Ontology recapitulates philology: Willard Quine, pragmatism, and radical behaviorism

Behavior and Philosophy, 2001 by Malone, John C

ONTOLOGY RECAPITULATES PHILOLOGY:1 WILLARD QUINE, PRAGMATISM, AND RADICAL BEHAVIORISM

Willard Van Orman Quine died on Christmas Day, 2000, at the age of 92. He was possibly the greatest living American philosopher, and he was a member of the editorial board of this journal since its origin in 1972. Appropriately enough, he was cited three times in two articles appearing in the issue just preceding his death. He lived what appears to have been a wonderful life, described in his autobiography, The Time of My Life, published in 1985 and reprinted in 2000-a life of travel, prestigious awards, and impressive scholarship mixed with humor, elegant dinners, fine wines, Harvard, and Beacon Hill.

I will first describe briefly the range and the depth of Quine's contributions, not necessarily those that touch directly on psychology. The total of his work ranges from the logical bases of mathematics through Quiddities (1987) to references to Monty Python. Then I will comment on his relation to psychology and to B. F. Skinner. He was influenced by and must have influenced Skinner, particularly concerning the nature of language and the heavy reliance on context to define meaning. Or did the influence run the other way-did Skinner convince Quine that language was crucial? In any event, Quine and Skinner shared the view that private experience and self-awareness are tied inextricably to language and thus are largely a creation of the verbal community. Finally, I will describe Quine's questioning of the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions, which promoted a pragmatism that was not clearly to Skinner's taste but which follows from some interpretations of Skinner's doctrines and has been promoted by his descendants.

Quine's "wonderful life" began in relatively humble beginnings in Akron, Ohio, followed by study at Oberlin College and at Harvard. The Oberlin undergraduate degree took four years and he said that his A-minus average testified that, 11... my seriousness had not been unflagging" (Quine, 1987, p. 73). He had done well in his major, mathematics, but felt that he had not always understood as much as he should have. There was more "pleasure" in "Stetson's course in psychology, where we read Watson on behaviorism. . ." (1987, p. 59). He wanted a graduate degree but recoiled at the prospect of a career teaching the staples of mathematics. He also liked philosophy, but again, the thought of endlessly lecturing on the classic philosophers was unappealing.

Fortunately, he was destined to do neither-he was able to combine his mathematical and philosophical interests so as to avoid the distasteful aspects of both. He was accepted as a graduate student in philosophy at Harvard, and he and his fiancee Naomi hitchhiked to Boston. He earned a Ph.D. in philosophy under Alfred North Whitehead in two years; it was 1932 and he was 23 years old.

With that first wife, he spent "a great year" on a traveling fellowship in Europe and returned to Harvard as a junior fellow in 1933. Two years later he was a Harvard faculty member-an instructor teaching a graduate lecture course in mathematical logic in the Department of Mathematics and a seminar in the philosophy of mathematics in the Philosophy Department.2 Eventually he earned a reputation as someone who intimidated mathematicians in the way that most people are intimidated by mathematicians.

Monty Python, Ted Kaczynski, and "Quine" as Adjective and Verb

He made his reputation in mathematical logic and set theory, as well as in treatments of the problems of ontology, questions about the nature of existence that had also concerned the ancient Greeks (e.g., Quine, 1948, 1951). At the same time, talks were given with titles like, "Themes in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy. . as Reflected in the Work of Monty Python" (Hardcastle, 1993), and he was the object of newspaper articles titled "O. J. Meets Willard Quine" (Johnson, 1995). Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) was a student of his, though he did not remember him in 1996, so he looked up Ted in his records-Kaczynski tied for top in the class, with a 98.9% average.3

He appeared in videos and wrote a book, Quiddities (1987), comprising a dictionary of often-idiosyncratic definitions, while other dictionaries, including the Oxford English Dictionary, used his name to create an adjective, a verb, and a noun:

Quinean -adj. "Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Willard Van Orman Quine or his theories." (Burchfeld, 1982)

Quine -v. "(1) To deny resolutely the existence of importance of something real or significant. Some philosophers have quined classes, and some have even quined physical objects." Occasionally used intr., e.g., "You think I quine, sir. I assure you I do not!" (2) n. The total aggregate sensory surface of the world; hence quinitis, irritation of the quine." (Dennett, 1987)

quine /kwi:n/ [from the name of the logician Willard V. Quine, via Douglas Hofstadter] -n. A program that generates a copy of its own source text as its complete output. Devising the shortest possible quine in some given programming language is a common hackish amusement. (Raymond, 1996)