Work
Quine's Ph.D. thesis and early publications were on formal logic and set theory. Only after WWII did he, by virtue of seminal papers on ontology, epistemology and language, emerge as a major philosopher. By the 1960s, he had worked out his "naturalized epistemology" whose aim was to answer all substantive questions of knowledge and meaning using the methods and tools of the natural sciences. Quine roundly rejected the notion that there should be a "first philosophy", a theoretical standpoint somehow prior to natural science and capable of justifying it. These views are intrinsic to his naturalism.
Quine could lecture in French, Spanish, Portuguese and German, as well as his native English. But like the logical positivists, he evinced little interest in the philosophical canon: only once did he teach a course in the history of philosophy, on Hume. Quine has an Erdős number of 3.
Read more about this topic: Willard Van Orman Quine
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“When I first heard Elvis’s voice I just knew that I wasn’t going to work for anybody and nobody was gonna be my boss. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
“It is like any other work of art.
It is and never can be changed.
Behind everything there is always
The unknown unwanted life.”
—Randall Jarrell (1914–1965)
“Mildred Pierce: You look down on me because I work for a living, don’t you? You always have. All right, I work. I cook food and sell it and make a profit on it, which, I might point out, you’re not too proud to share with me.
Monte Beragon: Yes, I take money from you, Mildred. But not enough to make me like kitchens or cooks. They smell of grease.
Mildred Pierce: I don’t notice you shrinking away from a fifty- dollar bill because it smells of grease.”
—Ranald MacDougall (1915–1973)