How Do We Deal With Conflicts Between Different World Views If They Are Based on the Same Evidence: The Philosophical Problem of Underdetermination in the Thought of W.V. Quine and Donald Davidson

Description
This book examines both Quine's and Davidson's views on underdetermination and language and argues underdetermination provides an epistemological basis for pluralism by justifying alternative world views or conceptual schemes in science.
Reviews
". . . most rewarding. . . . [This book] provides numerous insights into Quine's work-particularly in documenting how tensions in Quine's thought led to modifications of his position." - Prof. Phillip Ferreira, Kutztown University

". . .one of the most comprehensive and concise analyses of the implications of the underdetermination thesis in the literature. [Dr. Adeel] does a masterful job." - Prof. Theodore Schick, Muhlenberg College
Table of Contents
Preface
Foreword
Chapter I
Some Introductory Remarks
On Quine's Terminology
Chapter II
Evolution of Quine's Thinking
On The Thesis of Underdetermination
Chapter III
Duhem-Quine Thesis or Holism*
And Underdetermination
Chapter IV
Can Quine Distinguish The Underdetermination Thesis From The Thesis Of Indeterminacy of Translation?
Chapter V
The Underdetermination Thesis a nd Conventionalism
Chapter VI
The Conflict between Quine's Thesis
Of Underdetermination, and His Empiricism
And Naturalism: A Relativistic Resolution
Chapter VII
Some Recent Takes on Underdetermination: An Evaluation*
Chapter VIII
Davidson on The Problem Of Interpretation: A Comparison with Quine
Chapter IX
Davidson's Requirements
On A Theory of Interpretation
Chapter X
Tarski's Theory of Truth
And Davidson's Semantics: Towards Reducing Indeterminacy
Chapter XI
Davidson's Holism in a Quinian Perspective
Chapter XII
Language and Translatability: Towards Alternative Conceptual Schemes*
Bibliography
Index
ISBN10:  0-7734-1353-7   ISBN13:  978-0-7734-1353-5    Pages:  152    Year:  2010   

Series: hors série Number: 0

Subject Area: Philosophy 

Imprint: Edwin Mellen Press

Born in Hazara region of North Western Pakistan in 1953, M. Ashraf Adeel is a philosopher, poet and a playwright. He was educated in his native region at Gandhian and Baffa schools, Islamia College Peshawar, University of Peshawar, and, University of Hawaii from where he obtained his PhD with distinction under the supervision of famous logician Irving M. Copi.

Adeel's philosophical interests include contemporary philosophy of language and science as well as modern Islamic thought. His book on language and underdetermination in Quine and Davidson How Do We Deal With Different World Views If They Are Based On The Same Evidence: The Philosophical Problem of Underdetermination in Quine and Davidson is a sustained defense of underdetemination and possibility of alternative conceptual schemes or world views both in science and in general. He has recently published such articles as "Modernity and Muslims: A Selective Retrieval" (2011) and "Diversity and Exclusivity: A Religion Needs Both," (2009) in American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, and "Islamic Ethics and the Controversy about the Moral Heart of Confucianism," in Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, 2008. He is particularly interested in pluralism (religious, epistemic, and that of conceptual schemes), traditions and modernity, and Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein. Some of his earlier work includes  "Tarski's Theory of Truth and Davidson's Semantics," The Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 1994, and "Language and Translatability" Tarski versus Davidson," International Philosophical Quarterly, 1991. 

Currently with Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, M. Ashraf Adeel has held a Professorship in Philosophy at University of Peshawar and worked as the founding Vice-Chancellor of Hazara University in Pakistan. He was also a senior Visiting Fellow at Linacre College Oxford in 1999.