Author Archive

Willard Van Orman Quine

Willard Van Orman Quine was an American philosopher and logician whose work shaped analytic philosophy, especially through “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” and “Word and Object.” He challenged the analytic-synthetic distinction and defended holistic confirmation, ontological relativity, and naturalized epistemology. His major works also include “From a Logical Point of View,” “Mathematical Logic,” and “Set Theory and Its Logic.”

15 summaries in the archive

Logic Some science fiction – Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine's short essay uses a science-fiction scenario to explore what it means for something to exist.

6 min read

Epistemology The Philosophical Bearing of Modern Logic – Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine explains how modern formal logic reshapes traditional philosophy by clarifying meaning, ontology, and the nature of logical…

6 min read

Logic The Logic of Sequences – Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine's Harvard dissertation generalizes the logical foundations of Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica.

2 min read

Logic On the Limits of Decision – Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine explains why truth tables decide propositional logic while full quantification theory admits no general decision procedure.

2 min read

Logic Philosophy of Logic – Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine argues that logic arises from truth and grammar, yet logical truth is no mere matter of words…

7 min read

History of Philosophy The Significance of the New Logic – Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine's 1944 Portuguese logic textbook, published in English for the first time, presents the new logic of Frege,…

25 min read

Logic A Note on Nicod’s Postulate – Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine examines Jörgensen's derivation of logic from Nicod's single axiom, identifying and correcting two errors in the proof…

2 min read

Epistemology Indeterminacy and relativity in language theory – Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine argues that translation is indeterminate: no evidence fixes which of several incompatible manuals correctly renders a foreign…

8 min read

Logic Methods of Logic – Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine's systematic textbook teaches modern deductive logic, from truth functions and quantification to identity, descriptions, and metalogical results.

4 min read

Epistemology Selected philosophical studies – Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine

This collection of eleven essays by Willard Van Orman Quine spans ontology, logic, language, modality, mind, and science.

6 min read

Autobiography Notes for a life story – Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine

Willard Van Orman Quine’s autobiographical book Notes for a Life Story is a reflective, fragmentary account of a…

7 min read

History of Philosophy A Theorem in the Calculus of Classes – Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine's early technical paper publishes a new theorem proved from the Principia Mathematica tradition of symbolic logic.

1 min read

Epistemology From a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-Philosophical Essays – Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine's nine essays explore existence, meaning, reference, and analyticity, arguing for a pragmatic ontology and the indeterminacy of…

9 min read

Logic Mathematical Logic – Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine builds mathematics step by step from a minimal logical foundation, treating logic as a frontier rather than…

23 min read

Logic Word and Object – Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine's 1960 masterpiece explores how language connects to the world and why translation is fundamentally indeterminate.

24 min read

Other Works by Willard Van Orman Quine

A-wishing well (1959)