Carnap, Aufbau, ﬁrst reading assignment: Explain both the similarities and the diﬀerences between the two aspects of an “axiomatized theory,” as discussed by Carnap in §2: the “deductive system” and the “constructional system.” (Note, in case the little Carnap says about this is too hard to understand: a “deductive system” is just a system, like say a system of geometry, where all the true statements — theorems — are “deduced,” that is, proved, from the axioms.) Explain further what Carnap means by “reduction” and “construction,” in the context of a constructional system, and what the analogous processes (from theorems back to axioms or from axioms forward to theorems) would be in a deductive system. From the fact that Carnap is engaged in setting up a constructional system, rather than a deductive system, what can be ruled out as the purpose of the book?

Carnap, Aufbau, second reading assignment: According to Carnap, what is the connection between the following three ideas: (1) not every name makes sense as an argument to every propositional function (for example, “Julius Caesar is prime” is neither true nor false); (2) not every object is of the same “type”; (3) objects of higher type are “logical complexes” of objects of lower type? How is (3) supposed to explain (1), and why is (1) supposed to be the real meaning of (2)? Why is Carnap forced to claim that ordinary language is full of a special kind of ambiguity — type-ambiguity — to make this work? Consider, for example, the two sentences “The nation is angry” and “Uncle Rudy is angry.” Why must Carnap claim that “angry” means diﬀerent things in these two sentences?

Carnap, Aufbau, third reading assignment: In §102 (p. 160), Carnap says that the point of construction theory is “rational reconstruction of a process of cognition whose results are already known.” Explain what this means and why it is important that he says it. In what sense is construction theory supposed to justify science? In what sense, on the contrary, is science supposed to be the standard against which the results of construction theory will be tested? Why is it important that rational reconstruction involves “ﬁctions” (see §100)? (Can we use construction theory to check if some particular scientiﬁc statement is true?)

Carnap, Aufbau, fourth reading assignment: What, according to Carnap, is the diﬀerence between a scientiﬁc question and a metaphysical question? Discuss the example of the Trojan war, §175, p. 281. Explain roughly speaking how the question, “Was the Trojan war an actual or a ﬁctional event?” could be addressed empirically, using properly “constructed” terms. Given that the constructional system is so incomplete — Carnap hasn’t actually told us how to replace statements involving terms like “Trojan War” or “ﬁctional” by long, long statements containing only the fundamental relation (remembered similarity) — how can we spot the questions that can’t be addressed in that way, that is, the “metaphysical” questions? Give an example of a question we can be sure is metaphysical (according to Carnap), and explain how he thinks we can tell. How will the philosopher who asks such a question respond when we start trying to interpret their question empirically, the way we did with the question about the Trojan War?

Carnap/Neurath, protocol sentences debate: Explain what Carnap means by a “protocol sentence” in The Unity of Science. Why does Neurath think there cannot be “protocol sentences” in this sense? What does he propose instead? That is: what does he think the language of science should be like? Explain why it looks like Neurath will ﬁnd it seriously diﬃcult to explain scientiﬁc testing without protocol sentences. How would Neurath respond?

Carnap/Putnam, “Methodological Character” and “What Theories are Not”: Explain the role of the “Observation Language” in the “Methodological Character” paper and how Putnam’s attack on “observation terms” seems to show that nothing could fulﬁll that role. Isn’t Carnap free to propose whatever Observation Language he wants? Why won’t Putnam allow that?

Goodman: Consider Goodman’s discussion of the relationship between the dispositional terms “ﬂexible,” “inﬂexible,” and the manifest terms “ﬂexes,” and “fails to ﬂex” (around p. 44). Why doesn’t “ﬂexible” mean the same thing as “ﬂexes” (as Goodman deﬁnes the term)? (Give an example of something that is ﬂexible, but does not ﬂex.) In what sense does the dichotomy between “ﬂexible” and “inﬂexible” amount to a projection of the dichotomy between “ﬂexes” and “fails to ﬂex” — taking the distinction between what ﬂexes and what fails to ﬂex and, so to speak, extending out into a wider realm? Explain, further, why Goodman would like to eliminate “ﬂexible” in favor of “ﬂexes” (that is, give a rule for translating all sentences including “ﬂexible” into sentences containing “ﬂex”). What general strategy does he adopt for doing so? Why, according to him, is the problem of getting such a strategy right similar to the problem of saying which inductive inferences are valid?

Quine, “Epistemology Naturalized”: Quine says (on p. 81) that we should not reject “the veriﬁcation theory of meaning,” even though the veriﬁcationist project of the Aufbau fails. Why does he say that the theory must be true in some form? Is this a reason that Carnap would give? Why or why not?

Instructions

Questions