Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: I argue for an alternative to Quine’s conception of observation sentences, one that better satisfies the roles Quine envisages for them, and that otherwise respects Quinean constraints. After reviewing a certain predicament Quine got into in balancing the needs of the intersubjectivity of observation sentences with his notion of the stimulus meaning of an observation sentence, I push for replacing the latter with what I call the ‘stimulus field’ of an observation sentence, a notion that remains ‘proximate’ but is shared between different language users. Throughout, I emphasize the epistemological role of observation sentences.
Source: Mind
DOI: 10.1093/mind/fzaa103
Author: Gary Kemp
Institution: University of Glasgow
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3178091799