The paper proposes a new reading of the Aufbau, one that contends that Carnap’s epistemological project is not, or not only, to identify the conditions under which a system of purely structural definite descriptions can attain objectivity. Rather, the project is more ambitious: to determine the conditions that allow the concomitant attainment of objectivity and understanding. As such, it can, and perhaps should, be regarded as an attempt to refute a view elsewhere called Weylean skepticism, i.e. the view that objectivity and understanding are opposite epistemic ideals of science.