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Full Idea
Translation of our remote past or future discourse into the terms we now know could be about as tenuous and arbitrary a projection as translation of a heathen language was seen to be.
Gist of Idea
Translation of our remote past or language could be as problematic as alien languages
Source
Willard Quine (Speaking of Objects [1960], pt.V,p.25)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Ontological Relativity and Other Essays' [Columbia 1969], p.25
A Reaction
Is he seriously saying that we can't understand Shakespeare, because holism implies that we would have to be Elizabethans? So scholarship is in vain? Is yesterday the 'past'?
| 5747 | "No entity without identity" - our ontology must contain items with settled identity conditions [Quine, by Melia] |
| 13387 | Our conceptual scheme becomes more powerful when we posit abstract objects [Quine] |
| 7925 | There is no proper identity concept for properties, and it is hard to distinguish one from two [Quine] |
| 8277 | I prefer 'no object without identity' to Quine's 'no entity without identity' [Lowe on Quine] |
| 1630 | We can only see an alien language in terms of our own thought structures (e.g. physical/abstract) [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] |