Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine on the Intelligibility and Relevance of Analyticity 57
given Carnap’s explicitness; that is, it would not have been possible
given only Russell’s sketchiness. In Quine’s case, some progress was
made beyond “Two Dogmas,” but full accounts of simplicity and
conservatism are still urgently needed. We do not know whether
they can bear the weight that his sketch puts on them, and we do
not know whether they can be clarified without appeal to the theory
of meaning or at all.
Moreover, there is an issue of the extent to which it is legitimate
to use one’s own standards in the defense of those standards or in
the criticism of others. Presumably, the former is fine. It should be
perfectly reasonable to defend one’s own position using one’s own
epistemic standards and to accept criticism only on the basis thereof.
What other standards could one use? Thus, it is reasonable for Quine
to prefer his holistic epistemology precisely on the grounds that it
seems to avoid notions that he considers suspect, such as those from
the theory of meaning. If it does avoid unclear notions without introducing
others, it is to that extent clearer. If it employs fewer primitive
notions and if that is part of what makes for simplicity, then it
is to that extent simpler. Of course, there are important assumptions
here, but the general strategy of appealing to one’s own epistemology
in its own defense is not viciously circular. Nor can Quine be faulted
for not meeting Carnap’s standards of clarity; Quine can hardly be
required to say which of his claims are true in virtue of meaning.
What is fair for Quine must be fair for others as well. So it would
seem impermissible, on pain of begging the issues at hand, for Quine
to presuppose in his criticism of Carnap that such practical considerations
as simplicity, elegance, and convenience, for example,
are grounds for choosing among empirical theories. Carnap accepts
these practical considerations in choosing among linguistic frameworks
but not as bases for choosing among theories. Quine does make
such a presupposition in “Carnap and Logical Truth.” 6 Of course,
even Carnap, early in his career and before the principle of tolerance,
could also be accused of using his own science-oriented standards to
discredit Heidigger, where Heidigger would have rejected the Carnapian
standards that were being presupposed. In any case, Quine
is not guilty of violating this rule at this point in “Two Dogmas,”
but only because he offers no explicit argument against the modest
form of reductionism, that is, sententialism, at all. What then of the
purported epistemic irrelevance of analyticity? That hinges entirely
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