Combining Philosophers

Ideas for H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim, Chris Daly and Paul O'Grady

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4 ideas

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 5. Meaning as Verification

4710	Verificationism was attacked by the deniers of the analytic-synthetic distinction, needed for 'facts' [O'Grady]
	Full Idea: Verificationism came under attack from empiricists who were friendly to the banishment of traditional metaphysics, but unfriendly to the analytic-synthetic distinction, on which the idea of a 'factual statement' depended.
	From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.3)
	A reaction: I don't accept this move because I don't consider the 'facts' to be language-dependent. They are pre-linguistic, they outrun that capacity of our language, and they are available to animals.

19. Language / E. Analyticity / 3. Analytic and Synthetic

4717	If we abandon the analytic-synthetic distinction, scepticism about meaning may be inevitable [O'Grady]
	Full Idea: There may be no way to avoid scepticism about meaning if you abandon the analytic-synthetic distinction in the way Quine does.
	From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.3)
	A reaction: My suspicion was always that Quine's proposal began the slippery road to hell. It appears to be pragmatists who are most drawn to Quine's idea. The proposal that all my analytic propositions could be treated as synthetic totally baffles me.

19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / a. Translation

4706	Early Quine says all beliefs could be otherwise, but later he said we would assume mistranslation [O'Grady]
	Full Idea: In his earlier work, Quine defended the view that no belief (including logic) is in principle unrevisable, but in his later work (1970) he took the conservative view that we would always impute mistranslation rather than deviancy.
	From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.2)
	A reaction: I take it he was influenced by Davidson's 'principle of charity'. He says that if someone asserts 'p and not-p', we would assume a misunderstanding of 'and' or 'not'.

19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / c. Principle of charity

4734	Cryptographers can recognise that something is a language, without translating it [O'Grady]
	Full Idea: It makes sense to think that one could recognise that something is a language without necessarily being able to translate it; cryptographers do this all the time.
	From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.5)
	A reaction: Maybe, but cryptographers usually have a lot of context to work with. If we met extraterrestrials if might not be so clear. One can only spot patterns, and crystals have those.