Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

Rudolf Carnap, 1891–1970

Born 1891 in Ronsdorf, nowWuppertal

University of Jena (1910–14,1918–20)

Dozent at University of Vienna1926–1931

Professor at German Universityin Prague 1931–36

University of Chicago1936–1954

UCLA 1954–1970

Died 1970

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

Early Influences

Neo-Kantian, “scientific”philosophy (Helmholtz)

Poincaré

Physics (Kirchhoff, Hertz, Mach)

German youth movement

WWI (read Einstein in thetrenches)

Joined USPD (party of RosaLuxemburg)

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

Major Works

Early Writingsñ Der Raum 1921ñ Der Logische Aufbau der Welt

1928

Anti-Metaphysics (Vienna Circle)

ñ Scheinprobleme in derPhilosophie 1928

ñ “Überwindung der Metaphysikdurch logische Analyse derSprache” 1932

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

The Vienna Circle

Late 1920s philosophical “school”ñ Left and right wingñ Schlick and Neurathñ Bourgeois intellectual soirees vs. the worker’s movementñ Viennese modernity vs. Red Vienna

RC was …ñ too scientistic for salon cultureñ too philosophical for political activism

Division of labor in the “shaping of economic and social lifeaccording to rational principles”

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

Major Works

Logical Syntaxñ Logische Syntax der Sprache

1934ñ “Testability and Meaning”

1936

Semanticsñ Introduction to Semantics

1942ñ Meaning and Necessity 1947ñ “Empiricism, Semantics, and

Ontology” 1950

Inductive Logic and Probabilityñ Logical Foundations of

Probability 1950

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

Reception of Logical Empiricism

Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic 1936

Popper, Logic of Scientific Discovery 1934/1959

Quine, Two Dogmas of Emiricism 1951ñ Analytic/synthetic distinctionñ Phenomenological reductionism

Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 1962

Engagement with American pragmatism (Dewey, Morris)

Unity of Science movement

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

Carnap and Logic

Learned from Frege, Russell

Logicism in philosophy ofmathematics

But contra Frege, for Carnapmathematics does not rest onlogic

Rather, logic provides alanguage in which mathematicsand science can be formulated

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

Russell, Knowledge of the External World

The study of logic becomes the central study in philosophy: itgives the method of research just as mathematics give themethod in physics …All this supposed knowledge in thetraditional systems must be swept away, and a new beginningmust be made …To the large and still growing body of menengaged in the pursuit of science …the new method, successfulalready in such time-honored problems as number, infinity,continuity, space, and time, should make an appeal which theolder methods have wholly failed to make.

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

Russell, Knowledge of the External World

The one and only condition, I believe, which is necessary tosecure for philosophy in the near future an achievementsurpassing all that has hitherto been accomplished byphilosophers, is the creation of a school of men with scientifictraining and philosophical interests, unhampered by thetraditions of the past, and not misled by the literary methods ofthose who copy the ancients in all except their merits. (Russell)

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

The Aufbau

Attempt to show how all knowledge can be systematizedñ uses logicñ concepts sorted into layers, a “generalogy of concepts”ñ basis: subjective experience

Carnap thought this basis to be neutral

and Aufbau project as a way to deflate traditional, fruitlessmetaphysical and epistemological disputes

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

Carnap on Logic

It is the task of logic and mathematics within the total system ofknowledge to supply the forms of concepts, statements, andinferences, forms which are then applicable everywhere, hencealso to non-logical knowledge. It follows from theseconsiderations that the nature of logic and mathematics can beclearly understood only if close attention is given to theirapplications in non-logical fields, especially in empirical science…This point of view is an important factor in the motivation forsome of my philosophical positions, for example, for the choiceof forms of languages, for my emphasis on the fundamentaldistinction between logical and non-logical knowledge. (1963a,12–13)

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

Foundational Crisis

Foundational debate in mathematics in 1920s

Two sides: Hilbert vs. Brouwer

Gödel’s results in 1931 significant impact

RC’s own work precipitated Gödel’s

RC on the forefront of research

one of the first to appreciate importance of results

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

The Syntax and Logical Tolerance

Division between object and metalanguage

“Syntactic” definition of metatheoretical notions

Definition of languages using rules

Tolerance: allow any (consistent) language/logic as objectlanguage; logical syntax applies to all

There is no single, “correct’ foundation

Mathematics and logic both the same kind of knowledge

Choice of logic a pragmatic matter, determined by successin science

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

Wissenschaftslogik

Tolerance extends to anylanguage

Task of philosophy is toinvestigate the possible formsof language

ñ Point is not to describe natureof scientific method, but

ñ to articulate, clarify, developinferential frameworks forempirical theories

ñ to defuse philosophicaldisputes which hinderscientific progress

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

Explication

Method by which languages canbe improved

Replace vague, unclear notionsby precise, useful ones (eg,“hot” and “cold” by temperaturedefined by measurement)

Not correct or incorrect – onlymore or less useful

Choice of explications andlanguage systems (“paradigms”)are pragmatic and value-driven

Feedback loop betweenknowledge and values

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

Carnap, Philosophical Hardliner?

Aufbau painted as project ofontological reduction to sensedata.

Logical empiricism as proposingan unworkable verificationism

Logical Syntax thought to argueagainst semantics andpragmatics as unnecessary

Quine showed analytic/syntheticto be untenable

Scientific rationality asunchanging, divorced fromscientific practice

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

Quine’s Two Dogmas

Our statements about the external world face the tribunal ofsense experience not individually but only as a corporate body…Any statement can be held true come what may, if we makedrastic enough adjustments elsewhere in the system. Even astatement very close to the periphery can be held true in theface of recalcitrant experience by pleading hallucination or byamending certain statements of the kind called logical laws.Conversely, by the same token, no statement is immune torevision. (Quine 1951)

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

Carnap’s and Quine’s Holisms

Testing applies, at the bottom, not to a single hypothesis butthe whole system of physics as a system of hypotheses …No rule of the language of physics is definitive; all rules are laiddown with the reservation that they may be altered as soon as itseems expedient to do so. This applies not only to the P-rulesbut also to the L-rules, including those of mathematics. In thisrespect, there are only differences in degree; certain rules aremore difficult to renounce than others. (Carnap 1934, §82)

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

The Collected Works Project

Collects (and translates) all ofCarnap’s published writings

15 volumes planned, 17 editors

Under contract with OxfordUniversity Press

Items in original language,English on facing pages

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Carnap Logic Tolerance Collected Works

Thanks

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