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Full Idea
We understand under what circumstances to say of any given statement that it is true, just as clearly as we understand the statement itself.
Gist of Idea
If we understand a statement, we know the circumstances of its truth
Source
Willard Quine (Mr Strawson on Logical Theory [1953], II)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Ways of Paradox and other essays' [Harvard 1976], p.142
A Reaction
This probably shouldn't be taken as a theory of meaning (in which Quine doesn't really believe) but as a plausible statement of correlated facts. Hypothetical assertions might be a problem case. 'If only I could be in two places at once'?
| 13713 | Quine holds time to be 'space-like': past objects are as real as spatially remote ones [Quine, by Sider] |
| 22430 | If we understand a statement, we know the circumstances of its truth [Quine] |
| 22432 | Normally conditionals have no truth value; it is the consequent which has a conditional truth value [Quine] |
| 22431 | Good algorithms and theories need many occurrences of just a few elements [Quine] |
| 22433 | It is important that the quantification over temporal entities is timeless [Quine] |
| 22437 | Logical languages are rooted in ordinary language, and that connection must be kept [Quine] |
| 22434 | Reduction to logical forms first simplifies idioms and grammar, then finds a single reading of it [Quine] |
| 22435 | The logician's '→' does not mean the English if-then [Quine] |
| 22438 | Philosophy is largely concerned with finding the minimum that science could get by with [Quine] |
| 22436 | Logicians don't paraphrase logic into language, because they think in the symbolic language [Quine] |