Carnap's Aufbau and physicalism

what does the "mutual reducibility" of psychological and physical objects amount to?

Thomas Uebel

pp. 45-56

in: Maria C. Galavotti, Elisabeth Nemeth, Friedrich Stadler (eds), European philosophy of science, Berlin, Springer, 2014

Abstract

The present paper is part of a larger project of investigating how far puzzling questions about Carnap's philosophical deflationism – as expressed most prominently in "Empricism, Semantics and Ontology"1 – can be answered by reference to his own preferred position in areas upon which this meta-philosophical position can be expected to have a bearing. For that project the explorations below provide a starting point; on the present occasion they will, I hope, be found to be of independent interest. At issue is the question of what makes Carnap's The Logical Structure of the World (the Aufbau) a pre-physicalist work.

Cited authors

Carnap Rudolf