Observational Ecumenism, Holist Sectarianism

Abstract

Do any significant philosophical differences between Quine and Carnap follow from Quine's rejection of Carnap's analytic-synthetic dis- tinction? Not if they both understand empirical evidence in merely obser- vational terms. But it follows from Quine's rejection of the distinction that empirical evidence has degrees of holophrastic depth penetrating even into logic and ontology (gradualism). Thus his reasons to prefer realism to idealism are holophrastically empirical. I discuss Quine's holist sectarian realism on private languages, externalism versus internalism, unobserved objects, unobservable abstract entities, bivalence, ecumenicism versus sec- tarianism, and on gradualism itself.