Word and Object: Difference between revisions

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{{infobox book | <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books -->

| name = Word and Object

| image = File:Word and Object (first edition).jpg

| caption = Cover of the first edition

| author = [[Willard Van Orman Quine]]

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'''''Word and Object''''' is a 1960 work by the, philosopher [[Willard Van Orman Quine]],'s inmost whichfamous the authorwork, expands uponon the line of thought of his earlier writingsideas in ''From a Logical Point of View'' (1953), and reformulates some of his earlier arguments, such aslike his attack inon the [[analytic–synthetic distinction]] from "[[Two Dogmas of Empiricism]]" on the [[analytic–synthetic distinction]].<ref name="autobio">{{cite book |author= Quine, Willard Van Orman |title=The Time of My Life: An Autobiography |publisher=MIT Press |___location= Cambridge, Massachusetts |year=1985 |page=392 |isbn= 978-0262670043 }}</ref> TheIt introduces the [[thought experiment]] of [[radical translation]] and the accompanyingrelated notionconcept of [[indeterminacy of translation]].<ref arename="Gibsonarticle">{{cite originalbook to|author=Gibson, ''WordRoger andF. Object'',|title=The whichCambridge isDictionary Quine'sof mostPhilosophy famous|publisher=Cambridge book.<refUniversity namePress |year="Gibsonarticle"1999 |isbn=0-521-63722-8 |editor=Audi, Robert |___location=Cambridge |pages=767–768}}</ref>

==Synopsis==

Quine emphasizes his [[Naturalism (philosophy)|naturalism]], the doctrine that philosophy should be pursued as part of natural science.<ref name="Hookway772">{{cite book |author=Hookway, C. J. |editor=Honderich, Ted |title=The Oxford Companion to Philosophy |publisher=Oxford University Press |___location=Oxford |year=2005 |page=779 |isbn=0-19-926479-1 }}</ref> He argues in favor of naturalizing [[epistemology]], supports [[physicalism]] overas against [[phenomenalism]] and [[Mind–body dualism|mind-body dualism]], and [[extensionality]] overas against [[intension]]ality,. He also develops a behavioristic conception of sentence-meaning, theorizes about language learning, speculates on the ontogenesis of reference, explains various forms of ambiguity and vagueness, and recommends measures for regimenting language so as to eliminate ambiguity and vagueness as well as to make perspicuousa thetheory's logic and [[ontic]] commitments perspicuous ("to be is to be the value of theories,a bound variable"). He argues, moreover, against quantified modal logic and the [[essentialism]] it presupposes, argues for [[Platonic realism]] in mathematics, rejects [[instrumentalism]] in favor of [[scientific realism]], develops a view of philosophical analysis as explication, argues against analyticity and for [[holism]], against countenancing propositions, and tries to show that the meanings of theoretical sentences are indeterminate and that the reference of terms is inscrutable.<ref name="Gibsonarticle">{{citeCite book |authorurl=Gibson, Roger Fhttps://www. |editor=Audi, Robertcambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-dictionary-of-philosophy/50389231FC1A5DF1B1BF0F4140264792 |title=The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy |date=2015 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |___locationeditor-last=CambridgeAudi |yeareditor-first=1999Robert |edition=3 |___location=Cambridge |pages=767–768897–898 |doi=10.1017/cbo9781139057509|isbn=0978-1-521139-6372205750-89 }}</ref>

==Behaviorism==

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===Vagaries of reference and referential transparency===

In Chapter 4 of ''Word and Object'', Quine looks at the indeterminacies of reference that are inherent to the (English) language system. A term is ''vague'' if the boundaries of its reference are not clear. For a singular term this means that the boundaries of the object it refers to are not clear,; e.g. with the, 'mountain': for two neighboring mountains, it is not clear where the first mountain stops and the second one begins. General terms can be vague in this same way, but also in yet another way,: namely, that there are some objects of which it is not clear whether or not they should be included inamong the referencereferents of the term. For example, the term 'blue' is vague insofar as it is not clear whether or not some objects are blue or green. A second vagary of reference is ''ambiguity''. Ambiguity differs from vagueness in that for a vague term the (boundaries of) its reference are unsettleduncertain, whereas ambiguous terms do refer to clearly todelineated sets of objects,; however, there are objects of which they are clearly true ''and'' clearly false of the same objectssimultaneously. For example, the term 'light' is clearly true of a dark feather (''vis-á-vis'' weight), but at the same time clearly false of it (''vis-á-vis'' visual brightness).

Quine also introduces the term '[[referential transparency]]'. Quine wants to make explicit the ambiguities in language, and to show different interpretations of sentences, therefore, he has to know whereto what the terms in a sentence refer to. A term is used in ''purely referential position'' if its only purpose is to specify its object so that the rest of the sentence can say something about it. If a term is used in purely referential position, it is subject to the substituitivitysubstitutivity of identity: the term can be substituted by a [[Extension (semantics)|coextensive]] term (a term true of the same objects) without changing the truth-value of the sentence. In the sentence, 'Amsterdam rhymes with Peter Pan' you cannot substitute 'Amsterdam' with 'the capital of the Netherlands'. A construction, aconstruction—a way in which a singular term or a sentence is included in another singular term or sentence, has ''referential transparency'': it issentence—is either referentially transparent, or referentially opaque.; Aa construction is referentially transparent if it is the case that ifwhen anthe occurrenceincluded ofterm aor termsentence is purely referential in a sentence then, it is also purely referential also in the containing term or sentence. However(Referential opaqueness is not to be taken as a problem to be corrected, Quinehowever—Quine's goal here is to make clear which positions in a sentence are referentially transparent, not to make them all transparent.)

===Canonical notation===

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==Semantic ascent<!--'Semantic ascent' redirects here-->==

In the last paragraphsection of ''Word and Object'',<ref name=WO/>{{rp|56}} Quine asks the question why, in a book titled ''Word and Object'', we have talked more about words than about objects. He comes to the conclusion that this has to do with the distinction [[Rudolf Carnap]] makes between a material mode of speech and a formal one.<ref name=Carnap>Carnap, Rudolf, ''Logical Syntax of Language'' [1960]. The International Library of Philosophy: Philosophy of Mind and Language, Routledge, Reprint edition, 2010, pp. 63-64.</ref> In the material mode we talk about objects themselves and usually this is unproblematic. However, when two people with completely different ideas of whether or not there are such entities as miles, are discussing miles as the objects themselves this discussion will be fruitless. It is in these instances that we see what Quine calls '''semantic ascent'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA-->,<ref name=WO/>{{rp|249–254}} the shift from the material mode of language to the formal one. In the formal mode of language we are at a different level. Rather than talking about miles as objects we are talking about what this word 'mile' even means, what it refers to and if it even refers at all. In the formal mode, people with different conceptual schemes might be able to have a reasonable discussion because they are talking about something their conceptual schemes have in common: language.

Quine differs from Carnap in applicability of semantic ascent.<ref name=WO/>{{rp|250}} Carnap believes that talking in a formal mode is something that can only be done to some effect in philosophy. Quine, however, believes that semantic ascent is used in science as well. He argues that Einstein's theory of relativity wasn't just accepted by the scientific community because of what it had to say about 'time, light, headlong bodies and the perturbations of Mercury'<ref name=WO/>{{rp|251}} in the material mode, but also because of its simplicity compared to other theories in the formal mode. The formal mode allows for a more distant approach to certain problems; however, we are not able to reach a vantage point outside of our conceptual scheme, to Quine 'there is no such cosmic exile'.<ref name=WO/>{{rp|254}}

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