Quine

[aleph_0]

It is well known that Quine fiercely objects against the ontology of non-actual possible objects. Referring to an unoccupied doorway, he asks whether the possible fat man in the doorway and the possible bald man in the doorway are one possible man or two possible men (Quine, 1948). The point of this rhetorical question is that there is no serious issue here because we have no non-trivial criterion of identity for non-actual possible objects. No respectable ontology should embrace objects for which we have no non-trivial criterion of identity. Quine encapsulates this in his famous slogan: “No entity without identity”.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Modal Epistemology

The more I read Quine, the more I wonder if he influenced Rand.

[Edit: For tags, no substance changed.]

Edited November 30, 2008 by aleph_0

[LaszloWalrus]

I don't thinks so.

Here's a Capmag article on Quine:

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3250

And here's perhaps Quine's most influential paper in academic philosophy (heavy slogging):

http://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html

[aleph_0]

I don't understand that CapMag interpretation of "to be is to be the value of a bound variable". As I understand the quote, though I am far from a Quine scholar, he is merely saying the familiar Objectivist refrain, "existence is identity"--he is saying that to obtain (to be) is to have at least one thing predicated of you (to be the value of a bound variable [note, even the identity relation is a two-place predicate]). As colloquially as I can manage to say it, to exist means you must exist as something, which can be distinguished from that which you are not.

The rest of his railing is not against Quine. In my estimate, the author hadn't read or understood Quine. He's railing against contemporary philosophy as a whole which is admittedly not Objectivist--but all the same, if I had to guess I would say he hadn't read or understood much contemporary philosophy either.

I also wonder, though, about the sharp criticism of modern philosophy by so many Objectivists. When was philosophy good? Apparently not with Schopenhauer in the 19th century or Hume in the 18th, or Descartes in the 17th, Machiavelli in the 16th, or Augustine, or Plotinus, or Plato. It seems like there was Aristotle, who carried our society through centuries of horrible philosophy, a smaller burst from Aquinas, a bit of a blip from Spinoza, a confused contribution from Nietzsche, and then Rand. It is remarkable to me that these five, often misguided or even downright irrational, philosophers, could have carried the whole of Western civilization while absolutely every other philosopher from beginning to end was viciously anti-man and anti-mind. With such a poor track record, it would be hard to distinguish Western history of philosophy from Eastern.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing you, Walrus. I'm criticizing this author, and his representation of what I see in a lot of Objectivists. [ironically, I’m pretty sure I remember meeting him and thinking he was fairly intelligent. Perhaps not about philosophy, though.] Surely, if philosophy is the barometer of a society's rise and fall, the West must have something good in its popular philosophers even after Aristotle and before Rand. Descartes' rigorous anti-mysticism, individualism, mathematical precision; Wittgensteins thorough-going anti-Platonism and reductionism; Kant's clear definition of internal thought from external senses and bringing the two together; Mills' revival of naturalism.

I don't think Quine got everything right--contra Objectivism, even, I believe there is an analytic/synthetic distinction to be made. But to write him off as "anti-mind" without more than a glance at two of his quotes, and without any real analysis of his ideas, is absurd at best. I know it would be very romantic if Rand almost ex nihilo invented the perfect philosophy, but in reality she had some precedent, and to categorize every philosopher whose philosophical developments strayed from Objectivism, just makes it dismissive.

[noumenalself]

The more I read Quine, the more I wonder if he influenced Rand.

No:

http://www.aynrandbookstore2.com/prodinfo.asp?number=CB06M

[aleph_0]

I'm glad some has actually researched it to talk about it. But I'm not about to pay $50 to hear the argument.

[Tom Hall]

I'm glad someone has actually researched it to talk about it. But I'm not about to pay $50 to hear the argument.

In a sense I paid more than that, since I attended the course at OCON 2006.

I found it interesting to see how much of an influence Quine is on modern scientific thought, and I think Bayer does a very good job of presenting the information. I'd have to review my notes for the details, but I do recall that Quine's theory of how we acquire (more like create in his theory) scientific knowledge is basically representationalist and retains the Kantian premise that our minds can not know reality.

I'd recommend this course as a good overview of Quine; if there's a campus club near you, they may have a copy you could borrow.

[LaszloWalrus]

Quine is also one of the founders of "naturalized epistemology" which holds variously that epistemology is merely a branch of psychology and is reducible to science.

Quine also believes, for example, that all statements can be revised (including statements of logical laws).

[aleph_0]

I don't know enough about his naturalized epistemology to comment at all. However, I know much has been made of his claim that statements can be revised and I don't see what the fuss is all about. He is not saying that one must or probably will revise his statements upon observing counterfactual evidence, nor that anybody should believe him if he does! True, in any argument where one is shown to be false, there is always at least one way of re-defining one's terms (or claiming that one's terms were mis-understood all along) such that the argument continues. This doesn't mean that we can't argue, or that we can't judge that someone else was wrong, or is a liar.

In a debate over whether there is a planet, Vulcan, between the sun and Mercury, one may say that observed behavior of Mercury indicates the presence of Vulcan. The opponent may point out that the behavior is explained by Venus's presence, or solar winds. When shown that Venus was actually present in the appropriate way such that the existence of Vulcan would contradict observations of Mercury, the Vulcan proponent may simply say, "Oh, you thought I meant that it would exert gravitational pull? No, I meant that it would cause Mercury to rotate faster." Say the other scientists now show that this is false. "Oh, you thought that, by 'rotate' I meant that it spins on its axis? Not at all--I just meant by 'rotate faster' that it would oscillate on its path around the sun," and so forth. He can just keep saying that what his claim really meant was misunderstood.

For instance, take a person who learns how to play chess just by observation, not by verbal instruction. He sees someone move a bishop diagonally and capture another piece; he sees another move a rook into position such that he obtains checkmate, and the winner smiles and the loser is dismayed. After so many observed games, he comes to understand all the rules of chess. But in playing the game, he moves his bishop in an L-pattern. The players correct him and say, "No, no, you can't do that. The bishop moves only diagonally." The new player says, "Oh, I thought all this time that it could move in an L-pattern, but that several players had made stupid moves in the past and never took advantage of this possibility. But wait--the only reason I have to believe it can't move in an L-pattern is your say-so. Maybe what the game of chess really is, includes trying to talk people out of making good moves, and so you're just saying that to keep me from making a good move." All the players protest. The new player says, "Oh, I see, you're ALL my opponents and you're ALL trying to convince me to make a bad move." They protest some more: "No, no, no! We're just telling you the rules of the game! Bishops don't move in L-patterns! That's just not allowed in the game!" The new player responds, "You're pretty clever--I almost thought you were telling the truth, but that's just another ploy to make me make the wrong move. Chess isn't just the piece on the board, it's also the conversation you have with your opponent." The people, infuriated, grab his bishop and place it at the original position. "NO! A bishop moves diagonally!" The new player says, "I see. Now I even have to physically fight you to put the piece where I want it!" and he tackles his opponent. Chess, it turns out, is a contact sport.

Likewise, when we learn about what other people are saying, we are observing their behavior. We see some verbal behavior, like saying "Mercury" and then observe some non-verbal behavior like indicating a telescope that is pointed to Mercury. The same for all the other words, like "rotate" and "speed" and "oscillate". You can always say, "No, you misinterpreted my linguistic behavior. All those past times I said 'rotate' and then dealt with some kind of physical behavior that spun on an axis, you were just misunderstanding. By 'rotate', every time, what I really meant was moving back-and-forth. I just coincidentally used the word than then subsequently treated some situation that involved spinning on an axis, but it was mere coincidence."

So there's the point. Why is it not a problem? Because the new chess player and the Vulcan-loving scientist are idiots or liars. Sure, it might vaguely be possible that, after watching hundreds of chess games, a player could move his bishop in an L-pattern and just never chose to do so, but there's no reason to believe that. After he was corrected of the error, there was further no good reason to think that the game wasn't solely about the pieces on the board, or even more ridiculously, that chess is really deep-down a contact sport. So while you can conceivably always re-interpret, Quine will agree that it's absolutely nonsense to treat some re-interpretations seriously. I think it’s a valid point, and not "anti-mind".