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Full Idea
Ordinary language is reduced to logical form in two ways: reduction of the variety of idioms and grammatical constructions, and reduction of each surviving idiom to one fixed and convenient interpretation.
Gist of Idea
Reduction to logical forms first simplifies idioms and grammar, then finds a single reading of it
Source
Willard Quine (Mr Strawson on Logical Theory [1953], V)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Ways of Paradox and other essays' [Harvard 1976], p.148
A Reaction
Is there a conflict between a 'fixed' and a 'convenient' result? By 'fixed' I suppose he means it is a commitment (to not waver). What is the logical form of a sentence which is deliberately ambiguous?
| 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] |