Confirmation holism and semantic holism
pp. 63-101
Abstract
Fodor and Lepore, in their recent book Holism, maintain that if an inference from semantic anatomism to semantic holism is allowed, certain fairly deleterious consequences follow. In Section 1 Fodor and Lepore's terminology is construed and amended where necessary with the result that the aforementioned deleterious consequences are neither so apparent nor straightforward as they had suggested. In Section 2 their “Argument A” is considered in some detail. In Section 3 their “argument attributed to Quine” is examined at length and a shorter and more perspicacious argument suggested which avoids their charge that the Quinean argument is guilty of an equivocation on the word ‘statement’.
Publication details
Published in:
(1996) Synthese 109 (1).
Pages: 63-101
DOI: 10.1007/BF00413823
Full citation:
Harrell Mack (1996) „Confirmation holism and semantic holism“. Synthese 109 (1), 63–101.