The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap
To the Vienna Station

J. Albert Coffa traces the roots of logical positivism in a semantic tradition that arose in opposition to Kant's theory that a priori knowledge is based on pure intuition.

J. Alberto Coffa (Author)

9780521447072, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 29 January 1993

460 pages
22.3 x 15.2 x 3.2 cm, 0.693 kg

This major publication is a history of the semantic tradition in philosophy from the early nineteenth century through its incarnation in the work of the Vienna Circle, the group of logical positivists that emerged in the years 1925–1935 in Vienna who were characterised by a strong commitment to empiricism, a high regard for science, and a conviction that modern logic is the primary tool of analytic philosophy. In the first part of the book, Alberto Coffa traces the roots of logical positivism in a semantic tradition that arose in opposition to Kant's theory that a priori knowledge is based on pure intuition and the constitutive powers of the mind. In Part II, Coffa chronicles the development of this tradition by members and associates of the Vienna Circle. Much of Coffa's analysis draws on the unpublished notes and correspondence of many philosophers. The book, however, is not merely a history of the semantic tradition from Kant 'to the Vienna Station'. Coffa also critically reassesses the role of semantic notions in understanding the ground of a priori knowledge and its relation to empirical knowledge and questions the turn the tradition has taken since Vienna.

Part I. The Semantic Tradition: 1. Kant, analysis, and pure intuition
2. Bolzano and the birth of semantics
3. Geometry, pure intuition and the a priori
4. Frege's semantics and the a priori in arithmetic
5. Meaning and ontology
6. On denoting
7. Logic in transition
8. A logico-philosophical treatise
Part II Vienna, 1925–1935: 9. Schlick before Vienna
10. Philosophers on relativity
1. Carnap before Vienna
12. Scientific idealism and semantic idealism
13. Return of Ludwig Wittgenstein
14. A priori knowledge and the constitution of meaning
15. The road to syntax
16. Syntax and truth
17. Semantic conventionalism and the factuality of meaning
18. The problem of induction: theories
19. The problems of experience: protocols
Notes
References
Index.

Subject Areas: History of Western philosophy [HPC]