Carnap: Works

Interest in the metaphysics and logic of possible worlds goes back at least as far as Aristotle, but few books address the history of these important concepts. This volume offers new essays on the theories about the logical modalities held by leading philosophers from Aristotle in ancient Greece to Rudolf Carnap in the twentieth century. The story begins with an illuminating discussion of Aristotle's views on the connection between logic and metaphysics, continues through the Stoic and mediaeval traditions, and then (...) moves to the early modern period with particular attention to Locke and Leibniz. The views of Kant, Peirce, C. I. Lewis and Carnap complete the volume. Many of the essays illuminate the connection between the historical figures studied, and recent or current work in the philosophy of modality. The result is a rich and wide-ranging picture of the history of the logical modalities. (shrink)

The failed criterion of logical truth proposed by Carnap in the Logical Syntax of Language was based on the determinateness of all logical and mathematical statements. It is related to a conception which is independent of the specifics of the system of the Syntax, hints of which occur elsewhere in Carnap’s writings, and those of others. What is essential is the idea that the logical terms are invariant under reinterpretation of the empirical terms, and are therefore semantically determinate. A certain (...) objection to Carnap’s version of the invariance conception has been repeated several times in the literature. It is based on Gödel incompleteness, which is puzzling, since Carnap’s Syntax is otherwise quite careful to take account of Gödel. We show here that, in fact, the objection is invalid and is based on a confusion about determinacy. Sorting this out is worthwhile not only for the purpose of better understanding Carnap’s thinking in the Syntax, though. The invariance conception is also related to recent work in the philosophy of logic regarding “logicality”—the characterization of logical concepts—following a proposal of Tarski’s. It is even connected to some very recent developments in the foundations of mathematics. (shrink)

Faced with anti-foundationalist revisionism on part of recent Vienna Circle scholarship, veterans of the struggle against the so-called dogmas of logical empiricism could be forgiven were they to fail to recognize their old adversaries. Clearly everything depends on how the logical empiricists are read: their record does not speak for itself. That already in their day the logical empiricists faced the declaredly friendly fire that nearly sealed their fate suggests, however, that the reconstructive explication and contextualization required be exceedingly subtle. (...) For if that fire really missed its target, then what was missed was something that escaped notice from close quarter. Perhaps no one of the logical empiricists places more challenging demands of this sort on their historiographers than the longest-surviving senior member of the Vienna Circle, Rudolf Carnap. (shrink)

Rudolf Carnap's Der logische Aufbau der Welt (The Logical Structure of the World) is generally conceived of as being the failed manifesto of logical positivism. In this paper we will consider the following question: How much of the Aufbau can actually be saved? We will argue that there is an adaptation of the old system which satisfies many of the demands of the original programme. In order to defend this thesis, we have to show how a new 'Aufbau-like' programme may (...) solve or circumvent the problems that affected the original Aufbau project. In particular, we are going to focus on how a new system may address the well-known difficulties in Carnap's Aufbau concerning abstraction, dimensionality, and theoretical terms. (shrink)

We investigate the conditions under which quasianalysis, i.e., Carnap's method of abstraction in his Aufbau, yields adequate results. In particular, we state both necessary and sufficient conditions for the so-called faithfulness and fullness of quasianalysis, and analyze adequacy as the conjunction of faithfulness and fullness. It is shown that there is no method of (re-)constructing properties from similarity that delivers adequate results in all possible cases, if the same set of individuals is presupposed for properties and for similarity, and if (...) similarity is a relation of finite arity. The theory is applied to various examples, including Russell's construction of temporal instants and Carnap's constitution of the phenomenal counterparts to quality spheres. Our results explain why the former is adequate while the latter is bound to fail. (shrink)

This paper concerns the debate on the nature of Rudolf Carnap's project in his 1928 book "The Logical Structure of the World or Aufbau". Michael Friedman and Alan Richardson have initiated much of this debate. They claim that the "Aufbau" is best understood as a work that is firmly grounded in neo-Kantian philosophy. They have made these claims in opposition to Quine and Goodman's "received view" of the "Aufbau". The received view sees the "Aufbau" as an attempt to carry out (...) in detail Russell's external world program. I argue that both sides of this debate have made errors in their interpretation of Russell. These errors have led these interpreters to misunderstand the connection between Russell's project and Carnap's project. Russell in fact exerted a crucial influence on Carnap in the 1920s. This influence is complicated, however, due to the fact that Russell and Carnap disagreed on many philosophical issues. I conclude that interpretations of the "Aufbau" that ignore Russell's influence are incomplete. (shrink)

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In this essay I focus on the idea of the univocity of being, championed by Duns Scotus and given prominence more recently by Deleuze. Although I am interested in how this idea can be established, my primary concern is with something more basic: how the idea can even be properly thought. In the course of exploring this issue, which I do partly by borrowing some ideas about logical syntax from Wittgenstein's Tractatus, I try to show how there can be dialogue (...) between analytic philosophers and those of other traditions. (shrink)

Rudolf Carnap's The Logical Structure of The World remains the most sustained and detailed attempt to convert logico-mathematical procedures to use in empirical and scientific discourse. Moreover, the failure of Carnap's attempts to apply logic to empirical and scientific discourse is central to the legacy of metaphysical projects and epistemological programs that constitutes Contemporary Analytic philosophy. ;Contemporary assessments of logical positivism identify Carnap's Aufbau endeavors as empiricist in conception by focussing on the verification and testability of empirical and scientific theories. (...) I argue for a Kantian interpretation of the Aufbau, and thereby offer a different picture of Carnap's conception of the justification of empirical and scientific knowledge. On a Kantian interpretation of the Aufbau, justification would be provided in terms of the systematizability of empirical and scientific knowledge which is presupposed by the rationality of empirical and scientific discourse. My Kantian interpretation is advanced by an analysis of the role of logic in the Aufbau. ;Our present understanding of the Aufbau's logic is determined by W. V. Quine, on the one hand, and Nelson Goodman, on the other. Goodman and Quine fault the Aufbau for its inability to effect the logical translation of empirical and scientific discourse. I respond to both Quine's and Goodman's objections on behalf of the point of view established by Carnap in the Aufbau. On the basis of the view established in chapter 3, I then articulate a theory of judgment previously unnoticed in Carnap's Aufbau enterprise . I argue that though Carnap's employment of logic presupposes this theory of judgment, the Aufbau cannot sustain the epistemological apparatus it requires. To this end, I introduce Kant's account of the role of Reason and the concept of systematic unity in his theory of judgment , and apply them both to Carnap's use of logic in the Aufbau. I conclude that the justification of empirical and scientific knowledge advanced in the Aufbau can best be appreciated in terms of Kant's conception of transcendental logic which, on our view, is not logic at all. Thus Carnap's efforts in the Aufbau do not constitute the kind of advance in clarity and precision we have learned to associate with the origins of Analytic philosophy. (shrink)

On the standard interpretation, Carnap's Der logische Aufbau der Welt amounts to a highly derivative work--a rigorous thinking through of Russell's External World program. This dissertation offers a different interpretation of the Aufbau that stresses the importance of Carnap's own epistemological program and is, it is argued, more consistent with the text and Carnap's other early works. Great importance is placed on Carnap's avowed aim of providing an explanation of the objectivity of knowledge. Carnap's place in the Kantian tradition is, (...) therefore, stressed. In particular, an overview of Carnap's pre-Aufbau writings shows that Carnap agrees with his NeoKantian predecessors that mathematical physics is the paradigm of objective knowledge due to its precise concepts and mathematically expressible predictive laws. Carnap attempts to provide a conventionalist account of the relation of such science to experience using the resources of the theory of relations. ;Carnap presents two accounts of objectivity in the Aufbau, each of which can be viewed as informed by this idea. First, Carnap's structuralist account of objective knowledge generalizes on it by altering the operative notion of structure for precise concepts from mathematical to logical structure. Second, the constructed notion of intersubjectivity retains the NeoKantian idea--as is revealed in the manner in which it is constructed. The thesis examines the conflicts between these two notions of objectivity within the epistemic program of the Aufbau. It is further argued that the issues raised for this program by the tensions in the notions of objectivity account for some features of Carnap's development of the program of logical syntax in the years following the Aufbau. (shrink)