Some Notes on Neurath's Ship and Quine's Sailors

Abstract

This paper is intended as a set of notes on the philosophical use of metaphors, similes, analogies, and the like (Part I), the analysis of Neurath-Quine’s famous nautical metaphor (Part II), and a discussion of Quine’s views concerning the revisability of beliefs, common sense convictions, and the Continuity Thesis (Part III).

Keywords

• Metaphor
• common sense
• belief
• conceptual change
• evolution
• innate convictions.