20th-Century Philosophy: Quine and Davidson

FAIN: FS-50245-10

Princeton University (Princeton, NJ 08540-5228)
Gilbert H. Harman (Project Director: March 2010 to August 2012)
Ernie Lepore (Co Project Director: March 2010 to August 2012)

Funding details:
Original grant (2010) $257,813.00
Supplement (2011) $19,900.42

A six-week summer seminar for sixteen college and university faculty on the prominent twentieth-century philosophers W.V.O. Quine and Donald Davidson.

This six week summer seminar will bring together fifteen participants with the aim of deepening their understanding of American philosophy in the previous century through an examination of themes in W.V.O. Quine (1908-2000) and Donald Davidson (1917-2003). Although Quine and Davidson have been, and continue to be, highly influential, their work is often misunderstood through oversimplification and failure to take into account ways in which their ideas developed and matured over time in response to other philosophers and especially to each other. The second decade of the 21st Century is a good time to take stock of their continuing relevance to contemporary discussion. It is also a good time to ensure that the next generation of students has teachers who understand and appreciate these ideas and theories in their total contexts rather than as isolated doctrines.