Objectivity and understanding

a new reading of Carnap's Aufbau

Iulian Toader

pp. 1543-1557

in: Yacin Hamami, Floris Roelofson (eds), Logic of questions, Synthese 192 (5), 2015.

Abstract

The paper proposes a new reading of the Aufbau, one that contends that Carnap’s epistemological project is not, or not only, to identify the conditions under which a system of purely structural definite descriptions can attain objectivity. Rather, the project is more ambitious: to determine the conditions that allow the concomitant attainment of objectivity and understanding. As such, it can, and perhaps should, be regarded as an attempt to refute a view elsewhere called Weylean skepticism, i.e. the view that objectivity and understanding are opposite epistemic ideals of science.

Cited authors

Carnap Rudolf