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Questions tagged [quine]

W.V.O. Quine (1908-2000) was a prominent 20th century analytic philosopher.

W.V.O. Quine (1908-2000) was a prominent 20th century analytic philosopher, best known for his arguments against logical empiricism and for his naturalistic approach to philosophy.

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How does Quine answer the metaphysician's charge that scientism is self-refuting?

General scientism seems to hold that due to the predictive powers of our scientific methods, such methods are preferred to other methods of knowledge, such as metaphysics (radical scientism claiming that metaphysics is by and large simply irrelevant…
Jecko
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How does Quine effectively shift from points he has made about knowledge acquisition to conclusions he makes about knowledge simpliciter?

Quine propagated forward an approach to epistemology wherein there was no need of any sort of justification "beyond observation and the hypothetico-deductive method" (Quine 1981). Quine is going after a foundationalist view of knowledge acquisition…
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Quine on higher set theory

In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic, Stewart Shapiro states in his introductory section: Quine himself accepts mathematics (as true) only to the extent that it is applied in the sciences. In particular, he does not accept…
Not_Here
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What is Quine's response to Parmenides's argument against change?

I was recently reading Russell's chapter on Parmenides in The History of Western Philosophy, and I came across a fun little argument for the absence of change. Essentially, it says that word meaning cannot refer to anything in the past or anything…
Apodictic Apple Juice
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What is Quine's rebuttal to Grice and Strawson's In Defense of Dogma?

In response to Quine's rejection of the analytic-synthetic distinction, Strawson and Grice appear to reduce Quine's rejection (or skepticism) of synonymy to a rejection of meaning. What is/would be Quine's response?
nietsnegttiw
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Quine and the Myth of the Given

To give you some background details about myself: I have a deep interest in Quine's work and Naturalism in Philosophy; I have been independently studying and reading Quine's work and his relation to other philosophers, in particular the relation…
Leucippus
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Are there serious challenges to the 'principle of charity' as presented by Donald Davidson?

Donald Davidson's formulation of the "principle of charity" is based on Quine's "radical interpretation" (I believe from the book Word & Object), and he formulates it in a way that considers its consequences for the relationship between truth and…
ClearMountainWay
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What are the relations between externalism (Kripke, Putnam) and holism (Quine) about meaning?

Three points are not clear to me about the relations between semantic externalism (Kripke, Putnam) and holism (Quine): Is there a way according to which externalism and holism can be held together or are they inherently contradicting each other? It…
Amit Hagin
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Do Wittgenstein and Quine give the same criticisms of semantics?

What is the connection between the criticisms offered by Wittgenstein and Quine of meaning and language? Are both philosophers generally criticizing the same semantic theories with similar arguments, and if not, are there any cases of genuine…
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Quine - two dogmas of empiricism

I'm trying to understand this paper. Seems to me like it all stems from a rejection of "meaning"... ie: Quine is saying statements don't mean anything. And this is what leads to the rejection of the analytic-synthetic distinction. But if meanings do…
Ameet Sharma
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If one agrees with Quine's dissolution of the Analytic/Synthetic distinction, what is left of Kant's epistemology?

One of Kant's most important (if not the most important) result is his argument (proof?) that synthetic a priori knowledge is possible. If one agrees with Quine's argument against Analyticity as being circular and the subsequent dissolution of the…
Alexander S King
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How do Kripke's rigid designators and the necessity of identity relate to the Duhem-Quine thesis?

The Duhem-Quine thesis refers to the underdetermination of scientific theories and the fact that it is impossible to test scientific theories in isolation, we always need to make background assumptions when making empirical observations. It seems…
Alexander S King
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Is there such a thing as a 'necessary truth'?

Wikipedia (note the redirect) defines 'necessary truth' as statements which "could not be untrue", and I assume that this is how the term is usually used. A search through the SEP shows that while there is no article dedicated to the topic, this…
That Guy
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Are "to exist" and "to have being" the same?

I recently read an introduction about ontology. A section was about the debate whether to exist and to have being is the same. One position says (attributed to Meinong), that some things exist and some things have being. Dragons, for example, have…
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Does Quine consider the Homeric gods to have predictive power?

Quine wrote in his 1951 paper "Two Dogmas of Empiricism": "Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable,…
Alexander S King
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