Quine: A Guide for the Perplexed (Guides for the Perplexed) PDF
Preview Quine: A Guide for the Perplexed (Guides for the Perplexed)
QUINE:A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED THE GUIDES FOR THE PERPLEXED SERIES Benjamin Hutchens, Levinas: A Guide for the Perplexed Alex Thomson, Adorno: A Guide for the Perplexed Claire Colebrook, Deleuze: A Guide for the Perplexed Chris Lawn, Gadamer: A Guide for the Perplexed Mark Addis, Wittgenstein: A Guide for the Perplexed Matheson Russell, Husserl: A Guide for the Perplexed Eric Mattews, Merleau-Ponty: A Guide for the Perplexed QUINE:A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED GARY KEMP continuum N E WR K • L O N D O N Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane 11 York Road Suite 704 London SE1 7NX New York, NY 10038 First published 2006 www. continuumbooks. com © Gary Kemp 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0 8264 8486 7 (hardback) 0 8264 8487 5 (paperback) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kemp, Gary, 1960 Oct. 15- Quine : a guide for the perplexed / Gary Kemp. p. cm. — (The guides for the perplexed series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8264-8486-7 (hardback) — ISBN 0-8264-8487-5 (pbk.) 1. Quine, W. V. (Willard Van Orman). I. Title. II. Guides for the perplexed. B945.Q54K46 2006 191—dc22 2005037798 Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed and bound in Great Britain by Ashford Colour Press Ltd., Gosport, Hampshire CONTENTS Abbreviations vi Preface ix 1 Philosophy as Quine found it 1 Quine as philosopher and anti-philosopher 1 Empiricism and the claims of science 3 Logical empiricism 5 Linguistic frameworks, analyticity and tolerance 8 2 Convention, analyticity and holism 13 Truth by Convention': preliminaries 13 Truth by Convention': Quine's objections 16 The first dogma of Two Dogmas': analyticity 19 The second dogma: reductionism 23 Further points on definition, postulation and the limits of syntax 29 3 The indeterminacy of translation 35 From criticism to construction 35 Aproaching the natives 38 Stimulus meaning and observation sentences 40 Synonymy and analyticity considered anew 46 Analytical hypotheses 47 Indeterminacy of translation 52 Reflecting on indeterminacy 56 4 Naturalized epistemology and the roots of reference 68 Reciprocal containment 68 Evidence and the connection of language to the world 73 Focusing on the individual 76 The psychology of learning 79 V CONTENTS Language: observation sentences to theory 85 Reference 8 5 Truth, ontology and the language of science 95 The ontological question 95 The actuary of science 9 To be is to be the value of a boundvariable105 105 Posits, reality and reduction 110 Ontological relativity 115 Truth 19 6 Extenionality and abstract ontology 128 Causality and dispositions 128 'No entity without identity': abstract objects, good and bad 132 Propositional atitudes 137 Modality 145 7 Science, philosophy and common sense 151 The rejection of first philosophy 151 Quine and analytic philosophy 155 Lingering questions 164 Bibliography 174 Index 1 vi ABBREVIATIONS Quine's writings are noted in the text according to the following scheme of abbreviation. FLPV: From a Logical Point of View FM: 'Facts of the Matter' IPOS: 'In Praise of Observation Sentences' ML: Mathematical Logic NEN: 'Notes on Existence and Necessity' OR: Ontological Relativity and Other Essays PL\ Philosophy of Logic PT: Pursuit of Truth Q: Quiddities QQ: 'Quine on Quine' (sentences by Quine, arranged by Burton Dreben) RIT: 'On the Reasons for the Indeterminacy of Translation' RR: The Roots of Reference SS: From Stimulus to Science SLP: Selected Logic Papers TT: Theories and Things WB: The Web of Belief WO: Word and Object WP: The Ways of Paradox vii This page intentionally left blank PREFACE Frege and Russell were analytic philosophy's great pioneers. And it was Wittgenstein who inspired something like devotion, and whose name crops up most outside academic philosophy. But within the hardnosed professional practice of analytic philosophy over the past 60 years, the most thoroughly influential has been Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000). He formulated the most incisive criti- cisms of logical positivism in the 1930s and 1940s, inaugurated many of the signature analytical topics of the 1950s and 1960s, elaborated challenging new paradigms in ontology and epistemology in the 1970s and 1980s, and published some of his most lucid philosophical writing as late as the 1990s. Along the way, he not only contributed to the rise of mathematical logic, but did more than anyone to estab- lish the central role it has come to play in philosophical analysis. Since the Second World War Quine has shaped the philosophical landscape in which we live. Nevertheless, much of what is most powerful and deeply interesting in Quine is not widely understood, and many of his specific claims have provoked more antagonism than admiration. Indeed a certain caricature of Quine is easy to draw, and widely subscribed to: the nay-sayer, who is said to be 'sceptical' of this or that philo- sophical idea, to 'reject' this one or 'deem unintelligible' that one. An imperious party-pooper. The caricature is unjustified, but to explain why is not simple. Quine was above all a systematic philosopher, and the force of his particular claims cannot always be appreciated without understanding the larger framework or perspective from which they emerge. Analytical philosophy often looks as if it has no such framework or perspective, as if it were really only the piece- meal application of a method, not the imposition of any particular ix
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