From a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-Philosophical Essays, Second Revised Edition / Edition 3

by Willard Van Orman Quine

Overview

These nine essays are largely concerned with the theory of meaning and references—semantics. At the same time adjacent portions of philosophy and logic are discussed. To the existence of what objects may a given scientific theory be said to be committed? And what considerations may suitably guide us in accepting or revising such ontological commitments? These are among the questions dealt with in this book, particular attention being devoted to the role of abstract entities in mathematics. There is speculation on the mechanism whereby objects of one sort or another come to be posited, a process in which the notion of identity plays an important part.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674323513
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	05/15/1980
Edition description:	Second Revised Edition
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

W. V. Quine was Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University. He wrote twenty-one books, thirteen of them published by Harvard University Press.

Table of Contents

I. On what there is

II. Two dogmas of empiricism

III. The problem of meaning in linguistics

IV. Identity, ostension, and hypostasis

V. New foundations for mathematical logic

VI. Logic and the reification of universals

VII. Notes on the theory of reference

VIII. Reference and modality

IX. Meaning and existential inference

Origins of the essays

Bibliographical references

Index

Editorial Reviews

This volume of essays has a unity and bears throughout the imprint of Quine's powerful and original mind. It is written with the felicity in the choice of words which makes everything that Quine writes a pleasure to read, and which ranks him among the best contemporary writers on abstract subjects.

Cambridge Review

Professor Quine's challenging and original views are here for the first time presented as a unity. The chief merit of the book is the heart-searching from which it arose and to which it will give rise. In vigour, conciseness, and clarity, it is characteristic of its author.

Oxford Magazine

This volume of essays has a unity and bears throughout the imprint of Quine's powerful and original mind. It is written with the felicity in the choice of words which makes everything that Quine writes a pleasure to read, and which ranks him among the best contemporary writers on abstract subjects.

Cambridge Review