I find it a little bit sad that the only thing most people know about Quine is source code outputting programs.
Quine was probably the most influential post war analytical philosopher. 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' is his most famous work but when I read it as an undergraduate I felt it was somewhat rooted in its time (being a reaction against the dominant ideas of early 20th century empiricism). However, when I read a couple of his later works on the deflationary theory of truth (Quine's version was 'disquotationalism') it was like I had suddenly grasped some truth that had always existed just beyond understanding and only needed someone smarter than me to point out. Donald Davidson would then go on to develop these ideas with more clarity.
In a bizarre way Quine is responsible for my current profession (Software engineer) - I got interested in computer languages as a result of studying the Philosophy of Language during my Philosophy undergraduate degree.
Quine was probably the most influential post war analytical philosopher. 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' is his most famous work but when I read it as an undergraduate I felt it was somewhat rooted in its time (being a reaction against the dominant ideas of early 20th century empiricism). However, when I read a couple of his later works on the deflationary theory of truth (Quine's version was 'disquotationalism') it was like I had suddenly grasped some truth that had always existed just beyond understanding and only needed someone smarter than me to point out. Donald Davidson would then go on to develop these ideas with more clarity.
In a bizarre way Quine is responsible for my current profession (Software engineer) - I got interested in computer languages as a result of studying the Philosophy of Language during my Philosophy undergraduate degree.