Pretty excited for this one. I think I might actually be able to participate, and it's a nice change from basic introductory books.

This paragraph puzzles me:

Moreover, the doctrine of meaninglessness of contradictions has the severe methodological drawback that it makes it impossible, in principle, ever to devise an effective test of what is meaningful and what is not. It would be forever impossible for us to devise systematic ways of deciding whether a string of signs made sense—even to us individually, let alone other people—or not. For it follows from a discovery in mathematical logic, due to Church [2], that there can be no generally applicable test of contradictoriness.

He seems to be saying that, since there's no general test for contradictoriness, and all contradictions are meaningless, then a test for meaninglessness is a test for contradictoriness; it follows that there's no general test for meaningfulness (or lack thereof). Quine regards the lack of a meaning test as a "severe methodological drawback." But I don't understand why this follows. Here's why: if "x is a contradiction" implies "x is meaningless," then any test that tells us that x is meaningful also tells us that x is not a contradiction. But that just shows that meaningfulness implies consistency. None of this, however, shows that the meaning test amounts to a generalized contradiction test, since a statement can be meaningless without being contradictory ("I have a kraffenbargle" is meaningless because "kraffenbargle" doesn't mean anything, but there's no contradiction in there).

I haven't read the paper by Church that Quine references, but does Church's result about the impossibility of a contradiction test also rule out a consistency test? If so, then Quine is right, but he doesn't seem to put it clearly.

Any help here? I'm assuming that I'm just not understanding Quine properly, because his argument as I've summarized it seems to commit a basic logical error (the kind where you confuse antecedent with consequent), and I would think that Quine of all people would not make such an error, so obviously, I haven't summarized him correctly. I know I'm wrong, I just don't know why.

That part seems to be making the simple point that it is problematic to use contradictoriness as a criteria for meaninglessness because there are no cut and dried criteria to measure for contradictoriness in the first place. The 'methodological drawback' is not that there is a lack of a test for meaninglessness as such, but that contradictoriness cannot be used as a benchmark for that test. Quine isn't equating meaninglessness and contradictoriness - on the contrary, he's trying to pry them apart, in order to throw spanners into 'Wymans' ontology.

Wow! I'm glad to have returned to this essay. It meant a lot more to me this time through than I had remembered. Also, I was more able to pick out why Quine was saying what he was saying -- and note how, though the essay is interesting unto itself, it's somewhat dated (just by virtue of it being published originally in 1948, and more philosophy having been done -- not a fault of Quine's by any means)

Some excerpts with a quick commentary below to get conversation started:

One's ontology is basic to the conceptual scheme by which he interprets all experiences, even the most commonplace ones. Judged within some particular conceptual scheme -- and how else is judgment possible? -- an ontological statement goes without saying ,standing in need of no separate justification at all. Ontological statements follow immediately from all manner of casual statements of commonplace fact, just as -- from the point of view, anyway, of McX's conceptual scheme -- 'There is an attribute' follows from 'There are red houses, red roses, red sunsets'.

* I found this interesting. This is the first paragraph Quine uses the term "conceptual scheme". It's interesting to me because it seems that Quine seems to give more priority, later in the essay, to phenomenolist accounts of ontology than others. He doesn't want to commit to phenomenalism, since he says we should, quote unquote, wait and see and explore and experiment -- but I'd say that this essay favors phenomenalism. This is interesting because here we might see why -- because of his basis of judgment on conceptual schemes.

But I'm not so sure that is as innocent an introduction as Quine might believe. (meaning, "conceptual scheme" is not ontologically neutral, but pregnant)

Names are, in fact, altogether immaterial to the ontological issues, for I have shown, in connection with 'Pegasus' and 'pegasize', that names can be converted to descriptions, and Russell has sown that descriptions can be eliminated.

* Hence the importance of a proper account of names. (supposing that one were to want to save the arguments which Quine begins by attacking)

a theory is committed to those and only those entities to which the bound variables of the theory must be capable of referring in order that the affirmations made in the theory be true

This is the nugget around which all the rest of the essay turns -- trying to give a criterion of ontological commitment so that ontology can be discussed, understood, and disputed with thereby committing oneself to an entities existence.

Physical objects are postulated entities which round out and simplify our account of the flux of experience, just as the introduction of irrational numbers simplifies laws of arithmetic

???

What does this analogy mean? I didn't follow this part of the essay at all until he got to the part about how objects are a myth view of physics and physics is a myth from the point of view of phenomenalism.

But I'm not so sure that is as innocent an introduction as Quine might believe. (meaning, "conceptual scheme" is not ontologically neutral, but pregnant) — Moliere

I had thought that is the very point Quine is making; that conceptual schemes are not ontologically neutral. Or are you wanting to say that the very notion 'conceptual scheme' is not itself ontologically neutral?

If it is the latter, then I would question why you think the notion could not be wedded to any old ontology.

What does this analogy mean? I didn't follow this part of the essay at all until he got to the part about how objects are a myth view of physics and physics is a myth from the point of view of phenomenalism. — Moliere

I would say the analogy is that physical objects, just like irrational numbers, are not completely determinate; but this does not stop them being discursively useful.

A very nice read, but I'm dismayed that such exercises were required. The positions he disposes of so neatly seem so silly it's difficult to believe they were, well, believed. Perhaps this may be attributed to his skill or rhetoric. It's said Aristotle was something of a dandy, so I assume his beard was trim and well combed, but Plato's was tangled indeed. Still, I can't help but wonder why, and how, the question of "What is?" in the philosophical sense arises. The question makes sense to me in particular contexts, but it seems to me a real, and most peculiar, effort is required to raise the question as a philosophical issue.

The positions he disposes of so neatly seem so silly it's difficult to believe they were, well, believed. — Ciceronianus the White

Chalk it up to Quine's rhetorical skill, which is formidable.

I think Quine comments on meaningless strongly allude to the account of the peculiarity. "What is?" in the "philosophical sense" is really about contest of meaning. Different sides are trying discount opposition on the grounds of making a statement which says nothing rather than paying attention to the world and logic. Instead of viewing understandings, including incoherent and contradictory ones, for what they are, a meaning someone holds to be true, people are trying to discount them in the first instance. Not merely say what someone thinks is wrong, nor even say that what someone thinks is impossible (incoherence/contradiction), but rather wipe out there position entirely, as if they had made no comment or had no thought at all. They question is, really, entirely rhetorical.

Mistakes are actually meaning(s). When someone makes an error, they are not wrong because what they say is meaningless, but rather because what they say has all too much meaning. What they said, whether we are talking about an empirical error or a logical incoherence, is wrong. It is their meaning which is at fault. The very premise of the "What is?" question in the "philosophical sense" eliminates the means by which we notice and judge mistakes. If we asking that question, essentially: "What makes some statement meaningful and others not?," we have already lost. We are doing nothing more than playing a rhetorical game to insist upon our own preferred understanding.

What does this analogy mean? I didn't follow this part of the essay at all until he got to the part about how objects are a myth view of physics and physics is a myth from the point of view of phenomenalism. — Moliere

Namely that the "object" is functioning as a simplified account of something else. Consider the object of a book. It is a collection of many individual things, pages, cover, words, binding, etc.,etc. So many different meaningful moments, which have an effectively infinite meanings in relationship, since the book may be looked, felt, heard, etc.,etc from countless different positions.

The book (or any object) has so many individual meanings to experience that we can't capture it all in any one experience. If we want to refer to another connected point of experience, we have no choice to point to it with a notion of an entity. Individual pages, words, symbols, points of the cover, etc.,etc. are condensed into the non-description of "book (object)." So it is with any object.

Irrational numbers are similar to this, at least according to Quine, in that the are a "simplified" account which points to something we haven't described in a moment of experience of the past (i.e. numbers as discrete decimal points).

I don't actually like the analogy because irrational numbers are actually a description of a specific thing which is not properly accounted for with discrete decimal points. Irrational numbers are actually closer to pointing out a specific meaning of experience not given by a simplification of "object."

People sometimes have a tendency to think of new things only in terms of the old though.
Quine calls irrational numbers a "simplification" because he supposes we are meant to get a discrete decimal answer, rather than understanding that irrational numbers just don't do that. The correct version of the analogy would use rounding of irrational numbers to a discrete number of places.

What is it, though, that induces us (or some of us) to conceive of Universals, Being and Not-Being and such? Not something we encounter in everyday life, I would think. We become aware of red houses, red roses, etc. We may in certain cases be prompted to remark on the fact that a house and a rose are both red. How get from that to speculation regarding redness as an attribute and thence, worse yet, to redness as an attribute having some kind of separate existence rather than limiting ourselves to noting as it seems we would in certain circumstances that we painted the house red to go with the roses or because we like how red roses look, for example? What induces us to speculate on what it is to exist and not to exist, the difference between something and nothing?

It strikes me that these issues are contrived, in that they don't arise naturally (or so I think) but we manufacture them nonetheless. Language or its misuse may create confusion, lead to untenable conclusions, but there is something that precedes language used in an effort to describe the contrivance. Well, this may be a psychological issue and is in any case not something addressed in the article, so I'm probably going off topic, and will stop.

I mean the very notion of 'conceptual scheme' is not ontologically neutral. And while it could be wedded to any old ontology I don't think that's singular to the notion of 'conceptual scheme' -- since we can also wed any old ontology to physicalism or whatever it is. Ontology is like that. It applies everywhere.

A lot of this thinking comes from my reading Davidson's paper 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual scheme' -- my opinion has morphed over time, but it's still a good paper.

Ok, that makes sense. That's why I was confused I suppose. I didn't expect Quine to propose that irrational numbers can be "discovered" in some discrete, terminal sense. That's not what they do, and they're just as real as any other number too.

What I meant was that the notion of a conceptual scheme seems to be compatible with idealism, anti-realism and realism; that is it seems to be compatible across the range of different ontologies. On the other hand, I don't see how physicalism could be wedded to, for example, an idealist ontology, wherein mind is considered to be prime substance, as this would be a contradiction.

I haven't read the Davidson paper you refer to, but I have heard a little about it in relation to translatability.

I got that impression as well. As much as I enjoy writing good polemical rhetoric, it's a pain in the ass when someone writing a professional article does so.

Whatcha gonna do? He knows how to be convincing.

Take twice as long reading it than should be required. Thanks Quine.

Compared to the Davidson at least, this paper is as breezy as can be!

So just looking at names:

Sir Walter Scott is not.
The author of Waverly is not.
Either each thing failed to write Waverly or two or more things wrote Waverly.

Suppose that Walter Scott was not in fact the author of Waverly. A man named Schmidt whose body was found in Vienna under mysterious circumstances many years ago, actually did the work in question. His friend named Walter Scott somehow got hold of the manuscript and it was thereafter attributed to Walter Scott. On this view then when the ordinary man uses the name 'Walter Scott' he really means to refer to Schmidt, as Schmidt is the unique person satisfying the description 'the man who wrote Waverly' — Kripke

*I switched out Godel for Walter Scott to make this work.

By description theory, saying Sir Walter Scott is not, would then be actually saying that Schmidt is not. But that's not really the way that language works. I only dabble in analytic philosophy so there may be defenses to description theory after Kripke. Given that I find Kripke fairly convincing Quines argument against the ontological commitment of names falls through.
He does have the back of using the verb 'is-Walter Scott' but I don't buy it (I could be convinced).

Walter Scott is not.
There is no person who performs the action of being Walter Scott. ??

Like Quine I want to meaningfully use names without granting that there are entities allegedly named. But what's the argument?

As to the Kripke example, the "ordinary man" using the name "Walter Scott" is in fact using it to refer to Walter Scott. The "ordinary man" is mistaken, however, in believing Wally wrote that most enchanting work Waverly. Why think anything else about such a situation?

By the way, is the "ordinary man" referred to by philosophers a kind of cousin of the "reasonable man" we lawyers like so much? My guess would be he isn't, as the philosophers' "ordinary man" seems to be considered a dimwit and the "reasonable man" by definition is not.

As to the Kripke example, the "ordinary man" using the name "Walter Scott" is in fact using it to refer to Walter Scott. The "ordinary man" is mistaken, however, in believing Wally wrote that most enchanting work Waverly. Why think anything else about such a situation? — Ciceronianus the White

Exactly, but then Russel's theory of description fails because 'Walter Scott' can not be replaced by 'the man who wrote Waverly'.
Edit: For clarity, if 'Walter Scott' has the same meaning to someone as 'the man who wrote Waverly' then that would imply that when they use the name 'Walter Scott' they mean - the man who wrote Waverly - so they mean Schmidt. But as you said, this isn't the case.

By the way, is the "ordinary man" referred to by philosophers a kind of cousin of the "reasonable man" we lawyers like so much? My guess would be he isn't, as the philosophers' "ordinary man" seems to be considered a dimwit and the "reasonable man" by definition is not. — Ciceronianus the White

As I mentioned Kripke's example was about Godel instead of Walter Scott. In the context the ordinary man is one who only know that Godel created/discovered the incompleteness theory, and knows nothing else about Godel.
So here 'ordinary man' means someone who knows only that Walter Scott was the author of Waverly and knows nothing else about him. Then the only description that can be use to pick him out is that he is the author of Waverly. The ordinary man is not dim, he just doesn't spend his spare time reading about the life of Walter Scott.

What I meant was that the notion of a conceptual scheme seems to be compatible with idealism, anti-realism and realism; that is it seems to be compatible across the range of different ontologies. On the other hand, I don't see how physicalism could be wedded to, for example, an idealist ontology, wherein mind is considered to be prime substance, as this would be a contradiction.

I haven't read the Davidson paper you refer to, but I have heard a little about it in relation to translatability — John

I think physicalism could be wedded to idealism in the same way that conceptual scheme could be wedded to the other's, at least. Kant's project is somewhat like this -- where materiality is a category applied to space and time.

Similarly, conceptual scheme + (any of these) would yield an ontology that privileges phenomenalism as the least mythic of stances.

I don't see this Moliere, because physicalism is the ontological position that asserts that physical matter is the only real substance or ultimate existent. Idealism is the opposite position; it sees 'mind stuff' as the only real substance. I also think Kant's position is not really idealism; in fact, as you are no doubt aware, he actually wrote a 'Refutation of idealism'.

The key in my post is "in the same way" -- I agree with you that a strict physicalism couldn't be wed to a strict idealism. But I don't think adding a conceptual scheme to any ontology leaves said ontology unchanged, either.

I’d say the attraction many people have to universals is on account of everything not in everyday life. Universals are about specifying a logic rule which applies in any situation. We are drawn to universalising because it gives us an idea, solution, about what happens outside the moment of our existence.

When we deal with universals, we are either asking questions about logic, which doesn’t exist, or we are trying to access the meaning of a state which doesn’t exist, to manipulate causality to our liking. Universals are means of creating an reproducing a definitive understanding within the human community. The moment we notice anything about the world or logic, we are prone to posing a universal. To our minds, it’s a means of eliminate risk or danger: if I understand all lions are going to eat me (universal), the threat I’ve perceived (a lion chasing me) is seemingly dealt with going forward. I will never get stuck wondering whether this lion might be my friend or eat me, and (if it turns out the lion does eat me), get eaten. Or, sometimes, universals mean unstoppable purpose to a perceived obligation. If it’s universal that God must be followed, then their cannot be no legitimate challenge to that means of living. Logic demands we must follow. We want to control our future. Sometimes this manifests in attempts to do so with out thought, as if it was our thoughts, our ideas, the “universal” which we understood, which made the world. Philosophy is littered with this notion, in various forms,that it’s imagination which defines existence (e.g. Platonism, PSR, meaning to experience, etc.,etc).

Even the (supposedly) empirical sciences have fallen to the allure of the imagined universal. They spend so long trying to find the “universal” theory which would allow us to predict everything, for the equation which would necessarily govern then true of the world. Particularly ugly sections like to suppose they’ve discovered the “rule” of human behaviour, such that they can proclaim “human nature” and specify there is a particular rule which necessitates some people must exist or act a certain way compared to others. Universals are essentialism.

There lies a great irony in lots of the “scientific” objections to Post-Modernism. Many of are not a defence of empirical science, as the objector thinks, but rather an attempt to protect and assert a universal. For all it sins, Post-Modernism formed out of a failure of our descriptions and logic. We hadn’t accounted for the individual properly. The role of each us, in our own individual circumstances, had no been addressed by the many accounts of natural forces and descriptions of society we had generated. It was directing us away from the rules which (supposedly) define the world, to examine individual states and what they express. It was a move to start describing parts of the world we were not (hence Post-Modernism’s focus on the individual experience and its presence in the world). Sometimes it stepped too far or said almost nothing in thousands of words, but it was sort of important to moving philopshy (including that which underpins science) past the allow reduction of the world to the meaning of one particular idea we had.

I'm still not getting it Moliere; do you mean to say that the conceptual scheme: idealism' can be translated into the conceptual scheme: 'physicalism'? Or to put it another way do you mean that idealism can be described, as a scheme, in purely physicalist terms?

The latter point is what I mean, yes. I don't know if I'd say it can be translated, but it can be described in purely physicalist terms -- and vice-versa, as well. And the combination of a conceptual scheme with idealism seems different, to me, than idealism, just as the combination of a conceptual scheme with physicalism seems different than strict physicalism.

I can see how the need to distinguish kinds of things would arise, as we regularly enough engage in comparisons and the association of certain characteristics with certain things would be necessary. In medicine, for example, we would associate certain symptoms with certain diseases. Dewey's instrumental logic, for example, can account for the generation of "universals" of a sort as the result of common or specialized inquiry resulting from encounters with problems and their resolution. But the characterization of them as entities, and even as entities having a special status, is something I find bewildering.

I'm not sure what you refer to is that kind of universal.

Thanks Moliere, that clarifies one point for me, although I am still not sure how idealism and physicalism are themselves anything other than different conceptual schemes, and thus how it could change them, or for that matter what it could mean, to combine a conceptual scheme with them.

Well, based off of the Quine paper at least, it seems to me that talk of conceptual schemes involves a sort of epistemic primacy of the subject, where blotches of color are more certain than, say, a letter or envelope. This results in physicalism being more mythical than phenomenalism, and platonism being more mythical than physicalism as I read him saying, because the phenomenalist is supposedly committed to less than the others.