Abstract:
Much can be learnt about Carnap's
logical empiricism at the time of
Logical
Syntax by examining his responses to Quine's criticisms of the
analytic/synthetic distinction.
This
distinction is in many ways central to Carnap's philosophy, so his
defense of
it should be illuminating.
Prominent
historian Thomas Ricketts has offered an interpretation of
Logical
Syntax that is based upon these responses, however the
picture that emerges from his work is incomplete.
There
are significant projects in and around
Logical Syntax
that cannot be accounted
for on this view.
Another
interpretation, offered by Michael Friedman and Alan Richardson and
also based
upon Carnap's responses to Quine, does claim to account for the
projects that
Ricketts misses.
However, the position
that Friedman and Richardson describe is in conflict with the responses
that
they give to Quine.
These authors are
too hasty to assimilate Carnap to a neo-Kantian position, and by doing
so they
are lead to misappropriate Ricketts' response to Quine.
We are left with a reading that is either
incomplete or inconsistent.
The point of
my talk today is to clarify what exactly is going on in
Logical
Syntax.
What is
Carnap up to, and what role does the analytic/synthetic distinction
play in
this work?
These questions I answer by
proposing that Carnap need not be understood as exclusively engaged in
the
projects outlined by Ricketts or Friedman/Richardson.
Rather, I offer a new perspective for
understanding Carnap's philosophy, that of "linguistic engineering."