Abstract
I explore three points about the relationship between C.I. Lewis’s conceptual pragmatism and W.V. Quine’s naturalized epistemology inspired by Robert Sinclair’s Quine, Conceptual Pragmatism, and the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction. First, I highlight Lewis’s long-standing commitment to Platonism about meaning and its connection to his reflective philosophical method and rejection of a linguistic account of analyticity. Second, I consider Sinclair’s claim that “Lewis’s epistemology provides no indication concerning how, despite different sensory experiences, we still come to agree on what we are talking about and what counts as evidence” (2022, 113). I find more hints, especially in Lewis’s account of how we verify that two people share meaning in common. However, some of the pragmatic and broadly empirical factors Lewis appeals to are not part of Quine’s naturalized epistemology. Finally, I relate these points to Quine’s (1953/1980) claim to advance a more “thorough pragmatism” than Lewis. Quine does not say much about action, value, and ethics, but these are central parts of Lewis’s conceptual pragmatism and a source of his reluctance to abandon those parts of his epistemology that Sinclair argues Quine found dispensable.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
See Sinclair (2022, Chs. 2–3).
Though not when verifying that two minds share meaning in common. See §3 below.
See also Baldwin (2013, 223–225).
Compare with Lewis’s (1929, 78) rejection of the empirical determination of meaning.
See Sinclair (2022, 105–114) for the full discussion.
Lewis agrees that artificial language accounts of analyticity fail at clarification (1946, ix; 145–9).
Compare with Lewis (1929, 90).
See Sinclair (2022, 73–75) for an account of this distinction.
Richardson (2007, 310) draws similar contrasts between Lewis’s and Carnap’s pragmatism.
See, e.g., Quine (1948, 38) on ontology.
References
Baldwin, T. (2007). C.I. Lewis: Pragmatism and analysis. In M. Beaney (Ed.), The analytic turn: Analysis in early analytic philosophy and phenomenology (pp. 178–195). Routledge.
Baldwin, T. (2013). C.I. Lewis and the analyticity debate. In E. H. Reck (Ed.), The historical turn in analytic philosophy (pp. 201–227). Palgrave Macmillan.
Creath, R. (2007). Quine’s challenge to Carnap. In M. F., & R. Creath (Eds.), The cambridge companion to carnap (pp. 316–335). Cambridge University Press.
Frost-Arnold, G. (2011). Quine’s evolution from ‘Carnap’s disciple’ to the author of ‘Two Dogmas’. HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, 1(2), 291–316.
Goodman, N. (1949). On likeness of meaning. Analysis, 10(1), 1–7.
Grice, H. P., & Strawson, P. F. (1956). In defense of a dogma. The Philosophical Review, 65(2), 141–158.
Kammer, Q., Narboux, J.-P., & Wagner, H. (Eds.). (2021). C.I. Lewis: The a priori and the given. Routledge.
Lewis, C. I. (1929). Mind and the world order. Dover.
Lewis, C. I. (1946). An analysis of knowledge and valuation. Open Court.
Lewis, C. I. (1970). Collected papers of Clarence Irving Lewis. J. D. Goheen, & J. L. Mothershead (Eds.) Stanford University Press.
Mayoral, J. V. (2017). The given, the pragmatic a priori, and scientific change. In P. Olen, & C. Sachs (Eds.), Pragmatism in transition: Contemporary perspectives on C. I. Lewis (pp. 79–101). Palgrave Macmillan.
Misak, C. (2013). The American pragmatists. Oxford University Press.
Morris, S. (2017). Quine against Lewis (and Carnap) on truth by convention. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 99(3), 366–391.
Murphey, M. (2005). C.I. Lewis: The last great pragmatist. State University of New York Press.
Olen, P., Sachs, C. (2017). Pragmatism in transition: Contemporary perspectives on C.I. Lewis. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Patton, L. (2023). Whose dogmas of empiricism? In S. Morris (Ed.) The philosophical project of Carnap and Quine (pp. 114–131). Cambridge University Press.
Quine, W. V. (1948). On what there is. The Review of Metaphysics, 2(5), 21–38.
Quine, W. V. (1953/1980). Two dogmas of empiricism. In From a Logical Point of View (pp. 20–46). Harvard University Press.
Quine, W.V. (1979). On the nature of moral values. Critical Inquiry, 5(3), 471–480.
Richardson, A. (1997). Two dogmas about logical empiricism: Carnap and Quine on logic, epistemology, and empiricism. Philosophical Topics, 25(2), 145–168.
Richardson, A. (2007). Carnapian pragmatism. In M. Friedman, & R. Creath (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Carnap (pp. 295–315). Cambridge University Press.
Rosenthal, S. (2007). C.I. Lewis in focus: The pulse of pragmatism. Indiana University Press.
Sinclair, R. (2011). Morton White’s moral pragmatism. Cognitio: Revista de Filosofia. Vol. 12 No. 1: 143–155.
Sinclair, R. (2022).Quine, conceptual pragmatism, and the analytic-synthetic distinction. Lexington Books.
White, M. (1950). The analytic and the synthetic: An untenable dualism. In S. Hook (Ed.) John Dewey: Philosopher of science and freedom: A symposium (pp. 316–330). The Dial Press.
White, M. (1986). Normative ethics, normative epistemology, and Quine’s holism. In L. E. Hahn, & P. A. Schilpp (Eds.), The philosophy of W.V. Quine (pp. 649–663). Open Court.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Franco, P.L. Behavior, valuation, and pragmatism in C.I. Lewis and W.V. Quine. AJPH 2, 27 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44204-023-00084-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s44204-023-00084-0