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Quine: A Guide for the Perplexed (Guides for the Perplexed) 1st Edition

4.3 out of 5 stars 3 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0826484871
ISBN-10: 0826484875
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Product Details

  • Series: Guides for the Perplexed
  • Paperback: 208 pages
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic; 1 edition (June 23, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0826484875
  • ISBN-13: 978-0826484871
  • Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.4 x 8.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,341,784 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

By David Lumsden on June 19, 2009
Format: Paperback
Quine is a central figure in the analytic tradition within philosophy, a tradition that aims for clarity, so should we expect to be perplexed by his clear and elegant prose? There is a challenge in coming to terms with Quine's thought, which relates to the way it hangs together as a whole system. We can struggle to understand one aspect of his thought through failing to see how it fits into the whole scheme. Gary Kemp's book serves the invaluable purpose of taking the reader carefully and systematically through all the major facets of Quine's work such that we do get to see the big picture. For this reason it will be useful even to professional philosophers who have been familiar with various parts of Quine's work over many years. Even so, it is designed for the reader who is at an earlier stage, and for that reason prepares the ground with carefully phrased introductory material where required. In fact there is really no specific prior knowledge that is required, for wherever any technical notions appear they are carefully explained. What is required is patience and a certain level of concentration. The book starts with the intellectual origins of Quine's work and the key features of the work of predecessors, notably Carnap, is explained. There are plentiful quotations from the full range of Quine's work. While the emphasis is not on tracing the development of Quine's thought the reader's attention is drawn to places where there has been a shift of view or emphasis in later work. As an example consider the theme of the relationship between Quine's views about meaning and translation and his views about epistemology.Read more ›
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Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
I don't think Kemp quite gets into the mind of the intended reader. He gives definitions and explanations of the terms and concepts being employed, but often definition and explanation alone are not sufficient when approaching something without context, as an introduction is meant to presuppose. (And all to often writers confuse placing a word in italics with explaining it properly; Kemp is generous with the italics.) You need to know how the definition or explanation given is meant to differentiate the term from what it is not. There may be several ways of accomplishing this, but one great way I know if is by giving examples. But Kemp does not offer enough, and not in the right places. As an example, on page 14 he explains the two requirements of a definition, that it must be eliminative and creative. He explains these concepts, but then moves on without example to introducing two more concepts, explicit and contextual. There are examples given in the section as a whole, and if you look closely and work hard you might be able to suss out that these are giving examples of these four principles in action, but Kemp does not explicitly point out to us these connections. In short, Kemp just moves too fast and assumes to much for this to function as a true guide for the perplexed. I don't know of a better introduction to Quine, but I'd take John P. Burgess' introduction to Kripke in the Key Contemporary Thinkers series as a prime example of a good introduction to a philosopher, just by way of evidence that it can be done.
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Format: Paperback
This book is a tour de force. It covers a wide range of engaging topics (language, mathematics,
epistemology, truth, metaphysics, logic, and translation) and offers a refreshingly clear picture
of some of Quine's main ideas. It is obvious that Professor Kemp has a gift for demystifying
challenging ideas and topics, something all-too-rare in philosophy these days. In addition to
being an analysis of Quine's work, it is fair to say that this book equally serves as a road map to the key
themes and ideas in analytic philosophy and Quine's connection to some of its great figures
such as Russell, Carnap, Wittgenstein, and Frege. I think this book is a little gem for both
philosophers and general readers interested in science, logic, metaphysics and the philosophy of
language. Although this book is certainly not for "dummies", Kemp
makes it look easy!
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