Neurath, Carnap, Popper: The crusade against epistemological foundationalism

Abstract

In this paper, I will try to show that this is a completely misleading image of the logical empiricism. Through a detailed analysis of the "protocol sentences" debate happened at the beginning of the thirties, I will show that at least two of the most prominent members in the logical empiricism, Neurath and Carnap, shared with Popper a conventionalist philosophical conception that took them away from the strict empiricism toward forms more linked to the neo-kantian tradition.