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- Rudolf
- Carnap
- 1928.
- La
costruzione logica
- del
mondo
- "In
definitiva penso di avere imparato
nel campo della filosofia molto più
dalle letture e dalle private conversazioni
- che
dal frequentare corsi e seminari."
-
- Rudolf
Carnap, Autobiografia Intellettuale
|
Hopos
2000
- In questa
pagine sono contenuti abstracts sul primo Carnap che saranno
presentati nell'ambito di:
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- Abstract
dell'intervento di Wybo N. Houkes (University of Leiden,
NL)
- http://ivc.philo.at/hopos/lecture.htm
Abstract n. 31
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- Carnap
on Logic and Experience. The Relation between Formal System and
Experience from Der
Raum to the Aufbau
In this lecture, I will argue that Carnap’s changing views
on the relation between formal system and experience in the 1920’s
must be understood from his attempt to reconcile his Neokantian
idea of accounting for the objectivity of knowledge with a Russellian
conception of logic.
Traditionally, Carnap's work during the 1920's is interpreted
as a gradual transition from Neokantianism (Der Raum) to foundationalist
empiricism (Aufbau). Recent years, however, have seen a re-appraisal
of the Aufbau: it has been plausibly argued that, in this work,
Carnap sought to reconstruct objective knowledge by showing its
logical structure. In this lecture, I address three closely related
problems raised by this re-appraisal.
First, it appears that we ought to revise our view of the transition
Carnap underwent during the 1920's: Der Raum and the Aufbau share
a commitment to Neokantianism. However, central elements of Carnap's
thought changed, e.g., he abandoned intuitive space and Wesenschau
as defended in Der Raum. How should we reconcile continuity and
change?
This tension is increased by the second problem. The idea that
experience has, or is related to, a logical structure raises
a question on the relation between a formal system and experience.
This issue was one of Carnap's chief preoccupations during the
1920's. In Der Raum, we find two relations between three layers:
the physical space of experience is subsumed under intuitive
space, which is a substitution for formal space. In the early
papers, in which intuitive space has been dispensed with, the
relation between formal system and experience is, surprisingly,
one of subsumption rather than substitution. Finally, in the
Aufbau, this subsumption relation between the physical world
of experience and constitution system (§136) is supplemented
with various necessary or conventional ‘forms’ of the
system. Yet, ultimately, Carnap urges that knowledge ought to
be completely logicized in order to save its objectivity (§§153-155).
This does not only appear to annul the subsumption-substitution
issue, but it also seems an absurd ideal (Friedman 1988, 1992).
Both the first and the second problem may be solved once we consider
a third. Carnap's idea that uncovering the logical structure
of experience serves an epistemological goal, clearly expressed
in the Aufbau, raises a question regarding his conception of
logic. It is commonly argued that, in the Aufbau, Carnap cast
Principia Mathematica formal logic in a transcendental role (Richardson
1998). This interpretation claims to make sense of one of the
most mysterious features of the Aufbau: Carnap's quest for a
complete logicization of experience in §§153-155. I
will argue that this quest involves a Russellian, universalist
rather than a Neokantian idea of logic. Backtracking, I argue
that with this Russelian conception, Carnap could fill the gap
left in his philosophy by the elimination of intuitive space.
In this way, the Aufbau supplements the earlier papers, which
reflect a transitional phase in Carnap's thought.
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- Abstract dell'intervento di Pawel Kawalec
(Poland)
- http://ivc.philo.at/hopos/lecture.htm
Abstract n. 39
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- Carnap‘s
Epistemology - Early and Late
Carnap's
DER LOGISCHE AUFBAU DER WELT has gain wide attention, especially
with respect to the epistemological position advanced therein
(e.g. Richardson 1998). Despite Carnap's declarations to the
contrary, he maintained lots of his early epistemological commitments
in his later works. Of them, LOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF PROBABILITY
figures as the classic in the theory of confirmation, and most
comprehensive exposition of inductive probabilities. I studied
Carnap's epistemology in LFP (as well as in his other works on
probability up to his "subjective"-shift in 1962) in
greater detail, and identified it as a structuralist version
of reliabilism.
Thus, on the one hand, my paper attempts at the comparison of
the epistemological role of "structure" in AUFBAU and
LFP. The role has been recognized as epistemologically significant
in both Carnap's works, and my aim here is to get a good grasp
of the (dis)similarities between the epistemological role of
the logical structure.
There are two other important respects in which the books must
be compared. One of them is identified by Richardson in AUFBAU
as the distinction between the absolute vs. relative a priori.
Apparently, Carnap is ambivalent in his early writings on probability
between there being only one definite confirmation function (LFP),
and a continuum thereof
(THE CONTINUUM OF INDUCTIVE METHODS, 1952) - the ambivalence,
which seems due to - via the methodological problem of application
- the absolute - relative a priori distinction.
Finally, the above mentioned ambivalence in Carnap's work might
be perceived as due to his unstable view with respect to the
conception of unified science, and the role of physics therein.
Some passages in LFP suggest that Carnap conceived of physics
as the structurally complete science determining the status of
other sciences. On the other hand, however, he attempts to avoid
the objection of arbitrariness of a priori probability distributions
by letting the probabilities be domain-of-application-relative
(and therefore allowing for multiple confirmation functions).
I will study then how closely this Carnap's problem in LFP and
CIM matches the central epistemological tension he faced in AUFBAU
identified by Richardson as the ambivalence between logical-mathematical
structure and physical-mathematical one.
After having study the affinities between epistemological traits
in AUFBAU and LFP, I will attempt to evaluate in detail which
parts of the structural reliabilist position I identified in
LFP find also their application in the study of AUFBAU.
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- Abstract dell'intervento di Michael Rahnfeld
(Kiel)
- http://ivc.philo.at/hopos/lecture.htm
Abstract n. 69
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- Carnap‘s
"Logical Construction" as an Example of Cassirer‘s
Theory of Symbolical Forms
The aim of this lecture is to show that the empirical approach
in Carnap's "The Logical Construction of the World"
and the transcendental approach in Cassirer's "Philosophy
of Symbolical Forms" are not to be regarded as incompatible
positions as is often asserted but that they converge in essential
aspects of the object constitution theory.
In his "Symbolical Forms" Cassirer provides a programmatic
framework for a symbolic resp. object constitution theory. For
object constitution, three functions are crucial, and these vary
in their transcendental performances: the expressive function,
the depictive function and the semantic function. These are the
three basic functions which are, in principle, given within the
transcendental circumstances of any symbolism, although the extent
of their relative clarity will change in myth, language and science.
The expressive function is the basic layer of object constitution,
it is directed towards the given, conceptually unanalyzed existence
of the phenomena of consciousness which can only be named as
a whole. In the depictive function, the varying facts are considered
as representatives of a constant object (substance). This is
the stage where the actual object constitution takes place, which
synthesizes objects according to categories of similarity or
topological invariance, extracts them from the flow of experience
and thus turns them into the object of linguistic attribution.
The semantic function no longer refers to the objects of the
sensorial world, but to their pure structure. The paradigms of
the symbols of the semantic function are the (non-interpreted)
formal structures of mathematics and logic. These three functions
are characterized by an increasing "reflexive distance"
to the immediate facts.
Carnap's "Construction" can be understood as a technically
formal application of the vague, extensive symbol conception
defined by Cassirer. The systematic procedure used by Carnap
when constructing a constituent system of all empirical terms
easily fits into the triassic of expressive function, depictive
function and semantic function:
On the lowest level, the elementary experiences correspond with
the expressive function. They are unanalyzed overall impressions,
as they light up within the consciousness of their entirety.
Here, Carnap falls back on the results of Gestalt psychology,
according to which the impression of the whole is primary, and
only resolved through successive abstractions into distinguished
sensations. The elementary experiences are synthesized by logical
means according to the depicitve function. The only descriptive
term required by Carnap for the construction of the objects is
the relation of "similarity memory", which has the
character of a transcendental category ( cf. "Construction",
75, 83). This relation exists between two elementary experiences
x and y if the memory, when comparing x and y, recognizes them
to be somewhat similar. The phrase "somewhat similar"
here means that two elementary experiences both correspond entirely
with one another in at least one component of each experience.
On this minimal basis Carnap lays down precise, logical and structural
rules for the generation of quality classes, their orders and
all other constituted objects. This results in the problem that
the similarity memory is a descriptive constant which is included
in the structural characterizations of the different object levels
and thus violates the objectivity criterion according to which
all scientific statements are structural statements. The way
Carnap gets out of this, is to replace the simularity memory
by a certain variable, through which all definitions turn into
implicit definitions, which means that they are restrictedly
interpretable structures. However, for the time being, they are
sufficient for the unambiguous characterization of the objects.
These implicit definitions are formal symbols in a line with
Cassirer's semantic function.
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