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1、Quine-Two Dogmas of EmpiricismTwo Dogmas of EmpiricismBy Willard Van Orman QuineOriginally published in The Philosophical Review 60 (1951): 20-43. Reprinted in W.V.O. Quine, From a Logical Point of View (Harvard University Press, 1953; second revised edition 1961), with the following alterations: “T
2、he version printed here diverges from the original in footnotes and in other minor respects: 1 and 6 have been abridged where they encroach on the preceding essay, and 3-4 have been expanded at points.”Transcribed into hypertext (http:/ by Andrew Chrucky, Sept. 12, 1997.Modern empiricism has been co
3、nditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statem
4、ent is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill founded. One effect of abandoning them is, as we shall see, a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics and natural science. Another effect is a shi
5、ft toward pragmatism.1. BACKGROUND FOR ANALYTICITYKants cleavage between analytic and synthetic truths was foreshadowed in Humes distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact, and in Leibnizs distinction between truths of reason and truths of fact. Leibniz spoke of the truths of reason
6、as true in all possible worlds. Picturesqueness aside, this is to say that the truths of reason are those which could not possibly be false. In the same vein we hear analytic statements defined as statements whose denials are self-contradictory. But this definition has small explanatory value; for t
7、he notion of self-contradictoriness, in the quite broad sense needed for this definition of analyticity, stands in exactly the same need of clarification as does the notion of analyticity itself.1 The two notions are the two sides of a single dubious coin.Kant conceived of an analytic statement as o
8、ne that attributes to its subject no more than is already conceptually contained in the subject. This formulation has two shortcomings: it limits itself to statements of subject-predicate form, and it appeals to a notion of containment which is left at a metaphorical level. But Kants intent, evident
9、 more from the use he makes of the notion of analyticity than from his definition of it, can be restated thus: a statement is analytic when it is true by virtue of meanings and independently of fact. Pursuing this line, let us examine the concept of meaning which is presupposed.We must observe to be
10、gin with that meaning is not to be identified with naming or reference. Consider Freges example of Evening Star and Morning Star. Understood not merely as a recurrent evening apparition but as a body, the Evening Star is the planet Venus, and the Morning Star is the same. The two singular terms name
11、 the same thing. But the meanings must be treated as distinct, since the identity Evening Star = Morning Star is a statement of fact established by astronomical observation. If Evening Star and Morning Star were alike in meaning, the identity Evening Star = Morning Star would be analytic.Again there
12、 is Russells example of Scott and the author of Waverly. Analysis of the meanings of words was by no means sufficient to reveal to George IV that the person named by these two singular terms was one and the same.The distinction between meaning and naming is no less important at the level of abstract
13、 terms. The terms 9 and the number of planets name one and the same abstract entity but presumably must be regarded as unlike in meaning; for astronomical observation was needed, and not mere reflection on meanings, to determine the sameness of the entity in question.Thus far we have been considerin
14、g singular terms. With general terms, or predicates, the situation is somewhat different but parallel. Whereas a singular term purports to name an entity, abstract or concrete, a general term does not; but a general term is true of an entity, or of each of many, or of none. The class of all entities
15、 of which a general term is true is called the extension of the term. Now paralleling the contrast between the meaning of a singular term and the entity named, we must distinguish equally between the meaning of a general term and its extension. The general terms creature with a heart and creature wi
16、th a kidney, e.g., are perhaps alike in extension but unlike in meaning.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 intention (or meaning) to
17、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 bet
18、ween 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 mea
19、ning 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, b
20、ut only linguistic forms have meanings. Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word.For the theory of meaning the most conspicuous question is as to the nature of its objects: what sort of things are meanings? They are evidently intended to
21、 be ideas, somehowmental ideas for some semanticists, Platonic ideas for others. Objects of either sort are so elusive, not to say debatable, that there seems little hope of erecting a fruitful science about them. It is not even clear, granted meanings, when we have two and when we have one; it is n
22、ot clear when linguistic forms should be regarded as synonymous, or alike in meaning, and when they should not. If a standard of synonymy should be arrived at, we may reasonably expect that the appeal to meanings as entities will not have played a very useful part in the enterprise.A felt need for m
23、eant entities may derive from an earlier failure to appreciate that meaning and reference are distinct. Once the theory of meaning is sharply separated from the theory of reference, it is a short step to recognizing as the business of the theory of meaning simply the synonymy of linguistic forms and
24、 the analyticity of statements; meanings themselves, as obscure intermediary entities, may well be abandoned.The description of analyticity as truth by virtue of meanings started us off in pursuit of a concept of meaning. But now we have abandoned the thought of any special realm of entities called
25、meanings. So the problem of analyticity confronts us anew.Statements which are analytic by general philosophical acclaim are not, indeed, far to seek. They fall into two classes. Those of the first class, which may be called logically true, are typified by:(1) No unmarried man is married.The relevan
26、t feature of this example is that it is not merely true as it stands, but remains true under any and all reinterpretations of man and married. If we suppose a prior inventory of logical particles, comprising no, un- if, then, and, etc., then in general a logical truth is a statement which is true an
27、d remains true under all reinterpretations of its components other than the logical particles.But there is also a second class of analytic statements, typified by:(2) No bachelor is married.The characteristic of such a statement is that it can be turned into a logical truth by putting synonyms for s
28、ynonyms; thus (2) can be turned into (1) by putting unmarried man for its synonym bachelor. We still lack a proper characterization of this second class of analytic statements, and therewith of analyticity generally, inasmuch as we have had in the above description to lean on a notion of synonymy wh
29、ich is no less in need of clarification than analyticity itself.In recent years Carnap has tended to explain analyticity by appeal to what he calls state-descriptions.2 A state-description is any exhaustive assignment of truth values to the atomic, or noncompound, statements of the language. All oth
30、er statements of the language are, Carnap assumes, built up of their component clauses by means of the familiar logical devices, in such a way that the truth value of any complex statement is fixed for each state-description by specifiable logical laws. A statement is then explained as analytic when
31、 it comes out true under every state-description. This account is an adaptation of Leibnizs “true in all possible worlds.” But note that this version of analyticity serves its purpose only if the atomic statements of the language are, unlike John is a bachelor and John is married, mutually independe
32、nt. Otherwise there would be a state-description which assigned truth to John is a bachelor and falsity to John is married, and consequently All bachelors are married would turn out synthetic rather than analytic under the proposed criterion. Thus the criterion of analyticity in terms of state-descr
33、iptions serves only for languages devoid of extralogical synonym-pairs, such as bachelor and unmarried man: synonym-pairs of the type which give rise to the “second class” of analytic statements. The criterion in terms of state-descriptions is a reconstruction at best of logical truth.I do not mean
34、to suggest that Carnap is under any illusions on this point. His simplified model language with its state-descriptions is aimed primarily not at the general problem of analyticity but at another purpose, the clarification of probability and induction. Our problem, however, is analyticity; and here t
35、he major difficulty lies not in the first class of analytic statements, the logical truths, but rather in the second class, which depends on the notion of synonymy.2. DEFINITIONThere are those who find it soothing to say that the analytic statements of the second class reduce to those of the first c
36、lass, the logical truths, by definition; bachelor, for example, is defined as unmarried man. But how do we find that bachelor is defined as unmarried man? Who defined it thus, and when? Are we to appeal to the nearest dictionary, and accept the lexicographers formulation as law? Clearly this would b
37、e to put the cart before the horse. The lexicographer is an empirical scientist, whose business is the recording of antecedent facts; and if he glosses bachelor as unmarried man it is because of his belief that there is a relation of synonymy between these forms, implicit in general or preferred usa
38、ge prior to his own work. The notion of synonymy presupposed here has still to be clarified, presumably in terms relating to linguistic behavior. Certainly the “definition” which is the lexicographers report of an observed synonymy cannot be taken as the ground of the synonymy.Definition is not, ind
39、eed, an activity exclusively of philologists. Philosophers and scientists frequently have occasions to “define” a recondite term by paraphrasing it into terms of a more familiar vocabulary. But ordinarily such a definition, like the philologists, is pure lexicography, affirming a relationship of syn
40、onymy antecedent to the exposition in hand.Just what it means to affirm synonymy, just what the interconnections may be which are necessary and sufficient in order that two linguistic forms be properly describable as synonymous, is far from clear; but, whatever these interconnections may be, ordinar
41、ily they are grounded in usage. Definitions reporting selected instances of synonymy come then as reports upon usage.There is also, however, a variant type of definitional activity which does not limit itself to the reporting of pre-existing synonymies. I have in mind what Carnap calls explicationan
42、 activity to which philosophers are given, and scientists also in their more philosophical moments. In explication the purpose is not merely to paraphrase the definiendum into an outright synonym, but actually to improve upon the definiendum by refining or supplementing its meaning. But even explica
43、tion, though not merely reporting a pre-existing synonymy between definiendum and definiens, does rest nevertheless on other pre-existing synonymies. The matter may bc viewed as follows. Any word worth explicating has some contexts which, as wholes, are clear and precise enough to be useful; and the
44、 purpose of explication is to preserve the usage of these favored contexts while sharpening the usage of other contexts. In order that a given definition be suitable for purposes of explication, therefore, what is required is not that the definiendum in its antecedent usage be synonymous with the de
45、finiens, but just that each of these favored contexts of the definiendum taken as a whole in its antecedent usage, be synonymous with the corresponding context of the definiens.Two alternative definientia may be equally appropriate for the purposes of a given task of explication and yet not be synon
46、ymous with each other; for they may serve interchangeably within the favored contexts but diverge elsewhere. By cleaving to one of these definientia rather than the other, a definition of explicative kind generates, by fiat, a relationship of synonymy between definiendum and definiens which did not
47、hold before. But such a definition still owes its explicative function, as seen, to pre-existing synonymies.There does, however, remain still an extreme sort of definition which does not hark back to prior synonymies at all; namely, the explicitly conventional introduction of novel notations for pur
48、poses of sheer abbreviation. Here the definiendum becomes synonymous with the definiens simply because it has been created expressly for the purpose of being synonymous with the definiens. Here we have a really transparent case of synonymy created by definition; would that all species of synonymy we
49、re as intelligible. For the rest, definition rests on synonymy rather than explaining it.The word “definition” has come to have a dangerously reassuring sound, due no doubt to its frequent occurrence in logical and mathematical writings. We shall do well to digress now into a brief appraisal of the role of definition in formal work.In logical and mathematical systems either of two mutually anta