American - Philosopher | June 25, 1908 - December 25, 2000
It is one of the consolations of philosophy that the benefit of showing how to dispense with a concept does not hinge on dispensing with it.
Willard Van Orman Quine
PhilosophyBenefitConceptHowDoes
Language is a social art.
ArtLanguageSocial
We do not learn first what to talk about and then what to say about it.
LearnSayTalkFirstAboutThen
Language is conceived in sin and science is its redemption.
ScienceLanguageSinRedemption
Physics investigates the essential nature of the world, and biology describes a local bump. Psychology, human psychology, describes a bump on the bump.
NatureWorldPhysicsBiologyHuman
To be is to be the value of a variable.
ValueBrainyVariable
Uncritical semantics is the myth of a museum in which the exhibits are meanings and the words are labels. To switch languages is to change the labels.
ChangeWordsMuseumMythSwitch
One man's observation is another man's closed book or flight of fancy.
ManBookFlightObservationFancy
'Ouch' is not independent of social training. One has only to prick a foreigner to appreciate that it is an English word.
TrainingAppreciateIndependentOnly
The familiar material objects may not be all that is real, but they are admirable examples.
RealMayObjectsFamiliarMaterial
Confusion of sign and object is original sin coeval with the word.
SinConfusionOriginalSignObject
Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word.
MeaningEssenceWordObjectDivorced
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Willard Van Orman Quine quotes