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Quine is one of the twentieth century's most important and influential philosophers. The essays in this collection are by some of the leading figures in their fields and they touch on the most recent turnings in Quine's work. The book also features an essay by Quine himself, and his replies to each of the papers. Questions are raised concerning Quine's views on knowledge: observation, holism, truth, naturalized epistemology; about language: meaning, the indeterminacy of translation, conjecture; and about the philosophy of logic: ontology, singular terms, vagueness, identity, and intensional contexts. Given Quine's preeminent position, this book must be of interest to students of philosophy in general, Quine aficionados, and most particularly to those working in the areas of epistemology, ontology, philosophies of language, of logic, and of science.
List of contents
Epistemology and Naturalism.- I, You and It: an Epistemological Triangle.- Quine and Davidson on Perceptual Knowledge.- Quine and Observation.- Naturalistic Assumptions.- Justification, Coherence and Quine.- Quine, Empiricism and Truth.- Quine, Wittgenstein and Holism.- Quining The Apriori.- The Epistemology of Decision-Making "Naturalised".- Language and Indeterminacy of Meaning.- Four Arguments for the Indeterminacy of Translation.- Naturalizing Radical Translation.- On the Existence of Meanings.- Publicness and Indeterminacy.- Individual and Social in Quine's Philosophy of Language.- Logic and Problems of Reference.- Plato's Beard, Quine's Stubble and Ockham's Razor.- Indeterminacy of Identity of Objects: An Exercise in Metaphysical Aesthetics.- Indefinite Objects of Higher Order.- On a Milestone of Empiricism.- De Re Modality: Lessons from Quine.- Opacity and the Attitudes.- Quine's Responses.- Index of Names.
Summary
Quine is one of the twentieth century's most important and influential philosophers. Given Quine's preeminent position, this book must be of interest to students of philosophy in general, Quine aficionados, and most particularly to those working in the areas of epistemology, ontology, philosophies of language, of logic, and of science.
