Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge

Size: px
Start display at page:

Download "Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge"

Transcription

1 Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge volume 156 number 1 march 2012 THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY independence square: philadelphia 2012

2 W. V. QUINE IN HIS HARVARD UNIVERSITY OFFICE, SEPTEMBER 1988, USED WITH THE PERMISSION OF DOUGLAS B. QUINE W I L L A R D VA N O R M A N Q U I N E 25 june december 2000 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY VOL. 156, NO. 1, MARCH 2012

3 biographical memoirs WILLARD VAN ORMAN QUINE played a crucial role in shaping philosophy during the twentieth century. Early encyclopedias classified him as a logician, but he soon came to be regarded as a general philosopher, to begin with a philosopher of logic and language, but eventually as a metaphysician, whose radical thoughts about ontology, epistemology, and communication have repercussions within all major areas of philosophy. Quine was born in Akron, Ohio, on 25 June 1908, the son of Cloyd Robert Quine, an engineer and manufacturing entrepreneur, and Harriet Ellis Van Orman, a teacher. Quine s happy and active boyhood in Akron is engagingly described in his autobiography, The Time of My Life (1985). Quine received a B.A. from Oberlin College in 1930, majoring in mathematics. His diverse talents and interests, in mathematics, science, and psychology but also in language, literature, and poetry, attracted him to philosophy. At the end of his junior year at Oberlin his mother bought him Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead s three-volume Principia Mathematica ( ), and he applied for a scholarship to Harvard to work with Whitehead for a Ph.D. This started his seventy-year association with that institution. Quine was only twenty-three when he received his Ph.D. in the spring of 1932, after just two years at Harvard. His dissertation simplified and clarified various aspects of Russell and Whitehead s work. It exemplifies many of Quine s characteristic features as a philosopher: his acute awareness of obscurity and confusions, his constructive ability to find new viewpoints that make things fall into place, and his concern with ontological issues. Quine was awarded Harvard s Sheldon Traveling Fellowship for , which brought him to Vienna, Prague, and Warsaw and put him in contact with Moritz Schlick, Kurt Gödel, and other members of the Vienna Circle: Rudolf Carnap in Prague, and Alfred Tarski, Jan Łukasiewicz, and Stanisław Leśniewski in Warsaw. Quine s year in Europe was followed by three years in Harvard s first group of six junior fellows. He thereafter taught philosophy at Harvard. In 1956 he succeeded C. I. Lewis as Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy, a position he held until his retirement in In 1936, his last year as a junior fellow, Quine participated in the founding of the Journal of Symbolic Logic. His Toward a Calculus of Concepts fills the first half of the first issue and his Set-theoretic Foundations for Logic fills the second issue. This latter paper springs from Quine s teaching. He wanted to present to his students a sanest comprehensive system of logic or, as I would now say, logic and set theory. Almost all of Quine s writings on logic sprang from Quine s interest in teaching. The pedagogical motive has dominated my work in [ 100 ]

4 willard van orman quine 101 logic, Quine wrote in His works in logic, like his works in other parts of philosophy, are works of art, not only in their style of writing, but also in the structure they give their subject matter. They give unity to what was previously dispersed. Quine s Set-theoretic Foundations for Logic was followed in December that same year by New Foundations. Here Quine introduces an intriguing new idea of stratification, inspired by Russell s theory of types, but much simpler. Several top logicians have been challenged by the extreme simplicity of New Foundations to find out whether the system is inconsistent or can be shown to be consistent relative to standard systems. However, from the very beginning Quine s work in logic was philosophically motivated, and gradually he focused more and more on philosophical issues. Questions of ontology were the first to make their appearance, in Ontological Remarks on the Propositional Calculus (Mind 1934), and ontology always remained one of Quine s key philosophical concerns. He sharpened the ontological issues ( To be is to be the value of a variable ) and discussed ontological commitment. Together with Nelson Goodman he wrote an article, Steps toward a Constructive Nominalism ( Journal of Symbolic Logic 1947), in which they with great ingenuity explored how far one can develop mathematics without assuming abstract entities. They found that one cannot get very far. From this they eventually drew opposite conclusions. Goodman decided, So much the worse for mathematics, while Quine gave up nominalism and settled for a Platonic realism. Quine always had a Spartan bent. His book Set Theory and Its Logic (1963) is basically concerned with keeping the ontology as minimal as possible. He starts with axioms that imply the existence of none but finite classes and explores, step by step, how far one can get before one is forced to make stronger assumptions. In Quine s later work his realism took an intriguing new turn, not yet fully explored in the secondary literature, toward indeterminacy of reference. Another main theme that came up early in Quine s work and grew to become his main contribution to philosophy, started as a skepticism toward meaning and other related notions, such as analyticity and modality. This skepticism grew into a major revamping of previous philosophical views on communication and the relation of language to the world. The first glimmer of this appeared in Truth by Convention (1936). From 1943 it found expression in a number of articles directed against modal notions, such as necessity and possibility. In 1951 Quine sketched an alternative view on meaning in Two Dogmas of Empiricism. This view was worked out in Word and Object (1960), where Quine also clinched his criticism of the modalities by arguing

5 102 biographical memoirs that quantification into modal contexts leads to a collapse of modal distinctions. Quine s argument for the collapse applied, however, equally to the notions of knowledge, belief, moral obligation, probability, and causality. These are notions that we certainly will not renounce. In order to block Quine s argument one had to give up one of its central premisses, the traditional view on reference, developed by Frege and many others. It was replaced by the so-called new theory of reference, which owes much to Quine s acute analysis of the underlying problems. Quine s main concern, his criticism of the notions of logical necessity and possibility, analyticity and traditional views on meaning, remained vibrant. In a number of books and articles Quine developed further the view on meaning that he set forth in Word and Object. The central idea is one that he shared with most other philosophers and linguists, viz., the public nature of language: Language is established and learned through interaction between people who observe one another and the world around them. It is thereby based on publicly accessible evidence and does not express inborn shared meanings, as is explicitly assumed by Frege and implicitly assumed by many other philosophers of language. Quine did not reject innate capabilities; we have lots of them. For example, we share a tendency to agree on what things are similar, both among verbal sounds and in the world around us. Learning and use of language are made possible by these capabilities. However, these capabilities, together with all publicly available evidence, do not suffice to uniquely determine how to translate what the other person says into our own idiom. Here, as in science, the evidence under-determines our hypotheses. However, while in science there is something to be right or wrong about, namely, the world that we are exploring, in translation there is nothing further to be right or wrong about, given the public nature of language. Translation is therefore indeterminate. If Frege were right about there being a third world of inborn shared meanings, translation would be on a par with scientific theory: one of the many translations that are compatible with the publicly available evidence would translate expressions into expressions with the same meaning and would thereby be the correct one. Translation would then be underd etermined, not indeterminate. However, if there is no such privileged meaning-correlation between languages that goes beyond the publicly accessible evidence, then every translation that is compatible with all this evidence is correct. There is not some unique translation that is the correct one. Quine s major contribution to the philosophy of language is that he has taken the public nature of meaning seriously and followed it out

6 willard van orman quine 103 with great persistence, to consequences that many philosophers find difficult to accept. The indeterminacy of translation is the most widely discussed of all of Quine s many ground-breaking ideas. From the very first pages of Word and Object, Quine stressed that what we perceive and what we take others to perceive plays a crucial role in language learning and language use. This is a key point in Quine: semantics and epistemology are intimately intertwined. His epistemology is naturalistic: it is contained in natural science, as a chapter of empirical psychology, and yet it is epistemology that provides an account of the evidential bases of natural science, including empirical psychology itself. In the study of meaning and communication a key problem is to get insight into what others perceive without imputing to them our own view of the world and our own ontology. In Word and Object, Quine endeavored to do this in terms of stimulus and response. However, although stimuli and responses are empirically accessible, they are not publicly accessible. The evidence we build on in language learning and language use must be accessible to the members of the community in their daily lives. During the thirty-five years that separate Word and Object from Quine s last book, From Stimulus to Science (1995), Quine again and again sought to find a way of dealing with what others perceive without begging the questions of meaning and translation. This enterprise involves the whole range of Quine s philosophical insights: his views on epistemology and ontology and on causality, natural kinds, time, space, and individuation. Quine has created a new way of looking at these eternal questions of philosophy and their interconnections. He leaves a transformed philosophical landscape for new generations of philosophers to explore. Quine was elected to the American Philosophical Society (1957), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1949), the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. (1977), and several academies abroad. He had honorary doctorates from eighteen universities and received many prizes, including the first Rolf Schock Prize in Stockholm in 1993 and the Kyoto Prize in Tokyo in In 1930 Quine married his college sweetheart, Naomi Clayton. The war brought the marriage to an end, and they filed for divorce in In 1948 he married Marjorie Boynton; their union lasted until Mar jorie s death in He had four children, two from each marriage: Elizabeth ( ), Norma (1937 ), Douglas (1950 ), and Margaret (1954 ). Much of Quine s personality is expressed in Neurath s ship simile, which Quine made the motto of Word and Object: We are like sailors who have to rebuild their ship on the open sea, without ever being able to dismantle it in dry-dock and reconstruct it from its best components.

7 104 biographical memoirs Quine was always concerned with improving the ship. The Pursuit of Truth was the title of his second-last book, and throughout his life he was striving for truth with great energy and seriousness. He was aware that even our most fundamental beliefs may be mistaken. He was therefore always interested in objections, always willing to listen, and ready to change his views if the criticism was good. His students understood quickly that he did not want to form any philosophical school; he preferred well-argued objections to admiring emulation. Quine never reacted negatively to criticism, but was on the contrary encouraging and more interested in finding out what was right than in being right. He was always welcoming and positive, full of care for his students, friendly to his colleagues, and warm toward his friends and his family. Elected 1957; Councillor , ; Committees: Advisory on Election of Members ; Membership IV , ; Nomination of Officers , Dagfinn Føllesdal Professor Emeritus University of Oslo Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy Stanford University Bibliography Quine s writing style is lively, often playful, and always sparklingly clear. More than sixty years separate his first book, A System of Logistic (1934), from his twenty-first, From Stimulus to Science (1995). Many of his books were published in several editions and they have appeared in more than fifty translations, ranging over sixteen languages. Quine s articles have been even more widely translated and reprinted. His Two Dogmas of Empiricism (1951) has been included in more than twenty anthologies, and several others are almost equally popular. With Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and John Rawls, Quine is among the most often quoted philosophers of the twentieth century. Numerous books and more than three thousand articles, many of which appear in volumes devoted to his work, have been written on Quine. The main biographical source is Quine s autobiography, The Time of My Life (1985), which was mentioned above. Lewis Hahn and Paul Schlipp, The Philosophy of W. V. Quine (Library of Living Philosophers, vol. 18) (1986; 2nd expanded ed., 1998) contains a complete bibliography of his work. Links to bibliographies and other material on Quine can be found on the Quine web site, I am grateful to Dr. Douglas Quine for his valuable help.

Cory Juhl, Eric Loomis, Analyticity (New York: Routledge, 2010).

Cory Juhl, Eric Loomis, Analyticity (New York: Routledge, 2010). Cory Juhl, Eric Loomis, Analyticity (New York: Routledge, 2010). Reviewed by Viorel Ţuţui 1 Since it was introduced by Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason, the analytic synthetic distinction had

More information

Epistemology Naturalized

Epistemology Naturalized Epistemology Naturalized Christian Wüthrich http://philosophy.ucsd.edu/faculty/wuthrich/ 15 Introduction to Philosophy: Theory of Knowledge Spring 2010 The Big Picture Thesis (Naturalism) Naturalism maintains

More information

Relativism and Indeterminacy of Meaning (Quine) Indeterminacy of Translation

Relativism and Indeterminacy of Meaning (Quine) Indeterminacy of Translation Relativism and Indeterminacy of Meaning (Quine) Indeterminacy of Translation Owen Griffiths oeg21@cam.ac.uk Churchill and Newnham, Cambridge 9/10/18 Talk outline Quine Radical Translation Indeterminacy

More information

Quine And Analytic Philosophy (Korean Edition)

Quine And Analytic Philosophy (Korean Edition) Quine And Analytic Philosophy (Korean Edition) If you are searched for the ebook Quine and Analytic Philosophy (Korean edition) in pdf form, then you have come on to right site. We present the utter edition

More information

Willard Van Orman Quine

Willard Van Orman Quine rogerf.gibsonjr. Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine was born in Akron, Ohio, on June 25, 1908. His father, Cloyd Robert Quine, was an Akron businessman with a machine shop background. In 1917,

More information

145 Philosophy of Science

145 Philosophy of Science Logical empiricism Christian Wüthrich http://philosophy.ucsd.edu/faculty/wuthrich/ 145 Philosophy of Science Vienna Circle (Ernst Mach Society) Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, and Philipp Frank regularly meet

More information

LENT 2018 THEORY OF MEANING DR MAARTEN STEENHAGEN

LENT 2018 THEORY OF MEANING DR MAARTEN STEENHAGEN LENT 2018 THEORY OF MEANING DR MAARTEN STEENHAGEN HTTP://MSTEENHAGEN.GITHUB.IO/TEACHING/2018TOM THE EINSTEIN-BERGSON DEBATE SCIENCE AND METAPHYSICS Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein met on the 6th of

More information

NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY: AFTER KANT TABLE OF CONTENTS. Volume 2: The Analytic Tradition. Preface Acknowledgments GENERAL INTRODUCTION

NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY: AFTER KANT TABLE OF CONTENTS. Volume 2: The Analytic Tradition. Preface Acknowledgments GENERAL INTRODUCTION NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY: AFTER KANT TABLE OF CONTENTS Volume 2: The Analytic Tradition Preface Acknowledgments GENERAL INTRODUCTION I. THE 19 TH CENTURY AND EARLY 20 TH CENTURY BACKGROUND

More information

MY PURPOSE IN THIS BOOK IS TO PRESENT A

MY PURPOSE IN THIS BOOK IS TO PRESENT A I Holistic Pragmatism and the Philosophy of Culture MY PURPOSE IN THIS BOOK IS TO PRESENT A philosophical discussion of the main elements of civilization or culture such as science, law, religion, politics,

More information

The Cambridge Companion to QUINE. Edited by Roger F. Gibson Jr. Washington University, St. Louis

The Cambridge Companion to QUINE. Edited by Roger F. Gibson Jr. Washington University, St. Louis The Cambridge Companion to QUINE Edited by Roger F. Gibson Jr. Washington University, St. Louis published by the press syndicate of the university of cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge,

More information

PHI2391: Logical Empiricism I 8.0

PHI2391: Logical Empiricism I 8.0 1 2 3 4 5 PHI2391: Logical Empiricism I 8.0 Hume and Kant! Remember Hume s question:! Are we rationally justified in inferring causes from experimental observations?! Kant s answer: we can give a transcendental

More information

Issue 4, Special Conference Proceedings Published by the Durham University Undergraduate Philosophy Society

Issue 4, Special Conference Proceedings Published by the Durham University Undergraduate Philosophy Society Issue 4, Special Conference Proceedings 2017 Published by the Durham University Undergraduate Philosophy Society An Alternative Approach to Mathematical Ontology Amber Donovan (Durham University) Introduction

More information

When meaning goes by the board, what about philosophy? Jaroslav Peregrin

When meaning goes by the board, what about philosophy? Jaroslav Peregrin When meaning goes by the board, what about philosophy? Jaroslav Peregrin [from G.Meggle amd J. Nida-Rümelin (ed.): Analyomen 2: Proceedings of the 2nd Conference Perspectives in Analytical Philosophy,

More information

Copyright 2015 by KAD International All rights reserved. Published in the Ghana

Copyright 2015 by KAD International All rights reserved. Published in the Ghana Copyright 2015 by KAD International All rights reserved. Published in the Ghana http://kadint.net/our-journal.html The Problem of the Truth of the Counterfactual Conditionals in the Context of Modal Realism

More information

Jeu-Jenq Yuann Professor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy, National Taiwan University,

Jeu-Jenq Yuann Professor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy, National Taiwan University, The Negative Role of Empirical Stimulus in Theory Change: W. V. Quine and P. Feyerabend Jeu-Jenq Yuann Professor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy, National Taiwan University, 1 To all Participants

More information

What is the Nature of Logic? Judy Pelham Philosophy, York University, Canada July 16, 2013 Pan-Hellenic Logic Symposium Athens, Greece

What is the Nature of Logic? Judy Pelham Philosophy, York University, Canada July 16, 2013 Pan-Hellenic Logic Symposium Athens, Greece What is the Nature of Logic? Judy Pelham Philosophy, York University, Canada July 16, 2013 Pan-Hellenic Logic Symposium Athens, Greece Outline of this Talk 1. What is the nature of logic? Some history

More information

UNITY OF KNOWLEDGE (IN TRANSDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH FOR SUSTAINABILITY) Vol. I - Philosophical Holism M.Esfeld

UNITY OF KNOWLEDGE (IN TRANSDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH FOR SUSTAINABILITY) Vol. I - Philosophical Holism M.Esfeld PHILOSOPHICAL HOLISM M. Esfeld Department of Philosophy, University of Konstanz, Germany Keywords: atomism, confirmation, holism, inferential role semantics, meaning, monism, ontological dependence, rule-following,

More information

Areas of Specialization and Competence Philosophy of Language, History of Analytic Philosophy

Areas of Specialization and Competence Philosophy of Language, History of Analytic Philosophy 151 Dodd Hall jcarpenter@fsu.edu Department of Philosophy Office: 850-644-1483 Tallahassee, FL 32306-1500 Education 2008-2012 Ph.D. (obtained Dec. 2012), Philosophy, Florida State University (FSU) Dissertation:

More information

CLASS PARTICIPATION IS A REQUIREMENT

CLASS PARTICIPATION IS A REQUIREMENT Metaphysics Phil 245, Spring 2009 Course Description: Metaphysics is the study of what there is, i.e., what sorts of things exist and what is their nature. Broadly speaking philosophers interested in metaphysics

More information

Willard Van Orman Quine

Willard Van Orman Quine roger f. gibson jr. Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine was born in Akron, Ohio, on June 25, 1908. His father, Cloyd Robert Quine, was an Akron businessman with a machine shop background. In

More information

Positive Philosophy, Freedom and Democracy. Roger Bishop Jones

Positive Philosophy, Freedom and Democracy. Roger Bishop Jones Positive Philosophy, Freedom and Democracy Roger Bishop Jones Started: 3rd December 2011 Last Change Date: 2011/12/04 19:50:45 http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/www/books/ppfd/ppfdpam.pdf Id: pamtop.tex,v

More information

Positive Philosophy, Freedom and Democracy. Roger Bishop Jones

Positive Philosophy, Freedom and Democracy. Roger Bishop Jones Positive Philosophy, Freedom and Democracy Roger Bishop Jones June 5, 2012 www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/www/books/ppfd/ppfdbook.pdf c Roger Bishop Jones; Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Metaphysical Positivism 3

More information

Conventionalism and the linguistic doctrine of logical truth

Conventionalism and the linguistic doctrine of logical truth 1 Conventionalism and the linguistic doctrine of logical truth 1.1 Introduction Quine s work on analyticity, translation, and reference has sweeping philosophical implications. In his first important philosophical

More information

TABLE OF CONTENTS. Comments on Bibliography and References

TABLE OF CONTENTS. Comments on Bibliography and References TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE Comments on Bibliography and References xiii xiii CHAPTER I / The Origin and Development of the Lvov- Warsaw School 1 1. The Rise of the Lvov-Warsaw School and the Periods in

More information

In Defense of Pure Reason: A Rationalist Account of A Priori Justification, by Laurence BonJour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

In Defense of Pure Reason: A Rationalist Account of A Priori Justification, by Laurence BonJour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Book Reviews 1 In Defense of Pure Reason: A Rationalist Account of A Priori Justification, by Laurence BonJour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. xiv + 232. H/b 37.50, $54.95, P/b 13.95,

More information

Naturalized Epistemology. 1. What is naturalized Epistemology? Quine PY4613

Naturalized Epistemology. 1. What is naturalized Epistemology? Quine PY4613 Naturalized Epistemology Quine PY4613 1. What is naturalized Epistemology? a. How is it motivated? b. What are its doctrines? c. Naturalized Epistemology in the context of Quine s philosophy 2. Naturalized

More information

Gary Ebbs, Carnap, Quine, and Putnam on Methods of Inquiry, Cambridge. University Press, 2017, 278pp., $99.99 (hbk), ISBN

Gary Ebbs, Carnap, Quine, and Putnam on Methods of Inquiry, Cambridge. University Press, 2017, 278pp., $99.99 (hbk), ISBN [Final manuscript. Published in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews] Gary Ebbs, Carnap, Quine, and Putnam on Methods of Inquiry, Cambridge University Press, 2017, 278pp., $99.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781107178151

More information

Department of Philosophy

Department of Philosophy Department of Philosophy Module descriptions 2018/19 Level I (i.e. normally 2 nd Yr.) Modules Please be aware that all modules are subject to availability. If you have any questions about the modules,

More information

V3301 Twentieth-Century Philosophy PHIL V TR 2:40pm-3:55pm- 516 Hamilton Hall - Fall Professor D. Sidorsky

V3301 Twentieth-Century Philosophy PHIL V TR 2:40pm-3:55pm- 516 Hamilton Hall - Fall Professor D. Sidorsky V3301 Twentieth-Century Philosophy PHIL V3751 - TR 2:40pm-3:55pm- 516 Hamilton Hall - Fall 2009 - Professor D. Sidorsky The course in 20 th Century Philosophy seeks to provide a perspective of the rise,

More information

Philosophy A465: Introduction to Analytic Philosophy Loyola University of New Orleans Ben Bayer Spring 2011

Philosophy A465: Introduction to Analytic Philosophy Loyola University of New Orleans Ben Bayer Spring 2011 Philosophy A465: Introduction to Analytic Philosophy Loyola University of New Orleans Ben Bayer Spring 2011 Course description At the beginning of the twentieth century, a handful of British and German

More information

Divisibility, Logic, Radical Empiricism, and Metaphysics

Divisibility, Logic, Radical Empiricism, and Metaphysics Abstract: Divisibility, Logic, Radical Empiricism, and Metaphysics We will explore the problem of the manner in which the world may be divided into parts, and how this affects the application of logic.

More information

Great Philosophers Bertrand Russell Evening lecture series, Department of Philosophy. Dr. Keith Begley 28/11/2017

Great Philosophers Bertrand Russell Evening lecture series, Department of Philosophy. Dr. Keith Begley 28/11/2017 Great Philosophers Bertrand Russell Evening lecture series, Department of Philosophy. Dr. Keith Begley kbegley@tcd.ie 28/11/2017 Overview Early Life Education Logicism Russell s Paradox Theory of Descriptions

More information

Philosophy Courses-1

Philosophy Courses-1 Philosophy Courses-1 PHL 100/Introduction to Philosophy A course that examines the fundamentals of philosophical argument, analysis and reasoning, as applied to a series of issues in logic, epistemology,

More information

On Quine s Philosophy. Warren Goldfarb

On Quine s Philosophy. Warren Goldfarb Centennial Celebration and Marker Dedication honoring Willard Van Orman Quine Oberlin College, June 25, 2008 On Quine s Philosophy Warren Goldfarb A central preoccupation of philosophy since its inception

More information

The Indeterminacy of Translation: Fifty Years Later

The Indeterminacy of Translation: Fifty Years Later The Indeterminacy of Translation: Fifty Years Later Tufts University BIBLID [0873-626X (2012) 32; pp. 385-393] Abstract The paper considers the Quinean heritage of the argument for the indeterminacy of

More information

Føllesdal and Quine s Slingshot

Føllesdal and Quine s Slingshot John Perry Føllesdal and Quine s Slingshot 1 Føllesdal and Quine s Slingshot John Perry Philosophy Department University of California, Riverside ABSTRACT The slingshot is a family of arguments to the

More information

Abstract Abstraction Abundant ontology Abundant theory of universals (or properties) Actualism A-features Agent causal libertarianism

Abstract Abstraction Abundant ontology Abundant theory of universals (or properties) Actualism A-features Agent causal libertarianism Glossary Abstract: a classification of entities, examples include properties or mathematical objects. Abstraction: 1. a psychological process of considering an object while ignoring some of its features;

More information

UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA MATHEMATICS AS MAKE-BELIEVE: A CONSTRUCTIVE EMPIRICIST ACCOUNT SARAH HOFFMAN

UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA MATHEMATICS AS MAKE-BELIEVE: A CONSTRUCTIVE EMPIRICIST ACCOUNT SARAH HOFFMAN UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA MATHEMATICS AS MAKE-BELIEVE: A CONSTRUCTIVE EMPIRICIST ACCOUNT SARAH HOFFMAN A thesis submitted to the Faculty of graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements

More information

The Question of Metaphysics

The Question of Metaphysics The Question of Metaphysics metaphysics seriously. Second, I want to argue that the currently popular hands-off conception of metaphysical theorising is unable to provide a satisfactory answer to the question

More information

LOGIC AND ANALYTICITY. Tyler BURGE University of California at Los Angeles

LOGIC AND ANALYTICITY. Tyler BURGE University of California at Los Angeles Grazer Philosophische Studien 66 (2003), 199 249. LOGIC AND ANALYTICITY Tyler BURGE University of California at Los Angeles Summary The view that logic is true independently of a subject matter is criticized

More information

Predicate logic. Miguel Palomino Dpto. Sistemas Informáticos y Computación (UCM) Madrid Spain

Predicate logic. Miguel Palomino Dpto. Sistemas Informáticos y Computación (UCM) Madrid Spain Predicate logic Miguel Palomino Dpto. Sistemas Informáticos y Computación (UCM) 28040 Madrid Spain Synonyms. First-order logic. Question 1. Describe this discipline/sub-discipline, and some of its more

More information

Carnap s notion of analyticity and the two wings of analytic philosophy. Christian Damböck Institute Vienna Circle

Carnap s notion of analyticity and the two wings of analytic philosophy. Christian Damböck Institute Vienna Circle Carnap s notion of analyticity and the two wings of analytic philosophy Christian Damböck Institute Vienna Circle christian.damboeck@univie.ac.at From Kant to Quine 12/11/2015 Christian Damböck - Helsinki

More information

Chapter 31. Logical Positivism and the Scientific Conception of Philosophy

Chapter 31. Logical Positivism and the Scientific Conception of Philosophy Chapter 31 Logical Positivism and the Scientific Conception of Philosophy Key Words: Vienna circle, verification principle, positivism, tautologies, factual propositions, language analysis, rejection of

More information

Rule-Following and the Ontology of the Mind Abstract The problem of rule-following

Rule-Following and the Ontology of the Mind Abstract The problem of rule-following Rule-Following and the Ontology of the Mind Michael Esfeld (published in Uwe Meixner and Peter Simons (eds.): Metaphysics in the Post-Metaphysical Age. Papers of the 22nd International Wittgenstein Symposium.

More information

Recap. Contents EMPIRICISM. Reductionism and Idealism. Early Carnap. Game plan. Reading and final essay. Recap: Russell s phenomenalism

Recap. Contents EMPIRICISM. Reductionism and Idealism. Early Carnap. Game plan. Reading and final essay. Recap: Russell s phenomenalism Contents EMPIRICISM PHIL3072, ANU, 2015 Jason Grossman http://empiricismxenynet Game plan Recap Russell, Einstein, and Idealism Early Carnap lecture 10: 29 September Reductionism and Idealism Early Carnap

More information

World without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Natural- ism , by Michael C. Rea.

World without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Natural- ism , by Michael C. Rea. Book reviews World without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism, by Michael C. Rea. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004, viii + 245 pp., $24.95. This is a splendid book. Its ideas are bold and

More information

Metametaphysics. New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology* Oxford University Press, 2009

Metametaphysics. New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology* Oxford University Press, 2009 Book Review Metametaphysics. New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology* Oxford University Press, 2009 Giulia Felappi giulia.felappi@sns.it Every discipline has its own instruments and studying them is

More information

Philosophy Courses-1

Philosophy Courses-1 Philosophy Courses-1 PHL 100/Introduction to Philosophy A course that examines the fundamentals of philosophical argument, analysis and reasoning, as applied to a series of issues in logic, epistemology,

More information

WILLARD VAN ORMAN QUINE

WILLARD VAN ORMAN QUINE WILLARD VAN ORMAN QUINE The philosopher s task differs from the others in detail, but in no such drastic way as those suppose who imagine for the philosopher a vantage point outside the conceptual scheme

More information

Collingwood and the Disaster of Cook Wilson, Moore and Russell for British Ethics and Politics. Ian Winchester, University of Calgary

Collingwood and the Disaster of Cook Wilson, Moore and Russell for British Ethics and Politics. Ian Winchester, University of Calgary Collingwood and the Disaster of Cook Wilson, Moore and Russell for British Ethics and Politics Ian Winchester, University of Calgary Abstract: Collingwood is critical of the Cook Wilson school of Oxford

More information

Comments on Scott Soames, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, volume I

Comments on Scott Soames, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, volume I Comments on Scott Soames, Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, volume I (APA Pacific 2006, Author meets critics) Christopher Pincock (pincock@purdue.edu) December 2, 2005 (20 minutes, 2803

More information

Mathematics in and behind Russell s logicism, and its

Mathematics in and behind Russell s logicism, and its The Cambridge companion to Bertrand Russell, edited by Nicholas Griffin, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, US, xvii + 550 pp. therein: Ivor Grattan-Guinness. reception. Pp. 51 83.

More information

Although Quine is widely known as an influential critic of logical positivism, there is now a

Although Quine is widely known as an influential critic of logical positivism, there is now a IS QUINE A VERIFICATIONIST? Panu Raatikainen I Although Quine is widely known as an influential critic of logical positivism, there is now a growing tendency to emphasize the similarities between him and

More information

Philosophica 67 (2001, 1) pp. 5-9 INTRODUCTION

Philosophica 67 (2001, 1) pp. 5-9 INTRODUCTION Philosophica 67 (2001, 1) pp. 5-9 INTRODUCTION Part of the tasks analytical philosophers set themselves is a critical assessment of the metaphysics of sciences. Three levels (or domains or perspectives)

More information

Constructing the World

Constructing the World Constructing the World Lecture 5: Hard Cases: Mathematics, Normativity, Intentionality, Ontology David Chalmers Plan *1. Hard cases 2. Mathematical truths 3. Normative truths 4. Intentional truths 5. Philosophical

More information

Class 6 - Scientific Method

Class 6 - Scientific Method 2 3 Philosophy 2 3 : Intuitions and Philosophy Fall 2011 Hamilton College Russell Marcus I. Holism, Reflective Equilibrium, and Science Class 6 - Scientific Method Our course is centrally concerned with

More information

Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy by Avrum Stroll

Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy by Avrum Stroll Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy by Avrum Stroll Columbia University Press: New York, 2000. 302pp, Hardcover, $32.50. Brad Majors University of Kansas The history of analytic philosophy is a troubled

More information

On the epistemological status of mathematical objects in Plato s philosophical system

On the epistemological status of mathematical objects in Plato s philosophical system On the epistemological status of mathematical objects in Plato s philosophical system Floris T. van Vugt University College Utrecht University, The Netherlands October 22, 2003 Abstract The main question

More information

Book Reviews. Anita Burdman Feferman and Solomon Feferman, Alfred Tarski: Life and Logic, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2004, pp. 432.

Book Reviews. Anita Burdman Feferman and Solomon Feferman, Alfred Tarski: Life and Logic, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2004, pp. 432. Logic and Logical Philosophy Volume 15 (2006), 91 96 DOI: 10.12775/LLP.2006.005 Book Reviews Anita Burdman Feferman and Solomon Feferman, Alfred Tarski: Life and Logic, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,

More information

NATURALISED JURISPRUDENCE

NATURALISED JURISPRUDENCE NATURALISED JURISPRUDENCE NATURALISM a philosophical view according to which philosophy is not a distinct mode of inquiry with its own problems and its own special body of (possible) knowledge philosophy

More information

The Philosophy of Language. Quine versus Meaning

The Philosophy of Language. Quine versus Meaning The Philosophy of Language Lecture Six Quine versus Meaning Rob Trueman rob.trueman@york.ac.uk University of York 1 / 71 Introduction Quine versus Meaning Introduction Verificationism The Self-Undermining

More information

CURRICULUM VITAE. Matthew W. McKeon

CURRICULUM VITAE. Matthew W. McKeon CURRICULUM VITAE Matthew W. McKeon Department of Philosophy 1275 Spicewood Drive Michigan State University Okemos, MI, 48864 503 S. Kedzie Hall (517)-381-8688 East Lansing, MI 48824-1032 (517)-353-9383

More information

[3.] Bertrand Russell. 1

[3.] Bertrand Russell. 1 [3.] Bertrand Russell. 1 [3.1.] Biographical Background. 1872: born in the city of Trellech, in the county of Monmouthshire, now part of Wales 2 One of his grandfathers was Lord John Russell, who twice

More information

Willard Van Orman Quine, From Stimulus to Science (Harvard University Press, 1995) vi, 114p.

Willard Van Orman Quine, From Stimulus to Science (Harvard University Press, 1995) vi, 114p. Willard Van Orman Quine, From Stimulus to Science (Harvard University Press, 1995) vi, 114p. By Catherine Legg From Stimulus to Science crystallises one of America s most celebrated philosophers thinking

More information

The Ontological Argument for the existence of God. Pedro M. Guimarães Ferreira S.J. PUC-Rio Boston College, July 13th. 2011

The Ontological Argument for the existence of God. Pedro M. Guimarães Ferreira S.J. PUC-Rio Boston College, July 13th. 2011 The Ontological Argument for the existence of God Pedro M. Guimarães Ferreira S.J. PUC-Rio Boston College, July 13th. 2011 The ontological argument (henceforth, O.A.) for the existence of God has a long

More information

Wittgenstein s Logical Atomism. Seminar 8 PHIL2120 Topics in Analytic Philosophy 16 November 2012

Wittgenstein s Logical Atomism. Seminar 8 PHIL2120 Topics in Analytic Philosophy 16 November 2012 Wittgenstein s Logical Atomism Seminar 8 PHIL2120 Topics in Analytic Philosophy 16 November 2012 1 Admin Required reading for this seminar: Soames, Ch 9+10 New Schedule: 23 November: The Tractarian Test

More information

Tools for Logical Analysis. Roger Bishop Jones

Tools for Logical Analysis. Roger Bishop Jones Tools for Logical Analysis Roger Bishop Jones Started 2011-02-10 Last Change Date: 2011/02/12 09:14:19 http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/www/papers/p015.pdf Draft Id: p015.tex,v 1.2 2011/02/12 09:14:19 rbj

More information

TRUTH IN MATHEMATICS. H.G. Dales and G. Oliveri (eds.) (Clarendon: Oxford. 1998, pp. xv, 376, ISBN X) Reviewed by Mark Colyvan

TRUTH IN MATHEMATICS. H.G. Dales and G. Oliveri (eds.) (Clarendon: Oxford. 1998, pp. xv, 376, ISBN X) Reviewed by Mark Colyvan TRUTH IN MATHEMATICS H.G. Dales and G. Oliveri (eds.) (Clarendon: Oxford. 1998, pp. xv, 376, ISBN 0-19-851476-X) Reviewed by Mark Colyvan The question of truth in mathematics has puzzled mathematicians

More information

Ch V: The Vienna Circle (Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, and Otto Neurath)[title crossed out?]

Ch V: The Vienna Circle (Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, and Otto Neurath)[title crossed out?] Part II: Schools in Contemporary Philosophy Ch V: The Vienna Circle (Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, and Otto Neurath)[title crossed out?] 1. The positivists of the nineteenth century, men like Mach and

More information

Moral Objectivism. RUSSELL CORNETT University of Calgary

Moral Objectivism. RUSSELL CORNETT University of Calgary Moral Objectivism RUSSELL CORNETT University of Calgary The possibility, let alone the actuality, of an objective morality has intrigued philosophers for well over two millennia. Though much discussed,

More information

Ayer and the Vienna Circle

Ayer and the Vienna Circle Ayer and the Vienna Circle Richard Zach October 29, 2010 1/20 Richard Zach Ayer and the Vienna Circle Outline 1 The Vienna Circle 2 Ayer s Logical Positivism 3 Truth and Analyticity 4 Language, Truth and

More information

Class #14: October 13 Gödel s Platonism

Class #14: October 13 Gödel s Platonism Philosophy 405: Knowledge, Truth and Mathematics Fall 2010 Hamilton College Russell Marcus Class #14: October 13 Gödel s Platonism I. The Continuum Hypothesis and Its Independence The continuum problem

More information

Philosophy Courses in English

Philosophy Courses in English FACOLTÀ DI STUDI UMANISTICI DIPARTIMENTO DI FILOSOFIA Philosophy Courses in English - 2014-2015 During the Academic Year 2014-2015, the Department of Philosophy offers the following five courses in English:

More information

Bob Hale: Necessary Beings

Bob Hale: Necessary Beings Bob Hale: Necessary Beings Nils Kürbis In Necessary Beings, Bob Hale brings together his views on the source and explanation of necessity. It is a very thorough book and Hale covers a lot of ground. It

More information

Contents EMPIRICISM. Logical Atomism and the beginnings of pluralist empiricism. Recap: Russell s reductionism: from maths to physics

Contents EMPIRICISM. Logical Atomism and the beginnings of pluralist empiricism. Recap: Russell s reductionism: from maths to physics Contents EMPIRICISM PHIL3072, ANU, 2015 Jason Grossman http://empiricism.xeny.net lecture 9: 22 September Recap Bertrand Russell: reductionism in physics Common sense is self-refuting Acquaintance versus

More information

Michel Olivier. NALS International Conference : Emmanuel Levinas across the Generations and Continents, July 27-30

Michel Olivier. NALS International Conference : Emmanuel Levinas across the Generations and Continents, July 27-30 Michel Olivier NALS International Conference : Emmanuel Levinas across the Generations and Continents, July 27-30 Emergence of Exteriority in Levinas Sense in Analytic Philosophy Introduction Analytic

More information

Quine and the Vienna Circle

Quine and the Vienna Circle DELFIM SANTOS STUDIES ANO 1, NÚM. 1 2013 Quine and the Vienna Circle Rui Silva Carnap was my greatest teacher ( ). I was very much his disciple for six years. In later years his views went on evolving

More information

Phil/Ling 375: Meaning and Mind [Handout #10]

Phil/Ling 375: Meaning and Mind [Handout #10] Phil/Ling 375: Meaning and Mind [Handout #10] W. V. Quine: Two Dogmas of Empiricism Professor JeeLoo Liu Main Theses 1. Anti-analytic/synthetic divide: The belief in the divide between analytic and synthetic

More information

Language, Meaning, and Information: A Case Study on the Path from Philosophy to Science Scott Soames

Language, Meaning, and Information: A Case Study on the Path from Philosophy to Science Scott Soames Language, Meaning, and Information: A Case Study on the Path from Philosophy to Science Scott Soames Near the beginning of the final lecture of The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, in 1918, Bertrand Russell

More information

Putnam and the Contextually A Priori Gary Ebbs University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Putnam and the Contextually A Priori Gary Ebbs University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Forthcoming in Lewis E. Hahn and Randall E. Auxier, eds., The Philosophy of Hilary Putnam (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 2005) Putnam and the Contextually A Priori Gary Ebbs University of Illinois at

More information

Class 33 - November 13 Philosophy Friday #6: Quine and Ontological Commitment Fisher 59-69; Quine, On What There Is

Class 33 - November 13 Philosophy Friday #6: Quine and Ontological Commitment Fisher 59-69; Quine, On What There Is Philosophy 240: Symbolic Logic Fall 2009 Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays: 9am - 9:50am Hamilton College Russell Marcus rmarcus1@hamilton.edu I. The riddle of non-being Two basic philosophical questions are:

More information

Rethinking Knowledge: The Heuristic View

Rethinking Knowledge: The Heuristic View http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319532363 Carlo Cellucci Rethinking Knowledge: The Heuristic View 1 Preface From its very beginning, philosophy has been viewed as aimed at knowledge and methods to

More information

Class #17: October 25 Conventionalism

Class #17: October 25 Conventionalism Philosophy 405: Knowledge, Truth and Mathematics Fall 2010 Hamilton College Russell Marcus Class #17: October 25 Conventionalism I. A Fourth School We have discussed the three main positions in the philosophy

More information

Outscoping and Discourse Threat

Outscoping and Discourse Threat Outscoping and Discourse Threat Theodore Sider Inquiry 57 (2014): 413 26 Agustín Rayo s exciting and bold new book can be viewed as continuing Carnap s debate with Quine over analyticity and mathematical

More information

The Place of Quine. Analytic Philosophy

The Place of Quine. Analytic Philosophy April 5, 2012 April 5, 2012 The Place of Quine In Analytic Philosophy Scott Soames USC School of Philosophy To Appear in A Companion to W.V.O. Quine Edited by Ernie Lepore and Gilbert Harman John Wilely

More information

How Russell's Problems of Philosophy solved the impasse between Rationalism and Empiricism and made Logic the Essence of Philosophy.

How Russell's Problems of Philosophy solved the impasse between Rationalism and Empiricism and made Logic the Essence of Philosophy. How Russell's Problems of Philosophy solved the impasse between Rationalism and Empiricism and made Logic the Essence of Philosophy. Gregory Landini gregory-landini@uiowa.edu The Principia Era There is

More information

Verificationism. PHIL September 27, 2011

Verificationism. PHIL September 27, 2011 Verificationism PHIL 83104 September 27, 2011 1. The critique of metaphysics... 1 2. Observation statements... 2 3. In principle verifiability... 3 4. Strong verifiability... 3 4.1. Conclusive verifiability

More information

Naturalism and is Opponents

Naturalism and is Opponents Undergraduate Review Volume 6 Article 30 2010 Naturalism and is Opponents Joseph Spencer Follow this and additional works at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/undergrad_rev Part of the Epistemology Commons Recommended

More information

Ontological Justification: From Appearance to Reality Anna-Sofia Maurin (PhD 2002)

Ontological Justification: From Appearance to Reality Anna-Sofia Maurin (PhD 2002) Ontological Justification: From Appearance to Reality Anna-Sofia Maurin (PhD 2002) PROJECT SUMMARY The project aims to investigate the notion of justification in ontology. More specifically, one particular

More information

[This is a draft of a companion piece to G.C. Field s (1932) The Place of Definition in Ethics,

[This is a draft of a companion piece to G.C. Field s (1932) The Place of Definition in Ethics, Justin Clarke-Doane Columbia University [This is a draft of a companion piece to G.C. Field s (1932) The Place of Definition in Ethics, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 32: 79-94, for a virtual

More information

On Quine, Grice and Strawson, and the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction. by Christian Green

On Quine, Grice and Strawson, and the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction. by Christian Green On Quine, Grice and Strawson, and the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction by Christian Green Evidently such a position of extreme skepticism about a distinction is not in general justified merely by criticisms,

More information

The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Vol. 4, Foundations of Logic: , ed. by Alsdair Urquhard (London: Routledge, 1994).

The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Vol. 4, Foundations of Logic: , ed. by Alsdair Urquhard (London: Routledge, 1994). A. Works by Russell The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Vol. 4, Foundations of Logic: 1903-1905, ed. by Alsdair Urquhard (London: Routledge, 1994). The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Vol.

More information

All philosophical debates not due to ignorance of base truths or our imperfect rationality are indeterminate.

All philosophical debates not due to ignorance of base truths or our imperfect rationality are indeterminate. PHIL 5983: Naturalness and Fundamentality Seminar Prof. Funkhouser Spring 2017 Week 11: Chalmers, Constructing the World Notes (Chapters 6-7, Twelfth Excursus) Chapter 6 6.1 * This chapter is about the

More information

INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE

INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE Péter Érdi Henry R. Luce Professor Center for Complex Systems Studies Kalamazoo College, Michigan and Dept. Biophysics KFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics of

More information

A New Argument Against Compatibilism

A New Argument Against Compatibilism Norwegian University of Life Sciences School of Economics and Business A New Argument Against Compatibilism Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum Working Papers No. 2/ 2014 ISSN: 2464-1561 A New Argument

More information

An Empiricist Theory of Knowledge Bruce Aune

An Empiricist Theory of Knowledge Bruce Aune An Empiricist Theory of Knowledge Bruce Aune Copyright 2008 Bruce Aune To Anne ii CONTENTS PREFACE iv Chapter One: WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE? Conceptions of Knowing 1 Epistemic Contextualism 4 Lewis s Contextualism

More information

Brief Remarks on Putnam and Realism in Mathematics * Charles Parsons. Hilary Putnam has through much of his philosophical life meditated on

Brief Remarks on Putnam and Realism in Mathematics * Charles Parsons. Hilary Putnam has through much of his philosophical life meditated on Version 3.0, 10/26/11. Brief Remarks on Putnam and Realism in Mathematics * Charles Parsons Hilary Putnam has through much of his philosophical life meditated on the notion of realism, what it is, what

More information

In Defense of Radical Empiricism. Joseph Benjamin Riegel. Chapel Hill 2006

In Defense of Radical Empiricism. Joseph Benjamin Riegel. Chapel Hill 2006 In Defense of Radical Empiricism Joseph Benjamin Riegel A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

More information

On Quine s Ontology: quantification, extensionality and naturalism (from commitment to indifference)

On Quine s Ontology: quantification, extensionality and naturalism (from commitment to indifference) On Quine s Ontology: quantification, extensionality and naturalism (from commitment to indifference) Daniel Durante Pereira Alves durante@ufrnet.br January 2015 Abstract Much of the ontology made in the

More information

Tuomas E. Tahko (University of Helsinki)

Tuomas E. Tahko (University of Helsinki) Meta-metaphysics Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, forthcoming in October 2018 Tuomas E. Tahko (University of Helsinki) tuomas.tahko@helsinki.fi www.ttahko.net Article Summary Meta-metaphysics concerns

More information