Quine

Famous quotes containing the word quine:

    ‘Ouch’ is not independent of social training. One has only to prick a foreigner to appreciate that it is an English word.
    —Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)

    To be is to be the value of a variable.
    —Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)

    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)