Quine's Indeterminacies

W.V.O. Quine's writings were key to the evolution of American philosophy inwards the 1950s, 1960s, together with 1970s. His landmark ...

W.V.O. Quine's writings were key to the evolution of American philosophy inwards the 1950s, 1960s, together with 1970s. His landmark industrial plant ("Two Dogmas of Empiricism," "Ontological Relativity," together with Word together with Object, for example) provided a real appealing combination of patch speaking, seriousness, together with import. Quine's vocalization sure as shooting stands out amid all American philosophers of his period.

Quine's insistence on naturalism as a thought of philosophy's house inwards the ground is i of his key contributions. Philosophy is non a split form of theorizing together with reasoning nearly the world, according to Quine; it is continuous amongst the empirical sciences through which nosotros report the natural ground (of which humanity together with the social ground are part). Also substitution is his coherence theory of the justification of beliefs, both theoretical together with philosophical. This theory was the root of John Rawls's method of reasoning for a theory of jurist based the thought of "reflective equilibrium." This approach depended on careful weighing of our "considered judgments" together with the adjustments of ethical beliefs needed to create the most coherent overall organisation of ethical beliefs.

There is some other characteristic of Quine's run that is peculiarly appealing: the substitution wish that Quine had to brand feel of obscure issues together with to run through to plausible solutions. There is sometimes a premium on obscurity together with elliptical thinking inwards some corners of the intellectual world. Quine was a rigid antidote to this tendency. (John Searle makes similar points nearly the value of clarity inwards philosophical declaration inwards his comments on Foucault here.)

Take "Ontological Relativity" (OR), the laid about of the Dewey Lectures inwards 1968 (link). The test articulates some of Quine's gist themes -- the behaviorist perspective on linguistic communication together with meaning, the crucial condition of naturalism, together with the indeterminacy of important together with reference. But the test as good demonstrates a sensitive together with careful reading of Dewey. Quine shows himself to live a philosopher who was able to plough over a respectful together with insightful describe of piece of job organisation human relationship of the ideas of other peachy philosophers.

Philosophically I am saltation to Dewey yesteryear the naturalism that dominated his lastly iii decades. With Dewey I concord that knowledge, mind, together with important are purpose of the same ground that they stimulate got to practise with, together with that they are to live studied inwards the same empirical spirit that animates natural science. There is no house for a prior philosophy. (185).

In OR Quine refers to a key metaphor inwards his ain agreement of linguistic communication together with meaning, the "museum myth" theory of meaning. "Uncritical semantics is the myth of a museum inwards which the exhibits are meanings together with the words are labels. To switch languages is to alter the labels" (186). Against the museum myth, Quine argues hither (as he does inwards Word together with Object as well) for the indeterminacy of "meaning" together with translation. The basic thought of indeterminacy of translation, as expressed inwards WO, comes downwards to this: at that spot are to a greater extent than oft than non alternative translation manuals that are possible betwixt ii languages (or inside one's own) which are as compatible amongst all observed verbal behavior, together with nonetheless which map expressions onto significantly different alternative sentences. Sentence H5N1 tin live mapped onto B1 or B2; B1 together with B2 are evidently non equivalent; together with thus Sentence H5N1 does non stimulate got a fixed together with determinate important either inwards the linguistic communication or inwards the heads of the speakers. As Quine observes inwards his commentary on his representative from Japanese concerning the translation of "five oxen", "between the ii accounts of Japanese classifiers at that spot is no enquiry of correct together with wrong" (193).

For naturalism the enquiry whether ii expressions are alike or dissimilar inwards important has no determinate answer, known or unknown, except insofar as the reply is settled inwards regulation yesteryear people's spoken communication dispositions, known or unknown. If yesteryear these standards at that spot are indeterminate cases, together with then much the worse for the terminology of important together with likeness of meaning. (187)

Returning to the extended representative he develops of indeterminacy of translation around the discussion "gavagai" that he introduced inwards Word together with Object, Quine notes that the practical linguist volition equate gavagai amongst "rabbit", non "undetached rabbit part". But he insists that at that spot is no objective footing for this choice.

The implicit saying guiding his choice of 'rabbit', together with similar choices for other native words, is that an enduring together with relatively homogeneous object, moving as a whole against a constrasting background, is a probable reference for a curt expression. If he were to move witting of this maxim, he mightiness celebrate it as i of the linguistic universals, or traits of all languages, together with he would stimulate got no problem pointing out its psychological plausibility. But he would live wrong; the saying is his ain imposition, toward settling what is objectively indeterminate. It is a real sensible imposition, together with I would recommend no other. But I am making philosophical point. (191)

In "Ontological Relativity" Quine takes the declaration of the indeterminacy of important an of import footstep forward, to debate for the "inscrutability of reference." That is: at that spot is no behavioral footing for final that a given linguistic communication organisation involves reference to this laid of substitution entities rather than that laid of substitution entities. So non exclusively tin nosotros non say that at that spot are unique meanings associated amongst linguistic expressions; nosotros cannot fifty-fifty say that expressions get upward uniquely to a laid of non-linguistic entities. This is what the championship implies: at that spot is no fixed ontology for a linguistic communication or a scientific or mathematical theory.

These are radical together with counter-intuitive conclusions -- inwards some ways as radical as the "incommensurability of paradigms" notion associated amongst Thomas Kuhn together with the critique of objectivity associated amongst Richard Rorty. What is most striking, though, is the fact that Quine comes to these conclusions through reasoning that rests upon real elementary together with clear assumptions. Fundamentally, it is his thought that the exclusively kinds of testify together with the exclusively constraints that are available to users together with listeners of linguistic communication are the evidences of observable behavior; together with the total trunk of this organisation of observations is insufficient to uniquely seat a unmarried semantic map together with a unmarried ontology.

(Peter Hylton's article inwards the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy does a adept project of capturing the logic of Quine's philosophy; link.)