Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature: Thirtieth-Anniversary Edition (Princeton Classics)

by Richard Rorty

If he is to assert (5) as well as (1)–(4), Quine must give a sense to the distinction between “matter of fact” and “convention” which has no links with the usual instrumentalist-phenomenalist distinction—that between what we are really acquainted with and what we “posit” to cope with stimuli. The only way he can do so, as far as I can see, is simply to pick out the elementary particles of contemporary physics as paradigmatically matter-of-factual and explain that the sense in which there is no matter of fact about meanings or beliefs is that different things can be said about what a sentence means or a man believes without any implications for the movements of these particles. This tactic makes his preference for physics over psychology, and thus his concern about “irresponsible reification,” purely aesthetic. Further, it will not work. For alternative biochemical (e.g.) as well as alternative psychological theories will be compatible with all and only the same movements of the same particles. Unless and until there is a genuine deduction of all true nomological statements from the laws of physics (which no one seriously expects), there will be no complaint to be made about intentions which cannot be made about mitochondria.42

November 16, 2020. Page 203.