Balthasar Grabmayr MA

December 1st until February 28th, 2020/21

Affiliation: Humboldt Universität zu Berlin 

Research for a study about:

 

The Formal Structure of Language. Carnap's Structuralist Approach to Language in his Syntax

Abstract of the Research Project:

This research project aims to critically examine Carnap's structuralist approach to language, with special attention to his Logical Syntax of Language. By drawing on a recent technical result, I argue that Carnap's structuralist approach is inadequate, since it fails to carve out central meta-logical properties as structural. I aim to investigate how Carnap's structuralist approach can be defended against this challenge. In particular, I attempt to develop a refined approach which is based on a more fine-grained notion of formal structure. The purpose of this project is thus to shed new light on a pivotal position in Carnap's work and to contribute to recent research on structuralist approaches in the philosophy of mathematics.

Lecture

Titel: Carnap and the Structure of Formal Language

 

Date: 18|01|2021

Time: 17:15-18:45 Uhr

Venue: online Logic Café

Abstract:

In this talk I will discuss the structuralist approach to formal language, with special attention to Carnap's account developed in his /Logical Syntax of Language/.

Report

During my IVC Fellowship, which I held from December 1st, 2020 to February 28, 2021, I worked on two research articles. The first article is concerned with Carnap's structuralist account of syntax developed in his Logical Syntax of Language. Here, I argue that Carnap's account is inadequate, since it is based on a too coarse-grained notion of formal structure, which fails to carve out central meta-logical properties as structural. I propose two refinements of Carnap's approach which explicate the formal structure of language in a more fine-grained way. The aim of the second article is to introduce and defend a novel and unified representational framework for the notions of definability and computability.

I also gave a talk at the Logic Café Seminar, University of Vienna, in which I discussed the structuralist approach to formal language, with special attention to Carnap's account developed in his Logical Syntax of Language.