Editing Hold come what may

{{Short description|Phrase referring to beliefs one is unwilling to give up}}

"'''Hold come what may'''" is a phrase popularized by logician [[Willard Van Orman Quine]]. [[Belief]]s that are "held come what may" are beliefs one is unwilling to give up, regardless of any evidence with which one might be presented.<ref name="Ney">{{cite book|author=Alyssa Ney|author-link=Alyssa Ney|title=Metaphysics: An Introduction|date=13 August 2014|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-317-67633-1|page=202}}</ref>

Quine held that any belief can be held come what may, so long as one makes suitable adjustments to other beliefs. In other words, all beliefs are [[rationality|rationally]] revisable ("no statement is immune to revision"). He used this to reject the distinction between [[analytic-synthetic distinction|analytic truths]] (which are true come what may) and synthetic truths (which are true at least in part because of the state of the world).

Many philosophers argue to the contrary, believing that, for example, the [[laws of thought]] cannot be revised and may be "held come what may". Quine believed that all beliefs are linked by a [[web of belief]]s, in which a belief is linked to another belief by supporting relations, but if one belief is found untrue, there is ground to find the linked beliefs also untrue.<ref name="Ney" /> The latter statement is usually referred to as either [[confirmation  holism]] or [[Duhem–Quine thesis]].

A closely related phrase is "'''hold more stubbornly at least'''", also popularized by Quine. Some beliefs may be more useful than others, or may be implied by a large number of beliefs.  Examples might be laws of [[logic]], or the belief in an external world of physical objects.  Altering such central portions of the web of beliefs would have immense, ramifying consequences, and affect many other beliefs.  It is better to alter auxiliary beliefs around the edges of the web of beliefs (considered to be sense beliefs, rather than main beliefs) in the face of new evidence unfriendly to one's central principles.<ref>{{cite book |first=Willard Van Orman |last=Quine |chapter=Two Dogmas of Empiricism |title=From a Logical Point of View |edition=2nd revised |location=Cambridge |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1980 |isbn=0674323513 }}</ref>  Thus, while one might agree that there is no belief one can hold come what may, there are some for which there is ample practical ground to "hold more stubbornly at least".

==See also==
* [[Two Dogmas of Empiricism]]
* [[Coherentism]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hold Come What May}}
[[Category:English phrases]]
[[Category:Belief]]
[[Category:Concepts in logic]]
[[Category:Willard Van Orman Quine]]