On Quine: New Essays

Quine is one of the most influential of contemporary philosophers, whose work has ranged broadly across a great number of topics and issues in a career spanning some fifty years. In this collection a group of distinguished philosophers offer a sustained critical evaluation of the full range of Quine’s writings. Amongst the topics addressed are interpretation, epistemology, ontology, modality, and mathematical truth. This collection will certainly influence all future discussion of Quine. The contributors include: George Boolos, H-N. Castaneda, Donald Davidson, Umberto Eco, Dagfinn Follesdal, James Higginbotham, Charles Parsons, Hilary Putnam, Barry Stroud, and Bas van Fraassen. However, Quine is given the last word, responding to the essays in the final contribution.

• This collection is of higher quality than previous collections on Quine and includes a strong roster of distinguished contemporary philosophers • Quine responds to the essays in the final chapter

Acknowledgements; List of contributors; Introduction Paolo Leonardi and Marco Santambrogio; 1. Pursuit of the concept of truth Donald Davidson; 2. A view from Elm Street Umberto Eco; 3. Quine on exile and acquiescence Barry Stroud; 4. In what sense is language public? Dagfinn Føllesdal; 5. Against naturalized epistemology Bas C. Van Fraassen; 6. Quine on the naturalizing of epistemology Roger Gibson; 7. Quine on physical objects Maria Luisa Dalla Chiara and Giuliano Toraldo di Francia; 8. The place of natural language James Higginbotham; 9. Quine’s experiment with intensional objects and his existentialist quantified modal logic Hector-Neri Castañeda; 10. Transparency and specificity in intentional contexts Andrea Bonomi; 11. Quine and the attitudes Ernest Lepore and Barry Loewer; 12. Relational belief Nathan Salmon; 13. Referential opacity Fabrizio Mondadori; 14. On naming Paolo Leonardi and Ernesto Napoli; 15. Mathematical necessity reconsidered Hilary Putnam; 16. Quotational ambiguity George Boolos; 17. Quine and Gödel on analyticity Charles Parsons; 18. On Quine’s approach to natural deduction Carlo Cellucci; 19. Skepticism about semantic facts Dirk Koppelberg; 20. Reactions W. V. Quine.