ABSTRACT
The encounter pragmatism had with logical empiricism can be explored by recapitulating some familiar points about Rudolf Carnap’s doctrine of linguistic frameworks. This discussion will illuminate the role of logical empiricism as a source of insights for neopragmatism especially because of the inspiration Putnam drew from logical empiricism, notably his teachers Carnap and Reichenbach Hans. Both logical empiricism and pragmatism have been regarded as “philosophical revolutions,” and both went through crucial development and transformation. Pragmatism was, for the young Eino Kaila, a promising perspective on the controversy between science and religion. This issue was one of his great interests, presumably partly because of his family background. The mature Kaila of the 1930—1940s was primarily a philosopher of science, introducing modern logical and epistemological ideas in Finland. Metaphysical and religious statements, he argued, fail to meet the criteria of meaningfulness set by the philosophers of the Vienna Circle.
