Best of
Logic

1951

Two Dogmas of Empiricism


Willard Van Orman Quine - 1951
    One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact, and truth which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill founded. One effect of abandoning them is, as we shall see, a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics and natural science. Another effect is a shift toward pragmatism.

Mathematical Logic


Willard Van Orman Quine - 1951
    V. Quine's systematic development of mathematical logic has been widely praised for the new material presented and for the clarity of its exposition. This revised edition, in which the minor inconsistencies observed since its first publication have been eliminated, will be welcomed by all students and teachers in mathematics and philosophy who are seriously concerned with modern logic.Max Black, in Mind, has said of this book, "It will serve the purpose of inculcating, by precept and example, standards of clarity and precision which are, even in formal logic, more often pursued than achieved."