Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vsgnj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T12:49:09.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 11 - Metaphysics, Tolerance, and Language Planning

Carnap on International Auxiliary Languages

from Part III - The Logical and the Linguistic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2024

Alan Richardson
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Adam Tamas Tuboly
Affiliation:
Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest
Get access

Summary

This chapter discusses how Carnap’s philosophy of language affects his position on language planning issues. Carnap was an Esperantist from an early age, and he kept his interest for international auxiliary languages active throughout his life. In his Intellectual Autobiography, he clearly mentions the relation between his activity of building symbol systems as a logician and his interest for language planning for international communication. His controversy with Wittgenstein regarding Esperanto illustrates two opposing views of language, one as a functional device for various purposes and one as a carrier of tradition and identity. Carnap’s dismissal of the latter is rooted both in his principle of tolerance (and its underlying instrumentalism) and in logical empiricism’s attack on metaphysical concepts such as Volksgeist, shared by other language planners who emphasized the instrumental purpose of language and supported locutors’ active intervention in it either by language reform or by language construction. We argue that the antimetaphysical rejection of the romanticist view of language, sustained by Vienna Circle, led to a more liberal and flexible attitude toward language planning issues. Finally, the internationalism of logical empiricists was effective in shaping their favourable disposition towards international auxiliary languages.

Type
Chapter
Information
Interpreting Carnap
Critical Essays
, pp. 214 - 234
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×