Pursuit of Truth: Revised Edition

By Willard Van Orman Quine

Book Overview

In Pursuit of Truth W. V. Quine gives us his latest word on issues to which he has devoted many years. As he says in the preface: "In these pages I have undertaken to update, sum up, and clarify my variously intersecting views on cognitive meaning, objective reference, and the grounds of knowledge?'The pursuit of truth is a quest that links observation, theory, and the world. Various faulty efforts to forge such links have led to much intellectual confusion. Quine's efforts to get beyond the confusion begin by rejecting the very idea of binding together word and thing, rejecting the focus on the isolated word. For him, observation sentences and theoretical sentences are the alpha and omega ofthe scientific enterprise. Notions like "idea" and "meaning" are vague, but a sentence-now there's something you can sink your teeth into.

Starting thus with sentences, Quine sketches an epistemological setting for the pursuit of truth. He proceeds to show how reification and reference contribute to the elaborate structure that can indeed relate science to its sensory evidence.In this book Quine both summarizes and moves ahead. Rich, lively chapters dissect his major concerns-evidence, reference, meaning, intension, and truth. "Some points;' he writes, "have become clearer in my mind in the eight years since Theories and Things. Some that were already clear in my mind have become clearer on paper. And there are some that have meanwhile undergone substantive change for the better." This is a key book for understanding the effort that a major philosopher has made a large part of his life's work: to naturalize epistemology in the twentieth century. The book is concise and elegantly written, as one would expect, and does not assume the reader's previous acquaintance with Quine's writings. Throughout, it is marked by Quine's wit and economy of style.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674739515
• ISBN13: 9780674739512
• Release Date: October 1992
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Expository brilliance

I was immensely pleased with this book. As an expository introduction to Quine's thought it does nicely. For one such as me, one not terribly familiar with Quine's work but a student of philosophy, the language was clear and easy to understand. I suggest that if you have not studied much philosophy, mathematics, or lingusitics the language will not be altogether clear. That is only to say Quine uses technical language often enough. If you are not altogether familiar with the technical language that has sprung up in the analytic tradition, this work will require studying rather than just reading. That being said, Quine does expend some energy in making the book understandable to the novice; with a little work, anyone can follow the exposition. Once last word before I go. This book is an exposition of Quine's thought. Quine's thought is a system constructed in response to the failures of Logical positivism and other radical empirical movements. His starting point, then, are the problems that linguistic philosophy and empiricism faced. If one is not aware of those problems and schools of thought, some of the exposition will have to be read as both an introduction to those problems and one man's solutions, particularly the chapters on Meaning, Intention and Truth. I think no better author or book can be found to introduce those problems, and the solutions herein are effiecent, to say the very least.

A concise summary of Quine's philosophy

A concise summary and exposition of Quine's philosophy. This seems like it would be an invaluable book for those studying Quine. As an introduction to his philosophy it does a fair job, though it passes over a lot of points a bit quickly for someone unfamiliar with him.