Labels Quote 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

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

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

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

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

“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

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

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

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

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

— Willard Van Orman Quine

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

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