Willard Van Orman Quine was one of the most distinguished analytic philosophers of the twentieth century He takes a down to earth approach to philosophical questions regarding ontology or being. Quine is part of that movement previously referred to as Logical Positivism though he is not uncritical of the movement. Quine and those of his metaphysical persuasion have been variously called empiricists, logical positivists, neopositivists, who advance their own conclusion regarding what can be deemed as “real" or "truth" under the various titled methodologies of "scientificalism" or "physicalism".
In some sense Quine and his peers are "anti metaphysicalists" in that some propose that metaphysics is impossible or meaningless and that metaphysical statements are simply statements of emotion due to their lack of verifiability. Quine, as with Carnap, understands philosophical problems in general and the problem of metaphysics in particular, as nothing more than a problem of the imperfection of language. Consequently, the philosophical/metaphysical task is reducible to nothing more than linguistic analysis.
Central to Quine's metaphysics is his conclusion regarding the ultimacy of scientific statements. According to Quine, science is the ultimate basis for truth. This conclusion on Quine's part evidences that he is a radical empiricist. He completely rejects the synthesis of both rationality and empiricism presented by Kant.
However, Quine also advances criticisms of Logical Positivism. For Quine, Logical Positivism possesses two weaknesses. First, Quine challenges Kant's proposal that regarding the exclusiveness of analytic (all bachelors are unmarried males) and synthetic statements (It is raining outside). Second, Quine challenges the positivist conclusion that the meaning of a statement can be reduced to sensory stimulation and yet it seems that that is exactly what Quine is proposing to a great extent.
For Quine, no proposition can be true independent of sensory experience and every proposition's meaning must be determined in light of the individual's "web of beliefs" of which the proposition is a part. For Quine, theory and experience are inseparably and inevitably linked.
In summarizing Quine's metaphysical conclusions, it seems that Quine goes so far as to propose that the scientific model constitutes a more than adequate model for the discipline of philosophy and this conclusion renders useless most of the metaphysical speculation of some of the great philosophers of the past.
