June 25

Willard Van Orman Quine was a pioneering philosopher and logician whose work transformed analytic philosophy. He held the Dunham Professorship at Harvard University and taught there for over 50 years. Quine is best known for rejecting the analytic-synthetic distinction in his essay "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" and for developing a holistic theory of knowledge. His book "Word and Object" laid out his views on language, reference, and ontology. He advocated for naturalized epistemology, arguing that philosophical questions should be approached using empirical science. Quine’s rigorous arguments and prolific writings have left a lasting legacy in philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive science.