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Full Idea
Contextual definition precipitated a revolution in semantics. The primary vehicle of meaning is seen no longer as the word, but as the sentence.
Gist of Idea
Contextual definition shifted the emphasis from words to whole sentences
Source
Willard Quine (Five Milestones of Empiricism [1975], p.69)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Theories and Things' [Harvard 1981], p.69
A Reaction
I think the idea is that the term is now supported entirely by its surrounding language, and not by its denotation of something in the world.
Related Idea
Idea 19047 Bentham's contextual definitions preserved terms after their denotation became doubtful [Quine]
| 19046 | Empiricism improvements: words for ideas, then sentences, then systems, then no analytic, then naturalism [Quine] |
| 19047 | Bentham's contextual definitions preserved terms after their denotation became doubtful [Quine] |
| 19048 | Contextual definition shifted the emphasis from words to whole sentences [Quine] |
| 19049 | In scientific theories sentences are too brief to be independent vehicles of empirical meaning [Quine] |
| 19050 | Holism in language blurs empirical synthetic and empty analytic sentences [Quine] |