... two men could be just alike in all their dispositions to verbal behavior under all possible sensory stimulations, and yet themeanings or ideas expressed in their identically triggered and identically sounding utterances could diverge radically, for the two men, in a wide range of cases.
Willard Van Orman QuineTo call a posit a posit is not to patronize it. A posit can be unavoidable except at the cost of other no less artificial expedients. Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built.
Willard Van Orman QuineNo two of us learn our language alike, nor, in a sense, does any finish learning it while he lives.
Willard Van Orman QuineAn indirect quotation we can usually expect to rate only as better or worse, more or less faithful, and we cannot even hope for astrict standard of more and less; what is involved is evaluation, relative to special purposes, of an essentially dramatic act.
Willard Van Orman QuineTheory may be deliberate, as in a chapter on chemistry, or it may be second nature, as in the immemorial doctrine of ordinary enduring middle-sized physical objects.
Willard Van Orman QuineSome may find comfort in reflecting that the distinction between an eliminative and an explicative physicalism is unreal.
Willard Van Orman QuineIf pressed to supplement Tweedledee's ostensive definition of logic with a discursive definition of the same subject, I would say that logic is the systematic study of the logical truths. Pressed further, I would say that a sentence is logically true if all sentences with its grammatical structure are true. Pressed further still, I would say to read this book.
Willard Van Orman Quine