anders@infolog.se (Anders Tunevi) (08/28/90)
I'm searching for references, litterature etc concerning ideas similar of the ideas expressed in "Der logische Aufbau der Welt" by Carnap 1928. In this work Carnap tried to build a system where all concepts should be redefined into a set of primitives. Anyone who knows what happened with these ideas please send some information to anders@infolog.se. Infologics AB Anders Tunevi Box 91 S-191 22 Sollentuna phone int: +46-8-92 20 00 phone dir: +46-8-92 20 15 Fax: int: +46-8-96 08 46 E-mail:anders@infolog.se
rar@kronos.ads.com (Bob Riemenschneider) (08/29/90)
=> From: anders@infolog.se (Anders Tunevi) => Newsgroups: comp.ai => => I'm searching for references, litterature etc concerning => ideas similar of the ideas expressed in "Der logische Aufbau => der Welt" by Carnap 1928. => => In this work Carnap tried to build a system where all concepts => should be redefined into a set of primitives. => => Anyone who knows what happened with these ideas please send => some information to anders@infolog.se. Actually, no one ever developed these ideas much, because Carnap worked them out in enough detail that it's pretty clear that the whole thing is a bad idea. You might want to take a look at Goodman's _The Structure of Appearance_ (1948), though. His concerns are a bit different, but it does look a lot like a refinement of the _Aufbau_. (I suppose some AI work could be regarded as reduction of concepts to a set of primitives -- Schank and Abelson's _Scripts, Goals, Plans, and Understanding_, e.g. -- but I assume you're familiar with that.) You may find that work based on Whitehead's "method of extensive abstraction" is similar enough to be interesting, although its scope is much more limited. (The goal is really ontological reduction -- which does have some epistemological benefits -- rather than providing a more secure epistemological foundation for everyday knowledge.) The main references are Russell, _Our Knowledge of the Extrernal World_, 1914. (This book was Carnap's immediate inspiration for the _Aufbau_.) Whitehead, _Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge_, 1919. Whitehead, _The Concept of Nature_, 1920. Russell, "On Order in Time", 1936. (Reprinted in _Logic and Knowledge_, 1956.) In my opinion, the Carnap and Goodman stuff is interesting but fundamentally wrong, while the Whitehead and Russell stuff is both interesting and essentially right. I hope I got the references more-or-less right; I'm doing this from memory and it's been awhile. -- rar