From: holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: Philosophical Influence & Goedel
Organization: Boise State University Math Dept.
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 21:27:07 GMT

In article <BsvGp0.L6M@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
>
>In article <MARTINC.92Aug11215203@grover.cs.unc.edu>, martinc@grover.cs.unc.edu (Charles R. Martin) writes:
>|> 
>|> I dunno, MZ... the overwhelming importance of Goedel-Roesser and via
>|> them Turing on philosophy I think would be hard to overestimate.  (I
>|> agree with you about Heidegger et al -- I suspect that by 2092 they'll
>|> be about as well known as the Thomists and neo-Platonists, but no longer
>|> an active influence.)

I hope so.
 
>
>In general I agree.  However, I think Michael's view of Quine's contributions
>is less than accurate.  (I will not debate the issue regarding students.)
>It is, oddly enough, a view that I might well have agreed to until
>recently when my participation in this group caused me to look back
>over a number of papers and then further into Quine's autobiography
>and contributions.

I agree.

  Even if you restrict attention to the purely
>technical contributions (in set theory, concatenation theory, etc.)
>these are impressive.  (I agree that it may be argued that the
>contributions may not be as truly "foundational" as those of Tarski
>et al., although I think a lot of the set theory stuff compares
>favorably to contributions of Zermelo or von Neumann.)

Quine's contribution is considerable; I knew him as a significant
figure without knowing much about his philosophy at all.

  Add to this
>the contributions in the areas of epistemology and philosophy of
>language (which cannot be painted with the broad brush of "negative")
>which one does not find in Tarski, Goedel, et al. and you begin
>to see a philosopher much along the lines of Russell (minus any
>moral philosophy which, in Russell's case, is probably best left
>unanalyzed).

I was feeling insecure about my attributing my own sympathy with Quine
to a common inheritance from Russell; it's nice to see corroboration
for this.  Quine is quite explicit somewhere about not wanting to
enter the lists of moral philosophy.

  Then there is the general area of metaphysics --
>in which we must include not only the "negative" (but major)
>contributions of such works as "Two Dogmas", "On What There Is",
>complaints about modal logic, etc., but also the positive contributions
>(sometimes with Goodman) in the area of nominalism.
>
>In short, one tends to forget how much (and in how many areas) Quine
>has done, and how much this has stood the test of time (however briefly
>measured that may be at this point).  In addition, unlike such
>philosophers/logicians/mathematicians as Tarski and even Carnap, and
>unlike such philosophers/non-logicians/non-mathematicians as
>Heidegger, Sartre, et al., Quine's influence spans many diverse
>"schools" of philosophy.  Again, there are many reasonable criteria
>one might choose to determine "influence" or "importance".  While
>I have usually favored the intuitions and approach of Tarski and 
>Carnap over Quine, I think it must be conceded that the influence
>of Quine has, and will continue to be, substantial.

Is anyone listening who is familiar with the artificial language
Loglan, or its cousin Lojban?  This language is one of the more
surprising offshoots of Quine's philosophy; it can be described as
having actually implemented the philosophical grammar which Quine
builds in _Word and Object_ (although the person who did the
grammatical work tells me that he laid the groundwork before W&O came
out, and it is, again, a matter of common influences).

>
>(I detest this talk of "influence", by the way.  It is usually
>done completely in the absence of any clearly stated criteria,
>and it is never clear to me what the point is of attempting to
>establish that A had more "influence" than B.  Having participated
>in it even to the degree that I have above, I feel somehow "unclean".
>I'm done with it.)

It doesn't matter who influences you or whom you influence; is what
you say true?  It all comes back to this...

>
>
>-- 
>Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
>SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
>sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm


-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta