This paper gives a comment on Quine’s criticism of the differentiation between analytic propositions and synthetic propositions. It points out that it is right for Quine to deny the absolute distinction between analy...This paper gives a comment on Quine’s criticism of the differentiation between analytic propositions and synthetic propositions. It points out that it is right for Quine to deny the absolute distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions but it is wrong for him to deny the relative one. This is because we can make this kind of distinction relative to the meaning postulates of a language system although it is nonsense to say the meaning postulates analytic or synthetic. The paper secondly points out that Kripke’s differentiation between contingent a priori propositions and necessary a posteriori propositions is suitable for meaning postulates. The meaning postulates of a language are only an agreement of people at first, so they are contingent a priori. As the language system is confirmed, the meaning postulates are necessary a posteriori at last. Thus it can be seen that the two kind distinctions of propositions are not contradictory but complementary.展开更多
文摘This paper gives a comment on Quine’s criticism of the differentiation between analytic propositions and synthetic propositions. It points out that it is right for Quine to deny the absolute distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions but it is wrong for him to deny the relative one. This is because we can make this kind of distinction relative to the meaning postulates of a language system although it is nonsense to say the meaning postulates analytic or synthetic. The paper secondly points out that Kripke’s differentiation between contingent a priori propositions and necessary a posteriori propositions is suitable for meaning postulates. The meaning postulates of a language are only an agreement of people at first, so they are contingent a priori. As the language system is confirmed, the meaning postulates are necessary a posteriori at last. Thus it can be seen that the two kind distinctions of propositions are not contradictory but complementary.
