Main trends in recent philosophy: two dogmas of empiricism.

@article{Quine1951MainTI,
  title={Main trends in recent philosophy: two dogmas of empiricism.},
  author={W. V. Quine},
  journal={The Philosophical Review},
  year={1951},
  volume={60},
  pages={20}
}
  • W. Quine
  • Published 1951
  • Philosophy
  • The Philosophical Review
M ODERN empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact, and truth which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill founded. One effect of abandoning them is… 
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