The Enigma of Carnap’s Aufbau:
Logical intertwinement of experience and knowledge

Instructor: Reza Negarestani Date & Time: Wednesdays, November 4, 11, 18, 25, December 2, 16, January 6, 13 11 AM - 13:30 ET

DESCRIPTION: This eight-session Seminar provides a critical and constructive reading of one of the central texts of analytic philosophy, The Logical Structure of the World (Aufbau) written by Rudolf Carnap in 1928. An immensely consequential and at the same time controversial, Aufbau’s main mission is to put forward a new form of philosophy rather than serving an old philosophical wine in a new formal bottle. The book in its entirety is a daunting, ambitious, and technical project that borrows its elements from scientific enlightenment, neo-Kantianism, gestalt theory, and phenomenology among others, all glued together by the might of a new logical and epistemological framework. Roughly, two entwining movements are present in the book, one decentering into the elementary lived experiences of human agents and the other ascending from such experiences to the edifice of scientific knowledge. The medium that supports this ascent and descent are provided by phenomenology and the new logic in the form of constitution systems—systems of piecewise construction. Through the study of the first three parts of Aufbau (with the help of supplementary critical and constructive reading materials) we not only engage with the beast of analytic philosophy but also recover an image of Carnap often misunderstood or distorted in the contemporary history of philosophy both by analytic and continental traditions. The enigma of Aufbau is revealed to be the enigma of Carnap as a philosopher of enlightenment. Given the scope of Aufbau and its tessellated richness whose end product is an imposing multi-faceted architecture, we will engage with supplementary materials as part of the syllabus but also take the liberty to sidestep from the listed reading list when required.

IMAGE: Phil Openshaw, Tiered decks of Royal National Theatre, 2015

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