as a true statement derivable from a tautology by putting synonyms for synonyms is near Kant's account of analytic truth as a truth whose negation is a contradiction. Analytic truth defined as a truth confirmed no matter what however, is closer to one of the traditional accounts of a priori. While the first four sections of Quine's paper concern analyticity, the last two concern apriority. Putnam considers the argument in the two last sections as independent of the first four, and at the same time as Putnam criticizes Quine, he also emphasizes his historical importance as the first top rank philosopher to both reject the notion of apriority and sketch a methodology without it. Jerrold Katz countered the arguments of "Two Dogmas" directly by trying to define analyticity non-circularly on the syntactical features of sentences. In his book Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Volume 1 : The Dawn of Analysis Scott Soames (pp 360–361) has pointed out that Quine's circularity argument needs two of the logical positivists' central theses to be effective: All necessary truths (and all a priori truths) are analytic Analyticity is needed to explain and legitimate necessity. It is only when these two theses are accepted that Quine's argument holds. It is not a problem that the notion of necessity is presupposed by the notion of analyticity if necessity can be explained without analyticity. According to Soames, both theses were accepted by most philosophers when Quine published "Two Dogmas". Today however, Soames holds both statements to be antiquated. Editions Reprinted in his 1953 From a Logical Point of View. Harvard University Press. See also Duhem–Quine thesis Kantian empiricism Paradox of analysis Notes External links "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" 1951 essays Academic journal articles Analytic philosophy literature Empiricism Epistemology literature Holism Logical truth Philosophy essays Philosophy of language literature Philosophy of science literature Willard Van Orman Quine Works originally published in American magazines Works originally published in philosophy magazines