Abstract
There is a difference in the actual use of the two dimensions of fundamental proposition types, a difference which means that there is no basis in reality for speaking of fusion of definitions and characterisations, as is the case with descriptive and normative propositions:
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References
I assume that this discussion and decision aspect of language and argumentation, and as part of this, definitions stipulated at any time and for the individual occasion, play a greater role than Quine appears to assume; see section 2 (3)—(4) below.
For example, Galtung, ‘Expectations and Interaction Processes’, pp. 215–18, takes Quine’s analysis as support for the graduated nature of both dimensions.
I emphasise “the absence of such a parallel”, i.e. in relation to the phenomenon of fusion. As is apparent from the discussion in section F above, I assume that fusion of descriptive and normative propositions is a phenomenon with relatively clearly delimited diffusion, in that this phenomenon appears in actual fact to be specific to lawyers’ propositions de lege lata. — Apart from the phenomenon of fusion I do not claim, in relation to the perspective and topic of the present work, that there is any difference with respect to the degree to which the fundamental distinctions in the two proposition dimensions can be maintained (on the other hand, I do claim that there are certain differences with respect to the degree to which they are in fact maintained; see Chapter IV below).
Quine, ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, pp. 22–23; compare same writer, Word and Object,p. 65 in note 3. See on this type of analytically un/true proposition, section D 4 (2)(a) above. — In what follows I shall to a great extent concern myself with ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, because this article directly addresses the present problem (the possibility of distinguishing between analytically un/true and other propositions), because it is very well known, and because, as far as I know, Quine has ever since built on the views he expresses there. On the origin of this article and its ideas, see Word and Object,p. 67 in note 7.
Quine, ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, p. 23, cf. pp. 25–26.
Op. cit., p. 26.
Op. cit., p. 27.
Op. cit., pp. 25 (bottom)-26 (top), 27.
Beside the type of definition that is dealt with in the preceding indent (“the explicitly conventional introduction of novel notations for purposes of sheer abbreviation”), Quine operates with two types of definition, which he terms respectively “reports upon usage” and “what Carnap calls explication”; see op. cit., pp. 24–26, 27.
Quine, ‘Truth by Convention’, pp. 78 et seq.; ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, pp. 26–27; ‘Carnap and Logical Truth’, pp. 394–95; ‘Vagaries of Definition’, passim.
Quine, ‘Carnap and Logical Truth’, p. 395: “Increasingly the word ‘definition’ connotes the formulas of definition which appear in connection with formal systems, signalled by some extra-systematic sign such as df. Such definitions are best looked upon as correlating two systems, two notations, one of which is prized for its economical lexicon and the other for its brevity or familiarity of expression [note with reference to From a Logical Point of View,1953 ed. p. 26f1. Definitions so used can be either legislative or discursive in their inception. But this distinction is in practice left un-indicated, and wisely; for it is a distinction only between particular acts of definition, and not germane to the definition as an enduring channel of intertranslation.”
Quine, Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, pp. 24–27. Concerning “exceptionally”, see the text at note 7 above.
See section A 2 (2)(b)(i)-+(ii) above.
Quine, Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, pp. 36–37. See also pp. 41–42.
Quine, Word and Object,pp. 26–79, compare pp. 65–67.
In his article ‘On What There Is’, particularly pp. 12–19, Quine gives an account of his view of the relationship between the two questions.
Quine, ‘On What There Is’, pp. 16–19; ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, pp. 44–46; Word and Object,pp. 233–76.
See also the schematic representation in section A 7 above of the different proposition types and of how analytically un/true propositions come in as a delimiting case.
Compare Grice/ Strawson, ‘In Defense of a Dogma’, pp. 142–47, on philosophical and general uses of the distinctions.
Compare Carnap, ‘Replies and Systematic Expositions’, p. 922 (“I believe that the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements, expressed in whatever terms, is practically indispensable for methodological and philosophical discussions”); Feigl, ‘Some Major Issues and Developments in the Philosophy of Science of Logical Empiricism’, pp. 6–7 (“The sharp distinction between analytic and synthetic statements is not only fruitful but indispensable… if for nothing else, then certainly for the sake of mere clarity of thought”); Robinson, An Atheist’s Values,pp. 73 cf. 81–84 (“There is a virtue of exercising our power to think in good ways… In seeking to decide which of a pair of contradictories is the true one, the reasonable man asks first whether they are analytic or synthetic statements”); Definition,pp. 177–78 (see the quotation in section B 2.3 (1) above, in note 33); Stenius, ‘The Concepts ‘Analytic’ and ‘Synthetic’, p. 58 (“One of the main tasks of philosophical analysis, I think, is to make clear the difference between questions about linguistic convention and questions about… matters of fact, values, moral norms, and so on. It is as a step in the clarification of this difference that the distinction between ‘analytic’ and ‘synthetic’ is important”); see also pp. 75–76. — To avoid any misunderstanding I must mention that the quotations now given are intended solely to illustrate the fact that the normative view advanced in the text at the present note has a certain amount of support; neither the quotations nor their authors’ fundamental philosophical positions are cited as evidence for the basis in reality of the distinctions between the fundamental proposition types. The evidence for the basis in reality of these distinctions is such features of actually occurring language and argumentation as the present work as a whole demonstrates and systematises, see the main text in what follows.
The abstraction mentioned is an important feature in common of the fundamental discussions in ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ and Word and Object. The same abstraction recurs in Quine’s later and more brief discussions too; see ‘Epistemology Naturalized’, p. 86; The Roots of Reference,pp. 78–80; ‘Vagaries of Definition’, pp. 51–52. — Scattered in Quine’s works one can find some statements that perhaps refer to parts of the discussion and decision aspect; see, for example, ‘Carnap and Logical Truth’, p. 395 (partly quoted in item (2) above, in note 10); ‘Reply to Herbert G. Bohnert’, p. 94.
Quine, ‘Things and Their Place in Theories’, p. 21: “[I]t is within science itself, and not in some prior philosophy, that reality is to be identified and described.”
Quine, ‘Goodman’s Ways of Worldmaking’, p 98• “[N]othing happens in the world, not the flutter of an eyelid, not the flicker of a thought, without some redistribution of microphysical states.… If the physicist suspected there was any event that did not consist in a redistribution of the elementary states allowed for by his physical theory, he would seek a way of supplementing his theory. Full coverage in this sense is the very business of physics, and only of physics.” — Concerning “to that extent” in the main text at the present note, compare at and in note 24 below.
Op. cit., pp. 97–98: “[a] sequence of worlds or versions… I would end it after the first step: physical theory”; “… my special deference to physical theory as a world version, and to the physical world as the world”.
Op. cit., p. 98.
See, for example, statements on the volatile status of definitions in Quine, ‘Carnap and Logical Truth’, p. 395; ‘Necessary Truth’, p. 75; ‘Reply to Herbert G. Bohnert’, p. 95; ‘Reply to Ulrich Gähde and Wolfgang Stegmüller’, p. 138; ‘Reply to Geoffrey Hellman’, p. 206.
McDowell, Mind and World,pp. 129–61, in particular pp. 129–39, 156–61. — McDowell terms the discussion and decision aspect of language and argumentation “the order of justification” and (de- Glaring himself in agreement with Wilfred Sellars) “the space of reasons”, see op. cit., e.g. pp. 133–34, compare p. 5 at and in note 4.
op. cit., in particular pp. 133–35, 136–37, 160–61. — “Quine… impossibly tries to have it both ways — to exploit the idea of experience as a tribunal that stands in judgement over beliefs, while conceiving experience so that it has to stand outside the order of justification” (p. 137; see also pp. 134–35 in note 5).
I must mention in this connection that McDowell too does not seem to have an eye for the factual significance in the discussion and decision aspect of the distinction between definitions and characterisations; see op. cit., p. 158.
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Eng, S. (2003). No corresponding fusion of definitions and characterisations. In: Analysis of Dis/Agreement — with particular reference to Law and Legal Theory. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 66. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0381-9_8
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