Alex Orenstein

W. V. Quine

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

The most influential philosopher in the analytic tradition of his time, Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) changed the way we think about language and its relation to the world. His rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction, his scepticism about modal logic and essentialism, his celebrated theme of the indeterminacy of translation, and his advocacy of naturalism have challenged key assumptions of the prevailing orthodoxy and helped shape the development of much of recent philosophy. This introduction to Quine's philosophical ideas provides philosophers, students, and generalists with an authoritative analysis of Quine's lasting contributions to philosophy. The major themes covered include the adaptation of the language of modern logic to formulate a criterion of ontological commitment; Quine's own ontological commitments; Duhemian-Holistic empiricism and the attendant rejection of a priori knowledge; the nature and grounds of logical truth; Quine's criticisms of such notions as meaning, synonymy, analyticity, and necessity; the conjecture of the indeterminacy of translation; modal logic; propositional attitudes; and Quine's work on naturalized epistemology. Quine's ideas throughout are contrasted with more traditional views, as well as with contemporaries such as Frege, Russell, Carnap, Davidson, Field, Kripke, and Chomsky, enabling the reader to grasp a clear sense of the place of Quine's views in twentieth-century philosophy and the important criticisms of them.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Seitenzahl: 224
• Erscheinungstermin: 14. April 2002
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 216mm x 140mm x 14mm
• Gewicht: 317g
• ISBN-13: 9780691096063
• ISBN-10: 0691096066
• Artikelnr.: 22478306

Autorenporträt

Alex Orenstein

Inhaltsangabe

Preface ix
1 Introduction 1
2. Expressing an ontology 11
The new way of construing existence claims 11
The new logic: a canonical notation 15
The semantic side of ontological commitment 24
Challenging Quine on expressing existence 34
3. Deciding on an ontology 39
Some rival twentieth-century ontologies 39
Opting for an ontology: indispensability arguments 46
Quine's ontology 52
Conflict with Carnap over ontology 61
Inscrutability of reference 67
Challenging Quine: indispensability arguments 71
4. The spectre of a priori knowledge 75
The problem of a priori knowledge 75
Duhemian-Holistic empiricism and the dogma of reductionism 79
The effects of dispensing with the a priori 87
Challenging Quine: naturalism and the a priori 88
5. The nature of logic 95
Analyticity as logical truth 95
Expressing the principles of logic and set theory 100
Are logic and mathematics true by convention? 107
Challenging Quine: a broader conception of logic 114
6. Analyticity and indeterminacy 119
Dispensing with meanings 121
Other attempts to explicate analyticity 127
The indeterminacy conjecture 133
Contrasting indeterminacy and underdetermination 139
Contrasting inscrutability of reference and indeterminacy of meaning 142
Challenging Quine: analyticity and indeterminacy 147
7. Intensional contexts 149
Modal logic 151
The quotation paradigm 152
De dicto and de re modality: quotation and essentialism 155
Challenginq Quine: possible world semantics and the new theory of reference
159
Propositional attitudes 165
Challenging Quine: attitudes without objects 169
8. Nature, know thyself 173
Epistemology naturalized 173
A natural history of reference 178
Challenging Quine on epistemology 185
Bibliography 201
Index 207