Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine on the Intelligibility and Relevance of Analyticity 51
if consistent, have a model in any denumerable domain. Similarly,
Carnap’s artificial systems forfeit the claim to be about language unless
there are behavioral criteria at least waiting in the wings. This is
what Quine means in saying that Carnap’s artificial languages could
clarify analyticity but only if “the mental or behavioral or cultural
factors relevant to analyticity – whatever they may be – were somehow
sketched into the simplified model” (TDEa 34).
This Quinean response seems to me to be utterly convincing. If
the analytic-synthetic distinction is to be viable at all, there must
be somehow some behavioral criteria for analyticity. Yet, although
we will concede this point on Carnap’s behalf (and, it would seem,
against his protests), the question of whether Quine has an argument
against the intelligibility of analyticity that ought to be convincing is
not thereby settled. We need first to achieve a better understanding of
the demands for behavioral criteria by determining what is required
for (and what would count as) satisfying them. In short, Quine has
raised a good and legitimate issue, but it still needs to be clarified.
Even then the fate of analyticity would not be settled until we come
to a conclusion about the prospects for meeting those demands once
they are clarified. Only if we could reasonably conclude (and the
argument need not be airtight) that there were no such prospects
should we take Hume’s inflammatory advice given at the end of the
Enquiry. 3
Quine’s demand for behavioral criteria derives both its legitimacy
and its content from the empiricist tradition of formulating criteria
of empirical significance. One is forced to the idea that the content
comes from that tradition because Quine himself is very inexplicit
about the details of his own demand. Presumably, the demand is of
the sort that would be reasonable for any theoretical term in empirical
science. This already tells us a fair bit. For one thing, the criteria
need not amount to a full definition of analyticity. Theoretical
terms are, in general, not definable in the observational framework.
The desired connection is a looser one, allowing what is observable
to count as evidence for or against the theoretical claim. Second, the
behavioral criteria need not be given for analyticity directly. Often
the various terms of a theoretical framework are so tightly bound
up with one another that supplying observational criteria for one
term serves to provide adequately for all. The theory of meaning is
no exception. Quine is content to say that the various terms from
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