Originally published in The Philosophical Review 60 (1951): 20-43. Reprinted in W.V.O. Quine, From a Logical Point of View (Harvard University Press, 1953; second revised edition 1961), with the following alterations: “The version printed here diverges from the original in footnotes and in other minor respects: §§1 and 6 have been abridged where they encroach on the preceding essay, and §§3-4 have been expanded at points.”
Transcribed into hypertext (http://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html) by Andrew Chrucky, Sept. 12, 1997.

Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill founded. One effect of abandoning them is, as we shall see, a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics and natural science. Another effect is a shift toward pragmatism.

1. BACKGROUND FOR ANALYTICITY
2. DEFINITION
3. INTERCHANGEABILITY
4. SEMANTICAL RULES
5. THE VERIFICATION THEORY AND REDUCTIONISM
6. EMPIRICISM WITHOUT THE DOGMAS

1. See White, “The Analytic and the Synthetic: An Untenable Dualism,” John Dewey: Philosopher of Science and Freedom (New York: 1950), p. 324.
2. R. Carnap, Meaning and Necessity (Chicago, 1947), pp. 9 ff.; Logical Foundations of Probability (Chicago, 1950), pp. 70 ff.
2a. According to an important variant sense of ‘definition’, the relation preserved may be the weaker relation of mere agreement in reference. But, definition in this sense is better ignored in the present connection, being irrelevant to the question of synonymy. Added 1961.
3. This is cognitive synonymy in a primary, broad sense. Carnap (Meaning and Necessity, pp. 56 ff.) and Lewis (Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [La Salle, Ill., 1946], pp. 83 ff.) have suggested how, once this notion is at hand, a narrower sense of cognitive synonymy which is preferable for some purposes can in turn be derived. But this special ramification of concept-building lies aside from the present purposes and must not be confused with the broad sort of cognitive synonymy here concerned.