In the last paragraphsection of ''Word and Object'',<ref name=WO/>{{rp|56}} Quine asks the question why, in a book titled ''Word and Object'', we have talked more about words than about objects. He comes to the conclusion that this has to do with the distinction [[Rudolf Carnap]] makes between a material mode of speech and a formal one.<ref name=Carnap>Carnap, Rudolf, ''Logical Syntax of Language'' [1960]. The International Library of Philosophy: Philosophy of Mind and Language, Routledge, Reprint edition, 2010, pp. 63-64.</ref> In the material mode we talk about objects themselves and usually this is unproblematic. However, when two people with completely different ideas of whether or not there are such entities as miles, are discussing miles as the objects themselves this discussion will be fruitless. It is in these instances that we see what Quine calls '''semantic ascent'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA-->,<ref name=WO/>{{rp|249–254}} the shift from the material mode of language to the formal one. In the formal mode of language we are at a different level. Rather than talking about miles as objects we are talking about what this word 'mile' even means, what it refers to and if it even refers at all. In the formal mode, people with different conceptual schemes might be able to have a reasonable discussion because they are talking about something their conceptual schemes have in common: language.
Quine differs from Carnap in applicability of semantic ascent.<ref name=WO/>{{rp|250}} Carnap believes that talking in a formal mode is something that can only be done to some effect in philosophy. Quine, however, believes that semantic ascent is used in science as well. He argues that Einstein's theory of relativity wasn't just accepted by the scientific community because of what it had to say about 'time, light, headlong bodies and the perturbations of Mercury'<ref name=WO/>{{rp|251}} in the material mode, but also because of its simplicity compared to other theories in the formal mode. The formal mode allows for a more distant approach to certain problems; however, we are not able to reach a vantage point outside of our conceptual scheme, to Quine 'there is no such cosmic exile'.<ref name=WO/>{{rp|254}}
