From the Philosophical remarks to The Unity of Science

Abstract

In the summer of 1932, Wittgenstein alleged that a recently published paper of Carnap’s, “Physicalistic Language as the Universal Language of Science” made extensive and unacknowledged use of Wittgenstein’s own ideas. In a letter to Schlick he complained that he would “soon be in a situation where my own work shall be considered merely as a reheated version or plagiarism of Carnap’s.” In this paper, I look at the relationship between Carnap’s paper, subsequently reprinted as The Unity of Science, and Wittgenstein’s discussion of related topics in the first seven chapters of the Philosophical Remarks and other writing from 1929-1932.