display all the ideas for this combination of texts
11 ideas
9453 | Sentences saying the same with the same rigid designators may still express different propositions [Bealer] |
Full Idea: The propositions behind 'Cicero is emulated more than Tully' seems to differ somehow from 'Tully is emulated more than Cicero', despite the proper names being rigid designators. | |
From: George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1) | |
A reaction: Interesting, because this isn't a directly propositional attitude situation like 'believes', though it depends on such things. Bealer says this is a key modern difficulty with propositions. |
9452 | Propositions might be reduced to functions (worlds to truth values), or ordered sets of properties and relations [Bealer] |
Full Idea: The reductionist view of propositions sees them as either extensional functions from possible worlds to truth values, or as ordered sets of properties, relations, and perhaps particulars. | |
From: George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1) | |
A reaction: The usual problem of all functional accounts is 'what is it about x that enables it to have that function?' And if they are sets, where does the ordering come in? A proposition isn't just a list of items in some particular order. Both wrong. |
9451 | Modal logic and brain science have reaffirmed traditional belief in propositions [Bealer] |
Full Idea: Philosophers have been skeptical about abstract objects, and so have been skeptical about propositions,..but with the rise of modal logic and metaphysics, and cognitive science's realism about intentional states, traditional propositions are now dominant. | |
From: George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1) | |
A reaction: I personally strongly favour belief in propositions as brain states, which don't need a bizarre ontological status, but are essential to explain language, reasoning and communication. |
11240 | The notion of analytic truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
Full Idea: The notion of analytic truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5 | |
A reaction: Cf. Idea 11239. |
3988 | Indeterminacy of translation also implies indeterminacy in interpreting people's mental states [Dennett on Quine] |
Full Idea: Quine's thesis of the indeterminacy of radical translation carries all the way in, as the thesis of the indeterminacy of radical interpretation of mental states and processes. | |
From: comment on Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960]) by Daniel C. Dennett - Daniel Dennett on himself p.239 | |
A reaction: Strong scepticism seems wrong here. Davidson's account of charity in interpretation, and the role of truth, seems closer. |
6311 | The firmer the links between sentences and stimuli, the less translations can diverge [Quine] |
Full Idea: The firmer the direct links of a sentence with non-verbal stimulation, the less drastically its translations can diverge from one another from manual to manual. | |
From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §07) | |
A reaction: This implies (plausibly) that talk about farming will have fairly determinate translations into foreign languages, but talk of philosophy will not. An interesting case is logic, where we might expect tight translation with little non-verbal stimulation. |
6312 | We can never precisely pin down how to translate the native word 'Gavagai' [Quine] |
Full Idea: There is no evident criterion whereby to strip extraneous effects away and leave just the meaning of 'Gavagai' properly so-called - whatever meaning properly so-called may be. | |
From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §09) | |
A reaction: Quine's famous assertion that translation is ultimately 'indeterminate'. Huge doubts about meaning and language and truth follow from his claim. Personally I think it is rubbish. People become fluent in very foreign languages, and don't have breakdowns. |
6313 | Stimulus synonymy of 'Gavagai' and 'Rabbit' does not even guarantee they are coextensive [Quine] |
Full Idea: Stimulus synonymy of the occasion sentences 'Gavagai' and 'Rabbit' does not even guarantee that 'gavagai' and 'rabbit' are coextensive terms, terms true of the same things. | |
From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §12) | |
A reaction: Since this scepticism eventually seems to result in the reader no longer knowing what they mean themselves by the word 'rabbit', I doubt Quine's claim. Problems after hearing one word of a foreign language disappear after years of residence. |
6317 | Dispositions to speech behaviour, and actual speech, are never enough to fix any one translation [Quine] |
Full Idea: Rival systems of analytical hypotheses can fit the totality of speech behaviour to perfection, and can fit the totality of dispositions to speech behaviour as well, and still specify mutually incompatible translations of countless sentences. | |
From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §15) | |
A reaction: This is Quine's final assertion of indeterminacy, having explored charity, bilingual speakers etc. It seems to me that he is a victim of his underlying anti-realism, which won't allow nature to dictate ways of cutting up the world. |
6315 | We should be suspicious of a translation which implies that a people have very strange beliefs [Quine] |
Full Idea: The more absurd or exotic the beliefs imputed to a people, the more suspicious we are entitled to be of the translations. | |
From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §15) | |
A reaction: Quine is famous for his relativist and indeterminate account of translation, but he gradually works his way towards the common sense which Davidson later brought out into the open. |
6314 | Weird translations are always possible, but they improve if we impose our own logic on them [Quine] |
Full Idea: Wanton translation can make natives sound as queer as one pleases; better translation imposes our logic upon them. | |
From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §13) | |
A reaction: This begins to point towards the principle of charity, on which Davidson is so keen, and even on doubts whether two different conceptual schemes are possible. Personally I think there is only one logic (deep down), and the natives will have it. |