-
Birth- 25 JUNE 1908
Willard Van Orman Quine was born on June 25th of 1908 in the town of Akron Ohio. His parents were Cloyd Robert Quine a manufacturing entrepreneur and Harriett E. Quine a school teacher. It was said that even at an early age he was troubled by philosophical questions like the idea of a Heaven and a Hell. Willard grew up to be an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century". -
Starts Graduate school
Willard attended Oberlin College and received his Bachelors degree of Arts in mathematics in 1930. By 1932 he had completed his Ph. D in Philosophy from Harvard University. Shortly after he was accepted for fellow ship at Harvard and sent overseas to meet up with logicians from all over the world. One of the most predominate of these was Alfred Tarski who later escaped World War II by coming to the U.S. -
A System of Logistic
In 1934 Quine published through Harvard University “A System of Logistic”. This was his first official published work. In this work, he added to the “Mathematical Set Theory”. In this theory it explains the binary relation between two sets of numbers. On the surface it is a simple concept but begins to develop into some very complicated math as it progresses. -
Work in The US Navy and WWII
Quine was promoted to Associate Professor in 1941 but shortly after, because of World War II, he enlisted into the military service. Starting in 1942 he spent four years in the United States Navy Intelligence, beginning as a Lieutenant then advancing to the rank of Lieutenant Commander, decrypting messages from German submarines off the coast. -
The Two Dogmas of Empiricism
In 1951 he published his paper “The Two Dogmas of Empiricism”. This paper went against two central aspects of logical positivist philosophy. W.V. Quine’s two dogmas are:
(1.) “there is some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytical or grounded in meaning independently of matters of fact”.
(2.) “that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience”.
Educational Video -
Ways of Paradox
In 1966 Quine published “Ways of Paradox”. Quine utilizes eight separate essays to expound on the idea of systematic logic. Quine breaks down his point of view of systematic Logic to the point where non philosophers can understand it. -
Legacy of W. V. Quine
W.V. Quine died on December 25th 2000. Only a few of his published work were utilized in making this presentation. The vast amount of processes, information and theories he contributed to science and math are vast and extensive. He was mainly hyper focused on the idea that our words have meaning and spent much of his time taking apart those words used in Philosophy to replace with words of more common sense and exact language. -
Resources
“Willard Van Orman Quine.” Willard Van Orman Quine > By Individual Philosopher > Philosophy, www.philosophybasics.com/philosophers_quine.html.
“Willard Van Orman Quine.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/biography/Willard-Van-Orman-Quine.
Hylton, Peter, and Gary Kemp. “Willard Van Orman Quine.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 14 Feb. 2019, plato.stanford.edu/entries/quine/.