In Conversation: W.V. Quine - The Dennett Panel (1994)

[@Avicenna10]

Great panel. Thank you so much for posting. I actually had a class with Dennett about four or five years prior to this panel discussion. He looks, and sounds just like I remember him. Great professor, open to questions and opposing views, quick on his feet, and a wonderful dry wit.

[@GottfriedLeibnizYT]

I'm envious of all the people who had the opportunity to have an exchange with Quine.

[@admacgillycuddy3174]

Why? At least you got to meet Spinoza, mate

[@saken]

This was really great! Thanks! Quine was charming and seemed like a great guy.

[@michaeljussen5276]

Beautiful, thank you!

[@GeorgiosMichalopoulos]

Amazing upload, thank you!

[@orsoncart802]

Great stuff! Just one quibble. 1:10:21 - “Cosmic complements of cats are cosmic complements of carnivores.” I think that must have been a momentary slip of the tongue. What is true is: “The cosmic complement of [the set of all] carnivores is contained in the cosmic complement of [the set of all] cats and indeed in the cosmic complement of any particular cat.” None of which undermines Quine’s one-to-one correspondence relation, which stands. 👍😁

[@MrWilmasmiley]

Paul has not changed in 40 years! Sounds and looks exactly the same as when I knew him.

[@kantvishi]

Awesome.

[@quinnculver]

Legend!

[@eckhartmaister4404]

Genius man; I think analitical philosophy is best than continental, logic gives so much more to other disciplines; just an opinion, but I think is the best that happened in philosophy.

[@reason827]

No. Analitical philosophy is irrational. And also Kant system. Objectivism ( Ayn Rand) is a true philosophy.

[@eckhartmaister4404]

@@reason827 False. Can you tell me how analytical philosophy is irrational according to you? Rand isn’t considered a philosopher by most philosophers. I made an authority argument right there, that’s right. Analytic philosophy uses logic form the start, and therefore calling it “irrational” is nonsense. Logic positivism was irrealistic, that’s for sure. But tell me, how is analytical philosophy irrational?

[@reason827]

@@eckhartmaister4404 Positivism is false like semiotics.

[@reason827]

@@eckhartmaister4404 Liebmann, Lotze, Cohen,Natorp were all irrational. Mach, Husserl, Whitehead, von Hartmann too.

[@reason827]

@@eckhartmaister4404 Norwwod Hanson was a relativist.

[@jameshalford1180]

the difference between "speculative metaphysics" and natural science is a matter of degree lol what a guy

[@sabyasachisenapati3619]

Why "lol"?

[@McRingil]

metaphysics isn`t ghost-busting you know that?

[@mr_io]

@39:50 He's referring to carnap but the subtitles say carnot.

[@mehranshargh]

Thank you! it is corrected now.

[@sabyasachisenapati3619]

Quine forgot to specify telepathy as being a naturally occurring phenomena as opposed to being some extensive technological design for him to be mesmerized. Context: Epistemic boundedness.😊

[@colin0630]

While there are certainly appealing aspects to Prof. Quine’s approach to philosophy, most notably his materialism and his holism, I just don’t think his “radical translation” thought experiment is compelling. There have been analogous examples in history. For example, the Mayan script which was finally deciphered in the 80s, and there was no ambiguity or room for serious syntactical or grammatical differences. These would just be not just bad translation, but nonsensical ones, or just failed attempts. The only way his experiment could possibly work is with a truly alien species, but this is so far out of the bounds of any serious consideration. In the process, he really downgrades Chomsky’s innate grammar idea way too much. Of course, there is a behavioral component to language but it is far, far less important than the learner’s (a baby) innate language capacity. And, the example of separated twins not sharing the same language is embarrassing. That shows nothing-at least for his soft behaviorist approach. I wish one of these guys ask him right out: Would a child develop a language if totally isolated? Now that would be a much more interesting question. My guess is that it would albeit almost wholly latent. And, why his is so resistant to pragmatism? It seems to be more political or perhaps a bit of snobbery than anything of real substance.

[@VoloBonja]

Innate grammar, innate walking, innate face recognition, innate whatever you want… Chomskys innate language is a bad explanation of how child learns a language. I don’t agree with Quine on many things, but seems like he was right to criticise Chomsky on his BS

[@max-wj4bm]

32:50 and this is Chomsky yaw i see it just pushing him self in to my philosophy

[@strangerperson1823]

rip daniel dennett ...

[@tenzinsoepa7648]

2 dogmas: 10:00

[@mehranshargh]

Thanks! I corrected it.

[@Human_Evolution-]

Are there any definitive claims contrary to Quines on the meaninglessness on meaning and analyticity or is this as solid as it gets for philosophy right now? In the PhilPapers statistics philosophers were split on the belief that a priori truths exist. I wonder why and I wonder if that split would not exist if it was not for Quine.

[@bertyboy12345]

Meaning is a nasty bitch. You can't tame her through individuation or equivalence, nor bridge the gap between it and the sentence. Then we have the problem of intention vs understanding. We can never be sure where the speaker and hearer diverge or converge in their understanding. And that's leaving out the intersection where they and the formal definitions fail to match. The usual argument for individuation is, say, if I say "the snow is white is true," and the snow happens to be white, then that only means that the snow is white. The problem is, if you say it in a different manner, the words become unattached to the meaning. So when words and sentences are used, there is no fixed mode of use to imply fixed meanings. There is no doubt a grammar that organizes the sentences into a comprehensible arrangement, much the way words are used can change drastically over circumstances.

[@wilmasmiley7201]

R T o

[@hss12661]

Quine's remarks are about analytic truths in natural languages, not logical truth. I think the PhilPapers surveys might be confusing because the questions are formulated in an odd way. Like: to what extent a priori? etc.

[@Human_Evolution-]

@@hss12661 I haven't studied this kind of philosophy and like 6 years so this is all flying over my head now. Funny how quick we are to forget.

[@hss12661]

@@Human_Evolution- No problem.

[@rhetoric5173]

I’ll skip cause neither featured party in the title are worth listening to for 2 minutes, much less 2 hours

[@narcissesmith9466]

How can we even talk about words. How can there be a concept of concept. I dont get it.

[@davidscher4303]

I was sharing turnips

[@chadcalvert7198]

Maybe the problem is peacetime spacetime and necessity of economy's necessity. Quine nor Wittgenstein can add a symbol to languages of math or logic or ordinary language. I can't throw a spaceship symbol at him as an 😔

[@reason827]

Quine was wrong. Dennett is one of few rational philosophers in the world.

[@alexbuckley4378]

I would call him a natural philosopher. He even kinda looks Greek-y

[@igormendonca4026]

disagreeable INFJ

[@chadcalvert7198]

Starship or spaceship does not fit neatly into his logical breakdown of words objects and the meaningless or limits of meaning. Why this debate is like elementary dear Watson rather than build me an empire of starships to get me off this pointless inductive planet. The mathematics of spacetime can run differently when space ships have a why where and when extension. Interplanetary logic and pragmatic vs the neopragmatic and the noun contingency of the ISS