  If logic, mathematics, and other putatively a priori parts of our knowledge, are not to be explained by analyticity, how are they to be accounted for? Holism, which is central to Quine’s argument against Carnap, also provides him with an alternative position. It seems as if logic and mathematics have a special status because they are independent of experience. They appear to be necessary and not susceptible of refutation by what future experience brings; they appear to be a priori because we know them independent of experience. Carnap sought to explain these appearances by appealing to the idea that accepting an analytic sentence of a given language goes with speaking that language, and to the Principle of Tolerance. Since choice of language is not justified by experience, the truth of the analytic sentences of a given language is not answerable to experience.