Quine on analycity and logical truths

The aim of this work is to offer a recontruction of Quine’s arguments directed against the notion of analycity and conventionalism about the logical truth. We start by investigating some of the ideas which Carnap, the main target of Quine’s attacks, held in this respect. This will enable us to make a firmer footing on the background of Quine’s papers, both early ones offering the critique of Carnap’s standpoint as well as later ones that, allegedly, deal with problems not so tightly related to the ones mentioned before. This change of focus is only apparent, as we shall show that there is a significant systematic component of Quine’s thought which, if disregarded, could lead us astray regarding some of the most important aspects of Quine’s position. We shall see that, regarding the rejection of the notion of analycity, Quine’s holism as well as his thesis of the indeterminacy of translation plays a prominent role. Forbearing the idea of propositions as the basic units of meaning, as well as the idea of a sensible talk about meaning independent of the complete body of a theory, coupled with Quine’s behaviorism, sheds new light on some of the problems Quine was facing during the whole course of his career.