Chapter 5 The Two Dogmas of Empiricism Quine argues that both of these beliefs are wrong One: a belief

f in a big difference between analytic truths and synthetic truths Analytic: grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact Synthetic: grounded in fact Two: a belief in reductionism, that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience Analyticity Definition !: statements whose denials are self"contradictory " This doesn#t help because the definition of self"contradictoriness requires the definition of analyticity Definition $ %&ant': a statement that attributes to its sub(ect no more than is already conceptually contained in the sub(ect " )roblem is it doesn#t explain what *contains* means+ and limits itself to sub(ect"predicate form Definition , %&ant': a statement is analytic when it is true by virtue of meanings and independent of fact %!' -ogically true: .o unmarried man is married a/ This is not merely true as it stands, but remains true under any and all reinterpretations of #man# and #married/# %$' .o bachelor is unmarried/ a/ This can be turned into a logical truth by putting synonyms in for synonyms, e/g/ #unmarried man# for #bachelor# 0xcept then you have to describe what is meant by 'synonymy'1 Definition ,a: the analytic statements in %$' reduce to those in %!' *by definition*, since #bachelor# is defined as an #unmarried man# " 2ut defined according to whom3 4n the dictionary3 *5ertainly the #definition# which is the lexicographer#s report of an observed synonymy cannot be ta6en as the ground of the synonymy/* Definition ,b: the synonymy of any two forms consists of their interchangeability in all contexts without change of truth value " 2ut what about: #2achelor# contains less than ten letters " 7ou can try to get around this by (ust enclosing it in quotes and treating that as a *word*, and saying you can#t tal6 about things within that/ 2ut even if you can, you still run into the problem of if things are cognitively synonymous:

o 4 am not quite clear on his argument here, but basically he tries to show that the definitions of cognitively synonymous and analytic are circular/ %!89' 3blatty333 o 4nterchangeability is meaningless until relativi:ed to a language whose extent is specified in relevant respects/ o And then once you have an extensional language, interchangeability is no longer a guarantee of the right 6ind of cognitive synonymy: you can#t rule out the possibility that the extensional agreement of #bachelor# and #unmarried man# rest on meaning rather than accidental matters of fact, li6e #creature with a heart# and #creature with 6idneys# O6ay, let#s forget about synonymy, it suc6s/ " 4s *0verything green is extended* analytic3 ;e thin6s not, but the problem isn#t with not understanding the meanings, but rather with understanding analyticity/ " -oo6 at artificial languages for clarity: a statement S is analytic for a language -/ o <a6e a list of all analytic statements -= o Then try to capture it in a rule+ it doesn#t wor6, because you don#t 6now what about those statements the rule is attributing analyticity to1 o 0xplaining for various statements only varies for that specific statement/ o Semantic rules: are those that you try to induce, but then he argues that that doesn#t add explanatory value %it is (ust an arbitrary way of grouping statements' >erification theory of meaning: the meaning of a statement is the method of empirically confirming it " Thus entities are synonymous only if they are ali6e in how they are confirmed o ;ow do you determine how *ali6e* they are3 " Radical reductionism: set the tas6 of setting a sense"datum language and showing how to translate the rest of significant discourse into it o 5arnap#s treatment of physical ob(ects *fell short in principle*: his explanation of how science wor6s %the empirical process' could not be translated into his sense"datum discourse " The verification theory of meaning relies on a less extreme form of reductionism, namely that: to each statement there is associated a unique range of possible sensory events such that the occurrence of any of them would add to the li6elihood of truth of the statement, and that there is associated another unique range of possible sensory events whose occurrence would detract from that li6elihood/ o ;e says that our statements about the external world fact the tribunal of sense experience not individually but only as a corporate body/

Chapter 6: Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations %?8' @ords don#t have any one thing in common that ma6es us use the same word for all, but rather in all instances of that concept, they are related to one another in certain ways/ %??' Aames: have a complicated networ6 of similarities overlapping and criss"crossing, sometimes overall similarities, sometimes in detail %?B' 5haracteri:e the similarities as *family resemblances*/ @or6s with number, too/ %?9' 7ou can define the concept of number logically, you can also define it non"logically/ %i/e/ games don#t need to have formal rules in order to be played' %?C' @e describe games to people by saying *this and similar things are called games*/ Not by giving a formal definition/ %B=' 4t#s silly to say that if a concept li6e *game* is uncircumscribed, then you don#t 6now what you mean by a *game* D obviously he does, and we do/ %B!' 0ven if it#s a *concept with blurred edges*, sometimes all we need is indistinctness/ A general definition can be misunderstood as often as relying on someone to induce from examples/ %B,' Difference between seeing as a *general leaf shape* vs/ an example of a leaf/ All depends on the way it is being used/ %BE' Seeing things in a different way means you use it differently, with different rules/ %e/g/ a cube as a plane figure, vs/ a cube as ,D' %B8' 5oncept of a game D is that the same as an unformulated definition3 5an the #concept of a game# be completely expressed in all the explanations he could give3 %B?' Drawing a sharp boundary of a word, though possible, is not accurate, because it shouldn#t have one at all/ %BB' The degree that a sharp picture can resemble a blurred one depends on the latter#s degree of vagueness/