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Was Carnap a Complete Verificationist in the Aufbau?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Richard Creath
Richard Creath*
Affiliation:
Arizona State University
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Extract

Was Carnap a complete verificationist in the Aufbau? The question is asked in the precise sense which has been standard since 1936 in the work of such classical writers as Carnap, Hempel and Scheffler. It is not an idle question because many, if not most, writers including Carnap himself have thought that he was such a verificationist in the Aufbau. Moreover, it is generally agreed that verificationism in this sense is a serious mistake. I propose to argue that the Aufbau does not in fact embrace such a verificationism and to base my argument on evidence directly from the Aufbau and surrounding documents.

Since 1936 ‘verificationism’ has been standardly used in the sense of a theory of empirical meaningfulness according to which a statement is meaningful if and only if it is possible that there be evidence that we might actually obtain which would conclusively establish the statement as true.

Type
Part IX. Philosophy of Science, past and Future: Metaphor and Play
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1982 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1982 , 1982 , pp. 384 - 393
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1982

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References

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