Doe Quote by Willard Van Orman Quine

“No two of us learn our language alike, nor, in a sense, does any finish learning it while he lives.” quote by Willard Van Orman Quine — Download Open image

“No two of us learn our language alike, nor, in a sense, does any finish learning it while he lives.”

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More by Willard Van Orman Quine

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

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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

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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 of mind. It is indeed a repudiation of mind as a second substance, over and above body. It can be described less harshly as an identification of mind with some of the faculties, states, and activities…

Willard Van Orman Quine

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

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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…

Willard Van Orman Quine

“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

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The strategy of semantic ascent is that it carries the discussion into a domain where both parties are better agreed on the objects (viz., words) and on the main terms connecting them. Words, or their inscriptions, unlike points, miles, classes and the rest, are tangible objects of the size so popular in the marketplace, where men of unlike conceptual schemes…

Willard Van Orman Quine

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

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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

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Some may find comfort in reflecting that the distinction between an eliminative and an explicative physicalism is unreal.

Willard Van Orman Quine

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We must not leap to the fatalistic conclusion that we are stuck with the conceptual scheme that we grew up in. We can change it, bit by bit, plank by plank, though meanwhile there is nothing to carry us along but the evolving conceptual scheme itself. The philosopher's task was well compared by Neurath to that of a mariner who…

Willard Van Orman Quine

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

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Explore all 67 Willard Van Orman Quine quotes

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So the fool, as distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self- satisfied; in fact, he can easily become dangerous, as it does not take…

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict Scripture. MARTIN LUTHER, letter to Chancellor Gregory Brück, January 13,…

Jean de la Bruyere

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For successful education there must always be a certain freshness in the knowledge dealt with. It must be either new in itself or invested with some novelty of application to the new world of new times. Knowledge does not keep any better than fish. You may be dealing with knowledge of the old species, with some old truth; but somehow…

Alfred North Whitehead

The prophet who fails to present a bearable alternative and yet preaches doom is part of the trap that he postulates. Not only does he picture us caught in a tremendous man-made or God-made trap from which there is no escape, but we must also listen to him day in, day out, describe how the trap is inexorably closing. To…

Margaret Mead

Sometimes a sign or a quote is simply interesting by itself and does not require anything beyond being framed on a page.

Stephen Vincent Benet

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A home is not a museum. It doesn't have to be furnished with Picasso paintings, or Sheraton suites, or Oriental rugs, or Chinese pottery.…

James M. Cain

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The image of blacks usually is one of people who are suffering from hunger, unemployment, and poverty. The idea of them as agents and activists - as starting revolutions - does not exist in most people's minds. And I think it's very, very important that folks understand how much this country was founded on the enslavement of blacks, and how…

Grace Lee Boggs