Quine

W.V. Quine

By Jonathan Edwards

  • Willard Van Orman Quine - Born June 25, 1908

    Willard Van Orman Quine - Born June 25, 1908
    Born in Akron, Ohio, he lived with his parents and brother. He would later leave for University and join the Navy as a commissioned officer.
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    The Life of W.V. Quine

    W.V. Quine was one of the most influential philosopher of his time and his work argued against logical empiricism. His works would center around the field of naturalism. Quine's main body of work "Two Dogmas of Empiricism"(Quine 1950/51) directly debates the ideas of philosophical empiricism in favor of epistemological naturalism. His arguments against logical positivism took the form of his rejection of analytical statements, and synthetic statements as well.

  • Early Life

    Early Life
    In 1930, Quine would earn his B.A. degree in mathematics at Oberlin College. He would go on to earn his Ph.D. in Philosophy at Harvard University. Quine also lectured in Brazil during WWII, in Portuguese. He was also a Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy, serving in military intelligence. During this time, he would help decipher messages from German submarines.(1)

  • Naturalism

    Naturalism
    Epistemological naturalism is the work that Quine is mostly known for. It would state that known methods of scientific thought could be questioned. He raised doubt that the knowledge brought to light by strictly rational means and questioned logical positivism and empiricism. He thought that the broader viewpoint of science as a whole contained the answers to questions.

  • Arguements Against Logical Empricism

    Arguements Against Logical Empricism
    Quine would take the analytic-synthetic distinctions made by the logical empiricists and reject the idea that answers can only be obtained by basis of the words used to describe facts, or solely by past experiences. He rejected the idea that a priori knowledge was supreme to science as a whole based on natural observations and conclusions pieced together from a broader process(2).

  • References

    References and photo attribution: Photo credit:
    http://www.princeton.edu/~harman/NEH/Schedule.html. Princeton University. Quine-Davidso. AccessedJuly 08, 2018 (1)Orenstein, Alex. W. V. O. Quine, Routledge, 2002. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy2.apus.edu/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=3060909. (2)https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/quine/#QuiLifWor
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
    Title: Willard van Orman Quine
    Published December 1, 2014
    Accessed July 8, 2018