Abstract
Quine’s paper “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” is famous for its attack on analyticity and the analytic/synthetic distinction. But there is an element of Quine’s attack that should strike one as extremely puzzling, namely his objection to Carnap’s account of analyticity. For it appears that, if this objection works, it will not only do away with analyticity, it will also do away with other semantic notions, notions that (or so one would have thought) Quine does not want to do away with, in particular, it will also do away with truth. I shall argue that there is, indeed, no way for Quine to protect truth against the type of argument he himself advanced in “Two Dogmas” against Carnap’s notion of analyticity. If he wants to keep his argument, Quine has to discard truth along with analyticity. At the end of the paper I suggest an interpretation of Quine on which he can be seen as having done just that.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Camap, R., “Meaning Postulates” (1952), in Meaning and Necessity, 2nd ed., Chicago, The University of Chicago Press 1956, pp. 222–229.
— “Quine on Analyticity” (1952), in R. Creath, ed., Dear Carnap, Dear Van, pp. 427–432.
— “W. V. Quine on Logical Truth” (1954), in P. A. Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, La Salle, Ill., Open Court 1963, pp. 915–922.
— “Meaning and Synonymy in Natural Languages” (1955), in Meaning and Necessity, 2nd ed., Chicago, The University of Chicago Press 1956, pp. 233–247.
Creath, R., “Introduction”, in R. Creath, ed., Dear Carnap, Dear Van, pp. 1–43.
— ed., Dear Carnap, Dear Van: The Quine—Carnap Correspondence and Related Work, Berkeley and Los Angeles, The University of California Press 1990.
Martin, R. M., “On ‘Analytic’”, Philosophical Studies 3 (1952), pp. 42–47.
Quine, W. V., “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (1951), in From a Logical Point of View, 2nd ed., revised, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press 1980, pp. 20–46.
— “Notes on the Theory of Reference” (1953), in From a Logical Point of View, 2nd ed., revised, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press 1980, pp. 130–138.
— “Carnap and Logical Truth” (1954), in The Ways of Paradox, revised and enlarged edition, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press 1979, pp. 107–132.
— Word and Object, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press 1960.
— “Ontological Relativity”, in Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, New York, Columbia University Press 1969.
Tarski, A., “The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages” (1935), in Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics, 2nd ed., translated J. H. Woodger, edited by J. Corcoran, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company 1983, pp. 152–278.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
David, M. (1997). Analyticity, Carnap, Quine, and Truth. In: Lehrer, K., Marek, J.C. (eds) Austrian Philosophy Past and Present. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 190. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5720-9_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5720-9_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-6412-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-5720-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive