Museums and their practices - especially those involving collection, curation and exhibition - generate a host of philosophical questions. Such questions are not limited to the domains of ethics and aesthetics, but go further into the domains of metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of religion. Despite the prominence of museums as public institutions, they have until recently received surprisingly little scrutiny from philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition. By bringing together contributions from philosophers with backgrounds in a range of traditional areas of (...) philosophy, this volume demonstrates how their work can enhance our understanding of museums and shed light on the philosophical questions raised by museum practices. Many of the chapters in this volume make the case that the philosophy of museums is of vital concern, not only to those philosophers at work in the emerging field but also to practitioners within the museum world and to anyone who enjoys visiting museums. (shrink)

I argue for an alternative to Quine’s conception of observation sentences, one that better satisfies the roles Quine envisages for them, and that otherwise respects Quinean constraints. After reviewing a certain predicament Quine got into in balancing the needs of the intersubjectivity of observation sentences with his notion of the stimulus meaning of an observation sentence, I push for replacing the latter with what I call the ‘stimulus field’ of an observation sentence, a notion that remains ‘proximate’ but is shared (...) between different language users. Throughout, I emphasize the epistemological role of observation sentences. (shrink)

The view, in Quine, that all there are are pure sets is presented and endorsed.

I make a Quinean case that Quine’s ontological relativity marked a wrong turn in his philosophy, that his fundamental commitments point toward the classical view of ontology that was worked out in most detail in hisWord and Object. This removes the impetus toward structuralism in his later philosophy.

W.V. Quine is one of the leading figures of 20th century analytic philosophy, and still among the most influential. But his work can be challenging and complex, and indeed often misunderstood. In this updated introduction to Quine's thought, Gary Kemp examines his seemingly disparate views as a unified whole and offers a valuable guide for anyone approaching Quine for the first time.

Sennett and Fisher: Quine on Paraphrase and Regimentation: Regimentation plays an integral role in Quine's influential approaches to metaphysics, philosophy of science, and semantics. In this paper we explore Quine's views on regimentation and its applications. We also consider how the Quinean view of regimentation interacts with his views on ontological commitment, holism, indeterminacy of translation, and the inscrutability of reference.

Gary Kemp presents a penetrating investigation of key issues in the philosophy of language, by means of a comparative study of two great figures of late twentieth-century philosophy. He reveals unexplored tensions between the views of Quine and Davidson, and presents a powerful argument in favour of Quine and methodological naturalism.

Philosophy of language explores some of the fundamental yet most technical problems in philosophy, such as meaning and reference, semantics, and propositional attitudes. Some of its greatest exponents, including Gottlob Frege, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell are amongst the major figures in the history of philosophy. In this clear and carefully structured introduction to the subject Gary Kemp explains the following key topics: the basic nature of philosophy of language and its historical development early arguments concerning the role (...) of meaning, including cognitive meaning vs expressivism, context and compositionality Frege’s arguments concerning sense and reference; non-existent objects Russell and the theory of definite descriptions modern theories including Kripke and Putnam; arguments concerning necessity, analyticity and natural kind terms indexicality, context and modality. What are indexicals? Davidson’s theory of language and the ‘principle of charity’ propositional attitudes Quine’s naturalism and its consequences for philosophy of language. Chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary make this an indispensable introduction to those teaching philosophy of language and will be particularly useful for students coming to the subject for the first time. (shrink)

Willard Van Orman Quine is one of the most influential analytic philosophers of the latter half of the twentieth century.

_Critical Thinking_ is a much-needed guide to thinking skills and above all to thinking critically for oneself. Through clear discussion, students learn the skills required to tell a good argument from a bad one. Key features include: *jargon-free discussion of key concepts in argumentation *how to avoid confusions surrounding words such as 'truth', 'knowledge' and 'opinion' *how to identify and evaluate the most common types of argument *how to spot fallacies in arguments and tell good reasoning from bad *topical examples (...) from politics, sport, medicine, music *chapter summaries, glossary and exercises _Critical Thinking_ is essential reading for anyone, student or professional, seeking to improve their reasoning and arguing skills. (shrink)

Does trust play a significant role in the appreciation of art? If so, how does it operate? We argue that it does, and that the mechanics of trust operate both at a general and a particular level. After outlining the general notion of ‘art-trust’—the notion sketched is consistent with most notions of trust on the market—and considering certain objections to the model proposed, we consider specific examples to show in some detail that the experience of works of art, and the (...) attribution of art-relevant properties or characterisations to works of art, very often involves the notion of trust; in such cases—perhaps most or even, implicitly, all—the question ‘Do I trust the artist (or art-maker)?’, is inescapable. (shrink)

Containing three previously unpublished papers by W.V. Quine as well as historical, exegetical, and critical papers by several leading Quine scholars including Hylton, Ebbs, and Ben-Menahem, this volume aims to remedy the comparative lack of historical investigation of Quine and his philosophical context.

In the past 60 years or so, the philosophical subject of artistic expression has generally been handled as an inquiry into the artistic expression of emotion. In my view this has led to a distortion of the relevant territory, to the artistic expression of feeling’s too often being overlooked. I explicate the emotion-feeling distinction in modern terms, and urge that the expression of feeling is too central to be waived off as outside the proper philosophical subject of artistic expression. Restricting (...) the discussion to the art of painting, I sketch a partial psychological model for the exrtistic expression of feelipression of feeling. Although the feeling-emotion contrast is seldom made clear in their writings, I stress that many, or even most of the eminent pre-1960’s voices in aesthetics and art criticism—Croce, Dewey, Langer, Bosanquet, Berenson and others—would more or less agree that feeling is no less important for expression than emotion, and indeed can be interpreted as anticipating many points that I set forth. (shrink)

Both Russell and Frege were inclined to think that there is nothing essentially linguistic about thought: any actual reliance of ours upon language is a mere psychological contingency. If so then it should be possible to formulate logic in such a way that logical relationships are not represented or expressed as principles pertaining to linguistic forms. Russell and Frege take pains to achieve this, but fail. I explain this by looking at some features of Grundgesetz and Principia . Their failure, (...) I suggest, is due to the nature of the case. (shrink)

Richard Wollheim was hardly alone in supposing that his account of pictorial depiction implies that a trompe-l’œil is not a depiction. I recommend removing this apparent implication by inserting a Kant-style version of aspect-perception into his account. I characterize the result as Neo-Wollheimian and retain the centrality of Wollheim’s notion of twofoldedness in the theory of depiction, but I demote it to a contingent feature of depictions and I criticize his employment of it for determining the category of both the (...) trompe-l’œil and depictions in general. (shrink)

Pictorial representation is one of the core questions in aesthetics and philosophy of art. What is a picture? How do pictures represent things? This collection of specially commissioned chapters examines the influential thesis that the core of pictorial representation is not resemblance but 'seeing-in', in particular as found in the work of Richard Wollheim. We can see a passing cloud _as_ a rabbit, but we also see a rabbit _in_ the clouds. 'Seeing-in' is an imaginative act of the kind employed (...) by Leonardo’s pupils when he told them to see what they could - for example, battle scenes - in a wall of cracked plaster. This collection examines the idea of 'seeing-in' as it appears primarily in the work of Wollheim but also its origins in the work of Wittgenstein. An international roster of contributors examine topics such as the contrast between seeing-in and seeing-as; whether or in what sense Wollheim can be thought of as borrowing from Wittgenstein; the idea that all perception is conceptual or propositional; the metaphor of figure and ground and its relation to the notion of 'two-foldedness'; the importance in art of emotion and the imagination. Wollheim, Wittgenstein and Pictorial Representation: Seeing-as and Seeing-in is essential reading for students and scholars of aesthetics and philosophy of art, and also of interest to those in related subjects such as philosophy of mind and art theory. (shrink)

© 2013 The Editors of The Philosophical QuarterlyMany moons ago, Bertrand Russell thought of reference in epistemic terms: to mean an object—to refer to it—one had to be acquainted with it; for it is ‘scarcely conceivable’ that one should judge without knowing what one is judging about. The rest of the relation between language and the world is conceived as denoting, a feature of linguistic expressions and bits of the world which crucially holds or fails to hold without affecting the (...) reference or meaning of those expressions. Since acquaintance is here explained as epistemically fundamental—if one is acquainted with something then one cannot be mistaken about either the existence or the identity of the thing—he was led to posit sense‐data as the only individuals we genuinely refer to. For various reasons, the last part has not since proven popular, but the idea of acquaintance remained standing. It seems... (shrink)

This edited volume includes 36 Chapters, each of which discusses the influence of a philosopher's reading of Wittgenstein in his/her philosophical works and the way such Wittgensteinian ideas have manifested themselves in those works.

This edited volume includes 49 Chapters, each of which discusses the influence of a philosopher's reading of Wittgenstein in his/her philosophical works and the way such Wittgensteinian ideas have manifested themselves in those works.

Davidson's paratactic account of indirect quotation preserves the apparent relational structure of indirect speech but without assuming, in the Fregean manner, that the thing said by a sayer is a proposition. I argue that this is a mistake. As has been recognised by some critics, Davidson's account suffers from analytical shortcomings which can be overcome by redeploying the paratactic strategy as a means of referring to propositions. I offer a quick and comprehensive survey of these difficulties and a concise propositional (...) solution. Further, I argue that Davidson's more general philosophical commitments provide no reason not to embrace the propositional strategy: despite appearances, to invoke propositions in the way suggested is consistent with Davidson's holism and consequent doctrine of semantic indeterminacy. (shrink)

As is reasonably well-appreciated, Quine struggled with his definition of the all-important notion of an observation sentence; especially in order to make them bear out his commitment to language’s being a ‘social art’. In an earlier article (_Mind_ 131(523):805–825, 2022), I proposed a certain repair, which here I will explain, justify and articulate further. But it also infects the definition of observation categoricals, and furthermore makes it a secondary matter, a seeming afterthought, that evidence, science and knowledge generally are shared—are (...) joint, social and collaborative products. Without forsaking Quine’s strict naturalism, I try to make the necessary adjustments to Quine’s scheme. (shrink)

Richard Heck has contested my argument that the equation of the meaning of a sentence with its truth-condition implies deflationism, on the ground that the argument does not go through if truth-conditions are understood, in Davidson's style, to be stated by T-sentences. My reply is that Davidsonian theories of meaning do not equate the meaning of a sentence with its truth-condition, and thus that Heck's point does not actually obstruct my argument.

‘Linguistic meaning must be public’ – for Quine, here is not a statement to rest with, whether it be reckoned true or reckoned false. It calls for explication. When we do, using Quine’s words to piece together what he thought, we find that much too much is concealed by the original statement. Yes, Quine said ‘Language is a social art’; yes, he accepts behaviourism so far as linguistic meaning is concerned; yes, he broadly agrees with Wittgenstein’s anti-privacy stricture. But precisely (...) what is being said by the original statement to be public, and what does calling it ‘public’ amount to? Pressing such questions complicates the picture enormously, partly though by no means entirely aligning Quine with linguistic internalism vis-à-vis Chomsky. (shrink)

In the seventh chapter of his extraordinary book The Objective Eye, John Hyman offers various criticisms of Richard Wollheim’s theory of pictorial depiction.1 My immediate purpose in this short piece is to make the case that these criticisms fail. By no means do I claim that there are not other criticisms to be made against Wollheim’s theory or that Hymans’s book as a whole fails—not in its overarching attempt to rescue the objectivity of art from subjectivist views or, more narrowly, (...) that Hyman’s theory of depiction fails. My claim is merely that Wollheim’s theory emerges relatively unscathed by the criticisms in Hyman’s Chapter 7, even if it is vulnerable on other grounds or incompatible with Hyman’s... (shrink)

As against the view represented here by Peter Hacker and John Canfield, I urge that the philosophies of Quine and Wittgenstein can be reconciled. Both replace the orthodox view of language as resting on reference: Quine with the notion of linguistic disposition, Wittgenstein with the notions of grammar and forms of life. I argue that Wittgenstein's insistence, in the rule-following discussion, that at bottom these are matters of practice, of ‘what we do’, is not only compatible in a rough sort (...) of way with Quine's outlook, but is very close to Quine's naturalistic view of language. And I argue that the likely objections to this can on the one hand be explained away as Quine's having been interested in a very narrow slice of language in comparison with Wittgenstein, and on the other by a failure to take into account later developments in Quine’s views. (shrink)

I argue that the principal roles standardly envisaged for abstract propositions can be discharged to the sentences themselves (and similarly for the meanings or senses of words). I discuss: (1) Cognitive Value: Hesperus-Phosphorus; (2) Indirect Sense and Propositional Attitudes; (3) the Paradox of Analysis; (4) the Picture Theory of the Tractatus; (5) Syntactical Diagrams and Meaning; (6) Quantifying-in. (7) Patterns of Use. I end with comparisons with related views of the territory.

A response to certain parts of Rumfitt : I defend Davidson's project in semantics, suggest that Rumfitt's use of sentential quantification renders his definition of truth needlessly elaborate, and pose a question for Rumfitt's handling of the strengthened Liar.

Theoria, EarlyView. The account of pictorial representation introduced in an earlier paper of mine is extended to photography and sculpture, and the beginnings of an extension to film is sketched.

I argue against Hume and Kant, who maintain that ‘beauty’ expresses a state of the subject, rather than describes features of the object. The word ‘beauty’ is far from being alone in having an expressive dimension, and that which it has falls short of individuating it semantically. Instead, I propose a theory of linguistic idealism with respect to ‘beauty’.

I attempt to explain Frege's handling of the Julius Caesar issue in terms of his more general philosophical commitments. These only became fully explicit in his middle-period writings, but his earlier moves are best explained, I suggest, if we suppose them to be implicit in his earlier thinking. These commitments conditionally justify Frege in rejecting Hume's Principle as either a definition or axiom but in accepting Axiom V. However, the general epistemological picture they constitute has serious problems in accounting for (...) how knowledge is possible at all of such propositions as that Julius Caesar is not a number. (shrink)

Landy’s book (OUP 2004; 255 pp.+ x) delivers what has gone long and scandalously missing: a philosophical analysis of Proust’s incomparable book that is muscular, concise, philosophically informed and sophisticated; logically rigorous, explanatorily fruitful, and meticulously answerable to its data, namely the text. The philosophy here is not, as often the case in writing about Proust, mere rhetoric or window-dressing, but substantive and literally believable. The book should for a long time be inescapable for anyone writing philosophically about Proust, and (...) perhaps for anyone writing philosophically about imaginative literature, full stop. It is that good, its themes that wide. (shrink)

Did Quine respond to the Kant-like question of what makes objectivity possible? And if so, what was his answer? I think Quine did have an answer, which is in fact a central theme in his philosophy. For his epistemology was not concerned with the question whether we have knowledge of the external world. His philosophy takes for granted that physics provides the most fundamental account of reality that we have. And like many positivists including Carnap, he takes that sort of (...) question to have a fundamentally changed and newly tractable character. His more general epistemological question is what is actually involved in a human subject coming to have knowledge of the objective world, when limited to the deliverances of his or her own senses. Most of the story is well-known, but an essential link was not fully explicit until 1990s: the doctrine of Pre-Established Harmony. (shrink)