Collected Works of Quine, Volume 4

Author: Tu Jiliang, Chen Bo, Editors
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-02-12
Features: This volume includes three works: On What There Is (1953), Word and Object (1960), and The Roots of Reference (1974). The first is an influential collection of essays by Quine, featuring nine papers such as On What There Is and Two Dogmas of Empiricism, primarily exploring issues like ontological commitment, analyticity, meaning, and universals, while powerfully refuting traditional views on the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions and reductionism. The second is a representative work of Quine's philosophy, significantly developing the arguments of the first book, and elaborating and arguing for important topics such as the uncertainty of translation, the indeterminacy of reference, and the relativity of ontology within the context of "radical translation." The third provides a detailed exposition of the author's theory of reference generation, further developing the views presented in works like Word and Object.