Quine VII (b) 40
Reductionism/QuineVsCarnap: his space time quadrupel set preuppose a sedentary world - the quadruples still increase the set of the general properties. Refined form of reductionism: any incident either increases the probability (likelihood) of a statement or deminishes it.
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Schiffer I 2
QuineVsReductionism: the semantic cannot be reduced to more fundamental facts because of the indeterminacy of translation - so he saw the whole semantics skeptical.
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Quine IV 412
Def Reductionism (radical form): according to him, every single meaningful expression can be translated into an expression of immediate experience.
QuineVsReductionism: radical form: erroneous translatability of individual observations into individual expressions. >HolismVs.
>
Holism.
Weaker form: still the idea: each (synthetic) statement is clearly assigned a certain range of sensory irritations. (False).
Vs:Reactions to sensory stimuli are not rigid in humans. (>
"Super Spartan"/Putnam).
Two dogmas: 1. Reductionism
2. Differentiation analytic/synthetic.
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VII (b) 39
Radical Reductionism/Quine: 1. Example: Carnap's translation into sense data language plus logical notation plus higher set theory.
Empiricism/Quine: is often wasteful in its ontology.
Carnap: was the first empiricist to consistently reduce.
VII (b) 40
But his work is still just a fragment of the whole program.
His space-time-point quadruples presuppose a world with little movement ("laziest world"). Principle of least movement, should be the guideline for the construction of a world from experience.
QuineVsCarnap: did not appear to notice that his treatment of physical objects lacked reduction! The quadruples maximize and minimize certain general characteristics (over all features) and with increasing experience the truth values are revised in the same sense.
But this does not help to see how a statement of the form "property q is at x,y,z,t" could ever be translated into Carnap's original sense data language and logic.
Problem: the "is on" remains an undefined connection. The canon shows us how to use it, but not how to eliminate it! Carnap later recognized this and no longer used it.
Reductionism/Dogma/Quine: 2. more refined form: each utterance is associated with a uniform range of possible sensations, so that each occurrence increases either the likelihood of the truth of the statement.
VII (b) 41
or diminishes it.
This is of course included in the verification theory.
Quine Thesis: (comes from Carnap's "structure"): our statements stand before the tribunal of experience not individually, but as a whole corpus.
>
Quine-Duhem thesis.
