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19049 | In scientific theories sentences are too brief to be independent vehicles of empirical meaning [Quine] |
Full Idea: We have come to recognise that in a scientific theory even a whole sentence is ordinarily too short a text to serve as an independent vehicle of empirical meaning. | |
From: Willard Quine (Five Milestones of Empiricism [1975], p.70) |
19046 | Empiricism improvements: words for ideas, then sentences, then systems, then no analytic, then naturalism [Quine] |
Full Idea: Since 1750 empiricism shows five turns for the better. First was a shift from ideas to words. Second a shift from terms to sentences. Third the shift to systems of sentences. Fourth the abandonment of analytic-synthetic dualism. Fifth was naturalism. | |
From: Willard Quine (Five Milestones of Empiricism [1975], p.67) | |
A reaction: [compressed] Quine must be largely credited with the last two. The first four are almost entirely linguistic in character, which is characteristic of mid-twentieth-century empiricism. I would offer the recognition of explanation as central for the sixth. |