Quotes by Willard Van Orman Quine

Willard Van Orman Quine

… two men could be just alike in all their dispositions to verbal behavior under all possible sensory stimulations, and yet themeanings or ideas expressed in their identically triggered and identically sounding utterances could diverge radically, for the two men, in a wide range of cases.

Ideas

Men

Two

An indirect quotation we can usually expect to rate only as better or worse, more or less faithful, and we cannot even hope for astrict standard of more and less; what is involved is evaluation, relative to special purposes, of an essentially dramatic act.

Evaluation

Faithful

Special

Confusion of sign and object is original sin coeval with the word.

Confusion

Objects

Sin

Different persons growing up in the same language are like different bushes trimmed and trained to take the shape of identical elephants. The anatomical details of twigs and branches will fulfill the elephantine form differently from bush to bush, but the overall outward results are alike.

Different

Elephants

Growing Up

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.

Answers

Doctrine

Variables

I have been accused of denying consciousness but I am not conscious of having done so.

Accused

Consciousness

Done

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.

Book

Definitions

Systematic

If there is a case for mental events and mental states, it must be that the positing of them, like the positing of molecules, hassome indirect systematic efficacy in the development of theory.

Development

Events

Systematic

Implication is thus the very texture of our web of belief, and logic is the theory that traces it.

Belief

Logic

Texture

Irrefragability, thy name is mathematics.

Mathematics

Names

Follow The Behaviour University in order to get the greatest quotes from the greatest people of all time so that you can tap into your own greatness.

Acceptance

Accused

Answers

Argument

Belief

Believe

Benefits

Book

Building

Common

Common Sense

Confusion

Consciousness

Cost

Couple

Curves

Definitions

Degrees

Details

Development

Different

Doctrine

Doe

Done

Doubt

Elephants

Errors

Evaluation

Events

Example

Fabric

Faithful

Falsehood

Fancy

Feet

Geography And History

Good Life

Grammar

Growing Up

Helping

Ideas

Ifs And

Judging

Labels

Language

Law

Life Is

Light

Logic

Math

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

Tool

The Dating Diary

Tool

The Relationship Therapist

Tool

Quotes by Willard Van Orman Quine

Willard Van Orman Quine

… two men could be just alike in all their dispositions to verbal behavior under all possible sensory stimulations, and yet themeanings or ideas expressed in their identically triggered and identically sounding utterances could diverge radically, for the two men, in a wide range of cases.

An indirect quotation we can usually expect to rate only as better or worse, more or less faithful, and we cannot even hope for astrict standard of more and less; what is involved is evaluation, relative to special purposes, of an essentially dramatic act.

Confusion of sign and object is original sin coeval with the word.

Different persons growing up in the same language are like different bushes trimmed and trained to take the shape of identical elephants. The anatomical details of twigs and branches will fulfill the elephantine form differently from bush to bush, but the overall outward results are alike.

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.

I have been accused of denying consciousness but I am not conscious of having done so.

If there is a case for mental events and mental states, it must be that the positing of them, like the positing of molecules, hassome indirect systematic efficacy in the development of theory.

Implication is thus the very texture of our web of belief, and logic is the theory that traces it.

Irrefragability, thy name is mathematics.

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