  Given the interpretation advanced in section 3, above, indeterminacy is not crucial for Quine’s rejection of the sort of use that Carnap makes of the idea of analyticity. He has other arguments on that score, as we saw. More generally, on the interpretation advanced here, indeterminacy is not a crucial part of Quine’s overall view. His coming to speak of it as conjectural, while not questioning other parts of his philosophy, suggests that he would accept this. If we were sure that translation is determinate, we could perhaps use the idea to define a notion of synonymy. (Agnosticism here favours the contrary position.) And, as Quine has indicated, we could then define the meaning of an expression as the set of synonymous expressions. Such a notion of meaning might make some difference. It might, for example, provide a criterion of identity which enabled us to accept beliefs as entities. It would not, however, play the most important roles in which philosophers have cast the idea of meaning. In particular, it would not play a role in the explanation of how we understand our language, or of how communication between persons takes place.