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Title: Ontological Relativity by Willard Quine ISBN: 0-231-08357-2 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 1977 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent!
Comment: Quine's classic work on the nature of language has great implications for the future of philosophy and contemporary literary theory, and is a fascinating and essential contribution to 20th century philosophy.
Quine notes that humans always learn new languages (for example, German) in terms of an original meta-language: we translate German, for example, into our own language in order to learn how to use German (and this emphasis on "use" is crucial to Quine's pragmatism - I'll get there in a second). In this respect, our understanding of German is always disconnected from their relationship to the reality it represents/refers to.
Now, many would argue that one needs only to immerse oneself in German culture; then a German-speaker and an English-speaker could point to various objects and exchange the terms that are assigned to those objects. Quine shows that this fails to fulfill the representationalists' goal of developing a direct correspondence between reality and language. For example, when the German-speaker utters her word for "rock," is she referring to the rock, or is she referring to that particular place in the universe and noting that that particular place is "rock-ing?"
According to Quine, we can never know. And this seems to have to broad implications (only the latter of which Quine necessarily subscribed to in full). The first (taken up by Jacques Derrida) is that language only refers to itself. What does "rock" mean? The answer will be given in the form of language - "a round hard object." Well what does "round" mean? "Round" means that the edges of the rock are equidistant from the rock's center. Well what does "center" mean? For Derrida, words refer to words, which in turn refer to more words. Meaning, then, is bound up in the free play of signifiers ("words"), and is never grounded in objective reality.
The consequence that Quine subscribes to is that of pragmatism. If, ultimately, I don't mean exactly what a German person does when I say the word that for me corresponds to a rock, who cares? What matters is that I can communicate to the German person that I want to sit on that rock, or that I want to throw that rock, or whatever. Language, for Quine, serves a pragmatic purpose. Germans and Americans may think of the world in slightly different ways, but as long as we can use language to interact with one another in empowering ways, language has served its essential purpose.
Quite a groundbreaking and important work. I highly recommend it to the intellectuals out there.
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Title: Word and Object (Studies in Communication) by Willard Van Orman Quine ISBN: 0262670011 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 15 March, 1964 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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Title: The Philosophy of Logic by W. V. Quine ISBN: 0674665635 Publisher: Harvard University Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1986 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Ways of Paradox, and Other Essays by Willard Van Orman Quine ISBN: 0674948378 Publisher: Harvard University Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1976 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Theories and Things by W.V. Quine ISBN: 0674879260 Publisher: Belknap Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1986 List Price(USD): $21.50 |
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Title: From a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-Philosophical Essays by Willard V. Quine ISBN: 0674323513 Publisher: Harvard University Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 1980 List Price(USD): $17.50 |
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