Single Idea 15090

[catalogued under 10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity]

Full Idea

Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction sought to contract, if not to empty, the class of truths that are called necessary.

Gist of Idea

Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction undermined necessary truths

Source

report of Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Causal and Metaphysical Necessity I

Book Reference

Shoemaker,Sydney: 'Identity, Cause and Mind' [OUP 2003], p.407


A Reaction

The thought was that absolutely everything, including, for example, basic logic, became potentially revisable. See the last section of Quine's paper.