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Quine Two Dogmas of Empiricism
Quine Two Dogmas of Empiricism
Quine
Main Points
Denies the philosophical explanatory value of the distinction between
the analytic and the synthetic. “for all it’s a priori reasonableness, a
boundary between analytic and synthetic statements simply has not
been drawn. That there is such a distinction to be drawn at all is an
unempirical dogma of empiricists, a metaphysical article of faith.” (342)
Denies the distinction between the analytic and the synthetic not based
on any difficulty of applying the distinction, but on the grounds that the
distinction is based on other notions (self-contradictoriness and
meaning) that are themselves in need of justification.
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of arriving at any explicit theory of the empirical confirmation of a
synthetic statement. My present suggestion is that it is nonsense,
and the root of much nonsense, to speak of a linguistic component
and a factual component in the truth of any individual statement.
Taken collectively, science has its double dependence upon language
and experience; but this duality is not significantly traceable into the
statements of science taken one by one.
Russell’s concept of definition in use was, as remarked, an
advance over the impossible term-by-term empiricism of Locke and
Hume. The statement, rather than the term, came with Russell to be
recognized as the unit accountable to an empiricist critique. But what
I am now urging is that even in taking the statement as a unit we
have drawn our grid too finely. The unit of empirical significance is
the whole of science.” (345)
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Challenges the view that the work of science can be clearly
distinguished from the work of metaphysics (and supported as verifiable,
in contrast to it).
Ties in the distinction between the analytic and the synthetic with the
rigid distinction logical positivists make between metaphysical questions
and hypotheses of science.
Carnap has recognized that he is able to preserve a double standard
for ontological questions and scientific hypotheses only by assuming
an absolute distinction between the analytic and the synthetic; and I
need not say that this is a distinction which I reject. (348)
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OUTLINE
Problem
The notion of self contradictoriness stands in the exact same need of
clarification as that of analyticity itself. These two notions are the two
sides of a single dubious coin. (331)
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Two drawbacks of this definition:
(1) is limited to statements of the subject predicate form and
(2) appeals to a notion of containment left at a metaphorical level
Extension of a term: The class of all the entities of which a general term is
true.
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In the case of general terms, philosophers tend to identify meaning with
intension and to contrast this with intension.
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Conclusion: the notion of meaning has not proved helpful in trying to
understand the notion of analyticity. Instead what is important is the notion
of synonymy. Again we must return to the idea of analyticity
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There are two types of analytic statements:
1. No unmarried man is married. (True by logical form or logically true)
2. No bachelor is unmarried (can be turned into form (1) by substituting
synonyms) (333)
The first of these is clear. The second of these mention the notion of
synonyms, which Quine sets out to explain.
II. Definition
Some people think that the second type of analyticity can be reduced to the
first by definition, by appealing to the lexicon or dictionary.
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III. Interchangeability
… A natural suggestion, deserving close examination, is that the
synonymy of two linguistic forms consists simply in their
interchangeability in all contexts without change of truth value (336)
The sort of synonymy needed “merely such that any analytic statement
could be turned into a logical truth by putting synonyms for synonyms.
(337)
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There is no assurance here that the extensional agreement ‘bachelor’
and ‘unmarried man’ rests on meaning rather than on mere
accidental matters of fact, as does extensional agreement of ‘creature
with a heart’ and ‘creature with a kidney.’ (338)
The one dogma clearly supports the other in this way: as long as it is
taken to be significant in general to speak of the confirmation and
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infirmation of a statement, it seems significant to speak also of a
limiting kind of statement which is vacuously confirmed, ipso facto,
come what may; and such a statement is analytic. (345)
even in taking the statement as a unit we have drawn our grid too
finely. The unit of empirical significance is the whole of science. (345)
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