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QUINE

QUINE When we discover the best way to do this, we will have discovered the best available account of reality. Obviously, the result will not be easy to explain to anyone who doesn’t know what modern logic is. But I said that the technical character of Quine’s philosophy is only part of the difficulty that the obituary writers found in explaining the significance of Quine’s contribution. Another part is that the writers (or the philosophers who advised them, perhaps) tried to “tone down” Quine’s radical theses, and, in the process, not only distorted them but (worse) made them sound bland and uninteresting. The enormously controversial theses of “the indeterminacy of translation” and “ontological relativity” associated with Quine’s name were trivialized and made unrecognizable in the process. And this toning down reflects, I think, a failure to see that there are two radically different sorts of philosophical genius. One sort of philosophical genius — Aristotle and Kant were, for their respective epochs, ideal exemplars — proposes a highly believable (at least in its own time), coherent, and profound account of reality and a profound criticism of the views of both forerunners and contemporary rivals. If one thinks that this is http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Common Knowledge Duke University Press

QUINE

Putnam, Hilary
Common Knowledge , Volume 8 (2) – Apr 1, 2002
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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2002 by Duke University Press
ISSN
0961-754X
eISSN
1538-4578
DOI
10.1215/0961754X-8-2-273
Publisher site
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Abstract

When we discover the best way to do this, we will have discovered the best available account of reality. Obviously, the result will not be easy to explain to anyone who doesn’t know what modern logic is. But I said that the technical character of Quine’s philosophy is only part of the difficulty that the obituary writers found in explaining the significance of Quine’s contribution. Another part is that the writers (or the philosophers who advised them, perhaps) tried to “tone down” Quine’s radical theses, and, in the process, not only distorted them but (worse) made them sound bland and uninteresting. The enormously controversial theses of “the indeterminacy of translation” and “ontological relativity” associated with Quine’s name were trivialized and made unrecognizable in the process. And this toning down reflects, I think, a failure to see that there are two radically different sorts of philosophical genius. One sort of philosophical genius — Aristotle and Kant were, for their respective epochs, ideal exemplars — proposes a highly believable (at least in its own time), coherent, and profound account of reality and a profound criticism of the views of both forerunners and contemporary rivals. If one thinks that this is

Journal

Common Knowledge – Duke University Press

Published: Apr 1, 2002

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