Quine's (1948) "On What There Is" is probably my favorite piece in the analytic tradition and not only because in response Carnap mistakenly thought "there appears now to be agreement between us: ("On What There Is," p. 38)." As we learn from Howard Stein's reminiscences, Carnap and his students thought there was no substantial disagreement between Carnap and Quine--little did they know! (It also tells us something about the limitations of contextual approaches to the history of philosophy.) So, if even our Carnap could misread Quine's essay it should be clear that my reason for admiring the piece have, alas, nothing to do with quintessentially analytic virtues of clarity and perspicuity of argument. Moreover, as Jody Azzouni has taught us, Quine's particular criterion for recognizing what our language commits us to is defeasible; even so, there are two substantive commitments worth preserving (or reviving) from Quine's piece: (a) the embrace of multiplicity within scientific philosophy; (ii) the proper role of formal philosophy.
First, consider the following quote:
The physical conceptual scheme simplifies our account of experience because of the way myriad scattered sense events come to be associated with single so-called objects; still there is no likelihood that each sentence about physical objects can actually be translated, however deviously and complexly, into the phenomenalistic language. Physical objects are postulated entities which round out, and simplify our account of the flux of experience, just, as the introduction of irrational numbers simplifies laws of arithmetic. From the point of view of the conceptual scheme of the elementary arithmetic of rational numbers alone, the broader arithmetic of rational and irrational numbers would have the status of a convenient myth, simpler than the literal truth (namely, the arithmetic of rationals) and yet, containing that literal truth as a scattered part. Similarly, from a phenomenalistic point, of view, the conceptual scheme of physical objects is a convenient myth, simpler than the literal truth and yet containing that literal truth as a scattered part.
Let's leave aside the substantive claims about mathematics (which function as an analogy, after all). Quine's crucial point is that when we conceptualize the "flux of experience" in various ways (for the purposes of control, prediction, etc) with the use of more or less sophisticated "posits" we always run two kinds of risks: (a) we add structure that is not really present in experience (hence his use of the language of "myth"); (b) we may leave stuff out that would have been worth conceptualizing and that may be available to us in other ways of characterizing experience (hence the problems of translations--if understood in terms of preserving isomorphism). [Recognition of (a)&(b) is an argument for fallibilism independent from Hume's problem of induction.] That is to say, Quine is supremely aware that any language or symbolic structure may itself be the source of systematic blind-spots, which is why talk of final/ideal language is alien to any scientific philosophy (be it Bergsonian, Duhemian, Deleuzian, or Schlickian) that understands that our symbolizations themselves compress what may be -- ahum -- absolutely infinite (see Spinoza's Ethics Definition 6). (For my Continental friends: no need to invoke Heidegger on the hidden-ness of being.) Quine's insight is compatible with freedom in the method of coining concepts.
Now, it is possible to read the above as a criticism of the linguistic turn. But this would be a mistake; it is rather hostility to the hubris in thinking that analysis of language can substitute for or somehow eliminate engagement with our fundamental concerns in metaphysics or politics. But this is not to deny that the linguistic turn created the seeds for improvement of philosophy and our social life more generally. In particular, Quine articulates one of the most fundamental contributions of analytic philosophy to any possible future. So, second, consider this passage:
We look to bound variables in connection with ontology not in order to know what there is, but in order to know what a given remark or doctrine, ours or someone else‟s, says there is; and this much is quite properly a problem involving language. But what there is is another question. In debating over what there is, there are still reasons for operating on a semantical plane. One reason is to escape from the predicament noted at the beginning of this essay: the predicament of my not being able to admit that there are things which McX countenances and I do not...I can, however, consistently describe our disagreement by characterizing the statements which McX affirms. Provided merely that my ontology countenances linguistic forms, or at least concrete inscriptions and utterances, I can talk about McX‟s sentences.
Quine allows the development of a technical (regimented) language in which a dispute can be stated. The political significance of this can not be understated. One role for philosophers is to coin concepts or help engineer languages in which political antagonisms can be transformed into disputes that allow for some conversation among incompatible moral/religious/social outlooks (no small matter) or at least be diagnosed. (Rawls may say something like this in Political Liberalism, but I forget.)
Now it may seem odd that Quine could be seen to advocate this given his claims about the limitations of translation. But all Quine requires is that paraphrase (from the disputants' particular languages to a neutral shared language) is possible. Of course, in paraphrase much is left out. But this is okay because we can decide to adopt the neutral, technical language only one issue at a time. (So, I am not adopting the claim that logic or any formal language is neutral.) Here, we can even adopt Carnap's perspective and say that we can engineer and adapt potentially incompatible, linguistic frameworks for any issue we wish to resolve. Of course, some engineered languages help us see that two issues may be connected for various purposes (e.g., in many economic formalisms, scarcity and property are on same side of coin). So, a neutral, technical language cannot displace our home languages nor substitute for the experiences that give rise to and are understood by these. But formal philosophy can help us talk, rather than fight if we do not leave it in the hands of the technicians (recall my criticism of Glymour). Carnap was right, after all, that in light of Quine's piece "the obvious counsel is tolerance and an experimental spirit," but only in so far as technique knows its proper place.
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