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Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970)
Citations:
Duignan, Brian, and Carl G Hempel. “Career in the United States.”
Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 10 Sept. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rudolf-Carnap/Career-in-the-United-States.
Murzi, Mauro. “Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970).” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://www.iep.utm.edu/carnap/#H2. -
Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970)
Rudolf Carnap joined the Vienna Circle in 1926 under the leadership of Moritz Schlick. Together, they laid the foundation for logical positivism. They were also the first to deny metaphysics as a true science on the basis that it was not possible to directly test its theories. In other words, Carnap said that a hypotheses needed to be able to be experimented on with inductive or deductive reasoning in order to be verifiable. Link text -
Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970)
While in the Vienna Circle, Carnap's views changed about what he thought of empirical facts. He went from believing that all empirical facts were testable by direct experimentation to saying that they at least must be able to be observed. They were considered meaningless empirically wise if they were not capable of being tested through observation. This is where Carnap, along with many other empiricists began deeming metaphysics as essentially useless because they could not hold truth. -
Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970)
In 1936, Carnap posted "Testability and Meaning" in which he revised the verifiability principle. He said that all terms need to be reduced to observational language. Karl Popper, however, said that this is not a great way to define verifiability. Popper stated that with this definition that technically, some aspects of metaphysics can rightfully meet these requirements therefore becoming verifiable. Carnap, realizing that Popper was right, sought to redefine it again and published a new theory. -
Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970)
In 1966, Carnap published Philosophical Foundations of Physics. In this he described the difference between theoretical and empirical laws. Theoretical laws cannot be directly observed whereas empirical laws can be. Therefore, the statements made within these would need to use different terminology. Theoretical laws are more about a foreshadowing of what could happen, and empirical laws are going to be those observations made about the outcomes that do happen.
