Quine on Analyticity and Holism

A critical appraisal in dialogue with Sandro Nannini

Abstract

The first four sections evaluate Quine’s thesis that the two dogmas of empiricism (analyticity and reductionism) are at root identical. In particular, a full compatibility is developed and defended between epistemological, anti-reductionist holism and both the analytic/synthetic and a priori/a posteriori distinctions. According to the view defended here, understanding the relations between theory and experience requires not the rejection of such distinctions, but rather their relativization. In the fifth and final section, the importance of such distinctions is shown regarding epistemological analysis and discussions of the relations between science and philosophy.