Abstract: Although Quine became famous for having rejected the analytic-synthetic distinction, he actually accepted it for the last quarter century of his philosophical career. Yet his doing so makes no difference to his other views. In this talk, I press the question 'Why not?', in the hope of gaining insight into Quine's views, and especially his differences with Carnap. I contrast Quine's position not only with Carnap's but also with those of Putnam, as represented in his paper 'The Analytic and the Synthetic'. Putnam there puts forward an answer to the 'Why not?' question which is, I think, fairly widely accepted, and perhaps taken to be Quine's answer as well---wrongly so taken, I claim.
