The Roots of Reference

The Roots of Reference is a 1974 book by the philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine, in which the author expands on his earlier concepts about the inscrutability of reference and examines problems with traditional empiricism, arguing for a naturalized epistemology based on holism. Background Quine's draft was initially developed in 1970 as an expansion of ideas presented in Word and Object (1960) about language acquisition. Summary The book is divided into three sections, one for each of the three Paul Carus Lectures he originally gave in 1971 at the American Philosophical Association conference. These three lectures were then revised and expanded for the book, with an introduction by Nelson Goodman.