Customer Reviews

Theories and Things

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Harvard University's Willard Van Orman Quine is easily described as one of the most articulate developers of the contemporary pragmatist philosophy of language, which reigns in academic philosophy today. A large secondary literature has appeared describing Quine's philosophy.

But this small book is especially valuable, because it contains "Five Milestones in Empiricism", which is an excellent thumbnail summary of Quine's philosophy in his own words, and can serve as a good framework for exploring his large literary corpus.

For more on my views about Quine see my book titled History of Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science or Google my web site called philsci for free downloads of the book by chapter - and also read my other reviews at this Amazon site.

Thomas J. Hickey

The grand old man of modern-day empricism, Willard van Owen Quine, puts to rest any lingering doubts about whether reality is an indexical in what is yet another example of his fluid prose and unmatched ability to dissect the most profound of questions without spilling his Martini (in fact, Quine gives an excellent recipe for Martinis in this book, but I have to admit, his recommendation for adding "a dash of Ketalar" seems a bit much for me). Quine wants to wipe away persistant skepticism about empiricism with a Bounty paper towel, but this just doesn't wash, and he is left admitting that he's just sick of the whole debate and would rather talk about why we are talking about things, as if there were anything else to talk about. For those who loved _Persuit of Truth_, this book will be nothing to write home about, but for those who rated it up there with Korzybyski's General Semantics, some postage might be in order. In any case, budding philosophers are urged to cut their teeth on something more comprehensible, like Heidegger's _Being and Time_, before moving up to this, lest they wind up searching for clues about ultimate reality in the patterns in bowls of coleslaw. All in all, vaguely recommended.