Editing Willard Van Orman Quine (section)

{{Short description|American philosopher and logician (1908–2000)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2023}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| region           = [[Western philosophy]]
| era              = [[20th-century philosophy]]
| image            = Willard Van Orman Quine on Bluenose II in Halifax NS harbor 1980.jpg
| caption          = Quine in 1980
| name             = Willard Van Orman Quine
| birth_date       = {{birth date|mf=yes|1908|6|25}}
| birth_place      = [[Akron, Ohio]], U.S.
| death_date       = {{death date and age|mf=yes|2000|12|25|1908|6|25}}
| death_place      = [[Boston, Massachusetts]], U.S.
| spouse           = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|Naomi Clayton|1932|1947|end=div}}
* {{marriage|Marjorie Boynton|1948|1998|end=died}}
}}
| education        = {{ubl
 | [[Oberlin College]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])
 | [[Harvard University]] ([[PhD]])
}}
| institutions     = Harvard University
| school_tradition = [[Analytic philosophy]]
| main_interests   = [[Logic]], [[ontology]], [[epistemology]], [[philosophy of language]], [[philosophy of mind]], [[philosophy of mathematics]], [[philosophy of science]], [[set theory]]
| notable_ideas    = [[New Foundations]], [[abstract objects]], [[indeterminacy of translation]], [[referential inscrutability]], [[naturalized epistemology]], [[ontological commitment]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Quine |first=Willard Van Orman |title=Confessions of a Confirmed Extensionalist: And Other Essays |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1983 |isbn=0-674-03084-2 |pages=315 ''ff'' |chapter=Ontology and ideology revisited |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8cnG59X1ntQC&pg=PA315}}</ref> [[Duhem–Quine thesis]], [[Quine–Putnam indispensability argument]], [[confirmation holism]], [[Plato's beard]], [[predicate functor logic]]
| awards           = {{ubl|[[Rolf Schock Prizes|Rolf Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy]] (1993) | [[List of Kyoto Prize winners|Kyoto Prize]] (1996)}}
| thesis_title      = The Logic of Sequences: A Generalization of Principia Mathematica
| thesis_url        = https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271047938_Quine_W_V_The_logic_of_sequences_A_generalization_of_Principia_mathematica_Harvard_dissertations_in_philosophy_Garland_Publishing_New_York_and_London_1990_xi_290_pp
| thesis_year       = 1932
| doctoral_advisor  = [[Alfred North Whitehead]]
| academic_advisors = [[C. I. Lewis]]<ref name="SEP-CIL">{{Cite encyclopedia|title=Clarence Irving Lewis |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/lewis-ci/ |last=Hunter |first=Bruce |date=2021 |edition=Spring 2021}}</ref>
| doctoral_students = [[David Lewis (philosopher)|David Lewis]], [[Gilbert Harman]], [[Dagfinn Føllesdal]], [[Hao Wang (academic)|Hao Wang]], [[Burton Dreben]], [[Charles Parsons (philosopher)|Charles Parsons]], [[John Myhill]], [[Robert McNaughton]]
| notable_students  = [[Donald Davidson (philosopher)|Donald Davidson]], [[Daniel Dennett]]
}}

'''Willard Van Orman Quine''' ({{IPAc-en|k|w|aɪ|n}} {{respell|KWYNE}}; known to his friends as "Van";<ref name="mactutor">{{MacTutor|id=Quine|date=October 2003}}</ref> June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and [[logician]] in the [[analytic tradition]], recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Lehmann-Haupt |first=Christopher |date=2000-12-29 |title=W. V. Quine, Philosopher Who Analyzed Language and Reality, Dies at 92 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/29/arts/w-v-quine-philosopher-who-analyzed-language-and-reality-dies-at-92.html |access-date=2023-11-21 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> He was the Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at [[Harvard University]] from 1956 to 1978.

Quine was a teacher of logic and [[set theory]]. He was famous for his position that [[first-order logic]] is the only kind worthy of the name, and developed his own system of mathematics and set theory, known as [[New Foundations]]. In the [[philosophy of mathematics]], he and his Harvard colleague [[Hilary Putnam]] developed the [[Quine–Putnam indispensability argument]], an argument for the [[Philosophy of mathematics#Empiricism|reality of mathematical entities]].<ref name="plato.stanford.edu">Colyvan, Mark, [http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2004/entries/mathphil-indis/ "Indispensability Arguments in the Philosophy of Mathematics"], The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2004 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).</ref> He was the main proponent of the view that philosophy is not [[conceptual analysis]], but continuous with science; it is the abstract branch of the empirical sciences. This led to his famous quip that "[[philosophy of science]] is philosophy enough".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Quine |first=W. V. |date=August 28, 2023 |title=Mr. Strawson on Logical Theory |journal=Mind |volume=62 |issue=248 |pages=433–451 |jstor=2251091}}</ref> He led a "systematic attempt to understand science from within the resources of science itself"<ref name="iep" /> and developed an influential [[naturalized epistemology]] that tried to provide "an improved scientific explanation of how we have developed elaborate scientific theories on the basis of meager sensory input".<ref name="iep">{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2009 |title=Quine, Willard Van Orman: Philosophy of Science |encyclopedia=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=https://iep.utm.edu/quine-sc/}}</ref> He also advocated holism in science, known as the [[Duhem–Quine thesis]].

His major writings include the papers "On What There Is" (1948), which elucidated [[Bertrand Russell]]'s [[theory of descriptions]] and contains Quine's famous dictum of [[ontological]] commitment, "To be is to be the value of a [[Variable (mathematics)|variable]]", and "[[Two Dogmas of Empiricism]]" (1951), which attacked the traditional [[analytic-synthetic distinction]] and reductionism, undermining the then-popular [[logical positivism]], advocating instead a form of [[semantic holism]] and [[ontological relativity]]. They also include the books ''The Web of Belief'' (1970), which advocates a kind of [[coherentism]], and ''[[Word and Object]]'' (1960), which further developed these positions and introduced Quine's famous [[indeterminacy of translation]] thesis, advocating a [[behaviorist]] [[Meaning (philosophy of language)|theory of meaning]].