Quine's ladder: Two and a half pages from the philosophy of logic

Midwest Studies in Philosophy 32 (1):274-312 (2008)
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Abstract

I want to discuss, in some detail, a short section from Quine’s Philosophy of Logic. It runs from pages 10 to 13 of the second, revised edition of the book and carries the subheading ‘Truth and semantic ascent’.1 In these two and a half pages, Quine presents his well-known account of truth as a device of disquotation, employing what I call Quine’s Ladder. The section merits scrutiny, for it has become the central document for contemporary deflationary views about truth.

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10.1111/j.1475-4975.2008.00176.x

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original David, Marian (1981) "Quine's Ladder: Two and a Half Pages from the Philosophy of Logic". In Ackerman, Felicia, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, pp. 274–312: Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (1981)

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Marian David
University of Graz

Citations of this work

The correspondence theory of truth.Marian David - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Immanence and Transcendence in the Cognitive Modality of Truth.Gurpreet Rattan - 2025 - Australasian Philosophical Review 9 (1):44-55.
The Weight of Truth: Lessons for Minimalists from Russell's Gray's Elegy Argument.Tim Button - 2014 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 114 (3pt3):261-289.
Quine and the Problem of Truth.Joshua Schwartz - 2016 - Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 4 (10).
Truth Incorporated.Gurpreet Rattan - 2016 - Noûs 50 (2):227-258.

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References found in this work

Quotation.Herman Cappelen, Ernest Lepore & Matthew McKeever - forthcoming - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Pursuit of truth.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1992 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Philosophy of logic.Willard Quine - 1986 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Edited by Simon Blackburn & Keith Simmons.

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