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Born
Willard Van Orman Quine was born June 25, 1908 in Akron, Ohio -
Early Life
In 1930 Quine attended Oberlin College where he earned his B.A in mathematics with honors in reading mathematical philosophy. After he left Oberlin College he attended Harvard University earning his Ph.D in Philosophy. -
World War 2
Quine worked in the US Navy where he reached the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He was an intelligence officer that would help decipher messages sent from German submarines. -
Two Dogmas of Empiricism
In 1951 Quine published a paper called Two Dogmas of Empiricism which is a paper arguing against two different aspects of logical positivists. One being the analytic-synthetic distinction between analytic truths and synthetic truths. The other being reductionism, meaning each statement gets its meaning from a logical construction of terms that refer exclusively to immediate experience. -
Philosophy of Logic
Quine published Philosophy of Logic in 1986, it is a work that presents logic as two factors, truth and grammar. It also argues that logical truths are true because of grammar or language. He argues that logic is not a mere matter of words. -
Death
Willard Van Orman Quine died on Christmas Day in 2000 in Boston Massachusetts