Before I move on to more current things, I want to go back and respond to Vera Flocke’s response to my post about her 2024 paper “Carnap is not against metaphysics” in the Interpreting Carnap volume. That was over two years ago, and I rudely left her without a reply. At the risk of responding to things she no longer believes (or has any interest in), I will now finally do her the rudimentary courtesy of responding to her objections to my post. I apologize for the tardiness of this follow-up.

She makes two main points: First, that — contrary to my critique — she did in fact (implicitly) make the principle of tolerance a criterion for distinguishing between the earlier and later Carnap, and second, that Carnap was not against metaphysics but against certain meta-metaphysical connotations of metaphysical positions. (I’m less sure about this second one.)

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