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The Web of Belief
A compact, coherent introduction to the study of rational belief, this text provides points of entry to such areas of philosophy as theory of knowledge, methodology of science, and philosophy of language. The book is accessible to all undergraduates and presupposes no philosophical training.
156 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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730 people want to read
About the author
Willard Van Orman Quine
108 books228 followers"Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25, 1908 Akron, Ohio – December 25, 2000) (known to intimates as "Van"), was an American analytic philosopher and logician. From 1930 until his death 70 years later, Quine was affiliated in some way with Harvard University, first as a student, then as a professor of philosophy and a teacher of mathematics, and finally as an emeritus elder statesman who published or revised seven books in retirement. He filled the Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard, 1956-78. Quine falls squarely into the analytic philosophy tradition while also being the main proponent of the view that philosophy is not conceptual analysis. His major writings include "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", which attacked the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions and advocated a form of semantic holism, and Word and Object which further developed these positions and introduced the notorious indeterminacy of translation thesis." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_...
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
October 23, 2015
W.V.O. Quine's Web of Belief is basically an outdated textbook. But it is also an expression of Quine's thought about belief and how to make our beliefs clearer: it's a critical thinking book. The strengths of the book are its appeal to ways in which you might revise your beliefs in light of new evidence or confirm or disconfirm beliefs in general. He gives what he thinks are basic scientific 'virtues' for change of beliefs, and they are, by his estimate:
FINAL NOTE: By the way, if you are looking for a better more up-to-date work on critical thinking there is Bruce N. Waller's Critical Thinking: Consider the Verdict, which is available here: http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Thinking-Consider-Verdict-MyThinkingLab/dp/0205176046/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355278738&sr=1-1&keywords=consider+the+verdict. It's designed as a textbook but could just as easily be read by oneself in a comfortable chair.
(1) conservatism: the fewer existing beliefs the new belief would interfere with, the better;The book is in some sense excellent, but it suffers from being a product of its time. A structuralist view of language, a behaviorist view of psychology, and a logicist understanding of science hangs over the work, all positions which I will not attempt to refute here, but which I think there are good reasons not to believe.
(2) modesty: one hypothesis is more modest than another if it logically implies fewer other beliefs;
(3) simplicity: keep a single belief as simple as possible in its relation to other beliefs, but "[w]e cheerfully sacrifice simplicity of a part for greater simplicity of the whole when we see a way of doing so";
(4) generality: "[t]he wider the range of application of a hypothesis, the more general it is";
(5) refutability: "some imaginable event, recognizable if it occurs, must suffice to refute the hypothesis"; and
(6) precision: if a hypothesis states precisely its principles and parameters for measuring the occurrence of some event, then it is not easy to dismiss as coincidence.
FINAL NOTE: By the way, if you are looking for a better more up-to-date work on critical thinking there is Bruce N. Waller's Critical Thinking: Consider the Verdict, which is available here: http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Thinking-Consider-Verdict-MyThinkingLab/dp/0205176046/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355278738&sr=1-1&keywords=consider+the+verdict. It's designed as a textbook but could just as easily be read by oneself in a comfortable chair.
December 30, 2022
An easygoing introduction to what it means to have a web of beliefs. The style is concise and strives for clarity, which leads it to be a fairly boring read, or, alternatively, a page-turner for those new to philosophy and science. It comes with its fair share of issues in content, though, and I highlight just a few of them below.
- Quine's idealised presentation of the material makes it utterly worthless as an accurate description of gaining and losing beliefs because these processes are messy, unconscious, and driven by affects. There is not even an acknowledgement of the topsy-turvy nature of forming and rejecting beliefs within a societal whole. I realise excessive abstraction is a common approach in analytic philosophy but I would like to see this tendency wane as it renders the thinking sterile and incorrect.
- The book assumes that science is an extension of common sense and this is a kick in the face to science. Science is a wholly refined way of investigating the world, not without its practical faults, and its refinement is perhaps better viewed through the two images of Sellars. Reducing science to common sense also leads to Quine applying awkward scientific terminology to basic everyday situations. Why couch science in folk psychology when a central task of science is to supplant this very folk psychology?
- Quine holds in low regard what he calls "non-belief", which is his term for the suspension of belief. The point is to hold as many true beliefs as possible and thus to reduce epistemic risk. However, knowing takes time, i.e., science progresses but does so slowly. To know when to delay forming a belief is a rather commendable skill and significant until more data is available. I would have wished Quine to stress this point just once.
Other than that, the book passes as a digestible introduction to common sense thinking.
- Quine's idealised presentation of the material makes it utterly worthless as an accurate description of gaining and losing beliefs because these processes are messy, unconscious, and driven by affects. There is not even an acknowledgement of the topsy-turvy nature of forming and rejecting beliefs within a societal whole. I realise excessive abstraction is a common approach in analytic philosophy but I would like to see this tendency wane as it renders the thinking sterile and incorrect.
- The book assumes that science is an extension of common sense and this is a kick in the face to science. Science is a wholly refined way of investigating the world, not without its practical faults, and its refinement is perhaps better viewed through the two images of Sellars. Reducing science to common sense also leads to Quine applying awkward scientific terminology to basic everyday situations. Why couch science in folk psychology when a central task of science is to supplant this very folk psychology?
- Quine holds in low regard what he calls "non-belief", which is his term for the suspension of belief. The point is to hold as many true beliefs as possible and thus to reduce epistemic risk. However, knowing takes time, i.e., science progresses but does so slowly. To know when to delay forming a belief is a rather commendable skill and significant until more data is available. I would have wished Quine to stress this point just once.
Other than that, the book passes as a digestible introduction to common sense thinking.
September 23, 2022
Nothing too fancy. Elementary considerations on philosophy of science. Favorites Chapters: 6 and 8
October 22, 2021
Philosophy of Science peeks into the foundation of Sciences.
How does it do it?
Well, through examining methodologies applied into any inquiry of Science.
It is an intriguing field and extremely important.
1. What's this about?
Numerous theories, explanation of world is observed by scientists, researchers, including religious people.
Sometimes they're observation might be not true.
So, we ask Intriguing questions like, How do we delineate Science vs Pseudo-Science?
Even theories in Cosmology are extremely relevant in scientific discourse for Modern World.
In the midst of discourses, Heated debates occur, at times, caricaturing each other's position.
Therefore, we require basic understanding from Philosophy of Science.
Not only in Scientific theories,
But works in Literary world from Traditionalist, Critical Race Theory, Postcolonial, could be examined.
This involves substantial assumptions of the World; How do we examine them?
Again, For such questions, we use tools from Philosophy of Science.
We use it to demarcate boundaries; Even contribute to revolutionary ideas (Kuhn's scientific revolution)
2. Why should I care about this work?
In a discussion on Pseudo-Science; I had used Famous, Karl Popper's falsification criteria.
Widely used in court-cases, scientific works, claiming historical method as scientific.
I shook my head, and thought - using the name of science to promote actual science or shoddy work?
But then, someone pointed out, that Popper's methods might not be true.
I had to pause, and wonder? Extremely difficult task.
Yet we keep advancing body of knowledge in Science for better of Human Civilization.
I thought -- Researchers in Philosophy of Science, might have developed new tools from Bayesian for demarcating.
Actually -- I let you decide, and explore, teach me.
2. What's inside this work?
The Web of Belief talks about rational belief.
Quine promotes, Coherence theory of truth.
Quite surprised -- I came across the Grue Paradox
The chapter which talked about Hypothesis intrigued me.
I learnt about the Virtues in Hypothesis, Quine lists Conservatism, modesty, simplicity, generalization, refutability and precision for any Hypothesis.
I am more interested in Wittgenstein because of Language.
Overall, I think you will learnt an outline about, "Web of Beliefs."
3. So, Why read old books?
"No book is outdated, read everything; I mean this in the context of development of ideas."
Wait, take that quote in this way.
In the long chain of works, where we build on top of each other.
Let's unpack through an example: Evolutionary thought can be traced, historically as following:
1. Anaximander of Miletus - dubbed, First Darwinist
2. Chinese Taoist writer, Zhuang Zhou
3. Christian Scholar - Origen of Alexandria says Genesis ought not to be taken literally,
4. Christian Bishop, Theologian - Augustine says in his work, On the Literal Meaning of Genesis.
He says "New Creatures might have came through decomposition of earlier forms of Life."
4. Islamic Theologian, Scholar - Al-Jahiz says in Book of Animals, Strong eat Weak, contributing to Food Chain
5. Islamic Sociologist, Theologian, Historian -Ibn Khaldun says in Muqaddimah humans developed from monkeys
6. Christian Theologian -- St Thomas Aquinas, "Great Being of Chain."
7. Christian Scientist, Mathematician -- Descartes proposes, the Universe as a Machine
8. Christian Mathematician Diplomat -- Leibniz thought, "Evolution as fundamentally spiritual process."
8. French Historian -- Benoît de Maillet, Earth, Universe and life developed without human guidance
9. Christian Pastor & Biologist John Ray -- contributed natural taxonomy widely used for plant classification
10. Charles Darwin & Alfred Russel Wallace (Wallace is equal contributor)
"We are standing on the shoulder of Giants" -- Isaac Newton
I'd recommend this for Scientists, Researchers, Religious Leaders of any persuasion.
Deus Vult,
Gottfried
How does it do it?
Well, through examining methodologies applied into any inquiry of Science.
It is an intriguing field and extremely important.
1. What's this about?
Numerous theories, explanation of world is observed by scientists, researchers, including religious people.
Sometimes they're observation might be not true.
So, we ask Intriguing questions like, How do we delineate Science vs Pseudo-Science?
Even theories in Cosmology are extremely relevant in scientific discourse for Modern World.
In the midst of discourses, Heated debates occur, at times, caricaturing each other's position.
Therefore, we require basic understanding from Philosophy of Science.
Not only in Scientific theories,
But works in Literary world from Traditionalist, Critical Race Theory, Postcolonial, could be examined.
This involves substantial assumptions of the World; How do we examine them?
Again, For such questions, we use tools from Philosophy of Science.
We use it to demarcate boundaries; Even contribute to revolutionary ideas (Kuhn's scientific revolution)
2. Why should I care about this work?
In a discussion on Pseudo-Science; I had used Famous, Karl Popper's falsification criteria.
Widely used in court-cases, scientific works, claiming historical method as scientific.
I shook my head, and thought - using the name of science to promote actual science or shoddy work?
But then, someone pointed out, that Popper's methods might not be true.
I had to pause, and wonder? Extremely difficult task.
Yet we keep advancing body of knowledge in Science for better of Human Civilization.
I thought -- Researchers in Philosophy of Science, might have developed new tools from Bayesian for demarcating.
Actually -- I let you decide, and explore, teach me.
2. What's inside this work?
The Web of Belief talks about rational belief.
Quine promotes, Coherence theory of truth.
Quite surprised -- I came across the Grue Paradox
The chapter which talked about Hypothesis intrigued me.
I learnt about the Virtues in Hypothesis, Quine lists Conservatism, modesty, simplicity, generalization, refutability and precision for any Hypothesis.
I am more interested in Wittgenstein because of Language.
Overall, I think you will learnt an outline about, "Web of Beliefs."
3. So, Why read old books?
"No book is outdated, read everything; I mean this in the context of development of ideas."
Wait, take that quote in this way.
In the long chain of works, where we build on top of each other.
Let's unpack through an example: Evolutionary thought can be traced, historically as following:
1. Anaximander of Miletus - dubbed, First Darwinist
2. Chinese Taoist writer, Zhuang Zhou
3. Christian Scholar - Origen of Alexandria says Genesis ought not to be taken literally,
4. Christian Bishop, Theologian - Augustine says in his work, On the Literal Meaning of Genesis.
He says "New Creatures might have came through decomposition of earlier forms of Life."
4. Islamic Theologian, Scholar - Al-Jahiz says in Book of Animals, Strong eat Weak, contributing to Food Chain
5. Islamic Sociologist, Theologian, Historian -Ibn Khaldun says in Muqaddimah humans developed from monkeys
6. Christian Theologian -- St Thomas Aquinas, "Great Being of Chain."
7. Christian Scientist, Mathematician -- Descartes proposes, the Universe as a Machine
8. Christian Mathematician Diplomat -- Leibniz thought, "Evolution as fundamentally spiritual process."
8. French Historian -- Benoît de Maillet, Earth, Universe and life developed without human guidance
9. Christian Pastor & Biologist John Ray -- contributed natural taxonomy widely used for plant classification
10. Charles Darwin & Alfred Russel Wallace (Wallace is equal contributor)
"We are standing on the shoulder of Giants" -- Isaac Newton
I'd recommend this for Scientists, Researchers, Religious Leaders of any persuasion.
Deus Vult,
Gottfried
October 19, 2022
"Much to think about."
Definitely like the overall energy of the book...gently encouraging/admonitory, like we're about to go play the state quarterfinals of persuasion.
Basic boy moment but the main thing I liked was Quine's insight that a challenge to a hypothesis also delivers a challenge to the "supporting chorus" of background beliefs.
Some of his stuff on math is a bit...off. The claim that the axioms of set theory are only judged by their fruitfulness, for example. If a set of axioms seemed jointly plausible, but didn't allow us to derive classical math, we would say they suck. But the axioms most people favor tend to be pretty plausible as "basic truths" as well.
I think he might have taken too much incompleteness pills...yeah math isn't pure logic but math isn't physics...math is *not* a hypothesis about the natural world...but I liked him knocking those hazy "limiting principles" like "nothing comes out of nothing" etc.
His belief about the basis of truthfulness (basically, we are default truthful because we revert to ostension) and how we learn to detect lies (lies create too much model complexity) are both absolute howlers in my opinion.
I was going to knock him for his claims about "selective leniency" -- that we forgive errors generated by a simple model more than those generated by a more complex model. In scientific terms, we generally adopt a standard measure for predictive error, one that does not incorporate model parameters/complexity. The tendency (by no means universal) is that more complex models overfit to the data and so we get more generalization error. But this isn't really selective leniency -- we're judging the more complex model by the same standards. But then I had an example of a simple hypothesis ("There are two genders of people.") that is in the process of being replaced by another hypothesis ("There are more than two genders of people."). The new hypothesis is more complex -- there are more gender categories, some of which are criticized as fanciful or contrived; the question is asked when the list will be complete. Yet the new hypothesis is more accurate, more people can affiliate with a gender label that reflects their experience; the old model is clearly inaccurate but this is somehow excused. Anyway, that was one example of selective leniency...
I liked his account of intuition as "hidden analogies." I wonder if you could model it with a minor-weight node in a neural network, just some curve of face or pitch of voice.
Most annoying thing in the whole book is the Norman Goodman "grue" thing. Seems you can dispatch this monster by saying the only beliefs you can induce from are observations that have taken place...some form of impredicativity at play, one that seems obviously idiotic and a waste of time. Quine wastes a bunch of time trying to rule out this monster by limiting himself to "projectible" or "law-like" predicates, but these seem circular. I didn't see the value or temptation to make one of these artificial observations and it seemed to divert the narrative.
Chapter 9 (Explanation) is a great substitution of cause for purpose, really elegantly argued.
Definitely like the overall energy of the book...gently encouraging/admonitory, like we're about to go play the state quarterfinals of persuasion.
Basic boy moment but the main thing I liked was Quine's insight that a challenge to a hypothesis also delivers a challenge to the "supporting chorus" of background beliefs.
Some of his stuff on math is a bit...off. The claim that the axioms of set theory are only judged by their fruitfulness, for example. If a set of axioms seemed jointly plausible, but didn't allow us to derive classical math, we would say they suck. But the axioms most people favor tend to be pretty plausible as "basic truths" as well.
I think he might have taken too much incompleteness pills...yeah math isn't pure logic but math isn't physics...math is *not* a hypothesis about the natural world...but I liked him knocking those hazy "limiting principles" like "nothing comes out of nothing" etc.
His belief about the basis of truthfulness (basically, we are default truthful because we revert to ostension) and how we learn to detect lies (lies create too much model complexity) are both absolute howlers in my opinion.
I was going to knock him for his claims about "selective leniency" -- that we forgive errors generated by a simple model more than those generated by a more complex model. In scientific terms, we generally adopt a standard measure for predictive error, one that does not incorporate model parameters/complexity. The tendency (by no means universal) is that more complex models overfit to the data and so we get more generalization error. But this isn't really selective leniency -- we're judging the more complex model by the same standards. But then I had an example of a simple hypothesis ("There are two genders of people.") that is in the process of being replaced by another hypothesis ("There are more than two genders of people."). The new hypothesis is more complex -- there are more gender categories, some of which are criticized as fanciful or contrived; the question is asked when the list will be complete. Yet the new hypothesis is more accurate, more people can affiliate with a gender label that reflects their experience; the old model is clearly inaccurate but this is somehow excused. Anyway, that was one example of selective leniency...
I liked his account of intuition as "hidden analogies." I wonder if you could model it with a minor-weight node in a neural network, just some curve of face or pitch of voice.
Most annoying thing in the whole book is the Norman Goodman "grue" thing. Seems you can dispatch this monster by saying the only beliefs you can induce from are observations that have taken place...some form of impredicativity at play, one that seems obviously idiotic and a waste of time. Quine wastes a bunch of time trying to rule out this monster by limiting himself to "projectible" or "law-like" predicates, but these seem circular. I didn't see the value or temptation to make one of these artificial observations and it seemed to divert the narrative.
Chapter 9 (Explanation) is a great substitution of cause for purpose, really elegantly argued.
February 21, 2021
I know Quine was one of the foremost analytical philosophers of the twentieth century, but this book just seems uninspired. Maybe this was because it was written for college undergraduates he went somewhat too far in keeping things simple; he certainly doesn't do this in his other essays. I'm afraid it may actually turn people away from the study of philosophy. The only thing I got out of the book was his five virtues of a hypothesis, which is the only thing in the book I will certainly be glad to look at again:
Virtue I --conservatism
Virtue II -- modesty
Virtue III -- simplicity
Virtue IV -- generality
Virtue V -- refutability
Virtue I --conservatism
Virtue II -- modesty
Virtue III -- simplicity
Virtue IV -- generality
Virtue V -- refutability
July 13, 2021
A mers mai greu, dar mi s a parut interesanta.
" ce se intampla cand credem ceva? Nimic. A crede nu este o actiune.
Ce credem/ opiniile sunt mai degraba dispozitii, si este bine sa fim deschisi sa le corectam, pe masura ce primim noi informatii".
Overall, o carte foarte buna, pe care o sa o recitesc, din cand in cand sau cel putin ,ce am subliniat.
" ce se intampla cand credem ceva? Nimic. A crede nu este o actiune.
Ce credem/ opiniile sunt mai degraba dispozitii, si este bine sa fim deschisi sa le corectam, pe masura ce primim noi informatii".
Overall, o carte foarte buna, pe care o sa o recitesc, din cand in cand sau cel putin ,ce am subliniat.
December 15, 2024
Good, but quite elementary. Nothing earth-shattering.
December 19, 2024
Short little thing, providing a bit of an introduction to critical thinking. Doesn’t go into much depth, but for its size it really packs a punch.
December 6, 2025
As far as philosophy goes, this is an easy read, and I enjoyed my mind being blown by tidbits of utter weirdness with which math, sciences, and logic are riddled.
July 28, 2017
As an introductory book to the interactions of language and philosophy that allow us to make inferences about supposed natural order, this is an insightful text. It does leave a more experienced reader on the subject with questions unanswered however. There are some questions of the authors' ethical claims, some of the ways in which summarization of methods of reason don't feel complete or distinct enough for the author to make certain claims.
Regardless of its limitations, I would suggest this book to any student who has begun to attempt understanding the universe around them. It makes for a good starting point, and it contains some excellent follow-up resources at its conclusion that help give closure to certain questions left open.
Regardless of its limitations, I would suggest this book to any student who has begun to attempt understanding the universe around them. It makes for a good starting point, and it contains some excellent follow-up resources at its conclusion that help give closure to certain questions left open.
July 13, 2012
A great introduction to the epistemological position of coherentism. Quine and Ullian brilliantly explain the difficult subject in common sense terms, with very little use of jargon. I highly recommend this to anybody interested in epistemology and coherentism. This is valuable for people in philosophy as well as the sciences.
February 20, 2018
The first chapter and a half were so good I wanted to chest bump the author or give him a country estate. The rest was such a tortured mess of pragmatism I wanted to pound my desk and summon the author before a grand tribunal to answer for his drivel.
I should add: I included an extra star for prose quality. This is a very well-written book.
I should add: I included an extra star for prose quality. This is a very well-written book.
May 4, 2014
I'm not going to say it's bad. I'd give it 3.5 stars, but I think 4 is too many. I had to read this for a university philosophy class. I wasn't blown away, I thought much of the content was recycled from other philosophers.
March 8, 2011
Very accessible. Kind of boring if you have already read some Quine. Also, I'm pretty sure it was written by J. S. Ullian and approved of by Quine.
July 5, 2016
This was a pleasantly written book on epistemology, which is actually saying a lot. Overall it was quite worth the time to read.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews