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Single Idea 1625

[filed under theme 14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 6. Theory Holism ]

Full Idea

My suggestion, following Carnap, is that our statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not individually but only as a corporate body.

Gist of Idea

Statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience as a corporate body

Source

Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953], p.41)

Book Ref

Quine,Willard: 'From a Logical Point of View' [Harper and Row 1963], p.41

The 4 ideas with the same theme [theories can only be grasped as part of the whole]:

17546 If you changed one of Newton's concepts you would destroy his whole system [Heisenberg on Newton]
18197 Experiments only test groups of hypotheses, and can't show which one is wrong [Duhem]
1625 Statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience as a corporate body [Quine]
2561 For Feyerabend the meaning of a term depends on a whole theory [Feyerabend, by Rorty]