Willard Van Orman Quine

Willard Van Orman Quine was an American philosopher and logician whose work challenged the distinction between analytic and synthetic truths and reshaped debates about meaning, reference, and knowledge.

Analytic–synthetic distinction: The distinction between truths grounded in meaning and truths dependent on facts about the world. Quine’s critique of this distinction anchors his attack on conventional accounts of meaning.
Two Dogmas of Empiricism: Quine’s 1951 essay rejecting the analytic–synthetic distinction and reductionism. It presents the connected arguments that made his philosophical program widely influential.
Rudolf Carnap: A German-born philosopher and leading logical empiricist who developed formal accounts of language and science. Quine’s sustained exchange with Carnap shaped his critique of analyticity and linguistic frameworks.
Word and Object: Quine’s 1960 book on language, translation, reference, and the relation between words and objects. This book develops radical translation and the indeterminacy of translation in detail.
Underdetermination of scientific theory: The thesis that available evidence can be compatible with more than one scientific theory. Quine’s holism implies that experience may not select a unique theoretical system.
Logical positivism: A philosophical movement that sought to ground meaningful claims in logic or empirical verification. Quine’s arguments challenged assumptions inherited from this influential movement.
Confirmation holism: The view that evidence tests interconnected systems of beliefs rather than isolated claims. Quine used holism to explain why experience does not uniquely confirm individual statements.
Bertrand Russell: A British philosopher and logician whose work helped establish modern mathematical logic and analytic philosophy. Russell’s logic and philosophy strongly influenced Quine’s early intellectual formation.
Radical translation: A thought experiment in which a linguist interprets an unfamiliar language from observable behavior and circumstances. Quine uses it to show that behavioral evidence can support multiple translation manuals.
Scientific realism: The view that successful scientific theories describe a mind-independent world, including unobservable entities. Quine’s naturalism supports serious commitment to scientific theory, while leaving its ontology open to scrutiny.

Linked from 18 pages