Rudolf Carnap Quotes on Knowledge
Rudolf Carnap's Logical Construction of the World (Aufbau, 1928) and the broader Vienna Circle program of logical empiricism set out to ground all empirical knowledge on a foundation of immediate experience through the resources of modern logic. The Aufbau attempts the technical construction of physical objects, other minds, and cultural objects from the given of elementary experiences related by the single primitive of recollected similarity. The mature Carnap of The Logical Syntax of Language (1934) and Meaning and Necessity (1947) shifted from the Aufbau's epistemological reductionism to the more flexible doctrine of linguistic frameworks: ontological questions are internal to a chosen framework rather than questions about a framework-independent reality, and the choice among frameworks is pragmatic rather than factual.
Quotes
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Attributed to Rudolf Carnap:
“In logic, there are no morals. Everyone is at liberty to build his own logic, that is, his own form of language, as he wishes.”
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“Philosophy is to be replaced by the logic of science, that is to say, by the logical analysis of the concepts and sentences of the sciences.”
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Attributed to Rudolf Carnap:
“Let us be cautious in making assertions and critical in examining them, but tolerant in permitting linguistic forms.”
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Attributed to Rudolf Carnap:
“Science is the systematized knowledge of universal laws connecting observations.”
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“In science there are no 'depths'; there is surface everywhere.”
Rudolf Carnap (1929) from the Vienna Circle manifesto . -
“Rudolf Carnap (1929) from the Vienna Circle manifesto .”
In science there are no 'depths'; there is surface everywhere. -
“The function of logical analysis is to analyse all knowledge , all assertions of science and of everyday life, in order to make clear the sense of each such assertion and the connections between them. One of the principal tasks of the logical analysis of a given proposition is to find out the method of verification for that proposition.”
Rudolf Carnap (1935) Philosophy and Logical Syntax . p. 9-10 -
“Rudolf Carnap (1935) Philosophy and Logical Syntax . p. 9-10”
The function of logical analysis is to analyse all knowledge , all assertions of science and of everyday life, in order to make clear the sense of each such assertion and the connections between them. One of the principal tasks of the logical analysis of a given proposition is to find out the method of verification for that proposition. -
“When I met Wittgenstein , I saw that Schlick 's warnings were fully justified. But his behavior was not caused by any arrogance. In general, he was of a sympathetic temperament and very kind; but he was hypersensitive and easily irritated. Whatever he said was always interesting and stimulating and the way in which he expressed it was often fascinating. His point of view and his attitude toward pe”
Rudolf Carnap, as quoted in The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap (1963) by Paul Arthur Schilpp, p. 25, and in Ludwig Wittgenstein : The Duty of Genius (1991) by Ray Monk, p. 244 -
“Logic is not concerned with human behavior in the same sense that physiology, psychology, and social sciences are concerned with it. These sciences formulate laws or universal statements which have as their subject matter human activities as processes in time. Logic, on the contrary, is concerned with relations between factual sentences (or thoughts). If logic ever discusses the truth of factual s”
Rudolf Carnap (1937) cited in: Irving J. Lee (1967) The Language of Wisdom and Folly: Background Readings in Semantics . International Society for General Semantics, p. 44 -
“If we compare. e.g. the systems of classical mathematics and of intuitionistic mathematics , we find that the first is much simpler and technically more efficient, while the second is more safe from surprising occurences, e.g. contradictions. At the present time, any estimation of the degree of safety of the system of classical mathematics, in other words, the degree of plausibility of its princip”
Rudolf Carnap (1939; 51), as cited in: Paul van Ulsen. Wetenschapsfilosofie , 6 november 2017. -
“By the logical syntax of a language , we mean the formal theory of the linguistic forms of that language -- the systematic statement of the formal rules which govern it together with the development of the consequences which follow from these rules. A theory, a rule, a definition, or the like is to be called formal when no reference is made in it either to the meaning of the symbols (for examples, the words) or to the sense of the expressions (e.g. the sentences), but simply and solely to the kinds and order of the symbols from which the expressions are constructed.”
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“According to this view, the sentences of metaphysics are pseudo-sentences which on logical analysis are proved to be either empty phrases or phrases which violate the rules of syntax. Of the so-called philosophical problems, the only questions which have any meaning are those of the logic of science. To share this view is to substitute logical syntax for philosophy.”
p. 8