A Companion to Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

entities of theoretical physics); the third consists of the objects of some other individual’s psychology; and the fourth of cultural objects (geistige Gegenstande), which include historical and sociological phenomena. From Carnap’s point of view, “[a]n object . . . is called epistemically primary relative to another one . . . if the second one is recognized through the mediation of the first and thus presupposes, for its recognition, the recognition of the first” (§54). Autopsychological objects are epistemically primary relative to the others in this sense. Moreover, physical objects are epistemically primary to heteropsychological ones because the latter can only be recognized through the mediation of the former: an expression on a face, a reading in an instrument, etc. Finally, heteropsychological objects are epistemically primary relative to cultural ones for the same reason. The main task of the Aufbau is construction, which Carnap conceives of as the converse of what he regarded as reduction (which is far from what was then – or is now – conceived of as “reduction” in Anglophone philosophy): an object is ‘reducible’ to others . . . if all statements about it can be translated into statements which speak only about these other objects. . . . By constructing a concept from other concepts, we shall mean the indication of its “constructional definition” on the basis of other concepts. By a constructional definition of the concept a on the basis of the concepts b and c, we mean a rule of translation which gives a general indication how any propositional function in which a occurs may be transformed into a coextensive propositional function in which a no longer occurs, but only b and c. If a concept is reducible to others, then it must indeed be possible to construct it from them. (§35) However, construction and reduction present different formal problems because, except in some degenerate cases (such as explicit definition), the transformations in the two directions may not have any simple explicit relation to each other. The question of reducibility/constructibility is distinct from that of epistemic primacy. In an important innovation in an empiricist context, Carnap argues that both the autopsychological and physical domains can be reduced to each other (in his sense). Thus, at the formal level, either could serve as the basis of the construction. It is epistemic primacy that dictates the choice of the former. Carnap’s task, ultimately, is to set up a constructional system that will allow the construction of the cultural domain from the autopsychological through the two intermediate domains. In the Aufbau, there are only informal discussions of how the last two stages of such a construction are to be executed. Only the construction of the physical from the autopsychological is fully treated formally. As the basic units of the constructional system Carnap chose what he calls “elementary experiences” (Elementarerlebnisse) (elex). These are supposed to be instantaneous cross-sections of the stream of experience – or at least bits of that stream in the smallest perceivable unit of time – that are incapable of further analysis. The only primitive relation that Carnap introduces is “recollection of similarity” (Rs). (In the formal development of the system, Rs is introduced first and the elex are defined as the field of Rs.) The asymmetry of Rs is eventually exploited by Carnap to introduce temporal ordering. Since the elex are elementary, they cannot be further analyzed to define what would be regarded as constituent qualities of them, such as partial sensations or intensity SAHOTRA SARKAR

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