Knowledge, Language and Logic: Questions for Quine Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science
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KNOWLEDGE, LANGUAGE AND LOGIC: QUESTIONS FOR QUINE BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Editors ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University JURGEN RENN, Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science KOSTAS GAVROGLU, University ofAthens Editorial Advisory Board THOMAS F. GLICK, Boston University ADOLF GRUNBAUM, University of Pittsburgh SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University MARX W. WARTOFSKY t (Editor 1960-1997) VOLUME 210 w.v. Quine [Photo: Harvard News Office] KNOWLEDGE, LANGUAGE ANDLOGIC: QUESTIONS FOR QUINE Edited by: ALEX ORENSTEIN Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York and PETR KOTATKO The Philosophical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V. A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-4020-0253-3 ISBN 978-94-011-3933-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-3933-5 Printed an acid·free paper All Rights Reserved © 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2000 No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, inc1uding photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner. For Professor Quine in celebration of his 90th birthday T ABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE xi EPISTEMOLOGY AND NATURALISM W.V. QUINE / I, You and It: an Epistemological Triangle T. SZUBKA / Quine and Davidson on Perceptual Knowledge 7 A. GEORGE / Quine and Observation 21 A.c. GRAYLING / Naturalistic Assumptions 47 K. LEHRER / Justification, Coherence and Quine 57 L. BERGSTROM / Quine, Empiricism and Truth 63 R.F. GIBSON / Quine, WiUgenstein and Holism 81 N. MISCEVIC / Quining The Apriori 95 O. GJELSVIK / The Epistemology of Decision-Making "Naturalised" 109 LANGUAGE AND INDETERMINACY OF MEANING G. SEGAL / Four Arguments for the Indeterminacy of Translation 131 L. ANTONY / Naturalizing Radical Translation 141 P. HORWICH / On the Existence of Meanings 151 P. P AGIN / Publicness and Indeterminacy 163 F. STOUTLAND / Individual and Social in Quine's Philosophy of Language 181 LOGIC AND PROBLEMS OF REFERENCE A. ORENSTEIN / Plato's Beard, Quine's Stubble and Ockham's Razor 195 T. PARSONS / Indeterminacy of Identity of Objects: An Exercise in Metaphysical Aesthetics 213 ix x TABLE OF CONTENTS P. WOODRUFF / Indefinite Objects of Higher Order 225 S. NEALE / On a Milestone of Empiricism 237 G. RAY / De Re Modality: Lessons from Quine 347 F. RECANATI / Opacity and the Attitudes 367 Quine's Responses 407 Index of Names 431 PREFACE This collection originated at a conference organized by the department of the philo sophy of language and philosophy of science of the Philosophical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences held in Karlovy Vary in August 1995. Most of the papers in this volume were presented on that occasion. Professor Quine presented the paper included here and also commented on those given at that time. The ques tions for Professor Quine put forward in the present volume are arranged into three sections. They bear on issues in the theory of knowledge, the philosophy of language and the philosophy of logic. To a some extent the organization parallels the treatment Quine himself gives to his views in some recent works. Quine's naturalizing of questions of epistemology involves a naturalistic account of the language employed in recording our knowledge claims and this in tum leads to questions about language and meaning, and logic and reference. The initial essays on naturalized epistemology deal with questions con cerning the role of observational factors, which Quine addresses in his paper on Triangulation and which Szubka and George then take up. Grayling and Lehrer ques tion the very project of naturalizing epistemology. Gibson considers Quine's relation ship to Wittgenstein, Bergstrom an empiricist definition of truth, Miscevic the status of the a priori and Gjelsvik offers a naturalistic account of decision making. The section on the philosophy of language concentrates on Quine's well known conjecture of the indeterminacy of translation. Segal, Antony, Horwich, Pagin and Stoutland examine the conjecture from varying vantage points: Segal suggests that a mentalistic semantics can mitigate against the indeterminacy and Antony that data concerning language acquisition argue that same result, Horwich focuses on whether translation provides the way to approach meaning, Pagin on the public nature of our knowledge of meanings, and Stoutland on the normative nature of rules of language. The last part on logic and reference begins with an examination of the problem concerning vacuous names which Quine dubbed Plato's beard. Parsons and Woodruff then take up matters concerning vagueness. Neale, Ray, and Recanati raise questions concerning issues surrounding opacity: Neale and Rayon modality and Recanati on propositional attitudes. We, and most particularly I, Alex Orenstein, would like to express indebtedness to Queens College of the City University of New York for a presidential research award which provided time to work on this project, to the Faculty Research Award Program of the City University of New York for a grant which aided us in preparing the manuscript for pUblication, to Wolfson, to St. Anne's and to Exeter Colleges, Oxford for the use of their facilities during much of the preparation of this work and to Roger Gibson and Douglas Quine for their help with the proofs. Last of all, we would like to record our gratitude to Marx Wartofsky, whose untimely death pre vented our thanking him in person. His help made it possible for this collection to appear in the Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science series. Alex Orenstein and Peter Kotatko xi .