≫ PDF From Stimulus to Science W V Quine 9780674326354 Books

From Stimulus to Science W V Quine 9780674326354 Books

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From Stimulus to Science W V Quine 9780674326354 Books

Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) was an American philosopher and logician who taught at Harvard University, and wrote many books such as Word and Object,The Web of Belief,From a Logical Point of View,Ontological Relativity & Other Essays,Pursuit of Truth,Theories and Things,Methods of Logic,Philosophy of Logic,Quiddities: An Intermittently Philosophical Dictionary, etc.

He wrote in the Preface to this 1995 book, “The Ferrater Mora Lectures are a semiannual event at the Universitat de Girona, in Catalonia… The lecturer meets a selected group of some forty auditors ten times, over a period of two weeks, for a total of twenty-odd hours of lectures and discussion… I gave the lectures in November 1990, under the title, ‘From Stimulus to Science.’ … I took my time, giving my thoughts free rein. The book is thus more an outgrowth of the lectures than a record of them, and it is the better for that.”

In the first essay, he says, “Francis Bacon took up the old question of the ways of knowing. The spirit of Roger Bacon was reawakened, but now with more substance and sophistication, the wisdom of hindsight. Science had broken through, though traditionalists tried to restrain it. A full century after Copernicus, the clergy prosecuted Galileo for embracing the Copernican heresy. One thinks of the creationist today, one hundred thirty years after Darwin’s Origin of Species.” (Pg. 2)

He observes, “It remained to [Bertrand] Russell and [Alfred North] Whitehead to organize, refine, and extend these beginnings and integrate them into an organic and imposing whole. The economical foundation achieved in Principia [Mathematica], and further reduced by subsequent logicians, now comprises only the truth functions and quantification of elementary logic plus the two-place predicate ‘e’ of class membership. The whole conceptual scheme of classical mathematics boils down to just that.” (Pg. 9)

In the chapter on “Naturalism,” he states, “Unlike the old epistemologists, we seek no firmer basis for science than science itself; so we are free to use the very fruits of science in investigating its roots. It is a matter, as always in science, of tackling one problem with the help of our answers to others.” (Pg. 16)

In another chapter, he asserts, “Failure to relativize sameness of object to kind of object has engendered bad philosophy. Am I the same person I was in my youth? Or in my mother’s womb? Will I be the same person after my brain transplant? These are not questions about the concept of identity, than which nothing could be more pellucid. They are questions about the concept of person, or the word ‘person,’ which, like most words, goes vague in contexts which it has not been needed. When need does arise in hitherto unneeded contexts, we adopt a convention, or receive a disguised one from the Supreme Court.” (Pg. 39)

He argues, “A normative domain within epistemology survives the conversion to naturalism… and it is concerned with the art of guessing, or framing hypotheses. The most general of its norms are perhaps conservatism… and simplicity, familiar in ontological contexts as Ockham’s razor. No general calibration of either conservatism or simplicity is known, much less any comparative scale of the one against the other. For this reason alone---and it is not alone---there is no hope of a mechanical procedure for optimum hypothesizing. Creating good hypotheses is an imaginative art, not a science. It is the art of science.” (Pg. 49)

In the chapter “Logic and Mathematics,” he observes, ”A third difference between logic and set theory is that logic as I am construing it, with or without identity, admits of complete proof procedures. This was demonstrated by Gödel in 1930… But from Gödel’s great incompleteness theorem of 1931 it follows that set theory, even the mere theory of sets of individuals, admits of no complete proof procedure. In this regard it is like most branches of mathematics.” (Pg. 52)

This brief book will be of key interest to those who are studying Quine or contemporary analytic philosophy.


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From Stimulus to Science W V Quine 9780674326354 Books Reviews

Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) was an American philosopher and logician who taught at Harvard University, and wrote many books such as Word and Object,The Web of Belief,From a Logical Point of View,Ontological Relativity & Other Essays,Pursuit of Truth,Theories and Things,Methods of Logic,Philosophy of Logic,Quiddities An Intermittently Philosophical Dictionary, etc.

He wrote in the Preface to this 1995 book, “The Ferrater Mora Lectures are a semiannual event at the Universitat de Girona, in Catalonia… The lecturer meets a selected group of some forty auditors ten times, over a period of two weeks, for a total of twenty-odd hours of lectures and discussion… I gave the lectures in November 1990, under the title, ‘From Stimulus to Science.’ … I took my time, giving my thoughts free rein. The book is thus more an outgrowth of the lectures than a record of them, and it is the better for that.”

In the first essay, he says, “Francis Bacon took up the old question of the ways of knowing. The spirit of Roger Bacon was reawakened, but now with more substance and sophistication, the wisdom of hindsight. Science had broken through, though traditionalists tried to restrain it. A full century after Copernicus, the clergy prosecuted Galileo for embracing the Copernican heresy. One thinks of the creationist today, one hundred thirty years after Darwin’s Origin of Species.” (Pg. 2)

He observes, “It remained to [Bertrand] Russell and [Alfred North] Whitehead to organize, refine, and extend these beginnings and integrate them into an organic and imposing whole. The economical foundation achieved in Principia [Mathematica], and further reduced by subsequent logicians, now comprises only the truth functions and quantification of elementary logic plus the two-place predicate ‘e’ of class membership. The whole conceptual scheme of classical mathematics boils down to just that.” (Pg. 9)

In the chapter on “Naturalism,” he states, “Unlike the old epistemologists, we seek no firmer basis for science than science itself; so we are free to use the very fruits of science in investigating its roots. It is a matter, as always in science, of tackling one problem with the help of our answers to others.” (Pg. 16)

In another chapter, he asserts, “Failure to relativize sameness of object to kind of object has engendered bad philosophy. Am I the same person I was in my youth? Or in my mother’s womb? Will I be the same person after my brain transplant? These are not questions about the concept of identity, than which nothing could be more pellucid. They are questions about the concept of person, or the word ‘person,’ which, like most words, goes vague in contexts which it has not been needed. When need does arise in hitherto unneeded contexts, we adopt a convention, or receive a disguised one from the Supreme Court.” (Pg. 39)

He argues, “A normative domain within epistemology survives the conversion to naturalism… and it is concerned with the art of guessing, or framing hypotheses. The most general of its norms are perhaps conservatism… and simplicity, familiar in ontological contexts as Ockham’s razor. No general calibration of either conservatism or simplicity is known, much less any comparative scale of the one against the other. For this reason alone---and it is not alone---there is no hope of a mechanical procedure for optimum hypothesizing. Creating good hypotheses is an imaginative art, not a science. It is the art of science.” (Pg. 49)

In the chapter “Logic and Mathematics,” he observes, ”A third difference between logic and set theory is that logic as I am construing it, with or without identity, admits of complete proof procedures. This was demonstrated by Gödel in 1930… But from Gödel’s great incompleteness theorem of 1931 it follows that set theory, even the mere theory of sets of individuals, admits of no complete proof procedure. In this regard it is like most branches of mathematics.” (Pg. 52)

This brief book will be of key interest to those who are studying Quine or contemporary analytic philosophy.
Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) was an American philosopher and logician who taught at Harvard University, and wrote many books such as Word and Object,The Web of Belief,From a Logical Point of View,Ontological Relativity & Other Essays,Pursuit of Truth,Theories and Things,Methods of Logic,Philosophy of Logic,Quiddities An Intermittently Philosophical Dictionary, etc.

He wrote in the Preface to this 1995 book, “The Ferrater Mora Lectures are a semiannual event at the Universitat de Girona, in Catalonia… The lecturer meets a selected group of some forty auditors ten times, over a period of two weeks, for a total of twenty-odd hours of lectures and discussion… I gave the lectures in November 1990, under the title, ‘From Stimulus to Science.’ … I took my time, giving my thoughts free rein. The book is thus more an outgrowth of the lectures than a record of them, and it is the better for that.”

In the first essay, he says, “Francis Bacon took up the old question of the ways of knowing. The spirit of Roger Bacon was reawakened, but now with more substance and sophistication, the wisdom of hindsight. Science had broken through, though traditionalists tried to restrain it. A full century after Copernicus, the clergy prosecuted Galileo for embracing the Copernican heresy. One thinks of the creationist today, one hundred thirty years after Darwin’s Origin of Species.” (Pg. 2)

He observes, “It remained to [Bertrand] Russell and [Alfred North] Whitehead to organize, refine, and extend these beginnings and integrate them into an organic and imposing whole. The economical foundation achieved in Principia [Mathematica], and further reduced by subsequent logicians, now comprises only the truth functions and quantification of elementary logic plus the two-place predicate ‘e’ of class membership. The whole conceptual scheme of classical mathematics boils down to just that.” (Pg. 9)

In the chapter on “Naturalism,” he states, “Unlike the old epistemologists, we seek no firmer basis for science than science itself; so we are free to use the very fruits of science in investigating its roots. It is a matter, as always in science, of tackling one problem with the help of our answers to others.” (Pg. 16)

In another chapter, he asserts, “Failure to relativize sameness of object to kind of object has engendered bad philosophy. Am I the same person I was in my youth? Or in my mother’s womb? Will I be the same person after my brain transplant? These are not questions about the concept of identity, than which nothing could be more pellucid. They are questions about the concept of person, or the word ‘person,’ which, like most words, goes vague in contexts which it has not been needed. When need does arise in hitherto unneeded contexts, we adopt a convention, or receive a disguised one from the Supreme Court.” (Pg. 39)

He argues, “A normative domain within epistemology survives the conversion to naturalism… and it is concerned with the art of guessing, or framing hypotheses. The most general of its norms are perhaps conservatism… and simplicity, familiar in ontological contexts as Ockham’s razor. No general calibration of either conservatism or simplicity is known, much less any comparative scale of the one against the other. For this reason alone---and it is not alone---there is no hope of a mechanical procedure for optimum hypothesizing. Creating good hypotheses is an imaginative art, not a science. It is the art of science.” (Pg. 49)

In the chapter “Logic and Mathematics,” he observes, ”A third difference between logic and set theory is that logic as I am construing it, with or without identity, admits of complete proof procedures. This was demonstrated by Gödel in 1930… But from Gödel’s great incompleteness theorem of 1931 it follows that set theory, even the mere theory of sets of individuals, admits of no complete proof procedure. In this regard it is like most branches of mathematics.” (Pg. 52)

This brief book will be of key interest to those who are studying Quine or contemporary analytic philosophy.