Although I am assigning the whole of this paper, we will probably discuss only about the first ¾ (roughly through p. 205). For Tuesday, you should read section I (which roughly the first ½) but our discussion of it is likely to continue on to Thursday.

• Quine begins by stating in different terms the sort of skepticism about meaning that you’ve already seen. Pay particular attention to the idea that meaning is “indeterminate.” The key point of at least the first part of the paper is to extend something like this indeterminacy from meaning to naming or reference.

• Of course, think about Quine’s examples. The one concerning the imaginary word gavagai may seem silly, but it is well known and may be one of the easiest to think about.

• When developing the examples concerning “deferred ostension,” Quine will speak of “Gödel numbers.” Although this idea was used in an important and difficult result in logic, about all Quine requires here is the role of these numbers as numerical codes for letters and other expressions, so you can imagine the codes used to store text in computers. He also mentions a distinction between “types” and “tokens.” You will have encountered the distinction before he uses the terms; but as the test of your understanding of it, note that the word “add” as written here contains 2 letter types and 3 letter tokens. There are other technical references in Quine’s discussion, but he is very good about restating his points without them. If you find a puzzling reference, keep reading. Even if Quine doesn’t explain the reference, he will generally make the same point in more ordinary terms within the space of a few sentences.

• Finally, the key idea in this section is what Quine calls “referential inscrutability,” so watch for the term and think what Quine means by it.