Jan Dejonzka does Carnap (He did Grice)

This below, because I have on record gone to great lengths of lovely conversation with this lovely author, so I'm sure what he says is fun -- and true!


Observational Ecumenicism, Holist Sectarianism: The Quine-Carnap Conflict on Metaphysical Realism
Authors:Dejnozka, Jan
Source:Philo: A Journal of Philosophy, 9(2), 165-191. 27 p. FALL-Winter 2006.
Document Type:Journal Article
Subjects:ECUMENICALISM
EMPIRICISM
EQUIVALENCE
HOLISM
METAPHYSICS
NATURALISM
PRAGMATISM
REALISM
SECTARIANISM
Persons as Subjects:CARNAP, RUDOLF
QUINE, WILLARD VAN ORMAN
Abstract:Do any significant philosophical differences between Quine and Carnap follow from Quine's rejection of Carnap's analytic-synthetic distinction? Not if they both understand empirical evidence in merely observational 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 sectarianism, and on gradualism itself.