New life for Carnap's Aufbau ?

Hannes Leitgeb

pp. 265-299

in: Gerhard Schurz, Ioannis Votsis (eds), Scientific realism quo vadis?, Synthese 180 (2), 2011.

Abstract

Rudolf Carnap’s Der logische Aufbau der Welt (The Logical Structure of the World) is generally conceived of as being the failed manifesto of logical positivism. In this paper we will consider the following question: How much of the Aufbau can actually be saved? We will argue that there is an adaptation of the old system which satisfies many of the demands of the original programme. In order to defend this thesis, we have to show how a new ‘Aufbau-like’ programme may solve or circumvent the problems that affected the original Aufbau project. In particular, we are going to focus on how a new system may address the well-known difficulties in Carnap’s Aufbau concerning abstraction, dimensionality, and theoretical terms.

Cited authors

Carnap Rudolf