The Aufbau and the constitution system: is the 1928 constitutional project a failed phenomenalist reduction to sense data (Quine and Goodman) or a non-foundationalist neo-Kantian construction system (Friedman, Pincock, Richardson)?

Rudolf Carnap, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

The position in brief

The Aufbau is not the foundationalist reduction of all scientific concepts to sense data that Quine and Goodman read it as in the 1940s and 1950s. It is a constitution system (Konstitutionssystem) in the neo-Kantian sense: a logical demonstration that the structural relations among scientific concepts can be exhibited in a unified logical-constructive framework.¹

The autopsychological basis is chosen as one possible basis for the constitution — the 1961 Preface to the second edition makes this explicit — but the project does not depend on the choice of basis and is not foundationalist in any sense the standard textbook tradition recognized. The constitutional method is the same method Pseudoproblems in Philosophy applied to traditional metaphysical disputes to show them to be pseudo-problems rather than substantive questions. The Friedman, Richardson, and Pincock readings have recovered what the Aufbau was actually doing.²³

Sources

1. However, in the book I have already indicated the possibility of another system form whose basic concepts refer to physical objects (59). In addition to the three forms which are there given as examples for a physical basis (62) I would now consider especially a form which contains as basic elements physical things, and as basic concepts observable properties and relations of such things.

   The Logical Structure of the World and Pseudoproblems in Philosophy, p. 12

2. Subsequently it has been modified and refined in several respects, In the sequel I want to indicate in what respects 1 have changed my position since 1 wrote the Aufbau. | shall concentrate on the most important points. A detailed description of the development of my philosophical thought and position is given in my intellectual autobiography [Autob.].

   The Logical Structure of the World and Pseudoproblems in Philosophy, pp. 12–13

3. On the other hand, regarding the crit- -18- icism of traditional metaphysics, in the Aufbau I merely refrained from taking sides; I added that, if one proceeds from the discussion of language forms to that of the corresponding metaphysical theses about the reality or unreality of some kind of entities, he steps beyond the bounds of science.

   Intellectual Autobiography, pp. 30–31

Where the argument is made

• Der logische Aufbau der Welt (1928
• English translation The Logical Structure of the World, Rolf George trans., 1967, bundled with Pseudoproblems in Philosophy 1928)
• the 1961 Preface to the second edition acknowledging the autopsychological basis was one choice among several possible bases
• Intellectual Autobiography (Schilpp ed., 1963) on the Aufbau's actual aims
• Pseudoproblems in Philosophy (1928) for the application of the constitutional method to realism/idealism and other traditional disputes

How the argument was received

settled-with-modern-revival-correcting-quine-goodman-misreading