Willard van Orman Quine Quotes
1908–2000 United States
Willard Van Orman Quine (25 June 1908 – 25 December 2000) was an influential 20th Century American philosopher and logician.
- United States
- Academics
- Logicians
- Philosophers
Also known as: Quine, Quine, Willard van Orman, W. V. O. Quine, W. V. Quine, Willard Van Orman Quine, Quinean
Random Willard van Orman Quine quote
24 quotes
We cannot stem linguistic change, but we can drag our feet. If each of us were to defy Alexander Pope and be the last to lay the old aside, it might not be a better world, but it would be a lovelier language.
Quiddities: An Intermittently Philosophical Dictionary (1987)
Tactically, conceptualism is no doubt the strongest position of the three; for the tired nominalist can lapse into conceptualism and still allay his puritanic conscience with the reflection that he has not quite taken to eating lotus with the Platonists.
If I saw indirect explanatory benefit in positing sensibilia, possibilia, spirits, a Creator, I would joyfully accord them scientific status too, on a par with such avowedly scientific posits as quarks and black holes. What then have I banned under the name of prior philosophy?
How are we to adjudicate among rival ontologies? Certainly the answer is not provided by the semantical formula "To be is to be the value of a variable"; this formula serves rather, conversely, in testing the conformity of a given remark or doctrine to a prior ontological standard.