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2 - Analyticity

The Carnap–Quine Debate and Its Aftermath

from Section One - Language, Mind, Epistemology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2019

Kelly Becker
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico
Iain D. Thomson
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico
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Summary

W. V. Quine’s criticisms of Rudolf Carnap’s efforts to draw a boundary between analytic and synthetic sentences shook mid-twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy to its foundations, leaving logical empiricism in ruins and sparking the development of radically new ways of theorizing that continue to shape philosophy today. Despite decades of discussion, however, neither Carnap’s analytic–synthetic distinction nor Quine’s criticisms of it are well understood. My central goals here are to summarize and clarify them, evaluate influential objections to Quine’s criticisms, survey related work on analyticity and apriority by Hilary Putnam, Saul Kripke, David Chalmers, Paul Boghossian, and Gillian Russell, among others, and briefly discuss whether meaning is determinate in ways that recent explications of analyticity require.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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  • Analyticity
  • Edited by Kelly Becker, University of New Mexico, Iain D. Thomson, University of New Mexico
  • Book: The Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1945–2015
  • Online publication: 08 November 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316779651.005
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  • Analyticity
  • Edited by Kelly Becker, University of New Mexico, Iain D. Thomson, University of New Mexico
  • Book: The Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1945–2015
  • Online publication: 08 November 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316779651.005
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Analyticity
  • Edited by Kelly Becker, University of New Mexico, Iain D. Thomson, University of New Mexico
  • Book: The Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1945–2015
  • Online publication: 08 November 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316779651.005
Available formats
×