Carnap's early metatheory: scope and limits (Q1708750)

When the contribution of several pioneers have crystallised into a standard theory or paradigm, historians of the discipline are at first concerned to emphasise the differences between the work of each pioneer and the newly achieved synthesis: pioneer \(A\) failed to reach our present understanding in this respect or that respect or that respect. The result makes \(A\) look bad. Later, historians form a more balanced judgement, noting ways in which \(A\) foreshadowed or approached the present position and ways in which \(A\) fell short. Discussion of the work Carnap did in the late 1920s on what would now be regarded as model theory has reached the second of these stages. He made considerable progress towards making precise such notions as consequence, isomorphism, categoricity, and completeness. He was more aware of the issues of domain variation underlying those notions than he has been given credit for. Nevertheless, he was writing before the most celebrated results of Gödel and of Tarski, and his work must be regarded as inadequate in some ways.