Quine vs Verificationism

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  • Created by: A. Person
  • Created on: 22-05-17 11:45

The 2 Dogmas:

1. Analytic/Synthetic Divide

2. Reductionism (Meaningful terms are equivalent to logical constructs consisting of Observation Statements).

Quine's Motivation

Partially motivated by Duhem - myriad ways theories are supported by evidence -- hypotheses are not (dis)confirmed by an experiment taken in isolation from surrounding theory. 

Equally extends to logic/mathematics... can revise these in order to improve overall theory; scientific theories, logic and maths included, confirmed only as a corporate body, so are not immune to experience.

Confirmation Holism

So, Quine instead embraces confirmation holism. Statements about the external world face the tribunal of experience only as a corporate body.

Web of Belief: the totality of our knowledge/beliefs exists as a 'web', with experience as its outer boundaries. Conflict with experience occasions modification of the interior, which will have consequences for the entire system. We have a wide choice of what to modify - no experiences are directly linked to any statement, only indirectly.

So, there are no analytic statements, as no statement lacks an experiential component. e.g. revising Law of Excluded middle to accommodate the findings of quantum mechanics.

Carnap also advances a kind of holism, while keeping the notion of analyticity fairly intact. He argues that when experience suggests we should alter our beliefs, we have a choice of what to alter.

Quine: analyticity makes no extra contribution. Take two parallel cases of belief-revision. The belief is that objects fall when dropped. In one case, a synthetic…

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