Analytic - Synthetic Distinction

analytic statement

analytic truth

analytical hypotheses

confirmation holism

empiricism

epistemology

first philosophy

holophrastic indeterminacy

indeterminacy of reference

inscrutability of reference

naturalism

ontology

philosophy of science

reality

science

underdetermination

nationality

American

occupation / innovator as

philosopher

logician

epistemologist

analytic philosopher

mathematician

philosopher of science

philosopher of language

university teacher

linguist

professor

scientific organization

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

religion

atheism

innovator in the field of

set theory

National Academy of Sciences

World War II

model theory

From a Logical Point of View

Epistemology Naturalized

On What There Is

Two Dogmas of Empiricism

Theories and Things

Word and Object

is impossible for an empiricist to ever apply because an empiricist does not have access to the non-empirical notion of ‘meaning’ (since it’s not in experience) which is required to validate whether a proposition like ‘all bachelors are unmarried’ is in fact analytic.

the classic attack on the analytic synthetic distinction was given in an essay two dogmas of empiricism by willard van orman Quine. Quine's argument is complicated and i think there are many different interpretations of exactly what he's doing in that essay here i'll just say that he thinks that an empiricist really has no right to that distinction now why not well essentially he says to understand analyticity you have to understand meaning it's a matter of having your truth value determined by the meanings of the terms but how can you understand meaning he thinks that meaning is not something that we can really have access to in experience and so he doesn't see how an empiricist can really draw this distinction given that they really don't have a grasp of meaning

is problematic because a statement like “everything green is extended in space and time” is not exactly true by definition (analytic) or true by experience (synthetic).

for quine everything has to depend on experience another way in which he seems to object is that there are certain propositions that it's very hard to classify his example in the essay is everything green is extended that is to say extended in space and time has some spatial extension some width some breadth um is that true by definitions of the terms he says i'm not sure

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is a holistic enterprise to which we are always indebted. In a sense we are tethered to the conceptual schemes we inherit and from which we theorize.

for Quine, empiricism is a holistic enterprise to which we are always indebted. In a sense we are tethered to the conceptual schemes we inherit and from which we theorize. We cannot magically step outside of them and achieve an aperspectival or transcendental viewpoint... conceptual change, when it occurs, is conservative and incremental'

is only science self-applied. It is secondary to science and its task is to discover how we know what we know from science.

According to Quine, reality is, in effect, what we believe exist. In terms of our present conceptual scheme, he thinks that this means looking to scientist to tell us what reality is like. Indeed, epistemology is secondary to science for him and is 'only science self-applied'. Its task is merely to ask how we know what we know from science. His theory rules out the possibility of scepticism except as somehting parasitic on knowledge'

is the abandonment of the goal of a first philosophy.

Quine, naturalism is the 'abandonment of the goal of a first philosophy' (Quine, 1981a, p. 72].

is the belief that there is something held in common between, for example, red houses and red cars. To believe this is to believe that something like'red' is an entity. He puts this axiomatically by stating that: 'To be is to be the value of a variable'.

QUINE Quine's slogan, 'To be is to be the value of a variable,' means that we only commit ourselves to an ontology by claims that say things like 'There is something (bound variable) that is . . . ' For example, 'There is something that is a prime number greater than a million' commits us to believing that such numbers are entities. And 'There is some property (or characteristic) that red houses and red cars have in common' commits us to believing that properties (or characteristics) are entities Quine's slogan doesn't tell us which ontology is true or which we should accept. It only tells us how we commit ourselves to a given ontology. (net)

is continuous with science and should be pursued as such.

. . . of science should be naturalized originates in empiricist philosophy of science, and specifically in arguments advanced by W. V. Quine for the view that the philosophy of science is continuous with science and should be pursued as such.

philosophy of science is philosophy enough.

is essentially, what we believe exist. This means looking to scientist to tell us what reality is like.

is a form of knowledge that neither progresses toward the truth, nor provides a basis for increasingly enlightened politics.

For Quine, science neither progresses (if 'progress' means 'comes closer to the truth'), nor does it provide a basis either for enlightened politics (which would be another form of progress'

is a tool for predicting future experience in the light of past experience.

For Quine, 'science is a tool . . . for predicting future experience in the light of past experience' ([Quine 1951], 6).

is merely a generalization and refinement of common sense and everyday belief formation.

For Quine, science is merely a generalization and refinement of common sense and everyday belief formation.

Where for Quine, science is self-conscious common sense' ([1960], p.3)

is when not enough information is present to yield a single solution to a problem (for example, determining the number of $1 apples and $.50 oranges were bought with a $10 bill).

The philosopher Peter Lipton defines underdetermination as follows: 'To say that an outcome is underdetermined is to say that some information about initial conditions and rules or principles does not guarantee a unique solution.

W.V.O. Quine

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W.V.O. Quine