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Willard Van Orman Quine: 2 ideas worth knowing

2 ideas from Willard Van Orman Quine, each explained in a minute and credited to the original work. Free on Savvy.

• A stranger points at a rabbit and says 'gavagai' — you can never be sure what it means

  Philosopher W.V.O. Quine imagined a linguist recording a language never heard before, pointing at a rabbit as a speaker says 'gavagai'. It could mean 'rabbit' — or 'undetached rabb…

  — Willard Van Orman Quine, Word and Object

• You can never test a single scientific claim completely on its own

  Any real experiment doesn't just test the hypothesis you're interested in — it also silently relies on your instruments working correctly and your background assumptions holding up…

  — Willard Van Orman Quine (building on Pierre Duhem), Two Dogmas of Empiricism

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