"How are we to adjudicate among rival ontologies? Certainly the answer is not provided by the semantical formula "To be is to be the value of a variable"; this formula serves rather, conversely, in testing the conformity of a given remark or doctrine to a prior ontological standard."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Atheists from the United StatesAcademics from the United StatesPhilosophers from the United StatesLogicians from the United StatesPeople from Akron
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
On What There Is
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Willard_van_Orman_Quine
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Willard van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine (25 June 1908 – 25 December 2000) was an influential 20th Century American philosopher and logician.
25 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Willard van Orman Quine →
Related Quotes
"Wyman's overpopulated universe is in many ways unlovely. It offends the aesthetic sense of us who have a taste for de…"
"Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage betw…"
"The word 'definition' has come to have a dangerously reassuring sound, owing no doubt to its frequent occurrence in l…"
"Our argument is not flatly circular, but something like it. It has the form, figuratively speaking, of a closed curve…"
"No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly t…"
"Even a statement very close to the periphery can be held true in the face of recalcitrant experience by pleading hall…"
"As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future…"
"The issue over there being classes seems more a question of convenient conceptual scheme; the issue over there being …"
"Tactically, conceptualism is no doubt the strongest position of the three; for the tired nominalist can lapse into co…"
"Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plat…"