Customer Reviews (3)

Good book
I have been reading this book off and on for years.It is beautiful.However, I am not well read in mathematical logic, and the comments of a mathematical logician as to whether the proofs are correct and what should be read next would be helpful to readers interested in mathematical logic.I read the book to understand Godel.There are better books for that.However, once I starting reading this book, I appreciated the eloquence of Prof. Quine and the beauty of the axioms, definitions and proofs in the book.

Very good but be aware of omissions
This book is indeed much shorter than Principia, mainly because it is derived for lecture notes for a 1 semester PhD course. It is also a lot clearer than PM. But the notation is largely the same, which makes for hard reading if your are under 50. Quine's proof format doesn't take up much space, but has always eluded me. This book contains the best treatment of truth functional and quantificational logic prior to natural deduction and truth trees.

I like the set theory of this book, but I warn you that it is very nonstandard. Even ardent lovers of Quine's NF theory hate
the ML theory of this book.

The weakness of this book is its treatment of metatheory:
consistency, completeness, decidability, categoricity. The treatment of Godel's incompleteness is detailed and highly original (altho' it owes more to Tarski than to Godel). But it is very difficult, and Smullyan (1991) is much better.
Quine also had no clue re model theory or recursion.

I respect the historical remarks a lot. Just one big omission: Quine, like nearly everyone of his generation, missed that
math logic as we know and love it does not descend from Frege, but from an 1885 article by C S Peirce.

In Depth Look at Logic
Try this book when you know a bit about the basics of logic.The descriptions are much more lucid than those in Principia, even if the ideas are less earthshattering for there time.Quine, as he always does, gives amasterful, detailed look at logic.If you are a fan of logic and thefoundations of math, this book is not to be missed. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Encyclopedia of Philosophy, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 3169 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Explores major marketing and advertising campaigns from 1999-2006. Entries profile recent print, radio, television, billboard and Internet campaigns. Each essay discusses the historical context of the campaign, the target market, the competition, marketing strategy, and the outcome. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Encyclopedia of Philosophy, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 1315 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Explores major marketing and advertising campaigns from 1999-2006. Entries profile recent print, radio, television, billboard and Internet campaigns. Each essay discusses the historical context of the campaign, the target market, the competition, marketing strategy, and the outcome. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In mathematical logic, predicate functor logic (PFL) is one of several ways to express first-order logic (also known as predicate logic) by purely algebraic means, i.e., without quantified variables. PFL employs a small number of algebraic devices called predicate functors (or predicate modifiers) that operate on terms to yield terms. PFL is mostly the invention of the logician and philosopher Willard Quine. Quine proposed PFL as a way of algebraizing first-order logic in a manner analogous to how Boolean algebra algebraizes propositional logic. He designed PFL to have exactly the expressive power of first-order logic with identity. Hence the metamathematics of PFL are exactly those of first-order logic with no interpreted predicate letters: both logics are sound, complete, and undecidable. Most work Quine published on logic and mathematics in the last 30 year of his life touched on PFL in some way. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25, 1908 ? December 25, 2000) (known to intimates as "Van") was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition. From 1930 until his death 70 years later, Quine was continuously affiliated with Harvard University in one way or another, first as a student, then as a professor of philosophy and a teacher of mathematics, and finally as an emeritus elder statesman who published or revised seven books in retirement. He filled the Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard, 1956?78. ... Read more

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Written by celebrated Harvard professor Willard Quine this book examines language aquisition and understanding. ... Read more

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Euphemism. Minced Oath, Doublespeak, Politeness, Etymology, Willard Van Orman Quine, George Carlin, Periphrasis, Circumlocution, Dysphemism ... Read more

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The eleven essays in this volume cover all the central topics of W.V. Quine's philosophy. Quine (1908-2000) was perhaps the most distinguished analytic philosopher of the later half of the twentieth century.His celebrated attack on the analytic/synthetic tradition heralded a major shift away from the views of language descended from logical positivism.His most important book, Word and Object, introduced the concept of indeterminacy of radical translation, a bleak view of the nature of the language with which we ascribe thoughts and beliefs to ourselves and others. ... Read more

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How we acquire our theory of the world is for W. V. Quine the central question of epistemology. Gibson sets forth Quine’s philosophy as a systematic attempt to answer this question; his analysis challenges those who might view Quine’s theses as multifarious and disparate.

Since many studies of Quine either attack of defend positions on specific issues, the broad scope of this essay makes it unusually valuable to philosophy students and to the general reader. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Translation, Physics and Facts of the Matter
It is manifestly obvious that Prof. Gibson has a knack for appreciating what Quine is up to in Quine's beautiful if somewhat enigmatic prose. Gibson's essay "Translation, Physics and Facts of the Matter" from the Schillp volume dedicated to Quine demonstrates that Gibson appreciates Quine's fundamental committment to the best physical science of the day. This helps to distinguish the indeterminacy of translation from the more general underdetermination of empirical theory, a distinction that apparently eluded Chomsky for an extended period of exchanges between himself and Prof. Quine. Gibson is to be regarded as a spectacular expositor of Quine's philosophy, and this work is surely an instance. ... Read more

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For fifty years, Willard Van Orman Quine's books and articles have stimulated intense debate in the fields of logic and the philosophy of language. Many scholars in fact, regard Quine as the greatest living English-speaking philosopher; yet his views remain widely misunderstood and misinterpreted. This book provides the first major explication and defense of Quine's systematic philosophy and is ideally suited for use as a required or supplementary text in a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy and linguistics.The book explores the far-reaching implications of Quine's views on language for contemporary analytic philosophy. It is unique in providing a lucid and rich description and reconstruction of the historical context from which Quine's work grew, focusing in particular on the role that Russell and Wittgenstein played in shaping the problems inherited by Quine. It presents Quine's difficult later views in an accessible fashion, bringing out as no other study has the very radical nature of his position. One of the book's highlights is its careful examination and assessment of Tarski's theory of truth as it relates to the traditions of Russell and Wittgenstein and to Quine's own philosophy.George D. Romanos took his Ph.D. in philosophy under George D. W. Berry and Paul T. Sagal at Boston University. This book grew out of his dissertation with the active criticism and support of Quine himself. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Defends Quine's status as one of the most important 20th century philosphers
I am not a professional philosopher, but I did read most of Quine's books before this one.I was delighted to find that the book clarified my understanding, organized my thought, and presented me with the Big Picture.I also found it highly enjoyable.

Another reviewer downgraded this volume for, as I would say it, taking an uncritical stance toward Quine's work.This misses the point that Romanos is himself a working philosopher that happens to be directly influenced by Quine's work.

As the publishers note this is "...the first major explication and defense of Quine's systematic philosophy".Thus, the book is an open attempt to explain and _defend_ Quine.

The author succeeds admirably.He clarifies Quine's central contributions to philosophy, explores their implications, and addresses frequent misunderstandings of Quine's work by his critics.He makes a strong case for Quine's place among the very few most important and influental philosophers of the 20th century.

That means you're getting more than a "study guide" or encyclopedia entry for Quine.There's nothing wrong with those, but you'll have to look elsewhere.

If you are aware of Quine's work on a somewhat superficial level, are inclined to dismiss him for one reason or another, and/or don't see what the big deal is, then you should read this book.

For the non-professional, this book is a very useful, brief, and entertaining overview of Quine's philosophy.Quine had a very long career, and his work is scattered throughout a large number articles combined into a large number of books.Some of his papers are highly technical.It can be difficult to take it all in.

A look at Quine's philosophy
This book looks at Quine's philosophy and the consequences of Quine's conclusions on analytic philosophy.Though it is fairly lucid, his unquestioning acceptance of everything Quine says makes a lot of what issaid seem superficial. ... Read more