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His Education - His BA from Oberlin in 1930 and His Ph.d. from Harvard in 1932
1926–30: Quine attended Oberlin College in Ohio; B.A, major in Mathematics with honors reading in mathematical philosophy.
1930–32: attended Harvard University; Ph.D. in Philosophy, and worked on his dissertation on Whitehead and Russell’s Principia Mathematica.
His dissertation thesis basically formulated to treat the whole system of statements in which a particular statement is couched and not the individual statement by itself as the unit of
empirical significance. - its the whole not part -
Prolific writings with explanations of his understanding of the world and logic
Two main publications in his early years, starting year 1934: were his system of logistics , revised version of his dissertation (of which, truthfully, when I tried to understand his premise, I had no paradigm to understand it and in 1940 he published mathematical logic. Again, he was following in the stream of using mathematics to explain language.His first publication was an update of his dissertation and mathematical logic seemed to be a quantitative way of expressing qualitative logic -
Quine in the Navy Because of World War II, he undertook war service. From 1942 he spent four years in the United States Navy Intelligence, first as a Lieutenant then as a Lieutenant Commander, decrypting messages from German submarines off the coast.
Quine Quote for these years -
"The Germans had a replica Enigma breaking complicated ciphers. Each day they had a different setting on the machine. We had to get it the hard way, by intercepting a message from a submarine that gave direction finders. We would know, say, from the preceding day's message he had been sent on a refuelling rendezvous, so a good guess was that some word would be 'refuelling.' Then if our men could fit the word, they could get the setting for the whole." -
The Field of Philosophy and Other Major Publications until his Death -
The publications are many - but here are some quotes from Quine's life and his works
“Language is a social art.” - “Language is conceived in sin and science is its redemption. ”- “Life is what the least of us make the most of us feel the least of us make the most of.” - “Science is not a substitute for common sense, but an extension of it.”- “Believing is a disposition. We could tire ourselves out thinking, if we put our minds to it, but believing takes no toll. -
