Quine’s Intuition: Why Quine’s Early Nominalism is Naturalistic

According to a growing consensus in the secondary literature on Quine, the judgment Quine makes in favor of the nominalism outlined in “Steps Toward a Constructive Nominalism” (Goodman and Quine ( 1947 )) is in tension with the naturalism he later adopts. In this paper, I show the consensus view is...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inErkenntnis Vol. 85; no. 5; pp. 1199 - 1218
Main Author Smith, James Andrew
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.10.2020
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Constructivism
Education
Epistemology
Ethics
Judgment
Logic
Naturalism
Nominalism
Ontology
Original Research
Philosophers
Philosophy
Quine, W V
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Summary:According to a growing consensus in the secondary literature on Quine, the judgment Quine makes in favor of the nominalism outlined in “Steps Toward a Constructive Nominalism” (Goodman and Quine ( 1947 )) is in tension with the naturalism he later adopts. In this paper, I show the consensus view is mistaken by showing that Quine’s judgment is rooted in a naturalistic standard of clarity. Moreover, I argue that Quine late in his career is committed to accepting one plausible reading of his judgment in 1947 . In making these arguments, I draw attention to a version of naturalism that misreadings of Quine have prevented philosophers from appreciating, and thereby articulate and clarify a version of naturalism I recommend philosophers investigate today.
ISSN:0165-0106
1572-8420
DOI:10.1007/s10670-018-0073-x