On Sep 17, 3:05 pm, John Jones aol.com> wrote:

[1] Analyticity and circularity
[2] Critique and influence

######################
[1] Analyticity and circularity
#######################

Most of Quine's argument against analyticity in the first four
sections is focused on showing that different explanations of
analyticity are circular. The main purpose is to show that no
satisfactory explanation of analyticity has been given.

Quine begins by making a distinction between two different classes of
analytic statements. The first one is called logically true and has
the form:

(1) No unmarried man is married

A sentence with that form is true independent of the interpretation of
"man" and "married", so long as the logical particles "no", "un-", and
"and" have their ordinary English meaning.

The statements in the second class have the form:

(2) No bachelor is married.

A statement with this form can be turned into a statement with form
(1) by changing synonyms with synonyms, in this case "bachelor" with
"unmarried man". It is the second class of statements that lack
characterization according to Quine. The notion of the second form of
analyticity leans on the notion of synonymy, which Quine believes is
in as much need of clarification as analyticity. Most of Quine's
following arguments are focused on showing how explanations of
synonymy end up being dependent on the notions of analyticity,
necessity, or even synonymy itself.

How do we reduce sentences from the second class to a sentence of
class (1)? Some might propose definitions. "No bachelor is married"
can be turned into "No unmarried man is married" because "bachelor" is
defined as "unmarried man". But, Quine asks: how do we find out that
"bachelor" is defined as "unmarried man"? Clearly, a dictionary would
not solve the problem, as a dictionary is a report of already known
synonyms, and thus is dependent on the notion of synonymy, which Quine
holds as unexplained.

A second suggestion Quine considers is an explanation of synonymy in
terms of interchangeability. Two linguistic forms are (according to
this view) synonymous if they are interchangeable without changing the
truth-value. That is, in all contexts without change of truth value.
But consider the following example:

(3)"Bachelor" has less than ten letters.

Obviously "bachelor" and "unmarried man" are not interchangeable in
that sentence. To exclude that example and some other obvious
counterexamples, such as poetic quality, Quine introduces the notion
of cognitive synonymy. But does interchangeability hold as an
explanation of cognitive synonymy? Suppose we have a language without
modal adverbs like "necessarily". Such a language would be
extensional, in the way that two predicates which are true about the
same objects are interchangeable again without altering the truth-
value. Thus, there is no assurance that two terms that are
interchangeable without the truth-value changing are interchangeable
because of meaning, and not because of chance. For example, "creature
with a heart" and "creature with kidneys" share extension.

In a language with the modal adverb "necessarily" the problem is
solved, as salva veritate holds in the following case:

(4) Necessarily all and only bachelors are unmarried men while it does
not hold for

(5) Necessarily all and only creatures with a heart are creatures with
kidneys.

We can see that the concepts of 'creature with a heart' and 'creature
with kidneys' have the same extension (presumably), but they are not
interchangeable salva veritate [two expressions that can be
interchanged without changing the truth-value of the statements in
which they occur]. It seems that the only way to assert the synonymy
is by supposing that the terms 'bachelor' and 'unmarried man' are
analytic and that the sentence "All and only all bachelors are
unmarried men" is analytic. So for salva veritate to hold as a
definition of synonymy, we need a notion of necessity and thus of
analyticity.

So, from the above example, it can be seen that in order for us to
distinguish between analytic and synthetic we must appeal to synonymy;
at the same time, we should also understand synonymy with
interchangeability salva veritate. However, such a condition to
understand synonymy is not enough so we not only argue that the terms
should be interchangeable, but necessarily so. And to explain this
logical necessity we must appeal to analyticity once again.

######################
[2] Critique and influence
#####################e

Paul Grice and P. F. Strawson criticized "Two Dogmas" in their text In
Defence of a Dogma. Among other things, they argue that Quine's
skepticism about synonyms leads to a skepticism about meaning. If
statements can have meanings, then it would make sense to ask "What
does it mean?". If it makes sense to ask "What does it mean?", then
synonymy can be defined as follows: Two sentences are synonymous if
and only if the true answer of the question "What does it mean?" asked
of one of them is the true answer to the same question, asked of the
other. They also draw the conclusion that discussion about correct or
incorrect translations would be impossible given Quine's argument.
Four years after Grice and Strawson published their paper, Quine's
book Word and Object was released. In the book Quine presented his
theory of indeterminacy of translation.

In 'Two Dogmas' revisited, Hilary Putnam argues that Quine is
attacking two different notions. Analytic truth defined as a true
statement derivable from a tautology by putting synonyms for synonyms
is near Kant's account of analytic truth as a truth whose negation is
a contradiction. Analytic truth defined as a truth confirmed no matter
what however, is closer to one of the traditional accounts of a
prioricity. While the first four sections of Quine's paper concern
analyticity, the last two concern a priority. Putnam considers the
argument in the two last sections as independent of the first four,
and at the same time as Putnam criticizes Quine, he also emphasizes
his historical importance as the first top rank philosopher to both
reject the notion of apriority and sketch a methodology without it.

In his book Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Volume
1 : The Dawn of Analysis Scott Soames (pp 360-361) has pointed out
that Quine's circularity argument needs two of the logical
positivists' central theses to be effective:

All necessary (and all a priori) truths are analytic

Analyticity is needed to explain and legitimate necessity.

It is only when these two theses are accepted that Quine's argument
holds. It is not a problem that the notion of necessity is presupposed
by the notion of analyticity if necessity can be explained without
analyticity. According to Soames, both theses were accepted by most
philosophers when Quine published Two Dogmas. Today however, Soames
holds both statements to be antiquated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Dogmas_of_Empiricism