  Quine’s initial arguments against the analytic-synthetic distinction seek to cast doubt on the idea that there is a notion of meaning which is clear enough to use in defining a notion of analyticity. He explores various proposals and finds them wanting. (See especially Quine 1951.) Here too a crucial role is played by holism. One apparently clear conception of meaning is that the meaning of a sentence is given by the experiences which would confirm it; holism, however, implies that the idea of confirmation does not apply to individual sentences, considered in isolation from the theories of which they are parts. (For criticism see Fodor and Lepore 1992; for a counter to Fodor and Lepore see Heal 1994; for later Quine on holism see his 1991.)