W. V. Quine's thesis, developed in Word and Object (1960), that for any language there exist multiple complete manuals for translating it into another, all compatible with the totality of speakers' observable behaviour, yet not equivalent to one another in what they assign as meaning. Quine's gavagai example imagines a field linguist hearing a native speaker say gavagai on seeing a rabbit; the evidence cannot decide between translating it as rabbit, undetached rabbit part, or rabbit-stage, since each hypothesis fits the same stimulus conditions equally well. Quine drew from this a broader scepticism about determinate meaning and synonymy as objects of scientific inquiry, holding that meaning is at most a matter of behavioural evidence, not a further fact translations either capture or miss.
Facts
Origin YearW. V. Quine, Word and Object, 1960, chapter 2. Connections
Associated With
Source Willard van Orman Quine (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
In Branch
Sources
1. Willard van Orman Quine (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Willard van Orman Quine, section on indeterminacy of translation
Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) worked in theoretical philosophy and in logic.
Willard van Orman Quine, on chapter two of 1960
Quine introduces the general idea of indeterminacy, in Chapter Two of (1960), without explicitly distinguishing the two
- Associated With: Willard Van Orman Quine
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