constitution theory

constitution theory, in the philosophy of Logical Positivism, the view that certain concepts—in particular, scientific ones—are in the last analysis defined by other concepts that express relations between experiences.

Constitution theory was fully articulated by Rudolf Carnap, a philosopher of language and of science, in Logische Aufbau der Welt (1928; The Logical Structure of the World: Pseudoproblems in Philosophy, 1967). A scientific concept, such as “atom” or “gene,” is said to be “reduced” when every sentence containing the concept can be transformed into sentences containing concepts that refer only to experiences—which thus constitute the scientific concept. Such constitutions, or constitutional definitions, consist of a hierarchy, with undefined, individual, private experiential concepts at the ground level and concepts of increasing complexity at higher levels; and the resulting constitution system is to be expressed in the language of modern symbolic logic. The doctrine was radically revised in Carnap’s later work.

Constitution theory had been adumbrated before the Aufbau, first by Ernst Mach, an Austrian phenomenalist, in Die Analyse der Empfindungen und des Verhältnis des Physischen zum psychischen (5th ed., 1906; Contribution to the Analysis of Sensations) and later by Bertrand Russell in Our Knowledge of the External World (1914).