{"id":2122,"date":"2013-05-03T14:17:02","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T18:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/?p=2122"},"modified":"2013-05-03T14:17:02","modified_gmt":"2013-05-03T18:17:02","slug":"the-logicians-christmas-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/2013\/05\/03\/the-logicians-christmas-card\/","title":{"rendered":"The logician’s Christmas card"},"content":{"rendered":"

Known for his contributions to logic, set theory, and semantics, Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) stands among the most influential American philosophers of the twentieth century. From 1956 until his retirement in 1978 Quine held the Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard University, and his papers and library are now held by Houghton Library.<\/p>\n

Professor Quine\u2019s library numbers over 600 volumes and over 5,000 offprints (reprints of journal articles). \u00a0The collection includes numerous editions of Quine\u2019s own works, as well as books and articles by his contemporaries in philosophy and mathematics. A significant number bear Quine\u2019s own annotations, often written with the same wit and candor for which his published works are admired. Together with the W.V. Quine papers (MS Am 2587<\/a>), the recently cataloged books and offprints represent a windfall to scholars wishing to know not only what the celebrated logician was reading, but what he was thinking as he read it.<\/p>\n

While the subject matter of Professor Quine\u2019s library may seem arcane to the non-specialist, there are nonetheless items which evoke the personable side of \u201cVan\u201d, as he was known to his friends. \u201cThe Logician\u2019s Christmas Card\u201d pasted to the rear flyleaf of J.H. Woodger\u2019s Biology and Language<\/em> is one such.\u00a0 Poking fun at the seeming complexity of the propositional calculus, Dr. Woodger has illustrated the card with a lengthy, but elegantly hand-lettered theorem, and included a translation in plain English beneath it: \u201cWishing you a well distributed Christmas from J.H. and D.E Woodger and an equivalent New Year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0 \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

W.V. (Willard Van Orman) Quine. Methods of Logic. <\/em>New York: Holt, 1950. With the author\u2019s annotations. AC95.Qu441.Zz950q (B)<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

J.H. Woodger. Biology and Language. <\/em>Cambridge University Press, 1952. \u00a0With a Christmas card from the author and his spouse pasted to the rear flyleaf. AC95.Qu441.Zz952w<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks to<\/em> Bibliographic Assistant Noah<\/em> Sheola for contributing this post.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Known for his contributions to logic, set theory, and semantics, Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) stands among the most influential American philosophers of the twentieth century. From 1956 until his retirement in 1978 Quine held the Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard University, and his papers and library are now held by Houghton Library. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1761,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5TUly-ye","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1761"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2122"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2139,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122\/revisions\/2139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}