Confessions of a Confirmed Extensionalist and Other Essays

Confessions of a Confirmed Extensionalist and Other Essays PDF Author: W. V. Quine
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674030842
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 538

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Book Description
In the twenty years between his last collection of essays and his death in 2000, Quine continued his work and occasionally modified his position on central philosophical issues. This volume collects the main essays from this last, productive period of Quine’s prodigious career.

Confessions of a Confirmed Extensionalist and Other Essays

Confessions of a Confirmed Extensionalist and Other Essays PDF Author: W. V. Quine
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674030842
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 538

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Book Description
In the twenty years between his last collection of essays and his death in 2000, Quine continued his work and occasionally modified his position on central philosophical issues. This volume collects the main essays from this last, productive period of Quine’s prodigious career.

Quine in Dialogue

Quine in Dialogue PDF Author: Willard Van Orman Quine
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674030831
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Quine was one of the 20th century’s great philosophers. This volume begins with a number of interviews Quine gave about his perspectives on 20th-century logic, science and philosophy, the ideas of others, and philosophy generally. Also included are his most important articles, reviews, and comments on other philosophers, from Carnap to Strawson.

From a Logical Point of View

From a Logical Point of View PDF Author: Willard Van Orman Quine
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674323513
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
This volume of essays has a unity and bears throughout the imprint of Quine's powerful and original mind. It is written with the felicity in the choice of words which makes everything that Quine writes a pleasure to read, and which ranks him among the best contemporary writers on abstract subjects.

Selected Logic Papers

Selected Logic Papers PDF Author: Willard Van Orman Quine
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674798366
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
For more than two generations, W. V. Quine has contributed fundamentally to the substance, the pedagogy, and the philosophy of mathematical logic. Selected Logic Papers, long out of print and now reissued with eight additional essays, includes much of the author's important work on mathematical logic and the philosophy of mathematics from the past sixty years.

Quintessence

Quintessence PDF Author: Willard Van Orman Quine
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674027558
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
Through the first half of the twentieth century, analytic philosophy was dominated by Russell, Wittgenstein, and Carnap. Influenced by Russell and especially by Carnap, another towering figure, Willard Van Orman Quine (1908Ð2000) emerged as the most important proponent of analytic philosophy during the second half of the century. Yet with twenty-three books and countless articles to his creditÑincluding, most famously, Word and Object and "Two Dogmas of Empiricism"ÑQuine remained a philosopher's philosopher, largely unknown to the general public. Quintessence for the first time collects Quine's classic essays (such as "Two Dogmas" and "On What There Is") in one volumeÑand thus offers readers a much-needed introduction to his general philosophy. Divided into six parts, the thirty-five selections take up analyticity and reductionism; the indeterminacy of translation of theoretical sentences and the inscrutability of reference; ontology; naturalized epistemology; philosophy of mind; and extensionalism. Representative of Quine at his best, these readings are fundamental not only to an appreciation of the philosopher and his work, but also to an understanding of the philosophical tradition that he so materially advanced.

From Stimulus to Science

From Stimulus to Science PDF Author: Willard Van Orman Quine
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674042476
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 125

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Book Description
W. V. Quine is one of the most eminent philosophers alive today. Now in his mid-eighties he has produced a sharp, sprightly book that encapsulates the whole of his philosophical enterprise, including his thinking on all the key components of his epistemological stance--especially the value of logic and mathematics. New readers of Quine may have to go slowly, fathoming for themselves the richness that past readers already know lies between these elegant lines. For the faithful there is much to ponder. In this short book, based on lectures delivered in Spain in 1990, Quine begins by locating his work historically. He provides a lightning tour of the history of philosophy (particularly the history of epistemology), beginning with Plato and culminating in an appreciative sketch of Carnap's philosophical ambitions and achievements. This leads, in the second chapter, to an introduction to Quine's attempt to naturalize epistemology, which emphasizes his continuities with Carnap rather than the differences between them. The next chapters develop the naturalistic story of the development of science to take account of how our conceptual apparatus is enhanced so that we can view the world as containing re-identifiable objects. Having explained the role of observation sentences in providing a checkpoint for assessing scientific theories, and having despaired of constructing an empirical criterion to determine which sentences are meaningful, Quine in the remaining chapters takes up a variety of important issues about knowledge. He concludes with an extended treatment of his views about reference and meaning and his attitudes toward psychological and modal notions. The presentation is distinctive, and the many small refinements of detail and formulation will fascinate all who know Quine's philosophy.

Methods of Logic

Methods of Logic PDF Author: Willard Van Orman Quine
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674571761
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
This widely used textbook of modern formal logic now offers a number of new features. Incorporating updated notations, selective answers to exercises, expanded treatment of natural deduction, and new discussions of predicate-functor logic and the affinities between higher set theory and the elementary logic of terms, W. V. Quine's new edition will serve admirably for both classroom and independent use.

Quine’s Epistemic Norms in Practice

Quine’s Epistemic Norms in Practice PDF Author: Michael Shepanski
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 135030428X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
In this illuminating guide to the criteria of rational theorizing, Michael Shepanski identifies, defends and applies W. V. Quine's epistemic norms – the norms that best explain Quine's decisions to accept some theories and not others. Parts I and II set out the doctrines of this epistemology, demonstrating their potential for philosophical application. Part III is a case study in which Shepanski develops a theory of the propositional attitudes by the method of formalizing inferences to behaviour. He presents critiques of popular alternative views, including foundationalism, the centrality of knowledge and Quine's own epistemological naturalism. By reassessing Quine's normative epistemology, Shepanski advances our understanding of Quine's philosophy whilst providing a guide for our own theorizing.

Pursuit of Truth

Pursuit of Truth PDF Author: Willard Van Orman Quine
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674254473
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 82

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Book Description
In Pursuit of Truth W. V. Quine gives us his latest word on issues to which he has devoted many years. As he says in the preface: "In these pages I have undertaken to update, sum up, and clarify my variously intersecting views on cognitive meaning, objective reference, and the grounds of knowledge?'The pursuit of truth is a quest that links observation, theory, and the world. Various faulty efforts to forge such links have led to much intellectual confusion. Quine's efforts to get beyond the confusion begin by rejecting the very idea of binding together word and thing, rejecting the focus on the isolated word. For him, observation sentences and theoretical sentences are the alpha and omega ofthe scientific enterprise. Notions like "idea" and "meaning" are vague, but a sentence-now there's something you can sink your teeth into. Starting thus with sentences, Quine sketches an epistemological setting for the pursuit of truth. He proceeds to show how reification and reference contribute to the elaborate structure that can indeed relate science to its sensory evidence.In this book Quine both summarizes and moves ahead. Rich, lively chapters dissect his major concerns-evidence, reference, meaning, intension, and truth. "Some points;' he writes, "have become clearer in my mind in the eight years since Theories and Things. Some that were already clear in my mind have become clearer on paper. And there are some that have meanwhile undergone substantive change for the better." This is a key book for understanding the effort that a major philosopher has made a large part of his life's work: to naturalize epistemology in the twentieth century. The book is concise and elegantly written, as one would expect, and does not assume the reader's previous acquaintance with Quine's writings. Throughout, it is marked by Quine's wit and economy of style.

The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics

The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics PDF Author: A. W. Moore
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521616557
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 691

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Book Description
This book charts the evolution of metaphysics since Descartes and provides a compelling case for why metaphysics matters.