science

Hold come what may

Hold come what may is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hold come what may rather than just read about it. In short: "Hold come what may" is a phrase popularized by logician Willard Van Orman Quine. Beliefs that are "held come what may" are beliefs one is unwilling to give up, regardless of any evidence with which one might be presented.

Key takeaways

Hold come what may belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hold come what may to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hold come what may from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

"Hold come what may" is a phrase popularized by logician Willard Van Orman Quine. Beliefs that are "held come what may" are beliefs one is unwilling to give up, regardless of any evidence with which one might be presented. Quine held that any belief can be held come what may, so long as one makes suitable adjustments to other beliefs. In other words, all beliefs are rationally revisable ("no statement is immune to revision"). He used this to reject the distinction between analytic truths (which are true come what may) and synthetic truths (which are true at least in part because of the state of the world). Many philosophers argue to the contrary, believing that, for example, the laws of thought cannot be revised and may be "held come what may". Quine believed that all beliefs are linked by a web of beliefs, in which a belief is linked to another belief by supporting relations, but if one belief is found untrue, there is ground to find the linked beliefs also untrue. The latter statement is usually referred to as either confirmation holism or Duhem–Quine thesis. A closely related phrase is "hold more stubbornly at least", also popularized by Quine. Some beliefs may be more useful than others, or may be implied by a large number of beliefs. Examples might be laws of logic, or the belief in an external world of physical objects. Altering such central portions of the web of beliefs would have immense, ramifying consequences, and affect many other beliefs. It is better to alter auxiliary beliefs around the edges of the web of beliefs (considered to be sense beliefs, rather than main beliefs) in the face of new evidence unfriendly to one's central principles. Thus, while one might agree that there is no belief one can hold come what may, there are some for which there is ample practical ground to "hold more stubbornly at least".

See also Two Dogmas of Empiricism Coherentism

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hold come what may

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hold come what may claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hold come what may before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hold come what may ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hold come what may

In research: Hold come what may appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hold come what may in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hold come what may is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Belief, Concepts in logic, English phrases, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hold come what may outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Hold come what may” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Hold come what may in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hold come what may means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hold come what may out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hold come what may in simple terms?

Why does Hold come what may matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hold come what may?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hold come what may.