Willard Van Orman Quine - Biography

Biography

According to his autobiography, The Time of My Life (1986), Quine grew up in Akron, Ohio where he lived with his parents and older brother Robert C. His father, Cloyd R., was a manufacturing entrepreneur and his mother, Harriett E. (also known as "Hattie" according to the 1920 census), was a schoolteacher and later a housewife. He received his B.A. in mathematics from Oberlin College in 1930, and his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1932. His thesis supervisor was Alfred North Whitehead. He was then appointed a Harvard Junior Fellow, which excused him from having to teach for four years. During the academic year 1932–33, he travelled in Europe thanks to a Sheldon fellowship, meeting Polish logicians (including Alfred Tarski) and members of the Vienna Circle (including Rudolf Carnap), as well as the logical positivist A.J. Ayer.

It was through Quine's good offices that Alfred Tarski was invited to attend the September 1939 Unity of Science Congress in Cambridge. To attend that Congress, Tarski sailed for the USA on the last ship to leave Danzig before the Third Reich invaded Poland. Tarski survived the war and worked another 44 years in the USA.

During World War II, Quine lectured on logic in Brazil, in Portuguese, and served in the United States Navy in a military intelligence role, deciphering messages from German submarines, and reaching the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

At Harvard, Quine helped supervise the Harvard theses of, among others, Donald Davidson, David Lewis, Daniel Dennett, Gilbert Harman, Dagfinn Føllesdal, Hao Wang, Hugues LeBlanc and Henry Hiz. For the academic year 1964-1965, Quine was a Fellow on the faculty in the Center for Advanced Studies at Wesleyan University.

Quine had four children by two marriages. Guitarist Robert Quine was his nephew.