The Aufbau and the Early Schlick

Matthias Neuber (Tuebingen) gives a talk at the MCMP workshop "Influences on the Aufbau" (1-3 July, 2013) titled "The Aufbau and the Early Schlick". Abstract: Schlick’s influence on Carnap’s Aufbau will be considered under the aspect of Schlick’s early ‘critical realism.’ It will be shown that both Carnap’s structuralism and his distinction between the ‘met- aphysical’ and the ‘empirical’ conception of reality can be traced back to Schlick’s discussion of the real- ism issue in his early Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre (1918, 1925). By way of conclusion, I shall briefly discuss Herbert Feigl’s contention that the later (Viennese) Schlick converted—influenced by Carnap’s Aufbau— from his early critical realism to ‘phenomenalistic positivism.’