Willard Van Orman Quine

By Rustler

  • The Early Years of W.V.O. Quine

    Willard Van Orman Quine was born on June 25th, 1908, in Akron, OH. When 18 he attended Oberlin College, OH where he majored in mathematics (1926-1930). From 1930-1932 he attended Harvard University where he gained a Ph.D in Philosophy. In 1940 he published his first book, "Mathematical Logic", then went to U.S. Navy 1942-1945, then publishing additional books from 1953-1995. W.V. Quine died on December 25th, 2000.

  • Carnap and the Principle of Tolerance

    Rudolf Carnap adapted the idea of Principle of Tolerance, a principle that if given two different events that maintained sufficient similarities, can be considered the same. The tolerance allowed you to accept these two events as being considered the same, by ignoring slight variations but not being misled by larger variations that would make the event invalid. Through tolerance it allows for different scientists to coexist and compete to/complete a common goal.

  • Quine and the Rejection of Tolerance

    “I recognize the notion of analyticity in its obvious and useful but epistemologically insignificant applications” Quine saw the world as experience. Each persons experience varies and due to that experience the empirical data (i.e. evidence and measured data) can change depending on the person gathering the information. It is due to this difference in experience that Quine does not believe all information from a vast group of people should be treated as correct truthful information.

  • Quines Contributions to Metaphysics

    Quines contributions to the field of metaphysics in the sense that he made continuous arguments against the field itself. Quine argued that the "modality de re", meaning objects have virtue of themselves, and the subject modality de dicto, defined as properties defining an object, could not be understood from a analytical level and intern made neither viable. Through these disagreements Quine made direct attacks at the basis premise of metaphysics, though refuted some years later in 1972.

  • Influence of Experience

    “I am interested in the flow of evidence from the triggering of the senses to the pronouncements of science…. It is these epistemological concerns, and not my incidental interest in linguistics, that motivate my speculations.” Quine saw the world as how our sensory nerves processed information and converted it to knowledge. If you give two people a same task you can expect the task to be finished, however the "how" of completion is what Quine is questioning as each person may do it differently.

  • Citations

    Hylton, Peter, and Gary Kemp. “Willard Van Orman Quine.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 14 Feb. 2019, plato.stanford.edu/entries/quine/. van Inwagen, Peter, and Meghan Sullivan. “Metaphysics.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 31 Oct. 2014, plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphysics/. Parsimony, Tidy. “Willard Van Orman Quine.” 京都賞, www.kyotoprize.org/en/laureates/willard_van_orman_quine/.

  • Citations (Continued)

    Kurakin, Alexei. “Scale-Free Flow of Life: on the Biology, Economics, and Physics of the Cell.” Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, BioMed Central, 5 May 2009, link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1742-4682-6-6/figures/4.