11 August 2020
Since some years now we have seen a flowering of historically oriented reappraisals of logical positivism after the unfair demise of this movement since the 1950s. Several historical studies have highlighted the many ways logical positivist movement was actively engaged with other philosophical movements such as neo-Kantianism and especially Husserlian phenomenology. They all shared a common cultural framework at that time, they spoke the “same” language and they were used to profitably interact each other in a way that later has become increasingly difficult. One of the most important figures involved in the development of this movement was surely Rudolf Carnap. A few studies have recently explore Husserl's influence on the young Carnap (Mayer 1991, Sarkar 2003, Ryckman 2007, Haddock 2008), but an extensive research on the influence that phenomenologically-oriented mathematical investigations in the 1920s might have played on Carnap's early philosophical view has not been addressed yet. However, several reasons seem to suggest that phenomenologically-oriented mathematical studies were of great interest for the young Carnap through the years 1922-1925.
The project aims to clarify to what extent Carnap's intellectual development in the years 1922-1925 has been influenced by those philosophers and scientists that were pursuing their researches in accordance with Husserlian phenomenology, above all Hermann Weyl. The project will be developed under the supervision of professor Arianna Betti, whose expertise in philosophical methodology will be a very important opportunity for me to further develop my research skills as an historian and as a philosopher. Especially, I wish to carry on a careful investigation on the concept of constitution (Konstitution) using Betti et al.’s model approach to the history of ideas (Betti and van den Berg 2014, Betti et al. forthcoming). Specifically, I wish to develop a careful comparison between Carnap’s notion of constitution and Weyl’s own conception of this notion, and to what extent they differ from Husserl’s notion of Konstitution. An investigation of this sort can be really enhanced by using a model approach since it enables us to elucidate concept drifts through the years and among authors in an innovative way, and for this reason it seems promising to shed light on Carnap’s intellectual shift in the years 1922-1925.
Flavio Baracco is visiting fellow at the University of Wien. He obtained his PhD in Philosophy and Human Sciences at the University of Milan (visiting PhD student at the Département Histoire et Philosophie des Sciences - Université Paris 7) with the project “Hermann Weyl’s Phenomenological Background – An Investigation on Morphological and Ideal Essences within Phenomena”.