Ideas from 'Word and Object' by Willard Quine [1960], by Theme Structure

[found in 'Word and Object' by Quine,Willard [MIT 1969,0-262-67001-1]].

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1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 4. Metaphysics as Science

6891	Quine's naturalistic and empirical view is based entirely on first-order logic and set theory [Mautner]

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual

6310	Enquiry needs a conceptual scheme, so we should retain the best available

5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 6. Plural Quantification

12798

Plurals can in principle be paraphrased away altogether

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / e. Ordinal numbers

17905

Any progression will do nicely for numbers; they can all then be used to measure multiplicity

6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 4. Mathematical Empiricism / b. Indispensability of mathematics

9556	Nearly all of mathematics has to quantify over abstract objects

7. Existence / E. Categories / 4. Category Realism

16462

The quest for ultimate categories is the quest for a simple clear pattern of notation

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / a. Dispositions

15723

Either dispositions rest on structures, or we keep saying 'all things being equal'

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / d. Dispositions as occurrent

15490

Explain unmanifested dispositions as structural similarities to objects which have manifested them [Martin,CB]

8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 5. Class Nominalism

8504	Quine aims to deal with properties by the use of eternal open sentences, or classes [Devitt]

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 1. Physical Objects

7924	The notion of a physical object is by far the most useful one for science

8464	Physical objects in space-time are just events or processes, no matter how disconnected

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism

8482	Mathematicians must be rational but not two-legged, cyclists the opposite. So a mathematical cyclist?

12136

Cyclist are not actually essentially two-legged [Brody]

9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 2. Defining Identity

17594

We can paraphrase 'x=y' as a sequence of the form 'if Fx then Fy'

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / c. Truth-function conditionals

15725

Normal conditionals have a truth-value gap when the antecedent is false.

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / e. Supposition conditionals

15722

Conditionals are pointless if the truth value of the antecedent is known

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 9. Counterfactuals

15719

We feign belief in counterfactual antecedents, and assess how convincing the consequent is

15721

Counterfactuals are plausible when dispositions are involved, as they imply structures

15724

Counterfactuals have no place in a strict account of science

15720

What stays the same in assessing a counterfactual antecedent depends on context

14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory

4630	Two theories can be internally consistent and match all the facts, yet be inconsistent with one another [Baggini /Fosl]

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism

3131	Quine expresses the instrumental version of eliminativism [Rey]

19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / b. Indeterminate translation

3988	Indeterminacy of translation also implies indeterminacy in interpreting people's mental states [Dennett]

6311	The firmer the links between sentences and stimuli, the less translations can diverge

6312	We can never precisely pin down how to translate the native word 'Gavagai'

6313	Stimulus synonymy of 'Gavagai' and 'Rabbit' does not even guarantee they are coextensive

6317	Dispositions to speech behaviour, and actual speech, are never enough to fix any one translation

19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / c. Principle of charity

6315	We should be suspicious of a translation which implies that a people have very strange beliefs

6314	Weird translations are always possible, but they improve if we impose our own logic on them