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The Logical Structure of the World and Pseudoproblems in Philosophy
The Logical Structure of the World. Dust jacket in fair condition.Hardback, ex-library, with usual stamps and markings, in good all round condition.
390 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1967
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About the author
Rudolf Carnap
145 books107 followersRudolf Carnap, a German-born philosopher and naturalized U.S. citizen, was a leading exponent of logical positivism and was one of the major philosophers of the twentieth century. He made significant contributions to philosophy of science, philosophy of language, the theory of probability, inductive logic and modal logic. He rejected metaphysics as meaningless because metaphysical statements cannot be proved or disproved by experience. He asserted that many philosophical problems are indeed pseudo-problems, the outcome of a misuse of language.
Read more : http://www.iep.utm.edu/carnap/
Read more : http://www.iep.utm.edu/carnap/
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October 15, 2024
A MAJOR BOOK BY ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF LOGICAL POSITIVISM
Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970) was a German-born philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism. He wrote many books, such as 'Meaning and Necessity,' 'An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science,' 'Introduction to Symbolic Logic and Its Applications,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to the second edition, “[Logical Structure] was my first larger book, the first attempt to bring into systematic form my earlier philosophical reflections. The first version was written in the years 1922-1925… The main problem concerns the possibility of the rational reconstruction of the concepts of all fields of knowledge on the basis of concepts that refer to the immediately given. By rational reconstruction is here meant the searching out of new definitions for old concepts…
"I had realized… the fundamental importance of mathematics for the formation of a system of knowledge and… its purely logical, formal character to which it owes its independence from the contingencies of the real world. These insights formed the basis of my book. Later on, through conversations in [Moritz] Schlick’s circle in Vienna and through the influence of Wittgenstein’s ideas they developed into the mode of thought which characterized the ‘Vienna Circle.’ This orientation is sometimes called ‘logical empiricism’ (or ‘logical positivism’), in order to indicate the two components.” (Pg. v-vi)
He outlines, “Even though the subjective origin of all knowledge lies in the contents of experiences and their connections, it is still possible, as the conceptual system will show, to advance to an intersubjective, objective world, which can be conceptually comprehended and which is identical for all observers… The present study is an attempt to apply the theory of relations to the task of analyzing reality.” (Pg. 7)
He states, “the fundamental thesis of construction theory… which we will attempt to demonstrate in the following investigation, asserts that fundamentally there is only one object domain and that each scientific statement is about the objects in this domain. Thus, it becomes unnecessary to indicate for each statement the object domain, and the result is that each scientific statement can in principle be so transformed that it is nothing but a structure statement.” (Pg. 29)
He asserts, “Once it is acknowledged that the realistic and the constructional languages have the same meaning, it follows that constructional definitions and the statements of the constructional system can be formed by translating indicator-statements and other statements which are found in the realistic language of the empirical sciences. Once realistic and constructional languages are recognized as nothing but two different languages which express the same state of affairs, several, perhaps even most, epistemological disputes become pointless.” (Pg. 87)
Later, he adds, “From this it follows that the domain of objects to which the cultural objects are reducible can be narrowed down: every cultural object is reducible to its manifestations, that is, to psychological objects.” (Pg. 90)
He admits, however, that “Even if we were to suppose that the basic elements are themselves again classes of other elements… we could not construct these fundamental elements with the aid of the given ascension forms. The basic elements of the construction system cannot be analyzed through construction. Thus, the elementary experiences cannot be analyzed in our system since this system takes then as basic elements.” (Pg. 110)
He suggests, “the five above-mentioned categorical forms are not the actual (fundamental) categories, but they are in part reducible to one another; the number of (genuine) categories is very small; perhaps there is only a single category.” (Pg. 136)
He says, “If, in physics, the world formula were already known, then all the individual natural laws could be derived deductively without reference to experience. In exactly the same way, all the general constructional rules could be deduced from the supreme principle of construction without reference to experience, i.e., without reference to any concrete construction within the constructional system.” (Pg. 165)
He observes, “The existence of the self is not an originally given fact. The sum does not follow from the cogito; it does not follow from ‘I experience’ that ‘I am,’ but only that an experience is. The self does not belong to the expression of the basic experience at all, but is constructed only later essentially for the purpose of delineation against the ‘others’; that is, only on a high constructional level, after the construction of the heteropsychological. Thus, a more fitting expression than ‘I experience’ would be ‘experience’ or, still better, ‘this experience.’” (Pg. 261)
He contends, “the difference between reality and nonreality (dreams, invention, etc.) retains its full meaning even in a constructional system which is based on an autopsychological basis, and that this distinction in no way presupposes any transcendency.” (Pg. 275) Later, he adds, “The definition of the concept of a thing-in-itself goes back to the concept of reality (in the sense of independence from the cognizing subject). Thus, in our conception, this concept, too, must be placed within metaphysics, for metaphysics is the extrascientific domain of theoretical form.” (Pg. 284)
He continues, “the so-called epistemological schools of realism, idealism and phenomenalism agree within the sphere of epistemology. Construction theory represents the neutral foundation which they have in common. They diverge only in the field of metaphysics… only because of a transgression of their proper boundaries.” (Pg. 286)
He insists, “Science, the system of conceptual knowledge, has no limits. But this does not mean that there is nothing outside science and that it is all-inclusive… When we say that scientific knowledge is not limited, we mean: there is no question whose answer is in principle unattainable by science… if it is practically impossible to answer a question about a certain event, because the event is too far removed in space or time, but if a question of a similar kind about a present event which is within reach can in fact be answered, then we call the question ‘practically unanswerable, but answerable in principle.’…” (Pg. 290)
He begins the “Pseudo-problems” essay with the statement, “The meaning of a statement lies in the fact that it expresses a (conceivable, not necessarily existing) state of affairs. If an (ostensible) statement does not express a (conceivable) state of affairs, then it has no meaning; it is only apparently a statement. If a statement expresses a state of affairs then it is in any event meaningful; it is true if this state of affairs exists, false if it does not exist. One can know that a statement is meaningful even before one knows whether it is true or false.” (Pg. 325)
This is one of Carnap’s most important books, and will be of great interest to anyone studying his philosophy, or Logical Positivism in general.
Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970) was a German-born philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism. He wrote many books, such as 'Meaning and Necessity,' 'An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science,' 'Introduction to Symbolic Logic and Its Applications,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to the second edition, “[Logical Structure] was my first larger book, the first attempt to bring into systematic form my earlier philosophical reflections. The first version was written in the years 1922-1925… The main problem concerns the possibility of the rational reconstruction of the concepts of all fields of knowledge on the basis of concepts that refer to the immediately given. By rational reconstruction is here meant the searching out of new definitions for old concepts…
"I had realized… the fundamental importance of mathematics for the formation of a system of knowledge and… its purely logical, formal character to which it owes its independence from the contingencies of the real world. These insights formed the basis of my book. Later on, through conversations in [Moritz] Schlick’s circle in Vienna and through the influence of Wittgenstein’s ideas they developed into the mode of thought which characterized the ‘Vienna Circle.’ This orientation is sometimes called ‘logical empiricism’ (or ‘logical positivism’), in order to indicate the two components.” (Pg. v-vi)
He outlines, “Even though the subjective origin of all knowledge lies in the contents of experiences and their connections, it is still possible, as the conceptual system will show, to advance to an intersubjective, objective world, which can be conceptually comprehended and which is identical for all observers… The present study is an attempt to apply the theory of relations to the task of analyzing reality.” (Pg. 7)
He states, “the fundamental thesis of construction theory… which we will attempt to demonstrate in the following investigation, asserts that fundamentally there is only one object domain and that each scientific statement is about the objects in this domain. Thus, it becomes unnecessary to indicate for each statement the object domain, and the result is that each scientific statement can in principle be so transformed that it is nothing but a structure statement.” (Pg. 29)
He asserts, “Once it is acknowledged that the realistic and the constructional languages have the same meaning, it follows that constructional definitions and the statements of the constructional system can be formed by translating indicator-statements and other statements which are found in the realistic language of the empirical sciences. Once realistic and constructional languages are recognized as nothing but two different languages which express the same state of affairs, several, perhaps even most, epistemological disputes become pointless.” (Pg. 87)
Later, he adds, “From this it follows that the domain of objects to which the cultural objects are reducible can be narrowed down: every cultural object is reducible to its manifestations, that is, to psychological objects.” (Pg. 90)
He admits, however, that “Even if we were to suppose that the basic elements are themselves again classes of other elements… we could not construct these fundamental elements with the aid of the given ascension forms. The basic elements of the construction system cannot be analyzed through construction. Thus, the elementary experiences cannot be analyzed in our system since this system takes then as basic elements.” (Pg. 110)
He suggests, “the five above-mentioned categorical forms are not the actual (fundamental) categories, but they are in part reducible to one another; the number of (genuine) categories is very small; perhaps there is only a single category.” (Pg. 136)
He says, “If, in physics, the world formula were already known, then all the individual natural laws could be derived deductively without reference to experience. In exactly the same way, all the general constructional rules could be deduced from the supreme principle of construction without reference to experience, i.e., without reference to any concrete construction within the constructional system.” (Pg. 165)
He observes, “The existence of the self is not an originally given fact. The sum does not follow from the cogito; it does not follow from ‘I experience’ that ‘I am,’ but only that an experience is. The self does not belong to the expression of the basic experience at all, but is constructed only later essentially for the purpose of delineation against the ‘others’; that is, only on a high constructional level, after the construction of the heteropsychological. Thus, a more fitting expression than ‘I experience’ would be ‘experience’ or, still better, ‘this experience.’” (Pg. 261)
He contends, “the difference between reality and nonreality (dreams, invention, etc.) retains its full meaning even in a constructional system which is based on an autopsychological basis, and that this distinction in no way presupposes any transcendency.” (Pg. 275) Later, he adds, “The definition of the concept of a thing-in-itself goes back to the concept of reality (in the sense of independence from the cognizing subject). Thus, in our conception, this concept, too, must be placed within metaphysics, for metaphysics is the extrascientific domain of theoretical form.” (Pg. 284)
He continues, “the so-called epistemological schools of realism, idealism and phenomenalism agree within the sphere of epistemology. Construction theory represents the neutral foundation which they have in common. They diverge only in the field of metaphysics… only because of a transgression of their proper boundaries.” (Pg. 286)
He insists, “Science, the system of conceptual knowledge, has no limits. But this does not mean that there is nothing outside science and that it is all-inclusive… When we say that scientific knowledge is not limited, we mean: there is no question whose answer is in principle unattainable by science… if it is practically impossible to answer a question about a certain event, because the event is too far removed in space or time, but if a question of a similar kind about a present event which is within reach can in fact be answered, then we call the question ‘practically unanswerable, but answerable in principle.’…” (Pg. 290)
He begins the “Pseudo-problems” essay with the statement, “The meaning of a statement lies in the fact that it expresses a (conceivable, not necessarily existing) state of affairs. If an (ostensible) statement does not express a (conceivable) state of affairs, then it has no meaning; it is only apparently a statement. If a statement expresses a state of affairs then it is in any event meaningful; it is true if this state of affairs exists, false if it does not exist. One can know that a statement is meaningful even before one knows whether it is true or false.” (Pg. 325)
This is one of Carnap’s most important books, and will be of great interest to anyone studying his philosophy, or Logical Positivism in general.
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