  In the 1930s and 1940s, many scientifically-oriented philosophers tended to assume some form of Logical Empiricism. One important aspect of Quine’s influence on the course of philosophy is that he called that view or nexus of views into question (see section 3, above). Some of his criticisms are detailed and technical. His target, however, was not a technical detail but the fundamental idea of Logical Empiricism, that there is a distinction between analytic truths and synthetic truths which can account for a priori truth. After Quine’s work of the early 1950s, philosophers, even those who did not accept his detailed arguments could no longer take it for granted that some form of Logical Empiricism is correct. This was a very major change among scientifically-oriented philosophers.