| Abstract: | Philosophical analysis is for Quine the replacement of a defective expression by another, sound expression, which performs the same work. In general, then, an analysis consists of two stages: (a) identifying the work that a defective expression performs, and (b) imbedding it in a safe domain. In this essay I argue that Quine's view does not truly reflect what we do in philosophy. The problem, I think, lies in both stages (a) and (b), but stems from Quine's assumption that we can control the work performed by language. |
