In "Pursuit of Truth" W. V. Quine gives us his latest word on
issues to which he has devoted many years. As he says in the
preface: "In these pages I have undertaken to update, sum up, and
clarify my variously intersecting views on cognitive meaning,
objective reference, and the grounds of knowledge?' The pursuit of
truth is a quest that links observation, theory, and the world.
Various faulty efforts to forge such links have led to much
intellectual confusion. Quine's efforts to get beyond the confusion
begin by rejecting the very idea of binding together word and
thing, rejecting the focus on the isolated word. For him,
observation sentences and theoretical sentences are the alpha and
omega ofthe scientific enterprise. Notions like "idea" and
"meaning" are vague, but a sentence-now there's something you can
sink your teeth into.
Starting thus with sentences, Quine sketches an epistemological
setting for the pursuit of truth. He proceeds to show how
reification and reference contribute to the elaborate structure
that can indeed relate science to its sensory evidence.In this book
Quine both summarizes and moves ahead. Rich, lively chapters
dissect his major concerns-evidence, reference, meaning, intension,
and truth. "Some points;' he writes, "have become clearer in my
mind in the eight years since "Theories and Things." Some that were
already clear in my mind have become clearer on paper. And there
are some that have meanwhile undergone substantive change for the
better." This is a key book for understanding the effort that a
major philosopher has made a large part of his life's work: to
naturalize epistemology in the twentieth century. The book is
concise and elegantly written, as one would expect, and does not
assume the reader's previous acquaintance with Quine's writings.
Throughout, it is marked by Quine's wit and economy of style.
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