Max Dvořák, Rudolf Carnap and the question of Weltanschauung vs. Weltauffassung

Abstract

This paper takes a comparative approach to the later work of Max Dvořák (Czechia 1874–1921) and the early writings of Rudolf Carnap (Germany 1891–USA 1970). The texts will be viewed in their context, with a particular eye to the historical conditions that shaped the problems tackled by both thinkers. My starting point is the dispute around the concepts of Weltanschauung (world-view) and wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung (scientific world-conception) that took place in the 1920s. On the basis of this dispute, it would be easy to conclude that Dvořák’s Geistesgeschichte (often translated as “history of ideas” or “intellectual history”) is the direct opposite of Carnap’s Wissenschaftstheorie (theory of science). However, as this study will prove, such a view is inadequate.

The first section concerns the intellectual starting situation of the two thinkers under discussion. The situation in which Dvořák and Carnap operated was shaped by currents rooted in the Enlightenment and in Romanticism. The second section will address what is usually called the nineteenth-century German Bildungstradition (roughly, “educational tradition”; see below), which is relevant to both Dvořák and Carnap, approaching it as a variant of Enlightenment culture. The third section will describe those aspects of the philosophy of Wilhelm Dilthey—whose own work was rooted in this specifically German tradition—which was a common source of inspiration for both thinkers, and forms a connection between their respective bodies of work. Building on this, the fourth section will look in detail at Dilthey’s reception in Dvořák and Carnap. Finally, I will demonstrate that Carnap and Dvořák’s approaches are not opposed at all. Rather, they complement and complete one another.