quine and ontological relativity

7/23/2019 Quine and Ontological Relativity

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Quine's Ontological Relativity argues for Antirealism in roughly the following way:

1.

There is no correct way to translate any word from any language to any language.

(indeterminacy of translation)

2.

If 1 is true, there is no unambiguous and exact reference for any word in any language

(inscrutability of reference)

3.

If 2 is true, Our claims only make sense in a theory of other interconnected claims (statements

only make sense from within theories that make them meaningful)

4.

1 is true. Therefore, it is meaningless to talk as if there is a "matter of fact" independent of our

theory.

5.

if a statement is not meaningful then it cannot establish the truth relation with the world

6.

Therefore, like meanings, truth relations do not have to do anything with facts, only with our

theories.

7.

Therefore coherence theory of truth is true and truth as correspondence to facts fails.

8.

Therefore antirealism is true and realism is false.

I will focus on 1, because I think lemma 1 is doing most the work here. Quine attacks a very basic case

where translation seems most possible as when we want to translate "gavagai" in native language to

English "rabbit" by pointing to a rabbit. Quine says it is impossible to attempt a correct translation by

fixing the meaning via rabbit. There is no sense in which rabbit can become "rabbit" and make

translation correct because we cannot possibly guarantee that the speakers mean the same thing.

"Gavagai" can equally be translated to any of the following: "rabbit", "rabbit ears", "rabbit beef as food"

or any other rabbit stage. A field linguist, Quine adds, may just take Rabbit and Gavagai ambiguously

and build up his notion to clarify his translation but in doing so she is already assuming a rule about

what the translation means, a rule that she imposes herself to facilitate the translation, or in other

words to make it meaningful. This objection then just proves Quine's ultimate point further that we

need theories to make sense of ambiguities. In the Gavagai example, Quine argues that no translation is

refutable, that we cannot fix the translation. In another example about translation of a Japanese idiomto English, he argues not only that more than one translation is possible but also that each is equally

good, one is more efficient, and another captures more of the metaphorical feeling of the original

language. Each translation fits its own context equally well for a conversation, but still the names in the

idiom face the same indeterminacy problem as the Gavagai example. So theirs is no correct way to

translate any word from one language to another. Quine goes on to show that this problem is pervasive.

If we agree with him, we will notice that there is no correct translation from any language to any other,

and not even within the same language.

Quine concludes that once we take the problem of indeterminacy of translation far enough, we see that

there is no matter of fact not only between languages but also within one's own language and the

world. So it seems we cannot meaningfully talk about anything, but obviously we do understand eachother. To save himself from this "quandary", Quine offers a positive account. He asks us not to attempt

to jump outside of the rules and regulations that our language provides. Within this "network" our

statements will make sense without the need for references existing. Talk of reference will only make

sense within an already existing "coordinate system" of rules. But there's the obvious problem of regress

because someone can justifiably ask what makes the word "rabbit" about rabbit in a "coordinate

system". Quine thinks this question is absurd in that it is like expecting someone to define an absolute

position without using a reference point. The regress that asks for a new coordinate system is



unproblematic in the same sense that a regress of a belief about a belief is unproblematic. In language

we just end the regress for practical purposes out of convenience for communication. The problem now

seems to be that we cannot talk about what a theory is independent of our practices. But Quine does

not think that is problematic, because like the relational theory of space and velocity, which also by the

way matches our best sciences, we can just think of a theory not as reducible to another one but merely

as how it is interpreted.

There are two problems with this view. First, can there be truths about the world if there are no theories

around? It seems like if truth is mind-dependent in this way, then in a possible world without any

theories there would be truths. Take a world just like ours and take all the sentient beings out. It seems

like it is meaningless to talk of things that are true in that world. This objection however begs the

question. It assumes the existence of external world. For Quine, within a theory, it is perfectly sensible

to talk about a world without sentient beings. To ask of truth to hold in a world without sentient beings

is to ask for a speaker to hold truth in a world without sentient beings. Obviously that's contradictory. At

best, what the objector is really worried here is perhaps that this view entails that there is no external

world. However, it is important therefore to notice that Quine's antirealism does not deny that there is

an external world. It merely denies that there is a meaningful correspondence relation with it that couldentail truth.

An extension of this problem is that the view makes it look like we make truth as we are completing our

theories about the world. This will leave us empty-handed to respond to those whose theories about the

world will include ignorance or worse suppression of other theories.

Theorist1 holds T1 which consists of some descriptions plus Q (which is Quine's ontological

conclusion that our theory is as good as any other)

Theorist2 holds T2 which consists of some other descriptions plus T1 is wrong plus Q

It looks like theorist1 cannot disagree with T2. That is not necessarily problematic because to theorist1

"T1 is wrong" is meaningless. If the description "T1 is wrong" is very controversial, one can at leastappeal to theorist2's Q and say something like: "look man, you can hold that I am wrong for you. But you

can't hold that I am wrong for me." So theorist2 can't meaningfully hold that "T1 is wrong" with a

theory-independent qualifier and hold Q at the same time. Now what if there is a Theorist3 whose

theory consists of T2 minus Q. Theorist3 can now insist that her theory is true, but now Theorist1 can

also reject theorist3 by claiming that her view is not coherent.

This objection is perhaps a weaker version of the choice-theory objection to coherence theory of truth.

This objection is roughly that on coherence view we lose the ground to judge other theories on their

own grounds. We are stuck believing that two theories are equally right since conversation is equally

coherence within each. Notice that whatever supposedly meta-theoretical standards of comparison we

assume between the two theories could itself be assumed as a third theory that is only as true as theprevious two and as such is in no privileged position. I think Quine has a hint of an answer to this

problem.

Quine's mentions at the final paragraphs of the paper that evaluation of a theory is possible so long as

that theory is subordinate of another theory which contains that theory and the one it is being

compared to. It looks like Quine is cautiously implying that only a superordinate theory can have the

logical privileged access. So perhaps on behalf of Quine we can say there's a super superordinate which



is the theory of everything either at the end of time, or logically in a possible world. In that limited sense

we can judge theories that are part of that theory of everything. The problem now is that an objector

can just highlight that we are not sure if our theories are going to be part of that theory of everything.

We were once sure that the sun orbited around the earth, now however we are pretty sure that earth's

orbit around the sun will be part of that theory of everything. But how are sure about other more

controversial facts? The problem now, it seems, is that the theory of everything is too vague to act as astandard of judgment between two theories, and so maybe our original problem does go away so easily.

quine and ontological relativity

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