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In Chapter 5 of ''Word and Object'' Quine proposes a system of regimentation: the paraphrasing of sentences into a ‘canonical notation’, that we can use to understand how reference works in a language. Since we use language for science, the reductions that we make in the complexity of the structure of sentences will also simplify the conceptual schema of science. In the canonical notation, a sentence S is paraphrased as S’. S’ is a paraphrase of S that should clarify its reference, which means that it often resolves ambiguities, and is therefore by definition not synonymous with S. However, S’ should express the intended meaning of the speaker. Therefore, it should always be the original speaker who does the paraphrasing. The canonical notation consists of: atomic sentences (sentences that do not have sentences as a part) that have a general term in the predicate position, with one or more variables: ‘Fa’ or ‘Fab,’ etc. Non-atomic sentences are built from atomic sentences by using truth functions, quantifiers, and some other devices, like the four variable-binding operators. Quine drops tense, and instead uses the present as temporally neutral. We can express time with the use of ‘a at t’, where x is a spatiotemporal object. In his canonical notation, Quine has eliminated all singular terms other than variables. This greatly simplifies his logical theory, in the sense that there is economy in the roots of the theory: there is a very limited number of elements. In some situations, however, short paraphrases are very useful, for example in mathematic deductions. For these cases, Quine introduces ''definitions'': we can define singular terms relative to the canonical notation. In that way, we can still use singular terms, without having to include them in our theory.
==Semantic ascent<!--'Semantic
In the last paragraph of ''Word and Object'',<ref name="Quine, Willard Van Orman 2015, §56">Quine, Willard Van Orman, ''Word and Object'' [1960]. New edition, with a foreword by Patricia Churchland, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2015, p. 56.</ref> 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, Rudolf 2015, §§63-64">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 "'
==See also==
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