Reconstructing Quine: the Troubles with a Tradition*

There has developed in the professional literature a distinct tradition of interpreting and reconstructing Quine’s epistemology. The tradition has its roots in Gilbert Harman’s influential interpretation of Quine as an empiricist and in Harman’s reconstruction of Quine’s views on meaning.’ Richard Rorty, and those influenced by what may fairly be called the “Princeton School” of Quine scholarship, have elaborated and extended this tradition.’ The members of this school are unified by the attempt to offer a synoptic view of Quine’s epistemological project that is, to specify how the leading themes of Quine’s epistemology are (or are not) to be integrated into a comprehensive and systematic account of the nature of human knowledge. Differences certainly exist within the tradition. (For example, Rorty and Harman disagree over whether competing axiomatizations of set theory illustrate Quine’s thesis of the indeterminacy of tran~lation.)~ Nevertheless, the main outlines of a received reading have been agreed upon, and it is possible to specify three fixed theses which together constitute the received reading of the tradition: