Introduction Quine's Two Dogmas was a revolutionary article that is still debated today.

Quine's findings have big consequences for not only epistemology and metaphysics, but philosophy of mind and philosophy of science. Think of Two Dogmas as having two parts. Quine's own way of splitting the parts is to suggest that empiricism has two dogmas (two principles that are never questioned) which in fact are false (Quine is an empiricist too, actually. He simply wants a more "robust" or honest empiricism). The Two Dogmas are: that there is a principled distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions that reductionism is true

The first dogma argues that there is a real way to distinguish between propositions that are analytic and propositions that are synthetic. The second refers to the empiricist claim that the meaning of a single proposition is its verification conditions. Think of it this way: "The sun is at the centre of the solar system" The meaning of the proposition is clear -- I know what it would mean for it to be true (the sun is at the centre) and I know what it would be like if it were false (the sun would not be at the centre). Either way, there is a simple experience which confirms or confutes the proposition. Notice that some propositions, then, are meaningless (they have no verification conditions). The proposition "2 + 2 = 4" is not verifiable. No empirical circumstance confirms or confutes it (though some circumstances may exemplify or fail to exemplify it). These statements are taken dogmatically to be the "analytic" statements. So, (1) there are analytic truths, truths "grounded in meaning independently of matters of fact" and synthetic truths, truths "grounded in fact." (2) synthetic propositions are reducible to combinations of contents derived from experience (and thus verifiable by those contents). Analytic statements would be statements not so verifiable. So the two dogmas, Quine thinks, are related. As such, Quine will attack both. Think of Quine's project here as this: Part I: the Negative Attack Here Quine will attack all of the traditional ways in which "analyticity" has been explained. None of these ways, he suggests, provides a foundation for the term.

Part II: the Positive Attack First, Quine will attack reductionism and show that holism -- his theory of meaning -- is actually the right one. If Quine's theory is right, however, the analytic/synthetic cannot be a sustainable dichotomy. Let's turn to the arguments. Part I: Negative Attacks on the Tradition Section 1: Background for Analyticity Quine traces back the origin of the distinction between analytic and synthetic through Kant to Hume and Leibniz, but their accounts are imprecise. The first attempt is to argue that Statement S is analytic if and only if a denial of that statement results in a contradiction. Quine's argument here is straightforward: what does this mean? Does this presuppose analyticity? He thinks it does, so he moves on to other problems with Kant's definition: (a) it is restricted to statements of subject/predicate form (are all analytic truths of the form "X is P"?) (b) Kant relies on a metaphorical notion of "conceptual containment" that is unexplained Lastly, Quine notes, Kant says that analytic propositions are (c) "true in terms of meanings". It is here that Quine begins to "dig in". What is meaning? Quine suggests that many have confused "meaning" with "naming", or "meaning" with "reference". What he means is that there is a difference between the meaning of a term and the extension of the term. Here's an example: "Mark Twain" and "the man who wrote Huck Finn" actually refer to the same object (the same guy). So they are names for the same person. But they do not have the same meaning. Whereas Mark Twain could not possibly have been anyone but Mark Twain (the person the name refers to) the description "the man who wrote Huck Finn" did not have to refer to Mark Twain. Similarly, while it turns out that the expressions "creatures with hearts" and "creatures with kidneys" refer to the same exact entities in the world, the expressions are different in meaning. This being the case, Quine notes, meaning turns to a discussion of the "synonymy of linguistic forms". So we say things like "X means the same as Y" if and only if X and Y are synonymous. Section 2: Synonymy So far, so good. Now Quine notes that there are two types of statements we call "analytic". (1) "No unmarried man is married"

(2) "No bachelor is married" (1), Quine says is "logically true". It is true under any reinterpretation of the non-logical particles (these being "no" and "is"). So for such statements to be true requires a presupposed stock of logical particles ("no", "or", "and", etc). But (1) is not Quine's target. (2) is. What about (2)? How is it analytic? Quine notes that most people argue that (2) is analytic iff the terms used are synonymous -- i.e. if one can substitute one for the other and translate (2) into (1). (So one would substitute in (2) the world "bachelor" for "unmarried" and end up with (1).) Now we're moving, says Quine. But what is synonymy? One proposed explanation is given by Rudolph Carnap. Carnap suggests that a language can be broken up into atomic parts. He suggests that we would wind up with an exhaustive list of all of the simple atomic statements like "the car is silver" and "the table is twenty pounds" and so on. Once we list all of these atomic statements, Carnap suggests, we assign truth values to them. So it turns out that in this world "the table is twenty pounds" is true, as is "the moon is circular" and so on. Once we have done so, we have given what Carnap calls a state description of the language. Once we've listed all the atomic statements and their truth-values, we can build up other sentences using the logical particles. So let's say that "the moon is circular" (call is P) and "the table is twenty pounds" (call it Q) are true. Then P & Q is true P v Q is true ~ P is false ~ ~ P is true and so on. So using the rules of the logical particles we can build up more complex statements and know their truth values (since this is dictated by the truth-conditions of the particles themselves). Now, according to Carnap, Statment S is analytic in language L (the one under consideration) iff Statement S is assigned the truth value "T" in any possible state description of the sentences in L. So, in other words, regardless what truth values are assigned to the atomic statements of the language, the analytic statements will always turn out to be true. In other words Carnap is saying (using state descriptions as his terminology) analytic truths are true in all possible worlds (a possible world being a possible state description). Quine's argument against Carnap is a good one. Carnap's proposed definition of analyticity only works if we've already stipulated that statements such as "X is married" and "X is not a bachelor" are synonymous. In other words, Carnap's definition only works if it is the case that if a state description assigns "T" to "X is married" then it assigns "F" to "X is not a bachelor". Quine is right. If "All bachelors are unmarried" is analytic, then there can't be a possible state description where "X is married" and "X is not a bachelor" get different truth values. But then it seems like Carnap's claim that analytic truths are analytic because they are true under any state description is

not really the case. It is really any state description following certain stipulations. But Carnap offers us no reasons for making such stipulations. Thus, Quine argues, Carnap's definition works for statements such as (1) -- which are logically true. But not (2). And statements like (2) are the ones we want to figure out. Since Carnap gives us no way to understand synonymy. Section 3: Definitions Often synonyms are treated as definitions. If "bachelor' is defined as "unmarried" we can substitute one for the other in (2) and wind up with the logical truth (1) that we need. But what counts as a definition? Quine notes that we can turn to the dictionary to find definitions, which are always given in terms of synonymies. We look up "bachelor" and it is defined as "unmarried male". But who says what is what? Quine notes that the lexicographer is really an empirical scientist. If he records "bachelor" as defined by "unmarried male", then he is recording what he believes to be a preexisting synonymy. If this is the case, however, dictionary definitions presuppose synonymy instead of explain synonymy. Quine says that the only non-question begging example here is definition by fiat. We can introduce a word as a definition for another simply by conventional decision. In such a case we create the synonymy by stipulation. Unfortunately, Quine notes, most definitions do not work this way, and presuppose synonymy. So definitions can't help us to understand synonymy, our current best hope of understanding analyticity. Section 3: Interchangability Salva Veritate It is often argued that two words or statements are synonymous when the pairs are interchangable salva veritate. To be interchangable in this way means that you can exchange one of the pair for the other in a sentence and not affect the truth value of that sentence. Ex. Let's say that "bachelor" and "unmarried" are interchangable salva veritate. Then we should be able to make the substitutions in any sentences in which they appear. The problem here is that substituion salva veritate must be accounted for on 'extensional' grounds i.e.that the words "bachelor" and "unmarried" pick out exactly the same things. It cannot be on 'intensional' grounds since this is simply to say that they mean the same thing - the very thing in need of proving. But if their synonymity is extensionla then it is also contingent since it means looking into whether the same thing is picked out by both. This cuts at the heart of analyticity. Part II: Quines Positive Arguments Rejecting Dogma 2: Reductionism

In section 5 of Two Dogmas, Quine argues against the second dogma of empiricism: reductionism. But he will also argue that *t+he two dogmas are, indeed, at root identical. Can the Verification Principle Save Analyticity? The attack on reduction begins with Quine considering one final strategy for saving the analytic/synthetic distinction, one last-ditch effort to explain analyticity in a satisfactory way. The strategy takes its cue from the Verification Principle in that it relies on empirical verification: First, explain synonymy in terms of empirical verification: statements are synonymous if and only if they are alike in point of method of empirical confirmation or infirmation. I.e., two statements are synonymous iff the exact same sensory observations would show them to be true or show them to be false. Then explain analyticity in terms of synonymy: an analytic statement is one that is synonymous with a logically true statement. And finally, explain logical truth as follows: a logically true statement is one that is true and remains true under all reinterpretations of its components other than the logical particles. By logical particulars, Quine means words and parts of words like no, un-, not if then , and and or. So on this account, No unmarried man is married is a logical truth. Since No bachelor is unmarried has the same method of empirical confirmation as No unmarried man is married, they are synonymous sentences, and thus No bachelor is unmarried is analytic.

Now you might be thinking, No bachelor is married and No unmarried man is married would not be disconfirmed by any observation whatsoever. Or to put the point a different way, those statements would be empirically confirmed by any observation whatsoevereither one of them is vacuously confirmed come what may. But, says Quine, not so fast Statement synonymy is said to be likeness of method of empirical confirmation or infirmation. Just what are these methods which are to be compared for likeness? What, in other words, is the nature of the relationship between a statement and the experiences which contribute to or detract from its confirmation? And this is what brings us to the second dogma

Carnaps Radical Reductionism One view (Quine says its the most nave) of the relationship between a statement and the experiences that help to confirm or disconfirm it is:

radical reductionism (df.): every empirically meaningful statement is translatable into a statement about immediate experience. As Quine indicates, this way of connecting meaningfulness to what is immediately given in experience goes back much farther than the Logical Positivists and their Verification Principle. It is something that unites the members of the philosophical tradition known as empiricism, according to which experience (as opposed to reason) is the only, or at least the most important, source of knowledge.

[Interlude: a Brief History of Empiricism} One common belief of empiricism is that concepts have meaning only if derived from experience. Two members of this tradition mentioned by Quine are: John Locke (1632-1704, English): Essay Concerning Human Understanding[2] All ideas (anything in the mind, be it sensual or intellectual) result either from sensation or from reflection. In sensation, external objects affect the senses, which convey ideas into the mind (e.g., of yellow, hard, cold). Reflection is the inner sense which monitors our own mental operations (thinking, doubting, believing, willing, etc.) like an inner camera. Ideas are either simple (atomistic) or complex (built up from a combination of simple ideas) A word used by a given speaker is meaningful if and only if it refers to an idea in that speakers own mind. David Hume (1711-1776, Scottish): Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding[3] Any perception (anything in the mind) is either an impression (a more lively perception) or an idea (a less lively perception). Ideas are copies of impressions, so we can have no ideas without first having a corresponding impression A word that does not correspond to a genuine idea (an idea that is a copy of an impression) is meaningless, jargon. Rudolf Carnap: The Logical Structure of the World His book is popularly referred to as the Aufbau (in German the title is: Die Logische Aufbau die Welt). Carnap developed a system in which (he hoped) any empirically meaningful statement could be reduced to a logical construction consisting of statements about sense experience. He wanted not just to assert that synthetic statements could be reduced to statements about immediate sensory experience, but to actually show how this could be done. An important change: Locke and Hume were occupied with the meanings of individual words, Carnap is concerned to explain the meaning of individual statements.[4] So Carnap, as a representative of Logical Positivism (a.k.a. Logical Empiricism), is the prime example of a reductionistor as Quine says, of a radical reductionist.

Against Moderate Reductionism Carnap later took this project to have been a failure and abandoned radical reductionism. But still, says Quine, reductionism is still hanging around in a less explicit, subtler form: The notion lingers that to each statement, or each synthetic [non-analytic] statement, there is associated a unique range of possible sensory events such that the occurrence of any of them would add to the likelihood of truth of the statement, and that there is associated also another unique range of possible sensory events whose occurrence would detract from that likelihood. This notion is of course implicit in the verification theory of meaning. In other words... despite the failure of Carnaps radical reductionism, philosophers still accept: moderate reductionism: for each synthetic (empirically meaningful) statement S, there corresponds some possible sense experience(s) which, were it (they) to occur, would increase the likelihood that S is true. *moderate reductionism is my phrase, not Quines -- I mean for it to contrast with his phrase radical reductionism; Quine himself describes this form of reductionism as attenuated.+

Moderate reductionism implies that a solitary statement, considered by itself and apart from any other statement, can be supported (shown to be more likely to be true) or undermined (shown to be more likely to be false) by sense experience. E.g. There is an apple under this paper towelthe empirical meaning of this one statement is a possible sense experience, perhaps the visual experience I would have were the napkin liftedI would have the experience of a red (or green), roundish-object in space. The idea is that some possible sense experience would serve to confirm this single statement Quine says that individual statements cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed by themselves: our statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not individually but only as a corporate body. This is Quines so-called confirmation holism: confirmation holism (df.): the view that entire theories, not individual statements, are confirmed (or disconfirmed) as a whole; single statements themselves cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed separately. Heres an example to illustrate Quines confirmation holism: Suppose that scientists come across a strange physical substance. They conjecture that the substance has a specific chemical composition, say XYZ. They already believe that anything that has composition XYZ will turn green when heated to 200.

So they set out to test whether the new substance is XYZ by heating it to 200; they heat it and observe the results. Suppose that it doesnt turn green... What have they confirmed?

It might seem that they have confirmed that the substance is not XYZ But this is NOT the case: their belief that every instance of XYZ turns green when heated may be false -- this may be an instance of XYZ that does not turn green when raised to 200 or... their belief that they have heated this instance of XYZ to 200 may be false (it is possible that their thermometer is broken and they only heated it to 150 ) their belief that their own eyes are functioning properly may be false (it is possible that the substance was in fact heated to 200 and did in fact turn green, but they simply are not seeing that it has changed to that color!) most radically, their belief in the principle of excluded middle (either p or not-p, or either S is P or S is not P) could even turn out to be false! (it is possible that the substance is neither XYZ nor not XYZ!)

So an assumption of Carnaps radical reductionism and of a more moderate reductionism turns out to be false: the assumption that for any (synthetic) statement, there is one or more sense experiences that count as the sense experience(s) that would show that statement to be true or false.

The Connection Between the Two Dogmas Moderate reductionism supports the view that there is a clear distinction between analytic statements and synthetic ones: as long as it is taken to be significant in general to speak of the confirmation and information of a statement [as opposed to an entire theory or set of statements], it seems significant to speak also of a limiting kind of statement which is vacuously confirmed, ipso facto, come what may; and such a statement is analytic. In other words If we accept moderate reductionism according to which we can confirm or disconfirm statements by way of sense experience one at a time, in isolation from other statements then it makes sense to think that

there are statements that will be confirmed come what may, no matter what sense experiences we have, i.e., that there are analytic statements.

Eventually Quine concludes that the two dogmas are really one: The two dogmas are, indeed, at root identical. We lately reflected that in general the truth of statements does obviously depend both upon language and upon extra-linguistic fact; and we noted that this obvious circumstance carries in its train, not logically but all too naturally, a feeling that the truth of a statement is somehow analyzable into a linguistic component and a factual component. The factual component must, if we are empiricists, boil down to a range of confirmatory experiences. In the extreme case where the linguistic component is all that matters, a true statement is analytic. But I hope we are now impressed with how stubbornly the distinction between analytic and synthetic has resisted any straightforward drawing. I am impressed also, apart from prefabricated examples of black and white balls in an urn, with how baffling the problem has always been of arriving at any explicit theory of the empirical confirmation of a synthetic statement. My present suggestion is that it is nonsense, and the root of much nonsense, to speak of a linguistic component and a factual component in the truth of any individual statement. Taken collectively, science has its double dependence upon language and experience; but this duality is not significantly traceable into the statements of science taken one by one. The unit of empirical significance is the whole of science. In summary: All of our scientific knowledge (which previous philosophers have characterized as synthetic) depends on both language and experience. But this does not mean, nor is it true, that in a true statement, there is a linguistic component and a factual component that can be isolated from one another and that somehow work together to make the statement true. An individual statement, considered in isolation from every other statement, does not mean anything, and neither does an individual word considered apart from the rest of our language. The smallest unit of meaningful language is the whole of science itself.

Quines Pragmatism Quine maintains that any belief whatsoever could be held to be true in the light of any experiences whatsoever, if we are willing to make the needed changes elsewhere in our system of beliefs. As we have already seen, in the above example, we could continue to believe that the substance is XYZ even if it doesnt turn green by maintaining that our eyes are malfunctioning, or that we are hallucinating. If any number of beliefs can be adjusted (accepted as true or rejected as false) to accommodate experiences, how should we decide which one(s) to adjust? Quine suggests an answer at the end of Two Dogmas:

Each man is given a scientific heritage plus a continuing barrage of sensory stimulation; and the considerations which guide him in warping his scientific heritage to fit his continuing sensory promptings are, where rational, pragmatic. He suggests two pragmatic considerations that we use for determining how to adjust our collection of beliefs to accommodate new experiences: 1. conservatism: change your beliefs only as much as absolutely necessary to accommodate the new experience; conserve as many of our existing beliefs as possible; simplicity: keep your beliefs (including your scientific theories) as simple as possible (this is a reflection of Quines commitment to Ockhams Razorwe will talk more about this when we discuss On What There Is.).

2.

This is why Quine says at the beginning of the article that an effect of rejecting the two dogmas is a shift toward pragmatism.

The Continuity of Science and Philosophy Another consequence of Quines rejection of the two dogmas is that there is no longer a deep division between science and other areas of inquiry, including common-sense inquiry and disciplines like history, psychology and philosophy. One effect of abandoning *the two dogmas+ is a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics and natural science. In particular, Quine mentions ontology: Ontological questions, under this view, are on a par with questions of natural science. This is in harmony with his rejection of reductionism: if beliefs dont get confirmed (or disconfirmed) one at a time, but rather constitute a web of belief that faces the tribunal of experience all at once, then any part of the web could be adjusted to accommodate a given experience -- including any of the philosophical (ontological, metaphysical, epistemological, etc.) beliefs.