Red and Green All Over Again: A Rejoinder to Arthur Pap Hilary Putnam The Philosophical Review, Vol. 66, No. 1. (Jan., 1957), pp. 100-103. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108%28195701%2966%3A1%3C100%3ARAGAOA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9 The Philosophical Review is currently published by Cornell University.
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RED AND GREEN ALL OVER AGAIN:
A REJOINDER T O ARTHUR PAP
Arthur Pap's paper does not contain anything with which I disagree. I t does compel me, however, to restate points which were unclearly or even inadequately stated in the paper to which he refers. (i) I did not say in that paper that "Nothing is both red and green" is analytic in the narrower sense, i.e., true as a consequence of explicit definitions. What I said was that "Nothing is two different colors at once" (T) is analytic, even in the narrower sense, and that "Nothing is both red and green" is analytic in a wider sense (true as a consequence of the rules of the language), which I tried to express by showing that it follows from the analytic sentence (T) and certain meaning postulates whose status as linguistic stipulations is, I think, pretty clear in this particular case. (ii) Pap calls into question the device of "Meaning Postulates." As a device for explicating the notion of analyticity in a particular language, I believe that meaning postulates are unexceptionable (provided that the analytic character of the particular postulates is intuitively clear; and provided they are complete, i.e., no analytic truth in the particular language has been "overlooked"). I agree, however, that they do not explain the notion of analyticity in any language; and it is this that is of philosophic interest. Explicating this notion is an important problem in analytic philosophy, unless one accepts the view (which I find prima facie unacceptable) that there is no difference to be explicated. As a first stab, let me suggest truth as a consequence of the rules of the language (as explicatum for analyticity in the wider sense). There are (at least) three obvious objections: ( I ) the notion of a "rule of language" is itself in need of explicating; (2) one can in this way beg the philosophic questions (by taking the sentences traditionally alleged to be "synthetic a priori" as rules of language) ; and (3) there is no need for a concept of "analyticity in the wider sense": we already have the distinction between necessary and contingent truths as well as that between analytic (in the narrower sense) and nonanalytic, and the former distinction suffices for the purpose in question.
P
ROFESSOR
REJOINDER T O ARTHUR PAP
T o take the last objection first: Pap classifies "If x is indistinguishable in color from y then y is indistinguishable in color from x" as "synthetic a priori," although he also says that it is purely verbal (and gives a neat argument to show why). But to do this is to admit that the division of necessary truths into those whose necessity is linguistic or verbal and those (if any) whose necessity is not is not explicated by the narrower concept of analyticity. Thus a wider concept is needed. And it seems more natural to say that the statement just mentioned is analytic (though not in the narrower sense) than to say that it is "synthetic a priori" (though verbal). Likewise, it seems to me more natural to say that the difference, among analytic truths, between those whose analyticity is of the narrower kind ("All bachelors are unmarried") and those whose analyticity is not ("Red is a color") is no philosophically interesting difference at all, than to say, as Pap does, that the analytic-synthetic distinction ("not to be conhsed with the necessary-contingent distinction") is devoid of epistemological significance. But this last difference is purely terminological! The important point, however one expresses it, is that there are no necessary truths whose "necessity" differs in a fundamental and mysterious way from that of the analytic truths. And on this point Pap and I are in complete agreement. Since T and its special cases have sometimes been cited as truths of the "mysterious" kind, I hope to have contributed to the argument for this point by showing that T is analytic, even in the narrower sense. With respect to objection ( 2 ) : I agree that one could fall into this trap and side-step or evade the traditional problem entirely. For example, I could have taken "Nothing is both red and green" as a meaning postulate. But I think it important that I did not do this. What I am prepared to take are things whose analytic character (in whichever sense) the traditional philosopher admits. I know of no philosopher who has thought that "Red is a color" is an apodictic truth in the sense in which, say, the phenomenologists have thought "Nothing is both red and green" is an apodictic truth. I am prepared to admit the difficulty in objection ( I ) ; but only to the extent that the general notion of a rule is in need of clarification. For example, there are no difficulties that affect the notion of a rule of language and that do not equally affect the notion of a rule of a game. Is the notion of a rule of chess or mah-jongg clearer because the rules of chess and mah-jongg are written down? But surely some languages have written rules, and some games have unwritten ones.
HILARY PUTNAM
And surely the rules that are written down are a codification of pre-existing rules in the case of a game as well as a language; they do not define what it is to be a rule of a game. In the case of some languages, as in the case of some games, I am relatively sure of the rules; and in some cases of both kinds I am unsure. And in both cases I would have difficulty in providing a formal definition, of a kind that would satisfy Quine, of the.genera1 concept rule. (iii) Pap's paper also raises some technical points which I find fascinating indeed, and to which I do not have space to do justice here. I shall make only one or two remarks: (a) My paper visualizes an extensional language as the basis for reconstruction. In any extensional language (e.g., Princ$ia Mathernatica) it is quite true that "Red = Square" (and even "Square is a color") would be accepted as true in the case that Red and Square are coextensive. (One can also say that I was defining the notion of a color class and not that of a color property.) But this is not necessarily serious: one can express what we ordinarily express by saying, "The property Square is not a color property" by saying in the metalanguage: "Square is a color" is not L-true.l (b) In my paper, I did not define Red and Green in terms of particular objects (although it is true that I said one could do this; and I am quite convinced by Pap's objection). But the course I preferred was to take Red and Green as primitives and to take "Red and Green are different colors" as a meaning postulate. The argument is this: it would not be plausible to take "Nothing is both red and green" as a direct linguistic stipulation, for reasons that have been excellently presented in Pap's book Elements of Analytic Philosophy (New York, 194.9, p. 422). But it seems plausible to take "Red and Green are different colors" in this way ("Red" and "Green" are to be used to name different colors). And this does not evade the traditional problem, for the philosopher can still reply: "Even if I agree to use "Red" and "Green" as the names of different colors, Note that it is sufficient to establish the truth of T and its special cases under the extensional interpretation: for if nothing belongs to both the class Red and the class Green, then a fortiori nothing has both the Property Red and the Property Green; cf. R. Carnap's Meaning and Necessity. If one does want a definition for an intensional language, then I am not satisfied that Pap's D, is correct. However, the following certainly satisfies his intention: F is a color property = if F has a non-empty extension, then necessarily the extension of F is a color class. In symbols: C ( F ) = (3%) Fx 3 ( 3 y ) ( x ) (Fx -- Exy)
REJOIJVDER TO ARTHUR PAP
how do you know nothing can be two different colors a t once?" And to this I gave an answer. Subsequently, I have discovered an argument which employs only the weaker postulates: "Red is a color" and "Green is a color." This argument does not, indeed, show that "Nothing is both red and green" is analytic; but it does show that it is at least entailed by an observation statement, which is enough to destroy the "mystery." Namely, from the fact that one red thing is not green, and the fact that Red and Green are colors, it follows analytically that Red and Green are different colors. And from this and T, which has been shown to be analytic in the narrower sense, it follows that nothing is both red and green. HILARY PUTNAM Princeton University
