Single Idea 13935

[catalogued under 9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects]

Full Idea

To accept the thing world means nothing more than to accept a certain form of language, in other words, to accept rules for forming statements and for testing, accepting, or rejecting them.

Gist of Idea

We only accept 'things' within a language with formation, testing and acceptance rules

Source

Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950], 2)

Book Reference

Carnap,Rudolph: 'Meaning and Necessity (2nd ed)' [Chicago 1988], p.208


A Reaction

If you derive your metaphysics from your language, then objects are linguistic conventions. But why do we accept conventions about objects?