THE NATURE OF LOGICAL KNOWLEDGE: AN
UNFINISHED AGENDA OF QUINE’S PHILOSOPHY*
CHEN BO
This paper will critically and systematically examine Quine’s philosophy of
logic in the background of his naturalized epistemology. It has three sections.
Section I expounds what Quine has said about logic or logical truth, summarized
as his 11 theses about logic; section II investigates what troubles there are in what
Quine has said about logic, involving Katz’s revisability paradox, the paradox of
bad translation and revisability, the paradox of deviance and revisability, and the
paradox of revising logic by using logic, and how we resolve the troubles in order
to make his philosophy of logic coherent; section III conceives what Quine should
say further about logic, for example, why logic is revisable? Does logic have
connection with the world in which we live, with our cognition of the world, and
with our language? If yes, how? If logic is really revisable, how do we revise
logic? More specifically, by what ways, procedures or means do we revise logic?
Why is it so difficult for most people, even for some eminent philosophers, to
accept the logic-revisable thesis? And so on.
I. WHAT HAS QUINE SAID ABOUT LOGIC OR LOGICAL TRUTH?
So to speak, Quine’s philosophy of logic is a part of his naturalized epistemol-
ogy, and a part of his holism of knowledge or science. His conception of logic can
be summarized as at least 11 theses below.
* My thanks to Professor Takashi Iida for his helpful comments on the earlier version of this paper. He
points out a mistake in that version. My thanks also to Professor Douglas Lackey, the editor-in-chief
of Philosophical Forum, for his valuable suggestion for revision. This article is supported by the
research projects 12AZX008 and 12AZD072, funded by the National Social Science Fund (China),
and 11JJD720001, funded by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China.
© 2014 The Philosophical Forum, Inc.
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