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Willard Van Orman Quine Birth
Known as "Van" to his friends and family, Willard Van Orman Quine was born in Akron, Ohio on June 25, 1908. -
Two Dogmas of Empiricism
Published in The Philosophical Review 60 in 1951, Quine challenges analyticity and reductionism. Dislike for both concepts had been building since the 1930's. While "Two Dogmas" was not a culmination -that is, it was a stepping stone on the philosophy river Quine crossed but not the far bank - it was a major point for Quine and philosophy as a whole. See Assignment Text Box statements from "Two Dogmas". -
Why it was important
This was fundamentally important because it disagreed with synonymy for the sake of synonymy. Having the ability to substitute one word for another doesn't mean that you should and that it will still apply logically. The word "nine" can mean "one less than ten" and also mean "the number of planets in the solar system" but that doesn't mean they are interchangeable within the same statement. -
A Short Video
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Citations
- W. V. Quine. "Main Trends in Recent Philosophy: Two Dogmas of Empiricism." The Philosophical Review, vol. 60, no. 1, 1951, pp. 20-43. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/2181906. Accessed 9 Aug, 2020.
- Woods, John. “W. V. Quine’s ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism.’” Topoi 30.1 (2011): 87–97. Web. Accessed 9 Aug, 2020.