Quine’s Critique of Two Dogmas

Quine started his arguments by questioning the notion of analyticity. Analytic statements are sometimes defined as statements whose denials are self-contradictory. But Quine said that the notion of self-contradictoriness stands in the same needs of clarification as does the notion of analyticity. Analytic statements are also regarded as statements whose truths are based on meanings and independent of fact. Quine argued that, the primary business of the theory of meaning simply the synonymy of linguistic forms and the analyticity of statements; and meanings may be abandoned as obscure intermediary entities. So we confront the problem of analyticity anew.

Analytic statements are considered falling into two classes. The first class may be called logically true, they are typified by:
(1) No unmarried man is married.
The second are typified by:
(2) No bachelor is married.
Quine did not question the first class of analytic statements but the second one. The second class of analytic statements can be turned into a logical true by putting synonyms for synonyms. So the notion of analyticity in the second class depends on the notion of synonymy. But, Quine said, the notion of synonymy is no less in need of clarification than analyticity itself.

Believing that analyticity couldn’t be clarified in terms of synonymy, Quine turned to the notion of definition. There are those who believe that the analytic statements of second class can be reduced to those of the first class by definition; ‘bachelor’, for example, is defined as ‘unmarried man’. Quine argued that, we have to appeal to the dictionary for such definitions which are the reports of the relation of synonymy between those linguistic forms, but the notion of synonymy presupposed here remained un-clarified. He scrutinized three kinds of definitions: definition in dictionary, definition of explicative kind, and the explicitly introduction of novel notations for purposes of abbreviation. He said that, except in the case of the introduction of new notations, definitions hinge on prior relations of synonymy which itself has to be clarified.

Quine then turned to the notion of interchangeability, since there is a suggestion that the synonymy of two linguistic forms consists simply in their interchangeability salva veritate. The problem is whether such interchangeability is a sufficient condition for cognitive synonymy. Consider the statement:
(3) Necessarily all and only bachelors are bachelors.
It is evidently true. Now, if ‘bachelor’ and ‘unmarried man’ are interchangeability salva veritate, then, by putting ‘unmarried man’ for an occurrence of ‘bachelor’ in (3), the result:
(4) Necessarily all and only bachelors are unmarried men
mush be true. But to say that (4) is true is to say that the statement:
(5) All and only bachelors are unmarried men
is analytic. And then, with the help of the notion of analyticity, we can explain cognitive synonymy of ‘bachelor’ and ‘unmarried man’. But now, it relies on the notion of necessity and, ultimately, analyticity.

Whether interchangeability salva veritate is a sufficient condition for cognitive synonymy, Quine argued, depends on the richness of the language at hand. In an extensional language, interchangeability salva veritate is no assurance of such cognitive synonymy. If a language contains an intensional adverb ‘necessarily’ or other particles to the same effect, then interchangeability salva veritate does afford a sufficient condition for cognitive synonymy; but in such a language the notion of analyticity is already understood in advance.

Quine turned to considered whether the notion of analyticity can be clarified in an artificial language with explicit “semantic rule”. Consider an artificial language L0 in which the rule stipulate that such and such statements, and only those, are the analytic statements of L0. He argued that, by saying what statements are analytic for L0, we merely explain ‘analytic-for-L0’ but not ‘analytic’ or ‘analytic for’, we do not explain the expression ‘S is analytic for L’ with variable ‘S’ and ‘L’. Quine then considered a second form of semantic rule, a rule of truth, which says not that such and such statements are analytic but that such and such statements are included among the truths. In this language, analyticity can be demarcated thus: a statement is analytic if it is true according to the semantic rule. But instead of appealing to an unexplained word ‘analytic’, Quine said, we are now appealing to an unexplained phrase ‘semantic rule’ which is as much in need of clarification. He argued that, relative to a given set of semantic rule we can explain what a semantic rule is, but we can’t explain it generally, for the notion of ‘semantic rule’ is relative to some particular enterprise without which we couldn’t understand what this notion is. So, he concluded, the notion of ‘semantic rule’ is of no help in gaining the understanding of analyticity.

After scrutinizing the notions of meaning, synonymy, definition, interchangeability, and semantic rule, Quine found that none of them can serve for the clarification of analyticity. He concluded that a boundary between analytic and synthetic statements has not been drawn.

Quine then turned to the reductionism which he considered is intimately connected with the demarcation between analytic statements and synthetic statements. The reductionism holds that to each synthetic statement there are associated some possible sensory events such that the occurrence of them would confirm or disconfirm the statement. If this theory is right, the analytic statement then can be defined as the limiting case which is confirmed no matter what. But Quine said that reductionism survives in the supposition that each statement alone can admit of confirmation or disconfirmation at all. He refused such supposition and said that our statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not individually but only as a corporate body, that the unit of empirical significance is the whole of science.

His argument is thus: the totality of our knowledge is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges; a conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of our knowledge; but when making such readjustments, there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to reevaluate; so, in principle, any statements can be held true if we make drastic enough adjustments elsewhere in the system; and conversely, no statement, even those of mathematics and logic, is immune to revision. Therefore, he concluded, it is folly to seek a boundary between synthetic statements and analytic statements on the basis of reductionism. But, Quine said, our natural tendency to disturb the total system as little as possible would lead us to focus our revisions upon the statements which close to the periphery rather then mathematical or logical laws; and so, practically, the considerations which guide us in making such adjustments are pragmatic.

習作? 論文草犒?

O_o

老鼠牙齒長了，就會到處磨牙，亂咬東西；
我最近指甲長了，就在鍵盤上磨一磨。

老鼠牙齒長了，就會到處磨牙，亂咬東西；
我最近指甲長了，就在鍵盤上磨一磨。//

高!

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分析綜合語句的區分?

Analytic statements are considered falling into two classes. The first class may be called logically true, they are typified by:
(1) No unmarried man is married.
The second are typified by:
(2) No bachelor is married.
Quine did not question the first class of analytic statements but the second one. The second class of analytic statements can be turned into a logical true by putting synonyms for synonyms. //

so is the second class analytic statements ?

yes for sure!