Argument Quote by Willard Van Orman Quine

“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

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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…

Willard Van Orman Quine

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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…

Willard Van Orman Quine

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“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.,…

Willard Van Orman Quine

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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…

Willard Van Orman Quine

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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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A flourishing, morally credible media is a vital component in the maintenance of genuinely public talk, argument about common good.

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Preaching to the choir actually arms the choir with arguments and elevates the choir's discourse. There's a reason the right does it and does…

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Lutherans, whose arguments and mistakes will not be difficult to contest or discover, do not want to attribute any value to works, and they…

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Any comprehensive doctrine, religious or secular, can be introduced into any political argument at any time, but I argue that people who do this…

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As opposed to getting into arguments about, well, these folks have been treated fairly so now we're going to be doing things that, very…

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There could be no more powerful argument against mixing religion and government than the success of independent African American churches in placing racial segregation…

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The inner defenses are unconscious. They consist of a kind of magic aura which the mind builds around cherished belief. Arguments which penetrate into…

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On the stage, the characters express themselves more through words than images. So the arguments of the characters and the tension between characters -…

Alan Alda