''The Roots of Reference'' is a 1974 book by the philosopher

Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine (; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century" ...

, in which the author expands on his earlier concepts about the

inscrutability of reference The inscrutability or indeterminacy of reference (also referential inscrutability) is a thesis by 20th century analytic philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine in his book ''Word and Object''. The main claim of this theory is that any given sentence ca ...

and examines problems with traditional empiricism, arguing for a

naturalized epistemology Naturalized epistemology (a term coined by W. V. O. Quine) is a collection of philosophic views concerned with the theory of knowledge that emphasize the role of natural scientific methods. This shared emphasis on scientific methods of studying k ...

based on holism.Craig, Edward (Ed.) )1998). ''Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 10.'' Taylor & Francis US

Background

Quine's draft was initially developed in 1970 as an expansion of ideas presented in ''

Word and Object ''Word and Object'' is a 1960 work by the philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine, in which the author expands upon the line of thought of his earlier writings in ''From a Logical Point of View'' (1953), and reformulates some of his earlier arguments ...

'' (1960) about language acquisition.Quine, W.V. (1973). ''The Roots of Reference.'' The Paul Carus Lectures. Open Court,

Summary

The book is divided into three sections, one for each of the three

Paul Carus Lectures The Carus Lectures are a prestigious series of three lectures presented over three consecutive days in plenary sessions at a divisional meeting of the American Philosophical Association. The series was founded in 1925 with John Dewey as the inaugur ...

he originally gave in 1971 at the

American Philosophical Association The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarl ...

conference. These three lectures were then revised and expanded for the book, with an introduction by

Nelson Goodman Henry Nelson Goodman (7 August 1906 – 25 November 1998) was an American philosopher, known for his work on counterfactuals, mereology, the problem of induction, irrealism, and aesthetics. Life and career Goodman was born in Somerville, M ...

. The first section is "Perceiving and learning," and it summarizes the

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...

perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...

and learning. The second is "Breaking into language," and it concerns reification, which moves from rudimentary to full-fledged through the use of the

relative clause A relative clause is a clause that modifies a noun or noun phraseRodney D. Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum, ''A Student's Introduction to English Grammar'', CUP 2005, p. 183ff. and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the argument ...

with its

relative pronoun A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause. It serves the purpose of conjoining modifying information about an antecedent referent. An example is the word ''which'' in the sentence "This is the house which Jack built." Here the r ...

and subsidiary pronouns. These pronouns then recur as the bound variables of quantifications. The third section, "Referring to objects," examines

properties Property is the ownership of land, resources, improvements or other tangible objects, or intellectual property. Property may also refer to: Mathematics * Property (mathematics) Philosophy and science * Property (philosophy), in philosophy an ...

, classes and

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...

s. He concludes that it is a

genetic fallacy The genetic fallacy (also known as the fallacy of origins or fallacy of virtue) is a fallacy of irrelevance in which arguments or information are dismissed or validated based solely on their source of origin rather than their content. In other wor ...

to claim that

truth Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as belie ...

cannot emerge from

fallacious A fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning, or "wrong moves," in the construction of an argument which may appear stronger than it really is if the fallacy is not spotted. The term in the Western intellectual tradition was intr ...

proofs. Quine is interested in explaining the " psychogenesis of reference," constructing how

sensory perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...

moves from the ability to describe concrete objects to

abstract objects In metaphysics, the distinction between abstract and concrete refers to a divide between two types of entities. Many philosophers hold that this difference has fundamental metaphysical significance. Examples of concrete objects include plants, hum ...

through a series of increasingly complex ways of referring to things. Following sensory reception of input from the physical world, someone acquiring language must learn to form " observation sentences, talk of bodies,

compound sentences In grammar, sentence and clause structure, commonly known as sentence composition, is the classification of sentences based on the number and kind of clauses in their syntactic structure. Such division is an element of traditional grammar. Typol ...

, quantifiers,

s until the imagined person has a scheme not much less sophisticated than our own."Peacocke, Christopher (2000). With References to the Roots. In Føllesdal, Dagfinn (Ed.) ''Philosophy of Quine: General, reviews, and analytic'' Taylor & Francis, According to author Gary Kemp, Quine "refines the claims and tasks of

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epis ...

so as to make good on the basic claim that all knowledge derives from experience."Kemp, Gary (2006). ''Quine: a guide for the perplexed .''Continuum International Publishing Group, Because it was created for the Carus Lectures, Quine states his

ontological In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...

position in a "delightfully relaxed, good-humored style."Lee, Harold N. (1974). The Roots of Reference by W. V. Quine (review) ''The Southern Journal of Philosophy.'' Volume 12, Issue 3, pages 391–396, Fall 1974

References

External links

The Roots of Reference
via Publisher's website {{DEFAULTSORT:Roots of Reference 1974 non-fiction books American non-fiction books Analytic philosophy literature English-language books Epistemology literature Philosophy of language literature Works by Willard Van Orman Quine Books of lectures