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Carnap, the Principle of Tolerance, and Empiricism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Robert Hudson
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Abstract

Kurt Gödel criticizes Rudolf Carnap's conventionalism on the grounds that it relies on an empiricist admissibility condition, which, if applied, runs afoul of his second incompleteness theorem. Thomas Ricketts and Michael Friedman respond to Gödel's critique by denying that Carnap is committed to Gödel's admissibility criterion; in effect, they are denying that Carnap is committed to any empirical constraint in the application of his principle of tolerance. I argue in response that Carnap is indeed committed to an empirical requirement vis-à-vis tolerance, a fact that becomes clear upon closer scrutiny of Carnap's relevant writings.

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Type
Research Article
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Philosophy of Science , Volume 77 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 341 - 358
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Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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