Editing Willard Van Orman Quine (section)

==Biography==
Quine's parents were Robert Cloyd Quine and Harriet Ellis Van Orman. Quine grew up in [[Akron, Ohio]], where he lived with his parents and older brother Robert Cloyd. His father was a manufacturing entrepreneur (founder of the Akron Equipment Company, which produced tire molds) and his mother was a schoolteacher and [[housewife]].<ref name="Quine 2004, pg 1">{{Cite book |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/9781139000505/type/book |title=The Cambridge Companion to Quine |series=Cambridge Companions to Philosophy |date=2004-03-29 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-63056-6 |editor-last=Gibson, Jr |editor-first=Roger F. |pages=1 |doi=10.1017/ccol0521630568}}</ref><ref name="mactutor" /> Quine became an atheist around the age of 9<ref>''The Time of My Life: An Autobiography'', p. 14.</ref> and remained one for the rest of his life.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Quine|first1=Willard Van Orman|title=The Philosophy of W.V. Quine|last2=Hahn|first2=Lewis Edwin|publisher=Open Court|year=1986|isbn=978-0812690101|page=6|quote=In my third year of high school I walked often with my new Jamaican friends, Fred and Harold Cassidy, trying to convert them from their Episcopalian faith to atheism.}}</ref>

=== Education ===
Quine received his [[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]] ''[[summa cum laude]]'' in mathematics from [[Oberlin College]] in 1930, and his Ph.D. in philosophy from [[Harvard University]] in 1932. His thesis supervisor was [[Alfred North Whitehead]]. He was then appointed a [[Harvard Junior Fellow]], which excused him from having to teach for four years. During the academic year 1932–33, he travelled in Europe thanks to a Sheldon Fellowship, meeting Polish logicians (including [[Stanislaw Lesniewski]] and [[Alfred Tarski]]) and members of the [[Vienna Circle]] (including [[Rudolf Carnap]]), as well as the [[logical positivism|logical positivist]] [[A. J. Ayer]].<ref name="mactutor" /> It was in [[Prague]] that Quine developed a passion for philosophy, thanks to Carnap, whom he defined as his "true and only {{lang|fr|[[maître à penser]]}}".<ref>{{Cite book |title=The American Philosopher: Conversations with Quine, Davidson, Putnam, Nozick, Danto, Rorty, Cavell, MacIntyre, Kuhn |last=Borradori |first=Giovanna |author-link=Giovanna Borradori |publisher=University of Chicago Press |date=1994 |pages=30–31 |isbn=978-0-226-06647-9}}</ref>

=== World War II ===
Quine arranged for [[Alfred Tarski|Tarski]] to be invited to the September 1939 [[Unity of Science]] Congress in Cambridge, for which the Jewish Tarski sailed on the last ship to leave [[Gdańsk|Danzig]] before [[Invasion of Poland|Nazi Germany invaded Poland]] and triggered [[World War II]]. Tarski survived the war and worked another 44 years in the US. During the war, Quine lectured on logic in [[Brazil]], in Portuguese, and served in the [[United States Navy]] in a [[military intelligence]] role, deciphering messages from German submarines, and reaching the rank of lieutenant commander.<ref name="mactutor" /> Quine could lecture in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish as well as his native English.

=== Personal ===
He had four children by two marriages.<ref name="mactutor" /> Guitarist [[Robert Quine]] was his nephew.

Quine was politically conservative, but the bulk of his writing was in technical areas of philosophy removed from direct political issues.<ref>''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'', [http://www.wvquine.org/wvq-obit3.html obituary] for W. V. Quine – January 4, 2001</ref> He did, however, write in defense of several conservative positions: for example, he wrote in defense of [[moral censorship]];<ref>''Quiddities: An Intermittently Philosophical Dictionary'', entry for Tolerance (pp. 206–208).</ref> while, in his autobiography, he made some criticisms of American postwar academics.<ref>"Paradoxes of Plenty" in ''Theories and Things'', p. 197.</ref><ref>''The Time of My Life: An Autobiography'', pp. 352–353.</ref>

=== Harvard ===
At Harvard, Quine helped supervise the Harvard [[graduate theses]] of, among others, [[David Lewis (philosopher)|David Lewis]], [[Gilbert Harman]], [[Dagfinn Føllesdal]], [[Hao Wang (academic)|Hao Wang]], [[Hugues LeBlanc]], [[Henry Hiz]] and [[George Myro]]. For the academic year 1964–1965, Quine was a fellow on the faculty in the Center for Advanced Studies at [[Wesleyan University]].<ref>[http://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/schome/FAs/ce1000-137.html "Guide to the Center for Advanced Studies Records, 1958–1969"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170314083709/http://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/schome/FAs/ce1000-137.html |date=March 14, 2017 }}. Weselyan University. Wesleyan.edu. Accessed March 8, 2010.</ref> In 1980
Quine received an [[Honorary degree|honorary doctorate]] from the Faculty of Humanities at [[Uppsala University]], Sweden.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.uu.se/en/about-uu/traditions/prizes/honorary-doctorates/ |title = Honorary doctorates – Uppsala University, Sweden| date=June 9, 2023 }}</ref>

Quine's student Dagfinn Føllesdal noted that Quine suffered from memory loss towards his final years. The deterioration of his short-term memory was so severe that he struggled to continue following arguments. Quine also had considerable difficulty in his project to make the desired revisions to ''Word and Object''. Before passing away, Quine noted to [[Morton White]]: "I do not remember what my illness is called, Althusser or [[Alzheimer]], but since I cannot remember it, it must be Alzheimer." He died from the illness on Christmas Day in 2000.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Quine |first=Willard Van Orman |url=https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/3991/word-and-object |title=Word and Object |date=2013 |publisher=The MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-31279-0 |language=en |doi=10.7551/mitpress/9636.001.0001}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-dec-31-me-6890-story.html | title=Willard van Orman Quine; Renowned Philosopher | website=[[Los Angeles Times]] | date=December 31, 2000 }}</ref>