Carnap: Works

It is convenient to review these two books together because of the obvious indebtedness of the latter to the former. The book by Carnap is the first English translation of his classic Der Logische Aufbau der Welt initially published in Berlin in 1928. It also includes his short Scheinprobleme in der Philosophic published first in the same year. The translator has produced a very readable text of two complex works and Carnap has added a new preface outlining his present attitude (...) to his work of over thirty years ago together with a short bibliography of recent publications relevant to the Aufbau. (shrink)

Translation into French of Rudolf Carnap's Testability and Meaning (1936-1937): Carnap, Rudolf. "Testability and meaning." Philosophy of science 3.4 (1936): 419-471 and Carnap, Rudolf. "Testability and meaning—continued." Philosophy of science 4.1 (1937): 1-40. Introduction by Pierre Wagner; translation by Yann Benétreau-Dupin and Delphine Chapuis-Schmitz. Testabilité et signification est un classique de la philosophie des sciences dont aucune traduction n’avait jusqu’alors été offerte au public francophone. L’auteur y expose sa célèbre analyse des termes dispositionnels (« soluble dans l’eau », « fragile (...) », etc.) en montrant quelles difficultés soulève leur définition. Carnap livre également ici ses réflexions sur la nature de l’empirisme et sur le rapport du langage à la philosophie, offrant ainsi, dans ce texte, l’une des premières expositions du problème contemporain de la confirmation, soigneusement distinguée de la vérification et du test. Historiquement, l’ouvrage est aussi marqué par un mouvement de transition : celle de la langue allemande à l’anglais d’adoption (il s’agit du premier texte d’envergure que Carnap rédige en anglais), celle de l’émigration de son auteur, de Prague à Chicago, celle d’une pensée d’origine européenne venue, sur le chemin de l’exil, à la rencontre de la philosophie américaine. (shrink)

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)

This is a translation of Carnap's early classic, Der Logische Aufbau der Welt and his less technical but also important article from the same period, Scheinprobleme in der Philosophie. It is no secret that Carnap abandoned the phenomenalism of the Aufbau for the physicalism of Logische Syntax der Sprache, but there is no doubt that the real message of the Aufbau—which is punctuated with the Messianic spirit of early logical positivism—is the program of "rational reconstruction" which becomes, on an inverted (...) reading and with the addition of a bias in favor of the universal descriptive and explanatory power of scientific discourse, the program of scientific reductionism. In this light, the continuities between the Aufbau and Carnap's later work completely dwarf in importance the discrepancies between these two periods of his creative output. The Aufbau remains an important book in its own right, and is not simply a detailed manifesto of a now defunct program; it is a pleasure to have it in English.—E. A. R. (shrink)

Es wird versucht, einige Aspekte von Carnaps Werk Der logische Auflyau der Welt vor dem Hintergrund des Kantianismus zu betrachten, insbesondere die Strukturalismusthese, das Verhältnis von Gegebenem und Konstruiertem und den Wirklichkeitsbegriff; das Ergebnis geht dahin, daß sich mehr Gemeinsamkeiten mit der kantianischen Tradition zeigen als es von einem klassischen Werk des Neopositivismus zu erwarten wäre.

This paper takes up the challenge which Carnap poses in his Aufbau: to make of it a basis for continued epistemological research. I try to close some gaps in Carnap’s original presentation and to make at least the first few steps of his constructional outline more accessible to the modern reader. Particularly emphasized is Carnap’s implicit recognition that, to be effective, “structural” models of epistemology (using logical symbols) must be complemented with “procedural” models (his “fictitious operations”). The paper shows how (...) a procedural model, a computer program,can “bypass” Nelson Goodman’s counter example to Carnap’s logical construction of “similarity circles”. (shrink)

This paper is an analysis of some aspects of the constitutional system of Carnap's Logische Aufbau der Welt. It considers two possible interpretations of the autopsychological basis - the elementary experiences - as this concept is used in Carnap's book. Some authors, like Michael Friedman and Moulines, see the Aufbau as a structural system whose forms are not determined by basic experiences - elementary experiences. Others, as for instance Stegmüller, say that the structures, the definitions, within the Aufbau are the (...) result of relations which can be established among those experiences. Following the arguments of these interpreters as well as Carnap's epistemological proposal, I sustain in this paper that it is necessary to think about the autopsychological basis - the elementary experiences - as determining Aufbau's structural relations. (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'sproject in his 1928 book The Logical Structure of the Worldor Aufbau. Michael Friedman and Alan Richardson haveinitiated much of this debate. They claim that the Aufbauis best understood as a work that is firmly grounded inneo-Kantian philosophy. They have made these claims in oppositionto Quine and Goodman's ``received view'' of the Aufbau. Thereceived view sees the Aufbau as an attempt to carry out indetail Russell's external world program. I argue (...) that both sidesof this debate have made errors in their interpretation ofRussell. These errors have led these interpreters to misunderstandthe connection between Russell's project and Carnap's project.Russell in fact exerted a crucial influence on Carnap in the1920s. This influence is complicated, however, due to the factthat Russell and Carnap disagreed on many philosophical issues. Iconclude that interpretations of the Aufbau that ignoreRussell's influence are incomplete. (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)