Stroud's Camap

Bibliographic Data

ID10348506
AuthorsMarc Alspector‐Kelly (Western Michigan University, corresponding author)
Year2002
Volume64
Issue2
Pages276-302
Publication date2002-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8205 • E-ISSN: 1933-1592
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1933-1592.2002.tb00002.x
OpenAlexW1967570656
LanguageEN
References cited29

In “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology” Camap drew his famous distinction between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ questions of existence, pronouncing the former meaningful and the latter meaningless. In The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism , Barry Stroud understands Carnap to be applying the verification criterion of meaningfulness in order to refute Cartesian skepticism. I suggest that Stroud misrepresents both Carnap's aim and method. Camap was responding to critics who suggested that his willingness to quantify over abstract entities in his work in semantics violated his commitment to empiricism. He rejected that criticism as presupposing a super‐scientific standpoint from which constraints on the admissible domain of entities of science could be delivered. Carnap wanted to insulate science from the imposition of first‐philosophical metaphysical prejudice, not to defuse scepticism by appeal to verificationism

Appeal · Criticism · Empiricism · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Ontology · Political science · Semantics (computer science · Skepticism · Computer Science · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Philosophy, Science, and History

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