a relation of temporal or causal sequence…. Yet, no criterion is specified for any other meaning. Consequently, the alleged ‘metaphysical’ meaning, which the word is supposed to have here in contrast to the mentioned empirical meaning, does not exist … it remains meaningless as long as no method of verification can be described. (Carnap, 1959, 65-6)

If we consider Carnap's argument as an instance of inquiry, it can be understood at a number of points. First, since inquiries begin in an indeterminate situation, one can start by asking about what indeterminate situation gives rise to the inquiry. At times, of course, the original situation is not addressed in the text and when it is, it already appears in the form of a problem, that is, decisions have already been made about what kind of problem the situation involves. In this case, Carnap was writing in the philosophical context of the first half of the 20th century as part of movement of philosophers, often called “Logical Positivism.” These philosophers, at least in part, sought to challenge the long-dominant philosophies of idealism that flourished in Germany and Austria. Part of the project of this school of philosophers was

to challenge the possibility of metaphysics. They held that dogmatic metaphysical claims were leading to the separation of philosophy and science and the increasing identification of philosophy with the rise of totalitarianism in Europe. In the present argument, Carnap does not relate the wider situation to his argument, but rather begins by framing a particular problem: whether metaphysical terms are meaningful.

Second, in an analysis of the argument presented, one might consider how well the argument responds to the wider situation that gave rise to the inquiry. One might raise questions about alternative approaches to problematizing the same situation or argue that the problem as framed does not lead to the expected transformation of the situation. In the case of the traveler, had she responded to her situation by trying to determine the number of plants species living in the meadow, we might conclude that her formulation of the problem missed the point. In Carnap's case, one might investigate whether or not the challenge to metaphysics was a better approach than, for example, framing the larger problem as one of dogmatism. By wondering first about the situation that gives rise to an inquiry and about the problem as it is set, it is both easier to understand how the argument begins and whether or not it is off on the “right foot.”

Third, if an argument is taken as an inquiry, then the premises that are presented in the argument can also be seen as the hypotheses of an inquiry. Just as the traveler proposed to herself a number of possible ways to cross the ditch, so Carnap proposes a series of claims about the nature of meaning and metaphysical terms that provide the “grounds” for his conclusion. To approach the argument from this direction, we can first specify the premises of the argument.

Premise 1: Metaphysical terms express relations, for example, the term “principle” is a relation expressed “x is a principle of y.”
Premise 2: Relational terms (such as “x is a principle of y”) are either verifiable or not.
Premise 3: If a term is verifiable, we can describe an empirical procedure of verification.
Premise 4: If a term is meaningful, then it is verifiable.
Premise 5: Metaphysical terms are not empirical.
Premise 6: Metaphysical terms are not verifiable.
Conclusion: So metaphysical terms are not meaningful.

Once the premises are set out, it is possible to examine each of the claims and assess its origin and warrant. The origin of claims can be divided into four categories: hypotheses (products of abduction), induction (or the products of particular experiences or sequences of experience), deduction (products of the relation of claims given in the argument), and postulates (claims that are the products of previous inquiries that are being used again in a new inquiry). The warrant of claims is tied in part to their origins. Hypotheses rarely stand

on their own and call for support. Additional support can be provided through the use of deduction or induction, but the initial claim is abductive. The warrant of an inductive claim depends upon the accumulated experience that can support the claim. The traveler makes a number of inductive claims as a result of her experimentation with possible ways across the divide. Deductive warrant is usually viewed as the strongest because a claim like premise 2 would seem to hold in all cases. The postulates depend upon the inquiries that produced them.

Consider again the premises listed above in light of their possible origins.

Premise 1: Metaphysical terms express relations, for example, the term “principle” is a relation expressed “x is a principle of y.”
Origin: Abduction
Comment: Assuming that Carnap is not starting with a set of stipulated definitions, he would like his readers to conclude that the situation as a whole generates the conclusion that metaphysical terms have this particular character.
Premise 2: Relational terms (such as “x is a principle of y”) are either verifiable or not.
Origin: Deduction
Comment: Based on the “logical” or “formal” expectation that a term cannot be both verifiable and not verifiable.
Premise 3: If a term is verifiable, we can describe an empirical procedure of verification.
Origin: Postulate.
Comment: Although the excerpt does not present the inquiry that Carnap thinks demonstrates this premise, it is one that is supported by explicit argument, in contrast to the claim in premise 1 which is not.
Premise 4: If a term is meaningful, then it is verifiable.
Origin: Postulate.
Comment: This claim is also the product of extensive inquiry by Carnap and his colleagues. The basic idea is borrowed from David Hume who concludes that if you want to know the meaning of an idea, you should find the impression it copies, where an impression is some direct sensation or “sense datum.”
Premise 5: Metaphysical terms are not empirical.
Origin: Postulate
Comment: This is the conclusion of a brief argument embedded in the larger argument. In this case, Carnap says that metaphysicians will  hold that if a claim is empirical (and applies to particular things that are experienced) it cannot be metaphysical (because such principles would be equivalent to those in physics).
Premise 6: Metaphysical terms are not verifiable.
Origin: Deductive
Comment: This premise relies on our expectations about the relation of claims. In this case, since the consequent of premise 3 is denied by premise 5 in relation to metaphysical terms, we should accept the denial of the antecedent as it applies to metaphysical terms. So, premise 6 states the result: metaphysical terms are not verifiable.
Conclusion: So metaphysical terms are not meaningful.
Origin: Deductive
Comment: The conclusion can be accepted because premise 6 denies the consequent of premise 4 and so we should accept as the conclusion the denial of the antecedent of premise 4 as it applies to metaphysical terms.

In the case of each premise, the claims can be understood relative to their origins and warrant and challenged in those same terms. Note that there are no inductive premises in this case. In fact, most inquiries involve induction as well. When the traveler experimented with means to cross the ditch, she used the results of those experiments as further postulates in her inquiry. Had she offered her case for using a log to cross the ditch as an argument, she would have used her experimental results as premises to support her conclusion.

Once the argument is presented, two other things can be considered. The first (question 4, above) is whether the conclusion follows from the premises, that is, whether the argument is valid. This is a central question for logical theory and we will consider it in the next chapter. Finally (question 5, above), arguments can be evaluated in terms of their outcomes. As Dewey reminds us, inquiry that begins in an indeterminate situation is not successful until it returns to the situation that gave rise to it. It is not enough to draw conclusions without taking action. His sternest critique of professional philosophers is that their inquiries stop before returning to experience. “A first rate test of the value of any philosophy,” Dewey said, is to ask “Does it end in conclusions which when they are referred back to ordinary life-experiences and their predicaments, render them more significant, more luminous to us, and make our dealing with them more fruitful?” (1925, 18).

To ask about an argument as an inquiry is also to ask about its consequences in experience. In the case of Carnap's argument, one might examine where his conclusion leads and how situations influenced by the conclusion are experienced and whether the results of the inquiry are, at least in principle, available for further use in new inquiries. One might, therefore, ask whether the postulates produced by the argument (in this case, that metaphysical terms

are meaningless) can be used in other arguments. Postulates that seem well supported in one argument might turn out to lead to further conclusions that are challenged by other postulates and further inquiry.

To summarize, one can, first, examine an argument relative to its initiating situation and, second, how it has been framed as a problem; third, examine the premises at hand relative to their origin and warrant; fourth, consider whether the conclusions follow from the premises; and fifth, examine whether and how the argument as inquiry returns to the initial indeterminate situation and transforms it and how its results carry into new situations.

The “metaphysician” Carnap takes to task throughout this paper is Martin Heidegger.