Dag Prawitz on Proofs,Operations and Grounding

Dag Prawitz’s theory of grounds proposes a fresh approach to valid inferences. Its main aim is to clarify nature and reasons of their epistemic power. The notion of ground is taken to denote what one is in possession of when in a state of evidence, and valid inferences are described in terms of operations that make us pass from grounds we already have to new grounds. Thanks to a rigorously developed proof-as-chains conception, the ground-theoretic framework permits Prawitz to overcome some conceptual difficulties of his earlier proof-theoretic explanation. Though from different points of view, anyway, the two accounts share an issue of recognizability of relevant operational properties.

     

Quine on translation

Against Quine's thesis of the ‘indeterminacy of translation’, in Word and Object, it is argued that the extension of terms, where determinable at all except by arbitrary decision, is determinable by empirical means other than comparison of ‘stimulus meaning’, that translation of terms does not presuppose prior translation of syncategoremata, that parallelisms of function of syncategoremata in different languages can in part be discovered on the basis of stimulus meanings, that it is incorrect to speak of bilinguals’ necessarily using ‘analytical hypotheses’, that in one form the thesis is correct and uncontroversial, that in another it is controversial but both unacceptable and at variance with Quine's own views on language.     

Quine on Quantification and Existence

Quine's justly famous paper "On What There Is" introduced a criterion of ontological commitment which has been almost universally accepted by analytic philosophers ever since.In this paper I try to unpack some of the substantive and controversial philosophical commitments that are presupposed by this criterion.The aim is not to show that the criterion is incorrect,but merely that it is not as obvious as it is taken to be by many,and that we might have reasons to explore alternative ways of thinking about ontological commitments.     

Soames on Quine and Davidson

A discussion of Quine and Davidson, as interpreted and criticized in Scott Soames’ Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Volume II.     

Quine and Davidson on Language,Thought and Reality

Books reviewed: Hans‐Johann Glock, Quine and Davidson on Language, Thought and Reality. Cambridge University Press, 2003; xi + 311 pp. £45.00, $60.00 (hardcover).
Reviewed by Dale Jacquette, The Pennsylvania State University
Department of Philosophy
The Pennsylvania State University
246 Sparks Building
University Park, PA 16802 / USA
dlj4@psu.edu
http://www.personal.psu.edu/dlj4/     

Quine, Analyticity and Philosophy of Mathematics

Quine correctly argues that Carnap's distinction between internal and external questions rests on a distinction between analytic and synthetic, which Quine rejects. I argue that Quine needs something like Carnap's distinction to enable him to explain the obviousness of elementary mathematics, while at the same time continuing to maintain as he does that the ultimate ground for holding mathematics to be a body of truths lies in the contribution that mathematics makes to our overall scientific theory of the world. Quine's arguments against the analytic/synthetic distinction, even if fully accepted, still leave room for a notion of pragmatic analyticity sufficient for the indicated purpose.     

Black,White and Gray: Quine on Convention

This paper examines Quine’s web of belief metaphor and its role in his various responses to conventionalism. Distinguishing between two versions of conventionalism, one based on the under-determination of theory, the other associated with a linguistic account of necessary truth, I show how Quine plays the two versions of conventionalism against each other. Some of Quine’s reservations about conventionalism are traced back to his 1934 lectures on Carnap. Although these lectures appear to endorse Carnap’s conventionalism, in exposing Carnap’s failure to provide an explanatory account of analytic truth, they in fact anticipate Quine’s later critique of conventionalism. I further argue that Quine eventually deconstructs both his own metaphor and the thesis of under-determination it serves to illustrate. This enables him to hold onto under-determination, but at the cost of depleting it of any real epistemic significance. Lastly, I explore the implications of this deconstruction for Quine’s indeterminacy of translation thesis.