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Single Idea 3988

[filed under theme 19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / b. Indeterminate translation ]

Full Idea

Quine's thesis of the indeterminacy of radical translation carries all the way in, as the thesis of the indeterminacy of radical interpretation of mental states and processes.

Clarification

Quine proposed that perfect translation of languages was logically impossible

Gist of Idea

Indeterminacy of translation also implies indeterminacy in interpreting people's mental states

Source

comment on Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960]) by Daniel C. Dennett - Daniel Dennett on himself p.239

Book Ref

'A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind', ed/tr. Guttenplan,Samuel [Blackwell 1995], p.239

A Reaction

Strong scepticism seems wrong here. Davidson's account of charity in interpretation, and the role of truth, seems closer.

The 19 ideas with the same theme [full translation may be a logical impossibility]:

6318 The doctrine of indeterminacy of translation seems implied by the later Wittgenstein [Wittgenstein, by Quine]
18963 Indeterminacy translating 'rabbit' depends on translating individuation terms [Quine]
1631 You could know the complete behavioural conditions for a foreign language, and still not know their beliefs [Quine]
1632 Translation of our remote past or language could be as problematic as alien languages [Quine]
3988 Indeterminacy of translation also implies indeterminacy in interpreting people's mental states [Dennett on Quine]
6311 The firmer the links between sentences and stimuli, the less translations can diverge [Quine]
6312 We can never precisely pin down how to translate the native word 'Gavagai' [Quine]
6313 Stimulus synonymy of 'Gavagai' and 'Rabbit' does not even guarantee they are coextensive [Quine]
6317 Dispositions to speech behaviour, and actual speech, are never enough to fix any one translation [Quine]
6270 The correct translation is the one that explains the speaker's behaviour [Putnam]
6283 Language maps the world in many ways (because it maps onto other languages in many ways) [Putnam]
14206 There are infinitely many interpretations of a sentence which can all seem to be 'correct' [Putnam]
6399 Criteria of translation give us the identity of conceptual schemes [Davidson]
6179 Should we assume translation to define truth, or the other way around? [Blackburn on Davidson]
3495 Shared Background makes translation possible, though variation makes it hard [Searle]
3083 Many predicates totally resist translation, so a universal underlying structure to languages is unlikely [Harman]
3698 Indeterminacy of translation is actually indeterminacy of meaning and belief [Bonjour]
2763 There is an indeterminacy in juggling apparent meanings against probable beliefs [Dancy,J]
6341 Right translation is a mapping of languages which preserves basic patterns of usage [Horwich]