Irrefragability, thy name is mathematics. Willard Van Orman Quine More Quotes by Willard Van Orman Quine More Quotes From Willard Van Orman Quine The mastery of one's phonemes may be compared to the violinist's mastery of fingering. The violin string lends itself to a continuous gradation of tones, but the musician learns the discrete intervals at which to stop the string in order to play the conventional notes. We sound our phonemes like poor violinists, approximating each time to a fancied norm, and we receive our neighbor's renderings indulgently, mentally rectifying the more glaring inaccuracies. Willard Van Orman Quine music play order The scientist is indistinguishable from the common man in his sense of evidence, except that the scientist is more careful. Willard Van Orman Quine common men science Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato's beard; historically it has proved tough, frequently dulling the edge of Occam's razor. Willard Van Orman Quine tangled plato might Life is agid, life is fulgid. Life is what the least of us make most of us feel the least of us make the most of. Life is a burgeoning, a quickening of the dim primordial urge in the murky wastes of time. Willard Van Orman Quine wasting-time waste life-is The variables of quantification, 'something,' 'nothing,' 'everything,' range over our whole ontology, whatever it may be; and we are convicted of a particular ontological presupposition if, and only if, the alleged presuppositum has to be reckoned among the entities over which our variables range in order to render one of our affirmations true. Willard Van Orman Quine ifs-and variables order Our acceptance of an ontology is, I think, similar in principle to our acceptance of a scientific theory, say a system of physics;we adopt, at least insofar as we are reasonable, the simplest conceptual scheme into which the disordered fragments of raw experience can be fitted and arranged. Willard Van Orman Quine ontology acceptance thinking Scientific method is the way to truth, but it affords, even in Willard Van Orman Quine unique truth science Some may find comfort in reflecting that the distinction between an eliminative and an explicative physicalism is unreal. Willard Van Orman Quine distinction comfort may Logic is an old subject, and since 1879 it has been a great one. Willard Van Orman Quine logic has-beens subjects Our argument is not flatly circular, but something like it. It has the form, figuratively speaking, of a closed curve in space. Willard Van Orman Quine argument curves space Theory may be deliberate, as in a chapter on chemistry, or it may be second nature, as in the immemorial doctrine of ordinary enduring middle-sized physical objects. Willard Van Orman Quine doctrine ordinary may If pressed to supplement Tweedledee's ostensive definition of logic with a discursive definition of the same subject, I would say that logic is the systematic study of the logical truths. Pressed further, I would say that a sentence is logically true if all sentences with its grammatical structure are true. Pressed further still, I would say to read this book. Willard Van Orman Quine systematic definitions book How are we to adjudicate among rival ontologies? Certainly the answer is not provided by the semantical formula "To be is to be the value of a variable"; this formula serves rather, conversely, in testing the conformity of a given remark or doctrine to a prior ontological standard. Willard Van Orman Quine variables doctrine answers To call a posit a posit is not to patronize it. A posit can be unavoidable except at the cost of other no less artificial expedients. Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Willard Van Orman Quine building cost real Unscientific man is beset by a deplorable desire to have been right. The scientist is distinguished by a desire to be right. Willard Van Orman Quine scientist desire men Implication is thus the very texture of our web of belief, and logic is the theory that traces it. Willard Van Orman Quine texture logic belief A curious thing about the ontological problem is its simplicity. It can be put into three Anglo-Saxon monosyllables: 'What is there?' It can be answered, moreover, in a word--'Everything'--and everyone will accept this answer as true. Willard Van Orman Quine simplicity three answers Uncritical semantics is the myth of a museum in which the exhibits are meanings and the words are labels. To switch languages is to change the labels. Willard Van Orman Quine labels language museums The familiar material objects may not be all that is real, but they are admirable examples. Willard Van Orman Quine real example may To define an expression is, paradoxically speaking, to explain how to get along without it. To define is to eliminate. Willard Van Orman Quine expression
