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Interpreting Neurath’s Protocols. Reply to Nottelmann

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Abstract

This paper responds to a recent criticism of Uebel's analysis of Neurath's protocol statements and proposes some independent amendments.

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Notes

  1. “Sätze wie: Karls Protokoll, Karl formuliert, Karl ist sehend, Im Zimmer ist ein runder Tisch. (alles mit Zeitbestimmung) sind die Ausgangs- und Kontrollposition. Alle Feinheiten müssen sich, wie ich meine, mit solchen Sätzen ausdrücken lassen. Der Satz: Karls Protokoll: Karl formuliert: Karl sieht: Im Zimmer runder Tisch. und: Karls Protokoll: Karl formuliert: Karl tastet: Im Zimmer runder Tisch. sind beides Sätze in denen der Ausschnitt: Im Zimmer runder Tisch. vorkommt. Man könnte nun sagen, im ersten Fall: Im Zimmer runder Tisch (Index Sehen). und im zweiten: Im Zimmer runder Tisch (Index Tasten). sind empirisch equipollent. Und dann analog: Karls Protokoll: Karl formuliert: Karl spürt: Karl ist schläfrig. Karls Protokoll: Karl formuliert: Karl sieht im Spiegel: Karl ist schläfrig. Beide Sätze: Karl ist schläfrig (Index Fühlen). und: Karl ist schläfrig (Index Sehen). sind empirisch equipollent. Aber—und das ist der springende Punkt: beide Sätze sind in physikalistischer Sprache verfasst. Ob es gut ist. das alles mithilfe der Äquipollenz zu erörtern will ich dahingestellt sein lassen.“ Neurath to Felix Kaufmann, 21 June 1935, RC 029-09-46, pp. 1–2, in Rudolf Carnap Nachlass, Archive of Scientific Philosophy, Hilman Library, University of Pittsburgh; no quotations marks used in original but punctuations corrected, two indentations added in translation. (Quoted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh. All rights reserved.)

  2. Nottelmann misunderstands the force of the “indirectness” of the evidence involved in (iv) when he writes: “One way out of this [circularity] problem sympathetic to Uebel’s analysis might be to render the ‘actual condition negative, such that it is accepted as fulfilled if and only if conditions (i)–(iii) are accepted” (2006, p. 184). As should be clear, the indirect evidence for or against (iv) is suitably independent of that for or against the satisfaction of conditions (i)–(iii), so his points against his alternative construal also do not apply to my analysis.

  3. Nottelmann was not the first to have voiced concerns, though the only one to have published them.

  4. Readers of Uebel (2005, p. 100)—which gave a preliminary preview of my new interpretation of Neurath’s protocols—are asked to correct as typos an occurrence of “perceived” in (iv) and to delete it as well as to substitute “(iv)” as name for the clause in place of “(vi)”.

  5. Concerning Nottelmann’s remaining criticisms that, first, I violate Neurath’s principle that all clauses have to contain a proper name (2006, p. 178) and, second, that my use of causal terminology in explicating his proposal goes against Neurath’s reticence in using these terms (ibid., p. 182), I respond as follows. First, that the principle in question was enunciated as part of the 3-part analysis and was violated by Neurath himself when he outlined my favoured 4-part version, second that doing some violence to Neurath’s terminological sensitivities seems inevitable when explicating his proposals as still of current interest (consider only Nottelmann’s own use of the dichotomy “external/internal” (ibid., p. 174)).

  6. Relatedly, since “C” and “D” are analysed not as an embedding of “D” by “C”, but as a conjunction, it is impermissible to allow that a combination of “C” and “D” be accepted and “D” be rejected as in Neurath’s 1941 example.

  7. On the compatibility of Carnap’s and Neurath’s post-metaphysical theories of scientific knowledge see Uebel (2001) and (in press, Chap. 12).

  8. See Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Bk. IV, Chap. XV, Par. 4 (numerous editions).

  9. See Uebel (2005) for a preliminary outline and Uebel (in press, Chap. 11) for a detailed account.

References

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    Thomas Uebel

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Uebel, T. Interpreting Neurath’s Protocols. Reply to Nottelmann. J Gen Philos Sci 38, 383–391 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-007-9053-6

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