Fact and meaning

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The author compares the philosophies of Quine and Wittgenstein, seeing how their holistic views of the world coincide. She argues that though they are allied in their sceptism about the possibilities for the assimilation of semantic and psychological concepts to those of the natural sciences and while they are both hostile to a Platonist conception of meaning, they are divided in their views, because of their different interpretations of holism. The conclusion reached is that Wittgenstein's visions of the interdependence of concepts, interests and activities are superior to Quine's epistemology because Wittgenstein's idea of different "forms of life" can free the reader from the conception of "fact" which is implicit in Quine's work and from the unintelligible scepticism about meaning which that conception brings with it.