Carnap on Carnap: Was He Completely Confused When He Remembered the Aufbau in the ’50s?

Thomas Uebel (University of Manchester)

The next session of the Reconstructing Carnap Webinar Series (see the attached flyer) will take place on Wednesday,  May 21, 2025.

Speaker: Thomas Uebel (University of Manchester)
Title: Carnap on Carnap: Was He Completely Confused When He Remembered the Aufbau in the ’50s?

Time: May 21, 2025 —4:30 to 6:30pm CEST (10.30-12.30 EDT)
Link: meet.google.com/uaq-jqpf-mwr

We opened a YouTube channel dedicated to the Reconstructing Carnap Webinar Series. On Thursdays, we will be posting the webinars we recorded. Please, feel free to subscribe to the channel if you're interested! Here is the link for your reference: https://www.youtube.com/@reconstructingcarnap

Carnap on Carnap: Was He Completely Confused When He Remembered the Aufbau in the ’50s?

By Thomas Uebel (University of Manchester)

Rudolf Carnap’s retrospective remarks on his Der logische Aufbau der Welt (1928) in his “Philosophical Autobiography” (1963, written in the mid-50s) have puzzled scholars for some time.  Richard Creath (1982) expressed astonishment over Carnap’s unqualified attribution of strict verificationism to the position adopted in this book and Michael Friedman (1992) was dismayed to find its project described in terms characteristic of phenomenalist foundationalism.  Never mind that both descriptions fit and feed the popular image of the Aufbau in philosophical folklore—what Creath and Friedman have established and subsequent scholarship has confirmed is that these descriptions are highly misleading.  So what prompted Carnap to misdescribe his book barely thirty years after its publication?  In this talk a partial answer will be attempted that draws to varying degrees on the philosophical syncretism of his book, his subsequent immersion in a large-scale project he soon abandoned again, and on his changing philosophical environment.  (Stir before serving!)