No sharp line separates language’s conventional form from its factual content.

Evidence

Quine’s attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction implied a quite different conception of language, expressed in this celebrated metaphor: The lore of our fathers is a fabric of sentences … It is a pale grey lore, black with fact, white with conventions. But I have found no substantial reason for concluding that there are any quite black threads in it, or any white ones.’ On this view, there is no sharp distinction between matters of meaning and those of fact, between the form and the content of language. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 420

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the analytic-synthetic debate and Quine’s naturalized epistemology — relevant to whether postmodernist linguistic relativism can claim philosophical grounding from analytical philosophy. — connects to: Language enables meanings rather than passively carrying them; Philosophical language must interweave expression and communication, neither reducible to the other — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1014; The form-content distinction is a methodological device, not a real separation — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 204
• DEFINE: Defines the naturalist position that dissolves the analytic-synthetic distinction, a key conceptual frame for the critique.

Broader Connections

• The form-content distinction is a methodological device, not a real separation #corroborates (0.90) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 204
• Language enables meanings rather than passively carrying them #corroborates (0.82)
• Philosophical language must interweave expression and communication, neither reducible to the other #corroborates (0.78) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1014