Berkeley Forshadowing both Quine and Wittgenstein

From part VII of GJ Warnock's introduction to Berkeley's The Principles of Human Understanding:

...the explanation of general terms by reference to "abstract ideas" is unnecessary: for a term to be general, and to have a meaning, it is not necessary that it be "annexed," like a name" to any special variety of specially "framed" idea: what is needed is just that it be used to "denote indifferently" any of a class of particular things -- those , namely, which are like on another in the relevant respect. Similarly, my recognition of an object as pink does not require reference to an "abstract idea" laid up in my mind as a pattern or standard of Pinkness; if I have already learned that a number of objects are called "pink," all that is needed is that I should observe the new object to be like them; there is no need to go through, nor do we in fact do so, the elaborate process of "framing" a pattern and comparing objects with that.

And later:

It thus becomes clear that, in general, there could not be patterns of the kind which Locke wrongly supposes to be needed, if we are to use and understand general terms in our language. In fact, so Berkeley concludes, nothing else is required but the words that we use, and the particular experienced items that we use them to speak about; the generality of a general term lies in its use, and not in the peculiar nature of any special item of which it may, misguidedly, be though of as the name.

Berkeley Foreshadowing Quine

From part VI of GJ Warnock's introduction to Berkeley's The Principles of Human Knowledge:

...he could not but be aware that the "corpuscular" theories of matter, and of light, were both too fertile to be easily rejected, and too centrally characteristic of the whole ideal of scientific understanding. But it was still not open to him to admit that such theories were, as they stood, straightforwardly true; and so, with very striking insight and ingenuity, he fell back on the distinction between the observed facts of science, and the theories devised by scientists to account for them. The aim of science, he still holds, is to reduce to "general rules" the observed phenomena; but the achievement of this aim, he now argues, is greatly facilitated by the making of appropriate suppositions. If we think of light, for example, as if it were propagated in the form of a stream of "insensible particles," then the diverse phenomena of light can be comprehended within a theory capable of expression in simple mechanical terms, and highly apt for the precise use of measurement and mathematical calculation. This is certainly useful; but, Berkeley insists, it is useful, not true. As he wrote in his tract De Motu in 1721, "to be of service to reckoning and mathematical demonstrations is one thing, to set forth the nature of things is another." Thus, Berkeley does not now object, as formerly he did, to reference to "insensible particles" and other items of supposed, unperceivable "corpuscular" machinery. He sees that such references serve a theoretical purpose, particularly in facilitating the application to physical phenomena of precise mathematical concepts and methods. But the resulting theories have the status of serviceable fictions; they are useful inventions; it cannot be objected that he leaves such theories with nothing to be true of, for in fact there is no need to suppose that they are true at all. They are theories, not facts; and the virtue of a theory consists not in truth, but in utility.

Quine on Language

From the first chapter in Quine's Word and Object:

Different persons growing up in the same language are like different bushes trimmed and trained to take the shape of identical elephants. The anatomical details of twigs and branches will fulfil the elephantine form differently from bush to bush, but the overall outward results are alike.