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Carnap on Empirical Significance

Lutz, Sebastian (2014) Carnap on Empirical Significance. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Carnap’s search for a criterion of empirical significance is usually considered a failure. I argue that the results from two out of his three different approaches are at the very least problematic, but that one approach led to success. Carnap’s criterion of translatability into logical syntax is too vague to allow definite results. His criteria for terms—introducibility by reduction sentences and his criterion from “The Methodological Character of Theoretical Concepts”—are almost trivial and have no clear relation to the empirical significance of sentences. However, his criteria for sentences—translatability, verifiability, falsifiability, confirmability—are usable, and under assumption of the Carnap sentence, verifiability, falsifiability, and translatability become equivalent. The price for the Carnap sentence approach is that metaphysics cannot always be shown to be non-significant.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Lutz, Sebastiansebastian.lutz@gmx.net
Keywords: empirical significance; cognitive significance; meaningfulness; Carnap; logical empiricism; Ramsey sentence; Carnap sentence; verifiability; falsifiability; testability; translatability
Subjects: General Issues > Conventionalism
General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
General Issues > Logical Positivism/Logical Empiricism
General Issues > Philosophers of Science
General Issues > Science vs. Pseudoscience
General Issues > Theory/Observation
Depositing User: Sebastian Lutz
Date Deposited: 08 May 2014 11:45
Last Modified: 27 Sep 2014 15:21
Item ID: 10663
Subjects: General Issues > Conventionalism
General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
General Issues > Logical Positivism/Logical Empiricism
General Issues > Philosophers of Science
General Issues > Science vs. Pseudoscience
General Issues > Theory/Observation
Date: 30 April 2014
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/10663

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