ABSTRACT
In the development of logical empiricism in North America, it was Carnap’s and Reichenbach’s vision of it that were most influential. Carnap’s and Reichenbach’s doctrines were from the 1930s onward always the most commonly cited, positively or negatively; this focus continues in historical accounts right up to the present day. This chapter switches the focus to their ambitions for philosophy itself, their ambition to render it scientific. It asks, first, whether or how far their American students were aware of this and, second, whether Carnap’s and Reichenbach’s campaign to alter the nature of the discipline in this fashion was successful. Specific issues discussed are the disciplinary specialization in analytic philosophy and the social and institutional setting of the reception of logical empiricism.
