Pitt will collaborate on digitizing the works of a philosophical giant

The University of Pittsburgh Library System (ULS) is partnering with the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich to launch Rudolf Carnap Digital, the first systematic project to create a comprehensive digital critical edition of the complete works of the pioneering analytic philosopher.

A key figure in the Vienna Circle and logical empiricism, Carnap profoundly shaped 20th-century thought. His extensive papers, primarily housed in the Archives of Scientific Philosophy collection at Pitt’s Archives and Special Collections, have been a vital resource for scholars worldwide. And soon, his work will be widely accessible and newly explorable thanks to the international collaboration, which will receive 400,000 euros in funding annually for 25 years.

The project leaders are Hannes Leitgeb and Stephan Hartmann of Ludwig Maximilians and Eckhart Arnold of the Bavarian Academy.

ULS will provide high-quality digital scans and metadata for the project, demonstrating Pitt’s role as a global leader in philosophical scholarship and its expertise in digital scholarship and preservation.

“The Rudolf Carnap Digital project represents a landmark shift in how we approach the stewardship of philosophical history,” said ULS Director Kornelia Tancheva. “By transforming more than 100,000 pages of physical manuscripts into a dynamic, open-access digital environment, the ULS is not just preserving the past — we are ensuring Carnap’s logical insights are accessible to every researcher in the world, in formats that meet the demands of 21st-century scholarship.”

The University’s Center for Philosophy of Science will also serve as a key partner, hosting scholars from the project.

“Carnap is a philosophical giant, and both the Center for Philosophy of Science and the Archives of Scientific Philosophy owe much to the philosophical tradition he created,” said the center’s director, Edouard Machery, Distinguished Professor of History and Philosophy of Science. “We are delighted to be able to host the scholars who will work on this extraordinary, decades-long project.”

Along with the digital edition containing more than 100,000 pages of Carnap’s writings, diaries and correspondence, the Rudolf Carnap Digital project will produce an open access digital critical edition of the philosopher’s published works and a student printed edition with English translations aimed at an international audience.

Photography sourced from the Rudolf Carnap Papers, 1905-1970, ASP.1974.01, Archives of Scientific Philosophy, Archives and Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System, Box 22, Folder 11.