Abstract

This dissertation explores three senses in which the philosopher W. V. Quine is a behaviorist. Its purpose is to defend Quine against a charge of irrelevance, one growing out of his dependence on a, putatively, discredited psychological program. In the first form, Quine's behaviorism follows from his empiricism as part of his program of naturalizing epistemology. It is argued that this program resists the easy dismissal to which behaviorist theories are commonly subject. The second form of Quine's behaviorism is indeed the classical behaviorism of B. F. Skinner. However, since Quine uses this behaviorism only as a place-holder for physiological explanation to come, his views that depend on it also escape easy dismissal. The third form of behaviorism in Quine's work is linguistic behaviorism. It is argued that linguistics is indeed behavioral, if not behaviorist, though Quine may somewhat overplay this aspect of language. ;With these results in hand, the contemporary cognitive science movement is surveyed to see where it alternately follows up, and flouts, various of Quine's themes. It is urged that Quine views should be playing a larger role in cognitive science. Finally, the claim that linguistics is inherently behavioral is illuminated through a series of thought experiments. These thought experiments examine one of Quine's central themes, the indeterminacy of translation, in light of a supposed radical progress in neurophysiology. The conclusion is in two parts. First, the various forms of Quine's so-called behaviorism are found to be either tantamount to his empiricism, or else eliminable. Second, the potential elimination of classical and linguistic behaviorism in favor of physiological alternatives, as envisaged by philosophers such as Paul Churchland, is argued to undercut Quine's emphasis on language. If realized, however, this result would merely represent the ultimate fulfillment of Quine's larger overall program: the naturalization of epistemology