Hacker on Carnap and Grice *contra* Quine on 'analytic'

P. M. S. Hacker, Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy, St. John's, remarks:

"Carnap, unsurprisingly, is incredulous."

"Carnap's account of analyticity, he remonstrates, is intended as an *explication* of the philosophical concept of analyticity, as applied to an ordinary language such as English, which is indeed imprecise.

"Expressions in ordinary language do not have sharply defined meanings."

"Quine argues that he did not know whether

'Everything green is extended'

is analytic or not."

"Quine attributes his uncertainty to the unclarity of the term ‘analytic’ ("Two dogmas of empiricism," p. 32)."

"Carnap objects that the unclarity is due *not* to the term ‘analytic’, but to the fact that it is unclear,  in an ordinary language such as English, whether the ‘green’ is applicable to a single spatio-temporal point, where a point is construed as lacking extension."

"An ordinary language such as English does not *talk* of points thus construed."

"Grice and Strawson (in their infamous, "In defence of a dogma") strengthen Carnap’s point.

"Grice and Strawson note that the *same* uncertainty attaches to the question of whether

'Everything green is extended'

is merely *true* -- never mind 'logically true.'"

"Quine could *hardly* complain, Grice and Strawson argue, that, even for Quine, ‘true’ is irremediably unclear."

"In a constructed language, as Carnap has it, one lays down meaning postulates in order to ensure clarity."

"Hence, IF it is a meaning postulate that

‘G’ (‘green’)

IS inapplicable to spatio-temporal points,

 ‘(x) (Ux z> ~ Gx)’

is analytic in L.

And so is

‘(x) (Gx z> Ex)’

(where ‘U’ signifies ‘unextended’ and ‘E’ ‘extended’).

"Analytic in L," Carnap argues, denotes a sentences whose truth depends on its meaning alone, and is thus independent of the contingency of facts, or ‘true in virtue of meaning’.

"Of course, it does not follow that such a statements cannot be revoked."

"One same entence can be analytic in one system, and synthetic in another."

"An analytic truth is unrevisable only that it remains 'analytically true' as long as the language rules, or indeed, postulates, are not changed."

"Carnap might have added that it is anything but obvious what it would be to *revise* one’s belief that every bachelor is unmarried, without changing the use, or meaning, if you prefer, of the expression!"

"The attribution of truth to a 'synthetic' sentence may change in the light of experience, even though the logical structure of the language does not change."

"The analytic/synthetic distinction may be drawn always and only with respect to a language system, i.e., a language organised according to explicitly formulated rules or postulates, not with respect to a historically given natural language [such as English]’
-- Carnap, ‘Quine on Analyticity’, in "Dear Carnap, Dear Van."