Willard Van Orman Quine

affaella de rosa and ernest lepore
3 Quine’s Meaning Holisms
Quine’s [historic] importance does ...depend upon his being
right in one central claim, a claim which he expressed
by saying that there is no sensible distinction between analytic
and synthetic truths but which he should have expressed
by saying that there is no sensible distinction between
a priori and a posteriori truths.
Putnam 1983
Erasing the line between the analytic and the synthetic
saved philosophy of language as a serious subject by showing
how it could be pursued without what there cannot be:
determinate meanings.
Davidson 1986
Quine’s writings are the point of departure for the familiar doctrine
that goes by the name ‘meaning holism’. 1 This doctrine contrasts
with meaning atomism, according to which a linguistic expression
e in a language L has its meaning ‘Auf Eigene Faust’ (viz., in and by
itself) by virtue of a symbol-world relation independent of, and (metaphysically)
prior to, whatever role e has in L. For meaning atomism,
reference (however specified), then, is primitive, and the role of e in
L is determined by, and derivative from, the meaning e acquires in
virtue of that relation. 2 In opposition, according to meaning holism,
a linguistic expression e in a language L has its meaning in virtue of
its (however specified) relations with other expressions in L; that is,
in virtue of its role in L. For meaning holism, since the role of e in
L constitutes e’s meaning, reference becomes derivative from, and
(metaphysically) posterior to, the role e plays in L. 3
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