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From Stimulus to Science
W. V. Quine is one of the most eminent philosophers alive today. Now in his mid-eighties he has produced a sharp, sprightly book that encapsulates the whole of his philosophical enterprise, including his thinking on all the key components of his epistemological stance--especially the value of logic and mathematics. New readers of Quine may have to go slowly, fathoming for themselves the richness that past readers already know lies between these elegant lines. For the faithful there is much to ponder. In this short book, based on lectures delivered in Spain in 1990, Quine begins by locating his work historically. He provides a lightning tour of the history of philosophy (particularly the history of epistemology), beginning with Plato and culminating in an appreciative sketch of Carnap's philosophical ambitions and achievements. This leads, in the second chapter, to an introduction to Quine's attempt to naturalize epistemology, which emphasizes his continuities with Carnap rather than the differences between them. The next chapters develop the naturalistic story of the development of science to take account of how our conceptual apparatus is enhanced so that we can view the world as containing re-identifiable objects. Having explained the role of observation sentences in providing a checkpoint for assessing scientific theories, and having despaired of constructing an empirical criterion to determine which sentences are meaningful, Quine in the remaining chapters takes up a variety of important issues about knowledge. He concludes with an extended treatment of his views about reference and meaning and his attitudes toward psychological and modal notions. The presentation is distinctive, and the many small refinements of detail and formulation will fascinate all who know Quine's philosophy.
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
114 pages, Hardcover
First published October 18, 1995
7 people are currently reading
108 people want to read
About the author
Willard Van Orman Quine
104 books219 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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June 23, 2013
Skvělé shrnutí Quinových myšlenek ve formě rozšířených poznámek k přednáškám, které měl Quine v Katalánsku..
Pregnantně podaná teorie poznání a(naturalizovaná) epistemologie, která vysvětluje, jak postupuje jazyk/myšlení od pozorovacích vět, pozorovací kategorikály k zárodečné predikaci a teprve poté k rozvinutým subjekt-predikátovým vztahům. Provokativní je tvrzení, že "nalezení" subjekt-predikátové struktury světa může být jen vedlejším důsledkem lenosti / omylu některých mluvčích.
Následuje shrnutí (singulární) denotace, vysvětlení, že pojem "význam" je natolik přetížen, že je lepší se dnes bez něj v teorii poznání obejít. Po přijetí Davidsonova "anomálního" monismu při vysvětlování jednoty psychofyzických projevů je v knize zmíněno i rozlišování "de re" a "de dicto" výroků a naznačeno, proč Quine není nadšen z modální logiky.
Quine píše (v mezích možností a nutného vědeckého žargonu) čtivě i o ne zrovna lehkých tématech. V paměti mi asi hodně dlouho utkví rozšafná věta, že "pravda je je jen degenerovaným případem denotace". To je definice, se kterou by asi neměl problém souhlasit ani Pilát Pontský a u které sám Quine ironicky zmiňuje riziko, že ho někdo přeci jen bude citovat.;)
Pro mě bylo zajímavé i to, že některé Quinovy myšlenky souzní s tím, jak pravděpodobně skutečně pojímá svět malé dítě, které mám doma, a na kterém je vidět, jak postupně ve svém ontogenetickém vývoji a s vydatnou pomocí okolí rekonstruuje výše naznačenou cestu lidstva od holých slov přes primitivní pozorovací věty k základům logiky (AND, NOT), následuje náhlý skok k subjekt-predikátovému filtru, který přiloží ve svých větách na svět, až nakonec dospěje k velmi složitým propozicím, ve kterých se již zračí i míra jeho (ne)jistoty, kterou výroku přisuzuje.
Zajímavá je v knize i příloha 1, která je úvodem do predikátově-funktorové logiky (PFL).
Pregnantně podaná teorie poznání a(naturalizovaná) epistemologie, která vysvětluje, jak postupuje jazyk/myšlení od pozorovacích vět, pozorovací kategorikály k zárodečné predikaci a teprve poté k rozvinutým subjekt-predikátovým vztahům. Provokativní je tvrzení, že "nalezení" subjekt-predikátové struktury světa může být jen vedlejším důsledkem lenosti / omylu některých mluvčích.
Následuje shrnutí (singulární) denotace, vysvětlení, že pojem "význam" je natolik přetížen, že je lepší se dnes bez něj v teorii poznání obejít. Po přijetí Davidsonova "anomálního" monismu při vysvětlování jednoty psychofyzických projevů je v knize zmíněno i rozlišování "de re" a "de dicto" výroků a naznačeno, proč Quine není nadšen z modální logiky.
Quine píše (v mezích možností a nutného vědeckého žargonu) čtivě i o ne zrovna lehkých tématech. V paměti mi asi hodně dlouho utkví rozšafná věta, že "pravda je je jen degenerovaným případem denotace". To je definice, se kterou by asi neměl problém souhlasit ani Pilát Pontský a u které sám Quine ironicky zmiňuje riziko, že ho někdo přeci jen bude citovat.;)
Pro mě bylo zajímavé i to, že některé Quinovy myšlenky souzní s tím, jak pravděpodobně skutečně pojímá svět malé dítě, které mám doma, a na kterém je vidět, jak postupně ve svém ontogenetickém vývoji a s vydatnou pomocí okolí rekonstruuje výše naznačenou cestu lidstva od holých slov přes primitivní pozorovací věty k základům logiky (AND, NOT), následuje náhlý skok k subjekt-predikátovému filtru, který přiloží ve svých větách na svět, až nakonec dospěje k velmi složitým propozicím, ve kterých se již zračí i míra jeho (ne)jistoty, kterou výroku přisuzuje.
Zajímavá je v knize i příloha 1, která je úvodem do predikátově-funktorové logiky (PFL).
October 16, 2024
A BOOK DERIVED FROM A LECTURE/DISCUSSION SERIES
Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) was an American philosopher and logician who taught at Harvard University, and wrote many books such as 'Word and Object,' 'The Web of Belief,' 'From a Logical Point of View,' 'Ontological Relativity & Other Essays,' 'Pursuit of Truth,' 'Theories and Things,' 'Methods of Logic,' 'Philosophy of Logic,' 'Quiddities: An Intermittently Philosophical Dictionary,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1995 book, “The Ferrater Mora Lectures are a semiannual event at the Universitat de Girona, in Catalonia… The lecturer meets a selected group of some forty auditors ten times, over a period of two weeks, for a total of twenty-odd hours of lectures and discussion… I gave the lectures in November 1990, under the title, ‘From Stimulus to Science.’ … I took my time, giving my thoughts free rein. The book is thus more an outgrowth of the lectures than a record of them, and it is the better for that.”
In the first essay, he says, “Francis Bacon took up the old question of the ways of knowing. The spirit of Roger Bacon was reawakened, but now with more substance and sophistication, the wisdom of hindsight. Science had broken through, though traditionalists tried to restrain it. A full century after Copernicus, the clergy prosecuted Galileo for embracing the Copernican heresy. One thinks of the creationist today, one hundred thirty years after Darwin’s Origin of Species.” (Pg. 2)
He observes, “It remained to [Bertrand] Russell and [Alfred North] Whitehead to organize, refine, and extend these beginnings and integrate them into an organic and imposing whole. The economical foundation achieved in Principia [Mathematica], and further reduced by subsequent logicians, now comprises only the truth functions and quantification of elementary logic plus the two-place predicate ‘e’ of class membership. The whole conceptual scheme of classical mathematics boils down to just that.” (Pg. 9)
In the chapter on “Naturalism,” he states, “Unlike the old epistemologists, we seek no firmer basis for science than science itself; so we are free to use the very fruits of science in investigating its roots. It is a matter, as always in science, of tackling one problem with the help of our answers to others.” (Pg. 16)
In another chapter, he asserts, “Failure to relativize sameness of object to kind of object has engendered bad philosophy. Am I the same person I was in my youth? Or in my mother’s womb? Will I be the same person after my brain transplant? These are not questions about the concept of identity, than which nothing could be more pellucid. They are questions about the concept of person, or the word ‘person,’ which, like most words, goes vague in contexts which it has not been needed. When need does arise in hitherto unneeded contexts, we adopt a convention, or receive a disguised one from the Supreme Court.” (Pg. 39)
He argues, “A normative domain within epistemology survives the conversion to naturalism… and it is concerned with the art of guessing, or framing hypotheses. The most general of its norms are perhaps conservatism… and simplicity, familiar in ontological contexts as Ockham’s razor. No general calibration of either conservatism or simplicity is known, much less any comparative scale of the one against the other. For this reason alone---and it is not alone---there is no hope of a mechanical procedure for optimum hypothesizing. Creating good hypotheses is an imaginative art, not a science. It is the art of science.” (Pg. 49)
In the chapter “Logic and Mathematics,” he observes,"A third difference between logic and set theory is that logic as I am construing it, with or without identity, admits of complete proof procedures. This was demonstrated by Gödel in 1930… But from Gödel’s great incompleteness theorem of 1931 it follows that set theory, even the mere theory of sets of individuals, admits of no complete proof procedure. In this regard it is like most branches of mathematics.” (Pg. 52)
This brief book will be of key interest to those who are studying Quine or contemporary analytic philosophy.
Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) was an American philosopher and logician who taught at Harvard University, and wrote many books such as 'Word and Object,' 'The Web of Belief,' 'From a Logical Point of View,' 'Ontological Relativity & Other Essays,' 'Pursuit of Truth,' 'Theories and Things,' 'Methods of Logic,' 'Philosophy of Logic,' 'Quiddities: An Intermittently Philosophical Dictionary,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1995 book, “The Ferrater Mora Lectures are a semiannual event at the Universitat de Girona, in Catalonia… The lecturer meets a selected group of some forty auditors ten times, over a period of two weeks, for a total of twenty-odd hours of lectures and discussion… I gave the lectures in November 1990, under the title, ‘From Stimulus to Science.’ … I took my time, giving my thoughts free rein. The book is thus more an outgrowth of the lectures than a record of them, and it is the better for that.”
In the first essay, he says, “Francis Bacon took up the old question of the ways of knowing. The spirit of Roger Bacon was reawakened, but now with more substance and sophistication, the wisdom of hindsight. Science had broken through, though traditionalists tried to restrain it. A full century after Copernicus, the clergy prosecuted Galileo for embracing the Copernican heresy. One thinks of the creationist today, one hundred thirty years after Darwin’s Origin of Species.” (Pg. 2)
He observes, “It remained to [Bertrand] Russell and [Alfred North] Whitehead to organize, refine, and extend these beginnings and integrate them into an organic and imposing whole. The economical foundation achieved in Principia [Mathematica], and further reduced by subsequent logicians, now comprises only the truth functions and quantification of elementary logic plus the two-place predicate ‘e’ of class membership. The whole conceptual scheme of classical mathematics boils down to just that.” (Pg. 9)
In the chapter on “Naturalism,” he states, “Unlike the old epistemologists, we seek no firmer basis for science than science itself; so we are free to use the very fruits of science in investigating its roots. It is a matter, as always in science, of tackling one problem with the help of our answers to others.” (Pg. 16)
In another chapter, he asserts, “Failure to relativize sameness of object to kind of object has engendered bad philosophy. Am I the same person I was in my youth? Or in my mother’s womb? Will I be the same person after my brain transplant? These are not questions about the concept of identity, than which nothing could be more pellucid. They are questions about the concept of person, or the word ‘person,’ which, like most words, goes vague in contexts which it has not been needed. When need does arise in hitherto unneeded contexts, we adopt a convention, or receive a disguised one from the Supreme Court.” (Pg. 39)
He argues, “A normative domain within epistemology survives the conversion to naturalism… and it is concerned with the art of guessing, or framing hypotheses. The most general of its norms are perhaps conservatism… and simplicity, familiar in ontological contexts as Ockham’s razor. No general calibration of either conservatism or simplicity is known, much less any comparative scale of the one against the other. For this reason alone---and it is not alone---there is no hope of a mechanical procedure for optimum hypothesizing. Creating good hypotheses is an imaginative art, not a science. It is the art of science.” (Pg. 49)
In the chapter “Logic and Mathematics,” he observes,"A third difference between logic and set theory is that logic as I am construing it, with or without identity, admits of complete proof procedures. This was demonstrated by Gödel in 1930… But from Gödel’s great incompleteness theorem of 1931 it follows that set theory, even the mere theory of sets of individuals, admits of no complete proof procedure. In this regard it is like most branches of mathematics.” (Pg. 52)
This brief book will be of key interest to those who are studying Quine or contemporary analytic philosophy.
August 9, 2011
Given that Quine is considered one of the top 5 philosophers of the 20th century, I had to give this a try. Wow! A short, but very difficult read. I wouldn't recommend this book unless you have some basic knowledge of predicate logic and basic philosophy
The title tells all about what Quine is trying to say - that the evolution of our ability to speak about truth through language involves reification - or improving the meaning of semantics over time. This eventually becomes the realm of science.
The title tells all about what Quine is trying to say - that the evolution of our ability to speak about truth through language involves reification - or improving the meaning of semantics over time. This eventually becomes the realm of science.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews