Carnap

I think I finally found what was blocking my understanding of Analytic Philosophy.
Carnap was schooled in Kantianism, and a German reading of Kant is somewhat different from
how he is (or was) taught in non-German countries. Here is what it looks like:

http://philosophypages.com/hy/5f.htm

Of particular note, the treatment of the synthetic a priori, as the work of science. This
would explain how the Vienna Circle became the hub for discussion of relativity, and the need to
export this understanding and express the process involved from within philosophy.

Unlike his predecessors, Kant maintained that synthetic a priori judgments not only are possible but actually provide the basis for significant portions of human knowledge. In fact, he supposed (pace Hume) that arithmetic and geometry comprise such judgments and that natural science depends on them for its power to explain and predict events. What is more, metaphysics—if it turns out to be possible at all—must rest upon synthetic a priori judgments, since anything else would be either uninformative or unjustifiable. But how are synthetic a priori judgments possible at all? This is the central question Kant sought to answer.