Quine argued that if there is to be a science of human behavior whose key expressions characterize that behavior in terms precise enough to provide us with genuine laws, those expressions must be formulated in a vocabulary which omits all reference to intentions, purposes, and reasons for action. Just as physics, to become a genuine mechanical science, had to purify its descriptive vocabulary, so must the human sciences. What is it about intentions, purposes and reasons that makes them thus unmentionable? It is the fact that all these expressions refer to or presuppose reference to the beliefs
...more
