Quine, Wittgenstein and ‘The Abyss of the Transcendental’

Abstract

During the early decades of the Twentieth Century many philosophers, W.V. Quine and Ludwig Wittgenstein among them, repudiated what they deemed the pretentions of past philosophy, in particular the assumption that there is knowledge about the world deeper than the deliverances of science and common sense. Attempts to provide information about what really exists, really happens, really matters were judged misguided and metaphysical and epistemological theorizing in all its manifestations decried (compare Carnap, 1996 [1935]: 32). Inquiry that is neither purely scientific nor purely logical was given short shrift, the easy acceptance of philosophical speculation was viewed with suspicion, and much philosophy once supposed legitimate was more or less quietly dropped. In more than a few quarters it became an article of faith that there is nothing deserving the name of philosophical knowledge, only mundane knowledge about the way things happen to be and how such knowledge is acquired. Instead of treating knowledge as falling under three heads — to comprise scientific truths, logical truths and truths lying somewhere between the two — mainstream philosophers took it to fall under two heads — to be either scientific or logical.