Word and Object (Studies in Communication)

Word and Object (Studies in Communication)
by Willard Van Orman Quine

Word and Object (Studies in Communication)
List Price: $36.00
Our Price: $22.91
You Save: $13.09 (36%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $11.00 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


or

Book Summary Information

Author: Willard Van Orman Quine
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1964-03-15
ISBN: 0262670011
Number of pages: 309
Publisher: The MIT Press

Book Reviews of Word and Object (Studies in Communication)

Book Review: A Seminal Book in Contemporary Pragmatism
Summary: 5 Stars

This book is Quine's first full-length book, and it sets forth his most elaborate statement of his wholistic thesis of language. Instead of the metaphorical statement in "Two Dogmas" written a decade earlier, here in Word and Object Quine expresses his thesis in the literal vocabulary of behavioristic psychology with his idea of "stimulus meaning".

Much of the book is an exposition of his thesis of semantic indeterminacy as it is manifested in translation between languages, which thus appears as his indeterminacy of translation thesis sometimes called his "radical translation" thesis. In fact there is nothing radical about it; linguists have long known of such translation problems. As has long been said: traduttore,traditore. But Quine uses it to critique positivism, and it is essential to his pragmatism.

In the translation situation he portrays the field linguist in the same situation that the positivist Carnap postulates in "Meaning and Synonymy in Natural Language", where Carnap attempted to describe how the field linguist can ascertain a term's "intension" or meaning by identifying its extension or range of application from the observed behavior of native speakers of an unknown language. Carnap admitted that this determination of extension involves uncertainty and possible error due to vagueness, but he excused this uncertainty and risk of error, because it occurs even in the concepts used in empirical science. While this admission of extensional vagueness in science made the fact unproblematic for Carnap, it had just the opposite significance for Quine.

For Quine extensional vagueness is an inherent characteristic of language that he calls "referential inscrutability", and which he later calls "ontological relativity." And what Carnap called intensional vagueness, Quine prefers to consider as a semantical indeterminacy in stimulus meaning but without admitting intensions.

For more on my views on Quine, please Google my book History of Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science, which is also on my web site philsci with free downloads by chapter - especially BOOK III, and my other reviews of Quine's books at this AMAZON site.

Thomas J. Hickey

Summary of Word and Object (Studies in Communication)

Language consists of dispositions, socially instilled, to respond observably to socially observable stimuli. Such is the point of view from which a noted philosopher and logician examines the notion of meaning and the linguistic mechanisms of objective reference. In the course of the discussion, Professor Quine pinpoints the difficulties involved in translation, brings to light the anomalies and conflicts implicit in our language's referential apparatus, clarifies semantic problems connected with the imputation of existence, and marshals reasons for admitting or repudiating each of various categories of supposed objects. He argues that the notion of a language-transcendent "sentence-meaning" must on the whole be rejected; meaningful studies in the semantics of reference can only be directed toward substantially the same language in which they are conducted.

Foreign Languages Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Foreign Languages Books
¡Arriba! Comunicacin y cultura (4th Edition) Image¡Arriba! Comunicacin y cultura (4th Edition)
by Eduardo Zayas-Bazán, Susan M. Bacon
Prentice Hall; Published: 2004-03-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.90
Price in other shops: $128.33
Side By Side, Book 3 (Workbook) ImageSide By Side, Book 3 (Workbook)
by Steven J. Molinsky, Bill Bliss, Carolyn Graham
Prentice Hall College Div; Published: 2002-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.82
Price in other shops: $19.13
Fathers and Sons ImageFathers and Sons
by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
Mcgraw-Hill College; Published: 1961-06; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops: $12.10
A Conversation Book 1: English in Everyday Life, Revised Third Edition ImageA Conversation Book 1: English in Everyday Life, Revised Third Edition
by Tina Kasloff Carver, Sandra Douglas Fotinos
Pearson ESL; Published: 1997-10-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.37
Price in other shops: $22.07
Expressways Book 3 Activity Workbook ImageExpressways Book 3 Activity Workbook
by Steven J. Molinsky, Bill Bliss
Prentice Hall; Published: 1997-01-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.85
Price in other shops: $16.80
Longman Science ImageLongman Science
by The Pearson Education Staff
Pearson ESL; Published: 2005-07-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $16.99
Price in other shops: $65.13
Teach Yourself Swahili Dictionary ImageTeach Yourself Swahili Dictionary
by D.V. Perrott
McGraw-Hill; Published: 2003-04-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.95
Teach Yourself Korean: A Complete Course ImageTeach Yourself Korean: A Complete Course
by Mark Vincent, Jaehoon Yeon
McGraw-Hill; Published: 2003-01-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.00
Price in other shops: $15.95
Teach Yourself French Complete Course ImageTeach Yourself French Complete Course
by Gaëlle Graham
McGraw-Hill; Published: 2003-01-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $89.72
Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West ImageReconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West
by Benazir Bhutto
Harper; Published: 2008-02-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.98
Price in other shops: $27.95
Similar Books and other products
Philosophy of Language (Princeton Foundations of Contemporary Philosophy) ImagePhilosophy of Language (Princeton Foundations of Contemporary Philosophy)
by Scott Soames
Princeton University Press; Published: 2010-07-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.99
Price in other shops: $21.95
Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: An Elementary Exposition ImageWittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: An Elementary Exposition
by Saul A. Kripke
Harvard University Press; Published: 1984-07-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.39
Price in other shops: $24.50
Essays on Actions and Events (Philosophical Essays of Donald Davidson) ImageEssays on Actions and Events (Philosophical Essays of Donald Davidson)
by Donald Davidson
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2001-12-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $32.84
Price in other shops: $50.00
Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind ImageEmpiricism and the Philosophy of Mind
by Wilfrid Sellars
Harvard University Press; Published: 1997-03-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.88
Price in other shops: $28.50
Language, Truth and Logic ImageLanguage, Truth and Logic
by Alfred J. Ayer, Sir Alfred Jules Ayer
Dover Publications; Published: 1952-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.68
Price in other shops: $6.95
Philosophical Investigations ImagePhilosophical Investigations
by Ludwig Wittgenstein
Wiley-Blackwell; Published: 2009-10-20; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $24.39
Price in other shops: $34.95
Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (C Pedd T the Philosophical Ess) ImageInquiries into Truth and Interpretation (C Pedd T the Philosophical Ess)
by Donald Davidson
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2001-11-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $29.67
Price in other shops: $50.00
Naming and Necessity ImageNaming and Necessity
by Kripke
Wiley-Blackwell; Published: 1991; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.76
Ontological Relativity ImageOntological Relativity
by W. V. Quine
Columbia University Press; Published: 1977-04-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $25.43
Price in other shops: $32.50
From a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-Philosophical Essays, Second Revised Edition ImageFrom a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-Philosophical Essays, Second Revised Edition
by W. V. Quine
Harvard University Press; Published: 1980-05-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $18.49
Price in other shops: $24.50