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13 - Indeterminacy of Translation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Patricia Hanna
Affiliation:
University of Utah
Bernard Harrison
Affiliation:
University of Utah
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Summary

Introduction

Philosophy exists to trouble the peace of minds secure in their assumptions. Its shadow has always lain athwart the paths of commonsense thinking. To be fertile in paradox is part of its nature. At the same time the mind can never for long rest content with conclusions which smack of it. Paradox is not a resting-place, rather a spur to further thought. And for that reason, philosophical paradox is a serious matter, to which, when it is the product of a considerable mind, real intellectual importance can attach. It is something to be resolved, transcended if possible; it is not, by contrast, at least at its best and most serious, something to be laughed off.

In this Part, we have to deal with two such flights of paradox. The first, which will occupy us in this chapter, is Quine's celebrated argument for the indeterminacy of translation. The second is an argument of Kripke's which seems to show that our ordinary criteria for ascribing belief on the basis of sincere assent to propositions lead in certain cases to irresoluble contradiction. We shall argue that both are plausible only when their supporting arguments are advanced against the background of a certain, widely pervasive intellectual outlook, namely, the one we have been attacking throughout this book. Dispensing with Referential Realism, along the lines argued in Parts I–III, allows one, as we shall see, to deal rather swiftly with them.

Type
Chapter
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Word and World
Practice and the Foundations of Language
, pp. 291 - 308
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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