-
Born May 18th 1891 in Ronsdorf Germany.
-
Studied mathematics, physics and philosophy at Universities of Jena and Freiburg im Breisgau. Attended lectures of Gottlob Frege, later recognized as the greatest logician of the 19th century, at University of Jena. Frege's lectures greatly inspired Carnap.
-
After serving in WW1 Carnap graduated with a doctorate from University of Jena and a dissertation on the concept of space.
-
Became a major member of the Vienna Circle after being invited by founder Moritz Shlick. Vienna Circle was a group of early 20th century philosophers who sought to re-conceptualize empiricism. Developed initial ideas of logical positivism and logical empiricism. Leading members helped to develop methods and theories of contemporary mathematics and science.
-
The Logical Structure of the World
-
On symbolic and mathematical logic
-
Founded this periodical with the philosopher of science Hans Reichenbach of Berlin Germany.
-
Here he developed a liberal version of empiricism and argued that empirical sciences cannot be totally defined in purely experiential terms however they can be at least partially defined via reduction sentences, operational definitions and observation sentences where truth can be verified via direct observation. Although this does not provide a strict proof or strict disproof it more or less provides a strong confirmation for an empirical statement.
-
-
Although Carnap was not Jewish, he was under threat of persecution from the Nazis. His social Democratic political beliefs put him at risk.
-
-
-
joined with sociologist Otto Neurath and philosopher Charles W. Morris to put together this work.
-
Here he was an active participant in philosophy of science discussion groups with Bertrand Russel, Alfred Tarski and W.V.O Quine.
-
-
-
Here Carnap continued his work on probability theory.
-
Worked as a professor here and continued to develop his theory of inductive logic.
-
Carnap died on Sept 14th 1970 in Santa Monica California
-
