Abstract

My dissertation offers a new methodological approach to reading, interpreting, and clarifying Quine's philosophy. Using the notion of a "Quinean argument," I present a set of new arguments for Quine's central doctrines. Specifically, I present a series of new arguments for rejection of intensions, rejection of analyticity, ontological relativity, and indeterminacy of translation. The arguments are unique given that They are not given explicitly by Quine in his writings on these doctrines, even though The basis on which I construct the arguments is Quine's writings. In short, the arguments are "Quinean arguments": They are available to the interpreter of Quine who is willing to reconstruct Quine's writings with the aim of putting his argumentation into more systematic order. ;In the course of my textual investigations, I discern a wealth of Quinean argumentation. Some examples are as follows: In Chapter II, on Quine's rejection of intensions, I discern a very convincing argument based on a lack of identity criteria for those objects, and based further on Quine's precept "no entity without identity." In Chapter III, on Quine's rejection of analyticity, I discern a Quinean argument based on the Quinean rejection of intensions and, thus, also on the precept "no entity without identity." In Chapter V, on Quine's doctrine of indeterminacy of translation, I discern a Quinean thesis on language, "Externalized Empiricism/Evidential Behaviorism," which generates the main Quinean argument for indeterminacy of translation. ;The main contribution of this dissertation, then, is twofold. First, it offers a prescription for liberalizing the standards for Quinean interpretation. Second, it reveals that a great deal of significant argumentation is embedded in Quine's complex writings, but has yet to be properly presented to the philosophical community