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Philosophy of Logic
With his customary incisiveness, W. V. Quine presents logic as the product of two factors, truth and grammar―but argues against the doctrine that the logical truths are true because of grammar or language. Rather, in presenting a general theory of grammar and discussing the boundaries and possible extensions of logic, Quine argues that logic is not a mere matter of words.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
About the author
Willard Van Orman Quine
102 books200 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 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 22, 2021
Quine is clearly incredibly intelligent, but that doesn't mean his readers will be. All 100 pages of this book were a battle trying to parse out long strings of logical symbols embedded completely unformatted in the middle of paragraphs.
Some interesting ideas in there, but so rough trying to get any value out of this not being a genius myself...
Some interesting ideas in there, but so rough trying to get any value out of this not being a genius myself...
January 26, 2023
Каждый раз поражаюсь силе мысли Куайна. Несмотря на то, что его взгляды часто рассматриваются как слишком ортодоксальные с современной точки зрения, почти вся современная философия логики отталкивается от его тезисов (соглашаясь с ними, или же модифицируя их).
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September 22, 2019I can't really blame Quine, but parts of this book are extremely difficult to understand, especially if you are not interested in the subject matter.
September 29, 2014
This is a very good introduction to logic. Quine deals with technical details, as well as the considerations that go into navigating these technicalities this way or that way. I picked at "The Logic Book" but was always confused over just why these connectives and those operations were considered to be THE elements of logic. Surely, you can "see" it, and rationalize it, but anything that claims the mantle of logic must be rigor itself; I don't want to hear some appeal to it's pleasing simplicity or striking character that decides it so.
Quine maps out the establishment of a logical language, showing various dead ends that might make the language trip over itself, as well as examples of various deviant logics that take different premises and move different directions. In doing so, he separates symbolic logic from the philosophy of logic, which is essential to understanding the whole package. Everything one might see in "The Logic Book" is the most neutral logical language that was produced by a intense, century long and highly technical debate.
Quine, though biased, does a very good job of showing how much is up the the air in this field, and the type of considerations that go into the construction of logical languages which otherwise seem monolithic and inscrutable.
Quine maps out the establishment of a logical language, showing various dead ends that might make the language trip over itself, as well as examples of various deviant logics that take different premises and move different directions. In doing so, he separates symbolic logic from the philosophy of logic, which is essential to understanding the whole package. Everything one might see in "The Logic Book" is the most neutral logical language that was produced by a intense, century long and highly technical debate.
Quine, though biased, does a very good job of showing how much is up the the air in this field, and the type of considerations that go into the construction of logical languages which otherwise seem monolithic and inscrutable.
December 16, 2018
For those passing through, this isn't an introduction to logic, that's for something like Jeffrey's Formal Logic: Its Scope and Limits. But you can still hold onto this, because once you understand the symbol manipulation, then philosophical issues, soundness and completeness of a system, interpretation, validity and logical truth all come into focus. This is Quine's own take on it. He'll bring up figures like Tarski and Godel to develop his ideas more so than to elaborate on theirs. The value of this is as a model example for approaching these questions, and his semantic ascent is interesting in itself.
February 27, 2008
Kind of dull, I didn't get the sense of vibrant engagement with the subject matter that Quine usually provides. Perhaps I've just been reading too much about logic these days.
July 11, 2019
Like a flash of light!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews