Van Orman

Famous quotes containing the words van orman, van and/or orman:

    To call a posit a posit is not to patronize it. A posit can be unavoidable except at the cost of other no less artificial expedients. Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built.
    —Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)

    Unlike Descartes, we own and use our beliefs of the moment, even in the midst of philosophizing, until by what is vaguely called scientific method we change them here and there for the better. Within our own total evolving doctrine, we can judge truth as earnestly and absolutely as can be, subject to correction, but that goes without saying.
    —Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)

    [T]here is no breaking out of the intentional vocabulary by explaining its members in other terms.
    —Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)