From Word and Object to Roots of Reference

Abstract

In 1960, Quine published Word and Object ¹ (hereafter WO) – a book that has generally been regarded as his major work. It will therefore require some careful examination, for it is here that he began to pay off the IOUs he had issued in “Two Dogmas.”

Chapter one of WO is a brief overview of what is to follow in the book. Quine takes it as a fact established by science that our only contact with the world is through the stimulations of our senses that we receive. The problem, then, is how, from these stimulations, do we reach the science that we have. The process is that of acquiring language, for Quine identifies thinking with talking, whether to others or to ourselves, and learning language is the precondition of that. Quine then lays out his behavioristic view of learning.