quine
verbEtymology
From Quine, named after the American logician and philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000). Verb etymology 1, verb sense 1 (“to append (a text) to a quotation of itself”) was coined by the American cognitive and computer scientist Douglas Hofstadter (born 1945) in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979; see the quotation), referring to Quine’s study of indirect self-reference and in particular Quine’s paradox, the following statement that produces a paradox: “‘Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation’ yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.” Hofstadter also referred to the concept of noun etymology 1, noun sense 1 (“program that produces its own source code as output”) in the book, but termed it a self-rep rather than a quine. Verb etymology 1, verb sense 2 (“to deny the importance or significance of (something obviously real or important)”) was independently coined by the American cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennett (1942–2024) in September 1969 in the original version of his work The Philosophical Lexicon: see the 1987 quotation.
To append (a text) to a quotation of itself.
- Anyway, now I know how to quine a phrase. It's quite amusing. Here's a quined phrase: / "IS A SENTENCE FRAGMENT" IS A SENTENCE FRAGMENT. / It's silly but all the same I enjoy it. You take a sentence fragment, quine it, and lo and behold, you've made a sentence! A true sentence, in this case.1979, Douglas R[ichard] Hofstadter, “Air on G’s String”, in Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, →ISBN, part II (EGB), page 435:
- "Quining" is what I called it in my book. (He certainly didn't call it that!) Quining is an operation that I define on any string of English. […] Here is an example of a quined phrase: "is a sentence with no subject" is a sentence with no subject.1984, Douglas R[ichard] Hofstadter, “Analogies and Metaphors to Explain Gödel’s Theorem”, in Douglas M. Campbell, John C. Higgins, editors, Mathematics: People, Problems, Results, Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth International, →ISBN, page 274:
2 more examples
- Diamond arises in Gödelian meta-mathematics. In meta-math, sentences can refer to each other’s provability, and to quining. This yields self-reference: T = “‘is provable when quined’ is provable when quined.” / D = “‘is unprovable when quined’ is unprovable when quined.” […]1997, N[athaniel] S. Hellerstein, “Metamathemics”, in Diamond: A Paradox Logic (Series on Knots and Everything; 14), Singapore: World Scientific, →ISBN, part 2 (Advanced Diamond Logic), page 183:
- In "Love And Theft", [Bob] Dylan quined the love and theft in his songs in the album's title, "Love And Theft". So the subtext, the meaning of the entire album, when preceded by its quotation, its symbol, yields a paradox.2001 October 1, Howard Mirowitz, “Why is L&T in Quotation Marks?”, in rec.music.dylan (Usenet):
Human sciences, Philosophy, Sciences To deny the existence or significance of (something obviously real or important).
- quine. v. (1) To deny resolutely the existence or importance of something real or significant. "Some philosophers have quined classes, and some have even quined physical objects." Occasionally used intr[ansitively], e.g., "You think I quine, sir. I assure you I do not!"[1987, Daniel Dennett, “quine, v.”, in Kathleen Atkins [et al.], edited by Daniel Dennett, The Philosophical Lexicon, 8th edition, Newark, Del.: American Philosophical Association, distributor, →OCLC, archived from the original on 10 Jul 2024:
- As with the puzzle of what happens during the combustion of a metal in pure oxygen (the "steel wool" experiment), this result can of course be quined. Taking the phlogistic view, we could say that the calx requires the same phlogiston content as the metal, so of course the amount of water absorbed must be in accord with that.1993, Howard Margolis, “The Overthrow of Phlogiston: 2”, in Paradigms & Barriers: How Habits of Mind Govern Scientific Beliefs, Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 62:
4 more examples
- They [some philosophers] deny that mental states and events actually possess the qualitative properties attributed to them by qualia friends and, as a consequence, they advocate quining qualia.1999, Elizabeth Pacherie, “Qualia and Representations”, in Denis Fisette, editor, Consciousness and Intentionality: Models and Modalities of Attribution (The Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science), Dordrecht, South Holland: Springer Science+Business Media, →DOI, →ISBN, part 2 (Qualia and Perception), page 119:
- Qualia are quined not because [Daniel] Dennett imagines that there is nothing it is like to be conscious, but because no clear demarcation can be drawn between representations of qualitative properties and representations of other sorts of states.2000, Don Ross, “Introduction: The Dennettian Stance”, in Don Ross, Andrew Brook, David Thompson, editors, Dennett’s Philosophy: A Comprehensive Assessment (A Bradford Book), Cambridge, Mass.; London: MIT Press, →ISBN, page 14:
- One of the things that [Ludwig] Wittgenstein is most famous for is quining 'private language'. By saying that private languages can't exist Wittgenstein wanted us to recognize the inescapable function of the social fabric in language's work.2008, Daniel Barnett, “The Private Language Machine and the Evolution of a Medium”, in Movement as Meaning: In Experimental Film (Consciousness, Literature & the Arts; 13), Amsterdam, North Holland; New York, N.Y.: Editions Rodopi, →ISBN, →ISSN, part II (Dynamic and Syntactic Universals), page 114:
- One might object that in this section I’ve not exactly quined Cartesian qualia, since my denial of the reality of phenomenal colour comes at the cost of accepting the "qualitative character" of sensory experience, with which contemporary philosophers, in fact, often identify qualia.2009, Andrew Pessin, “Mental Transparency, Direct Sensation, and the Unity of the Cartesian Mind”, in Jon Miller, editor, Topics in Early Modern Philosophy of Mind (Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind; 9), Dordrecht, South Holland: Springer, →ISBN, page 34:
- Derived terms
- quiner, quined, quining