Davidson was talking about Quine, so yes. — Banno
You are attacking me instead of addressing the topic. — Banno
Interesting. One of mine refuses to engage in the topic at hand.My interlocutor keeps lying. — Leontiskos
Now, what do you make of the gavagai example?It just says that one cannot be certain as to which name refers to which thing. Not so much about multiple words for the same thing as one word potentially referring to various things - so gavagai might refer to a rabbit, a rabbit's tail, a rabbit leg or a potential hot meal. For Quine, there is no fact of the mater. — Banno
Yep, and if we want to say that this is not a tiger then we are already appealing to the idea of an essence.
Folks like to say, "Well, unless you can give me the perfectly correct (real) definition of a tiger, I won't accept that essences exist," which looks like sophistry to me. It's like saying:
Do you have a car?
Yes.
Prove it. List every part that constitutes your car.
*Gives a list of tens of thousands of parts.*
This list omits a rear-left brake pad. Therefore you don't have a car. — Leontiskos
The important thing here is to set out what one believes Quine's intended conclusion was. I would suggest avoiding vague words like 'fact' in setting that out. — Leontiskos
In a 1970 paper he says that the gavagai example is very limited, and demonstrates the inscrutability of terms rather than indeterminacy of translation of sentences. — Leontiskos
(Quine uses the terms “ontological relativity” and “inscrutability of reference”, as well as “indeterminacy of reference”. Some philosophers have sought to distinguish these doctrines, but in later work Quine makes it clear that he uses the terms simply as different names for the same thing. See Ricketts 2011, Roth, 1986, and Quine 1986d.) — SEP
Good. So will we agree thatIt seems clear to me that translation is underdetermined to some extent. — Leontiskos
is a misapprehension of the argument Quine makes?because we have different words that we use for the same thing that there is no one referent for a specific thing and that therefor translation in speech wouldn’t be possible — Darkneos
The madman's explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a purely rational sense satisfactory. Or, to speak more strictly, the insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable; this may be observed specially in the two or three commonest kinds of madness. If a man says (for instance) that men have a conspiracy against him, you cannot dispute it except by saying that all the men deny that they are conspirators; which is exactly what conspirators would do. His explanation covers the facts as much as yours. Or if a man says that he is the rightful King of England, it is no complete answer to say that the existing authorities call him mad; for if he were King of England that might be the wisest thing for the existing authorities to do. Or if a man says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no answer to tell him that the world denies his divinity; for the world denied Christ's.
Nevertheless he is wrong. But if we attempt to trace his error in exact terms, we shall not find it quite so easy as we had supposed. Perhaps the nearest we can get to expressing it is to say this: that his mind moves in a perfect but narrow circle. A small circle is quite as infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as infinite, it is not so large. In the same way the insane explanation is quite as complete as the sane one, but it is not so large... Now, speaking quite externally and empirically, we may say that the strongest and most unmistakable mark of madness is this combination between a logical completeness and a spiritual contraction.
And I don't know what you mean by "view from nowhere" behaviorism. What work is that from?
kind of wanted you to stop guessing at what Quine's views are and zero in on what he actually thought.
The point was that nothing settles the issue of whether the speaker was referring to a whole, or referring to a part. Do you disagree with that? If so, what would tell the linguist what the speaker was referring to? What state of the world? What fact?
Things have characteristics, not essences.
...
It's not a matter of listing every part that constitutes a car (or tiger), but of listing that set of attributes which only cars (or tigers) possess. — Janus
It's not a matter of listing every part that constitutes a car (or tiger), but of listing that set of attributes which only cars (or tigers) possess.
listing that set of attributes which only cars (or tigers) possess. — Janus
Here is the issue I spot. Tigers are animals, and being an animal seems essential to what a tiger is. But not only tigers are animals. Likewise, being a tree is essential to what an oak is, but not all trees are oaks. — Count Timothy von Icarus
My interest in the topic isn't so much in defending or killing it. It's more like part of a flow diagram. If you don't allow any innate language capability, you need to jettison folk ideas about communication. Take your pick.
Quine's insight only eliminates agreement among us if recognition of another's reference is entirely empirical
Sure, it can be said that things have essential properties in the sense that they would not qualify as whatever those essential properties would qualify them as if they did not possess those qualities. To say this is very different than saying there is some essence we might refer to as "tigerness' or 'carness". — Janus
To say this is very different than saying there is some essence we might refer to as "tigerness' or 'carness". — Janus
When people start bringing out ideas like this I would say they have to try to justify their sine qua non historically. "If [insert absurdity] is not true, essentialism fails." The response, "Show where you are getting the idea that [absurdity] comes with essentialism." Objections to essentialism tend to be strawmen through and through. — Leontiskos
This notion of a perfect form, eidos or essence is the traditional understanding of essentialism
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