Word and Object, new edition

Willard Van Orman Quine begins this influential work by declaring, "Language isa social art. In acquiring it we have to depend entirely on intersubjectively available cues as towhat 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 away of advancing knowledge. The book signaled twentieth-century philosophy's turn away frommetaphysics and what Churchland calls the "phony precision" of conceptual analysis. In thecourse of his discussion of meaning and the linguistic mechanisms of objective reference, Quineconsiders the indeterminacy of translation, brings to light the anomalies and conflicts implicit inour language's referential apparatus, clarifies semantic problems connected with the imputation ofexistence, and marshals reasons for admitting or repudiating each of various categories of supposedobjects. In addition to Churchland's foreword, this edition offers a new preface by Quine's studentand colleague Dagfinn Follesdal that describes the never-realized plans for a second edition of Wordand Object, in which Quine would offer a more unified treatment of the public nature of meaning,modalities, and propositional attitudes.

Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000) held the Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard University from 1956 to 2000. Considered one the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, he is the author of Mathematical Logic, The Roots of Reference, The Time of My Life: An Autobiography (MIT Press), and many other books.

Patricia S. Churchland is President's Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of California, San Diego, and Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences. She is the author of many books, including Neurophilosophy and Brain-Wise (both published by the MIT Press).

Dagfinn Føllesdal is C. I. Lewis Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Stanford University.