On Clarity from the early Moderns to Early Analytic Philosophy, especially Stebbing.

From Descartes to Hume, the so-called ‘way of ideas,’ was devoted to the notion that clarity is a desirable and potential property or quality of ideas. I don’t mean to suggest that after this way was abandoned clarity disappeared wholly as a philosophical ideal; the subsequent German age embraced, at least briefly, Aufklärung for individuals and society alike. One cannot help notice that Aufklärung shares a common root with clarification [klärung]. But while clarity was not ignored during the nineteenth century altogether, until our ongoing ‘age of analysis’ clarity was at best a lower, philosophical virtue.

Somewhat frustratingly, other than being a desirable quality of our ideas, it's much harder to say what clarity is in the way of ideas. In his (1878) "How to make our ideas clear," Peirce mocks a definition of it that he attributes to Leibniz, to wit that clarity is "the clear apprehension of everything contained in the definition" of the notion one is clear about. I'd be surprised this is really found in Leibniz (although he wrote so much, and for all his true genius could also be silly, I wouldn't bet one way or another). But fairly or not, Peirce does put his finger on one of the problems with the way of ideas, which was not so clear on clarity as one would have wished. One often gets the impression that among the early moderns a certain kind of acquaintance (in Russell’s sense) with the experience of clarity of one's ideas is simply assumed. If not familiar, you are not in the game.

Peirce himself revived the notion that clarity is a quality of one's ideas (or, as shall be clear from what follows, one's conception). Peirce's major contribution to the subject is not so much to explain what clarity is, but how we can attain it, although these are not entirely distinct for him. For, he proposed this "rule" to attain clarity: "Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object." Clarity, then, for Peirce is not so much in the first instance a particular quality of our ideas, but it more akin to a kind of second order effect of a proper conception which itself is the effect of a successful kind of enquiry. And the proper conception itself is attained by a species of verification or, if that is too misleading and too anachronistic, substitute for 'verification' here a practical understanding of what may one may do with such a conception. Once one has completed the verification or survey of the effects of the conception one is exploring then one attains clarity about or of the conception. My interest here is not Peirce, so if this is too terse, so be it.

I doubt Peirce's approach to clarity influenced clarity's high status in early analytic philosophy. But Peirce anticipates something of the structure or form of thought about clarity among early analytic philosophers. By this I do not mean the adoption of verificationism in Vienna or a kind of pragmatism that runs through (say) early Wittgenstein and Frank Ramsey. But rather he anticipates the idea that a certain process of investigation/enquiry leads to clarity. That is, clarity is the fruits of analysis. 

The previous sentence should be uncontroversial. For, by 1945 (recall) H.H. Price summed up a whole range of criticisms of analytic philosophy with the slogan “Clarity is not enough,” (the title of Price’s lecture and also a 1963 volume edited by H.D. Lewis that leads with a reprint of this lecture). In fact in Price the standard conception of clarity he and its critics presuppose just is the fruits or effect of analysis. He writes: “I propose to use the words "clarification " and "analysis" (both of which are metaphors after all) as if they were synonymous.” (Price 1945: 3) But, unfortunately, he does not unpack the metaphors.[1] So, for now we're left with the idea that analysis aims at clarity, or analysis clarifies. 

Notice, that the ‘clarity’ that follows from a successful analysis is distinct from writing clearly or perspicuously or expressing oneself lucidly, that is presentational clarity. Some analytic philosophers quite clearly prized such lucidity, especially in the context of polemics with (say) Heidegger and his followers. I don’t mean to suggest that the clarity that is the effect of analysis is wholly distinct from presentational clarity. It's possible that competence in analysis leads to presentational clarity. One can imagine that philosophical prose written subsequent the habitual (and successful) analysis is more lucid than the kind of prose one writes if one aims at disclosing the essential throwing-ness of dasein. But it's not clear if the connection between clarity as the effect of analysis and presentational clarity is anything but contingent.

I do not mean to suggest that treating clarity as the fruits of analysis itself is idiosyncratic in the early analytic tradition.[2] For, example, it clearly echoes a famous passage in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (in Ogden’s translation):

The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts.

Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.

A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations.

The result of philosophy is not a number of “philosophical propositions,” but to make propositions clear.

Philosophy should make clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which otherwise are, as it were, opaque and blurred.—4.112

In his introduction to the Tractatus, Russell had called attention to this very passage (and the material leading up 4.16), that on Wittgenstein’s conception “The result of philosophy is not a number of `philosophical propositions,' but to make propositions clear.” On the combined authority of Russell and Wittgenstein, then, that philosophical analysis generates clarity will be, henceforth, dubbed ‘the standard conception’ of clarity.

However, in the quoted material in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus there is an oscillation between propositions and thoughts. And in both cases (thoughts and propositions) there is something of a mystery how they could be more or less clear and, say, remain the same entity. Once one starts pressing on what propositions are supposed to be things do not get easier. For, at one point Wittgenstein claims, explicitly following Frege and Russell, that a proposition just is "a function of the expressions contained in it.” (3.318) Understanding such functions is the road toward clarity, and so on.

I am, then, suggesting that the details of what analysis is about and the tools used in it are going to matter quite a bit in constraining how one conceives of clarity. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s the nature of one's analysis that explains the kind of clarity one ends up with in the standard conception.

For example, at a suitable level of generality (and vagueness), it is natural to understand Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein as agreeing that one can design a logical symbolism or formal language to supply the means of analysis. What is clarified thereby is the language or linguistic structure (of, say, mathematics--now stipulating with Paul Samuelson that it is a language--) analyzed. Wittgenstein also thought that analysis could be applied to the way logical symbolism is used in one's analysis. One could thereby learn to avoid, say, not merely equivocations and ambiguity of the language analyzed but also avoid confusions about language or caused by one’s symbolic language of analysis, including the specialist one(s) deployed by the analyst.*

Notice that in addition to thoughts and propositions (and functions), I have now somewhat cavalierly suggested that language or at least language use can be clarified, too. That is, to repeat, the details of the kind of analysis one uses matters to the kind of clarity one can achieve in the standard conception.

As an aside, Stebbing (ca 1933) understands the very same material in Wittgenstein as follows: “that to clarify our thought we must understand the logic of our language.” And she goes on to claim that “This understanding is achieved when we have discerned the principles of symbolism, and can thus answer the question how it is that sentences mean.” (p. 10) My interest here is not to contest Stebbing’s reading of Wittgenstein (who she treats as a kind of verificationist of the sort commonly associated with a naïve strand of logical positivism). But here clarity involves a kind of semantic understanding that allows one to do certain things: according to her Wittgenstein “is thus concerned to lay down certain principles in accordance with which language can be so used as to construct significant propositions.” (p. 11) That is, semantic understanding is the basis for a certain know-how. I mention this not because I agree with Stebbing’s reading of the Tractatus, but to note that even Wittgenstein’s presentational clarity can give rise to many kinds of informed interpretations of what he thinks clarification really is.

Be that as it may, on the standard position, clarity is the fruit of analysis. This is best understood not so much as a quality of ideas or propositions, but more a second order effect on the analysist (hence, why I started with Peirce here). Of course, what is analyzed and the manner of analysis may well change the nature of this second order of effect. So, lurking in the standard position, which uniformly treats clarity as the effect and desideratum of (successful) analysis, is a possible equivocation about what is fundamentally achieved.

In her (1933) lecture, “Logical positivism and analysis," from which I have been quoting, Stebbing alerts us to the fact that “there are various kinds of analysis.” And she mentioned “four different kinds,” although in context it’s possible she thinks there are more. “These four kinds are: (I) analytic definition of a symbolic expression; (2) analytic clarification of a concept; (3) postulational analysis; (4) directional analysis.” Each of these kinds of analysis generates a clarity proper to it. Of course, it’s possible that the kind of fruits born by these four kinds of analysis belongs to the same genus, but one can’t simply assume that, and Stebbing to her credit does not assume so. For Stebbing thinks that "the analytic clarification of a concept differs considerably from the other three kinds of analysis.” And why she thinks this is rather spectacular (and oddly under appreciated), so stay tuned!

But notice, and I end here (with a second cliffhanger), that neither presentational clarity nor the many strands in the standard conception of clarity (as fruits of analysis) are identical to the kind of clarity Stebbing posits (recall here; and here) as necessary to democratic life in (1938) Thinking to Some Purpose. This democratic notion of clarity (hereafter: ‘democratic clarity’) is a more general property of cognition and intelligence. Such clarity is necessary condition for success at thinking and action guided by it, or what she calls "effective thinking." (5) In particular, clarity is the absence of distortions in thought and perception caused by bias and ignorance one is not aware of. And she treats such clarity as an acquirable skill by everyone. And so lurking here is a further question about the relationship between the standard conception of clarity of the philosophical analysist and the in principle democratic clarity of citizenry.

[1] I use ‘standard’ because Price himself also offers a new, additional conception of clarity, what he calls ‘synoptic’ clarity which is the effect of “a conceptual scheme which brings out certain systematic relationships between the [known] matters of fact” (Price 1945: 29).

[2] Near the start of his lecture, Price notes correctly that “The word "analysis," it is true, was sometimes associated with a particular school of philosophers, the so-called Cambridge  school. But many Philosophers who did not subscribe to all the tenets and methods of that school would have agreed with this conception.” (Price 1945: 3) 

*This whole paragraph is indebted to Michael Kremer 'The Whole Meaning of a Book of Nonsense: Reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus', in Michael Beaney (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of The History of Analytic Philosophy (2013; online edn, Oxford Academic, 1 Oct. 2013), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199238842.013.0035, accessed 16 May 2023, although I wouldn’t hold it against him if he said I understood nothing.