Determinate meaning and analytic truth

Bruce Aune

pp. 55-65

in: Guy Debrock, Menno Hulswit (eds), Living doubt, Berlin, Springer, 1994

Abstract

Although I have been an admirer of Quine's philosophy for many years, I have become convinced that his attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction has had some unfortunate consequences for epistemology (Quine 1953). Perhaps the most striking of these consequences is the recent revival of epistemologi-cal Cartesianism. Instead of concluding from Quine's criticism that purely a priori knowledge is nonexistent — that all our beliefs must face the tribunal of sense-experience — a growing number of philosophers, having retained their conviction that the existence of purely a priori knowledge is beyond question, simply insist that a priori knowledge cannot be achieved by mere analysis but requires, and gets, the support of "intuition" (Bealer 1987). Since I am as critical of intuition as Frege or Peirce and, at the same time, convinced that some genuine a priori knowledge is possible, I believe that a doctrine of analytic truth must be rehabilitated. A promising strategy for doing so can be found, I believe, in Peirce's writings. I intend to develop it here.

Cited authors

Frege Gottlob

Peirce Charles Sanders

Quine Willard Van Orman