Willard Van Orman Quine Knihy

Sborník překladů klíčových článků předního analytického filozofa W. V. O. Quina. Zařazené studie prezentují Quinovy názory na logicko-ontologické problémy a ilustrují jeho příklon k metodám přírodních věd v otázkách teorie poznání. Sborník textů má ambici ukázat, že Quine je filozof širšího spektra témat, než těch, která s ním obvykle bývají spojována. Quine filozof znamená opravdu více než jen teze o neurčitosti překladu a nevymezitelnosti reference (jakkoli je určitě rozumné tvrdit, že právě tyto teze tvoří jeho nejvýraznější příspěvek k analytické filozofii).

Here are the most recent writings, some of them unpublished, of the preeminent philosopher of our time. Philosophical reflections on language are brought to bear upon metaphysical and epistemological questions such as these: What does it mean to assume objects, concrete and abstract? How do such assumptions serve science? What is the empirical content of a scientific theory? Further essays deal with meaning, moral values, analytical philosophy and its history, metaphor, the nature of mathematics; several are concerned with logic; and there are essays on individual philosophers. The volume concludes with some general reflections on the contemporary scene and two playful pieces on the Times Atlas and H. L. Mencken.

Quine ist ein Klassiker der Gegenwartsphilosophie. Doch Quine erläutert nichts und erklärt wenig. Der von ihm angenommene Leser etwa seiner berühmten Aufsatz-Sammlung »From a Logical Point of View« ist der Fachkollege, der ebenso wie Quine die jeweilige aktuelle Debatte genau kennt. Die vorliegende zweisprachige und vor allem vollständig durchkommentierte Ausgabe legt drei seiner wichtigsten Aufsätze aus dieser Sammlung (»On What There Is« / »Über was es gibt«, »Two Dogmas of Empiricism« / »Zwei Dogmen des Empirismus« und »Reference and Modality« / »Referenz und Modalität«) vor. Auf diese Weise kann sich jeder Leser mit diesen gedanklich faszinierenden Texten beschäftigen.

Intended to clarify the meaning of the philosophical doctrines propounded by W. V. Quine in Word and Objects, the essays included herein are intimately related and concern themselves with three philosophical preoccupations: the nature of meaning, the meaning of existence and the nature of natural knowledge.

Quine's widely used textbook of modern formal logic now offers a number of new features: updated notations, selective answers to exercises, expanded treatment of natural deduction, and new discussions of predicate-functor logic and the affinities between higher set theory and the elementary logic of terms.

With customary incisiveness, Quine presents logic as the product of truth and grammar but argues against the doctrine that the logical truths are true because of grammar or language. Rather, in presenting a general theory of grammar and discussing the boundaries and possible extensions of logic, he argues that logic is not a mere matter of words.

This is an extensively revised edition of Mr. Quine's introduction to abstract set theory and to various axiomatic systematizations of the subject. The treatment of ordinal numbers has been strengthened and much simplified, especially in the theory of transfinite recursions, by adding an axiom and reworking the proofs. Infinite cardinals are treated anew in clearer and fuller terms than before.Improvements have been made all through the book; in various instances a proof has been shortened, a theorem strengthened, a space-saving lemma inserted, an obscurity clarified, an error corrected, a historical omission supplied, or a new event noted.

Exploring the relationship between sensory perception and scientific theory, this work delves into naturalized epistemology, focusing on how we reference both concrete and abstract objects. The first part discusses psychological assumptions about perception and learning, while the second part examines the intricacies of language's role in reification. The final section presents a conjectural overview of reification's evolution in individuals and societies, particularly regarding abstract concepts like properties and numbers, highlighting the complex interplay between truth and fallacy in knowledge formation.

Now much revised since its first appearance in 1941, this book, despite its brevity, is notable for its scope and rigor. It provides a single strand of simple techniques for the central business of modern logic. Basic formal concepts are explained, the paraphrasing of words into symbols is treated at some length, and a testing procedure is given for truth-function logic along with a complete proof procedure for the logic of quantifiers. Fully one third of this revised edition is new, and presents a nearly complete turnover in crucial techniques of testing and proving, some change of notation, and some updating of terminology. The study is intended primarily as a convenient encapsulation of minimum essentials, but concludes by giving brief glimpses of further matters.

A compact, coherent introduction to the study of rational belief, this text provides points of entry to such areas of philosophy as theory of knowledge, methodology of science, and philosophy of language. The book is accessible to all undergraduates and presupposes no philosophical training.