Quine Van

John Dewey escribio que, mientras los progresos modernos de la logica simbolica han permitido un acuerdo universal acerca de las tecnicas de esa ciencia, la disputa sobre su "objeto ultimo," sobre la naturaleza misma y la funcion de la logica, no tiene visos de acallarse. Los estudios logico-filosoficos de Willard W. Quine presentados en este libro contienen, sin embargo, una gran cantidad de elementos que podrian contribuir a solucionar esa disputa.Quine expone las nociones basicas de una teoria de la ciencia que rechaza el aserto de que la "unidad de sentido empirico," lo verificable por la experiencia cientifica, sea el teorema resuelto, la operatividad de la nocion aislada. La unidad de significacion empirica es, mas bien, el todo de la ciencia. Asi, si la reflexion sobre la logica desemboca en una consideracion de la significatividad cientifica, en los cimientos de una teoria de la ciencia, esta repercute a su vez en la concepcion de la logica. Pues siendo la unidad significativa el todo del saber, la significatividad de los teoremas logico-formales debe venir tambien de ese todo del conocimiento que es la verdadera unidad significativa, y no del criterio de "evidencia" tradicional ni del de "tautologia" de los positivistas.

Willard Van Orman Quine begins this influential work by declaring, "Language is a social art. In acquiring it we have to depend entirely on intersubjectively available cues as to what to say and when." As Patricia Smith Churchland notes in her foreword to this new edition, with _Word and Object_ Quine challenged the tradition of conceptual analysis as a way of advancing knowledge. The book signaled twentieth-century philosophy's turn away from metaphysics and what Churchland calls the "phony precision" of conceptual analysis. In the course of his discussion of meaning and the linguistic mechanisms of objective reference, Quine considers the indeterminacy of translation, brings to light the anomalies and conflicts implicit in our language's referential apparatus, clarifies semantic problems connected with the imputation of existence, and marshals reasons for admitting or repudiating each of various categories of supposed objects. In addition to Churchland's foreword, this edition offers a new preface by Quine's student and colleague Dagfinn Follesdal that describes the never-realized plans for a second edition of _Word and Object_, in which Quine would offer a more unified treatment of the public nature of meaning, modalities, and propositional attitudes.

Naturalism holds that there is no higher access to truth than empirically testable hypotheses. Still it does not repudiate untestable hypotheses. They fill out interstices of theory and lead to further hypotheses that are testable.A hypothesis is tested by deducing, from it and a background of accepted theory, some observation categorical that does not follow from the background alone. This categorical, a generalized conditional compounded of two observation sentences, admits in turn of a primitive experimental test.The observation sentences themselves, like ape cries and bird calls, are in holophrastic association with ranges of neural intake. Denotation of determinate objects figures neither in this association nor in deducing the categorical from the scientific hypotheses. Hence the indeterminacy of reference; ontology is purely auxiliary to the structure of theory. Truth, however, is seen still as transcendent at least in this sense: we say of a superseded scientific theory not that it ceased to be true, but that it is found to have been false

SummaryMetatheory may be pursued immanently, i.e., within the object language, or transcendently in metalanguages. Immanently, the hierarchy of metalanguages gives way to a hierarchy of predicates. The immanent approach accentuates the symmetry between Russell's paradox and Cantor's theorem: class shortage versus predicate shortage. Appeal to metatheoretic models, in defining logical truth, gives way to appeal to substitutions of expressions of the object language. Can this be said also of set‐theoretic truth, despite predicate shortage? Equivalently: is substitutional quantification unscathed by predicate shortage? Anyway substitutional quantification balks at impredicative cases

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.

Format iniţial ca matematician, W.V. Quine – considerat astăzi unul dintre cei mai influenţi filosofi ai secolului XX – şi‑a descoperit vocaţia filosofică odată cu lectura faimoasei lucrări Principia Mathematica a lui Russell şi Whitehead. Ţesătura opiniilor, scrisă împreună cu prietenul său J.S. Ullian, care i-a fost student la Harvard, constituie o introducere concisă şi coerentă în studiul convingerilor raţionale ale oamenilor şi un bun punct de plecare pentru familiarizarea cu domenii ale filosofiei precum teoria cunoaşterii, metodologia ştiinţei şi filosofia limbajului. Cartea este totodată un reper esenţial în orice bibliografie a filosofiei şi logicii contemporane, fiind scrisă într‑o manieră accesibilă inclusiv publicului larg.

Traducere de Mircea Dumitru Format iniţial ca matematician, W.V. Quine – considerat astăzi unul dintre cei mai influenţi filosofi ai secolului XX – şi‑a descoperit vocaţia filosofică odată cu lectura faimoasei lucrări Principia Mathematica a lui Russell şi Whitehead. Ţesătura opiniilor, scrisă împreună cu prietenul său J.S. Ullian, care i-a fost student la Harvard, constituie o introducere concisă şi coerentă în studiul convingerilor raţionale ale oamenilor şi un bun punct de plecare pentru familiarizarea cu domenii ale filosofiei precum teoria cunoaşterii, metodologia ştiinţei şi filosofia limbajului. Cartea este totodată un reper esenţial în orice bibliografie a filosofiei şi logicii contemporane, fiind scrisă într‑o manieră accesibilă inclusiv publicului larg.

Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill founded. One effect of abandoning them is, as we shall see, a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics and natural science. Another effect is a shift toward pragmatism.

1 Meaning and Truth Objection to propositions Propositions as information Diffuseness of empirical meaning Propositions dismissed Truth and semantic ascent Tokens and eternal sentences 2 Grammar Grammar by recursion Categories Immanence and transcendence Grammarian's goal reexamined Logical grammar Redundant devices Names and functors Lexicon, particle, and name Criterion of lexicon Time, events, adverbs Attitudes and modality 3 Truth Truth and satisfaction Satisfaction by sequences Tarski's definition of truth Paradox in the object language Resolution in set theory 4 Logical Truth In terms of structure In terms of substitution In terms of models Adequacy of substituteon In terms of proof In terms of grammar 5 The Scope of Logic Affinities of identity Identity reduced Set theory Set theory in sheep's clothing Logic in wolf's clothing Scope of the virtual theory Simulated class quantification Other simulated quantification Annexes 6 Deviant Login Change of logic, change of subject Logic in translation Law of excluded middle Debate about the dichotomy Intuitionism Branched quantifiers Substitutional quantification Its strength 7 The Ground of Logical Truth The semblance of a theory An untenable dualism The place of logic For Further Reading Index.