Our objectif in this tutorial is to show some of our contributions to the exegesis of Quine’s philosophy, emphasizing the role played by notions such as empathy and transcendence in his philosophical system.

We sustain the hipotheses that Quine is a rigorous systematic philosopher and that, in order to understand each one of his theses and critiques, we need to analyse them within the totality of his philosophical investigations.

We believe that his system derives from what we call his epistemological project and that all his philosophical theses are founded in his theory of language learning.

We also maintein that Quine’s philosophy shows a very strong pragmatic aspect more closely related to Wittgenstein’s tradition and that one of speech acts theorists than to skinnerian tradition with which Quine is often associated.

We also sustain that the overall position of his theses has been presented in Word and Object and that all his subsequent works served to clarify or complement his ideas, not to change them. Thus, we do not agree with those who argues that Quine changed his philosophical positions in the course of time.

In this tutorial, we plan to cover the following topics: - Quine’s epistemological project and his theory of language and language learning;

- About the notions of empathy and transcendence; - The theses of indeterminacy of translation, reference and theories;

- The thesis of epistemological holism and semantic holism;

- The theses of naturalized epistemology;

- The theses of ontological relativity and the ontological commitment;

- The theses about the truth value of sentences

- The criticism about the notions of meaning, attributs, entification of propositions, synonymity, analyticity.

 

Bibliography:

Quine, W.V.O. 1960. Word and Object, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press

___________. 1969. Ontological Relativity and other essays. New York,Columbia U.P.

___________. 1974. The Roots of Reference. La Salle III. Open Court

__________.1981. Theories and Things. Cambridge. Mass: Harvard U.P.

__________. 1990. Pursuit of Truth. Cambridge. Mass: Harvard U.P.

__________. 1995. From Stimulus to Science. Cambridge. Mass: Harvard U.P.

Vidal, Vera. 1991. Sur La thèse quinéenne de l’indétermination de La traduction. Sorbonne. Université de Paris I

_________. 2006.O papel da empatia para a teoria da verdade de Quine, in: A Questão da verdade: da metafísica moderna ao pragmatismo. Orgs.: Vera Vidal e Suzana de Castro. Edit. 7 Letras, Rio de Janeiro,RJ

_________. 2006. Quine e Wittgenstein: Um diálogo impossível? In: Colóquio Wittgenstein. Orgs.: Guido Imaguire, Maria Aparecida Montenegro, Tarcísio Pequeno, Série Filosofia. Edit. UFC, Fortaleza, Ceará

_________. 2007. A Ontologia Analítica de Quine, in: Metafísica Contemporânea. Orgs.: Guido Imaguire, Custódio Luis S. de Almeida, Manfredo Araujo de Oliveira. Edit. Vozes, Petrópolis, RJ

_________. 2008. Quine e a crítica às entidades mentais, in: Mente Cognição e Linguagem. Org.: Cesar Candiotto. Coleção pensamento contemporâneo 3. Edit. Universitária Champagnat, Curitiba, Paraná.

_________. 2009. Características, do pragmatismo quineano, in: Ethica, vol. 16, no.01, Edit. Gama Filho, Rio de Janeiro, RJ