Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- PREFACE
- INTRODUCTION
- Part One Geometry, Relativity, and Convention
- Part Two Der logische Aufbau der Welt
- Part Three Logico-Mathematical Truth
- 7 Analytic Truth in Carnap's Logical Syntax of Language
- 8 Carnap and Wittgenstein's Tractatus
- 9 Tolerance and Analyticity in Carnap's Philosophy of Mathematics
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Analytic Truth in Carnap's Logical Syntax of Language
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- PREFACE
- INTRODUCTION
- Part One Geometry, Relativity, and Convention
- Part Two Der logische Aufbau der Welt
- Part Three Logico-Mathematical Truth
- 7 Analytic Truth in Carnap's Logical Syntax of Language
- 8 Carnap and Wittgenstein's Tractatus
- 9 Tolerance and Analyticity in Carnap's Philosophy of Mathematics
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Throughout his philosophical career, Carnap places the foundations of logic and mathematics at the center of his inquiries: he is concerned above all with the Kantian question “How is mathematics (both pure and applied) possible?” Although he changes his mind about many particular issues, Carnap never gives up his belief in the importance and centrality of this question, nor does he ever waver in his conviction that he has the answer: the possibility of mathematics and logic is to be explained by a sharp distinction between formal and factual, analytic and synthetic truth. Thus, throughout his career, Carnap calls for, and attempts to provide,
an explication for the distinction between logical and descriptive signs and that between logical and factual truth, because it seems to me that without these distinctions a satisfactory methodological analysis of science is not possible. (1963b, p. 932)
For Carnap, it is this foundation for logic and mathematics that is distinctive of logical – as opposed to traditional – empiricism. As he puts it in his “Intellectual Autobiography” (1963a, p. 47): “It became possible for the first time to combine the basic tenet of empiricism with a satisfactory explanation of the nature of logic and mathematics.” In particular, we can avoid the “non-empiricist” appeal to “pure intuition” or “pure reason” while simultaneously avoiding the naive and excessively empiricist position of J. S. Mill (Ibid.).
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- Chapter
- Information
- Reconsidering Logical Positivism , pp. 165 - 176Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999
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