“English general and singular terms, identity, quantification, and the whole bag of ontological tricks may be correlated with elements of the native language in any of various mutually incompatible ways, each compatible with all possible linguistic data, and none preferable to another save as favored by a rationalization of the native language that is simple and natural to us.” WayMayWholeLanguageTermNaturalSimpleIdentityElementsVariousTricksDataNativeBagsCompatibleNative Language Book:Quintessence: Basic Readings from the Philosophy of W.V. Quine Source: Quintessence: Basic Readings from the Philosophy of W.V. Quine
“The strategy of semantic ascent is that it carries the discussion into a domain where both parties are better agreed on the objects (viz., words) and on the main terms connecting them. Words, or their inscriptions, unlike points, miles, classes and the rest, are tangible objects of the size so popular in the marketplace, where men of unlike conceptual schemes communicate at their best. The strategy is one of ascending to a common part of two fundamentally disparate conceptual schemes, the better to discuss the disparate foundations. No wonder it helps in philosophy.” MenTwoPhilosophyHelpingLanguageTermPartyCommonWonderClassObjectsPhilosophicalFoundationStrategySizeCommunicateMilesDiscussionCarrieSchemesConnectingDomainMarketplaceTangibleAscentInscriptionsAscending Author:Willard Van Orman Quine
“Treating 'water' as a name of a single scattered object is not intended to enable us to dispense with general terms and plurality of reference. Scatter is in fact an inconsequential detail.” FactsNamesTermWaterObjectsDetailsInconsequential Book:Word and Object Source: Word and Object
“Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer . . . For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing, the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conceptions only as cultural posits.” BelieveKindTermSituationObjectsDegreesLaysErrorsDefinitionsConceptionEntityPhysicistConvenient Book:Quintessence: Basic Readings from the Philosophy of W.V. Quine Source: Quintessence: Basic Readings from the Philosophy of W.V. Quine
