Quine, Davidson, Rorty: Philosophy Without Fundamentalism

The Pragmatic Turn in Analytics

The second half of the 20th century in analytic philosophy is a gradual rejection of foundationalism: the idea that knowledge has unshakable foundations (whether sensory data or logical truths). Three figures—Willard Quine, Donald Davidson, and Richard Rorty—represent this turn toward naturalism and pragmatism.

Quine: Two Dogmas of Empiricism

Willard Quine (1908–2000), in the article "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" (1951), attacked two main convictions of logical positivism. The first dogma: the distinction between analytic (true by meaning of words) and synthetic (empirical) statements. Quine demonstrates that it is impossible to draw this boundary clearly: the meaning of words depends on theory, and theory depends on the entire system of beliefs.

The second dogma: "reductionism"—every meaningful statement can be translated into statements about sensory experience. Quine rejects this as well: statements of science confront experience not one at a time, but "en masse," as an entire system. If experience contradicts theory, we can adjust any part of it.

Quine's metaphor: knowledge is a "field of force," not a set of atomic statements. The periphery of the field is closer to experience, the center is the most fundamental beliefs (logical and mathematical). When experience contradicts the system, we make minimal changes. But in principle, even logic itself can be revised.

Davidson: Triangulation and Interpretation

Donald Davidson (1917–2003) developed a radical position on interpretation: to understand what a person is thinking means to interpret their words and actions as rational. The "principle of charity": when interpreting another’s utterance, assume that the speaker is mostly correct (in their beliefs) and rational. Otherwise, interpretation is impossible.

This entails: there cannot be a radically different conceptual scheme, absolutely untranslatable. If something is at all a "scheme," we can cope with it. Davidson's famous essay, "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme" (1974): the idea of a "scheme that organizes reality" is incoherent—there is no sense in talking about "our scheme" as opposed to "another," without knowing what "the reality of the scheme" is.

Rorty: Philosophy as Conversation

Richard Rorty (1931–2007) proclaimed the “end of philosophy” in the old sense—as the search for the foundations of knowledge. His book "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" (1979) criticizes the idea that the mind "reflects" reality, that knowledge is an exact mirror. This is a metaphor, not a fact.

Rorty proposed instead of "systematic philosophy" (the search for foundations) "edifying philosophy": philosophy as conversation, helping people diversify their vocabularies, to see the world from new points of view. Truth is not correspondence to reality, but what is "advantageous to believe" (Jamesian pragmatism). Solidarity is more important than objectivity.

Rorty provoked a wave of criticism: relativism? Rejection of rationality? He responded: no, it is simply honesty about what philosophy is actually doing—a cultural conversation, not the discovery of eternal truths.

Question for Reflection: Rorty said that our "vocabulary" (the set of concepts with which we describe the world) is always contingent—it could have been different. Which concepts in your professional field do you take as "obvious," though they could have been completely different?