Quine and Analytic Philosophy: The Language of Language

by George D. Romanos

For fifty years, Willard Van Orman Quine's books and articles have stimulated intense debate in the fields of logic and the philosophy of language. Many scholars in fact, regard Quine as the greatest living English-speaking philosopher; yet his views remain widely misunderstood and misinterpreted. This book provides the first major explication and defense of Quine's systematic philosophy and is ideally suited for use as a required or supplementary text in a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy and linguistics.The book explores the far-reaching implications of Quine's views on language for contemporary analytic philosophy. It is unique in providing a lucid and rich description and reconstruction of the historical context from which Quine's work grew, focusing in particular on the role that Russell and Wittgenstein played in shaping the problems inherited by Quine. It presents Quine's difficult later views in an accessible fashion, bringing out as no other study has the very radical nature of his position. One of the book's highlights is its careful examination and assessment of Tarski's theory of truth as it relates to the traditions of Russell and Wittgenstein and to Quine's own philosophy. This book grew out of his dissertation with the active criticism and support of Quine himself.

Genres: Philosophy

227 pages, Paperback

First published May 18, 1983

Reviews

[Zo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really clear and helpful exposition of the relationship between Quine's views and the logical positivists that came before him. I don't think his reading of the later Wittgenstein is fair, he is grouped with the other natural language people in ways that seem wrong, and I think is actually more similar to Quine than Romanos acknowledges (especially on the Ontological Relativity thesis). The points where they differ (other than methodology) are probably on some of Quine's more "radical" theses about indeterminacy of translation, which I do think are in part due to some behaviorist assumptions. The outstanding question then is whether correction of Quine's views to something less behaviorist results in a still deflationary view similar to Wittgenstein or Davidson (though it is unclear to me how deflationary Davidson is), or whether more robust theorizing about reference would be allowed if cog sci could tell us things about natural human object individuation. I still remain unsure about analytic/synthetic questions, and what exactly the implications of the claims being made on other side are. The discussion of Tarski was immensely helpful, and the most I've ever felt like I've understood Tarski, but made me come away feeling like Tarski is not that important at all? I need to read someone more on Tarski's side because I come away from this awfully skeptical. The vision of philosophy laid out at the end seems broadly correct to me (and fits with current focus on phil of mind/sci), though I think avoids some of the more specific questions about areas of fruitful inquiry and why philosophers should be able to provide insight into them. Throughout reading the book I wish I had a better understanding of how someone like Kripke, or someone like Brandom, would diverge from Quine's position (in opposite directions presumably), and I think I would need to get clearer on both to have a better grip on the "correctness" of all three enterprises. Romanos doesn't frame the ending conclusions as super deflationary, but I think they can be read as fairly deflationary and critical of much of existing philosophy in ways I find compelling. But my confidence on all of this is low - I still need to read much more of opposing views.

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

This books sets out, with clarity and precision, the whole 'problematik' of Logical Postivism, and the solution offered by Quine. Quine is in my opinion perhaps the only philosopher of the post-WWII period who will be read 500 years from now. This book is excellent, though it is not elementary.