Perspectives on Quine

179 Pages·1990·19.903 MB·English

by  Robert Barratt & Roger Gibson (eds)

Perspectives on Quine
Perspectives on Quine
Edited by
Robert B. Barrett and Roger F. Gibson
Dedicated to the memory of
Sir Alfred J. Ayer, one
of the century's most
unflinching empiricists.
Basil Blackwell
~~
I
\'E-(Z..
Copyright c 'The Refutation of Indeterminacy', Jerrold Katz 1988
Copyright C ·A Central Problem for a Speech-Dispositional Account of Logic and
Language'. Alan Berger 1990 -
Copyright 1· 'Meaning. Truth and Evidence', Donald Davidson 1990
Copyright c 'A Backward Look at Quine's Animadversions on Modalities',
Ruth Barcan Marcus 1990 · Contents
Copyright f' all other material, Basil Blackwell 1990
First published 1990
Basil Blackwell, Inc.
s ...
3 Cambridge Center (
Cambridge. Massachusetts 02142, USA
Basil Blackwell Ltd
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 IJF, UK
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of Notes on Contributors Vil
criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted. in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Preface XI
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that Introduction XIII
it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise
circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other
Three Indeterminacies
than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this
conditiong being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. W. V. Quine .
2 A Central Problem for a Speech-Dispositional Account of Logic
Lihrary of Conyress Cata/01Jin11 in Puh/ication Data and Language 17
Perspectives on Quine/ edited by Robert B. Barrett and Roger F. Alan Berger
Gibson Comment on Berger 36
p. cm. 3 Quine on Underdetermination 38
Proceedings of Perspectives on Quine: an International Conference.
Lars Bergstrom
Apr. 9- 13, 1988, at Washington University in St. Louis, sponsored by
the James S. McDonnell Foundation and the Washington University Comment on Bergstrom 53
Faculty of Arts and Sciences and its Philosophy Dept. 4 Carnap, Quine and the Rejection of Intuition 55
Includes bibliographies and index. Richard Creath
ISBN 0-631-16135-X Comment on Creath 67
I. Quine, W. V. (Willard Van Orman)--Congresses. I. Quine, W.
5 Meaning, Truth and Evidence 68
V. (Willard Van Orman) II. Barrett, Robert B. Ill. Gibson, Roger
F. JV. James S. McDonnell Foundation. V. Washington University Donald Davidson
(St. Louis. Mo.). Faculty of Arts and Sciences. VI. Washington Comment on Davidson 80
University (St. Louis, Mo.). Philosophy Dept. 81
6 Quine
B945.Q54P47 1989
Burton Dreben
191--dc19 89-30977 96
Comment on Dreben
CIP
98
7 Indeterminacy and Mental States
British Lihrary Catalo1J11i1111 in Puh/ication Data Dagfinn F0llesdal
A CI P catalogue record for this book is available from the British Comment on F01lesdal 110
Library. 8 Rebuilding the Ship while Sailing on the Water 111
Susan Haack
128
Comment on Haack
129
9 Natural Kinds
Typeset in I 0 on I I pt Times by P & R Typesetters Ltd, Salisbury, Wiltshire Ian Hacking
142
Printed in Great Britain by Billing & Sons Ltd, Worcester Comment on Hacking
VI CONTENTS
10 Immanent and Transcendent Approaches to the Theory of
- Meaning
Gilbert Harman
Comment on Harman Notes on Contributors
11 Quine as a Member of the Tradition of the Universality of
Language
Jaakko Hintikka
Comment on Hintikka 176
12 The Refutation of Indeterminacy 177
- Jerrold Katz
Comment on Katz 198
13 Why and How to Naturalize Epistemology 200
Dirk Koppelberg
Comment on Koppelberg 212
Alan Berger is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Brandeis University. He
14 Holism and Naturalized Epistemology Confronted with the is the author of several articles on Quine and of a book entitled Terms and
Problem of Truth 213
Truth.
Henri Lauener
Lars Bergstrom was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1935, and was educated
Comment on Lauener 229
at the University of Stockholm. He has been Professor of Practical Philosophy
15 A Backward Look at Quine's Animadversions on Modalities 230
at the University of Uppsala from 1974 to 1987, and at the University of
Ruth Barcan Marcus
Stockholm since 1987. He has published books and articles on, for example,
Comment on Marcus 244
the logic of imperatives, action theory, the philosophy of social science,
16 Is Existence What Existential Quantification Expresses? 245
utilitarianism, and the foundations of value theory.
Alex Orenstein
Comment on Orenstein 271 Richard Creath is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State
17 Genetic Explanation in The Roots of Reference 273 University and editor of the papers of Rudolf Carnap. He writes both on
Charles Parsons contemporary issues in philosophy of science and on Carnap. Recently he
Comment on Parsons 291 edited Dear Carnap, Dear Van: The Quine- Carnap Correspondence and Other
18 Doing Without Meaning 294 Material, forthcoming from University of California Press. Currently he is
Anthony Quinton working on a book, tentatively entitled Analyticity: The Carnap-Quine
Comment on Quinton 309 Debate Over the Structure of Knowledge.
19 Two Conceptions of Philosophy 310
Donald Davidson is the the Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor of
P. F. Strawson
Philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley. Most of his published
Comment on Strawson 319
work is on the philosophy of psychology, particularly the theory of action
20 Quine's Physicalism 321
and the philosophy of language.
Barry Stroud
Burton Dreben, Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University,
Comment on Stroud 334
began studying with Quine in 1946. He received his AB degree from Harvard
21 Learning and Meaning 336
in 1949, was a Fulbright Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford, 1950- 1, a
Joseph S. Ullian
Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows, Harvard, 1952- 5, and was an
Comment on Ullian 347
Instructor in Philosophy at The University of Chicago, 1955-6. A member
Bibliography of Quine's Works Cited in Comments 348 of the faculty at Harvard since 1956, he was Dean of the Graduate School
Index 349 of Arts and Sciences in 1973-6, and is Chairman of the Society of Fellows.
Professor Dreben was an editor of The Journal ~{Symbolic Logic, 1967- 76.
He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1957- 8, and is a Fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a co-author with Warren D. Goldfarb
of The Decision Problem, and is the author of papers in Mathematical Logic
and the History of Mathematical Logic.
Vil! NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS IX
Dagfi_nn Follesdal took ~is PhD with Quine in 1961 ( di~sertation: Referential ( 1975 ), Geneva ( 1977) and Innsbruck ( 1986 ). He is a member of the Institut
Opa~·1ty and Modal Logic), taught at Harvard until 1964, when he returned de Ia Methode and of the Institut International de Philosophie. He organizes
to his nat1~e Norway where he is Professor of Philosophy at the University the biennial International Colloquia in Biel which has become a traditional
of Oslo. Smee 196~ he has also been teaching at Stanford University, from meeting place for analytic philosophers of renown from America and Europe.
1974 as C. I. Lewis Professor of Philosophy. He served as editor of The He is the editor of Dialectica. In spite of the fact that he is opposed to
Journal of Symbolic Logic, 1970- 82. His publications are concerned with naturalism - his own position being a kind of pragmatically relativized
language, science, action, Husserl, Heidegger and Sartre. transcendentalism - he has written a book on Quine, whom he considers as
the most influential American philosopher of our century.
S~san Haack is _Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick, United
Kmg~om. _Sh~ 1s the author of Deviant Logic and Philosophy of Logics, and Ruth Barcan Marcus, Halleck Professor, Yale University was the first person
of _articles m Journals and a~thologies on philosophy of logic and language, to develop modal quantification theory. Some results which stimulated
epistemology and metaphysics, and pragmatism. subsequent interest concerned the necessity of identity, quantifier- modality
permutation ('the Barcan formula'), and the failure of a strong deduction
Ian Hacking teaches at the University of Toronto. His books include The
theorem for Lewis's strict implication. In the context of the formal studies
Emergence of Probability, Why Does Language Matter co Philosophy, and
her article 'Modalities and intensional languages' (Synthese, 1961) argued
Representing and Intervening. He has just completed a work on information
inter alia for a direct reference theory for proper names, the plausibility of
and control during the nineteenth century, The Taming of Chance.
the necessity of identity, the non-commitment of modal logic to essentialism,
Gilbert Harman was a graduate student in philosophy at Harvard in the and the possible uses of substitutional interpretations of quantification.
early 1960s w_here his dissertation was supervised by Quine. Harman's Related themes were developed in subsequent articles. She has also published
subse9uent p?1l~sophical work is in part a series of sympathetic reactions on topics in epistemology and ethics. Professor Marcus has served the
~o Qume, begmnmg with a two-part essay. 'Quine on meaning and existence' profession in many capacities including that of Chair of the Board of the
m ~h_e Review of Meta physics in 1967, continuing through Thought, and American Philosophical Association and President of the Association for
arnvmg most recently at Change in View: Principles of Reasoning. Symbolic Logic. She is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences.
Jaakko ~intikka is Profess?r of Phi~osophy at Florida State University. He
has teachmg and research mterests m many areas of philosophy. He is the Alex Orenstein is a Professor in the philosophy program at Queens College
author of over 200 hundred articles and over a dozen books. Among the and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the
latte_r are: _Knowledge and Belief An Introduction to the Logic of the Two author of an expository work on Quine's views: Willard Van Orman Quine.
N~twns, T1~ne and_ Necessity: Studies in Artistole's Theory of Modality, and Among his other works is the monograph Existence and the Particular
(with Mernl B. Hmt1kka) Investigating Wittgenstein. Quantifier and the co-edited volumes Foundations: Logic, Language and
Mathematics and Developments in Semantics.
Jerrold J. Katz is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Linguistics at
the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author of Charles Parsons was at the time of Washington University conference on
Semantic Theory, Propos~tiona/ Structure and Illocutionary Force, Language Quine Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Philosophy at
am~ Other A_hs~ract C?h1~cts, and Congitations: he recently edited The Columbia University. In July of 1989 he joined the Department of Philosophy
P/11losophy of Lmgu1st1cs m the Oxford Essays in Philosophy series. at Harvard University. He is the author of Mathematics in Philosophy and
articles on logic and other subjects.
Dirk Koppelberg, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Ruhr-Universitiit
Bochum and visiting sc~olar at the University of California at Berkeley in W. V. Quine was born in 1908 in Akron, studied mathematics at Oberlin,
1988, is the author of Die Aujhenbung der analytischen Philosophie - Quine and proceeded to philosophy at Harvard. In 1936, after four years of
als Synthese von _Carnap und Neurath. He has published various articles on post-doctoral fellowships there and abroad, he joined the Harvard philosophy
ep1st:mology, philosophy of la~guage, philosophy of science and philosophy faculty. He is now professor emeritus. He served in World War II as lieutenant
of m_1~d an_d is now engaged m a study of naturalistic epistemology and commander. Professor Quine has lectured in twenty-four countries, six
cogrnt1ve science which 1s supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft continents, and six languages. Seven of his books are on logic and eleven are
Bonn. more centrally philosophical.
Henri Lau_ener, born in 1933, is Professor of Philosophy at University of Lord Quinton taught philosophy in Oxford from 1949 to 1978, at All
Bern_e, ~w1tzerland. He has been Visiting Professor at the Universities of Souls College and then at New College. He was president of Trinity College
Helsmk1 ( 1969), University of California at San Diego ( 1975, 1980), Lausanne from 1978 to 1987 and since 1985 has been chairman of the British Library
x
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Board. His main publications are The Nature of Things, Utilitarian Ethics,
The Politics of Imperfection, and Thoughts and Thinkers a collection of
articles. A book on ethics and a second collection of articles 'are forthcoming.
Sir Peter Strawson, born in London in 1919 and educated at Oxford served
Preface
in the Army from 1940 to 1946, returning in 1947 to Oxford where' he has
lived and taught ever since. He was professor of Metaphysic~ at Magdalen
College, 1968- 87. Author of eight books and many articles, Professor
Strawso~ has lectured and read papers at many universities outside England,
notably m the United States, India, France, Germany, and China. He is
married with four children.
Barry Str~ud, Professor of Philosophy at the University of California,
Berkeley, is the author of Hume and The Significance of Philosophical
Scep!icism ~s. well as e.ssays on a variety of philosophical topics. His
prev1ou~ wnt.mgs on Qu~ne include dicsussion of naturalized epistemology, During 9- 13 April, 1988, Perspectives on Quine: An International Conference,
conventionalism and log1cal truth, and the indeterminacy of translation. convened at Washington University in St Louis under the sponsorship of
the James S. McDonnell Foundation of St Louis, the Faculty of Arts
Joseph S. Ullian is Professor of Philosophy at Washington University and
and Sciences of Washington University, and the Washington University
has taught there since 1965. His doctorate is from Harvard where he studied
Philosophy Department. Over 300 persons attended the four and one-half
under Quine. He has written articles on logic, philosophy' of language, and
day conference.
the .theory of formal !anguages, ~nd is co-author with Quine of The Web of
Each of the conference's 24 speakers was alloted an hour and ten minutes
Belief His extracurricular pass10ns include baseball, basketball, running,
to present his or her paper and to respond to questions from the audience.
music, and theater.
No commentators were scheduled. Of course, Professor Quine was in the
audience, and on the first day of the conference, after just two papers had
been presented, it became clear that those in the audience expected to hear
Quine's comments from the floor before offering their own. In the light of
this spontaneous development, Professor Quine graciously consented to the
proposal that he join each subsequent speaker on stage, where he would
have access to a microphone. He also consented to take questions from the
audience, after each paper.
Quine rose to the occasion: four and one-half days of vintage Quine. The
conference, spontaneously, took on a sort of organic unity that is rarely found
in philosophy conferences: 24 speakers, 300 interlocutors, and Professor
Quine sitting down to talk philosophy. The effect was enthralling: the
audience evinced an unspoken awareness that they were not only witnesses
to history in the making, but participants to philosophy in the making!
The papers selected for publication in this volume are revised versions of
papers read at the conference. Most of Professor Quine's comments were
recorded, and all those that were recorded were subsequently transcribed.
The recordings and transcripts were used by Professor Quine in preparing
his written comments. Thus neither the papers nor Professor Quine's
comments appear in this volume exactly as they were heard in April.
We should like to take this opportunity to thank the following people who
were in the conference program: Alfred J. Ayer (Oxford), John Barker
(Southern Illinois- Edwardsville), Dorit Bar-On (Rochester), Alan Berger
(Brandeis), Lars Bergstrom (Stockholm), John Bruer (James S. McDonnell
Foundation), J. Richard Creath (Arizona State), Donald Davidson (California-
XII PREFACE
Berkeley), William Danforth (Washington-St Louis), Burton Dreben (Harvard),
J. Claude Evans (Washington- St Louis), Robert Feleppa (Wichita State),
Dagfinn F01lesdal (Oslo), G. N. Georgacarakos (Gustavus Adolphus),
Anthony Genova (Kansas), Robert Gordon (Missouri- St Louis), Susan
Haack (Warwick), Ian Hacking (Toronto), Lewis Hahn (Southern Illinois Introduction
Carbondale), Gilbert Harman (Princeton), David Henderson (Memphis
State), Jaakko Hintikka (Florida State), Max Hocutt (Alabama), Daniel
Isaacson (Oxford), Martin Israel (Washington- St Louis), Jerrold Katz
(CUNY), Dirk Koppelberg (Ruhr Universitiit- Bochum), Lucian Krukowski
(Washington- St Louis), Henri Lauener (Bern), Ruth Barcan Marcus (Yale),
Alex Orenstein (CUNY), Charles Parsons (Columbia), Lorenzo Pena
(Instituto de Filosofia), Anthony Quinton (British Library Board), Mark
Rollins (Washington- St Louis), Paul Roth (Missouri- St Louis), Carl Smith
(International Center for Epistemology), Peter Strawson (Oxford), Barry
Stroud (California- Berkeley), James Swindler (Westminster), Joseph Ullian In this the age of linguistic philosophy, the study of the nature of language
(Washington- St Louis), and Hao Wang (Rockefeller). We would also like as such is widely accorded that honored propaedeutic role that the study of
to thank the members of the audience for their spirited participation. just the narrowly logical features of language had been assigned by Aristotle.
Special thanks are due, of course, to Van Quine for the super-human effort Based on what is learned - or at least surmised - on the basis of such
he put into making the conference (and this volume) a success, and to study, explicitly linguistic methods of analysis are spawned, developed and
Marjorie Quine for taking the time away from other activities to accompany refined. These methods may then be brought to bear in the articulation,
Van to St Louis. clarification and sometimes actual resolution of philosophical issues, even
The logistical side of the conference was expertly handled by Ms Dorothy including some that are as old and venerated as the Western philosophical
Fleck, Administrative Assistant, and by Ms Debi Katz, Departmental tradition itself. Among the striking sea changes in philosophical subject matter
Secretary. The conference would have been virtually impossible without their frequently wrought by these means - indeed no doubt the pivotal upshot of
help. Also, our thanks to the Philosophy Department's many graduate the linguistic reorientation of philosophical thought - is the transformation
students who contributed to the conference in various unrewarding but of what had long been seen as substantive questions about the world and its
essential capacities. nature into questions about the language and its workings. Language
Finally, special thanks are due to the James S. McDonnell Foundation, as propaeudeutic to philosophy, language as analytic tool for philosophers,
which provided the lion's share of the funding for the conference. even language as the proper philosophical subject matter - these are the
trademarks of philosophy gone linguistic.
R. B. B. As a feature player in this drama for the past half century, and as the
R. F. G. storm-center of much of its controversy for nearly as long, W. V. Quine is
the quintessential linguistic philosopher. His own emphases during the years
in question may be seen gradually to have shifted from syntax to pragmatics,
from logical theory to learning theory, and from a chief preoccupation with
the - generally extralinguistic - things our language purposes to address and
describe ('ontology'), to a primary concern with the nature of the descriptive
apparatus the language uses in describing them ('ideology'). But throughout
these adjustments in focus, the grand enterprise has remained the same, that
of limning the scope and detailing the form and dynamics of the language
in which we characterize the world, and thus divining the character both of
that characterization and even, to a more limited extent, of the characterized
world itself.
The Web of Belief
For Quine, then, what we take to be human knowledge is not just codified
XIV
INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION xv
by, but in a significant sense actually consists in, those individual sentences,
As might be hoped, however, the old-line distinction between linguistic
integrated clusters of related sentences, and above all theories, that we believe
and empirical truths is only partially effaced by Quine's analysis. Loud echoes
~o be true. Or, more strictly, since many of the reasons philosophers study
of it persist in the marked contrast between the language as a whole and
human_k nowledge' recommend against construing it so broadly as to cover
limited-scope theories that draw only on a modicum of its resources. These
the fleeting, evanescent, or temporary, the sentences such knowledge embraces
theories have languages of their own, to be sure, (the 'language of biochemistry'
for Qume exclude the 'occ~sion sen~en_ces' that are applicable today but
and whatnot) but such special-purpose languages are scarcely self-contained,
defunc_t tomorr~w, and consist rather m JUSt the 'eternal sentences', the ones
leech on the parent natural language that provides all but their technical
we believe - while we believe them at all - for the long wordly haul. As the
vocabularies, and so reach for their foundations well beyond the confines of
wh?le composed of all these eternal sentences - or the 'web of belief' as
limited-scope theories they couch.
Qume and _Joseph Ullian have perspicuously entitled it - our presumptive
Prominent traces of the linguistic-truth/empirical-truth distinction also
knowledge is ~ va~t bo_dy_o f li?g~is~ic entities. rt is, from this vantage point,
remain even for the full-fledged web of belief itself, in certain differences of
then,_an extens1~e lmgu1st1cent1ty m its own right, and subject to philosophical
degree. For some beliefs in the web are highly resistive to dislodgement by
scrutiny by precisely those methods most appropriate to the study of language.
counterevidence, others much less so. The former are those whose abandonment
must send reverberations all over the web, forcing the revision of countless
Reconstruing Language and Theory
more beliefs in addition. The surrender of the latter, by contrast, would have
only limited impact. The beliefs whose revision would be disruptive on a
For all _of this, on_e might still find a major gulf to divide our language from
large scale, tend to count as 'linguistic', in that they are generally presupposed
our beliefs. _Classically, the la?guage has often been seen as an essentially
by users of the language and so regularly invoked in explanations of
n~utr~I medium for_the expression of beliefs, with room enough for all possible
'meaning'. They are the nearest thing to the legitimate heirs of analytic truths,
d1ve'.s1ty. From this vantage point it is indifferent to one's beliefs in the
inheriting a weaker version of the distinctive trait of their progenitors, and
precise sense_that the negation of each sentence in the language is also in the
thus displaying stout resistance to evidential pressures in lieu of total
langua_ge while both are candidates for belief. What we believe, on the other immunity to them. The beliefs that would actually be revised in typical
hand, is surely_ selective_. Only s~me of ~hat can be said in the language is
counterevidential circumstances count as 'empirical' for that very reason.
~mong o~r beliefs, and 1f we are m any kmd of luck there is no sentence and
heirs to the mantle of factuality of their deceased synthetic forebears. As more
its _negation. both of which we think true. So the language is a vehicle in
or less intractable beliefs shade into more or less tractable ones by degrees,
which anything can be said, our beliefs just that limited portion we actually
so language shades into theory and in particular the one big language, 'the
do (or would)_ say. ~r so it can seem, and has seemed to many.
language we speak', into the one sweeping theory Quine sees as our
But for Qume things are not this straightforward, and the line between
comprehensive 'background theory'. It is thus that while he hasn't by
language and theo~y_is a_ blurry one at best. If one way of making the putative
any means banished the language/theory distinction, Quine has blurred,
language/th_eory d1stmct~on takes the lan?uage as a vast totality of(syntactical
restructured and repositioned it on our conceptual map.
and semantical) convent10ns and our beliefs as a totality, rather, of what pass
for matte.rs of fact, then the language/theory distinction threatens to be a
casualty 1f on~ challenges the distinction between convention and fact. This,
Empirical Holism
ramously, Qume ~oe~. [n an assortment of celebrated articles, (including
Trut~ by convent1?n , ( 1936), 'Two dogmas of empiricism', ( 1951) 'Logical At what Quine has spoken of as the 'core' of the language-cum-theory that
truth , ( 1956 ), and Carnap and logical truth', ( 1960)) he has raised doubts
embodies what we believe, lie stable sentences including the likes of logical
~bout t_he sens~ of such_n otions as 'true by definition', 'true by convention',
truths anchoring and giving structure to the whole. The stability of these is
_analytic truth , 'meaning_ postulate' and 'true by semantical rule', opting
assured in that if contrary evidence threatens, there are numerous alternative
instead for _one monotonic bra?d of ~ruth, a single species admitting no
changes that can be made without touching them, all less disruptiv_e than
ep1stemolog1cally fundaT?ental d1tferent1ae. In the wake of this revolutionary
changes in core sentences, and so to be preferred. At what he descnbes as
reassessment, t~e erstwhile sharp distinction between truths of the language
'the edges', there occur the empirically most sensitive eternal sentences. These
(such as analytic truths or truths by convention) and truths of the theories
have ultimately evolved (certainly in Quine's philosophy, and if he's right
we accept (our substantive beliefs) is at least eroded, if it doesn't just go by
in the language too) as 'observation categoricals ', generalities that affirI?
the boards. To a far fuller extent that one may initially have been inclined
crude and primitive observable regularities like 'When water turns cold 1t
to suppose, the stud~ of the language we speak and the study of what we
turns hard.'. They are as unstable as eternal sentences come, in that contrary
purport to know_b egm to look rather like alternative facets of one and the
evidence - invariably in the form of a case of true antecedent and false
same preoccupation.
consequent - provides no tolerable alternatives to their abandonment.
XVI INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION XVII
Between these extremes are found most eternal sentences, including, among
How is philosophical activity to be seen as relating to the web as a whole,
others, law-like generalizations, true as well as false ones, iffy ones as well as
to its structure and to its content?
firmly entrenched ones. These are among the sentences normally designated
Traditionally, philosophers have not conceived their activities as irrelevant
'hypotheses'. Since they include only believed or accepted hypotheses, they
to what we should beli~ve. They have not fancied themselves as competitors
do not exhaust the class; some hypotheses, at least, are merely entertained,
only of the poets, artists and creative writers, concerne? to exploi.t the
tried out experimentally, or subject to test. But they do include all currently
resources of a certain medium for humanistic purposes. Their self-conceit has
accepted hypotheses of all scientific theories we now hold.
been as cognitive investigators, engaged in the same line of work as that of
As a function of its relative proximity to the edge, the force of a hypothesis
the scientists, namely the systematic pursuit of literal truth. Yet in the present
is in good part empirical. But as a function of its relative closeness to the
day, when physics in particular stands as the monumentally impressive source
core, it is partially systematic as well. What empirical consequences such a
of knowledge about the world that it does, philosophy can easily seem a
sentence has, it has only in concert with other components of the theory in
laughable anachronism if its practitioners pretend to another way that
which it is embedded. It may be surrendered to relevant refutation-bent
dispenses with all that scientific stuff - experiment, measurement, co~trolled
experiences, since it does in fact have consequences that deny them. But it
observation and theoretical teamwork - in favor of sheer reasomng (or
has such consequences only in conjunction with other sentences any of which
whatever else). So it must seem to Quine, at any rate. The shift of attention
may be sacrificed up in its stead.
to language, while a step in the right direction, is far from enough to make
The status that Quine 's account thus assigns to hypotheses deviates
philosophy respectable again, and to restore both relevance a.nd imp?rtance.
pronouncedly from a quondam cornerstone of the empiricist tradition to
Linguistically oriented philosophers, as easily as the old-fashioned kmd, ~an
which he traces his intellectual lineage. In that tradition, what made
be guilty of searching out 'another way' to truth about the world, essaymg
hypotheses scientific and differentiated them from metaphysical claims,
the same slapstick end run around the natural sciences, with as little (except
religious doctrine and pseudo-scientific dogma was precisely the fact that
ludicrous pratfalls) to show for the attempt. Perhaps n:any ordina.ry la~guage
each scientific hypothesis subtended its own special fund of empirical
philosophers of the recent past have cast themselves m this trag1com1c role.
consequences, every one of which had then to turn out to be true for the
Perhaps many formal-constructionists have too.
hypothesis to hold. Failure to be scientific in this sense rendered a hypothesis,
Quine complements his linguistic orientation with a commitment to
for many a twentieth-century empiricist, not just unscientific but actually a
naturalism. This is a commitment to accepting natural science and its methods
piece of nonsense.
as the one sound route to truth that we have, to transforming philosophical
Pierre Duhem had already held to the contrary, insisting that a test of a
questions - so far as one recognizes their legitimacy - into factual questions
scientific hypothesis must invariably invoke the support of 'collateral' or
of the sort that science might address, and to pursuing these transformed
'auxiliary' hypotheses as well, any of which might be abandoned, in the event
questions by attempting to develop a program that science might follow in
of a negative result, to save the hypothesis under test. Unless science itself
seeking answers to them. The philosopher is thus t~ regar~ himself. as .a
were empirical nonsense, then the traditional understanding had to go. Like
partner rather than a competitor of the scientist. P?1~osop~1cal mq~ir.y is
Duhem, Quine remains an empiricist while jettisoning the assignment to
to be conducted in the light of the methods of empmcal science, w1thm a
empirical hypotheses of their own private funds of empirical consequences.
framework established by the best current account of the world that science
Unlike Duhem, he does not conclude this from the study of actual scientific
offers, and with an eye toward future scientific progress and the avenues it
theory, but rather derives it from the theory /language synthesis his
may thus open up for further philosophical inves~igation. As philosophy. and
abandonment of analyticity brings about. The conventional or systematic
its problems undergo transformation along these Imes, they come to constitute
features analytic sentences were supposed to encapsulate invade each
philosophy 'naturalized'.
sentence, tying its fate to that of others in ways that preclude piecemeal,
Language remains as central as ever, insofar as th.e bett.er reasons. for
sentence-by-sentence empiricism. But empirical import is not lost, as holistic
linguistic reorientation of philosophy are fully compatible with naturalism.
empiricism remains. Such import is only diffused, broadcast to the entire
Some of them, in fact, actually stem from it, such as evidence furnished by
system of sentences in which a given hypothesis plays a role, extending both
psychology that linguistic habits shape perceptual dispositions and contents.
over the limited theory to which the hypothesis is indigenous, and even on
The sentences in the web of belief continue on as the primary subject matter,
out over the rest of the web in which that theory itself is environed.
only those that are members of well-entrenched scientific theories loom much
more centrally. What is accepted as scientific truth is seen as lying closer to
Naturalism
the core than would have been the case if philosophy rather than science
had won recognition as the highest available court of appeal. In fact, the
Just where, now, does philosophy fit into the web? How do philosophical
status of scientific beliefs is more exalted yet. They totally dominate the
beliefs, if there are philosophical beliefs, stand vis-a-vis empirical hypotheses.
web, in that whatever we believe that is not itself to be found in some accepted
XVIII INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION XIX
scientific theory must not be in conflict with what is found there. Beliefs
among the many, have been sorely in need of clarification. Given the promise
respecting what science pronounces on must follow from science, while those
of a shift to firmer ground held out by the program of naturalizing philosophy,
that concern what science doesn't deal with are the weaker and the more
the exciting prospect presents itself, however, that the philosophical study of
readily surrendered to even modest counterevidence precisely because of their
language itself can be naturalized. Quine selects the terms, methods an_d
lack of scientific credentials. This holds as decisively for philosophical beliefs
general framework of behavioristic psychology by which to undertake this
as for any others in the web. That philosophical inquiry - like every other
naturalization. His reasons for doing so are not hard to identify.
inquiry of whatever kind on whatever subject matter - must be carried out
Of the three broad kinds of approach in psychology, the mentalistic, the
within a framework provided and structured by natural science is thus - and
behaviorist and the neurophysiological, only the second and third have appeal
trivially - a direct consequence of accepting science as the uniquely reliable,
to the empiricist. Mentalism, trading as it does in a whole host of unobservable
even if fallible, source of human knowledge.
'traits', 'feelings', 'motives' and 'mental activities', must obviously bid fair
to introduce more philosophically troublesome notions than it holds out any
promise of dispatching. If the philosopher is looking to science for a solider
Physicalism
and more reliable context in which to embed his subject, this scarcely looks
like the answer. It might even be fair to regard mentalistic psychology as
In keeping with ~raditional 'heirachies of the sciences' that place physics at more nearly a part of philosophy than of science, and out of bounds on that
the top because its concepts, methods and findings are presupposed by all score. Neurophysiological psychology, on the other hand, while certainly as
the remaining sciences, chemistry next because its concepts, methods and
empirical as one could want, is rather in its infancy. At least_ this was
findings are presupposed by all other sciences except physics, and so on
undeniably true of it in the late 1940s and early 1950s when Qume beg~n
Quine regards physics as the scientia sine qua non. By dint of the position of his efforts at naturalization of philosophical subject matter. Closer to physics
physi~s in t~e heirarchy, no ~cience could be more successful or trustworthy. than either of its competitors, neurophysiology will no doubt one day be the
And,_m pomt of _fact'. no science seriously rivals it in these regards. Thus, best choice as an explanatory basis for virtually any behavioral and
physical explanat10n 1s best explanation, and whatever can be dealt with at
behavior-dependent class of phenomena. It is even best today in th?se
the present time only in terms of one of the lesser sciences, awaits further scattered pockets where it is sufficiently developed to support such explanation
scientific progress that will ultimately bring it under the aegis of physics itself. at all. But as things currently stand, we seem rather far from the day when
Our confidence that such progress is actually in the cards is, as Quine sees neurophysiological theory stands ready to describe and explain the general
it, not misplaced. The possibility and eventual likelihood of such progress is run of psychological phenomena.
underwritte~ by the fa~t that all spatiotemporal phenomena whatever belong A separate reason for supposing that (these days at least) there is much
to the domam of physics. Thus, 'every change of any kind involves a change about the language that is best explained in behavioral terms lies in how
in physical microstates ', and it is the final responsibility of physics to each of us learns it. We mature in a community of persons already fluent in
comprehend all such changes.
the language, and have no choice but to acquire it on the basis of our
The hegemony of science within the web of belief, then, is far from even experiences, both of the extralinguistic world around us, and of others'
handed. All science is better than any non-science, to be sure, but within
linguistic behaviour as they interact with one another and th~t world. 1:he
science, not every theory is equally strongly credentialed. The special status situation is a behaviorist's dream come true. We learn the nght behav10r
of physics sees to that. This is a fact that has some considerable importance
(the correct use of the language) just from experience of the recurrent behavior
for the would-be naturalistic philosopher. The reconstruction of one's
of others. On the plausible supposition that there is nothing to the language
philosophical issue or puzzle in terms of some particular science and its (neither meaning, nor reference, nor truth, for example) but what we learn
methods must not be so carried out as to trade in parochial features in learning its use, language is nothing but behavior from top t? ?ottom.
of the present state of that science. The issue or puzzle must be reconstructed
This is the ground of Quine's confidence that a proper behav10nst1c study
in such a way that it promises to survive the eventual recasting as physics
of language will omit nothing semantical that could possibly be there in the
of what now belongs to the province of the lesser science.
first place.
Learning a Language
Behaviorism
There are two sustained accounts with a naturalistic-behavioristic orientation
In the era of linguistic philosophy, it is something of a paradox that language
to language that Quine attempts, both somewhat factually grounde? and
itself has remained shrouded in mystery. Such everyday attributes of linguistic
somewhat speculative. One is a fanciful description of a young pre~mg~al
entities as 'truth', 'meaning', 'name', 'reference', 'statement' and 'translation',
child's gradual acquisition of English, the other a sketch of how a field lmgu1st