Collection of offprints

Quine, Willard Van Orman (1908-2000). Collection of 24 offprints and one journal article, as listed below. 1932-1969. In original printed wrappers or without wrappers as issued. One offprint with presentation inscription from Quine to Roderick Firth (1917-87), Quine's colleague as professor of philosophy at Harvard. Five of the offprints are from the library of German mathematical logician Gisbert Hasenjaeger (1919-2006), with his signature or ownership stamp. Very good to fine overall; see below for condition details.

First Editions, Offprint Issues of all but one of the papers listed below, representative of the work of the American mathematical logician Willard Quine, one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. "Quine was a teacher of logic and set theory. Quine was famous for his position that first order logic is the only kind worthy of the name, and developed his own system of mathematics and set theory, known as New Foundations. In philosophy of mathematics, he and his Harvard colleague Hilary Putnam developed the ‘Quine-Putnam indispensability thesis,' an argument for the reality of mathematical entities. However, he was the main proponent of the view that philosophy is not conceptual analysis, but continuous with science; the abstract branch of the empirical sciences. This led to his famous quip that ‘philosophy of science is philosophy enough.' He led a ‘systematic attempt to understand science from within the resources of science itself' and developed an influential naturalized epistemology that tried to provide ‘an improved scientific explanation of how we have developed elaborate scientific theories on the basis of meager sensory input.' He also advocated ontological relativity in science, known as the Duhem-Quine thesis . . . A 2009 poll conducted among analytic philosophers named Quine as the fifth most important philosopher of the past two centuries" (Wikipedia).

Five of the offprints in this collection were once owned by German mathematical logician Gisbert Hasenjaeger, who safety-tested the Enigma machine for cryptological weaknesses during World War II, and after the war developed a new proof of Gödel's completeness theorem for predicate logic.

A theorem in the calculus of classes. Offprint from Journal of the London Mathematical Society 8 (1932). 89-95p. Original printed wrappers, chipped, spine mended with tape.

On derivability. On Cantor's theorem. Double offprint from Journal of Symbolic Logic 2 (1937. 113-124pp. Original printed wrappers. Hasenjaeger's ownership stamp.

On the logic of quantification. Offprint from Journal of Symbolic Logic 10 (1945). 12pp. Without wrappers.

On ordered pairs. Offprint from Journal of Symbolic Logic 10 (1945). 95-96pp. Single sheet, unbound.

Concatenation as a basis for arithmetic. Offprint from Journal of Symbolic Logic 11 (1946). 105-114pp. Without wrappers.

On relations as coextensive with classes. Offprint from Journal of Symbolic Logic 11 (1946). 71-72pp. Single sheet, unbound.

On universals. Offprint from Journal of Symbolic Logic 12 (1947). 74-84pp. Without wrappers.

The problem of interpreting modal logic. Offprint from Journal of Symbolic Logic 12 (1947). 43-48pp. Without wrappers.

On natural deduction. Offprint from Journal of Symbolic Logic 15 (1950). 93-102pp. Original printed wrappers.

Semantics and abstract objects. Offprint from Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 80 (1951). 90-96pp. Without wrappers.

The problem of simplifying truth functions. In American Mathematical Monthly 59 (1952). 521-531pp. Original printed wrappers. Journal issue.

Three grades of modal involvement. Offprint from Proceedings of the XIth International Congress of Philosophy 14 (1953). 65-81pp. Original printed wrappers.

Two theorems about truth functions. Offprint from Boletin de la Sociedad Matematica Mexicana 10 (1953). 64-70pp. Unbound, stapled.

On -inconsistency and a so-called axiom of infinity. Offprint from Journal of Symbolic Logic 18 (1953). 119-124pp. Original printed wrappers. Hasenjaeger's stamp.

Interpretations of sets of conditions. Offprint from Journal of Symbolic Logic 19 (1954). 97-102pp. Original printed wrappers.

On Frege's way out. Offprint from Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy 64 (1955). 145-159pp. Without wrappers. Hasenjaeger's signature.

A proof procedure for quantification theory. Offprint from Journal of Symbolic Logic 20 (1955). 141-149pp. Original printed wrappers, one corner chipped.

Quantifiers and propositional attitudes. Offprint from Journal of Philosophy 53 (1956). 177-188pp. Without wrappers.

Unification of universes in set theory. Offprint from Journal of Symbolic Logic 21 (1956). 267-279pp. Original printed wrappers.

Logic, symbolic. Preprint from Encyclopedia Americana (1957). 569-573, 573a pp. Without wrappers.

On simple theories of a complex world. Offprint from Synthese 15 (1963). 103-106pp. Original printed wrappers.

(with Hao Wang) On ordinals. Offprint from Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 70 (1964). 297-298pp. Original printed wrappers.

Implicit definition sustained. Offprint from Journal of Philosophy 61 (1964). 71-74pp. Without wrappers. Hasenjaeger's signature.

Ontological reduction and the world of numbers. Offprint from Journal of Philosophy 61 (1964). 209-216pp. Without wrappers. Hasenjaeger's signature.

Replies. Offprint from Synthese 19 (1968-69). Edited in honor of W. V. Quine by Donald Davidson and Jaakko Hintikka. 264-322pp. Original printed wrappers. Inscribed by Quine on the first page: "For Rod [Firth] with best regards Van."