[3.7.3.] Quine and the Inscrutability of Reference.

 

Before we turn to the anti-Realism of Hilary Putnam, we first need to look at an idea that Putnam adopts from W. V. O. Quine. In his book Word and Object (1960), Quine articulated his doctrine of the inscrutability of reference:

 

the inscrutability of reference (df.): Quine’s thesis that there is no single right way to “map the referring devices” of one language onto the referring devices of another language.^[1] (“Referring devices of a language” just means the words in a language that refer, or that are supposed to refer, to things, e.g., names and general nouns.)

 

Today we will examine this doctrine of Quine’s; next time we will see how Putnam extends this doctrine and uses it to argue for his version of anti-Realism.

 

 

[3.7.3.1.] Radical Translation.

 

Quine’s famous illustration of the inscrutability of reference involves what he calls radical translation:

 

radical translation (df.): a case of translation in which a linguist is attempting to translate the language of a newly-discovered people based solely on the behaviors of that language’s speakers, without the help of a translator or other aid; the language and culture of the linguist are historically unconnected to that of the newly-discovered people.^[2]

 

Quine’s famous example of radical translation involves the word “gavagai.”

 

·         Suppose a linguist witnesses a member of a newly-discovered tribe of people say “gavagai” in the presence of a rabbit. Thereafter, the linguist establishes that in every circumstance in which a speaker of English would say “rabbit,” the speaker of the heretofore unknown language says “gavagai.”

 

·         According to Quine, the linguist would still not be justified in concluding that speakers of the new language use the word “gavagai” to refer to rabbits. The speakers could be referring to any of the following:

·         rabbits (three-dimensional objects that endure through time);

·         temporal parts of rabbits^[3];

·         undetached rabbit parts;

·         rabbit-tropes^[4];

·         the universal rabbithood;

·         “the fusion of all rabbits, that is, the spatiotemporally discontinuous region of the world containing rabbits.” (268)

 

·         The only thing the linguist has to go on is the behavior of the speakers; and nothing in the speakers’ behavior will determine which of the possible translations is accurate.

 

·         If the linguist could tell what expressions in the new language mean identity and difference, than she could point at different parts of the rabbit, at the same rabbit at different times, and at different rabbits, and ask whether those things are the same or different than the thing that speakers referred to when they first said “gavagai.” But says Quine, any part of the new language that could get translated as “is identical to” or “is one and the same thing as” could equally well be translated as “belongs to the same.” So a statement that could be translated “x is the same thing as y” could equally well be translated as “x belongs to the same thing as y.”

 

·         Quine “concludes that there is no fact of the matter about the referential force of the term ‘gavagi.’ Its reference is inscrutable; that is, from among the various translations Quine suggests, there is no correct answer to the question ‘To what does “gavagai” refer?’ And, of course, the same is true of all the other referring expressions of the native language.” (269, emphasis added)

 

 

[3.7.3.2.] All Reference is Inscrutable.

 

On Quine’s view, the inscrutability of reference is the case, not just for radical translation, but for ALL translation.

 

And for Quine, this is not limited to translation between different languages. Translation is nothing but “mapping one set of sentences onto another” (270), and that can happen within the same language.

 

For example, translation (sentence-to-sentence mapping) happens anytime one English speaker understands what another English speaker is saying:

·         When you say something in English, I “map” the sounds you are making onto similar sounds that I make. So if you say “There goes a rabbit,” I understand what you are saying by mapping it onto those same sounds as they come out of my mouth.

·         But I could just as easily map your utterance of “There goes a rabbit” onto my own “There goes a collection of undetached rabbit parts.” Nothing in your behavior would suggest that this would be incorrect.

 

On Quine’s view, there is no fact of the matter about which translation is correct; i.e., there is no fact of the matter about which you are referring to: a rabbit, or a collection of undetached rabbit-parts. And since you are in the same situation when you translate what I say, there is no fact of the matter about what I am referring to when I utter “There goes a rabbit.”

 

 

[3.7.3.3.] No Private Mental States.

 

Someone who believes that there is a fact of the matter about what he or she is referring to when he or she says “rabbit” (or “rock,” or any other referring term) might object to Quine’s view as follows:

·         I may not be able to manifest my reference to a specific thing in my behavior, so that someone else will know exactly what I am talking about. In other words, there may be no behavior that I can engage in that will provide conclusive evidence to an observer that I mean one thing rather than another by the word “rabbit.”

·         Nonetheless, if I intend to refer to a specific object (say, a specific three-dimensional rabbit that endures through time), then I am referring to it. All that determinate reference requires is that I intend to refer to a specific thing (e.g., a rabbit) rather than to something else (e.g., undetached rabbit parts).

 

 

But Quine has a response... there are no such things as private mental states, mental states that never get manifested or exhibited through publicly observable behavior.

 

At this point in the argument we find Quine appealing to … the doctrine that there can be no private epistemic states, no instances of what Wittgenstein called private language. The claim is that it is impossible for there to be facts about my own mental life—here, facts about what I am referring to when I use a term—that, while accessible to me, are, in principle, inaccessible to other individuals. (270-71, emphasis added)^[5]

 

Why does Quine assume this? Because he also assumes that “[t]here can be no facts for which it is, in principle, impossible that there be evidence.”

·         Were I to have a mental state (for example, an intention to refer to a specific rabbit) that never gets manifested in my behavior, then no one would ever have any evidence that I actually have that mental state. One’s behavior is the only evidence that he or she is in any specific mental state at all. So it is impossible to have evidence that someone is in a private mental state.

·         If something is a fact then it is at least possible for us to have evidence of it; so there are no private mental states, no mental states the reality of which is never demonstrated by behavioral evidence.

 

Stopping point for Monday March 23. For next time, continue reading chapter by Loux on eReserve (pp. 273-79, the section called “Putnam’s anti-realism”)