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Full Idea
Necessity resides in the way in which we say things, and not in the things we talk about.
Gist of Idea
Necessity is in the way in which we say things, and not things themselves
Source
Willard Quine (Three Grades of Modal Involvement [1953], p.176)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Ways of Paradox and other essays' [Harvard 1976], p.176
A Reaction
This is a culminating idea of Quine's thoroughgoing empiricism, as filtered through logical positivism. I would hardly dare to accuse Quine of a use/mention confusion (his own bête noir), but one seems to me to be lurking here.
| 12219 | Whether a modal claim is true depends on how the object is described [Quine, by Fine,K] |
| 10921 | Necessity can attach to statement-names, to statements, and to open sentences [Quine] |
| 10922 | Objects are the values of variables, so a referentially opaque context cannot be quantified into [Quine] |
| 10923 | Aristotelian essentialism says a thing has some necessary and some non-necessary properties [Quine] |
| 10924 | Necessity is in the way in which we say things, and not things themselves [Quine] |