W. V. O. Quine
There is no sharp line between truths of meaning and truths of fact; our beliefs face experience together, as one web.
Placement
Two Dogmas of Empiricism: there is no sharp boundary between analytic and synthetic; epistemology is naturalized.
Key ideas
- Holism
- Indeterminacy of translation
- Naturalized epistemology
Teachers: Alfred North Whitehead
Students: Donald Davidson, David Lewis, Daniel Dennett
Influence
Influenced by 4
John Dewey
influenced by
Quine declared himself bound to Dewey by naturalism and shared his view of meaning as a matter of public behaviour, against the ‘museum myth’ (‘Ontological Relativity’, 1968). W. V. Quine, “Ontological Relativity” (Dewey Lectures 1968), Journal of Philosophy 65 (1968), in Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (1969); SEP “Willard Van Orman Quine”
Evidence: AI draft
John Dewey › 1859–1952
Alfred North Whitehead studied with
studied with
Quine took his PhD at Harvard in 1932, after two years, under Whitehead with The Logic of Sequences, a generalisation of Principia Mathematica. W. V. Quine, The Time of My Life (1985)
Evidence: AI draft
Alfred North Whitehead › 1861–1947
Bertrand Russell
influenced by
Quine generalised Principia Mathematica in his dissertation (1932) and used Russell’s theory of descriptions to dissolve the riddle of non-being (‘On What There Is’, 1948). W. V. Quine, The Logic of Sequences: A Generalization of Principia Mathematica (dissertation 1932; publ. 1990); “On What There Is”, Review of Metaphysics 2 (1948); SEP “Willard Van Orman Quine”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Bertrand Russell › 1872–1970
Otto Neurath
influenced by
Quine set Neurath’s image of sailors rebuilding their ship on the open sea as motto of Word and Object (1960), summing up a naturalism without foundations outside science. W. V. Quine, Word and Object (1960); O. Neurath, “Protokollsätze”, Erkenntnis 3 (1932); SEP “Otto Neurath”
Evidence: AI draft
Otto Neurath › 1882–1945
Influenced 6
Thomas S. Kuhn
influenced
Kuhn credited Quine with opening for him the puzzles of the analytic–synthetic distinction, a background to his holistic view of scientific concepts (Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962, preface). T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), preface; W. V. Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, Philosophical Review 60 (1951); SEP “Thomas Kuhn”
Evidence: AI draft
Thomas S. Kuhn › 1922–1996
Hilary Putnam
influenced
Putnam developed Quine’s point that mathematics is indispensable to science into an argument for mathematical realism (Philosophy of Logic, 1971), known as the Quine–Putnam indispensability argument. H. Putnam, Philosophy of Logic (1971); “The Analytic and the Synthetic” (1962); SEP “Indispensability Arguments in the Philosophy of Mathematics”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Hilary Putnam › 1926–2016
Richard Rorty
influenced
In Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979) Rorty combined Quine’s attack on the analytic–synthetic distinction with Sellars’s on the Given to argue for epistemological behaviourism. R. Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979); W. V. O. Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (1951); SEP “Richard Rorty”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Richard Rorty › 1931–2007
Bimal Krishna Matilal
influenced
Matilal, who studied with Quine at Harvard, applied modern logic and questions of reference and ontology to Indian theories (Logic, Language and Reality, 1985). B. K. Matilal, Logic, Language and Reality (1985); J. Ganeri (ed.), Mind, Language and World: The Collected Essays of Bimal Krishna Matilal (2002)
Evidence: AI draft
Bimal Krishna Matilal › 1935–1991
David Lewis taught
taught
Lewis wrote his Harvard dissertation (1967) under Quine; it became Convention (1969), which answers Quine’s doubts about whether language can rest on convention. D. Lewis, Convention (1969), preface
Evidence: AI draft
David Lewis › 1941–2001
Daniel Dennett taught
taught ✓
Dennett studied with Quine at Harvard (BA 1963) and wrote his senior thesis in critical engagement with him; for his doctorate he went to Ryle in Oxford. D. C. Dennett, I’ve Been Thinking (2023)
Evidence: AI draft
Daniel Dennett › 1942–2024
Criticism
Mutual critique 1
Ruth Barcan Marcus ⇄ mutual
criticised
Quine objected that quantified modal logic, which Barcan Marcus first formalised (1946), founders on referential opacity and commits one to ‘Aristotelian essentialism’ (‘Reference and Modality’, 1953). W. V. O. Quine, “Reference and Modality”, in From a Logical Point of View (1953); “Three Grades of Modal Involvement” (1953); R. C. Barcan, Journal of Symbolic Logic 11 (1946)
Evidence: AI draft
criticised by
Against Quine, Barcan Marcus argued that quantified modal logic is coherent: proper names are mere ‘tags’, and identities between them hold necessarily (‘Modalities and Intensional Languages’, 1961). R. Barcan Marcus, “Modalities and Intensional Languages”, Synthese 13 (1961), 303–322, with Quine’s comments (Boston Colloquium)
Evidence: AI draft
Ruth Barcan Marcus › 1921–2012
Criticized by 4
H. P. Grice
criticised by
With Strawson, Grice defended the analytic–synthetic distinction against Quine: its ordinary use is shared and teachable, so its intelligibility cannot be denied (‘In Defense of a Dogma’, 1956). H. P. Grice & P. F. Strawson, “In Defense of a Dogma”, Philosophical Review 65 (1956), 141–158
Evidence: AI draft
H. P. Grice › 1913–1988
Donald Davidson taught
taught ✓
Davidson attended Quine’s courses as a Harvard student around 1939; his own dissertation (1949) was on Plato’s Philebus, and he later described Quine as the strongest influence on his philosophy. D. Davidson, “Intellectual Autobiography”, in L. E. Hahn (ed.), The Philosophy of Donald Davidson (1999)
Evidence: AI draft
criticised by
Davidson rejected the dualism of conceptual scheme and empirical content, which Quine kept, as a ‘third dogma of empiricism’ (‘On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme’, 1974). D. Davidson, “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme” (1974); “Meaning, Truth and Evidence”, in R. Barrett & R. Gibson (eds.), Perspectives on Quine (1990)
Evidence: AI draft
Donald Davidson › 1917–2003
P. F. Strawson
criticised by
In ‘In Defense of a Dogma’ (1956), written with Grice, Strawson argued that Quine’s doubts about analyticity would make the notions of synonymy and meaning itself unintelligible. H. P. Grice & P. F. Strawson, “In Defense of a Dogma”, Philosophical Review 65 (1956); P. F. Strawson, “Propositions, Concepts and Logical Truths”, Philosophical Quarterly 7 (1957)
Evidence: AI draft
P. F. Strawson › 1919–2006
Saul Kripke
criticised by
Kripke rejected Quine’s claim that quantified modal logic and essentialism are unintelligible: with rigid designators, de re necessity is coherent and intuitively grounded (Naming and Necessity, 1972/1980). S. Kripke, Naming and Necessity (1972; 1980), Lecture I; “Identity and Necessity” (1971)
Evidence: AI draft
Saul Kripke › 1940–2022
Criticizes 1
Rudolf Carnap influenced by
influenced by
Quine met Carnap in Prague (1933), read Logische Syntax in typescript and presented it in Harvard lectures (1934); he called Carnap his teacher (‘Homage to Rudolf Carnap’, 1970). W. V. Quine, “Lectures on Carnap” (1934), in R. Creath (ed.), Dear Carnap, Dear Van (1990); “Homage to Rudolf Carnap” (1970); SEP “Willard Van Orman Quine”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
criticised
In ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ (1951) Quine rejected Carnap’s analytic–synthetic distinction and reductionism: statements face the tribunal of experience only as a corporate body. W. V. O. Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, Philosophical Review 60 (1951), 20–43; “Carnap and Logical Truth” (1963)
Evidence: AI draft
Rudolf Carnap › 1891–1970
Works
Against the analytic–synthetic distinction and reductionism.
- 1960Word and Object
“Gavagai” and the indeterminacy of translation.
Epistemology as a chapter of psychology.
Position
Quine questioned two pillars of logical empiricism. There is, he argued in “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” no sharp line between analytic truths (true by meaning alone) and synthetic truths (true by experience). Nor can individual sentences be tested in isolation: our beliefs face experience only as a whole, like a web in which even logic could in principle be revised. From this followed a radical naturalism: philosophy is not a foundation prior to science but continuous with it, and epistemology becomes a chapter of psychology. With the thought experiment of “gavagai” he argued that translation is indeterminate: incompatible translation manuals can fit all possible evidence equally well, and there is no further fact of the matter about which is right. His holism and naturalism set the agenda of analytic philosophy for decades.
Life & context
Quine was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1908 and earned his doctorate at Harvard under Alfred North Whitehead. A European journey in 1932–33 brought him to Carnap in Prague and to the logicians of Vienna and Warsaw. Apart from naval service in the Second World War he spent his whole career at Harvard, and is often counted the most influential American philosopher of his generation.
Further main works
- On What There Is (1948)
- From a Logical Point of View (1953)
Appears in
As of November 2026 · Sources · Improve this page · How Agora is made