Universität zu Köln

Feldbacher-Escamilla, Christian J. ORCID: 0000-0001-6414-2153 and Sekatskaya, Maria (2025). Reductionism, Supervenience, and Carnap’s Account of Empirical Confirmability. Journal for General Philosophy of Science, 56 (3). pp. 345-371. Springer Nature. ISSN 0925-4560

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Abstract

Rudolf Carnap was one of the earliest proponents of logical positivism/empiricism to explicitly discuss reductionism in relation to mental phenomena from a philosophy of sci- ence perspective. In order to address early criticism, Carnap’s account underwent several modifications. An important feature of the ‘mental-to-physical’ reduction endorsed by the later Carnap is that of empirical confirmability. According to this feature, a reduction can only succeed if it carries with it the possibility to confirm or undermine mental claims on the basis of physical claims. Although other modifications of Carnap’s reductionistic account have already been linked to the modern philosophy of mind debate (von Kutschera Erkenntnis 35:305–323, 1991), the role of empirical confirmability in this context remains unexplored terrain. In this paper, we tackle this question and identify relevant modifica- tions in the philosophy of mind with respect to physicalism. We suggest that if one shifts from the metaphysical notion of supervenience to an epistemic derivative of it, one can closely relate supervenience physicalism to Carnap’s account of empirical confirmability. We will show how this both illuminates Carnap’s reductionist program from a philosophy of mind perspective and highlights how the philosophy of mind debate can benefit from Carnap’s account of reduction.

Item Type:	Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Feldbacher-Escamilla, Christian J. UNSPECIFIED https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6414-2153 UNSPECIFIED Sekatskaya, Maria UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-803643
Identification Number:	10.1007/s10838-025-09728-6
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal for General Philosophy of Science
Volume:	56
Number:	3
Page Range:	pp. 345-371
Number of Pages:	27
Date:	5 September 2025
Publisher:	Springer Nature
ISSN:	0925-4560
Language:	English
Faculty:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Fächergruppe 8: Philosophie (Philosophisches Seminar) > Philosophisches Seminar
Subjects:	Philosophy
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language Reduction ; Supervenience ; Physicalism ; Philosophy of mind ; Carnap English
['eprint_fieldname_oa_funders' not defined]:	Publikationsfonds UzK
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/80364