Protocols, Affirmations, and Foundations: Reply to Oberdan

Abstract

phy' [1996] I undertook to push out the Neurathian boat, namely, to explore how far the revisionist reading of the Vienna Circle as epistemological antifoundationalists may be extended from its natural base in the work of Otto Neurath not only to that of Rudolf Carnap, but also to that of Moritz Schlick, and to consider what Carnap' s and Neurath' s anti-foundationalism may come to in metaphilosophical terms. Oberdan only takes issue with my interpretative proposals concerning Schlick (though he also seems sceptical concerning the anti-foundationalist agenda of much recent Vienna Circle scholarship). Three questions need to be considered: first, whether the epistemologically antifoundationalist reading of Schlick I proposed is rendered untenable by Oberdan' s criticism, second, whether Oberdan' s reading of Schlick is plausible, third, why any of this matters. Oberdan' s central charge against my interpretation of Schlick' s theory of affirmations (outlined below) is that I conflate ' Schlick' s discussions of philosophical activity with his views on the structure of empirical knowledge' ([1998], p. 304), in so many words, that I confuse affirmations with ostensive definitions. Moreover, Oberdan claims that my interpretation of affirmations is based 'entirely' on a different essay of Schlick' s that dealt with metaphilosophical questions and left the structure of empirical knowledge unaddressed