We cannot stem linguistic change, but we can drag our feet. If each of us were to defy Alexander Pope and be the last to lay the old aside, it might not be a better world, but it would be… — Willard Van Orman Quine Copy Share Image
It is one of the consolations of philosophy that the benefit of showing how to dispense with a concept does not hinge on dispensing… — Willard Van Orman Quine Copy Share
Theory may be deliberate, as in a chapter on chemistry, or it may be second nature, as in the immemorial doctrine of ordinary enduring… — Willard Van Orman Quine Copy Share
The line that I am urging as today's conventional wisdom is not a denial of consciousness. It is often called, with more reason, arepudiation… — Willard Van Orman Quine Copy Share
Our talk of external things, our very notion of things, is just a conceptual apparatus that helps us to foresee and control the triggerings… — Willard Van Orman Quine Copy Share
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… — Willard Van Orman Quine Copy Share
“Believing is a disposition. We could tire ourselves out thinking, if we put our minds to it, but believing takes no toll.” — Willard Van Orman Quine Copy Share
The strategy of semantic ascent is that it carries the discussion into a domain where both parties are better agreed on the objects (viz.,… — Willard Van Orman Quine Copy Share
Scientific method is the way to truth, but it affords, even in principle, no unique definition of truth. Any so-called pragmatic definition of truth… — Willard Van Orman Quine Copy Share
Some have said that the thesis [of indeterminacy] is a consequence of my behaviorism. Some have said that it is a reductio ad absurdum… — Willard Van Orman Quine Copy Share
Some may find comfort in reflecting that the distinction between an eliminative and an explicative physicalism is unreal. — Willard Van Orman Quine Copy Share
We must not leap to the fatalistic conclusion that we are stuck with the conceptual scheme that we grew up in. We can change… — Willard Van Orman Quine Copy Share
The word 'definition' has come to have a dangerously reassuring sound, owing no doubt to its frequent occurrence in logical and mathematical writings. — Willard Van Orman Quine Copy Share
Science is not a substitute for common sense, but an extension of it. — Willard Van Orman Quine Copy Share
The variables of quantification, 'something,' 'nothing,' 'everything,' range over our whole ontology, whatever it may be; and we are convicted of a particular ontological… — Willard Van Orman Quine Copy Share
