Two Dogmas: The First Layer Argument

"Two Dogmas" presents Quine's first stage of arguments. It consists of two parts. The first part consists of Quine's rejection of analyticity and the second consists of Quine's refutation of verificationism as a theory of meaning. Coming to Quine's rejection of analyticity, we have already seen how analytic/synthetic distinction gives rise to foundationalism in epistemology. Quine thus finds that rejection of foundationalism can be possible only on the basis of the rejection of analytic/synthetic distinction. His rejection of the distinction is based on the following considerations.

1. Analytic/synthetic distinction is untenable because it lacks sufficient explanatory basis.
2. The epistemological import of the distinction cannot be established unless it is adequately explained.
3. Untenability of analytic/synthetic distinction directly leads to the untenability of foundationalism.

The main thrust of Quine's critique of analyticity is an attack on the a priori. Logical positivists consider a priori knowledge is the knowledge of analytic truth. Accordingly, Quine's critique is not designed to offer a linguistic notion of analyticity but to show, on the other hand, that why we cannot have a viable epistemological notion of analyticity which can hold the foundationalism of positivism intact. There have been attempts in the recent time which try to restore the analytic/synthetic distinction after the devastating attack of Quine. But in this respect, it should be kept in mind that the new definition of analyticity should do the epistemological work that tradition assigned to it, namely, ensuring a priori knowledge. Some of the researchers in linguistic semantics, for example, make the same mistake when the notion of analyticity is construed in purely linguistic term and thus its primary epistemological role is kept aside.

We will now come to Quine's critique proper and will see how some of his crucial arguments against analyticity are essentially meant to questioning the type of connection between language and epistemology that positivism assumes. In fact, positivist's construal of this relationship, as Quine's critique shows, fails to support a viable notion of analyticity. Quine's well known argument of vicious circularity shows that viciousness that he is talking about is not formal rather viciousness arises due to the epistemological nature of the problem associates with analytic/synthetic distinction. In specific term, his claim that explication of the notion of analyticity, meaning, etc., are viciously circular because the definitions constructed for all these concepts and the concepts that they are defining presuppose the same epistemological issues. In other words, that which is to be defined and the method by which to define are subjected to the same epistemological difficulty. The result of the failure to define analyticity due to its inherent circularity makes it evident that the connection between theory of meaning and theory of knowledge that positivists are talking about is untenable. This idea may be instantiated in the light of Quine's argument against analyticity in terms of synonymity and semantic rules.