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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CarnapLogicToleranceCollected Works