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Single Idea 20297

[filed under theme 19. Language / E. Analyticity / 1. Analytic Propositions ]

Full Idea

What's peculiar about the analytic is that denying it seem unintelligible. Far from unrevisability explaining analyticity, it seems to be analyticitiy that explains unrevisability; we only balk at denying unmarried bachelors because that's what it means!

Gist of Idea

Analytic statements are undeniable (because of meaning), rather than unrevisable

Source

Georges Rey (The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction [2013], 3.7)

Book Ref

'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.9

A Reaction

This is a criticism of Quine, who attacked analyticity when it is understood as unrevisability. Obviously we could revise the concept of 'bachelor', if our marriage customs changed a lot. Rey seems right here.

Related Idea

Idea 11170 Analytic truth may only be true in virtue of the meanings of certain terms [Fine,K]

The 69 ideas from Georges Rey

3136 The three theories are reduction, dualism, eliminativism [Rey]
3137 Varieties of singular terms are used to designate token particulars [Rey]
3138 Arithmetic and unconscious attitudes have no qualia [Rey]
3139 Some attitudes are information (belief), others motivate (hatred) [Rey]
3140 If you explain water as H2O, you have reduced water, but not eliminated it [Rey]
3213 Animals may also use a language of thought [Rey]
3215 Images can't replace computation, as they need it [Rey]
3216 Is the room functionally the same as a Chinese speaker? [Rey]
3220 Searle is guilty of the fallacy of division - attributing a property of the whole to a part [Rey]
3221 Our desires become important when we have desires about desires [Rey]
3223 Self-consciousness may just be nested intentionality [Rey]
3224 If qualia have no function, their attachment to thoughts is accidental [Rey]
3227 Are qualia a type of propositional attitude? [Rey]
3226 Are qualia irrelevant to explaining the mind? [Rey]
3229 If colour fits a cone mapping hue, brightness and saturation, rotating the cone could give spectrum inversion [Rey]
3142 Why qualia, and why this particular quale? [Rey]
3141 Is consciousness 40Hz oscillations in layers 5 and 6 of the visual cortex? [Rey]
3143 Physics requires the existence of properties, and also the abstract objects of arithmetic [Rey]
3145 The Indiscernibility of Identicals is a truism; but the Identity of Indiscernibles depends on possible identical worlds [Rey]
3147 Problem-solving clearly involves manipulating images [Rey]
3148 Dualist privacy is seen as too deep for even telepathy to reach [Rey]
3149 Referential Opacity says truth is lost when you substitute one referring term ('mother') for another ('Jocasta') [Rey]
3150 Can identity explain reason, free will, non-extension, intentionality, subjectivity, experience? [Rey]
3162 Experiments prove that people are often unaware of their motives [Rey]
3163 Brain damage makes the unreliability of introspection obvious [Rey]
3164 Intentional explanations are always circular [Rey]
3165 Behaviourism is eliminative, or reductionist, or methodological [Rey]
3166 Animal learning is separate from their behaviour [Rey]
3167 Animals don't just respond to stimuli, they experiment [Rey]
3170 We train children in truth, not in grammar [Rey]
3169 A simple chaining device can't build sentences containing 'either..or', or 'if..then' [Rey]
3171 Children speak 90% good grammar [Rey]
3172 Empiricism says experience is both origin and justification of all knowledge [Rey]
3173 How are stimuli and responses 'similar'? [Rey]
3175 Animals map things over time as well as over space [Rey]
3174 Good grammar can't come simply from stimuli [Rey]
3176 Anything bears a family resemblance to a game, but obviously not anything counts as one [Rey]
3179 Behaviour is too contingent and irrelevant to be the mind [Rey]
3180 Maybe behaviourists should define mental states as a group [Rey]
3181 A one hour gap in time might be indirectly verified, but then almost anything could be [Rey]
3186 If a normal person lacked a brain, would you say they had no mind? [Rey]
3188 Homuncular functionalism (e.g. Freud) could be based on simpler mechanical processes [Rey]
3194 CRTT is good on deduction, but not so hot on induction, abduction and practical reason [Rey]
3196 Free will isn't evidence against a theory of thought if there is no evidence for free will [Rey]
3195 If reason could be explained in computational terms, there would be no need for the concept of 'free will' [Rey]
3200 Pattern recognition is puzzling for computation, but makes sense for connectionism [Rey]
3199 Connectionism assigns numbers to nodes and branches, and plots the outcomes [Rey]
3201 Connectionism explains well speed of perception and 'graceful degradation' [Rey]
3202 Connectionism explains irrationality (such as the Gamblers' Fallacy) quite well [Rey]
3204 The meaning of "and" may be its use, but not of "animal" [Rey]
3205 Semantic holism means new evidence for a belief changes the belief, and we can't agree on concepts [Rey]
3206 One computer program could either play chess or fight a war [Rey]
3207 Simple externalism is that the meaning just is the object [Rey]
3209 Causal theories of reference (by 'dubbing') don't eliminate meanings in the heads of dubbers [Rey]
3210 If meaning and reference are based on causation, then virtually everything has meaning [Rey]
3129 Physicalism offers something called "complexity" instead of mental substance [Rey]
3127 Dualism and physicalism explain nothing, and don't suggest any research [Rey]
3128 It's not at all clear that explanation needs to stop anywhere [Rey]
3134 Human behaviour can show law-like regularity, which eliminativism can't explain [Rey]
3232 Abduction could have true data and a false conclusion, and may include data not originally mentioned [Rey]
20293 Analytic judgements can't be explained by contradiction, since that is what is assumed [Rey]
20294 'Married' does not 'contain' its symmetry, nor 'bigger than' its transitivity [Rey]
20297 Analytic statements are undeniable (because of meaning), rather than unrevisable [Rey]
20298 The traditional a priori is justified without experience; post-Quine it became unrevisable by experience [Rey]
20299 If we claim direct insight to what is analytic, how do we know it is not sub-consciously empirical? [Rey]
20300 Externalist synonymy is there being a correct link to the same external phenomena [Rey]
20301 The meaning properties of a term are those which explain how the term is typically used [Rey]
20302 An intrinsic language faculty may fix what is meaningful (as well as grammatical) [Rey]
20303 Research throws doubts on the claimed intuitions which support analyticity [Rey]