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Quine. Quine's two Dogmas: I - Elliott Sober

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Quine
Author(s): Elliott Sober and Peter Hylton
Source: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, Vol. 74 (2000), pp.
237-299
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 QUINE

by Elliott Sober and Peter Hylton

I-Elliott Sober
QUINE'S TWO DOGMAS

ABSTRACT In 'Two Dogmasof Empiricism', Quineattacksthe analytic/syn-

theticdistinctionanddefendsa doctrinethatI callepistemological holism.Now,
almostfiftyyearsafterthe article'sappearance,what are we to makeof these
ideas?I suggestthat the philosophicalnaturalismthat Quinedid so muchto
promoteshouldlead us to rejectQuine'sbrief againstthe analytic/synthetic
distinction;I also arguethat QuinemisunderstoodCarnap'sviews on ana-
lyticity.As for epistemological holism,I claimthat this thesisdoes not follow
fromthe logicalpointthatDuhemand Quinemadeaboutthe roleof auxiliary
assumptions in hypothesistesting,andthatthe thesisshouldbe rejected.

Q uine'spublicationin 1951of 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism'

Q was a watershed event in 20th century philosophy. In that
essay, Quine sought to demolish the concepts of analyticity and
a priority;he also sketched a positive proposal of his own-epis-
temological holism. There can be little doubt that philosophy
changed as a result of Quine's work. The question I want to
address here is whether it should have. My goal is not to argue
for a returnto the halcyon days of the logical empiricists.Rather,
I want to take stock. Now, almost fifty years after the publication
of 'Two Dogmas,' what view should we take of analyticity, the
a priori, and epistemological holism, and of what Quine said
about these topics?
Analyticity is an issue in the philosophy of language, a priority
an issue in epistemology. As a first approximation, the two ques-
tions are as follows: Are there sentences that are true in virtue of
the meanings of the terms they contain? And are there propo-
sitions that we can know to be true independently of sense
experience?1A central critical objective of 'Two Dogmas' was to
dismantlea view that sought to connect these two questions. The

1. The observantreaderwill notice that I describea priorityas a propertyof prop-

ositions and analyticityas a propertyof sentences.The reason for this will be dis-
cussedpresently.
238 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

positivists' linguistictheoryof the a priori claimed that the special

epistemological status of a priori propositions derives from the
fact that they are expressed by analytic sentences and these sen-
tences are analytic because of the meanings assigned to their con-
stituent terms by the adoption of linguistic conventions. Notice
that even a devastating criticism of the concept of analyticity
would leave open the possibility that some other defence of the
concept of a priority could be given. It is here that Quine's posi-
tive proposal is meant to do its work-epistemological holism
excludes the possibility of a priori knowledge.

I
Quineon Analyticity.It would be a mistake to think that Quine's
point was simply that nothing is a priori or analytic. He didn't
regard these concepts as clear, but empty, like the concept of a
round square. Rather, the point was supposed to be that these
concepts are 'unclear'. And this didn't mean that the concepts
are vague-that there are situations in which there is no fact of
the matter as to whether the concepts apply. Being analytic
wasn't supposed to be like being bald; it is perfectly clear what
baldness is, even though there are grey areas in which there is no
saying whether the concept applies.2
Quine's main complaint in 'Two Dogmas' against the concept
of analyticity is that it can be defined only in terms of other
equally suspect concepts, such as meaning, necessity, synonymy,
proposition, and definition. For example, one might say that the
sentence 'bachelors are unmarried'is analytic because the truth
of the sentence follows from the definitions of the terms that
occur in it. However, if there are doubts about whether ana-
lyticity is a clear concept, there also will be doubts about what it
takes for a sentence to express a definition.
If this and similar proposals are unsatisfactory, what would
count as a 'clear' definition of analyticity?Quine sometimes says

2. The mainconceptin Quine'sepistemologicalholismis centrality--beliefsdifferin

theirdegreeof centrality;there is no dividingline betweenbeliefs that are a priori
and analyticon the one hand and those that are a posterioriand syntheticon the
other.If this werethe whole messageof 'Two Dogmas',one mightreasonablysum-
marizeQuine'spoint by sayingthat he regardedthe analytic/syntheticdistinctionas
a vagueone. However,Quine'scriticismof analyticitygoes beyond this, as we will
see.
 QUINE 239

that an acceptable characterizationof analyticity would have to

be specifiedin termsof observablebehaviour (Quine 1953b, 1960,
1970);at other times, he says that extensional semantic concepts,
such as reference and truth, are legitimate, and that analyticity
would also be legitimate if it could be defined in terms of them
(Quine 1953a). But analyticity cannot be defined in terms of
behaviouror in terms of concepts drawn just from the theory of
reference,so we must reject analyticity as 'unclear'.3
It is a testimonial to how influential Quine has been with
respectto some of his other philosophical ideas that this criticism
of analyticity now seems so thin. Quine taught us that the main
question we should ask about a theory is whether it is indispens-
able as a device for explaining and predicting phenomena. The
question, then, should not be whether analyticity can be defined,
but whether the concept is useful in science. The concept of 'elec-
tron' cannot be defined in terms of observables, but that says
nothing about what we should think of the electron theory.4 As
3. AlthoughQuine rejectsthe notion of analyticity,he occasionallyendorseswhat
he regardsas acceptablysanitizedreadingsof the concept.For example,Quine(1960)
says that a sentenceis 'stimulusanalytic'if everyspeakerof the languageis disposed
to assentto it. And Quine(1974, p. 79) proposesthat we say that '... a sentenceis
analyticif everybodylearnsthat it is true by learningits words.'The sentence'dogs
exist' is probablystimulusanalytic.Is it analyticaccordingto the second proposal?
Supposethat people learnthat dogs exist in the processof learningto use the term.
Do they therebylearnthat 'dogs exist' is trueby learningits words?Well, they learn
that the sentenceis true whenthey learnits words.But what about 'by'?
The more-or-lesstraditionalconcept of analyticitysays, roughly,that a sentence
is analyticwhen one can know that it is truejust by knowingwhat its termsmean.
Learningthat dogs exist may be a standardconcomitantof learningto use the con-
stituentterms,but the existenceof dogs does not follow fromstatementsthat describe
what the termmeans(pace the ontologicalargument'streatmentof a termthat has
the oppositespelling).
Quine clearlydoes not intend his proposeddefinitionof analyticityto coincide
with the traditionalconcept,so it would be no objectionto his proposalif it judged
'dogsexist'to be analytic.However,the proposalcan be interpretedto rule this out:
if learningthe terms= learningwhatthe termsmean,then speakersdo not learnthat
'dogs exist' is true just by virtue of learningthe terms. Is it possible that Quine's
proposalis an endorsementof the traditionalconcept ratherthan a replacementof
it?
4. Griceand Strawson(1956, p. 203) point out that 'reductiveanalysis'is too much
to hopefor, and go on to suggestthat conceptscan be explainedin 'lessformalways.'
They then say that the analyticsentencesare the ones whose denials'haveno sense
(p. 205).' I, of course, agree with their complaint. However, I suspect that their
suggestionwill not accord with the notion of meaningrequiredin linguisticsand
cognitivescience.The denialof an analytictruthdoes havea meaning;this is part of
the reasonwe are puzzledwhen people deny analytictruths.Thereis an important
theoreticaldifferencebetween'bachelorsaresometimesmarried'and stringsof words
that are not well-formed.
240 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

Quine observes in 'Two Dogmas (p. 44)', 'objects at the atomic

level are posited to make the laws of macroscopic objects... sim-
pler and more manageable;and we need not expect or demand
full definition of atomic and subatomic entities in terms of
macroscopic ones...' It also is worth recalling that Quine felt
obliged to affirm that sets exist, since set theory is needed for
mathematics and for mathematized natural science. The philo-
sophical attractiveness of nominalism had to give way to the
demands of science. Why didn't Quine take the same attitude
towards analyticity?5
Quine's criticism of modal concepts has the same character.
He claims that the concept of necessity is not 'clear', where the
standard of clarity is in fact reductionistic. Necessity has to be
definable in terms that are extensional, just as analyticity has to
be definable in terms that are behavioural. This cannot be done,
so the concepts should be rejected. Whether science would lose
anything of value in rejecting these concepts is a question that
never got broached. Quine assumed that an extensional language
would be adequate for codifying the results and inferences found
in mathematizedscience.
Why did Quine bypass science and consider the concepts of
analyticity and necessity only in terms of how they answer to

5. Occasionally,Quinehas drawnback from his demandthat analyticitybe defined

eitherbehaviourallyor extensionally.For example,in Wordand Object,Quine(1960,
p. 206) says '...we find it arguedthat the standardof claritythat I demandfor syn-
onymyandanalyticityis unreasonablyhigh;yet I ask no more,afterall, thana rough
characterization in termsof dispositionsto verbalbehaviour.'If 'roughcharacteriza-
tion' meansonly that one be able to describebehavioursthat wouldbe evidencethat
a sentenceis analyticin a speaker'sidiolect,the requirementis easy enoughto satisfy.
As Carnap(1953)pointedout, if you ask a speakerwhetherit is conceivableto them
that a sentence(e.g., 'eitherpigs existor pigs do not exist')could turnout to be false,
andtheyreply'no, the sentenceis trueby definition,'that is evidencethat the sentence
is analyticallytrue. The inferenceis not infallible,of course, but empiricalevidence
is rarelylike that in any case.
Quine'sreplyto Carnap's(1953)is his doctrineof the indeterminacyof translation.
In Chapter2 of Wordand Object,Quine(1960)claimsthat the totalityof a speaker's
verbalbehaviour(includingnot just what he actuallysays, but what he would say in
variouscircumstances)can be consistentwith two mutuallyincompatibleaccounts
of what the speaker'stermsmean.Quineclaims,not just that these accountswill be
behaviourallyequivalent,but that thereis no fact of the matteras to whichis true-
his claimis notjust that behaviourunderdetermines theory,but that semantictheories
are prey to an indeterminacy.I reply, as others have done before, that under-
determinationis a propertyof all theorizing,and that Quine has not shown that
underdetermination should be coupledwith a claim of indeterminacyin the case of
theoriesabout meaning.
 QUINE 241

some antecedently assumed standard of philosophical clarity?

With respect to analyticity, part of the reason may have been
that cognitive science was not sufficientlydeveloped when Quine
wrote for him to have felt that the practices of science could
trump the argumentsof philosophers. He probably assumed that
the concept of meaning was to a large extent a concept that phil-
osophers owned.
As for the concept of necessity, Quine believed that modal dis-
course is not part of the substance of science proper, but consists
in a philosophical overlay that can be peeled away without dam-
aging the properly scientific core. Scientists talk of 'laws' and
make counterfactual inferences, but the real content of science,
for Quine, is resolutely confined to the actual. This point of view
has not stood the test of time. It now seems clear that the concept
of probability, as it is used in scientific theories, is a modal
concept.6 Talk of the half-life of a radioactive material, for
example, cannot be glossed in terms of the actual frequency of
an event-type in a larger reference class. The point can be seen
by asking what it means to say that a coin has a probability of
1/2 of landing heads when tossed. This doesn't mean that the
coin will land heads half the time; a fair coin can be tossed an
odd number of times and then destroyed. It once was thought
that the statement means that if the coin were tossed again and
again indefinitely, that the relative frequency of heads would
necessarily approach a limit of 1/2. This would entail that
modality is part of the content of scientifictheories that use prob-
abilities, but in fact the concept of objective probability is even
less reducible to frequencies than this interpretation suggests.
The most that can be said about the relationshipof probabilities
to hypothetical relative frequenciesis given by the Law of Large
Numbers (Skyrms 1980)-if a coin's probabilityof landing heads
is 1/2, then the probability approaches unity that the frequency
of heads will be within epsilon of 1/2, as the run of tosses is

6. I set to one side the way in which probabilityhelps characterizethe evidential

credentialsof scientifictheories.Here I am interestedin probabilisticconcepts(e.g.,
fitness,half-life)that are used in theories.Also, in sayingthat probabilityis a modal
concept,I am talkingaboutthe interpretedconcept,not the uninterpreted formalism.
The Kolmogorovaxiomsof probabilitycan be interpretedin termsof actualrelative
frequency,and there is nothing modal about this interpretation.However, this
interpretationdoes not do justice to the way that probabilityis used in scientific
theories.
242 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

made longer. A fair coin doesn't have to land heads 50% of the
time, even in the limit. Probabilitydoesn't reduce to hypothetical
relative frequency;rather probability claims confer probabilities
on hypothetical relative frequencies.Probability is irreducible.7
In any event, Quine's circularity argument against analyticity
and necessity is a prime example of an appeal to 'first philos-
ophy', a practice that Quine later criticizedin his essay 'Epistem-
ology Naturalized' (Quine 1969). First philosophy seeks a
justification for the propositions we believe that is more secure
than the evidence provided by natural science. Philosophers who
think that Quine was right to reject first philosophy should be
skeptical about the arguments in 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism'
against analyticity and modality.8

II
Carnap on Analyticity. If Quine did not treat analyticity as a
theoretical term in empirical science, neither did the the logical
empiricistwho was the main target of Quine's criticisms. Carnap
thought that it is a matter of convention what sentences one
regardsas analytic. Claims about what is analytic are proposals;
the question of truth and falsity does not arise (Creath 1991,

7. Stein (1992, pp. 288-289) makes a complementarypoint-'...the concept of the

space of all states of a physicalsystemis a centralone in much of classicalphysics,
and in all of quantumphysics;and "all states"means,of course,all possiblestates.'
8. AlthoughQuineoften contrastedhis naturalismwith Carnap'sfoundationalism,
in fact Quine'smetaphilosophical positionis quite Carnapian:
He who wishesto investigatethe questionsof the logic of sciencemust, there-
fore, renouncethe proudclaimsof a philosophythat sits enthronedabove the
specialsciencesand must realizethat he is workingin exactlythe same field as
the scientificspecialist,only with a somewhatdifferentemphasis...
This may sound like the Quine of 'EpistemologyNaturalized'(Quine 1969), but it
isn't. It's the Carnapof LogicalSyntaxof Language(Carnap1937,p. 332).
Naturalismis sometimesunderstoodas the viewthat a conflictbetweenphilosophi-
cal argumentand scientificpracticemust alwaysbe resolvedby rejectingthe former.
I do not understandit that way. If philosophyis in fact continuouswith science,then
we shouldbe skepticalof any such formula.If philosophicalcritiqueis part of the
practiceof science,then the right resolutionof such conflictswill sometimesbe to
changescientificpractice.
Fogelin(1997,pp. 554-555, pp. 561-563)arguesthat Quine'snaturalismis at odds
with his argumentson behalf of the theses of indeterminacyof translationand of
reference.For Fogelin, naturalismis characterizedby the Peirceancommitmentto
eschewCartesianskepticalchallenges.I see a differentrelationshipbetweennatural-
ism and skepticalproblems,but that is a subjectfor anotheressay.
 QUINE 243

p. 365; Stein 1992, pp. 279-282; Ricketts 1994). This is the point
of Carnap's (1937) Principle of Tolerance-'in logic, there are
no morals'.
Carnap's views about meaning, and about analyticity in par-
ticular, need to be understood within the context of the three-
part distinction that he and other empiricists drew among
descriptivedefinitions, explications, and outright stipulations. A
purely descriptive definition aims to record what terms actually
mean in the language spoken within a community. An expli-
cation takes a pre-existing concept and clarifies it; a stipulation
starts from scratch, conferring on a symbol a meaning that may
be entirely unrelated to whatever meaning it may have had
before. It is obvious why there is no philosophical interest in
merely stipulatingwhat a term means. But why did Carnap reject
the project of recording the meanings of terms as they actually
are used? Carnap's reason was that he thought that the terms in
a natural language are too vague and confused. From Frege, he
inheritedthe idea that the psychological states of language users
vary from person to person and, being subjective, are ultimately
uncommunicable;and under the influence of Tarski's theory of
truth, he came to believe that natural languages are contradic-
tory. Meaning in natural languages is not amenable to systematic
and rigorous scientificstudy. Although the concept of analyticity
has a piecemeal and fragmentary application to natural lan-
guages and their speakers(Carnap 1952b, 1953), its rigorous and
systematicdeployment can take place only within the confines of
an artificiallanguage.
Since explications are proposals, they are to be judged by their
usefulness, not by whether they are true. Still, one of the con-
siderationsthat enters into the evaluation of an explication is its
fidelityto pre-existingusage (Carnap 1950;Creath 1991, pp. 368-
369). For example, the separation of definitions from empirical
claims in an axiomatization of Newtonian mechanics would be
intended to clarify the question of what is a priori and what is
empiricalin that theory-i.e., the theory that scientists had devel-
oped before the philosophers came along. In such an axiomatiz-
ation, the claim that 'F = ma' is a definition of force would be
intended to characterizea theory that was formulated and put to
work by scientists;there would be no philosophical point in sim-
ply stipulating that 'F = ma' is analytic, or in stipulating that it
244 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

is not. Philosophers can stipulate all they like; the character of

Newtonian mechanics is not affected, and it is the latter that
philosophers want to understand.
Explication, then, can be thought of as a 'mixture' of descrip-
tion and stipulation, or as a 'compromise' between them. To
offer an explication is to make a normative remark. One is sug-
gesting that terms be used in a way that retains some allegiance
to pre-existing usage but also departs from that usage. To give
an explication of what a term means is to say something that is
neither true nor false. The same point holds with respect to
claims that a certain sentence is analytic. For Carnap, to say that
'F = ma' is analytic, or that it is not, is to make a proposal.
Thus, Quine and Carnap agree that claims about meaning and
analyticity do not describe facts (Creath 1991, Stein 1992,
Ricketts 1994), but they agree on this point for very different
reasons. Quine takes the subjectmatter of such claims to be natu-
ral languages; there is no fact of the matter about what terms
mean or about which sentences are analytic because the concepts
of 'meaning' and 'analyticity' are not sufficiently clear. Carnap
takes the appropriatesubjectmatter of such claims to be artificial
languages that are constructed with the goal of explicating usage
in this or that natural language. The concepts of 'meaning' and
'analyticity' are scientifically respectable when deployed within
an artificiallanguage, but they are used to formulate proposals,
not descriptions.They fail to describe facts for the simple reason
that they are not intended to do so.
What Carnap and Quine disagree about is whether the ana-
lytic/synthetic distinction, and the concept of meaning generally,
is useful. Carnap (1963, p. 922) says that the concept of ana-
lyticity is 'indispensable for methodological and philosophical
discussion'; the analytic/synthetic distinction is important
because it serves to separate nonempirical from empirical
elements in a system of beliefs. This epistemological distinction
is normative;it concerns how we should think about the justifi-
cations that differentbeliefs possess. Quine thinks the distinction
is useless, for two reasons. First, he thinks it isn't needed in the
empirical study of natural languages. Second, it isn't needed in
epistemology either; Quine's epistemological holism, which we
will discuss later, entails that there is no distinction between a
priori and a posteriori beliefs.
 QUINE 245

III
Analyticity in Natural Languages. Carnap rejected the idea that
the analytic/synthetic distinction marks a factual distinction
among sentences in a natural language. Did he do so for good
reasons?The fact that natural languages are vague and unclear
does not show that the analytic/synthetic distinction fails to
apply. For example, perhaps 'rich'is a vague term; perhaps there
is no precisenumber of dollars that marks the differencebetween
someone who is rich and someone who is not. Even so, the sen-
tence 'rich people have more money than poor people' may still
be analytic. It also is possible that the concept of being rich is
useful in the science of economics. Similar points apply to the
claim that natural languages are contradictory. What is true is
that natural languages permit the construction of paradoxical
sentences such as 'this sentence is false'. However, that doesn't
show that the languageis contradictory;after all, the language is
not an assertion, but a device for constructing assertions. In any
event, whateverimperfectionsthere may be in natural languages,
the task of semantics as an empiricaldiscipline is to describetheir
semantic properties, warts and all. Philosophers may be more
interested in reforming usage, but that does not show that the
task of description is ill-conceived. Of course, it does not follow
that the concepts of meaning and analyticity as currentlyunder-
stood are sufficientlyclear. They are terms of art-in philosophy
and in linguistics-and they may need to be elaborated in vari-
ous ways, perhaps by the construction of formal systems. How-
ever, the point of doing so may be that one wishes to describe
the semantic features of natural languages.9
Suppose a group of speakers uses a language that is as clear
as Carnapmight wish. Perhaps they have adopted the proposals
set forth in one of Carnap's artificiallanguages, or perhaps their
discourse is already so clear that an explication of what they are
saying is really nothing more than a description. In either case,
is and oughtcoincide. In this instance, claims about meaning and
analyticityare not merelyproposals;they are descriptions.But of

9. The same point holds if we interpret analyticity as Carnap did-not as a term

intended to describe natural languages but as an epistemological category. Surely
there are sentences for which it is a factual question whether they are a priori or a
posteriori.
246 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

what? What properties of utterances is one describing when one

talks about what terms mean or about which sentences are ana-
lytic? This question needs to be answered even if one holds, as
Carnap did, that the analytic/synthetic distinction makes clear
sense only when the language under discussion is artificial.
The standard answer to this question provided by logical
empiricism is that analytic sentences in some way embody
linguistic conventions. They are true, not because of the way the
world is, but purely because of how speakers assign meanings to
terms. Quine attacks this conventionalist theory of analyticity, so
the theory is worth investigating,even if Carnapwould have been
reluctant to embrace it as an account of meaning in natural
language.

IV
Analyticity and Conventionalism.The logical empiricists were
attracted to a conventionalist account of analyticity in part
because of their conviction that there are importantconventional
elements in Einstein's special theory of relativity. When a light
signal leaves a source, bounces off a mirror, and then returns to
the source, what fraction of its travel time does it spend going
out and what fraction does it spend coming back?The positivists
thought that Einstein's insight was to recognize that any answer
to this question is a matter of convention (Reichenbach 1949,
Carnap 1966). Einstein chose 1/2, but that was a stipulation, not
an empirical discovery.
The positivists representedthis claim by saying that Einstein
had made a linguistic decision; he had adopted a 'linguistic
framework'in which

(S) A light ray that goes from a source, to a reflector, and

back to the source, spends 1/2 its travel time going out
from source to reflector and 1/2 coming back from
reflector to source.

is an analytic truth. Other choices of 'language' are possible, and

within those alternativelanguages, sentence (S) would be analyti-
cally false. This was not a happy formulation. A real analytic
truth is true, and what it says typically does not depend for its
 QUINE 247

truth on our choice of language.10Given standard English usage,

the sentence 'bachelors are unmarried' is true; if English had
involved different conventions about what words mean, the sen-
tence might have meant something different, and so it might have
been false. However, the proposition expressed by the English
sentence-that bachelors are unmarried-does not depend for
its truth on how English works." There are bachelors in France
who would very much resent the English chauvinism involved
in saying that the way English works affects whether (French)
bachelors are unmarried. 'Quelle impertinence!' one can hear
them exclaim. The fact that bachelors are unmarriedis no more
dependent on English than it is on French. Genuine (object-lan-
guage) analytic truths express truths, and the propositions those
sentences express are language-independent.
Applied to sentence (S), this pattern of reasoning entails that if
(S) is true in Einstein'slanguage, then what the sentenceexpresses
is true, and moreover, it is true independently of how Einstein
chose to set up his language. But surelythis is not what the positiv-
ists wanted to say-their epistemological point is better put by
saying that there is no fact of the matter about whether(S) is true.
Adopting (S) may be a matter of convention, but (S) is not made
true by anything, not even by adopting a convention. Given what
the sentenceabout travel time actually means in English, it would
be a mistake to say that it is an analytic truth or an analytic false-
hood. It is neither, and it isn't an empirical truth or an empirical
falsehood, either. Conventionalists should say two things: First,
(S) is neither true nor false and the same holds for all its sister
propositions that assign fractions different from 1/2.12 Second,
10. I say 'typically'becausethe propositionexpressedby a meta-linguisticstatement
doesdependfor its truthon factsabout a language.Consider,for example,the claim
that the term'mother'meansfemaleparentin English.Whetherthis is so obviously
dependson facts about English.However,object-languagestatementsdo not have
this property.Whethermothersare femaleparentsdoes not dependfor its truthon
facts about English.
11. Thispoint was madeforcefullyby Frege(1884)and has beenreiteratedby many
subsequentwriters(e.g., Ewing 1940, Kneale 1947, Pap 1958, Harman1967, Lewis
1969, Boghossian 1996). It does not depend on any particular'theory of prop-
ositions'-i.e., on any particularviewabouthow propositionsareindividuated.What
is requiredis some distinctionbetween a sentence and 'what the sentence says'
(Boghossian1996,p. 380).
12. Herethe conventionalistdisagreeswith the skepticalrealist,who claimsthat (S)
has a truthvaluethat it is impossibleto ascertain.The conventionalistand the skept-
ical realistmake the same epistemologicalpoint-that (S) cannot be known to be
true-but they disagreeabout the reasonwhy.
248 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

an arbitrarychoice must be made of one such statement for pur-

poses of theory construction. Including (S) in one's theory is dis-
pensable, but including some such principle is indispensable.13
It is important to recognize the epistemic status that the con-
ventional elements in one's system of beliefs possess. If (S) lacks
a truth value, then no observation can empirically disconfirm it;
it is 'immune from empirical revision'. However, this is not
because (S) is certain to be true (Ricketts 1994). (S) is a priori
in the negative sense that its justification does not depend on
experience, but what, if anything, can be said positively about
the justification there is for believing it? Here it is useful to recall
the distinction between pragmatic and epistemic reasons for
believing a proposition, a distinction that is familiar in connec-
tion with Pascal's wager. Epistemic reasons have to do with the
proposition believed; pragmatic reasons have to do with the act
of believing. Pascal says that even if there is no epistemic reason
to believe in God, there is a pragmatic one. Even if there is no
evidence for the proposition that God exists, there still is a good
reason for agents to get themselves to perform the act of believ-
ing. Conventionalists assert that there is no epistemic reason to
believe (S), though there may be a pragmatic reason to adopt
that convention.
I hope these comments make it clear why conventionalism as
a thesis about the content of various scientific theories provides
a bad model for thinking about analyticity. Analyticity has to do
with language, but conventionalism in science has nothing much
to do with that. Furthermore, the example about bachelors
shows that it is a mistake to think of linguistic practice as making
analytic (object-language) sentences true. The linguistic con-
ventions-the arbitrary pairing of words with meanings that is
operative in a language-establish what proposition a given sen-
tence in a language expresses. This is true for all sentences in

13. Thus, it shouldbe clearhow conventionalismas a thesisabout the content of a

specificscientifictheory differsfrom 'trivialsemanticconventionalism'-the claim
that the pairingof wordsin a languagewith theirmeaningsor referentsis arbitrary.
It is interestingthat Carnap(1963, p. 916) makes this very point. In discussingthe
logicaltruth'all blackdogs are dogs,'he says that 'oncethe meaningsof the individ-
ual wordsin a sentenceof this form are given (whichmay be regardedas a matter
of convention),then it is no longer a matter of conventionor of arbitrarychoice
whetheror not to regardthe sentenceas true;the truthof such a sentenceis deter-
minedby the logicalrelationsholdingbetweenthe givenmeanings...'
 QUINE 249

a language, not just the analytic ones. Whether bachelors are

unmarried depends on linguistic conventions no more than
whether there are nine planets.
The argumentjust describedagainst the thesis of truth-by-con-
vention makes use of a counterfactual;we are asked to consider,
for example, whether bachelors would still be unmarried if
English had developed differently. Those, like Quine, who think
that counterfactualsare 'unclear' may be unimpressed with this
argument. But once again, the rejection of first philosophy that
Quine did so much to promote leads to a different assessment. It
is true that philosophers have not been able to provide a fully
adequate account of the rules that govern counterfactualreason-
ing. It also is true that extant accounts (e.g., those of Stalnaker
1968 and Lewis 1973) have had to make use of irreduciblymodal
concepts, and this will arguably be a feature of future theories.
If so, philosophical theories of counterfactual reasoning will not
measure up to Quine's standards of clarity. However, none of
these points provides a compelling reason to 'reject' counter-
factual reasoning. What needs to be rememberedis that counter-
factual reasoningis centralto scientificinference.Eating lollipops
is correlated with being young, but eating lollies doesn't make
one youthful. Childrenwould still be young if they stopped con-
suming lollipops. This is an entirely mundane type of remark,
one that is often made in scientific contexts (see, for example,
Fisher's smoking hypothesis). The use of counterfactuals in the
argumentagainst the thesis of truth-by-conventionshould be no
more suspect.14 Quine's discussion of modality embodies an
attempt to change science; the point, however, is to understand
it.

V
The Argumentof 'Truthby Convention'.Not only does the argu-
ment just presented against the idea of truth-by-convention
involve counterfactual reasoning; in addition, it relies on a

14. It doesn'thelp the conventionalistto assertthat the relationbetweenour adopt-

ing conventionsand the truth of various propositionsis 'constitutive'ratherthan
causal.Thecounterfactualtest is still appropriate-if C makesP true(where'makes'
is understoodconstitutively),then it should turn out that P would not be true if C
had not occurred.
250 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

distinction-the distinction between a sentence and what the sen-

tence expresses (a 'proposition'). This is a distinction that Quine
might have qualms about drawing, since talk of propositions, for
him, is not legitimate (but see footnote 11). Accordingly, it is no
surprisethat Quine advanced a quite different argument against
conventionalism in his earlier essay 'Truth by Convention'.
Quine (1936) considerswhetherlogical truths like 'if pigs fly, then
pigs fly' could be true by convention. He observes that there are
infinitely many such sentences, which means that we would not
be able to stipulate, one by one, that each is true. Rather, we
might try to cover them all by making stipulations about general
logical schemata;for example, one could propose the convention
that all statements of the form 'if P, then P' are true. Quine then
points out that applying this stipulation about the schema to
each of its many instances requires the use of logic. We would
have to reason as follows:
The sentence'if pigs fly, thenpigs fly' has the form'if P, thenP'.
All sentencesof the form'if P, thenP' aretrueby stipulation.
'If pigs fly, thenpigsfly' is trueby stipulation.
As this derivation shows, logical truths aren't truejust in virtue
of the stipulations we make about various logical schemata.
Rather, the first premiss reports a fact about logical form that is
independent of the stipulation described in the second premiss;
in addition, the argument uses a rule of inference that connects
premisses to conclusion, and this rule is not made valid by the
reportedstipulation. In this argument, nonstipulated facts about
logic are used to connect the general stipulation about the
schema to a specific stipulation concerning the sentence at issue.
Conventionalismthereby fails as a thesis about all logical truths.
This is an important argument. However, we need to be clear
on what it does and does not entail. It does not show that no
sentence is true by convention. It is quite possible, for all this
argument says, that there are finitely many statements that are
true by convention. The problem with conventionalism that
Quine identifies arises only when conventionalists are
ambitious-when they claim that the number of sentences that
are true by convention is infinite. Indeed, Quine says in both
'Truth by Convention' and in 'Two Dogmas' that he has no
 QUINE 251

problem with the idea that explicit stipulation can render a sen-
tence true.•5
The argument discussed before that turns on the distinction
between a sentence and the proposition it expresses suggests that
Quine is too generous to the idea of explicit stipulation. To see
why, let's consider a simple example of a stipulative definition.
Suppose I announce that I'll use the term 'ap' to mean apple. If
I subsequentlysay 'an ap is an apple', my statement will be true.
I'll also be saying something true if I say 'some aps grow in Wis-
consin'. How do these two utterances differ? In both cases, we
figure out whether a sentence is true by deciding what prop-
osition the sentence expresses and then determiningwhether that
proposition is true. If we know a priori that an apple is an apple
and we know that 'an ap is an apple' expresses this proposition,
then we can say without further ado that the sentence is true.
However, if we see that the sentence 'some aps grow in Wiscon-
sin' expresses the proposition that some apples grow in Wiscon-
sin, then we can't say, based just on that and the a priori
knowledge at our disposal, whether the sentence is true, since
the proposition it expresses is a posteriori. In short, even modest
conventionalists, who propose only a finite number of linguistic
stipulations, have a problem. They can't say that a sentence is
made true solely by the act of adopting a linguistic convention.

15. AlthoughQuinedoes not objectto the idea that some sentencesare made true
by explicitlinguisticconvention,he doubts that it makes sense to talk of linguistic
conventionsthat are merelyimplicitin languageuse; he is suspiciousof talk of con-
ventionsthat arisewithoutan act of 'convening.'WhenI declarewhat my term 'ap'
will mean, I do so withina pre-existinglanguage.However,the meaningsof terms
in the first languagea communitycomes to use cannot arise by people stipulating
what theirtermswill mean.
David Lewis (1969) answeredQuine'squestion by describinghow a community
could evolve conventionalpracticeswithout explicitlyconsentingto an agreement
stated in a pre-existinglanguage.Lewis' idea was to use game theory;terms can
acquiremeaningsin the same way that the driversin a societycan come to driveon
the same side of the road. It is arbitrarywhetherwe drive on the left or the right,
but it is not arbitrarythat we all do the samething.A communityof agentswho are
guidedby the wish to cooperatecan evolve a communicationsystemin which signs
havesignificance.The questionmay be raisedas to whetherthe sameaccountapplies
when individualsare selfishratherthan cooperative(Sober 1994b),but the general
point remains-there is nothingunintelligibleabout the idea of conventionscoming
into existencewithoutexplicitstipulations.
Still,as Lewisnotes,this defenseof the conceptof conventiondoes nothingto save
the ideathat analytictruthsare madetrueby the conventionsone adopts.It remains
true that bachelorswould still be unmarriedif Englishassigneddifferentmeanings
to the terms'bachelor'and 'unmarried,'for example.
252 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

Boghossian (1996) provides a nice formulation of the present

point. In general, the truth conditions for a sentence in a natural
language will have the following form:
s is truein languageL iff s expressespropositionp andp is true.
Facts about the meanings of terms in a sentence determinewhich
proposition the sentence expresses. However, that isn't enough
to settle whether the sentence is true; there is, in addition, the
extra-linguisticquestion of whether the proposition is true.
It is easy to forget this extra-linguisticcontribution when the
proposition in question is a priori. In the apple example, the fact
that an apple is an apple is part of what makes the sentence 'an
ap is an apple' true. This extra-linguisticcontribution to truth
value is present in any object-language sentence. We can illus-
trate this two-part contribution via the following derivation:
'An ap is an apple'is truein L iff an appleis an apple.
An appleis an apple.
'An ap is an apple'is truein L.
The first premiss describes what the quoted sentence means by
stating its truth conditions. The conclusion does not follow from
this first premiss taken by itself; the second premiss is needed as
well, and this premissstates a fact that is language-independent.16
16. Althoughit soundsquite intuitiveto say, for example,that bachelorswould still
be unmarriedif we adopted differentlinguisticconventionsconcerningthe use of
the term'bachelor,'it is not immediatelyobvious what is wrongwith the following
argument:
Becauseof our linguisticconventions,the Englishsentence'a bacheloris an
unmarriedman' is true.
Becauseof our linguisticconventions,a bacheloris an unmarriedman.
The premissseems true and the conclusionseems to follow from the premissby a
sort of disquotationprinciple.However,I claim that the conclusionis false. Where
does the argumentgo wrong?I understandthe premissas follows. It says that
(*) Becauseof our linguisticconventions,the Englishsentence'a bacheloris an
unmarriedman' expressessome true propositionp.
Notice that the fact broughtinto being,accordingto this premiss,involvesa relation
betweenthe sentenceand the class of true propositions.As such, it is similarto the
followingclaim:
Becauseof somethingJoe did, his herringbonesuit now fits him.
This sentencecould be true becauseJoe went on a diet, or becauseJoe had his suit
altered(or both). The relationgot changedby changingone of the relata, but the
sentencedoes not say whichrelatumgot changed.
The same point holds of (*). It is true;our adoptionof certainlinguisticconven-
tions changedsomething.But what?Thereare two possibilities.Ourbehaviourcould
 QUINE 253

In 'Two Dogmas', Quine (1953c, pp. 36-37) says that it is

tempting to think that 'the truth of a statement is somehow
analyzableinto a linguistic component and a factual component.
Given this supposition, it next seems reasonable that in some
statements the factual component should be null; and these are
the analytic statements'. It should be clear that I do not share
Quine's skepticism about the possibility of effecting the separ-
ation he describes. But, in addition, I disagree with the idea that
analytic truths are 'nonfactual'-that there is nothing besides the
'linguistic component' that makes them true.17 Fortunately, the
legitimacy of analyticity as a category does not depend on this
conventionalist position.
I have suggestedthat Quine was right in 'Truth by Convention'
to deny that explicitly adopted conventions can account for the
truth of all the logical truths, since there are too many. I then
suggested that Quine is too generous; on closer analysis, it is
implausible to claim that even one logical truth is true just by
virtue of the conventions we adopt. However, even if conven-
tionalism is mistaken as an account of the 'ground' of logical
truth, it still may be true that there is an irreducibly arbitrary
element in our choice of logical principles. The epistemic side of
conventionalism remains untouched. In addition, the semantic
thesis that logical principles do not have truth values is not
underminedby Quine's argument in 'Truth by Convention';just
as human conventions cannot make the law of excluded middle
true, so the human incapacity to propose an infinite number of
conventions cannot show that the law has a determinateand con-
vention-independenttruth value. The conventionalist claim that
certain statements lack truth values but should be accepted on
pragmaticgrounds does not require that any sentence is literally
made truejust by language users adopting linguistic conventions.

have changed which proposition the sentence expresses, or it could have changed the
truth value of a proposition. Clearly, the former is correct. This is why the premiss
in the quoted argument is true, but the conclusion does not follow.
17. Even though my claim that a definition never suffices to establish the truth of
any object-language sentence conflicts with what Quine says in the passage just cited
from 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism,' it accords with an idea he developed earlier in
'Truth by Convention'. There Quine (1936, p. 71) says that 'a definition is incapable
of grounding the most trivial statement'. This is because he thinks that a definition
is 'a convention of notational abbreviation;' 'a definition is not a premise to theory,
but a licence for rewriting theory' (p. 71). Quine is saying that a definition is a meta-
linguistic statement that says that two object-language expressions are synonymous,
or at least intersubstitutable salve veritate.
254 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

VI
Back to Frege. Quine's target in 'Two Dogmas' is Carnap and
the logical empiricists, not Frege. However, in the light of the
errors we have identified in the idea that analytic truths are true
by convention, it makes sense to go back to Frege, whose concep-
tion of analyticitywas not conventionalist. Frege (1884) said that
analytic truths are deductive consequences of definitions. How-
ever, as noted above in connection with apples, the truth value
of an object-languagesentence is never settled solely by describ-
ing what the sentence means. The meaning of an object-language
sentence is given by stating a biconditional that describesits truth
conditions; from this biconditional, taken by itself, the truth of
the left-hand side does not follow. However, Frege's idea easily
accommodates this observation.The truth of an analytic (object-
language) sentence follows from logical truths when (meta-
linguisticallyformulated) definitions of the terms in the sentence
are supplied.
Definitions, as I am using the term, are meta-linguistic state-
ments that describe the semanticpropertiesof expressions or sen-
tences in an object language. This may sound overly restrictive,
since it entails, for example, that the object-languagesentence 'a
mother is a female parent' is not a definition. However, notice
that the quoted sentence says nothing about English or any other
natural language; what the sentence says would still be true even
if English never existed. Definitions must be meta-linguisticstate-
ments if they are, literally, to describe the semantic properties of
terms in a particularlanguage. Without construing definitions in
this way, analyticity fails to have anything to do with language.
This Fregean conception of analyticity should be understood
in such a way that it is consistent with the apparent fact that
very few terms in a natural language can be defined noncircularly
in that language. The term 'triangle' is an exception; even the
term 'bachelor' turns out, on reflection, to be such that one can
state necessary, but not necessary and sufficient, conditions for
the term to apply-perhaps bachelors must be unmarried adult
male human beings, but the converse seems not to be true.'8

18. It has often been noted that it sounds odd to say that the Pope is a bachelor; it
also sounds odd to say of a man who lives out of wedlock with a woman for many
years and has children with her, that he is a bachelor (Harman 1996).
 QUINE 255

However, the case for analyticitydoesn't depend on the existence

of definitionsin this sense. Carnap (1952a) used the term 'mean-
ing postulate' to describe statements that provide analytically
necessaryor analytically sufficientconditions for the application
of a term. Analyticity does not requirethat the terms in a natural
language be definable noncircularly.
Even in the absence of full-scale definitions, analytic truths can
be made to fall into the pattern described before in connection
with 'ap':
'Bachelorsare unmarried'is true in Englishiff unmarriedbach-
elorsareunmarried.
Unmarriedbachelorsareunmarried.
is truein English.
'Bachelorsare unmarried'
In such two-premiss arguments, the first premiss describes what
speakers of a natural language know if they know what the
quoted sentence means.19 What of the second premiss in these
displayed arguments?They express 'logical truths', but what are
they? Quine restrictslogic to first-orderlogic with identity. I see
no reason to be so parsimonious. For example, the following
sentence seems to me to be just as analytic as 'bachelors are
unmarried',but second-orderlogic is needed to explain why:
If JackfallsdownandJillfallsdown,thenthereis a characteristic
thatJackand Jill both have.
In any event, I don't think it is necessaryto settle here what logic
is with any precision. For now, we can envision a plurality of
notions of analyticity, each relativized to its own conception of
what makes a truth a logical truth. Perhaps this tolerant plural-
ism can be whittled down by well-motivated argumentsconcern-
ing the nature of logic.

VII
Analyticity as Part of a Theory of Linguistic Competence. A
cognitivist model of language use seeks to predict and explain

19. It is for this reasonthat "'bachelorsare unmarried"is true in Englishiff grass

is green'is a true biconditional,but not one that can serveto show that 'bachelors
are unmarried'is analytic.
256 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

linguistic behaviour by attributingcertain sorts of knowledgeto

people. It will say that people who are able to speak English have
this ability by virtue of their possessing an abstract represen-
tation of their language. This knowledge allows them to say when
a string of words constitutes a well-formed English sentence and
when it does not. In addition, speakersknow various facts about
what words mean and they know rules that allow them to assign
meanings to sentences, based on the meanings assigned to their
parts.20
A linguist will want to describe how the knowledge that
English speakerspossess allows them to understandwhat English
sentences mean. It is not the mission of linguistics to say which
of those English sentences is true. Linguists will want to provide
an abstract and general theory that assigns truth conditions to
'thereare nine planets' and 'there are ten planets'. It is for astron-
omy, not linguistics, to say which of these sentences is true. The
same point holds for the sentences 'bachelorsare unmarried'and
'bachelors are married'. The linguist wants a general theory of
the semantics of the language that describes what each sentence
means; which of them is true is not a problem for linguistics. The
legitimacy of the concept of analyticity is thus not completely
settled by seeing how theories in linguistics and cognitive science
develop. Those empirical sciences will tell us what we should
think of the concept of meaning (Putnam 1962), but meaning is
only one of the two ingredientsthat go into the concept of ana-
lyticity. The other ingredientis logic.
Still, it is not unreasonable to think that if speakers of a lan-
guage know what sentences in their language mean, and also
know some logic, then they will know (or be able to know), on
that basis, that certain sentences of their language are true. Of

20. If theories of meaning are to be thought of in this way-as empirical theories

that seek to explain and predict the behaviour of language users-then a standard
criticism of verificationist theories of meaning needs to be reconsidered. Verifi-
cationism has often been criticized for being meaningless by its own standard-it
isn't a correct definition of what the term 'meaning' means in ordinary usage, nor is
it empirically testable. Carnap (1936-37) replied that verificationism is a proposal,
not a statement that has a truth value; however, critics then were able to say that it
is a proposal that they felt no particular obligation to accept. On the view I am
suggesting, theories of meaning are no more 'proposals' than are theories of planetary
motion. Claims about meaning are introduced to explain and predict the behaviour
of language users, just as concepts like mass and acceleration are introduced to
explain and predict the behaviour of planets.
 QUINE 257

course, speakersof a language will not have at their disposal the

full panoply of what logicians mean by 'logic'. But suppose that
some elements of logic are psychologically real-speakers of a
language have at least some understanding of the entailment
relation. If so, their grasp of their language, along with whatever
logical acumen they possess, will allow them to recognize that
some of the sentences in their language are true. Knowledge of
language allows speakers who know some logic to know that
certain object-languagesentences are true, where those sentences
are not about language at all.
This conception of analyticity leaves open the possibility that
some languages may fail to contain analytic sentences. As an
admittedly artificialexample, consider a 'language' in which the
only well-formed sentences are ones that report an object's tem-
perature;each wffhas the form 'object x has a temperatureof n
degrees Centigrade'. A theory of meaning can be provided for
this language, one that describeswhat it takes to be a competent
user of this representationalsystem. However, no sentence in this
language is analytic. This is enough to show that analytic truths
are not an inevitable byproduct of the meaningfulness of sen-
tences. Rather, they are to be found in languages that possess a
certain type of expressive power-these languages contain sen-
tences that competent speakers know have logical truths as their
truth conditions.

VIII
Knowledgeof Languageand Knowledgeof Extra-LinguisticProp-
ositions. The concept of analyticity builds a bridge between the
truth of a sentence in a natural language and a proposition that
is not linguistic in its subject matter. For example, if 'mothers
are female parents' is an analytic truth in English, then speakers
will know the following biconditional (or something like it):
The English sentence'mothersare female parents'is true iff
mothersaremothers.
In principle, knowing this biconditional might allow speakers
who alreadyknow the left-hand side of the biconditional to come
to know the right, or it might permit individuals who already
know the right-handside to come to know the left. Do we know
258 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

that the English sentence is true because we know that mothers

are mothers, or do we know that mothers are mothers because
we happen to know that the quoted English sentence is true?The
linguistic theory of the a priori claims that knowledge of language
is the source of the a priori knowledge we possess. However, it
is entirely possible that the situation is precisely the reverse-
that our knowledge of language is predicatedon our already hav-
ing certain items of a priori knowledge at our disposal.
Even if knowledge flows from logic to language in the kind of
case just described, there may be other cases in which the direc-
tion is reversed.Consider, for example, Cantor's proof that there
are nondenumerablymany numbers between 0 and 1. A naive
person who is told that there are more numbers between 0 and
1 than there are whole numberswill react with bafflement. How-
ever, if you write down a series of decimals, and then show how
Cantor's diagonalization procedure can be used to construct a
decimal not on the list, the claim becomes clear. Cantor's proof
helps people see that the proposition about cardinality is true by
exploiting certain obvious properties of decimal notation. Try to
convince someone of Cantor's claim by using Roman numerals
and you'll get nowhere. Cantor's proof allows one to learn some-
thing about numbers by examining properties of a notational
system.21
Although knowing Cantor's theorem is facilitated by knowing
facts about a language, it is clear that one can't learn that the
theorem is truejust by examining facts that are about language
and nothing else. After all, Cantor's theorem is about numbers,
and whatevernumbersare, they are not language-boundentities.
One must know that items of notation refer to numbers for the
proof to tell you anything about numbers.
Competent users of a representationalsystem (whether it is a
natural language or decimal notation) know that certain bicon-
ditionals are true. These biconditionals connect the truth of a
representation with a proposition that is extra-linguistic in its
subject matter. Knowing such biconditionals can permit knowl-
edge to proceed from left to right, or from right to left. The
21. Clearly, examininga notational system isn't necessaryfor knowing that the
theoremis true;afterall, if you are told by a reliablepersonthat Cantor'stheorem
is true,this allowsyou to knowthe propositionor to rationallybelieveit. And proofs
of the theoremthat do not referto notationalsystemscan be givenas well.
 QUINE 259

linguistic theory of the a priori envisioned a one-way street run-

ning from analyticity to a priority, but not in the opposite direc-
tion. A better picture is a two-way street, with perhaps more
traffic flow in one direction than in the other.
Earlierin this paper, I rejectedthe idea that analytic truths are
literally 'made true' by the conventional assignment of meanings
to words. I also have rejectedthe quite different, epistemic, idea
that analytic truths can be known to be true just by knowing
what they mean.22A more satisfactory understanding of ana-
lyticity is Frege's-that the truth of an analytic sentence follows
from logical truths plus definitions. One virtue of this proposal
is its austerity. The proposal does not have packed into it an
assumed link between analyticity and a priority, nor does it pre-
suppose any special status for logic. These require separate
arguments.

IX
Is Analyticity'EpistemologicallySignificant'?If meaning is a use-
ful theoreticalconcept in cognitive science, then there can be no
objection to the notion of analyticity, or so a naturalist should
be willing to grant. However, philosophers sympathetic with
Quine's critique of analyticity sometimes say that Quine's real
contributionwas to depriveanalyticity of its 'epistemologicalsig-
nificance'. Of course, even if analyticity were a legitimate scien-
tific notion, it wouldn't follow that it has any epistemological or
philosophical importance. How is this further issue to be
addressed?
I take it that the question of 'epistemological significance'con-
cerns the issue of a priori knowledge. If a sentence is analytic,
then what the sentence says will be a priori, if logic is a priori.23
As describedin our various examples about bachelors, mothers,
and apples, the biconditional that specifies the meaning of an

22. Boghossian (1996) also separates these metaphysical and epistemic conceptions
of analyticity, but he endorses the latter.
23. If a sentence is analytic, then the fact that the sentence is true will not be decidable
a priori if it is an empirical question what the sentence means in the particular (soci-
ally shared) natural language in question. Perhaps sentences that are analytic in a
speaker's idiolect can be known by that speaker to be true a priori, but that is another
matter. In any event, for socially shared languages, the connection between ana-
lyticity and a priority is effected via the proposition that the sentence expresses.
260 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

object-language analytic truth will connect that sentence to a

logically true proposition. Thus, the philosophical interest of
'analysis', if it has any, consists in the fact that it provides access
to the a priori. This is what analytic philosophers care about that
separatesthem from lexicographers.If there is no such thing as a
priori knowledge, then analyticity loses its philosophical interest,
however legitimate the concept of meaning might be in cognitive
science. It is to the concept of the a priori that we now must turn.

X
What Is EpistemologicalHolism? Quine's critique of analyticity
aimed to underminethe linguistic theory of the a priori, but this
critique, even if successful, would leave open the possibility that
there are propositions that can be known or justified indepen-
dently of experience. Quine's epistemological holism is intended
to shut down that possibility. Not only can't the concept of ana-
lyticity be used to show that there is a priori knowledge; nothing
else can either, because there is no such thing.
The distinction between a priori and a posteriori is intended to
separate two types of knowledge or justification. We can make
rational judgments about the truth values of a posteriori prop-
ositions only by appealing to the testimony of the senses; how-
ever, for a priori propositions, the rational justification for
assigning truth values does not depend on sense experience.
What, then, does it depend on? The usual answer is that 'rational
reflection'of some kind on the content of the proposition suffices
to justify an assignment of truth value. This reflection might
involve noticing that a sentence that expresses the proposition is
analytic, as the logical empiriciststhought; the Kantian alterna-
tive is that it might involve noticing that the proposition is syn-
thetic, but is a presupposition of the possibility of empirical
knowledge.
The contrast between a priori and a posteriori is often thought
to coincide with a contrast between beliefs that are certain and
beliefs that are not. However, nothing I have said about a priority
implies that this is so. Suppose I know that triangles have three
sides by examiningthe content of that proposition-by analyzing
its constituent concepts. I therefore bypass the use of sense
experience with its attendant sources of error. However, it is
 QUINE 261

entirely possible that the introspectiveexamination of one's con-

cepts is prey to unreliabilities of its own. Various philosophers
have claimed that the exercise of 'reason' yields infallible results,
but I do not. The a priori/a posterioridistinction simply distingu-
ishes two sources of knowledge or justified belief.
If the a priori/a posteriori distinction makes sense, then we
should be able to divide the differentpropositions we believe into
two classes, each having its own distinctive sort of support.
Quine'sholism denies that this is possible. For Quine, the totality
of what we believe is supported by the totality of the sense experi-
ences we have. We adjust our total theory of the world by bring-
ing it into accord with the sense experienceswe have and also by
making it conform to requirementssuch as logical consistency,
simplicity, elegance, generality, and tractability. Logical reflec-
tion and sense experiencejointly shape this total theory; it is a
mistake to think that some of our beliefs are justified just by
rational reflection while others depend for their justification on
sense experience.
An analogy may help convey the character of what Quine is
claiming. Suppose a husband and wife deposit their salaries into
a joint checking account from which they pay their bills. Does
the wife's salary cover the car insurance, while the husband's
takes care of the groceries?In some marriages this division may
occur, but in the one I am imagining, it does not. The expenses
as a whole are covered by the two paychecks together. When
their income shrinksor grows, and when prices rise and fall, they
revise their list of what they buy. But individual purchases never
trace back to one paycheck rather than the other.
Quine's holism separates his position from that of Mill,
accordingto whom propositions that we might think are a priori
are in fact empirical.Mill (1859) thought that our belief in simple
arithmeticpropositions like 2 + 3 = 5 is based on the experiences
we have when we count. Arithmetic is a posteriori. However, for
Mill, the justification that we have in believing that 2 + 3 = 5 can
be separated from the justification we have for believing that
grass is green;both are experiential,but differentexperiencesjus-
tify differentbeliefs. This isn't holism, but a kind of epistemologi-
cal atomism. Mill's position makes it clear how epistemological
holism goes beyond the simple denial that there are a priori
truths.
262 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

XI
Centralityand MinimumMutilation. If our beliefs 'face the tri-
bunal of sense experience not individually but as a corporate
body', what determines how we should revise our beliefs when
we encounter 'recalcitrantexperience'?For example, what do we
do if we expect it to be snowing when we look out the window,
but don't have the experience of whiteness that we expected to
have? We need to revise our beliefs, but which ones should we
change? Why do we revise the belief that it is snowing, rather
than the belief that our eyes are functioning properly, or the
belief that snow is white, or still others? Quine says that our
beliefs differ from each other in terms of their 'centrality', and
that we follow a policy of 'minimum mutilation'-we revise less
central beliefs rather than more central ones. Our logical and
mathematical beliefs are the most central beliefs we have, which
is why we rarely if ever are tempted to revise them in the light of
experience. However, this is not because they enjoy some special
sort of nonempiricaljustification. Logic and mathematics differ
in degree, not in kind, from the beliefs we have that clearly seem
to be empirical;our belief in the validity of modus tollens is just
more central than our belief that it is snowing.
What does 'centrality' mean? Quine's examples of logic and
mathematicssuggest that centralityhas to do with the importance
a belief has in organizing experience, which in some measure is
influenced by the belief's generality. We don't abandon logical
principlesof inference when we expect to see snow but don't; the
reason is that logic applies to lots of other situations besides this
one, and moreover plays an important role in organizing how we
think about those situations. There are several problems with this
suggestion. First, even though modustollens is central in the sense
just described, it isn't true that every theorem in pure mathe-
matics is like this. A result in some recondite area of algebraic
topology, for example, might play little or no general role in
organizing how we think about the world. Why, then, are such
theorems accorded so great a degree of immunity from revision
in the light of recalcitrant sense experience? The same point
applies to trivial analytic truths. Surely the belief that bachelors
are unmarriedisn't central to our understandingof the world; it
 QUINE 263

is utterlyunlike modustollensin this respect (Putnam 1962, p. 39;

Sidelle 1989). A second problem for Quine's proposal derives
from the fact that general beliefs that organize our interpretation
of wide swathes of experience are sometimes revised in the light
of observations;this is what happens when scientists rejecta gen-
eral theory because they think that the evidence obliges them to
do so. Why doesn't the principle of minimum mutilation dictate
that we should always assume that the data are misleading when
the evidence seems to disconfirm a theory that is central to our
system of beliefs? The fact of the matter is that scientists often
reject theories in the light of data, but they sometimes retain a
theory in the face of contraryevidence, conjecturingthat the data
must be misleading in some way they can't quite figure out (this
is roughly what Kuhn 1970 meant by an 'anomaly'). The rule of
minimum mutilation isn't sufficiently elaborated for it to help
illuminate this important phenomenon. Lastly, suppose the con-
cept of centrality were sufficiently clear that we could see that
logic and mathematics are the most central of our beliefs. The
question then arises as to how the claim that logic and math-
ematics are maximally central differs from the claim that math-
ematics and logic are a priori. If rational revisability in the
light of sense experience is governed by the principle of mini-
mum mutilation, in what sense are our most central beliefs
empirically revisable?24

XII
The Holistic Concept of Confirmation.Quine's holism has been
extremely influential in philosophy generally, but perhaps most
influential in philosophy of mathematics. Many philosophers
hold that mathematicalstatementsare empiricallywell supported
because they play an indispensable role in natural science
(Putnam 1971; Kitcher 1983; Maddy 1990; Hellman 1992,

24. To thesecriticisms,it mightbe repliedthat Quineneverpretendedthat the prin-

ciple of minimummutilationis a completeepistemology.My responseis that if the
principleis just one of the considerationsthat governsbeliefrevision,then it is left
open whetherQuineis rightwhenhe says that all beliefsare empiricallyrevisable.
264 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

forthcoming;Resnik 1992, 1995).25 Calculus, for example, might

appear to be an a priori subject, but the fact that it is used in
predictively successful physical theories means that calculus
enjoys the empirical confirmation that those theories have
received.That calculus is used in relativitytheory means that the
empiricalevidence that supports relativity theory also accrues to
calculus; but the fact that calculus is used in Newtonian theory
does not mean that the empirical disconfirmationof Newtonian
theory also accrues to calculus. Ronald Reagan used to be called
'the Teflon President'-accusations of malfeasance never seemed
to stick to him, whereas he was often given credit for the good
things that happened while he was in office. Quinean philosophy
of mathematics holds that mathematics has the same Teflon
quality-it is empirically confirmed by the good theories in
which it is used, but it is not empiricallydisconfirmedby the bad
theories in which it also is used (Sober 1993, 1999).
The confirmation relation that holism invokes is bizarre.Con-
sider a perfectly mundane example. I draw a card at random
from a standard deck of cards without looking at it. The prob-
ability that it is the seven of hearts is 1/52. You then inform me
that the card is red. This information confirms the hypothesis
that the card is the seven of hearts, not in the sense of insuring
that the hypothesis is true, but in the sense of making the hypo-
thesis more plausible than it was before; the probability that I
have the seven of hearts has just increasedto 1/26. However, this
information does not confirm the hypothesis that the card I hold
is a seven; the probability that I have a seven remains what it
25. Maddy (1992) criticizes the indispensability argument; Field (1980) accepts the
Quinean assumption that mathematics would be justified if it were indispensable, but
argues against the antecedent. Peressini (1997) identifies issues that need to be
addressed in the indispensability argument concerning the relationship between pure
mathematics and mathematized natural science that are separable from the question
of confirmational holism.
It is worth noting that Quine has recently changed his mind about the holistic
status of mathematics. In From Stimulus to Science, Quine writes:
The accepted wisdom is that mathematics lacks empirical content. This is not
contradicted by the participation of mathematics in implying [observational] cat-
egoricals for... such participation does not confer empirical content. The content
belongs to the implying set, and is unshared by its members. I do, then, accept
the accepted wisdom. No mathematical sentence has empirical content, nor does
any set of them (Quine 1995, p. 49; quoted by Gibson 1998, pp. 677-678).
In his reply to Gibson, Quine (1998, p. 685) confirms that his present view is that
'mathematics lacks empirical content.'
 QUINE 265

was, namely 1/13. The following pattern of inference (which

Hempel 1965, p. 31 called 'the special consequence condition' of
confirmation)is fallacious:
O confirmsH O = the cardis red
H entailsS H = the cardis the sevenof hearts
S = the cardis a seven
O confirms
S
Yet, holism maintains that when an observation confirms relativ-
ity theory, this observation also confirms the pure mathematics
that is used in relativity theory.
The example just described has a natural Bayesian represen-
tation. Bayesians say that O confirms H precisely when
Pr(HIO)> Pr(H) and that O disconfirms H precisely when
Pr(HO) < Pr(H); confirmationmeans probability raising and dis-
confirmation means probability lowering. In the card example,
O raises the probability of H but it does not raise the probability
of S, even though H entails S. Although it is convenient to use a
Bayesian model of confirmation to analyze this example, the
force of the example does not depend on Bayesianism's being
adequate in general. It is enough that Bayesianism makes sense
in the case at hand.
Another property of simple examples of confirmation is that
there is a kind of symmetry between confirmation and discon-
firmation. If observing that the card is red confirms the hypoth-
esis that the card is the seven of hearts, then, if the card had not
been red, that observation would have disconfirmedthe hypoth-
esis. This idea also can be given a Bayesian representation. It
follows from Bayes's theorem that
Pr(HIO)> Pr(H) if and only if Pr(Hlnot-O)< Pr(H).
O confirms H if and only if not-O would disconfirm H. Yet,
holism maintains that the observational outcomes that are said
to confirm propositions of pure mathematics, had they been
different, would not have disconfirmed those propositions
(Musgrave 1986; Sober 1993, 1999).26

26. Hellman (1999) attempts to rescue Quinean holism from these problems by for-
mulating it as the following claim, which he calls 'moderate holism'. When M&L&A
entail O and O is observed to be true, then O confirms the conjunction M&L&A.
Here M is a set of pure mathematical axioms, L are lawlike statements in a scientific
theory, and A are auxiliary statements.
Hellman notes that this condition 'typically holds' in Bayesian confirmation theory;
266 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

Quine's holism has a consequence that is even more radical. If

I believe relativity theory, and this theory is confirmed by some
observation that I make, then everythingI believe is also con-
firmed. To say otherwise is to say that the observation impinges
only on part of what I believe; my total system of beliefs then
would not have confronted the tribunal of experience as a cor-
porate body. So if I believe X and Y, anything that confirms X
also confirms Y, even when X and Y are thoroughly unrelated.
In fact, if I believe X and Y, and you believe X and not-Y, then
anything that confirms X confirms Y for me, whereas anything
that confirms X confirms not-Y for you. This is implausible, and
not just on the Bayesian model.

XIII
Duhem's Thesis. Although the original 1951 version of 'Two
Dogmas' that was published in Philosophical Review did not
mention Duhem's thesis, the thesis is referredto in a footnote in
in fact, it holds if Pr(O) and Pr(M&L&A) are each less than 1. But this raises a
problem. Even if M were completely irrelevant to L and to 0, the conjunction would
still have its probability go up in the circumstances described. Hellman sees that if
M is to be confirmed, it must be shown that this conjunct has its probability raised
by O; it isn't enough that M is part of a conjunction whose probability increases.
'How then,' he asks, 'can evidential support for a body of theory including mathemat-
ics result in a boost to the mathematical component?'
His answer is this: 'it depends on the prior credibility of the mathematical assump-
tion(s). If M is already certain, of course it does not need further "confirmation".
But if it is less than certain.., it can benefit from empirical support of bodies of
theory...' Hellman adds that one also must consider the fact that the mathematical
component M helps other theories besides L with other auxiliary assumptions besides
A to make accurate predictions, and that this further confirms M. As a third point,
Hellman considers a disjunction of theories (vTi) in which each disjunct entails M;
Hellman points out that Pr(M|O) > Pr(vTi|O).
None of these three points answers the question that Hellman poses. Even if M is
less than certain, it still may fail to be confirmed by O. And the fact that M helps
other pairs of theories plus auxiliary assumptions to make accurate predictions
merely raises for them the same question that arises with respect to L and A. Having
lots of the same thing provides lots of confirmation only if each test provides some
confirmation, and this has not been shown. Finally, Hellman's point about the dis-
junction vTi does not show that Pr(M|O) > Pr(M).
Hellman also says that mathematical propositions are confirmed by their role in
empirically successful theories, but are not disconfirmed by their role in empirically
unsuccessful theories. However, as noted above, Bayes's theorem entails that there is
a symmetry between confirmation and disconfirmation. In addition, Hellman says
that his position is consistent with there being propositions of pure mathematics that
are immune from empirical revision. As he realizes, this is a substantial retreat from
Quine's position. That some propositions of pure mathematics (like the ones that
Plateau investigated) can be tested empirically is not in dispute.
 QUINE 267

the version of the paper later published in From a Logical Point

of View (Quine 1953c, p. 41). Quine (1991, p. 269) says that he
'didn't know about Duhem' when he wrote 'Two Dogmas', but
inserted the footnote at the prompting of Hempel and Philipp
Frank. In that footnote, he equates his epistemological holism
with Duhem's thesis.
Duhem (1914) made a claim about hypotheses in physics-
taken on their own, they do not have observational conse-
quences. If physical hypotheses are to make testable predictions,
they must be conjoined with 'auxiliary assumptions'. Even
though H by itself does not entail any observation statements,
the conjunction (H&A) may do so. Quine generalized Duhem's
point-what is true of physical hypotheses is true of all our
beliefs; no hypothesis is 'testable in isolation'. I do not doubt
the logical point with which Duhem and Quine begin. However,
epistemological holism does not follow.
The logical point has implications about what happens when
a prediction fails to come true. If (H&A) entails 0, and not-O
turns out to be true, then there is a choice; one might abandon
H, or abandon A, or abandon one or more logical principles.
Quine thinks that the fact that we face a choice here shows that
all our beliefs are potentially at risk when we make observations.
We could abandon our logical and mathematical beliefs, rather
than our physical theories, when predictions fail to come true.
Only pragmatic considerations reflecting our allegiance to the
policy of minimum mutilation lead us to do otherwise.
It is often replied that this flexibilitywould disappearif we had
independentreason to believe the background assumptions A-
if the conjunction (H&A) entails a false prediction, and we know
that A is true, then the culprit must be H, which we then reject.
To this, Quine might reply-why should our prior conviction
that A is true continue to hold sway? Why shouldn't the failure
of our currentprediction be a reason to re-evaluateA? Here is a
way to think about testing that answers this question: Typically,
scientists test a hypothesis by testing it against another hypoth-
esis; testing is a comparative process in which one tries to find
observations that favour one hypothesis over another (Sober
1994a, 1999). The logical point about the need for background
assumptions is entirely correct. However, the typical situation in
science is that the competing hypotheses make use of the same
268 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

set of backgroundassumptions.The conjunction (H1& A) and the

conjunction (H2&A) both make predictions. However, these
conjunctions do not deductivelyentail what they predict. Rather,
since observation is always subject to error, what happens is that
these conjunctions confer probabilitieson observations. The con-
junction (H1& A) confers a probability on the observational out-
come 0, and the same is true of the conjunction (H2& A). We
now can define the idea that an observational outcome O favours
one hypothesis over another:
Given backgroundassumptionsA, O favoursH1 over H2 if and
only if Pr(OlH,&A) > Pr(O|H2&A).
If O is very probable according to (H1& A) and very improbable
according to (H2& A), then O strongly favours H1 over H2. If
the probabilities are closer together, the degree of favouring is
less decisive. The point to notice is that O's favouring H1 over H2
says nothing about whether O favours A over some alternative
auxiliaryassumption. The experimentjust describeddoes not test
A at all because it does not test A against an alternative. The
usual role that mathematics and logic play in empirical science
is to furnish a commonset of background assumptions, which all
the competing hypotheses exploit. This is why logic and math-
ematics are not tested in typical scientific experiments (on this
point, see Popper, 1963, p. 112).27
For logic and mathematicsto be tested empirically,one logical
or mathematical statement would have to be pitted against an
alternativeand a frameworkof shared background assumptions
would have to be supplied that permits the two statements to
make different predictionsabout observations. It is instructiveto
examine a case in the history of mathematics in which this actu-
ally happened. Plateau was a 19th century French mathematician

27. Friedman (1997, p. 12) claims that the 'fundamental problem' with Quinean
holism is that it does not make sense to view a mathematized theory like general
relativity as a conjunction in which the pure mathematics is isolated in one of the
conjuncts; 'rather, the mathematical background of Einstein's theory functions as a
necessary presupposition of that theory...' Holism, I would say, does not require this
partition; in effect, Hempel's special consequence condition can be thought of as
expressing the content of holism. Friedman then goes on to note that Newtonian
physics, special relativity, and general relativity are all now thought of as different
theories that share the same mathematical machinery. It is because that machinery is
common across these theories that the empirical evidence that favours one theory over
another does not confirm (or disconfirm) the shared mathematical presuppositions.
 QUINE 269

who wanted to figure out what the surface of least area is that
fills various closed curves. A simple example of the type of prob-
lem that Plateau had in mind is a curve that has the shape of an
ellipse. An elliptical curve can be filled by the ellipse it contains;
any other surfacethat fills the curve will bulge into a third dimen-
sion and so must have more surface area. Although the answer
to Plateau's question is obvious for this example, the answers
aren't at all obvious for more complicated three-dimensional
curves. What Plateau did was to dip wires bent in different
shapes into soapy water and observe the resulting soap bubbles
that adhered to the frames when they were removed from the
water (Courant and Robbins 1969). Given the physical assump-
tion that soap bubbles take on the surface of least area in this
experiment, different mathematical hypotheses ('the surface of
least area for curve C is si' versus 'the surface of least area for
curve C is s2', for example) make different predictions. This
example is interesting in the history of mathematics precisely
because it is so atypical. No such test of '2 + 3 = 5' against alter-
native arithmetichypotheses has ever been carried out, nor is it
remotely clear what this would be like.
Quine suggests in 'Two Dogmas' that the alternative to epis-
temological holism is the idea that single sentences have their
confirmation conditions separately-that one should be able to
say, for each hypothesis, which observations would confirm it
and which would infirm it. This is the second dogma of empiri-
cism that Quine rejects. However, there is no need to choose
between epistemological holism and this positivist idea. Confir-
mation and disconfirmation are three-place relations, not two-
placed-hypothesis H is confirmed or disconfirmed by obser-
vation O relative to background assumptions A. This logical
point does not force one to say that anything that confirms/
disconfirmsH also confirms/disconfirmsA (see also Creath 1991,
pp. 379-382).28
28. Although there are many passages that suggest that Duhem was indeed an epis-
temological holist, the following passage suggests a rather different interpretation:
The only thing the experiment teaches us is that among the propositions used to
predict the phenomenon and to establish whether it would be produced, there is
at least one error; but where this error lies is just what it does not tell us. The
physicist may declare that this error lies in exactly the hypothesis he wishes to
refute, but is he sure it is not in another proposition? If he is, he accepts implicitly
the accuracy of all the other propositions he has used, and the validity of his
conclusion is as great as the validity of his confidence (Duhem 1914, p. 185).
270 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

XIV
Moderate Holism. In various writings since 'Two Dogmas',
Quine (1960, p. 13; 1975, p. 314; 1986, p. 427; 1991) has men-
tioned that this essay overstates his epistemological holism
(Creath 1991; Gibson 1998). The claim should not be that the
totality of one's system of beliefs faces the tribunal of sense
experienceas a corporate body, but that largishsets of beliefs do
so. The most minimal sort of holism concerns 'clusters of sen-
tencesjust inclusive enough... to imply an observable effect of an
observable experimental condition (Quine 1991, p. 268)'.29 It is
interesting that all forms of holism, including even this most
moderate formulation, are subject to the criticisms just
adumbrated.
Suppose two biologists disagree about the age of a fossil. Mr.
One believes the hypothesis (HI) that the fossil is at most 50
million years old; Ms. Two believes H2 , which says that the fossil
is at least 60 million years old. They agree that potassium-argon
dating is a reliable technique in general and that the potassium-
argon dating device they have in their lab is in good working
order. This auxiliaryassumption (A) permits the two hypotheses
to issue in different predictions about what the device will say.
The test is performed, and the device says that the fossil is at
least 70 million years old. Mr. One has his belief in H, discon-
firmed and Ms. Two has hers in H2 confirmed. What happens to
their shared assumption about potassium-argon dating in gen-
eral and the device in particular?According to Quinean holism,
the same observation disconfirmsA and also confirms A, for A
is conjoined with H, in the mind of Mr. One while A is conjoined
with H2 in the mind of Ms. Two.
Notice that Duhem here does not prohibit the inference that a physical hypothesis is
false or that it is disconfirmed by an observation. He simply points out that this
conclusion depends on one's being willing to say that the auxiliary assumptions are
correct. And the point about auxiliary assumptions is not that one can never have
evidence that they are true, but that one cannot be absolutely certain that they are.
All this is rather unholistic.
29. The shift from radical to moderate holism makes it important to consider the
mathematical propositions that are not used in empirical natural science. What is
their epistemological status? Quine (1990, p. 95) gives this answer: 'The main axioms
of set theory are generalities operative already in the [empirically] applicable part of
the domain. Further sentences... can still be submitted to considerations of simplicity,
economy, and naturalness that contribute to the molding of scientific theories gener-
ally.' Quine goes on to remark that these considerations justify the axiom of choice
and the continuum hypothesis.
 QUINE 271

There is no difficulty in imagining that these two scientists

might react in opposite ways to the device's performance. Per-
haps Mr. One has his confidence in potassium-argon dating
decline, while Ms. Two has hers increase. This is a familiar
human reaction-people sometimes increase their confidence in
messengerswho bring good news, and sometimes they doubt the
reliability of messengers (and even want to kill them) when the
news is bad. Ego intrudesin science,just as it does in other walks
of life. However, confirmationtheory has always tried to separate
the confirmation relation that obtains among propositions from
the psychological quirks that may attach to people. Surely it is
perfectly possible that the auxiliary assumptions in this example
are independently confirmed, that both parties rationally agree
that this is so, and that the status of these shared background
assumptions is entirely unaffected by the experimental result.
This cannot happen according to Quine's holism (whether it is
extreme or moderate), but surely it can and does (Creath 1991,
p. 380).30
If Mr. One's confidencein A and his confidence in H, crumble
simultaneously as a result of the test, what can he say was his
reason for interpretingthe observation as providing a reason for
rejectingHi? It can't be that he thought and continues to think
that potassium-argon dating is a reliable method and that the
device in his lab works properly, for this is just what he has
abandoned. Rationally rejecting a hypothesis formerly believed
typically requiresthat one not abandon the auxiliaryassumptions
that are used to test the hypothesis. Holism must be false for this
to occur.
Quine would interpretthe behaviours of our two scientists by
saying that they embracevarious pragmatic principles, including
the principle of minimum mutilation. I have already expressed
my reservationsabout the ideas of centrality and minimum muti-
lation. I now want to focus on the word 'pragmatic'.What does
this word mean, and what does it exclude? As I mentioned in
30. The fact that the auxiliaryassumptionsA are rationallyretainedby both parties
in this exampleis not, by itself,a counterexampleto the most modestsort of holism,
which is the one that Quineendorsesin the passageI quoted. Minimalholism says
that it is H1 and the conditional(if H1 then01) that stand or fall togetherand that
the sameis true of H2 and the conditional(if H2 then 02). The conditionals(if H1
then01) and (if H2 then02) are eachweakerthan the auxiliaryassumptionA. How-
ever,everythingsaid about A appliesalso to these two conditionals.
272 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

the first part of this paper, I take my cue from Pascal's wager;
'pragmatic' means prudential, and it contrasts with evidential.
With respect to Mr. One and Ms. Two, I claim that it isn't just
'useful' for them to think, before and after the experiment, that
potassium-argon dating is reliable and that their laboratory
device is in good working order. They have good evidence that
this is so before the experiment is performed, and the result of
the experimentdoes not provide any evidence that these auxiliary
assumptionsare false. The experimenttests one hypothesis about
the fossil's age against another; the auxiliary assumptions are
used, but they are not tested.

XV
NondistributiveHolism. I so far have construed holism, whether
it is moderate or radical, as obeying a distributive principle-if
a conjunction is confirmed or disconfirmed, so are each of its
conjuncts. What is true of the whole must be true of the parts.
We have seen that this epistemologicalprincipleis unsatisfactory,
regardlessof how inclusive the conjunctions are supposed to be.
However, there is a different way to formulate epistemological
holism, one that denies distribution. The idea is that confir-
mation and disconfirmationaccrue only to sufficiently inclusive
conjunctions; what is true of the whole cannot be affirmed or
denied of the parts. This nondistributive version of holism is
inconsistent with the Quinean views one finds so often in philos-
ophy of mathematics. One will not be able to say that prop-
ositions of pure mathematical are confirmed when they help
empirical theories to make accurate predictions. Still, nondis-
tributive holism leads to the conclusion that mathematics and
empirical hypotheses are in the same boat, and that might be
symmetryenough to vouchsafe the claim that mathematicsis just
as empirical as natural science.31
In any event, the story of Mr. One and Ms. Two shows that
nondistributiveholism is implausible.Before the experiment,Mr.

31. It is interestingthat hypothetico-deductivism-theview that an observationsen-

tenceO confirms(disconfirms)X iff X deductivelyimpliesO and O is true (false)-
leads to nondistributiveholism.If (H&A)entails0, but neitherconjunctentails O
on its own, then O would confirm(and not-O would disconfirm)the conjunction,
but neitherconjunct,accordingto hypothetico-deductivism. Resnik (1997, p. 115)
endorseshypothetico-deductivism in his defenseof epistemologicalholism.
 QUINE 273

One has a certain degree of confidence in the conjunction

H1& A; afterwards,that degree of confidence has declined. Ms.
Two likewise begins with a certain degree of confidence in
H2& A, which increases as a result of the experiment. There is
absolutely no reason to believe, either from what Quine has
written or on any other basis, that distribution must be a mis-
take. As mentioned above, it can be perfectly reasonable for the
two participants to think that the auxiliary assumption about
potassium-argon dating is not tested in this experiment, and so
their confidence in A remains unchanged; what happens is that
the plausibility of H2 increases and that of H, declines.
If the probability of a conjunction goes up or down and the
conjunctsare probabilisticallyindependent of each other, then at
least one of the conjuncts must have its probability move in the
same direction.However, it is false that each conjunct must move
in the same direction as the conjunction. This is why Bayesianism
is inconsistent with nondistributive and distributive holism
alike.32Again, the lesson I draw from this does not depend on
one's accepting Bayesianism as a completely adequate general
account of confirmation. Bayesianism is uncontroversial in lim-
ited domains and holism of both sorts is therefore false.

XVI
A DuhemianDefinitionof Empirical Unrevisability.It is perfectly
consistent with the correct logical point with which Duhem and
Quine began that there might be propositions that are empirically
unrevisable.If we use the idea mentioned earlier that testing is a
contrastive activity-that one tests a hypothesis H1 by testing it
against a competing hypothesis H2 -then we can formulate the
following definition:
The choicebetweencompetinghypothesesH1 and H2 is empiri-
callyundecidable,withinthe contextof backgroundbeliefsB, iff,
for all observationsO, Pr(OHI&B) = Pr(OIH2 & B), or else the
areundefined.33
probabilities
32. This point about Bayesianismis not new; see, for example, Carnap (1950,
pp. 392-393).
33. The lastclause(thatthe probabilitiesmaybe undefined)is includedbecausesome
questionsmay be empiricallyundecidablewithinthe contextof a set of background
beliefs becausethose backgroundbeliefs don't allow the competinghypothesesto
conferprobabilitieson observations.
274 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

No observation can favour one hypothesis over the other in this

circumstance.
My reason for focusing on the difference between empirically
decidable and empirically undecidable questions, rather than
propositions, can be gleaned by considering the following three
statements:
* Thereis a printedpagein frontof you.
* Thereis a salamiin frontof you.
* Thereis no printedpage in front of you, but an undetectable
evildemonis causingyou to havejust the experiences
you would
be havingif therewerea printedpagein frontof you.
Is the first statement empirical?Well, it is possible to cite experi-
ences that discriminate between it and the second statement.
However, there is no experience that discriminates between the
first statement and the third. Whether a proposition is empirical
depends on what you take its competitors to be (Sober 1994a,
1999).
Notice that the concept of empiricalundecidabilityjust defined
is not coextensive with the idea that a proposition can be justified
by reason alone, independentlyof experience. For one thing, the
choice between a proposition and its negation might be empiri-
cally undecidableand not decidable by rational reflection,either.
For another, a proposition might be both empirically decidable
and a priori, as the example of Plateau's soap bubble experiment
illustrates(see also Rey 1998).
The notion of empirical undecidabilityjust defined might be
generalized.Perhaps there are questions that are not only empiri-
cally undecidable with respect to a single set of background
beliefs, but ones that are empirically undecidable relative to a
range of possible sets of background beliefs. The strongest such
concept would be that of a question that is empiricallyundecid-
able relative to all possible sets of background beliefs. This is an
empty category,34and not of much interest. However, a more
interestingconcept can be obtained as follows. Let's begin with
a censored version of our current set of beliefs; let B0 consist

34. Simply let B be the pair of conditionals [if H, then O and if H2 then not-O],
where O is some observation. Trivially, the choice between H, and H2 is empirically
decidable, relative to that background assumption.
 QUINE 275

of all the beliefs we have, minus the ones that depend for their
justification on our believing H, rather than H2 (or vice versa).
Bo is the set of background beliefs that people might now use to
see whether observations favour one hypothesis over the other.
As we make further observations, we rationally modify Bo and
so construct a new set of beliefs BI; this, in turn, will be modified
by new experience to yield B2, and so on. We now have a
sequence of sets of background beliefs Bo, B1, B2, etc. Each of
these is justified by the observations available at the time, and
none of them begs the question of whether H1 or H2 is more
plausible. Perhaps there are questions that are not only empiri-
cally undecidable now, relative to our present set of beliefs Bo,
but which will remain so, as our backgroundbeliefs are modified
in the light of experience.35The fact that hypotheses are able to
predict observations only via the mediation of background
beliefs does not show that this is impossible.36

XVII
Duhemian Circumspection. Although the logical point that
hypotheses make observational predictions only when sup-
plemented by background assumptions cannot be said to vindi-
cate the Quinean contention that every belief is revisable in the
light of experience, it does suggest that a certain humility is in
order when one is asked whether observations could ever justify
rejectingthis or that hypothesis. It is difficult for us to imagine
how there could be consistent alternatives to '2 + 3 = 5' that

35. It also is possible that the choice between H, and H2 is empirically decidable
now, but turns out not to be so at a later date. Shifts in both directions are possible.
36. Skyrms (1984) suggests that a 'metaphysical' proposition H is one such that, for
all observations O, Pr(H|O) = Pr(H). Since Skyrms is a subjective Bayesian, he is
content to have a proposition be metaphysical for one person, but not for another.
As explained above, I prefer to define the notion of empirical undecidability as a
property of questions, not of propositions. Furthermore, my construal does not
require that probabilities be assigned to hypotheses.
Grice and Strawson (1956) and Creath (1991) both describe a Duhemian notion
of confirmational equivalence and suggest that it might provide a definition of syn-
onymy that breaks out of the vicious circle that Quine criticized. I doubt that this
is the concept of meaning that cognitive science requires; it is too verificationist.
Confirmationally equivalent sentences can differ in meaning.
276 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

make different probabilistic predictions about observations.37

However, as the historical example of nonEuclidean geometry
suggests, this may simply be due to our lack of imagination,
which future generations of investigators perhaps will be able to
overcome. Putnam (1983, pp. 90-91) thinks that this is the deep
objection that 'Two Dogmas' develops against the idea of a priori
knowledge. However, this point does not establish that it could
make sense to abandon the belief that 2 + 3 = 5 in response to an
experimental outcome. The fact that we can't be certain that a
proposition is immune from empirical revision does not show
that the proposition is, in fact, empiricallyrevisable.
Likewise, it may seem obvious that two hypotheses are empiri-
cally equivalent, but we should take to heart the possibility that
new auxiliaryassumptions will be discovered that reveal that the
two hypotheses in fact make different predictions. Even if
(H1& Bo) and (H2 & Bo) make the same predictions, it is conceiv-
able that a new set of auxiliary assumptions (Bn)will be adopted
with the result that (H1& Bn) and (H2& Bn) make different pre-
dictions. But once again, that this is conceivable does not show
H1 and H2 in fact make different predictions. All that follows
is that our ability to determine whether the two hypotheses are
empiricallyequivalent may be limited by our lack of omniscience
concerning the future of science.
These Duhemian admonitionsalso apply within the realm of the
a priori. As Russell's paradox made vivid, the fact that a math-
ematicalpostulate seems to be self-consistentis no guarantee that
it is. Creative work in mathematicscan alter the epistemological
status of a mathematical proposition, just as creative work in
empiricalscience can change the status of a physical proposition.
However, it would be wrong to conclude from this that no prop-
osition is, in fact, a priori. Russell's paradox and its various rem-
edies were developed without the mediation of empiricalevidence.
The fact that we can be mistakenin ourjudgments about what is a
prioritrue doesn't show that nothing is a priori.
XVIII
Conclusion.Although Quine attacked two 'dogmas' that he saw
in the work of the logical empiricists,I think Quine's philosophy
37. Although contradictions entail everything in classical logic, Pr(OIH) is not
defined if Pr(H) = 0.
 QUINE 277

embodies two 'dogmas' of its own. The first is Quine's reduc-

tionism with respect to meaning and modality (Grice and Straw-
son 1956; Stein 1992, p. 277). Analyticity is a legitimate concept
only if it can be defined in terms of concepts that Quine regards
as 'clear'; he imposed the same requirement on the concept of
necessity. The second Quinean dogma is epistemological holism
(Creath 1991, p. 351, p. 384)-that, in the first instance, it is larg-
ish conjunctions of beliefs that are confirmed and disconfirmed;
what holism says happens to the conjuncts in those conjunctions
depends on whether the doctrine is formulated distributively or
nondistributively.
The objections I have presented to these two Quinean
dogmas are different in character. Against the first, I mustered
a characteristically Quinean consideration. The fundamental
question about the concept of meaning is whether it is needed
to explain and predict. If it is, and if meaning turns out not
to be reducible in the way that Quine demands, so be it. I
criticized the second dogma by adducing some elementary
considerations about the confirmation relation. Quine's dis-
cussion of 'minimummutilation' and of belief systems facing 'the
tribunal of experience as a corporate body' needs to be made
more precise. When even the first steps are taken in this
enterprise,serious problems arise.
The linguistic theory of the a priori was very ambitious; it
sought to account for all instances of a priori knowledge by
tracing them back to facts about language. Quine began to
dismantle that imposing edifice in 'Truth by Convention'; 'Two
Dogmas of Empiricism' is widely thought to have completed
the demolition job, but, in my opinion, it dislodged not a single
brick. Not that my criticisms of Quine's criticisms amount to
a defense of the views that Quine was attacking. Analyticity
should not be understood to mean truth-by-convention. Nor
should we think that isolated statements are confirmed or
disconfirmed by observations in the absence of background
assumptions. If cognitive science produces predictive and
explanatory theories that attribute to speakers a knowledge of
what their terms mean, then the concept of meaning is on safe
footing, and so is the concept of analyticity. And even though
Duhem and Quine are right that auxiliary assumptions are
needed to bring hypotheses into confirmational contact with
278 I-ELLIOTT SOBER

observations, there still may be hypotheses that cannot be tested

observationally,either now, or as science grows.38

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38. My thanksto Paul Bloom, Tom Bontly, MichaelByrd, RichardCreath,Ellery

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Geoffrey Hellman, Ernie Lepore, Richard Miller, Greg Mougin, Tony Peressini,
LarryShapiro,Alan Sidelle,Dennis Stampe,and Chris Stephensfor commentson
earlier drafts.
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295.
 QUINE

by Elliott Sober and Peter Hylton

II--Peter Hylton
REFERENCE, ONTOLOGICALRELATIVITY,
AND REALISM

ABSTRACT Section I of this essay discusses Quine's views about reference,con-

trasting them with those of Russell. For the latter, our language and thought
succeed in being about the world because of our acquaintancewith objects; the
relation of reference--roughly, the relation between a name and its bearer-is
thus fundamental.For Quine, by contrast, the fundamental relation by which
our language comes to be about the world, and to have empirical content, is
that between a sentence and stimulations of our sensory surfaces; reference,
while important,is a derivativenotion. Section II shows how this view of refer-
ence as derivativemakes possible the notorious Quinean doctrine of ontological
relativity.Section III raises the issue of realism. It argues that somewhat differ-
ent notions of realism are in play for Quine and for Russell-for Russell,
objects, and our knowledge of objects, play the fundamental role, while for
quine objectivityand truth are fundamental,with ontology being derivative.

here are three things I want to do. One is to talk about

Quine's views on reference,contrasting them with those of
Russell. The second is to indicate how those views make possible
the disputed and seemingly paradoxical Quinean doctrine of
ontological relativity. The third, which will be very brief, is to
say a little about realism-and here again I shall revert to the
contrast between Russell and Quine.

I
Russell's views on reference form a sharp and useful contrast
with those of Quine.' Russell postulated a direct and immediate
relation between the mind and entities outside the mind, a

1. Russellwas an importantinfluenceon Quine,secondonly to Carnap.In a tribute

to the latter,Quinesays:'I see him [Carnap]as the dominantfigurefrom the 1930s
onwards,as Russell had been in the decadesbefore.''Homageto Rudolf Carnap',
reprintedin Waysof Paradox(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 1966,
seconded. 1976),p. 40. I shall speakhereof Russell'sviews in the firsttwo decades
of this century,and not be concernedwith subsequentshifts of doctrine.
282 II-PETER HYLTON

relation he called acquaintance;this relation he held to lie at the

base of all knowledge. Thus, in Problems of Philosophy he says:
'The faculty of being acquainted with things other than itself is
the main characteristic of a mind. Acquaintance with objects
essentiallyconsists in a relation between the mind and something
other than the mind; it is this that constitutes the mind's power
of knowing things.'2 His insistence upon the directness and
immediacy of the relation is to be explained, at least in part, in
terms of his opposition to Idealism. The Idealists held that our
knowledge is always mediated by a complex structure; we can
thus have knowledge of the world, at least as far as it is know-
able, which is not of a straightforwardlyempirical sort. It was in
reaction to this that Russell, along with G. E. Moore, postulated
the notion of acquaintance. It was to be a cognitive relation,
holding between the mind and objects, which relied upon no kind
of structureor theory: a pre-conceptualrelation, and an immedi-
ate relation, rather than a mediated one. The mind is, as it were,
in directcontact with objects outside it. There are reasons, arising
especially from the existence of illusion and error, for thinking
that we cannot have this kind of immediate cognitive relation
to ordinary physical objects. Russell came to think that we are
acquainted both with abstract objects and with sense-data (as
well as the contents of our own minds, and past objects of
acquaintance). Russellian sense-data, it is worth adding, are the
appropriaterelata for the relation of acquaintance, and are out-
side the mind.3
The relation of acquaintance, for Russell, provides an answer
to the question: how do our thoughts and our language succeed
in being about the world outside our minds?Acquaintance is the
point at which this contact is made. While we appear to know
about many things which are not objects of acquaintance, all
such knowledge must ultimately be reducible to knowledge of
objects which are. Thus in Problemsof Philosophy,again, Russell
says: 'Everyproposition which we can understandmust be com-
posed whollyof constituentswith whichwe are acquainted.'(p. 58;
2. Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1912, reset edition 1946), p. 42.
3. For an elaboration of this very hasty summary, see the present author's Russell,
Idealism, and the Emergence of Analytic Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1990).
 QUINE 283

emphasis in the original). This demand gives rise to an extremely

far-reachingprogramme of philosophical analysis: to show that
sentenceswhich appear to express propositions which violate this
demand in fact express propositions which are in accord with it.
In a fully analysed sentence-one which reveals in fully explicit
fashion the structure of the proposition which it expresses-
every word will refer to an object of acquaintance. (This does
not imply that all of our sentence are about objects of acquaint-
ance; Russell employs the theory of descriptions to show how
propositions which contain only objects of acquaintancemay be
about objects with which we are not acquainted.)
Two features of this view are salient from our point of view.
First, acquaintance is entirely presuppositionless, and wholly
independent of beliefs and concepts. It is a pre-conceptual and
pre-theoreticalrelation;this is why it can serve as the foundation
for all theory. Second, it is a relation between a person and an
object, not between a person and a fact or a proposition or a
sentence. For Russell, then, reference, a version of the relation
between a name and the named object, is a presuppositionless
relation which is at the foundation of all knowledge.
Quine, as we shall see, rejects these Russellian views entirely,
in every aspect. It is, however, worth noting that he does not
reject the sort of question to which those views are an answer.
We might put the question like this: how do we come to have
knowledge at all? or: how can our thoughts be about the world?
Quine in fact has an answer to questions of this sort, as he con-
strues them. And he construes them, as he does all serious ques-
tions, along naturalistic lines-roughly, as scientific questions.
He answers them in terms of the effects that the world has on
us, and of our responses to those effects. Various forms of
energy, most obviously light, sound, heat, and pressure,impinge
on the surfaces of our bodies; in some cases, a person responds
differentiallyto such impingements.Thus we may respond in one
way when a certain pattern of light is impinging on our eyes, and
in another way when it is not. The body contains sensory sur-
faces, which are stimulated by the impingement of the relevant
forms of energy;these stimulations affect behaviour.
It is a long way from forms of energy impinging on the body
to our discourse and our thought being about the world. We
need to see, in broad outline, how Quine thinks we get from one
284 II--PETER HYLTON

to the other, from the impingement of energy on our sensory

surfaces to the empirical content of our theories.
The key here is Quine's notion of an observationsentence. (The
notion of an observation sentence is a bit more complicated than
I'll be suggesting here, or than Quine himself often suggests; but
I don't think the complications will matter for present purposes,
so I will not go into them.) An observation sentence satisfies
three conditions. First, it is a complete utterance whose truth-
value varies with occasion of utterance ('There's milk in the
glass', rather than 'Milk is good for young children'). Second,
for each individual, it is directly tied to stimulation of that indi-
vidual's sensory surfaces:the individual'swillingness to utter the
sentence, or to agree when someone else utters it, depends only
on which of that individual's sensory surfaces are being stimu-
lated at that time. Third, from the point of view of the com-
munity of language-speakers, observation sentences are
utterances about which there will be general agreement, in any
given circumstances.If I am in a situation which stimulates my
sensory surfaces in such a way as to lead me to agree or disagree
with a particular observation sentence, then any other speakers
of the same language, who are (as Quine says) 'witnesses to the
occasion'4would have their sensory surfaces stimulated in a way
that results in the same verdict.
Observation sentences will thus be uncontroversial, to the
point of triviality. 'It's raining', 'It's red' (or just 'Red'), and
'There'sa horse', might count as examples. Not by chance, these
are the sorts of sentences that an infant learning the language
acquires first: they have no presuppositions, their mastery does
not at all depend upon a mastery of other aspects of the lan-
guage. Within the small community of language-speakerswhere
the infant lives, other sentences will count as observational:
'Mama', for example, or 'Rover', said of the family dog.5 In spite
4. From Stimulus to Science (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 22.
5. Implicit here is a point which would require elaboration in a more detailed treat-
ment: what counts as an observation sentence depends on the size of the community
of language-speakers. For some purposes it is relevant to think of all normally func-
tioning speakers of the language, but for the purposes of explaining a child's acqui-
sition of language a smaller community-perhaps a very small one-may be
appropriate.
In other ways too the notion of an observation sentence is less cut-and-dried than
I am making it sound here. Observationality is a matter of degree, although Quine
has not always been clear on this point, and may vary along a number of dimensions.
 QUINE 285

of their triviality, observation sentences are, in Quine's view, at

the foundation of all knowledge. Everything we know about the
world is due to the impingement of energy on our sensory sur-
faces; this for Quine is a scientificallyestablished fact. And obser-
vation sentencesencapsulate those impingements,insofar as they
are relevant to our knowledge.
All of our knowledge, however theoretical, is thus ultimately
answerableto observation sentences. Our theories are empirically
testable because they imply what Quine calls observation categ-
oricals. These are, roughly, sentences saying that whenever one
observation sentences holds, another will also hold ('where
there's smoke there's fire', for example). An empirical test, in
extreme cases, will consist in finding some observation categori-
cal which, according to the theory, should be true, and then see-
ing whether falsifying instances can be found.6 It is just the
uncontroversialnature of observation sentences which fits them
to play this role. By the same token, Quine defines the empirical
content of a set of sentences as the observation categoricals
which it implies.
Russell asked how our words and thoughts came to be about
the world. Quine's answer to that question, as he construes it, is:
via the impingement of energy on the sensory surfaces of our
bodies, as this is encapsulated in observation sentences, and in
the observation categoricals formed from them. Now this
answer, unlike Russell's, has nothing directly to do with refer-
ence, in the sense of the relation between a name and its bearer.
The willingnessto utter, or to assent to, an observation sentence,
is brought about by the occurrenceof the relevant stimulation of
It may be that no sentence is fully observational; but this does not suggest that there
are no sentences that are sufficiently observational to play the sort of role for which
he requires them.
6. Because observation sentences are, in given circumstances, quite uncontroversial,
it will also be uncontroversial whether given circumstances falsify an observation
categorical. But since an observation categorical is a generalization, its truth will not
vary from occasion to occasion, and may be quite controversial.
Note also that in practice a test of a theory will seldom need to go all the way
down to the level of observation sentences and the corresponding observational categ-
oricals. Almost always there will be higher-level sentences which are still agreed upon
by the various parties to a dispute; perhaps we should think of these sentences as
observational for the linguistic community concerned (advanced organic chemists, or
whatever the relevant group may be). But still in such cases there will be more fully
observational sentences to which appeal could be made if there were no agreement
at higher levels, and Quine's idealization of the process seizes upon this fact.
286 II-PETER HYLTON

your sensory surfaces. But the observation sentence does not

refer to such stimulation, or to the energy impinging on your
surfaces. Obviously the child happily uttering 'Mama' in the
presence of its mother is not in any sense talking about the light
reaching its retinas, or the stimulations of the retinal nerves. To
talk about those things takes a good deal of linguistic and theor-
etical sophistication, whereas a crucial fact about observation
sentences is that one can master them while completely devoid
of all such sophistication. It is for this reason that they are the
child's 'entering wedge' into language, as Quine says more than
once;7 it is for this reason also that they can play the role of
ultimate evidence, for while may we disagree about all the sophis-
tication we do not disagree about observation sentences.
Observation sentences, then, do not refer to stimulations of
our sensory surfaces, or anything of that kind. Do they refer to
other objects?This question is trickier.It may look as if the utter-
ance 'Mama', by a particular child, refers (let us say) to that
child's mother. In that context, indeed it may seem simply to be
a name of that person. Equally, it may look as if the sentence
'There's a horse' contains the term 'horse', which (of course)
refersto horses. If we think of an observation sentence as it might
occur in the discourse of an adult, who has mastered the lan-
guage and possesses a range of knowledge about various matters,
then these appearances are correct. Thought of in that way, an
observation sentence will typically contain, or simply be, a refer-
ring term. Quine claims, however, that this is true only because
the adult has mastered not only the use of the observation sen-
tence, but also the use of more sophisticated parts of the lan-
guage. To refer to a horse, he argues, it is not sufficient to say
'Horse' or 'There's a horse' when one is in the presence of a
horse. One needs also to have some idea of the answer to such
questions as: what counts as one horse, and what counts as two?
under what circumstancesdo we have the same horse over again,
and when do we have a new horse? The beginner, who simply
makes the noise 'Horse' when receiving (say) the sort of visual
stimulationswhich one typicallyreceives when looking at a horse
(or, more realistically,at the picture of a horse) cannot even for-
mulate such questions, much less begin to answer them. Yet is
7. For example Pursuit of Truth (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1990),
p. 5.
 QUINE 287

it, Quine insists, only in the mouth of one who has these capacit-
ies that such words can be said to refer at all: there is more to
referencethan merely making a sound in response to patterns of
stimulation.
Another way to make this point is to say that observation
sentences are indeed sentences.Even a one-word observation sen-
tence, such as 'Mama', or 'Red', or 'Horse', must be counted in
context-uttered all by itself, in response to present stimula-
tion-as a sentence, and not as a referringterm. Clearly the cri-
terion of sentencehood here is not narrowly syntactical. What
does it mean to say that observation sentences are indeed sen-
tences, and not referringterms? In part it means that an obser-
vation sentence is complete: all by itself, as it stands, it is to be
assessed as correct or incorrect, true or false. A referring term,
by contrast, picks out an object or a kind of object in order to
say something about it; only in the wider context in which some-
thing is said about the object does the question of correctness
arise. In part also insisting that observation sentences are
sentencesand not referringterms means that no question of refer-
ence arises until we analyse observation sentences, break them
down into significant parts. This analysis enables us to see them
as made up of parts which may refer. The analysis, however,
draws on more sophisticatedparts of the language, which are not
required simply for an initial mastery of the observation sen-
tence. (All of this applies equally to one-word observation sen-
tences, though in such cases the only significant part is
orthographicallyidentical to the whole.)
The upshot of this discussion is that the means by which lan-
guage comes into contact with the world, in Quine's view, is not
referential.Instead, the crucial relation is, roughly speaking, that
between an observation sentence and the circumstances which
make the utterance of that sentence correct or incorrect in the
eyes of the community of language-speakers as a whole. (To
speak less roughly:these are circumstanceswhich for any speaker
of the language will give rise to stimulations of that person's
nerve endings which will lead him or her accept the sentence. The
long version here makes a difference,because one might think of
circumstances as made up of objects in various relations. For
Quine, however, it is the stimulations, not the objects, which are
crucial.) This is not to say that Quine denies that our language
288 II-PETER HYLTON

contains expressions which refer to the world; on the contrary,

he insists upon the referentialaspect of language. In the Preface
to Wordand Object,he describesthat book, beyond its first two
chapters, as 'reflect[ing]...on the development and structure of
our own referential apparatus'.8And clarifying the referential
structure of our language is, in his view, an important part of
the philosopher's task.
What he does deny is that reference is fundamental, in the
sense in which it is fundamental for Russell. Reference, for
Quine, is a derivative notion; the fundamental notion is that of
the relation between a complete utterance and stimulations of
our sensory surfaces-those stimulations which would occur in
circumstanceswhich lead the sentence to accepted by speakers of
the given language.
If reference is not the foundation of language-use, how can
language be referential at all? This is a question which Quine
takes seriously-construing it, of course, as a scientific ques-
tion-and to which he has suggestedan answer.9What is import-
ant, for his philosophical view as a whole, is not so much the
details of the answer but that there be some answer, of a purely
naturalisticsort, compatible with the basic picture; for this rea-
son the answer he puts forward is avowedly tentative and
speculative.1oOn the account that he suggests, the first steps of
reification take place very early, and at the observational level.
There are situations in which the observation sentences 'Blue'
and 'Pebble' are both appropriatelyasserted;some but not all of
those situations make it appropriateto utter 'Blue pebble'. Those
that do can already, in retrospect, be seen as postulating an
object-a pebble-and saying something about it.
It is only with hindsight, however, that this distinction at the
observationallevel should be seen as genuine reification,as intro-
ducing objectsin the familiarsense. Objects such as pebbles have
8. Wordand Object (Cambridge Ma: MIT Press, 1960), p. ix.
9. Most obviously in Roots of Reference (La Salle: Open Court, 1974) and in parts
of Wordand Object.
10. Thus Quine says: 'In Roots of Reference I was posing a Kantian sort of question:
how is reification possible?'; 'Comment on Parsons', in eds. R. Barrett and R. Gibson,
Perspectives on Quine (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), p. 291. Again, in Pursuit of
Truth, he says that one of the advantages of beginning an account of language-acqui-
sition with observation sentences is that we 'are freed to speculate on the nature of
reification and its utility for scientific theory' (p. 8, my emphasis).
 QUINE 289

identity conditions which provide for their re-identificationfrom

time to time. This is a matter which cannot be dealt with at the
purely observational level, for it involves rudimentary physical
theory. Thus Quine says: 'reification of bodies across time is
beyond the reach of observation sentences and categoricals. Sub-
stantial reification is theoretical.'" Reification also requires the
ability to use words such as 'same', 'another', 'an', means of for-
ming plurals, relative pronouns, and so on. These expressions
and transformations,Quine suggests, are acquired contextually,
together, and little by little.12 We might again put the point by
saying that merely standingin front of something making a noise
is not yet naming an object, not even if one consistently makes
the same noise when in front of (or when wanting) the same
object. As another author put it, 'a great deal of stage-setting in
the language is presupposedif the mere act of naming is to make
sense'.13 For the adult language-user the stage is set, hence we
are likely to see the child's first recognizable noises as already
full-fledgednames. But the capacity to name things, in our sense,
is acquiredlittle by little.
There is, of course, far more to be said about Quine's account
of the acquisition of fully referential language-and far more
than Quine says about the process itself. But it is not my purpose
here to explore these matters in any detail. What is important
for us is that reference,for Quine, is not the fundamentalrelation
between language and the world; it is not the means by which
language acquires its empirical content and comes to be about
the world. That relation is, rather, the relation between an obser-
vation sentence and the situations which typically lead to the
sorts of stimulationsunder which the sentence is uttered, or com-
mands assent when uttered by someone else. Reference, on Qui-
ne's account, is a relation between the language, or some

11. Pursuit of Truth, p. 25.

12. See Wordand Object, p. 93. In a striking image, Quine there compares such acqui-
sition to a climbers ascent of a 'chimney', or narrow space between two rock faces:
'The contextual learning of these various particles goes on simultaneously, we may
suppose, so that they are gradually adjusted to one another and a coherent pattern
of usage is evolved matching that of society. The child scrambles up an intellectual
chimney, supporting himself against each side by pressure against the others.'
13. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (New York: Macmillan, 1953),
section 257.
290 II-PETER HYLTON

linguisticexpressions,and the world, just not one which is funda-

mental in the sense we have indicated. The capacity to refer is a
capacity to use language which is more sophisticated than the
most elementary,purely observational,sort. A child acquires this
capacity, little by little, as it grows up.

II
I turn now to the famous, even notorious, Quinean doctrine
known as 'ontological relativity' or the 'inscrutability of
reference'.14 This form of relativismabout ontology is not deriva-
tive upon relativism about truth: on the contrary, it occurs even
if we suppose all problems about truth to be settled-even if
we suppose that we possess a unique theory of the world whose
complete truth is not in doubt. Such a completely true theory
would, after all, be a body of true sentences.The referentialbur-
den of language, however, is not simply a matter of which sen-
tences are true, but also a matter of how we see those sentences as
making ontological claims. It is thus a matter of how the whole
sentences are analysed into parts and how significance is attri-
buted to those parts. Here, in the gap between the significance
of the sentence and the significance of its parts, Quine sees
empiricalslack, which is manifest in ontological relativity.
We have already seen a clear example of the gap between the
significanceof the whole sentence and the significanceof its con-
stituent parts. In the case of observation sentences, we saw that,
taken as wholes, they got their meaning simply from their
relation to sensory stimulation. Thought of simply in that way,
as responses to stimulation, observation sentences do not make
any ontological claims. It become possible to see them as making
such claims only when they are seen as part of a more sophisti-
cated theory, which includes the notion of identity, means of for-
ming plurals, and so on. To repeat an earlier point: the relation
between language and the world by which our language comes
to have empiricalmeaning and empiricalcontent is not a relation
between names and objects but rather a relation between sen-
tences and sensory stimulations.

14. Quine makes no distinction here; see eds Edwin Hahn and Paul A. Schilpp, The
Philosophy of W. V. Quine (La Salle: Open Court, 1986; second edition 1998), p. 459.
 QUINE 291

This idea is fundamental for all of Quine's views about lan-

guage, and underlies ontological relativity. For the idea applies
not only to observation sentences but to all sentences, to lan-
guage as a whole. It is most clearly seen in the case of an obser-
vation sentence, for this is a sentence whose empirical meaning
is wholly exhausted by its relation to sensory stimulations. Other
sentencesare responsivenot only to currentstimulations but also
to the other beliefs which one has; if two scientists, say, agree
about what they are currentlyseeing but disagree about whether
it is evidence for some other claim, this will surely be because of
further disagreementsbetween them. The claim is thus answer-
able not only to what they are currentlyobserving, but also to the
other things about which they disagree.The empiricalmeaning of
such a sentence is not exhausted by its links to current stimula-
tion; it also consists of its links to other sentences. These sen-
tence-to-sentencelinks, and the dependencies of meaning which
they set up, are far too complex and many-sided for us be able
to reconstructthem.
Let me quote a passage of Quine on this point. He is consider-
ing the inferencewhich a chemist may make from seeing a green-
ish tint in a test-tube to saying 'There was copper in it'. Such an
inference-from the observation sentence 'It's greenish',let's say,
to 'There was copper in it'-obviously draws on the general
background knowledge which our chemist possesses. Quine
comments:

The interveningtheoryis composedof sentencesassociatedwith

one anotherin multifariouswaysnot easilyreconstructed even in
conjecture.Thereare so-calledlogicalconnections,and thereare
so-calledcausalones;but any such interconnections of sentences
mustbe due finallyto the conditioningof sentencesas responses
to sentencesas stimuli.If some of the connectionscount more
particularlyas logicalor causal,they do so only by referenceto
so-calledlogicalor causallaws,whichin turnare sentenceswithin
the theory.The theoryas a whole...is a fabricof sentencesvari-
ouslyassociatedto one anotherand to non-verbalstimulationby
the mechanism of conditioned response. (Word and Object,p. 11)

The meaning of 'There was copper in it' is thus by no means

exhausted by its direct links to stimulation-by an account of
which stimulationswould prompt one to agree with it, and which
292 II-PETER HYLTON

to disagreewith it. The sentence also plays a theoreticalrole, and

is thus linked to countless other sentences of our theory.
For our immediatepurposes the thing to emphasize about this
account of the significance of language is that it all takes place
at the level of sentences. It is observation sentences which are
linked to stimulations;it is links between one sentenceand others
which plays a role in the meaning of non-observationalsentences.
We might put the point like this. An observation sentence is
directly linked to stimulations, and those links determineits cor-
rect use and thus its meaning. For a non-observation sentence
links to stimulation are equally important, but in this case those
links are partly or wholly indirect:the sentence is linked to other
sentences which are in turn linked to other sentences and so on,
terminatingin observation sentences, or in the observation categ-
oricals formed from them. This terminus provides the empirical
meaning for any sentence, however indirect and complex the con-
nections may be. (Quine's holism furthercomplicates this already
complicated picture, for it has the consequence that in many
cases a sentence has a link to another only when it is taken as
part of a more inclusive class of sentences. Such links, and hence
the more inclusive class, would have to be taken into account in
consideringthe meaning of the individual sentence. But this does
not affect the point here, which is that the empirical meaning of
sentences consist in their relation to stimulation, whether direct,
as in the case of observation sentences, or via other sentences or
classes of sentences.)
What we said about observation sentences may thus be gen-
eralized to all sentences, though with a crucial qualification. For
any sentence, there is a sense in which what one needs to know
to be a competent user of that sentence does not depend upon
its structure,upon its analysis into constituent parts. If one uses
the sentence as a whole correctly, both in relation to stimulations
and in relation to other sentences, then one is a competent user
of it; that is all that can be required of one, for that is all there
is to language-use. But now the qualification is that it will in fact
be impossible for us to use theoreticalsentencescorrectlywithout
an analysis of those sentences into significant constituent parts.
Take the most obvious case, that of the 'so-called logical connec-
tions' between sentences. A logical connection may be thought
of as summing up infinitely many facts of the form: whenever it
 QUINE 293

is appropriate to assert that sentence it is also appropriate to

assert this one. But we could not learn all of these facts one-by-
one; there are infinitelymany of them. What we learn-implicitly
at first, explicitly from logic books-is that whenever it is appro-
priate to assert a sentence of this form, it is appropriate also to
assert a corresponding sentence of that form; this sums up infi-
nitely many facts in a perspicuous, learnable, fashion. But this
requires that we attribute forms to sentences, i.e. see them as
made up of constituent parts and patterns which are significant
and which recur in other sentences.

Let us see where we are in the argument. Reference is a relation

between words-significant constituent parts of sentences-and
objects. The fundamental relation of language to the world, the
relation which guaranteesempiricalsignificanceto our language,
however, does not take place at that level, but rather at the level
of the relation between sentencesand stimulations. We are bound
to attribute significanceto constituent parts of sentences because
it is only in that way that we can see the patterns and analogies
in language which make it possible for us to use it. This situation
leaves it open that there might in fact be more than one way to
attribute structures to our sentences, or at least more than one
way in which to attribute sense and reference to the parts of
sentences.
Note that if there were more than one account of these mat-
ters, then there would be no way to bring evidence to bear on
the question, which of them is correct. The evidence here consists
of language-use, which, according to Quine, is the use of sen-
tences. The imagined dispute is between two ways of breaking
sentences down into constituent parts, or attributing significance
to those parts. The differenceshere will, we are supposing, make
no differenceto the ways in which the whole sentences are used.
(Note also that, for the same reason, the idea of a causal expla-
nation of how language is learned and how it functions will not
differentiatebetween the two accounts. For Quine it is our acqui-
sition of the ability to use sentences which is to be explained;
an explanation of the ability to refer arises out of this account.
Reference is not an independent phenomenon, demanding an
independent explanation. The point, again, is that reference is
derived, not fundamental).
294 II-PETER HYLTON

So, on Quinean assumptions, there might be two ways of

attributingsignificanceto the parts of our sentences, and no way,
even in principle, of deciding between them. Here we have, in
outline, Quine's doctrine of ontological relativity, or at least the
necessary background of that doctrine. Let us see how Quine
encapsulates some of the points we have been making:
Referenceand ontologyrecedethusto the statusof mereauxiliar-
ies. True sentences,observationaland theoretical,are the alpha
and the omega of the scientificenterprise.They are relatedby
structure,and objectsfigureas merenodesof the structure.What
particularobjectstheremaybe is indifferentto the truthof obser-
vationsentences,indifferentto the supporttheylendto theoretical
sentences,indifferentto the successof the theoryin its predictions.
(Pursuit of Truth,p. 31)

Objects, and referenceto objects, are central to our theory of the

world, for we cannot get by without analyzing our sentences so
as to reveal structure:otherwise we could never master the sen-
tence-to-sentence links which are essential to language beyond
the observational level. For all that, however, the role of objects
is secondary; the truth of sentences, and their links to one
another, are primary. Hence the idea that there could be more
than one way of analyzing sentences, while leaving untouched
both their truth-valuesand all the infinitelycomplex links among
them.
So far we have spoken of this idea as no more than an abstract
possibility. Quine, however, is in no doubt at all that there actu-
ally are such alternative methods of analysis. He says, indeed,
that the matter 'admits of trivial proof'.5 But I'm not going to
go into this, because I want to leave time to say a little about
realism. It is, however, relevant to say a very little about the
allegedly paradoxical consequences of ontological relativity. The
threat of paradox arises from a seeming regress:you can translate
my utterancesof the word 'rabbit', say, as not really being about
rabbitsbut as about something else; but then your words too can
be translated in any one of various ways by someone else, and
so on. Where is this regress to end? Quine says: 'in practice we
end the regress of background languages by acquiescing in our

15. 'Reply to John Woods' Hahn and Schilpp, second edition only, p. 728.
 QUINE 295

mother tongue and taking its words at face value.' ('Ontological

Relativity',p. 49). (These are words which some have found more
helpful than others.)
It is crucial here that what give our words their meaning is
our use of them, not our translations of them.16 For it is with
translation, but only with translation, that the issue of inscruta-
bility of referencearises;while we are simply using our language
there is no such issue. Let us see two longer comments of Quine's
on this subject:
To say what objectssomeoneis talkingabout is to say no more
thanhow we proposeto translatehis termsinto ours....
The point is not that we ourselvesare castingaboutin vain for
a mooring.Stayingaboardour own languageandnot rockingthe
boat, we are bornesmoothlyalong on it and all is well; 'rabbit'
denotesrabbits,and thereis no sensein asking,'Rabbitsin what
senseof "rabbit"?'Referencegoes inscrutableif, rockingthe boat,
we contemplatea permuational mappingof our language,or if we
undertaketranslation. (Theoriesand Things, p. 20.)
And, again:17
Withinthe homelanguage,referenceis best seen (I now hold) as
unproblematicbut trivial,on a par with Tarski'struthparadigm.
Thus 'London'denotes London (whateverthat is) and 'rabbit'
denotes rabbits(whateverthey are). Inscrutabilityof reference
emergesonly in translation.
The point here, I think, is that while we are speaking our famil-
iar language the inscrutabilityof referencesimply gets no grip. It
does not in any way interfere with language-use, or force us to
modify our account of that use. And this is true also of that
special case of language-use in which we use some words to say
what other words refer to. There is, of course, no saying what
objects a word refers to except by using, and thereby taking for
granted, some language. But this should not seem threatening or
paradoxical: there is no saying anything except by using, and
taking for granted, some language. If this continues to seem

16. I have attempteda more discursivetreatmentof the issuesdiscussedin the next

two paragraphsin, 'Translation,Meaning,and Self-Knowledge';Proceedingsof the
AristotelianSociety,vol. XCI, Part 3 (1990/91), pp. 269-290.
17. 'Replyto Paul A. Roth', eds. Hahn and Schilpp,p. 460. The emphaseshere are
Quine's.
296 II-PETERHYLTON

paradoxicalit is perhapsbecausethe point we madeat the start,

whencontrastingQuinewithRussell,is hardto absorb.We tend
to treatthe notion of an objectas fundamental,ratherthan see-
ing objectsmerelyas 'neutralnodes [in] the structureof [our]
theory'(Pursuitof Truth,p. 33).We tend,therefore,to thinkthat
thereshouldbe somethingthat an objectreallyand trulyis, is in
itself,whichoutrunsthe role it playsin our theoryof the world,
or in some as yet only imaginarywhollycorrecttheory.The les-
son of Quine'sapproachto reference,by contrast,is that there
is no moreto an objectthanits rolein theory;ontologicalrelativ-
ity drives that lesson home.18

III
Finally I should like, very briefly, to say something about
realism. Russell, of course, was a realist-not, at some points,
about physical objects, but always about the objects with which
we are acquainted. You can't be acquainted with something
unless it's really there--somewhere-for your mind to latch on
to. How are we to understandthe notion of an object, an of an
object's being there in a sense which abstracts from the idea of
its being in space and time? Can we make sense of the idea of an
object's existing or not existing as a primitiveidea, not explicable
in other terms? I think that this idea has a sense for Russell
because it draws on the idea of acquaintance-of our being in
immediate epistemic contact with an object. Of course there is
no definition of existence in terms of acquaintance;acquaintance,
indeed, presupposesexistence. But the idea that the notion of the
existence of an object makes sense-that the notion of an object
itself makes sense-without any further explanation is I think
bolstered by the role that acquaintance plays in Russell's
thought. -What I'm talking about here is not the truth or the
plausibility of Russell's views so much as their sense: what gives

18. In 1968 Quine said: 'What makes sense is to say not what the objects of a theory
are, absolutely speaking, but how one theory of objects is interpretable or reinterpret-
able in another.' (Ontological Relativity New York, Columbia University Press, p. 50).
I think now he might be inclined to say that the idea of speaking absolutely in this
sense is a mere chimera from the start, and not an apparently sensible idea to be
ruled out-not, so to speak, something that we might be able to do but cannot, but
rather an incoherent idea which dissolves under examination. See again the essay
referred to in footnote, 16, above.
 QUINE 297

his ideas the meaning which they have in the system of his
thought? And my suggestion is that his notion of acquaintance
helps to give sense to his ideas of an object and of existence.
I sometimes think of these Russellian ideas, and of the concep-
tion of realism that goes along with them, as pre-Kantian. They
make the idea of an object, and of an object's existing, foun-
dational; the notion of judgment plays a secondary role. It is no
accident, of course, that Russell's thought throughout the rel-
evant period is self-consciously anti-Idealist, and in particular
anti-Kantian.
Quine, however, is also a realist-or at least he repeatedlysays
he is: 'a robust realist', he sometimes calls himself. But clearly
there is a rather different conception of realism involved here.
We might call it a Kantian conception, because it makes judg-
ment, and the truth or objectivity of judgment, fundamental
notions; ontology becomes derivative.On this account objectivity
is fundamental,and must of course be explained in a way which
does not presuppose objects; on the pre-Kantian view objects
are fundamental,and objectivitywill presumablybe explained in
terms of them.
One strand of thought in analytic philosophy has clung to the
pre-Kantian conception of realism, though seldom quite as
explicitly as Russell did; but that has, I think, always been only
one strand. It is worth emphasizing this point, because in our
thinking about the tradition we are, I think, often inclined to
interpretit all in the pre-Kantian vein. Much of the recent rein-
terpretationof Frege which has taken place over the last fifteen
years or so has essentially involved coming to terms with the fact
that what realism amounts to in Frege's hands is quite unlike
Russell's realism.19 And one thing-though not I suspect the
only thing-going on in Putnam's adoption in the 1970s of what
he calls 'internalrealism' is his coming to accept a Kantian con-
ception of realism, or perhapsjust to appreciate the implications
of such a conception. So that's one thing I wanted to do, just to
point out the existence of these two conceptions of realism within
the analytic tradition.

19. See for example T. G. Ricketts, 'Objectivity and Objecthood: Frege's Metaphys-
ics of Judgment', Frege Synthesized, ed. L. Haaparantant (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1986),
pp. 65-95.
298 II-PETER HYLTON

Another thing I want to do-and this is the last-is to raise

the question of the compatibility of Quine's realism with onto-
logical relativity. What is left of our insistence that the objects
we refer to are real, if we acknowledge that it is indeterminate
just which objects those are? 'Rover' must be taken as referring
to a real object, we insist; we are then bound to add, however,
that this object may be the family dog, or its space-time comp-
lement, or a set of canine time-slices, or a set of real numbers
corresponding to the space-time points occupied by the dog, or
who knows what else?What is the force of the original insistence,
in the face of these additions?
It is hard to dismiss these questions entirely. For Quine, how-
ever, I think their force is not so much to undermine realism
about objects as to show us what it can coherently come to. The
clue here is provided by an idea already emphasized: that there
is no more to an object than its role in the theory-its role in
the totality of our beliefs, or the totality of truth about the world.
Quine, taking the logician's ingenuity to the point of perversity,
adds to this idea the claim that we can systematically switch
objects from role to role. The result is ontological relativity. By
re-construingpredicates, we can, for example, switch the roles of
Rover and his space-time complement, and so on for all other
physical objects. The possibility of this sort of switching, if
granted, may seem to undermine realism by indicating that we
don't really know what we are being realistic about;we feel as if
we are in the odd position of insisting that somethingmust exist,
but having to acknowledge that we cannot say what. But if all
that there is to an object is the role that it plays in theory, then
what is it that we do not know? According to Quine, as we saw,
the correct way to think of an object is simply as marking a
certain role-a 'neutral node'-in the structure of our theory.
So it would seem that all that being a realist about an object can
come to is, so to speak, taking that role, that node, seriously.
But this is simply to take seriously the theory of which it is an
aspect. So there is no issue concerning realism about objects
which is separate from the issue of realism about the theory
which mentions them: to repeat, ontology is derivative upon
truth; hence, if we are realists about truth we are more or less
automatically realists about objects too-ontological relativity
notwithstanding.
 QUINE 299

This conclusion may seem to be too anodyne to be the moral

of the seemingly bizarre idea of ontological relativity, for really
it just repeats the ideas of the start of the paper, where we con-
trasted Russell with Quine, which seemed moderate enough. I
am inclined to think, however, that those ideas are less moder-
ate-less in conformity with unreconstructed common sense-
than may have appeared;and that the apparent oddness of onto-
logical relativity was lurking from the start. We are, as Quine
says, 'body-minded';20 it comes entirely natural to us to think in
terms of bodies, and of objects more generally, and to take them
as fundamental to our knowledge. The pre-Kantian view has
considerableappeal to common sense. Russell's way of articulat-
ing this nexus of ideas, when dissected and exposed to the light
of day, may easily come to seem offensive to common sense, but
it is an attempt to articulate ideas which are, I think, very natu-
ral. The apparently paradoxical character of ontological relativ-
ity arises in part because Quine's ingenuity enables him to draw
conclusions that most of would never have dreamed of. But it
also arisesbecause the notion of an object, and the nexus of ideas
that goes along with it, goes very deep in our conception of the
world. Ontological relativity dramatizes the fact that Quine's
work repudiatesthose ideas completely.21

20. Roots of Reference, p. 54.

21. For comments and discussion I should like to thank W. D. Hart and Gary Kemp,
as well as audiences at Northwestern University, the University of California at
Davis, Edinburgh University, Glasgow University, and Ohio State University.

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