more from this thinker | more from this text
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.
Gist of Idea
Early Quine says all beliefs could be otherwise, but later he said we would assume mistranslation
Source
Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.2)
Book Ref
O'Grady,Paul: 'Relativism' [Acumen 2002], p.51
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'.
| 18285 | All translation loses some content (but language does not create reality) [Carnap] |
| 23489 | We translate by means of proposition constituents, not by whole propositions [Wittgenstein] |
| 19045 | Translation is too flimsy a notion to support theories of cultural incommensurability [Quine] |
| 12591 | Mastery of a language requires thinking, and not just communication [Harman] |
| 4706 | Early Quine says all beliefs could be otherwise, but later he said we would assume mistranslation [O'Grady] |
| 17991 | Holism says language can't be translated; the expressibility hypothesis says everything can [Hofweber] |