Quine And Strawson

Answer : A person is self. A self is what is referred to by “I”- the first person pronoun, on many views a self simply is a person, an embodied, conscious being. Descartes disagrees and Hume didn’t acknowledge the distinction. Srawson claims to address the issue of solipsism. He argues that “I” must refer to a person that is essentially something embodied and to a person among persons. The solipsist cannot use “I” without a significant, contrasting the use of him, her or etc. Even in application to logical theory, conceptual analyst Strawson proposed reliance upon attention to language rather than to formal logic, with over emphasis on truth and falsify. Thus, Strawson resisted positivistic efforts to provide pseudo deductive foundations for empirical reasoning and dared to challenge the legitimacy of Russell’s vaunted theory of descriptions. On Srawson’s view Russell failed to distinguish between meaningful sentences on the one hand and their customary use to refer on the other, mistakenly supposing that all successful reference must either name or desirable that to which it refers. Thus Strawson refutes the idea of self given by Hume. Hume is of opinion that identity of a person, do we observe some real bonds among his perceptions or only feel one amount the idea we form of them? Hence identity is nothing really belonging to these different perceptions and uniting together, but is merely a quality which we attribute to them because of the union of their ideas in the imagination when we reflect on them. Mind is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions united together by certain relations, and supposed, though falsely to be endowed with a perfect simplicity and identity. But Strawson is of opinion that it is our habit to think of person as union of mind and boy or thought and extension. In it not the sum total of the two but it should be defined as something of which cannot think of without thinking about both the mind and the body. This is what is called person.

Answer : Verificationists need not be logical positivists. Willard Van Orman Quine is a famous example of a verificationist who does not accept logical positivism, on grounds of semantic holism. He suggests that, for theoretical sentences as opposed to observation sentences, meaning is “infected by theory”. That theoretical sentences are reducible to observation sentences is one of the ‘dogmas of empiricism’ he rejects as incompatible with semantic holism. Now Quine considers the verification theory of meaning. He observes that if the verification theory does provide an adequate account of meaning then it can be used to define analyticity. In fact he claims that analyticity can be defined as “synonymous with a logically true statement”, which is not in general the case. However, more importantly he seems here to clearly connect his denial of analyticity with skepticism about semantics. Quine therefore considers the relation between a sentence and its method of confirmation. This leads him first to talk about radical reductionism, ultimately concluding that this is untenable. He claims that the “dogma of reductionism” is implicit in the idea that statements in isolation can admit of confirmation at all. This is asserted rather than argued, and seems false. Why can we not hold the latter and deny the former? In fact we do. Here is another point at which Quine’s skepticism about semantics is clear. He is close to asserting here that sentences do not have truth conditions.

In the 1930s and 40s, discussions with Rudolf Carnap, Nelson Goodman and Alfred Tarski, among others, led Quine to doubt the tenability of the distinction between “analytic” statements those true simply by the meanings of their words, such as “All bachelors are unmarried” and “synthetic” statements, those true or false by virtue of facts about the world, such as “There is a cat on the mat.” This distinction was central to logical positivism. Although Quine’s criticisms played a major role in the decline of logical positivism, he remained a verificationist, to the point of invoking verificationism to undermine the analytic-synthetic distinction. Like other analytic philosophers before him, Quine accepted the definition of “analytic” as “true in virtue of meaning alone”. Unlike them, however, he concluded that ultimately the definition was circular.

In other words, Quine accepted that analytic statements are those that are true by definition, and then argued that the notion of truth by definition was unsatisfactory. Quine’s chief objection to analyticity is with the notion of synonymy (sameness of meaning), a sentence being analytic, just in case it substitutes a synonym for one “black” in a proposition like “All black things are black” (or any other logical truth). The objection to synonymy hinges upon the problem of collateral information. We intuitively feel that there is a distinction between “All unmarried men are bachelors” and “There have been black dogs”, but a competent English speaker will assent to both sentences under all conditions since such speakers also have access to collateral information bearing on the historical existence of black dogs. Quine maintains that there is no distinction between universally known collateral information and conceptual or analytic truths. Another approach to Quine’s objection to analyticity and synonymy emerges from the modal notion of logical possibility. A traditional Wittgensteinian view of meaning held that each meaningful sentence was associated with a region in the space of possible worlds. Quine finds the notion of such a space problematic, arguing that there is no distinction between those truths which are universally and confidently believed and those which are necessarily true.

Answer : Before Strawson the concept of body and mind was a matter of debate in the traditional European philosophy. Strawson raised some basic questions the concept of body and mind and concluded some new concepts regarding notion of an individual. There are two questions around which Strawson’s theory of persons revolves. They are:

Why are states of consciousness ascribed to anything at all?

Why are states of consciousness ascribed to the same things that we ascribe physical properties - such as being a certain weight etc?

Strawson identifies two positions with respect to the attribution of properties to persons. The first he calls the “Cartesian” position about which he has little to say; the other he refers to as the “no-ownership” theory which he discusses in great detail. This theorist says that it is merely a “linguistic illusion that one attributes one’s states of consciousness at all” and that the uniqueness of this body is sufficient to give rise to the idea that one’s experiences can be ascribed to some particular individual thing, and be said to be possessed by, or owned by, that thing.

Further, Strawson illustrates how the relation of mind and body amounts to “many peculiar combinations of dependence.” He opens with the imaginative proposal of having us suppose a situation where one body depends on the position of another for the perspective from which it views the world, and where whether that body sees is made to depend on whether the eyes of yet another body are opened. He adds a third body, one the orientation of which determines the direction from which our original imagined body sees. The body may be unique to a mind but this dependence is contingent in the sense at least that it is a contingent matter that ‘this’ body determines the content of my cognitive awareness.

Again Strawson observes that identical subjects have very different properties attributed to them: not only do I say that I am six feet tall, tall but I also say that I am angry or confused. He does not mention properties in facts such as that I have an I angry face, or that I am ten years old. What is important about these facts for Strawson’s purpose is that they provide no answers to the two questions around which his theory revolves. For Strawson, advocates of the primacy of the body in any description of persons maintain a “no ownership” theory. They enjoy certain advantages, such as not having to defend the existence of a “pure ego.” It is a weakness in Strawson’s theory of persons that he does not pursue in greater detail the alternatives available to the pure ego theorist in relation to the problem of ownership, that is, the problem of figuring out why conscious states need to be attributed to anything at all and if so, to what they belong. Broad considers two theories of the “Pure Ego,” but only one of them involves “ownership” of conscious states.

In the first, a conscious state is analyzed as a property exemplified by an ego. If I am tired, the conscious state of “being tired” is the truthful attribution to the Pure Ego that is said to be constitutive of the fact of my being tired.Here there is a weaker and a stronger version of the theory. The no-ownership theorist alleges merely that there is no attribution of psychological predicates to anything but the body. On this view such predicates belong only contingently to their physical subjects. The no-ownership theorist says that his opponent, however, now --- slides from this admissible sense of ‘belong’ to a wholly inadmissible and empty sense and in this new sense the particular thing which is supposed to possess the experiences is not thought of as body, but as something else, say an ego.

The ego on the ownership view “has” its experiences in a non transferrable way, this we’ll call HAVING. According to the no-ownership view the experiences are “had” in another sense, one we’ll refer to as ‘HAVING’. Now the lines are drawn more clearly. The no ownership theorist denies HAVING. Later, in Individuals Strawson is more lucid. ‘HAVING’ is a way of describing the causal relation between a body and experiences. It’s transferability amounts to being sufficiently demonstrated by showing that there is only this causal relation and that therefore some other thing may have ‘HAD’ the experience. Strawson, now produces the argument which is the key to understanding how he and Ayer differ.In any event, Strawson says the no-ownership theorist (mental states belong only to bodies) maintains an incoherent position:

When he tries to state the contingent fact, which he thinks gives rise to the illusion of the “ego,” he has to state it in some form. For any attempt to eliminate the “my” would yield something that is not a contingent fact at all. The proposition that all experiences are causally dependent on the state of a single body B, for example, is just false. The theorist means to speak of all the experiences had by a certain person being contingently so dependent.

Again Strawson says: And the theorist cannot consistently argue that “all the experiences of person P” means the same thing as “all experiences contingently dependent on a certain body B ; for then his proposition would not be contingent, as his theory requires, but analytic.In order to state his position the no-ownership theorist must introduce the notion of ‘my’ experiences, but then he must upon pain of triviality (analyticity) introduce a non transferable sense in which a subject owns those experiences. Confident that he has established the need for at least some kind of non-bodily thing to “own” psychological properties, Strawson gives a theory of persons. It is certainly worth noting that it is not the case that all Pure Ego theories were intended as making ownership of conscious states necessary in any sense.

This is evident in Broad. Secondly, on the present form of the Pure Ego theory it is not logically impossible that there should be mental events which are not owned by any Pure Ego at all.Moreover, Strawson’s account is pretty skimpy when it comes to discussing all the potentially viable positions. For example, there is non-Ego theory - the serial theory discussed by Gallie - that is not necessarily based on the primacy of the body, the only alternative seriously discussed by Strawson to the Ego theory. Let’s take a quick look at the constructive part of Strawson’s theory of persons. Like the no ownership theorist, Strawson is rejecting the notion of the “pure ego,” and this is what makes his position interesting and original. Strawson’s concept of a person dispenses with the idea of the pure ego as well as the person conceived of as body alone. His position brings back to the two questions that were raised at the very beginning of the discussion. The key point is that it is Strawson’s concept of a person that allows not only to answer these questions but also to relate them correctly. Here is what he says about these questions that a necessary condition of states of consciousness being ascribed at all is that they should be ascribed to the very same things as certain corporeal characteristics.

He follows an attack on the “pure ego,” saying that if we took it as a logically “independent primitive” notion in its own right we would be unable to distinguish subjects for ascription of states of characters. Thus the theory of person given by Strawson is certainly a step ahead of what has been said about body and mind earlier.

Answer : In 1951, W.V. Quine published his famous essay in which he argued that the analytic-synthetic distinction is untenable. Quine took the distinction to be the following: First, analytic propositions - propositions grounded in meanings, independent of matters of fact. Second, synthetic propositions - propositions grounded in fact. In short, Quine argues that the notion of an analytic proposition requires a notion of synonymy, but these notions are parasitic on one another. Thus, there is no non-circular (and so no tenable) way to ground the notion of analytic propositions.The reason which was glossed upon earlier why the distinction has never been conclusively drawn - that it is somewhat subjective and arbitrary: whether one holds that “all bodies are heavy” is analytic or synthetic merely reflects personal predisposition and metaphysical standpoint - is taken a step further here by Quine. When he asserts that Kant’s distinction is limited to the subject-predicate form, he is ontologically rephrasing this objection, and in so doing, he reaches to the very heart of the issue. What this means is that the way in which one categorizes propositions affects only linguistic usage, and not anything in the world, and thus there is no good reason for making the distinction. There do not exist two distinct types of reality in the world which require two distinct modes of expression. This leads Quine to conclude that the analytic-synthetic distinction is a purely logical convention that is ontologically unnecessary and empirically superfluous. Quine goes so far to refer to the notion of a priori knowledge as a “metaphysical article of faith.” Quine’s assertion that the distinction rests precariously on an ambiguous notion of meaning serves a likewise function.

On the surface, it is a reason why the distinction has never been well made, but in unpacking this assertion Quine reaches to the metaphysical core of the issue, and it turns upon the reason why there is no essential need to draw the distinction. One can recognize something as true, according to Kant, independently of experience, in virtue of its meaning, if the subject contains its predicate. Quine holds that there are only three plausible theories of meaning - reference, mentalism, and intentional objects.The reference theory is the view that the meaning of the word refers to that for which the word stands. In addition to Quine’s demonstration of the problem of words, which renders untenable the reference theory, Frege’s point about the essential need to distinguish between meaning and reference effectively demonstrates that synonymy cannot be based upon this reference theory. The mentalist theory holds that meaning is a mental entity, an abstract thought chord that is somehow struck by the word.

Quine points out that if this were the case, communication would be impossible, because meaning would be subjective, private, and arbitrary. Meaning as an intentional entity, as an essential part of an idea or object, is the most difficult to define, to locate, or to know. While Quine’s rejection of the analytic-synthetic distinction is widely known, the precise argument for the rejection and its status is highly debated in contemporary philosophy. However, some argue that Quine’s rejection of the distinction is still widely accepted among philosophers, even if for poor reasons.

Answer : Strawson’s theory of person suggests that a person as a concept that cannot be analysed further in a certain way or another. That means: “the concept of person is the concept of a type of entity, such that both predicates ascribing states of consciousness and predicates ascribing corporeal characteristics are equally applicable to a single individual of that single type. In other words, the states of consciousness cannot be ascribed at all,

unless they are ascribed to persons (in Strawson’s sense). It is to this concept of person not to the pure ego, that the personal pronoun ‘I’ refers. Thus this concept is logically prior to that of an individual consciousness. Strawson names the predicates ascribing

corporeal physical characteristics, M-predicates and those ascribing states consciousness, P-predicates. All P-predicates may not be said to be ascribing states of consciousness but they all imply the possession of consciousness on the part of that to which they are ascribed. P-predicates are essentially both self-ascribable and other-ascribable. One ascribes P-predicates to others on the strength of observation of their behaviour, but to oneself, not on the behaviour criteria. It is because of the special nature of the P predicates, or of a class of P-predicates. To learn their use is to learn both the aspects

of their use. We speak of ‘behaving in a depressed way’and of ‘feeling depressed’. Feelings can only be felt not observed, and behaviour can only be observed not felt. But ---- to have the concept like ‘X’s depression’, the concept must cover both what is felt by X and what is observed by others. “It is not that these predicates have two kinds of meaning. Rather, it is essential to the single kind of meaning that they do have, that both ways of ascribing them should be perfectly in order Strawson makes an attempt to show that this cannot be further analysed. The whole argument is based on a group of central P-predicates which are other-ascribable and self ascribable. Persons cannot be defined as a union of mind and body because the possession of mental properties as well as physical properties.

Answer : In 1951, W.V. Quine published his famous essay in which he argued that the analytic-synthetic distinction is untenable. Quine took the distinction to be the following: First, analytic propositions - propositions grounded in meanings, independent of matters of fact. Second, synthetic propositions - propositions grounded in fact. In short, Quine argues that the notion of an analytic proposition requires a notion of synonymy, but these notions are parasitic on one another. Thus, there is no non-circular (and so no tenable) way to ground the notion of analytic propositions.The reason which was glossed upon earlier why the distinction has never been conclusively drawn - that it is somewhat subjective and arbitrary: whether one holds that “all bodies are heavy” is analytic or synthetic merely reflects personal predisposition and metaphysical standpoint - is taken a step further here by Quine. When he asserts that Kant’s distinction is limited to the subject-predicate form, he is ontologically rephrasing this objection, and in so doing, he reaches to the very heart of the issue. What this means is that the way in which one categorizes propositions affects only linguistic usage, and not anything in the world, and thus there is no good reason for making the distinction. There do not exist two distinct types of reality in the world which require two distinct modes of expression. This leads Quine to conclude that the analytic-synthetic distinction is a purely logical convention that is ontologically unnecessary and empirically superfluous. Quine goes so far to refer to the notion of a priori knowledge as a “metaphysical article of faith.” Quine’s assertion that the distinction rests precariously on an ambiguous notion of meaning serves a likewise function.

On the surface, it is a reason why the distinction has never been well made, but in unpacking this assertion Quine reaches to the metaphysical core of the issue, and it turns upon the reason why there is no essential need to draw the distinction. One can recognize something as true, according to Kant, independently of experience, in virtue of its meaning, if the subject contains its predicate. Quine holds that there are only three plausible theories of meaning - reference, mentalism, and intentional objects.The reference theory is the view that the meaning of the word refers to that for which the word stands. In addition to Quine’s demonstration of the problem of words, which renders untenable the reference theory, Frege’s point about the essential need to distinguish between meaning and reference effectively demonstrates that synonymy cannot be based upon this reference theory. The mentalist theory holds that meaning is a mental entity, an abstract thought chord that is somehow struck by the word.

Quine points out that if this were the case, communication would be impossible, because meaning would be subjective, private, and arbitrary. Meaning as an intentional entity, as an essential part of an idea or object, is the most difficult to define, to locate, or to know. While Quine’s rejection of the analytic-synthetic distinction is widely known, the precise argument for the rejection and its status is highly debated in contemporary philosophy. However, some argue that Quine’s rejection of the distinction is still widely accepted among philosophers, even if for poor reasons.

Answer : According to Quine, the acquisition of language is a process of conditioning the performance of verbal behavior. Words for concrete or abstract objects may be learned by a process of reinforcement and extinction, whereby the meaning of words may become more clearly understood. Quine argues that the meaning of a sentence as a stimulus to verbal behavior is defined by what type of response it arouses in the listener or reader. A sentence may have an affirmative stimulus-meaning if it prompts a response of assent in the listener or reader. A sentence may have a negative stimulus-meaning if it prompts a response of dissent in the listener or reader. Quine distinguishes between the functions of two kinds of sentences:

• ‘occasion sentences’ (which assert something about a present or temporary occasion), and
• ‘standing sentences’ (which assert something about a more permanent situation).

According to Quine, the response to ‘occasion sentences’ may depend on prompting by simultaneous stimulation, but the response to ‘standing sentences’ may occur without prompting by simultaneous stimulation. Quine also defines ‘observation sentences’ as standing sentences whose meanings are less susceptible than occasion sentences to the influence of intrusive information. While occasion sentences may have considerable variability of stimulus-meaning for various listeners or readers, observation sentences may have relative stability of meaning for various listeners or readers.

Quine explains that ‘occasion sentences’ may be synonymous with each other if they have the same stimulus-meaning. The stimulus-meaning of an occasion sentence may be increased by lengthening its modulus of stimulation, or may be decreased by shortening its modulus of stimulation. The verbal responses to stimulus-meanings may be accessible to translation. ‘Radical translation’ of an occasion sentence may depend on the sentence’s having the same stimulus-meaning in one language as in another. Indeterminacy of translation may occur if there is variability of a sentence’s stimulus-meaning between one language and another. According to Quine, singular or general terms may be concrete or abstract, simple or compound, absolute or relative, definite or indefinite. Singular terms may refer to single objects, while general terms may refer to multiple objects. General terms may have divided reference, in that they may refer to more than one object.However, Quine argues that the distinction between singular and general terms may be based on how they are used to construct sentences, rather than on how they are used to refer to objects.

A general term may be predicated of a singular term (e.g. the general term “satellite of the earth” may be predicated of the singular term “the moon” in the sentence “the moon is a satellite of the earth”). At the same time, general terms may be converted into singular terms by demonstrative prefixes such as “this” or “that,” as in “this sugar,” or “that water.” Quine explains that if a singular term is used to refer to a person or thing, then sentence constructions which maintain the same referential use of that term have ‘referential transparency.’ If a singular term is used to refer to a person or thing, then sentence constructions which interrupt or discontinue the previous referential use of that term have ‘referential opacity.’ Thus, in a referentially-transparent sentence construction, a term which refers to an object may be replaced by a codesignative term (i.e. a term which refers to the same object), without changing the truth-value of the sentence. In a referentially-opaque sentence construction, however, the replacement of a term by a codesignative or coextensive term may often change the truth-value of the sentence.

Quine describes ‘eternal sentences’ as standing sentences whose truth-values remain constant over time, and whose truth-values remain constant from speaker to speaker. Non-eternal sentences are statements whose truth-values may change over a period of time, or whose truth-values may change from speaker to speaker. Standing sentences may be eternal or non-eternal. Quine explains that the stimulus-meanings of eternal sentences may be propositions, and that synonymous eternal sentences may express identical propositions. Rather than describing propositions as abstract concepts, or as objects of propositional attitudes, Quine describes propositions as meanings of eternal sentences. Quine argues that it is not necessary for propositions to function as vehicles of truth for eternal sentences, because eternal sentences may express their own truth. Propositional abstraction may thus be an unnecessary philosophical strategy.