Philosophy of Language

Allen Jeffrey Gurfel

What are the two “dogmas” of empiricism, according to Quine? Why does he allege

that the two are, in fact, “at root identical”? Explain in your own words. How do Grice

and Strawson suggest the notion of analyticity might be retained in a modified form?

Is this maneuver successful, in your view? Why or why not?

In his paper Two Dogmas of Empiricism W.V.O. Quine argues that empiricists have

taken two beliefs for granted, each of these a mere “metaphysical article of faith.”

First, Quine calls out the lack of a principled distinction between analytic and

synthetic truths. Such a distinction is not on firm ground and the faith that there is

such a distinction to be drawn at all is “an unempirical dogma of empiricists.”

Quine outlines the trouble for several attempts at elaborating analyticity. For

example: if we attempt to ground analyticity in synonymy then we owe an

elaboration of synonymy. There is one case in which this might work: when we

conjure up a synonym with an express definition and agree to use it in the explicitly

specified manner by convention. This is not, however, typical of synonyms and so

doesn’t meet the bill in the majority of cases. We can’t simply refer to the dictionary

definition since the lexicographer is not inventing synonymous words in the way

stated above but rather recording an empirical observation about words and their

common usage. If we attempt to give an account of synonymy (in the way required

to ground analyticity) in terms of interchangeability salva veritate we still run into

the problem outlined presently. Take the statement ‘Necessarily all and only

bachelors are bachelors.’ If this statement is true and ‘bachelors’ is interchangeable

salva veritate with ‘unmarried men’, then the following statement is also true:

‘Necessarily all and only bachelors are unmarried men.’ It follows that the statement

‘All and only bachelors are unmarried men’ is an analytic statement. Here, Quine’s

gripe is with the word ‘necessarily.’ If we are considering a purely extensional

language, then synonymy boils down to something weaker than desired. ‘All and

only bachelors are unmarried men’ may be true but so only accidentally. It’s true in

virtue of extensional agreement, but then there is also extensional agreement

between ‘creature with a heart’ and ‘creature with a kidney.’ Yes, they pick out an

identical set of creatures, but they mean obviously different things and suggest no

logical necessity. The intentional term ‘necessarily’ doesn’t do the trick for us

because it is intelligible only in the context of a language in which “the notion of

analyticity is already understood in advance.”

Neither can we appeal to brute postulates in a simplified, artificial language that

eliminates the complexities and convolutions of natural language. The rules of the

language may point out which of its statements are analytic. However, this won’t tell

us what analyticity itself consists in. The set of analytic statements in this language

will be a subset of true statements in the language, such that each member is true in

virtue of a semantic rule. But what exactly is this semantic rule? There might be

numerous rules that pick out subsets of true statements in the language in terms of

various arbitrary rules. This brings us no closer to an account specifically of

analyticity.

Second, Quine attacks a darling of empiricism, the verification theory of meaning

and reductionism.

The verification theory is that “the meaning of a statement is the method of

empirically confirming or infirming it.” It aims to tie statements to particular states

of the world and our sensory-experiential access to those states. Only those

statements which can be confirmed or infirmed empirically by experience, and

thereby judged either true or false, are meaningful. In this context, an analytical

statement is one which logically always confirmed, it is confirmed come what may.

Quine takes it as settled that analyticity is not on firm ground. He further denies that

a statement can be confirmed or disconfirmed in isolation from all other statements.

For Quine, these are all part of a web. Some statements we hold to be true or false

are more recalcitrant than others. We may revise them in light of experience, but

there is an attendant revision of other parts of our web of beliefs. Furthermore, only

a portion of our beliefs, our affirmations of various statements as true or false, are

on the periphery, so to speak, directly in touch with experience. The main point for

Quine is that there are no analytic statements if by that we mean statements that are

confirmed “come what may.” All statements can, under that definition, be analytic

statements provided we’re willing to make the necessary revisions elsewhere in our

web—nothing is immune to revision, not even our statements of logical rules. This

insistence on considering the whole web of beliefs undermines verificationism’s

hope of grounding analyticity in synonymy by defining synonymous statements

considered on their own, in isolation as those with identical methods of empirical

“confirmation and information.”

H.P. Grice and P.F. Strawson argue, in their paper In Defense of a Dogma, that Quine,

for all that he has shown and argued, is not justified in his wholesale dismissal of the

analytic/synthetic distinction as illusory.

First, Grice and Strawson question Quine’s conditions for an adequate elaboration of

the distinction, suggesting that they may be so strict as to rule out any and all

elaboration.

Second, they offer a possible explanation of the distinction, without using any of the

related terms Quine rules out as equally in need of clarification, such that would

enable a user of the terms analytic and synthetic to use them in the correct way, in

agreement with how they are typically used.

Third, they focus on the fact that these terms have been applied, consistently and

with great uniformity, by a huge portion of philosophers in the Western tradition.

This all adds up to a very strong prima facie plausibility for the analytic/synthetic

distinction. We can emphasize this initial plausibility by noting that Quine would

have to hold that the phrases means the same as and does not mean the same as

amount to meaninglessness. Further, it would follow that sentences could have no

meaning at all, since the question What does this sentence mean? would become

unanswerable.

In sum, that the distinction is not (yet) perfectly rigorous does not suggest that it

does not exist, especially in the face of such great prima facie plausibility.

Next Grice and Strawson turn to Quine’s counter-position about webs of belief.

Quine’s theory does not foreclose on the coherence of the analytic/synthetic

distinction. Rather, it demands an alteration or amendment that takes into

consideration and accounts for the possible revisions in the web. Essentially, they

suggest we can add a ceteris parabus clause: ‘All we have to say now is that two

statements are synonymous if and only if any experiences which, on certain

assumptions about the truth-values of other statements, confirm or disconfirm one of

the pair, also, on the same assumptions, confirm or disconfirm the other to the same

degree.’ Here we can accept Quine’s theory and preserve a synonymy account of

analyticity. Similarly, we can accept Quine’s ‘revisability in principle of everything

we say’ and maintain our account of analyticity so long as ‘we can make sense of the

idea of conceptual revision.’ We can admit that there is no necessity to maintain one

conceptual scheme over another conceptual scheme, but still hold that analyticity

makes perfect sense within any given conceptual scheme.

I agree with Grice and Strawson’s criticism of Quine’s attacks on the attempts to

rigorously delineate analytic and synthetic truths. It is an immensely plausible

distinction. Grice and Strawson clearly illustrate the difference between logical and

natural impossibility with their example. Quine has not made any argument to the

effect that it is either a) in principal impossible to clearly draw the distinction or b)

necessary to do so. It seems an empirical fact that countless competent users have

been able to make the distinction with great consistency. I think this suggests that

there is, in fact, a principled distinction there and so the faith in this distinction is

not mere ‘unempirical dogma.’

I also agree that analyticity can be preserved in Quine’s theory in precisely the way

Grice and Strawson broadly outline. That analyticity should apply within a given

conceptual scheme is clear. I don’t think it’s an objection to it that Bob, who’s lost his

damn mind, can begin to deny the analyticity of All bachelors are married men

granted that all the beliefs he previously held have been thrown into complete

disarray. We get nowhere fast if we just claim ‘If you go crazy enough, you can

believe anything you want no matter what.’ Just as Quine accepts certain truths

about logic and reason, certain definitions of terms, when he writes a paper, and

uses these to construct arguments which follow granted certain other beliefs, so too

are some statements analytic granted the avowed truth of certain other statements

and beliefs.

It seems that for Quine to deny this he would have to say that those statements are

precisely not analytic and so because some fact about his web theory makes them

very much not what we’re looking for in an analytic statement. This would require

him to say what we are looking for in an analytic statement. He is presumably

unable to do so (because then, problem solved) or able to do so only in terms of

verificationism. But we’ve already seen how that account can be amended to work

with Quine’s theory. Then any statement might be an analytic given certain other

beliefs. The same statement might be analytic for one person with belief set X and

not analytic for another person with belief set Y. Can we make sense of that? Well,

like with anything, given certain beliefs we can. It seems, then, that we can preserve

the distinction but not without undermining the concept, moving it into a very

subjective realm of private meanings and beliefs. But then, wasn’t it that to begin

with, only with the added assumption that we were all, though subjectively, more or

less on the same page, sharing many of the relevant beliefs? I think we often are and

do and so the distinction is useful, fairly clear, principled in some way or other, and

pragmatic. If we see this as a downgrade for analyticity, so be it. We should be

careful about the philosophical work we want analytic statements to do—asking if,

on Grice and Strawson’s Quinean view of analyticity, they are capable of bearing the

load. (We might also ask what difference the degree of truth and falsity of the

background beliefs might make. For Quine, given his remarks about the

mythological gods and physical objects, this question might be beside the point.) If it

turns out that they can’t do the logical work we’ve had them doing, if unmasked they

were left with no pragmatic purpose, then maybe I would agree with Quine that the

distinction is not only useless but illusory, like a ghost lifting weights.