Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970)
Author of An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science
About the Author
Born in Ronsdorf, Germany, Rudolf Carnap studied at the Universities of Freiburg and Jena from 1910 to 1914. He received his doctorate from Jena, where he had studied under Gottlob Frege, who, along with Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell profoundly influenced his thought. In 1926, on the show more invitation of Morris Schlick, he joined the faculty of the University of Vienna. An active participant in the discussions of the Vienna Circle, he soon rose to eminence in the movement of logical positivism, or logical empiricism. From Vienna he went to Prague, and in 1930 he founded, with Hans Reichenbach in Berlin, the journal Erkenntnis, the main organ for the publications of the logical positivists and empiricists. In 1935, with the rise of Nazism, he moved to the United States, where he occupied teaching and research positions at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, the University of Illinois, and the University of California in Los Angeles. When he died, he was the most famous of the logical empiricists. Camap's book, The Logical Structure of the World (1928), established the basic project of logical empiricism. Carnap sought to demonstrate that, by the method of construction from elementary experiences, all the objects in the world that were also objects of knowledge could be attained. As a consequence, unless a statement could be validated either by rules of logic or by experimental testing in experience, it could be dismissed as devoid of knowledge. He thus proceeded to dismiss most of traditional philosophy and metaphysics as consisting of pseudo-problems. Carnap maintained that the genuine task of philosophy was the logical analysis of the language of science. In The Logical Syntax of Language (1934), he introduced basic distinctions, such as object-language and meta-language, formal mode and material mode of expression, that were to be widely accepted in philosophy. However, neither his symbolism nor his restriction of philosophy to the logical analysis of syntax---i.e., the purely formal features of language---endured. Influenced by Alfred Tarski, Carnap came to appreciate the need to take account of nonformal meanings (those involving external reference). This led to his publication of The Introduction of Semantics (1942), a work restricted to exclusively extensional logic, as was the subsequent volume, Formalization of Semantics (1943). However, he moved on to consider non-extensional logics in Meaning and Necessity. A leader in the unity of science movement, Carnap also wrestled with the empirical verification principle of meaning and the problems of induction and probability theory. His last major treatise was the book Logical Foundations of Probability (1950). (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Rudolf Carnap
Dear Carnap, Dear Van: The Quine-Carnap Correspondence and Related Work (Centennial Books) (1990) 18 copies
Foundations of the Unity of Science: Toward an International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. 2 (1970) 9 copies
The nature and application of inductive logic,: Consisting of six sections from Logical foundations of probability (1951) 5 copies
Analiticità, significanza, induzione 3 copies
La Science et la Métaphysique devant l'analyse logique du langage, par Rudolf Carnap,... Traduction du… (1934) 2 copies
Rudolf Carnap 2 copies
Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology 2 copies
Quine on Analyticity 1 copy
Pseudoproblemas na Filosofia 1 copy
Carnap 1 copy
Abriss der logistik mit besonderer berücksichtigung der relationstheorie und ihrer anwendungen 1 copy
Le Problème de la logique de la science : . Science formelle et science du réel, par Rudolf Carnap,...… (1935) 1 copy
Carnap [Opere di] 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Carnap, Rudolf
- Birthdate
- 1891-05-18
- Date of death
- 1970-09-14
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Germany
USA (naturalized | 1941) - Birthplace
- Wuppertal, Germany
- Place of death
- Santa Monica, California, USA
- Places of residence
- California, USA
- Education
- University of Jena
Barmen Gymnasium - Occupations
- philosopher
- Relationships
- Frege, Gottlob (teacher)
Husserl, Edmund (teacher) - Organizations
- Vienna Circle
University of Chicago
University of California, Los Angeles
Members
Reviews
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Statistics
- Works
- 53
- Also by
- 6
- Members
- 1,234
- Popularity
- #20,806
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 3
- ISBNs
- 91
- Languages
- 8
- Favorited
- 2