ONT Re: Quine -- Two Dogmas Of Empiricism
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TDOE. Note 4
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| 1. Background for Analyticity (cont.)
|
| Confusion of meaning with extension, in the case of general terms,
| is less common than confusion of meaning with naming in the case
| of singular terms. It is indeed a commonplace in philosophy to
| oppose intension (or meaning) to extension, or, in a variant
| vocabulary, connotation to denotation.
|
| The Aristotelian notion of essence was the forerunner, no doubt,
| of the modern notion of intension or meaning. For Aristotle it
| was essential in men to be rational, accidental to be two-legged.
| But there is an important difference between this attitude and the
| doctrine of meaning. From the latter point of view it may indeed
| be conceded (if only for the sake of argument) that rationality is
| involved in the meaning of the word "man" while two-leggedness is
| not; but two-leggedness may at the same time be viewed as involved
| in the meaning of "biped" while rationality is not. Thus from the
| point of view of the doctrine of meaning it makes no sense to say
| of the actual individual, who is at once a man and a biped, that
| his rationality is essential and his two-leggedness accidental
| or vice versa. Things had essences, for Aristotle, but only
| linguistic forms have meanings. Meaning is what essence
| becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference
| and wedded to the word.
|
| Quine, "Two Dogmas", pp. 21-22.
|
| W.V. Quine,
|"Two Dogmas of Empiricism", 'Philosophical Review', January 1951.
| Reprinted as pages 20-46 in 'From a Logical Point of View',
| 2nd edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1980.
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