In 1936, after the “liberalization of empiricism”, Schlick and Carnap thought they could accept C.I. Lewis’ claim “If all minds disappeared from the universe, the stars would still go on in their courses” as a scientific truth, without accepting the metaphysical thesis of the mind independence of the external world. But this compromise failed, as it was based on mistaken antirealist semantic views: they accepted Lewis’ sentence, not the proposition it expresses, or its consequences. This is not to say that science is enough to support metaphysical realism, since it takes philosophy to show where they went wrong.

Stars and Minds. Empirical Realism and Metaphysical Antirealism in Liberalized Neopositivism

ALAI, MARIO
2016

Abstract

In 1936, after the “liberalization of empiricism”, Schlick and Carnap thought they could accept C.I. Lewis’ claim “If all minds disappeared from the universe, the stars would still go on in their courses” as a scientific truth, without accepting the metaphysical thesis of the mind independence of the external world. But this compromise failed, as it was based on mistaken antirealist semantic views: they accepted Lewis’ sentence, not the proposition it expresses, or its consequences. This is not to say that science is enough to support metaphysical realism, since it takes philosophy to show where they went wrong.
2016
978-1-84890-160-5
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11576/2639345
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