Carnap’s Aesthetics
I’m a big proponent of the idea that vibes matter, especially in academic philosophy. Helen de Cruz gives what I take to be a philosophically articulate formulation of why vibes matter. I won’t recreate de Cruz’s presentation of her ideas. Instead, I will explain what I got from the paper, which may not correspond to de Cruz’s actual arguments.
There are two ways to evaluate philosophical writing and arguments.
Content-only. If we are focus only on the content of philosophical writing, we are focused entirely on the underlying factual propositions being expressed. The form of the work and writing, which affects how the mood, feeling, or vibes you get, are considered irrelevant influences (to use Katia Vavova’s phrase).
Content and vibes. Instead of focusing purely on the content expressed, we are to also pay attention to the vibes expressed by a philosophical argument. The vibes are not explicit or part of the content of what is expressed. Instead, vibes are expressed via how the work is written; it includes a variety of rhetorical factors which make people feel certain ways.
Cruz (2023) explains the way in which philosophers actually evaluate philosophical arguments by content and vibes, where the vibes make a major difference to the uptake of the philosophical arguments. She gives the drastic comparison of Friedrich Nietzsche and Rudolf Carnap. Nietzsche is clearly a poetic character. It was interesting to see her study of Carnap, whose writing seeks a kind of mathematical clarity. She says:
In Carnap’s view, the thirst for clarity is part of a distinctively philosophical mood. This mood ‘demands clarity everywhere, but […] realizes that the fabric of life can never quite be comprehended’ (Carnap, 1928 [2003], p. xviii). We can see this mood expressed in other areas of human creativity, such as music and architecture. Carnap had a strong connection with Bauhaus, a modernist architectural movement that prized functionality, rationality, order, and the use of technology to help organize life (Potochnik and Yap, 2006). In a guest lecture he gave at Bauhaus Dessau (the Bauhaus school of art, design, and architecture) on 15 October 1929, he argued that philosophy of science and architecture are two manifestations of a single way of life. (p. 176)
It’s interesting to see that Carnap was explicit about the emotional import of his writing, as well as the writings of other logical positivists. Carnap’s writing gives scientific vibes even though he’s just another humanist.
The mathematical vibes that characterize much of contemporary analytic philosophy still appears to hold a lot of weight, intellectually. Though it strikes me as only holding weight in the circle of other analytic philosophers. Non-academics interested in philosophy seem to positively hate the style. My suspicion that people are turned off the vibes of analytic philosophy moreso than the content.
Carnap’s aesthetics is good at garnering the impression that one is smart, in this STEM-obsessed world. It is not so good at convincing people that one is deep, or that what one has to say matters for actual people’s lives.