In his article "Two Dogmas of Empiricism,"
Professor Quine advances a number of criticisms of the supposed distinction
between analytic and synthetic statements, and of other associated notions. It
is, he says, a distinction which he rejects. We wish to show that his
criticisms of the distinction do not justify his rejection of it. There are many ways in which a distinction
can be criticized, and more than one in which it can be rejected. It can be
criticized for not being a sharp distinction (for admitting of cases which do
not fall clearly on either side of it); or on the ground that the terms in
which it is customarily drawn are ambiguous (have more than one meaning); or on
the ground that it is confused (the different meanings being habitually
conflated).
Such criticisms alone would scarcely amount to a rejection
of the distinction. They would, rather, be a prelude to clarification. It is
not this sort of criticism which Quine makes. Again, a distinction can be
criticized on the ground that it is not useful. It can be said to be useless
for certain purposes, or useless altogether, and, perhaps, pedantic. One who
criticizes in this way may indeed be said to reject a distinction, but in a
sense which also requires him to acknowledge its existence. He simply declares
he can get on without it. But Quine's rejection of the analytic-synthetic
distinction appears to be more radical than this. He would certainly say he
could get on without the distinction, but not in a sense which would commit him
to acknowledging its existence. Or again, one could criticize the way or ways
in which a distinction is customarily expounded or explained on the ground that
these explanations did not make it really clear. And Quine certainly makes such
criticisms in the case of the analytic-synthetic distinction. But he does, or
seems to do, a great deal more. He declares, or seems to declare, not merely
that the distinction is useless or inadequately clarified, but also that it is
altogether illusory, that the belief in its existence is a philosophical
mistake.
"That there is such a distinction to be drawn at
all," he says, "is an unempirical dogma of empiricists, a
metaphysical article of faith is the existence of the distinction that he here
calls in question; so his rejection of it would seem to amount to a denial of
its existence. Evidently such a position of extreme skepticism about a
distinction is not in general justified merely by criticisms, however just in
themselves, of philosophical attempts to clarify it. There are doubtless plenty
of distinctions, drawn in philosophy and outside it, which still await adequate
philosophical elucidation, but which few would want on this account to declare
illusory. Quine's article, however, does not consist wholly, though it does
consist largely, in criticizing attempts at elucidation. He does try also to diagnose
the causes of the belief in the distinction, and he offers some positive
doctrine, acceptance of which he represents as incompatible with this belief.
If there is any general prior presumption in favor of the existence of the
distinction, it seems that Quine's radical rejection of it must rest quite
heavily on this part of his article, since the force of any such presumption is
not even impaired by philosophical failures to clarify a distinction so supported.
Is there such a presumption in favor of the distinction's existence? Prima
facie, it must be admitted that there is. An appeal to philosophical tradition
is perhaps unimpressive and is certainly unnecessary. But it is worth pointing
out that Quine's objection is not simply to the words "analytic" and
"synthetic," but to a distinction which they are supposed to express,
and which at different times philosophers have supposed themselves to be expressing
by means of such pairs of words or phrases as "necessary" and
"contingent," "a priori" and "empirical,"
"truth of reason" and "truth of fact"; so Quine is
certainly at odds with a philosophical tradition which is long and not wholly
disreputable. But there is no need to appeal only to tradition; for there is
also present practice. We can appeal, that is, to the fact that those who use
the terms "analytic" and "synthetic" do to a very considerable
extent agree in the applications they make of them.
They apply the term "analytic" to more or less the
same cases, withhold it from more or less the same cases, and hesitate over more
or less the same cases. This agreement extends not only to cases which they
have been taught so to characterize, but to new cases. In short,
"analytic" and "synthetic" have a more or less established
philosophical use; and this seems to suggest that it is absurd, even senseless,
to say that there is no such distinction. For, in general, if a pair of
contrasting expressions are habitually and generally used in application to the
same cases, where these cases do not form a closed list, this is a sufficient
condition for saying that there are kinds of cases to which the expressions
apply; and nothing more is needed for them to mark a distinction. In view of
the possibility of this kind of argument, one may begin to doubt whether Quine
really holds the extreme thesis which his words encourage one to attribute to
him. It is for this reason that we made the attribution tentative. For on at
least one natural interpretation of this extreme thesis, when we say of
something true that it is analytic and of another true thing that it is
synthetic, it simply never is the case that we thereby mark a distinction
between them. And this view seems terribly difficult to reconcile with the fact
of an established philosophical usage (i.e., of general agreement in
application in an open class). For this reason, Quine's thesis might be better
represented not as the thesis that there is no difference at all marked by the
use of these expressions, but as the thesis that the nature of, and reasons
for, the difference or differences are totally misunderstood by those who use
the expressions, that the stories they tell themselves about the difference are
full of illusion. We think Quine might be prepared to accept this amendment.
If so, it could, in the following way, be made the basis of
something like an answer to the argument which prompted it. Philosophers are
notoriously subject to illusion, and to mistaken theories. Suppose there were a
particular mistaken theory about language or knowledge, such that, seen in the
light of this theory, some statements (or propositions or sentences) appeared
to have a characteristic which no statements really have, or even, perhaps, which
it does not make sense to suppose that any statement has, and which no one who
was not consciously or subconsciously influenced by this theory would ascribe
to any statement. And suppose that there were other statements which, seen in
this light, did not appear to have this characteristic, and others again which
presented an uncertain appearance. Then philosophers who were under the
influence of this theory would tend to mark the supposed presence or absence of
this characteristic by a pair of contrasting expressions, say
"analytic" and "synthetic." Now in these circumstances it
still could not be said that there was no distinction at all being marked by
the use of these expressions, for there would be at least the distinction we
have just described (the distinction, namely, between those statements which
appeared to have and those which appeared to lack a certain characteristic),
and there might well be other assignable differences too, which would account
for the difference in appearance; but it certainly could be said that the difference
these philosophers supposed themselves to be marking by the use of the expressions
simply did not exist, and perhaps also (supposing the characteristic in
question to be one which it was absurd to ascribe to any statement) that these
expressions, as so used, were senseless or without meaning.
We should only have to suppose that such a mistaken theory
was very plausible and attractive, in order to reconcile the fact of an
established philosophical usage for a pair of contrasting terms with the claim
that the distinction which the terms purported to mark did not exist at all,
though not with the claim that there simply did not exist a difference of any
kind between the classes of statements so characterized. We think that the
former claim would probably be sufficient for Quine's purposes. But to
establish such a claim on the sort of grounds we have indicated evidently
requires a great deal more argument than is involved in showing that certain
explanations of a term do not measure up to certain requirements of adequacy in
philosophical clarification-and not only more argument, but argument of a very
different kind. For it would surely be too harsh to maintain that the general presumption
is that philosophical distinctions embody the kind of illusion we have
described. On the whole, it seems that philosophers are prone to make too few
distinctions rather than too many. It is their assimilations, rather than their
distinctions, which tend to be spurious. So far we have argued as if the prior
presumption in favor of the existence of the distinction which Quine questions
rested solely on the fact of an agreed philosophical usage for the terms "analytic"
and "synthetic." A presumption with only this basis could no doubt be
countered by a strategy such as we have just outlined. But, in fact, if we are
to accept Quine's account of the matter, the presumption in question is not
only so based. For among the notions which belong to the analyticity-group is one
which Quine calls "cognitive synonymy," and in terms of which he
allows that the notion of analyticity could at any rate be formally explained.
Unfortunately, he adds, the notion of cognitive synonymy is
just as unclarified as that of analyticity. To say that two expressions x and y
are cognitively synonymous seems to correspond, at any rate roughly, to what we
should ordinarily express by saying that x and y have the same meaning or that x
means the same as y. If Quine is to be consistent in his adherence to the
extreme thesis, then it appears that he must maintain not only that the
distinction we suppose ourselves to be marking by the use of the terms
"analytic" and "synthetic" does not exist, but also that
the distinction we suppose ourselves to be marking by the use of the
expressions "means the same as," "does not mean the same
as" does not exist either. At least, he must maintain this insofar as the
notion of meaning the same as, in its application to predicate-expressions, is
supposed to differ from and go beyond the notion of being true of just the same
objects as. (This latter notion-which we might call that of
"coextensionality” he is prepared to allow to be intelligible, though, as
he rightly says, it is not sufficient for the explanation of analyticity.) Now
since he cannot claim this time that the pair of expressions in question (viz.,
"means the same," "does not mean the same") is the special
property of philosophers, the strategy outlined above of countering the
presumption in favor of their marking a genuine distinction is not available
here (or is at least enormously less plausible). Yet the denial that the
distinction (taken as different from the distinction between the coextensional
and the “non” coextensional) really
exists, is extremely paradoxical. It involves saying, for example, that anyone
who seriously remarks that "bachelor" means the same as
"unmarried man" but that "creature with kidneys" does not
mean the same as "creature with a heart” supposing the last two
expressions to be coextensional- either is not in fact drawing attention to any
distinction at all between the relations between the members of each pair of expressions
or is making a philosophical mistake about the nature of the distinction
between them. In either case, what he says, taken as he intends it to be taken,
is senseless or absurd. More generally, it involves saying that it is always senseless
or absurd to make a statement of the form "Predicates x and y in fact
apply to the same objects, but do not have the same meaning." But the paradox
is more violent than this. For we frequently talk of the presence or absence of
relations of synonymy between kinds of expressions-e.g., conjunctions,
particles of many kinds, whole sentences-where there does not appear to be any
obvious substitute for the ordinary notion of synonymy, in the way in which
coextensionality is said to be a substitute for synonymy of predicates.
Is all such talk meaningless? Is all talk of correct or incorrect
translation of sentences of one language into sentences of another meaningless?
It is hard to believe that it is. But if we do successfully make the effort to
believe it, we have still harder renunciations before us. If talk of
sentence-synonymy is meaningless, then it seems that talk of sentences having a
meaning at all must be meaningless too. For if it made sense to talk of a
sentence having a meaning, or meaning something, then presumably it would make
sense to ask "What does it mean?" And if it made sense to ask
"What does it mean?" of a sentence, then sentence synonymy could be
roughly defined as follows: Two sentences are synonymous if and only if any
true answer to the question "What does it mean?" asked of one of
them, is a true answer to the same question, asked of the other. We do not, of
course, claim any clarifying power for this definition. We want only to point
out that if we are to give up the notion of sentence-synonymy as senseless, we
must give up the notion of sentence-significance (of a sentence having meaning)
as senseless too. But then perhaps we might as well give up the notion of
sense. It seems clear that we have here a typical example of a philosopher's
paradox. Instead of examining the actual use that we make of the notion of meaning
the same, the philosopher measures it by some perhaps inappropriate standard
(in this case some standard of clarifiability), and because it falls short of
this standard, or seems to do so, denies its reality, declares it illusory. We
have argued so far that there is a strong presumption in favor of the existence
of the distinction, or distinctions, which Quine challenges-a presumption
resting both on philosophical and on ordinary usage-and that this presumption
is not in the least shaken by the fact, if it is a fact, that the distinctions
in question have not been, in some sense, adequately clarified. It is perhaps
time to look at what Quine's notion of adequate clarification is. The main
theme of his article can be roughly summarized as follows. There is a certain
circle or family of expressions, of which "analytic" is one, such
that if any one member of the circle could be taken to be satisfactorily
understood or explained, then other members of the circle could be verbally, and
hence satisfactorily, explained in terms of it. Other members of the family
are: "self-contradictory" (in a broad sense), "necessary," "synonymous,"
"semantical rule," and perhaps (but again in a broad sense)
"definition." The list could be added to.
Unfortunately, each member of the family is in as great need
of explanation as any other. We give some sample quotations: "The notion
of self-contradictoriness (in the required broad sense of inconsistency) stands
in exactly the same need of clarification as does the notion of analyticity itself. "Again, Quine speaks of "a notion
of synonymy which is in no less need of clarification than analyticity
itself." Again, of the adverb "necessarily," as a candidate for
use in the explanation of synonymy, he says, "Does the adverb really make
sense? To suppose that it does is to suppose that we have already made
satisfactory sense of 'analytic.' "6 To make "satisfactory
sense" of one of these expressions would seem to involve two things. ( I )
It would seem to involve providing an explanation which does not incorporate
any expression belonging to the family-circle. (2) It would seem that the
explanation provided must be of the same general character as those rejected explanations
which do incorporate members of the family circle (i.e., it must specify some
feature common and peculiar to all cases to which, for example, the word
"analytic" is to be applied; it must have the same general form as an
explanation beginning, "a statement is analytic if and only if . . .").
It is true that Quine does not explicitly state the second
requirement; but since he does not even consider the question whether any other
kind of explanation would be relevant, it seems reasonable to attribute it to
him. If we take these two conditions together, and generalize the result, it
would seem that Quine requires of a satisfactory explanation of an expression
that it should take the form of a pretty strict definition but should not make
use of any member of a group of interdefinable terms to which the expression belongs.
We may well begin to feel that a satisfactory explanation is hard to come by.
The other element in Quine's position is one we have already commented on in
general, before enquiring what (according to him) is to count as a satisfactory
explanation. It is the step from "We have not made satisfactory sense
(provided a satisfactory explanation) of x" to "x does not make
sense." It would seem fairly clearly unreasonable to insist in general that
the availability of a satisfactory explanation in the sense sketched above is a
necessary condition of an expression's making sense. It is perhaps dubious
whether any such explanations can ever be given. (The hope that they can be is,
or was, the hope of reductive analysis in general.) Even if such explanations
can be given in some cases, it would be pretty generally agreed that there other
cases in which they cannot. One might think, for example, of the group of
expressions which includes "morally wrong," "blameworthy,"
"breach of moral rules," etc.; or of the group which includes the
propositional connectives and the words "true" and "false,"
"statement," "fact," "denial,"
"assertion." Few people would want to say that the expressions
belonging to either of these groups were senseless on the ground that they have
not been formally defined (or even on the ground that it was impossible
formally to define them) except in terms of members of the same group.
It might, however, be said that while the unavailability of
a satisfactory explanation in the special sense described was not a generally sufficient
reason for declaring that a given expression was senseless, it was a sufficient
reason in the case of the expressions of the analyticity group. But anyone who said
this would have to advance a reason for discriminating in this way against the
expressions of this group. The only plausible reason for being harder on these
expressions than on others is a refinement on a consideration which we have
already had before us. It starts from the point that "analytic" and
"synthetic" themselves are technical philosophical expressions. To
the rejoinder that other expressions of the family concerned, such as
"means the same as" or "is inconsistent with," or
"self-contradictory," are not at all technical expressions, but are
common property, the reply would doubtless be that, to qualify for inclusion in
the family circle, these expressions have to be used in specially adjusted and
precise senses (or pseudo-senses) which they do not ordinarily possess. It is
the fact, then, that all the terms belonging to the circle are either technical
terms or ordinary terms used in specially adjusted senses, that might be held
to justify us in being particularly suspicious of the claims of members of the circle
to have any sense at all, and hence to justify us in requiring them to pass a
test for significance which would admittedly be too stringent if generally
applied. This point has some force, though we doubt if the special adjustments
spoken of are in every case as considerable as it suggests. (This seems
particularly doubtful in the case of the word "inconsistent"-a
perfectly good member of the nontechnician's meta-logical vocabulary.) But though
the point has some force, it does not have whatever force would be required to
justify us in insisting that the expressions concerned should pass exactly that
test for significance which is in question. The fact, if it is a fact, that the
expressions cannot be explained in precisely the way which Quine seems to
require, does not mean that they cannot be explained at all. There is no need
to try to pass them off as expressing innate ideas. They can be and are
explained, though in other and less formal ways than that which Quine
considers. (And the fact that they are so explained fits with the facts, first,
that there is a generally agreed philosophical use for them, and second, that
this use is technical or specially adjusted.)
To illustrate the point briefly for one member of the
analyticity family. Let us suppose we are trying to explain to someone the
notion of logical impossibility (a member of the family which Quine presumably
regards as no clearer than any of the others) and we decide to do it by
bringing out the contrast between logical and natural (or causal)
impossibility. We might take as our examples the logical impossibility of a child
of three's being an adult, and the natural impossibility of a child of three's
understanding Russell's Theory of Types. We might instruct our pupil to imagine
two conversations one of which begins by someone (X) making the claim: (I)
"My neighbor's three-year-old child understands Russell's Theory of
Types," and the other of which begins by someone (Y) making the claim: (1')
"My neighbor's three-year-old child is an adult." It would not be
inappropriate to reply to X, taking the remark as a hyperbole: (2) "You
mean the child is a particularly bright lad." If X were to say: (3)
"No, I mean what I say-he really does understand it," one might be
inclined to reply: (4) "I don't believe you-the thing's impossible." But
if the child were then produced, and did (as one knows he would not) expound
the theory correctly, answer questions on it, criticize it, and so on, one
would in the end be forced to acknowledge that the claim was literally true and
that the child was a prodigy. Now consider one's reaction to Y's claim. To
begin with, it might be somewhat similar to the previous case. One might say: (2')
"You mean he's uncommonly sensible or very advanced for his age." If
Y replies: (3') "No, I mean what I say," we might reply: (4') "Perhaps
you mean that he won't grow any more, or that he's a sort of freak, that he's
already fully developed." Y replies: (5') "No, he's not a freak, he's
just an adult." At this stage-or possibly if we are patient, a little
later-we shall be inclined to say that we just don't understand what Y is
saying, and to suspect that he just does not know the meaning of some of the
words he is using. For unless he is prepared to admit that he is using words in
a figurative or unusual sense, we shall say, not that we don't believe him, but
that his words have no sense. And whatever kind of creature is ultimately
produced for our inspection, it will not lead us to say that what Y said was
literally true, but at most to say that we now see what he meant. As a summary
of the difference between the two imaginary conversations, we might say that in
both cases we would tend to begin by supposing that the other speaker was using
words in a figurative or unusual or restricted way; but in the face of his
repeated claim to be speaking literally, it would be appropriate in the first
case to say that we did not believe him and in the second case to say that we
did not understand him. If, like Pascal, we thought it prudent to prepare
against very long chances, we should in the first case know what to prepare
for; in the second, we should have no idea.
We give this as an example of just one type of informal
explanation which we might have recourse to in the case of one notion of the
analyticity group. (We do not wish to suggest it is the only type.) Further
examples, with different though connected types of treatment, might be
necessary to teach our pupil the use of the notion of logical impossibility in
its application to more complicated cases-if indeed he did not pick it up from
the one case. Now of course this type of explanation does not yield a formal statement
of necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of the notion
concerned. So it does not fulfill one of the conditions which Quine seems to
require of a satisfactory explanation. On the other hand, it does appear to
fulfill the other. It breaks out of the family circle. The distinction in which
we ultimately come to rest is that between not believing something and not
understanding something; or between incredulity yielding to conviction, and
incomprehension yielding to comprehension. It would be rash to maintain that this
distinction does not need clarification; but it would be absurd to maintain
that it does not exist. In the face of the availability of this informal type
of explanation for the notions of the analyticity group, the fact that they
have not received another type of explanation (which it is dubious whether any expressions
ever receive) seems a wholly inadequate ground for the conclusion that the
notions are pseudo-notions, that the expressions which purport to express them
have no sense. To say this is not to deny that it would be philosophically
desirable, and a proper object of philosophical endeavor, to find a more
illuminating general characterization of the notions of this group than any
that has been so far given. But the question of how, if at all, this can be
done is quite irrelevant to the question of whether or not the expressions
which belong to the circle have an intelligible use and mark genuine
distinctions. So far we have tried to show that sections I to 4 of Quine's article-the
burden of which is that the notions of the analyticity group have not been
satisfactorily explained-do not establish the extreme thesis for which he
appears to be arguing. It remains to be seen whether sections 5 and 6, in which
diagnosis and positive theory are offered, are any more successful. But before
we turn to them, there are two further points worth making which arise out of
the first two sections. ( I ) One concerns what Quine says about definition and
synonymy. He remarks that definition does not, as some have supposed, "hold
the key to synonymy and analyticity," since "definition except in the
extreme case of the explicitly conventional introduction of new
notations-hinges on prior relations of synonymy."' But now consider what
he says of these extreme cases. He says: "Here the definiendum becomes
synonymous with the definiens simply because it has been expressly created 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 were as intelligible." Now if we are to take these words of Quine
seriously, then his position as a whole is incoherent. It is like the position
of a man to whom we are trying to explain, say, the idea of one thing fitting
into another thing, or two things fitting together, and who says: "I can
understand what it means to say that one thing fits into another, or that two
things fit together, in the case where one was specially made to fit the other;
but I cannot understand what it means to say this in any other case."
Perhaps we should not take Quine's words here too seriously.
But if not, then we have the right to ask him exactly what
state of affairs he thinks is brought about by explicit definition, what
relation between expressions is established by this procedure, and why he
thinks it unintelligible to suggest that the same (or a closely analogous)
state of affairs, or relation, should exist in the absence of this procedure.
For our part, we should be inclined to take Quine's words (or some of them) seriously,
and reverse his conclusions; and maintain that the notion of synonymy by
explicit convention would be unintelligible if the notion of synonymy by usage
were not presupposed. There cannot be law where there is no custom, or rules
where there are not practices (though perhaps we can understand better what a
practice is by looking at a rule). (2) The second point arises out of a
paragraph on page 32 of Quine's book. We quote: I do not know whether the
statement "Everything green is extended" is analytic. Now does my
indecision over this example really betray an incomplete understanding, an
incomplete grasp, of the "meanings" of "green" and
"extended"? I think not. The trouble is not with "green" or
"extended," but with "analytic." If, as Quine says, the
trouble is with "analytic," then the trouble should doubtless
disappear when "analytic" is removed. So let us remove it, and
replace it with a word which Quine himself has contrasted favorably with
"analytic" in respect of perspicuity the word "true." Does
the indecision at once disappear? We think not. The indecision over
"analytic" (and equally, in this case, the indecision over
"true") arises, of course, from a further indecision: viz., that
which we feel when confronted with such questions as "Should we count a point
of green light as extended or not?" As is frequent enough in such cases,
the hesitation arises from the fact that the boundaries of application of words
are not determined by usage in all possible directions. But the example Quine
has chosen is particularly unfortunate for his thesis, in that it is only too
evident that our hesitations are not here attributable to obscurities in
"analytic." It would be possible to choose
other examples in which we should hesitate between "analytic" and
"synthetic" and have few qualms about "true."
But no more in these cases than in the sample case does the
hesitation necessarily imply any obscurity in the notion of analyticity; since
the hesitation would be sufficiently accounted for by the same or a similar
kind of indeterminacy in the relations between the words occurring within the
statement about which the question, whether it is analytic or synthetic, is
raised. Let us now consider briefly Quine's positive theory of the relations between
the statements we accept as true or reject as false on the one hand and the
"experiences" in the light of which we do this accepting and
rejecting on the other. This theory is boldly sketched rather than precisely stated.
We shall merely extract from it two assertions, one of which Quine clearly
takes to be incompatible with acceptance of the distinction between analytic
and synthetic statements, and the other of which he regards as barring one way
to an explanation of that distinction. We shall seek to show that the first
assertion is not incompatible with acceptance of the distinction, but is, on
the contrary, most intelligibly interpreted in a way quite consistent with it,
and that the second assertion leaves the way open to just the kind of explanation
which Quine thinks it precludes. The two assertions are the following: ( I ) It
is an illusion to suppose that there is any class of accepted statements the
members of which are in principle "immune from revision" in the light
of experience, i.e., any that we accept as true and must continue to accept as
true whatever happens. (2) It is an illusion to suppose that an individual
statement, taken in isolation from its fellows, can admit of confirmation or disconfirmation
at all.
There is no particular statement such that a particular
experience or set of experiences decides once for all whether that statement is
true or false, independently of our attitudes to all other statements. The
apparent connection between these two doctrines may be summed up as follows.
Whatever our experience may be, it is in principle possible to hold on to, or
reject, any particular statement we like, so long as we are prepared to make
extensive enough revisions elsewhere in our system of beliefs. In practice our
choices are governed largely by considerations of convenience: we wish our
system to be as simple as possible, but we also wish disturbances to it, as it
exists, to be as small as possible. The apparent relevance of these doctrines
to the analytic-synthetic distinction is obvious in the first case, less so in
the second. ( I ) Since it is an illusion to suppose that the characteristic of
immunity in principle from revision, come what may, belongs, or could belong,
to any statement, it is an illusion to suppose that there is a distinction to
be drawn between statements which possess this characteristic and statements
which lack it. Yet, Quine suggests, this is precisely the distinction which
those who use the terms "analytic" and "synthetic" suppose
themselves to be drawing. Quine's view would perhaps also be (though he does not
explicitly say this in the article under consideration) that those who believe
in the distinction are inclined at least sometimes to mistake the
characteristic of strongly resisting revision (which belongs to beliefs very
centrally situated in the system) for the mythical characteristic of total
immunity from revision. (2) The connection between the second doctrine and the analytic-synthetic
distinction runs, according to Quine, through the verification theory of
meaning. He says: "If the verification theory can be accepted as an
adequate account of statement synonymy, the notion of analyticity is saved
after all."9 For, in the first place, two statements might be said to be
synonymous if and only if any experiences which contribute to, or detract from,
the confirmation of one contribute to, or detract from, the confirmation of the
other, to the same degree; and, in the second place, synonymy could be used to
explain analyticity.
But, Quine seems to argue, acceptance of any such account of
synonymy can only rest on the mistaken belief that individual statements, taken
in isolation from their fellows, can admit of confirmation or disconfirmation
at all. As soon as we give up the idea of a set of experiential truth conditions
for each statement taken separately, we must give up the idea of explaining
synonymy in terms of identity of such sets. Now to show that the relations
between these doctrines and the analytic-synthetic distinction are not as Quine
supposes. Let us take the second doctrine first. It is easy to see that
acceptance of the second doctrine would not compel one to abandon, but only to
revise, the suggested explanation of synonymy. Quine does not deny that
individual statements are regarded as confirmed or disconfirmed, are in fact
rejected or accepted, in the light of experience. He denies only that these
relations between single statements and experience hold independently of our attitudes
to other statements. He means that experience can confirm or disconfirm an
individual statement, only given certain assumptions about the truth or falsity
of other statements. When we are faced with a "recalcitrant
experience," he says, we always have a choice of what statements to amend.
What we have to renounce is determined by what we are anxious to keep. This view,
however, requires only a slight modification of the definition of statement-synonymy
in terms of confirmation and disconfirmation. 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. More generally, Quine wishes to substitute for what he
conceives to be an over simple picture of the confirmation-relations between
particular statements and particular experiences, the idea of a looser relation
which he calls << germaneness" (p. 43). But however loosely
"germaneness" is to be understood, it would apparently continue to
make sense to speak of two statements as standing in the same germaneness relation
to the same particular experiences.
So Quine's views are not only consistent with, but even
suggest, an amended account of statement-synonymy along these lines. We are
not, of course, concerned to defend such an account, or even to state it with
any precision. We are only concerned to show that acceptance of Quine's
doctrine of empirical confirmation does not, as he says it does, entail giving
up the attempt to define statement-synonymy in terms of confirmation. Now for
the doctrine that there is no statement which is in principle immune from
revision, no statement which might not be given up in the face of experience.
Acceptance of this doctrine is quite consistent with adherence to the
distinction between analytic and synthetic statements. Only, the adherent of this
distinction must also insist on another; on the distinction between that kind
of giving up which consists in merely admitting falsity, and that kind of giving
up which involves changing or dropping a concept or set of concepts. Any form
of words at one time held to express something true may, no doubt, at another
time, come to be held to express something false. But it is not only
philosophers who would distinguish between the case where this happens as the result
of a change of opinion solely as to matters of fact, and the case where this
happens at least partly as a result of a shift in the sense of the words. Where
such a shift in the sense of the words is a necessary condition of the change
in truth value, then the adherent of the distinction will say that the form of
words in question changes from expressing an analytic statement to expressing a
synthetic statement. We are not now concerned, or called upon, to elaborate an
adequate theory of conceptual revision, any more than we were called upon, just
now, to elaborate an adequate theory of synonymy. If we can make sense of the
idea that the same form of words, taken in one way (or bearing one sense), may
express something true, and taken in another way (or bearing another sense),
may express something false, then we can make sense of the idea of conceptual
revision, And if we can make sense of this idea, then we can perfectly well
preserve the distinction between the analytic and the synthetic, while
conceding to Quine the revisability-in-principle of everything we say. As for
the idea that the same form of words, taken in different ways, may bear
different senses and perhaps be used to say things with different truth-values,
the onus of showing that this is somehow a mistaken or confused idea rests
squarely on Quine.
The point of substance (or one of them) that Quine is
making, by this emphasis on revisability, is that there is no absolute necessity
about the adoption or use of any conceptual scheme whatever, or, more narrowly
and in terms that he would reject, that there is no analytic proposition such
that we must have linguistic forms bearing just the sense required to express
that proposition. But it is one thing to admit this, and quite another thing to
say that there are no necessities within any conceptual scheme we adopt or use,
or, more narrowly again, that there are no linguistic forms which do express
analytic propositions. The adherent of the analytic-synthetic distinction may
go further and admit that there may be cases (particularly perhaps in the field
of science) where it would be pointless to press the question whether a change
in the attributed truth-value of a statement represented a conceptual revision
or not, and correspondingly pointless to press the analytic-synthetic
distinction. We cannot quote such cases, but this inability may well be the result
of ignorance of the sciences. In any case, the existence, if they do exist, of
statements about which it is pointless to press the question whether they are
analytic or synthetic, does not entail the nonexistence of statements which are
clearly classifiable in one or other of these ways and of statements our hesitation
over which has different sources, such as the possibility of alternative interpretations
of the linguistic forms in which they are expressed This concludes our
examination of Quine's article. It will be evident that our purpose has been
wholly negative. We have aimed to show merely that Quine's case against the
existence of the analytic-synthetic distinction is not made out. His article
has two parts. In one of them, the notions of the analyticity group are criticized
on the ground that they have not been adequately explained. In the other, a
positive theory of truth is outlined, purporting to be incompatible with views
to which believers in the analytic-synthetic distinction either must be, or are
likely to be, committed. In fact, we have contended, no single point is
established which those who accept the notions of the analyticity group would
feel any strain in accommodating in their own system of beliefs. This is not to
deny that many of the points raised are of the first importance in connection with
the problem of giving a satisfactory general account of analyticity and related
concepts. We are here only criticizing the contention that these points justify
the rejection, as illusory, of the analytic-synthetic distinction and the
notions which belong to the same family.
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