From the Project of the Aufbau to Tolerance

Richard Creath

The next session of the Reconstructing Carnap Webinar Series (see the attached flyer) will take place on April 9, 2025.

Speaker: Richard Creath (Arizona State University)
Title: From the Project of the Aufbau to Tolerance

Time: April 9, 2025 —4:30 to 6:30pm CEST (10.30-12.30 EDT)
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

From the Project of the Aufbau to Tolerance

By Richard Creath (Arizona State University)

Nearly all the elements of Carnap’s mature philosophy, as of 1934, can already be found in the project of the Aufbau.  Instances would include his anti-metaphysical stance and his commitments to the unity of science, to a version of physicalism, and to tolerance. The last of these had not crystalized into a principle, but it was present, nonetheless.  There are exceptions, of course. Curiously, the traditional empiricism that Quine attributes to the Aufbau is one of these exceptions.  And another is the meta-mathematical perspective that became central from the Syntax period onward.  Finally, between the instances and the exceptions, the demands of a verificationist criterion of significance are met but not fully stated in the Aufbau.  Though many of the elements of Carnap’s mature philosophy are already in the Aufbau, those elements did not and perhaps could not have crystalized into that mature philosophy without the community that was the Vienna Circle, including especially Neurath, Schlick, Wittgenstein, and Gödel, as well as others outside the Circle.