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Word and Object
Willard Van Orman Quine Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy Harvard University -iiiCOPYRIGHT © 1960 BY THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY All Rights Reserved This book or any part thereof must not be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 60-9621 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA -ivTo RUDOLF CARNAP Teacher and Friend -v-viWie Schiffer sind wir, die ihr Schiff auf offener See umbauen müssen, ohne es jemals in einem Dock zerlegen und aus besten Bestandteilen neu errichten zu können. -- OTTO NEURATH Ontology recapitulates philology. -- JAMES GRIER MILLER -vii-viii-

Preface file://E:\Incoming\quine.1960.word_and_object.html 28/4/2007

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Language is a social art. In acquiring it we have to depend entirely on intersubjectively available cues as to what to say and when. Hence there is no justification for collating linguistic meanings, unless in terms of men's dispositions to respond overtly to socially observable stimulations. An effect of recognizing this limitation is that the enterprise of translation is found to be involved in a certain systematic indeterminacy; and this is the main theme of Chapter II. The indeterminacy of translation invests even the question what objects to construe a term as true of. Studies of the semantics of reference consequently turn out to make sense only when directed upon substantially our language, from within. But we do remain free to reflect, thus parochially, on the development and structure of our own referential apparatus; and this I do in ensuing chapters. In so doing one encounters various anomalies and conflicts that are implicit in this apparatus (Chapter IV), and is moved to adopt remedies in the spirit of modern logic (Chapters V and VI). Clarity also is perhaps gained on what we do when we impute existence, and what considerations may best guide such decisions; thus Chapter VII.