Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editor's preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I The semantic tradition
- Part II Vienna, 1925–1935
- 9 Schlick before Vienna
- 10 Philosophers on relativity
- 11 Carnap before Vienna
- 12 Scientific idealism and semantic idealism
- 13 Return of Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 14 A priori knowledge and the constitution of meaning
- 15 The road to syntax
- 16 Syntax and truth
- 17 Semantic conventionalism and the factuality of meaning
- 18 The problem of induction: theories
- 19 The problem of experience: protocols
- Notes
- References
- Index
17 - Semantic conventionalism and the factuality of meaning
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editor's preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I The semantic tradition
- Part II Vienna, 1925–1935
- 9 Schlick before Vienna
- 10 Philosophers on relativity
- 11 Carnap before Vienna
- 12 Scientific idealism and semantic idealism
- 13 Return of Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 14 A priori knowledge and the constitution of meaning
- 15 The road to syntax
- 16 Syntax and truth
- 17 Semantic conventionalism and the factuality of meaning
- 18 The problem of induction: theories
- 19 The problem of experience: protocols
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
Some writers, for example Carnap in his “Logical Syntax of Language,” treat the whole problem [of defining logic] as being more a matter of linguistic choice than I can believe it to be. In the above-mentioned work, Carnap has two logical languages, one of which admits the multiplicative axiom and the axiom of infinity, while the other does not. I cannot myself regard such a matter as one to be decided by our arbitrary choice. It seems to me that these axioms either do, or do not, have the characteristic of formal truth which characterizes logic, and that in the former event every logic must include them, while in the latter every logic must exclude them. I confess, however, that I am unable to give any clear account of what is meant by saying that a proposition is “true in virtue of its form.”
Russell, PrinciplesQuite apart from its contributions to logic and in uneasy alliance with them, Carnap's LSL contains a radically new approach to the philosophy of mathematics that he and others would soon take as a model for epistemology as a whole. Carnap's attitude toward philosophical considerations was roughly that of the scalded cat toward boiling water. He was second to none in his ability to state clearly and argue cogently formallevel philosophical issues; but the deeper and less obviously formal those issues become, the harder it is to find either a clear statement or an argument for Carnap's position.
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- Information
- The Semantic Tradition from Kant to CarnapTo the Vienna Station, pp. 306 - 326Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991