Quine: A Guide for the Perplexed

Willard Van Orman Quine is one of the most influential analytic philosophers of the latter half of the twentieth century. No serious student of modern analytic philosophy can afford to ignore Quine's work. Yet there is no doubt that it presents a

Abbreviations

vii

Preface

ix

Philosophy as Quine found it

1

(12)

Quine as philosopher and anti-philosopher

1

(2)

Empiricism and the claims of science

3

(2)

Logical empiricism

5

(3)

Linguistic frameworks, analyticity and tolerance

8

(5)

Convention, analyticity and holism

13

(22)

`Truth by Convention': preliminaries

13

(3)

`Truth by Convention': Quine's objections

16

(3)

The first dogma of `Two Dogmas': analyticity

19

(4)

The second dogma: reductionism

23

(6)

Further points on definition, postulation and the limits of syntax

29

(6)

The indeterminacy of translation

35

(33)

From criticism to construction

35

(3)

Approaching the natives

38

(2)

Stimulus meaning and observation sentences

40

(6)

Synonymy and analyticity considered anew

46

(1)

Analytical hypotheses

47

(5)

Indeterminacy of translation

52

(4)

Reflecting on indeterminacy

56

(12)

Naturalized epistemology and the roots of reference

68

(27)

Reciprocal containment

68

(5)

Evidence and the connection of language to the world

73

(3)

Focusing on the individual

76

(3)

The psychology of learning

79

(6)

Language: observation sentences to theory

85

(3)

Reference

88

(7)

Truth, ontology and the language of science

95

(33)

The ontological question

95

(4)

The actuary of science

99

(6)

`To be is to be the value of a bound variable'

105

(5)

Posits, reality and reduction

110

(5)

Ontological relativity

115

(4)

Truth

119

(9)

Extenionality and abstract ontology

128

(23)

Causality and dispositions

128

(4)

`No entity without identity': abstract objects, good and bad

132

(5)

Prepositional attitudes

137

(8)

Modality

145

(6)

Science, philosophy and common sense

151

(23)

The rejection of first philosophy

151

(4)

Quine and analytic philosophy

155

(9)

Lingering questions

164

(10)

Bibliography

174

(3)

Index

177

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Quine: A Guide for the Perplexed

Summary

Table of Contents

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