The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays: Revised and Enlarged Edition / Edition 2

by Willard Van Orman Quine

Overview

This expanded edition of The Ways of Paradox includes papers that are among Professor W. V. Quine’s most important and influential, such as “Truth by Convention,” “Carnap and Logical Truth,” “On Carnap’s Views on Ontology,” “The Scope and Language of Science,” and “Posits and Reality.” Many of these essays deal with unresolved issues of central interest to philosophers today. About half of them are addressed to “a wider public than philosophers.” The remainder are somewhat more professional and technical. This new edition of The Ways of Paradox contains eight essays that appeared after publication of the first edition, and it retains the seminal essays that must be read by anyone who seeks to master Quine’s philosophy.

Quine has been characterized, in The New York Review of Books, as “the most distinguished American recruit to logical empiricism, probably the contemporary American philosopher most admired in the profession, and an original philosophical thinker of the first rank.” His “philosophical innovations add up to a coherent theory of knowledge which he has for the most part constructed single-handed.” In The Ways of Paradox new generations of readers will gain access to this philosophy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674948372
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	01/01/1976
Edition description:	Revised and Enlarged Edition
Pages:	350
Sales rank:	959,604
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

W. V. Quine was Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University. He wrote twenty-one books, thirteen of them published by Harvard University Press.

Table of Contents

1. The Ways of Paradox (1961)

2. On a Supposed Antinomy (1952)

3. Foundations of Mathematics (1964)

4. On the Application of Modern Logic (1960)

5. Homage to Rudolf Carnap (1970)

6. Logic as a Source of Syntactical Insights (1960)

7. Vagaries of Definition (1972)

8. Linguistics and Philosophy (1968)

9. The Limits of Knowledge (1972)

10. Necessary Truth (1963)

11. Truth by Convention (1935)

12. Carnap and Logical Truth (1954)

13. Implicit Definition Sustained (1964)

14. Mr. Strawson on Logical Theory (1953)

15. Three Grades of Modal Involvement (1953)

16. Reply to Professor Marcus (1962)

17. Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes (1955)

18. A Logistical Approach to the Ontological Problem (1939)

19. On Carnap's Views on Ontology (1951)

20. Ontological Reduction and the World of Numbers (1964)

21. On Mental Entities (1952)

22. The Scope and Language of Science (1954)

23. Posits and Reality (1955)

24. On Simple Theories of a Complex World (1960)

25. On Multiplying Entities (1966-74)

26. Ontological Remarks on the Propositional Calculus (1934)

27. The Variable (1972)

28. Algebraic Logic and Predicate Functors (1970)

29. Truth and Disquotation (1970)

References

Index

Editorial Reviews

[Quine] is at once the most elegant expounder of systematic logic in the older, pre-Gödelian style of Frege and Russell, the most distinguished American recruit to logical empiricism, probably the contemporary American philosopher most admired in the profession, and an original philosophical thinker of the first rank… The title essay of Quine’s The Ways of Paradox is a beautifully concise survey of the nature and significance of paradoxes… In general Quine’s style combines a certain rotundity of utterance with a verbal wit that exploits the submerged associations and resonances of technical terms.

New York Review of Books - Anthony Quinton

The remarkable feature of this collection of essays is the achievement of profundity without the sacrifice of clarity. More than a clear, concise, nonmathematical presentation of logical perplexities and problems, this work is one written so that any intelligent layman can grasp the ideas wrestled with by Quine and other leading logicians. The manner in which the author interprets the pioneers of logical thought possesses the fascination of an exciting game rather than a dry intellectual exercise.

Boston Globe - William S. Sahakian

Willard Van Orman Quine is the distinguished Harvard logician and philosopher who for more than a generation, and in prose as fresh and provocative as it is precise, has contributed fundamentally to the substance, the pedagogy, and the philosophy of mathematical logic.

Science

Willard Van Orman Quine is the distinguished Harvard logician and philosopher who for more than a generation, and in prose as fresh and provocative as it is precise, has contributed fundamentally to the substance, the pedagogy, and the philosophy of mathematical logic.

Science

[Quine] is at once the most elegant expounder of systematic logic in the older, pre-Gödelian style of Frege and Russell, the most distinguished American recruit to logical empiricism, probably the contemporary American philosopher most admired in the profession, and an original philosophical thinker of the first rank....The title essay of Quine's The Ways of Paradox is a beautifully concise survey of the nature and significance of paradoxes...In general Quine's style combines a certain rotundity of utterance with a verbal wit that exploits the submerged associations and resonances of technical terms.
— Anthony Quinton

New York Review of Books

The remarkable feature of this collection of essays is the achievement of profundity without the sacrifice of clarity. More than a clear, concise, nonmathematical presentation of logical perplexities and problems, this work is one written so that any intelligent layman can grasp the ideas wrestled with by Quine and other leading logicians. The manner in which the author interprets the pioneers of logical thought possesses the fascination of an exciting game rather than a dry intellectual exercise.
— William S. Sahakian

Boston Globe