1 Introduction
In the manifesto Wissenschaftliche Weltauffasssung. Der Wiener Kreis we find the names of three âleading exponents of the Scientific World Conceptionâ. These pillar saints of logical empiricism were: Albert Einstein, Bertrand
Afterwards, however, he became increasingly dissatisfied with the development of the movement and also provoked harsh reactions by critical and polemical remarks. Particularly worth mentioning here is the exchange between Otto Neurath and Rudolf Carnap on Russellâs Inquiry into meaning and truth3 (hereafter cited as Inquiry), which has since been published in the volume by Jordi Cat and Adam Tuboly Neurath Reconsidered.4 There Neurath offered meticulous criticism of the book, and Carnap replied at length. This exchange has been little commented on so far.5 I shall describe the dispute with the help of published as well as new unpublished sources. This controversy will be treated in my paper in the second chapter.
In the first chapter, I shall start with a prehistory, which includes â in the case of Carnap â his early correspondence with Russell along with the mostly positive evaluation by Neurath in an article on Russell in the austro-marxist journal Der Kampf. The contacts extend to the Vienna Circleâs manifesto (coauthored by Neurath and Carnap), the first and third of those International Congresses of Unified Science in Paris and Russellâs contribution to the first collective volume of the ieus. In the third chapter, I will concentrate on the reactions of Neurath and Carnap to Russellâs Inquiry. In the fourth chapter, I will conclude with some remarks of the relevance of the dispute between Carnap and Neurath on the notion of truth in science and in everyday life from todayâs perspective, where the concept of truth has become more and more a sort of endangered species. Carnap had already underlined the importance of the concept of truth in matters like jurisdiction and everyday life. Todayâs polemics about alternative facts and fake news in vastly advanced media (the internet, social media, etc.) makes the issue all the more important.
2
2.1 Before 1929
Carnap, according to his own account, was influenced in his philosophical development mainly by two scholars, namely by the Jena mathematician and logician Gottlob Frege and by Bertrand Russell.6 From Frege with whom he had studied, he learned âcarefulness and clarity in the analysis of concepts and linguistic expressionsâ7 as well as the insight that the lessons gained in dealing with mathematical logic â from concept formation to modes of reasoning â can and must be applied outside logic and mathematics. As for Carnapâs philosophical methodology, on the other hand, Russellâs example has been decisive. It started when Carnap got hold of Russellâs Our Knowledge of the External World and immediately understood it as a guideline that had already implicitly underpinned his own philosophical work. It even seemed to him that Russellâs appeal to resolutely sweep aside traditional approaches to philosophy and instead to pursue âthe new method, successful already in such time-honored problems as number, infinity, continuity, space and timeâ and to apply it also to other areas of science, was virtually given to him personally as a mission. Besides, his interest in Russellâs mathematical logic and especially his relation theory continued. When in 1923 Russell sent him a long, handwritten letter with the most important definitions of the Principia Mathematica,8 a book Carnap could not afford to buy because of the mega-inflation in Germany, Russell certainly became his leading figure for a longer time. From then on, Carnap studied Russellâs new publications attentively, discussed some of them in the Viennese circle and occasionally made them the subject of his seminars at the University of Vienna.9
Neurath must have been less enthusiastic about Russell already in the 1920âs; in an essay dedicated to Russell in the austro-marxist theoretical journal Der Kampf entitled âBertrand Russell, der Sozialistâ,10 he initially praised Russell for his âanti-capitalist way of thinkingâ11 and âperceptive clarityâ, and
2.2 From the 1929 Manifesto to the First Congress of Unified Science, Paris 1935
Russell was in a transitional phase in the mid-1930âs. After he had spent a long time on his school projects and had published extensively on them establishing himself as a public intellectual, he now tried reconnecting with the development of scientific philosophy, the advancement of which he had not followed for some time. The groundbreaking results of Gödel, for example, had remained unknown to him. Because such works seemed to him ânew and difficult to understandâ, he had already toyed with the idea of leaving these discussions in the development of logic to a new generation altogether.15Neurathâs invitation to the first congress for scientific Philosophy in Paris in 1935 was initially turned down by Russell for health reasons, but in the end he accepted. Although he did not give a full paper, he did at Neurathâs suggestion make remarks at the opening session on the question of how he in his philosophical beginnings had freed himself from Hegelâs influence.16 He also participated here and there in the debates as they progressed.
The Congress of Scientific Philosophy in Paris in September 1935 was a remarkable occasion, and for lovers of rationality, a very encouraging one. My first impression, on seeing the opening sessions, was one of surprise: surprise that there should be in the world so many men who think that opinions should be based on evidence. My second impression, on hearing the papers and discussions, was one of further surprise, to find that the opinions advocated actually conformed to this rule: I did not discover any of the signs of unfounded and merely passionate belief
which, hitherto, have been as common among philosophers as among other men.17
He even expressed the hope that the meeting of logic and empiricism in the new âscientific philosophyâ could create the intellectual mood âin which it is possible to find a cure for the diseases of the modern worldâ.18
In terms of content, the Paris congress had brought two main novelties for the logical empiricist movement: the foundation of an encyclopedia project and the first major disputes about semantics.
At the congress the plan of an International Encyclopedia of Unified Science (ieus) was presented by Neurath, put to a vote by Charles Morris (besides Carnap a later co-editor) and accepted.19 That brought a long development to a happy end, which had started as Neurathâs plan for a âVolksbüchereiâ back in 1921, which was then endorsed by Einstein himself as a possible continuation of the Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment in the 18th century and its actualization for the 20th.20
Another main topic of the congress was the discussion about the new philosophical discipline of semantics, which was presented by Polish participants like Alfred Tarski and Maria Lutman-KokoszyÅska and made a great impression especially on Carnap but also on the young Karl Popper. While the encyclopedia project was the focus of joint efforts of logical empiricists over the next 10 years, the discussion of semantics was to harbor the seeds of a split in the movement, as was especially evident in the correspondence between Neurath and Carnap during World War ii years when Carnap published his first books on the subject.
If one wants to understand the disputes between Neurath and Carnap on semantics since 1935, which marks the outset of the process of their increasingly dramatic distancing from each other,21 one has perhaps to go back to 1930. For at that time Carnap met Alfred Tarski â the founder of this discipline shimmering between philosophy of language and logic â for the first time in Vienna, before he visited him in Warsaw in the same year where he gave a number of lectures.22 Carnapâs trip to Poland has been covered recently in a
At the congress it came to disputes between proponents and supporters of the new semantics like Tarski on the one hand and Neurath and Carl-Gustav Hempel on the other who wanted to stick to the âphysicalistâ syntactical point of view. The dispute can hardly be traced in Neurathâs report on the course of the conference (see below).24
- 1.Neurath
- âThe use of the concept of truth should respect the logic of science.
- âWe compare sentences with sentences, not sentences with something else.
- âThe conception of truth as based on comparing sentences with ârealityâ is dangerous for empiricism and introduces metaphysics.
- 2.Carnap-Tarski-KokoszyÅska:
- âThe semantic definition of truth is admissible and even correct.
- âTruth cannot be replaced by syntactical concepts.
- âSemantical concepts are useful in the logic of science.
- âTruth and confirmation must be distinguished.26
Especially remembered in the lively debate in Paris was the bonmot of Louis Rougier, the organizer of the congress, who claimed that one expects a waiter
As âabsolute concept of truthâ they denote the classical concept of truth, according to which, as the saying goes, the truth of a sentence consists in its âcorrespondence with realityâ. This concept does not have to be rejected as unscientific, it could, if specified accordingly, serve as representative of those concepts which cannot be defined in its own syntax, but in an enlarged syntax. Lutman-KokoszyÅska showed how even the question of the criterion of truth and the question of âwhat is the real world likeâ can be understood, if interpreted appropriately, to include no pseudo-problems any more, by formulating them as follows: âWhich synthetic sentences of a particular language are absolutely true?â30
From a terminological point of view he [Neurath] holds that the term âtrueâ could be reserved for that encyclopedia (among the many of those non-contradictory encyclopedias controlled by protocol sentences) one had decided to accept, such that âtrueâ would be called each consequence of this encyclopedia and each new sentence added to it, âfalseâ each contradicting sentence.31
With a view to the further dispute between Neurath and Carnap about semantics it seems interesting that Neurath was at that stage of the debate still prepared to use concepts of âtrueâ and âfalseâ, whereas he later on was intent on removing them â along with several other âdangerousâ ones â from the scientific vocabulary altogether.32
2.3 Semantics at the Third International Congress of Unified Science, Paris 1937
The smoldering conflicts between Neurath and Carnap on semantics were not settled until the run-up to another congress, namely the Third International Congress for Unified Science of 1937 (immediately before the ix. International Congress of Philosophy, both held in Paris). The main theme of that relatively small gathering (never more than 40 participants) was announced as âThe International Encyclopedia of Unified Scienceâ. Only a few months before the conference the University of Chicago Press had agreed to publish the Encyclopedia under the condition that 250 subscribers could be found. Therefore, this conference-theme was quite timely. As we can gather from the correspondence of the editors, not so much the project as a whole should be discussed in Paris, but more specifically the subjects of psychology and biology and their integration into the new encyclopedia. The editorsâ hope was clearly to attract suitable authors for those topics. They were very happy to find the âhouse-psychologistâ and future contributor to the ieus for psychology in the person of Egon Brunswik. Another purpose of the congress was the unification of logical terminology. These two main issues were already mentioned in the invitation to the conference and accompanying publications.33 They will be discussed in this paper only insofar as Russell was involved in the ieus.
What needs to be described and discussed here is the content of two âprivate discussionsâ (Privataussprachen) not mentioned in the public schedule of the conference, which should be held according to Neurathâs proposal under
- 1)it is correct and flawless;
- 2)it cannot be replaced by the âmethodâ of the âlogic of scienceâ (i.e. the syntactical method);
- 3)it is useful and important;
- 4)it is in accord with the concept âtrueâ of everyday language.36
Only a few points can be highlighted here: Carnap shows with respect to his second thesis, that semantical concepts cannot always be eliminated or translated into syntactical ones; the term âtrueâ cannot be replaced by âencyclopedical, scientifically acknowledged, believed, acceptedâ, because the second always carries a relativization to a person or a group with it and a reference to a point on the time-scale.37 In the fourth chapter âthe concept of truth in common languageâ Carnap shows that in everyday discourse in a broad sense (which includes scientific argumentation) sentences containing the word âtrueâ are logical equivalent to sentences from which the word was eliminated. This argument was used to show that the concept of truth was harmless and its use would not involve any metaphysical danger. The difference is only psychological: âtrueâ is mostly used to state something as beyond doubt or express something more emphatically. That sounds like an anticipation of the later performative speech-act theory of truth by John L. Austin.
In this portion of the paper Carnap confesses that he cannot hope to reach agreement between the two groups already during the conference and instead gives useful advice to both camps with a view to the future. Under all circumstances he wants to prevent âthat present differences of opinion reach the public too early and are expressed in a too sharp manner (zu überspitzt)â.40 So, the pro-semantic camp should see to it that in their future work a demarcation against metaphysics is always observed, whereas the sceptics towards semantics should maintain a waiting attitude and should in any case avoid to go public against the semantics project polemically.
Whether Neurath also delivered a discussion-paper about semantics for the conference I do not know. It could well be that he was very much distracted by the terminal illness of his second wife Olga who died a few days before the congress and let him ponder whether to travel to Paris at all.
In the afternoon my discussion with Neurath (so-called private, but public) about the semantic concept of truth. Tarski and Lutman defend semantics together with me. Arne Næss must concede, that 90â95 % of the interviewed treat the two sentences ââ¦â and âââ¦â is trueâ as equivalentâ. On the whole our arguments are more convincing now. But Neurath already â owing to the notes sent from Daverdisse [Carnap (1937)] and our long conversations â weakened his standpoint quite considerably.41
The discussion theme of the afternoon session on the 29th of July is the semantic concept of truth. Neurath is opposed to confront the statements of Logistics with âBeingâ: He only wants to compare sentences with sentences ⦠Here the connection of this new positivism with idealism can be grasped by hands.45
Neurath wishes to eliminate it nevertheless, because it could lead perhaps to antinomies. Carnap is of the opinion that âTrueâ is unavoidable.
As Adorno notes: âThe discussion seems to show me â insofar as I understood their secret language (Geheimsprache) â that the gentlemen were not unified inter seâ.46
So, it happened that the impression of a split in an important philosophical question among logical empiricists indeed reached two representatives of the
In a bold transition from the discussion about the concept of truth follows a talk of a Norwegian Arne Næss, who informs about empirical investigations he made with 117 test persons. These tests are meant to show which ones of the different conceptions of truth are present in the general public. According to the results not only the naive-realistic, but also the Aristotelian and relativistic concept of truth has found followers in all social ranks (Stände). Nothing is said about the social and educational preconditions of the test persons. ⦠His talk found especial acclaim. Carnap welcomed that the conceptual inventions of the Vienna Circle were confirmed by an authoritative psychological side.47
But if one takes Næssâs results seriously, which were subsequently published as a book,48 one will find that different concepts of truth are used in everyday life and one is led to conclude that the adequacy of a philosophical explication of truth cannot be determined by empirical psychological means, at least not by such investigations alone.
3 Disputes between Neurath and Carnap about Russellâs Inquiry
The unity of science, which is sometimes lost to view through immersion in specialist problems, is essentially a unity of method, and the method is one upon which modern logic throws much new light. It may be hoped that the Encyclopedia will do much to bring about an awareness of this unity.51
Certain philosophers â notably Neurath, Hempel and (less definitely) Carnap â have been led by the fear of metaphysics to a view very different from that which I have been expressing. They think that language can be treated in isolation, without assuming that it refers in any way to fact outside itself. What they call âProtocol statementsâ (i.e. the statements asserting empirical premisses) are not accepted because of any agreement with âRealityâ (a nasty metaphysical word, to be avoided at all costs), but because they are âactually adopted by mankind, and especially by the scientists of our culture circleâ.53
I find it difficult to believe that these philosophers, who profess to be empiricists, can really mean what they say.
3.1
The publication of Bertrand Russellâs Inquiry in 1940 further aggravated the situation. Russell wrote in the preface that he was more in sympathy with the logical positivists than with any other existing school, but noted some divergencies with them already in the introduction.54 But the father of empiricism who had been singled out in the manifesto of the Vienna Circle as one of the three leading embodiments of that spirit, dealt in detail with a doctrine which he understood â in his interpretation of Neurath â as a coherence theory of truth. According to this theory, first of all, the concept of truth had to be completely deleted from scientific vocabulary. Furthermore, it would only matter to examine the compatibility of newly added propositions with basic propositions recognized in a community of scientists. And even such basic propositions could be revised under certain circumstances.
Russell must have shuddered when confronted with such a theory of scientific acceptability, because it contradicted his most central convictions. I have in mind here his rejection of Hegelianism, against which he had rebelled during his own transition from British Neo-Hegelianism to Empiricism during his philosophical beginnings.55 It may have struck him as especially strange that Neurath had asked him to sketch this abandonment of Hegelianism at the 1935 Congress in Paris; and now the same Neurath seemed to act as propagandist of a coherence theory (which seemed to Russell similar to the Neo-Hegelian Harold H. Joachimâs),56 to abandon a correspondence theory of truth and even call the latter one âmetaphysicalâ.
The man who is constructing an encyclopedia is not expected himself to conduct experiments; he is expected to compare the opinions of the best authorities, and arrive, so far as he can, at the standard scientific opinion
of his time. Thus in dealing with scientific question his data are opinions, not direct observations on the subject-matter.58
For scientific work on the immediate research frontier, however, this idea is absurd, according to Russell. Here one needs the confrontation of propositions with immediate sensual experience by the individual scientists. It can happen that his findings contradict previously accepted opinions. Only if these results are reproduced they have a chance to grow from individual to public knowledge.
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.59
The verbalist theories of some modern philosophers forget the homely practical purposes of every-day words, and lose themselves in a neo-neo-Platonic mysticism.62
This reads like a spiteful ad hominem remark. However, taking into account the fact, that even in the âhardestâ sciences like mathematics and physics those national-socialist racist âGermanâ programs had flourished since 1933 â not to mention corresponding programs in the humanities and social sciences â the polemics seem to make some sense.
3.2 Neurathâs Answer
The purpose of words, though philosophers seem to forget this simple fact, is to deal with matters other than words. If I go into a restaurant and order my dinner, I do not want my words fit into a system with other words, but to bring the presence of food.65
Now Neurath tries to avoid the impression suggested by this example that the (linguistic) order of food aims at something outside of verbal reality. In order to achieve this, he rephrases the possible clash of the order of chicken with the mistaken serving of rabbit: ââthe word-thinking of Russell, âA chicken will appearââ (in connection with his order) seems to be contradictory to his word-thinking: âno chicken appeared.â That is all.â66
The second example concerns Russellâs criticism of Neurathâs relativization of the acceptance of propositions and theories to social groups and environments: âIn a different culture circle another body of propositions may be accepted; owing to this fact, Neurath is an exile. [â¦] In other words, empirical truth can be determined by the police.â67
Neurath repeats in his reaction his opinion that it is impossible to contemplate âa fight between âerror and truth,â but only between different groups of thinkersâ.68 Even if an absolute truth existed and with it a superhuman entity which chaired disputes about truth, humans could only discuss diverging truth-claims with their human means. But is this really true, we could ask? I disagree!
Consider the following real-life examples: Could people and especially scientists from different groups, nations and backgrounds not come to the same conclusion, even when from very different ethical background and/or when discussing very controversial cases? Take the examples of three different âreasonsâ for starting mayor wars in the last 100 years, the alleged âpolish attack of the German radio-station Gleiwitzâ as what marks the spark for the onset of the Second Word War in September 1939 by Nazi Germany, the so-called âTonkin Attack in August 1964â that sparked the Vietnam War, and Saddam Husseinâs alleged âWeapons of Mass Destructionâ as the background for the unleashing
These examples show, that one does not need a âchairâ filled with a figure of superhuman capacities to decide very controversial disputes between scientists. In most cases an agreement is reached by mutual criticism and exchange between scientists. In very special cases commissions can be useful to arrive at the truth regarding historical matters (like the truth commissions after the fall of the apartheid in South Africa or the schoolbook-commissions of Polish and German historians and geographers, which were founded in 1972 and exist to the present day).
3.3 Neurathâs and Carnapâs Controversy about Russellâs Inquiry
Neurath knew from Carnap that the latter had been working for some time on books on semantics. In advance of these publications, Neurath tried to engage him in extensive discussions of Russellâs book. Thus, in July 1942, he sent him a long letter in which he commented critically on Russellâs Inquiry over several pages.70 It is impossible to discuss these points here in any detail, because that would require a full-scale comparison of the book-passages picked by Neurath with his criticism. This might amount to enough material for another article. On the whole, Neurathâs remarks boil down to a rejection of an âabsolute truthâ, which only God or a superhuman sitting in a judgment chair may know, whereas no human ever could get access to âthis damned âabsolute truthââ.71 Carnap did not reply in detail until March 15th, 1943, but then also at length.72 In this letter he also noted some points of divergence with Russell, among others the latterâs ânaive realismâ. Other points were in Carnaps opinion not especially many and important ones. That may have to do with the circumstance that Russellâs book was based in part on lecture notes Russell had prepared for
I am really depressed to see here all the Aristotelian metaphysics in full glint and glamour, bewitching my dear friend Carnap through and through.76
It seems to me that he (Tarski) is right in this assertion, at least as far as the use in science, in judicial proceeding, in discussions of everyday life on theoretical questions is concerned.77
While, in the articles in Analysis, I argued in effect that the only possible interpretation of the phrase âSentence S is trueâ is âS is highly confirmed by accepted observation reportsâ, I should now reject this view. As the work of A. Tarski, R. Carnap, and others has shown, it is possible to define a semantical concept of truth which is not synonymous with that of strong confirmation78
It might well be that with the rise of the sociology of science, Neurathâs point of view, which puts emphasis on consensus among groups of scientists as a sort of substitute of truth, has become popular again (though few seem to be aware of his role as a predecessor).
4 Truth in Science and Everyday Life
4.1 Truth in Science
I donât speak here about the concept of truth of the metaphysicians, but about the one of the common language (including its use by scientists).80
That is of course an oversimplification. With regard to science, the situation is much more complicated, above all because scientific theories â in contrast to newspaper reports or the taking of evidence in court â in addition to aiming at factual exactitude make a claim to generality as well as to explanatory and predictive power. Moreover, scientific theories usually are supposed to survive for a longer period of time (whereas everyday uses of âtrueâ information in newspapers and in court are very often quickly forgotten). However, it can also happen that scientific theories that were previously considered true or hypotheses that were considered plausible are thrown overboard. Not only the examples of scientific revolutions, but also the development of science under time pressure â as in the case of the recent Corona crisis â provide good illustrations.
Also in calmer stages of scientific change, the question of truth content of earlier paradigms and theories arises and in turn prompting one to ask whether it is not to be expected that the new theories themselves will also one day be discarded, and also here, therefore, one cannot have claims to strict truth either. Basically, in view of the indisputable fact of such scientific change, there is only the alternative to completely renounce the claim to truth and to rest content â like Neurath â with consensus among scientists in a given scientific community and their âaccepted sentencesâ within the framework of an accepted encyclopedia, or to advocate a theory of truth-approximation, which understands the respective current state of science as an intermediate step on the way to a final truth. This latter view was represented by Karl Popper and his followers. The recent debate in the philosophy, history and sociology of science moves between these two poles. It would be presumptuous, in view of the enormous mass of publications on the subject, to enter this debate here.
4.2 Truth in Everyday Life, Especially within the Media, Their Producers and Users
It seems to me that the reference to the role of the concept of truth âin everyday lifeâ in the debates between Neurath and Carnap about semantics in the decade between 1935 and 1945 is exceedingly important and, moreover, of special actuality. For the concept of truth stands today as a cornerstone and counterpoint in the heated political disputes about the ever more widespread phenomenon of fake-news in politics and journalism. So, the concept of truth should be examined also in terms of its adequacy from these everyday modes of use. As we have seen, the participants of the 1937 third Congress for Unified Science had listened to a paper by Arne Næss about the presence of different uses of âtruthâ in the general public. This psychological research could in the end not decide the dispute between Neurath and Carnap.
Perhaps another approach will be useful to shed light on the controversy and give hints with a view to the relevance of different theories of truth. I have in mind lessons which can be drawn not so much from the ways of truthful reporting, but by demasking false reports and fake-news. In order to do this I will briefly address and analyze a case of manifest un-truth and fake news produced by a (formerly) famous journalist himself. After all, some journalists occasionally spread lies (even without merely reproducing certain statements made by politicians).
It is certainly true that as consumers of media such as newspapers, websites, social media, etc., we usually have to rely on reports that have already passed
I propose to analyze the âRelotius caseâ, where a journalist who had received many awards â also international ones â had delivered huge quantities of completely invented reports (among others for the prestigious German journal Der Spiegel) over a time-span of five years. The entire case was only exposed because a co-author of one report on illegal immigration to the US at its southern border and the alleged violent activities of militias against this immigration became suspicious. So this man, Juan Moreno, who had covered the stream of immigration south of the US border, whereas Relotius wrote about the fight of militias after their arrival in US, took the trouble to investigate and to scrutinize the truth-content of this report in a very strict way. His journey from some doubt in one report to the conviction of a serial liar in many stories is instructive in itself, but can also teach us lessons about the controversial issue about coherentist, consensualist and correspondence theories of truth and the interplay of certain of their elements in fact-checking procedures in every-day life, in this case: in journalism. In my opinion, something about the adequacy of explications of the concept of truth can be learned from them.
It all started with doubt, namely that a leading militia member was depicted with different names, ages, family connections, professions, carriers, addresses, etc., in different media, in different newspaper reports.81 After these contradictions could not be removed to Morenoâs satisfaction,82 he decided to locate and meet the man and other members of his group himself in company with a witness, a photographer.83 It turned out that Relotius had met none of those militia men, but âreferredâ to what he had âheardâ from and experienced with them: namely (invented) trips with this group in order to capture illegal immigrants, including deadly violence.84 After Morenoâs return to Germany followed
What can be learned from this episode? A coherentist view is not enough; in this case non-coherent elements led only to doubt, but not to refutation. Consensus alone did not help either, because there was a strong consensus within the big documentation section of the journal and within its upper echelons, that Relotius was right and Moreno wrong. It was the combined result of the assembled eyewitness reports (done by more than one man and documented by the photographer) and the proof of an enormous âanomalyâ, a demonstrable ad-hoc produced falsified e-mail in the final stage of the investigation that decided the case. Those latter stages had all to do with correspondence or non-correspondence to facts. So in this case coherence was helpful, consensus could also have been (but was not),87 and correspondence was by far the most important element. I think it would be worthwhile to analyze the fact-checking procedures in journalism and especially life-size examples, where they spectacularly failed, in order to determine the adequacy of competing theories of truth.
AcknowledgmentsI thank Christian Damböck, Christoph Limbeck-Lilienau and Friedrich Stadler for all the discussions about the subject of my contribution during my Viennese years and Johannes Friedl for the hint to the important unpublished paper Carnap (1937).
Stadler/Uebel (2012), pp. 76 and 108; for the composition of the manifesto, see Uebel (2012).
Russell (1940).
See Hegselmann (1985), Mormann (1999) and Carus (2019).
See Carnap (1963), pp. 11â14.
Ibid., p. 12.
Ibid.; in Carnapâs diaries we read on the tenth of November 1923 only âRussellâs works are here!â (Carnap (2022), p. 187).
This applies especially to Russellâs Knowledge of the External World, treated by Carnap in the Winter-Semester 1928/29 (Carnapâs diaries, 23rd of December 1928). Compare the list of Carnaps lectures in Vienna, in Stadler (1997), p. 672, where it is announced as âPhilosophische Ãbungenâ only.
Ibid., p. 337.
Ibid., p. 338.
Ibid., pp. 340â343.
Ibid., p. 341; compare Russell (1920) and (1923).
Carnap diaries, 20th of September 1935.
Ibid., 15th of September 1935.
Russell (1936/1996); see also Stadler (1997), p. 404f.
Russell (1936/1996), p. 121.
See Dahms (2018) for details.
Dahms (1996), p. 53 f.
This process culminated in 1944, when Carnap refused to sign Neurath contribution to the ieus as editor. See Hegselmann (1985), p. 286f. and Dahms (2020), p. 89f. That episode will not be covered in this paper.
Carnap (1963), p. 60f.
WoleÅski (2018), p. 208.
Reported in Neurath (1935/1981), p. 666 f.
Russell (1940), p. 141; I will come back to this episode and Neurathâs answer to this criticism.
Neurath (1935/1981), p. 664.
Ibid., p. 665 (trans. H.-J.D.).
Ibid., p. 666 (trans. H.-J.D., emphasis and brackets added for easier understanding).
See Neurath (1944/1969), p. 51: âexpressions avoided in this monographâ.
Stadler (1997), p. 422f.
Neurath to Carnap, 3rd of June 1937.
See Neurathâs preface in Schulte/McGuinness (1992), p. 202.
Carnap (1937), p. 1.
Ibid., p. 4.
Ibid., p. 10.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 11.
Carnap diaries, 29th of July (Carnap (in preparation).
See Dahms (2021) for details.
See for the relations between logical empiricists and critical theorists of the Frankfort school Dahms (1994).
See Dahms (1994), pp. 97â143 for a discussion of Horkheimerâs polemics and Dahms (2021) on all the international congresses during the ns-dictatorship and especially the logical empiricists Paris congresses of 1935 and 1937 and Adorno/Benjamin reports on both congresses of 1937 (the big ix. International one and the small third of logical empiricists).
Adorno/Benjamin (2003), p. 567 (trans. H.-J.D.).
Ibid., p. 568 (emphasis added).
Adorno/Benjamin (2003), p. 568; see Næss (1938/2014) for a full picture of his psychological research about ordinary peopleâs conception of âtruthâ.
Contained in Russell (1996).
Ibid., p. 41.
Ibid.
Russell (1940), p. 18ff.
See Russell (1944), pp. 9â11 for a short description of his Hegelian period and the reason for his abandonment of Neo-Hegelianism. A longer critique of Hegel can be found in Russell (1946), pp. 701â715.
He mentions his critique of Joachimâs theory of truth (dating back to 1910) in Russell (1940), p. 133.
Ibid., p. 135.
Ibid., p. 136.
Russell (1929/1976), p. 44.
Ibid (1940), Chap. 21.
Ibid., p. 272.
Ibid., p. 141.
Ibid., p. 140.
Neurath (1941/1981).
Russell (1940), p. 141.
Neurath (1941/1981), p. 145.
Russell (1940), p. 140.
Neurath (1941/1981), p. 147.
The last example shows how difficult it can be and how long it can take, before the truth gets its way: The French and German government were ânot convincedâ by the USâ âproofsâ for Saddam Husseinâs possession of weapons of mass destruction and consequently did not enter the second Iraq War, Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero pulled out his troops immediately after his election in April 2004 saying that one could not base a war on lies. Even Donald Trump admitted many years later that the Iraq War had been âa mistakeâ.
Neurath to Carnap, 17th of July 1942, in: Tuboly/Cat (2019), pp. 544â552, esp. pp. 546â549.
Ibid., p. 550.
Carnap to Neurath, 15th of March 1943, in: ibid., pp. 575â579.
Russell (1940), preface.
See Carnapâs diary entries; I wonder whether the polemical remarks against Neurath in Inquiry were already included in those proofs or added later on. If they were not added later, that could indicate that Carnap shared their content.
Carnap (1942), followed by his (1943) and (1947).
Neurath to Carnap, 15th of January 1943, in Tuboly/Cat (2019), p. 570.
Hempel (1945/1965), p. 42, n. 49. He also stated that Russellâs depiction and criticism of Neurathâs standpoint as a coherence theory of truth was a misunderstanding.
Carnap (1963), pp. 60â67, especially 61f.
Carnap (1937), p. 8.
Moreno (2019) p. 172ff.
Ibid., p. 180.
Ibid., p. 169, 197ff.
Ibid., p. 206f.
Ibid., p. 226ff.
Ibid., p. 228, 234f.
One might say, that discussions about the truth of the Relotius/Moreno-report inside the Spiegelâs staff were not âfree of dominationâ, as some consensus-theories of truth demand. But the case here under consideration shows, how far this âidealizationâ leads away from reality.
References
Unpublished Sources
Rudolf Carnap (Archives of Scientific Philosophy, Pittsburgh/Konstanz)
Carnap, R. (1937) âÃber den semantischen Wahrheitsbegriffâ, R. 380 14â4
Correspondence with:
Otto Neurath,
Charles Morris
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