A diagrammatic reconstruction of Carnap's quasianalysis

Iulian Toader

pp. 43-59

in: Synthese 142 (1), 2004.

Abstract

In this paper, I am zeroing in on Carnap's formal method of quasianalysis, arguing against two interpretations of it, offered by Nelson Goodman and Thomas Mormann. In order to overcome their inadequacy, I propose a diagrammatic reconstruction, which takes advantage of the fact that the concept of local sign is no longer ignored. This will give me the opportunity to show that Quine'scriticism of Carnap's constitution of physical space fails, and will allow me to describe QUASIMODOS (QUASIanalytical Machine Oriented Diagrammatic Operation System) – a system designed to construct qualities in continuous domains.

Cited authors

Carnap Rudolf

Quine Willard Van Orman

Goodman Nelson

Mormann Thomas