Talk:Willard Van Orman Quine

From Academic Kids

It might be worth noting that although Quine rejected the synthetic/analytic distinction, he held onto other key doctrines of the Vienna Circle, e.g. that the scope of language is limited to verifiables; which restricts the scope of science dramatically. The claim that some physical object exists, for instance, is taken to mean only that it's useful for explaining our observations, not that it really exists. So material objects are defined in terms of our observations, and since our observations are also defined in terms of material objects (Quine even calls himself a physicalist), it's hard to see what's left. This whole spooky worldview or lack thereof is carried over fairly neatly from the Vienna Circle. An anecdote in one of Quine's books illustrates the distinction neatly; he said Carnap had complained about Quine's using the word "ontology" when it didn't mean anything, and Quine replied that in his ethics of terminology, words that didn't mean anything were precisely those ripe for redefinition. Presumably this would also apply to the word "exist" and some others. Quine is closer to the Vienna Circle and farther from common belief than his use of language leads people to believe. The same, incidentally, is true of Daniel Dennett, another student of Quine's as I recall.

Should qua ("qua lay physicist") not be in italics? Anjouli 13:17, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Skepticism and indeterminacy

The last part about indeterminacy of translation, beginning with "There is no way to escape this circle. In fact, it holds just as well in interpreting speakers of one's own language, and even one's own past utterances. This does not, contrary to a widely-disseminated caricature of Quine, lead to skepticism about meaning".

I think it's controversial to say that Quine's theory of meaning isn't a skeptical position. I can not see anything on Philosophical skepticism that makes me think that Quine's theory of meaning can't be called skeptic from at least some point of view.

I can't see how meaning-indeterminacy about one's own utterances follows from the field linguist-argument. Something must be missing in the argument.

Davidw 20:41, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Why does Quine reject synthetic/analytic distinction?

The article would be improved if some rationale would be given for the Quines rejection because, as explained in the article, the synthetic/analytic distinction makes perfect sense to me.

WpZurp 07:48, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have just read the “Rejection of the analytic-synthetic distinction” section. I find it quite unconvincing. I don't really see his argument (at least as presented here) that bachelor & unmarried are rather not synonyms. The way its argument seems to be diddling on words. Can any one present a more formal argumentation? Xah Lee 21:34, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)

Not only are "bachelor" and "unmarried male" not synonyms (the key question I heard in a philo class was, "Is the Pope a bachelor?"), but I think (its been a while) that Quine's rejection hinges on the idea that an analytic statement must contain concepts that are logically equivalent (synonymous), but words are only synonymous insofar as they relate to the world in some way. Going at it the other way, the world is characterized in certain ways by the languages and the conceptual schemes, including logical equivalences, that are packed into those languages. So the distinction gets blurred either way you approach it. -Seth Mahoney 22:34, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Quine's initials

Why is Quine given the initials W.V. in this page, instead of the more common W.V.O.?