Quine, Publicity, and Pre-established Harmony

Dialogue, 2014

Dialogue, 2006

Mind

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xv + 314. H/b £60.00.

homepage.villanova.edu

Oxford University Press, 2012

Quine versus Davidson: Truth, Reference, and Meaning Gary Kemp ABSTRACT So far as language and meaning are concerned, Donald Davidson and Willard Van Orman Quine are typically regarded as birds of a feather. This book urges first of all that they cannot be. Quine’s most basic and general philosophical commitment is to his methodological naturalism, which is incompatible with Davidson’s main commitments. In particular, it is not possible to endorse, from Quine’s perspective, the roles played by the concepts truth and reference in Davidson’s philosophy of language; Davidson’s employment of the concept of truth is from Quine’s point of view needlessly ambitious; and his use of the concept of reference cannot be divorced from unscientific ‘intuition’. Second, the book puts the case positively in favour of Quine’s naturalism and its corollary, naturalized epistemology. It is possible to give a consistent account of language without problematic uses of the concepts truth and reference, which in turn makes a strident naturalism much more plausible. Keywords: Davidson, Quine, truth, reference, naturalism, naturalized epistemology, intuition, philosophy of language BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION Print publication date: 2012 Print ISBN-13: 9780199695621 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2012 DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695621.001.0001

In this paper I argue that the idiosyncrasy of linguistic competence fosters semantic conceptions in which meanings are taken for granted, such as the one that Quine calls 'uncritical semantics' or 'the myth of the museum'. This is due to the degree of automaticity in the use of language which is needed for fluent conversation. Indeed , fluent conversation requires that we speakers instinctively associate each word or sentence with its meaning (or linguistic use), and instinctively resort to the conceptual repertoire of our language, without calling into question that the meaning of a particular word, or the conceptual repertoire of our language, could have been different than they are. This habit of taking meanings for granted, inherent to our linguistic ability, sometimes interferes with our semantic research, hampering it. In order to illustrate this problem, I pinpoint four places in Quine's work where, despite his acknowledged analytical rigour, and despite his congenital aversion to the habit of taking meanings for granted, he himself appears to slip into this habit, inadvertently. KEYWORDS: Linguistic competence – meaning theory – myth of the museum – uncriti-cal semantics.

Philosophy of Language and Linguistics: The Legacy of Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein (Piotr Stalmaszczyk ed.) De Gruyter, Ontos, 2014

Quine had a number general criticisms of the discipline or science known as semantics. Without going into them all, I try to separate them into the interlinguistic and intralinguistic, suggesting that semantics can survive the interlinguistic criticisms, but that some of the more piecemeal intralinguistic criticisms remain.

Disputatio, 2012

This special issue collects a selection of the papers presented at the International Colloquium Word and Object, 50 Years Later, which took place in Rome on May 28-29, 2010. In the fiftieth year since the publication of Word and Object, the conference aimed at celebrating one of the most famous and influential philosophers and mathematicians of the 20 th Century: Willard Van Orman Quine. The purpose of the conference, organised by the University of Rome 'La Sapienza' and the Research Group APhEx (Analytical and Philosophical Explanation), was to discuss and explore some of the major Quinean theses. This volume collects the contributions of , who were speakers at the conference. The papers are unified by a common thread that is represented by the Quinean philosophical heritage and take their stance within the different areas of the current philosophical debate on this issue.

The focus in the book under review is on “interrelating” thoughts and “firming up” an occasional faulty joint among themes of the last decade—some¬times made in less formal settings. The book should be read in connection with recent collections on Quine’s work, most importantly Barrett and Gibson’s Perspectives on Quine which will also be cited here. Quine divides his book into five chapters devoted to “Evidence,” “Reference,” “Meaning,” “Intension,” and “Truth.” Readers familiar with his recent work will find significant innovations here, and subtle replies in on-going discussions—generally serving to emphasize Quine’s empiricism and the goals of naturalized epistemology. It is difficult to resist turning back and forth between the chapters for comparisons. Those brought up at the knee (metaphorically or not) of America’s greatest living philosopher will be grateful for the signposts as the generations change.

dialectica, 1988

This book focuses on issues in epistemology, semantics and logic with Quine's views always setting the themes, even if Quine does not always remain quite at center stage. Gochet, Professor at Li•ge and Secretary to the Editorial Board of Logique et Analyse is a prominent of Quine's views in Europe. The author does not aim to take up the whole of Quine's philosophy here. Rather, the aim is to "focus on a few central themes...and to treat them thoroughly." Continental Europe not only recognizes Quine's importance, then, but it is prepared to talk back: a point which has become increasingly evident in the wake of several recent works on Quine by W.K. Essler (1975), J. Largeault (1980) and Henri Lauener (1982). Gochet has made an earlier contribution to this in the form of his Quine en Perspective (1978) and its German translation (1984). But the present volume is not a further translation of the earlier work. Rather, the author "tried to avoid overlap."