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Work #1490 · Late period

The Roots of Reference

Quine's 1974 Paul Carus Lectures — the genetic-developmental account of how reference is learned

Willard Van Orman Quine · 1974 · English · Lecture monograph (Paul Carus Lectures)

Tradition: Analytic philosophy / Quinean naturalism / philosophy of language / philosophy of mind

Quine's 1974 Carus Lectures — how the child comes to refer, naturalised through behavioural-stimulus theory

Published by Open Court in 1974 from Quine's 1971 Paul Carus Lectures at the American Philosophical Association, 'The Roots of Reference' offers a genetic-developmental account of how a child acquires the ability to refer to objects, kinds, and abstract entities, grounded in a behaviourist–naturalist framework of stimulus and verbal conditioning. The book is the developmental-genetic companion to 'Word and Object' (1960) — where the earlier book had treated the philosophical-structural relations among language, behaviour, and ontology, this book treats the ontogenetic emergence of those structures in the language-learning child. Quine traces a graded sequence: observation sentences (sentences whose meaning is wholly determined by current stimulus conditions — 'Red here', 'Mama'); subsumption under predicate (joining observation sentences with logical connectives); the apparatus of ostension and identification; the development of pluralisation and individuation (the move from 'water' to 'a water' to 'two waters'); identity; predication; abstract terms; the use of quantification. The book is methodologically distinctive in synthesising philosophy of language with empirical work on child language acquisition (Quine draws on the work of Roger Brown, Charles Snow, and other contemporary developmental psycholinguists). The book is the principal statement of Quine's naturalised account of reference, complementing the indeterminacy-of-translation thesis from 'Word and Object' and 'Ontological Relativity' (1969) with a positive developmental-psychological account.

Author

Editions cited

  • The Roots of Reference (Open Court, La Salle IL, 1974)
  • Paul Carus Lectures, 1971, delivered at the American Philosophical Association annual meeting
  • Companion volumes: Word and Object (MIT, 1960); Ontological Relativity (Columbia, 1969); Pursuit of Truth (Harvard, 1990; rev. 1992)
  • Critical commentary: Roger F. Gibson, Enlightened Empiricism (Florida, 1988); Daniel Andler (ed.), Le Naturalisme et la philosophie (1995)
Compare this work

School Embodiments

Naturalism · 30%
Behaviorism · 22%
Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism · 14%
Pragmatism · 14%
Philosophy of Language · 12%
Structuralism · 8%
Naturalism 30%

Mature naturalised account of reference acquisition.

"Reference is rooted in stimulus and learning, not in inner ostension." (The Roots of Reference, ch. 1)
Behaviorism 22%

Behavioural-stimulus framework for the ontogeny of language.

"The child's command of reference is built up out of behavioural responses to perceptual similarity." (The Roots of Reference, ch. 2)
Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism 14%

Ontological commitments tracked through the developmental story.

"The ontology of common sense is the ontology built up by the learner." (The Roots of Reference, ch. 4)
Pragmatism 14%

Pragmatist learning-theoretic register.

"Language is a social-pragmatic acquisition." (The Roots of Reference, ch. 1)
Philosophy of Language 12%

Major contribution to the philosophy of language and acquisition.

"From observation sentence to abstract term." (The Roots of Reference, table of contents)
Structuralism 8%

Structural account of the apparatus of reference and quantification.

"Reference becomes systematic only with the apparatus of quantification." (The Roots of Reference, ch. 5)

Internal Tensions

The mature genetic-developmental complement to the indeterminacy thesis. Continuously cited in analytic-philosophy-of-language and in the philosophical literature on child language acquisition; the book's developmental-empirical attention prefigured the contemporary embodied-cognition and language-acquisition programmes.

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I. Time

1971 Carus Lectures; 1974 publication. Quine was 66 at publication.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Grain: Continuous Freedom: Deterministic Traversability: Linear Direction: Uni-directional Dimensionality: One
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II. Space

American Philosophical Association annual meeting (1971 Carus Lectures) / Harvard (Quine's institutional base).

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Curvature: Curved Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
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III. Matter

Single lecture-monograph (~140 pages). Form is sustained philosophical argument with attention to empirical developmental data.

Attributes
Extent: Finite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
◎

IV. Observer

Late Quine on the developmental-naturalist story of reference. The observer is the philosopher attempting to provide a positive developmental-psychological complement to the negative-philosophical claims of indeterminacy.

Attributes
Time Instance: Single Space Instance: Single Knowledge Extent: Immediate Knowledge Retainment: Total Physicality: Embodied Agency: Passive Number: Plural Metaphysical Agency: Impersonal
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V. Energy

Naturalist-developmental-analytic energies. The book is the most concentrated single statement of Quine's developmental-naturalist account of language acquisition.

Attributes
Extent: Finite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dispersibility: Irreversible
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VI. Information

Single book derived from a three-lecture series. The graded sequence (from observation sentences to quantification) is the central informational structure.

Attributes
Ontological Status: Substantival Cosmic Conservation: Conserved Personal Conservation: Non-conserved Granularity: Continuous

Personas that cite this work

Willard Van Orman Quine

Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint

Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.

97%
Albert Einstein
33/34
97%
Willard Van Orman Quine
33/34
94%
Bertrand Russell
32/34
94%
Charles Darwin
32/34
94%
Pierre-Simon Laplace
32/34
94%
Roy Bhaskar
32/34

Computed school proximity

The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.

76%
Stoicism
22/26
73%
Structuralism
22/26
72%
Scientism
23/26
72%
Realism
23/26
69%
Behaviorism
22/26
69%
Evolutionary Psychology
22/26
68%
Eternalism
21/26
68%
Reformed / Calvinist Theology
22/26

How The Roots of Reference resolves each dilemma

34 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 6 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 23 unaligned.

Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.

Time · 9 dilemmas · 3 distinctive

Persistence, the future, and the direction of becoming.

Distinctive · only 10% of schools agree (20/202)
Do you really choose?
If the brain is a physical system and physical systems are governed by laws, then every choice is also a chain of causes — which raises the question of what was really left to choose.
Choice is structural illusion — every event is fixed by the prior state.
On this view, the future is fixed by the present, and the observer is a recipient of causes rather than an originator of them. The sense of choosing is real — but what is being chosen is itself a consequence of brain states that were …
Roads not taken The future is open and you are a genuine origin of it. (69%) · Choice is real within a determined order — agency and determinism aren’t opposites. (9%) · Even if the universe is undetermined, you are not the chooser. (6%)
Distinctive · only 10% of schools agree (20/202)
Are addicts responsible for their addiction?
Addiction looks from one angle like the textbook case of agency failing — a person doing what they don't, in any meaningful sense, want to do. From another angle it looks like agency at work in hard conditions. Which it is depends on what agency is.
The addict's behaviour is the outcome of causes; 'responsibility' is a useful fiction, not a metaphysical fact.
On this view, the addict's brain state, history, genetics, and circumstances jointly produce the behaviour, and there is nothing inside the person that could have produced anything else. Calling the addict responsible is at best a social tool — useful for the deterrent and rehabilitative …
Roads not taken The addict could have chosen otherwise — that's why recovery is real. (69%) · The addict is genuinely responsible within a determined order. (9%) · Even if the universe is undetermined, the addict isn't the chooser. (6%)
Distinctive · only 10% of schools agree (20/202)
Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do?
When an autonomous AI takes an action that harms someone, the question of who or what is responsible — the developer, the operator, the model itself — turns on whether the model is the kind of thing that can be a responsible agent.
An AI's behaviour is fully determined by training and input; 'responsibility' applies if at all to its makers.
On this view, the AI's output is a function of its training data, its architecture, and the input it received. There is no extra fact about the AI that could ground its responsibility, because there is no extra fact about the AI that could have …
Roads not taken An AI without a free will is not the kind of thing that can be responsible. (69%) · The AI can be a genuine agent within determined conditions — and therefore genuinely responsible. (9%) · Neither AIs nor anyone else are the locus of free agency; the question is the wrong one. (6%)
6 mainstream positions
How much weight do future people deserve? Future people are as real as you are — and their interests count for as much. 47% Is regret rational? The past is as real as the present; regret is a real attitude toward a real thing. 47% Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them? Extinct species are as real as we are; they have standing. 47% Is the universe running out of usable energy? Time is unbounded but matter is finite; usable energy can fail without time failing. 47% Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so? Time goes on but matter is bounded; we are eventually constrained even with infinite time. 47% Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide? Time is unbounded but matter is not; we can owe more across long time than the matter can provide. 47%
Matter · 7 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is the world created from nothing? Yes — matter was created and is conserved as a real substance. 55% Is the physical world fully real? Yes — the physical world is fully real, mind-independent, persisting. 55% Does matter have intrinsic moral standing? Matter is morally considerable insofar as it is created or conserved good. 55% What is money? Money is a real institution with intrinsic features. 54% What is a nation? A nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character. 54% What makes someone male or female? Sex is a real biological kind with given content. 54% Should we edit the human germline? Human nature is a real biological kind given by reproductive biology or by creation; editing the germline transgresses what is given. 54%

Observer · 37 dilemmas · 3 distinctive

Mind, agency, and the knower's relation to the known.

Distinctive · only 12% of schools agree (25/202)
What is our place in nature?
Whether humans are masters of nature, members of nature, or makers of nature is not a question climate science can settle. It depends on what nature is, what we are, and what kind of relationship is possible between us.
Subject to a real natural order we did not make.
On these views, nature is a real, ordered, mind-independent reality that we are inside of but did not construct. Our fundamental posture toward it is one of observation, discovery, and humility before laws that are not ours to make. Stewardship and conservation are real obligations, …
Roads not taken Active in a real nature — we cultivate, steward, transform. (48%) · Nature is partly what we make of it — concepts, practices, and minds shape the world. (15%) · Embedded in a web — partners with the more-than-human world. (15%)
Distinctive · only 12% of schools agree (25/202)
Should we colonize space?
The drive to extend human presence beyond Earth is sometimes framed as the next chapter of stewardship, sometimes as hubris, sometimes as escape from problems we ought to solve here. Which it is depends on what we take our relationship to nature to be.
Nature includes its limits; colonisation is bounded by what the cosmos allows.
On these views, humans operate within a given natural order whose laws and limits set the terms. Space colonisation is fine to the extent that it is actually possible — radiation, gravity wells, biological tolerances — and folly to the extent that it requires denying …
Roads not taken Cultivating worlds beyond Earth is the next form of stewardship. (48%) · The 'space frontier' is partly what we make of it. (15%) · Colonisation continues the work that ended the wisdom of seven-generation thinking. (15%)
Distinctive · only 12% of schools agree (25/202)
Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination?
Editing the genomes of the plants and animals we eat is either the natural continuation of breeding — careful improvement of what is given — or a category error that treats biology as raw material rather than as living kind.
Biology is what it is; we modify it within real biological constraints.
On these views, organisms are real biological systems with real constraints, and genetic modification is reasonable when it works within those constraints and dangerous when it ignores them. The question is technical: does this modification do what its proponents say, with the unintended consequences they …
Roads not taken Genetic modification is cultivation by other means. (48%) · What counts as a 'natural' genome is itself a construction. (15%) · Editing the genome cuts into the relational fabric; we should be very slow. (15%)
11 mainstream positions
Could causation work backwards? Causation runs one way — the arrow of time is real and structural. 68% Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us? The asymmetry is real because time itself has a real direction. 68% Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it? The arrow is real and structural; the asymmetry isn't an artifact of description. 68% Is environmental damage ever truly permanent? Damage is real and permanent on the relevant timescales. There is no recovery; there is only limitation. 66% Can a civilization recover from collapse? Civilizational complexity is hard to build and easy to lose; recovery is at best partial. 66% Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally? Entropy is what time is. The moral weight, if any, is the weight of working against the current. 66% When does a person begin? A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence. 54% What is marriage? Marriage has a given form — it’s a kind of thing we recognize, not make. 54% Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it? Trust expertise whose conclusions a competent mind can in principle reproduce. 32% Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge? Revelation is evaluable by reason — and not above it. 32% Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces? An LLM can produce correct outputs but not reason to them; useful, not knowing. 32%
23 unaligned
Are coincidences ever more than coincidence? Schools split: 49% / 37% / 8% — Are the dead morally present to the living? Schools split: 44% / 35% / 13% — Are there indivisible units of experience? Schools split: 44% / 37% / 13% — Can prayer for someone far away affect them? Schools split: 49% / 37% / 8% — Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious? Schools split: 32% / 29% / 11% — Could an AI have a mind that matters? Schools split: 30% / 30% / 15% — Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans? Schools split: 32% / 29% / 11% — Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally? Schools split: 50% / 29% / 12% — Does history have a direction or meaning? Schools split: 37% / 23% / 19% — Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless? Schools split: 46% / 33% / 13% — Does prayer change God's mind? Schools split: 46% / 33% / 13% — How is knowledge of reality produced? Schools split: 25% / 17% / 13% — If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived? Schools split: 36% / 29% / 14% — Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom? Schools split: 46% / 33% / 13% — Is memory stored or reconstructed? Schools split: 44% / 37% / 13% — Is reality fundamentally digital? Schools split: 44% / 37% / 13% — Is salvation, liberation, or fulfillment individual or communal? Schools split: 15% / 14% / 4% — Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married? Schools split: 36% / 29% / 14% — Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed? Schools split: 65% / 16% / 10% — What happens to "you" when you die? Schools split: 37% / 30% / 18% — What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize? Schools split: 44% / 16% / 14% — What makes someone the same person over time? Schools split: 36% / 29% / 14% — Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species? Schools split: 40% / 28% / 14% —
Information · 4 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is anything truly lost when someone forgets? Information is lost when a mind forgets; matter and energy continue, but the pattern is gone. 51% Does deleting your data online destroy something real? Information is genuinely lost when the substrate that hosted it goes; deletion really destroys. 51% Could the dead, in principle, be brought back? The information dissipates with the substrate; restoration is in principle impossible. 51% Is forgiveness ontologically possible? The offense is locally constituted by its substrate; when the substrate dissolves, the offense genuinely passes away. 51%
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