Philosopher

Rudolf Carnap

German-American logician and philosopher of science (1891–1970)

University of California, Los Angeles · Germany (later United States) · d. 18 May 1891 (Ronsdorf, now part of Wuppertal) — 14 September 1970 (Santa Monica, California)

A leading figure of the Vienna Circle who sought to rebuild knowledge by logical construction from experience and to replace metaphysical disputes with questions about the choice of a language. His principle of tolerance permitted any framework, provided its rules were stated. Quine's 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' attacked the analytic/synthetic distinction on which much of this rested.