I coveted this book for many years before I finally found a copy on the shelf at Moe's Books in Berkeley. I love the approach of The Library of Living Philosophers: each volume includes a short autobiography from its subject, a sample of his or her handwriting, a complete bibliography, and numerous critical papers from peers, each with a response from the guest of honor.

Overall the book fell short of my lofty expectations for it, primarily because of the uneven quality of the commissioned papers. Even Quine's responses were mostly devoid of his trademark wit. I didn't gain as much new insight into Quine's work as I would have liked. On the other hand, I was proud to feel that I understood Quine's point of view better than some of the professionals.

The preponderance of Quine's publications are formal works about mathematical logic and set theory. His importance as a philosopher, however, derives from the fact that he extended his observations from the hermetic world of formal languages to the hurly-burly of natural languages and scientific practice. About half of the papers in this book address technical formal issues, with the other half dealing with wider philosophical questions. I am far more interested in the latter.

Paul A. Roth's contribution, "Semantics without Foundations," provides a nice summary of Quine's major theses:

(DT) The Duhem thesis: The claim that sentences (within either natural language or formal languages) have their evidence only as a related set ...

(UT) Under-determination of theories: The claim that it is possible to formulate empirically equivalent but logically incompatible scientific theories.

(IT) The indeterminacy of translation of theoretical sentences: The claim that theories wherein we formulate hypotheses about what words or sentences mean lack a fact of the matter, i.e., fail to be objective in the way in which theories in natural science are. ...

(IR) Inscrutability of reference: Whereas (IT) asserts that there is no fact of the matter concerning the intension of terms, (IR) asserts that there is likewise no one right answer concerning the extension of a term. ...

(OR) Ontological relativity: "The relativistic thesis to which we have come is this, to repeat: it makes no sense to say what the objects of a theory are, beyond saying how to interpret or reinterpret that theory in another."

When a scientist encounters empirical evidence that contradicts a theory, he or she has options for how to adjust. For example, suppose we find a very tiger-like animal that doesn't have stripes. We can (a) introduce a new species and retain the "fact" that all tigers have stripes, or (b) redefine the word "tiger" so that having stripes is not an essential part. Quine's response to Jules Vuillemin's paper gives a clear exposition about how a scientist decides what to revise in the face of recalcitrant experimental results.

I am convinced by the first two theses. I see how the remaining theses logically follow from the first and second, but I believe that human nature (i.e. our shared interests and biological endowments) circumscribe the range of theories we actually entertain in practice. In other words, I consider Quine's conclusions to be friendly to pragmatism.

Notes on individual papers

Autobiography
My favorite part of Quine's autobiography comes near the beginning (page 4), where he relates his early interest in cartography to his eventual profession:

A tension between the lure of the remote and the drive for the familiar. ... I am in an unfamiliar place and choose an unfamiliar road toward familiar territory, intent on seeing just where it joins up. ...The thrill of a strange way home is a paradigm of the thrill of discovery in theoretical science: the reduction of the unfamiliar to the familiar.

William P. Allston, "Quine on Meaning"
Allston distinguishes between the native speakers of a language and an outsider attempting to decipher the language, and seems to think that Quine's argument against meaning applies only to the latter. I believe he is wrong about that.

Herbert G. Bohnert, "Quine on Analyticity"
I found this paper to be poorly written for the most part. On page 82, though, Bohnert makes an interesting point about three different uses of rules:

A difficulty in discussing linguistic rules is the inescapable interplay of their normative, descriptive, and definitional aspects.

Quine's response to the paper is positively pragmatic:

Certain properties of a thing or substance are under investigation, against a background of others that are not being questioned. The utility of the contrast, dependent again on the project of the moment, has doubtless nurtured the age-old belief in an eternal distinction between essence and accident. ... Once we abstract from the passing concerns of the moment, I can recognize only gradations of obviousness, gradations of consensus, gradations of platitude, rather than any intelligible demarcation between the necessary and the contingent.

Dagfinn Follesdal, "Essentialism and Reference"
Follesdal divides terms into those that refer (i.e. whose "meaning" is their denotation) and those that are general (i.e. whose "meaning" is their sense). The reason for the distinction is to refine Quine's claim that terms can't be used in modal contexts. Follesdal says that referring terms can be used in modal contexts, because they offer a way of identifying individuals across possible worlds.

An extra attraction of this well-written paper is that Follesdal wrote it around the time I took a class from him at the Stanford Summer Linguistics Institute.

Ulrich Gahde and Wolfgang Stegmuller, "An Argument in Favor of the Duhem-Quine Thesis"
A totally dry and uninteresting formal argument supporting Quine's view that "theories are confronted with experience as a whole and not piecemeal." Quine seems to agree with my qualitative assessment: his response starts, "I have worked back and forth in this dense paper for glimmerings…"

Roger F. Gibson Jr., "Translation, Physics, and Facts of the Matter"
The best paper of the book so far clarifies why Quine believes that physics is true while a particular "translation manual" for a language is indeterminate. It's because physics ultimately ties to an ontology outside of itself, while languages relate only to each other, according to Quine. Language and physics are the same methodologically (both underdetermined by the data), but differ ontologically.

Gibson also provides an interesting summary of other writers' interpretations.

Nelson Goodman, "Nominalisms"
I had hopes for this paper given its author and its title, but it turned out to be far too short and too "inside" to be of much value. It feels like notes from a conversation that Quine and Goodman had elsewhere.

Gilbert Harman, "Quine's Grammar"
Harman notes that Quine distinguishes between the grammars for formal languages and for natural languages, but then he applies Quine's arguments about formal language grammars to natural language grammars. Inappropriately, I think.

Harman includes actual linguistics examples , and Quine's response shows his interest in and knowledge about (natural language) linguistics.

Geoffrey Hellman, "Logical Truth by Linguistic Convention"
A faux conversation between Quine and Carnap about conventionalism. Zzzz ...

Jaakko Hintikka, "Quine on Who's Who"
Around the time I started paying attention to philosophy, questions about reference and rigid designators were all the rage. This article (expanding on a point Follesdal made earlier) explains why: Quine had shown the difficulty of identifying the "same" individuals in possible worlds, causing problems for modal logic.

David Kaplan, "Opacity"
This long article continues on the theme of modal logic and referential opacity. It's a technical subject, but presented in an understandable way.

Harold N. Lee, "Discourse and Event"
Lee seems to want to rehabilitate the idea of a "meaning" by defining the term in a non-mentalistic way: "Meaning is a triadic relationship between a symbol, what it symbolizes (the referent), and what Pierce calls an interpretant." An interesting approach, but Quine doesn't go for it.

Arnold B. Levison, "Translational Indeterminacy and the Mind-Body Problem"
Levison traces the consequences of Quine's theory for a different philosophical chestnut. I didn't find it too interesting, but did get a clearer sense of how Quine believes that sense perceptions follow from the positing of objects rather than vice versa.

Robert Nozick, "Experience, Theory and Language"
Nozick has an interesting parable (on page 346) about two groups of people who learn English and stage-English, which is English except that the words refer to time-slices of objects rather than persistent objects. What happens when a man from one group and a woman from the other have a child? What language does the child speak?

He has undertakes to define the role of a linguist in terms that don't presuppose important parts of the answer, and shows that it can't be done. Nozick is not a careful thinker, but he offers excellent thought experiments.

Charles Parsons, "Quine on the Philosophy of Mathematics"
This paper falls on the technical side. For me, the best part comes in Quine's response, where he talks about the difference between mathematics/logic and natural science:

Their vocabulary pervades all branches of science, and consequently their truths are consequential in all branches of science. This is what has led people to emphasize the boundary ... and is why we are disinclined to tamper with logic or mathematics when a failure of prediction shows there is something wrong with our system ... We prefer to seek an adequate revision of some more secluded corner of science, where the change would not reverberate so widely through the system.

Quine expands on this theme in his response to Vuillemin below.

Hilary Putnam, "Meaning Holism"
I know Putnam's philosophy pretty well, so it's nice to have this statement about how Quine's view interact with Putnams.

Paul A. Roth, "Semantics without Foundations"
Roth focuses on the proper logical entailments between Quine's major theses, which is of limited interest outside of professional philosophy. However, Roth provides a nice summary of Quine's five major theses, which I included above.

Henryk Skolimowski, "Quine, Ajdukiewicz, and the Predicament of 20th Century Philosophy"
Skolimowski says that "philosophy of every epoch is sui generis," and believes that Quine is one of the original minds that "express[es] the predicaments of their times in quite a unique way." Unfortunately, he feels that the philosophy of this epoch is misguided. He objects to the whole enterprise of analytic philosophy. In his view, it is sterile, overly specialized, too obsessed with science, and divorced from the proper moral concerns of philosophy. The scathing tone of the paper does its author no favors.

J.J.C. Smart, "Quine on Space-Time"
Smart summarizes Quine's thoughts about the nature of space-time. Who knew that Quine even presented a theory about space-time?

P.F. Strawson, "Reference and its Roots"
Strawson comments on one work in particular, Roots of Reference, which was Quine's most recent at the time. Based on Strawson's description, Quine gives an account of how children learn that language refers to the world, and the account is not too convincing. I can believe it. I wouldn't expect Quine to account for real-world psychological development.

Manley Thompson, "Quine's Theory of Knowledge"
Thompson interprets Quine's theory of knowledge in an idiosyncratic way that smuggles in mental constructs by means of "awareness": a speaker is prompted to assent to "Rabbit?" when he or she is aware of the presence of a rabbit. In Thompson's view, awareness of the presence of a rabbit differs from merely recognizing a(n unspecified) commonality between all observation situations in which the speaker assents to "Rabbit?". I think he's got a point about how it works in practice, but Quine rejects the point on philosophical grounds.

Joseph S. Ullian, "Quine and the Field of Mathematical Logic"
Basically a (very positive) book review for Quine's various technical works on logic and set theory. It would be quite handy for choosing which of the books to read.

Jules Vuillemin, "On Duhem's and Quine's Theses"
Vuillemin explores the differences between Quine and Duhem when it comes to the so-called "Duhem-Quine Thesis." Duhem limited his remarks to physics – pre-quantum physics, since he died in 1916 – while Quine applies the principle to all of science, including the "primitive scientific theory" of common sense. Vuillemin thinks Duhem didn't go far enough and Quine went too far.

Hao Wang, "Quine's Logical Ideas in Historical Perspective"
Although Quine did his major work during the golden age of the 1930s (alongside Godel and Turing, for example), he is not an influential figure among mathematicians or logicians. Why?

Quine's interest is not to discover new theorems...or to find new axioms ... Rather he looks for an elegant set of axioms from which "ordinary mathematics" can be deduced.

Both Wang and Quine in his response note one reason for this focus: Quine did most of his logical work in service of his classroom teaching.

Morton White, "Normative Ethics/Epistemology, and Quine's Holism"
White wants Quine to include normative sentences as part of a scientific theory that could change in the face of recalcitrant experience. As with Thompson above, I think he's got a point about how we act in practice, but Quine rejects the point on philosophical grounds.

You know what sets Quine – and Putnam and Rorty and even Nozick – apart from most philosophers? They provide concrete, and sometimes humorous, thought experiments. (Two words: surface irritations.) Most philosophers talk theory, which means a reader can't follow unless he or she already knows the point of contention.