PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE
QUNE ON MEANING
LESSON PLAN
PROFESSOR JULIE YOO
Radical Translation
The Scenario
Quine on Translation/Interpretaion of Another Language
Indeterminacy of Translation
Argument from the Inscrutability of Reference
Argument from Holism
Application to Our Own Case
Skepticism v Eliminativism About Meaning
Quine on Radical Translation Lecture.doc
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RADICAL TRANSLATION
The Scenario
Suppose you are the first to translate a foreign language, L. Your aim is to compile a translation
manual that looks something like this:
L
English Translation Manual (TM)
!
How about some tree bark? Would
you like to eat some?
"
Hello (on even-numbered days)
It’s raining in Toledo (on odd days)
#
(pronounced “gavagai”)
There goes a rabbit.
But your task will be an arduous one since you are to start from scratch. You have no bi-lingual
guide. You are to become the first one. You don’t know if the speakers of L communicate by
winking their eyes rather than using their vocal chords. You don’t know if pointing with an
index finger means that one is of referring to an object or insulting the 3rd brother-in-law of the
person to your left. You don’t know if by nodding your head up and down that you mean assent,
and so on. In other words, you begin with no knowledge of the symbolic conventions of L.
Quine calls this kind of translation project “radical translation,” radical because you are to begin
with absolutely nothing.
With this in mind, let’s imagine that you have spent several years hanging out with the Lspeakers and you have come to compile quite a comprehensive TM for L. Here’s the question:
is there anything that can guarantee that for each sentence SL of L, you have matched it with an
English sentence SE that means the same as SL? Actually, we can even lower the standards. Is
there anything that can guarantee that for any pairing of sentences in your TM (say, entry # 421:
SL 421 $ SE 421 ) each member expresses the same Fregean thought or same intension?
Quine on Translation/Interpretation of Another Language
Quine’s answer is an astonishing “No”! In fact, there are two theses about translational failure:
the Inscrutability of Reference and the Indeterminacy of Translation. Lets lay out the theses
before we look at the arguments that are supposed to support them.
Quine on Radical Translation Lecture.doc
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INDETERMINACY OF TRANSLATION1
Argument from the Inscrutability of Reference: Terms → Sentences
One word can be assigned with different meanings and there is no fact of the matter about what
the word means (also called the “Inscrutability of Reference”). One sentence can be assigned
different truth values and there is no fact of the matter about which truth value assignment is
correct.
1. There is no fact of the matter about which sentence translation
is correct.
2. If there is no fact of the matter about which sentence
translation is correct, then there is no fact of the matter about
which meaning to assign to a term.
3. There is no fact of the matter about which meaning to assign to
a term. Translation is indeterminate.
Premise (1): Stimulus meaning constitutes the only facts relevant to translation and nonequivalent translations of an alien sentence can have the same stimulus meaning. But if this is
the case, then there is no fact about the matter about which translation is correct. So it would
follow that there is no fact of the matter about which sentence translation is correct.
Premise (2): Which translation you select for a sentence affects which meaning you assign to a
term. So if there is no determinacy at the sentence level, there can be no determinacy at the term
level.
Summary: It is possible for there to be more than one TM for L such that none of them are
translationally equivalent and yet each TM is consistent with all the speech behavior of the Lspeakers and each assigns the same truth-values to the sentences of L.
L
#
(pronounced “gavagai”)
TM 1
TM 2
TM 3
TM 4
There goes a
rabbit.
There go
undetached
rabbit parts.
There goes an
instantiation of
rabbithood.
There go
time slices of
rabbit.
You need only two non-equivalent TMs to support the Inscrutability of Reference. “rabbit” and
“undetached rabbit parts” have the same stimulus meaning. The circumstances under which
“gavagai” is uttered are relevantly similar: all the different translations of “gavagai” have what
Quine calls the same stimulus meaning. Stimulus meaning is the surrounding or environmental
setting that accompanies assent to a sentence. For instance, the stimulus meaning of “It’s
1
The thesis we are about to define is what Quine calls the “Inscrutability of Reference” which is weaker than
another thesis he calls “The Indeterminacy of Translation”: indeterminacy of translation (given below) entails
inscrutability of reference, but not vice versa. Because it’s customary to label the inscrutability thesis as the
indeterminacy thesis, we will follow suit.
Quine on Radical Translation Lecture.doc
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raining,” is when and only when the weather is rainy. The stimulus meaning of “I’m opening a
can of worms,” is when the person saying the sentence is opening a can of worms. The stimulus
meaning of “gavagai” is when and only when there is a rabbit in the vicinity. But it’s not only
the sense of the word that is different from one manual to another, the reference also varies from
one manual to another – rabbits, rabbit parts, rabbithood, and temporal slices of rabbit. This
means that if we cannot determine which, if any, among these TMs is the correct translation of
“gavagai,” then the entire notion of reference disappears.
Argument from Holism: Individuation of a Sentence → Theory
In this case, it’s not just reference of a term within the context of a sentence that is indeterminate.
The distribution of truth-values differ for the sentences of the two TMs: in other words, one and
the same sentence of L may get translated into a true sentence of English for one TM and false
for another TM. But the two TMs will make equally good overall sense of the speech patterns
and behavior of the speakers of L. This stronger thesis is a consequence of Quine’s holism (both
epistemic and semantic): since scientific theories or empirical theories about the world are
undetermined by all possible observation, two non-equivalent theories of one domain may be
equally adequate when it comes to prediction. Many philosophers aren’t entirely convinced that
Quine has a good argument for this, but here’s a rough summary of Quine’s reasoning.
Summary: It is possible for there to be more than one TM for L such that none of them are
translationally equivalent but each TM is consistent with all the speech behavior of the Lspeakers and each assigns the different truth-values to the sentences of L.
L
TM 1
TM 2
%
Whales are mammals.
Whales are fish.
&
Tomatoes are vegetables.
Tomatoes are fruit.
'
Matter is composed of discrete
particles.
Matter is composed of
continuous strings.
My neighbors believe that there is
only one God (Christ, Father, and
Holy Spirit).
My neighbors believe that there
are many Gods (Christ, Father,
and Holy Spirit)
(
For each of these translated sentences, there will have been a whole host of other translated
sentences within each of the TM so that they can support the assigned interpretations, and each
translation will be coherent (ideally) within the context of the manual as a whole. In other
words, if we were to go with TM 1, somewhere in the earlier pages of that manual will contain a
definition for mammals and a definition of whales so that relative to these pre-assigned
definitions, the current assignment makes the best overall sense of the current linguistic
behavior.
Quine on Radical Translation Lecture.doc
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Application to Our Own Case
The indeterminacy applies to our own idiolects, not only the languages of foreigners. So the
problem of indeterminacy is as much a problem for the home case as it is for the alien case. The
alien case is just a more vivid way of seeing the problem that also arises in the home case.
Skepticism vs Eliminativism About Meaning
These are ontological theses, not just epistemic ones. In other words, Quine isn’t only a skeptic
about meaning. Quine is not saying that for all we know, there is a fact of the matter about
which TM is correct, it’s just that we can’t get enough of the right kind of evidence to tell which
is correct. No. Quine is saying that there is no fact of the matter about which TM is correct.
He’s an eliminativist about it, which means that he denies that there are such things as meanings
– both intensions and extensions, sense and reference! Would this make Quine an error theorist
about meaning? Not if they don’t have the form of fact-stating statements.
Quine on Radical Translation Lecture.doc
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