ONT Re: Quine -- Two Dogmas Of Empiricism
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TDOE. Note 19
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| 4. Semantical Rules (cont.)
|
| Actually we do know enough about the intended significance of
| "analytic" to know that analytic statements are supposed to
| be true. Let us then turn to a second form of semantical
| rule, which says not that such and such statements are
| analytic but simply that such and such statements are
| included among the truths. Such a rule is not subject
| to the criticism of containing the un-understood word
| "analytic"; and we may grant for the sake of argument
| that there is no difficulty over the broader term "true".
| A semantical rule of this second type, a rule of truth,
| is not supposed to specify all the truths of the language;
| it merely stipulates, recursively or otherwise, a certain
| multitude of statements which, along with others unspecified,
| are to count as true. Such a rule may be conceded to be quite
| clear. Derivatively, afterward, analyticity can be demarcated
| thus: a statement is analytic if it is (not merely true but)
| true according to the semantical rule.
|
| Still there is really no progress. Instead of appealing to an unexplained
| word "analytic", we are now appealing to an unexplained phrase "semantical
| rule". Not every true statement which says that the statements of some
| class are true can count as a semantical rule -- otherwise 'all' truths
| would be "analytic" in the sense of being true according to semantical
| rules. Semantical rules are distinguishable, apparently, only by the
| fact of appearing on a page under the heading "Semantical Rules";
| and this heading is itself then meaningless.
|
| We can say indeed that a statement is 'analytic-for-L_0' if and
| only if it is true according to such and such specifically appended
| "semantical rules", but then we find ourselves back at essentially the
| same case which was originally discussed: "S is analytic-for-L_0" if and
| only if ...". Once we seek to explain "S is analytic for L" generally for
| variable "L" (even allowing limitation of "L" to artificial languages),
| the explanation "true according to the semantical rules of L" is
| unavailing; for the relative term "semantical rule of" is as
| much in need of clarification, at least, as "analytic for".
|
| Quine, "Two Dogmas", p. 34.
|
| 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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