As analytic philosophy is becoming increasingly aware of and interested in its own history, the study of that field is broadening to include, not just its earliest beginnings, but also the mid-twentieth century. One of the towering figures of this epoch is W.V. Quine (1908-2000), champion of naturalism in philosophy of science, pioneer of mathematical logic, trying to unite an austerely physicalist theory of the world with the truths of mathematics, psychology, and linguistics. Quine's posthumous papers, notes, and drafts revealing (...) the development of his views in the forties have recently begun to be published, as well as careful philosophical studies of, for instance, the evolution of his key doctrine that mathematical and logical truth are continuous with, not divorced from, the truths of natural science. But one central text has remained unexplored: Quine's Portuguese-language book on logic, his 'farewell for now' to the discipline as he embarked on an assignment in the Navy in WWII. Anglophone philosophers have neglected this book because they could not read it. Jointly with colleagues, I have completed the first full English translation of this book. In this accompanying paper I draw out the main philosophical contributions Quine made in the book, placing them in their historical context and relating them to Quine's overall philosophical development during the period. Besides significant developments in the evolution of Quine's views on meaning and analyticity, I argue, this book is also driven by Quine's indebtedness to Russell and Whitehead, Tarski, and Frege, and contains crucial developments in his thinking on philosophy of logic and ontology. This includes early versions of some arguments from 'On What There Is', four-dimensionalism, and virtual set theory. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to show that W. V. O. Quine's animadversions against modal logic did not get the same attention that is considered to be the case nowadays. The community of logicians focused solely on the technical aspects of C. I. Lewis’ systems and did not take Quine's arguments and remarks seriously—or at least seriously enough to respond. In order to assess Quine's place in the history, however, his relation to Carnap is considered since their notorious break (...) was about the status of extensionality and modal logic. Since much of the works about the history of analytic philosophy is centered on the relationship of Quine and Carnap, their break about modality deserves much more attention—it also sheds some light on why should anyone wonder about Quine's early arguments against modal logic. The paper ends with some further considerations regarding the early formation of modal logic and hitherto unconsidered problematic issues. (shrink)

W. V. Quine thinks logical truth can be defined in purely extensional terms, as follows: a logical truth is a true sentence that exemplifies a logical form all of whose instances are true. P. F. Strawson objects that one cannot say what it is for a particular use of a sentence to exemplify a logical form without appealing to intensional notions, and hence that Quine's efforts to define logical truth in purely extensional terms cannot succeed. Quine's reply to this criticism (...) is confused in ways that have not yet been noticed in the literature. This may seem to favour Strawson's side of the debate. In fact, however, a proper analysis of the difficulties that Quine's reply faces suggests a new way to clarify and defend the view that logical truth can be defined in purely extensional terms. (shrink)