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Full Idea
The indeterminacy between 'rabbit', 'rabbit stage' and the rest depended only on a correlative indeterminacy of translation of the English apparatus of individuation - pronouns, plurals, identity, numerals and so on.
Gist of Idea
Indeterminacy translating 'rabbit' depends on translating individuation terms
Source
Willard Quine (Ontological Relativity [1968], p.35)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Ontological Relativity and Other Essays' [Columbia 1969], p.35
A Reaction
This spells out the problem a little better than in 'Word and Object'. I just don't believe these problems are intractable. Quine is like a child endlessly asking 'why?'.
| 8470 | Reference is inscrutable, because we cannot choose between theories of numbers [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 18963 | Indeterminacy translating 'rabbit' depends on translating individuation terms [Quine] |
| 1633 | Absolute ontological questions are meaningless, because the answers are circular definitions [Quine] |
| 18964 | Ontology is relative to both a background theory and a translation manual [Quine] |
| 18965 | We know what things are by distinguishing them, so identity is part of ontology [Quine] |
| 21642 | If quantification is all substitutional, there is no ontology [Quine] |
| 1634 | Two things are relative - the background theory, and translating the object theory into the background theory [Quine] |