One of the most underappreciated 20th century philosophers is Rudolf Carnap. I’ve always been fascinated and very much influenced by his works (especially “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology”), although they have been overshadowed by the works of Wittgenstein and Quine, and his philosophical project has been described as a failure. I am just excited about David Chalmer’s new book, entitled Constructing the World, that attempts to bring to light and, at the same time, develop the valuable philosophical insights in Carnap’s Aufbau. I just hope that, with Michael Friedman’s Reconsidering Logical Positivism, Chalmer’s book will trigger a significant resurgence of interest in the works of Carnap. I think that Carnap deserves deep appreciation from the philosophical community.
Dr. William Lane Craig, a leading evangelical apologist, is featured in a major article in The Chronicle of Higher Education [see http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-Theist/140019/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en ]. That should be a surprise, since CHE is not known for having a taste for people like Craig. I think that Craig is overrated by evangelicals, but underrated by academics. His triumphalism, I think, weakens the merits of his arguments, since it underrates what I consider to be persuasive cases for atheism. It tends to caricature his opponents’ arguments as unworthy of serious considerations. However, his skills as a debater are unparalleled. He is definitely a force to be reckoned with. Of course, winning a debate is not a sufficient condition for establishing the truth of one’s claim. But I think that his opponents, like Alexander Rosenberg (Duke philosopher) and Lawrence Krauss (theoretical physicist), are mistaken for downplaying the role of formal debates in
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