Meaning-scepticism and analyticity

Abstract

In his paper 'Analyticity', Boghossian defends the notion of analyticity against Quine's forceful criticism. Boghossian's main contention is that non-factualism about analyticity of the kind advocated by Quine entails scepticism about meaning - and this shows that Quine's argument can't be right. In other words, Boghossian presents us with a reductio of Quine's thesis. In this paper, I present an argument to the effect that Boghossian's attempted reductio fails. In the course of making this case, I will suggest that Quine's argument, properly interpreted, has a more limited scope than is generally believed and that it leaves the door open to non-Platonistic accounts of meaning. © 2005 Editorial Board of dialectica.