Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Philosophy of language, epistemology Quine 's term for sentences whose meanings are relative to their context and which contain indexical words, for example, “It is snowing” or “It is Thursday.” They are true on some occasions of utterance, and false on others. Whether such a sentence is accept-able depends on the background. We should only assent to these sentences when it is indeed snowing or Thursday. The sentence “It is snowing” is more observational than “It is Thursday.” Observation sentences are a subset of occasion sentences. If all speakers assent to an occasion sentence in response to the same stimulations, then it is an observation sentence. Occasion sentences are directly connected with sensory stimulations and are contrasted to standing sentences , which are not relative to con-text and which have assent by all speakers all the time. Standing sentences are either analytic or statements of a common-sense truism, for example, “Snow is white.” “We must concentrate on occasion sentences. These, as opposed to standing sentences, are sentences whose truth value changes from occasion to occasion, so that a fresh verdict has to be promoted each time.” Quine, Theories and Things ... log in or subscribe to read full text