Carnap´s Logischer Aufbau Revived

The aim of this project is to revive Rudolf Carnap`s classic Der Logische Aufbau der Welt, i.e., I want to carry out some of the essential parts of Carnap`s original programme, but from a different philosophical background. In order to achieve this, the programme has to be liberated from several philosophical assumptions, which are now rightly regarded as false, and from some important formal flaws. A new constitutional system in the style of the Aufbau also calls for the reception of some precursors and companions of Carnap who have been occupied with comparable programmes. Finally, the improved system is to be applied to problems in the areas of epistemology, philosophy of science, and philosophy of language. The output of the project will be a formalized theory which extends set theory by additional axioms. Contrary to Carnap`s original proposal, the theory is not intended to subserve an ontological reduction by means of definitional elimination, but rather an axiomatic characterization of epistemologically ideal observers. On the epistemological side, I am not planning to develop a foundationalist theory in the usual sense of the word, since the basic elements of the system are not assumed to play a foundational role in a justificatory process. The notorious problems having to do with the Aufbau`s attachment to the theses of logical empiricism will thus turn out to be irrelevant for this project. I am returning to Carnap`s programme of a rational reconstruction of empirical knowledge, but I will try to give it a fresh start.