NEXT WED: UKZN–UNIZULU Philosophy Seminar Series, Wed 10 Sept, 14h00--15h30: 'Analytic truth in Aufbau and in Meaning and Necessity', Carin Robinson

[M. Whitaker]

10 September 2025, Wednesday 14:00–15:30

Click this Teams link to attend the talk

Analytic truth in Aufbau and in Meaning and Necessity 

Carin Robinson

UKZN Department of Philosophy

Abstract:

This paper argues that Carnap’s treatment of analyticity differs significantly in Aufbau from what it is in Meaning and Necessity. Aufbau’s constructional system, whilst evidently comprised of formal, analytic constructional tools, is unable to support the creation of analytically true statements, i.e. definitions. The reason for this is that the constructional system’s criterion for meaning is one that cashes out meaning in terms of sense perception. Such an account of meaning is in stark contrast to the intensional semantics developed in Meaning and Necessity. Carnap’s intensional semantics allows meaning to be established without reference to empirical matters of fact. And being empirically insignificant is also a defining property of analytic truth. It is the marriage of conventionally established meaning and trivial truth that characterises the much more stable theory of analytic truth that we typically associate with Carnap’s philosophy. For these reasons the scope for what counts as analytic truth is significantly different in these two texts. For Aufbau this has the further implication of calling into question the mooted deductive interrelatedness of the constructional system’s definitions.

 

Bio:

Currently, my research is focused on how the early to mid-Twentieth Century debate about the analytic-synthetic distinction has found occasion to be discussed in more recent epistemology – in particular within empiricist philosophy. My other areas of interest are philosophy of language, political philosophy, meta-ethics and critical reasoning. I lecture at UKZN on the Pietermaritzburg Campus.

For any queries, please contact:

Monique Whitaker (Whita...@ukzn.ac.za), or
Jason van Niekerk (vanNi...@unizulu.ac.za)