Carnapian Explication: Probing its Criteria of Adequacy

Erich Reck (University of California, Riverside)

The next session of the Reconstructing Carnap Webinar Series (see the attached flyer) will take place on March 5, 2025.

Speaker: Erich Reck (University of California, Riverside)
Title: Carnapian Explication: Probing its Criteria of Adequacy

Time: March 5, 2025 —4:30 PM to 6:30 PM CET (10:30 AM to 12:30 PM EST)
Link: meet.google.com/uaq-jqpf-mwr

The abstract is provided below. For further information about the event, please consult the following website, or send a message to [email protected]:
Reconstructing Carnap Webinar Series

Carnapian Explication: Probing its Criteria of Adequacy

By Erich Reck, UC Riverside

With his discussion of the notion of explication, Rudolf Carnap made explicit a distinctive philosophical methodology, one that has shaped important currents in philosophy since then, e.g., large parts of formal and naturalistic philosophy.  Employing this methodology contrasts with using a stronger, metaphysically loaded notion of analysis, including in other parts of analytic philosophy.  Beyond its anti-metaphysical thrust, Carnap promoted his methodology to effect an assimilation of philosophy to the sciences.  Crucial in this connection are his criteria of adequacy for explication, especially his deflationary similarity criterion, together with the science- and logic-inspired criteria of exactness, simplicity, and fruitfulness.  In this talk I will probe these desiderata for explication critically, especially similarity as described by Carnap.  Doing so will involve comparing his remarks about it with related discussions and alternative suggestions in works by Alfred Tarski, Nelson Goodman, and Peter Strawson.