Cats, Dogs, and so on

Abstract The discovery of the note cards for Quine ‘s previously unpublished 1946 lecture on nominalism provides an obvious occasion for commenting on the differences between the issue of nominalism as Quine first publicized it to a wide philosophical audience and the issue of nominalism as debated among Quine ‘s successors today. Yet as I read and reread the text of Quine ‘s lecture, I found myself struck less by the differences between Quine ‘s position there and the positions of present-day writers than by differences between Quine ‘s position there and the positions of Quine himself in later writings — and not his writings from many years later but his writings from the next few years, and especially one of his writings from the very next year, his notorious joint paper with Goodman.