Rudolf Carnap: biography of this analytical philosopher

Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970) was a German philosopher who pioneered logical positivism, empiricism, and symbolic logic. He is recognized as one of the greatest exponents of the philosophy of science of the early 20th century, since which among other things contributed to the consolidation of a paradigm of scientific rigor within philosophy.

Next we will see the biography of Rudolf Carnap, including some of the most important aspects of his life and work.

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Rudolf Carnap: biography of a philosopher of science

Rudolf Carnap was born on May 18, 1891 in Ronsdorf, a municipality located in northwestern Germany. From the year 1910 to the year 1914 he trained in philosophy and traditional logic, as well as mathematics, at the University of Jena.

In this institution he worked together with Gottlob Frege, who was recognized as the greatest exponent of nineteenth-century mathematical logic. At the same university, but in the year 1921 graduated as a doctor with a research on the concept of space

, which he divided into three types: formal space, physical space and intuitive space.

From this he began to develop in an important way as a philosopher of science and discusses the theories of symbolic logic and physics; at which time he also addressed issues related to time and causality.

The Vienna circle and logical empiricism

In the intellectual dawn of 20th century Vienna, there was a small group of philosophers and mathematicians who they met to discuss some topics related to philosophy and science. This group was known as the Vienna Circle, and its founder, the logical empiricist Moritz Schlick, had invited Carnap to work together with them, within the circle and also at the University of Vienna.

Part of the work of the Vienna Circle was to create a scientific perspective on the world, in where it was possible to apply the precision of the exact sciences in reflections and theories philosophical. In contrast to the traditional logic approach, which studies the principles of proof and verification of inferences through language without strict formalization; Rudolf Carnap defended the principles of symbolic logic or mathematical logic. The latter translates and systematizes, through a formalist language, intuitive notions of mathematics such as sets, numbers, algorithms, among others.

Through the concept of the stability criterion, Carnap and other philosophers of logical empiricism rejected the more speculative traditions. theology and metaphysics, not so much because they are considered false, but because they do not make meaningful statements in logical terms and formalists. In addition, they considered that many of the philosophical questions did not have a real sense, and that they were posed by rhetoric and excessive language.

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Carnap's logical empiricism in Germany and the United States

From here he made different connections with philosophers of science of the empiricist tradition who worked in Germany, and finally, in the year 1930 he creates a special forum for the development of a new scientific philosophy, called Erkenntniss.

Influenced by German empiricism, Carnap held that first-order terms and statements were reducible to second-order ones. through a principle known as the principle of reducibility.

Accordingly, all concepts used to describe empirical facts are fully definable by terms that refer exclusively to aspects of immediate experience. Then, all empirical statements are capable of becoming statements about immediate experiences.

In his period within the circle and the University of Vienna, Carnap developed a more liberal approach to empiricism, from which he defended that the concepts of empirical science are not completely definable by in purely experiential terms; but which, at least, can be defined by means of “reduction statements” and “observation statements”. The latter can serve to confirm an empirical statement, although not so much to offer a strict proof of existence or refutation.

He finally served as a professor and researcher at the University of Prague, but in the conflictive context A politician prior to World War II, Carnap went to the United States, where he was naturalized in 1941. In this country he worked as a professor at the University of Chicago, as a researcher at Harvard and later at UCLA. Through new influences and interests, Carnap continued to theorize about semantics, the verification principle, probability, induction and philosophy of language.

Outstanding works

Rudolf Carnap's most important publication, which among other things established him as one of the most important of the logical positivists of the 20th centuryit was the book Logical syntax of the language, from the year 1934. He maintained that there is no logic or true language, beyond the specific objectives that are pursued when we use it.

Other of the most important works of Rudolf Carnap are Des Logische Aufbau der Welt (The logical structure of the world), and Pseudo problems of philosophy, both from the year 1928. Among the most recent and also outstanding works are Two trials in entropy, from 1977; two volumes of Studies in inductive logic and probability, from 1971 and 1980 respectively; and metalological, from 1995.

Bibliographic references:

• Duignan, B. & Hempel, C. (2018). Rudolf Carnap. Retrieved July 23, 2018. Available in https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rudolf-Carnap.
• Arthur, P. (1963). The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap. Retrieved July 23, 2018. Available in http://fitelson.org/confirmation/carnap_schilpp_volume.pdf.